Floor Statements

Madam President, I come to the floor to celebrate 20 years since the passage of the Part D Medicare prescription drug benefit. Tomorrow, December 8, is that day.

There was a time when the seniors of America on Medicare didn't have access to nationwide prescription drug benefits, so, as I indicated, 20 years ago tomorrow, President George W. Bush signed into law a nationwide prescription drug benefit for our Nation's seniors.

At that time, I was chairman of the Finance Committee, and I was proud to be the lead author on Medicare Part D. It wasn't easy. It took several years to bring Members of both political parties in the Senate and the House, along with a President--in this case, President Bush--to accomplish this monumental task.

As I remember, both political parties were blaming each other over a period of maybe 5 or 6 years for why we didn't have a prescription drug bill and probably blaming each other. Throughout 2001, 2002, and 2003, I led bipartisan negotiations that eventually produced the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which is the official title of that legislation.

In 2003, I said this, a quote from that period of time:

Medicare is part of our country's social fabric. We're not

only saving it, but we're also improving it.

Of course, that still rings true today.

Today, 52 million seniors are voluntarily enrolled in a Medicare Part D plan, because it is not a requirement of Medicare. In 2023, 804 stand-alone prescription drug plans were offered across the Nation, with the average Iowan having over 20 plans to choose from to meet whatever their special needs are. Over the lifetime of the program, the average annual Medicare Part D base beneficiary monthly premium has been between $27 to $36 a month.

I remember some of the discussions that we were having back then as we tried to develop this legislation. We thought to ourselves that we had to be very careful that the initial premiums were not over $40 a month because we figured that was just too high for anybody to participate in this new program. We knew or at least thought at that time that they would continue to go up according to inflation, but, as you can see, after 27 years, the base beneficiary monthly premium is still well below $40 a month, which obviously is quite a surprise to those of us who were involved at that time in writing this legislation but a very positive surprise.

Access and affordability have been a key hallmark of the Medicare Part D Program, but so has good stewardship of the taxpayers' dollars. In the first decade of the program, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that Medicare Part D would cost taxpayers roughly $550 billion for that decade. It ended up costing $353 billion, which was 36 percent less than the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected in 2003.

Most Federal projections of cost of almost any government program always tend to be much greater than CBO estimated. So this is another one of those pleasant surprises that have come out of what we thought would actually materialize as we were writing this legislation.

I know that seniors have appreciated this nationwide prescription drug benefit and its use of a market-based approach. A market-based approach is pretty important because a lot of people like to have one single government

program that dictates to each participant only that one choice, and that is the choice the government offers. In this particular case, we know we have had plenty of choices to meet the needs of Americans in different ways according to their likes.

Recently, I have been told by my constituents how Medicare Part D has helped make their lives easier.

There is a lady by the name of Kay from Mount Vernon, IA, who wrote this:

I am 100 percent satisfied with Medicare Part D. It's given

me peace of mind and cost savings that make room in my budget

for other living expenses.

Julie from Dubuque, IA, said this:

I wouldn't possibly be able to afford oncological care

without this insurance. My advice for Iowans becoming

eligible for Medicare: Sign up for Medicare Part D. Use a

trusted source to navigate all the plans. I'm glad to have

choices, not one-size-fits-all.

An Iowan who volunteers with the Senior Health Insurance Information Program said this:

As a SHIIP volunteer--

SHIIP is the Senior Health Insurance Information Program--

I like to help people find the best plan to fit their needs

and their finances. One individual was taking 35 daily

prescription medications that would have cost $10,000 per

month without Part D. For this Iowan, Medicare Part D was by

definition, lifesaving.

I am glad Medicare Part D has benefited these seniors.

Medicare Part D has shown that empowering patients with health plan transparency and choice can bring about significant savings for patients and taxpayers.

Even though Medicare Part D has been around for at least 20 years, I have consistently conducted oversight and worked to make it better for seniors and taxpayers. During Medicare Part D's implementation, I held the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services accountable and consistently conducted oversight that ranged from making sure seniors could access their prescription drugs all the way to ensuring that taxpayer dollars were wisely spent.

I have also worked to advance commonsense reforms for seniors, for providers, and for taxpayers. Twenty years ago, we modernized Medicare to improve access for seniors while ensuring fiscal sustainability for taxpayers.

I don't know why for sure, in 1966 when Medicare was set up, why it didn't include prescription drugs, but I assumed at that particular time that prescription drugs were about 1 or 2 percent of the cost of medicine in the United States or the delivery of medicine in the United States. Today, I think it is somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.

These patient-centered principles that I have talked about can be applied to the latest front in the fight to lower prescription drugs by shining sunlight on powerful drug middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers. By bringing transparency to the PBM industry, we will empower patients, employers, providers, and insurers to make informed decisions based on the true value, if any, that PBMs provide.

When consumers are empowered, they can demand change or pursue better alternatives. Unleashing market forces that foster innovation and apply downward pressure on prices is the way to get there.

The Senate has an opportunity to take action to reduce costs for patients and taxpayers alike. We should let the successes of Medicare Part D's patient-centered approach guide us.

Now, my colleagues are going to say that I took advantage of commemorating 20 years of Part D being a successful program for seniors and keeping drug costs down for seniors to take a whack at PBMs. But I think we all ought to think in terms of these powerful middlemen between the companies and you as the consumer or the local pharmacy, and we don't have any idea what they are doing. We know they have something to do with setting prices, setting rebates, determining what drugs are in what formularies, but beyond that, we don't know whether the rebates they give benefit the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the PBMs themselves, the pharmacies, or you as a consumer, and we ought to know that.

Senator Wyden, my Democratic friend--he and I traded off sharing the Finance Committee from time to time. He and I started working on PBMs probably about 5 years ago. We were the only two who were interested in it, but it has reached a stage where at least four committees of the U.S. Senate and one committee of the House of Representatives have put out bills to make the opaque environment in which PBMs operate more transparent.

Now, we aren't saying that what they are doing is wrong; we are only saying we ought to know what they are doing for the benefit of the consumer but also for the benefit of the American taxpayer because, through Medicare and Medicaid, government is the biggest purchaser of drugs in the United States, and maybe we can save the taxpayers some money.

So besides being here on the floor of the U.S. Senate to praise the Congress in 2003 for passing the prescription drug Part D program for Medicare, I didn't want to lose the opportunity to urge action on PBM legislation so that we can know what is going on with the pricing of drugs, the formularies, and who benefits from it because, with transparency, there brings accountability. Maybe transparency won't be enough when we are all done, but I wouldn't know where to tell you to go if you wanted to change some law right now to transform this system, but I think transparency will do a great deal of good.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Iowans recall the derecho that tore through parts of our State in 2020. The storm hit alongside the COVID- 19 pandemic, when communities faced unprecedented challenges, including stalled school meal programs. Such unforeseen events can disrupt communities. Individuals like Michael Rojas of Polk County step up-- often on a moment's notice and without pause--to keep that from happening.

Mr. Rojas helped lead FEMA's response to the 2020 derecho, putting to work his expertise from a prior post with Iowa's Habitat for Humanity, where he dealt with tornado and flood damage. During the pandemic, he spearheaded critical plans to address food insecurity in our State. Today, he is a disaster program officer with Volunteer Iowa, which facilitates opportunities for local nonprofits and nearby residents to engage in projects with impacts close to home.

Iowans who cross paths with Mr. Rojas undoubtedly know his selflessness, ingenuity, and efficacy. By honoring Mr. Rojas on a national scale with its Excellence in Disaster Services Leadership Award, AmeriCorps seems to have hit the nail on the head. I congratulate Mr. Rojas on this well-earned recognition and thank him for his continued, exemplary service to Iowa.

Mr. President, if the Biden administration decides to allow a terrorist state access to billions of dollars, then, at a bare minimum, the Biden administration must perform exceedingly strict oversight of how that money is used.

It is pretty simple, common sense requires considering the attendant risk that this money gives to Iran. The Biden administration has created a serious problem that needs strict oversight.

More than all that, the Congress must also have the same regard of how the executive branch conducts its business in regard to these billions of dollars.

Today, I have an on-point example to present to my colleagues. In September of this year, the administration's State Department provided Iran access to $6 billion as part of a prisoner swap agreement. Then, in mid-October, the United States and the Qatari Governments decided to refreeze these funds due to the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

Hamas, an Iranian-funded terrorist organization, as we all know, attacked Israel and murdered civilians, seized hostages, and destroyed towns. Hamas committed unspeakable acts of terror and evil, not seen since the Nazis, toward Jewish people.

On October 12 of this year, Secretary of State Blinken addressed the international media and, in that address, claimed that the State Department has ``strict oversight of the funds and retains the right to freeze them''--meaning freezing the $6 billion.

Now, there had better be strict oversight--the taxpayers ought to require that--exceedingly strict oversight. I now ask: What did the Secretary of State mean when he said ``strict oversight''?

I don't want lip service from the Secretary. I want details. So on October 12 of this year, I wrote a letter asking exactly that: What are the details?

My letter also sought to know what government Agencies are involved in this alleged oversight. What are the roles of the respective Agencies in this oversight? What enforcement mechanisms are in place to ensure compliance? How will the State Department be able to punish Iran if conditions of the $6 billion is violated?

I also asked what components of the State Department are responsible for conducting this oversight, among other questions.

Almost a month past the 2-week deadline to respond, the State Department did finally send me a letter. That letter was very incomplete and a very insufficient response that failed to answer the essential question, using his words: What does ``strict oversight'' mean? The letter didn't deal with that, and it seems to be a pretty simple question.

The State Department letter meekly said: ``The United States will have full visibility and will exercise strict oversight as to how and when the funds are used.''

This isn't an answer; this is lip service. We are talking about billions of dollars accessible by a terrorist regime.

So as you would expect Senator Grassley to do, on November 21, I sent a letter, a followup letter, to Secretary Blinken, informing him of his failed response and then again renewing my request for Congress and the American people to know and understand what the Secretary meant by the words he used of ``strict oversight.''

(Ms. CORTEZ MASTO assumed the Chair.)

The Secretary made these oversight promises publicly in an international setting, and the Secretary has an obligation to explain himself what ``strict oversight'' is. If the State Department is engaging in strict oversight, then say what it is and give us, the Congress, the response, the details of that. The taxpayers deserve to know exactly

how the Biden administration plans to ensure proper oversight of $6 billion to Iran.

This Senator, obviously, won't stop demanding answers, especially when it comes to a terrorist regime's access to billions of dollars that the United States has something to say about.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Jeremy King, a Secret Service detailee from my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress.

Well, you just heard Senator Durbin say that this bill has passed the Senate once. It is still not law. We are back here again, and I hope my fellow Senators will see that Senator Durbin and I don't give up on this very important issue of trying to bring a dose of sunshine to the airwaves.

Lowering the cost of prescription drugs is a top priority of mine and most of the Senators here. Without prescription medication, millions of Americans would not survive. As a nation, we are incredibly blessed to live in a country where investment and innovation unlock cures and treatments.

But the escalation in price of prescription drugs, partly caused by this advertisement that goes on, are a consuming concern for millions of Americans, including Iowans who bring up this subject regularly at my county meetings.

I have come to the floor of the Senate to address the sticker shock that greets consumers when they pick up their medicine at the pharmacy or open their medical bills after a hospital visit.

In recent years, I have worked in a bipartisan manner to pass the CREATES Act, another bill called the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act, and another one, the Right Rebate Act into law. Each of these bills lowered prescription drug prices for patients and taxpayers by stopping anticompetitive practices, putting sunlight on medications for consumers at the pharmacy counter, and to keep drug companies in check.

I was chairman of the Finance Committee when we hauled Big Pharma in for public hearings. As chairman, I also partnered with the senior Senator from Oregon on a groundbreaking 2-year investigation of insulin pricing. That investigation focuses not only on insulin manufacturers but also powerful pharmacy benefit managers--PBMs.

I have worked to hold PBMs accountable by putting sunlight on their practices and working to ban their anti-competitive behavior that increases the cost to patients, rural pharmacies, and the taxpayers.

In this Congress, I have gotten passed the Prescription Pricing for the People Act out of the Judiciary Committee and with bipartisan support. I hope the Senate doesn't miss the opportunity to hold the Federal Trade Commission accountable by requiring the 6(b) study of drug middlemen to be produced within 1 year instead of the typical 3 to 5 years that it takes the FTC to do something.

I have also worked with the junior Senator from Washington State to pass the PBM Transparency Act out of the Commerce Committee with bipartisan support. The FTC can play an important role in holding PBMs accountable in spread pricing and clawbacks across all health insurance.

I have also contributed to and supported two Finance Committee markups this year that included six of my PBM accountability and transparency provisions. I am supporting the PBM provisions that have come out of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee to deal with this problem in the commercial insurance market.

I hope the full Senate doesn't ignore the aggressive actions the four committees have taken this Congress to hold PBMs accountable. We must enact these bold committee-passed bills into law. If we are timid, we will be right back here a few years from now still fixing the problem.

On top of PBM reforms and accountability, we need price transparency; so that brings me back to where Senator Durbin and I are right now. With that background, I now go to the purpose of this unanimous consent request and the Durbin-Grassley bill to bring important price information to prescription drug consumers. When patients complain about the high price of drugs, it is usually because they got their bill or found out how much it costs when they were at the pharmacy counter. They didn't have the ability to know the price before they bought it. Knowing what something costs before buying is common sense. So working with the Senator from Illinois to require the disclosure of medication list prices and advertisements makes common sense. President Trump pursued this through regulations, and the Senate even passed this measure--as Senator Durbin has already said--a few years ago.

Each year, the pharmaceutical industry spends $6 billion in direct- to-consumer drug advertising to fill the airways with ads, resulting in the average American seeing nine direct-to-consumer ads each day. Studies show that these activities steer patients to more expensive drugs even when a lower cost generic is available.

The Government Accountability Office has found that prescription drugs advertised directly to consumers account for about 58 percent of Medicare spending on drugs. We ought to require the disclosure of this list price so that patients can make informed choices when inundated with drug commercials.

Consumers and taxpayers would benefit from a dose of sunshine. By passing the Drug-Price Transparency for Consumers Act, we could begin the process of reforming the incentives in our prescription supply chain that reward high-cost drugs and their manufacturers, along with powerful middlemen.

If you watch these commercials on television, you see a lot of information very quietly stated by the drug companies such as the side effects possible from using some of these drugs. You get all the information about what these drugs will accomplish, but you don't know what they cost. And that information ought to be available to the consumer.

I thank Senator Durbin for giving me this opportunity to express my view on this piece of legislation.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1250

Madam President, shortly after President Biden took office, I gave a speech wondering whether this new President Biden's tough-on-Russia rhetoric would be matched by his administration's actions. I wondered about President Biden because the actions of the Obama-Biden administration were dangerously weak.

We all know that when it comes to Russia, weakness is provocative. It encourages aggression. Russians follow the maxim attributed to Lenin:

You probe with bayonets: If you find mush, you push. If you

find steel, you withdraw.

The same is true when dealing with Iran and China. Only 6 months after Russia invaded and occupied portions of the Republic of Georgia, then-Vice President Biden went to Munich to deliver a speech calling for the United States to hit the ``reset button'' with Russia. When Russia invaded, the Republic of Georgia was westernizing and had gone out of its way to cement close ties with our country.

Georgia even sent soldiers to fight and die alongside American soldiers, but that support from Georgia was quickly forgotten in order to reset relations with Russia. Secretary of State Clinton actually did hit the ``reset button'' in an embarrassing, chummy ceremony with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

As part of the Obama-Biden reset, the United States unilaterally canceled planned missile defense cooperation with our allies the Czechs and the Poles, and the administration did so on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

All of these actions then sent the exact wrong message to both Russia and to our allies. No doubt the Obama-Biden administration thought our unilateral show of goodwill would be warmly received and reciprocated by Russia.

Instead, we know that Russia under Putin invaded and occupied Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and chunks of eastern Ukraine. The Obama- Biden administration responded with angry words but refused to send Ukraine defensive weapons of any kind.

President Obama urged Ukraine not to fight the 2014 Russian invasion. The priority was to avoid escalation. The Obama-Biden administration backed negotiations and a diplomatic solution.

Now, we all know Russia has a history of using negotiations to create frozen conflicts that it can use then to destabilize and control its neighbors. Historically, Russia will snatch a piece of land and then demand a ceasefire and negotiations, allowing it to keep the ill-gotten gains indefinitely. Meanwhile, Russia builds up its next aggression while weakening its target.

The Obama-Biden reset and subsequent Ukraine policy was a disaster for peace and security. In August 2013, the regime of Syrian President Assad used chemical weapons. By doing so, it crossed President Biden's redline--that famous ``redline'' that he spoke about. When nothing happened, then, the world took notice.

Meanwhile, the Obama-Biden administration sought to strike an Iran nuclear deal at all costs, alienating regional partners and emboldening the Iranian regime.

In June of 2019, President Trump repeated a version of President Obama's redline mistake. At that time, Iran had shot down a U.S. drone, and the U.S. military had prepared a retaliatory strike, as you would expect their defense to do. But President Trump stepped in, calling off the strike, and, then, you know, he publicly announced that he had done so 10 minutes before that attack was supposed to be launched.

President Trump's aborted retaliation then led to further escalation by the Iranian regime, including attacks on U.S. soldiers; that is, until President Trump finally took some solid action, making that bold decision to restore deterrence by killing General Soleimani, as he was plotting further attacks against U.S. forces. Iran responded with a token missile barrage, but the dramatic escalation of the conflict with Iran, predicted by some, fortunately, never materialized. In fact, Iran was deterred.

Then, the Biden administration came into office and began negotiations to resurrect the Iran deal.

Of course, who can ever forget the disastrous withdrawals from Afghanistan? In time, we will learn more about the decisions that lead to such enormous loss of American military equipment to the Taliban, while leaving many Afghans who worked with our military still under Taliban control--and still today.

Both of these losses sting this very day and influence others to see us as weak or somebody who can't be counted on, as far as our friends are concerned. But there is another loss that is harder to quantify; that is, the loss of the reputation of the United States.

Like it or not, stacked on top of the other expressions of American weakness that I have described, the Afghanistan debacle led to a perception that the United States is weak and unwilling to stand behind its commitments. After the Afghanistan embarrassment, our allies and partners worried that we were no longer reliable. Worse yet, those countries that have long sought America's downfall no longer feared us. Our enemies were emboldened.

According to Russian opposition journalist Mikhail Zygar, in his recent book, the fall of Kabul was a turning point in Putin's mind. Putin became convinced then that he could conquer Kyiv, President Zelenskyy would flee the country, and the United States would do nothing to stop that takeover of Ukraine.

Today, we face the consequences of an emboldened Russia and an emboldened Iran. And, two, China is increasingly aggressive in the South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan. To be sure, our responses are being closely watched by all three of these adversaries: Russia, China, and Iran. This is a critical time when sending more messages of weakness would be very dangerous.

Today, some people--even in my own political party--are reverting to the Obama-era stance, arguing that we cannot afford the actions necessary to deter all three would-be adversaries of our country. I am convinced that we must deter further aggression from our enemies. We must restore credible deterrence before we reach the point where we have to expend much more, both in American blood and American treasure.

Estonia's Prime Minister is in town this week. Remember that little country that was taken over by the Soviet Union in 1940 and, until the early 1990s, was still under their control? Now they are a free nation. We ought to listen to them of what freedom really means.

So I recommend to my colleagues to listen to Prime Minister Kallas, if you have any chance to do that. She has shown remarkable clarity and leadership since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She often points out:

If Putin wins, or if he even has the view that he has won

this war, his appetite will only grow.

Meanwhile, that old impulse to deter ourselves is still evident in this present administration when the U.S. National Security Advisor says he is worried about starting World War III. That is a way of convincing Putin to hang on a little longer.

We should have learned by now that escalation of aggression happens when the United States demonstrates weakness. Telegraphing that we are afraid to give Ukraine what it needs to win is deeply counterproductive to freedom and, most importantly, to the Ukrainian people, but also encouraging Russia because, remember, for Russians, weakness, not strength, is provocative.

I urge Members of both political parties to discard the failed Obama policies of weakness toward Russia and give Ukraine what it needs today. Reset didn't work, and ignoring Russia's ambitions in that area is harmful for peace around the world and, particularly, for national security. Our national security is tied, through NATO, with Europe.

The more advanced weapons that Ukraine can obtain quickly, the faster that war will be over. When it comes to quick decisions to send needed weapons to Ukraine to defeat Russia, several countries have shown great leadership: the United Kingdom, Poland, and the three Baltic countries, for example.

Now, for sure, yes, the United States has provided many advanced weapons to Ukraine--the most of any country helping Ukraine--but usually only months after they are needed to have the maximum effect that these good weapons provide.

Ukraine didn't get the tanks needed to launch the counteroffensive until after the Russians had months to dig in and fortify their frontlines.

After months of dithering, President Biden finally gave permission for the Dutch and Danish to send their F-16s to Ukraine, but it will still take months to train the pilots.

The United States military would never launch a ground campaign without controlling the skies, but that is what Ukraine has been forced to do without the F-16s. After all the public hemming and hawing, President Biden finally approved sending a version of the ATACMS missiles to Ukraine, but shorter range cluster munitions were the variant that was sent, not the most destructive.

Meanwhile, President Biden is still withholding the long-range versions needed to take out the Russian supply lines in the Crimean Peninsula. Now, I can only assume this is another example of self- deterrence that has proven so misguided a policy of the past.

Ukrainians are making steady progress, but they could be doing it faster and at less cost in American dollars and Ukrainian lives if President Biden would not be so hesitant, as he is, to take bold action.

The United States has spent roughly $44 billion on military aid to Ukraine. That happens to be roughly 5 percent of the U.S. military's own budget. Ukraine remains in control of roughly 83 percent of its territory, and the U.S. intelligence community believes the war has severely degraded Russia's military power and its ability to threaten NATO allies. That is a victory not just for Ukraine's independence but for our own national security, as it is

tied to the invoking of article 5 of the NATO alliance.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine sent a wake-up call to our military that we need to increase our capacity to produce munitions. We have ramped up production and are already investing in new capacity so we will not be caught flatfooted in any future conflict. I am glad to say this is already in evidence at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in West Burlington in my State. The dedicated workforce in Iowa is cranking out 155-millimeter howitzer shells and a host of other key munitions. Ground was recently broken for $1.2 billion in upgrades to the Iowa plant, paid out of the Ukraine funding package passed by the Congress.

I know people talk like the money Congress allocated was literally sent over to Ukraine and every dollar was spent within that country, but the reality is that most of the money stayed right here in the United States to produce arms and ammo and to build production capacity.

I am proud that the portion of the Ukraine funding sent to Iowa will help keep the United States the ``arsenal of democracy'' for years to come.

Ramping up our military production capacity is good news for our U.S. military readiness. It is also good news for Taiwan. The closed production line for the Stinger air defense system has meant Taiwan's orders have gone unfulfilled for years. That Stinger line is now reopening.

I do not believe the United States is incapable of addressing the multiple international challenges we face, and I fear the consequences if we don't face strongly those challenges.

The United States believed that it could ignore World War I and World War II until those wars became so large that we got dragged into those conflicts. Once the United States joined the fight, our participation was decisive but at enormous cost in American lives and American dollars. We learned our lesson after World War II and took action to make sure it wasn't repeated, and it hasn't been repeated. We did that by helping form NATO to keep the peace in Europe for now 70 years.

Putin's Russia is continuing the Russian tradition of imperial conquest and will not stop unless they are stopped. All you have to do is look at what Putin himself has said. In addresses going back to 2008 and a couple of times since then, he said that his goal was to reestablish the old Soviet Union. I guess he put it in the strongest terms when he said that the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. So you know he is going to welcome the support he is getting from Iran, and Iran happens to be sending drones to Russia to attack the civilian areas of Ukraine.

Iran also funds and backs Hamas as it inflicts a reign of terror on innocent Israeli citizens. And for all those people who are demonstrating around the country that you see on TV over the last 4 weekends against what is going on in Israel and Gaza, it seems to me it ought to be pretty clear that there wouldn't be a single killing going on today in that region of the country if Hamas had not invaded Israel. That seems to be forgotten by all the people who are demonstrating. I know they are peacefully demonstrating for the most part, and that is their constitutional right, and I defend that right. But we have Iran involved in this as well because it funds and backs Hamas as it inflicts a reign of terror on innocent civilians.

Iran is firing rockets at U.S. soldiers in the region, resulting in injuries--I guess if you believe the TV reports, about 48 instances of attacks against American soldiers. Thankfully, nobody has been killed at this point, but there have been injuries and some of them very serious injuries, and we have not responded accordingly, showing weakness. Iran respects our weakness and attacks more.

China is backing Russia diplomatically, economically, and with technology that is being used to attack in Ukraine.

So I hope you see this China-Iran-Russia axis against the interests of NATO, against the interests of peace, against the interests of liberty and the independence of countries as something we should take very seriously.

China is deterred also from attacking Taiwan and dominating other neighbors in Asia largely based on its assessment of America's military strength and political will.

So whether it is Russia, Iran, China, it ought to be a concern for all of us. It is just not Russia v. Ukraine. What would China make of the United States throwing in the towel again so quickly? It is pretty clear from history, we must not find out. We know what Russia is up to. We know what China is up to. We know what Iran is up to. We have to make sure they don't succeed.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, recently, I had the opportunity to meet with a group of religious leaders from Ukraine. They represented multiple Christian denominations, plus Islam and Judaism. They spoke of the role faith is playing in the resilience and determination we have seen from the Ukrainian people.

One of the religious leaders who spoke to me was Dr. Ivan Rusyn. He is president of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary. His seminary trains evangelical ministers from various Protestant backgrounds. It was hit by six Russian rockets when Russia invaded.

Dr. Rusyn lives in Bucha, and we all see that as being infamous by the atrocities that were committed against civilians by the Russian occupiers and also some of those people being brought before the world court for inhumane treatment. In fact, Russian soldiers even occupied Dr. Rusyn's home.

Under the Soviet Union, Ivan and his family had to practice their faith in secret because evangelicals were imprisoned if caught.

In today's Ukraine, he and fellow Ukrainians are free to practice their faith. In fact, he told me that the relief work his seminary has been doing since the full-scale invasion has been bringing more and more people to the church.

Dr. Rusyn is a humble, soft-spoken man with a clear and powerful message. He said that in the midst of war, it is sometimes hard to feel the presence of God, but in coming to the United States with this delegation and meeting people who care about the suffering of the Ukrainian people, he felt God's presence more than ever. His strong faith in God and his deep concern for his fellow Ukrainians impressed me.

Dr. Rusyn also told me about the persecution of his counterparts in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. That is about 20 percent of Ukraine. Religious leaders are kidnapped, and evangelicals are singled out for persecution just like in the days of the old Soviet Union. A Ukrainian priest among the group told me that most of the faith leaders sitting in my office are on Putin's hit list to be singled out for persecution or death if they fall into the hands of the Russian military.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has passed a law as recently as 2016 requiring all religious organizations and churches to be registered with the Russian Government. The law bans what the law calls ``missionary activities'' like preaching, like praying, like disseminating religious materials outside of officially approved sites within Russia.

According to a special report by the Institute for the Study of War, Russia has used this 2016 law to prosecute American Baptists and Pentecostal missionaries operating in Russia and also to outlaw most Mormon missionary work and to burn foreign-distributed Bibles not properly registered with the state.

According to this report by the Institute for the Study of War, the Russian state has also persecuted Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Orthodox church groups that are not affiliated with the Russian state.

Russia's Prosecutor-General's Office declared four evangelical Christian groups as ``undesirable'' organizations as recently as 2021. Now, that effectively had banned these organizations from operating within Russia.

Russian authorities in occupied Melitopol raided a Ukrainian evangelical pastor's home in August 2022 and accused the pastor of being associated with the same undesirable organizations that Russian authorities banned in Russia in 2021.

The former head of Russian-occupied Donetsk declared in May of 2015 that Ukrainian Orthodox Church members, Greek Catholics, and evangelical Christians were ``sectarians'' and that occupation authorities would only recognize the Russian Orthodox Church, Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism.

The Russian Orthodox Church plays a role in the Russian state that is hard for Americans to understand. Most importantly, with all the killing going on in Ukraine, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church has blessed that war by particularly saying Putin is doing the right thing.

In our country, we know, under our Constitution, the Founding Fathers prohibited the establishment of a state church and enshrined a right to the free exercise of religion in the First Amendment. This was done to allow religion to flourish independent of our government.

Now, by contrast and great contrast, the Russian Orthodox Church has always been not just a state church but an instrument going back as far as the tsars of Russia. Under the Soviet Union, it became an instrument of the KGB, the Russian secret police.

In fact, the current patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church was a KGB agent. As I have indicated already in these remarks, that individual has blessed this war, and with his being a KGB agent, it is no wonder he is so close to Putin, who also worked for the KGB. That same Russian patriarch has vocally, as I am saying again, supported the brutal invasion and has told Russian soldiers they will be absolved of all sins should they die in the Ukraine military operation.

Because the Russian Orthodox Church acts as a tool of the Russian state, many Orthodox churches in Ukraine have joined the restored Independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Some church officials in Ukraine who remained loyal to Moscow have been documented to act as agents of influence and espionage on behalf of the Putin regime, so naturally some have been arrested by Ukrainian authorities.

One Ukrainian Orthodox priest who was captured by the Russian military shortly after the full-scale invasion back in February 2022 tells how his captors tortured and interrogated him, demanding to know what part of the Ukrainian secret service he worked for--you know, assuming that they do in Ukraine like they do in Russia: that the church might be part of some government scheme to narrow freedoms or whatever, for that matter. These Russians assumed that because their priests are tied to a successor to the KGB, Ukrainian priests, then, must be agents of the Ukrainian state, which is not the case.

The Ukrainian Government also canceled a lease with the Russian- affiliated Orthodox Church at the Kyiv Lavra Monastery--a national historic landmark owned by the Ukrainian state right there in the center of the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. The lease cancelation led to false reports of the Ukrainian Government's persecuting Christians. However, 2 weeks after the Russian-aligned church officials left, a member of my staff visited this same monastery and received a blessing from a Ukrainian Orthodox priest. So I can confirm that Christian services are still performed there; only now it is in the Ukrainian language.

Incidentally, the former Russian Orthodox head priest at the monastery

was apparently nicknamed ``Mercedes'' because he collected Mercedes cars. That is not the hobby you would expect of a lot of spiritual leaders.

Putin likes to pretend that Russia is some kind of defender of the Christian faith, but in reality, Russia is one of the most secular countries in the world.

The Soviet Union, as we know, was an atheist state, so most countries that share a Soviet past have lost much of their religious life. That is doubly true in Russia, where, according to a 2018 Pew Research poll, only 7 percent of the people attend weekly church services, only 18 percent of Russians pray daily, and only 16 percent feel that religion is very important in their lives.

By comparison, in Ukraine, these people are significantly more religious than Russians, with well over twice as many people attending weekly services at 17 percent, with 30 percent of the Ukrainians reportedly praying daily, and with 23 percent saying that religion is a very important part of their lives.

Russia has been designated by our own State Department as a ``country of particular concern'' and, according to that designation, is ``engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.''

By contrast, Ukraine has religious freedom, and there is no state church, so it is no wonder that Ukrainians are more active in their faith.

I was encouraged by Dr. Rusyn's account of his own growing ministry. He also said he has contributed chaplains from his seminary to the military since the full-scale invasion--something that was not previously a tradition of Orthodox countries. As a result, evangelicals are particularly well represented as military chaplains. Now, I am sad to say, one of his students has already been lost while serving as a chaplain at the frontlines.

I am going to go back to this report by the Institute for the Study of War that I referenced earlier.

[T]he most common victims of Russian religious persecution

after Ukrainian Orthodox are Protestants, particularly

evangelical Baptists. Protestants of all denominations were

the victims of 34 percent of the reported persecution events

that [the Institute on the Study of War] observed. Baptists

made up 13 percent of victims--the largest single group after

Ukrainian Orthodox. . . . Russian forces' persecution of

Protestants is most intense in southern Ukraine. Protestants

were the victims of 35 percent and 48 percent of the reported

persecution events in occupied Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts

respectively. Protestants suffered two-thirds of the reported

repression events in occupied Mariupol City.

The Institute for the Study of War report also cited an incident where Russian troops ``commandeered a Kherson-based Ukrainian evangelical Baptist educational institute from March-November of 2022 and established a garrison and crematorium there to cremate killed Russian soldiers. The institute's rector stated that Russian soldiers repeatedly harassed the Baptists, calling them `American spies,' calling them `sectarians,' and [calling them] `enemies of the Russian Orthodox people.' One Russian officer reportedly told workers at the institute, `Evangelical believers like you should be completely destroyed . . . a simple shooting would be too easy for you. You need to be buried alive,' and another Russian soldier reportedly said, `We will bury [Baptist] sectarians like you.' Russian soldiers raided and closed another Baptist Church . . . in September 2022. Congregants reported that armed Russian soldiers interrupted their worship service and stated, `Your feet will not be here after referendum. We have only one faith, Orthodoxy.' ''

Nearly 500 religious sites and spaces were damaged, destroyed, or looted during the first year of the Russian invasion. People of faith in Ukraine are suffering. Dr. Rusyn's ask of Americans is a simple thing: ``Please hear our cry.''

Toward the end of my meeting with the Russian faith leaders, the rabbi in the group made another ask of me. He said the Ukrainians need our prayers. This was echoed by other Ukrainian faith leaders in my office.

I agreed to keep the Ukrainian people in my prayers. I ask that my fellow Americans of faith also surround the Ukrainian people in prayer at this very difficult time. And I pray that they feel the very real presence of God amidst their suffering.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, this week is the week that we honor veterans, on what we call Veterans Day, so in honor of Veterans Day, I would like to spotlight one Iowa community's exemplary support of our veterans and Active-Duty military.

This is a town of 2,000--Britt, IA--in North Central Iowa. This year, Britt's Dean Welsh VFW Auxiliary Post 4370 received the Veterans and Family Support Award. This annual award from the national VFW recognizes select local auxiliaries for their exceptional work for our servicemembers.

This community's now-far-reaching efforts started with a phone call. A volunteer with the Britt VFW auxiliary was talking to her granddaughter, who was serving on the USS Oscar Austin. She mentioned that some of her fellow crew members hadn't received care packages. Within 1 week, Britt residents shipped 39 packages to that crew of the USS Oscar Austin.

That was 11 years ago. Now, a decade later, the Britt VFW is sending care packages to crew members on the USS Fitzgerald, USS John McCain, USS Chafee, and Iowa National Guard units deployed to Kuwait and to Poland. They are also preparing to send packages to the USS Carl Vinson. Volunteers fill these packages with various items, including beaded American flag key chains that they make by hand. Britt VFW members gift thousands of their key chains to veterans they cross paths with throughout the year, whether at community events or even in their daily lives.

Britt VFW's example should be a reminder to all of us of the importance of honoring our veterans and servicemembers, and we will be doing that this weekend.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, throughout my years of public service, I have had the honor to meet citizens from all walks of life across my home State. As Iowa's senior U.S. Senator, today I pay tribute to a dynamic civic and business leader who passed away earlier this year.

Donna Lee Nelson was an indomitable pillar in her community who leaves behind a legacy of leadership, service, and entrepreneurial spirit for which the city of Waterloo and the Cedar Valley will benefit for generations to come. She also was the family matriarch, lovingly recalled as a ``force of nature,'' and her long list of achievements and traveling adventures will be fondly remembered by her family and friends for years to come.

Donna and her husband Verner D. Nelson, Sr., celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in January. That was a remarkable milestone and testimony to their faith-filled partnership. They were high school sweethearts who together launched a business enterprise that started with insurance and ventured into many others, including construction, trucking, and real estate.

Looking back at her 89 years of life, Donna certainly didn't let any grass grow beneath her feet. She traveled all over the world but never lost sight of home. The city of Waterloo benefited from what you might call her Midas Touch with her tireless, decades-long efforts to preserve the vitality, culture, heritage and history of downtown, including the Black's Building and the old YMCA.

Her selfless approach to leadership and ability to mobilize others carried

over from business and industry to philanthropy, as well. Donna was recognized by more than 20 achievement awards, including being named Citizen of the Year in 1985 and Eight over Eighty in 2015. Donna chaired and served on numerous boards, from the United Way to the American Heart Association and the Salvation Army.

Barbara and I extend our condolences to Donna's family and friends, particularly to her beloved husband Vern. We were blessed by her friendship and thank the Nelson family for their support over many years.

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

Mr. President, 59 years ago tomorrow--in other words, Friday--Ronald Reagan delivered his iconic ``A Time for Choosing'' speech. In this speech, the future President laid out, in very stark terms, the challenges that Americans faced as a nation, all due to a bloated Federal Government that threatened America's prosperity and individual freedoms.

Well, America is once again at a time for choosing, and much like in Reagan's time, the issues confronting us cross party lines. This would be a good time for me to say that we have a partial step in this direction because of the Biden-McCarthy agreement in June not to shut down the government because the government couldn't issue debt.

So here we are again. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and others have warned policymakers for decades that, absent changes, the retirement of the baby boom generation would result in an explosion of debt and deficit.

Yet we in the Congress have turned a blind eye as the country walked headlong towards a fiscal cliff. For 40 years, our public debt averaged around 35 percent of our economy. But over the past 15 years, that debt has grown by leaps and bounds.

First came the 2008 financial crisis, which led to a $6 trillion leap in public debt in just 4 years after 2008. This amounted to a doubling of the national debt as a share of the economy, rising from 35 percent--where it was for about 40 years--to over 70 percent of GDP.

Then, we all know what the pandemic has done to the public debt. The pandemic hits, and public debt went upwards by $7.5 trillion over 3 years. As a result, public debt soared to roughly equal to our Nation's entire annual economic output--or what you have economists tell you: That is about 100 percent of GDP.

Now that brings us to where we are today and to take Ronald Reagan's advice very seriously: a nation drowning in a sea of red ink with no life preserver or a rescue boat in sight.

What is more, debt continues to rain down upon us at a record clip. The fiscal year 2023 deficit checked in at 2 trillion once you adjust for the Supreme Court striking down the Biden student loan bailout.

Measured as a share of GDP the 2023 deficit was larger than in all but 5 years since 1945.

Our historic deficit was fueled, in part, by rising interest payments on the debt, which alone cost $711 billion. The cost to service our debt is expected to consume an increasingly larger share of the Federal budget. While we argue about what we should or shouldn't spend taxpayers' money on, interest on the debt is crowding out our priorities and shrinking our options going forward. And this all automatically happens because you pay the interest on the national debt or you default; and we don't want to do that. And that is what the Biden-McCarthy agreement of June kept from happening.

Going back to June, the CBO projected that servicing our debt over the next 10 years would cost 10.4 trillion; however, that projection was made before rates on treasury bonds used to finance our debt surged to a 16-year high. The rate on a 10-year treasury bond is now a full percentage point higher than what CBO assumed this spring. All of that adding to our deficit problems. But these higher than expected borrowing costs persist. It will be trillions more spent simply servicing that debt.

What is more, we haven't yet hit the precipice of the fiscal cliff that CBO and other nonpartisan experts have been warning will result due to the aging population. And, of course, that involves Social Security and Medicare. And the trustees of these two programs say the trust funds for both programs will be insolvent within the next 10 years. Moreover, CBO projects that spending for major health programs will skyrocket from 32 percent of Federal revenue this day to 45 percent of revenue at midcentury.

We can no longer afford to kick the can down the road. We must put an end to governing crisis to crisis and get back to the fundamentals of government. And the fundamentals of government for Social Security and Medicare should cause us to look at the success that Reagan and then- Democratic speaker Tip O'Neill of the House of Representatives said: We can't let Social Security go bankrupt. And they fixed it to this very day by tough decisions that we ought to be making today to fix it for the next 50 years like they did. And I will bet maybe they, at that time, thought maybe they were only fixing it for 10 or 20 years. But that is from 1983 till now. Social Security is supposed to run out of resources, reserves by, I think, 2033.

So what I am saying is it means actually managing the government instead of doing it from crisis to crisis and to do it by not chasing an elusive partisan ideal. That will require implementing honest budget and appropriations practices that will enable us to begin to chip away at this daunting debt.

According to the well-regarded Penn Wharton Budget Model, the United States has about 20 years to take corrective action to avoid fiscal disaster. I almost hate to say 20 years--but Penn Wharton is respected--because that means that maybe we won't take the necessary action in the near term. And it is always easier to solve these problems yesterday than it is tomorrow. The longer we wait to take these actions, then, obviously, I am saying the more painful those actions will be.

In Penn Wharton's estimation, if we put off corrective action until the fiscal crisis is at our doorstep, no amount of future tax hikes or spending cuts will enable us to avoid defaulting on our debt.

When I just said--as I did--until a fiscal crisis is upon our doorstep, Iowans at my 99-county meetings that I hold every year would say that we are already at that point. And when you talk about maybe it can be done or not done, then you can imagine the cynical people of Iowa--just like the cynical people of the United States as a whole--are even going to have less confidence in our government institutions.

Now, we all know there is plenty of blame to go around for how we got into our current fiscal situation, but no amount of finger-pointing-- political or otherwise--will change where we find ourselves today. We must now make a choice. We can either continue down the path to fiscal ruin, or we can begin to rein in a bloated Federal Government in pursuit of a more prosperous tomorrow.

Well, remember what I said about Ronald Reagan 59 years ago tomorrow, also in the words of Ronald Reagan:

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve

for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth or

we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand

years of darkness.

We see on television a lot of times people saying how God-awful this country is. And yet on that same television day, you can see 10,000 people crossing the border to come to our country. For those people that live in America and have lived here all their life and find that America is not such a great place, they ought to wonder why people all over the world want to come to America.

Or sometimes I tell people at citizenship ceremonies in the courthouses of Iowa when I am able to go there, I say to this group-- many of them have come from autocracies to America where they have less freedom than they have in America today--and I say to those people, I hope when you hear somebody that was born in America bellyaching about the God-awful wrongs we have in this country, I hope you will remind them as a person born in another country how great this country is because people that were born here lose sight of how great America is.

So getting back to this fiscal issue I have been talking about, whether Ronald Reagan says it or I say it or each of my 99 colleagues say it--because I think, to some extent, we are all on the same page-- maybe not how to solve the problem, but that there is a problem--then I say, like Reagan said: The choice is clear. It is time we do what our constituents sent us here to do. And that basically means to lead--to lead us out of this fiscal crisis.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have come to discuss with my colleagues the plight of our local pharmacists, which is always difficult, particularly in small towns; but it is going to be particularly difficult come January 1 and through next year. I have heard firsthand from rural pharmacists about the looming cashflow challenges that they face next year. These challenges are a direct result of the powerful pharmacy benefit managers and the managers' behavior in response to Federal regulations.

This is the situation. You see, pharmacies are going to face direct and indirect remuneration clawback fees, or what we call DIRs, from the PBMs for calendar year 2023, just after January 1, 2024. At the same time, pharmacies will also be facing lower post point of sale reimbursement from PBMs beginning that same date of January 1 of next year. So it is a double whammy against cashflow problems of small rural pharmacies.

For over a decade, these powerful PBMs have gouged rural pharmacies by clawing back part of the reimbursements many months after the sale. It is almost like you sign a contract the first of the year that you are doing business with the PBMs. Then, at the end of the year, you get a dun to pay back sometimes thousands of dollars, and I have even heard examples of tens of thousands of dollars.

You see, this situation comes because three very large PBMs control nearly 80 percent of the prescription drug market. Some of them are vertically integrated, also, with chain pharmacies, insurance companies, and other parts of the prescription drug supply chains. So PBMs have a lot of power over what the prescription drug patients can access through the formulary and how much these drugs are going to cost the patient and then the reimbursement for the pharmacy. In other words, what is the pharmacy getting paid for doing this service?

I want to end all direct and indirect reimbursement fees. I attempted to do this in legislation, which never passed the Senate, in a bipartisan bill by Grassley and Wyden called the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act. Even though the legislation didn't pass, we, luckily, in 2021, had the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services determine that that Agency had

the authority to end most but not all direct and indirect reimbursement fees.

I support CMS's actions they have already taken, but we still need to take legislative action to end all DIR fees. CMS's regulations will go into effect this January. With CMS's regulations nearing the effective date to end most DIR fees, you would think rural pharmacies would be about to see some relief. Sadly, this is not the case. These changes have turned into a cashflow issue for many rural pharmacies, forcing many rural pharmacists to consider closing or going without pay for a while so that they can keep their staffs around and keep the lights on.

Now let's get to a suggested solution for this issue.

PBMs should work with rural pharmacists to make sure that they don't close, because if you are paying everything back to the PBMs or you are getting less reimbursement and you are running your accounts from day to day, it brings financial problems particularly to these small rural pharmacies. Of course, PBMs are so financially strong that they have the ability to help these small pharmacists after the first of the year. We aren't asking them to help forever; we are asking them just to help through this interim period of clawback and less reimbursement. So what I am asking here of PBMs is PBMs should work with pharmacies to give a little extra time to pay back the 2023 direct and indirect reimbursement fees. I am not asking the PBMs to give up a single dollar that they are entitled to.

Because CMS can help us solve this problem, in their final regulation, the Agency spoke to concerns about rural pharmacy cashflow issues, saying that they were--their words--``particularly attuned'' to this issue.

CMS said that, through law, they have the power to conduct oversight. They said that they could enforce, first of all, provider network access standards and, second, prompt payment rules.

In July, I wrote to the CMS Administrator to see what the Agency is doing to conduct this oversight and, in turn, help small pharmacies through 2024--and, of course, only that 1 year--with their cashflow problems.

As of mid-September, I had not received a response from CMS. I will soon tell you about a telephone conversation I had with them. It shouldn't take an Agency almost 2 months to respond to me about a problem that they said that they are ``particularly attuned'' to. Remember, I told you previously those words--``particularly attuned'' to--are their words.

So last week I spoke for a long time on the phone with the CMS Administrator. I asked what her Agency is doing to conduct oversight and protect our constituents' access to their rural pharmacy and particularly our older seniors who can't travel for miles to get their drugs. I asked that question because, so far, I have not seen any action of oversight by this Agency.

The Administrator committed in the phone call to monitoring compliance to pharmacy access standards and the prompt payment requirements, but, at the same time, the Administrator didn't offer any specific action that she has taken or even what action she might take.

The Administrator also committed to looking into what the Agency can do to encourage payment plans between rural pharmacies and PBMs or, at the very least, bring rural pharmacies and PBMs together to work out a joint effort. I am going to be holding the CMS accountable for following through on that promise.

Iowa's seniors and rural pharmacies are counting on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Agency can't sit on the sidelines and let rural pharmacies go out of business.

I told this directly to the CMS Administrator, and I will state it now to the same CMS Administrator: Please use your authority and bully pulpit to protect seniors' access to their rural pharmacies. These very powerful PBMs, which receive a lot of public funding from Medicare and Medicaid Programs, can also put many rural pharmacies out of business if you just stand down. PBMs can't put the blame on others. They must and ought to work with rural pharmacies. Don't drive them out of business by idly standing by. PBMs have the opportunity to protect seniors' access to their local pharmacy.

It is kind of this situation in rural America because I see it all the time in rural Iowa--losing local health delivery professionals. It happens that your local pharmacy is oftentimes the only healthcare provider that you have. So, obviously, and what I am telling my colleagues today is, we need them in our communities,

I say to my colleagues--because everybody in the U.S. Senate has rural communities--I hope you will check into this situation affecting small pharmacies, starting January 1, 2024. We have got about 3 months to get CMS, rural pharmacies, and PBMs together to smooth out this cashflow problem that rural pharmacies are going to have through next year.

I am not going to stop fighting to protect rural pharmacies.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, earlier this year, Chairman Whitehouse and I began bipartisan work to investigate Credit Suisse's historical servicing of Nazi-linked accounts. Today, I would like to discuss this important bipartisan work and thank Senator Whitehouse and his staff for their assistance on this very important topic.

In March of 2020, Simon Wiesenthal Center notified Credit Suisse that it found previously undisclosed information relating to the bank's Nazi ties. The bank, to its credit, initially took steps in the right direction and agreed to investigate. It even retained a research firm to conduct a forensic review. It even retained former TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky to oversee that review as an independent ombudsman, and they also had U.S. Envoy Ira Forman as an independent adviser.

But after Credit Suisse hired a new general counsel--so a new person stepped in--the bank paused its review, limited experts' access to records, and terminated Barofsky and Forman; very odd acts to take compared to the positive start of this investigation.

Anyway, the bank cited performance issues for the termination. Well, the then-general counsel's predecessor never expressed those concerns, and the bank's research firm described Barofsky as professional. And I happen to know some of Barofsky's work, and he is, in fact, a professional.

Barofsky drafted a report about what he observed at the bank and found, as he was contractually obligated to do. So Chairman Whitehouse and I issued the Budget Committee's first subpoena since 1991 to obtain that report.

Credit Suisse had prevented Barofsky from providing us a fully unredacted report. Ultimately, we not only obtained that report fully unredacted but also the bank's own report.

So then what did Chairman Whitehouse and I find? Credit Suisse did not review and investigate all relevant records. For example, Credit Suisse did not use a full dataset from its predecessor's bank.

It inconsistently collected and reviewed information such as account balances. Credit Suisse failed to review allegations that Nazi heirs had sought access to bank accounts.

When the review pointed to evidence of wrongdoing beyond Argentina, Credit Suisse stated the information was ``out of scope'' and then didn't do any investigation.

Now, even after those limitations, the reports revealed new information, including nearly 100--and let me emphasize ``100''-- previously undisclosed Nazi-linked accounts. Some accounts remained open as recently as the year 2020.

And when we finally got an unredacted version, it showed evidence that 64,000--let me emphasize ``64,000''--sets of potentially relevant records related to Nazi-linked accounts were not part of the investigation.

Credit Suisse claims that they are irrelevant without giving us a sufficient explanation. Credit Suisse also blocked its independent oversight that included Barofsky, Forman, and also a historian hired to assist the investigation from accessing critical evidence.

The reports also raised brandnew questions about the bank's potential support for Nazis fleeing justice following World War II via the infamous ratlines.

Until pressured by Chairman Whitehouse and me, Credit Suisse had refused to fully investigate allegations of its potential role aiding Nazis' escape from justice via the ratlines.

So, today, despite multiple requests, Credit Suisse still refuses to share exact details on the scope of its ongoing ratlines review. This is unacceptable.

And do you know what else is unacceptable? Credit Suisse's actions after we made those reports public are unacceptable. The bank issued a press release on April 19 of this year filled with one excuse after another. The bank's press release essentially ignored its own report. It also incorrectly claimed

full cooperation with the committee's oversight, despite the bank objecting to the committee receiving a fully unredacted copy of the Barofsky report until July 31 and despite failing to provide a full report of the ratlines review.

Then, the bank petitioned a Federal court against the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The bank says that litigation from the 1990s provided full disclosure in all matters related to the Holocaust and World War II.

Now, this seems to me that the bank is trying to silence a prominent--very prominent--Jewish human rights organization. Ironically, as the bank continues down this road, it appears to be creating a modern-day ``David versus Goliath'' story.

Notably, it was the bank that initiated the new review that I have discussed with my fellow Senators here today. Credit Suisse acknowledged the potential for the investigation to result in settlements or restitution. The fact that the bank has since agreed to fully review its reported role with the ratlines also shows that we are dealing with a whole new set of facts. But now let's take a step back.

I have listed numbers, and I have listed figures. Let's not forget that we are talking here about, not facts and figures, we are talking about real people, victims of atrocities perpetrated through the Holocaust. Credit Suisse--and now UBS as the new owner--must embrace the sunlight, which, of course, we all know in government is the best disinfectant.

So here is my advice: Accept the historical facts and own those facts. They ought to play a positive role in exposing the historical evils of the Nazis once and for all.

Credit Suisse--and now UBS--has a responsibility to expose all information related to its historic servicing of Nazis during and also following World War II. They owe it to the Holocaust victims, survivors, and to the world community.

This information is very critical to a more complete record, and it will also allow us to learn from history, to create a more peaceful, just future. We must learn from history to prevent the mistakes of the past, from those mistakes being repeated again.

Simon Wiesenthal once said:

Justice for crimes against humanity must have no

limitations.

So I encourage Credit Suisse and UBS to bring this matter to a positive conclusion worthy of history's eyes.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, before I speak, I would like to ask unanimous consent that Silvia Symber, a detailee in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress.