Floor Statements

Mr. President, pursuant to section 3101(c) of the fiscal year 2016 budget resolution, I move to waive section 3101 of that resolution for purposes of the pending measure, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, let me congratulate Senator Peters and Senator Portman for their work.

This is a bill that has been looked at and worked on for a very long time, and I am glad that in a few moments we are going to pass it.

I know that the people of Vermont and all over this country are increasingly concerned about the long delays they are experiencing in getting the mail they need. Senior citizens and veterans are not getting the prescription drugs they need on time. Working families have been forced to pay late fees because it is taking much longer than normal with the Postal Service to mail their bills. The Postal Service Reform Act is a step forward in addressing those concerns, and I am very proud to support this bill.

This is a bill that will save the Postal Service billions of dollars a year by ending the absurd Bush-era mandate forcing the Postal Service to prefund 75 years of future retiree health benefits for employees who haven't even been born yet. It protects 6-day delivery service and gives the Postal Service the ability to offer new consumer products and services.

The bottom line is, the Postal Service is enormously important to people all over this country. This bill strengthens the Postal Service and will guarantee that the people of our country get the quality service they demand.

I yield the floor.

Vote on Motion to Waive

Mr. President, S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, included a reserve fund in section 3003 to allow the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to revise budget aggregates and committee allocations for legislation that would not increase the deficit over the period of fiscal years 2022 to 2031.

The Senate is considering H.R. 3076, the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, which meets the condition of not increasing the deficit over the relevant 10-year period. As such, I am filing a revision to the aggregates and committee allocations under the budget resolution, which were last revised on February 8. Specifically, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would increase on-budget direct spending by $430 million over 5 years but decrease it by $73 million over 10 years.

I am also refiling two tables that I previously filed on February 8 to correct the amounts of budget authority allowable for fiscal year 2022.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustment, be printed in the Record.

Madam President, the State of Vermont is remarkably proud of Ryan Cochran-Siegle, who won a silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Beijing in the men's super-G. This achievement is specially impressive considering it occurred just 13 months after Ryan underwent surgery to repair a broken neck. His comeback is truly remarkable.

It is not merely his success that Vermont honors, but the history of his family. Family is important in our State, which values community and continuity--both of which are embodied in family. Families--people who are linked by a shared home life, by a closeness to one another, by a mutual supportiveness--are at the heart of what our small State is about.

Ryan's mother, Barbara Ann, won the gold medal in Slalom at the Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, in 1972, nearly 50 years to the day before her son's medal. Barbara Ann was Ryan's first ski teacher, and he learned where she did: at the small, family operated, nonprofit Cochran's Ski Area in Richmond, VT,

Cochran's was founded by Barbara Ann's parents, Mickey and Ginny Cochran, who were a remarkable pair of people. Mickey, who would become the alpine director of the U.S. National Ski Team, was not himself a champion skier, but an engineer and former University of Vermont football player, who valued family--and eventually skiing--above all else. Likewise, Ginny was dedicated to family and skiing. When they first established Cochran's Ski Area, it was a small, backyard operation. Today, it has grown into a center where generations of Vermont school children could learn to ski, still located on the small family hill.

Ginny and Mickey had four children, Barbara Ann, Marilyn, Bob, and Lindy. All were champion skiers and made the U.S. Olympic Team

Among their many other sking accomplishments, Marilyn Cochran Brown was a national champion three times, Bob Cochran was the first American man to win a World Cup in giant slalom, and Lindy Cochran Kelley won national slalom titles and was All American at University of Vermont-- and, of course, Barbara Ann, Olympic slalom gold medalist and two-time national champion.

That tradition of family skiing excellence continued into the next generation, Mickey and Ginny's grandchildren. Lindy's children, Jessica Kelley, Tim Kelley, and Robby Kelley, all raced on the U.S. National Ski Team and all competed in World Cup races. Robby was the U.S. National Giant Slalom champion.

Two of Bob's children were skiers: Jimmy Cochran, who won the U.S. Slalom competition three times and competed in the Olympic games; and Amy Cochran, a successful collegiate racer. Marilyn's son Roger Brown was on the U.S. Ski Team, winning the 2002 Slalom championship and her son Doug Brown was on the varsity ski team at St. Lawrence University. Together with two of their cousins, Doug and Roger have gone on to found another Cochran family business, Slopeside Syrup and Untapped. And of course, Barbara Ann's son, two-time Olympian and one-time silver medalist Ryan Cochran-Siegle, who has also also competed in the World Cup.

Clearly, the impact of the Cochran family is not only their world- class skiing. Cochran's Ski Area is a bright spot in making skiing accessable and fun for all Vermonters. As a nonprofit, they welcome children from across the region to learn in a safe, judgement-free environment where the love of the sport is what matters, not the brand of your gear. The ``Skiing Cochrans'' are truly a Vermont legacy.

``Bravo!''

Mr. President, it is important, I think, that we acknowledge a very simple truth that few people can disagree with and that is we are living at this moment in the most difficult time of our lives.

I say to the American people, if you are feeling anxious, feeling depressed, if you are feeling overwhelmed, if you are feeling confused, if you are feeling angry, you are not alone. Many millions of Americans feel exactly the same way.

This pandemic has had a devastating and horrific impact upon our country. Over 900,000 people have died from COVID and tens of millions have been made ill. Many thousands of workers have lost their jobs simply because they went about doing their jobs. They had to go to work. They were critical workers and many thousands died as a result.

In the midst of the pandemic, in an unprecedented way, millions of other workers have chosen to find new employment paths. They have given up their old jobs.

But it is not just working people who have been impacted; it has been a terrible time for the young people of our country. The education of our younger generation, from childcare to graduate school, has been severely disrupted in a way that we have never seen in the modern history of this country.

But, again, it is not just for workers or the children; it is for elderly people. You have senior citizens in this country who have died at alarmingly high rates, but in addition to that, they have been isolated over the last several years because of fear of catching the virus, which means that they can't come in contact with their kids or their grandchildren. They can't get out of the house, and they are hurting as a result.

In America today, it is no great secret--an issue we are trying to deal with--that mental illness is on the rise as is drug addiction, alcoholism, and domestic violence. In other words, these are difficult and, in fact, unprecedented times within our lives.

But what I want to point out this afternoon is that while the vast majority of people in our country are hurting emotionally, they are hurting economically. These are not difficult times for everybody. That is an important point to be made.

In fact, I want to start off, if I might, with some really, really good news if you are a billionaire in this country or a CEO of a large corporation.

For those people, these times have not been bad; they, in fact, have been very, very good. In fact, if you are one of the very richest people in this country, this moment right now has never been better for you than anytime in American history.

Today, corporate profits are at an alltime high, and CEOs, heads of large corporations, have seen huge increases in their compensation packages. Let me just give a few examples.

Everybody in America is worried about the high price of gas. You drive around, and today, gas prices are higher than they were yesterday.

While gas prices are soaring, shock of all shock, oil company profits are now higher than they have been in over 7 years. Gas prices are soaring, and--guess what--large oil companies are making huge profits. In fact, in the last quarter, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP made nearly $25 billion in profits in one quarter.

Gas prices are soaring. The profits of the oil companies are soaring as well.

But that is not all. Everybody is worried about higher food prices. Many senior citizens living on fixed incomes go to the grocery store, and they get very upset about seeing increased prices on meat and vegetables and everything else.

Well, it turns out that the food industry is also enjoying huge increases in profits. In fact, Kroger, one of the largest grocery store chains in America, made a recordbreaking profit of some $4 billion in 2021. While their stock price dropped 36 percent in the past year, its CEO got a 296-percent pay raise over the past decade. They have been able to spend $1.5 billion on stock buybacks and dividends to enrich their wealthy shareholders.

Food prices are soaring. Yet company after company in the food industry is making huge profits.

For the people on top, the good news is that it is not just that corporate profits have never been better--that is good news--but even better for them is that CEO compensation has never been higher.

You know, there was a time way back in the 1950s when I was growing up when CEOs did very, very well. They made 20 times more than their average worker. Well, if you are a CEO, the good news is, those days are long gone when you only made 20 times more than your average worker. Today, as I am sure the CEOs of this country know, they are now making 350 times more than what the average worker in America makes-- 350 times more. Talk about greed.

By the way, at a time when we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, the really, really good news is that the CEOs of the top eight pharmaceutical companies in America made over $350 million in compensation in 2020. Got that? Eight CEOs of the drug companies that charge the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs made $350 million collectively in compensation.

If that is not good enough news for the billionaire class, let me give you some even better news. Today, the billionaire class owns more income and wealth percentagewise than at any time in American history as a result of a massive transfer of wealth.

You know, we hear a lot of talk about transfer of wealth--oh my God, we can't tax the rich and transfer wealth; terrible; terrible--but there has been over the last many decades a huge transfer of wealth. The only problem is, it has gone in the wrong direction--from working families to the top 1 percent. As a result of that, what we have now is that the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent.

Rather amazingly, the two wealthiest people in America now own more wealth than the bottom 42 percent. Two people own more wealth than the bottom 42 percent. You know, in this country, we pride ourselves on being a country that believes in fairness, that believes in justice-- justice for all. It is not fair, it is not just that two people now own more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of the American people--that is wealth, accumulated income.

In terms of income, what we earn in a given year, since the Wall Street crash of 2008, the top 1 percent has earned 45 percent of all new income created in this country. Got a hundred people; the guy on top earns 45 percent of all of that income.

You know, every day, as you well know, Members of the Senate and the House go to the floor to give congratulatory remarks to the Boy Scouts, congratulating them on their anniversary or kids who have done well, and the Girl Scouts, 4-H clubs, sports teams. I guess we recently honored Tom Brady for his great football success. That is what we do. Every day, somebody is coming here and congratulating somebody else, and that is fine. I do the same. In fact, we just congratulated some great Olympians from Vermont. But maybe the time is approaching when we should offer a unanimous resolution congratulating the billionaire class for their enormous success in moving this country into the oligarchic form of society that they have long desired. Maybe we should do a UC on that issue.

By the way, here is another area of congratulations to the billionaire class. When we speak about oligarchy--when we speak about oligarchy--we should all understand that we are not just talking about massive levels of income and wealth inequality. We are not just talking about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We should all understand that never before in American history have so few owned so much.

This issue, the issue of the incredible concentration of ownership in our country, is almost never talked about here in Congress or in the corporate media, and that has a lot to do with the corrupt political system that we operate under where many Members of Congress receive huge campaign contributions from these very same people.

But here is an important point to make, and tomorrow, actually, I will be doing a hearing on this as chairman of the Budget Committee. This is an issue we almost never discuss, and it is of enormous consequence.

Today in America, just three Wall Street firms, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street--I suspect that many Americans have never even heard of these firms--BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, three firms, manage over $21 trillion in assets--$21 trillion in assets. What does that mean? Well, for starters, it means that the amount of money these one, two, three firms control is more than the gross domestic product, the GDP, of the United States of America, the largest economy in the world, and more than five times the GDP of Germany.

These three firms, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, are major shareholders in more than 96 percent of S&P 500 companies. What does that mean? It means that they have significant influence over many hundreds of companies that employ millions of American workers.

Now, it used to be, way back when, there was a company, Company X, owned by somebody--nice guy, not a nice guy, good employer, bad employer. There was a person or a group of people who owned a company. That is rapidly changing in the oligarchic world that we are living in where a handful of Wall Street companies have major control over hundreds and hundreds of companies.

You know, after the Wall Street crash of 2008, I recall a lot of discussion about the wealth and the power of the big banks, the giant banks, and whether or not they were too big to fail. There was a huge amount of discussion.

Well, today, these three firms, three Wall Street firms, are the largest shareholders in some of the biggest banks in America: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citibank. In other words, these banks are also owned by a handful of Wall Street firms.

What about transportation? You know, we all get on planes and go here

and there. Well, these three major Wall Street firms, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, are among the top owners of the four major airlines--United, American, et cetera.

Well, what about healthcare? What about healthcare? Who owns the healthcare industry? Well, together, these three Wall Street firms own an average of 20 percent of the major drug companies. They also own many hundreds of nursing homes, hospitals, and emergency rooms.

What about housing? Well, what we are seeing is a handful of Wall Street firms are now the major owners of rental housing in America--at a time, by the way, when the cost of housing and rents is soaring in this country.

Maybe, just maybe, if you haven't heard a whole lot about these issues, it might have something to do with the fact that a handful of Wall Street firms control half of the newspapers in America.

I think there is a reality which maybe says it all, and that is, during this terrible, terrible pandemic, when so many people have died and become ill and lost their jobs and missed school and suffered all of the isolation this pandemic has brought about, 745 billionaires in America became more than $2 trillion richer. That is, to my mind, the clearest example of the level of corporate greed we are now experiencing.

Desperate workers who live paycheck to paycheck are forced to go to work. They go to work in hospitals. They go to work in public transportation. They go to work in meatpacking plants. They are busdrivers--whatever they may be. Thousands of them have died on the job while a handful of billionaires--745--became more than $2 trillion richer.

When we talk about the growth of oligarchy in America--I talk about it; not a whole lot of other people here do--when we talk about oligarchy in America, it is not just that the very rich are getting much richer. That is one thing. But the reality is that tens of millions of working-class people, lower income people, in the wealthiest country on Earth are suffering today under incredible economic hardship, desperately trying day to day to survive, and 745 billionaires in the pandemic--$2 trillion increase in their wealth, and tens of millions of Americans are struggling hard just to survive.

Today, nearly 40 million Americans live in poverty; and tonight, almost 600,000 people will be sleeping out on the streets or in homeless shelters. They have no apartments, no places in which to live.

And here is an important fact to remember: In our country today, the average worker is making $42 a week less than he or she made 49 years ago. In other words, when you try to appreciate the anger that exists in this country, the discontent, it has a lot to do with the fact that the average American worker is worse off in terms of real inflation weekly income than was the case 49 years ago.

Now, think about that. Think about how crazy that is. Think about all of the increase in technology and productivity that we have seen, where workers today are producing a lot more than they used to because of the new technology, and yet, because of the huge transfer of wealth and income, they are worse off than they were in 1973.

Half of the people in our country today are living paycheck to paycheck, and tens of millions are an accident, a divorce, an illness, or a layoff away from economic devastation.

In America today, we remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare as a right. The result of that is we have a system in which over 80 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and tens of thousands die each and every year because they don't get to a doctor when they should.

While many public schools throughout our country lack the resources to adequately educate our young people or pay their teachers the wages those teachers deserve, at the same time, we are the most heavily incarcerated Nation on Earth. We have got more people in jail than any other country.

Meanwhile, 45 million Americans who did go to college--they saved up; they went to college--they are now drowning in $1.8 trillion in student debt. I talk to those nurses and workers every day who say: Bernie, we have got to do something because every month I am paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars in student debt.

And here is something else that we don't talk about--you know, we have a habit here, I am afraid, in the Senate and the House; we talk about a lot, but often not the most important things in the country-- and that is that I suspect that, as part of human nature, every person in America and around the world would like to live long and happy and productive lives. That is pretty basic human nature. But in America today, the very richest people live, on average, 15 years longer than the poorest Americans.

So when you talk about income and wealth inequality, it is not just about this guy has a nice house, this person doesn't have a nice house; big car, no car. That is one thing. If you are poor in America, you are dying at a significantly younger age than if you are wealthy.

The polls seem to show that more and more Americans are giving up on democracy. They work long hours for low wages. They worry about their kids. They can't afford healthcare. They see their jobs going to other countries. Meanwhile, the people on top are doing better than any time in American history, and they wonder: Hey, if we elect these guys to the House and the Senate, Governors, what are they doing for us? Do they understand? Do they live in the real world? Do they understand what is going on in our lives, or are they too busy going out and raising campaign contributions from the rich and the powerful?

I believe that the time is long, long, long overdue for the Congress to start addressing the needs of the American people. And I know it is a radical idea to suggest that maybe, just maybe, we should do what the American people want and not what wealthy campaign contributors want.

When 83 percent of the American people want us to lower the cost of prescription drugs--do you know what, it might be time for the Senate to do that.

When 84 percent of the American people know there is something wrong with elderly people who can't afford dental care, hearing aids, or eyeglasses--84 percent--maybe, just maybe, we may want to expand Medicare to cover those basic healthcare needs.

When overwhelming numbers of the American people know that it is beyond absurd that some billionaires and large profitable corporations don't pay a nickel in Federal income tax, maybe, just maybe, we might want to change our tax system so that the rich and the powerful start paying their fair share of taxes.

When 76 percent of the American people understand that our home healthcare system is a disaster, that many elderly people and disabled people would rather stay home rather than be forced into a nursing home, maybe we should expand home healthcare.

When we remain the only major country on Earth not to have paid family and medical leave--the only major country on Earth--maybe it is time that the Congress pass a paid family and medical leave act.

When we have a dysfunctional childcare system in which in my State, not different around the country, working parents are paying 25 percent, 30 percent of their income for childcare so they can go to work, maybe we should reform our childcare and pre-K system so that it is affordable for all parents in this country.

And maybe--I know this is another radical idea. There is a piece in the paper today about the impact of climate change. The sea level is going to rise by a foot in the next few decades. We are looking at drought, floods, extreme weather disturbances. Here is a really radical idea: Maybe, at a time when the scientists tell us that it is questionable in terms of the kind of planet we are going to leave our kids and future generations, whether or not it is going to be habitable or livable, I know it is a radical idea--a lot of fossil fuel money coming into this place--but maybe, just maybe, we stand up to the fossil fuel industry and tell them their short-term profits are not more important that the future of this planet.

So we have a lot of work to do. I am not sure that we will do it. I am not sure that Members of Congress have

the willingness or the courage to stand up to the powerful special interests who control the economic and political life of this country.

But this, I will say: If we do not do that in terms of the economy, in terms of climate, in terms of healthcare, in terms of education, future generations will look back at this Congress and say, Where were you?

Mr. President, before I begin, I would like to ask unanimous consent to put into the Congressional Record an open letter to the Russian leadership from the Russian Congress of Intellectuals, who state:

Our position is simple: Russia does not need a war with

Ukraine and the West. Such a war is devoid of legitimacy and

has no moral basis.

This is a very brave statement made by Russian intellectuals.

Mr. President, as I speak today Europe, for the first time in almost 80 years, is faced with the threat of a major invasion. A large nation threatens a smaller, less powerful neighbor, surrounding it on three sides with well over 100,000 troops as well as tanks and artillery.

My colleagues, as we have painfully learned, wars have unintended consequences. They rarely turn out the way the planners and experts tell us they will. Just ask the officials who provided rosy scenarios for the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, only to be proven horribly wrong. Just ask the mothers of the soldiers who were killed or wounded in action during those wars. Just ask the families of the millions of civilians who became collateral damage in those wars.

The war in Vietnam cost us 59,000 American deaths and many others who came home wounded in body and spirit. The casualties in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia are almost incalculable, but they were in the millions. In Afghanistan, what began as a response to the horrific attack against us on 9-11-2001 eventually became a 20-year war, costing us $2 trillion and over 3,500 Americans who were killed, not to mention tens of thousands of Afghan civilians.

George W. Bush claimed in 2003 that the United States had ``put the Taliban out of business forever.'' Well, not quite the case--the Taliban is in power today.

The war in Iraq, which was sold to the American people by stroking fear of a mushroom cloud from Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, led to the deaths of some 4,500 U.S. troops and the wounding--physical and emotional--of tens of thousands of others. It led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the displacement of over 5 million people, and regional destabilization whose consequences the world continues to grapple with today.

In other words, despite all of the rosy scenarios we heard for those foreign policy and military interventions, it turned out that the experts were wrong and millions of innocent people paid the price. That is why we must do everything possible to find a diplomatic resolution to prevent what would be an enormously destructive war in Ukraine.

No one knows exactly what the human costs of such a war would be. There are estimates, however, that come from our own military and intelligence community that there could be over 50,000 civilian casualties in Ukraine, not to mention millions of refugees flooding neighboring countries as they flee what could be the worst European conflict since World War II.

In addition, of course, there would be many thousands of deaths within the Ukrainian and Russian militaries. There is also the possibility that this regional war could escalate to other parts of Europe, a continent with many nuclear weapons, and what might happen then is beyond imagination.

But that is not all. The sanctions against Russia that would be imposed as a consequence of its actions and Russia's threatened response to those sanctions could result in massive economic upheaval with impacts on energy and gas and oil prices in our country, banking, food supplies, and the day-to-day needs of ordinary people throughout the entire world. It is likely that Russians will not be the only people suffering from sanctions. They would be felt throughout Europe. They would be felt right here in the United States and likely around the world.

And by the way--and we haven't discussed this terribly much--at a time when the scientific community tells us that climate change is an existential threat to the planet, any hope of international cooperation to address global climate change and to address future pandemics would likely suffer a major setback.

It should be absolutely clear about who is most responsible for the looming crisis, and that is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Having already seized parts of Ukraine in 2014, Putin now threatens to take over the entire country and destroy Ukrainian democracy. There should be no disagreement that that behavior is totally unacceptable. In my view, we must unequivocally support the sovereignty of Ukraine and make clear that the international community will impose severe consequences on Putin and his fellow oligarchs if he does not change course.

With that said, I am extremely concerned when I hear the familiar drumbeats in Washington--the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war--demanding that we must show strength, demanding that we must get tough, demanding that we must not engage in appeasement.

A simplistic refusal to recognize the complex roots of the tensions in the region undermines the ability of negotiators to reach a peaceful resolution.

Now, I know it is not very popular or politically correct, I guess, in Washington, to consider the perspectives of our adversaries, but I think it is important that we do so if we are going to formulate good policy. I think it is helpful to consider this. One of the precipitating factors of this crisis--one, not the only one--at least from Russia's perspective, is the prospect of an enhanced security relationship between Ukraine and the United States and Western Europe, including what Russia sees as the threat of Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, a military alliance originally created in 1949 to confront the Soviet Union.

It is good to know some history.

When Ukraine became independent after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russian leaders made clear their concerns about the prospect of former Soviet states becoming part of NATO and positioning hostile military forces along Russia's border. U.S. officials recognized these concerns as legitimate at the time. One of those officials was William Perry, who served as Defense Secretary under President Bill Clinton. In a 2017 interview, Perry said:

In the last few years, most of the blame can be pointed at

the actions that Putin has taken. But in the early years I

have to say that the United States deserves much of the

blame.

Further:

Our first action that really set us off in a bad direction

was when NATO started to expand, bringing in eastern European

nations, some of them bordering Russia.

That is former Secretary of State William Perry.

Another U.S. official who acknowledged these concerns is former U.S. Diplomat Bill Burns, who is now head of the CIA in the Biden administration. In his memoir, Burns quotes a memo he wrote while serving as counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1995.

Hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally

felt across the domestic political spectrum here.

Over 10 years later, in 2008, Burns wrote in a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines

for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and

a half years of conversations with key Russian players . . .

I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as

anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.

So, again, these concerns were not just invented yesterday by Putin out of thin air. Clearly, invasion by Russia is not an answer, neither is intransigence by NATO. It is important to recognize, for example, that Finland, one of the most developed and democratic countries in the world, borders Russia and has chosen not to be a member of NATO. Sweden and Austria are other

examples of prosperous and democratic countries that have made the same choice.

Vladimir Putin may be a liar and a demagogue, but it is hypocritical for the United States to insist that we as a nation do not accept the principle of spheres of influence. For the last 200 years, our country has operated under the Monroe Doctrine, embracing the principle that as the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere, the United States has the right--according to the United States--to intervene against any country that might threaten our alleged interests. That is U.S. policy. And under this doctrine, the United States has undermined and overthrown at least a dozen countries throughout Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

As many might recall, in 1962, we came to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Now, why was that? Why did we almost come to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union?

Well, we did that in response to the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from our shore, and the Kennedy administration saw that as an unacceptable threat to national security. We said it is unacceptable for a hostile country to have a significant military presence 90 miles away from our shore.

Let us be clear. The Monroe Doctrine is not ancient history. As recently as 2018, Donald Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, called the Monroe Doctrine ``as relevant today as it was the day it was written.''

In 2019, former Trump National Security Advisor, John Bolton, declared ``the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.''

To put it simply, even if Russia were not ruled by a corrupt, oligarchic, authoritarian leader like Vladimir Putin, Russia, like the United States, would still have an interest in the security policies of its neighbors.

I want people to think about this: Does anyone really believe that the United States would not have something to say, if, for example, Mexico or Cuba or any country in Central or Latin America were to form a military alliance with a U.S. adversary?

Do you think that Members of Congress would stand up and say, ``Well, you know, Mexico is an independent country. They have the right to do anything they want''? I doubt that very much.

Countries should be free to make their own foreign policy choices, but making those choices wisely requires a serious consideration of the costs and benefits. The fact is that the United States and Ukraine entering into a deeper security relationship is likely to have some very serious costs for both countries.

I believe that we must vigorously support the ongoing diplomatic efforts of the Biden administration to deescalate this crisis. I believe we must reaffirm Ukrainian independence and sovereignty and that we must make clear to Putin and his gang of oligarchs that they will face major consequences should they continue down their current path.

My colleagues, we must never forget the horrors that a war in the region would cause, and we must do everything possible to achieve a realistic and mutually agreeable resolution, one that is acceptable to Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and our European allies and that prevents what could be the worst European war since World War II. That approach is not weakness; it is not appeasement. Bringing people together to resolve conflicts without war is strength, and it is the right thing to do.

I yield the floor.

I appreciate the thoughts of my friend from Illinois. With much of what he said, I, obviously, agree. My father came from Poland as a matter of fact.

I think, maybe, the difference of opinion that we have has something to do with what we don't talk about very often openly but that, I think, everybody knows exists.

I mentioned--and I think you will not disagree with me--that, over the last many, many decades, the United States has overthrown governments throughout Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean. There is no denying that we almost went to a nuclear war in 1962 under the Kennedy administration, which felt--and probably correctly--that Soviet missiles in Cuba, 90 miles away from us, were a threat to this country and not to be tolerated.

So I would only ask my friend from Illinois to put himself into the mindset of the Russians in that nobody here--not I, certainly--is ever talking about reclaiming other countries. You mentioned that, and it is certainly not anything that I support.

But if the United States has a right to overthrow countries throughout Latin America to protect our so-called interests and if there would be an uproar in this Chamber, perhaps from you and me as well, if Mexico, which is an independent nation, decided to form a military alliance with China or Russia, and people were to say you can't do that, should we not put ourselves a little bit in Russia's position in understanding that if we consider Latin America and Central America and the Caribbean to be within our sphere of influence and have the right to intervene, that Russia itself might have some legitimate concerns about military forces 5 miles from their border? That is the question I would pose.

No, we would not. But my point is, the Monroe Doctrine remains in existence today. It is not just history.

You and I can agree that maybe the United States should not have overthrown governments over the years. The Monroe Doctrine exists today. Two years ago, the Secretary of State said it is in existence. I don't know how many people in this Chamber would tell you that it does not exist today.

I use that example, to my friend from Illinois--if Mexico were to enter into an alliance with China, would my friend say: Well, Mexico is an independent country; they have the right to do anything they want.

No, it does.

All that I am saying is, 2 years ago, the Secretary of State of the United States of America said the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.

Yes, of course, it is hypothetical. I do not believe that Mexico is going to enter into an alliance with China. But all I ask is to put what is going on in Russia into a context and to look at American policy and history as well. This is a complicated issue, and I think it is important for us to at least look at the concerns that Russia has.

There is no disagreement that if Putin were to commit the horrible, horrible blunder of invading Ukraine, count me in as somebody who will go as far as we can to make sure there are real consequences against the oligarchs and that policy. But I do think if we are going to reach a settlement in a very complicated issue, it is important for us to understand a little bit about Russia's concerns.

The Senator knows I am not for looking the other way. That is not a fair statement. As I have said many, many times, I am strongly supportive of major, major, major consequences if Putin invades Ukraine, and we have got to do everything we can to protect Ukrainian sovereignty.

All right, I have made my point.

Madam President, let us be as clear as we can be, and that is, there is significant discontent throughout our country today, from Vermont to California and in all 50 States. The American people are worried about COVID. We are all worried about COVID. We are all tired of COVID. But the American people are worried about much more. They are worried about inflation, the price of food and gas, and other products going up. They are worried about climate change and whether or not the planet they will be leaving to their kids and grandchildren will be healthy and habitable. They are worried about a middle class whose real, inflation-accounted-for wages have not risen in almost 50 years, have been stagnant, and the reality that today, half of our workforce is living paycheck to paycheck.

The American people are worried about the massive level of income and wealth inequality which we are experiencing in which, during this pandemic alone, just the last few years, the billionaire class saw an increase in their wealth by some $2 trillion while at the same time, thousands of workers died as they went to their jobs. They didn't have a choice about it; they went to work, and they died.

The American people are worried that their kids are not getting the quality childcare that they need or that the family can afford. They are worried about the outrageous levels of student debt that their kids acquired because they chose to get a higher education.

Above all else, the American people, in my view, are outraged that in the midst of all of these crises and more, their elected officials are simply not responding.

In my view, now is the time to tell the American people that we in Congress do understand their pain, that we do know what they are going through, and that we are prepared to stand up for the working families of this country and take on the greed of powerful special interests who wield so much influence over the economic and political life of our Nation.

Today, Senator Klobuchar and I are going to focus on one--just one-- of the many issues that this Congress must address. The American people want action, and that is what we have to give them. We have to respond to the crises.

Today, we are going to be talking about prescription drugs. For decades, literally decades--20, 30, 40 years--

Members of both political parties have come to the floor of the Senate, come to the floor of the House, and they have bemoaned the high cost of prescription drugs in this country. They promised the American people they would lower those outrageous prices. Republicans have come to the floor, Democrats have come to the floor, and speech after speech has been made. And not only speeches--Members of both political parties put 30-second ads on television when they ran for office: Hey, vote for me. I am going to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

For decades now, Members of Congress have been talking about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, and for decades, they have failed to deliver. Talk, talk, talk--nothing happens. The cost of prescription drugs goes up.

Congress has failed to deliver under Democratic leadership. It has failed to deliver under Republican leadership. It failed to deliver under Democratic Presidents and failed to deliver under Republican Presidents. We have failed to deliver because of the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, which today is likely the most powerful corporate interest in America and is certainly the dominant political force here in Washington, DC.

So I ask my fellow Americans today: Do you want to know why you are paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs? Simple question. Why is it that we are paying in some cases 10 times more for the same exact prescription drugs that are sold in Canada or in Europe?

Do you want to know why one out of four Americans--this is really quite crazy, that in the midst of a dysfunctional healthcare system, we have one out of four Americans who cannot afford to fill the prescriptions that their doctor writes. Think about that for one-half a second. People are sick. They go to the doctor. The doctor writes out a prescription. People can't afford to fill it. They end up in the emergency room. They end up in the hospital. They get sicker because they simply cannot afford the outrageous cost of medicine.

Do you know why millions of diabetic Americans actually ration their insulin? I have talked to diabetics and parents of diabetics. Their kids get sick because they cannot afford the cost of insulin. Obviously, diabetes today is a terrible, terrible illness impacting many millions of Americans.

Let me tell you why we pay the highest prices in the world, why people in America die because they can't afford prescription drugs. The answer has everything to do with the corrupt political system in which over the past 20 years the pharmaceutical industry has spent over $4.5 billion--not million; $4.5 billion--on lobbying and hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign contributions. Yes, you heard that correctly--$4.5 billion over 20 years on lobbying and God knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign contributions. These are campaign contributions that go to Republicans. These are campaign contributions that go to Democrats. And I am talking about many hundreds of Members of the House and Senate who receive funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

Further, the pharmaceutical industry has over the years mounted an unprecedented lobbying effort in Washington, here in the Nation's Capital, and in States all over the country. I hope everybody hears this because this is what power is about. This is why you pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

Last year alone, the pharmaceutical industry hired more than 1,700 well-paid lobbyists to come to Capitol Hill to protect their interests, including the former congressional leaders of both major political parties. Got that? Seventeen hundred well-paid lobbyists protecting the interests of the pharmaceutical industry--get out your calculator because what that amounts to is three pharmaceutical industry lobbyists for every Member of Congress. There are 435 Members in the House and 100 in the Senate and 1,700 well-paid lobbyists making sure that you pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

What is the result of all of that lobbying and all of those campaign contributions? Well, I think the American people know it every time they walk into a drugstore. The pharmaceutical industry, uniquely in the entire world, is able to raise their prices anytime they want, to any level they want.

How many people out there walked into a drugstore, refilled their prescription, and the pharmacist said: Well, I am sorry to tell you the cost of your medicine has gone up 20 percent.

Why? Because they can. They can do anything they want. If they want to double prices, triple prices, there is no law stopping them. That is what you get when you spend billions of dollars on lobbyists and campaign contributions. You get what you pay for, and they have gotten what they paid for.

Not only do we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, but the result of that is that the pharmaceutical industry, year after year, makes huge profits. Eight of the largest drug companies in America in 2020 made nearly $50 billion in profits, while the CEOs of those pharmaceutical companies took home over $350 million in total compensation. Eight companies; $350 million in compensation for the CEOs of those companies; $50 billion in profits in the last year we have information.

Let's be very clear. The overriding motivation of the pharmaceutical industry is greed. Their overriding goal is to make as much money as they can by squeezing as much as they can get from the sick, from the elderly, and from the desperate.

I could give you many, many examples of the outrageous greed of the pharmaceutical industry, and I am not even going to talk about the opiate crisis, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. I am not even going to go there today.

Let me just mention, a couple of years ago, the former CEO of a drug company called Gilead became a billionaire by charging $1,000 for the hepatitis drug Sovaldi. He became a billionaire. Interestingly enough, that drug was developed by taxpayer dollars through the Veterans' Administration. While they charge $1,000 a treatment here in the United States, it turns out that it costs $1 to manufacture and can be purchased in India for all of $4--$1,000 here; $4 there.

In 2016, the chairman of Mylan received a $164 million compensation package after his company jacked up the price of EpiPen--you all remember EpiPen--by 550 percent over a 9-year period.

All over this country, the American people are asking a simple question: How many people in our country need to die? How many people need to get unnecessarily sicker before Congress is prepared to take on the greed and power of the pharmaceutical industry?

Enough is enough. A lifesaving prescription drug does not mean anything if you cannot afford that drug. We have great drugs out there. What does it mean if you can't afford that drug or if you are going to go bankrupt because you have to buy it for a family member?

We cannot allow the pharmaceutical industry to charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. And that is why I have introduced today, along with Senator Klobuchar, legislation that would cut the cost of prescription drugs under Medicare in half--not by 10 percent, not 30 percent--cut the cost of prescription drugs under Medicare in half. It would do that by making sure that Medicare pays the same low prices for prescription drugs as the Veterans' Administration does.

Why is it that the VA pays so much less for prescription drugs than Medicare? The answer is pretty simple. While the VA has been able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry for the past 30 years, Congress banned Medicare by law from doing anything to lower prescription drug prices. And the result is that, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, Medicare pays twice as much for the exact same prescription drugs as the VA.

All right. You talk about dysfunctionality. You talk about crazy. You have two branches of government. VA pays X, Medicare pays 2X. How in God's name does that make sense to anybody other than the pharmaceutical industry? This is totally absurd. And if the VA can negotiate with the drug companies, so can Medicare.

By the way, for all of the great deficit hawks here staying up nights worrying about the deficit, let me tell you,

if we do that, we will save Medicare some $900 billion over the next decade. I would like to see where the deficit hawks are on this issue-- $900 billion, 10 years. That is real money.

The VA, obviously, is not the only Agency that negotiates for lower drug prices. That is something that takes place in every other major country on Earth. There is no rational reason for the pharmaceutical industry to charge the American people $98.70 for a standard unit of insulin that can be purchased in the UK for just $7.52, and on and on it goes.

The American people are being played for suckers. They have bought the U.S. Congress, and it is time now for Congress to stand up to these people.

With that, I would mention that what we are talking about--what Senator Klobuchar and I are talking about is not some radical far-left idea. I get that. I don't know if Senator Klobuchar gets that, but it is not some radical, far-left idea; it is a fairly popular idea.

According to an October 2021 poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 83 percent of the American people want Medicare to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and poll after poll shows the same thing. Maybe, just maybe--ready for a radical idea, Madam President? Maybe, just maybe, instead of doing the work of the lobbyists and the pharmaceutical industry, we might just want to represent the American people.

I yield the floor.

Senator Klobuchar said it all. I know we are spending the week dealing with Assistant Secretaries or something or another-- and that is all terribly important--but the American people want us to start acting on their needs.

At the top of the list, as Senator Klobuchar just said--and what she said about folks in Minnesota is exactly the same everywhere. You hear the same stories in Vermont. People die and get sick because they can't afford prescription drugs.

I say to my Republican friend, the time is now to have that debate. You want to vote against this bill? Hey, that is your right. You go home and explain it to the people. That is what democracy is. Some of us still believe in democracy, by the way.

Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined today by the majority leader, following consultation of the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 3615, which was introduced earlier today; that there be 2 hours for debate, equally divided; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the bill be read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the bill without intervening action or debate.

I say to my friend from Idaho, we have been going through regular order dealing with prescription drugs for 40 years. It hasn't quite worked.

Your bill has gone nowhere. My bill has gone nowhere. If you have got objections to what Senator Klobuchar and I are doing, let's debate them on the floor of the Senate.

We have heard all the talking points from you that the pharmaceutical industry wrote--I got that. They spend a lot of money writing these talking points. Let's have that debate right here. The bill that Senator Klobuchar and I are proposing is supported by over 80 percent of the American people and, I dare say, a vast majority of the people of Idaho. You want to oppose it. Go for it.

Let's have the damn debate right here on the floor, and if it takes 1 week, great. If it takes 2 weeks, great. You will agree with me that this is an issue that the American people care about so I would hope that you would reconsider. Let's bring it to the floor. Offer your amendments. Let's have the debate.

Mr. President, S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, included authority in section 4009 to allow the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to adjust budget aggregates and committee allocations after the enactment of bipartisan infrastructure legislation. Similarly, the reserve fund in section 3003 allows the chairman to revise these levels as well as make adjustments to the pay-as-you-go ledger for legislation that would not increase the deficit over the period of 2022 to 2031.

H.R. 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was enacted on November 15, 2021, meets the conditions of being bipartisan infrastructure legislation. As a result, I am revising the budget spending aggregates and the allocation to the Committee on Appropriations by $3,230 million in outlays resulting from the increase in contract authority included in that bill.

Furthermore, the combined budgetary impact of the direct spending and revenue provisions in that bill reduce the deficit over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that H.R. 3684 will decrease nonemergency mandatory outlays by $3.7 billion in 2022 and by almost $90 billion over the period 2022 through 2031. Revenues will increase by more than $8 billion in 2022 and more than $50 billion over the period 2022 through 2031. As such, I am revising the spending and revenue aggregates and the allocation to the Committee on Environment and Public Works by the relevant amounts. I am also revising the Senate pay-as-you-go scorecard. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act also increased discretionary spending; that spending is designated as an emergency and is therefore excluded from enforceable budgetary spending levels and committee allocations.

Finally, section 4004 of the budget resolution allows the chairman to adjust budgetary levels for legislation containing disaster relief funding. I am increasing the outlay allocation to the Committee on Appropriations by $89 million as a result of passage of H.R. 5305, the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act, which was enacted on September 30, 2021.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustment, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we are running out of Senators from Vermont. I think that is it.

(Laughter.)

Let me begin by thanking a number of my Senate colleagues who have worked so hard on this issue. Let me thank, among others, Senators Merkley, Klobuchar, Booker, Warner, King, Leahy, Durbin, Kaine, and others for their efforts on this important issue.

I will be brief because there is not a whole lot that I can add to the excellent statements that so many other Senators have made. Let me just say this: For some, the issue we are debating today may seem complicated, to be understood only by lawyers, constitutional scholars, and those handfuls of people who actually understand the opaque rules of the U.S. Senate. I just want to say that, if this is what you think, you are wrong. What we are debating today is not complicated; it is really quite simple. Here is what it is about.

Joe Biden won the 2020 Presidential election, period. You may have liked that result or you may not have liked it, but he won. He won in an election that Donald Trump's own Department of Homeland Security determined to be the most secure election in American history.

After the election, Trump and his supporters filed more than 60 lawsuits in State and Federal courts, repeating their false claims and trying to reverse the election results. These lawsuits were rejected time and time again, including with judges whom Trump himself appointed. Nonetheless, the former President continued to claim--and to this day continues to claim despite all of the evidence--that the election was stolen and that he actually won in a landslide.

Not only are his statements and actions delusional, they are worse. In repeating this Big Lie over and over again, he not only cast doubts about the 2020 election, but, in fact, in a disgraceful and unprecedented way for a President, he is undermining the very foundations of American democracy.

Shamefully, Republican leaders all across this country, including Republican Members of the U.S. Senate, either repeated Trump's lies or tried to walk a very, very thin line around them. Trump's one-man dominance over the Republican Party is now so strong that few Republican officials are prepared to state openly what they know in their hearts to be true, and that is that Trump is a pathological liar and a threat to democracy and this country and our very way of life.

In any case, the predictable result of all of this was that Republican Governors and legislatures all over this country saw Trump's Big Lie and fearmongering as an opportunity--a golden opportunity--to solidify their political positions.

Acting under the guise of voter integrity, despite the fact that our Nation has very little voter fraud--thank God--they proceeded to pass election laws in 19 States that make it harder for people to vote, with a special focus on people of color, young people, poor people, and people with disabilities--people who might be inclined to vote against them. In many cases, they also created election districts through extreme gerrymandering that have no rationale other than to make certain that Republicans retain control over State legislatures. In other cases, they are cutting back on the authority of independent election officials and giving that power to partisan legislatures.

Today, in order to address this crisis in American democracy, Members of the Senate will be casting two very important votes.

The first will be on the Freedom to Vote Act. This bill goes a long way to ending voter suppression and, in fact, making it easier, not harder, for American citizens to vote. It establishes automatic voter registration and online voter registration. It celebrates democracy by making election day a national holiday so that people can vote at a time other than after work. It establishes uniform early voting and same-day registration.

This bill also ends partisan gerrymandering and roots out the undue influence of special interest money in buying elections. Imagine that. Imagine that. We would actually know the names of billionaires who put huge amounts of money into super PACs that buy elections. What a terrible thing. We would actually know who these people are.

This bill would also provide increased protection in the voting process to voters with disabilities, the military, overseas voters, and underserved communities, and much, much more.

This is a very significant piece of legislation. Now, why would anybody be opposed to it? Why, in a nation that has a history of denying the vote to African Americans, denying the vote to Native Americans, denying the vote to women, denying the vote to low-income Whites, would any fairminded person be in opposition to making it easier for all citizens to vote?

That is what I understood when I went to elementary school. You know, you play by the rules. You do your best. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. That is the process. But no one ever told me that what politics is about is working overtime to try to prevent people from voting just because they might vote against you.

Our job should be to increase voter turnout and make it easier for people to participate, which is what this legislation does. I want this country to have the highest voter turnout of any nation's on Earth, not one of the lowest.

But let's be clear. This enormously important bill--a bill to protect the foundations of American democracy--will fail. It will fail because, according to Senate rules, it will require 60 votes to pass, and in a 50-50 Senate, not one Republican will vote for it. It will likely get 50 votes, which, with the Vice President casting the tie-breaking vote, would be enough to pass this legislation under majority rule. It will not get 60 votes--all of which brings us to the second vote, which is really the most important vote of the day.

That vote will determine whether anything we discuss today--whether any of the speeches that we give, any of the points that we actually make--will, in fact, become law. That is the vote to change Senate rules and establish a talking filibuster--a process which gives the minority an enormous amount of time to object to legislation and voice their concerns. The minority, whether it is a Democratic minority or a Republican minority, would have days and days and days to slow the process down and to rally the American people around their ideas, but they would not have forever. At the end of the time allotted, a majority vote would prevail, which, in my view, is what a democratic society is all about.

Is changing the Senate rules a radical idea? Oh, my God. For the first time in history, we are about to do it. It has never been done before--well, really, not quite. No. As every Member of the Senate knows, the rules get changed on a fairly regular basis. There is nothing radical about it. Just a few months ago, in order to raise the debt ceiling and prevent our government from defaulting on its loans, the rules were changed so that a 50-vote majority would prevail. We changed the rules appropriately, and we prevented a default in a massive worldwide depression.

Just a few years ago, my Republican colleagues, who are so adamantly against changing rules, well, my goodness, they changed the Senate rules to allow 50 votes to confirm the President's nominees for the Supreme Court--oh, my goodness, how shocking--and they got three conservative Supreme Court Justices as a result.

Rules get changed around here all of the time. And, maybe, just maybe, we might want to change the rules in order to save American democracy.

Now, let me conclude by saying this. And I don't know if any of my other colleagues have made this point, but I will. I regard it as a very sad day for our country--and I mean this very sincerely--that not one Republican in this body is prepared to vote for this bill.

Now, I understand why that is the case. I am in politics. I got it. I know who the leader of their party is. But this, I do not understand. I can understand Republicans, but this, I do not understand. I do not understand why two Democrats, who presumably understand the importance of the Freedom

to Vote Act--and, as I understand it, will vote for the Freedom to Vote Act--are not prepared to change the rules so that that bill could actually become law. That, I do not understand.

If you think this bill makes sense and if you are worried about the future of American democracy and if you are prepared to vote for the bill, then why are you wasting everybody's time and not voting for the rule change that allows us to pass the bill? It is like inviting somebody to lunch, putting out a great spread, and saying you can't eat. If you are going to vote for the bill, vote to change the rules.

If we can change the rules to prevent a default on our national debt, if we can change the rules to confirm Supreme Court Justices, we can certainly change the rules to save American democracy.

Thank you.

Madam President, S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, included a reserve fund in section 3003 to allow the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to revise budget aggregates and committee allocations for legislation that would not increase the deficit over the period of fiscal years 2022 to 2031.

The Senate will soon consider S. 1605, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, as amended by the House, which meets the condition of not increasing the deficit over the relevant 10- year period. As such, I am filing a revision to the aggregates and committee allocations under the budget resolution, which were last revised on December 9. Specifically, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the anti-fraud provisions in the bill would increase both direct spending and revenues by $23 million over 5 years and $72 million over 10 years.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustment, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, S. Con. Res. 14, the fiscal year 2022 congressional budget resolution, included a reserve fund in section 3003 to allow the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget to revise budget aggregates, committee allocations, and make adjustments to the pay-as-you-go ledger for legislation that would not increase the deficit over the period of fiscal years 2022 to 2031.

The Senate will soon consider S. 610, the Protecting Medicare and American Farmers from Sequester Cuts Act, as amended by the House, which meets the condition of being paid for and not increasing the deficit over the 10-year period. As such, I am filing a revision to the aggregates and committee allocations under the budget resolution, which were filed on September 23. Specifically, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that S. 610 will increase budget authority in 2022 by $7.65 billion and outlays by $7.144 billion. Over 5 years, budget authority and outlays will increase by $7.079 billion, while there is no net increase to outlays over the 10-year period. I am increasing the aggregate amount of budget authority and outlays for 2022, as well as the allocation to the Committee on Finance and the Senate pay-as-you-go ledger, by those amounts.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables, which provide details about the adjustment, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I find myself in the somewhat uncomfortable and unusual position of agreeing with Senator Paul. And let me thank him and Senator Lee for their hard work in reclaiming Congress's congressional war powers, another very important issue. The understanding that it is Congress that has the constitutional responsibility to authorize war--not the President--should, in fact, transcend partisan disagreements.

On November 18, we introduced a congressional resolution of disapproval to block the sale of 280 air-to-air missiles, 596 missile launchers, and other weapons and support--totaling some $650 million-- to Saudi Arabia. That is what we will be voting on in a few minutes.

Let me be very clear. As the Saudi Government continues to wage its devastating war in Yemen and repress its own people, we should not be rewarding them with more arms sales. We should be demanding that they end the devastating war in Yemen, which has killed over 230,000 people in one of the very poorest countries on Earth. For more than 6 years, the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen's civil war has been a key driver of the largest humanitarian disaster in the world--the largest.

According to UNICEF, four out of every five children in Yemen need humanitarian assistance--that is over 11 million children--400,000 children suffer from severe malnutrition; 1.7 million children have been displaced from their homes by violence from this war; and some 15 million people, more than half of whom are children, do not have access to safe water, sanitation, or hygiene.

United Nations humanitarian relief coordinator Martin Griffiths said in September: ``The country's economy has reached new depths of collapse, and a third wave of the pandemic is threatening to crash the country's already fragile healthcare system.''

According to Griffiths, millions of Yemenis are ``a step away from starvation.'' In other words, this poor country is hell on Earth. It is the worst humanitarian disaster on a planet.

Under first the Obama administration and then the Trump administration, the United States was Saudi Arabia's partner in this horrific war. In 2019, Congress made history--and I am very proud of that, and we did this in a bipartisan way--by passing the first-ever War Powers Resolution through both Chambers of Congress, pressing then- President Trump to end this military support. It marked the first time that Congress invoked the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to direct the President to withdraw troops from an undeclared war.

Sadly, tragically, President Trump vetoed that resolution.

Many of us welcomed the Biden administration's announcement earlier this year that it would end U.S. support for offensive military operations led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and name a special envoy to help bring this conflict to an end, but the crisis has only continued.

American defense contractors continue to service Saudi planes that are waging the war, and the U.S. military also continues to provide intelligence to the Saudi Armed Forces. And now, tonight, we are looking at a new $650 million arms sale to the Saudi Armed Forces.

Now, I am aware that ending U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia's brutal assault will not alone end the multisided conflict in Yemen. The Houthis are launching bloody attacks on the central Yemeni city of Marib and increasing cross-border attacks on Saudi territory. Violence has also erupted between rival factions in the south of Yemen. A U.N. expert panel found that all parties to the conflict may have committed war crimes.

U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia and this war should be clear: The United States must do everything in our power to bring this brutal and horrific war to an end. Exporting more missiles to Saudi Arabia does nothing but further this conflict and pour more gasoline on an already raging fire.

In my view, the United States must support an international observer mission along the Saudi-Yemeni border and spearhead generous international development efforts to rebuild Yemen. This aid should be focused on bolstering local humanitarian and development initiatives, like Yemen's Social Fund for Development.

We must also dramatically increase our diplomatic engagement to press Saudi Arabia, the Riyadh-based Republic of Yemen Government, and the Houthis to accept the U.N.'s roadmap as the basis for a compromise that ends foreign military intervention and allows Yemenis to come to an agreement. The war has gone on for too long, and it is time for the United States to be bold and to be decisive in bringing about peace.

I also think that it is long past time that we took a very hard look at our relationship with Saudi Arabia, a country whose government represents the very opposite of what we profess to believe in. Saudi Arabia is an extremely undemocratic country that is run by a hereditary, authoritarian monarchy, one of the wealthiest families in the world whose wealth is estimated to be over $1.4 trillion.

At a time when children in Yemen are starving to death, when that impoverished country's healthcare system is collapsing, when the people of Gaza are suffering mass unemployment and environmental devastation, when people throughout that region lack clean drinking water, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman bought himself a $500 million yacht, a $300 million French chateau, and a $450 million Leonardo da Vinci painting. Mass starvation in the region that he helped create, children do not have housing or drinking water, and this guy buys himself a $450 million da Vinci painting.

According to Freedom House, a respected human rights organization:

Saudi Arabia's absolute monarchy restricts almost all

political rights and civil liberties. No officials at the

national level are elected. The regime relies on pervasive

surveillance, the criminalization of dissent, appeals to

sectarianism and ethnicity, and public spending supported by

oil revenues to maintain power. Women and religious

minorities face extensive discrimination in law and in

practice.

Freedom House also notes that working conditions for the large migrant labor force are extremely exploitive.

Saudi Arabia is home to millions of migrant workers, many from African countries but also from Pakistan, India, and elsewhere. These workers constitute more than 80 percent of the private-sector workforce, often as laborers and other service workers. They are governed by an abusive system that gives their employers excessive power over their mobility and legal status in the country. As a result, these migrant workers are vulnerable to a wide range of abuses, from passport confiscation to delayed wages and forced labor.

According to Human Rights Watch, under the government headed by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, ``Saudi Arabia has experienced the worst period of oppression in its modern history.''

Human Rights Watch reported earlier this year that ``accounts have emerged of alleged torture of high-profile political detainees in Saudi prisons,'' including Saudi women's rights activists and others. The alleged torture included electric shocks, beatings, whippings, and sexual harassment.

And I think we all understand the nature of this government. Every Member of Congress and I hope every American knows--and our own intelligence services made this very clear--that Muhammad bin Salman himself ordered the murder and the dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in retaliation for Khashoggi's criticisms of the Saudi regime. We all remember that terrible, terrible murder of a Washington Post columnist.

We also know that the Saudi regime has waged a campaign of harassment and attempted kidnapping against other critics, including on U.S. soil.

My simple question is: Why in the world would the United States reward such a regime which has caused such pain in Yemen with more weapons?

My friends, the answer is we should not. I urge my colleagues to support S.J. Res. 31.

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

Madam President, day after day here on the floor of the Senate and back in their States, many of my colleagues talk to the American people about how deeply concerned they are about the deficit and the national debt. They tell us that we just don't have enough money to expand Medicare, to cover dental care for seniors, to cover hearing aids, to cover eyeglasses. We just don't have enough money to do what every other major country on Earth does, and that is guarantee paid family and medical leave.

At a time when hundreds of thousands of bright young people are unable to afford a higher education and millions are struggling with student debt, my colleagues tell us that we just don't have enough money to provide 2 years of free tuition at community colleges.

When we have over 500,000 Americans sleeping out on the streets, including a few blocks away from the Nation's Capitol, we just don't have enough money to build the low-income and affordable housing this country needs.

At a time when the scientists are telling us that we face an existential threat in terms of climate change, we are told that we just don't have enough money to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and create a planet that will be healthy and habitable for our kids and future generations. Just don't have enough money.

Yet, today, the U.S. Senate will begin consideration of an annual defense budget that costs $778 billion--$778 billion for one year. That is $37 billion more than President Trump's last defense budget and $25 billion more than what President Biden requested.

By the way, all of this money is going to an Agency, the Department of

Defense, that continues to have massive cost overruns year after year, wasting enormous amounts of money, and is the only major governmental Agency in the Federal Government not to successfully complete an independent audit.

Now, isn't it remarkable how, even as we end the longest war in our Nation's history, the war in Afghanistan, concerns about the deficit and the national debt seem to melt away under the influence of the military-industrial complex. People sleeping out on the street, people dying because they don't have any healthcare, kids unable to get the early childhood education they need--not a problem. Can't afford to pay for those things, but somehow, when it comes to the defense budget and the needs of the military-industrial complex, we just cannot give them enough money.

But that is not all, and I want the American people to know this, as I suspect many don't.

It is very likely that in the Defense bill or attached to the Defense bill, there will be a so-called competition bill, and this bill is a $250 billion bill that includes $52 billion in straight corporate welfare, with no strings attached, for a handful of extremely profitable microchip companies.

Now, is there a problem in that our country is not producing the kinds of microchips and the number of microchips that we should? The answer is yes. It is an issue we have to deal with, but we can deal with it in a way other than simply handing money to a handful of enormously profitable corporations with no protection for the taxpayers at all.

By the way, I should also mention that as part of the so-called competition bill, there is also a $10 billion handout to Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest people in our country, for space exploration.

Combining these two pieces of legislation would push the pricetag of the Defense bill to over $1 trillion for 1 year. I want people to remember that because when we talk about Build Back Better, we are talking about a 10-year bill. This is 1 year.

Meanwhile, while there is limited discussion about the Defense bill or corporate welfare in the competition bill, Congress has spent month after month discussing the Build Back Better Act, which on an annual basis costs far less than the Pentagon budget, and discussing whether or not we can afford to protect the working families of our country whose needs have been ignored decade after decade, who in many cases are living paycheck to paycheck, can't afford housing, can't afford prescription drugs, and can't afford to send their kids to college. We can't address their needs--no, no, no--because we are too busy worrying about throwing money at the Pentagon and large, profitable corporations.

If there was ever a moment in modern American history when we need to fundamentally review our national priorities, now is that moment. Whether it is transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels; whether it is guaranteeing paid family and medical leave; whether it is providing healthcare to all of our people as a human right, as virtually every other major country does; whether it is taking on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, which charges us by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs; whether it is addressing our crisis of affordable housing or providing childcare and pre-K to the little kids, now is the time to reassess our priorities. Now is the time to fight for real change.

But instead of addressing these major issues that impact the lives of working families all across this country and that the working class of this country desperately wants, Congress comes together, Democrats and Republicans, with minimal debate, to support an exploding Pentagon budget, which is now higher than the next 13 nations combined and represents more than half of our discretionary spending.

After adjusting for inflation, we are now spending more on the military than we did during the height of the Cold War or during the wars in Vietnam or Korea. And I would like to reiterate, this is after the war in Afghanistan has ended. That is why I have introduced an amendment with Senator Markey to reduce the military budget by $25 billion, down to what President Biden requested.

Let's be clear. This is not a radical idea. It is the military spending proposed by the President of the United States and the amount requested by the Department of Defense. I look forward to support on that amendment, especially from the deficit hawks, who I know are very, very concerned about the deficit.

I should also point out that this extraordinarily high level of military spending comes at a time when the Department of Defense is the only Agency of our Federal Government that has not been able to pass an independent audit and when defense contractors are making enormous profits while paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages.

Let's not forget that in this so-called competition bill, there will be a provision which provides $53 billion in emergency appropriations for the microchip industry with no strings attached.

Let me repeat that. We are talking about more than $53 billion in Federal funds, and by the way, I suspect there will be more taxpayer money coming to these corporations from State and local government with no strings attached.

Do we need to expand the microchip industry in this country so we can become less dependent on foreign countries? Yes. But we can accomplish that goal without throwing money at these companies with no protections for the taxpayers.

In total, my guess is that five--one, two, three, four, five--major semiconductor companies will likely receive the lion's share of this taxpayer handout. Those companies are Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, Analog Devices, and NVIDIA.

I should also point out that these five companies made nearly $35 billion in profits last year combined and spent more than $18 billion buying back their own stock.

I should also point out that these five corporations combined paid their CEOs a combined $85 million in compensation last year.

Further, it is important to point out that this is an industry that received nearly $6 billion in government subsidies and loans over the years, and it is an industry that has shut down over 780 manufacturing plants in the United States and eliminated 150,000 American jobs in the last 20 years--29 percent of its workforce--while moving most of its production overseas. In other words, over the years, in order to make more money, they decided to outsource their operations and, in the process, throw American workers out on the street.

So let's be clear what is happening here. In order to make more profits, these companies took good government money and then offshored good American jobs. Now, for that bad behavior, these same companies are being rewarded with some $53 billion in no-strings corporate welfare to undo the damage that they did.

That may make sense to somebody; not to me. That is why I have introduced Senate amendment No. 4722, which would prevent microchip companies from receiving taxpayer assistance unless they agree to issue warrants to the Federal Government. If private companies are going to benefit from over $53 billion in taxpayer subsidies, the financial gains made by these companies must be shared with the American people, not just wealthy shareholders.

In other words, all this amendment says is that if these companies want taxpayer assistance, we are not going to socialize all of the risks and privatize all of the profits.

Let me be very clear. This is not a radical idea. These exact conditions were imposed on corporations that received taxpayer assistance in the bipartisan CARES Act, which passed the Senate 96 to nothing. In other words, every Member of the U.S. Senate has already voted for the conditions that are in my amendment.

CARES was not the first time that Congress passed warrants and equity stakes tied to government assistance. During the 2008 financial crisis, Congress required all companies taking TARP funds to issue warrants and equity stakes to the Federal Government.

The bottom line is that taxpayers should not just be handing out money to large, profitable corporations and well-paid CEOs. They deserve to benefit as well.

In addition to making sure that companies allow for warrants and equity stakes, this amendment would require that these companies cannot buy back their own stock, nor outsource American jobs, nor repeal existing collective bargaining agreements, and remain neutral in any union organizing efforts.

Here is something else--I think people think that I am kidding here, but I am not; this is really true--here is something else that is in the so-called competition bill that must be addressed. Unbelievably, this bill would provide and authorize some $10 billion in taxpayer money to Jeff Bezos, the second wealthiest person in America, for his space race with Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in America. This is beyond laughable, and I will be introducing an amendment to strike this provision. Frankly, it is not acceptable. It is not an issue that we have discussed terribly much, but it is not acceptable that the two wealthiest people in this country, Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos, take control of our space efforts to return to the Moon and maybe even the extraordinary accomplishment of getting to Mars. This is not something for two billionaires to be directing; this is something for the American people to be determining.

Let me just say a few words about why there is so much waste and fraud and abuse in the military. Again, I always find it amazing how, when it comes to programs directed at ordinary people, low-income people, all kinds of investigations and all kinds of language about how we have to protect the taxpayer from fraud, but when it comes to the massive amount of money that we put into the Pentagon, not a whole lot of attention paid to that.

One of the reasons that we have so many cost overruns and one of the reasons that we have so much fraud and so much abuse is that the Pentagon has been unable to pass an independent audit 30 years after Congress required it to do so--30 years.

I think one of the points that need to be remembered is that on September 10, 2001, 1 day before the terrible attack on our country, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, talking about the Pentagon:

Our financial systems are decades old. According to some

estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We

cannot share information from floor to floor in this

building--

The Pentagon--

because it's stored on dozens of technological systems that

are inaccessible or incompatible.

Yet, 20 years after that statement--a rather profound statement by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld--the Pentagon has still not passed a clean audit despite the fact that the Pentagon controls assets in excess of $3.1 trillion or roughly 78 percent of what the entire Federal Government owns.

Just this week, the Pentagon announced that it will fail its fourth consecutive financial audit in a row. That is why I have introduced an amendment with Senator Grassley that would require the Pentagon to pass a clean audit this year. If it fails to do so, 1 percent of its budget would be returned to the Treasury each year until it obtains a clean audit operation. I think 30 years is maybe just enough time to make that demand.

I think that at this moment in American history, it is appropriate for the American people and for my colleagues here in the Senate to remember what former Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1953 when he was President.

As we all recall, Dwight D. Eisenhower was a four-star general, not a politician, who led the Allied Forces to victory in Europe during World War II. So this was no peacenik. This was a man who saw more death and more military battles than probably any human being should have to.

This is what Eisenhower said:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every

rocket [fired], signifies in the final sense a theft from

those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are

not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its

scientists, the hopes of its children.

That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and that is what he said 68 years ago. It was true then. It is even more true now.

If the horrific coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything--a pandemic which has cost us now almost 700,000 lives--it is that national security means more than just building bombs or missiles or jet fighters or tanks or submarines or nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction. National security also means doing everything that we can to protect the lives of ordinary Americans, many of whom have been abandoned by their government for decades. These are people, right now, who are struggling to put food on the table, people who are now experiencing a lower life expectancy than was the case in the past, and these are people who, in many instances, when they get sick, can't even afford to go to a doctor.

When we analyze the Defense Department's budget, it is important to note that Congress has appropriated so much money to the Defense Department that the Pentagon literally does not know what to do with it. According to the GAO, over the course of 11 years, the Pentagon returned an astonishing $128 billion in excess funds back to the Treasury.

And, over the past two decades, while we have funneled out money to the defense contractors, it is important to note that virtually every major defense contractor in the United States has been fined for misconduct and fraud, all while making huge profits. Since 1995, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and United Technologies have paid over $3 billion in fines or related settlements for fraud or misconduct. Meanwhile, the CEOs of these large defense companies enjoy incredibly large compensation packages--in fact, on average, over 100 times more than does the Secretary of Defense.

I have also filed an amendment with Senator Markey and Representative Ro Khanna, in the House, to finally end all U.S. support for the Saudi war effort in Yemen. This amendment simply codifies the prohibition on support for the Saudi war, and it already passed both Houses of Congress, in 2019, in a bipartisan way. At that time and in 2019, various officials now in the Biden-Harris administration signed a letter supporting this measure. The House has already passed this amendment for the third consecutive year. It is long overdue for this provision to be included in the final Defense policy bill that is sent to the President's desk.

In addition to Yemen, I have longstanding concerns about the situation in Gaza. That is why I have introduced an amendment to request a series of reports on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and on steps that the United States can take to ease that crisis and bring desperately needed humanitarian and reconstruction aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza.

I would also point out that, when I talk about healthcare, I talk about dental care, and I think most healthcare experts understand that dental care is part of healthcare. In my home State of Vermont, veterans who are eligible for dental care at the VA have no access to a VA dental facility. That is why I have introduced an amendment to the NDAA to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to maintain a dental clinic in every State of this country so that all veterans have access to the dental care that they need.

I believe in a strong military, but I do not believe that we can keep throwing more money into the Pentagon than it needs at a time when working families all across this country are struggling to put food on the table for their kids and when 140 million Americans can't afford the basic necessities of life without going into debt.

In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., warned us that ``a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.''

Dr. King was right. That was true in 1967. It is true today.

Let me just conclude with another quote from one of the great Republican Presidents in American history, and he is Dwight D. Eisenhower. This is what he said as he was leaving office back in 1961.

He said:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the

acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or

unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential

for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will

persist.

That was Dwight Eisenhower, and what he was talking about was the incredible power then of the military-industrial complex--of the revolving door, where people go from the military into defense companies. It was true then; it is truer now; and that truth is manifested in the fact that we have a bill which is now spending $25 billion more than the President of the United States requested.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the Community Health Centers of Burlington for 50 years of extraordinary service.

Today, the Community Health Centers of Burlington--CHCB--is the second largest federally qualified health center--FQHC--in Vermont, serving over 30,000 patients at eight locations. Fifty years ago, when they opened their doors in 1971 as the People's Free Clinic in a small storefront in Burlington's Old North End, the center was run by volunteers and served just 50 patients each week. And while they have grown tremendously since those early days, CHCB has maintained a commitment to what the founders of the clinic at the time described as ``a new kind of health care,'' rooted in the understanding that people from all walks of life deserves high quality, affordable healthcare.

In 1989, CHCB was designated as a federal Healthcare for the Homeless site and, in 1993, officially became an FQHC. Becoming an FQHC meant CHCB was able to access important grants from the Federal Government, improvement reimbursement rate for care, and offer a sliding fee scale, so no one would be turned away because they could not afford the care they needed. But let me be clear: Health centers like CHCB are not exclusively for those who have nowhere else to go. For many people living in the Burlington area and across Vermont, community health centers like CHCB are the provider of choice because they provide timely access to high-quality care in community-centered clinics. In fact, today, approximately one-third of all CHCB patients are covered by private health insurance. Another reason that FQHCs are so popular and used by so many people in Vermont and across the country is that they also offer dental care. CHCB first added dental services into its main site in 2004, and today, 7000 patients receive dental care at one of three CHCB locations. Further, in addition to offering primary care and oral healthcare, FQHCs also offer mental healthcare and substance use disorder treatment, as well as low-cost prescription drugs. It is clear why nearly one-in-three Vermonters rely on FQHCs like CHCB for their care.

In 2012, the Community Health Centers of Burlington was able to utilize funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to renovate its main location, known as the Riverside Health Center, allowing for updated patient care rooms; laboratory space; dental operatories; and integrated psychiatry, counseling, and substance use

disorder treatment. Understanding that many Vermonters outside of the Burlington area struggled to access affordable care, CHCB established a rural practice in the Champlain Islands. The health center also expanded into Winooski in 2017, in partnership with Winooski Family Health. But CHCB's expansion is not simply about growing the number of locations. They have also continued to expand the services offered, including ensuring they can offer culturally competent care to the growing New American community. Today, CHCB offers translation services to over 45 languages at their sites, making care not just affordable but understandable to all who need it.

The Community Health Centers of Burlington is an excellent example of why federally qualified health centers are so important. To my mind, there is no question that healthcare is a human right and health centers like CHCB play an enormously important role in making sure that no one is denied care because of their income. That is why I have continually fought to protect and expand Federal funding for community health centers throughout my time in Congress. I am proud that during the negotiations of the Affordable Care Act, I was successful in securing mandatory funding for these health centers, knowing that they would be better served by knowing that they could rely on funding for the Federal Government for years to come. I have continued to fight for funding for FHQCs during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, knowing how critical they are to keeping patients healthy and connected to their communities during these extremely challenging times. I am grateful to all of my colleagues here in the Senate and in the House of Representatives who have joined me in this effort throughout the years.

To the staff of CHCB, I want to say that I know that your hard work and dedication is at the heart of CHCB's success. I know it is not always easy to work in primary care, and I am grateful for your efforts. And to the patients who rely on CHCB each year, know that I am glad you have entrusted your care to them and that I will do everything in my power to ensure they are there to care for you for decades to come. And as you take time to celebrate your many successes over the past 50 years, I know you are also looking toward the opportunities and challenges that lay ahead for the future. I look forward to continuing to work with you to tackle the challenges, like further expanding access and care, reducing costs, and recruiting and retaining a talented workforce dedicated to primary care. I will also stand with you as you find new opportunities for success and growth. While the issues we face are enormous, I know that community health centers like CHCB are a key to solving them.

I sincerely congratulate the entire Community Health Centers of Burlington family on this momentous occasion and wish you another 50 years of delivering compassionate, professional, and innovative healthcare services to your fellow Vermonters.

Madam President, I rise today to honor the memory of Dexter Randall of Newport Center, VT. In Dexter's passing, Vermont and the Nation has lost a great champion for farmers.

Dexter was born in Lyndon, VT, in 1945 but spent most of his life with his family on their farm in Troy, VT. On September 3, 1971, he married Alice Gilman, who we sadly lost a year ago, on June 2, 2020. Along with their five children--Lisa, Justin, Jordan, Irene, and Jason--Randall and Alice ran their small organic dairy farm for 37 years before Justin and Irene took over operations.

While Dexter was first and foremost a farmer, he was also a public servant. In the Northeast Kingdom, an area of the State often known for more conservative points of view, Dexter charted a unique political path, serving as a Progressive State representative with a strong independent streak. Dexter felt that his political philosophy was not all that different from that of his father, who had been a Republican, but that the Vermont Republican Party of earlier generations had undergone significant change. During his time in and out of the Vermont Statehouse, he was an unwavering voice for farmers and small family farms, fighting for fair milk prices and to safeguard Vermont's agricultural heritage.

Both in elected office and during his 30 years on the board of Rural Vermont, Dexter showed a fearlessness in advocating for bold policy change. He understood that in order to save family farms and ensure the future of agriculture in Vermont, we needed to fundamentally rethink agricultural policy and fight against corporation consolidation. He was at the center of some of the biggest agricultural debates of his time, including the creation of the New England Dairy Compact and fighting to protect farmers from the corporate greed of companies producing genetically modified organism--GMO--seeds. Dexter's work was not limited to Vermont. In 2006, he traveled to Mali to learn how U.S. policies impact Africa's agricultural sector. On this and many other topics, Dexter demonstrated an ability to translate complex policy issues into plain language, making it easy for his constituents to understand and relate to.

Caring for the land was at the heart of Dexter's work. Despite farming being more than a full-time job, he was active with the Missisquoi Basin Association, the American Devon Cattle Association, the Orleans County Natural Resources Conservation District, and the Vermont Center for Sustainable Agriculture. At a time when agriculture and environmental protection were often pitted against one another, Dexter showed that farmers can and often are strong conservationists and excellent stewards of the land.

When I first met Dexter 35 years ago, his reputation as a fearless champion for rural Vermonters and farmers preceded him. Some probably would have considered us to be unlikely friends; he was a dairy farmer in a remote part of the State, and I was the first Independent mayor of the State's biggest city of Burlington. Those people, of course, were wrong. It was 1986, milk prices were low, and both Dexter and I understood that farmers were suffering. To raise spirits and money, Rural Vermont held a fundraiser near Dexter and Alice's farm. For my part, I drove the 2 hours to the Northeast Kingdom because not only did I understand the importance of the issue, I was impressed by the grassroots advocacy of Dexter, Alice, and the organizers. From that day on, Dexter and I enjoyed a long friendship that included a pig roast on his farm each year. At the heart, these events were very much about good food, comradery, bringing people together, and appreciating the pastoral landscape of Vermont. These events were also where good, old- fashioned democracy took place. People could talk about the issues that were important to them and feel like politicians were actually listening. I learned a great deal at these events about the struggles of working people, especially in rural Vermont, and for that, I am eternally grateful to Dexter.

I was sad not to be able to join Dexter on the farm this year, and I will miss traveling there and seeing Dexter each year, but I am thankful for our many years of friendship. To my mind, Dexter represented the best of Vermont; he was not only deeply engaged in the issues, but he also genuinely cared about the wellbeing of his friends, family, neighbors, fellow farmers, and his rural constituents. He believed everyone deserves a fair shot, and he tirelessly advocated for Vermonters at every opportunity he could, whether by supporting universal healthcare or milk prices that enabled farmers to keep the lights on and live in dignity.

Ultimately, Dexter brought his ethos about farming--that ``if you take care of the land it will take care of you, so you can leave it a little bit better than you found it''--to his community and his State. Vermont is indeed a better place, and Vermonters are better off, thanks to Dexter Randall.

Mr. President, I was absent for Senate vote No. 447, the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 471, Beth Robinson, of Vermont, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit. I would like the record to reflect that had I been present, I would have voted yes.