Cory A. Booker

Mr. President, today, we honor the selfless life of Robin Cogan, a New Jersey resident who passed away on June 11, 2026, at the age of 65. Robin was a beloved nurse, grandmother, friend, and outstanding member of her community in Cherry Hill, NJ. She will be remembered as a ``relentless'' advocate for nurses, our community's children, and for working tirelessly to prevent gun violence in our schools.

Robin was the New Jersey director for the National Association of School Nurses and a teacher in the school nurse certification program at Rutgers University in Camden, NJ. As a voice of her profession, Robin authored the ``Relentless School Nurse'' blog, as well as a monthly column in ``My American Nurse,'' the official journal of the American Nurses Association. Her service to the profession was recognized through multiple major professional awards, including the 2019 and 2020 National Association of School Nurses President's Award, the 2018 NCSN School Nurse of the Year, the 2017 Johnson & Johnson School Nurse of the Year, and the New Jersey Department of Health 2017 Population Health Hero Award.

One of Robin's guiding principles was that ``voice is our most renewable resource,'' a principle she not only espoused but which she lived out every day. Through programs like her ``No More Empty Desks'' art campaign at Charles Brimm Medical Arts High School in Camden, Robin's life is proof that ripples make waves if we are relentlessly brave in standing up for our communities. My staff and I had the great pleasure of meeting Robin during the ``Hill Days'' she coordinated while serving as the legislative cochair for the New Jersey State School Nurses Association. We were left humbled by her story, inspired by her message, and proud to honor all she has done for the great State of New Jersey.

Amidst the pandemic of gun violence that has gripped our American communities, Robin's legacy is one of hope. I encourage members of this Chamber to reflect on Robin's life as testament to what we can accomplish if we are relentless in our compassion for others and for the well-being of our communities.

Madam President, I am so grateful to be recognized. It is amazing how for more than 14 years in this place, I was trying to get Congress to step in to do something to help athletes, but the answer was no, no, no. But suddenly, when college athletes start winning cases in court against a $20 billion gravy train that has been benefiting everybody but college athletes, suddenly there seems to be this race to pass a bill to allegedly protect college athletes. But really, we know who this bill is protecting.

The Senate is on the verge--it really could happen tonight--of passing a bill that could reshape college sports for generations to come. It is a bill that was written without input from college athletes themselves, whose lives will be directly affected. It violates a simple rule: nothing about us without us.

Well, this is a bill, going forward, where college athletes and the organizations that represent them have not had a seat at the table. It is a bill that was actually shaped by millions of dollars in lobbying from the NCAA and other powerful interests that control that industry. And at its core, it is a bill that undermines the rights of young people who pour their blood, sweat, tears, countless hours of work, and more into their craft. Their voices should have shaped this debate. We should have listened to their wisdom before voting today, before rushing to this vote as the last thing we do before a long recess.

Plain and simple, athletes produce this wealth, produce these opportunities, create this industry, and they should have been at the table, but they weren't given that chance. So, today, I am going to do my best to elevate the concerns of college athletes, the concerns that over this last decade they have shared with me, concerns that I have learned myself because I love college sports.

In an increasingly divided country, college sports is one of the few things that actually bring us together. There is something special about college sports, and U.S. college sports--heck, there is something uniquely American about them. I was lucky enough to be a part of that. I played Division I football at Stanford. I know firsthand what athletes sacrifice. I know what the system too often denies them in return. That is why I have spent my entire Senate career fighting for justice for college athletes.

This is not a new issue for me. Back in 2014, I said to the then- president of the NCAA when he testified before Congress--very bluntly, I told him:

[I]t is exploitation when you have an athlete working 60 to

70 hours a week but [yet still] not . . . able to afford the

basic necessities.

If [an athlete is] going into their own pocket after giving

up their knees . . . to make millions of dollars for the

university and [those universities aren't] even compensating

them appropriately, that . . . is exploitation of a college

athlete.

That was me back in 2014 to the then-head of the NCAA.

Twelve years later, athletes have won important new rights through their own tireless advocacy at State legislatures, in courts, but now what do we see? We see that the NCAA's desire for control has not subsided. In fact, it has grown. The NCAA has spent years now pursuing a legislative strategy here in Congress to cement their control over athletes, to put it into Federal law that they alone have the power and the control over those athletes.

With this bill we are about to do--should it be passed in the House and signed by the President--it is a bill for the control and power of the NCAA and member institutions. It is not about athletes, who are winning their rights, winning court cases, gaining leverage, and now are having that taken away from them.

It is important to understand just how big of a business this is. This is why we see commercials during games we are watching, millions of dollars of lobbyists--because this is a $20 billion industry. Today, more than 40 college football coaches make more than $5 million a year. In most States, it is the highest paid State employee. In 2025 alone, 15 fired coaches secured buyouts worth nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. That is $250 million paid to coaches not to coach.

You hear people running around here lobbying, saying: Oh, we have a financial crisis in college sports. Nobody is trying to deal with that issue.

And now we see the TV deals growing bigger and bigger and bigger. The SEC has a deal worth about $3 billion over 10 years. The Big Ten's deal is worth $7 billion over 7 years. The wealth and money are growing. That is why the lobbyists and millionaires were down here lobbying. This is big business, folks. It has been big business for years.

What has changed is that the athletes were finally beginning to be able to have the fight for the share in the value that they create. They have developed over recent years more power and more leverage, and that is a scary thing for the NCAA.

I want to be honest about one point--about who creates a disproportionate amount of that value. That is actually Black athletes. They have an outsize role in building college sports into the economic powerhouse it is because they are overrepresented in the revenue- driving sports. Think about this: In men's basketball, Black Americans are 44 percent of the players. In football, it is 40 percent of the players. They are overrepresented in these powerful, money-generating sports. For decades, these athletes were shut out from sharing in the value they created, the billions of dollars of revenue they created. They were shut out of it.

So this is not just a college sports issue; it is an economic justice issue and a civil rights issue. Any effort to limit athletes' ability to earn will fall especially hard on Black athletes and many athletes of different backgrounds, and that is why the voices of athletes are so critical. That is why the diverse voices of athletes are so critical and why civil rights leaders have been condemning this bill.

Listen to Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, who is the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. She said:

Black athletes have transformed college athletics into one

of the most successful enterprises in America. Yet the people

most affected by this legislation have not been meaningfully

included in shaping it.

No legislation that disproportionately affects Black

athletes should move through Congress without meaningful

participation from the communities it will most directly

affect.

Or listen to Derrick Johnson, the President of the NAACP. President Johnson said:

The so-called Protect College Sports Act does little to

actually protect the student athletes who make this

multibillion-dollar industry possible. Instead, it shields

powerful institutions from accountability while asking Black

athletes to surrender their rights, their leverage and their

voice.

So now, just as athletes all across America are finally starting to share in the value they are creating, they are starting to finally get voices that are recognized by courts and State legislatures, we are told that Congress must immediately step in, 30-plus days from an election, to save college sports. But who are we saving it from, and what are we saving it for? The answer to those questions is actually in the text of the bill, to know what this is really about. Let me walk through some of my specific concerns that point to the hypocrisy here.

First, this bill would make it harder for athletes to sign NIL deals. Section 101 relates to athletes' NIL rights, but it is important to remember athletes already have NIL rights. They fought for them. They earned them. They won them in court and State legislatures. What this section actually does is add new layers of review, redtape, bureaucracy, and uncertainty between athletes and the opportunities before them.

Second, this bill limits athletes' ability to seek justice in court. Section 118 gives the NCAA sweeping immunity from antitrust liability-- a sweeping immunity we scarcely have ever given any other industry.

For decades, the NCAA used its market power to restrict athletes' rights, and then it lost in court again and again.

It is so exceedingly rare for Congress to grant exemptions from the Nation's antitrust laws, and it is rarer still for Congress to do so for an organization with the NCAA's track record of antitrust violations.

The NCAA has violated antitrust laws and the trust of college athletes over and over again, and yet they are the big winners here. This bill would permanently shield the NCAA from the kind of liability in these key areas--a permanent shield. They don't have to come back to Congress in 10 years, 15 years, 25 years; it is permanent. This means less accountability for the NCAA and fewer tools for athletes to challenge the NCAA's abuses of power when they have an incredible track record of abusing their power.

Third, this bill puts the burden of enforcement on athletes. Think about this: Section 119 of the bill creates a private right of action for athletes. It is the sole enforcement mechanism in this bill.

There is no role for States' attorneys general, no role for the Federal Trade Commission, no role for anyone. The sole enforcement mechanism is on the student-athletes themselves to somehow sue powerful, powerful entities.

A young athlete whose rights are violated would have to enforce their own rights. So let's play this out for a second. Put yourself in the position of one of these young athletes, teenager. Say you are 18 years old. You are new on campus. You have worked your entire life to find this opportunity. Maybe you are from a low-income community.

You might not come from a lot of money, but you realized your dream to play ball at a collegiate level. And in a few weeks, something terrible happens. Your coach has violated your rights in some way. Maybe they demanded you play through a serious injury, leading to permanent injury. Maybe they sexually harassed you. Maybe they kept you on a practice field in 110-degree heat with 90 percent humidity without a water break.

This 18-year-old knows something is wrong. They know their rights are being violated, but under this bill, they would be on their own to seek justice. They would have to file a lawsuit against their coach, the person who controls their playing time, their roster slot; the person who controls their future.

Can you imagine that ever happening? Well, it rarely would. It is fundamentally unfair to put all of this on the college athlete and for this body to hand over permanent antitrust exemptions and give no enforcement mechanism than to trust the institution that has been violating athletes' rights for decades.

We are basically telling teenagers and young people in sports: You need to come up with the time, the money, the lawyers to challenge the person who has violated your rights, the same person who happens to control your destiny.

It is not a serious way to make sure this bill is properly enforced. Congress puts independent groups together or assigns it to oversight committees like the FTC to enforce rules all over this country. Why not now?

Fourth, this bill undermines States' ability to protect college athletes' rights. Section 121 preempts certain State-level laws related to civil rights, privacy, and data breaches. That means, if an athlete's civil rights are violated, if their health records are leaked online, or their personal information is somehow misused by their conference or the university, the athlete will have fewer legal protections and fewer options available for them to seek justice.

How can we have a nation that is basically saying: We are not just going to put the NCAA in charge of your lives, but we are going to take away your ability to seek legal redress?

Fifth, this bill offers only temporary protections for women's and Olympic sports while permanent antitrust exemptions for the NCAA. The sponsors of this bill say it will protect women's and Olympic sports, but section 125 has a sunset.

The protections expire in 4 to 9 years, depending on the size of the program. The NCAA's antitrust exemption is permanent. The protections for women's and Olympic sports are only temporary. And athletes are noticing.

Listen to Caitlin VanderKlok, a cross-country athlete at the University of Tennessee. She says:

Commercials are claiming that the Protect College Sports Act will protect women and Olympic sport athletes like me. But simply mentioning women's and Olympic sports in a bill does not mean those athletes are actually protected, she writes. Even where protections apply, they expire, and athletes are not given a right under this bill to go to court and enforce them. If we are going to tell athletes that this bill protects their opportunities, we should also tell them the facts.

Well, Caitlin, you are right. People are lying to you. People in this body that say it protects women's and Olympic sports are lying to you by not telling you the whole truth; that those protections expire.

Listen to Meghann Burke, executive director of the National Women's Soccer League Players Association.

She says:

There is a profound contradiction at the center of this legislation: the claim that the Protect College Sports Act protects women in sports. In reality, the bill risks undermining the promise of title IX. Schools should not be able to evade their title IX obligations simply by calling revenue-sharing payments compensation rather than athletic benefits. At a time when college athletes are beginning to exercise their collective power, we should not be putting new barriers in their path toward collective bargaining.

Listen to college athletes. Listen to the people that represent college athletes. Listen to the people that represent athletes who have come out of college sports and are now playing in the pros.

But this is a bill not about college athletes; this is a bill about wealthy people, wealthy coaches, wealthy institutions, and an NCAA that has enjoyed unbridled power for decades as we watched discrimination, hardships, injustice. And finally--finally--athletes started getting some power in the equation.

And this body--after my trying for 10 to 15 years to get them to step in and help college athletes, this body rushes in to suddenly say: We are protecting college athletes.

Well, that is not true.

So, look, I know how things work here. I have offered some ways to try to improve this bill. I and colleagues Murphy and Blumenthal and others offered a series of amendments built on a simple principle: If we are going to impose rules on athletes, we should apply the same rules to coaches.

Take compensation, this bill caps what schools can share directly with athletes. So we offered an amendment to cap what schools can pay coaches to $5 million a year. That is still very good money.

This amendment is not going to get a vote on the floor today.

Take endorsement deals, the bill subjects athletes' NIL deals to fair-market value review, a valid business purpose standard, approval, and disclosure. So we offered an amendment to require that same process for coaches' deals, for their endorsement deals.

Well, we are not going to be voting on that amendment because it is not about the athletes, it is not about fairness; it is enforcing hypocrisy.

Let's take transfers, which I have heard already some of my colleagues talk about on the floor. This bill allows an athlete to transfer one time. If they transfer again, they have to sit out a year.

Well, reasonable people could disagree on that policy, but if you are going to restrict athletes' ability to move between schools, the same rules should apply to coaches. We offered an amendment to make that happen. It was not accepted.

Imagine you are that athlete, promised by coaches everything, and that coach gets to leave and go to as many schools as they want, but you are stuck.

Let's take the buyouts. Do you remember the 15 fired coaches and their buyouts being worth--this last year--a quarter of a billion dollars? We offered an amendment to simply cap future buyouts at 1- year's salary. This would protect schools across the country from being forced to plunge millions of dollars into college coaches who are not even coaching.

It would give them the opportunity to not have to pay these exorbitant prices when they could be investing in things to improve education of all kids.

Well, that amendment is not going to get a vote today. Common sense.

Take women's Olympic sports. I offered a simple amendment to strike the sunset provision and make those provisions permanent just like the NCAA's antitrust exemption.

Hey, you are going to give permanent protection to the wealthy and the powerful, then protect women's sports and Olympic sports where our Olympic athletes come out of pocket all their lives, trying to get into the Olympics to represent the United States of America. If this is about patriotism, if this is about our Nation, then protect Olympic sports. Don't let that provision expire.

Well, that is not going to get a vote today. The hypocrisy in this bill, the refusal to accept amendments exposes that hypocrisy.

And, finally, this is the most insulting part of the bill. Take HBCUs, the sponsors have been putting people on TV to talk about how this does so much for HBCUs. They point to an authorization of funding, but an authorization guarantees nothing, not a single penny.

Senators Warnock, Alsobrooks, Blunt Rochester, Murphy, and I offered a simple amendment: turn that authorization into an appropriation. If you are going to parade Black people in your millions of dollars' worth of ads, saying you are giving money to HBCUs, maybe the text of this bill should actually give money to HBCUs. Let's deliver on that promise today. Let's actually cut a check to historically Black colleges and universities.

But no, no. This bill says we should deal with a promise, an intention, and this amendment is not going to be voted on.

I am not alone in my concerns about this bill. There are so many people in this Nation--who stand up for the underdog, who stand up for the little guy and the little gal, who represent athletes or fight for equal rights--that object to this bill.

I want to bring the concerns of more of those people into this Chamber and make sure it is a part of the official Record.

Listen to a group of athletes who survived sexual assault and parents who lost children during college sports activities. They wrote a powerful letter pleading with Senators. Here is an excerpt of their letter:

These are not abstract policy concerns to us. We know firsthand the consequences when institutions are allowed to police themselves, when reports of abuse or dangerous practices remain inside the institution, and when victims are left without meaningful accountability after harm is done.

They continue:

Universities, conferences, and other powerful college sports' interests have had extensive opportunities to make their case as this legislation has developed. Before Congress grants sweeping new protections to the college sports system, we ask that you hear directly from those of us who have experienced the consequences when that system fails athletes.

Is anybody listening? Have we had them at the hearings? Have their voices been taken into account?

Listen to some of our labor leaders, listen to the AFL-CIO as they write:

The Protect College Sports Act is not a compromise between competing interests but a legislative effort that preserves institutional control at a time when courts, lawmakers, and the public are increasingly questioning the fairness of the existing model. The bill gained its current momentum not when athletes' interests were satisfied but when the richest intercollegiate conferences in the country voted to endorse the bill. That should tell you everything you need to know about who this bill protects.

Listen to former senior Justice Department officials, including a former principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, a former Acting Associate Attorney General, and a former Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. Listen to what they write:

The Protect College Sports Act includes a broad antitrust

exemption that would immunize the NCAA from any Federal or

State enforcement for weaponizing its enormous power over

college athletes to cap pay, limit eligibility and transfers,

or otherwise impose burdens or restrictions on players.

This would constitute the most sweeping antitrust exemption

granted by Congress since the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945.

Not since 1945 have we seen what Congress is about to do today.

These former attorneys general continue:

Traditionally, antitrust immunity is granted only when the

parties agree to rules through a collective bargaining

process--and only for so long as a bargaining relationship is

in place--or when rules are conditioned on state or federal

regulatory oversight. However, neither protection is included

in the [Protect College Sports Act].

In other words, there is no oversight from the Federal Government. The only hope athletes have is to sue.

The letter continues:

As currently conceived, this is not a bill that protects

college sports. It is a bill that protects the NCAA's ability

to abuse its power over college athletes. A vote for the

I request unanimous consent for 5 more minutes to conclude my remarks.

Absolutely.

Here is the National College Players Association:

This bill is clearly not ready for a vote. Congress should

stop rushing it and fully vet the problems before asking

members to vote.

I could go on with all of the compelling, painful letters that have been written.

This is the wrong focus for Congress 30 days before midterm elections.

There is one more question we should be asking about before we take this vote: Is this really what we should be spending our time on? Our country faces real challenges. Gas is at $5. Diesel costs are at a record high. We are at war abroad. Healthcare expenses are skyrocketing. And the U.S. Senate is spending precious time on the floor rewriting the rules of college sports while athletes, athletes groups, survivors of sexual assault, labor, and civil rights leaders are all begging Congress to slow down and listen to their voices. What does this say about our priorities?

It is also worth noting that many of my Senators are supporting this bill. They like to preach the gospel of small government. They talk about the love of free markets and small government; the importance of freedom and America's right to pursue the opportunities that are best for them. But there seems to be a major exception to that kind of philosophy when it comes to young people who are disproportionately Black. There seems to be this high-and-mighty rhetoric about freedom and free markets when it comes to every other area of our economy but not this $20 billion industry.

Under this Federal bill, the Federal Government will decide how many schools can join an athletic conference, when certain games can be played, and how much revenue athletes can receive from their own schools. This is a massive amount of market intervention. Where else does the Federal Government step in to limit what people can earn while allowing the institutions that control the market to pay their executives anything they want? There is not one single industry.

My playing days are long over--that is obvious--but I think about athletes that are playing today and former athletes who have been calling me about their pain, about their suffering, about their reaching in their own pockets to pay for medical costs, who see that this bill's medical pool is inadequate to the rising costs of CTE and more.

I am thinking hard about athletes who are going to come after them who are joining this institution of NCAA with such a long history of exploitation and violating people's rights.

Young people who work 40, 50 hours, dedicate themselves to their craft; young people who literally put their bodies on the line; young people whose talent generates billions of dollars for others--they deserve a voice in the decisions that are determining their future.

They deserve a system that does more to protect their rights than saying: It is all on you. Sue if you want to. Sue your coach.

They deserve to know that when they stand up and demand a fairer system, when they win in the courts and State legislatures, this body won't betray them by pulling the rug out from underneath them.

They deserve leaders in this body who will stand with the athletes first.

We may lose this vote today, but athletes know how to come back from a loss. They know how to get back up and go to work. They know how to keep fighting for what they believe is right.

I am going to keep fighting alongside these athletes. I am going to keep fighting against an institution called the NCAA that has violated their rights all throughout my lifetime.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. I urge my colleagues to stand up for justice. I urge my colleagues not to race to get a bill done right before an election. I urge my colleagues to hold hearings and actually listen to survivors of sexual assault, parents of dead college athletes, to the kids who have serious, debilitating injuries right now and are paying their own medical bills. I beg my colleagues not to do this. It is wrong. The next Congress would give us time. The next Congress would give us a chance.

But, no, billionaires and millionaires and lobbyists and funding has poured into this place, and suddenly, right before we leave, the last thing we are doing is a bill that is going to hurt so many.

I regret this day. I regret watching my colleagues do this. But the fight continues.

I yield the floor.

I call up my amendment No. 6805 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I would like to speak about my amendment Booker and Blumenthal 6805. To my colleagues, college athletes are putting their bodies out there on the line every day. And many of us who played, we know that some suffer serious, long-term injuries to their spines, their knees, their shoulders, and now what we are seeing is the explosion of CTE, traumatic brain injury. It is a crisis in our country.

I know guys who have had to reach into their own pockets to pay for ongoing medical care literally for decades, and the cost of that care is going to continue to get higher and higher. And in some cases, these injuries athletes have, they are going to live with for the rest of their lives.

Section 106 of this bill provides up to $100 million for a post- eligibility insurance and catastrophic injury fund. I am glad the bill recognizes college athletes need help covering the cost of injuries they sustained while playing, but I am skeptical that $100 million will be enough.

There are roughly half a million college athletes competing at any given time. That money can go quickly when you are talking about serious, lifelong injuries. Our amendment would raise the cap on the fund from $100 million to $200 million. And, more importantly, it wouldn't hurt small schools. It would be the NCAA and the Power Four conferences that would be responsible for covering the difference.

These are the institutions that have built multibillion dollar industries around college sports. They should help ensure that athletes who suffer serious injuries have the resources to receive the care that they need.

This amendment will provide greater resources to address athletes' long-term injuries without placing additional financial burdens on schools--

--as we continue to find more and more challenges with traumatic brain injury.

I thank the Senator from Washington, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 6835 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, this is one of the hypocrisies in this bill. This bill targets athletes. It is subject to endorsement deals, redtape, scrutiny, and bureaucracy. It limits the amount of revenue that schools share with athletes, but there are no comparable restrictions on coaches or any other powerful actor in college sports. This strikes me as fundamentally unfair, especially when, during all these negotiations, college after college would whisper to me and say: There is a race to the bottom on these crazy coach salaries.

On endorsement deals, the amendment subjects coaches' endorsement deals to the same approval and disclosure requirements that would apply to athletes.

On compensation, the amendment caps coaches' salaries at $5 million a year and caps coaches' contract buyouts at no more than 1 year's salary, because in 2025 alone, just 15 college football coaches were owed almost a quarter of a billion dollars in buyouts to not coach.

This amendment is about parity. This amendment is about fairness. If the bill's supporters believe these rules are necessary for athletes, they should be willing to apply them to coaches as well.

Mr. President, I just want to use the 1 minute left of opposition to this bill.

I know this bill is about to be passed, but I want to say very plainly, this bill sells out college athletes. This bill does not allow equal treatment between coaches and those athletes.

This bill does not provide enough money left over for their health and interests. This bill gives permanent antitrust exemptions to this organization, and it does not create permanent protections for Olympic athletes, no permanent protections for women's sports, and this bill undermines the ability for athletes to sue for privacy violations and civil rights violations.

I urge my colleagues to vote no. I know this is not the final word on this legislation, and I am grateful for those colleagues that joined me in ``no'' votes.

Vote on S. 4668

Mr. President, I came down here to talk about AI. But before I give those remarks, I cannot let the comments that were just made on the floor go unrebutted point by point.

I have utter frustration. There are a few things in this bill that are worthy of trumpeting. But to be on this floor and say all of this, that this is about protecting athletes, I ask one simple question, Why isn't one athlete group in this country, not one of the groups that represents athletes, trumpeting the greatness of this bill?

They all know this bill undermines their rights, undermines their collective bargaining, undermines their health and safety, creates an unequal playing field for them relative to the other money interests in this bill, including the coaches.

I came down here to speak about AI, which I will do in a moment, but I need to get more into the specifics because it is outrageous to come down and talk about a bill being good for athletes when athletes themselves all over this country, every organization that represents them, condemn this bill. And it is not just the athletes; it is the parents of athletes that have died because of the NCAA and what they are doing.

Kids that have died of heatstroke. Kids that have been crippled by injuries. Their parents collectively have written letters to this body: Don't let this bill pass.

But let me get to specifics. One, this healthcare fund. There is in this bill this idea that even 5 years of healthcare after your playing years, and a fund set up of roughly $100 million. But you know that there are tens and tens--hundreds of thousands of college athletes, many of them have crippling injuries, a fund like that is inadequate for their healthcare needs. Put that relative to what professional sports do, and you will see that it is shortchanging athletes' well- being.

On this idea, secondly, that this bill somehow enshrines NIL rights, this body did nothing for generations while name and likeness was being stolen from players. Players were being exploited. This body did nothing.

But as soon as athletes start winning in court, their NIL rights-- suddenly Congress swoops in and is saying that we are saving their NIL rights? That is a lie.

The reality is, they don't need Congress' beneficent actions to give them NIL rights. They have earned them in the courts. What this bill actually does is, it takes away rights for them to legally challenge anything that the cartel of the NCAA does. That is why the AAJ--the trial lawyers--are against this because it undermines their ability to win more court cases in the future.

Other things that are not true being said--this outrageous claim that this is somehow protecting women's sports. Well, then why didn't they permanently enshrine protections of women's sports in Olympic sports? Why in section 125 do those protections expire, 4 or 9 years down the line? Why?

You are giving permanent antitrust exemptions to one of the most notorious monopolistic cartel organizations that has actually hurt women athletes, and you are allowing the protections for Olympic sports and the protections for women athletes to expire. Make them permanent then, if you are caring about that.

But you are giving permanent protections? Permanent antitrust exemptions? That is outrageous.

This idea that you are protecting women's sports, to me it falls flat when you read section 125 of this bill.

This bill talks about what it is doing for Black colleges. There is nothing more insulting to me, as someone who has fought for HBCUs. This bill--don't be fooled--doesn't put a dollar into HBCUs. It authorizes money. I have been in the Senate for 13 years. I have seen authorizations happen but no money go to those institutions.

If this was real, that HBCUs were going to benefit, appropriate the money. Don't dangle out millions of dollars and say ``Get on board on this bill'' and then be left in a situation where folks aren't getting those resources.

Let me say next, this transfer sensibility. That is the quote I heard. This brings transfer sensibility. Well, I will tell you this right now. If transfer sensibility is so important for players, why isn't there transfer sensibility for the coaches? How can you allow coaches to come in a year to a school, lure athletes to their teams, they have success based upon athletes' performance, and then they can go and get the next high-paying job?

This is the extraordinary problem with this bill, that it has one standard for players and another standard for coaches.

And this idea that this bill somehow prevents a race to the bottom. Well, you all know that there are about 15 coaches that have over-- almost a $250 million buyout provision. And I have heard on the floor now that somehow this is going to stop the race at the bottom. It doesn't do anything for private institutions. From Notre Dame to Stanford, it doesn't touch the race to the bottom there.

It doesn't touch the race to the bottom for facilities. I was a college athlete. It doesn't stop schools from rolling out greater facilities. Where is the equality in this bill that is so-called helping college athletes where every college athlete organization is against it?

Let me give you another example. This idea of disclosure requirements on athletes for their NIL deals and the like.

Why aren't there disclosure requirements on coaches? This bill puts redtape between athletes and their opportunities to make money, but doesn't put the same redtape between coaches. Somehow, we need transparency with athletes, but it is not with coaches. Coaches don't have disclosure requirements.

Why are you treating that elite class differently than you are treating athletes? That is not true.

I can go on and on and on, and I will. I will come back to this floor. I will do interviews. I am going to make sure people know the facts about this bill.

Because when this bill passes, and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and others get what they want, athletes are going to be out of luck. And when 4 or 9 years pass and Olympic sports are being cut and women's sports are being cut, a lot of people in here are going to forget the shortcomings of this bill, but I will not, and nor will athletes.

This bill is a threat to college sports. It is a threat to college athletes. That is why every major organization is against it. I have more details. I will come down here and read paragraphs of this bill. I will do everything possible to put on the Congressional Record why this is a betrayal of college athletes, their safety, and their well-being.

And I am not saying there are not good things in this bill. I am not saying there are not things that have been incorporated that are important. But time and time again, it comes up short. A better deal for the universities. A better deal for the wealthy. A better deal for coaches. But athletes? They get the short end of this.

And that is why folks are out here doing everything they can. Athletes' groups, civil rights groups, trial lawyers, so many are saying: This is wrong. We can do better.

Why are we rushing to this bill when the No. 1 issue in America right now is rising costs? Rushing to this bill, 47 days before an election, makes no sense to me.

Why college athletes have not been involved with this, or their organizations, makes no sense.

I would like, in the record, that my now remarks on AI be separated from these reactionary remarks to the stuff that is being said that doesn't hold true with the text of the actual bill.

Thank you.

And before I go, if there is anybody on the floor, I will pause for a question on this issue. If anyone wants to do a colloquy, I will.

Thank you. This is what the Senate should be about.

Mr. President, I just want to remind that I paused for a question, not a speech.

I did not yield the floor. I am pausing for a question.