Bernie Moreno

Mr. President, Reserving the right to object, this bill would amend the funding statute for the Federal Housing Finance Agency so that the expenses of the inspector general are collected through the annual assessments of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank in an amount independently determined by the inspector general.

I support independent oversight. The Inspector General Act already requires a separate budget estimate for that office, and it already lets the inspector general tell Congress if a proposed budget would impair that work.

Current law already funds this office. It has more than 100 employees and a budget of more than $50 million.

This bill goes further, though. It would make the inspector general's own determination the amount the director must collect. There is no ceiling, no reasonableness test, and no vote of Congress on this matter whatsoever.

These assessments, by the way, aren't free. They are costs on the housing finance system, and they show up in the mortgage market. We would literally be costing working Americans more money for mortgages so that a bunch of overpriced attorneys would

charge whatever they want, to do whatever work they felt necessary.

If the Senate wants to change how this office is funded, that change could include a cap, a reporting requirement, and, most importantly, a recorded vote. And for that reason, I object.

I know of no further debate on the nomination.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

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

Mr. President, I am going to yield my time to my colleague from Michigan to start first--5 minutes.

Mr. President, I would like to acknowledge my colleague from Michigan for working so well together on this bill. We don't agree on a lot. We do agree 100 percent that Ohio State has a better football team.

But, look, I think, for the people watching, Americans ultimately--whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent, you just want a government that works for you. You want a government that functions, that isn't chaotic, that is actually laser- targeted on not only fixing problems but avoiding problems. This is a huge problem that is coming up.

If you were to go back in a time machine about 26 years, in this Chamber, they passed a bill called the China Normalization Act. The idea was that if we could normalize relations with China, China would enter the World Trade Organization, and it would be absolutely phenomenal for the United States because we would get a place to make things really inexpensively. But what has happened over 25 years, 26 years is that China has built a massive military machine.

We go into meeting after meeting, and whether it is election integrity and the assault on that, whether it is the assault on our critical infrastructure, whether it is the fact that they have blatantly stolen our intellectual property--you were the Ambassador to Japan. You dealt with this every day, with the Japanese saying: Look, the threats from China are real; they are ever present.

If we only could have avoided that vote 26 years ago. I can tell you that what we are talking about here today is even more existential.

As my colleague from Michigan mentioned, it was the auto industry uniquely that built the middle class in this country.

I believe that in a future time, a future Congress, we are going to unite, Republicans and Democrats, around one simple concept: that our job here collectively is to make certain that an American citizen can graduate from high school and get a good enough paying job that they can afford a home, afford to get married, afford to start a family, be able to live in a safe community, and most importantly, retire with dignity. It seems to me that is actually the essence of the American dream. But these jobs are few and far between. They are hard to get. The auto industry can do that.

Let me show just a little chart here for my colleagues. It shows just how important the auto industry is to America--963,000 factory jobs, direct factory jobs.

In your State, I don't have to tell you--I can only imagine how many auto plants you have visited, whether it is Nissan in Smyrna, GM in Spring Hill, or Volkswagen in Chattanooga. You have autos all over your State. These are really, really good jobs. The people who work in those factories meet the definition I just said. We have to make certain, as policymakers, that we do everything possible to make certain those jobs are protected.

If you look at the entire auto industry, when you look at the supply chain--because there are a lot of pieces and parts that go into a car. It is the second largest purchase somebody will make after their home. Mr. President, 2.4 million good, high-paying jobs--these are not minimum-wage jobs; these are family-sustaining wages--and 11 million jobs when you think about the effects. In Chattanooga, TN, the fact that Volkswagen is there, you have all kinds of businesses that exist because of the employment there, because of those wages that allow people to buy homes, spend money.

Now, what is the counter? What is the threat here? What are we really doing? China understands this, I think, better than we do, honestly-- the importance of building their middle class--so what they have done over the last two decades is targeted the auto industry, not to compete in the auto industry but to conquer the auto industry, to create what I have dubbed ``automotive fentanyl'' where they create these predators that go out and don't just compete--because General Motors, Ford, Toyota--you name it--can compete with any car company on Earth. They can't compete with a country that is hell-bent on total conquest.

They now make almost four times as many cars as we do here in America. They export almost as many cars as we make here in America. While their domestic market is dropping, they are producing ever more cars. They need to feed that beast. They need to feed that machine. So what do they do? They go into countries like Germany where, when you are born, the first words from your parents are ``You have to buy a German car.'' Thirty-four percent of hybrids sold in Germany last month were Chinese--in a country that is culturally inclined to buy German vehicles. You look at countries like Ecuador. Fifty-seven percent of the new cars sold in Ecuador are Chinese vehicles. Mexico and Canada are starting to go there. All over the world, you are starting to see this total domination.

In the case of Germany again, Volkswagen Group, which is partially owned by a government entity in Germany, for the first time in their history had to lay off 150,000 workers. Why? Because they can't compete with the nation of China that is hell-bent on destroying their industries.

This is the reality of what we are talking about--$1.2 trillion in GDP. This is what is at stake.

So I will conclude with this. It is really hard to pass legislation. We know that. Our Founders wanted it that way. They wanted to make certain that two Senators from every State, big or small, would have to come together to figure out how to get to a compromise. That requires enormous effort. Introducing bills that will never pass--that is easy. We keep the clerks very busy with papers for bills that will never pass. This is a bill that has almost 100 out of 100 Senators on board. People have totally different ideological points of view, but on this, we have united, which is we cannot allow this threat to happen.

I am confident and hopeful that I can come back to you, Mr. President, next week with my colleague from Michigan and that we can pass the Connected Vehicle Security Act and that when the House comes back on November 8, that the House take up an identical version of this bill that Congressman Moolenaar and Congresswoman Dingell have been working on and that we can get this bill in the hands of the President.

I know that he feels the same way I do, which is that we are not going to let these cars into our market; we are going to make certain that we defend the U.S. auto industry.

So thank you again to my colleague for the hard work. Thank you to all of my colleagues in the U.S. Senate that have provided input and have gotten us to the point where we have a phenomenal piece of legislation. I am very, very hopeful that we will absolutely get this done next week.

I yield the floor.