Dan Sullivan

Mr. President, today, I urge my colleagues to vote for Alaska's Right to Produce Act 2.0, which would provide greater certainty for responsible resource development on the North Slope of Alaska. It would benefit Alaskans, and it would benefit our great working Alaskans, but it would benefit America.

As a little bit of background here--and you have heard me talk about this--for years, Alaska, as a resource development powerhouse for America, has been recognized by Congress to be so important for our country because of our extraordinary abundance of natural resources that we have legislated many times about our State's getting

resources to market for Alaskans, for Americans. And it is strongly in our national interest and certainly good for my State and the people I am honored to represent, particularly hard-working union members and others, who develop these resources not just for Alaska but for America.

However, time and time again, when my Democratic colleagues get control of the Senate, of the House, of the White House, they have a core principle. One of their core principles is to come up to the great State of Alaska and try to shut it down. They kill thousands of jobs and try to turn this great State--my State--into a national park, with no ability to develop our economy and resources.

This is just the latest example of what I call the Last Frontier lockup.

During the Biden 4 years and the Senator Schumer 4 years, when he was the majority leader, the far-left Democrats--heck, all of the Democrats--came after Alaska in a huge way: the Last Frontier lockup. In every part of the State--southeast Alaska, the North Slope of Alaska--everywhere--on resource development, they came after us. How did they do that? What was the Last Frontier lockup? It is pretty hard to imagine.

It was 70 Executive orders and Executive actions--70--exclusively and singularly focused on crushing Alaska--seven, zero. As a matter of fact, on day one of the Biden administration, they issued 12. They were ready to go. The Senate Democrats got power, and the Democrats got power in the executive branch, and they were, like: Let's go. Let's do what we always do. Let's crush Alaska. Let's kill thousands of jobs in Alaska.

When this was at, like, 50, I actually met with President Biden and his team.

I said: Mr. President, what are you doing? What are you doing? You are sanctioning my State more than you sanction Iran's and Venezuela's oil and gas sectors. We are Americans, and they are terrorists, and you are putting thousands of hard-working Alaskans out of jobs. Why are you doing this, sir?

Three years ago, I did that with President Biden. Don't even get me going on his answer, but he was clueless. As we all know, he was clueless on a lot of stuff, but he was clueless on that--70. The White House--the executive branch--I don't think, in the history of America, has ever used its power to so forcefully single out one State to try to damage it and crush it. That is what we went through with the senior Senator from New York as the majority leader, who was all in on it, by the way.

We are going to see one of the top guys who is always against Alaska here in a minute, because I know he is going to object to my bill. So it is pretty crazy that they would do that. Imagine any other State-- New Mexico--if the Federal Government said: Well, we are just going to go crush New Mexico.

But they did it to Alaska.

And it wasn't just the 70 Executive orders. There is LNG. Remember John Kerry, the climate czar guy and former Senator? He went over to Asia--Korea, Japan--and told them: Don't buy Alaskan LNG. Don't buy American LNG.

I mean, this is almost treasonous, but that is what they did. For 4 years, with Schumer and Biden, that is what my State got. But we have taken action. When Republicans gained control of the Senate and gained control of the House and gained control of the White House, we said: We are going to put Alaska back on top.

So what did we do? We attacked the Democrats' attacks on my State, which, again, hurt workers and hurt Alaska but hurt America in a couple of different ways.

First, last year, in the Working Families Tax Cut Act, we got mandatory lease sales for the next 10 years for NPR-A, the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska; for ANWR; for Cook Inlet. These are all Federal oil and gas basins.

We said--Congress said--hey, regardless of who is President in the coming 10 years, they have to do lease sales in Alaska.

It is good for the country. It is good for Alaska. It is good for our workers. It is good for our families. It is good in terms of reducing energy costs, for goodness sakes.

So we got that in the bill. That is in the law. If you have a President like Biden, who is anti-Alaska, and they come into office 2 years from now, they are not going to be able to lock it up like Joe Biden did.

Secondly, we passed Congressional Review Act resolutions. I led the effort on some of them. The Biden NPR-A rule locked down this entire area, the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, set aside by Congress-- for what?--for oil and gas development. That is why it is the National Petroleum Reserve. We ripped that Biden rule out by the roots with a CRA here in the Senate, and we did the same with the Biden lockup of ANWR, and those got passed into law.

So it is a two-pronged strategy to prevent, unfortunately, my colleagues, which they always do--my Democrat colleagues in the Senate, in the House, and in the White House, if they gain power, which they will eventually--from coming back and trying to shut my State down, which they always do.

Today, the Alaska's Right to Produce Act 2.0 is the third prong of this strategy. First, we got mandatory lease sales from the Working Families Tax Cut Act. Then we got these Congressional Review Act resolutions passed and signed into law to prevent more lockups of Alaska. This is the third prong.

Now, this bill has some history. In 2024, the House passed the Alaska's Right to Produce Act 1.0. The bill was sponsored by my good friend from Minnesota in the House, Representative Stauber, who has done so much to help my State. Five Democrat House Members voted for it, despite the original cosponsor of that bill--who represented Alaska at the time--changing her mind and urging her Democratic colleagues to vote against her own bill to help Alaska.

Wow, you can't make that up. But this is nothing new, as I have said, for Democrats in DC.

A lot of Democrats in Alaska don't agree with shutting down Alaska, but it is here in the Senate where they have written over 16 letters to administration officials--Democrats and Republicans--opposing ANWR development and NPR-A development. They wrote six separate letters to insurers and financial institutions--believe it or not--using the power of the Senate to write the CEOs of banks and insurance companies: Don't invest in Alaska.

It is an abusive use of power. My colleague from New Mexico usually leads those efforts, by the way. They have tried to shut down our State not just legislatively but by pressuring the private sector to not invest in Alaska. Still, five House Democratic colleagues understood how important Alaska was, and they voted for the Alaska's Right to Produce Act and bucked the pressure from far-left Democrats in the House, including from the original cosponsor of the bill.

To them, I say thank you. Alaska says thank you. Our workers say thank you, and the country applauds your bravery.

So what does this bill do?

It is simple. For the coastal plain of ANWR, it protects oil and gas development in the nonwilderness portion of the coastal plain from being shut down or being reversed by a future administration. In the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, it similarly protects oil and gas development in NPR-A from a shutdown by a future administration. The bill is designed to give companies greater certainty in terms of the leases that they already have in these areas in that they can't be canceled.

The bottom line is that this is the third prong of our ability to get Alaska to be developed again, and it does something pretty simple: It protects Alaska's existing oil and gas development opportunities from being shut down by a future administration.

Now, it is a little ironic and maybe fitting that the Senator from New Mexico is going to object to my bill. I am pretty sure he is not here to support it. He has been a leader in shutting down Alaska. He has led these efforts. He has led these letters.

Can you imagine if every U.S. Senator said, ``I am going to go after New Mexico. I am going to go after their workers. I am going to go try and hurt the Native people of their State. I am going to write all of the insurance companies and the banks and say, `Don't invest in New Mexico' ''? Can you imagine what a disaster this place would be?

I wouldn't do that, but he does it. He does it all the time.

And there is a little irony here. When the Biden administration and Senator Schumer were locking up my State for 4 years, it was ``drill, baby, drill'' in New Mexico. They were shutting down my State, led by the Senator from New Mexico, and New Mexico, on Federal lands, went from 1 million barrels of oil a day to 2 million barrels a day. If that is not hypocrisy, I don't know what is. But that is what we are up against.

By the way, if the Senate changes hands and the Senator from New Mexico is going to be chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee--holy cow--my State will be crushed because that is what he does. So I am pretty sure he is going to object to this.

But, you know, I get a little hot about this issue because I think it is unfair. And I think, when people treat their State way differently than my State--imagine what they were doing: Hey, Joe Biden, shut down Alaska, but, by the way, make sure you approve all of these Federal leases in New Mexico so we can ``drill, baby, drill.''

That is exactly what the Senator from New Mexico did.

But here is why I get really hot about this. It goes beyond resource development. It goes beyond jobs. It goes to this chart. I have brought this chart out many times. This is a chart that depicts the life expectancy in America from 1980 to 2014 and the parts of America where people live longer. Now, you will see here that it is a little complicated of a chart. The blue and the purple are where people are living longer. In the green here, that is 13 years over a 25-year period. Red is where we have actually lost life expectancy really, really bad.

But look at this map from 1980 to 2014. Unfortunately, we had a couple of places in America where people weren't living very long or were losing life expectancy. That was kind of the opioid epidemic and other things. But the place where people lived longer for that 25-year period in more than any other State was in Alaska--Alaska. Right here in the North Slope, in the Aleutian Islands chain, in the southeast, and in the Northwest Arctic Borough, people were living 13 years longer.

I have asked my colleagues many times to give me a policy indicator more important of success than that of the people you are representing living longer. I don't think there is one.

So there is huge success up here in my State.

Now, why did that happen? Why are the people of Alaska living longer?

Well, in part, a sad story is that a lot of Native Alaskans, primarily the Inupiat people--great people, by the way, incredible patriots--have a very low life expectancy, some of the lowest life expectancy in the country by far.

But when we started developing our resources--oil and gas on the North Slope--people got jobs; people got hospitals; people got flush toilets; people got health clinics and hospitals--things that the rest of the country assumes that you have but we didn't have here.

So this issue, for me, is about the life and death of my constituents. So when I have colleagues come and they block all this stuff, and yet they do it for their own State, which is really problematic, it riles me up because I am talking about life and death of my constituents.

By the way, the greater Inupiat people here, during the Biden administration, the head of the Tribe, the head of the Alaska Native Corporation, the head of the borough--all the leaders, all Native Alaskans--came down to Washington, DC, eight times to try to meet with the Secretary of the Interior to say: Don't lock up our land. You will hurt us.

Do you know how many times she met with them? Zero. Zero. And then they locked up their land anyway, canceling Native voices.

So I am really hopeful, because of life expectancy, because of jobs, because of lowering healthcare costs, because of lowering costs of energy, because of our national security, that my colleagues will do the right thing and pass my legislation, the Alaska's Right to Produce Act 2.0, right now.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 678, S. 5438; further, 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 for 2 minutes to respond.

Mr. President, there has been no place that has been studied more than the ANWR 1002 plain in terms of environmental laws and environmental impacts, probably in the entire United States. This is something strongly supported by the people I represent, including the people that actually live there, which is something the Senator from New Mexico constantly forgets. The people I represent actually support this and the other opportunities to develop our resources.

One of the reasons there was very little lease activity when we passed the ANWR bill recently is because the Biden administration didn't execute on it. They canceled the leases. A Federal judge held that against the law, so it was lawless action once we passed the bill.

But, again, one of the things my colleague never talks about is that during the 4 years of the Biden administration and the 4 years of the majority being led by Senator Schumer, the attacks on Alaska were constant from all of them. The Last Frontier lockup: 70 Executive orders--a lot led by the Senator from New Mexico. But it was ``drill, baby, drill'' in New Mexico. Over 50 percent of all Federal leases on all Federal lands during the Biden administration were to drill for oil and gas in New Mexico, and the Senator from New Mexico was fine with that. They go from 1 million barrels to 2 million barrels a day. But he comes and wants to shut down my State. If that is not the definition of a hypocrisy, I don't know what is.

So I am disappointed, but I am not surprised. We will continue to do what Alaskans want but what Americans want, and that is responsibly develop the resources of my great State to help the people of the North Slope who want it.

When the Senator from New Mexico talks about--

--what the Alaska Native people want, I think he should stay in his own lane because he has no idea what he is talking about.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise today to pass my legislation, the Bycatch Reduction Act, which is the most comprehensive trawl bycatch reduction legislation ever to come before the U.S. Senate, ever to come before the Congress.

And we have made good progress on this bill. We have been working on it for, heck, in some ways many years. I am going to talk about this.

We had a great vote in the Commerce Committee last week, and I see my good friend Senator Markey from Massachusetts, whom I have worked on a number of fisheries issues with--being a Massachusetts Senator and an Alaska Senator--is on the floor today. So I am hoping he is going to actually speak in support of this bill and pass it with me.

This bill has already passed all the Republicans in the Senate, who have approved it.

So this is really important for my constituents. For generations, Alaskans have depended on our oceans, our rivers, and our abundant fish resources that sustain all of us, especially salmon. From subsistence harvesters in our

Native villages to commercial fishermen in our coastal communities to recreational fishermen across our State, Alaskans depend on healthy fisheries.

For Alaska Native communities, our fish, especially salmon, are deeply connected to culture, tradition, heritage, and a way of life that reaches back thousands of years. Our salmon provide food, food security, jobs, culture. They support families and entire communities, and they are a source of deep spiritual connection.

My wife Julie's family had a fish camp on the Yukon River for generations--generations. My daughters have all been raised in the summers on that river--every summer, my wife, my family, my in-laws, my daughters, a deep spiritual connection.

Yet Alaska's salmon runs, in particular, are facing enormous challenges. Our fisheries, in general, are facing enormous challenges. We have seen and continue to see huge fluctuations in salmon, crab, halibut, and other species that Alaskans depend on.

We know the ocean is changing. It is an issue Senator Markey has raised a lot. We have ocean acidification issues. We know these conditions will continue to change.

We also know that fishing activity, particularly bycatch, and contact between fishing gear, trawl gear, and sensitive sea floor habitats affect the health and productivity of marine ecosystem.

So what are we going to do about this?

For years, Alaskans across our State, everywhere--coastal communities, interior communities, villages--have been asking for action. Fishery managers have asked for more data to make informed decisions. Subsistence harvesters have asked for greater transparency. Communities have asked for greater accountability. And fishermen have asked for the tools and technology they need to reduce trawl bycatch. It is a huge issue in my State.

I have talked about this bill on the Senate floor a lot. This was an issue--a bill inspired by my wife Julie, as I have already mentioned her--it was part of my Alaska Salmon Task Force Act.

What does this focus on? It is focused on bringing the best minds together--a bill that I got over the goal line, passed into law in 2022--to say: What is going on with our salmon runs? Why do we have really strong salmon runs in places like Bristol Bay, with their sockeye runs, and very weak king salmon runs on the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River?

So what we did in this bill is we brought the best minds in Alaska-- State, Federal, Tribal, indigenous, university, fishermen, community members--to come together and say: What is happening? Why is it happening? And what is the pathway to get to what every Alaskan wants: stronger healthy salmon runs on all our rivers, across all species?

So we did this. Alaskans coming together--this body coming together-- produced this very important report, the Alaska Salmon Task Force Act. NOAA Fisheries helped. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game helped. But, most importantly, we set up task forces with regard to Tribal members on the Yukon, on the Kuskokwim to make sure we had their input. This was Alaskans coming together. It is not easy to get consensus--not easy to get consensus on issues such as fisheries and salmon--but we did that. And this laid out several different recommendations on moving forward to get to the goal we all want--a roadmap back to strong, healthy salmon runs.

This is an issue I have been working on for years, and one of the recommendations was to reduce trawl bycatch. There are other recommendations that we are working on--ocean acidification and many others--but this was a big one. So we worked on this bill, again, with dozens and dozens of Alaskans. This legislation honors the call for action that so many Alaskans have made and our Alaska Salmon Task Force Act has as well.

The Bycatch Reduction Act is designed to do that, and it has a robust toolkit with several clear objectives.

First, it establishes for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council standards and monitoring requirements and action and timelines to take action to reduce trawl gear contact with the sea floor and protect important marine habitats. Essentially, it requires proven tools, such as mandating certain technologies like salmon excluders on trawl vessels, to, again, reduce salmon bycatch.

It invests in science and technology to continue to work on better understanding ocean conditions.

It creates new gear testing facilities.

It reauthorizes NOAA's Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program that I have been focused on during my whole time here in the Senate.

It reconstitutes the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force, with Alaskans and our indigenous experts with Tribal and traditional knowledge, as a bycatch task force overseeing NOAA's activities as they relate to trawl bycatch. Alaskans overseeing NOAA is very important for our stakeholders.

This legislation also strengthens transparency and accountability for trawling on the North Pacific Fishery Council.

It requires NOAA to make observer coverage requirements and bycatch information more accessible to the public and easier to understand.

It expands opportunities for Alaskans, fishermen, and other stakeholders to participate in the council process.

It raises the issue and starts looking again at the issue of conflicts of interest on the council.

These provisions are not ideas that came out of a Washington, DC, office; they came from Alaskans.

As I mentioned, this bill--the most comprehensive bycatch-reduction bill ever--builds on the work that hundreds of Alaskans did on our salmon task force to get to the goal we all want: stronger, healthier salmon runs across our State, across rivers, across species, especially given that we are seeing the devastating declines in salmon on the Yukon River and across the western interior of Alaska that have led to fishery closures, subsistence shortages, and families not being able to fish.

As I mentioned, my wife's family keeps a fish camp on the Yukon River. We have watched those smokehouses, including ours, sit idle for years. It is heartbreaking. It is really heartbreaking to witness these families, their culture, the people who live along our great rivers not being able to put up fish every year, and they have been doing so for thousands of years.

So this is an important first step. It is because of the task force and hundreds of conversations with Alaskans for years now that we need to take action.

The Bycatch Reduction Act puts the recommendations here into action. Again, we had a very strong vote last week in the Commerce Committee. I think every Senator but four voted for my bill. I explained it, and we saw how important it was because the bill uses science, technology, innovation, accountability, and action to help support reducing trawl bycatch and strengthen subsistence traditions, sport fishing in Alaska.

It is about giving fishermen the tools to reduce bycatch, and it protects fisheries and fish stocks that depend on them. It is about making sure Alaskans have access to the data and transparency they need to participate meaningfully in the management of our fisheries, and it safeguards the long-term sustainability, particularly of our salmon, that so many Alaskans depend on.

I want to thank the countless Alaskans who have been working with me and my team for years now on these issues. We have sought and fought to reduce bycatch in many, many other ways, but this bill is a really, really important step. So I am hopeful that my colleagues are going to now pass it with me, and we will move it over to the House and get it passed and signed into law.

Madam President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 4938 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the Sullivan substitute, which is at the desk, be 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.

Madam President, I am disappointed in my good friend Senator Markey of Massachusetts. He and I have worked on, actually, a lot of fisheries issues together. He is right; Massachusetts and the State of Alaska have important fisheries interests. This one, fortunately, doesn't impact Massachusetts at all; it is solely confined to the North Pacific area. So I am a little disappointed that he is not moving forward.

I want to thank all of my Republican colleagues who cleared my Bycatch Reduction Act, and we are going to keep working on it. I certainly will continue working on it with Senator Markey. Like I said, we have worked together on a number of fisheries issues over the years, and we are going to continue to work on hitting the bycatch issue with a multifaceted approach, as we have already done.

One of the things we have gotten done here in the Senate, in both the Biden and Trump administrations, is to dramatically ban the importation of all Russian trawl-caught fish and now Chinese trawl-caught fish. That really helps with regard to the bycatch issue. We have been very focused on increasing the annual appropriations for the Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program that I have led on a number of times. I have even defended in court our Alaska halibut fishermen against Seattle-based Amendment 80 trawlers in a lawsuit and won that case with them.

We are going to continue this work, building on the work from the legislation we passed for the roadmap to get back stronger salmon runs in Alaska and stronger fisheries with regard to salmon runs across species, across rivers, across the States, but this bill is a really important part of that, so I will continue to work this.

If the Senator from Massachusetts and his staff have edits and amendments, I don't think it is going to impact Massachusetts at all, to be honest, but we will work with them because we are very focused. My constituents are very focused to finally see action on trawl-bycatch reduction, and this bill is the bill with action and timelines, and we are going to get it over the goal line. We are going to get it over the goal line.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today we honor the extraordinary bravery, sacrifice, and devotion of Hmong American veterans who stood alongside the United States during the Vietnam war.

From 1961 to 1975, Hmong soldiers fought in the CIA-backed operation known as the Secret War in Laos under the leadership of Vang Pao, risking everything to defend freedom and support American forces.

Hmong forces carried out dangerous missions, gathered intelligence, disrupted enemy supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and rescued downed American pilots. Thousands of American lives were saved because of the courage and perseverance of Hmong soldiers.

The Hmong people paid an enormous price for their alliance with the United States. More than 40,000 Hmong fighters were killed or wounded during the conflict.

For many years, the contributions of Hmong veterans remained largely unknown because the conflict in Laos was classified as the ``Secret War.''

Today, we ensure that history remembers their service and that future generations understand the sacrifices they made in defense of freedom.

Alaska is proud to be home to a robust Hmong community whose members continue to serve our State through military service, business ownership, public service, education, and community leadership.

We recognize veterans such as Pasert Lee, a resident of the Mountain View neighborhood in Anchorage, AK, who served as a lieutenant under General Vang Pao and helped rescue American pilots during the war. As communist forces took control of Laos, those who had stood with the United States faced persecution, imprisonment, and even death. The beginning of the exodus of the Hmong people from their homes in Laos began following the May 1975 Communist takeover.

Many Hmong families were forced to flee Laos to escape persecution. Many veterans and their families have never been able to safely return to their homeland.

Mr. Lee, like most of our Hmong American veterans, has never returned home, even to visit, in fear for their lives.

Their story is one of courage, resilience, conviction, and unwavering commitment to the United States.

We have a moral obligation to remember those who fought beside American servicemembers and to ensure their sacrifices are never forgotten.