Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer for that heartfelt welcome here on the Senate floor.

I know the Presiding Officer is excited, and I know the pages are excited. Heck, half of America is excited because, once again, it is Thursday afternoon, and I am back on the floor giving probably my favorite speech of the week, the ``Alaskan of the Week.'' As many of you know, it is an opportunity for me as I love to come down to the Senate floor and brag about somebody in my State who makes it such a great State. Usually, it is somebody who is doing something good for their local community, maybe for the State, maybe for the country, maybe for the world.

Boy, we have had so many famous Alaskans of the Week, but this one--

this one, my colleagues--is really special. It is about real special heroism that we see in Alaska a lot. It is about a young man named Andrew Chapoton. I am going to talk a lot about Andrew--he is an Army soldier up in Alaska--and how his bravery and heroism saved some lives in a way that is just remarkable. But I always like to begin my speech by talking a little bit about what is going on in Alaska.

I try to get home with Julie, my wife.

Hi, Julie.

She is up in the Gallery. Am I allowed to do that? I am doing it anyway.

Anyway, pretty much every weekend we have been home. Boy, over the last couple of weekends, I was out on an epic--epic--Kodiak hunting trip. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to partake in one of our State's most cherished traditions. It was an experience I won't forget. I will never forget it.

Kristin Wilson, if you are watching, I know you love bears, and I love bears too. She is a big fan of the ``Alaskan of the Week.''

But I also like to talk about what is going on with the weather.

It is still pretty cold in a lot of places, but the Sun is higher in the sky. It is actually getting really high. The days are getting longer and longer. Today, in Anchorage, the Sun rose at 5:30 a.m., and it will set tonight at around 10:30 p.m., gaining more than 5 minutes since yesterday. So sunlight is really increasing rapidly. Birds are migrating by the tens of thousands. The excitement of spring is in the air. Winter is finally retreating. We love winter in Alaska, but, boy, we had a long, cold winter in most places.

So, if you are watching, by the way, in the Gallery or on TV, come up to Alaska. It will be the trip of a lifetime. I guarantee you it will be the trip of a lifetime.

Now let's get to our Alaskan of the Week, SFC Andrew Chapoton, and the heroic actions he took last May--about a year ago--that earned him the U.S. Army Soldier's Medal. That is the highest honor a soldier can receive for an act of heroism in a noncombat situation.

Andrew was born and raised in the township of Clinton, MI, but he knew that he was always going to join the military. Being in the military, from his perspective and his family's perspective, was a good, honorable thing to do. Of course, he is right. His father fought in Vietnam, and his grandfather fought in World War II. Both of his sisters are in the Army. So he enlisted when he got out of high school and did a number of deployments--three tours to Iraq, a deployment to Haiti--and then was stationed in Alaska from 2015 to 2018 as part of the 4th Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division. It is what we call in Alaska the 4-25. I am a marine, but the 4-25 sure is one of my favorite units in the entire U.S. military, but that is a story for another day. I love the 4-25.

Andrew and his wife love Alaska--the hiking, the camping.

He said:

Everything [is] available right outside my front door.

So they were determined to come back to Alaska. They bought a house in beautiful Eagle River, outside of Anchorage. They did come back. In 2021, he came back to Alaska where we now have the storied U.S. 11th Airborne Division. A lot of people don't know that. We stood up an airborne division in Alaska just last year, so now we have the 82nd Airborne Division on the east coast and the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska. Andrew and his wife, now with two children and another one on the way, love Alaska.

So what did Andrew do to win the Army Soldier's Medal? Here is how the Army described it in the summary of that medal:

Sergeant First Class Andrew Chapoton voluntarily risked his

own life in the heroic pursuit of saving others at a deadly

car wreck near Seward, Alaska. His extraordinary act of valor

exemplified the highest standards of selfless service and

character as he repeatedly put himself in mortal danger to

save others trapped in a horrific . . . car wreck. SFC

Chapoton dived into the burning vehicles again and again to

save three trapped occupants, without [any] regard for his

own life [or his own safety].

So that is the summary.

Here is the longer version of why this great American, great Alaskan, is today's Alaskan of the Week.

Last May, Andrew and his wife had an out-of-town visitor who wanted to go whale watching. OK. That is something we do in Alaska. It is amazing. It is a great thing to do in our State. So one of the great places to whale watch is out of Seward, which is a few hours south of Anchorage. He almost didn't go as he had done that tour often, but in his words, he caved and said: Let's go do it.

So they all went. Their friend, his spouse, and their two kids got in the car and headed to Seward. They had a great time. By the way, it is another great thing to do in Alaska--whale watching. They saw a lot of whales, and they were celebrating the trip on the way back.

Then something tragic--horrible--happened. On the Seward Highway, two cars collided--a Jeep and a Dodge Dakota--almost right in front of his car. He had to swerve to miss them. It was a nasty, horrible crash. Debris went flying; smoke was billowing from both cars; and gasoline was dripping out of these cars. But Andrew didn't continue to drive. He pulled over on the shoulder, jumped out of his car, and without thinking, in his words, ``as cliche and corny as it sounds, 18 years of training kicked in, and I ran toward the scene of the accident.'' That is what Andrew said. As a result, he saved the lives literally of three people.

Now, he doesn't even have a memory of how he got from his car to the accident--training, bravery, heroism--but he does remember approaching the first car, the Dakota. He was flagging people down and yelling for a medic. There were three people in the Dakota, but none of them were moving, and the car was bursting into flames. He tried to smash the driver's door open. He had to move the camping equipment that had fallen on the driver, and he was able to get her safely out of the car.

At this point, the car was engulfed in flames, but he went back in and got another person out of the car and to safety, which was so difficult because the car door had been smashed and crushed. Unfortunately--and we know this is hard for Andrew. I hope he is watching, by the way, and his family--he went back again but could not save the third person. The door was also crushed, and he couldn't open it. He couldn't find a pulse. He says it haunts him to this day.

But, again, Andrew's instincts and training kicked in, and he transitioned to getting the driver out of the other burning car, the burning Jeep. After he got that passenger out, he performed Combat Lifesaver triage and lifesaving medical care for these three very seriously wounded Americans.

This story of heroism doesn't end there.

Both cars, by now, had turned into raging infernos. Flaming liquid was flowing down the road and toward one of the injured passengers. With the help of another Good Samaritan, Andrew moved one of the gravely injured passengers away from the impending explosion of this car. Then he shielded her body when the car did explode. Debris and shrapnel were flying everywhere. Even after the fire department arrived, Andrew continued to take the lead in performing lifesaving medical treatment.

Eventually, a Life Flight helicopter arrived to take the seriously injured individuals to the hospital. Andrew stayed and gave his statement to the troopers. He handed his keys to his wife, got back in his car, and drove back home several miles--a couple of hours--to Anchorage. It was a quiet ride.

He said:

I used up every single ounce of adrenalin that was in my

38-year-old body.

His children saw much of what happened, and they are proud of their father, and Andrew is proud and so deserving to receive the Army Soldier's Medal. But he did say he would trade that in a thousand times over if only all the passengers had survived.

These are the kind of people who live in Alaska--brave, selfless, and heroic. And these are the kind of people--by the way, America--who make up our military. Not every American citizen would have done what Andrew just did. As a matter of fact, I would say most people probably wouldn't--people who risk their lives, their own lives, whether it is protecting Americans at home or people abroad, so that others could live. That is what our military members do.

This is how the Army summed up this heroic action:

SFC Chapoton's ability to perform these heroic acts under

extreme pressure while simultaneously taking control of the

scene [of this horrific crash] is a testament to his [U.S.]

Army values. [Fundamentally] understanding the extreme

personal risk to his own life, SFC Chapoton selflessly

endangered himself again and again to save American lives. He

risked his own safety to help avert a catastrophic outcome.

Without his selfless courage in the face of grave danger,

more lives would have been lost.

So thank you, Andrew, for your bravery, your heroism, your example, not just to your friends and family or to Alaskans but to all Americans and all veterans. Thank you for protecting our Nation. Thank you for volunteering to serve. Thank you for making your home in Alaska. Thank you for your heroic actions on that day. We want to congratulate you for being awarded the U.S. Army Soldier's Medal, one of the highest honors a soldier can achieve and, certainly, Andrew, one of the highest honors you can achieve in the U.S. Senate: being our Alaskan of the Week. Great job.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I want to thank Senator Capito and Senator Barrasso for their leadership on an issue that matters to every single American. This is one of those issues where the Congress of the United States should be coming together in a bipartisan way to make sure we have a permitting system that enables us to build things--every kind of thing we need: roads, bridges, ports, energy, renewables, oil, and gas.

The system is broken. Everybody knows it.

I like to show this photo when I am talking about permitting reform. Why am I showing this very iconic photo of some men here building the Empire State Building? Because we all know that one of the great things about America is that we used to be able to build things--big things-- on time: 410 days to build the Empire State Building. The Hoover Dam took less than 5 years to build. A little closer to home to me, the 1,700-mile Alaska-Canada Highway, what we call the ALCAN Highway, through some of the world's most rugged terrain--11 months.

This was the great thing about America. With the best workers in the world, we built huge things, on time, on budget--but not anymore, not anymore.

I don't want to be too partisan here, but one of the things that we all know we need is permitting. It is permitting. I am obsessed with this issue.

But I will tell you this. Every time--and it is probably going to happen again--we have a big permitting opportunity, a big permitting bill on the floor, what happens? It usually is a battle between the men and women who build stuff. The unions who build things, they want permitting reform. They want to be back in action, like these men decades ago.

The men and women who build things want it. The radical, far-left environmental groups hate it because they want to block building anything in America. They want to block producing any energy in America.

Unfortunately, when it is a choice between the men and women who build stuff and the far-left radical enviros on permitting, my Democratic colleagues almost every single time go with the radical left, not the men and women who build things. I hope it doesn't happen again, but it happens all the time.

Here is the thing: As I mentioned, our country used to build incredible things on time. Now we are a country that is tangled up in redtape. A simple highway in the United States can now take as long as 19 years to permit and build. In Alaska, we are ground zero for these kinds of projects where the permitting is delayed, far-left lower 48 environmental groups sue to stop, and they take advantage of NEPA.

Let me give an example. We had a gold mine in Alaska called the Kensington Mine. If you include the litigation from the far-left environmental groups, it took 20 years to permit--20

years. How does that help the country? How does that help my State? How does that help workers? It doesn't. The only people who like that are the far-left environmental groups and Xi Jinping and Putin, who want to make sure America can't produce.

So what has happened is the National Environmental Policy Act--NEPA, as we call it--has been abused. It was a great idea when it was passed in the late 1960s. It required builders to engage with the public, consider the environmental impacts of important projects. But back then, it was usually a couple of hundred pages, a NEPA review that would take about a year. Now that is several thousand pages. It takes several years for the NEPA process to move forward.

We have, again, some of our great leaders in our building trades. This is James Callahan, general president of the International Operating Engineers. Here is what he said recently on a piece of legislation that I moved forward last year, a CRA on a permitting issues:

Since its modest beginning, NEPA has evolved into a massive

edifice, capable of destroying project after project--

Destroying, not helping--

job after job, in virtually every sector of the economy.

Whether it is the permitting bill that Senator Capito and Senator Barrasso have done such a great job in leading; whether it is my Rebuild America Now Act, which is a major reform of the NEPA process-- by the way, the vast majority of the building trades in America, the men and women who build things, support my legislation.

We need permitting reform. It is that simple. When you talk to a Governor in pretty much any State, whether they are Democrat or Republican; when you talk to a mayor, Democrat or Republican--it doesn't matter--they say: We have to fix our broken permitting system.

We had a hearing on airport infrastructure in the Commerce Committee several years ago. The head of the Seattle-Tacoma Airport was testifying. They had just built a new runway at Sea-Tac.

I asked him: How long did it take to build that runway?

In the hearing, he said: Three to four years.

I said: Well, that seems a little long, but I am not in construction, so I don't know exactly, but it seems a little long to build a new runway. How long did it take you to get the permits from the Federal Government to build that runway?

I didn't know the answer, but I am obsessed with this topic because it is killing our country. It is really hurting working men and women, like James Callahan, one of our great union leaders.

This witness looked at me--the head of the Sea-Tac Airport--when I asked him: How long did it take to get the permits?

He said: Senator Sullivan, 15 years.

Fifteen years to get a permit to build a new runway. You could hear the entire hearing room just kind of collectively groan because everybody knows it is bad for America.

Then he said: Senator, with the time it took to build the new runway--4 years--and the time it took to get the permits--15 years-- almost 20 years.

The ancient Egyptians would have built the Pyramids by then. This is killing us. Everybody knows it. This should be a bipartisan issue.

I will end with this: Last year, I was proud to lead the efforts on what is called a Congressional Review Act, CRA. What it was for was--we passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill. We got some OK permitting reform in there--not as much as I wanted, but it was not bad. So that was good. I voted for the bill. It wasn't perfect. But then the Biden administration White House, at the behest of the far-left radical enviros, issued rules on permitting that were undermining its own bipartisan infrastructure bill. The CEQ put out rules that would make it much harder to build things in America--not just energy projects, all projects. It was crazy.

So I introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to rescind the Biden rule driven by the far-left radical enviros. Here is the good news: My CRA passed in a bipartisan way on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Over 40 groups--you name them--farmers, ranchers, people who build things, all the building trades in America, all the unions--this collective group of over 40 groups representing millions of Americans who build stuff, who farm things, who grow things, all came and said: We support the Sullivan Congressional Review Act.

That is what we should be doing now. The Barrasso-Capito bill; Senator Manchin introduced his permitting legislation--we all know it is the right thing to do.

To my Democratic colleagues: Listen to the men and women who build stuff. Listen to the men and women who grow things. Don't listen to the far-left radical enviros who don't want any permitting reform because they love to crush projects. Be courageous. Vote with us on the permitting reform that everybody in America knows we need.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank the majority leader for his fine compliment to me on the Senate floor about learned remarks. I appreciate that.

I appreciate that very much.

Not if you are going to take away your compliment--if you are going to keep it, I will yield.

Actually, I think you will appreciate these remarks.

Madam President, recently, there have been numerous articles in the media about the U.S. Navy's lack of amphibious ships-- one that I would like to submit for the Record, headlined ``Grounding of U.S. Marine Unit Spotlights Lack of Ships in Asia-Pacific,'' can be found online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/grounding-of-u-s-marine- unit-spotlights-lack-of-ships-in-asia-pacific-757315b4.

(Mr. WHITEHOUSE assumed the Chair.)

In this piece, the writer leads with how the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, a rapid response force of the Marine Corps designed for quick deployment on three Navy ships--what we call an ``amphibious ready group''--how they were forced to abandon a training exercise because the amphibious warships that they are supposed to train on were not available due to maintenance problems.

Here is what the article said in part:

The Marine unit's grounded status illustrates the larger obstacles the United States is facing as it tries to pivot its military to handle the challenges from China. Overall, defense officials said the Navy doesn't have enough amphibious ships to transport marines, and a central part of the Marine Corps's mission is to hop from island to island in the Asia-Pacific and harry Chinese forces in the event of a conflict.

By the way, Mr. President, the Marines are really good at this. They have been doing it for decades. But they need ships.

Another article from Defense News is also a recent one about the lack of amphibious ships and the problem that poses. This one is from another part of the world but very recent. The article starts with how hundreds of American citizens were stranded in war-torn Sudan.

It says:

Hundreds of Americans in war-torn Sudan last month needed a

way out of the country, but the U.S. Marine Corps, the go-to

service for such rescues [of American citizens] couldn't

help.

The article continued:

Typically, this kind of mission would be standard for the

Navy and Marine Corps' amphibious ready group--

A Marine expeditionary unit, or what we call in the Marine Corps a MEU, a MEU-R, a Marine expeditionary unit, an amphibious ready group-- three ships, super well trained, special operations capable, can go anywhere in the world, kick the door in, save American citizens.

The article continues:

For the Americans who fled to the coast [in Sudan] the

Pentagon sent an auxiliary transport ship--

that they contracted out, I believe, from another country--

to shuttle them safely to . . . Saudi Arabia.

It was, in essence, a self-evacuation of U.S. citizens.

Mr. President, NPR reported that the buses actually took hundreds of Americans to the Port of Sudan. Imagine--imagine--my colleagues, what would have happened had those Americans, traveling in contract buses in the middle of a civil war, got caught in the crossfire.

The article that I just quoted was entitled ``Marines want 31 amphibious ships. The Pentagon disagrees. Now what?'' I ask unanimous consent to have that article printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.

Finally, Mr. President, there was another recent article from Defense One. Its title was ``Navy On Path To Violate 31-Amphibious-Ship Requirement in 2024.''

Now, Mr. President, this is what I wanted to get to. Last year, in the Armed Services Committee, we held a number of hearings with the Navy and the Marine Corps saying: What is the minimum number of amphibious ships that would enable the Marine Corps to do its global force response mission--the minimum number? After many hearings, after much discussion with the Marines and Navy, we came up, in a bill of mine, with a minimum of 31 ships.

This bill in the Armed Services Committee last year passed unanimously. Every Democrat and every Republican voted for it.

The law now reads as follows. I know this is a little small, but here is the new U.S. Code that has the new language. It says:

The naval combat forces of the Navy shall include not less

than 11 operational aircraft carriers and not less than 31

operational amphibious warfare ships, of which not less than

10 shall be amphibious assault ships--

What we call in the Marine Corps ``big-deck assault ships'' that can carry helicopters and Ospreys and Harriers and now F-35 Bravos. That was the law. That passed. The President signed it.

Here is the problem. The U.S. Navy is violating the law. The U.S. Navy is treating that law--31 amphibs, a minimum--as a suggestion from the Congress, as an option from the Congress.

How do I know? Because we had a hearing 2 weeks ago on the Armed Services Committee, and the Secretary of the Navy essentially said: We are looking at different options for the President's budget on how many amphibs that the Navy is going to have.

And, currently, the Navy presented a budget that doesn't have 31 amphibs.

I had some cross words with the Secretary of the Navy, the CNO of the Navy, because they are violating the law. And I will tell you, my Democratic and Republican colleagues on the Armed Services Committee were supportive of what I was saying. We had a hearing on the Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee yesterday. The Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Franchetti, said that the Navy was ``studying the issue.''

The Navy can't study the issue anymore. The Navy needs to follow the

law. The U.S. Congress has done the studies. We need the ships.

But here is what the Navy presented to the Armed Services Committee 2 weeks ago. They provided us their 30-year shipbuilding plan for the Navy. Right here is the 31 amphib ship statutory minimum that is required by the law. Here is the Navy shipbuilding plan for the next 30 years. You see in the numbers, these are different options: plan one, plan two, plan three.

You might notice the Navy never gets to 31 amphibs. So the Secretary of the Navy, the CNO of the Navy, and the Vice CNO of the Navy came to the Congress in the last 2 weeks and said: Your 31 amphib ship requirement, we are going to ignore it. Your 31 amphib ship requirement, Congress, United States of America, we are going to violate that.

This is unacceptable. The U.S. Navy, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of Defense should not be thumbing their nose at the Congress, and, worse, they should not be violating the law and not trying to abide by the law. They are saying, for 30 years, we are going to ignore the Congress, and we are going to ignore the laws of the United States of America.

This cannot happen. This cannot happen.

Let me end with this. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, whether you are a hawk on defense issues or a dove on defense issues, if you are a U.S. Senator, this should make you really mad. This should make you really mad.

Last year, the Congress spoke. And, again, on the Armed Services Committee, on which I serve, it was unanimous. Every member of that committee who had studied the issue said, at a minimum, the Navy needs 31 amphibs so the U.S. Marine Corps can do its mission around the world. Everybody agreed. We passed the law.

The Navy, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of Defense are thumbing their nose at this body, are breaking the law as we speak, are intending to break the law for the next 30 years. That is their 30-year shipbuilding plan. It never hits 31 ships.

But here is the worst thing they are doing, and this is a real serious issue. They are putting the lives of American citizens at risk. Why do I say that? Well, let me end where I began, with Sudan, the rescue of American citizens. Again, normally, that is a mission tailor- made for the U.S. Marine Corps, whether in an embassy or another dangerous part of the world--what we call a noncombatant evacuation operation, a NEO. The Marines do them all the time. They bring up their amphibs, launch helos, launch support craft, helicopters, fighters, if they need the air support.

The capability of a MEU-R to go rescue American citizens--a lot of them--is unsurpassed by any service in the world.

The U.S. Marines do it all the time. But guess what they can't do it without? They can't do it without amphibious ships. And right now, we don't have enough. So we dodged a bullet 2 weeks ago in Sudan.

American citizens were put on buses and driven across dangerous parts of Sudan in a civil war, for hours after hours, and got to a port, self-evacuated on some other country's ships. We are so lucky that those Americans did not get killed or wounded--did not get killed or wounded--because there was no Marine Corps to rescue them.

I am going to keep raising this issue. The Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, today, are violating the law. Today, they have no intention of meeting this 31 amphib ship requirement, and American citizens are at risk. And the next time we might not be so lucky. The next time Americans somewhere around the world need to be rescued, the next time an enemy of our country does something nefarious to our citizens, our national interests, and we don't have the ability to respond as a Marine Corps because we don't have the ships, we are going to know who is responsible.

I yield floor.

Mr. President, I rise today, along with Senator Murkowski, to bring awareness to National Education and Sharing Day U.S.A., which we recognized on April 2, 2023. On this day, we acknowledged the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson's global campaign to educate youth about our responsibility to be a moral and compassionate society.

Education and Sharing Day is observed each year on the Rebbe's birthday in recognition of his outstanding and lasting contributions toward the improvement of education, morality, and acts of charity around the world. It is a day to pause and reflect on our responsibility to ensure our youth have the foundation necessary to lead lives rich in purpose and fulfillment through service and good works.

This year's National Education and Sharing Day coincided with the 121st birthday of the Rebbe, one of the most significant Jewish leaders of the 20th century. The Rebbe was a global spiritual leader and leading advocate for the advancement of education. He stressed that a moral and ethical education empowers every individual to develop their full potential in making the world a better place. This year's Education and Sharing Day has even greater significance as this year is also a year of ``Hakhel,'' a biblical event of unity, education, and spiritual growth emphasizing how every person is crucial to perfecting the world.

The basis for the continuity of any society is education, and in the great State of Alaska, the education of our youth is a priority. We recognize that in order to achieve its highest goals, education must not only impart knowledge but also help our youth learn how to live meaningful lives by strengthening their moral character to make a better life for themselves as individuals and for society as a whole. Such education can nurture the unity of diverse peoples by encouraging increased acts of goodness and kindness, imbued with the awareness that even a single positive act of an individual can change the world.

We strongly affirm the purposes of National Education and Sharing Day U.S.A. and encourage educational institutions, businesses, community and civic associations, and all people of the United States to celebrate and promote National Education and Sharing Day U.S.A.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 83 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be 4 minutes of debate, equally divided.

Mr. President, every job in America is important, but there is something special, sacred, even noble about a job that entails putting your life on the line to keep your fellow citizens safe, and that is the job of our firefighters.

In Alaska, firefighting season will be upon us soon. It can be brutal. In 2005, roughly 6 million acres of the State burned. That is about the size of Vermont. Think about the dedication and courage it takes to fight those fires, many of which are in rural parts of our States. It is only right that when firefighters come to Congress asking for assistance, that we give them the flexibility they truly need.

So why is my amendment necessary? Currently, the Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program only allows modification to existing fire stations rather than new facilities.

Many old firefighting facilities can't be modified. A 2021 report by the U.S. Fire Service found that 44 percent of fire stations are over 40 years old. The issue is even more acute in rural parts of our country where facilities have problems which cannot be fixed through maintenance and repair alone. For example, roughly 61 percent of fire stations over 40 years old exist in communities serving less than 10,000 people.

So, Mr. President, my amendment is simple. It costs zero dollars. It gives discretion to the firefighters in rural communities to allow Federal grants to small communities of less than 10,000 people to use the Federal funds to build new stations. That is it: a simple, commonsense amendment backed by data to help firefighters in small communities in America who often don't have the tax base to build new facilities.

We should help them. We all have rural communities that need this help. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment.

I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds to respond.

Mr. President, again, I want to work with Senator Stabenow on this issue, but we have an opportunity right now.

Every Senator knows that our firefighters in small communities come to the Senate and ask for help because they don't have the tax base to actually build new facilities. And the facilities, as I mentioned, are very, very old.

All this amendment does is add a new category to request for assistance only from communities of 10,000 people or less. It is common sense. We all know it is needed. Again, I encourage my colleagues to support it.

I respect all the firefighter groups who are saying they oppose it, but the only reason they are opposing it is because they say they want a clean bill. You know what, sorry, but that is not a very good argument.

I urge the support of this amendment No. 83.

Vote on Amendment No. 83

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 33 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, Iranian proxies have attacked U.S. forces in the Middle East 80 times since President Biden took office. Deterrence is failing.

Many of us are deeply concerned that removing the 2002 AUMF will further erode American deterrence relative to Iran, further jeopardizing our troops in the region.

Why are we concerned about this?

First, the 2002 AUMF was, as recently as 2020, used to support the very justified killing of the Iranian Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani.

And, second, even as we are debating removing the 2002 AUMF right now, Iranian proxies have stepped up attacks on Americans.

My amendment is simple and prudent and common sense. It requires the DNI to certify that the removal of the 2002 AUMF will not undermine American deterrence against Iran. This is prudent, and it is due diligence.

Why wouldn't every U.S. Senator want to know whether the actions we are taking right now here in the Senate enhance or diminish deterrence against Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism?

Under my amendment, the DNI has 30 days to do this analysis, and 30 days should not be considered an inconvenience when American lives are literally at stake.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this prudent, commonsense amendment.

Mr. President, do I have any time left?

Mr. President, I am not conflating Iran and Iraq. Iran right now is the threat, and, again, I ask my colleagues--none of whom have an answer--why wouldn't we do the due diligence, 30 additional days, to ask the DNI if what we are doing on the Senate floor right now undermines American deterrence relative to Iran?

It is a simple request. It shows that we are acting to make sure we protect our troops in the region. And, again, 30 days is not a lot of time----

To make sure our troops in the region are safe and secure.

Vote on Amendment No. 33

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, we are debating, last week and this week, the authorization for the use of military force authority that was granted in 2002, which is a really important debate that we are seeing right here on the Senate floor.

By the way, it is a good-faith argument. There are Members on both sides of the aisle making different arguments.

There is not a topic, in my view, more important than the issues at stake here--how to use military force; when to use military force; is it authorized by the President to use military force?--because, as to the issue of the U.S. Government sending young men and women into harm's way to defend our country's interests, there is nothing more important, in my view--nothing more important.

I appreciate the time and the debate here on the floor. It is also important because it wraps into--when you talk about young men and women going into harm's way overseas, one of the biggest harms to American service men and women over the past 20 years has actually been from Shia militia groups supported by Iranian terrorist organizations. Now, it doesn't always seem to make sense in that Americans who were killed in Iraq and wounded in Iraq were often--and I will give some of the numbers here--killed and wounded because those who did the killing and wounding were supplied by Iranian terrorist groups. In particular, the Quds Force, which was led by Qasem Soleimani, during the course of the Iraq war, killed over 600 American servicemembers and wounded over 2,000 with very sophisticated IEDs that were supplied by the Iranians to their proxies in Iraq.

So what does any of this have to do with the 2002 AUMF for Iraq that we were debating last week and will debate this week? Well, the answer is everything, everything.

We eventually figured out--we, the United States--that these very sophisticated IEDs, which are called explosively formed projectiles or penetrators, EFPs, were actually, as I mentioned, caused by the Iranians. It took some time to figure this out because, like so many things, the Iranian terrorists in Tehran and the ayatollahs lie--they lie--and they denied it. ``Oh, we didn't have anything to do with that.'' Well, they actually had everything to do with that. Again, the best and brightest in America, in my view, for many years, during the Iraq war, were being killed by Iranian terrorists and being led by Qasem Soleimani, who was the head of the Quds Force, that was doing this.

During that time of 2005 to the middle of 2006, I was serving as a Marine Corps staff officer to the commanding general to the U.S. Central Command, General Abizaid. I was deployed to many parts of the CENTCOM AOR with the CENTCOM Commander. Probably the biggest concern, no doubt, was of these incredibly effective, brutally efficient EFPs that were killing and wounding so many of our best and brightest. To this day, it is just remarkable to me that so few people even know about this or talk about it--the killing and maiming of thousands of American troops by the Iranians and the Quds Force, led by General Soleimani.

Again, what does this have to do with the 2002 AUMF? Everything.

What happened during that time?

Well, when we figured out it was the Iranians doing this, we--we, again, the national leadership--never really retaliated against Iran at all. Imagine that. We knew that they were killing and wounding thousands of our best and brightest, and the United States did not do anything to establish deterrence. As a matter of fact, during that time, we lost deterrence, and it became clear that Iran, with good reason, started to think: Hey, we can kill American servicemembers with impunity. There is no price.

So they did.

When you lose deterrence with a terrorist regime that likes to kill Americans and has a history of killing Americans, it is not a good thing, especially for the young men and women who are serving our country in dangerous places.

I remember, early on in my Senate tenure here, in a briefing we had in the SCIF, I asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: Do you think we have lost deterrence? There have been 600 Americans killed and over 2,000 wounded. Do you think the Iranians believe they can kill as many American servicemembers as they can--again, America's best and brightest--and not pay a price?

The Chairman said: Yes. The Chairman said: Yes.

I remember that very distinctly.

So the whole point is, How do you reestablish deterrence? Because, if you reestablish deterrence, you are going to save lives, and you are going to protect your servicemembers.

Again, there is nothing more important that we do as a country than making sure the men and women who go defend our country--who defend us, who defend our interests--are protected, are lethal, are the best trained. But it is difficult because, when you lose deterrence, it is hard to get it back. Well, we did get it back, and I certainly applaud President Trump and the Trump administration.

When Qasem Soleimani was back in Iraq, scoping American forces to kill--by the way, a lot of them during that time were from Alaska--in early January 2020, the Trump administration said: The joke is over. This guy with the blood on his hands of thousands of our best and brightest--he is not doing it again.

And he was killed during a daring strike on January 3, 2020. He was looking to kill more American troops in Iraq, and he got killed. I think it was justified and an important signal to send to everybody around the world that you can't go around killing American troops and not expect to have retaliation against you or your country. That should be basic. That should be basic. Every U.S. Senator here, today, should agree with that 110 percent.

The Trump administration said: We are not going to allow this anymore, and the guy who is responsible for killing so many Americans and wounding so many Americans--he is going to pay.

And he did, with his life.

The legal authorization for that very justified killing was the 2002 AUMF that we are debating right now. OK. That was only 3 years ago that that happened. So it is very relevant to the issue of deterrence and very relevant to the issue of Iran.

For some of my colleagues to say: Well, it is old. It has nothing to do with anything that is happening right now, they couldn't be more inaccurate. This matters, and it matters today. For those who say it doesn't, they don't know this history or they don't want to know this history or they haven't been watching the news for the last 96 hours.

Some of us are concerned about the very debate we are having here, which is to say: Let's remove the authorization that we used to kill Soleimani. Let's get rid of it. Hmm, what kind of signal does that send? Could this signal maybe we are not worried about deterring Iran anymore? Could this signal that removing this authorization, this 2002 authorization that, again, was used to regain deterrence with Iran--if we got rid of it, would this embolden Iran?

Well, as I mentioned, in the last 96 hours, we have had Iranian proxies unleashing deadly attacks on American servicemembers and American contractors. That is happening right now. Is it a coincidence? I don't know. One American is dead, and five have been wounded with these brazen attacks. Some of us thought this actually might happen. It is happening. It is happening.

Unfortunately, there was a little bit of something going on last week that we are going to get to the bottom of. Trust me. On the Armed Services Committee, we are going to get to the bottom of it because, last Thursday, when we were debating the AUMF, these vicious attacks started at 6:30 a.m., DC time. It was on the day we were debating the AUMF--all day Thursday. We didn't hear about it until the close of business Thursday. Was somebody hiding that information from us? It was pretty relevant information. We are going to find out about that.

I am going to be offering an amendment to the AUMF tomorrow, and I believe every U.S. Senator should vote for it. Here is why: I believe that the 2002 AUMF clearly helped with deterrence. It was the authority, in addition to article II, to take out one of the biggest terrorists, heck, in the 21st century. That is for sure. He killed more Americans than any other terrorist. That is for sure.

So the question is, Will removing this AUMF lessen American deterrence against Iran's malign activities?

That is what my amendment asks the Director of National Intelligence to do--to look at that question and certify the answer. If the answer is no, then this new AUMF or the removal of this AUMF can go forward.

Again, it is a really simple question: Ask the DNI, for the next 30 days, to look at this question: Will removing the 2002 AUMF lessen American deterrence against Iran's malign activities?

Why wouldn't every U.S. Senator want to go: ``That is a really good question. Heck, we are seeing it in the Middle East right now--in Syria. Maybe this is going to embolden Iran. Heck, maybe we shouldn't do it. Maybe, by doing this, we are going to put American servicemembers' lives at risk. Hmm. Maybe we shouldn't do it. Let's ask the DNI''?

That is it. Why wouldn't you want that?

I was just talking to a couple of the proponents of this AUMF debate. Again, I have a lot of respect for them, but I asked them: Why wouldn't you want this? Wouldn't you want to know? Just wait 30 more days. I know you have been trying to get this removed for years. Wait 30 days. Send it to the President's own Director of National Intelligence and ask her: Review the intelligence. Review what you are hearing with the chatter among the Iranian proxies who are trying to kill Americans and who have killed Americans. Is any of this related to the removal of the AUMF? Then give us an answer in 30 days, and if the answer is no, this can move forward. If it is yes and this will hurt our deterrence against Iran, then we shouldn't be doing this.

That is all my amendment is asking. It simply says: As for the authorization for use of military force--the AUMF--of 2002, if it is voted on to be repealed, which it looks like it will be, it will go into effect after the Director of National Intelligence certifies in an intelligence assessment to Congress that the repeal will not degrade the effectiveness of U.S.-led deterrence against Iranian aggression. Who could be against that? We should have 100 U.S. Senators wanting to know the answer to that question, especially given what just happened over the last 96 hours, because maybe this debate is emboldening the Iranian proxies and terrorists. Maybe it is not. So let's get the answer.

My amendment would also make sure that it is 100 percent clear that if the 2002 AUMF is repealed, the United States can fully retaliate against the Iranians or any Iranian threat if they are threatening our country or our people.

I know that most of my colleagues here agree with that. We negotiated that language with some of my Democratic friends and Republican friends. So it is just that and this issue of asking the DNI to certify that what we are doing on the Senate floor right now is not going to undermine our deterrence against Iran and, oh, by the way, put more American lives at risk.

It is simple. I would be shocked if any Senator voted against wanting to know the answer to that basic question.

I am asking my colleagues to just think hard. Don't you want more information? Can't you wait 30 more days to get President Biden's DNI to certify that what we are doing right here in the Senate is not going to undermine deterrence and put more American lives at risk? I hope that all of my colleagues would agree with that and vote on my amendment.

Finally, I will just say, the deterrence that we regained with the justified killing of Soleimani has clearly been slipping away, particularly once the Biden administration came into office, and it is a concern.

I was on a recent bipartisan codel to the Middle East, and the No. 1 issue we were hearing about in every single stop by every single leader was the malign activities of Iran. You name the country we were in--and we were in a lot of them, all the Abraham Accords countries in Israel-- Iran was the No. 1 topic and how aggressive they are getting.

The lifting of the terrorist designation for the Iranian-backed Houthis almost in the first month of this administration, February 2021, was a sign of weakening deterrence against Iran.

The administration's inability to stand firmly with the United Arab Emirates, one of our strongest allies in the Middle East, when it was attacked by Houthi missiles and drones--of course, with the Iranians' help--was something else that lessened our deterrence.

Just last week, when the CENTCOM Commander testified, he said there had been 78 similar attacks on American forces since 2021. We are losing deterrence. That is during the Biden administration's 2 years. They have been attacking the hell out of our troops. What are we doing? What are we doing?

The mullahs in Tehran, like all tyrants, are emboldened by accommodation. So I am asking my Senate colleagues to take the very prudent, logical, and responsible step to ask the DNI if what we are getting ready to do here on the Senate floor, which is to remove the 2002 AUMF, will that undermine our deterrence against Iran? Let's wait 30 days and get the answer.

Don't put your head in the sand, my colleagues. Stand up. See what the answer is from the DNI so we can move forward in a way that makes sense for our national security, deterrence of the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, and, most importantly, the ability to protect and defend our servicemembers serving overseas in places like Syria that are very dangerous.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am honored, so honored, to say a few words this morning about Judge James Buckley--a statesman; a patriot; a member of the World War II Greatest Generation; a senior Reagan State Department official; a DC Court of Appeals judge; a former Member of this body, the U.S. Senate; a friend; and a shining example of a good, meaningful life lived in full.

It is not very often that you get to say happy birthday to your hundred-year-old mentor on the Senate floor, but today, I get to do that to one of my mentors.

Judge Buckley has been a mentor and role model to me and so many other people who worked for him or worked with him over the past century.

So, Judge, I hope you are watching. I hope some of your family members are watching. I want to wish you a happy hundredth birthday from the U.S. Senate. We have this wonderful card here signed by dozens of U.S. Senators--Republicans, Democrats, Independents--here on the Senate floor on your hundredth birthday, right now. We are going to deliver this to you soon.

For those watching, who is this remarkable American statesman? There is a wonderful Wall Street Journal op-ed in this morning's Journal entitled ``Jim Buckley's Century of Service.'' I encourage all of my Senate colleagues to read it.

He was from a very large and famous Connecticut family with many prominent brothers and sisters--10 of them. It is quite large. His younger brother was the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley.

James Buckley--Judge Buckley, as I like to call him--served his country in so many ways: as I noted, first, heroically, as a World War II Naval officer. He served in many battles, including the Battle of Okinawa, which was the bloodiest battle in U.S. Navy history.

He served as a U.S. Senator from New York and Under Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, a judge on the Federal court of appeals for the DC Circuit right down the road, commonly referred to as ``the second-most important court in the land.''

Think about that. That is service at the highest levels of three different branches of government--the only living American to do that and the oldest Member of the U.S. Senate, former Member.

In every position, Judge Buckley, throughout his life, brought integrity, a fierce intellect, and a compelling commitment to American exceptionalism.

I have known Judge Buckley for 30 years. He is a man of faith, class, dignity, and humility. He has never stopped serving his country. Even into his late nineties, he was still at work writing a very well- received book on public policy just a few years ago called ``Saving Congress from Itself.''

A few years back, I suggested that he present his book to us at one of our Republican lunches. In so doing, I explained to the judge the way in which we have lunches here in the Senate. Three times a week, we get together. There is the Tuesday policy lunch; there is the Wednesday--what we call--Steering Committee lunch; and then there is the Thursday lunch, more informal, hosted by members of our conference who can brag a little bit about their State and feed us great food from their State. So I suggested to the judge, come by the Wednesday Steering Committee lunch and share with us your new book. And I noted, you know, you may know, Judge, that the Steering Committee was initially set up a long time ago by a group of more conservative Senators but is now pretty much attended by all Republican Senators for lunch. Was he familiar with the Steering Committee, I asked the judge.

In typical, James Buckley humble fashion, he said quietly: Why, Dan, yes, I believe I was one of the cofounders of the Steering Committee.

Of course, you were, Judge. Of course, you were.

Anyway, we all had a great, very memorable lunch here in the Senate with Jim Buckley, where just in an hour, so many of my colleagues learned so much from him, which is what he has been doing his whole life.

I got to know Judge Buckley when I caught a lucky break 30 years ago and was hired by him as his fourth law clerk--kind of a law clerk intern--when he was a DC Circuit Court of Appeals judge right down the road and I was in my final year at Georgetown Law School. This was an incredible experience for me.

As most know, and I already mentioned, the DC Circuit is considered the second most important court in the country and, of course, is known as a feeder court into the U.S. Supreme Court for law clerks, but particularly for judges. Just look at all the former DC Circuit judges who went on to be Supreme Court Justices: Burger, Scalia, Ginsburg, Thomas, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Jackson.

As a Georgetown law student, this internship was a very exciting opportunity for me, and I saw up close in Judge Buckley an example of principled jurisprudence that was anchored in the text of Federal statutes and the Constitution that recognized and emphasized the limits on Federal judiciary and agency powers and that understood the importance of federalism and the separation of powers in our constitutional system of ordered liberty.

These were lifelong lessons for me, and I continue to use them daily right here in the U.S. Senate.

I enjoyed this job so much and was learning so much that I pretty much quit going to many of my law school classes.

For the young people watching, especially law students, don't do that. That was a dumb idea. My very low grade in my evidence class was evidence of this.

Judge Buckley, back then, tolerated me in his chambers 30 years ago, but he really developed a special bond with my then-girlfriend, Julie, who is now my wife of over 28 years.

Julie and the judge had a small-world connection concerning the great State of Alaska that was quite remarkable.

In 1971, there was a very important bill being debated right here in the U.S. Senate called the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, what we call ANCSA. That bill became the world's largest land settlement for indigenous people ever, anywhere in the world. Right here in America, 44 million acres of Federal land went to the Native people of Alaska. And Jim Buckley, then a first-term U.S. Senator in his first year, became a big supporter of Native rights in Alaska. It was curious, interesting. What was going on there?

He was a conservative Republican and believed in property rights, and ownership, and free enterprise, and fee simple lands for the Native people, which was what ANCSA was all about--much different than the lower 48, where the system of reservations and land held in trust by the Federal Government does not work well.

There was something else going on there, the Alaska Native leaders went to Washington in force to lobby different Senators. Senator Buckley was lobbied by a beautiful 36-year-old brilliant Alaska Native leader named Mary Jane Fate, who just so happened to be my wife's--then my girlfriend's--mom. So the judge and my girlfriend, Julie, figured that out, put two and two together, that her mom was one of the big reasons in terms of lobbying that he got interested in the ANCSA legislation and was a strong supporter of that.

Of course, that cemented their relationship and our relationship, and Julie and I and the judge have been great friends ever since. I do want to thank him, again, on behalf of the people of Alaska for being such a strong supporter of that legislation, which literally changed the history trajectory of our State for the better 51 years ago.

A few years ago, I was asked by the outstanding organization, The Fund for American Studies, to give an address about honorable leadership--honorable leadership--and I made my entire speech about the life and example of James Buckley.

Honorable leadership and upholding the highest values of ethical service, which is what the life of Judge Buckley epitomizes, is not always easy.

For example, as a U.S. Senator, Judge Buckley was one of the first Members of the Senate Republican caucus to call on President Nixon to resign

in the wake of the Watergate scandal. That certainly was not easy.

He was also an early Republican leader on issues of environmental stewardship and responsible, commonsense conservationism in the spirit of Republican President Teddy Roosevelt that has the support from local communities.

He cosponsored legislation that created the Gateway National Recreation Area, which stretches along the northeast Atlantic coast from New York to New Jersey and is home to one of the most significant bird sanctuaries in the northeast part of the United States.

As an avid birder himself, I am sure that this is one of the many proud aspects of the judge's important legacy to New York and to the rest of the country.

I think without a doubt, the most important legacy Jim Buckley has left all of us in the past 100 years has been his commitment to freedom and American liberty in both words and deeds.

He fought for American freedom in the Pacific in World War II. Like so many from his ``greatest generation,'' he literally saved the world from tyranny.

He spoke eloquently of American freedom throughout his life. In another one of his books, titled ``If Men Were Angels,'' he wrote the following:

I believe that in the last analysis the most important

thing in social and political life is freedom, and I believe

that it is because of the safeguards written into the

Constitution, and the character of the American people, that

we have enjoyed it in so great a measure.

More than any other country.

Mr. President, this great American patriot has left his mark on the American soul and American history and American heritage at the highest levels of our Federal Government, in all three branches of service.

Thank you for your exceptional service to our great Nation, Judge Buckley. All of the U.S. Senate and all of America wish you a happy and healthy 100th birthday.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to join the other members of Alaska's Federal delegation--Senator Lisa Murkowski and Representative Mary Peltola--in honoring our very dear friend Georgianna Lincoln, who will be retiring from the board of the regional Alaska Native Corporation, Doyon, Limited, after 47 years of service.

For decades, Georgianna has been a force for good in our State. A force of nature, with an indomitable spirit, Georgianna, a Koyukon Athabascan Indian, was born in the village of Rampart, AK, in 1945. She moved to Fairbanks when she was in fourth grade. Like the experience of many Alaska Natives, moving from a small village to a relatively big city was tough. Fairbanks, she said, was ``foreign to me.'' But her mother, Kathryn Evans Harwood, told her repeatedly that she was as good as anyone else--an equal. And that message stayed with her throughout her long career in public service and politics.

``This path is cut clear for me and I am following it, willingly,'' Georgianna later recalled. ``Knowing that, I can take boulders and move them aside because in front of that boulder is green pastures; maybe more trouble, but nothing is insurmountable.''

Indeed, from executive board rooms, to the halls of the State legislature, to communities throughout Alaska that she has worked tirelessly to improve, nothing has been insurmountable for Georgianna. As a young woman in Fairbanks, Georgianna got involved with the Fairbanks Native Association, eventually becoming the executive director of the organization. This was in the 1960s, when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act--the largest lands claims act in U.S. history--was in full debate. She, along with thousands of Alaska Natives from across the State, advocated tirelessly for the bill, which eventually passed. It redefined Federal Indian policy in Alaska and fundamentally transformed the lives of Alaska Natives.

That was just the beginning for Georgianna. She went on to develop health and education programs in her region, helping to improve the lives of so many. And then she decided to run for the Alaska legislature. She won a seat in the house in 1991, then ran for the senate, where she stayed until 2005. In the legislature, she was a fierce champion of issues impacting women and children, as well as natural resource management. Still today, she is the only Alaska Native woman ever elected to the Alaska State Senate.

Her achievements didn't end there. She became the director of programs for Tanana Chiefs Conference, served as a director on the Alaska Native Heritage Center board, United Bank of Alaska, Alaska Native Health Board, National Indian Health Board, and the North American Indian Women's Association.

Significantly, she dove head first into her work for Doyon starting in 1976, later serving as board chair of the corporation and its subsidiaries--and guiding the corporation through years of remarkable growth. Most recently, she served on the finance committee, shareholder relations committee, and on the Doyon Oil Field Services, Inc., board. She also served as the Doyon representative on the Alaska Federation of Natives board of directors.

Throughout the years, Georgianna has mentored countless Alaskans, focusing especially on Alaska Native women. Channeling her mother, she tells them, ``Know that you are Indian. Know that you are Native and that is enough. Apologize to no one. Be proud of who you are. Learn to love yourself.''

Her service to Doyon--now with 20,400 shareholders, and the largest private landowner in Alaska and one of the largest in North America-- and to all of the various organizations of which she has been part, have been invaluable. But she counts her greatest accomplishments to be her two adult children, Gidget Lincoln and Sean Lincoln, and her nine grandchildren.

We thank Georgianna's family, including her partner Chris Cooke, for sharing her with Alaska. We thank her for the many years of service to our State and congratulate her on such an illustrious career. We wish her all the best in retirement.

``Ana Baasee' Georgianna.''

Mr. President, I am coming to the floor for the final time to give remarks about the Willow Project. I will explain it a little bit in my remarks.

The President is getting ready to make a decision--a huge decision-- on a big project in Alaska--really, an inflection point for our State's future. He is likely to make that decision any day. So I am just going to come down and kind of wrap up the arguments that we have been making.

I really want to thank a number of folks: Senator Murkowski, of course, who, with me--we have been focused on this issue for 2 years, the entire time of the Biden administration--2 years, arguments every day, including a meeting with the President last week, last Thursday; Congresswoman Peltola, who has done a really strong job in this regard, particularly in the meeting last week with the President. Some of my Democratic colleagues have been weighing in on this project. I really appreciate that. I know it takes a lot of courage.

I am going to talk about some of the far-left lower 48 environmental groups that don't support it based on nothing--no facts, no data. But stand up to them, go to the White House and say: Come on, Mr. President. Come on, Biden administration. You have to make sure Alaska has this.

So my Democrat colleagues, I am not going to name you. I don't want to get you in trouble or anything, but thank you. I really, really appreciate this.

As I mentioned, we had a meeting with the President last week, and, at the beginning of the meeting, in addition to handing the President a unanimous resolution from the entire Alaska Legislature--the entire State senate, the entire State house; Democrats, Republicans, Independents; Native, non-Native--all passed a resolution saying to the Biden administration: Please support the Willow Project.

There were three pads. I handed that to the President. I also handed him this map that describes really the context, as I said to the President, of what is happening in Alaska under this administration.

I was respectful. We were in the Oval Office. Of course, you are going to be respectful with the President and his team. The Oval Office is a very historic place, obviously. But I said, respectfully: Mr. President, in every region of the State, every industry--oil, gas, mining, hunting, fishing; you name it--there have been 45 Executive orders and Executive actions--it is now 46; there has been another one since the meeting we had last week--looking to shut down Alaska. It is exhausting, to be honest. No other State is getting that kind of attention.

I walked through some of these, but I just, again, respectfully, wanted the President to know, and that is it. Every time we meet with senior White House officials and say--these are the days we have met with senior White House officials--``Hey, how about a ceasefire?'' we just get more, more.

There is no other State in the country getting this kind of attention. It is unwanted attention. As I have told many of my Democratic colleagues, hey, if a Republican administration came after you like this, singling your State out, putting thousands of people out of work, and you came to me and said, ``Hey, Dan, could you help me?'' I would help you. Every Democrat here knows I would help you. So I appreciate the help that we are getting.

That was the context of the meeting. Again, it was respectful. We appreciated it. We had over an hour with the President and his team. He is a busy, busy man, the leader of the free world. So we appreciated that.

(Ms. HASSAN assumed the Chair.)

I was also recently down in Houston at this very big energy conference called CERAWeek. To be honest, it is not an exaggeration to say that all eyes are on the Willow Project because, essentially, the question that is being posed in our energy sector is this. There was a very good Wall Street Journal editorial last week calling the Willow Project the test for Biden. This editorial lead by saying that the ``President . . . says the only barrier to more U.S. oil production is recalcitrant'' companies.

OK, a lot of us don't believe that, by the way. So here is an opportunity to say: Is that true or not? Because if the Biden administration--the President--approves Willow tonight, ConocoPhillips will start moving people to build it tomorrow. We are ready. The State is ready. The private sector is ready.

So I think that is the key question, and it was the key question down in

CERAWeek, the biggest energy conference probably in the world, with almost 8,000 attendees.

This is a really important question, not just for Alaska but for America.

I think the key arguments here are, given the President's priorities, what the President emphasizes, what he and his administration talk about. The Willow Project is actually exactly the kind of project President Biden and his team should support because it reinforces so many things that they talk about and care about.

Let me just mention four of those.

No. 1, which, of course, is really important, is that this project has the highest environmental standards of any major energy project in the world, by far. It is not even a close call. How do we know this? Because the Biden administration's own environmental impact statement, which came out a month ago, says this. It says this.

The Trump administration passed this project in their environmental reviews with flying colors. Then, it was five pads. The Biden administration's EIS, or environmental impact statement, took it down to three. We didn't really like that, but that is about the minimum it could go. And they explained in this administration's own environmental impact statement--the scientists, the career staff were saying things like that the greenhouse gas emissions would be ``minimal,'' not a climate bomb like these lower 48 far-left groups keep talking about-- minimal.

Here is the number: Emissions from this project, according to President Biden's own environmental impact statement, 0.15 percent, the 2019 emission levels. And they call it ``minimal.''

They also said if you don't do the Willow Project, the market substitution analysis in the Biden administration's own EIS says that, then, we will likely--we, America--have to go to other countries--Saudi Arabia, Venezuela--to get oil, and their environmental records and standards are so bad that the emissions globally from not doing this project will actually rise.

That is in the EIS.

I have talked about the high standards for Alaska with regard to the high standards in the world and the impacts on the environment.

By the way, this project is next to existing infrastructure. So you don't have to build a lot of infrastructure. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline, just plug it in.

This has the highest environmental standards in the world. How do I know that? Because the Biden administration's environmental impact statement lays it out in about 1,500 pages. That is one very important argument that fits with the Biden administration's priorities.

Let me give you another one. The Biden administration frequently talks about racial equity, racial justice, environmental justice for people of color, indigenous people. They talk about that all the time. The indigenous people in my State overwhelmingly support this project. There are a few people--and that happens in every State, in every country--who are opposed. They are getting a lot of press, by the way. But the vast majority of the people, the First Nations' people, the Alaska Native people in our State, strongly support this.

We held a press conference last week here in the Capitol. Some of the most famous Alaska Native leaders in our State's history flew thousands of miles just to be here to support this.

So all this rhetoric from the administration on racial equity, racial justice is going to be very empty if they say: Do you know what? We are going to choose the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace's priorities in the lower 48 over the priorities of the people who live there.

I want to go into this a little bit deeper. This is a quote from the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat. This is a group of Tribes and Native leaders, a really broad-based group of the people who live where this project would be. Here is a quote from Nagruk Harcharek:

Outside activist groups opposing Willow have drowned out

local perspective--

That is for sure--

and are actively working to supersede the views of the Alaska

Native people.

That is for sure.

This is not environmental justice or any kind of justice.

It is a direct attack on Alaska Native self-determination.

Some of our Native leaders last week were saying: Do you know what really is infuriating? These lower 48 environmental groups that are all driving the opposition of this project, are trying to tell Alaska Natives who have lived in Alaska for thousands and thousands of years how to live and what is good for them.

Do you know what some of our Native leaders are starting to call this? The second wave of colonialism, eco-colonialism. Condescending lower 48 environmental groups that don't know anything about Alaska are coming up to our State and telling the Native people how to live--eco- colonialism. By the way, that topic came up in the Oval Office meeting.

The administration is going to listen to lower 48 environmental groups that condescendingly tell Alaska Native people how to live? That is certainly not racial equity. That is certainly not racial justice. That is the definition of eco-colonialism, and I hope that they are not going to go there.

One other area, another great group of Americans, whom I love to talk about on the floor who support this project, are the great men and women who build things in America. There has been no better champion of that in the entire country than the president of the Laborers, my good friend, Terry O'Sullivan, who, just 2 days ago, wrote another letter to the President. He has been such a great advocate. The Laborers are the greatest construction union in America.

This project will create 2,500 jobs, 75 percent of which are union jobs, building trade jobs.

Madam President, I would like to submit for the Record another great letter from Terry O'Sullivan. This one is dated March 6, 2023, to the President of the United States. I ask unanimous consent to have the letter printed in the Record.

So I am just going to read a few lines from this letter. But Terry O'Sullivan is a very astute man. He has seen what is happening in Washington this past couple of weeks.

Here is what he said:

Administration officials are considering . . . limiting

[Willow's] scope to only two of the proposed Pads.

By the way, there is no environmental analysis of that at all in the EIS in the Trump administration or the Biden administration. So if they do that, it won't be based on any science, any data.

I want to be clear--

Said Terry O'Sullivan--

a limited approval like this [of two pads] is, in fact, a

rejection of the project.

This is what we have told the President. This is what we have told his team many, many times. They know that.

Proponents of this approach are displaying the kind of con-

game that has American voters and LIUNA--

That is the laborers--

members turning away [from] established political norms.

So this great American, Terry O'Sullivan, he is a working man. He leads working men and women. He is saying: Don't play these games. Two pads is a denial. That was our respectful message last week.

What else did Terry O'Sullivan have to say in his final letter to the President?

It is time to listen to local leaders [check] workers [for

sure] and residents and reject the game-playing that the

press reports indicate is happening behind the scenes in the

Administration.

[K]eep your commitments [Biden administration] to a

rational energy policy that allows for the responsible

development of domestic energy resources while the Nation

transitions to a lower-emission economy.

Terry O'Sullivan, once again, Madam President, weighing in. I can't thank him enough, Sean McGarvey, the building trades.

By the way, when we held this press conference last week, every union in Alaska supports this project. The trades, of course, but all the public unions, every single union, 100 percent.

Now, again, this administration likes to talk about: Hey, we really care about the working men and women, the men and women who build things, the unions. OK. OK. Let's see where you are on Willow.

Finally, Madam President, I want to talk about an issue that, again, came up in the Oval Office, and that is just the foreign policy ramifications of this upcoming decision.

We are in a new era of authoritarian aggression that I talk about a lot. The brutal dictators Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and this guy Maduro in Venezuela, they are on the march. But the one thing they fear almost more than anything is American energy power. Read the reporting. Xi Jinping is scared to death, the dictator of Beijing, scared to death of American energy power. So is Putin, by the way.

So in the last 2 years--because, like I said, Senator Murkowski and I have been raising this issue about daily--I have asked in dozens of hearings on the Armed Services Committee, military experts, Biden administration officials, Biden administration military members: Do you think it matters and do you think it is good for our national security if we have more energy in a project like this?

By the way, Willow, at max production, will produce about 200,000 barrels a day.

Every single official in this administration who deals with national security, for 2 years--for 2 years--has said yes. Not one has said no.

Now, I am not going to name names. I don't want to get anybody in trouble. But it is obvious. This is one of the great strengths of our Nation. And our adversaries--the dictator in Moscow and the dictator in Beijing--fear it.

So why do I have this slide up? There is something going on right now that is unbelievable. And every time I have asked anybody and I have raised it with anybody in this administration, they look at me with a blank stare and don't answer my question.

My question is this. This administration came in; they wanted to limit the production of American energy. I fully disagree with that approach, but what happened?

Well, the predictable result happened. If you limit supply, prices go up. So prices on energy have gone up on working families for the last 2 years like this. We all know it. Inflation like this.

So what have they been doing? They have been going overseas begging other countries to produce more oil and then poured it into America. Now, why on Earth would you do that when you can do it here?

So the latest and greatest--they did it in Saudi Arabia. They were rejected, by the way. They were flirting with Iran. My goodness, the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and you are flirting with those guys, with the blood of American soldiers on their hands? Ridiculous. But they went to Venezuela after the election, and they said: Let's lift sanctions on you.

So we are now importing over 100,000 barrels a day from Venezuela. Can you believe that? That is a fact. Venezuela pollutes--in its processes to produce oil, it is a production and greenhouse gas emission process that is 18 times--with an ``x'' times--more polluting than in America and certainly way more polluting--probably 30 times more than the great State of Alaska's Willow Project.

So if you really care about the environment, why did you just lift sanctions on one of the dirtiest producers in the world? They are a terrorist regime. They have a horrible human rights record, a horrible worker rights record, a well-known U.S. adversary, and we are already importing 100,000 barrels a day from them--just started. And we don't want to produce in Alaska, with the highest standards in the world on the environment and workers?

So when I ask the question why would we do that and not let us produce in the great State of Alaska, like I said, I have never gotten an answer to that question. So, hopefully, the answer is going to be: Well, we are going to help the great State of Alaska with this Willow Project.

Do it because, right now, Madam President, with regard to energy policy, my State is being treated worse than a terrorist regime. And that is not hyperbole. That is a fact.

So in my final appeal before this decision is made, respectfully asking this administration: This is exactly the kind of project that we think should be easily supported by this administration, given their priorities--the highest standards in the world on the environment, no doubt about it; the lowest greenhouse gas emissions--negligible, according to the President's own EIS; racial equity; racial justice.

The Native people of Alaska want this. Listen to them. Don't listen to the ecoterrorists down in the lower 48, coastal elites who don't know anything about Alaska and are trying to tell the Native people how to live their lives--insulting, by the way. Don't listen to the ecoterrorists. Listen to the great union members like Terry O'Sullivan, all of whose members support and help enhance the national security of America with strong energy policy in the great State of Alaska.

I hope the Biden administration does the right thing. So many of my colleagues have helped. I want to thank Senator Murkowski again for her relentless, relentless advocacy on this with me.

We will see. Big stuff for America. Giant stuff for my State. I hope they do the right thing for our country, for our workers, for the Native people, for our national security.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, thank you for that enthusiastic introduction.

I am here. Once again, it is the end of the week. At least in the Senate, it is the end of the week, not for the rest of America. But when we end up here with our work, on Thursday afternoon, I usually try and do a story about what I refer to as ``The Alaskan of the Week.''

Hopefully, everybody can see this photo. We have included our Alaskans of the Week's pictures here. This is a really good one, if you are watching anywhere in Alaska, I hope, and across America.

Now, the reporters usually like this speech because it signals the end of their week. Normally, we have a crowd of press in the Gallery, maybe not so much today.

But it is about somebody who has done something good for their community or the State or maybe for their country. This Alaskan of the Week is actually someone who did something for the world--the world. Saved the world. Stay tuned. No exaggeration.

Now, I always like to give an update on what is happening back home. We are getting covered in snow--tons and tons of snow. The Sun is starting to come back. It is a very cold and snowy winter. The Iditarod is right around the corner--the last great race. Senator Murkowski and I will talk about that soon. It is a beautiful time of year if you love the outdoors--skiing, snow-machining.

So come visit Alaska. That is what I always do--make the pitch.

And people don't know this, but Alaska is also an incredibly diverse State. In fact, Anchorage, my hometown, the State's largest city, is home to the country's three most diverse census tracks--racially, in terms of nationalities. By the way, the fourth most diverse is Queens, NY. So more diverse than Queens, NY, in terms of race, ethnicities, and nationalities. We are very proud of our diversity. More than 100 languages are spoken in our schools--Native languages, other languages, foreign languages. We are diverse.

We are very patriotic. In fact, Alaska is home to more veterans per capita than any State in the country. White, Black, Asian American, Alaska Native, all different races make up that key part of Alaska's heritage, military service.

By the way, if you are watching the news, you know there is a lot going on over Alaska right now. But I just want to say a word about our military, Active-Duty, National Guard, and Reserve Forces. Think about what our guys and women have done the last 2 weeks: tracked and intercepted this big Russian spy balloon, tracked and intercepted at least two of these smaller unidentified objects and shot two of them down--the one over Alaska. The one in Canada, those were shot down by Alaskan forces in Canada. Then, in the last 4 nights, these same forces have gone and intercepted two different Russian ``Bear'' bombers and fighters--Russian fighters who were trying to get into our airspace. This is in 2 weeks. These are not easy missions. They are very difficult, challenging, missions.

Do you know what else wasn't an easy mission? Storming the beaches of Normandy. Storming the beaches of Normandy.

I have a little picture here. That is why I want to get to our Alaskan of the Week, a very special, very patriotic Alaskan, a World War II veteran, Mr. R.C. Roberts.

I can think of no better way to cap off Black History Month than to recognize Mr. Roberts, his service to our country, and help him and his family celebrate his 100th birthday.

How about a round of applause, America, for Mr. Roberts' 100th birthday, a Normandy, D-Day, Omaha Beach veteran. He celebrated that on Tuesday, Valentine's Day, 100 years old.

So who is Mr. Roberts?

Let's hear a little bit about the life that he has lived in full. Like I said, that is him. That is him, our Alaskan of the Week, on the poster board. He was a handsome young man, saving the world, literally.

He was originally born in Garrison, TX, in 1923. Imagine that, 100 years ago. According to letters written by friends, he worked on a family farm, left school early in life, and joined the Army when he was just 18, shortly at the start of World War II. He wanted to go fight for his country, and he did fight.

Many Americans have seen movies about D-Day. Again, here is a photo-- our brave soldiers, hitting the beaches at Normandy, facing unbelievable heavy fire, having to navigate mined obstacles on the beach, mines on the bluffs, Germans dug in with machineguns.

You have seen in the beginning--I am sure many of you have--``Saving Private Ryan,'' the seawalls to climb. That is what he did. That is what he did for America, for freedom. It was the largest, most complex combined airborne-amphibious military invasion in world history. Mr. Roberts, our Alaskan of the Week, was there on Omaha Beach in 1944.

He eventually marched all the way into Germany with the U.S. Army, all the way across Europe. He was part of the heroic mission that saved the world. That is not an exaggeration.

Mr. Roberts served 3 years. He was awarded the European Campaign Medal with three Bronze Stars, representing three difficult battles across Europe that he fought in. And here is the thing, you have to remember this. It was 1944. Our military was fully segregated, and Black soldiers were discriminated against. In fact, it took until 1948 for President Harry Truman to order the Armed Forces to be integrated, 16 years before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. But this patriot, despite the discrimination, was fighting for America.

How did Mr. Roberts make it through these ordeals--incredible ordeals--of fire?

Prayer, he said. He said:

Every day, I prayed, and [when I got home] I was so

grateful to be back in the United States.

When he got out of the military and made his way back to Texas and then to California, he had a friend who was in Alaska who told him that his skills were needed up in the great State of Alaska.

It was 1964. Our State had just been devastated by the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America. It was the second-largest earthquake ever recorded in the history of the world--9.2 on the Richter scale--our Good Friday earthquake in 1964. Tsunamis crushed buildings, and of course it killed a lot of people. There was a lot of rebuilding being done. So Mr. Roberts, who at this point was a cement mason, made his way north--north to Alaska, north to the future.

He worked all across the State helping rebuild it: Fairbanks, Kenai, Valdez, the Aleutian Islands Chain. He literally helped lay pavement for the construction of what is now Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage.

He bought a house in Chugiak, AK, outside of Anchorage. He met and married the love of his life, Joan, in 1970, in Anchorage. They joined the Eagle River Missionary Baptist Church, where they remained, and he remains an active member at the tender age of 100. Together for more than 40 years, before Joan passed, they raised four generations of children and had a wonderful life together.

Like I said, Tuesday, Valentine's Day, February 14, was Mr. Roberts' 100th birthday. I had the honor of calling him, wishing him a happy birthday, talking to him a little bit about his heroic service, thanking him for his heroic service.

The day after his birthday, he caught up with his friend Darrell Little. Mr. Roberts and Mr. Little have been friends--best friends--for more than 40 years. Darrell was visiting Mr. Roberts, making him his favorite meal for his birthday, a beef tongue sandwich. Sounds pretty good.

Darrell described Mr. Roberts as a loyal citizen who served his country bravely with honor and distinction. That is what being Alaskan of the Week is all about.

Darrell asked Mr. Roberts what he wanted to say about his extraordinary life, and here is what Mr. Roberts said just 2 days ago. He loves Alaska. He wouldn't trade his time in the State for anything else in the world, even with all the snow we are having this winter. He also said it was such a great honor to serve his country, and he thanked God for blessing him.

He sounds like an amazing guy. He is an amazing guy. I just spoke to him.

Mr. Roberts, thank you for your service. Thank you for helping rebuild Alaska. Thank you for living and leading such an exemplary life for 100 years. Thank you, as we move into Black History Month, for showing an example of a young man, patriotic, despite systemic discrimination against him, who fought the evil Nazi regime heroically and valiantly, part of the ``greatest generation'' that literally saved the world.

So, Mr. Roberts, happy birthday. I know you are also happy about one of the most prestigious awards you can ever get, Alaskan of the Week. We wish you well, sir.

Mr. President, I want to thank my good friend from the great State of Mississippi, who has been a fantastic leader on the Armed Services Committee, a fantastic leader on so many of these important national security topics. He and I share a very strong, similar, identical view on the importance of Taiwan, and we all need to be doing that. So I want to thank my good friend Senator Wicker from Mississippi for his leadership on this and so many other issues.

Willow Project

Mr. President, I also want to thank my good friend from Alaska, Senator Murkowski, who was just on the floor of the U.S. Senate talking about the importance of the Willow Project not just to Alaska but to America. She and I are going to be down here on the floor a lot in the next several weeks. I was here last week talking about this project.

Now, for those of you who haven't watched, a quick recap of the Willow Project: a very large-scale oil and gas project in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, so not a controversial area at all. It is not like ANWR or some of the other areas in our State.

NPRA, as we call it in Alaska, was set aside by the Federal Government decades ago for oil and gas development because we need oil and gas. We need it. Some people out there don't think we do, but we do. And if we need it, we should do it in America.

Just a quick, little summary of some of the key aspects of this: 2,500 jobs to build this. It is ready to build tomorrow. We have permission. It is completely shovel-ready. Seventy-five percent of those jobs will be union jobs, building trades jobs. It is one of the top priorities of unions. I will talk about that. Peak production: Almost 200,000 barrels a day--highest environmental standards in the world, by far; lowest greenhouse gas emissions of a major energy project in the world, by far; billions in revenues from the Federal Government, from State government, for local governments in Alaska, and broad-base support from every group in Alaska you can imagine.

So that is the Willow Project. We got the final EIS last week. And the Biden administration is still kind of saying: Maybe we are going to narrow this so much that we are going to kill it.

I am going to talk about that. That would be unbelievable. I have tried to work with this administration and, certainly, Senator Murkowski has. We have made this the No. 1 issue from the Alaska delegation ever since Joe Biden stepped into office on day one.

I personally raised this with the President, every Cabinet official. Willow is No. 1. If you want cooperation from the Alaska delegation, you have to work with us. We are there. We are almost there. But I want to talk about some of what happened last week because our good friends in the media, who love to write about this story, Willow, because they hate the project, they are biased in the project. So when the EIS came out last week, if you read the national media--which there was a lot of--guess who they quote. Guess who they quote. Do you think they quote the Alaskans who want it? The Native people? The indigenous people in my State who really want it? The unions? No. No, no, no. Our friends in the national media never quote them. They quote Greenpeace, Center for Biological Diversity. Who are the other radical groups? Earthjustice. All the far left radical groups--none of whom live in Alaska, by the way--they get fully quoted: Climate Bomb--all this crazy stuff. It is not scientific-based at all. But they don't quote people, in my view, who really, really matter--who really, really matter; particularly the Native people.

You want to talk about racial justice; you want to talk about environmental justice; you want to talk about racial equity--buzz words the Biden administration uses all the time. The media does too. But somehow they always leave out the indigenous people of my State.

It is wrong. It is wrong. Media is wrong. The Biden administration is wrong. I am going to go into this in a big way. But I just want to make one final point. When people talk about the science--the Democrats, we are the party of science--what happened last week was the final EIS came out, and that was the career staff at the Federal Agencies who came out with this final environmental impact statement. It wasn't great. It limited this project from five pads, which is where the Trump administration--their record of decision--concluded based on science that you can do this in an environmentally sensitive way. The Biden administration came out and said: No, we are going to move it to three pads. All right. That is the career staff. We can live with that.

The private sector company, ConocoPhillips, can live with that. The Native people can live with that. We have 30 days. If you are an American who cares about energy security, national security, weigh in with BLM.gov, the Department of the Interior. Say: We have got to get the Willow Project going.

If this gets limited beyond that, it is pure politics--pure politics. The Democrats, party of science--OK, prove it. If this gets limited more, it will kill the project. We know every far-left environmental group in the country--just read the paper--last week, they said, we are out to kill this thing. If this gets killed, it will be pure politics by Joe Biden, John Podesta--the whole group in the White House.

So the Native people are very upset in my State because overwhelmingly they support this. Every major Native Alaskan group in the country supports this. And they can't get one quote in the newspaper. The Washington Post--forget it. They won't quote a Native Alaskan who supports it. They find the one who is against it and quote her. But the vast majority support it. This is the voice of the Arctic Inupiat. They put this statement out a couple of weeks ago. I am just going to read it again.

``Outside activists groups''--that is the ones that always get quoted in the newspaper. You know the ones: Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, Earthjustice. By the way, Center for American Progress-- interesting about them--they are really against it.

Now, why is that so interesting? That was started by John Podesta. Until recently, he was the leader of it. They put statements out against Willow all the time. Now, he is in charge of making a decision on whether Willow should go forward. Is that fair? Boy, I hope he is being objective. Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot. I wouldn't even want to describe what that would look like.

So all these groups, they are always against it. But here are the Native people who want it. I will explain for a minute why they want it. So they said:

Outside activist groups opposing Willow have drowned out--

Certainly in the media--

[o]ur local perspectives and are actively working to

supersede the views of the Alaska Native people.

True. By the way, the media--sorry, guys, but you are helping them in a great way to cancel the voices of the Native people.

This is not environmental justice or any other kind of

justice.

It certainly is not racial equity. It is racial cancelization. I am continuing.

It is a direct attack on Alaska Native self-determination.

So that is going on right now. And it is very frustrating. It is very frustrating because the voices of some amazing people in my State--the indigenous people of Alaska--are being canceled and drowned out. And our national media has no problem quoting in every story the far-left radical enviros who want to shut down every energy project in America, and they won't quote these great people.

So why do they care about this project so much? Well, it is jobs. It is energy. It is revenues. But you know what? It is even bigger than that. Here is why they care.

I break out this chart a lot. I am going to explain it here. This is a chart from the American Medical Association. And what it does, it looks at the changes and life expectancy in America from 1980 to 2014, a 25-year period. Now, look, we are all Americans. We want progress. Where you see anywhere kind of yellow and then green and then blue and then dark blue and purple, that is good in our country. That means people's life expectancy is increasing. We all want that. We all want that.

Now, unfortunately, you see like orange and red--a couple of spots in America, orange, red--that is actually American life expectancies in the last 25 years decreasing. Nobody wants that.

This is another topic, but that is primarily parts of the country that were hit really hard by the opioid epidemic. We have to work together and improve it. We don't want to see any orange or red here. Nobody wants an American's life expectancy to decrease. That is bad.

But here is my broader commitment. What part of America had the biggest life expectancy increase from 1980 to 2014? Increase. My State--the great State of Alaska. If you look at this map, life expectancy--particularly in the rural areas, the Native areas, Native villages, Aleutian Islands chain, parts of the southeast--life expectancy went up 5, 6, 7--up to 13 years--13 years. The highest in the country. That is great. That is great.

As I have said to many folks when we have been debating these issues here on the Senate floor, give me one indicator of policy success more important than are your citizens living longer. I have never heard anyone come back to me and say: Here is something more important, Dan. I don't think there is.

So from 1980 to 2014, there are big swaths of Alaska where the life expectancy went like this. It is great. We

should all celebrate that. Why did that happen? Why did that happen? I will tell you why it happened. We had major resource development here. We have Prudhoe Bay--the development of Prudhoe Bay--the biggest oil and gas field in North America, other oil and gas fields. They had the development of the Aleutian Islands chain with the Magnuson-Stevens Act for resource development on fisheries. That is a huge legislative change. You had mining. You had resource development, which was jobs and revenues. And all of a sudden, these communities were able to get things like clinics and flushed toilets and running water and gymnasiums--things that in the lower 48, in New Jersey, or other places, you just take for granted. We didn't have them there.

And because we had jobs and resource development in an economy, you started having that, and you have people living longer.

So I think you are hopefully seeing the point. This Willow Project is a matter of life and death for my constituents. And that is why almost everybody--the Alaska Federation Native, every Native group, every group in Alaska--they are all for it. And that is why we get really mad and frustrated--I saw Senator Murkowski down here a couple of minutes ago, and she was frustrated--when the big Washington Post and New York Times write their left-leaning, anti-Willows, and they have no idea what they are writing about.

This is a matter of life and death, and they are canceling the voices of the people I represent, particularly the Native people. That has to change. That has to change.

You know who else supports this? I had the great honor of giving my annual speech to the Alaska legislature 2 days ago in Juneau, AK. It is something Senator Murkowski and I do every year. It is a huge honor. I made the pitch on Willow to all the State senators, State representatives. And I am pretty sure we are going to get a unanimous joint resolution from the house and senate, Alaska State Legislature, saying how important this project is and how everybody in elected office in my State supports it. That is very unusual. In any State, you would have outliers. I am pretty sure we are going to get something unanimous.

Why are we doing that? Again, to not just show the media but the Biden administration and the Congress that this issue unifies Alaskans. And we should be respected for this. We should be respected.

So the Native people of Alaska are very strongly supportive. They get canceled. You even have a couple of real clueless Congressmen on the other side of the Congress last week coming out saying Alaskans don't want the Willow Project, the Native people don't. I mean, these guys are clueless. I forget their names--some guy from Arizona--but they are wrong.

I am going to make another point, which is maybe even more frustrating. The media doesn't want to hear from the Native voice. Do you know who else doesn't want to hear? The Biden administration themselves--the Biden administration themselves. I can't tell you how many times I have heard the President, Cabinet officials, the Vice President talk about racial equity, racial justice, environmental justice all the time.

Last night, I was with a remarkable gathering of Alaskan Native people. This was a trilateral gathering from the people on the North Slope where this Willow Project is going to take place--right here. I call it a trilateral gathering because it was the leaders--dozens of them--flew 5,000 miles from here--Utqiagvik, the top of the world, by the way--they flew 5,000 miles to Washington, DC. We all met last night: Senator Murkowski, Congresswoman Peltola. And it is the trilateral group because it is the Tribe, what I call Inupiaq Community of the Arctic Slope. This is a regionally, federally recognized Tribe of Inupiat people, their leadership. That was one part of this trilateral group.

The second part was the regional borough--like a county. That is right here, the North Slope Borough. By the way, it is bigger than Montana. That is the size I am talking about. These are elected officials--city council, the mayor. They are all Inupiat indigenous people. That is the second part.

The third part is the Alaska Native Regional Corporation called Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. Remember, it was created by Congress. It is an economic engine. It has Tribal and heritage components.

So it was the leaders of all these three organizations, the Tribe, the borough, and the Regional Alaska Native Corporation--all their leadership. I have known these people for a long time. They are amazing, incredible Americans. You would love them.

A couple dozen of them flew from right here, from Barrow, to Washington, DC. They wanted a meeting with the Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland. They wanted a meeting with her. They didn't get the meeting. You would think: Geez, it is pretty important. Do you want to hear the voice of the Native people? Do you want to talk about racial equity, racial justice, environmental justice? These people just flew 5,000 miles to Washington, DC. The Secretary doesn't have time to meet with them. That is not very respectful. They are all supportive, by the way--the Tribe--they are all supportive of the Willow Project.

But here is the thing. It wasn't just this week. This group of Alaska Natives, the trilateral group, some of the most important people in my State, have tried at least five different times to meet with the Secretary of the Interior. They have flown 5,000 miles to Washington, DC, to get one damn meeting with the Secretary of the Interior. Do you know what? Her office has said no every single time. Environmental justice, racial equity, respect for the Native people--come on. It is a bunch of baloney--five times at least. The only time Deb Haaland has ever given these people an audience was when she was up there for about 20 minutes.

It is shocking. She is canceling the voices of the Native people of Alaska who want this project. They flew 5,000 miles--this trilateral group, the Tribe, the borough, the ANC. Nope, the Secretary is too busy. Nope, the Secretary is too busy last time and last time and last time. At least five different times they tried to meet with her. She won't listen. That is what I call cancellation.

Media, you are welcome to write that. You won't, of course.

I guarantee you that in that time, she has probably met with representatives from some of these far-left radical groups--probably dozens of times--but she won't do it.

You want to hear some real irony? As I mentioned last week, the scientists came out from the Federal Agencies and said: Here is the final environmental impact. It was very long, very detailed, very data- filled scientific studies.

Remember, the normal course of business in the Federal Government is once you do an EIS, you have 30 days for the final Record of Decision. That almost always gets stamped ``approved.'' Rarely, do you have the Record of Decision 30 days later changing the EIS. What is happening in America is all these radical lower 48 environmental groups are trying like crazy to pressure John Podesta and the President of the United States to change it. That would be pure politics.

The Democrats say they are the party of science. This wouldn't be science at all. This would be pure, raw political power to appease the Center for Biological Diversity and completely screw the people I represent on the North Slope. That would happen.

Here is the real irony. Last week, BLM put out this EIS. It was a pretty good statement. They narrowed it more. Then, the Department of the Interior put out a statement. They didn't attribute it to anybody. Deb Haaland certainly didn't say it was her statement. It was just a statement from the Department of the Interior saying the Department has substantial concerns about the Willow Project. Wait a minute. BLM is part of the Department, and BLM just came out with an EIS saying it was good. That is weird. It is the preferred alternative in the final EIS, which BLM just put out, so that is really strange.

And then they said: One of our concerns is direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Indirect--I don't know what that means. Deb Haaland doesn't worry about greenhouse gas emissions from New Mexico, which has increased production in oil and gas in the last 3 years by 700,000 barrels a day. Where is that story, Washington Post?

But they also said they are concerned about the impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence. They might change it based on that. But who are the people who understand impacts to wildlife in Alaska Native subsistence on the North Slope? Who are they? They are the people I was with last night. They are the people Deb Haaland refuses to meet with.

So the Department of the Interior was really concerned about ``impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.'' She had 30 Alaska Native leaders in DC yesterday to tell her about it. These are the whaling captains; these are the hunters; these are the people who know this issue more than anybody.

Do you know what this is? This is just a ruse, right? If the Department of the Interior was really worried about impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence, don't you think Deb Haaland would at least have taken one meeting with these great leaders who are the leaders on Alaska Native subsistence and wildlife?

The North Slope Borough Project has the best wildlife experts in the world, and the borough was here yesterday--same with ICAS, the Native Tribe. They were here. It is a little fishy that the Secretary of the Interior won't meet with these great Alaska Natives. Why? Because they are going to say: Madam Secretary, respectfully, we really want this project.

Let me conclude with one other voice that is being ignored, canceled, whatever you want to talk about on the Willow Project. I like this picture. I love this picture, actually. It is a very iconic photo of men and women--actually, it is just all men in that photo. These are the great Americans who built this country. This is taking a lunch break while they are building the Empire State Building. I think they built that in 18 months, 12 months, something incredible like that. The reason I like this picture is because there has become a theme, unfortunately. Some of my Democratic colleagues don't like it when I say this, but there has become a theme that I have seen over the years--certainly in Alaska and maybe not in the rest of the country-- but I think it is pretty much the rest of the country, and it is this. My friends in the Democratic Party used to say: We are the party of the working men and women, men and women who built stuff like the Empire State Building and build projects like Willow or the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

Here is the thing. Whenever the national Democrats--Joe Biden, you name it--whenever they have a choice, a choice between the radical far- left environmental elites who want to stop stuff and these men and women who build things, every time--every single time--they go with the radical elites and sell out the working men and women in America, every time. Some of my Democratic colleagues don't like it when I say that. Well, I am sorry, but I think it is truthful.

I will say--and I said it on the floor the other day--I have a lot of Senate colleagues, Republicans and, in particular, Democrats, and I am so thankful, who have called and reached out to the White House and said: Look, you guys, come on, this Willow project makes so much sense. It has been in permitting for decades. Every environmental review has passed with flying colors. The President is really going to Saudi Arabia to get on bended knee to beg for oil? He is really going to Venezuela to lift sanctions to get oil from them, and we are not letting Alaskans produce it? That is crazy.

A lot of my Democratic colleagues--I am not going to name them because they probably don't want to be named--I appreciate you guys calling the White House to say: Come on, you have to approve this Willow project.

But here is the thing. Last year, I had what is called a Congressional Review Act on a permitting issue. The White House, believe it or not, after the infrastructure bill, which I supported--we had good permitting reform in it. After the infrastructure bill passed, the White House put out a rule that would make infrastructure projects much harder to permit, particularly energy projects.

I brought what is called a Congressional Review Act piece of legislation to rescind the Biden administration rule so we could build things more quickly. I am proud to say, a bipartisan group of Senators supported it. President Biden said he was going to veto the Sullivan bill if it comes to his desk. All right. Mr. President, that is a bad idea.

But the reason I am mentioning that now was that was a test because I had every building trade in America supporting my Congressional Review Act resolution to rescind the Biden administration's arcane rule that would make permitting infrastructure projects harder, and the working men and women said we are supporting the Sullivan Congressional Review Act. And guess what. It passed. Now, the usual suspects, Center for Biological Diversity and all the left green groups, were against it. That was a test.

Whom are you with, the working men and women of America or far-left elite, radical environmental groups that want to shut it down again? That is a test. I posed it to my Senate colleagues. The Senate passed the test. It was bipartisan--not by much, but it was still bipartisan. Thank you, Joe Manchin.

Here is the thing. Willow is another test. It is not a test for my colleagues here. If we had a vote on Willow right now, I bet it would pass well over 60, 65 Senators.

So, again, I thank my Democratic colleagues for helping me. All my Republican colleagues want it done. They know it is good for Alaska and really good for America. But here is the thing: Once again, all the big building trades, all of them are coming out in huge support for the Willow Project. They are making it--the laborers, the building tradesmen--they are making it one of their biggest priorities, if not their biggest priority, for these people. Why? As I mentioned, 2,500 construction jobs--that is the estimate to build this--75 percent of which will be labor and building trade union jobs.

Here are just a few of the statements from some of these great Americans--and they are great Americans. I have gotten to know these labor leaders, the heart and soul of the country.

Here is Terry O'Sullivan, Labors International, LIUNA:

Energy infrastructure, oil and natural gas in particular,

is the largest privately funded job-creating sector for LIUNA

construction workers. The oil and natural gas industry has

provided tens of thousands of jobs, resulting in millions of

work hours for our members. These are quality union jobs with

families supporting wages and benefits. The same is true for

the Willow project.

LIUNA, Terry O'Sullivan, laborer, pro-Willow.

Where is that story, Washington Post, New York Times? You won't write it. You never write it. You canceled these twice.

These are great Americans.

How about Mark McManus, general president of the Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Union? Let's see what he said about Willow:

It is long past time we create good-paying union jobs and

invest in North Slope [Alaska] communities that will benefit

directly from this project in the [NPR-A, as we call it].

NPR-A set aside 7 years ago for oil and gas development. The Willow Project will help deliver reliable energy to consumers and provide billions of dollars in economic investments in these communities.

There you go. Pipefitters.

Come on, national media, write that story. Just don't keep quoting the far-left environmental groups; quote working men and women who built this Nation.

Who else? James Callahan, president of the operating engineers. Willow will also put operating engineers to work. Those are his union members. He is in charge of them. He is another great American, along with others in the skilled trades. These jobs offer families sustaining wages and offer strong health and pension benefits. Furthermore, construction of the Willow Project will provide much needed revenue to Alaska and the North Slope communities, the Native communities. Another union leader in America.

Now, look, the President likes to call himself blue-collar Joe and working Joe and all of that.

Prove it, Mr. President. Prove it.

This is another example of a choice. The only groups in this country right now who want to shut down the Willow Project are far-left, radical environmental groups who don't want to build anything, who don't give a darn about working men and women in America

and certainly don't give a darn about the Native community on the North Slope.

I really wish our media friends would write this story. The unions support it; quote them. The Native people support it; quote them, don't cancel them.

This administration needs to wake up. The American people are getting tired of this. This is a test. The EIS came out last week. If it is changed, it will be because of raw political power by far-left environmental groups who forced the White House to kill this project.

I am just going to end with this. This is just an example. These are union members. These are broad-based groups of Alaska Native organizations. These are just economic groups in our State and nationally. This is not a hard call.

This project has the highest environmental standards in the world, and if we need oil and gas, which we do, why wouldn't we get it from American workers, like the people I just quoted, to help Alaska Native communities, like the people I just quoted? Why is the Federal Government--Joe Biden--going to Saudi Arabia to beg for oil? By the way, he got rejected. Why did we lift sanctions on Venezuela, a terrorist regime? To get more oil--whose production processes are 18 times more polluting than an American oil and gas project. Why? None of this makes sense.

So, again, I want to thank my Democratic Senate colleagues in particular. We have 30 days. If you are an American and you care about energy security and good jobs, if you are a union member, pick up the phone, send an email--blm.gov--and tell them: Stop the madness. Finalize the Willow Project for the benefit of the Native people in Alaska, for the benefit of working Americans, for the benefit of our national security, and for the benefit of our environment. That is what we need to do. I am hoping that the Biden administration makes the right call.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is Thursday, and it has been a while since I have been on the floor here on a Thursday afternoon, but it is my favorite time of the week because I get to do something that I certainly enjoy. We have a new set of pages here. I think they enjoy it, and I know some in our media enjoy it because it kind of signals the end of the week here. But it is when I get to talk about an Alaskan--or Alaskans, plural--who are doing great stuff for our State or their community or maybe even the country, somebody I refer to as the Alaskan of the week. We have been doing this for, geez, quite some time. I think 5 or 6 years, going on that. We have covered a lot of ground.

And before I talk about our two Alaskans of the week--special Alaskans--I usually give an update about what is going on in the great State of Alaska for anyone watching on TV. We have people back in the Gallery. So we love that.

We always do a plug for Alaska. You have to get up there. Take a vacation with your family. You will love it. You will have the vacation adventure of a lifetime.

So I usually give an update of what has been going on. We have had an intense winter, a lot of snow, particularly in Southcentral Alaska, where I live. Schools have even been closed. That is very rare for our State, to close schools because of winter or really cold weather, but we have had both--some cold snaps, some warming--and much winter fun, as you can imagine, if you love winter sports.

The winter solstice has already come and gone since my last ``Alaskan of the Week'' and so have Christmas and the holidays. By the way, there is no better place to spend Christmas than in Alaska, where a man named Santa Claus--a good man, by the way--lives in North Pole, AK, and even runs for Congress. You may have seen that news last year. He didn't win, but he is a good guy. I know him well: Santa--Santa Claus--a politician in North Pole, AK.

Now, our two Alaskans of the week are Frank Hughes and Lincoln Bean. They are both Alaska Native leaders, longtime community leaders and members of the organized village of Kake. Kake is a village of about 500 people in beautiful--gorgeous, actually--Southeast Alaska. So, again, if you are visiting, you have to come to Southeast. But we are such a big State that you have to go everywhere.

Now, Frank and Lincoln know what the holidays are about, which we just celebrated, and because of their efforts, they and many others in Kake got a very special early Christmas gift this year that I want to talk to everybody about.

On November 18, both Frank and Lincoln were on a plane from Oregon back home to Alaska. In the belly of the plane was a 40-gallon bin locked with zip ties, filled with 25 precious Native objects, some estimated to be up to 200 years old. And because of their efforts, these precious, sacred objects and the spirits in them were coming home once again and are now resting in Kake, where these objects belong.

Those items include baskets, a headdress, a replica of a canoe, ceremonial paddles, and rattles used by Tlingit spiritual medicine men. There was also a wooden mask, which would have been carved into a tree in Kake as a territorial marker. Frank said the mask would have had to have been cut out of the body of the tree to be removed.

These items were painfully and lovingly crafted by the village's Tlingit ancestors generations ago, precious items that didn't belong to others but were taken--in some cases, ripped from villages--without even a thought of whom they belonged to. But like I said, now they are home, and, according to Frank and Lincoln, both say that the spirits within these sacred objects are also at home and at peace.

So who are Frank and Lincoln, and why did they think it was so important to bring these items back to their village of Kake?

This is an effort, one of many, being taken across the country since Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990. NAGPRA is the acronym. This congressional act requires any public institution receiving Federal money, like colleges and museums, to return indigenous human remains--yes, these institutions literally have human remains--and cultural items to Tribes or descendants throughout America, to Native communities, wherever possible.

Since then, many artifacts have been, and are continuing to be, returned to Tribes in Alaska and in the lower 48. Still, it is a slog. Many institutions, believe it or not, are not always cooperative--big institutions, famous American institutions.

According to the National Park Service, remains from more than 108,000--let me say that number again--108,000 indigenous people and more than 600,000 artifacts are known to be still held by museums, universities, and Federal Agencies across the country. Think about that. Your ancestors' bones are in a museum somewhere. Not acceptable.

My wife Julie is on the board of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and actually serves on the repatriation committee. And the process can be tedious. But it is so important for the communities who have had artifacts removed from their communities--or remains, for goodness' sake--removed from their communities. It is so important for these communities to be able to heal. It is certainly not always easy to identify these objects, for the recipients to request them, and then to get these objects back to where they belong. And it takes work and determination and, literally, years, particularly for small villages like Kake, which don't have a museum or a trained curator. But Frank and Lincoln and others in the community had the will and determination to make this happen. So a big shout-out to them. That is why they are Alaskans of the week today.

They had a letter--and this is a university, by the way--George Fox University in Newberg, OR, a private Christian college that reached out to Kake--very cooperative, by the way--telling them they thought they had some items that might belong to the village.

By the way, that is a great example of a university--an institution-- doing the right thing: helping, taking the initiative. It is unclear exactly how the artifacts made their way a thousand miles to George Fox University in Oregon in the first place. There were Quaker missionaries in Alaska in 1891, and George Fox University was founded in 1891 by the Quakers. So Frank and Lincoln think there is probably a pretty good chance that there is some connection between the missionaries and the artifacts.

And the process, as I mentioned, has taken a long time, starting back in 2018, when Frank was the coordinator for NAGPRA and Lincoln was a council member. As a coordinator, Frank had done many indigenous artifact repatriations across the country, but when the community received the letter from George Fox University, they both got very excited because this was their home village. Some of them, they thought, might be artifacts from members of the Eagle and Raven clans in Kake. These are Tlinget, Haida clans in southeast Alaska.

Now, a little bit about both of these great Alaskans. Frank is an Army veteran. By the way, Alaska Natives--they are both Alaska Native leaders--serve at higher rates in the U.S. military than any other ethnic group in the country. Special patriotism, I refer to this as. And Frank is a great example of that. You go to Native communities, Native villages in Alaska, you ask to raise your hands for veterans, and pretty much every male in the village, in communities I have been to raise their hand. It is unbelievable, the patriotism and service of guys like Frank. He spent his career serving his country. When he got out of the Army, he worked as a substance abuse counselor, as an EMT, served on his village council, and continued serving by being the

commander of the veterans of Kake, his village, and making sure his Alaskan Native veterans got the care and benefits they have earned.

Lincoln also spent his career helping his fellow Alaskans in his community. He has been a tenacious advocate for self-determination and for healthcare for Alaska Natives, particularly Alaska Native veterans. He did an amazing job. And I saw him in action for many years as chair of the Alaskan Native Health Board, which is an extremely important organization for our whole State, where he did a great job leading that for healthcare for all Alaska Natives. So that is a little bit about Frank and Lincoln's background.

As I mentioned, in 2018, they get this letter. Wow. We have a great opportunity here to get artifacts from their village back home. They got involved, undertook the very tedious process of reaching out, writing grants. And by the time they were ready to go, COVID hit. So, of course, that set them back and everybody back. They had to wait.

Finally, the two, as we were coming out of COVID, reenergized their efforts. They took a plane from Kake to Juneau, Juneau to Seattle, Seattle to Portland, where they went to George Fox University.

By the way, as I mentioned, it was very, very gracious, very respectful. They actually held a ceremony at the university. The university wanted these items to be returned. They knew it was the right thing to do. It was an emotional experience for all.

So they started to bring back the objects, the artifacts. This is how Frank described it. When he was there, when the box of items that had been in storage at the university for about 100 years was put in front of him, he said:

It was like running into an air-conditioned room. And then

when they opened up the box [with the artifacts and objects

from our village, it was like] the sun hit them, it was like

spirits hitting me in the face.

``Can you feel the spirits?'' he asked other people gathered in the room.

Lincoln said that he could feel it, particularly when they opened the boxes of the rattles that belonged to his family--imagine that feeling--and his clan, the Eagle Clan, with the Killer Whale House. Lincoln said:

It was like looking directly back at my family's heritage.

He said he felt a certain wholeness when he saw the items. A piece of his culture and that of his community that had been missing for so long was now back. When they got back to Kake, a crowd was there to greet them. They sang greetings songs. They ate traditional food.

And then, as per the guidelines, Frank filled out the last paperwork--you always have paperwork when you are dealing with the Feds--and put his hand up and said: I am relieved of duty. I got it done.

Lincoln's next project is to build a Tribal house along with a wellness center where these and all the artifacts and art can live in a temperature-controlled room so the spirits he was talking about can be there--set free, back home to pass down the wisdom to the next generation.

As Lincoln said:

It's powerful looking back on people we know that were here

before us--as a family, as a tribe--and it's tangible, we can

touch it.

And now they are back home. Because of their efforts, Frank and Lincoln and the whole community in Kake can now experience this power. They can touch it.

So to my friends, Frank and Lincoln, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to Kake. Thank you for the great job you have done--the determination-- and congratulations once again on being our Alaskans of the Week.

Mr. President, yesterday, as some of my colleagues may know, the Federal Government issued the final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on what is called the Willow Project in Alaska. This is a very large oil and gas development in my State. It has been in permitting for about 20 years--20 years. That is a whole other topic. We don't need 20 years to do anything in terms of permitting.

But I want to first begin by thanking several of my Senate colleagues, particularly a number of my Democratic Senate colleagues who have been reaching out to the Biden administration and saying: Hey, you guys need to move this Willow Project forward, for reasons I am going to talk about.

By the way, I am going to talk about this a lot for the next 30 days here on the floor. It is so important to my State, my constituents, but to America. But I want to begin by thanking so many of my Senate colleagues--a big number of them. I am not sure they all want to be recognized. So I won't recognize any of those. Senator Manchin put a statement out on this yesterday. But a number of them--especially my Democratic colleague friends--reached out over the last several weeks of the Biden administration saying: Hey, it is time; it is time. This is good for Alaska, good for America, good for our environment.

So I want to talk a little bit about this. As I mentioned, I will be down here talking a lot about this because it is so darned important to Alaska and, I would argue, America.

This project, as I mentioned, has been under some kind of regulatory review since ConocoPhillips got the leases from the Federal Government during the Clinton administration, the late 1990s. Again, something that people always forget: This is a lease from the Federal Government to the private sector. They paid hundreds of millions of dollars for these leases. We are in a contract with the Feds saying we are going to explore and then develop.

It is also in what is called the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, NPRA. It is not a controversial area, unlike ANWR--we recognize that--or some of the offshore developments. This is the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska. This was set aside by Congress, this body, I think almost 70 years ago. It used to be called the Naval Petroleum Reserve of Alaska. For what? For developing identifying oil and gas, which our country needs--still needs. It is going to need it for decades to come.

So the review process has been going on for years. Every environmental review, this project advances with flying colors. I will get to that. The Trump administration finished the permitting with a record of decision in 2020. They approved five drilling pads. The Biden administration, after some court delays--and to be honest, after delays from the Biden administration--came back, finally, with a supplemental final EIS and said: We are going to go from five pads down to three.

All right. That is not what I would have preferred. But these are the career people. And they think that this can be developed with this new plan. We would agree. But that is a bare minimum. There were some indications yesterday that the administration is still looking at maybe less. We have 30 more days to review this. And they are looking at maybe less pads.

Well, we have all stated--the private sector companies stated: Hey, anything less than this, you are essentially killing it, because you can't make this an economically viable project.

So let me just give a little bit of a background on this because it is so important, and then I want to make a few points that relate to the voices that need to be heard as it relates to the Willow project.

We could start building this tomorrow. This is clearly a shovel-ready project. We only build, in Alaska, projects like this in the winter because we have such high environmental standards, the highest in the world. We build ice roads, ice paths so we don't disrupt the tundra, and we only, generally, build from January to April. The Conoco team is ready. Estimates are 2,500 jobs--2,500 jobs. Could we use that in America? Could we use that in Alaska? Darn right we could.

By the way, the estimate is 75 percent of those jobs will be union jobs, building trade jobs. That is why the laborers--pretty much every major union in the country--has viewed this as one of their top priorities, not just for Alaska, for America.

Revenues are about $17 billion for Federal, State, and local governments--$17 billion. America, Alaska, the North Slope Borough could all use that.

Racial equity, racial justice. I come down here and speak a lot about why resource development in Alaska is so important because it mostly happens in the rural communities in my State where people, primarily indigenous people, don't have the things that the

average American takes for granted, like running water, like flushed toilets, like gymnasiums, like health clinics, let alone hospitals. So Alaska Natives in Alaska, over the last 25 years, have had an explosion in life expectancy. It increased by almost 13 years, more than any other part of America by far. They are living longer. That is a big indicator of policy success. Are your constituents living longer? My constituents are living a lot longer. Why? Because of projects like this. You get jobs; you get revenues; and you start to get things that the average American thinks that every American citizen has. In a lot of our rural communities in Alaska, we don't.

When you want to talk about racial equity and racial justice, this should be No. 1--No. 1. I am going to get to it. The Native communities in my State are 100 percent behind this project.

For that reason, let me talk about another benefit, the environment. This will be the lowest greenhouse gas-emitting project of an energy project of this size, of any project like this in the world--in the world. If we need oil and gas, which the Biden administration's Energy Information Agency says we will need for decades to come and the International Energy Agency in Paris says we are going to need oil and gas for decades to come, wouldn't you want to produce it in the place with the highest environmental standards? The answer is yes. Wouldn't you want to produce it with those 2,500 American jobs--good jobs--that pay a real high wage? The answer is yes. Wouldn't you want to do it in a way that really promotes environmental justice and racial equity by helping indigenous people in their communities with jobs, with revenues, with services that most people take for granted? The answer is yes.

This project, at peak production, will be about 200,000 barrels a day. That is a lot of oil, but you are going to be able to do it without barely any new infrastructure--as I mentioned, five pads or three pads--and it is right next to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline that is two-thirds empty. You plug it in there, and it flows down to America.

You think we need energy? We need energy. One thing I have said to the Biden administration, which makes no sense at all, is why would the President go to Saudi Arabia on bended knee asking for more oil? Why would this administration go to Venezuela--Maduro, a terrorist--and lift sanctions on Venezuela, which has some of the most dirty, polluting energy projects anywhere in the world, so we can import more oil into America from Venezuela and from Saudi Arabia, when we can get it from Alaska with our workers, our high environmental standards-- highest in the world--our Native people? These are all the reasons why this makes sense.

These are the reasons why--again, thank you to my colleagues, so many of my Democratic colleagues. All my Republican colleagues are, of course, supportive, but they don't have the sway with the Biden administration. This is why everybody here--with the exception of a few, and I will just name one because I can't help but name him--are for this. In terms of energy security--and I know the Presiding Officer follows this--which countries fear American energy dominance more than anything? Read the intel. It is Putin in Russia. They are worried about projects like this. It is Xi Jinping in China. They are scared to death of American energy dominance. And it is the people in the Middle East. I was just there on a codel with six Republican and Democratic Senators--in the Middle East. The Presiding Officer was going to come with us. We really missed him. He couldn't make it. Our National Security Advisor was there. We had breakfast with him. He knows all about this project, by the way. The Biden administration's national security teams--Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor--they think this is a no-brainer.

Of course, we need more energy. Imagine what we can do if you are going into a meeting with the, say, Saudis or Emirates saying: By the way, we just approved a project that will be 200,000 barrels a day for America with the highest standards in the world. That is power. That is still power. We need all the above. I want all kinds of energy-- renewables, wind, solar--but we are still going to need oil and gas. If we do, let's get it from us, not our enemies.

This announcement came--like I said, three pads is not great, but we can work with it. BLM put out a pretty good statement. The Department of the Interior put out a statement. They didn't quote anybody, which was very strange. It was a headless Department of the Interior statement that kind of indicated maybe they are going to kill this project in 30 days. That is very troubling.

Our delegation has asked for a meeting with the President to finally pitch him on this. I pitched President Biden on this before. At the time, he was very supportive so it will be hard to walk it back.

Here is my issue. I just want to make a couple of final points. The media coverage on this--to our friends in the media, I am going to ask--look, I interview with the media all the time. I talk with anybody who has issues, but it was remarkable. Go read the articles yesterday on the Willow project. They quote every far-left radical environmental group in America, none of whom, by the way, live in Alaska. The list is very long. They are calling this a horrible project. It is the highest standards in the world, there is no doubt about it. They are just saying apoplectic things about this project.

So yesterday's press quoted all these voices who are all negative. By the way, they don't want to build anything. They don't want to have one additional energy project in America. They don't; ask them. You don't want energy from Alaska? You would rather get it from Venezuela, 18 times more polluting than an American project? When you ask them that question--trust me, I have asked that question a lot--they never have an answer. They don't know what to say. They just say: We hate all oil and gas.

Guess what. We need it. Let's do it here.

Here is my point. This is a list of just some groups that need to be heard. Next time my colleagues--my friends in the media write a story-- go ask all the unions. Laborers' International, the biggest construction union in America, LIUNA, led by a great American, Terry O'Sullivan, put another statement out. He has been writing letters once a month. This is one of our biggest projects for the laborers, the building trades, all the unions that build stuff--a giant coalition. Sean McGarvey, another great American is head of the building trades. They put out a huge statement. They have been putting out statements on Willow for years. Did any of our great media in America quote the unions yesterday? No. They quote the Center for Biological Diversity and all these other far lefties, but the men and women who build stuff weren't quoted at all. This is one of their biggest priorities in America right now, 100 percent.

The group that they really did not quote at all--and this is troubling to me--is all the Alaska Native leaders and Alaska Native Tribes and Alaska Native elected leaders in this part of Alaska. There are dozens of them. I was down here and gave a speech a few months ago with all the letters from all these different groups. You know what they do? They love to pick the one person in Alaska who is against them and quote that person.

My ask of the media is next time you write about Willow and the Biden administration, when you are looking for the people who really know how this matters to their State, quote some of these incredible groups--the ANCSA Regional organization, the city of Wainwright, the North Slope Borough, the Native village of Barrow, the Voice of the Arctic, which is a grouping of different Native groups on the Arctic. Here is what they said. Here are a few. This is from the Inupiat leaders of the Alaska's North Slope:

The Administration cannot proclaim to support meaningful

tribal consultation and environmental justice while at the

same time killing a critical resource that supports . . . the

Inupiat communities of the North Slope region.

The Native Alaskans want this. This is the Alaska Federation of Natives. That is the biggest Native group organization that represents all Natives in Alaska: Southeast, North Slope, Interior. They are huge supporters of this--every group.

My friends in the media, go ask them, quote them. Don't go to Greenpeace out of New York City or

San Francisco. Quote the Alaska Native people who live there.

I will make two final points. As you can tell, this is very important to me. You know we have a couple of Members of Congress--I forget this one guy's name from Arizona--Grijalva, I think. He was saying the Alaskan people don't want it; Alaska Natives don't want it. He said that yesterday. He has a new member on his committee, Mary Peltola, Congresswoman from Alaska, who is an Alaska Native. Maybe you should ask Mary what she thinks about this project instead of spouting off on an issue.

Unfortunately, I have one colleague here--I am not going to get into it. He knows who he is. He makes it his life's work to go after Alaska, including this one. I will give a speech later on the hypocrisy of that action.

I want to just quote the voice of the Arctic Inupiat, a group of Native leaders. Here, they sum up what happened yesterday, what the media kind of highlighted while, literally, canceling the voice of the people in Alaska. Here is what they say:

Outside activist groups opposing Willow have drowned out

local perspectives--

That is what happened in the press reports yesterday.

and are actively working to supersede the views of the Alaska

Native people. This is not environmental justice or any other

kind of justice.

When you put that back to a Biden administration official and say: You guys care about environmental justice, racial justice, racial equity that you talk about all the time, what about my constituents? Every time I have asked that question of a Biden administration official, they look at me blank: Hmm, I don't know how to answer that.

The indigenous people of my State want this project, undeniably. Our friends in the media won't write that story.

It is a direct attack on Alaska Native self-determination.

This is the voice of the Arctic Inupiat. Like I said, I am going to be coming down here talking about this because it is really important for my State and really important for America.

A final point, too. I frequently make the argument--some of my Democratic colleagues don't like it--you know, on these kinds of issues, the Democratic Party that used to be for the working men and working women of America, the people who build things, kind of migrated, kind of left the working men and women out. If the far-left environmental groups want something, they almost always go with them, not the working men and women of America.

This will be a test for the administration. You say you want to support the working men and women and the Indigenous people in my State? This is an easy answer--easy answer. Look at the supporters.

So I hope we can get there. Thirty days is going to be a battle, but I hope our friends in the media, when they are writing about this in the next few weeks, don't cancel the voices of Alaskans, don't cancel the voices of the Alaskan Native people, the Indigenous people. Hear from them. I know you have a bias against a project like this, but listen to the people I represent. They are great people, and they are very clear that they are supporting the Willow project, as am I, as is Senator Murkowski, as are, by the way, a lot of my colleagues in a bipartisan way. I thank them again. This is going to be really important. And it doesn't just matter to Alaska; it matters to America.

I yield the floor.