Floor Statements

Madam President, today I rise in recognition of seersucker manufacturers and enthusiasts across the United States. I wish everyone a Happy National Seersucker Day. This uniquely American fashion has a storied history dating back to 1909. The first seersucker suit was designed by Joseph Haspel at his Broad Street facility in New Orleans, LA. Louisiana is proud to have played an important part in introducing the country to seersucker apparel.

This lightweight cotton fabric, known for its signature pucker, has been worn and enjoyed by Americans across the country during the hot summer months. Mr. Haspel said it best: ``Hot is hot, no matter what you do for a living.''

In the 1990s, Seersucker Day was established by Members of this Chamber to honor this unique American fashion. I proudly resumed this tradition in 2014 in the U.S. House of Representatives and continued this tradition in the U.S. Senate. This year, I wish to designate Thursday, June 9, 2022, as the ninth annual National Seersucker Day. I encourage everyone to wear seersucker on this day to commemorate this traditionally American clothing.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a group of committed Louisiana fathers making a difference in their community and the lives of their children.

Violence within the halls of Southwood High School in Shreveport reached a concerning peak in the fall of 2021, when 23 students were arrested in just 3 days.

Mr. Michael LaFitte gathered 40 fellow concerned fathers, including David Telsee, III, Michael Morgan, Zachery Johnson, and Kenneth Henry, Jr., and established a wholesome presence in the halls of Southwood High. They were able to quell conflict and violence. They are promoting peace, order, and dropping dad jokes with a profound impact. They have prevented fights and arrests since forming their group, Dads on Duty. By fostering a safer environment in Southwood High, Dads on Duty has allowed the youth to focus on learning and growing.

Dads on Duty is demonstrating a strategy they believe can benefit students in other schools. They have plans to introduce this program of engaged parents in each Caddo Parish school campus moving forward.

Dads on Duty has garnered attention at the city, parish, State, and national levels--and rightfully so. I applaud their efforts and look forward to seeing how they can continue to better our communities.

Mr. President, I call up my motion to instruct conferees, which is at the desk.

Mr. President, the importance of trade agreements is that everyone follows the rules they agreed to. Mexico is not following the USMCA.

They have forced the closures or partial closures of dozens of fuel facilities and have canceled permits for the import and export of fuels. They are favoring their national industry, PEMEX, and disadvantaging American companies, including companies building renewable projects. These actions chill foreign direct investment with Mexico, hurt American businesses, and undermine climate goals; but Mexico continues to benefit from the rest of the USMCA.

We wish to be a strong and dependable trade partner with Mexico, but the USMCA should be honored. The role of the USTR is to represent the interests of the United States and hold trade partners to their word. Mexico should respect property rights for U.S. businesses. This should be a priority for the USTR.

I yield back all time.

Vote on Motion

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

Madam President, every Senator, when she or he goes home, speaks to families feeling the crushing burden of inflation, in large part driven by fuel prices--it is certainly true when I go home to Louisiana--and they hope for a better job; one, they would like a better job, but, two, they need the extra money in order to keep up with the inflation.

There is a connection with their personal economic concerns, Putin's war in Ukraine, and China doing their best to take American jobs by ignoring environmental standards, using slave labor, giving subsidies to the businesses, making it almost impossible for American businesses to work here and compete with products made in China.

As one example of just how successful China has been, in the early 2000s, China was about 19th and 20th in manufacturing and carbon emissions.

Since then, since the early 2000s, China has become No. 1 worldwide, both in the amount of manufacturing but also in the amount of their carbon emissions.

Indeed, the increase in carbon emissions for China is more than the combined decrease of the United States, the EU, and the United Kingdom in that same period of time.

We have been doing our best to improve our environmental standards for the benefit of the whole world, and China has exploited that, using their lack of enforcement of standards to attract our jobs to their country, and yet our global greenhouse gas emissions are worse off.

Now, as I mentioned, the inflation, the hope for a better job, which is not realized, Putin's war, using energy as a national security tool, and China's concerted strategy are all interwoven. There is a nexus, and that nexus is between energy and the climate, the economy of a family and of a nation, and national security.

So if we are going to improve the financial situation for that family in Louisiana, a working family in Nevada, or any of our States and do something about our national security concerns, then we must do something about energy, and that is related to emissions.

The most effective way of doing this is looking at how China addresses their emissions and how the United States does.

Now, when I speak of emissions, I speak of the fact that we now use natural gas instead of coal, and natural gas burns much more cleanly than coal, and so, therefore, we have cleaner air in the United States than we did even 20 years ago.

But China uses coal for about 60 percent of their energy feedstock. And so to understand China as a competitor, let's look at their economic, geopolitical, and national security strategies against us, and we are going to look at it through the prism of carbon emissions because if we think about national security without thinking about energy and the associated emissions, if we don't think about them all at the same time, we are wasting our time, just wasting our time. So, again, examining as a nexus.

There is a petrochemical plant in Louisiana that has invested heavily in lowering their emissions. We pay a little extra for the products they produce, but we accept that extra cost so that we have this cleaner environment.

Just as an example, the plastic that is on the back of my phone, that plastic is made from natural gas usually, and the process of making that has rigorous environmental standards to make sure that we protect those who live around the plant. China does not do that. They do not enforce those standards, nor, as I mentioned earlier, do they use natural gas. They are much more likely to use coal, and they preferentially build their powerplants on the Pacific coast of China. So the emissions go into the atmosphere, and they blow across the Pacific, and they land in the United States. Much of the problems of the west coast of the United States with SOX and NOX are from plants that originate their emissions in China.

And did I say it lowers their cost of production by not enforcing those? By lowering the cost of production, you attract American jobs away from the United States of America over there. And did I say it strengthens their economy? And by strengthening their economy, they have more money to invest in their military and more money to pursue their geopolitical strategy, which is to undermine the influence of the United States of America.

By not applying our emission standards to China, giving them a free pass, we are allowing them to implement their strategy.

Now, by the way, I am not against international trade. We can look at the treaties we have with Canada and with Mexico or with Central American countries, and we can see that there are certain labor and environmental standards that are embedded in those. And it is an even playing field, of sorts. So if we have a clean air standard here in the United States, there is something like that in Mexico and something like that in Canada. If we have labor standards here, we have something like that in Honduras and something like that in Guatemala. So we are still competing, but the playing field is more even.

Now, there are other benefits of trading in the Western Hemisphere.

About 40 percent of the goods that Mexico produces are reimported from the United States. There is an exchange that goes back so that the revenue that is produced in trade disproportionately comes from Mexico

back to the United States. So while that number is 40 percent with Mexico, it is only 4 percent with China. And it is not like we are sending all this money to China. We had about a $355 billion trade deficit with them last year. And I am not talking about the deficit; I am just saying that only 4 percent of that revenue comes back to the United States in order to reinvest in the American economy.

So I am all for trade, but I want to have something which is more mutually beneficial and one in which there is a level playing field and one in which the disregard for environmental standards is not used as a strategy to strip jobs away from Americans in order to improve an economy of a competitor that uses that money to improve their military standing and uses that money to undermine our influence and, by the way, to attempt to expand their geopolitical viewpoint.

Now, I will say once more, I love capitalism. It has the ability to elevate people out of poverty. Three generations ago, my family left Ireland and came to the United States because they didn't have enough to eat, and because this is the greatest capitalist country in the world, my family did quite well because of the system of government we have here. I am not arguing against that.

But what we cannot tolerate is the arbitrage of rules that are put in place by developed countries to protect not just our own citizens but the global environment from the ill effects of certain types of activities, say, in this case, burning energy.

If we are going to equalize the playing field, if you will, to lawfully and peacefully defeat a strategy which has explicit goals to take jobs from the United States of America and to eclipse us as a world power, we need to think strategically as to how to defeat this strategy.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today my State and I think the entire country should both mourn the loss and celebrate the life of an American hero and dedicated civil rights leader--Johnnie Jones, who recently died at age 102 but in his 102 years fought for our country, fought for the free world, and also fought to bring civil rights to a better place.

During World War II, Johnnie Jones helped storm the beaches of Normandy as part of D-day, liberate France from Nazi occupation--along the way, being part of the Battle of the Bulge. He was injured during the D-day invasion when his ship hit a mine, and he suffered shrapnel wounds from German air attacks, but he never stopped fighting.

When he came back, he attended Southern Law School and then led civil rights efforts in Baton Rouge. He legally represented the organizers at the Baton Rouge bus boycott, which served as a forerunner or a template for the Montgomery bus boycott. Throughout his career, he took on several civil rights cases, advocating for equality under the law, and served a term in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

His commitment to service and his love of our country was not just admirable but inspiring.

Last year, I had the honor to present him with a Purple Heart for the wounds he received during the D-day invasion in 1944.

My grandson has been to the World War II Museum in New Orleans--a tremendous museum--and he is now very much into the heroism of our soldiers who were in both World War II and World War I. So I took my grandson to meet Mr. Jones because I wanted him to meet a real-life hero.

Here you see him at 102--so proud of his medals, saluting.

My grandson, just the other day, said: Papaw, remind me of that man we met. So his meeting Mr. Jones 2 years ago has inspired a 7-year-old to live his life a better way.

So, as Mr. Jones salutes us, shall we all be inspired, shall we always remember the heroism abroad and the heroism here.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about saving school choice or, perhaps, parental choice.

Some students learn differently than others do. I am the parent of a child with dyslexia. I can tell you that any such parent knows one- size-fits-all education does not work.

Parents and students should have the ability to choose the learning environment that is best for that child, and I think the parent can make the choice better than the school board and certainly better than bureaucrats in the Department of Education here in Washington, DC.

The charter school program was created by Congress for that exact purpose: To ensure that parents could choose what is best for their child. Power to the parent. Giving parents the power is crucial to allowing every student to succeed.

Unfortunately, there are groups working to undermine the power the parent should have to choose their child's school.

The U.S. Department of Education has decided to disregard what is in the best interest of the student with a new proposed rule that adds new requirements for applicants completely unrelated to student outcomes. Applicants would have to demonstrate an unmet need for a charter school, provide evidence of overenrollment at existing public schools in order to establish a charter school.

It seems as if the Department of Education is putting up arbitrary barriers to opening a charter school simply out of prejudice. They don't want the parent to have the power.

Our country's charter schools are under threat from the far left and from teachers unions who seek to shut them down because charter school staffs are difficult to unionize.

Now, these unions know it is much harder to spread their influence in charter schools; and in some cases, it is, frankly, impossible for a charter school to unionize. And the giant unions see this as a simple problem. They know the more charter schools there are, the less revenue they get. So their solution is equally as simple, take power away from parents with layers of new bureaucracy and government regulation. We should not let that happen.

And let's just put this in perspective. Since the pandemic began, it has been public charter schools that have seen a substantial increase in demand. They opened up sooner, and they stayed open in larger numbers than traditional public schools. And we know that open schools are better for children. Parents should have the power to send their child to a school where they feel like they, the parent, have a voice, and where they know their child is more likely to succeed.

Now, let's be clear who this rule is written for--not for the parent and not for the child. It is not written to help the student. It is written to help unions exercise more control over a student's life. This rule makes no mention of how many of these new restrictions improve student achievement or actually help students. And at a time when students are falling behind in record numbers, we need new and innovative approaches to our education system, not just hand the keys over to a special interest group. The truth is, these rules give less choice to families, will hold students back, and do more harm than good.

Now, the charter school program has enjoyed bipartisan support for nearly 30 years. Any substantial change to the program should go through Congress and receive thoughtful consideration. And parent choice for the school their child attends should not be gutted by an informal committee of union employees and education department officials.

Those of us who care about the student, those of us who see the role of charter schools, we have one message to Secretary of Education Cardona: Back off of our charter schools.

Mr. President, I have had many experiences presiding when you have gotten up to speak about energy and climate. So now the roles are reversed, and I will take a perspective somewhat similar to yours in the past but perhaps a little bit broader.

We are in a point in time where it is clear that there is a nexus between energy, climate, economic security for a family and for a nation, and national security. And if we ignore any one, if we overemphasize one and forget the rest, then we lose all four.

I will just share the example we have right now. The administration has clearly prioritized climate in such a way that they have attempted to decrease the amount of fossil fuel being produced in the United States of America and limit the exports of that fuel. Because of that singular emphasis, we are now at a point where we have endangered the economy of many--not ``we'' but circumstances around the

world have endangered the economies of the European countries dependent upon Russian oil. It has endangered the pocketbook of the families that cannot afford $4- to $6-a-gallon gasoline, depending upon where you live. And the climate globally is worse.

Because there are inadequate amounts of liquefied natural gas going to Europe, they are going to burn tremendous amounts of coal, and that coal, of course, will have a greenhouse gas profile that is far greater than that of natural gas.

So the question is, How do we achieve all of our goals: the climate, the national security, the pocketbook issues for families and for our nation, as well as our energy security? So that is what I wish to speak about today.

Now, of course, we know there is a tension here, and the tension here is between this kind of almost battle we have been having in our country: How do we develop America's resources, but how do we do it while at the same time lowering carbon intensity?

If one party is in charge of the regulatory state, then they will attempt to use regulatory power to choke off the amount of carbon coming from America's resources. I am speaking of fossil fuel resources at this point. But, as I mentioned, it seems that with this backdrop of a need globally to be free of Russian energy, we need to have a different approach--acknowledging totally those who are concerned about carbon intensity; acknowledging totally the Europeans who are now so vulnerable to Russian energy shortages; acknowledging totally the family at home with the 10-year-old pickup truck who can't afford to fill it up to get to work.

Mr. President, let's set the stage. Europe depends on Russia for 40 percent of its natural gas supplies. Some countries in Europe depend upon Russia for 90 percent of their natural gas supplies. In 2013, the EU imported 135 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas and in 2019, 166 billion cubic meters. One reason we need to export liquefied natural gas is to decrease that reliance upon Russian natural gas.

By the way, one of the reasons that the EU is using more natural gas is that the carbon footprint of natural gas is so much less than that of coal. So using gas was a way to achieve that which the United States has achieved--an ability to decrease your carbon emissions by changing from coal to natural gas.

Our goal here is to help the Europeans continue not just that transition away from coal to lower their carbon intensity but also to help them decrease, lower their dependence upon Russia as regards overall their use of natural gas.

There is a way to get at this within the next 10 months--to lower global greenhouse gas emissions, to help the Europeans be freer from Russian gas--in a way which actually does not involve increased production here in the United States. When I speak of our goals here, it isn't just to pump more out of the United States; it is to solve a global problem.

An Italian energy executive with whom I spoke mentioned how in North Africa, they are using natural gas. They ship a certain amount of it to Italy, and then it goes to the rest of the continent. But the tanks coming from North Africa are about 50 percent full, and there is a liquefied natural gas terminal in Egypt which is way below capacity. Why? Because the population growth in North Africa has been so great and the number of people getting electricity has increased so dramatically that the natural gas they used to ship to Europe is now being used domestically.

But the powerplants they are using to burn the natural gas are antiquated. They don't burn efficiently. The emission profile of these natural gas powerplants is much greater than that which is state of the art. So this gentleman in Italy had a great idea. He said: Why don't we build out in the near term a $10 billion investment of solar panels in North Africa?

It would seem like there is no better place in the world to do solar panels than the Sahara Desert. So if you did solar panels in Africa and you are exchanging the electrons from the solar panels for the electrons being burned in antiquated natural gas facilities, that gas would then be freed up to be shipped to Africa. It doesn't increase--in fact, it decreases the net amount of natural gas being built, but it does it in a way that it delivers the gas where it is going to be burned in a more environmentally friendly way. But it has economic development, and it has the substitution of solar for gas in North Africa. This is a win and a win and a win.

What is the U.S. role here? Well, the U.S. role can take our DFC, which is our financing corporation for overseas development, and I am told that if we just put up 5 percent of the amount, that sends a message to other investors that this has the support of the U.S. Government and that they can step in here and make an investment too.

Solar panels of that magnitude is a big project. On the other hand, it is something which can be done in the near term. In that near term, we are able to increase the supply of natural gas to Europe, while decreasing global greenhouse gas emissions. That is something we can do now.

It does raise the question--someone said: Building that many solar panels, surely there would be some issues. It is my impression, at least, that there is far more open ground in the desert than there is in the cities but also that the regulatory burden in order to deploy solar panels is a lot less in Africa, which kind of takes me to my next issue.

We have the ability to increase our export of liquefied natural gas, to increase the deployment of renewables here in the United States, to mine the uranium that would replace the Russian uranium we get for nuclear but also replace the Russian uranium the Europeans use. We have the ability to do that, but we are just locked up with regulations. I am not saying do away with the regulations; I am saying do something different in terms of how we regulate.

We actually have a model for this. We saw at the beginning of the COVID pandemic that we had multiple Federal Agencies responsible for approving a new vaccine. They would kind of get to each other's issue and request when they got to each other's issue and request. So it could take 2\1/2\ years to have a new vaccine approved by regulation in order to even begin testing, much less to show that it worked and to begin to deploy.

The previous administration, working with the different Agencies--I visualize it as bringing everybody in a room, and if somebody had a question, they would turn this question over to somebody else, and they had to sit there at that table until they resolved it, and then they gave it back, not ``Hey, listen, send it over here, and we will have it back to you in 4 weeks.'' No. ``Send it over here, and we will have it back to you in 3 days.'' They compressed the time so that a vaccine, which, optimistically, we were hoping would be ready in 3 years, ended up being ready in less than 1. There is always a concern that if you compress that timeframe, you have to sacrifice safety, but there is no evidence that occurred with the coronavirus vaccine.

In the same way, if we have multiple Agencies right now that are in charge of permitting some aspect of energy--whether it is renewable, whether it is mining, whether it is export--there can be an Operation Warp Speed for how they work together to bring our energy resources to bear and helping the Europeans become free of Russian energy.

It is not just lowering the price at the pump for us, because you can argue that is going to be very difficult to do in the near term. What it can be, though, is to keep the Europeans from going into a recession or a depression next winter because the demand for fuel is so great and they are unable to meet it. And if they don't have some substitute for Russian energy and if the Russians decide to cut them off, they end up freezing, going energy poor, or having their industries crater because of a lack of energy.

One more time, this is a nexus. We can do this in a way that is environmentally friendly, producing the energy and exporting it in such a way that lowers global greenhouse gas emissions, because what is driving us right now is the economy of countries and the economy of families.

If European families are energy poor, they will lose their political will to stand up to the Russians, and we will lose our ally. We have to support not just our families but theirs so that

they can get through this economically; so that, one, they can more afford life; but, secondly, so that we can maintain political will as we stand up against the Russians.

There are other aspects of this, as well. For those interested in battery technology, most of the critical minerals are coming from Russian or Chinese sources. If we are concerned about climate and we are concerned about the ability to be critical mineral independent in case of geopolitical tension, this is the exact same issue that we have been speaking about.

How do we proceed? One, we just have to recognize that we are at a time of extreme geopolitical tension where decisions we make in this country have ramifications worldwide. The Europeans are looking to us to help them with their energy crisis, and if we fail to help the Europeans with their energy crisis, the Europeans will pay as much as 6,000 euros more a year per family for their energy, and they will probably go into a deep recession.

On the other hand, if we are able to solve this for the Europeans, we will also solve it for our families, the ones who are paying $4 to $6 for a gallon of gasoline.

We know what we are speaking about. Just to show that this can be done, as the United States has substituted natural gas for coal, we have lowered our domestic emissions by 14 percent at a time when global emissions have risen 4 percent. In that time, since 2005, where we lowered our emissions by 14 percent, our economy is larger. We have millions more people and we are domestically producing much more oil and gas, and there has been a subsequent return of energy-related industry to the United States.

So despite an industrial profile and a mining profile and a population profile that would suggest that there would be greater emissions, we actually have 14 percent less than 2005. We did it by acknowledging that domestic production of energy was going to help with our economy, help with the economy of families, but also help our domestic security, and would also help climate and the carbon intensity of our society.

We have done this for our country. Now the question is, Can we do it for the world? I would argue that if we choose not to, the Russians will win. There is no way that Europe or Europeans are going to accept energy poverty with a crater economy due to the lack of affordable energy.

On the other hand, if we are able to make this commitment doing things such as financing for solar panels in North Africa, an Operation Warp Speed for energy to bring our energy resources to bear, the continued substitution of lower carbon intensity energy sources for that which currently is higher carbon intensity, then, we can accomplish worldwide that which we have accomplished here in the United States, which is to lower greenhouse gas emissions while making a more prosperous society and increasing domestic and international security.

This is not theoretical. I have spoken with someone who could have an offshore LNG export facility completed in 12 months, if he had his permits from the Federal Government. I spoke to someone involved with drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and learned that their company could be sending oil to the refineries in Louisiana within 12 months if they could get their permits done expeditiously. And I can give list after list of renewable, of fossil, and otherwise.

It is now the time for the United States to take leadership. If we don't, our families will continue to suffer at the pump, Europeans will enter a recession, and, most unfortunately, the cause of freedom worldwide will be harmed by Russia's continued economic hegemony over the rest of the world because of their energy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Stephen Lewerenz, an intern in my office, be granted floor privileges until March 17, 2022.

Mr. President, I am rising to support the amendment that my colleague Senator John Kennedy will introduce. So I will speak before he introduces it, but I speak in support thereof.

Senator Kennedy is going to introduce an amendment that would increase and that would grant disaster relief in several regions of the country, but I speak on behalf of those in Southwest Louisiana.

A picture tells a thousand words. If you recall back 3 years ago, Hurricane Laura hit Southwest Louisiana. Two weeks later, almost on the exact same track, Hurricane Delta followed up, destroying that which had not already been destroyed by Hurricane Laura.

The devastation of these storms was dramatic. Now I thank the American people. There has been aid that has been given by fellow Americans to these communities, but it has been less than what is required. And flying over, the picture tells a thousand words. There are still blue tarps on top of roofs years after the storm has hit. And for those who are unfamiliar with it, blue tarps are when the roof has been destroyed, you place the tarp so that it hopefully provides protection that shingles otherwise would.

When you are on the ground and you go through the neighborhood, there are homes that are blighted, boarded up, and as they have been boarded up, criminals have come in and businesses have closed. This particularly affects lower income communities. Those who have more resources, they will recover, but those folks who need a little extra help, they are not.

And so, as we think about the aid that my fellow Americans are asked to give to their fellow Americans, I just will give some statistics. Hurricane Laura cost $19 billion in damages; Hurricane Delta another $3 billion; and Ida, of course, not only hit Southwest Louisiana, but cost $75 billion in damages from Louisiana to New York.

There is a lot that has happened. I ask for additional support as outlined in my colleague John Kennedy's amendment to finish the recovery for these folks who have endured so much.

I humbly ask my colleagues to support the amendment.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I'll add to what my colleague, John Kennedy, said.

If you fly over southwest Louisiana, you see blue tarps. Those tarps are there because the families have not had the money to replace their roofs. If you get on the ground, you see blighted neighborhoods. Those blighted neighborhoods are where people have moved, the rooms are boarded up, criminals have entered, and those who have left are now prey to criminals. And as they have left, the businesses have closed.

We do so much in this country for those who have been injured, and we appreciate in South Louisiana all that has already been done. But there is a little bit more needed to particularly benefit those who are less well-off.

So I join my colleague, Senator Kennedy, in requesting that additional funding to complete the job started so Southwest Louisiana can become whole once more.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I had the privilege to listen to my colleague from California's oration and the privilege to hear many of the things spoken, both by the President and by colleagues here in the Senate, as regards to the voting rights bill that is here before us today. I want to start off with the President's comments because I think it frames the debate, if you will, in terms of how it is being framed to the American people.

The President considers Georgia's new law as Jim Crow. That is a manipulative statement. It is a cynical statement. It tries to make people think that 2022 is the same as 1965, which is laced with incredible irony, as our country has seen an African-American President, an African-American Vice President, and Lieutenant Governors of Virginia and Kentucky who are African American. Then, to brag of my own State, as long as things are being seen through certain prisms, we have Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, who is ethnically from India, who was our Governor, and the first Vietnamese American elected to the U.S. Congress. In fact, Louisiana has had a White elected mayor of predominantly African-American New Orleans and a Black elected mayor of predominantly White Baton Rouge. But no, this statement is somehow manipulating people to think that we are back in Bull Connor days.

Well, if this is Jim Crow, then States like Delaware must be Jim Crow 2.0. Why is there not an outcry against Delaware?

I will point out that Georgia has more permissive voting laws than Delaware, more early voting days than Delaware, no-excuse absentee voting, which, by the way, the voters of New York recently rejected. Georgia now makes ballot drop boxes permanent, which was not the case before the pandemic. Much has been made about restricting the number of drop boxes. I have been told that the one county pointed to is actually a ruby red Republican county in which they dropped down to one.

If this is being done for partisan advantage, my gosh, they are not doing a very good job of partisan maneuvering, but I would argue that this bill is a wonderful example of partisan maneuvering.

What does it do? It is a Federal takeover of elections.

This innovation that the previous speaker, my colleague from California, was speaking of now has to run the gamut of a Federal official who says yea or who says nay.

It funnels tax dollars to fund political campaigns no matter how fringe that person's perspective might be, who no self-respecting donor would give money to online or in person, but because of this law, my gosh, they have got a chance.

It bans commonsense voter ID laws. Now, there is this kind of myth being promulgated that States are putting up these onerous laws that cannot be complied with. Courts reject those laws. Courts do not allow a State to use a mandated picture ID, issued by the State, as an ID, and to say so is manipulative. It is manipulative in the worst way. Courts decide the threshold, and courts decide what is reasonable and is unreasonable, and to suggest otherwise one more time is an attempt to manipulate people into thinking that 2022 is 1965, with all of the implications thereof and all of the harm that does to our body politic. Shame.

It also allows unlimited ballot harvesting--and, I think, California might be the only State to have it in place--where you go to a homeless shelter and have people sign up who might be addicted, mentally ill, brain damaged and have them sign for a certain candidate. Now, you can imagine a well-paid activist--because this bill allows activists to be paid--might discard those ballots which are not for her candidate and keep only those for their own candidate. This bill requires that all 50 States have it; whereas, in North Carolina, they actually booted a candidate because he used ballot harvesting.

It also prohibits States from cleaning up their voter rolls. Now, somehow, this is now wrong. I actually come from Louisiana, a State hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After 2005, it was a tragedy for my State, but we had tens of thousands of people who moved to other States. Now, at some point, they registered to vote in Atlanta or in Houston or in Dallas, and our secretary of state went back and said: Hmm, you are on a voter roll in Louisiana, and you are on a voter roll in Georgia. It appears that you are now paying taxes in Georgia. We are going to drop you from our rolls.

Is anything wrong with that? Is anything wrong with pointing out that somebody is registered to vote in two different States and then saying, ``You are paying taxes there, so we are going to remove you from our rolls here''?

Lastly, I will say this: It puts Democrats in charge of the FEC, a neutral organization enforcing voter laws. I can imagine, as soon as Republicans take charge again, we are going to do the same thing back to the other side. We are going to attempt to manipulate voting laws to our advantage, and it is not above either party to do that. So--I hate to use this word, but to sanctimoniously declare that this bill is the end of history; that partisanship is behind us; that, by golly, these laws are going to be put in place, and forever after, we are going to live harmoniously, is to not understand Washington, DC, where every edge is sought, and whenever it is sought, it is exploited to keep your particular party in power.

I say this as a Republican: I don't trust my party any more than I trust their party. I trust the States and the courts to oversee them, but this bill usurps that responsibility.

Now, you can say that maybe this power grab is merely in place to distract from real issues, and there is something to be said to that. We are debating this--whether or not to require all 50 States to allow ballot harvesting--when we have the highest rate of inflation than we have had in over 40 years; when Russians are about to invade Ukraine, apparently; when there are people pouring across our southern border and there is a looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and the COVID response is kind of being caught up with, not being preemptively addressed, and we are discussing this.

Filibuster

Mr. President, let me mention one more thing--the filibuster.

I was in an interview today about the surprise medical billing bill. My colleague from New Hampshire, who I think was in the Chamber earlier, helped to put that together. Multiple

colleagues ended up coming together on that. It took us 2 to 3 years to get it done, the surprise medical billing. As of January 1 of this year, if you get a surprise medical bill, there is a 1-800 number to call, and you get help.

Why did it take us 2 years? We had to listen to stakeholders. We had to get legislation that works for all. We had to go to this Republican, that Democrat, this committee in the Senate, that committee in the House; working with a broad coalition; even maybe, at the end, it slipping away; but we managed to pull it together, and we passed surprise medical billing, and it was better because of that process.

Now, that is in contrast to a bill in which a majority of Democrats in the House and the Senate, with the President, can force through without any input from Republicans, from the 50 percent of the United States that voted for the other side. Well, let's guess whose advantage that bill is going to be for. It doesn't take much to imagine.

What Mitt Romney said on the Sunday morning show--did the White House ever call you about this voting bill? Mitt Romney said: Never called me. That made it clear there was no effort to make this bipartisan.

We are going to break this 200-year-old filibuster that requires us to come together to find common ground--that gives us bills that are stronger because of it--because of a desire for partisan advantage and knowing that once we break it and Republicans take it back, we are going to use it the same way. This is wrong. This is wrong for our country. It is wrong for our institution. I suppose that is why 16 of my Democratic colleagues signed a letter last year--when, by the way, Republicans were in control--saying that we should preserve the filibuster.

It was recently stated that there is a disease of division infecting our country. That is true. And blowing up the filibuster removes one of the last things that make us come together. That is wrong, and that will be tragic, however--however--it is framed.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of my staff: John Wright Picard, an intern.

Madam President, I rise today to congratulate Mr. Tommy Williams of Baton Rouge, LA, on his retirement from the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, LCTCS.

Serving as the executive director for governmental affairs of LCTCS for 13 years, Mr. Williams made monumental

strides for the system, including one of his major legislative accomplishments: ACT 360, which appropriated $500 million in capital improvements to all 12 LCTCS campuses throughout the great State of Louisiana.

Prior to his service at LCTCS, Mr. Williams wore many hats during his tenure at BellSouth, which spanned almost four decades. Serving as the company's executive director for legislative affairs in Louisiana, he represented the interests of BellSouth before the Louisiana State Legislature in numerous regular and special sessions. He served as BellSouth's Houma and Baton Rouge district manager, as well as vice president for regulatory and external affairs from 2003-2006.

In addition to the lengthy list of professional accomplishments, Mr. Williams and his wife of 56 years, Ms. Bonnie Williams, devoted countless hours of their time volunteering for community-based nonprofit organizations. Mr. and Mrs. Williams are the proud parents of four, grandparents of eight, and great-grandparents of three.

The State of Louisiana and all who have benefited from Mr. Williams's impressive efforts thank him for his diligent work. There is no doubt that his legacy will live on in the years to come and will serve as an inspiration to the next generation of community builders and leaders.

Pretty handsome guy, huh? Real handsome guy in his dress blues. Today, the citizens of Lake Charles in the State of Louisiana and our country mourn the loss of this U.S. Navy SEAL and commander of SEAL Team 8. Commander Bourgeois, Brian Bourgeois, died from injuries suffered during a training accident Saturday. We lost a SEAL, a dedicated patriot, a son, husband, father, and hero.

Commander Bourgeois was born 43 years ago in Lake Charles, LA. He dedicated his adult life to family and to service to our country. He began by enrolling in the U.S. Naval Academy, from which he graduated in May 2001. During his two-decade-long career, Commander Bourgeois served honorably, led his men bravely, and made our country proud.

The long list of honors and medals Commander Bourgeois earned for his service to our country includes a Bronze Star marked with a ``V,'' denoting heroic acts performed during combat; two Defense Meritorious Service Medals; a Joint Service Commendation Medal; two Marine Corps Commendation Medals; two Marine Corps Achievement Medals; a Combat Action Ribbon; a National Defense Service Medal; an Iraq Campaign Medal; and a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. He was as decorated as he was loved.

At the annual Army-Navy game scheduled for this weekend, to honor

Commander Bourgeois--a brother and former member of the Midshipmen football team--the Navy team will run out onto the field with a flag of SEAL Team 8. That banner, representing his spirit, will fly alongside the American flag, the Navy flag, and the Marine Corps flag.

The Navy Football Brotherhood, a nonprofit organization aimed at supporting the families of their fallen teammates, is leading fundraising efforts to help support the Bourgeois family.

Our country has and always will depend on our most noble answering the call to serve. To his wife Megan and five children, your father represents the best of our Nation. He is a hero who dedicated his life to defending our country and protecting the lives of every American. For that, we will be forever grateful and shall never forget his service and sacrifice.

Please join me in taking this moment in silent prayer for Commander Bourgeois, his family, and all who loved and knew him.

I yield the floor.