Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have joined my colleagues on the floor today. We have held the floor all night speaking out against the nomination of Russell Vought to lead the OMB, the most powerful Federal Agency you have never heard of, because it has the power to suspend payments, to direct funding, to cut things off, or to make funding flow. Russell Vought has a plan, it is called Project 2025, and it laid out how if President Trump were reelected--although he disavowed it on the campaign trail, he is implementing it now as President--he would issue Executive order after Executive order to slash Federal funding and shut down Federal programs.

I have spoken about how this is impacting Federal aid all over the world, foreign assistance, and how that is making us less safe and less secure; how those who cheer are the Chinese and Russians, the human traffickers and the drug cartels; and I have read from e-mails, calls, letters that I have gotten in my offices in Delaware and here in Washington, the alarm, the embarrassment, the concern of folks being pushed out of the Federal workforce and whose partners and programs are being shut down.

We will be less safe. We will be less strong. We will be less the America that we all promise we will work hard to be if Russell Vought is confirmed to lead the OMB.

I wouldn't trust this man to run a Wawa or a sports league or to run a 5K, and we are voting to empower him to run the most important and powerful Federal Agency you have never heard of but that will impact your life.

I will vote no, and so should all my colleagues.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

On behalf of foreign aid, which keeps us safe and saves lives, I vote no.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 51, which was submitted earlier today; further, 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.

Mr. President, if I might further expound on the resolution and respond to the comments by my colleague, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on which I serve, the resolution I sought to advance today is a simple statement of fact. It reviews the history of USAID--its creation as an independent Agency and its recognition in a law I helped write just last year, that to reorganize it explicitly requires congressional consultation and notification in advance.

The statement of the resolution, the core point of it, is that AID is central to advancing the national security of the United States because it mitigates threats abroad before they reach us here; it promotes global stability; and it addresses the root causes of migration and extremism and secures the leadership and influence of the United States in an era of strategic competition with the People's Republic of China.

Let me speak to a few points, if I might: the power of the purse, process matters, 1 percent, and who wins.

Rolling back the decades of work and relationships that the nonprofits and AID do around the world is creating a vacuum--a vacuum that will be filled by bad actors. So in a country where we have long funded the PEPFAR Program--started by President Bush, long supported on a bipartisan basis--that provides antiretrovirals and testing and nurses and support and clinics--to abandon that, to defund that, to shut that down simply creates an opening for a bad actor to come in and say: The Americans abandoned you. Sorry for your luck. Here we are. We want to help.

The Chinese have invested hundreds and hundreds of billions in advancing their interests through investing in infrastructure, building partnerships in critical minerals, becoming the leads on port operations, and delivering humanitarian aid.

We should not shut down our assistance to the world in a way that creates this vacuum.

Who wins? is the first question. My concern is, our adversaries.

Second, process matters. As those of us who are lawyers know, it is backward to start with an Executive order that shuts down the funding for an organization and an entity, to invade and occupy its headquarters, to have an unelected Department get into its systems, to lay off and furlough its senior leadership, and then notify Congress of the intent to begin a conversation about reorganization.

I welcome a chance to have a conversation about the future of our development assistance around the world, and my hope is that it will continue because I have case after case to review here about the good work it does. But to shut down the funding and to cause lots of our partners to lay off their key staff and then begin a conversation about reorganization is to get it backward in terms of process and the law.

I am an appropriator. Why should we bother coming to an agreement on appropriations here in the Senate, pass a law, send it to the President, he signs it, and then in the next Congress, the next President--they can shut it down and claw it back. It gets to the very question of the power of the purse, which, in article I of the Constitution, is the power of this body.

Going forward--of course, as my colleague said, elections have consequences. It is true that President Trump and the new majority here will put their imprimatur on the policy priorities across a wide range of Agencies and programs--absolutely--and I expect that discussion and that fight. But this is reaching back and shutting down.

One percent. One percent--actually, less than 1 percent of the total Federal budget goes to these vital humanitarian programs around the world. I will give you a few examples of what has been stopped in its tracks.

A U.S. organization funded through AID has stopped its counterterrorism work in the Philippines that was reducing the appeal of terrorist recruitment and radicalization. We have walked away from that work.

In Mexico, an organization that reduces the number of children recruited by gangs to help move drugs and migrants across our border has had its funding cut off.

I remember trips that I took, bipartisan delegations I was a part of that went and visited AID-funded work where folks were delivering critical care. St. Mary's Clinic in Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya--one of the worst informal resettlement slums I have ever been in my life, and these dedicated, caring, capable folks were delivering vital life assistance. In Liberia, during Ebola, I will never forget meeting with the nurses, the doctors, the volunteers, the Liberians, who were helping save lives.

Why does this matter? Today, there is an Ebola outbreak in Kampala, Uganda. There is a Marburg outbreak in Tanzania. It is the disease monitoring and testing, it is the clinics and the nurses that keep these diseases controlled and managed on the other side of the world before they come here.

Failing to sustain this work in an efficient and effective work way is to fail to show the values of the United States, is to show we are not a reliable partner, is to show that the decades of bipartisan support for critical initiatives like PEPFAR have been abandon because they are no longer considered a smarter strategic investment by one party, while the other party will fight for it.

My fondest hope is that we will yet find there is bipartisan support for continuing and sustaining these investments, but it is unclear because the unelected leader of DOGE, Elon Musk, is even now tweeting: Shut it down. Close it off.

My hope is that Secretary Rubio's comments today on television about sustaining many of the critical functions of AID will win out, but I am not confident because it is unclear to me who is really driving this initiative.

Let me close. We know that diplomacy and development stand alongside defense in being critical to our national security. President Trump's first Defense Secretary, Gen. James Mattis, said to us in a hearing that if foreign aid were to get cut, he would need to buy more bullets because foreign aid around the world helps us build relationships of support, combat terrorism and extremism, advance our values and priorities, and makes us safer and more secure.

I cannot think of a more troubling development than that this long- trusted, capable, bipartisan effort at helping bring our values to the world and helping secure our Nation would be cut off abruptly, roughly, in a way that violates the law and the spirit of our long bipartisan compromise.

Who wins if we do, in fact, shut this all down? It is our adversaries. It is terrorists. It is drug cartels. It is Russia. It is China. It is those we have held at bay through the great work of this organization and its dedicated servants for decades.

My hope is that even though this resolution was opposed and thus defeated

tonight, the determination to support this great work will survive and thrive and prevail.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if I might, one of my own pressing concerns I have raised with colleagues here on the floor tonight is that even in cases where Secretary Rubio has given a waiver to try to keep programs like PEPFAR going, money is not flowing. Several Republican Senators have posted and spoken to this issue today.

If Secretary Rubio is in charge of this initiative, those waivers should lead to funding being restored. If he is not, if this is really Elon Musk's vision of ``shut it all down,'' then what is happening on the ground today in country after country will show us where we are really headed, which is the complete abandonment of our global leadership in humanitarian relief and development.

I pray that we can work together to ensure that the critical work of dozens of household-name nonprofits is not abandoned and that what is left of AID is not allowed to bleed out while we here in the Senate debate it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to address the chaos that has been caused by this week's disastrous, unprecedented, and unconstitutional funding freeze directive.

Then-Candidate Trump said on the first night of the Republican National Convention: Starting on day one, we will drive down prices and make America affordable again.

I don't think the actions of this week have contributed to making America affordable again or driving down prices at all. Instead, when the White House abruptly announced a complete halt to all domestic grants--grants that covered trillions of dollars of spending to thousands of organizations, from medical research to police and fire, from construction projects to daycares and senior centers--it caused great chaos and concern. I got calls, texts, and emails from hundreds of Delawareans--from the State and local governments, from nonprofits, from business leaders--saying: What does this mean?

Meals on Wheels, school lunches for Delawareans in schools, opioid prevention programs and community healthcare centers, critical programs for military families stationed at Dover Air Force Base, and police and fire departments up and down the State raised their hands, digitally, to say: What does this mean, and where are we going?

The Delaware delegation convened a conference call that day with 250 different participants to try and give them clarity on the path forward. I hope that this disastrous directive has been rescinded, but I only can say ``I hope'' because I don't truly know.

The White House Press Office tried to rescind the rescission. So it is unclear exactly what its status is now. There have been filings in court, both in the District Court for DC and for Rhode Island. There is an injunction against the OMB order here in DC. There is an injunction or a TRO under consideration up in Rhode Island. But it created a mess. It created a mess at a time when Americans need clarity.

What I have heard from business and business leaders for decades is that predictability is the most important part for businesses to grow, and what I have heard from families and friends at home was that this was not the sort of start they had expected to the Trump administration.

I want to caution folks: We may not know when or if the administration will try this order a second time or a third time. I will remind you that at the beginning of the last Trump administration, he tried to pass a Muslim

travel ban--a ban on people coming to this country from a series of Muslim-majority countries. That ban was enjoined in Federal court. It was blocked. They tried again. It was blocked. They tried a third time. It was ultimately found to clear judicial muster.

So, frankly, an administration that has said over and over again they believe that impoundment is within the scope of power of the President is likely to try again and again. Impoundment sounds like a fancy way of putting your dog on a leash in the backyard. What it means is violating our constitutional order.

Article I of the Constitution sets the powers of Congress, and the power of the purse--the ability to say what will and won't be spent--is central to the relevance and the authority of the U.S. Congress.

And I will say there is a reason this is dangerous; this is bad. I am an appropriator. Those of us who serve on the Appropriations Committee, every year, participate in a difficult and complex process where we pull together all the different requirements and requests and issues and concerns from across our States and departments, and we pass a bill here on the floor. We pass it through the House. We send it to the President. The President signs it, and then the directives go out for what grants and what funding will be available.

I understand; President Trump won the election. There is a new majority in Congress. I fully expected that this year's appropriations process would reflect those different priorities. That is the normal order of things. But this order is reaching back to last year's appropriations and the previous President and trying to freeze it and reallocate.

That has real consequences for our ability to come to bipartisan agreements and pass legislation on appropriations if, in the going- forward years, Presidents can say, ``I am not actually going to do disaster relief for this State because I don't like them,'' or, ``I am going to freeze and cut funding for this program because it doesn't fit with my priorities,'' when he has already got signed legal orders.

There are still impacts on the ground. I am still hearing from Delawareans that funding for construction of roads or bridges under the bipartisan infrastructure law and new energy sources and tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act are frozen or facing freezes.

And I want to turn to another concern of mine that is critical, important, and ongoing, but let's just focus on this first point. Until Trump backs down on these illegal orders and respects Congress's power of the purse and puts his focus back on helping Americans and reducing costs, this place and our country will not function and will not get better. Nothing about this order makes us safer, more prosperous, or more secure.

Mr. President, I am speaking today in strong opposition to President Trump's illegal Executive order of last Friday night that pauses all of our foreign assistance and development assistance. Let's be clear. Our development assistance, our foreign aid, isn't about charity; it is about security, and it is about values. We have alliances and partnerships around the world that are undergirded by our soft power, by our partnerships and investments in helping make the world safer, more stable, and more secure.

And what happened last Friday night at the end of the workday, when there was no one there to answer urgent questions, was a freeze on all foreign assistance, with a very narrow exception for food aid, and it has caused chaos in the global community that delivers aid and assistance around the world. For days, there were questions unanswered--what did this mean?--in Ukraine, in Lebanon, where there are wars and ceasefires, where critical grant funding and work by contractors help put the lights back on after Russian attacks on the electrical infrastructure in Ukraine, where a cease-fire implementation in Lebanon was ongoing; in parts of the world where we were continuing to bring home to the United States those who had served alongside us in Afghanistan, Afghan SIVs and their families, waiting for processing, abandoned from Qatar and here in the United States; a halt on drug supplies that help keep 20 million people living with HIV through the program PEPFAR, long supported by Presidents and Congresses of both parties; a freeze on activity to counter fentanyl and narcotics trafficking, to push back on Chinese and Russian disinformation, and to promote democracy. With urgent upcoming elections, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute are frozen in their activities and forced to lay off or furlough their workforce.

Let me thank Secretary Rubio for responding to urgent calls to broaden the aperture for humanitarian waivers for this freeze, but let me also say that with dozens and dozens of the most senior people at USAID put on furlough--so implementing this got harder--and with thousands of contractors who work for USAID in countries around the world dismissed or laid off, the consequences will be severe.

I will just give you one example. I suspect everyone listening has heard of the disease Ebola. I suspect not everyone has heard of the disease Marburg. They are related. They are highly transmissive and deadly viruses. There is a new outbreak of Ebola in the capital of Uganda. There is an ongoing outbreak of Marburg in the neighboring country of Tanzania. This freeze pauses the pandemic surveillance work, the urgent public health work, the assistance we provide that makes sure that we are safe from a rapidly emerging and lethal global pandemic that we put in place after the last pandemic.

When we halt foreign assistance, it has consequences. It is just 1 percent of our total budget. Most Americans think it is a big percent of our spending, but it is 1 percent--actually, less than 1 percent--of the total Federal budget. And there is a winner here. It is not the American taxpayer. Freezing programs like this causes chaos and often causes more to restart them after a review.

The winner is China. Our biggest global competitor and adversary is delighted that we have handed them an opportunity to say to communities and countries around the world that we are not a reliable partner; that despite contracts and promises, commitments and programs, they now have months to crow about how we have abandoned our partnerships with country after country around the world. China is delighted when we lay off or furlough or cut the resources that help fuel the work of our diplomats and our development professionals.

And China has seen its opportunity to expand its influence through programs like the Belt and Road Initiative. They have spent a trillion dollars in projects across the global south in the last decade, and our ability to counter Chinese influence, to make strategic investments, has been put gravely at risk by putting on hold the workforce and the contracts that help deliver.

The administration may be claiming that this pause is temporary, but its effects will not be. The lasting impacts on small businesses, on contractors, on NGOs, and loss of expertise, loss of their workforce, and loss of their credibility I think will be lasting, dangerous, and harmful.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to finish my brief remarks before we proceed to the vote.

Mr. President, we are about to consider two amendments to the Laken Riley Act. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to amendment No. 23, which would strike section 3 of the Laken Riley Act.

I respect that colleagues on both sides of the aisle have expressed their intention to vote for the Laken Riley bill and to advance it. I have not yet made any such commitment out of concern about the unintended consequences of several provisions of this bill. I want to briefly speak to the consequences of the section that my amendment would strike.

Amidst real resource constraints, unpredictable migration patterns, and fluctuating diplomatic sensitivities, our Federal law enforcement officers at ICE and CBP make thousands of complex decisions day in and day out about how to deal with interior enforcement, about border encounters, who to detain, and who to release. It is because these decisions involve so many complex factors that the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that the Federal Government is and should be the ultimate authority on enforcement of our immigration laws.

Section 3, however, would mark a sea change by inviting every State attorney general to sue whenever they disagree with even an individual- level Federal decision regarding detention and removal. This could create uncertainty or even chaos by encouraging conflicting lawsuits brought by different States in different courts.

I will remind my colleagues that this provision may have been drafted when the view was that Republican States' attorneys general would sue a Democratic administration to move closer towards the enforcement vision that they prioritized. Roughly half of the State attorneys general belong to each political party.

I hope that my colleagues who have reflected upon the consequences of this provision will conclude that we should not have the division and, frankly, ultimately the chaos in the enforcement of our immigration laws that would likely result from having a raft of lawsuits brought by State attorneys general in courts all over the country testing and challenging almost literally every detention decision.

I believe it is possible for this act to be improved, for it to advance public safety, and for it to make a contribution to the country, and it is my hope that the amendments being offered will be taken up and passed.

I will urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment for all of my colleagues because I think an improved bill should be the ultimate objective of this amendment process.

I yield the floor.

Vote on Amendment No. 14

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment No. 23, as provided under the previous order.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute to this amendment.

Madam President, I ask my colleagues to vote in favor of this amendment, which would focus and streamline this bill and make more likely its passage.

Many of us who have served here for many Congresses regret the falling away of the frequency of amendments intended to improve the bill. My amendment would remove the section that will encourage endless litigation by State attorneys general.

I will remind you, our States' attorneys general are roughly equally divided between the parties, and attorneys general can now and today sue against what they believe is manifest injustice in the Federal immigration system. This provision would encourage them to sue down to individual detention and release decisions.

I think it improves the bill to remove that section and focus on its critical public safety provisions.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment and the consideration of additional amendments in the future that will improve this bill.

Vote on Amendment No. 23

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, it was I believe then-President Reagan who famously asked, ``Are you better off than you were four years ago?'' I rise to take a moment here at the end of the 118th Congress, at the end of the Presidency of Joe Biden, to say: You bet you are better off today than you were 4 years ago.

I wanted to take just a few moments and reflect on the service, the career, the values, and the consequence of Joe Biden's service on behalf of Delaware in this Chamber for 36 years, as our Vice President for 8, and as our President for the last 4.

I have the honor of having Joe Biden's desk here on the floor of the Senate, and in my office in Russell, I have what was his desk as a Senator for 36 years and as a Vice President for 8.

As the son of both Scranton, PA, and Claymont, DE, in many ways, he was a role model to me and many others in Delaware and a source of inspiration to get involved in public service in the first place.

If you think for a moment about where we were this time 4 years ago, there were three different, profound challenges the United States was facing, all really because of the pandemic--a pandemic that had been badly mishandled and spiraled out of control and was still killing 3,000 Americans a day in December of 2020. Violent crime had skyrocketed. Healthcare coverage was declining. Jobs had been lost in the rates of millions. The United States was divided from some of its closest, oldest, and most trusted allies.

Across those different indicators, just briefly, the numbers tell a striking story. We have one of the lowest violent crime rates in 50 years today. The COVID-19 pandemic is mostly a thing of the past, a public health concern that still needs monitoring but that is not at any risk of killing another million Americans. Healthcare coverage has improved dramatically. The number of uninsured Americans is today at an alltime low. While the former President left office with the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, the private sector under Joe Biden's leadership helped create 15 million jobs--an alltime record.

Joe Biden is someone who was a committed public servant who put country above self; someone who has been one of the most consequential Presidents in our history and the most consequential of my lifetime; who came to this body from a blue-collar background, focused on the middle class, on unions, on what we could do to strengthen our country from the middle out and the bottom up and took that vision to the Presidency.

He worked tirelessly to restore our leadership around the world and to reweave together the bonds between the United States and a then- fractured coalition of alliances and partnerships around the world and to strengthen our economy as it recovered from the devastation of the pandemic.

He never gave up on the promise of our democracy, our Nation, and this institution in particular. The record of the bipartisan legislation that got

passed under his leadership I think is striking and will stand the test of time, whether it was bringing back advanced manufacturing through the Chips and Science Act--a generational investment in rebuilding infrastructure all over our country of all different kinds and levels; investing in protecting our veterans from the harm of burn pits and doing right by our veterans, making right on that sacred obligation; combating gun violence; investing in community mental health. All of these were landmark, bipartisan pieces of legislation.

He also struck out in a direction that made a lifetime of difference in reducing prescription drug prices and in investing in a cleaner economy through the Inflation Reduction Act, which was a moment when he abandoned bipartisanship in the interest of making a lasting difference for all Americans.

If you look briefly at what he did beyond our shores, the crisis of Russia's brutal, broad spectrum invasion of Ukraine catalyzed not just the revitalization but the expansion of NATO, moved us from a point where only four of our NATO allies had met their spending targets to today--two dozen. He led a global coalition in defense of Ukraine. He stood strong for our ally Israel after the heinous attacks of October 7 and ongoing attacks from Iran. In the Indo-Pacific, he has done more to create a new security situation than even I could have imagined: the Quad in the Indo-Pacific, the reconciliation of Korea and Japan, and the innovative AUKUS partnership that will deliver nuclear propulsion technology to the Australian submarine fleet and deliver new deterrence.

One of my favorite things he has done was celebrated in his most recent trip to Angola: the investment in infrastructure in the Global South in a way that has higher transparency, better labor standards, better environmental standards. It is more sustainable than our competitors, the Chinese, and their investment throughout the world. I have had the chance to visit both the Philippines and Angola to see our President's lasting work in investing in infrastructure.

Across all of these, strengthening our alliances, investing in our values and our partnerships, finding ways to stand up to aggression--it is my hope that we will find in this Chamber bipartisan support to continue.

What I will miss most about Joe Biden's leadership is that he is someone who lived a quintessentially American story. He never forgot the middle-class roots that gave him the strength to live what was a hard life, knocked down by grief, devastating grief, twice in his life. He got back up. Someone who believed deeply in the dignity of work. The son of a hard-working car salesman. Someone who understood the importance of not just a paycheck but having a purpose and the importance of respecting work and its role in creating and strengthening the middle class.

Last, President Biden has been someone who knew and believed in this institution. I worked with then-Leaders McConnell and Reid, Senator Leahy, and Senator Grassley when Joe Biden was leaving his last moments as the President of the Senate, as Vice President, to pull together a ``Recollections of our Vice President Day,'' and dozens of Senators came to this floor and told their favorite Joe Biden stories. There were stories full of compassion, full of humor, full of dedication, and full of service. That is the man I hope we will remember and recognize as he comes to the conclusion of his service as President close to a month from today. That is the man who I will continue to honor and to respect as I continue in my service on behalf of our shared State of Delaware going forward.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remarks delivered by President Biden on December 3, 2024, during his historic trip to Angola honoring the past and future of the Angolan-U.S. relationship, be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I rise in defense of my colleague from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Bob Casey is sexy.

(Laughter.)

Being fully bald is not the sole indicator of one's celebrity or sexiness.

Although an inspiring quote was just delivered by my dear colleague from our neighboring State of New Jersey, that was not Swahili, and I ask leave to conduct the rest of my remarks today in Kiswahili.

(Laughter.)

I am kidding.

I will just briefly say of my dear friend and colleague, of my neighbor, traveling companion, partner, and source of inspiration, that long before I imagined I could ever be a Senator, I served in local government in Delaware and knew that there was to our north a son of Scranton who was someone who was deeply grounded in his family, in his faith, and in his sense of justice.

Some mistake Senator Casey for not only not being sexy but for not being a fighter. One of the things I have held most closely to, as I have tried to conduct myself in this Chamber and in this work of being a Senator with humility and dignity and kindness, is that it is possible--in fact, daily demonstrated--for someone like Senator Casey, who is humble and unassuming, who is generous and kind, who sees every one, who treats all of us with respect, to still be fierce and to still be determined and to still be a fighter and to still be someone who sees righteousness and refuses to yield.

There was attributed to St. Francis an important saying, I think:

Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.

Senator Casey's walk through this life, alongside his incredible blessing Terese, alongside the amazing blessing of Elyse, Julia, Caroline, Marena, and those two great grandsons, has been a walk of dignity and fierceness. To fight for the five freedoms for children, to coauthor the Global Food Security Act, to be someone who crafts legislation that touches people all over our country and the world, is to deliver on the promise and the call of the Gospel.

From your time as a Jesuit volunteer, from your days at a dance at Holy Cross, from the days that you have spent here and crisscrossing the Commonwealth, you have shown, with a heart like a lion, that you are every bit the fighter as those who are more known on Twitter and TV and that you are every bit as fierce.

We had the blessing of traveling with you--my wife Annie, who is from Pennsylvania, and I with Terese and Bob--and what you just said about the importance of fighting for Ukraine and Ukrainians and of seeing everyone and of caring for them we got to see in the joy that you brought to delivering relief to Ukrainian children refugees.

This place will not be the same without my colleague from Pennsylvania. I have never campaigned harder for a colleague. I have never been more disappointed at an outcome. It has never seemed more unjust to me than the days we must face ahead without this son of Scranton, who has not just counted his blessings before us today but who has been a blessing to us every single day.

With that, I yield the floor.

(Applause.)

Madam President, I rise to speak in thanks and in recognition of my dear friend and colleague, the senior Senator from the great State of Delaware, Tom Carper.

All of us have had a chance to hear his farewell speech, but I get a chance to add just a little bit here on the end.

You know, when folks have said to Senator Carper: What do you plan on doing in retirement at home? He has repeatedly said: I don't plan on retiring.

And this has a history to it. As you know, in the arc of his decades of service in our Senate and in our State, he was our Governor. And he has described himself many times as a ``recovering Governor'' who never really recovered. He never stopped being intimately interested in and engaged in every detail of our community.

And I cannot thank you enough, TC, for your more than five decades of service to our Nation, to our State, to our party, to the world. I have a lot of remarks, and I will try not to use all of them, but I think you are the alltime champion, having been elected 14 times statewide: State treasurer, Congressman, Governor, Senator. You are frugal. I have had the experience of your having made a modest contribution to a very early campaign of mine, and I failed to timely deposit the check, and not long thereafter, you accosted me and said: You never cleared this check. It is in my checkbook.

Everybody knows that you drove a fabulous minivan more than 400,000 miles. And you took that passion for frugality and for reasonableness and for attention to details to being the State treasurer, as you shared with all of us, to restoring our triple A bond rating.

When I first became county executive, nothing was more important than that lesson: Protect your bond rating. And you did a great job as State treasurer.

You also are someone who as Governor had a saying you were very fond of: Figure out what works; do more of that.

Figure out what works; do more of that.

Everybody here knows he makes you say important things twice.

And so as an active member of the National Governors Association, as a mentor to other Governors, as a mentor to young county elected officials, TC did a great job with figuring out what worked well in other States around the country and then applying it both at home and making sure that other Governors had a chance to learn from that around our country.

I can't neglect Senator Carper's remarkable commitment to our Nation's military.

As you saw, of all the people he could have chosen to honor in his farewell speech, his Uncle Bob, his family, service and sacrifice anchors him. Having gone on a naval ROTC scholarship to Ohio State and having served three tours in Vietnam and then for decades in the Navy Reserve, Senator Carper is the last Vietnam veteran to serve in this body. That is a long and proud legacy that stretches from Senators McCain and Kerry to Kerry to Hagel to Harkin.

But Senator Carper, in our State, has done more to fight for the VA, to fight for veterans, to fight for a veterans cemetery, to fight for a veterans home, and to personally engage on Memorial Day with the families of every Delawarean who has fallen in combat in living memory. The decency, the commitment, the passion for those who put their life on the line for our Nation is unmatched in our State's history. And we and our Nation are grateful to you for that.

As the chair of two different committees, HSGAC and EPW, you worked tirelessly to build relationships, even with some of the most famously difficult of our colleagues. I make no reference to a former Senator from Oklahoma. I am just saying, that when you tackled postal issues, many of us wished you all the best. And you put your optimism and your positive spirit to the wheel and made real progress.

Along with Senator Capito, of your native State of West Virginia, you have made amazing things happen, from WRDA to the Inflation Reduction Act to the bipartisan infrastructure law.

Your passion for air quality and for clean air and for making sure that we preserve the blessings of our natural environment will be remembered fittingly by having the Bombay Hook Visitor Center named for you.

We talk in Delaware about something called the Delaware Way, which I really principally learned from how you led as Governor. You cleaned up our party. You worked across the aisle. You balanced the budget. You managed a State of great complexity and importance. But you found it by building personal connections by being kind and respectful to others and by building a remarkable community that served alongside you.

I don't know either where the term ``Carper Town'' came from, but it is an amazing network of alumni that includes people of all different ages and backgrounds, skills, and traditions who have been brought together to join your passion for public service.

When asked at your retirement announcement what you would most miss about being a Senator, TC answered: ``My staff,'' which is a reminder that you have built an incredible community dedicated passionately to service.

When I first got here to the Senate, my senior Senator was the one who literally showed me the ropes. He gave me the combination to the gym. He urged me to go to weekly Prayer Breakfast or Bible study and to learn from codels overseas and from time spent over meals together here in the Senate.

We have been guided by our shared faith, our shared commitment to family, a commitment to bipartisanship, and a deep and abiding love of Amtrak. I will never forget a night where we were stuck for 7 hours in the bracing cold as two power lines shut down the Amtrak line north. Senator Carper remained cheerful, upbeat, and optimistic about the possibility that we would someday get off that train and be warm again. And the Newark Amtrak station is named in his honor, appropriately.

Tom, you are a grounded man. Your childhood dreams for playing for the Detroit Tigers may not have been realized, but you as a native son of West Virginia have made an incredible mark on your adopted, beloved home State of Delaware. You have made a lasting mark: as State treasurer and Governor, as Congressman, and Senator.

I will never forget when as a very, very young man I had just returned from South Africa and a member of my church arranged an opportunity for me to have lunch with you in the House dining room. I was 25. You gave me your undivided attention, your enthusiasm, your passion. You made me feel like the center of the world, and it had an enormous impact on my commitment to service.

And when I ran for county council president--a long-shot bid that I should not have won in a four-way primary--and you were running for the U.S. Senate, an important and difficult race,

you didn't just call me once and wish me well; you didn't just send me a $50 check. You agreed to stand beside me at football games, at Wawas, at community picnics, and to introduce me to thousands of Delawareans.

You have given Annie and me a gift we can never repay. I am so grateful for your service, your leadership, and your compassion.

You are anchored in your family.

And, Martha, thank you so much for being an incredible partner, not just to Tom but also to our State, for having been the first lady and for having been someone with an incredible career of accomplishment at DuPont and around the world. To the two of you for raising Christopher and Ben and Greg and for sharing them with us as well, thank you.

You are rooted in your faith: II James teaches us, ``Faith without works is dead.'' And St. Francis once said: ``Preach the Gospel always; when necessary, use words.''

By your acts, we have known your faith. And it has made all the difference. And you have changed me, our delegation, our State, and our world.

Captain Carper, Bravo Zulu. Well done, sir. Thank you.

(Applause, Senators rising.)

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

I ask unanimous consent that the scheduled vote occur immediately.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise to say a few words about the tradition of spiritual leadership of the Chaplains of the Senate, a decades-old--a centuries-old, actually--tradition of this body, rooted in the fact that those who were the Framers of our Constitution and the Founders of our Nation understood that, although we are a nation committed to the separation of church and State, we are also a nation that is guided--that is guided by spiritual force, by deep beliefs, by diversity of religions, but also by a profound humility on the part of those of us who serve.

Our Chaplain, RADM Barry Black, has served for many, many years, and I have had the great blessing of hearing from him at Bible study and at the weekly Prayer Breakfast in a way that has helped bring Senators together and that has made a difference in the functioning and the foundation of this important body in our constitutional order.

Today, we have a guest Chaplain from my home church, First & Central Presbyterian in Wilmington, DE. She is my home pastor. Pastor Laura has served our congregation since July, 2 years ago.

A native of Arkansas, raised in Texas in the Disciples of Christ, Pastor Laura felt a calling to the ministry at the very earliest age but told God to just hold that thought for a moment. Two decades later, he called Pastor Laura again, more forcefully this time, and through my denomination, the Presbyterian Church, United States of America--or

Mr. President, I am the Senator from Delaware, and I am joined by my colleague from Delaware. And one of the things that has long distinguished Delaware--it was one of the first States in the whole country where, because of her personal experience with IVF, a former Republican, Delaware insurance commissioner, helped drive through mandatory insurance coverage for IVF in the State of Delaware years ago. The idea that today we would be on the floor of the Senate advocating on behalf of Senator Duckworth's bill to put in law protections, the right to access IVF, would have been unthinkable.

I still remember, as someone hoping to become a parent, struggling with the challenge of working through difficulties that we as a couple faced in becoming pregnant and talking all the time to friends and neighbors and others who were going through similar challenges. There is nothing more important in life than being a parent. And sometimes all of these activities and debates here on the floor don't connect. People have a hard time understanding why this matters. One of the reasons I am so thrilled that Senator Duckworth is leading this effort here on the floor today is it is easy to understand. Because of her service to our Nation, because of her grievous wounds in combat is why, perhaps, this is so important to her and her family.

But I wanted to share the story of a Delawarean, and I am so grateful she has allowed me to share her story today.

Lindsay Griffin was diagnosed with Stage IV endometriosis, which prevented her from ever conceiving naturally. Lindsay and her husband were determined to become parents. And like so many of us, knew that it would be expensive and difficult and take a long time. They even took out a $25,000 loan to pay for IVF.

Lindsay endured procedure after procedure, surgeries, embryo transfers, even the loss of a pregnancy. Now, today, years later, they are parents to two healthy boys, 7 and 2.

Why would we in this country put this blessing of parenthood for so many in Delaware and Illinois and throughout our Nation at risk? It is already hard enough.

Today, Lindsay and her husband are blessed with two children. But in States like Alabama, far-right lawmakers and judges have already tried to deny families this precious gift.

The vast majority of Americans want us to pass this bill today, want us to protect the right to IVF. Eighty-six percent of Americans in a recent poll want us to do this. So why is this even controversial? In the best of circumstances, the journey to the blessing of parenthood is difficult. The journey to the blessing of parenthood through IVF is incredibly hard: emotionally, financially, physically.

Let's stand up for families for the common and shared principle that the blessing of parenting should not in any way be barred by threats to the procedure of in vitro fertilization. I stand before you today as someone committed to protecting IVF in Delaware, in this Congress, in this Nation.

Madam President, I ask that the mandatory quorum call with respect to the cloture motion be waived.