Floor Statements

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session.

Madam President, Wyoming became a State in 1890. It was the 44th State to enter the Union. In 1893, Wyoming adopted our State seal, which also appears on our State flag inside the buffalo, and on that seal are two figures that tell the story of Wyoming.

(Mr. SCHMITT assumed the Chair.)

One figure represents the livestock industry and the ranchers and cattlemen of Wyoming, and the other represents our mining heritage-- here, it says mining and oil--the miners that power America and have powered it for years.

These two industries are instrumental to my State, but in terms of gross State product, no industry comes close to the energy industry. Wyoming is an energy-producing State.

For over 130 years, these figures have stood as a testament to Wyoming's values: hard work, self-reliance, and providing for our Nation.

The Biden administration looked at that seal and decided Wyoming's way of life has to end. They wanted to unilaterally rip the mining symbol from our State's seal. One way they wanted to end this mining heritage was via the Buffalo Resource Management Plan amendment, which was a deliberate, calculated attack on our miners and an assault on every Wyoming family that depends on coal. Wyoming has since 1986 been the No. 1 coal producer in the Nation. We produce 40 percent of America's coal.

So today, I come before the Senate in defense of the people of Wyoming and our rich energy sector. In a last-minute, desperate, post- election attempt to promote his anti-energy Green New Deal scam, President Biden issued the Buffalo Resource Management Plan amendment to cripple Wyoming's coal industry. Biden's Bureau of Land Management zeroed out almost 500,000 acres of coal in Wyoming, shutting down the possibility of any future coal leasing.

This is why I introduced the congressional resolution of disapproval with Senator Barrasso to overturn this reckless, anti-Wyoming assault. We have the backing of the Department of the Interior, and we have the full support of President Trump.

As I said earlier, Wyoming produces 40 percent of America's coal. The Powder River Basin holds more than 48 billion short tons--enough to power our Nation for more than a century.

The Biden plan would have destroyed thousands of high-paying Wyoming jobs, erased billions in labor income, and gutted the State revenue that funds our communities and, more importantly, our K-through-12 school system.

Moreover, the Biden Bureau of Land Management and this resource management plan didn't just attack coal, it aimed to lock up Federal land that belongs to the American people.

While the Biden administration tried to shutter American coal mines, our foreign adversaries are ramping up production. Their coal is dirtier, their environmental standards are nonexistent, and their labor practices include child labor and human rights abuses no American would ever tolerate.

Shuttering U.S. coal doesn't help the planet; it outsources pollution to the worst polluters on Earth and sends American jobs straight overseas.

American coal--Wyoming coal--is the cleanest, safest, and most responsibly produced coal in the world. The most recent coal plant that was built

in Wyoming was so clean that they didn't even want to report to the EPA how clean the emissions were because the EPA had moved from a standard of most affordable to most attainable emissions. Well, attainability is you--regardless of what it costs, if you can attain this level of emissions, you have to produce that low level of emissions.

That is what makes Wyoming coal the cleanest, safest, and most responsibly produced coal in the world.

The last time I visited that coal-fired powerplant, where we have people testing the effluence and able to practice and provide experiments for new methodologies to produce cleaner coal, the Chinese were there in Campbell County, WY, trying to learn.

The Buffalo RMPA is national security sabotage disguised as a far- left environmental policy.

President Trump has already made it clear that if this resolution reaches his desk, he will sign it. He knows Wyoming coal is vital to his American energy dominance agenda.

By passing this resolution, we will reopen 481,000 acres for coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, protect over 4,000 Wyoming jobs, safeguard more than $1.9 billion in labor output, preserve the revenue that keeps Wyoming schools strong, and ensure that coal remains available to power America's future.

I will not let unelected bureaucrats--

I urge my colleagues to stand with Wyoming workers and to stand with affordable, reliable energy by voting to pass this measure.

Motion to Proceed

I move to proceed to S.J. Res. 89.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Johnson for his dedication to trying to pay the Federal workers who are being used in what is a political battle--I want to excuse them from a partisan political battle that is not of their making so they can go back to work and serve the American people.

What we have here is a political standoff between Democrats and Republicans in Congress. It has nothing to do with the air traffic controllers. Some of them are Democrats, and some are Republicans. It has nothing to do with any other essential or furloughed Federal workers. Some of them are Democrats; some, Republicans.

Some of them probably agreed that we should shut down the government so insurance companies can make billions more dollars off the American taxpayers under ObamaCare. Some of them are Republicans and think that we should open the government and work out this healthcare mess after we open the government. Regardless of that, they are not in a position to make those decisions. We are. We are.

So here we are in the longest shutdown in government history. The Congress is responsible for it. It is political. It is not policy driven. So since we are going to argue about politics and who is winning and who is losing and who is setting themselves up to have the next President or win the midterms instead of worrying about whether the airways are safe, whether WIC is funded, whether SNAP is funded, whether workers are funded, whether the military is funded; since we are going to fight over who is going to win the election a year from now, let's excuse the people who are not responsible for this dysfunction from our dysfunction.

That is what Senator Johnson is trying to do.

Now, we all agree, Democrats and Republicans, that this is not fair to Federal workers--people who are in the military, who are air traffic controllers, who are essential, who are furloughed. It is not fair to them. We all agree.

What Senator Johnson is doing is finding a way that we can be together on a bipartisan basis, excuse the Federal workers from this mess, let them be paid, and let us go on with our absurd, partisan, political dysfunction if that is what we want.

If we want to fight about healthcare, it is my opinion that we ought to do it after we fully open the government, but if we are not willing to do that, let's at least let the Federal workers off the hook.

I applaud Senator Johnson. I applaud Senator Sullivan. I applaud Senator Cruz.

We want to be able to keep Americans safe who are getting in airplanes every day.

We want to keep Americans safe who are working in the military. They don't make very much money, especially those young, first- and second- year military employees. Some of them have young families. Some of them have spouses. So I am telling you, they don't make much money, and then you withhold their pay. Those are the people that are working paycheck to paycheck. Let them out of our political dysfunction. Don't make them suffer for our political misfunction and dysfunction.

I want to also thank any Democrat who will listen and be compassionate towards your Federal workers in your districts.

This is wrong for those of us--whether we disagree about healthcare or not,

whether you want to fund billions of dollars to give to insurance companies for a broken healthcare system--fine.

We can have that debate, but don't penalize the Federal workers for our dysfunction, our disrespect for them.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 192, S. 1872.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 171, S. 503.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be

considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 399.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 459.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 482, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, November 5; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; that notwithstanding rule XXII, at 11:30 a.m., the Senate execute the order of October 30 in relation to the confirmation of the Tung nomination; that following disposition of the Tung nomination, the Senate vote on cloture on Executive Calendar No. 421, Caleb Orr, and if cloture is invoked, the Senate vote on confirmation at 2:15 p.m.; finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during Wednesday's session of the Senate, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

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

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, article II, section 2, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives the President complete discretion to issue executive clemency. In Ex parte Garland in 1866, the Supreme Court even said that the President has ``unlimited powers in respect to pardons, extending to every offense under the law.''

Congress must be mindful of its proper role as part of our constitutional separation of powers. For those constitutional reasons alone, I cannot support this resolution.

With respect to Binance in particular and the individual who was the subject of this pardon specifically, I continue to have concerns with their past activity that may have facilitated illicit finance. In October 2023, House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill and I wrote a letter to the Department of Justice urging that prosecutors take a close look at whether Binance was willfully blind to bad actors using their digital asset exchange for illicit purposes and whether Binance may have facilitated fundraising relating to the October 7 attacks on Israel. I continue to stand by my letter today.

This is why I am working day and night on bipartisan digital asset market structure legislation which will ensure that commonsense illicit finance rules apply to digital asset exchanges and that bad actors that use digital assets are rooted out.

There is a renewed sense of optimism and energy around market structure talks today, and I am hopeful that we will have legislation on the Senate floor before the end of this year.

I want to make one final note, the hypocrisy that is patently obvious here. Where was the outrage from my colleagues when President Biden brazenly pardoned his own son for crimes he absolutely committed? And don't forget, President Biden repeatedly told the American people before an election that he would not use his constitutional pardon power to pardon his son.

That hypocrisy is staggering. The American people delivered a decisive mandate for President Trump, and that includes his constitutional authority to issue pardons. Democrats need to accept the election results and stop their partisan theatrics every time this President exercises his legitimate powers.

For these reasons, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, I renew my objection as someone who was spied on by the Biden Justice Department--one of eight Senators to be spied on--in violation of the separation of powers.

I respect the separation of powers. And in this case, the separation of powers protects the President of the United States' pardon power. We need to protect it as well.

For those reasons, I further object.

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

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

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.