Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 1096, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 305, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I have eight 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, finally, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn to then convene for pro forma session only, with no business being conducted, at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, July 21, 2023; further, that when the Senate adjourns on Friday, July 21, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, July 25; that on Tuesday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; that following the conclusion of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 119, S. 2226; further, that at 5:30 p.m. the Senate vote on the Cornyn No. 931 and the Rounds No. 813 amendments in the order listed.

For the information of the Senate, Members should expect two rollcall votes beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 119, S. 2226, be considered expired, and the motion to proceed be agreed to.

Madam President, I call up substitute amendment No. 935.

I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

I call up amendment No. 936 and ask that it be reported by number.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call

up the following amendments: Murray, No. 300; Kaine, No. 429; Paul, No. 222; Hawley-Vance, No. 838; Cruz-Manchin, No. 926; further, that with respect to the amendments listed above, at 3 p.m., the Senate vote on the amendments in the order listed, with no further amendments or motions in order, and with 60 affirmative votes required for adoption and that there be 2 minutes equally divided prior to each vote.

Madam President, later this morning, it will be my honor to join congressional leaders in welcoming President Isaac Herzog of Israel to the Capitol for a joint address to Congress.

Since the founding of the Nation of Israel 75 years ago, he has been one of America's most important allies and fiercest friends. The United States was the first country to recognize Israel as an independent state; and to this day, our bond remains strong, our partnership essential.

While we have our differences, the United States and Israel are united in the most profound ways that two nations could be. America's support for Israel must never waver because Israel will be an essential partner for the United States in the 21st century.

I look forward to meeting with President Herzog this morning, and I join congressional leaders in welcoming him to Congress.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to ask for the yeas and nays on the substitute amendment No. 935.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Madam President, just for the information of Members, we are speeding up the vote process. There is the White House picnic tonight, and we have to get things done by then. So there are going to be 10-minute votes, and we are going to call questions quite strictly. Thank you.

Mr. President, again, I remind Members that we now closed the vote before everybody came, and we are going to keep doing that. So please stay here, and let's try to get as much done as we can this afternoon.

Thank you.

Mr. President, we made some good progress this afternoon. We are going to have our fourth vote now. It will be the last vote today. The Cruz-Manchin amendment, No. 926, will be the first vote tomorrow morning. We are going to continue to work on setting up additional rollcall votes on amendments for tomorrow. Members should be aware that we will probably have a nice chunk of votes tomorrow if we can work everything out. We want to move as quickly as we can.

Mr. President, later today, the Senate will take the first procedural step to begin consideration of our annual Defense bill.

For more than six decades, Democrats and Republicans have worked in good faith to pass the NDAA. This year's Defense authorization bill is a prime example of how Senate D's and R's can work constructively to provide our Nation's defense, take care of our servicemembers and DOD civilians, and make the investments necessary to innovate and build up our military intelligence capabilities.

I hope we can have an open and constructive amendment process for the NDAA, without needless delay or dilatory tactics. I certainly hope we do not see the kind of controversy that severely hindered the NDAA process over in the House. Both sides should defeat potentially toxic amendments and refrain from delaying the NDAA's passage.

So far, we have thankfully avoided all of that. Over the weekend, nearly all the committees across the Senate worked around the clock on a substitute, with a managers' package that has 51 amendments--21 from Republicans, 21 from Democrats, and 9 bipartisan. We have had many great amendments. This is a good start, and we are working toward a second managers' package with even more priorities for Democrats and Republicans.

I want to thank Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Wicker, all the other chairs and rankers, and all of my colleagues and the staff who worked long and hard over the weekend for their good work on this bill.

There are a few items that are in the bill that deserve some attention, and, in the largeness of the bill, I would like to highlight them. I want to highlight a few items added to the managers' package that are very important and bode well for our country's future, particularly on AI, on outcompeting the Chinese Government, and on tackling our Nation's fentanyl crisis.

First, I am pleased that the managers' package includes an amendment I worked on with Senators Rounds, Young, and Heinrich that takes some early initial steps on AI legislation, the first steps this body is taking in a

while. The Senate has already done important preliminary work to bring ourselves up to speed on this issue, but the NDAA will be the Senate's first opportunity this year to pass real AI legislation.

My AI amendment includes provisions that will boost AI oversight within the national security space, including an increase in data sharing within the DOD, new risk studies to examine explainability and similar issues, and it provides for ``bug bounty programs'' that will help sniff out vulnerability in AI systems used by the DOD.

This year, our first managers' package also makes a critical down payment on the Senate's efforts to outcompete the Chinese Government. We have over a dozen amendments related to our ongoing competition with the Chinese Government, including measures that make progress on the AUKUS defense cooperation agreement between the United States, the UK, and Australia. Senator Menendez and I wanted more, but we have a good compromise in the bill, and I hope we can add more in the amendment process.

We have provisions to strengthen our partnership with Taiwan, boost the development of quantum information technologies, and strengthen the United States' position in the Indo-Pacific region, to name a few.

As you know, we are working on a bipartisan China competition package that will deal with the excesses and wrongs of the Chinese Government. But this, in the DOD bill, is a good first start.

And I also want to praise my colleagues Tim Scott and Sherrod Brown for their work to combat our Nation's fentanyl crisis. This is one of the most devastating health crises happening in our country.

In 2021, the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, seized enough fentanyl to give every single American a lethal dose--every single American. A lot of blame for this crisis lies at the feet of the chemical suppliers located in China that operate with little or no accountability, which represent the bedrock of the international fentanyl supply chain.

I felt this is very important that we do more to stop the scourge of fentanyl from coming into our country. So I pushed very hard to get this amendment in the managers' package, and I am glad it was-- championed, as I said, and passed in the Banking Committee, by Chairman Brown and Ranking Member Scott. It declares the international trafficking of fentanyl a national emergency and adds teeth and potential sanctions to the administration's ability to hold wrongdoers accountable. The ability to declare this a national emergency gives the President broader powers and allows him to do more to stop the flow of these precursor chemicals coming from China and other countries. The bill was passed unanimously, I am proud to say, by the Banking Committee--another great example of regular order here in the Senate.

Finally, I am pleased the NDAA will include my amendment on increasing transparency on UAPs, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. UAPs generate a lot of curiosity from many Americans, and with that curiosity, sometimes comes misinformation. My amendment will require the National Archives and Records Administration to create a collection of records from across government Agencies that can be declassified for the public's use, similar to the approach used in 1992 with the J.F.K. Assassination Records Collection Act. These records will carry a presumption of immediate disclosure, which means they can only be made classified with good reason.

I thank my colleagues who worked with me on this legislation-- Senators Rounds, Rubio, Heinrich, Gillibrand, and Young--for their partnership on this amendment. And as many know, my mentor and dear friend whom I miss so much, Harry Reid, was passionate about this issue, and so were Senators Stevens and Inouye. So I am glad we could get this into the managers' amendment.

For these and many other reasons, I look forward to beginning floor consideration of the NDAA bill today. The four things I mentioned-- dealing with fentanyl, dealing with competition with China, dealing with AI, and making public the UAP phenomena and what we know about them in an unclassified way--are all important additions to the Defense bill. I am glad we added them in.

I thank both sides for their good work, and I hope we can pass this important bill without needless delay or controversy.

Mr. President, on the Freedom to Vote Act, in just a few minutes, I will be joining a group of my Democratic colleagues to mark the reintroduction of the Freedom to Vote Act.

The Freedom to Vote Act rests on a simple yet fundamental principle: All Americans, no matter where they live, should have the freedom to vote without fear of discrimination.

Our bill will set basic standards for Americans to vote safely and securely and help instill confidence that our Nation's elections are free and fair.

I want to thank Senators Klobuchar, Kaine, and Warnock for their good work on putting this bill together, as well as my House colleagues, led by Leader Jeffries.

While Democrats are actively working to expand access to the ballot box, MAGA Republicans in the House, unfortunately, are doing exactly the opposite. Last week, House Republicans introduced and advanced through committee the most restrictive voting rights package we have seen in decades. The Republican package would make voting harder for millions of Americans by creating more barriers to the ballot box, including new obstacles to voter registration and mail-in voting.

The Republican package would allow the scourge of dark money to fester in our politics by loosening campaign finance safeguards and empowering wealthy, wealthy donors.

Let me be clear. Let me be very clear. Democrats will never allow this Republican package to become law and, instead, will focus our efforts on commonsense, real voting rights legislation like the Freedom to Vote Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the President of the Senate be authorized to appoint a committee on the part of the Senate to join with a like committee on the part of the House of Representatives to escort His Excellency Isaac Herzog, President of the State of Israel, into the House Chamber for the joint meeting on Wednesday, July 19, 2023.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 67, S. 794.

I ask unanimous consent that the Cornyn amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 79, S. 70.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a

third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.