Floor Statements

Madam President, if you were working for the sandwich shop Jimmy John's--I don't know if the Presiding Officer has ever had a Jimmy John's sandwich. It is a pretty good sandwich. If you were working for Jimmy John's sandwich shop in the middle of the last decade, around 2014, 2015, 2016, you might have been required to sign a contract with Jimmy John's to make sandwiches. Buried in that contract, as a fast food worker at Jimmy John's in 2014, 2015, 2016, was something called a noncompete clause.

A lot of Americans have heard of noncompete clauses. They think of them as applying to executives, individuals who make a lot of money, who possess really intricate, detailed information about a product. But Jimmy John's made everybody who came to work in many of their sandwich shops sign a noncompete agreement. The noncompete agreement for Jimmy John's sandwich makers said that if you ever left Jimmy John's, you would not be able to work at any business within 2 to 3 miles of any Jimmy John's for any company that made over 10 percent of its revenue from selling ``submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita, and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches'' for 2 years. Low-income, minimum-wage workers at Jimmy John's, if they tried to leave that job, were prohibited from going to work for Subway or going to work for D'Angelo's or maybe even, according to this definition, McDonald's or Burger King.

Of course, that sounds patently ridiculous. Why would you need to protect the intellectual secrets of sandwich making at Jimmy John's by applying noncompete agreements for these low-income workers? But this wasn't and isn't an anomaly. In fact, one out of six hospitality restaurant workers, by some studies, has a noncompete agreement. Today, noncompete agreements apply to one in five American workers. That is 30 million workers.

Amazon warehouse workers were required for a long time to sign noncompete agreements. I read a story the other day of a company called Camp Bow Wow that pays people to pet-sit. They required their pet sitters to sign noncompete agreements.

The reason that noncompete agreements are being used at industrial- level scale today is not to protect the trade secrets of sandwich making or pet sitting; it is to keep wages down. It is to prevent low- income workers from being able to go out and get a better job and thus pressure their existing employer to increase wages. This practice has become pervasive throughout our economy, and it is just a fundamental restraint on free trade.

Now, many of these noncompete agreements end up being nonenforceable. A lot of State laws don't allow you to have a noncompete agreement for a low-wage worker. But in practice, it doesn't really matter because when that individual tries to leave and they get told they can't because of a noncompete agreement, they don't know that it is nonenforceable in State law or if they do know, they don't have the resources to contest the cause in a court of law. So what do they do? They just end up staying.

The FTC filed a complaint in January of this year against two Michigan-based companies that required their security guards to sign noncompete agreements prohibiting them from working for a competing business within a 100-mile radius. Despite the fact that these security guards were making very low wages, the company's noncompete included a restriction that required the employee to pay a $100,000 penalty for any alleged violation of the clause. The intention here is simply to bind the employee to the company, to give them no ability to bargain for a higher wage because they might be able to get a better wage somewhere else. There is no proprietary information that those security guards possess.

What is equally interesting is that there is increasingly great data to show that there is actually no reason to have noncompete agreements even for higher income workers. The imposition of noncompete agreements on low-wage workers is primarily about just trying to restrain wages, but the imposition of noncompete agreements on higher income workers is about impeding innovation. It is about a company that doesn't want competitors, so they bind their executives to noncompete agreements such that their executives can't go work for a competing company or can't go out and start a company that may compete.

What is so maddening is that there are plenty of protections in our existing law that protect companies from intellectual property theft or patent theft. If what you worry about is your trade secrets being appropriated by a competitor, well, the law already protects you from that. You don't have to deny your employees or your executives the ability to go work for another company.

California rightly has the reputation as probably the world's center of innovation, right? More startups, more world-changing companies have come out of California than any other State and probably than any other part of the world. California was the first or one of the first in this country to ban noncompete agreements. California decided it didn't need noncompete agreements to protect intellectual property in a State that probably has a greater interest in protecting intellectual property than any other State. In fact, California's economic engine is dependent on their prohibition of noncompete agreements because by prohibiting noncompete agreements, California has a culture in which startups are encouraged, in which executives can leave one company and start another.

Eric Yuan was an executive at Cisco Webex. If he wasn't working in California, he might have had a noncompete agreement applied to him, but he didn't, and so he could leave and start a company that was arguably competing with Cisco Webex--a company called Zoom.

To many economists on the right and the left, this is becoming a no- brainer. Noncompete agreements are bad for wage growth. Noncompete agreements are bad for innovation. Noncompete agreements are bad for low-income workers. Noncompete agreements are bad for high-income workers.

So today I am on the floor to talk about what the data tells us about noncompete agreements as a means to encourage my colleagues to take a look at a piece of legislation that we are introducing today, the Workforce Mobility Act, a pretty simple piece of legislation that would ban the use of noncompete agreements for both high-income and low- income workers.

It is a bipartisan piece of legislation. Senator Todd Young, Senator Kevin Cramer, Senator Tim Kaine, and I are introducing this bill today. I don't know that there is another policy that the four of us can find common ground on, but we find common ground on this issue because maybe if you are a progressive, you come to this issue through the rights of workers and boosting their wages. If you are a conservative, you come to this issue through the restraint on free trade that exists through the perpetuation of noncompete agreements. But all across America, this is a pretty bipartisan issue, and here in the Senate, it is bipartisan as well.

I am glad that the FTC, just a week or so ago, announced that they were going to undertake a rule to ban noncompete agreements. I congratulate the Biden administration and the FTC for taking a leadership role. It may be that that rule, once it is adopted and in place, will do the work of this legislation, but we know that rules are only as good as the commitment of one particular administration.

So my hope and my recommendation is that no matter what the FTC does when it comes to restrictions on noncompete agreements, that we pass the Workforce Mobility Act so that we provide a guarantee in the law that noncompete agreements are not going to stand in the way of wages rising or small businesses starting.

There is a lot of public support out there as 92 percent of voters think that it is way too hard today to start or grow a new business and as 80 percent of voters--again, across party lines--support policies that allow people who want to start a new business more freedom by reducing the restrictions that come when you try to venture out on your own. Increasingly, one of the primary restrictions that exists for people who want to start a new business, who want to become entrepreneurs, are these noncompete agreements.

So I am coming to the floor today to recommend this bipartisan piece of legislation to my colleagues, to point to the States that have already adopted these restrictions, and to show how not only does the sky not fall when you get rid of noncompete agreements but that startups flourish and that wages increase.

Finally, I come to recommend to my colleagues that, in an environment where it is going to be a little harder to find agreement between Republicans and Democrats, this is a place where we can find that common ground. In one piece of policy, we can stick up for low-income workers and the free market. This is something that we can do together to help raise wages and to help power our economy.

Madam President, I have three requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I rise today, with a unique combination of joy, sorrow, and pride. For the last 8 years, Maya Ashwal has been my right arm in the Senate, serving as my director of scheduling and operations in our Washington office.

I rise with joy today because my life and the lives of everyone who works in or with our office has been made better by Maya Ashwal. Maya is this wonderful combination of hard-nosed, no-nonsense grit, and gracious compassion. She brings a seriousness of purpose to her work, but she treats everyone around her with kindness and caring. Over the last 8 years, I watched Maya overcome obstacles that would have swallowed up lesser people. She has persevered through personal loss, finding a way to grow her compassion for others in the face of tragedy. She has conquered a litany of bad health luck, at one point finding herself stuck in South America dealing with a serious health emergency. Somehow, we all knew that Maya would find a way to come back stronger, with a smile on her face.

Through it all, it has been so wondrous to watch her grow as a person. Since she has been with our office, Maya has gotten married to Jeremy and welcomed a gorgeous daughter, Piper, into the world in the middle of the pandemic. She is a wonderful mother, who deftly balances work and family life.

But I also rise with sorrow today, because it is hard for me to imagine life without Maya. My colleagues will understand how a great scheduler or great assistant ends up becoming an extension of you, a part of you. That is what Maya is. She knows my preferences before I speak anything out loud. She guesses what I need before I know I need it. She smooths over bumps and rough spots before they are visible to me.

But she also provides great advice and counsel. I am lucky that we share many passions--like mental health and gun safety--and Maya has become a whip smart political counselor who I rely on to make sure that my daily agenda best aligns with my policy goals. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act could not have happened without Maya's leadership. Never before has such a complicated bill been written and passed in such a short amount of time. Over 30 days and countless meetings, zooms, and phone calls--with advocates, Senators, House Members, staff, administration officials--we negotiated, wrote, and passed the most serious gun safety bill in three decades. During that time, Maya was the air traffic controller for the negotiations, managing to create organization out of potential chaos. That bill is part of her legacy.

In addition to her work on policy, Maya has also been such a comfort to my family. Being a parent of young children, with a wife who works equally long hours, is an unsurprising anomaly in the Senate. Maya's job over the last 8 years has been made infinitely harder since my schedule has had to

balance not just work obligations, but a myriad of sports practices, school events, playdates, and Cub Scout meetings. Never once has Maya balked at my insistence of putting my family first, ahead of the Senate. In fact, she has been instrumental in protecting and supporting my family, continually pushing back against the pressures to put the children second. When my wife Cathy learned of Maya's departure, she audibly gasped. She knew what a loss this would be for our family.

And finally, today, I also feel a ton of pride. I feel pride because Maya is part of what makes the Senate work. She believes that this place is still capable of great things, and she is committed to making our institution live up to its potential. After spending 16 years between our office and the office of former Senator Mark Begich, Maya could have hightailed it for private sector pastures. But she didn't. She leaves our office to join Senator John Fetterman as his new administrative director. The job of standing up a brandnew Senate office is a daunting one, but Maya doesn't shirk from the challenge. She wants the Senate to work, and she is willing to do the hard work to make this possible.

I also feel pride today in who Maya has become while she has worked in our office. As she proudly told me when she informed me of her next move, she has undergone the most important changes in her life during her time with our office. She was amazing when she showed up here, but I would like to think that she is even more amazing today. And maybe the people she has spent the last 8 years with have had a little to do with her growth. I hope she would say this is the case.

I am glad Maya isn't going far. I have a feeling she will be a part of my life and our team members' lives for a long time. I feel joy, sadness, and pride today, all at the same time. But mostly, I just feel lucky that for the last 8 years, I have had Maya Ashwal as my right arm.

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m., Thursday, January 26; 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 proceed to the consideration of the Klobuchar-Grassley resolution as provided under the previous order.

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

Madam President, this week, the country has been riveted again by scenes of mass shootings, this time in California. I spoke on the phone to my seatmate Senator Padilla just a few days ago, and it is a conversation that I have had with the Presiding Officer. It is a conversation I have had with Senators from Colorado and Virginia. We all now increasingly come from States where we have seen dozens of people murdered at one time in these horrific, horrific mass shootings.

I am proud that in the wake of the Uvalde massacre and the shooting in Buffalo, last summer this Congress came together and finally passed, after 30 years of inaction, legislation that begins to make our communities safer, but what we saw in Monterey and Half Moon Bay is just confirmation--reaffirmation--that we have enormous work to do.

Let me first tell you the good news, and that is this: The legislation we passed last summer, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, is saving lives as we speak. If you recall, that legislation set up a new background check process for younger buyers of weapons in this country. It eliminated the boyfriend loophole so that no domestic abusers in this country can get their hands on weapons. It gave funding to States to set up red flag laws. It strengthened our background check system. It is a set of really important changes.

A bipartisan group of us went out to West Virginia just a few weeks ago--Senator Cornyn, Senator Tillis, Senator Capito--three Republicans--and myself and Senator Manchin--to see the background check system at work. We went out and sat right next to the background checks operators in their cubicles, and we watched them process these new background checks that are required because of the law we passed.

We got briefings from the FBI in which they laid out for us the details of incredibly dangerous individuals, individuals who were in crisis, many of them under 21, who would have gotten a weapon in their moment of crisis had it not been for the legislation we passed.

I also saw how diligent these background checks operators were, how serious they were about their job, how proud they were of their job, because they knew that in their hands they held the safety of the American public; that every time they click that button, there was an individual walking out of the store with a gun, and they wanted to make sure of two things: First, they were protecting the American public-- make sure that only those who were qualified under the law, who weren't deemed to be too dangerous, were getting those weapons. The second thing they were concerned about--and every single one of them told us this--they were there to uphold the Second Amendment as well. They were there to make sure--to make sure--of the guarantee that if you are a law-abiding citizen, you can get a legal weapon.

I think all of us who visited were really impressed by the work that our background checks operators do and were confident that the bill we passed last summer is saving lives as we speak. But everybody in this country knows it is not enough. Everybody in this country knows it was just a start. I hope this year we will be able to build on the progress we made last year to find additional common ground because what you are seeing in California and what you have seen all across the country are individuals--largely men, mostly younger men--whose brains are breaking, and in that moment of crisis, they are reaching for a weapon, they are seeing their path to exorcise those demons as running through an episode of mass slaughter.

But it is important to note that this is not the only country in the world where brains break. This is not the only country in the world where people have paranoias. This is not the only country in the world with severe mental illness. So the story of American mass murder is not a story of mental illness; it is not a story of paranoia; it is not a story of grudge or grievance because every other country has that. But only in the United States does that grudge, grievance, paranoia, and mental illness lead to mass assassination. That is because in this country we are flooded with weapons--and not just any weapons but weapons of mass destruction.

These killers, they use the same set of weapons, semiautomatic weapons with attachable clips that can fire 300 bullets out of 1 cartridge. They all use the same set of weapons because they are trying to kill as many people as quickly as possible. Only in this country can those individuals, who have decided to take out their anger, their grudge, and their grievance through mass murder, get their hands on a weapon that will allow them to do that. Other countries don't allow that to happen.

I have told this story many times before, but on the same day that Sandy Hook occurred, there was an equal number of students attacked in a school in Henan Province, China. Every kid who was shot in Sandy Hook died. Why? I won't describe it for you on the floor today, but the damage that a bullet fired from an AR-15 does to the body of a little child is irrevocable. It literally tears you apart, the bullet is going so fast through your body. So none of those kids survived. But in Henan Province, China, every child who was attacked survived. Why? Because in Henan Province, the attacker, who was just as unhinged, likely, as the attacker in Sandy Hook, had a knife and not a gun. Knives can do damage, too, but not as much damage as an AR-15.

So States that are more serious about keeping assault weapons off the streets and guns away from dangerous people have a lot less gun crime-- a lot less. Countries that are more serious about making sure that people who have these grudges, grievances, and paranoias don't get their hands on dangerous weapons--they have almost rock-bottom levels of gun violence.

I think we are at a moment in time where Americans know this. Americans are sick and tired of the status quo. That is why we were able to pass this law last summer. It was a start--a really important start--but it was not a result of any of the advocates in the Senate perfecting their argument; it was a

result of parents and students and families out there in America compelling Congress to do something because this country has had enough.

This country has not just had enough of the mass shootings but of the hundred-plus people who die every day from gunshot wounds--suicides, accidental shootings, homicides--all of which can be prevented through limiting the access by dangerous people or people who are going through a crisis to weaponry and particularly weaponry of mass destruction.

So I think that message from the American public we heard last summer--it is not going away. The good news is, we found common ground. And right now in the U.S. Congress, you have no choice if you want to get something done but to find common ground. We found it. I don't think that anybody who voted for it paid any substantial political price. I think there was only political upside to supporting a compromise that was wildly popular.

If you remember, Senator McConnell showed a PowerPoint presentation to the Republican caucus in May of last year and showed his Republican colleagues how popular all of the things that we voted on last summer were--red flag laws, stopping domestic abusers from getting guns--no political downside in continuing to make progress when it comes to making our communities safer.

As we live amidst another moment in American history where the country is recognizing the unique problem of mass shootings; as we think about 20-some-odd days gone in the year with 40 mass shootings already; when we think about the fear that our kids live in when they go to school, wondering whether they will be next, and now the fear that workplaces have and churchgoers have of whether they will be next, it is more reason for us to make 2023 a year in which we don't follow the pre-2022 precedent of doing nothing but we follow the 2022 precedent of finding the common ground between Republicans and Democrats to make this country safer.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that S. Res. 13, submitted earlier today, be held at the desk; that following morning business tomorrow, the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that at 1:45 p.m., the Senate vote on adoption of the resolution; that if the resolution is agreed to, the preamble be considered agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

I understand there are three bills at the desk and I ask for their first reading.

Madam President, I ask for a second reading and in order to place the bills on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. President, Jimmy Greene and his wife Nelba lost a daughter in Sandy Hook. Jimmy said this, leading up to the 10-year mark of the shooting in Newtown that we are commemorating today:

There is a saying in our culture that ``time heals all

wounds,'' but I wouldn't say that is true in my case.

Senator Blumenthal and I have been down here on December 14 for 9 years in a row. Senator Blumenthal and I have given hundreds of speeches on this floor in the intervening days and months, in between those anniversaries, talking about what happened in Sandy Hook and trying to compel our colleagues to action. But there is nothing that we can say that explains through words the feeling of cataclysmic loss when you lose a child--a 6-year-old or a 7-year-old or an 18-year-old or a 19-year-old.

Senator Blumenthal and I were there at the firehouse in Sandy Hook that day. There are a lot of days when I wish I hadn't heard and seen the things that I saw and heard that day. But we were voyeurs. We were interlopers. There is no way that we can understand what those families are going through today, as the pain still feels, for many, as acute as it did 10 years ago.

So Senator Blumenthal and I think it is important to come down here and honor the memory of those children and those six educators every year on December 14. But I also know that there is nothing that I can do with words to explain to you how different the community of Sandy Hook is and how those lives will never, ever be the same.

I guess I come to this day every year with two emotions. One is of just deep sorrow, just to think about who those kids were going to become. Senator Blumenthal and I have gotten to learn so much about these kids. I know more about those 20 6-year-old kids than I probably know about any other set of 6-year-old kids other than my own when they were that age over the course of my lifetime, and I love those kids. I see the genius in them. They were already doing such miraculous things, showing such kindness and such talent. And to think that those kids today would be preparing for college, deciding where they wanted to open up their next chapter, to think of what has been stolen from this world.

My sorrow is also due to the fact that, well, this Nation is different today than it was before Sandy Hook. The country now compels us to action. There are groups all over the country dedicated to trying to change the laws of this country to make a Sandy Hook less likely.

This was all happening before Sandy Hook. Sandy Hook was the first shooting of little kids in a school of this size. But a few weeks after Sandy Hook happened, Senator Blumenthal and I went to do a community meeting in the north end of Hartford, and there we met parents of children who had been killed on the streets of Hartford who were furious, and even more furious after Sandy Hook. They told us: Nobody can relate to those families in Sandy Hook more than we can. We lost children just like they lost children, but why did this country wait until Sandy Hook to open their eyes to the epidemic of gun violence that exists every single day, whether or not it hits the headlines?

So my sorrow today is for what we lost 10 years ago today, for the genius and the talent that was extinguished from this Earth--those kids and those educators, those teachers. But also my sorrow today is for the fact that it took Sandy Hook to wake this country up to what had been happening in front of us every single day.

And to really understand the gravity of Sandy Hook, you can't just think about those kids. That is the worst part of this, by leaps and bounds. But there are survivors. There are children who witnessed those shootings. There are family members who experienced deep trauma. There are first responders who will never be the same after having to sort through that carnage.

Sandy Hook is a window into the particular grief that comes with losing someone to gun violence, especially someone young, but also the broad sweeping trauma that comes with a shooting of 20 or 1.

That is the important thing to understand today, as well--that our love needs to go to those families, first and foremost, but also to the community of Newtown. But so must it go to the broader experience of gun violence.

I live in Hartford, CT. I live in the South End of Hartford, a neighborhood adjacent to the South End of Hartford. I hear every night the sirens and police cars and ambulances whizzing by my house. I went to a middle school--actually, to a K-8 school. I met with middle schoolers at this school just down the street from my home a few weeks ago, just to kind of talk to these kids about what they wanted to change about the neighborhood we live in.

Do you know what they wanted to talk to me about? They wanted to talk to me about their walk to and from school. They wanted to talk to me about how dangerous it is for them to walk from their house to the school that they go to and how every single day they are experiencing a trauma that many people who grow up in the suburbs or rural areas of this country will never experience once in their life. But these kids experience it every single day.

That is the true story of American gun violence, not just those who lose their lives but this much bigger universe of millions of individuals who experienced trauma either through the loss, through the firsthand experience of gun violence, or through the daily threat of gun violence.

And so my pain is for what we lost that day. My pain is for the delayed reaction of this country in waking up to this epidemic. My pain is for the broader community of kids and individuals

who have to live with the consequences of our inaction.

But I just simply want to underscore something Senator Blumenthal said as well. I also come to this day with a lot of joy, a lot of joy for what we have found that lies inside each of us. Out of Sandy Hook came kindness and grace. Senator Blumenthal rattled off a list of not- for-profit organizations, charitable causes that have sprung forth from those families in Sandy Hook; the amount of money that has been raised to try to make people's lives better in big ways and small ways. I come to this day with a lot of gratitude for the community of Sandy Hook for deciding to take that awful tragedy and turning it into something wonderful.

There are small, little charities that started out of Sandy Hook based upon the passions of those kids--kids who loved art or who loved animals. There are now charitable organizations that give more kids-- especially more underserved kids--access to art and experience with animals. There are big organizations that are seeking to change the culture of schools to make sure that you don't have situations in which individuals who are going through mental illness or trauma find themselves isolated and ostracized in the way that many mass shooters become.

So there is so much important work that is happening based off of that loss. I have joy for that. I do. I do.

I also have gratitude for all the people who have stepped up and have been part of this movement to change the laws of this country.

I get it that people didn't see results here for 10 years until this summer. But Senator Blumenthal and I and others, and Senator Durbin, who have been working on this issue for a decade, we saw that small but meaningful progress every single year. Every single year, a couple more partners, especially on the Republican side, were willing to talk to us about change.

All of a sudden, it became a little bit more likely that we would finally pass something. Then, finally, this summer, almost 10 years to the day of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, we passed the most significant anti-gun violence measure in Congress in 30 years.

I got a briefing from the Department of Justice, as did Senator Tillis and Senator Cornyn, just a few weeks ago, and we were shown evidence that this law that we passed collectively was already saving lives. We were given cases in which individuals who would have gotten a gun, who were in crisis, who were contemplating violence did not get a gun because of the law that we passed together. What we have done isn't enough, and it doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to do more, but it is saving lives.

This day, for me, comes with gratitude and joy for all of the people all across this country, especially those people in Newtown who decided to be part of this movement which allowed us to pass legislation this summer, which is, as we speak, saving lives all around this country.

My sorrow and my joy that I bring to this day, you know, is through my perspective as the Representative of Newtown. I was the Congressman for Newtown for 6 years. I had just been elected to the Senate about a month prior when Sandy Hook happened.

It is also due to my perspective as a parent. My kids are amongst this generation that has grown up knowing nothing except for the threat of a mass shooting. I will never forget my kindergartner, who is now a fifth grader, coming home and telling me about his first active shooter drill. He didn't exactly know what it was, right? He was 5 years old.

He said: Dad, my teacher told us all to go to the bathroom today--all of us, all 26 of us. She packed us into the bathroom.

He described the fact that they were standing in the bathroom, all tight together like sardines, and he said: She told us we were practicing for what would happen if a bad man came into our building, and she told us to stay there and be quiet for as long as we could.

He didn't really know what it was, but he knew enough to say to me this: Daddy, I didn't like it.

My older son texted a few weeks ago to tell us that his school was in a lockdown because of a shooting outside. For 2 hours, those kids sat in that school until they were released. I mean, my kids, I think, are proud of the fact that their dad comes to work every day and tries to solve this epidemic, but there is no way to really calculate what this generation of kids is losing every single day by living in fear.

I think what we did this summer really helped, though. I say that honestly. Some people say it is not enough; that you have to go further. But what we communicated this summer to those kids and the parents is that we care. Our answer isn't nothing, right?

As much as I experience this as a father, I also know that we have made progress and that that progress has been logistical and practical but that it has also been metaphysical; it has been emotional. What we did this summer just gave the kids of this country and the parents of this country a little bit of a feeling that we are going to be there for them and, hopefully, more in the future.

So I am grateful to be on the floor with my colleague today in commemorating everything that we lost at Sandy Hook and in thanking the community members of Sandy Hook for standing up and showing the world the best part of that community.

I am grateful to my colleagues this year for turning a page, for turning a corner in our obligation to keep our kids safe. Senator Blumenthal and I will be here for the 11th anniversary and the 12th and the 13th and, hopefully, we will have more progress to discuss and we will have more positive change brought to this country by the families of Sandy Hook.

Robbie Parker and his wife lost their little daughter, Emilie. Emilie was so cute. She was 6 years old when she died.

Robbie said this: We have learned how to hold on to two things. We can enjoy the things that make us happy--Robbie says about his family, the Parkers--and we can also carry the pain of losing someone and the sorrow that comes with that.

It is OK to feel both things today. It is OK to feel pain for what happened at Sandy Hook, but don't let that consume you, because the Parkers aren't letting it consume them.

Jimmy Greene will tell you that time has not healed his wounds, but I know Nelba and Jimmy. I know that they bring a lot of joy every day.

So feel pain today; feel sorrow; think about those families, but, man, bring some life and some grace. Make a decision that, in your world, you are going to honor those kids' and those adults' memories with some action because, I guess, that is what I think about most today. I am sad for what we have lost, but I am also inspired and hopeful for all of the grace and the kindness that has grown out of this tragedy.

I also realize that, maybe more than anything else today, we should recognize that nothing in our lives that we love should be taken for granted. It can all disappear in an instant. So show that daily grace and kindness that is necessary to communicate to your loved ones, to your friends, to your communities that you don't take them for granted.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, if I could just briefly build on the remarks of Chairman Reed, never before has such a small number of Senators stood in the way of this large a number of nominees. The impact of this constant effort to hold up nominees to the State Department and the Department of Defense is to compromise the national security of this Nation; to try to rob from this administration, from this President, the ability to govern and to protect this Nation.

I would just remind my colleagues that what comes around goes around. I know right now some Republicans may delight in the President not having any personnel necessary to run Agencies because of this record number of holds that have been put on nominees by the Republican minority. But there will be a Republican President someday. There will be a Republican majority someday. And a handful of Democratic Senators will use the same tactics that are being used today to essentially rob from this administration its right to do the job it was elected to do by the American people, at great risk to American national security.

So my prerogative on this is that we should just change the rules and make it less easy for one Senator to hold up nominees who are supported by 90 to 95 percent of us and make it easier to proceed to a vote on nominees.

The Senator from Missouri wants to vote no on this nominee or others. That is his right, but we should come up with a process by which the entire administration is not ground to a halt by 1 or 2 of 100. We should just decide to do that because today this is hamstringing a Democratic President. But let me guarantee you, it will hamstring a Republican President someday as well.

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

Madam President, $847 billion is a lot of money to spend on anything in 1 year, even in Washington terms. It is enough money, for instance, to make sure that not a single child goes hungry anywhere in the world ever again. It is enough money to end homelessness in America, provide free preschool and college for every American, build high-speed rail between every American city, and make childcare free for families.

Frankly, come up with five problems that plague parts of the world or parts of the country, design a solution, and you could probably solve all five for a year for $847 billion.

Here is another number that is big: $80 billion. Now, that is smaller than $847 billion but still a lot of money.

For $80 billion, you could build a high-speed railroad from New York to Washington, you could build 4,000 brandnew, state-of-the-art high schools in underserved communities, or you could hire--wait for it--a million public school teachers.

Here is why I tell you this. Next week, likely, this body is apparently going to be on a glidepath to pass an $847 billion Defense budget authorization for the current fiscal year. That is an $80 billion increase over last year. That is a 10-percent increase in just 1 year.

There has been very little public debate, and there is going to be very little debate on this floor over whether this is a good idea, about whether we should spend $80 billion on this or whether that $80 billion would be spent better on something else.

There is no debate, and there is going to be little debate here, in part, because the process of passing this bill is pretty broken.

Thanks to Senator Reed, the Armed Services Committee is a functioning committee. The Democrats and Republicans on that committee write this bill together with an open amendment process. If you are a member of the Armed Services Committee, thanks to Senator Reed and Senator Inhofe's leadership, you have a lot of opportunities to weigh in on the size and scope of the U.S. defense budget.

But the problem begins once the bill leaves the Armed Services Committee. Then the bill kind of disappears and gets changed. That is not Chairman Reed's fault. That is our collective decision to endorse that process.

The first thing that happens, particularly this year, is that many, many big, important pieces of policy get added to the Defense bill. Some of them are good policy, but some of them aren't. But there is no democratic process in which Members of this body get to review what is added to the Defense bill. There is no notification of rank-and-file Members so that we can provide input.

Again, as I understand it, the Armed Services Committee doesn't want to be in this position. They would rather just have a vote on their original bill, as we did for decades until just recently, when all of this extra policy got added to the Defense bill. But because today there are so few avenues for that other legislation to find a path to the floor, in large part because Republicans are using the filibuster to clog up the floor of the Senate, the Defense bill becomes this kind of evacuation helicopter carrying all the passengers they can fit in it.

For the first time this year, there are more pages in the Defense bill dedicated to nondefense items than to defense items.

This might be acceptable if Senators could offer amendments on the floor, remove parts of the bill we don't like, make other parts better--at least have our day. But the other new normal here is that there is going to be zero amendments, amendment votes, likely in the Senate debate.

It is the same problem. There are a handful of Republicans here who don't want to legislate, and so they are likely going to refuse to give consent to vote on amendments, and, plus, as I mentioned, they clog up the floor with filibuster votes, which means that you can't get big, important pieces of legislation done, and so they all find their way onto the Defense bill.

But I just want to plead with my colleagues for a moment that there is a better way to do this. We don't have to look too far in the past to see what a real debate on the Defense bill could look like. I just want all of my colleagues to think how much more interesting this place would be, how much healthier the Senate would be if we

could have debates on Defense bills that looked like they did just 20 years ago.

I was just curious. So I literally just picked a year out of a hat from a slightly different generation in the Senate. I swear, I didn't cherry-pick the year. I just went back to 2000--the year 2000, right--a nice convenient date.

For the fiscal year 2000 Defense bill debate--which by the way, happened in May, not in December--the Senate took rollcall votes on 13 amendments. There were many amendments on contested, controversial policy that got full debate and full votes, and there were a whole bunch of other amendments that got voice votes in the Senate. But on the amendments that got full debate on the Senate floor and rollcall votes, there was an 87-12 vote on the legality of a new NATO strategic plan, a 49-50 vote to compel information from the Secretary of Health and Human Services on welfare reform, 48-52 on a War Powers Resolution for the war in the Balkans, 90-0 on a measure to encourage Balkan war crimes prosecution, 52-47 on a contested military promotion case, 40-60 to authorize a new round of base closures, 44-56 on a nuclear weapon retirement policy, 49-51 and then 51-49 to remove restrictions on prison labor products, 49-51 to remove restrictions on abortions on DOD property, 21-77 to limit funding for the Balkan war, 11-87 to limit the cost of the F-18 program, and 98-0 to support sanctions on Libya.

That is a lot of debate on really important foreign policy and national security policy on the floor of the Senate. That is virtually unthinkable in the modern Senate, and we are all poorer for it.

Back then, every Senator--not just leadership--saw themselves as having a coequal responsibility to set U.S. defense policy, and they required the process on the floor to reflect that belief.

In just that 1 year, 2000, Senators took three votes on the Balkan war, a vote on fighter costs, a vote on base closures, sanctions, and military promotions.

I go through this exercise just to explain to my colleagues that it just doesn't have to be like this. Those of us not on the Armed Services Committee or not in leadership don't have to be relegated to 70 rubberstamps with virtually no ability to have meaningful, realtime impact on the bill once it emerges from committee.

But I make this point for another reason as well. When there is limited debate and limited input from rank-and-file Members on a bill this big, on policy this important, I would argue that we miss the opportunity to be able to step back from this year-to-year creep of existing policy and ask ourselves: Are we doing it right?

Are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a way that actually protects this country and our national interests; or are we simply continuing down a path, continuing to invest and overinvest in weapons of war and underinvest in the tools that are necessary to prevent war?

And $847 billion is a ton of money, but so is $80 billion, this year's increase in authorized defense spending.

Now, let me say this: There is no doubt that there are legions of meritorious programs in this defense budget. Frankly, I publicly and proudly support many programs that are built and constructed in Connecticut: our submarine fleet, our helicopters, our fighter engines.

Why? Because I really do believe that the United States is the world's defender of democracy, the defender of the rule of law, the defender of international norms and free navigation. We have to be the world leader in kinetic, hard military power.

Ukraine is an example of why conventional military might still matters. Big nations, like Russia and China, are not content any longer to stay inside their boxes. They are, like pre-World War II times, seeking to revise their borders through invasion; and while the United States is currently at no risk of being invaded ourselves, we do still have a responsibility to step up and help others, to help reinforce that post-World War II order to ensure that wars of aggression do not become normalized.

But that post-World War II order is under threat not just because countries like Russia and China are using or threatening to use their militaries with alarming new frequency. The lion's share of threats to the United States and threats to world stability are often referred to not as conventional military threats but what is commonly referred to as asymmetric threats.

Now, this generally means they are threats that cannot be addressed just through military power--air power, armies, nuclear weapons, the kind of things that are funded in this Defense bill.

Let me give you some examples. Thousands of pages of think tank reports and endless hours of congressional testimony are dedicated to this lament that China's influence around the world is growing due to its willingness to aggressively invest in developing economies, critical mineral supplies, and supply chain routes. For instance, today China owns over 100 different international ports. They own a hundred ports outside of China in 60 different countries.

A new study revealed that China's development bank lent more money in sub-Saharan Africa than the development banks of the United States, Germany, Japan, and France combined. Now, to fix this, we need to be growing the size of U.S. development finance. But it is like pulling teeth to get Congress to extend the authorities or borrowing and capital limitations of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

Last year, DFC announced that it had lent more money than any year before: $7.4 billion. That is a lot of money, $7.4 billion. This July, China's largest development bank announced that its 6-month total for a targeted set of urban infrastructure loans in the developing world, just a tiny piece of their overall portfolio, was $27 billion.

U.S. development finance isn't even playing in the same ballpark as Chinese development finance.

Here is another example of asymmetric power: It is kind of cliche these days to remind policymakers that information is power. But Ukraine's democracy is not just under attack from a foreign army; it is also under attack from misinformation. China, Russia, Iran, nonstate actors, they are spending billions of dollars all over the world spreading messages into democracies to try to create division and undermine faith in the rule of law.

That controversy around Colin Kaepernick's protest, that was mostly a creation of 500 Russian internet bots who posted an incredible 12,000 tweets inflaming public opinion.

China's global disinformation campaign is equally robust. For instance, the largest backer of Philippines' President--former President Rodrigo Duterte's illegal assassination campaign? Chinese social media farms.

But, once again, the United States just chooses asymmetry by letting these countries--Russia and China and others--dominate the information space.

Here is an example: the budget for RT, just one of Putin's international television and online news operations, $2.8 billion; the budget for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which funds all of our overseas broadcasting, $1 billion.

How do you compete with those kind of funding discrepancies?

Here is one more example. A few years ago, I was in Dublin, coincidentally, at the same time of a major telecommunications contract tender in Ireland. Ireland was making this key decision to award its internet backbone to a European firm or to Huawei, the Chinese communications conglomerate.

I was told by a very competent but, frankly, very overwhelmed defense attache assigned to our Irish Embassy that, over the prior few months, the Chinese Embassy had grown by leaps and bounds as dozens of new Chinese diplomats and provocateurs arrived in town to try to help sway the award for Huawei. Now, matched up against this legion of Chinese diplomats was this one guy, our single defense attache, maybe supported by a couple diplomats in the Embassy.

Now, he was competent, but he had no background in telecommunications policy--and, frankly, really nobody else there did either, and no extra help was on the way.

The same phenomenon plays out with energy projects. Other nations

seamlessly integrate their energy resources with their diplomatic and national security efforts. There is no separation between the Middle East's oil and their foreign politics. The same for Russia or Iran or Venezuela. But U.S. energy executives are not representing the U.S. Government, which means our diplomats are on their own in conducting energy policy, which means they have an enormous amount of catching up to do against these other petro powers.

But for the first time, today, the United States is not the leading country when it comes to diplomatic posts around the world. That distinction now belongs to--guess who?--China. As our adversaries try to undermine democracies and rule of law and use their energy and technology resources to win allies, we simply don't have the means to keep up, another asymmetric advantage for our competitors.

We have no dedicated anticorruption or technology or energy policy corps within our foreign service. It is not because we don't need this capacity; it is just because we can't afford it. We lament this asymmetric advantage that other countries have on nondefense capabilities, but it is just a choice. It is a choice because we pass, year after year, these massive defense bills, and then we choose not to increase the capabilities that would actually protect us: the investments in nonmilitary capabilities.

Listen, I get it. I know this bill is going to pass, but why on Earth aren't we spending more time asking the tough questions about whether the balance of our spending on national security is right-sized to the actual threats the United States and our democratic allies face?

Yes, the Ukraine war is worth fighting, and it is expensive, but does it really make sense to spend 847 times more money on conventional military tools than we spend on winning the information war? Does it really make sense to add 10 percent to the defense budget while doing nothing to increase the size of our international development bank?

Do we really think that we are adequately responding to the actual array of threats posed to this country with a spending allocation that ends up with America having 11,000 diplomats, total, and 12,000 employees of military grocery stores?

American foreign policy today suffers from a crippling lack of imagination. American leaders complain about these asymmetric threats but refuse to acknowledge that this asymmetry exists only because we choose to do this: pass an $847 billion defense budget with a 10 percent, 1-year increase and do nothing, at the same time, to build the real capacities necessary to keep up with our adversaries' investments in nonmilitary tools of influence.

We could decide--this Congress could decide--to build a massive, modern international development bank. We could decide--this Congress could decide--not to let RT dominate the international information space. We could decide--all of us, this Congress--to have enough diplomats around the world to be able to fight the fights that matter to us.

We should imagine this world in which we fight toe to toe with the Chinese and the Russians and other adversaries in the development, information, technology, energy, and diplomatic spheres. We should imagine that world and then put in place a plan to achieve it.

Asymmetry is a choice. It is a choice for our adversaries, and it is a choice for us. And it is a consequence of our entire budget--for development aid, anti-propaganda efforts, democracy promotion, human rights advancement, humanitarian assistance, and diplomacy--being about the same size as the 1-year increase in the defense budget.

And $847 billion is a lot of money to spend without a real debate on the Senate floor, without the ability to offer amendments. I think this country would be better off, I think our security would be better protected, if we just took a step back, asked some hard questions about how we allocate money within our national security budget, and took the time to have a real floor debate with real input about it all.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the 100th anniversary of UNICO National, founded in Waterbury, CT, by Dr. Anthony P. Vastola and 15 other proud Italian-Americans. UNICO began as a small service organization, helping people in the greater Waterbury area gain access to higher education through scholarships, promoting Italian heritage, and contributing to charities throughout the State.

In the century since its inception, UNICO has grown into the largest Italian-American service organization in the United States. UNICO started as a way to combat anti-Italian prejudice and discrimination, showing non-Italian Americans that their culture was founded in philanthropy, civic engagement, and charity. As our Nation's Italian- American population grew, so, too, did the membership of UNICO and its spirit of generosity.

While UNICO was founded in Connecticut, its reach stretches far past our State's borders. When an earthquake ravaged parts of Italy, UNICO members raised thousands of dollars to build shelters for those affected. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, UNICO once again rose to the occasion by supporting victims' relief funds and restaurants around Ground Zero. By funding research to help find cures for diseases like Cooley's anemia and cancer and giving to institutions like the University of Connecticut and Seton Hall University, UNICO ensures that future generation will also benefit from its members' selflessness. The endowed chairs of modern Italian history and Italian studies at these schools, help teach students about Italian heritage, and work to advance UNICO's mission of eliminating discrimination.

The impact this organization has had on communities is immeasurable. For 100 years, UNICO has been a model of service towards others. I am proud and grateful for its work and its deep roots in Waterbury. I can't wait to see what more the members of UNICO accomplish as they continue their pursuit to make our world a better place.

Mr. President, I have two requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. First, this is a pretty long piece of legislation and impactful in the policy it makes. It was introduced yesterday.

It is probably not a great idea for the Senate to short circuit any process of reviewing this legislation and speed to its passage today, but Senator Ernst is a serious thinker on matters of national security, and so I do want to engage for 2 minutes on the merits because I think it is important to have this conversation.

Senator Ernst is right. At the heart, at the center of U.S. foreign policy has to be the protection of our citizens. We have to be coldblooded about making sure that our policy keeps our people safe, both here in the United States and abroad.

The good news, when it comes to Iran policy, is that we have tried both a policy of engagement and diplomacy and a policy of escalating sanction, and we can judge from those two periods of time which one better protected American security and the specific security of Americans here and in the region.

During the period of time that the United States and Iran were in an agreement regarding nuclear weapons together, there were not credible plots being hatched against U.S. persons inside the United States. There were not Iranian proxies firing at U.S. forces inside the Middle East. But as soon as the United States removed itself from that agreement and started this process of escalating sanction, all of a sudden, Americans and American assets were at risk all over the world. The plots started against U.S. persons here. The Iranians and their proxies started regularly shooting at Americans in the region.

And so the facts are the facts--less threat to the United States when we were in a diplomatic agreement and more threats to the United States when we weren't in a diplomatic agreement. I think that speaks to the question of whether engagement or maximum pressure actually--actually-- in the end protects Americans best.

But, second, I want to make this point, and I think it is an important one. This is called the PUNISH Act. And I understand why. It speaks to a view of sanctions as simply a mechanism of punishment. And there is an element of sanctions that is sending a moral message, a moral signal, about our values and how they differ from the values of those that we are sanctioning. But sanctions are also used to influence. In fact, most of the sanctions that we are passing are not just merely punitive. They are actually designed to try to change the behavior of a regime.

So that is why, if we entered into a nuclear agreement, the only sanctions that I think we should remove are the sanctions that were specifically put in place to influence the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons program.

In fact, I would argue--and I think President Biden would argue; I am sure President Biden would argue--that we should keep in place the sanctions that have been levied against Iran to try to influence their ballistic missile program or their support for terrorists.

And so I think it is just important for us all to come to the conclusion that, although there is a punishment element of sanctions, if we don't use sanctions to influence behavior, then I am not sure that the policy of sanctions matters as effectively as it should.

And, lastly, this: Iran, they are malevolent actors. They are not good people. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't enter into negotiations when we can take steps to protect our interests, the security of our people.

The nuclear bombs that we dropped on Japan were 15-kiloton weapons. Modern nuclear weapons range from 100 to 800 kilotons. So, yes, unapologetically, we should have a policy as a component of our national security to do whatever is possible to make sure that more countries--especially, more wildly irresponsible regimes--don't get their hands on nuclear weapons. And, yes, that should be more important than many of our other priorities.

Yes, in fact, we should elevate the conversation about stopping a regime like Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. They are bad actors. They are targeting U.S. forces. They are targeting U.S. persons. They are supporting terrorism. That, to me, is the reason, is the rationale why we should make sure that that regime--so dangerous, so destructive, so malevolent--doesn't get its hands on a nuclear weapon.

Their bad action in the region is a reason to engage in diplomacy to stop

them from getting a nuclear weapon, not a reason not to engage in that diplomacy. And so I understand that it is sometimes incredibly hard and distasteful to get your arms wrapped around engagement with an enemy.

But I will leave you with this. The Soviet Union, through their proxies, killed tens of thousands of Americans during the Cold War. There was no doubt that they possessed on a daily basis the existential ability to wipe out the United States. But we did, at the very least, four bilateral nuclear deals with the Soviet Union, seven multilateral nuclear deals with the Soviet Union, not because we misunderstood their aims and desires but because we thought it was so important to limit the scope of their nuclear program given their intentions to wipe out democracy all around the world.

I agree that it is apples to oranges comparing the Soviet Union to Iran, but the same principle applies. We need to elevate our work when it comes to nonproliferation. That just needs to matter more, and we shouldn't be afraid to engage with enemies and adversaries, especially on this question of making sure that their bad behavior doesn't end up having, amongst its tools, a nuclear weapon that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

For that reason, I object.