Floor Statements

Mr. President, now on nominees, yesterday, I highlighted a number of accomplishments the Senate

Democrat majority made during the first hundred days of the Biden administration. Thanks primarily to the American Rescue Plan, the most sweeping Federal recovery effort in decades, shots are going into arms; money is going into people's pockets; and businesses, schools, and restaurants are starting to reopen.

Americans finally--finally--have some reason for hope. Jobs are coming back. The economic recovery is accelerating, and the pace of vaccinations has far exceeded even President Biden's own goals. After one of the most difficult years in recent memory, the first hundred days of the Biden Presidency and the new Senate Democratic majority have seen the country turn a corner. Slowly but surely, we are proving to the American people that government and the Senate can work for them.

As President Biden prepares to take stock of where we have come from and where we still need to go, with a joint address to Congress, it is worth looking back at some of the accomplishments of these first 100 days. Among those accomplishments is the fact that the Senate has confirmed the most diverse Cabinet in history, faster than under both Presidents Trump and Obama, and all of them with bipartisan support. Eleven are people of color, and 10 are women. Among them, we have a former teacher, a former construction worker, several former veterans, a small business man, even a musician--a far cry from the, shall we say, less economically diverse Cabinet chosen by the former President. Now, more than ever before, we have a Cabinet that looks like America.

In our Nation's history, the Treasury Secretary has only ever been a White man--an unbroken streak of 77 White men in a row. This Senate confirmed the first woman to serve as Treasury Secretary in our history, Janet Yellen. The list of firsts goes on: the first African American to serve as Defense Secretary, the first Black man to serve as EPA Administrator, the first ever indigenous American, and the first ever openly gay Secretary to lead any Cabinet Agency.

Last week, the Senate confirmed Vanita Gupta to Associate Attorney General--the first woman of color and the first civil rights attorney ever to hold that position.

Last month, Dr. Rachel Levine became the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, the first openly transgender Federal official in American history.

Federal Agencies have enormous influence over the policies that affect the day-to-day lives of the American people. Whether registering for Social Security, filing for unemployment or veterans' benefits, or seeking a small business loan, average folks interact with these Cabinet Agencies every single day, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of times.

Having capable, experienced, and energetic public servants at the top of these Agencies matters, and it matters, too, that they come from different backgrounds and have lived different experiences. By confirming historically diverse nominees, we are showing the American people that their government represents them and that all of their voices matter.

We also know that a Cabinet with diverse views will produce policies that better reflect the needs of a diverse Nation.

I am proud of the nominees we have confirmed over the first hundred days. As we move forward, the Senate will continue working with the White House on confirming nominees and judicial appointments that reflect the diversity and dynamism of our great country.

Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

In order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I would object to further proceedings.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank my good friend--our Senate pro tempore, our chairman of Appropriations, our longtime chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary, who has done a lot on patent work, et cetera--for his graciousness.

Madam President, now, the Senate has a lot to accomplish by the end of this week.

We will confirm several highly qualified nominees to the executive branch, starting today with the nominee for Deputy OMB Director, Jason Miller. Later this week, we will also confirm Janet McCabe for Deputy EPA Administrator, Colin Kahl for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Samantha Power for Administrator of USAID.

Our Senate committees will continue holding hearings and markups on at least a dozen other nominees. The Senate will also consider two important environmental infrastructure policies.

First, the Senate will take up the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act of 2021. This legislation passed through the Committee on Environment and Public Works with unanimous support. In fact, this water infrastructure bill is a core component of the Republican infrastructure proposal released last week. It also addresses many of the recommendations put forward by the Problem Solvers Caucus last Friday. So I hope that this is a signal to the entire Senate that we should work together on infrastructure where and when we can.

Senators Carper, Duckworth, and Cardin have been outstanding leaders on this issue and have made sure Members from both sides of the aisle have had the opportunity to offer amendments, just as we did last week on the anti-Asian hate crimes bill. We are going to continue working with our Republican colleagues on the timing for a vote on the water infrastructure bill. On a topic this straightforward and bipartisan, I hope that our Republican colleagues will cooperate so that we may finish the bill ASAP. We have a lot to do.

I want to also thank Senator Capito, the ranking member of the committee, for working with Senators Carper, Duckworth, and Collins so well.

The Senate will also vote on a measure this week to restore critical regulations on the release of methane into our atmosphere. In 2016, the Obama administration instituted a rule that required energy companies to better monitor and reduce methane leaks. The rule not only drew cheers from the environmental community, it earned the support of industry as well

Even though methane is far less talked about than carbon dioxide, it is far more potent. A tonne of methane warms the atmosphere 86 times more than a tonne of carbon dioxide. On the plus side, however, methane does not linger in our atmosphere as long as CO2 does, and emissions can be reduced rather cheaply. So, when it comes to combating climate change, tackling methane delivers a huge bang for your buck.

That is just what the Senate intends to do this week by reimposing commonsense rules to reduce methane emissions--hopefully, on a bipartisan basis. We already have the support of at least one Republican Senator. We welcome more. The industry supported this. Again, Donald Trump, often with just the nastiness of ``it was Obama's rule, so I ought to repeal it'' did. It hurts us big time. I want to be clear. The methane CRA is a big deal. This measure will help us address the climate crisis in a major way. It is nowhere close to everything we want or need, but it is very important.

Last week, President Biden set an ambitious goal for the United States to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade. This week, the Senate will take up the first of many important steps we need to take to achieve that ambitious goal.

Madam President, now, on our first 100 days, Thursday, the 29th, will be the 100th day since President Biden took the oath of office on the East Front of the Capitol. President Biden will mark the occasion with his inaugural address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.

Historically, the first 100 days have been a yardstick by which Presidential administrations have been measured. For the first time in recent history, however, due to the lateness of the Georgia runoff elections, Thursday also marks the 100th day of the new Democratic Senate majority and, on a personal note, my 100th day as majority leader.

Without exaggeration, the first 100 days of the Biden administration and the Senate Democratic majority have been more productive than nearly any in recent memory. Despite a delay in passing the organizing resolution and the time constraints imposed by the Presidential impeachment trial, the Senate has confirmed the most diverse Cabinet in history, faster than either of the prior two administrations. Every single Cabinet Secretary received a bipartisan vote in favor of confirmation.

Last week, by a vote of 94 to 1--again, led by the Presiding Officer and Senator Hirono--the Senate passed legislation to combat the recent surge in hate crimes, particularly against Americans of Asian descent. Then, of course, Congress passed the landmark legislation and the top priority of the Biden administration, the American Rescue Plan. It was the most sweeping Federal recovery effort in a generation, more than twice the size of the stimulus package after the financial crisis of 2008.

The Democrats promised big, bold relief. The Democrats have delivered big, bold relief. As a result, vaccinations are up; unemployment is down; and businesses, schools, restaurants, and bars are finally-- finally--starting to reopen. It is no wonder that more than 70 percent of Americans approve of the way that the Biden-Harris administration has handled the pandemic in the first 100 days.

For much of the past year, the country has been plagued by two major crises: a public health crisis and an economic crisis. That is what the Biden-Harris administration and the Senate Democratic majority inherited when they assumed power back in January. Let's look at how the country has progressed on both fronts.

First, when it comes to the pandemic, we have far outstripped even

the rosiest of predictions for the number of vaccinations. President Biden initially promised 100 million vaccinations to be administered in the first 100 days, but the pace of vaccinations was so fast that the President had to double his initial goal to 200 million in the first 100 days, and we have already reached it. It is fair to say that, in the first 100 days, America is winning the all-important ``arms race'' to get our citizens vaccinated.

On the most important measure of progress--getting the country protected against COVID-19--the new Democratic administration and congressional majorities have been a roaring success. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, our economy has gotten its own shot in the arm, too. Over the past several weeks, the Biden administration has delivered more than 150 million stimulus checks to the Americans who have needed them the most.

Weekly unemployment claims have fallen to their lowest level during the pandemic. The month of March saw the economy create nearly 900,000 jobs. Retail sales are surging. Consumer confidence has rebounded. Economic forecasters are now projecting that our economy could grow as fast as 7 percent this year. In the wake of the American Rescue Plan, the economic boost was so significant that forecasters had to increase their projections for global growth as well.

Our former President blithely predicted that electing Joe Biden would crash the stock market. It turns out President Biden's first 100 days have delivered the best stock market results in 75 years, since President Eisenhower.

At the same time, the Democratic majority in Congress has made sure that our Nation's economic recovery will be felt by everyone. The American Rescue Plan is expected to boost incomes of the lowest 20 percent by 20 percent. Guess what those in the top 1 percent will receive? It will be so contrary to what the Republicans did when they had power. They will get zero percent instead of the overwhelming percentage in their bill, their tax cuts. Just one policy in the American Rescue Plan--the historic expansion of the child tax credit-- is expected to cut child poverty in half.

The story of the first 100 days is about shots going into arms, checks going into pockets, and life finally returning to normal. The story of the first 100 days is about the country turning a corner and seeing some hope on the horizon. More broadly, the first 100 days of this administration and this Congress have proven two things: one, that the government can work for the American people; and, two, that the Senate can legislate.

The last few decades have brought faith in our government to alltime lows. You don't have to look very far in the past to find surveys about how Congress has been less popular than traffic jams, root canals, and Genghis Khan. Faith in our democracy and trust in our elections were brought to new lows by the persistent and mendacious lies by the former President, culminating in an armed insurrection here in the Capitol.

Part of our mission here in Congress, in working with the Biden administration, is to restore Americans' faith in our institutions and Americans' faith in our government. Through the American Rescue Plan and the successful roll-out of the vaccine, we are slowly proving to the American people that government can work for them.

So we have a long way to go, but in the first hundred days, this new Congress has made an important downpayment. Congressional approval is now the highest it has been since June of 2009.

Here in the Senate, the first hundred days have shown that this Chamber can legislate. Bipartisan work on the anti-Asian hates crime bill, the water bill this week, and hopefully an American competitiveness bill in the coming weeks proves that there are still many issues that unite Republicans and Democrats. Of course, our two parties are not always going to agree. In those instances, the Senate must still make progress on the challenges of our time. We did that through the American Rescue Plan.

So in the first hundred days, the Senate has accomplished a lot more than most observers might have predicted. The next hundred days will bring more of the same.

Madam President, I move to proceed to legislative session.

Madam President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 61.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call for the cloture motion filed today, April 26, be waived.

I yield the floor and once again thank my friend from Vermont.

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

Madam President, after nearly 2 weeks of Democrats and Republicans working together, the Senate is going to take a final vote on the anti-Asian hate crimes bill later this morning. The vote today on the anti-Asian hate crimes bill is proof that when the Senate is given the opportunity to work, the Senate can work to solve important issues.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Americans across the country have been victims of the surge of discrimination and racially motivated violence and bigotry. In New York, I attended rally after rally and heard one story after another about Asian Americans who were afraid to ride the subway, afraid to go to work, afraid to walk down the streets, and having to adjust their daily lives for fear of being spat upon, glared at, or even worse. This was not an occasional occurrence. It is occurring every day in just about every corner of America.

Now, racism has always existed in America, unfortunately and sadly, and the legacy of anti-Asian sentiment goes back centuries to dark chapters in our history like the Chinese Exclusion Act and the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II.

Now, we have made great strides since those days, but over the past several years, the forces of hate and bigotry seemed to have gained strength, too often encouraged by our former President. It is time for all of us to stand up.

By passing this bill, the Senate makes it very clear that hate and discrimination against any group has no place in America. Bigotry against one is bigotry against all, and I believe that passage of this bill will send two--two--very important messages.

One important message is to the Asian-American community. By passing this bill, we say to the Asian-American community that their government is paying attention to them, has heard their concerns, and will respond to protect them; and, second, by passing this bill, we will send a message to the country that should be all too obvious by now. Hate crimes will not be tolerated, and Federal law enforcement will do everything in its power to detect, deter, and, if necessary, prosecute crimes to the full extent of the law.

So this bill has a one-two punch, to assure the Asian-American community we are going after the bigotry against them and to tell the American people, particularly those bigots, we are going after you in a legal way, of course.

Now, yesterday, we reached an agreement to consider three more Republican amendments to the bill before a final vote. The legislation, as is, already includes significant bipartisan input, including modifications from Senator Collins and bipartisan legislation called the No Hate Act developed by Senators Moran and Blumenthal and modified by Senator Scott of Florida. Senator Warnock has also made sure the bill recognizes the recent tragedy in Atlanta in which six women of Asian descent were killed.

Through it all, Senators Durbin, Duckworth, and especially the bill's sponsor, Senator Hirono, have demonstrated exceptional leadership; the same for Representative Meng in the House.

Over the past 6 years, we have had too few opportunities to work together on timely, bipartisan legislation. Let this be a reminder that when Senators of good will work with each other, at the end of the day, we can achieve a good result. We can do it again in the next few weeks with a bipartisan water infrastructure bill, which will be on the floor next week, and soon thereafter, another bipartisan package of legislation concerning American competitiveness.

Let's continue the bipartisan momentum as we move into next week, but today I want to thank my colleagues who have worked together to bring this bill to the finish line. I look forward to seeing the anti-Asian hate crimes bill passed by this Chamber today and move one step closer to reaching the President's desk.

Madam President, on DC statehood, another matter, today the House of Representatives will pass a bill granting the District of Columbia official statehood. I applaud my House Democratic colleagues for taking this important step toward recognizing the full citizenship of more than 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia.

This is a matter of just representation. Our system of government is designed to give everyone in our country a voice in forging their own destiny. Most citizens do that by voting for Members of Congress and Senators from their States to represent them in this temple of democracy to advocate for their interests and to voice their concerns.

The District of Columbia has more residents than Vermont and Wyoming and nearly the same as Delaware, Alaska, and several other States, and they bear the full responsibilities and duties of citizenship, like residents in all those other States. DC residents can be summoned for jury duty. They have served in every war since the American Revolution. They pay Federal income taxes, just like residents from every other State. You can learn that from any license plate outside this building. Yet they are denied real representation in Congress--in the words DC borrowed from the Founding Fathers, ``taxation without representation.''

Sadly, the debate over DC statehood has taken a rather dark turn. Some of my colleagues on the other side, rather than fashion any argument on the merits, have taken to denigrating the basic worth of residents of the District of Columbia--a part of our country that is 47 percent African American.

One Member of the minority party went so far as to say lawmakers should ``go out to where the real people are across the country and ask them what they think [about DC statehood].'' ``[Get] out to where the real people are.'' Bigotry, bigotry, bigotry. I shouldn't have to remind my colleagues that it is shockingly inappropriate to imply that lives and occupations and rights of DC's residents are somehow less than their fellow citizens in other ``more real'' and almost always more White parts of the country.

We all know that the minority party opposes DC statehood because it fears giving political power and representation to American citizens if they might not vote for Republicans. It smacks of the effort going on right now in Republican legislatures all across the country to pass laws that overwhelmingly make it harder for minorities, poorer Americans, and younger Americans to vote.

The far right, the hard right--which seems to be so dominant in the party on the other side--is so afraid of losing political power and so unwilling to appeal to anyone who doesn't already agree with them that their strategy has become to restrict voting rights and deny equal representation in Congress to hundreds of thousands of Americans. So DC statehood, unfortunately, is part of a continuing thread of not allowing people their right to vote, to representation, that seems to be growing in the Republican Party, particularly here in the Senate and in legislatures throughout the country, unfortunately.

Self-government, voting rights: These are not Democratic rights. These are not Republican rights. They are American rights. They are issues of fairness and democracy. It is not about right and left; it is about right and wrong.

DC statehood is an idea whose time has come

Madam President, now on climate, this year's celebration of Earth Day comes with an ambitious new goal from the Biden administration: The United States should aim to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade. It is a great goal. I fully support it.

Not only is President Biden finally returning the United States to a position of global leadership in the fight against climate change, but he is showing that America is ready to ramp up our climate ambition beyond--beyond--the Paris Agreement.

Now, it will take extraordinary action to meet the marker that President Biden laid down, but he was exactly right to do it. If we need any reminders about what America can achieve when it puts its mind to something, President Kennedy committed to landing on the Moon over the course of a single decade. If America could reach that lofty goal in the name of ingenuity, in the name of exploration, surely we can achieve this goal in the name of saving the planet on which we live.

Now, I believe the best way to achieve this ambitious goal is through bold action by this Congress through legislation to reduce carbon pollution while creating millions of jobs and economic prosperity in a new clean energy economy. Any legislation without a serious and bold climate component will make it much, much harder to achieve President Biden's goal, and we must work to have a strong green climate component in the American Jobs Plan.

The Democratic majority here in the Senate is eager to get to work. One of the very first things I did when Democrats took the majority was to instruct every committee chair--the new committee chairs--to hold hearings on the climate crisis to begin preparing for landmark legislation. I repeat once again that any infrastructure bill we consider here in the Senate must include green infrastructure, create green jobs, and make significant progress toward the reduction of greenhouse gases.

Luckily, the Senate will have an opportunity to address another serious climate-related issue next week. The Senate will consider a Congressional Review Act bill before the end of the work period to reimpose critical regulations concerning the release of methane into our atmosphere.

Methane gets less attention than its big bad brother, carbon dioxide, but in truth, methane is like carbon dioxide on steroids. Over 20 years, a ton of methane will warm the atmosphere more than 86 times as much as a ton of carbon dioxide, but because it breaks down much faster than carbon dioxide, the gains we make in the reduction of methane emissions can reduce global warming even faster. Many of the things we need to do to reduce methane emissions are fairly cheap and cost- effective, like plugging leaks in fossil fuel infrastructure. So this made common sense, especially when our globe is at risk.

The Obama administration had instituted these commonsense rules of the road to encourage that sort of activity. It was widely supported, even by industry. The Trump administration, so typically and so unfortunately, reversed those rules in an act of pure idiocy. The Senate Democratic majority will soon put a bill on the floor to revert back to the original policy, which should never have been tampered with in the first place.

Reducing methane emissions will be only the first of many actions this Senate will take to combat climate change.

Madam President, one final issue. It has come to my attention that President Biden intends to have the United States formally recognize the Armenian genocide, becoming the first sitting U.S. President to do so. Great news. It is a long time coming and a step that I have called on Presidents of both parties to take.

Each year, I gather with Armenian Americans in Times Square to commemorate the annual anniversary of this atrocity. Every year, my heart breaks for the victims of the genocide and their descendants. There are very few left, but some very elderly people are sitting in the audience each year, reminding us how painful and how real that genocide was. The Turkish Government's idea of saying there was no genocide just defies history. I have seen the victims. I have talked to the victims.

Saturday marks the 106th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. I am so relieved, grateful, and moved that we

can finally commemorate the anniversary with the knowledge that the Government of the United States, led by President Joseph Robinette Biden, has recognized the truth of the Armenian genocide at last.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank my colleague from Maine and my colleague from Hawaii, as well as my colleague from Illinois, and so many others who have led on this issue.

In a moment, the Senate will vote on final passage of the anti-Asian hate crimes bill.

This long overdue bill sends two messages to our Asian-American friends: We will not tolerate bigotry against you; and to those perpetrating anti-Asian bigotry, we will pursue you to the fullest extent of the law.

We cannot--we cannot--allow this recent tide of bigotry, intolerance, and prejudice against Asian Americans go unchecked. A bedrock value of our multicultural society is that an attack on any one group is an attack on all of us.

By passing this bill, we tell our law enforcement agencies to prioritize anti-Asian violence and wield the sword to detect, deter, and prosecute hate crimes of all varieties. We send a clear message, a unified message, that hate has no place in America. And so, by passing this bill, we recommit ourselves to the most American of creeds, ``e pluribus unum,'' out of many one.

I urge a unanimous ``yes'' vote on this legislation, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 59.