Floor Statements

Madam President, as the meatpacking industry became increasingly concentrated in the 1990s, fewer animals were sold through negotiated purchases--or, you could say, you could call that cash purchases or you could call it the spot market.

In the 1990s, we saw increased use of alternative marketing arrangements that were not publicly disclosed under voluntary reporting. Livestock producers knew that these arrangements were not allowing them to get a fair market price for their livestock going to slaughter so they called for livestock mandatory reporting, also known as LMR. This new law would apply to packers who purchase livestock, process them, and market the meat.

When the livestock mandatory reporting legislation was first considered in 1998, it unfortunately didn't get very far. I want to read for you an article from March of 1999 because it is going to have some relationship to a similar issue that we hope to get before Congress before the end of the year, and that is a bipartisan piece of legislation I am referring to.

I want to read an article from March 1999, from the Southern Livestock Review. That article is entitled ``How Campaign Money, Republican Lobbyists Killed Mandatory Price Reporting.'' I am going to read that article into the Record in its entirety, only I will not read names. I will refer to former Senators as Senator 1, 2, and 3, and I will refer to lobbyists' names as Lobbyist 1 and Lobbyist 2.

My point is to remind my fellow Senators today not to be blindsided again by the American Meat Institute, like happened in 1998 to kill legislation back then, because I don't want a similar thing to happen with what some of us Senators are proposing this year. This is important because Senator Fischer and I are soon to introduce legislation to update livestock price transparency.

Now, I will read. This is a long reading.

How Campaign Money, Republican Lobbyists Killed Mandatory

Price Reporting:

In the heat of last October's upcoming election and

Congress' hurry-get-out-of-town legislating, the draft of a

massive $4 billion farm bailout bill--which included federal

relief for cash-strapped farmers and mandatory public price

reporting in livestock markets--was in place as congressmen

and senators flew home for a weekend of campaigning.

When the lawmakers returned the following Monday, however,

mandatory livestock price reporting was virtually gutted,

butchered by well-connected Republican lobbyists and huge

sums of political action campaign money from the meatpacker-

backed American Meat Institute.

How this deboning occurred is an object lesson in how

private money often thwarts public will and why solid,

sensible farm policy often dies at the hands of craven

politicians and legions of lobbyists.

In July 1998, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-SD, put

mandatory price reporting in livestock markets into what was

then a modest $500 million farm drought relief bill. Daschle,

responding to years of complaints from his state ranchers

over meatpacker concentration, didn't ask for the moon. All

he wanted was a one-year experimental program that required

meatpackers to publicly disclose the prices they paid when

buying livestock from producers.

But as the ag economy continued to skid in late summer, the bill's cost escalated and so did the warning over what the bill would include. Daschle's price reporting request also came under attack from the AMI, the meatpacker lobby in Washington. Packers viewed the idea as costly-- estimated by USDA at $60 million per--and unnecessary.

Yet as momentum picked up for an even bigger farm relief bill, mandatory price reporting opponents like AMI sensed Daschle's efforts would be adopted as the ``save-the-farm'' rhetoric built after Labor Day.

To shoot down Daschle's plan, AMI hastily bought some

bazookas. In early September, AMI hired [Lobbyist No. 1] . .

. a member of one of Washington's most powerful Republican

lobbying firms.

For an extra pop, reported the October 25, 1998 Washington

Post, AMI also hired two other Republican leaders-turned-

lobbyists, [Lobbyist No. 2] and [Lobbyist No. 3]. . . .

Now plugged into the Republican power grid, AMI turned on

the juice. During the 1998 election cycle, AMI doled out

$198,473 in political action committee money raised from

executives of member firms like Cargill's Excel, ConAgra's

Monfort, Kraft's Oscar Myer, Premium Standard Farms, Farmland

Industries, and Smithfield Foods. Most of the money went to

Republican candidates.

In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a

nonpartisan campaign watchdog group, $165,973 or 84% of AMI's

1997-98 PAC cash landed in Republican campaign coffers. House

Republican candidates got $114,973 of the meatpacker lard;

Senate Republicans got $51,000.

But as the crucial October legislative deadline approached,

mandatory price reporting was still alive in the farm bailout

bill's final draft. Then AMI lobbyists and money began to get

traction.

The lobbyists, in particular [Lobbyist No. 1], a longtime

pal of fellow Mississippians--and Republican Senators--

[Senator No. 1] and [Senator No. 2] got the price reporting

legislation pulled from that ag bill. Senate Democrats and a

few of their farm state Republican colleagues were furious.

Daschle struck back. With [Senator No. 2's] blessing, he

folded mandatory price reporting into the even bigger $520

billion omnibus 1999 Budget Bill that was still hanging fire.

Two days later, it too was gutted by Republicans into a

meaningless ``confidential one-year government investigation,

during which livestock prices would not be disclosed'' by the

packers, according to the Washington Post.

Sources say [Lobbyist No. 1] buddy [Senator No. 1] wielded

the knife. As chairman of the Senate Ag Appropriations

Subcommittee, [Senator No. 1] refused to fund any new price

reporting effort as part of the bailout bill, thus killing it

there. Later, at the behest of [Lobbyist No. 1], [Lobbyist

No. 2], and [Lobbyist No. 3], [Senator No. 1] neutered

mandatory price reporting in the Budget Bill by keeping any

information gained through it ``confidential.''

Now the National Pork Producers Council, a past opponent of

mandatory price reporting, the American Farm Bureau, the

National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and Secretary of

Agriculture Dan Glickman are calling for publicly disclosed,

mandatory price reporting legislation from Congress.

An AMI spokesman said the group will fight the new effort,

but didn't know if [Lobbyists 1, 2, or 3] would carry water

for the packers in 1999. Yet, he adds, referring to [Lobbyist

No. 1], ``He served our purposes well last year.''

No kidding. But the meatpackers paid assassins--[Lobbyist

No. 1] and his Republican pals--stuck a knife in the back of

every livestock producer in America last fall. And it's still

there.

Now, that is the end of my reading of the March 1999 article by Alan Guebert in the Southern Livestock Review.

So you see, many of the same hurdles that we went through in `98 are the hurdles that we are facing now with making needed cattle market reforms.

The same high-powered and well-connected lobbyists who work for the Big Four meat processors are still the same high-powered and well- connected lobbyists who are lobbying against the market reforms of today. Those reforms are being proposed by a bipartisan group of Senators and will soon be introduced.

But I have got news for you. The special interests of the meat packers don't have a vote in the U.S. Senate.

Last week, Senators Fischer, Tester, Wyden, and I announced a framework to increase price discovery and transparency in the cattle market.

You will never guess who, once again, is fighting this commonsense legislation--the very same group that I referred to as AMI, the American Meat Institute, now called the North American Meat Institute; that same group that, in the 1990s--or--yeah, the 1990s--was against the livestock mandatory reporting legislation has come out against the independent cattle producers again today.

See, these powerful corporations are against any reform that would give independent producers more leverage in negotiating a fair price for their cattle.

In 1998, South Dakotan Tom Daschle led the charge against these big meat packers. And while the livestock mandatory reporting was stalled in 1998, in 1999, Senator Daschle was able to get that across the finish line. And it is still law, but it isn't a perfect piece of legislation, and our proposals ought to improve it dramatically.

Now we have Senators, farmers, consumers from all over the country who want to see reforms. Livestock farmers are losing money, consumers are paying record high prices for beef, and meat packers are making record profits.

Now, I am sharing this story today to show that even changes that we now view as common sense were once opposed by the meat industry. We still have time this year to make real market reforms that will help independent producers stay in the cattle business.

I urge my colleagues to support a piece of legislation that we have entitled Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act and support independent cattle producers.

I hope you will join Senator Fischer, this Senator, Senator Tester, and Senator Wyden and several other Senators in the last 24 hours that have joined this effort.

These reforms are long overdue, and we can't let these special interest groups, like the North American Meat Institute, stop this important legislation like I just described for you how they stopped it in 1998. And thank God Senator Daschle didn't give up, because the next year he eventually got it done.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, the Senate has unanimously passed a bill entitled Protecting America's First Responders Act. I authored this legislation to expand benefits to first responders who are injured in the line of duty.

The Public Safety Officers' Benefit Program, or PSOB for short, offers a one-time lump sum payment to first responders who are killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. I think that legislation has been on the books since the 1970s.

I started investigating this program when I heard complaints about long delays in processing payments. Those delays reached up to 3 years, on average. It is just not understandable why it should take 3 years for somebody who is killed in the line of duty to decide if the family should have help from that program. We fixed that particular issue with my 2017 bill entitled the Public Safety Officers' Benefit Improvement Act.

However, my investigation uncovered a lot of other problems with that program, now 50 years old. The Justice Department was denying payments to folks who should have received those payments. In one case, a disabled police officer suffered a traumatic brain injury. The Department said that he wasn't disabled because he held a part-time position at Home Depot as a greeter.

In another case, again, a police officer with brain injury was denied the benefit. Why? Because the officer tinkered around with motorcycles in his garage. It would take this officer months to do simple things that would otherwise have taken him just days. Still, the Department said that he wasn't disabled. They said it. It is unreasonable.

But my bill that I described to you, which has now passed the Senate recently, will correct this problem. This legislation clarifies that first responders who are totally and permanently disabled but can still perform some very simple tasks can still get benefits. It adds a fair boost in payments to first responders who have waited years for these benefits. It provides the Justice Department with more tools so that it can process claims more quickly.

Finally, my bill extends a presumption in the law that ensures that first responders who contract COVID on duty don't have to jump through hoops to prove it, because, you know, with COVID--did you get it when you were actually policing, or did you get it when you were in a restaurant, or did you get it when you were in church?--you don't really know. This bill will go a long ways in helping our first responders where it is impossible to show whether you got it when you were actually on duty.

I would like to thank Senators Gillibrand and Booker, as well as all the other cosponsors.

I also want to thank our House counterparts, specifically, Congressman Pascrell and his staff, who led the effort to pass the bill in the House of Representatives.

Lastly, I want to thank the Justice Department for working closely with us to improve this language.

Before I wrap up, I just want to say a few words about our first responders. Whether it is police officers, firefighters, or EMTs, first responders are the embodiment of the best qualities of Americans. Their daily sacrifices make our society better and safer.

I am proud to have sponsored this legislation, and I urge the President to quickly sign the bill.

Mr. President, on September 23, 2021, I inserted for the record an explanation of my intent to hold the Intel Authorization Act because I was concerned with changes made to the whistleblower protections.

Specifically, it would have prevented whistleblowers from going to any committee that had jurisdiction over the matter they were reporting on.

I was also concerned that this bill could inadvertently overturn protections that I authored in 2016 for FBI whistleblowers.

I have long advocated that whistleblowers should have as many avenues as possible to report waste, fraud, and abuse. So I placed a hold and made two simple requests: first, that the law permit whistleblowers to report wrongdoing to any committee of jurisdiction; and second, that language be inserted to clarify that nothing in this bill overturns protections guaranteed for FBI whistleblowers under the FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.

I am happy to report that Chairman Warner and Ranking Member Rubio agreed to incorporate these changes into the Intel Authorization Act.

I would like to take this opportunity to commend both Senators Warner and Rubio for their commitment to supporting whistleblowers. Thanks to them, Congress is on the verge of passing much needed reforms with regard to how whistleblower complaints in the intel community are handled. I would also like to thank EMPOWER and the many whistleblower advocacy groups that wrote the Senate Intelligence Committee to show the need for these changes.

However, the job is still not done, and the House must agree to support these changes. As such, I urge members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to support these much needed changes.

Mr. President, I would like to expand on my tribute to former Iowa Congressman Neal Smith.

As I said yesterday, he was a true public servant, interested in doing right by his State rather than seeking self-aggrandizement. He was a real legislator, not a would-be pundit seeking the spotlight. These are attributes that make him a role model, and I feel lucky to have been mentored by him. When I was elected, I was the only Republican in the Iowa delegation. He didn't care that I was of a different party. He knew we both had our political views, but we were both there to represent the state we love. I will never forget his kindness in taking me under wing.

Neal Smith is a legend in Iowa, as evidenced by the fact that his name is attached to several Iowa institutions, including the Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge, which he was instrumental in establishing, the Neal Smith Trail, the Neal Smith Federal Building in Des Moines, which I helped to name after him with Senator Harkin, and the Neal and Bea Smith Law Center at their alma mater, Drake University.

His legislative legacy includes a long stint as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee.

Neal Smith was instrumental in creating Lake Red Rock, Saylorville Lake, and Lake Rathbun, which help protect Iowans from flooding, serve as reservoirs, and provide recreational opportunities for Iowans.

He also authored legislation to help small businesses after a disaster and legislation helping small businesses with federal government contracts.

Perhaps his most prominent legislative accomplishment was passing legislation combatting nepotism in the Federal Government.

Neal Smith served in World War II as a bomber pilot, was shot down, and received a Purple Heart, as well as other medals.

He and his wife Bea attended Drake University Law School together. When they graduated, she was offered less than him for the same job with the same firm despite her having had better grades, so he turned down the job and opened a practice with her.

He soon entered public service locally, serving as assistant Polk County attorney and as chairman of the Polk County Welfare Board.

In 1958, Neal Smith was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for 36 years, longer than any other Iowan has served in the U.S. House.

Even though he represented Iowa's largest metropolitan area, he came from a farm background like me and continued to farm near Altoona during his time in office.

I remember him as a strong defender of agriculture.

I value the friendship I had with Neal Smith starting as a freshmen Congressman and continuing through his time after leaving Congress.

Again, I pay tribute to this humble public servant. Barbara and I will continue to remember his family in our prayers.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Lankford for letting me take 3 minutes to honor an Iowan who recently passed away, a former Member of the House of Representatives. And I think there is only one other United States Senator who would know who I am talking about, and this would be Senator Schumer, who served with this former Member of Congress from 1981 to 1995.

Remembering Neal Smith

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to former Iowa Congressman Neal Smith, who passed away yesterday at the age of 101.

He was a true public servant. He entered public life for the right reasons and had no interest in self-promotion. He cared about Iowa and tried to do his best for our State, and he did.

Neal Smith was a humble but impressive man. He was a decorated bomber pilot in World War II. After attending Drake University Law School with his wife, Bea, and opening a practice with her, he became active in local government.

In 1958, Neal Smith was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for 36 years. That is longer than any other Iowan has served in the House of Representatives.

When I was first elected to Congress as the only Republican in the Iowa delegation, Neal Smith forgot about politics and was a mentor to me. I have never forgotten that. I try to follow his example. We worked in a bipartisan way on behalf of the people in Iowa, just as it should be.

I remember Congressman Smith as a real defender of agriculture, small

business, as a great Iowan, and as a good friend.

Barbara and I extend our condolences to his family. They will be in my prayers.

I yield the floor and thank Senator Lankford.

Mr. President, it was a pleasure to work on this legislation with Senator Klobuchar, so we joined forces--it happens to turn out that there are 10 of our Senate colleagues--in a bipartisan way to introduce this legislation that we call the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.

This bill has garnered support from all sides of the political spectrum and, of course, is a very commonsense measure, which is meant to increase competition on dominant digital platforms.

Today, there are only a handful of dominant companies that control what Americans can buy, what they hear, and what they say online.

Big Tech has powers over the economy that we haven't seen in generations or perhaps ever, and this power grows even larger, taking over yet more of our daily lives. With this power, Big Tech is able to pick winners and losers on their platforms.

The goal of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act is to ensure that Big Tech can be held accountable when they engage in a discriminatory and anticompetitive manner.

This legislation sets clear rules that businesses on dominant platforms must follow. This will help promote competition by targeting harmful conduct, while ensuring that innovation and pro-consumer conduct is protected.

I want to be clear. Big Tech platforms offer great products to their consumers. This isn't about breaking up companies or penalizing them for being successful. This is about ensuring that small businesses have a fair and even playing field when utilizing a dominant online platform.

I also want to address many of the falsehoods that have been spread by the opponents of this legislation. Nothing in this bill will require a company to shut down their marketplace or prevent those companies from selling their own branded politics.

Also, nothing prevents a search company from showing maps or answer boxes in their search results. And, also, cellular phones can be sold with preinstalled apps. This bill simply sets clear, effective rules to protect competition and users doing business on dominant online platforms.

I am a strong believer in the free market. The United States is still the greatest country in the world for starting and growing businesses. But Big Tech is making it more difficult for small businesses to realize success on these dominant platforms. So with this legislation, Congress must update our laws to keep up with the growing and evolving online ecosystem.

Big Tech has the power to determine when and what we can buy, see, and say online. Big Tech also has the power to destroy companies, small and large, by denying them access to consumers and even to the internet itself.

It is time that we ensure there is effective antitrust enforcement so the American people can take the power back from these Big Tech giants.

I want to again thank Senator Klobuchar for her work with me on this legislation. I also want to thank all of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle who have joined in cosponsoring this legislation.

In the House of Representatives, we have Congressmen Cicilline and Buck, who introduced a similar bill earlier this year, which has already been marked up and passed out of the House Judiciary Committee.

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act is a bipartisan, bicameral bill, and I hope that we can move it forward so we end up bringing real, positive change to the benefit of all Americans.

I yield the floor and thank Senator Klobuchar once again.

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

Mr. President, during my time in the Senate, I have always tried to honor the work of whistleblowers. Those who speak up about government wrongdoing ought to be rewarded and not sidelined and punished. But that is exactly what happened in the Indian Health Service according to a recently released internal report. Now, this goes back a few years, but it still is a constant reminder of how whistleblowers aren't listened to and bad things happen.

According to this internal report, in August 2006, a Dr. Mark Butterbrodt wrote to his superiors about a fellow doctor. Over the course of years, he repeatedly made extremely serious whistleblower complaints alleging that his colleague, a Dr. Stanley Weber, was sexually assaulting his young patients. He was not alone, because other staff tried to report Weber to those at the very top. His behavior was described as an ``open secret.'' It is even alleged that the standard orientation for new nurses included a warning to never leave Dr. Weber alone with young boys.

The response from the Indian Health Service senior staff was silence, so the crimes continued. Over a decade after the first whistleblower report, Dr. Weber continued to sexually assault young boys who came to the Indian Health Service for help.

Instead of removing the man who had been repeatedly, credibly accused of sexually abusing his patients, they punished the whistleblower.

Too often in government, we see the people who report wrongdoing being punished.

Numerous senior officials broke the law by failing to report allegations to law enforcement, so the crime could continue. Instead, what did they do? They promoted Dr. Weber to manage those who witnessed his crimes.

By contrast, the report states that Dr. Butterbrodt was ``banished''--and the word ``banished'' is in quotation marks--to the ``very remote and rural facility'' in Belcourt, ND. So the doctor who was the patriotic American, reporting crimes, eventually resigned, and that was shortly after he was banished to a very remote and rural facility.

This shameful response by the Indian Health Service leadership had a direct impact on future whistleblowers. If you have an environment that discourages whistleblowing, what are you going to get? Less whistleblowing.

This internal report states that ``nurses told Dr. Butterbrodt that now he could see why they never speak up.''

It is unconscionable that these whistleblowers were ignored and a pedophile was allowed to act with impunity. That is why I recently sent a letter to the Acting Director of Indian Health Service to ensure that future patients and whistleblowers do not face the same treatment. I want to make sure that processes have been put in place so that this doesn't happen again.

Dr. Butterbrodt and those like him were right to blow the whistle. We need to make it easier, not harder, to do the right thing.

There is a pattern about whistleblowers. They tend to be treated like skunks at a picnic. They usually end up doing what is patriotic, only to hurt themselves professionally, maybe even becoming unemployed just because they do what most civil servants want to do--just have the government do what the law requires or how the money is spent according to law.

So I take the advantage--every time a Cabinet person or sub-Cabinet person comes to my office for their usual interviews before confirmation, I advise them, whether they run an Agency that maybe has 3,000 or 4,000 people to an Agency that has--I suppose like the Veterans Administration, which I think has 400,000 people--you are head of that Department. You don't know what is going on by everybody underneath you. You should listen to whistleblowers.

They all assure me that they will, but somehow the culture in our government doesn't seem to change.

Madam President, earlier this month, Senator Ernst and I sent a letter to Secretary Mayorkas asking the Secretary to address the

devastating cyber attacks conducted on our national agricultural sector.

Agriculture is designated as one of the country's 16 critical infrastructure industries but historically has not received robust cyber security support from our government. Attacks from foreign cyber criminals are threatening both the livelihood of our farmers and the security of the food that we eat.

Last month, NEW Cooperative, an Iowa grain co-op, was the target of BlackMatter, a Russian cyber criminal cell. The cyber attack shut down systems that control crop irrigation, livestock feed schedules, and inventory distribution. NEW Cooperative comprises about 40 percent of the grain distribution in our country. The co-op narrowly managed to avert a crash in grain prices without paying a $5.9 million ransom.

These attacks are not limited to just large distributors. The Russian group BlackByte claimed it attacked Farmers Cooperative Elevator Company, an Iowa grain co-op with just four locations. BlackByte is threatening to release 100 gigabytes of sensitive data, including financial, sales, and accounting information, if a ransom is not paid.

The extent of the damage from the NEW Cooperative and the Farmers Cooperative Elevator Company attacks is not isolated to the grain market. Feed from these co-ops sustain more than 11 million head of livestock.

These attacks affect the supply chain that puts food on the shelves of grocery stores all across our country. As Iowa farmers adopt new technologies to get their crops to market, their exposure grows to similar attacks.

These two ransomware attacks are only the latest in a very long line of cyber attacks on our critical infrastructure this year. In July, a Miami-based software provider was attacked, which resulted in trickle- down effects to thousands of organizations. In June, JBS Foods--that happens to be the world's largest meat processing company--that company was attacked, shutting down nine meat packing plants in the United States. In May, Colonial Pipeline was shut down for 11 days, resulting in buying panics and shortages.

While many cyber attacks originate from Russia, attacks have also come from other countries. Earlier this year, the Biden administration formally blamed China for a massive hack of the Microsoft Exchange email server. The hackers responsible appeared to work directly for China's Ministry of State Security. Estimates range as high as 250,000 victims in that attack.

In July, the Senate Judiciary Committee, where I serve as ranking member, held a hearing at my request looking at how to prevent and respond to ransomware attacks. During this hearing, witnesses testified that the Department of Homeland Security would be identifying and hardening critical points of failure. However, it is clear that their actions up to now have not deterred criminals from targeting the U.S. agricultural industry.

Now, farmers might be only 2 percent of the U.S. population, but they provide food for the other 98 percent. Their job--the 2 percent of the people in this country--is no small task. Keeping Americans fed is very important.

There is an old quote that goes something like this: ``There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.'' The quote is key to understanding the importance of keeping our agricultural supply chain safe and secure.

I want to thank my colleague Senator Ernst for joining me today in calling attention to this ongoing national security concern because agricultural security is national security. It is time that we do more to protect this critical sector of agriculture.

I yield the floor.

Last week, Attorney General Garland said something

very extraordinary. He said he would not withdraw his memo in which he instructed the FBI to get involved with local school boards.

Why would the FBI be interested in parents' meetings with their school board? If there is a reason for law enforcement to be involved, it is probably something local law enforcement can handle.

So the direction will have the effect of intimidating parents who speak out about their children's education. And make no mistake about it, we have heard those reports from the parents themselves. The Attorney General should then withdraw the memo.

Here are the facts:

No. 1, on September 29, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to President Biden asking for help from Federal law enforcement against concerned parents who are getting involved at local school board meetings. That letter compared parents to domestic terrorists. It even suggested the PATRIOT Act should be used against them. Now, remember, the PATRIOT Act was passed 20 years ago, written to protect Americans against terrorists.

Point No. 2: On October 4, Attorney General Garland put out a memo telling the FBI and other parts of the Department of Justice to work with local governments on the supposed spike in harassment, intimidation, and threat of violence against local school boards. The National Security Division is included as well, apparently because they deal with domestic terrorists and the PATRIOT Act.

Attorney General Garland has since testified that he gave the Department of Justice this instruction because of what he read in the National School Boards Association letter to President Biden just 5 days earlier of when the memo was issued. This is an extraordinary deployment of Federal law enforcement in local issues when we have problems--very big problems--like a historic murder surge and especially an open southern border. That latter, the southern border, you see the chaos and the crisis every day on television.

From these two points, what have we learned since the memo was put out? First, we learned the White House helped write the original letter from the National School Boards Association sent to the White House, not to the Department of Justice. Next, we learned that the State school board associations, affiliated with the national association, had nothing to do with putting together the letter. Over 20 of these State organizations have publicly disavowed the National School Boards Association's letter that brought about this directive.

Now, think about that. The White House helped write a letter to itself comparing parents who love their kids to domestic terrorists, but the actual members of the National School Boards Association had nothing to do with it.

On October 22, the National School Boards Association actually apologized for its original letter that started this whole mess in the first place and was never even authorized by its own board.

Meanwhile, 17 State attorneys general have written to Attorney General Garland saying there has been no spike in violence against local school boards. So the idea that parents pose any sort of Federal threat to local school boards is all just simply made up by what looks to be the White House for political purposes.

Despite all that, the Attorney General says he will not change one thing about his memo telling the Department of Justice to continue focusing on local school boards. That memo stands, as far as the Attorney General is concerned.

Attorney General Garland says that he doesn't see how it could be interpreted to mean the FBI will go after impassioned parents. He says there are lines in constitutional law that law enforcement can't cross. Well, that is true, but he has been working with the Constitution his entire life. However, most parents and most school board members aren't experts on the First Amendment.

These parents are reading the Attorney General's own words to mean that when they speak passionately at local school board meetings, they could get in trouble with Federal officials. So parents are going to stop speaking up at local school board meetings, and that is what is known as a chilling effect.

That might be what some at the White House or the National School Boards Association wanted all along, but it is a horrible thing for our democracy, and it should never happen in the United States of America.

Attorney General Garland has said he wants to depoliticize the Department of Justice. Now, he wants Federal prosecutors parsing what parents say to their local school board members. This is because he thinks there is a disturbing spike in violence by parents, but he is not actually sure if that is right. And this instruction is going to scare parents out of speaking their minds at local school board meetings. But the Attorney General won't change his instructions to the

Mr. President, yesterday, in a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ranking Member Risch, called out the State Department for its apparent lack of action in helping those Americans and Afghan allies who are still stuck in Afghanistan.

It has been 2 months since the withdrawal of all American military and diplomatic presence in the country in the wake of the Talban's total takeover of that country.

In the past week or so, the number of Americans reportedly still in the country has grown, not shrunk.

We have gone from around 100 to over 400.

Now, I know Americans are not flocking to Taliban controlled Afghanistan, so why does this number keep going up?

I understand that Americans are not required to register with the State Department so it is understandable that they would not have a reliable, fixed list of Americans at the start of this crisis.

But I find it hard to believe that Americans waited 2 months after being abandoned in Afghanistan by their government to reach out and then, in the space of a week, suddenly found a way to get in touch.

The State Department set up special e-mail addresses and issued guidance on how to report Americans and Afghan allies who need to be evacuated.

My office heard from many Iowans concerned about those they knew in Afghanistan, and my staff followed the directions from the State Department, forwarding the contact information.

For the most part, all I ever heard back was a confirmation that the message was received.

I am starting to wonder if these went into a black hole?

I did not expect that the State Department would devote time and effort to keeping me informed given that presumably it was all hands on deck to contact those in the country and make arrangements for them.

However, 2 months later, I don't see much progress.

Then there are reports that efforts by brave former special forces and other Americans who picked up where their government left off to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies have not received the support they needed from the State Department. Is the State Department just washing their hands of this mess?

I shared with Senator Risch information I passed on to the State Department about 98 Afghan allies known to Iowans to need help as their lives were in danger after the Taliban takeover.

I am only aware of one that has been evacuated.

I know that many have not even been contacted by the State Department.

I am glad that Ranking Member Risch entered this information into the Record along with information from 24 other Senators, totaling 16,688 cases.

That is just one quarter of the Senate, so I know there are many more cases out there.

It is time to hear what the State Department is doing to get the remaining Americans home and to process the cases of Afghan allies so those who helped us and whose lives are at risk can get to safety.

Mr. President, I hear from Iowans all the time about the high cost of hearing aids. The $5,000 or $6,000 or even $10,000 costs are often shocking for seniors who are on fixed incomes.

Thirty-eight million Americans, and, obviously, most of the time adults, have hearing loss. Hearing loss makes it harder to work, harder to socialize, and then easier to become isolated.

In 2016, I began a bipartisan effort with Democratic Senator Warren of Massachusetts to allow consumers to purchase over-the-counter hearing aids. If you can buy nonprescription reading glasses over the counter, it makes very good sense that you should be able to buy basic, safe hearing aids as well.

When Senator Warren and I began our efforts, our goal was simple: By making more products more easily available to consumers, this competition will increase and then lead to lower costs.

Despite every special interest, we passed in 2017 a bill that is entitled the ``Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act.'' Last week, the FDA, just now, released proposed regulations for over-the-counter hearing aids. This is very welcomed news, but it took the FDA bureaucracy more than 3 years to draft regulations.

Senator Warren and I pressed both the Trump administration and now the Biden administration to take action, get these regulations out so we can get these over-the-counter hearing aids on the market. I am glad that the FDA finally did its job.

Now the same Iowans who told me about the high cost of hearing aids can comment on the draft regulations. So everybody who wants to make such comments has until January 18 of next year to make comments on the draft regulations.

As long as the FDA bureaucracy acts--and I hope they will be listening--I expect Iowans can purchase over-the-counter hearing aids sometime in early 2022.

This is good news for Iowans and for Americans, generally.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, it has been a while since congressional Democrats have used the words ``defund the police.'' That was a very popular phrase in 2021, but after the last election, Democrats learned how truly toxic those words were with ordinary Americans. Now they dare not say the words ``defund the police,'' but make no mistake about it, liberals are still trying to defund the police.

A recent nominee for a high-level post at the Department of Justice said that she wasn't in favor of defunding the police, but she talked about it--``overspending on criminal justice system infrastructure and policing.'' That was just a fancier way of saying ``cut police budgets.''

Fortunately, the voters are standing up to these people, and I want to give just two examples.

First, voters in Minneapolis will go to the polls November 2 and decide whether to replace the city's police department with a department called the Department of Public Safety. This supposed Department of Public Safety would take a ``comprehensive public

health approach'' in trying to keep the city safe. Under this idea, police officers could be employed if necessary. Well, the American voters have news for the people who got this initiative on the ballot in Minneapolis: Police officers are absolutely necessary in Minneapolis, and they are necessary in every other community as well.

Another example. In Austin, TX, voters will have a chance to restore funding for their police force--funding that the city council slashed a great deal last year.

The murder rate in Austin is higher than it has ever been. So far, 71 people have been killed in Austin, passing the previous record of 59 murders set all the way back in 1984. And with 71 murders, we still have 2 months left in this year, if you want to compare it to all the murders that took place in 1984, a previous high.

Some Austin voters have had enough of this sort of thinking, and they are trying to restore some common sense there in Austin. Under the Proposition A ballot initiative, the city would have to maintain at least 2 police officers for every 1,000 residents, which is more than they have at the present time.

But not everybody likes that, and liberal dark money groups have pumped a half million dollars into defeating this Proposition A because they want to keep defunded police still defunded.

Those same groups recently subsidized the campaigns of hard-left district attorneys all throughout the country. That includes the San Francisco district attorney, who has let drug and property crimes skyrocket. San Francisco is now getting hammered with out-of-control drug use, and shoplifting there happens to be a way of life.

That isn't Chuck Grassley saying that; that is anybody watching television who sees pictures of people just going into stores and just picking up whatever they want. In one city, if it is under $950, you won't be prosecuted. So it is a license to shoplift.

I hope Austin, TX, voters will make sure that their city doesn't go the same way. I would like to think they would want to be safe from criminals and the drugs that criminals push.

Liberal politicians are no longer saying it out loud, ``defund the police.'' But make no mistake about it, many of them still want to defund police.

If Minneapolis and Austin let their police forces wither away on the vine, voters all across the Nation and all across the political spectrum will send a very clear message to the hard left in the next election. So voters everywhere should stand up and say no to defunding the police.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, a little over 25 years ago, a Democrat President and a Republican Congress came together, to quote former President Clinton, ``end welfare as we know it.''

On a bipartisan basis, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed into law, a bill called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Amongst other things, this landmark law established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families--what we go by here in Washington, called the TANF Program. That program was replacing the previous family assistance program.

TANF was specifically designed to promote work and to help struggling parents back onto their own two feet. It was very successful--about 40 percent less people on welfare than before 1996.

The new program did this by creating work requirements and promoting skill development through education and job training. While critics at the time contended dire consequences would result--particularly for single mothers--in the end, all these critics were proven fantastically wrong. Welfare reform immediately led to a precipitous decline in welfare caseloads and usage. At the same time, the single mother labor force participation rate rose, and their incomes climbed--a step toward getting out of poverty.

A recent research shows the gains were not only short term but led to an improvement in the material well-being of single mothers throughout the following decades. Additional studies show welfare reform has contributed to higher education attainment and improved food security for the following generation.

The 1996 welfare reforms helped families to enjoy the dignity of self-sufficiency. It helped end the cycle of poverty. It gave parents the hope of seeing their children grow up to be better off than they had been--exactly what every parent dreams of for their family, particularly for their children.

This was achieved thanks to a Democrat President and a Republican Congress working together for the benefit of those that were elected to serve.

Now, President Biden and Senate Democrats want to effectively end welfare reform as we know it and reconstitute failed policies of the past--in other words, end helping people in poverty by helping them get out of poverty--guaranteeing a life in poverty, rejecting a successful reform, signed by Democratic President Clinton.

So you can understand why they don't want to tell the American people that is what they are doing. They know that trying to sell their proposal as the largest expansion of welfare history isn't going to fly with the American people who know how well the 1996 reform has worked up to and including now.

As an end-run around welfare reform--and in an attempt to garner broad public support--they want to co-opt a popular tax program for their own political ends or what they ideologically believe in; that the government ought to assume a more prominent role in people's lives and in the economy.

That program that they are co-opting is the child tax credit. This credit was established on a bipartisan basis in 1997 as a complement to welfare reform, with the idea of assisting parents as they left the welfare rolls to go to productive employment.

Since then, Republicans have taken the lead in improving the credit as an anti-poverty tool that partially offset the burden of payroll taxes on the working poor. And remember, payroll taxes on the working poor is a regressive tax.

In 2001, as then-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I worked with

fellow Republicans to increase the credit that was set in 1997 at $500 to move it to $1,000. Moreover, the credit was made partially refundable for the very first time.

This made low-income working families eligible to receive a tax refund, even if they had paid no income tax--though they paid the payroll tax. And, obviously, the child tax credit helped offset the regressive impact on the working--low-income working people.

Then, in 2017, Republicans went even further in improving this credit because we doubled the credit, and we increased the amount that those who pay no Federal income tax can receive a tax refund. But a key feature of the child tax credit through these 25 years has always been that it is a work incentive.

In order to benefit them, the tax filer must have at least a minimal amount of earned income, which basically means wages from employment. As you earn more, a larger share of the credit becomes refundable, partially offsetting the payroll taxes.

So, now, this is what the Democrats have in mind: They want to turn this broadly popular, this bipartisan, this pro-work tax incentive into a government assistance program akin to the old, pre-Clinton welfare program.

What Democrats propose can no longer be considered a tax credit in any traditional sense of the word. The benefit is entirely divorced from the tax system in every way except how the tax system is going to give out the benefits.

To qualify, no one in the household needs to work, needs to have income, or needs to pay any sort of Federal tax at all. Now, even more alarming, there are no job search requirements, no job skill development assistance, and no educational assistance--the foundation of the welfare reform of 1996, when the whole idea was to help people help themselves by either schooling or productive employment.

All the requirements then that apply to those receiving TANF under the 1996 welfare reforms would be gone. In other words, their proposal provides no help to getting struggling parents back on their feet or to tackle the root causes of generational poverty.

The bipartisan 1996 reform bill--everything I just said they propose is contrary to that basic Federal reform of 1996. In other words, this is a big step back to encouraging people into a lifetime in poverty. I fear the Democrats' proposal will be a poverty trap for far too many needy families.

We would be reversing the gains made since we had this bipartisan welfare reform of 1996 signed by a Democratic President. That is exactly what a recent University of Chicago analysis of the Democrats' proposal suggests will occur.

According to this study, the Democrats' child tax credit proposal would result in 1.5 million parents leaving the workforce at a time when everybody is crying that we need to get people back into the workforce if you want to keep inflation under control, if you want to keep the supply chain moving smoothly.

This analysis directly contradicts Democrats' claims that their proposal will cut poverty in half. In fact, according to the University of Chicago authors, ``deep child poverty would not fall at all.'' I will bet the Democrats are trying to sell this on the proposition that it is going to reduce child poverty, but not according to the University of Chicago scholars. In fact, it might even make things worse.

That is exactly why Democrats and Republicans came together to reform welfare in 1996, because it became self-evident that child poverty could not be solved simply through money alone.

If money alone is a solution, why are my Democratic colleagues willing to settle for only reducing child poverty by half?

Why don't they simply dedicate more of their foreign $4.2 trillion tax-and-spending spree to completely end child poverty?

Is it that they believe subsidizing individuals to buy electric vehicles, as their bill would do, is more important than eradicating child poverty?

I fully support lending a hand to families in need of support, but our policies must be focused on providing a hand up, not a handout. Providing assistance untethered from any work or job promotion requirement or education or work training requirement is not a compassionate approach to helping people. You want to help people get in the world of work because only in the world of work can you work yourself up the ladder and get out of poverty. But being on government programs is a certainty of a lifetime of poverty.

No, it is not compassionate. It is just the opposite. It sets up a generation of Americans being trapped in soul-crushing government dependencies.

I urge my colleagues to abandon their ill-conceived, ``no strings attached'' child tax credit proposal. They would get a lot of Republican support--bipartisan support--for improving the child tax credit, but not this way. Do not yank away the ladder of opportunity from struggling Americans. Take a page out of former President Clinton's playbook. Work with Republicans to find a bipartisan solution that will actually help low-income families together.