Floor Statements

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 110, 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 ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 111, which is at the desk.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 112, which is at the desk.

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 ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned under the provisions of S. Res. 110 until 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 16; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, 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 proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Clarke nomination, as provided under the previous order.

Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Wicker.

Mr. President, now, over the weekend, as we all know, the U.S. banking system faced a significant threat after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. If the damage had spread across our financial system, the deposits and savings of tens of millions of families and small businesses could have been at serious risk.

Today, as we speak, thankfully, our banking system is stable thanks to the work of the Biden administration, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC on Sunday. I thank the President, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC for taking swift action to preserve confidence in the banking system, and the American people can rest assured that bank regulators have acted quickly and are doing everything they can to protect consumers.

In the days and weeks to come, Congress will look closely at what caused the run on Silicon Valley Bank and how we can prevent similar events in the future.

Mr. President, now, later today, I will take the first procedural steps to take up legislation repealing the Iraq AUMFs of 1991 and 2002.

After a lot of hard work from Senators Kaine and Young, as well as Chairman Menendez and Ranking Member Risch, this is the week the Senate will begin the process to end the legal authority that started the Iraq war two decades ago.

Every year we keep these AUMFs on the books, and every year we keep them on the books is another chance for future administrations to abuse or misuse them. War powers belong in the hands of Congress, and that means we have a responsibility to prevent future Presidents from exploiting these AUMFs to bumble us into a new Middle East conflict.

Americans are tired of endless wars in the Middle East, and we owe it to them and to our veterans and their families to repeal the Iraq war

Mr. President, now, earlier today, two Russian military aircraft conducted an unsafe intercept with an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone that was operating within international airspace over the Black Sea. This intercept was so dangerous and so brazen that the U.S. Air Force was forced to crash their drone into international waters. It is another reckless act by President Putin and his military, and I want to tell Mr. Putin: Stop this behavior before you are the cause of an unintended escalation.

We have seen this behavior from the Russian military before, and it will not deter the United States from conducting operations over the Black Sea. These aggressive actions by Russian aircraft are risky and could lead--I repeat--to unintended escalation.

The United States has routinely flown over the Black Sea since before Putin's illegal and reckless invasion of Ukraine, and I am confident our military will continue to do so.

Mr. President, now, on AUKUS, yesterday, in San Diego, President Biden joined his counterparts from the United Kingdom and Australia, and he announced the next steps in a historic arrangement known as

Mr. President, now, on the President's Executive order on guns, today, in Monterrey Park, CA--where, sadly, unfortunately, tragically, a gunman murdered 11 people in January during Lunar New Year celebrations--President Biden will announce a new Executive order to strengthen background checks and other commonsense gun safety measures.

I commend President Biden for taking this much needed step to fight the scourge of gun violence in our country.

After gunmen massacred dozens of people in Buffalo and Uvalde last year, the Senate defied the NRA and passed a bipartisan, commonsense, and lifesaving gun safety bill for the first time in decades. It was the first step Congress took since the Brady bill in 1994, which I was proud to author and lead passage of, which mandated Federal background checks on firearms.

Last year's bipartisan safety bill was a good, long-overdue step of progress, but we must do more. Gun violence remains a devastating sickness that festers deep within the heart of our Nation.

Democrats stand ready to keep working together to combat violence, and we hope a good number of our Republican colleagues will join us once again.

I hope my colleagues on the other side can free themselves from the vice grip of the NRA and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party and work with Democrats to pass more gun safety legislation in this Congress.

Mr. President, now, on insulin and the CBO, it is another important day for millions of Americans who rely on insulin. Following Eli Lilly's recent announcement that they are capping insulin costs at $35 a month, Novo Nordisk announced today that they are following suit, slashing prices on some insulin products by as much as 75 percent.

It is good news that these enormous drug pharmaceutical companies are waking up to the injustice of price gouging of Americans who rely on insulin daily. There is no justification--none--for having insulin cost $300 or $500 or more a month. People who need that insulin for their health, for their safety, for their lives can't afford it anymore, and this lowering of price is very important.

As we all know, we Senate Democrats took a major step in righting this wrong by capping insulin costs at $35 a month for Americans on Medicare. It is my hope that both parties can build on this good work with commonsense bipartisan legislation to extend that $35 cap to all Americans.

Lowering insulin costs is a good policy that everyone on both sides of the aisle should get behind. This is not a Democratic issue. This is not a Republican issue. It is something that affects people in every city, in every State and is an American issue.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 27.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.