Floor Statements

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 705.

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

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call for the cloture motion filed today, February 8, be waived.

Pursuant to S. Res. 27, the Committee on Financing being tied on the question of reporting, I move to discharge the Committee on Finance from further consideration of the nomination of Sam Bagenstos to be General Counsel to the Department of Health and Human Services.

I ask unanimous consent that the vote on the motion to discharge be at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the Republican leader, notwithstanding rule XXII.

Madam President, on Friday, our country received another extraordinary bit of news about the state of our economic recovery. Last month, the economy created 467,000 new jobs, far exceeding all expectations. This comes on the heels of news that our economy grew at its fastest rate in decades last year.

With last week's jobs numbers, the U.S. economy now has added a total of 6.6 million jobs in President Biden's first year in office. Let me say that again. In 1 year alone, the economy has added a whopping 6.6 million jobs back to the economy--the most ever recorded for a President's first year. This includes the creation of 367,000 manufacturing jobs--the most in 30 years.

For all the difficulties of the past 2 years and for the real challenges our economy faces today, this jobs number is a remarkable milestone. It is a reminder that who gets elected to office makes a big difference.

A year ago, Democrats promised to fix the mess our country was in after President Trump botched our pandemic response. We promised to lift our economy out of the abyss, to get people back to work, back to the classroom, and to do it safely by following the science. It is why Democrats worked furiously last year to pass the American Rescue Plan. It is why the Senate came together to pass USICA, which we will work to enact into law in the near future. It is why we came together to pass a historic, bipartisan infrastructure package that is now putting people back to work fixing our roads, bridges, internet, lead piping, and so much more.

With 6.6 million jobs gained and record economic growth in our first year, Democrats are delivering on our promise. And it is not just that job creation exceeded expectations; wages for American workers grew in 2021, and indications from top forecasters are that wages will continue to grow in 2022.

A year into executing our Democratic agenda, the American economy is in the midst of a historic turnaround, but the job is not over. Even as wages are up, Democrats are taking action to lower costs. We need to help everyday families afford the daily essentials, just as we need to relieve our supply chains and rebuild American manufacturing, including by focusing on critical technologies like semiconductors.

We took an important step in the right direction last week after the House passed the companion legislation to USICA. I applaud the House for passing this legislation, and I join my Senate colleagues from both sides of the aisle in saying we were pleased to have gotten the ball rolling when we passed the USICA bill--formally known as Endless Frontiers--last summer.

There is a lot of work to do to enact USICA into law, so I look forward to moving quickly to a conference so the House and Senate can bridge the differences between our proposals.

Once again, I want to thank my colleagues from both sides of the aisle for leadership on this very important legislation.

This will continue to be Democrats' focus: lowering costs, increasing wages, and bringing jobs back from overseas, while creating more jobs right here at home. It is what Democrats have worked on for the past 12 months as we have helped Americans get back to normal, and it is what we will continue to focus on as we enter year 2 of the Biden administration.

Madam President, now on forced arbitration.

On a different matter, later today, the House is expected to pass bipartisan legislation to end forced arbitration for sexual assault and sexual harassment. Once this important bill passes the House, the Senate will move as soon as this week to quickly take up this bill and send it to President Biden's desk. Congress can finally act to empower victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment to speak openly by nullifying forced arbitration clauses that push survivors into an often secret and biased process. We will not waste this historic opportunity.

There are numerous good proposals that we can address here in the Senate on a bipartisan basis, and this is one good example. We hope to do more. The Senate's forced arbitration proposal, the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021, passed unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee. Every Democrat and every Republican voted for it. I expect there will be strong, bipartisan support for it on the Senate floor. I want to thank my colleagues Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Senator Lindsey Graham for their leadership on this important legislation.

Madam President, next, bomb threats at HCBUs.

All of us in the Senate are disturbed, sickened, and outraged, frankly, at the wave of anonymous bomb threats that have recently arisen across dozens of historically Black colleges and universities. Since the start of this year, at least 26 HBCUs in a dozen States and the District of Columbia have received such threats, including a dozen schools last week. These bomb threats are clearly racially motivated, and I join my colleagues in condemning these acts of hatred in the strongest possible terms.

Bomb threats against HBCUs have an especially malevolent place in our country's history. Black Americans don't need to think that far back to when bombs were set off in the middle of the campus at Florida A&M University in 1999. To see these threats today is a reminder of the hatred we have yet to overcome.

Nothing can be more sickening than efforts to use fear, violence, and White supremacy in hopes of stealing the promise of a good education for millions of Black Americans. HBCUs are a vital part of our economy and education system, educating some of our Nation's greatest leaders, innovators, and activists.

I want to commend all the presidents, faculty, and staff across the country's HBCUs for responding to these acts of hatred with resolve and strength. And to all the students who attend HBCUs, this should never happen. Those responsible must--must--be prosecuted to the fullest extent of law.

My colleagues and I have been in communication with the FBI, Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Education on steps the Agencies and the Senate can take to address these violent threats. We are confident those responsible will be held accountable.

Madam President, on an entirely different matter, normally I don't make a point of remarking upon actions and statements of the Republican National Committee, which by now has completely fallen under the control of former President Donald Trump and his inner circle, but last week, they crossed a line, issuing a statement that censured two Republicans who stood up to the Big Lie, while also describing the insurrection of January 6 as ``legitimate political discourse.'' Their statement didn't even make mention of the violence that day.

There is no debate to be had here. January 6 was an armed insurrection. It was an attempt to reverse through violent means the outcome of a free and fair election, and it was fundamentally rooted in Donald Trump's Big Lie that the election of 2020 was illegitimate, which now the RNC seems to be giving its blessing officially.

For the national committee of one of America's two major political parties to officially sign on to the Big Lie--and more than that, to excuse the attack itself by attributing even a shred of legitimacy to it--is chilling and plainly dangerous. It puts us on a road where our democracy is at risk.

It is a sad commentary on how far the political arm of the GOP has gone that the RNC will go out of its way to punish its own Members who spoke out against the former President's lies, while defending the rioters who tried to undo an election with mob rule. Theirs will be nothing less than everlasting shame.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Madam President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 498.

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

Madam President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Madam President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 362.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions filed today, February 7, be waived.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, on USICA and the America COMPETES Act, in the first year under President Biden and the Senate Democratic majority, America saw its strongest economic growth in decades, including increases in wages--very, very important to the American people, who have not seen enough of that over the last two decades.

This week, Congress is taking a major step to build on that success by advancing legislation that will help lower costs, relieve U.S. supply chains, and bring manufacturing back to the United States.

Over the next 2 days, the House will debate and vote to pass a companion bill to the Senate's U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which we approved last summer, of course, with strong bipartisan support. I am pleased the House is taking this important step.

I have been pushing for months for progress on this legislation to strengthen supply chains and boost our technological competitiveness. Senators from both sides of the aisle want to see a competition and technology bill finally enacted. After this week, we will hopefully be one step closer to achieving that goal.

Americans are demanding bold solutions to help lower the cost of living, and businesses from coast to coast need help to relieve supply chains strained by the pandemic. Legislation along the lines of USICA is just what the doctor ordered. It would provide the long-term help our country needs to lower costs and help businesses grow right here at home--jobs here in America, not overseas.

One of the best examples of why this bill is needed is our Nation's dangerous chip shortage. The shortage has sent shock waves across the economy,

hamstringing the production of everything from cars, cell phones, refrigerators, medical devices, and equipment used by our military. It has increased the cost of all of those items, and American families are paying for those costs.

USICA would help relieve them and make sure these supply chain bottlenecks are relieved. Our proposal would provide $52 billion to help relieve those supply chain pressures and bring production back to America. Instead of relying on other countries for our chips, let's bring these jobs back home.

Typically, it is America that provides the research, the R&D in cutting-edge chips, but somehow this country has allowed them all to be made--or the vast majority of them to be made overseas. Let's make them here with good manufacturing jobs, in addition to making sure we stay at the top of the game in terms of research. USICA does both--increases R&D and increases manufacturing jobs--all here in America.

So I want to commend my colleagues for pushing this legislation forward. Of course, we will have much more work to do to bridge our two proposals together, but the House's vote this week sets us on a necessary course to passing these policies into law.