Floor Statements

Madam President, November 20, 2022, marked the 27th World Day of Remembrance--WDoR--for Road Traffic Victims, commemorating the millions of people killed and injured on the world's roads. It is also a day to thank emergency responders for their role in saving lives, to reflect on the impact of road traffic deaths and injuries on families and communities, and to draw attention to the need for improved legislation, awareness, infrastructure, and technology to save more families from the tragedy of losing a loved one.

More than 1 million people die from road crashes every year, and tens of millions are seriously injured. Road traffic crashes are the No. 1 killer of young people aged 15-29 and the eighth leading cause of death among all people worldwide. Rochelle Sobel, president of the Association for Safe International Road Travel, highlighted the gravity of this issue and the imperative to fix it: ``Every 27 seconds, somewhere in the world, a person dies in a road crash.''

On this 27th anniversary of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, it is important to remember the history and recommit to the goals of this day. It was initiated in 1995 as the European Day of Remembrance and quickly spread around the globe to countries in Africa, South America, and Asia. In 2005, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 60/2, recognizing November 15 as the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Since that time, the observance of this day has continued to spread to a growing number of countries on every continent.

Last year marked the start of the new Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, during which the WDoR will highlight the reasons for all of the necessary actions to be taken during this coming decade. Indeed, the day has become an important moment to focus international attention on this preventable epidemic and as an advocacy tool in global efforts to reduce road casualties. As a result of the growing awareness and global call to action that World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims has generated, in September 2020, the United Nations passed a resolution declaring the years 2021 to 2030 a new Decade of Action for Road Safety. The declaration affirms the UN's commitment to work vigorously to implement a new, ambitious agenda to halve road crash deaths by 2030.

Additionally, the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.6 calls on governments and their stakeholders, including NGOs and private citizens, to address the personal, medical, and financial burdens associated with road traffic deaths and injuries.

The devastation of losing a child, parent, sibling, partner, friend, caregiver, or caretaker is immeasurable, as are the challenges of caring for a permanently disabled loved. Road traffic crashes are preventable, and so we owe it to our communities to work together so that the hopes and dreams of our loved ones are not shattered on the roads of the United States and the world. We must all take action to prevent these avoidable tragedies and save lives.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 5796 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the Leahy substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; 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.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 810.

Madam President, 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.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 849, 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. 850, submitted earlier today.

Madam President, 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 adjourn until 12 noon on Tuesday, November 29; 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 upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 449, H.R. 8404; further, that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

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

Mr. President. I rise today to honor the career of Gaye Olivia Brown, a dedicated public servant with more than three decades of government service, on the occasion of her retirement.

Maryland is home to a robust Federal workforce that serves our country with pride. Federal employees work day-in and day-out to provide crucial services to the American people. I have the honor of representing many of these dedicated individuals in the U.S. Senate.

For many years, Mrs. Brown has been part of that group, committing herself to government service locally and on the Federal level, for the Metropolitan Police Department, the Department of Defense, Andrews Air Force Base, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and finally, at the National Institutes of Health. At these Agencies and beyond, Federal workers help keep our country running, both in normal times and in times of crisis. I am honored to support this workforce as they fulfill their mission, just as Mrs. Brown has done with distinction.

I commend Mrs. Brown for 34 years of dedicated and faithful public service. I congratulate her on her well-deserved retirement.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled vote: myself for up to 10 minutes, Senator Stabenow for up to 10 minutes, Senator Cantwell for up to 5 minutes, and Senator Menendez for up to 5 minutes.

Madam President, I too want to thank the Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse, for his laser focus on the issue of disclosure and transparency. And I want to thank my colleagues here on the floor: Senator Wyden; Senator Stabenow; and Senator Merkley, who was here before; and others within our caucus.

In fact, every member of our Democratic Caucus supports the DISCLOSE Act. We support it because the stakes are so high for the future of our democracy. Billions of dollars that have crept in and now are gushing into our political system to influence our elections pose a grave threat to our Republic and to the future of our democracy.

Make no mistake, these are corporations and very wealthy people who are spending billions of dollars in secret money to influence people's votes so that they can get their way at the expense of the public interest. You have got a very few people with very deep bankrolls who are using their funds to try to shape our democracy and bend our democracy to suit their interests at the expense of everybody else.

And, as President Biden said in his remarks on this earlier this week, even foreign entities--foreign entities that are not allowed to contribute to political campaigns are engaged in these political expenditures--under current law, use dark money, front groups, to try to influence our elections and steer the course of our democracy here in the United States from overseas. That, by itself, should scare the hell out of every Senator and every American.

Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about how we got here. How

did we get to a place where, in the United States of America, for elections, special interests can spend billions of dollars to influence people's votes without telling the voters who they are? And make no mistake, they are not telling voters who they are because they don't want voters to know who is behind these ads.

Well, the story begins with the infamous 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court case of Citizens United. That decision opened the spigots and then floodgates to corporate spending--corporate spending in Federal elections. That is when the Supreme Court said: For spending in elections, we are going to say corporations are people too. Corporations can't go into the ballot box and push the lever, but for purposes of influencing everybody else's vote, we are going to say corporations are people too.

And that unleashed a huge amount of money into politics. The only way to address that part of Citizens United is, of course, either to have a Supreme Court that will reverse the terrible Citizens United decision or through constitutional amendment. I support that, but that is not happening anytime soon. But there is something that we can do right now and which we are going to vote on tomorrow, and that is the issue of secret, dark money because we can change that through our votes tomorrow.

After Citizens United, what you began to see was not just more money, not just a gusher of money from corporations and corporate entities going into elections, but more and more secret money flowing into elections. And you can see the pattern here of, back in 2006, about $5 million a year going into secret money in different ways; in 2020, $1 billion in that year alone. So the trajectory is increasing by the year, and as my colleagues have said, we also have the situation where one individual just contributed $1.6 billion that is going to flow in subterranean ways through our election process--one individual, $1.6 billion.

Now, here is a point I want to emphasize. Even in that really terrible Supreme Court decision, 5-4 decision, in Citizens United, the Justices--eight of the nine Justices in that decision called for more transparency in elections. Here is what Justice Kennedy wrote on behalf of eight of the nine Justices: that the disclosure of political expenditures ``provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.''

He went on to say that, with disclosure, ``citizens can see whether elected officials are `in the pocket' of so-called moneyed interests.''

This is Justice Kennedy. He voted for the notorious Citizens United decision, which opened the gushers of money, but he said, as this money flows through our system, we have a public interest in making sure voters know who is spending that money. And he says right here that it is important for citizens to know whether their elected officials are in the pockets of special interests.

So this vote is pretty clear in former Justice Kennedy's terms, which is, if you want dark money, you don't want the public to know who is supporting you in your campaigns, if you support continuing dark money.

So after that Citizens United decision, the alarm bells went off, as they should, and many of us said: We have got to pass a law to require disclosure. All this money is going to flow through the system. My God, at the very least, let's make sure that voters know who is spending the money.

So back in 2010--I served in the House of Representatives at the time--I authored the original DISCLOSE Act. My chief cosponsor was a Republican, Mike Castle from the State of Delaware, at the time. And we passed it. We passed that in the House of Representatives back in 2010. But when it came to the Senate, it hit a brick wall of Republican opposition.

And I must say, given what Republicans had said before the Citizens United decision about disclosure, it was a complete, 180-degree flip- flop and turnaround because the position that the Republican Senate leader Senator McConnell had taken for decades was, We don't need all these regulations to regulate political money, but we should have disclosure; we should have disclosure.

In fact, when he was on ``Meet the Press'' back in the day, in the year 2000, this was a hot issue because of McCain-Feingold. So he was asked why he voted no on one of these campaign finance provisions, and he said the following:

We need to have real disclosure. And so what we ought to do

is broaden the disclosure to include at least labor unions

and tax-exempt business associations . . . so you include the

major political players in America.

He went on to say--Senator McConnell:

Why would a little disclosure be better than a lot of

disclosure?

Well, I agreed with Senator McConnell in 2000. We want full disclosure and full transparency. But what happened was, as soon as the Citizens United decision came down and a gusher of money started flowing through the system, including through corporations, all of a sudden, all of a sudden: Hey, I didn't mean what I said about disclosure. I can have my cake and eat it too--lots of money and nobody knows where it comes from.

And, in a twist of history, when we passed the DISCLOSE bill out of the House, it came to the Senate, and the Senate version of that bill got 59 out of 100 votes. Every Democrat voted for it. It would have been 60 except for a terrible twist in history, which is Senator Kennedy passed away. And Senator Brown took his place, and Senator Brown voted against cloture on the DISCLOSE Act.

But, my colleagues, here is the fact: 59 out of 100 Senators wanted to move forward there, and but for the antidemocratic filibuster, we wouldn't have secret money in politics today. But here we are, and we have to deal with it in the here and now.

And it is interesting to hear the Republican leader. He said back in 2012, after we tried to move the DISCLOSE Act, on this Senate floor: Dark money is a ``problem that doesn't exist.''

Then, to take things even further, he rallied Republicans, and so, in the Republican national platform in 2012, it read: We ``oppose passage of the DISCLOSE Act,'' by name. We don't want the American people to know who is spending this money. We like dark money in politics.

So that brings us to today because what we saw since that vote in 2010 and then those comments by the Republican leader back in 2012 is this huge gusher of secret money flowing. And, interestingly now, it has also caught the attention of some of our Republican colleagues who have been complaining about secret money in politics, complaining that Democratic political organizations are spending secret money in politics.

As we know, Senator McConnell distributed to reporters an email entitled ``Democrats Let the Dark Money Flow and Like Its Power''--and like its power. And Senator Hawley tweeted about dark money from foreign groups, writing:

But who is funding this overseas dark money group--Big

Tech? billionaire activists? foreign governments? We have no

idea. Americans deserve to know what foreign interests are

attempting to influence American democracy.

This is Senator Hawley, the Senator from Missouri. And I don't say this often on the Senate floor, but I agree with Senator Hawley's question here. And tomorrow he and every Member of this body will have a chance to vote to say that, yes, we should know about what foreign entities and interests are spending money in our elections, because there is all sorts of money--in fact, about $300 billion a year in foreign money--being laundered through our whole economy, and we don't know how much of that these days is flowing into elections. As President Biden said, we need to pass this to do that.

And if you look at some of the titles of this bill that Senator Whitehouse has put forward, they are pretty simple. There are whole sections of the bill to get at the question of foreign money in our elections. I don't know why anyone is going to oppose that.

Here we are, 12 years later, after that vote in 2010 that got 59 out of 100 votes. It would have had 60, except that Senator Kennedy passed away. And our Republican colleagues, who are now complaining about secret money, have a chance to work with us and vote with us to get rid of it. Whether it is Democratic money, Republican money, somebody else's secret money, get rid

of it. Require transparency. That is what the DISCLOSE Act is all about.

So this is another chance for every Member of the Senate to align themselves with the overwhelming majority of the American people. Eighty percent support transparency disclosure, and they do it because they know how important it is to our democracy. Let's vote for this.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, throughout the past five decades, the Senate has recognized the important role of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences--USUHS--in maintaining the health and readiness of our Nation's uniformed services. Today, I am proud to congratulate this fine institution, located in Bethesda, in my State of Maryland, on its 50th anniversary.

Public Law 92-426 established USUHS in 1972 to ensure continuity and leadership for uniformed medicine. USUHS is our country's only Federal graduate and undergraduate degree-granting health sciences university in support of the Department of Defense--DOD--and the Nation. Since its founding, USUHS has graduated more than 11,000 military health professionals.

USUHS has met every goal and mission envisioned by the founders of this remarkable institution. It is the only institute of higher learning to provide a unique military curriculum that educates and trains leaders in healthcare relevant to the military mission. USUHS provides its students a rigorous healthcare education combined with equally demanding training in leadership, military medicine, and public health. Students learn in a variety of settings, including modern classrooms and laboratories, a renowned simulation center, major military hospitals and clinics, summer operational experiences with military units, and progressively challenging field exercises. Students leave USUHS prepared to care in any setting, from a modern tertiary care hospital or primary care clinic, to the sickbay of a warship, the cargo bay of a critical care air transport flight, an operating room in a combat support hospital, or a treatment tent in a refugee camp.

The USUHS Hebert School of Medicine, compared with any other U.S. medical school, contributes the highest number of physician accessions to the military services. USUHS alumni comprise 25 percent of the Military Health System physician force. An independent analysis of USUHS conducted by the Institute for Defense Analysis found that, on a value basis that factors in retention, USUHS may offer the highest return on physician education and training investments. They concluded that USUHS graduates deployed more than 250 percent longer than other accession sources--an average of 731 days compared to 266--have higher proportions of officers in the mid- and senior-rank levels compared to other accession sources, have higher representation in special operation units compared to other accession sources, and attain a higher percentage of specialty board certification compared to other accession sources. The school's graduate education programs in biomedical sciences, public health, clinical psychology, health professions education, and health policy have granted more than 1,000 graduate degrees. Many of these alumni are now serving as key leaders in the Federal Government, academia, research foundations and laboratories, and in public health. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, USUHS School of Medicine alumni supported under-resourced communities, as well as national and global preparedness and response efforts, and were involved in evaluating new COVID-19 test methods, including those that received emergency use authorization approvals. The USUHS Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing educates advanced practice nurses for the Federal Nursing Chiefs to provide the Nation with the highest quality graduate nurse clinicians, scientists, scholars, and leaders dedicated to Federal service, health readiness, and global engagement. Its nurse anesthesia program is consistently ranked among the top four in the country by U.S. News & World Report's Best Graduate School rankings, which also ranks the school's doctor of nursing practice degree program in the top 13 percent in the country. The USUHS Graduate School of Nursing has received multiple national recognitions and was acknowledged by the National League for nursing twice, as a Center of Excellence for enhanced student learning and faculty development. The USUHS postgraduate dental college's 19 postgraduate dental specialties and 26 postgraduate year-1 programs ensure that military dentists attain advanced skill sets beyond those acquired upon graduation from dental school. These advanced dental skills are essential to meeting the needs of warfighters before, during, and after military operations. The university's college of allied health sciences awards undergraduate college credit and degrees to enlisted medical professionals and trainees and has graduated more than 3,500 students from its 23 programs since its inception.

Over the past five decades, USUHS has played a critical role in national defense, in times of war and peace. USUHS graduates continue to be integral to combat deployments, humanitarian missions, disaster response, and public health crisis response throughout the world. USUHS provides its expertise to DOD and the Nation in global health, TBI, PTSD, disaster medicine, neuroscience, and human performance. During the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Military Health System achieved the highest rate of survival from battlefield injury in the history of the world. USUHS graduates and faculty have not only made important contributions to clinical practice in combat environments around the world, but to medical science and research, benefiting both the military and the public at large.

The value of the university's science is increasingly recognized by the National Institutes of Health--NIH--and other funders; USUHS is ranked 80 of

900 U.S. institutions of higher learning, putting it in the top 10th percentile in total research and development expenditures by the National Science Foundation. USUHS researchers generate high-impact military-relevant discoveries and products to protect the health of our forces and assure the national health security of the United States. Since its founding, USUHS has filed more than 2,273 patents for research discoveries and technology inventions. Its faculty have been the recipient of eight consecutive Federal Laboratory Consortium Technology Transfer Awards for their ground-breaking work.

USUHS's centers focus on advancing research, education, and public health. Its National Center for Disaster Medicine and Public Health has been at the forefront of the national Stop the Bleed and First Aid for Severe Trauma campaigns to encourage bystanders and high school students. USUHS was designated as the Nation's first National Stop the Bleed Campus in 2019. The USUHS Center for Biotechnology--4DBio3--uses 3D printers to produce military-relevant medical products in extreme austere environments for the benefit of our warfighters. It has also developed technology to generate red blood cells which would allow for whole blood transfusion and could become the answer to blood shortages on the battlefield, other remote locations, and in hospitals. The Surgical Critical Care Initiative at USUHS created an application to accurately predict whether a patient, who has just been admitted to the emergency room, would need a massive blood transfusion. USUHS researchers and trauma surgeons have also led the development of knowledge, skills, and abilities metrics that are being used to inform changes to patient workflow, increasing surgical workloads, and, ultimately, enhancing readiness within the Military Health System. These KSA metrics have proven vital to measuring military surgeons' individual clinical skills readiness, while also providing data to leadership, increasing clinical readiness-generating workload within the MHS.

USUHS has long met and exceeded the original intent of its founders to educate a career cadre of physicians to support our Nation's military. Over the past 50 years, USUHS has contributed immeasurably to the health and future of our Nation, through its stellar education and training programs, its innovative research, and its development of the next generation of military medical leaders and scientists. I am delighted to recognize and congratulate the remarkable students, faculty, and staff of USUHS for their outstanding work and commitment to serving our country, and my best wishes for a happy golden anniversary to our Nation's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Mr. President, I would like to engage my friend the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Wyden, in a colloquy.

One of the many vital investments made in the Inflation Reduction Act to reduce energy costs and confront the climate crisis is the qualified commercial clean vehicle credit. This provides a tax credit of up to $40,000 for qualified heavy commercial electric vehicles, or up to $7,500 for qualified commercial electric vehicles weighing less than 14,000 pounds, which includes both trucks and mobile machinery.

Mobile machinery is a vehicle that is unrelated to transportation, such as a forklift or bulldozer. The qualified commercial clean vehicle credit utilizes an existing statutory definition of mobile machinery, the purpose of which is to provide for an exemption from the excise tax on heavy trucks that is deposited into the highway trust fund.

The new application of the mobile machinery definition will raise novel questions about which types of vehicles qualify as mobile machinery, in cases where the determination was not necessary in the context of the excise tax on heavy trucks. One such case is commercial lawn mowers, most of which currently have gas-powered engines that are a significant source of pollution.

I ask the chairman of the Finance Committee whether commercial lawn mowers can fit the criteria of mobile machinery and, therefore, qualify for the qualified commercial clean vehicle credit, provided that the vehicle meets the other criteria for the credit.

I thank the Senator for clarifying this point, and I share that understanding.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment from the Senator of Utah. This would take out one of the provisions in the bill which will directly help homeowners save money on their heating bills and on their cooling bills. It does so by giving them a rebate for home energy efficiency improvements, and then they will save for the rest of their lives in their home.

I also find it a little ironic this would put money in local governments, which our Republican colleagues said have received too much money under the American Rescue Plan, and you have been trying to claw that back.

I would urge my colleagues to stick with the provision in the bill. It is an important part of the bill that both provides consumers with savings and to address the climate crisis.

I urge my colleagues to reject the amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 5316

Mr. President, I was just listening to the majority leader outline some of the disastrous policies that Republicans have proposed to make, including putting Medicare on the chopping block by making it discretionary.

I want to talk a little bit about the good things that Democrats have done, some on a bipartisan basis and some which it looks like we are going to have to do alone for the American people. In just the last few weeks, this U.S. Senate has made historic progress tackling a number of very real and very urgent challenges that our country faces.

We passed the first major gun reform bill in 30 years. We passed historic legislation to boost American manufacturing of essential semiconductor chips--important to our economy and our national security. We passed the PACT Act so that veterans exposed to toxins will get the care they deserve. Just yesterday, we voted to admit Finland and Sweden as new members of NATO, therefore expanding and strengthening the Atlantic alliance in the face of Putin's brutal war against Ukraine.

These are major accomplishments, but now is not the time to rest on our laurels, now is not the time to coast, because we have to do everything we can to fight back against rising prices, against inflation, which has been driven in recent months by what I call the three p's: Putin's war and its impact on energy and food prices; the pandemic and the supply chain disruptions it has caused; and price gouging by big oil companies that are reaping record profits. Those have been big drivers of inflation.

I have listened to my Republican Senate colleagues here on the floor week after week trying to exploit inflation as a campaign issue, as if it were all caused by the policies of President Biden. The American people know much better. They also know that while Republicans are talking up inflation and talking down the economy, we in the Democratic majority had a plan to do something about rising costs, and it is called the Inflation Reduction Act.

In coming days, we are going to be voting on that, and I hope--I hope--our Republican colleagues will have a change of heart, at least some of them, because here is the bottom line: The Inflation Reduction Act will drive down prices over time, it will reduce the deficit, and it will do that without raising taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year, not by one dime. It does all that while addressing four major issues facing our country: the need to lower healthcare costs, the need to address the climate crisis, the need to fix parts of our broken tax system--this is a start on that--and reducing the deficit.

First, on healthcare, all of us in this Chamber have known that the costs of prescription drugs in the United States are way too high, out of control. Our constituents--Americans--pay twice as much on prescription drugs as people in other advanced economies around the world. And it is not just squeezing people's pocketbooks--that, of course, hurts--it is also jeopardizing their health.

If you look at the 2022 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, they found that nearly one in three adults reported that they had not taken their medications as prescribed due to cost. They were too expensive. They couldn't afford them. That financial pressure is hard on everybody. It is especially so on many of our seniors. Nearly 9 in 10 older adults take prescription medication, but millions of Americans 65 and older say they struggle to afford their medicine.

Here is what adds insult to injury: American taxpayers spend over $40 billion every year to support cutting-edge medical research happening at the National Institutes of Health in my State of Maryland. That is a great investment for our country. It helps discover and it helps develop and produce many of the life-changing medications that are available to American families today and to people around the world. But it is just not right for American taxpayers to invest $40 billion a year in developing drugs that are then sold by American pharmaceutical companies here in the United States for two, three, four times as much as they are sold overseas.

People throughout the world benefit from the great research done at places like NIH, and they pay lower costs on the medicines developed from that research than Americans who helped fund the research in the first place. That is just not right. That is why the Inflation Reduction Act finally empowers the Medicare Program to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Private insurance companies negotiate volume discounts every day, all the time, to try to get a better deal for their members. Why should we tie the hands of the Medicare Program?

I say ``finally'' because the Presiding Officer and I and many others in this Chamber have worked for not just 1 or 2 years but for decades to try to achieve this, and every time, the pharmaceutical industry has succeeded in blocking it because if you take away the power of Medicare to negotiate drug prices, it means they get to write the bill themselves. So this is important.

It is also accompanied by a cap on Medicare Part D out-of-pocket spending to $2,000 a year.

Last but not least, this legislation extends the important work we achieved through the American Rescue Plan to lower the healthcare costs for people who get their insurance through the affordable care exchanges. In my State, Marylanders are saving an average of $80 every month on their healthcare premiums because of that provision from the American Rescue Plan, which this bill will extend for 3 more years.

We are joined in this effort by a vast coalition of Americans who have been pushing for years to address prescription drug prices, including AARP and its 38 million members who support this bill.

Meanwhile, we have seen some billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies pouring their profits into negative ads to try to defeat this bill. In fact, just last night, I saw two or three of them within the space of about an hour as I was flipping channels at home. But I think the country is pretty clear on what is at stake here. On the one hand, you have tens and tens of millions of Americans who will benefit from lowering the costs of prescription drugs. Yet you have Big Pharma trying to maintain this privileged position where we don't have to negotiate with them in order to boost their profits.

So let's be clear on what we are going to do. We are going to allow Medicare to negotiate prices, and that will lower the costs for seniors. We are capping out-of-pocket spending for seniors. We are making it more affordable to get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Yet, right now, as of today, we have every one of our Republicans voting no.

When I go around Maryland, this is not a party or a partisan issue. All of my constituents want us to take this action. The same is true of climate change. Most Americans, regardless of party, recognize the very real harm caused by climate change. They just have to look around them or turn on the news. But apparently, when you enter the Senate Republican Cloakroom, you go into a science-free and fact-free zone. Many of our colleagues still doubt the fact of human-caused climate change. But that is out of touch with the American people, who see the harm every day and also see the promise of developing a clean energy industry.

That is why our legislation makes this big investment in more rapidly deploying clean energy technology, and in doing so, we are projected to cut U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2030. We should move even faster, but at least this gets us in the game to hitting the targets that we have to. We will do that while supercharging the development, manufacturing, and deployment of wind, solar, and battery power.

I want to talk about a couple of provisions in this bill--there are many--a couple that I have worked on over the years.

First, this bill includes what is called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, $27 billion, some of which could support a national climate bank, which is an initiative I have been working on since my time in the House of Representatives and now in the Senate with my colleague Ed Markey and in the House today with Congresswoman Debbie Dingell.

A national climate bank would be a magnet for private investment in new sustainable technology, channeling more capital into the clean energy space and lowering the risk to investors. For every $1 of public financing through a national climate bank, we project it will draw in $7 to $10 of private investment, to turbocharge investments and jobs in clean energy. In addition, it targets a large share of investments to low-income and disadvantaged communities that often lack access to financing for clean energy and energy efficiency projects.

This bill also includes another provision I have worked on for a long time, the bill I introduced called HOPE for HOMES. I have worked on it with a bipartisan group of colleagues in both the House and Senate. In the House, that includes Congressman Peter Welch and Congressman Dave McKinley and, here in the Senate, Senator Coons and Senator Shaheen.

The HOPE for HOMES legislation that has been incorporated into this bill will provide Americans with sizable rebates and with tax credits to retrofit their homes with clean energy and energy efficiency technology. So it will not only help us meet our climate goals and our pollution reduction goals, it is also going to save consumers up to $750 every year on their heating and cooling bills. So we are going to give people a rebate to make their homes more energy efficient, and they will save money as a result.

It also invests in clean energy jobs training so that we have the people power to help folks in every neighborhood around the country access the help and the workers they need. It is estimated to help generate 80,000 jobs over the next couple years in this important area.

The Inflation Reduction Act also includes major investments to develop a clean energy manufacturing base to reduce our reliance on foreign imports of clean energy products, including $30 billion in tax credits designed to accelerate the manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and critical minerals right here in the United States.

China has made it one of its goals--and they have been very open about it--to dominate the clean energy technology space for years to come. We need to make sure that we manufacture critical technologies and products right here in the United States.

I want to give you a great example from my State of Maryland, which is at the vanguard of a budding offshore wind industry. Right now, we have two companies in Maryland--Orsted and U.S. Wind--that are building new wind turbine fabrication centers in our State to support their offshore wind farms coming to the mid-Atlantic--two major projects off Maryland's Atlantic coast.

The Deputy Secretary of Commerce was just in Baltimore yesterday talking about apprenticeship programs that will help support 10,000 jobs, 10,000 Maryland jobs, as part of this offshore wind manufacturing. That is just in the State of Maryland, and we can do that across the country in terms of offshore wind in coastal States and, of course, interior wind for others.

These are really important provisions that I have talked about-- fighting the climate crisis, lowering the cost of prescription drugs-- so let's talk about how they are paid for.

Unlike the Republican tax bill in 2017, which provided huge tax giveaways to big corporations and very wealthy individuals, this legislation actually will both pay for itself through the cuts made and recycled and through fixing parts of our broken tax system. We have a lot of work to do to fix our tax system, but this is a downpayment in terms of the policy changes in this bill.

First, we are going to beef up IRS enforcement to go after wealthy tax cheats, and this is an important issue. I chair the subcommittee that oversees the IRS, and we have been pushing for years to make sure that the IRS has the resources and the expertise to track down taxes that are already due and owing from very wealthy people who come up with elaborate tax dodges.

Right now, we estimate there is anywhere from $500 billion to $1 trillion in taxes each year that are owed but not paid. Think about that--up to $1 trillion every year in taxes that are owed but not paid, and the people who are suckered are all the people who pay when you have these very wealthy tax cheats skirting their responsibilities. So this bill will address that issue.

Second, we make sure that big corporations invest in the success of everyday Americans. In 2020, 55 huge American corporations paid zero-- zero--in taxes, despite a combined $40.5 billion in profits--$40.5 billion in profits from these 55 companies; zero taxes paid.

Small businesses across the country are paying their taxes while some of these big corporations are not. That is not fair. It needs to change.

That is why the Inflation Reduction Act includes the 15 percent minimum tax on profits of corporations that have over $1 billion in annual profits.

And I want to thank the Presiding Officer for his leadership on this issue.

Third, our legislation would tighten the rules on what is known as carried interest, which allows hedge fund managers to pay a lower rate on their income than the rate their employees pay on theirs--the classic example of how a big hedge fund CEO can pay a lower tax rate than their receptionist. This is a fact under our current Tax Code, and I hope we will keep this provision in this bill because this loophole, the carried interest loophole, is Exhibit A of some of the biggest unfairnesses in our Tax Code.

So taken together, the measures to lower the cost of prescription drugs, lower the cost of energy to American households and consumers, reduce the deficit--these measures will reduce inflationary pressures that are bearing down on working families. You don't have to take my word for it. In just the last few days, economists from all over the country have spoken out in favor of this approach and supporting this legislation.

One hundred twenty-six leading economists recently wrote to the congressional leadership:

This proposal addresses some of the country's biggest

challenges at a significant scale. And because it is deficit-

reducing, it does so while putting downward pressure on

inflation.

And that is key. Unlike that Republican tax giveaway in 2017 that added $2 trillion to our national debt, we are actually reducing our deficit, and by reducing the deficit, you also put downward pressure on inflation.

In recent months, I have heard the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, often citing former Secretary of Treasury Larry Summers about Larry Summers' views on the economy and inflation.

Well, here is what Larry Summers had to say recently about the bill we will be voting on:

The prescription drug provisions, energy incentives, and

the increased Medicare benefits will all contribute over time

to much needed inflation reduction.

And just yesterday, former Secretary Summers was joined by former Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, who, of course, served under former President George W. Bush, who with other Secretaries wrote:

. . . we support the Inflation Reduction Act which is

financed by prudent tax policy that will collect more from

top-earners and large corporations.

And, again, by using those revenues to reduce the deficit, we put downward pressure on inflation.

I just, as we close here, want to contrast that to the approach that Republicans took in 2017 with their tax giveaway.

As I said, that ballooned the deficit by $2 trillion. It also handed the top 1 percent income earners an average tax cut of $69,000 each in 2018 alone. So just in 1 year, about a $70,000 tax cut to the top 1 percent. And the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 43 percent of the growth in economic output from the 2017 tax law flowed to foreign investors in that space. So foreign investors have holdings in U.S. corporations. That tax cut to American corporations--yes, it flowed to some very wealthy Americans, but a lot of it flowed offshore to foreign investors.

So what we have seen from our colleagues across the aisle is big tax cuts to corporations and the very wealthy, not just here at home but benefiting others around the world, in contrast to this, which does ask big corporations to pay their fair share--minimum of 15 percent--and reduces the deficit as we invest in job creation and reduce prices here at home.

So this is a win for families; it is a win for seniors; it is a win for our planet, our economy. It is a win for the country.

So I hope as this debate goes forward, that we will focus on the facts, listen to what it does, because this is a comprehensive piece of legislation that does help us tackle some of the key priorities in front of our country, and we are hearing that from our constituents every day.

So I am proud to support this legislation. Let's get it done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Russia's brutal and unprovoked war of choice against Ukraine has now reached its 5th month. But while Vladimir Putin had hoped his war would divide the Atlantic alliance, it has in fact brought us closer together. Today, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is stronger than ever, so strong in fact that new states are being brought into the fold. I am proud to vote today in favor of approving Finland and Sweden's entry into NATO. Their membership at this moment is critical to countering Putin's threats to global security--and especially to nearby, vulnerable nations. As I have already stated publicly with the bipartisan members of the Senate NATO Observer Group, Finland and Sweden are longstanding security and economic partners who already share the collective values that guide our alliance, and I welcome the addition of these two highly capable countries--and the people of Finland and Sweden--to NATO. Their decision to join NATO further reveals how Putin has made a huge strategic blunder, further strengthening the bonds among democratic nations determined to resist his authoritarian reach.

Ahead of this vote on adding Finland and Sweden to NATO, I would like to address Senator Paul's amendment regarding article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and the Constitution. Let's be perfectly clear: There is no question that the protocols of any treaty do not--and cannot-- supersede the provisions of the U.S. Constitution. That premise has governed U.S. foreign policy since our founding. And it is in keeping with that long tradition of fidelity to the Constitution that I rise in strong opposition to Senator Paul's

amendment. This amendment is unnecessary, and it ignores the ultimate supremacy of the Constitution over foreign treaties. Not only that, but this amendment even goes so far as to ignore the substance of the North Atlantic Treaty itself. Article 11 of the treaty explains that ``its provisions [shall be] carried out by the Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional processes''--affirming the ultimate supremacy of the U.S. Constitution in governing the actions of the United States. Given these facts, it is clear that Senator Paul's amendment, which would send the United States and the entire NATO community down a dangerous and unprecedented path, is predicated on faulty reasoning.

What is more, Senator Paul's amendment regarding article 5 and the Constitution threatens to weaken the NATO Alliance itself. The article 5 provision outlining the collective defense obligations of NATO members constitutes one of the central principles of the North Atlantic Treaty. The core premise of article 5 is very simple: An attack against one NATO country should be treated as an attack against all NATO countries. The strength of the NATO alliance depends upon the shared understanding of and respect for this special obligation by each and every member state. But Senator Paul's amendment suggests that each member state would be able to offer their own, differing interpretation of article 5, opening the door to confusion, ambiguity, and potential disorder among NATO members. Since the start of the NATO alliance, the Senate has voted eight times to admit a total of 18 new members, and on no such prior occasion was an understanding or reservation like this added. To do so now would only raise doubts about the nature of our article 5 commitment to Sweden and Finland.

For these reasons, I strongly urge the Senate to reject Senator Paul's amendment.

Madam President, I rise today to honor the achievements of Ms. Amy F. Woolf, a specialist in Nuclear Weapons Policy with the Congressional Research Service, on the occasion of her retirement.

Amy Woolf served the Congress with distinction for more than 34 years. Before joining CRS, she was a member of the research staff at the Institute of Defense Analyses and spent a year at the Department of Defense, where she contributed to the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Stanford University and a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Ms. Woolf is recognized throughout Congress, the military, and the nuclear weapons and arms control communities as an expert on issues related to U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and arms control. She has authored countless CRS reports addressing issues such as nuclear weapons strategy and doctrine, nuclear force structure, strategic arms control and the U.S-Russian arms control agenda, hypersonic weapons, and threat reduction programs in Russia and other former Soviet states.

A particular highlight of her tenure at CRS was her work supporting the Congressional debate on the New START treaty in 2010. Her unique knowledge of the issues positioned her as the go-to expert for members of Congress and their staff with questions about the treaty. She analyzed treaty provisions, helped staffers navigate false and confusing claims about the treaty, and provided needed historical context. She also gave seminars on the procedural aspects of ratification. Throughout the time that Congress considered the treaty, Ms. Woolf was available to members of Congress and their staff 7 days a week and answered questions after hours. Her work for Congress on this treaty lasted from the start of negotiations in 2009 through submission to the Senate and ratification in December 2010.

In serving the CRS mission, Ms. Woolf helped members of Congress and their staff navigate complex nuclear weapons issues by narrowing in on their specific needs and succinctly providing them with accurate, balanced, and complete information. She has equally served opponents and supporters of nuclear arms control treaties. She answered questions about the future of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal from a variety of congressional offices with diverse viewpoints. Ms. Woolf participated in seminars for congressional staff on a regular basis and could shift seamlessly from a 101-style overview of basic nuclear concepts for freshly minted Capitol Hill staffers to a lengthy in-depth briefing on U.S. nuclear posture and deterrence issues that would offer new insight to even the most seasoned policy advisor. Because of her three decades assisting Members of Congress and their staff, she demonstrated the keen ability to read her audience well and discern what information will be most useful to them. In an exceptional moment in 2018, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recognized her work from the dais after a hearing on Presidential authority over nuclear weapons. This followed a personal briefing for the chairman and prep work for the committee staff.

Ms. Woolf also earned a reputation in CRS for her tireless work to educate new analysts, researchers, and congressional staff. She is widely recognized in the policy community throughout the United States for her depth of knowledge, her understanding of both nuclear weapons capabilities and arms control, and her ability to clearly express complex issues associated with both. Ms. Woolf has been an indispensable asset to the U.S. Congress. I am proud to say she is also a Marylander.

Amy Woolf's deep well of knowledge and expertise will be sorely missed in the halls of Congress and throughout the nuclear policy community. Her colleagues and I join in wishing her all the best as she begins this next chapter in retirement.