Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, last week, I gave a long, detailed speech on the topic that was at hand last week and is the topic, right now, that we are focusing on here in the U.S. Senate: voting rights and the majority leader's goal this week, as it was last week, to blow up the legislative filibuster.

I believe it would be the first time in U.S. history that a majority leader would actually seek to do this--to blow up the legislative filibuster--which, in and of itself, says a lot. This would, of course, change the Senate and change the country forever. There will be a lot of speeches on that. There will be many more speeches today, tomorrow, and Thursday on these important topics.

Now, the President of the United States weighed in on these two topics--the filibuster and voting rights--in Georgia, in a speech last week that is already going down as an infamous speech by a President of the United States. Let's just say it really didn't go very well, the President's speech.

I ask all Americans to take a look at it. It is quite disturbing for a whole host of reasons. The President's speech was almost universally panned, on the left even, on the right, and in the center. I have not seen one U.S. Senator come down on the floor, this week, to defend it. It will be interesting, as we debate these issues, if anyone does, but I doubt there will be, and there are many reasons for this.

As a speech by a President, it was remarkably divisive--in essence, calling every Senator, Democrat or Republican, who doesn't agree with him a racist and a traitor. Read the speech. It was historically absurd--invoking the sacrifices of the Civil War and heroes like Abraham Lincoln and villains like Jefferson Davis to present-day circumstances. It was profoundly un-Presidential, as Senator McConnell stated, rhetoric, completely unbecoming of a President of the United States, and in an attempt to get Senators, especially Democrat Senators, to vote the way in which President Biden wants them to vote, it appears to have been a monumental failure. Now, I wonder why. Well, of course, here is why.

Calling someone a racist and a traitor is not the normal, logical route to try to persuade one to come over to your side--neither is claiming that Republican Senators, Republican legislators, States, and Republican State voting laws are so-called Jim Crow 2.0, when your very own State's laws, in terms of voting, are some of the most restrictive in the country. This is a narrative, I hope, our friends in the media will keep an eye on during the debates this week.

What am I talking about?

Well, first and foremost, I am talking about Majority Leader Schumer and Joe Biden and their States, New York and Delaware, which have some of the most restrictive voting laws in America. Let me repeat that. Some of the most restrictive voting laws in America come from the majority leader's State and the President of the United States' State. Yet listen to their rhetoric. Listen to their rhetoric: Republicans and Republican States are ``Jim Crow 2.0.''

I was on the floor last week, talking in particular detail about my State's laws. We are all different States here, but I know my State's laws. I know them well as they relate to voting rights. Here is one thing I said last week: On some of the most critical issues, in terms of voting rights legislation--early in-person voting, automatic voter registration, and this chart here of no-excuse absentee voting--the Republican State of Alaska, the great State of Alaska, has voting laws that are significantly more expansive than the laws of New York, than the laws of Delaware, than the laws of Connecticut, than the laws of Massachusetts, than the laws of New Hampshire. It is a long list, a long list. You can see why Senators like me--my constituents, in particular--find it more than just a little bit annoying when you have these smug arguments of Republican States being Jim Crow 2.0.

Let me give you another particular one as it relates to New York, the majority leader's home State.

My State has no-excuse absentee voting. We have had that for many, many years--many years. Now, the State of New York just had a statewide referendum to have same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting to meet the high standards that we have in Alaska. The people of New York recently rejected that. I don't know why. I am not from New York. I am sure they had what they thought were good reasons to do that, but if the majority leader keeps coming down and calling the Republican States that restrict voting Jim Crow 2.0, is he going to go to Times Square and call his own constituents Jim Crow 2.0, relative to my great State--because they just rejected doing this, restricting voting rights--according to the logic of the majority leader and the President of the United States?

There is something really wrong here on these arguments and it is not just New York and it is not just my making these arguments about where other States are. Again, my argument here is

not to say: Well, everybody should be like Alaska. In the Constitution, the Founders gave the States the fundamental right and obligation and responsibility to design their States' laws in terms of voting. What is really difficult to swallow is that so many of the arguments we are going to hear this week and that we heard last week and that we heard from the President of the United States come from elected officials-- U.S. Senators and the President, who is a former Senator--who come from States that have some of the most least restrictive voting laws in the country.

Again, it is not just me making this argument. This is an article I submitted for the Record, last week, from The Atlantic magazine--not a Republican mouthpiece by any measure. I am going to read extensively from this article, which came out last year, because it really makes the point I am trying to make.

Biden has assailed Georgia's new voting law as an atrocity

akin to ``Jim Crow in the 21st century'' for the impact it

could have on Black citizens. But even once the GOP-passed

measure takes effect, Georgia citizens will have far more

opportunities to vote before Election Day than their

counterparts in the president's home state, where one in

three residents is Black or Latino. To Republicans, Biden's

criticism of the Georgia law smacks of hypocrisy. ``They have

a point,'' says Dwayne Bensing, a voting-rights advocate with

Delaware's ACLU affiliate. ``The state is playing catch-up--

The State of Delaware--

in a lot of ways.''

The article goes on:

Delaware isn't an anomaly among Democratic strongholds, and

its example presents the president's party with an

uncomfortable reminder: Although Democrats like to call out

Republicans for trying to suppress voting, the states they

control in the Northeast make casting a ballot more difficult

than anywhere else.

I am going to read that again. I am going to read that again because it is an issue that no one is talking about, and it really smacks of hypocrisy when I see some of my colleagues down here making these great arguments about Jim Crow 2.0 in Republican States.

Here it is again, from The Atlantic:

Delaware isn't an anomaly among Democrat strongholds--

Democratic State strongholds--

and its example presents the president's party with an

uncomfortable reminder. Although Democrats like to call out

Republicans for trying to suppress voting, the states they

control in the Northeast make casting a ballot more difficult

than anywhere else.

Then the article goes on to say:

Connecticut has no early voting at all--

Holy cow, my State has early voting. We have had it for years--

and New York's onerous rules force voters to change their

registration months in advance if they want to participate in

a party primary.

And, by the way, New York just rejected what Alaska has. Jim Crow 2.0 in New York? Who knows? Maybe, according to the President's logic.

The article goes on:

In Rhode Island, Democrats enacted a decade ago the kind of

photo-ID law that the [Democratic] party has labeled

``racist'' when drafted by Republicans.

Hmm, a little bit of hypocrisy there.

The article goes on:

[T]he State [Rhode Island] also requires voters to get the

signatures of not one but two witnesses when casting an

absentee ballot (only Alabama and North Carolina are

similarly strict).

The article goes on:

According to a new analysis released this week by the

nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research,

Delaware, Connecticut, and New York rank in the bottom third

of states in their access to early and mail-in balloting.

And, as I just said, New York just rejected it again. I really wonder if the majority leader is going to come down and call his citizens Jim Crow 2.0.

This is a very important issue, and here is the bottom line: Before any of my Democratic colleagues come to the floor this week with their insults, with their smug, offensive, inaccurate arguments about Jim Crow 2.0 racist traders, mimicking the President of the United States last week in Georgia, I want my colleagues to come and answer this simple question--a very simple question: Why should we listen to you? Why should any American take you seriously, when so many of you come from States with the most restrictive voting laws in America?

I wonder if any of my colleagues are going to come down to the floor, particularly those like the majority leader, who love to rant about Jim Crow 2.0 when their States are leading the charge in America on restrictive voting.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to commend my colleague from Wyoming Senator Barrasso, who has been a leader on so many of these issues, and Senator Cruz on his bill, this important piece of legislation that we are going to be voting on here in a couple hours.

This Nord Stream 2 sanctions bill is not just about the immediate crisis in Ukraine, but this would be a continuation of long-term bipartisan American strategy as it deals with Russia, energy security, and American security. So I want to provide a little broader context to that bipartisan strategy and put this debate and vote that we are having here today into that context.

The U.S. commitment to European security, as we all know, is ironclad. We fought two world wars and a cold war to protect our interests in a free and open Europe. We expanded NATO to secure those gains and to prevent Russia from ever building a new empire that could threaten us or our allies.

As we all know, Russian power is not just a function of military power; to the contrary, Vladimir Putin and the Russians for decades have been using energy in terms of power and energy as a weapon. As a matter of fact, it is their weapon of choice in many instances in Europe.

Let me provide a few recent examples.

If you look at this map, one pipeline that is actually not depicted is the so-called Brotherhood Pipeline from Russia into Ukraine, and it goes into Europe. The Russians have cut off supplies of natural gas on that and other pipelines going through Ukraine in 2006, in 2008, in 2014, and in 2015.

In Moldova, shortly after the defeat of a pro-Russian Government and the election of a pro-Western one, Russia did what they normally do. They cut off gas to that country.

And it is not just impacting countries like Ukraine. When these gas supplies were cut off by Russia--because Vladimir Putin was angry about something--it impacted over 18 EU countries with regard to those cutoffs. And it is happening even today.

Just yesterday, the head of the International Energy Agency in Paris said that Russia is already, right now, strategically limiting natural gas to Europe during this very cold winter to pressure European nations not to support Ukraine as the Russians amass tens of thousands of troops on their border as we speak.

For these reasons, it has been the longstanding bipartisan American policy to do two things as it relates to energy security: First, we have sought, dating back to the 1980s, to block implementation of major pipelines from Russia--from the then-Soviet Union into Europe. The Reagan administration did this with sanctions in 1982, and we have continued to work this element of our policy. The other element of American bipartisan policy, as it relates to European energy security, has been to help countries--former Soviet Union countries, particularly in the Caspian and Central Asia area--to provide their own energy outlets, in terms of natural gas and oil, to Europe through the southern corridor--the BTC Pipeline.

These are all areas that Democrats and Republicans have been involved with in terms of energy supplies to our European allies that don't go through Russia. Some of the diplomacy here on these pipelines started with the Clinton administration, which did a very good job on this. I had the opportunity, as an Assistant Secretary of State in charge of economic and energy issues in the Bush Administration, to lead efforts on these southern corridor pipelines, and they were successful. Right now, these pipelines are providing energy to our allies in Europe. They don't go through Russia. They start in countries like Azerbaijan, go through Georgia, go through Turkey. This has been very bipartisan, supported by the Senate, and the Russians hate this. They hate it.

Why? Because it doesn't give them any control over energy into Europe.

So, as I mentioned, today's vote is actually part of a long-term bipartisan American strategy for decades that we have been pursuing because we know the Russians use energy--particularly, natural gas, as a weapon.

So how have we been doing on this? Well, at the end of the Trump administration, we were in a very good position on European energy security in two key areas. First, as Senator Barrasso mentioned, we had strong--very strong--bipartisan support with regard to Nord Stream 2 sanctions, on its construction and operations. We had overwhelming Republican and Democrat support for the sanctions that we are going to be voting on today in the 2021 NDAA and in the 2020 NDAA--very big, very bipartisan.

Another reason we were set up very well, in terms of Eurasian energy security, is at the end of the Trump administration we had achieved a longstanding bipartisan goal of American national security, economic security, and energy security. What was that? Energy independence. We, once again, had become the world's energy superpower.

What do I mean by that--largest producer of oil, bigger than Saudi Arabia; largest producer of natural gas, bigger than Russia; one of the biggest producers of renewables in the world. This is a bipartisan goal.

With regard to European security, why was that so important? Because it answered a huge question that the Europeans often said: If we are going to block Nord Stream 2, Russian gas into Germany and other places in Europe, where are we going to get the gas? Well, we had an answer: You are going to get your gas in America.

Our exports in LNG, liquefied natural gas, surged to take care of this problem. This is a good thing.

In terms of the environment and climate, U.S. LNG exports to Europe have a 41-percent lower emissions profile than Russian gas and pipelines to Europe. So it is good for the environment, climate, national security, energy security.

And here is another area. This big production of American energy was something that the people who know Vladimir Putin best knew that it was one of the biggest things we could do.

A couple of years ago, I was in a meeting with my colleague whom we miss very much here, Senator McCain, and a Russian dissident--a very famous Russian dissident. And at the very end of the meeting, I asked: What more can we do to undermine the Putin regime?

Do you know what he said to me? He looked me in the eye, without hesitation, and said: Produce more American energy. That is the No. 1 thing that you can do to undermine the Putin regime.

And we did it. We did it.

So these are all things, in addition to strengthening our own military, in addition to giving the Ukrainians Javelin missile systems--all of these things were putting us in a good position. Putin seemed very much in a box and certainly wasn't threatening Ukraine with tens of thousands of troops on the

border. Where are we today on these key areas that I just mentioned?

Well, we are not in such good shape.

In terms of energy independence, this administration seems focused on actually destroying the production of American energy--oil and gas in particular. I guarantee you, the dictators in Moscow as well as in Beijing can hardly believe their luck. It seems like President Biden wants to undermine the very bipartisan goals we had for decades-- American energy independence and the United States as the world's energy superpower again.

Just think about what he is seeing: canceled pipelines, the Keystone Pipeline, Canada and United States, and the President is green-lighting Nord Stream 2; killing energy production in great States like mine. Just Monday, there were more obstacles to produce energy in Alaska, and now we are importing two times as much oil from Russia as we were a year ago. That is helping Putin, hurting the United States.

What about Nord Stream 2, where we looked so strong just in the past few years, with this body, in a strong bipartisan way, sanctioning that pipeline right there. President Biden has green-lighted it.

But we don't have to. That is the point of this vote today. Again, this vote is not just about the current crisis in Ukraine; it is about continuing a long-term bipartisan approach to Eurasian energy security that would make our European allies less vulnerable to Russian energy blackmail, which has not only gone back decades, it is literally happening right now. Just listen, as I mentioned, to the International Energy Agency's report yesterday on this topic.

To be honest, it is also about a more political question, this vote today. Many of my Democratic colleagues suddenly became very hawkish against Russia and Putin on these issues and other issues during the Trump years, and I welcomed their conversion to a more hard-line approach. But it always begged the question, was that more hawkish conversion a principled one because they realized being tough on Putin, in terms of energy and our military, was the best way to achieve American national interests or was this conversion more of a temporary one, depending on who occupied the White House? I hope it is not the latter, but today's vote will answer that for some of the Senators who are looking to change their recent votes.

But, clearly, some of my colleagues just a few years ago, who were voting to sanction and stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline and were sounding very tough on Vladimir Putin and Russia, are now in a bit of a quandary if they vote differently today. So, not surprisingly, they are making arguments to rationalize this new position, and I would like to review, briefly, just a few of those.

Senator Murphy has been down on the floor, the junior Senator from Connecticut, with a lot of these arguments. And I respect him, a thoughtful voice on foreign policy. I don't always agree with him, but he is a serious voice. But his arguments on this issue right now are not very persuasive or powerful. Here is the thing he is saying right now: This isn't about Russia. I am quoting Senator Murphy. This is about ``a Cruz-Trump agenda to break up the Atlantic alliance.'' A Cruz-Trump agenda to break up the Atlantic alliance.

Now, look, he is clearly trying to make a boogeyman here, the so- called Cruz-Trump agenda. But serious people who have been working on these issues for decades know that what we are doing today is a continuation of long-term bipartisan support for really important energy security policy for the United States and our European allies. This is continuing that longstanding approach.

You know, in his quote on the Cruz-Trump agenda, he said: This is actually about keeping the Atlantic relationship going to ``save Ukraine from an invasion.'' To save Ukraine from an invasion.

But where is the President of Ukraine on this issue? What does the President of Ukraine, who knows a little bit about power politics and Putin, think about what we are doing today? He supports sanctions. He supports sanctions on Nord Stream 2.

That is where Senator Murphy is starting to dig a little deeper on his weak arguments and trying to provide cover for his colleagues who are going to change their vote. He had to respond on where President Zelensky of Ukraine was. Here is what Senator Murphy said about that:

I'm a big supporter of President Zelenskyy. But often he

misreads American politics. And I think it would have been

better for him to have stayed out of this one.

Wow.

So, as to the leader of the country, right here, whom many of us think this is all about, who certainly knows what Russian energy power politics are about since he has been on the pointy end of that weapon many times, we now have a Senator saying: President Zelensky, sit down. Be quiet. Stay out of this one. We don't want to hear from you even though this is about ``saving'' your country--unless, of course, you support his position on Nord Stream 2.

So these are very weak arguments by the Senator from Connecticut.

The most legitimate argument I have heard some of my Democratic friends make on switching their vote on their previous Nord Stream 2 sanctions is that the Germans--a very important ally; we all agree on that--don't want us to apply Nord Stream 2 sanctions. OK. That is an argument we should all consider, and this is what I have heard Secretary Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan have been telling Senators this week as they lobby against this vote we are going to take, although, early in the year, it was reported in the press that both of them actually supported Nord Stream 2 sanctions.

Here is the thing on that argument. It is actually hard to tell what the Germans really want. In fact, what the Germans really want seems to be changing by the hour. There was a recent change in government in Germany, and the new Foreign Minister herself has said that the country should not grant Nord Stream 2 regulatory approval in order to resist ``Russian blackmail'' on energy prices. This is the current Foreign Minister of Germany.

It is also important to remember where the rest of the European Union is. There is broad opposition in Europe on Nord Stream 2. The European Parliament voted last year, on an overwhelming, cross-party basis--581 to 50--in favor of canceling the entire project in the wake of the arrest of Alexei Navalny, a Russian democracy leader whom Putin first tried to kill before locking away in prison. The European Parliament has voted at least four further times on other resolutions to call on the EU to halt this very project, which is what we are looking to vote on today.

Finally, outsourcing this very important foreign policy, national security, American issue to the Germans is simply not wise. The Germans have not always been so clean or levelheaded when it comes to Russian gas, Gazprom, and Nord Stream 2. What am I talking about? Well, of course, I am talking about the former Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schroder--one of the biggest betrayers of the West, certainly, in the last century. He left his chancellorship to become Putin's Gazprom lapdog. He is the main lobbyist who is pushing Russian gas all over Germany and Europe. He is an embarrassment to the Atlantic Alliance. He has been the chairman for many years of Gazprom. This is the former Chancellor of Germany. Of course, he has influenced Germans to say this is good. He has made millions doing it, by the way. He should be sanctioned with other Putin cronies.

At the end of the day, this shouldn't be outsourced to Germany. What we need to do is to take a vote on what is right for American national security, and a vote that sanctions this pipeline would be consistent with long-term, very bipartisan, American-Eurasian energy security policy.

Make no mistake, my colleagues: Nord Stream 2 is Putin's pipeline. Let's not make it his lifeline. I encourage all of my colleagues to do what they have done recently, in the last couple of years, which is to vote in an overwhelming, bipartisan manner to sanction the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to congratulate the North Dakota

Senators, my colleagues, on the great job with their football team.

``Go Bison!''

Well done, North Dakota.

Here is a little bit of what this article says:

[President Biden] has assailed Georgia's new voting laws as

an atrocity akin to ``Jim Crow in the 21st century. . . . But

even once the GOP-passed measure [in Georgia] takes effect,

Georgia citizens will still have far more opportunities to

vote before Election Day than their counterparts in the

president's home state.

That is The Atlantic--not known as a Republican magazine or anything.

The Atlantic article goes on to say:

Delaware isn't an anomaly among Democratic strongholds, and

its example presents the president's party with an

uncomfortable reminder: Although Democrats like to call out

Republicans for trying to suppress voting, the states [the

Democrats] control in the Northeast makes casting a ballot

more difficult than anywhere else.

Than anywhere else.

Here is the point I am making. I am not trying to say that every other State should be like Alaska, that we need to federalize elections so every State has the same voting rights issues. I am proud of where my State is, and I am certainly not going to let any smug argument on the other side somehow accuse my Republican State of Jim Crow 2.0. Meet the standards in my State before you make those arguments.

But the point is, we are not all going to be the same. I have a State that is one-fifth the size of the lower 48. We have very unique voting issues. And the Founding Fathers strongly believed that election laws, for that reason, should be crafted State by State.

This is in the Constitution:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for

Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each

State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any

time by Law make or alter such Regulations.

Yes, this Congress may make laws and regulations, but a wholesale Federal takeover of every State's elections law is not what the Constitution contemplated, and it is not what would be good for each citizen of each State in our country.

My invitation to the President and other Members who are fundamentally demanding that we fundamentally alter this body by getting rid of the filibuster: Save your smug Jim Crow 2.0 insults. Go back to your own States. Undertake voter rights legislation is as expansive as my State. Take care of your own States first before you come here and tell us that you need to fundamentally reorder this body and this

country by getting rid of the filibuster--an issue that almost everybody agreed on just a few years ago was not a good idea for the Senate or for America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to recognize a member of my staff, Erin Stuart, who left the office in July to attend law school at Marquette University. This is an exciting time in Erin's life and all of us with Team Sullivan want to thank her for her contributions to our office, the State of Alaska, and the U.S. Senate.

Erin is a born-and-raised Alaskan who grew up fishing with her family in our State's pristine waters. After graduating from South Anchorage High School, Erin attended the University of Portland where she explored her passions for government affairs and trade policy.

Erin's time on Capitol Hill began in the summer of 2018 when she was an intern for my colleague, Congressman Don Young. That following summer, Erin joined my DC office where she impressed all of us with her strong work ethic, eventually becoming a legislative correspondent for healthcare issues.

We work tirelessly in my office to ensure that the needs of Alaskans are best represented. I tell people who join my staff that it is not easy work. Erin was always eager to learn and to give the job her all, while also spending her evenings and weekends studying for the LSAT and filling out law school applications.

We wish her the best as she begins this new chapter in her life.

While Erin is currently not on my staff, she is will always be a member of Team Sullivan. Please join me in wishing Erin success in her future. She is missed.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes prior to the vote.

Mr. President, the next vote is going to be a motion to discharge from the Judiciary Committee Judge Holly Thomas for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. I am going to vote no because I have not had the opportunity to actually meet Judge Thomas.

In a remarkable undermining of senatorial tradition, the Biden administration White House is now saying that no Senator is allowed to meet a circuit court judge prior to the confirmation vote of that judge.

The Presiding Officer might be tilting his head at me like that seems crazy. Well, it is crazy. Every Ninth Circuit judge--a court of appeals that has enormous power over my State--who has been nominated by any President since I have been a U.S. Senator, I have met with to discuss issues. This is part of our advice-and-consent role. Yet this White House is now saying no Senator can meet with a circuit court judge, even for an hour, prior to the vote despite the fact that they are getting ready to have life tenure.

This is in line with this administration and with, unfortunately, some of my Democratic colleagues who are just smashing institutional norms in this body that have significant bipartisan support.

We saw the junior Senator from Massachusetts yesterday saying she wants to pack the Supreme Court. I am sure that is going to lead to a charge of other Democrat Senators. My colleagues are all very focused on getting rid of the filibuster despite the fact that more than half the Democratic conference, in April of 2017, wrote a letter to the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, saying: Don't get rid of the filibuster. Now only Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema seem to be the ones defending it. I would love it if the press asked questions of the other 26 of my Democratic colleagues who, just 4 years ago, said: Don't do this. But this norm that is being undermined right now--of Senators being able to meet with nominees to circuit courts--is a new low.

I raised this with senior Biden administration White House officials just last week, and they said they would look into it. They seemed a little confused. The White House Counsel for the President finally called me back after I had been trying to get ahold of her because I had heard it was her idea. Then I asked her ``Why are you doing this?''

By the way, the Trump administration didn't do this. To the contrary,

their White House Counsel actually tried to get Republican and Democrat Senators to meet with circuit court nominees to help maybe get bipartisan votes. So it wasn't the precedent of the previous administration.

The White House Counsel actually told me--she used this language: ``We are doing it to protect the judges''--``to protect the judges.'' From what--Senators doing their constitutional duty? What are they hiding? Are they really that unimpressive that they have to have their own nominees being protected from us here in the Senate?

So the bottom line is that all of this is patently absurd, and I think many of my Democratic colleagues actually agree with me. I have talked to a number of them, and I don't think this is a precedent that anyone who is a U.S. Senator should want, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican.

Remember, these judges are going to have enormous power over the people we represent, and they are going to have life tenure. It is not like voting for an Assistant Secretary who will be 2, 3, 4 years on the job. This is life tenure, and they can't take an hour out of their time prior to the vote to meet with Senators.

I asked these judges in a speech just last week: Hey, give me a call. You don't have to get permission from the White House. This is actually a first test of your judicial independence. Call me. I want to talk to you.

We didn't hear back from any judges, and the White House is still blocking it.

What is really surprising is that the current President is the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I wonder if he actually knows what is going on with his senior staff of his White House Counsel where, right now, no Member of the U.S. Senate who is trying to do his advice-and-consent constitutional role can even meet--can even meet-- with a circuit court judge. I am pretty sure most of my colleagues don't agree with this.

What I am hoping for is to get the White House to change its outlook on this, to follow the example of the Trump administration--I know that might be a hard swallow--and have these judges meet with us.

When I meet with them, I talk about Alaska legal issues, and if you are a judge who grew up in L.A. and you are an L.A. judge, you don't know anything about Alaska, but you will have an enormous impact on the people I represent.

So I think what you are going to see until we get some cooperation with the White House is that I hope most of my colleagues, Republican colleagues, whether they think these nominees are qualified or not, are going to vote no. They are going to vote no, and the reason is a core principle: We should be able to do advice and consent.

If there were a Republican President in the White House and if some of my Democratic colleagues said ``Hey, can you help me get a meeting with a circuit court nominee who is going to have big impacts on my State?'' I would certainly do it. Like I said, we didn't have to do it the last time because that was the Trump administration's standard operating procedure.

I hope we can get to an agreement on this, and I hope all Senators can agree with this. I am hopeful that you are going to see, at least with my colleagues, that there are going to be no ``yes'' votes on any of these nominees, and that is not good. These circuit court judges want a bipartisan confirmation. Well, they are not going to get it until we are able to do our constitutional duty of advice and consent for judges, life-tenured judges, who have enormous power over the people we represent.

I am hopeful that every Member of this body can work with us, work with me, work with the White House, maybe even call the President and say: Do you know what? This is probably a standard principle that you guys want to get rid of. Making sure U.S. Senators cannot meet with judges who are going to have lifetime tenure is smashing a bipartisan institutional norm. That is not going to serve this body well at all.

I yield the floor, and I encourage my colleagues to all vote no in the upcoming vote to discharge this nominee until we can actually talk to her and see what kind of judge she would be. This is a very, very reasonable position, so I strongly urge a ``no'' vote from all of my colleagues.

Mr. President, I ask my friend and colleague from Illinois, who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, if he could actually work with us--I have already reached out to him and some other Democrat Senators--on this very reasonable request. He has been here a lot longer than I have. But every time there is a Ninth Circuit judge who has been nominated, I have met with him because it is so important to my State. Alaska has 1 Ninth Circuit judge, and there are 29 judges on the court.

So I would ask, respectfully, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to work with me because this is a precedent that I don't think any Senator, Democrat or Republican, wants.

Literally, you are going to have the White House saying ``You know what? You are not on the Judiciary Committee, so your advice-and- consent role under article II, section 2, is null and void'' because the White House Counsel wants to ``protect the judges''? Protect them from what?

So I want to work with my colleagues--all of them--particularly the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, as he has a lot of influence, I am sure, with the White House and the White House Counsel's Office, but, again, I encourage my colleagues to vote no until we start getting meetings and are able to do our duty. This is going to benefit my colleagues on both sides of the aisle over the long term, and it will strengthen this body, not weaken it, which is what is happening right now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 20 minutes and Senator Menendez for up to 5 minutes before the scheduled rollcall votes.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I introduced a resolution with Senator Murkowski celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act--ANCSA, as we call it back home in Alaska--which was an enormously consequential piece of legislation that, after years and years of debate right in this body, passed the House, then passed the U.S. Senate, and then was signed into law by President Nixon on December 18, 1971, almost exactly 50 years ago to this day. It was a great day for Alaska.

I know Senator Murkowski was on the floor earlier talking about ANCSA and why it is so important and why in Alaska, right now, we have been celebrating 50 years of this important piece of legislation.

I want to go back in time a little bit to help explain, because part of what Senator Murkowski and I do here is we are constantly talking about and educating our colleagues about this very unique legislation, which happened right here in the U.S. Senate.

If you go back in time to 1867, that is when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia. Within the agreement, there was acknowledgement of the Alaska Native people and their lands, but, still, almost 100 years after the purchase from Russia, even following statehood for Alaska, the claims settlement that the Native people had to their own lands was still in limbo.

It got a kick and a turbo charge when oil was discovered on Alaska's North Slope during a worldwide shortage, which created new urgency to develop Alaska for our resources but to do so by settling these land claims.

There were allies in the Federal Government who were helpful, but it was truly the Alaska Native people and their determination to themselves and to future generations and their resiliency and brilliance which led to the passage of ANCSA 50 years ago, which became the largest and, certainly, most innovative indigenous land settlement, certainly, in U.S. history, and it is no exaggeration to say probably in the world--44 million acres of land going to the Native people of my State.

It brought tremendous educational, social, political, economic, and cultural achievements for the Alaska Native people. It certainly wasn't perfect, but this body played a very important role.

Now, there were obstacles, challenges. In fact, when you look back on the history over 50 years ago, it was kind of a classic David-and- Goliath story.

Let me spend a few minutes going back in time to set the stage for what was happening in Alaska.

In 1954, the U.S. Department of the Interior did a health survey on the Native people of Alaska. Here is a quote from that survey: ``The indigenous people of Native Alaska are the victims of sickness, crippling conditions and premature death to a degree exceeded in very few parts of the world. . . . health problems are nearly out of hand. If . . . Americans could see for themselves the large numbers of the tuberculosis, the cripple, the blind . . . the malnourished, the desperately ill among [this] relatively small [Native] population,'' it would have a profound impact on them. And it did.

Even in the face of these crippling conditions, the Alaska Native people joined hands, joined hearts and said: This is our land. We need rights to it.

They did this by coming together. In the mid-1960s, they formed the Alaska Federation of Natives--AFN, as we call it back home--an entity that is very important to our communities.

Of course, the Native people in our State looked for potential allies. In the lower 48, they gave speeches. They wrote columns. They formed their own newspaper, The Tundra Times, edited by legendary Howard Rock, which was highly read throughout the State, celebrated throughout the globe, and had an enormous impact on bringing people together.

A few years ago, my team and I combed through some of the hearings

that led to ANCSA. It was many years in development. There were field hearings that took place in Alaska in 1968, 1969--3 years before the passage of ANCSA.

Incredibly proud and determined first peoples from all over the State--Tlingit, Haida, Athabascan, Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut--travel to Anchorage, to Fairbanks to give their testimony in field hearings to U.S. Senators. Some of them had never even left their villages. Some of them didn't even speak English.

Many were veterans--and I am going to talk briefly about that. Dozens and dozens of young men and women, old men and women, all of them testifying before U.S. Senators and Congressmen, telling their stories of how they lived off the land and the rights that they needed for thousands of years on the land.

They told stories of strong and resilient people who had been able to thrive in some of the harshest conditions in the planet. But as I mentioned earlier, they also told stories of health challenges.

The first AFN president, Emil Notti, who is still a great leader in Alaska, then only 36 years old, spoke with passion at these hearings and heartbreak about the conditions in rural Alaska.

He said to a group of Senators in a hearing:

The indigenous people of Native Alaska are the victims of

sickness, crippling conditions and premature death to a

degree exceeded in very few parts of the world.

He told the committee then that life expectancy for the average Native Alaskan was 34 years old. This is in the late 1960s. The average life expectancy in the United States at that time was 69--34 years old to 69.

Many spoke of how much they had sacrificed for their country. And this is an issue I never tire of talking about. Alaska Natives serve at higher rates in the U.S. military than any other ethnic group in the country. So they are fighting for their country in World War II and Korea and Vietnam, and they are coming home and they are being denied fundamental rights themselves.

Here is what Jerome Trigg, a leader and a marine from Nome, had to tell U.S. Senators who were in Alaska. His testimony was said to have brought tears to the eyes of many. He looked at the U.S. Senators and said this: We have showed our patriotism as proudly as any Americans on Earth. We have answered the call of duty with pride in serving in our military. In World War II, we answered the call 100 percent. Every man--old and young--in every village volunteered with the Alaska National Guard.

On Vietnam, which was raging at the time, he said: I have never heard of an Alaska Native burning their draft card or our Nation's flag. We love our land, and we will sacrifice and fight to protect it.

He concluded with this thought, which I love: ``Sometimes I think the wrong people are running this hearing and taking our testimony,'' he said to the Senators. ``It seems that [maybe] we should be on the bench and you people should be . . . giving [us] the testimony.''

I love that--strong words from Marine Jerome Trigg, who had a very important point to make.

So many in our communities testified in front of Congress. One happened to be a beautiful, young Alaska Native woman in her thirties from the village of Rampart named Mary Jane Fate, who not only worked on this but came to Washington, DC, to lobby U.S. Senators to pass ANCSA. I had the very great privilege of being the son-in-law of that great Native woman who, unfortunately, passed away recently. That was my mother-in-law, Mary Jane Fate, who came to this body and made sure Senators understood what was happening in Alaska and got them to vote for ANCSA 50 years ago.

So here is what it did in a nutshell. As I mentioned, it was the largest indigenous land settlement in the history of the country: 44 million acres of land, almost a billion dollars from the State and Federal Government to transfer land in fee simple--not the reservation system like you have in the lower 48, which was a huge innovation at the time. They own this land. It is theirs. It is not held in trust by the United States like it is in the lower 48 on Indian reservations.

Congress mandated the creation of for-profit Alaska Native corporations solely owned by Alaska Native shareholders. Twelve of these regional corporations and 200 village ANCs were created by the Congress. Sometimes people talk about ANCs as if they were some foreign entity. They were actually created right here 50 years ago.

What did all of this do? It provided economic opportunity. These were not typical entities, but they were more than just corporations. They were kind of a combination: social, cultural, economic. They passed on the values to the different shareholders.

One of the great things about ANCSA was that it required, actually, the sharing of revenues. Some of these regional corporations did very well; others didn't. There were provisions early on that said, if these corporations are doing great and these aren't, there is going to be some sharing. It was called the 7(i) provision. These provisions have been critical to the survival of ANCs, which regional ANCs at times, as I mentioned, were receiving more revenue than others.

So that day 50 years ago--December 18, 1971--was really an important day for our State. How has it worked out? It has worked out well, but, of course, we always have more work to do.

Over the last 50 years, the Alaska Native people have managed their lands to foster sustainable businesses, created employment opportunities for all people--Native and non-Native--in Alaska, across the country, and across the globe. They have become the heart and soul of our economy in Alaska, employing thousands of both Alaska Native and non-Native people.

And they have prospered with their own initiative and with innovative approaches to fostering economic development through self- determination. And beyond the economic benefits, these ANCs, these groupings, these shareholders in these Alaska Native entities created right here on this floor, provided benefits in terms of culture, language revitalization, scholarships, burials, funeral assistance, and an enormous focus on education. Over 54,000 individual scholarships were given to younger Alaska Native people.

And, importantly, this law, passed by this body, gave the Native people the opportunity to thrive; to continue to live on their land, practice their culture, create leaders throughout the State. In what was once one of the most impoverished places in the country are now, in many areas, strong, dynamic--health, education, housing, food security, and sanitation have all improved immensely.

We have a long way to go. There is still a lot of misunderstanding. In Alaska, you have Tribes, Tribal members, you have ANCs, and shareholders. These are the Native people. You have crossover. And sometimes there is a misunderstanding.

For example, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act specifically excluded tens of thousands of Alaska Natives because they were members of an organization that Congress created. My own view was that was outrageous.

So that is why we need to keep educating our colleagues here. But overall, this was a story of success, of resilience, of what can happen when you allow people to take charge of their own destiny. It is a story of self-determination and, in many ways, heroism, and it is a story for the ages.

I am honored to represent these people, wonderful people--many of whom the leaders are still alive who made this happen 50 years ago--and their children and grandchildren. We have more work to do, but 50 years ago, on December 18, 1971, it was the start of a new, positive, innovative chapter in the history of Alaska. And that is why Senator Murkowski and I wanted to celebrate this very important milestone this afternoon.

Mr. President, it is Thursday. The Senate is still very busy here. We have a lot of work to do, as we are all trying to get home for the holidays. And I thought it was still the appropriate time to come down and talk about somebody who is making our State such a great State, somebody who is contributing to the community, somebody who I refer to as our Alaskan of the Week.

Now, we have been doing this for, gosh, going on almost 6 years, maybe 5 years. But it is always one of my favorite times of week, even when the speech is late. So I appreciate the majority leader and the Presiding Officer letting us stay open here for one more speech. And I know the pages--I mean, they love the Alaskan of the Week. So this is a little bit of a treat.

But I always start this speech with a little bit of an update on what is going on in Alaska. So right now, Utqiagvik, formerly known as Barrow--that is Point Barrow. That is the northern most community in North America. They haven't seen the sun in nearly a month. The sun went down, and it is not rising again until January 23. So they get a lot of darkness. There are 66 days of darkness. Great people up there. Wonderful people up there. I love it up there.

We have had some pretty significant cold spells already. That, for now, doesn't seem to be lifting. It was 40 below 0 in Fairbanks yesterday. In Anchorage, the high was 4 degrees above 0. Forty below is chilly. Tough people throughout the State. Four degrees above is pretty cold for Anchorage.

But everybody is excited because Christmas is right around the corner, and it is, of course, a great time to be in Alaska. We do have a place--I was just talking with the Presiding Officer and the majority leader. We have a great community in Interior Alaska called North Pole, AK. Santa actually lives there. We have a city council member in North Pole named Santa Claus, and a reindeer there.

And, of course, I am like everybody else here, looking forward to getting home, going to Midnight Mass, eating my special Alaska seafood Newburg, having friends over, and family, of course. And I think we all know we are very fortunate. I, certainly, believe I am a very blessed man.

And we are blessed in Alaska because of people like Shari Daugherty, who is our Alaskan of the Week. And so I want to talk a little bit about Shari because what she has done is literally the definition of the Christmas spirit.

For the last month, as she has done for the last 30 years, she has been working pretty much around the clock, volunteering her time for the nonprofit Share the Spirit. Share the Spirit--that is the nonprofit that Shari helped found in 1992--30 years.

Share the Spirit's mission is to make sure that hundreds of less fortunate families in Homer, AK, her hometown, get all of the ingredients for a proper Christmas dinner and presents for the kids.

Share the Spirit--it sounds pretty simple, but, as you can imagine, this is no easy task. And Shari would tell you that it involves so many others in Homer to make sure that the children in the community, who might not otherwise have anything under the tree, can experience the magic of Christmas that every child deserves.

So who is Shari, this great volunteer who has been doing incredible work in Homer? Originally from Chico, CA, Shari and her parents moved to Homer when she was in the 10th grade. Her father was a fisherman.

And for those of you who have been to Homer or want to come to Homer, I will tell you, it is one of the most stunningly beautiful places in all of America--really, in all of the world. It is known as the ``Halibut Fishing Capital of the World.'' But anyone who goes there falls in love with Homer. It is surrounded by the glistening waters of Kachemak Bay, jagged mountains, glaciers, snowcapped volcanoes, and a great tight-knit community.

After college at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Shari moved around a little. But in 1991, she came back home with her daughter. She did so because she had family there in Homer. And even if she didn't, as she put it, she had a whole town full of family in Homer.

Now, volunteering was in her blood. She said her mom stressed the importance of giving back to the community since she was a young girl. So she almost immediately joined the Emblem Club. That is the unofficial auxiliary of the Elks. And during one of their first meetings, it was announced that a Christian minister's group that every year provided food and presents for people in the community was actually going to disband.

A meeting was called. The talking lasted for a very long time--at such volunteer meetings, that can happen, of course--until Shari finally cut in and said: Hey, guys, we are really burning daylight here. Here is what needs to happen: We need to form a committee, form a plan, form a nonprofit, and get busy--get busy.

And as such things go, she and another woman, Norma Foust, were put in charge. And boy, did they make a difference. That year, with Christmas only weeks away, a nonprofit was formed and a fundraiser to organize with the help of a strong community. They put together 57 baskets of food: turkey, stuffing, potato, sugar, salt, eggs, celery, pie crusts, cards with recipes on them--all the fixings for a nice

Christmas dinner. And then there were the presents for more than 100 children. There were 220 gifts that first year, 30 years ago.

And the program has grown ever since. Hundreds of families each year are referred to Shari's program by social agencies, including food banks and anywhere people go for help. The information is passed on to Shari and the whole Share the Spirit team. Each family is identified by their needs: a family of three, say, with a 4-year-old girl who needs boots and would like a princess costume. They are then assigned a number that goes onto a Christmas decoration and put on one of the numerous trees posted by local businesses in Homer. Homer residents pick up a decoration and buy the presents. It is pretty well organized.

And Shari and the volunteers then get busy organizing a huge spaghetti feed to raise the funds, and then they go shopping for the food.

A few days before Christmas, the group stages the location, normally at the high school. The presents and the food baskets are then disbursed.

As I mentioned, Shari has done this for 30 years--30 years--and throughout the years, many stories and people stand out.

This is Alaska. So, of course, this was the year of the huge blizzard. Nobody could drive. So they enlisted a club of snow machine riders to deliver the presents and the food throughout the area.

There is the woman who now lives in Pennsylvania, who lived in Homer for a while, with a young child. That child, because of the group, was able to experience Christmas. And now, like clockwork, this woman sends a quarterly donation to Share the Spirit.

You see how the spirit is literally being shared all over the country: Alaska, Homer, Pennsylvania.

There are many people now adults, some with children of their own, who got help, who got presents because of Share the Spirit and are now regular volunteers. Shari knows of many people who got presents as children because of her group's efforts and decided to stay in Homer, have families of their own, and now help out at Share the Spirit. She said: They decided that this is where they were going to live. This is the town they are going to live in and to contribute to, because this is the place that took care of them when they were young and needed it.

Shari is retiring this year from both the program and from her job as a medical biller at South Peninsula Hospital. She will be leaving Share the Spirit in good hands, though: Kelly Glidden, who began volunteering as a sixth grader in 1993; John Adams, who started when he was 8 years old volunteering; and Emmy Olsem Drye, who has been involved in Share the Spirit since she was 3, and who is also Shari's daughter. They will take on the mantle of this great volunteer effort, focused on the Christmas spirit, that Shari started.

And there are those who have been there since the beginning: DeeDee Shoultz and Fran Van Sandt.

And then there is the great community of Homer--a community that takes care of its own.

So thank you, Shari, for all you have done throughout the years-- three decades to keep the Christmas spirit alive. Thank you for making our State a much better place, a more generous place, a caring place for all, and touching the lives of so many, and especially for making sure that children in Homer and across Alaska--and really across America--experience the joy and the magic of Christmas. Congratulations, Shari, on being our Alaskan of the Week, and Merry Christmas.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to come down to the Senate floor and commend a number of Senators, but I want to particularly commend the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Reed, and the ranking member, Senator Inhofe, and their staff, and all the staff on the Armed Services Committee for the exceptional work they have done over the last several months to produce the strong National Defense Authorization Act that just passed in a very strong bipartisan vote here on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

That vote was 88 to 11. I think it is a prime example of something that I mention a lot back home; and that is that there is a lot more bipartisan work that gets done here in the Senate that isn't often recognized, and there is nothing more important than having Senators from both sides of the aisle come together with regard to national defense and supporting our troops and their families.

We have been doing that over 60 years in a row, where we have passed the National Defense Authorization Act--one of the most important bills that comes to the floor of the Senate and the House and the Congress. And, once again, we have passed it. And I think Chairman Reed and Senator Inhofe--Ranking Member Inhofe--deserve a lot of the credit.

So I just want to touch on a couple of the key provisions here, a lot of what was in it, and then mention a few things. A lot of times it is important to recognize, actually, what is not in a bill because that can be just as important as what is in it.

But I would start with the No. 1 issue here, and it is the top-line budget increase for the Department of Defense.

I have been outspoken on the disappointment and damage that President Biden's budget, which he proposed, with regard to the Pentagon, supported, unfortunately, by many here--the majority leader, the budget chairman--that that was unacceptable--unacceptable. Why was it unacceptable? Because our Nation is facing many threats right now. Just read the paper every day--China, Russia, Iran. Yet that budget that was actually provided by the White House was a cut--a pretty dramatic cut-- if you look at it as adjusted for inflation.

The Armed Services Committees in the Senate and in the House thoroughly rejected the Biden budget to cut defense spending.

We have in this bill a 3-percent real increase. That is a little over $25 billion. This amendment, which I cosponsored with Senator Inhofe and others, to increase our defense spending, when it came to a vote in the committee, every Senator on the Armed Services Committee voted for it, with the exception of one. That is about as bipartisan as it gets.

There are many important things in this bill in terms of the significant increase to the top-line budget, but readiness, in my view, of our military is one of the most important things we do here as U.S. Senators, and now is certainly not the time to cut defense spending. I think today's vote was a strong bipartisan showing that this body does not agree with the Biden budget, and that was one really important aspect of today's NDAA.

Second, I want to talk a little bit about the great State of Alaska and its role in our military and some of the provisions in this bill that relate to Arctic security.

I like to say that Alaska constitutes three pillars of America's military might. We are the cornerstone of missile defense. Almost all the radar systems and all the ground-based missile interceptors protecting the whole country are located in Alaska.

We are the hub of air combat power for the Arctic and Asia Pacific. By the end of this year, we will have over 100 fifth-generation fighters--combat-coded, fifth-gen fighters. That is F-35s, F-22s, stationed in Alaska--over 100. There is no place on the planet Earth that has over 100 fifth-generation fighters. Supersonic stealth can get anywhere--anywhere--very quickly: Russia, China, Taiwan. That is another area of Alaska's pillars of military might.

And, finally, we are a platform for expeditionary forces, the 4-25, the only airborne brigade combat team in the entire Asia Pacific; the First Striker Brigade; and many others that can get to places all over the world, because of our strategic location, very quickly, and also because of our strategic airlift in Alaska.

But this NDAA is going to add another element of Alaska's military might to our Nation, and that is the center of gravity for America's Arctic security operations.

Last year in the NDAA, we were able to get the first and only and much needed Department of Defense Center for Arctic Security. The Department of Defense named it the Ted Stevens, after the great, late Senator. The Center for Arctic Security is going to be in Anchorage,

Madam President, this week, the Senate is going to take up three Ninth Circuit judges, three Federal judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

And in the process, the Biden administration is going to smash an institutional and constitutional norm between the executive and legislative branches, particularly the executive branch, the White House, and the U.S. Senate that every U.S. Senator--all 100 of us-- should be concerned about.

Let me explain. This is a really important issue.

Article II, section 2, of the U.S. Constitution says the following:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice

and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two

thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate,

and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall

appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls,

Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the

United States.

Now, that includes Federal circuit court judges,

Throughout this, article II, section 2, provision of the Constitution, it says: ``[W]ith the Advice and Consent of the Senate.'' We are ``of the Senate,'' right here. And this week, we will be voting on three U.S. court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Now, this provision in the Constitution, like so many which gives the U.S. Senate the exclusive right for the advice and consent power, was the result of compromise.

If you look at the history in Federalist Nos. 75 and 76, Alexander Hamilton argued that this provision afforded a necessary means of checks and balances against the executive branch, against the President.

The Constitution--according to the U.S. Senate history that I am quoting from--``also provides that the Senate shall have the power to accept or reject

presidential appointees to the executive and judicial branches.''

This was born of compromise, as I mentioned:

In debating the issue, the framers addressed concerns that

entrusting the appointment power exclusively to the president

would encourage monarchial tendencies. Additionally, as the

Senate was to represent each state equally, its role--

The advice and consent role in the Constitution--

--offered security to the small states, whose delegates

feared they would be overwhelmed by appointees sympathetic to

larger states.

For these reasons, since I have been in the U.S. Senate, I have taken this advice and consent role very seriously for all nominees: during the Obama administration, when I was here for the last 2 years of that administration; all of the Trump administration; and now the Biden administration.

And as you can imagine, whenever I have asked for a meeting of any nominee so I could meet with them under this constitutional provision for a Senate-confirmed position, every single administration I have dealt with--the three I just named--has said: Of course, Senator. That is your constitutional role. Of course you should meet with them.

Why is that? Why has every White House said yes?

Because, as I just mentioned, they know that that is literally our constitutional role, as I just mentioned.

So every time I have asked for one of these meetings for a Senate- confirmed nominee of any administration, it has always been granted, until today--until today.

As I said, the Senate's business--a lot of the business this week is actually going to be focused on the advice and consent constitutional role that we have, especially as it relates to judges.

But I have been told by this White House, specifically the White House Counsel, I guess--to be honest, it is often difficult to figure out who is in charge over there--that I can't meet with any of these Ninth Circuit judges that we are going to vote on this week before the vote.

This is a shocking breach of constitutional norms between the White House and the Senate that every Senator here--every Senator, regardless of party--should be concerned about.

Why?

As I mentioned, the advice and consent role is really important for every Senate-confirmed position, mandated by the U.S. Constitution, but it is particularly important for judges--judges who will get life tenure. By the end of this week, it is likely that these three Ninth Circuit judges will be on the bench for the rest of their lives, and right now I can't get a 1-hour meeting with them.

They have enormous power over American citizens. And I am going to talk about the Ninth Circuit and the power it has over my citizens.

So my experience as a Senator is that I meet with as many judges as possible, and whenever I have requested a meeting of any administration to meet with a judge, it has always been granted. But I always, always, always meet with the Ninth Circuit judges.

As I mentioned, until now, I had interviewed every single Ninth Circuit judge that this body has voted on for the last 7 years--every single one--during my entire time in the Senate.

Why is it so important to me?

Why is it so important to everybody?

Well, specifically, as it relates to the Ninth Circuit, if you can look at this map, as many Americans know, our Federal court systems are divided into what are called circuits. The Ninth Circuit, which is this dark brown, is the biggest Federal court of appeals in the country. It is huge. Look at all the States that are under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit: California, Idaho, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii. It is enormous. Almost one in five Americans are under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit. It has enormous power, especially over my constituents in the great State of Alaska.

But here is the thing. If you look at the number of judges that each Circuit Court gets, another reason why the Ninth Circuit is so important and so powerful is that it gets an enormous number of judges. The Ninth Circuit is listed here on the far left. Out of 29 active judges, one judge comes from the great State of Alaska. One judge comes from the great State of Alaska. So, as you can imagine, discussing legal issues with any judge from the Ninth Circuit is very important to me and, more importantly, to the people I represent.

Here is something else about the Ninth Circuit. On so many issues that matter to my constituents, the court gets the legal issues wrong. The court gets the legal issues wrong.

Now, I have seen this firsthand. Almost 25 years ago, I had the honor of being a Ninth Circuit law clerk for the only Ninth Circuit judge we have in Alaska, Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, a phenomenal judge. I watched panel after panel in the Ninth Circuit get cases related to the great State of Alaska wrong.

Now, look. In some ways it is not their fault. Yes, they had different views and a legal outlook. But if you are a judge and you grew up in LA and all you know is LA and California laws, and now you are a Ninth Circuit judge and you are supposed to rule on all these Alaska-specific Federal laws, you really don't know what you are doing. You don't really know what you are doing, and I saw that as a young lawyer.

But don't take my word for it.

In the last 4 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up three specific Alaska cases, two of which were from the Ninth Circuit and one of which was from the DC Circuit. These big, important circuits all got them wrong. They are cases that would have changed the history and future of my State.

So when I meet with nominees for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, it is usually always very cordial. I walk them through a lot of issues, legal issues of which they know very little about-- again, not their fault--and to explain why these are so important to the people I represent.

Again, if you are an LA lawyer or a lawyer from Phoenix, you don't know about Native Alaskan law. You don't know about the Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act, called ANILCA--a Federal law, 1,000 pages--that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the last 3 years, twice smacked down the Ninth Circuit, 9 to 0--9 to 0--because the Ninth Circuit continually gets these Alaska-focused statutes wrong.

So I walk them through these issues. That is all I do. It is not a big deal. It is actually trying to help the judges. I think every Ninth Circuit judge I have met with appreciates it.

Let me give you a couple of examples of what I would do if I could meet with these judges.

Like I said, ANILCA, or the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, is a hugely important Federal law that was passed in 1980. We didn't want it, by the way. It federalized almost 100 million acres of land in Alaska. Imagine that. Most States aren't even as big as 100 million acres.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0 in favor of a moose hunter who wanted access to Federal land. His name is John Sturgeon. He is a very famous Alaskan right now.

It went back to the Ninth Circuit. They misinterpreted it. It went back up to the U.S. Supreme Court--9-zip--they smacked it down again.

Justice Kagan, who wrote the second opinion, said: ``If [John] Sturgeon lived in any other State, his [law]suit would not have [had] a prayer of success. . . . Except that Sturgeon lives in Alaska. And as we [the U.S. Supreme Court] have said before, `Alaska is often the exception, not the rule,' '' when it comes to these kind of Federal laws in Federal parks.

Do you think it would be good to have a Ninth Circuit judge getting ready to get on the court to understand the Sturgeon case? It would be. So that is what I do. I have the judges read Sturgeon. I have them read other cases. It is all advice and consent. It is our constitutional role. Until today, I have done it with every Ninth Circuit judge.

Like I said, I was over at the White House on Friday, really kind of banging the table on the Biden administration's war on Alaska. Some of you may have seen a speech I gave last week. There are 20 Executive orders and Executive actions singularly focused on my great State--20-- crushing working families.

And I said: You know, one thing I would like to do is continue my record of meeting with every Ninth Circuit

judge. I am available Sunday, Sunday night, all day Monday. Give me a call. I haven't heard anything back.

Something else I do with these judges when they come before me is I talk about Indian law. Now a lot of lawyers think, ``Hey, I really know Indian law well.'' And my advice and counsel in the advice-and-consent process, when it comes to Indian law in Alaska, is ``If you think you are an expert, throw out everything you know about lower 48 Indian law when it comes to Alaskan Indian law.

The Native Alaskan law, in Alaska--the Federal law--is 100 percent different than it is in the lower 48. This is just advice I give judges who are going on the Ninth Circuit. They don't know this. An LA lawyer doesn't know this.

This week, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Congress's passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, what we call in Alaska ANCSA, the largest settlement of indigenous land claims, certainly, in America, and probably in the world. It is a really successful act, not perfect, very innovative. But it has been litigated like crazy.

We had a case from the Ninth Circuit several years ago that essentially said: ANCSA created reservation land throughout the entire State of Alaska.

That would have changed the history of Alaska forever. Of course, the Ninth Circuit got it wrong. That case went up to the Supreme Court. Nine-zip, the Supreme Court smacked down the Ninth Circuit. They said: ANCSA doesn't do that. That is not what Congress intended.

Do you think it would be good for these judges this week, if I could sit down with them, to understand that? It would be really good, really important. It would help them for their job.

Just this year, the DC Circuit on another ANCSA-related case, the Chehalis case, got ANCSA wrong again. And guess what. It went up to the U.S. Supreme Court again. They just ruled on it 4 months ago. It was a huge victory for my State, again.

We wrote an amicus brief--Senator Murkowski, Congressman Young, and I. But it was enormously important. This wrong case of the DC Circuit would have changed the history of Alaska forever. The Supreme Court, 6 to 3, said: No, you are misinterpreting Alaska.

Do you think these judges on the Ninth Circuit who we are debating to confirm this week would learn a little bit about that if I could meet with them? They would.

Finally, the other thing I always do with circuit judges is I talk about the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is really, really important to the people I represent. We use firearms for food, for self-defense in the wild. Well over 60 percent of all the homes in my State have firearms for these reasons.

If you are an LA lawyer, you don't know this stuff. But, all of a sudden, you are going to be ruling on cases that deal with Alaska or Idaho or Montana. And here is the thing: They might not know these issues, these judges. I have looked at their background. I wanted to interview them. Remarkably, I can't get an interview with them.

And here is the thing: As soon as they get confirmed, they are going to get these cases before them, in my State and other States, to rule on these kinds of issues.

Do you think a meeting would help them?

``Boy, I should really think about that. I remember Senator Sullivan talked about ANILCA and the Sturgeon case. I am really glad I read the Sturgeon case.''

This is why these advice-and-consent constitutional meetings are so important.

And, as I mentioned, I have been doing this my entire time in the Senate. I have never not had a meeting with a Ninth Circuit judge. It doesn't matter where they are from--Montana, Arizona, Washington State. They are going to rule on issues that relate to my State and my constituents.

And these judges don't mind it. They actually, I think, enjoy it. They learn. But this White House says: You can't meet with them.

This is absurd.

Here is the question: What are they hiding?

What are they worried about?

Are they hiding something? Are the judges hiding something?

Again, this is a precedent that Democrats and Republicans should all be against, because we know what goes around comes around in this body. And this just doesn't make sense.

All three of these Ninth Circuit judges will have life tenure and enormous, enormous power over everybody in the Ninth Circuit. That is 20 percent of all Americans, and, certainly, enormous power over the people in Alaska, whom I am privileged to serve and represent.

These judges are likely to know very little about these issues that I just talked about. Well, I believe I have a constitutional role to help them understand these issues better, and that is the way it has always been. Nobody has complained.

Absurdly, the White House has said: Well, Senator Sullivan, you can meet with a Ninth Circuit judge if they are from Alaska.

What? We have one judge, and she is not going to be retiring any time soon. That is it.

Now, here is the thing. I just talked to the previous administration's White House counsel this morning, when I called the Biden administration's counsel this morning. I am still waiting for that phone call, by the way, because I said: Look, if the White House Counsel is saying no to a U.S. Senator to do his constitutional duty, I would like to hear it directly from her.

So she hasn't called me back yet. But I talked to the previous administration's White House Counsel, and I asked: By the way, did you guys do this? I am just double-checking. I mean, I got to meet with all the Ninth Circuit judges President Trump put forward. But did you blackball Democrats? Did you do that?

And they said: Absolutely not.

I made a few phone calls to other people in the White House Counsel's office. They said: To the contrary, when any Senator wanted to meet with any circuit judge, we always made it happen.

So this is a new precedent. And, again, it doesn't matter if you are a Republican or a Democrat. This is just a bad precedent.

And the notion that ``Well, Senator, you get to meet with a Ninth Circuit judge from Alaska,'' when, by the way, California, I think, has close to 20 Ninth Circuit judges--but the notion that you can only meet with the one who is from your State is actually moronic. The people who need to be educated are the ones who aren't from your State, because they are all going to rule on issues from your State.

So I am still waiting for the White House Counsel to call me back--or whoever is in charge in the White House.

But I am going to conclude with this. I am going to go around them. I am going to go around them. Here is what I am going to do, and I hope someone is watching from the White House. But, more importantly, I hope someone is watching from the judge's chambers.

So, Judge Koh, we are getting ready to vote on your nomination tonight.

Judge Sung of Oregon, we are getting ready to vote on your nomination tomorrow.

Judge Sanchez of California, the rumor is, the majority leader is going to file cloture on your nomination.

Those are three Ninth Circuit judges.

Judge Holly Thomas of California, you might get voted on this week too.

Four.

Here is my ask: Give me a call. Give me a call. Give my office a call. I will meet with you tonight. Let's do a phone call. Do you want to learn about ANILCA? Do you want to learn about the Sturgeon case? It will make you a better Ninth Circuit judge. Here is the number: (202) 224-1026. Give my office a call. I am ready to meet anytime.

Here is the thing for the judges: It is 1 hour of your time. You are going to have lifetime tenure. It is 1 hour to talk to a U.S. Senator who is doing his constitutional duty for the people he represents. It shouldn't be that hard. As a matter of fact, this is probably your first test of judicial independence. A U.S. Senator of the Senate--of the Senate; read the Constitution--wants to undertake his advice and consent, his constitutional role, with you, OK?

You guys have read the Constitution, those four judges I just mentioned, but an unelected bureaucrat in the White

House--I guess the White House Counsel, but who the heck knows; it is hard to tell who is in charge over there--is blocking this.

So, again, give my office a call at (202) 224-1026. I am ready to meet and talk to you anytime before the vote. Don't worry--I don't think President Biden is going to yank your nomination if you call me. Heck, he probably doesn't even know this is going on. But you know this is the right thing to do, Judges. You have read the Constitution. Heck, if our meeting goes well, I might even vote for you.

But here is the thing: You will learn more about the issues that you are going to have to deal with very soon in your tenure that you probably don't know anything about--no offense to you. I have read your backgrounds. You don't know anything about Native Alaskan law. You don't know anything about ANILCA. You probably have very different views than I and my constituents do on the Second Amendment. But you need to hear these issues because you are going to be life-tenured on the Ninth Circuit, and you don't have time to talk to me, a U.S. Senator, who is a Senator representing a State from the Ninth Circuit? You know it is wrong.

By the way, my colleagues in the Senate know it is wrong. So I hope my Democratic and Republican colleagues realize that this is not a good precedent. This is not a good precedent. It has never happened as long as I have been here.

You know, from big things to small things, this administration has really focused in many ways on smashing political and institutional norms that have enjoyed strong bipartisan support. It is not good for this body, and it is not good for the government.

The Wall Street Journal, today, had an article about Biden's Federal regulators staging a coup against the Director of the FDIC on bank mergers. One of these regulators doesn't even have the power over bank mergers, and now he is trying to be in charge.

I serve on the U.S. Naval Academy's Board of Visitors. It is a huge honor. The President comes in, President Biden, and fires everybody on the service academies who was appointed by President Trump. Nobody has ever done that before--no President. Everybody on the Board of Visitors of the Naval Academy is furious--the Democrats, the Republicans. The No. 1 thing they are saying is, this President is the first one to politicize the service academies. Then, oh, by the way, he hasn't appointed anyone yet to replace the people he fired, so we didn't have a quorum for our meeting last week.

He is just smashing institutional norms. Yet this institutional norm of advice and consent, when it comes to circuit court judges with life tenure, is something that we have all agreed upon. The previous administration certainly allowed for it. Yet, right now, I can't meet with Ninth Circuit judges who are going to have enormous power for their entire lives over my constituents.

So, to my colleagues, we shouldn't allow this. You guys know it is wrong.

To the judges--like I said, Judge Sanchez, Judge Koh, Judge Sung, Judge Thomas--give my office a call. Do the right thing. Your first test of judicial independence is before you of the Senate. The U.S. Senate--of the Senate, of which I am a part--wants to do our constitutional role. Give us a call so we can do it. Ignore the very bad advice you are getting from the White House Counsel or whoever is in charge over there.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I work very closely with my colleague from Rhode Island on many, many issues, and there is a pretty simple solution for my objection here, and it is related to judges, and it is related to the Senate working with the White House to get judges confirmed.

I gave a speech on the Senate floor just about an hour ago, talking about a remarkable breach of Senate protocol, where the White House won't let certain Senators from the Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit States to meet with the nominees for the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

That is an outrage. In my entire time in the U.S. Senate, every time I have requested to meet with a judge who is going for confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, I have had the opportunity to meet with that judge, and it is really important.

I am not going to repeat the argument I made just an hour ago, but there is a simple solution here: We get to meet with the nominees whom we are debating on the Senate floor this week, and I certainly will lift the objection that I am about to make on these two nominees for the Court of Federal Claims.

But I do want to just push back on my good friend from Rhode Island a little bit. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle forced votes on the Court of Federal Claims nominees during the Trump administration, including Judge Solomon, who literally wrote the book on the Court of Federal Claims.

So here is the thing. What often happens in the Senate is that what goes around comes around. But what happened today, when I was requesting what I have always been requesting--what my constituents in Alaska expect me to do is to interview, meet, discuss issues with the judge who is going to get life tenure, who is going to have enormous power over my constituents--Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges.

I don't know anybody who has heard this--that the White House Counsel says: No, you are a Senator doing advice and consent, a constitutional duty, and we are forbidding you to meet with a judge going through the confirmation process who is going to have enormous power over your constituents. That is unheard of since I have been here. And, by the way, I talked to the Trump administration's White House Counsel, and they said they never did that.

But here is the point. This could be easily solved. I am sure Mr. Bonilla and Ms. Lerner are qualified. All I need is a call from the White House Counsel's office saying: You know what, Senator, you can meet with the nominees for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. We are going to let you do your constitutional duty.

Well, thank you--pretty simple.

And I think working closely with my colleague from Rhode Island, as I have done throughout my career--and he is on the Judiciary Committee. So maybe he can help convince the White House to take a bit of a different stand when a Senator wants to meet with a judge who is going to have enormous power over his constituents and have lifetime tenure. And they can't take an hour out of their time? Heck, in my speech just an hour ago, I put out my office's phone number and said to these judges: Look, you don't have to have permission from the White House Counsel. Just call me. Let's have a discussion.

I am trying to do my constitutional duty here.

So with that, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

I have a simpler solution here, and I have already mentioned it.

The White House has denied my ability to meet with one Ninth Circuit judge who just got confirmed. Let me meet with the next two, and then we will UC these. We will UC these nominees whom Senator Whitehouse has been trying to move forward tonight.

I also want to mention to my colleague from Rhode Island that I am certainly more than amenable to working with him on a principle that, I think, all Senators should agree on--all of us--to strengthen this institution, whether you are a Democrat, a Republican. That is this simple idea, which I thought existed here because I have certainly been able to do it: If a judge is up for confirmation, a circuit judge, and if you are a Senator representing one of the States in the circuit and that judge is going to have enormous power over your constituents for life, we should, as a general rule, as a general principle, say always: Of course, you get to meet with that judge. Of course, you can do your constitutional advice and consent duty.

I would be for it for any Democrat who wants it if there is a Republican. Again, I talked to some folks from the Trump administration today. They said that they always offered that. So maybe there is a misunderstanding. I don't want to say that my Senate colleague from Rhode Island is not right or those guys. I don't know. That is what they mentioned to me.

I just think, as a principle, every Senator here should agree with it. Why wouldn't you want to do that?

Like I said, until today, I have met with every single Ninth Circuit judge whom we voted on in my entire career here. Now, it has been a relatively short career, but this is really important to the people I represent because that court is really important to the people I represent. The Ninth Circuit so frequently gets the law wrong as it relates to Alaska, and it negatively impacts my constituents. This is important.

So I object to this date certain request, but as I mentioned, if I can meet with these--two more--Ninth Circuit judges, Senator Whitehouse can come down here and UC these two Court of Federal Claims judges, and I think he can move it. It is a real simple ask.

And the fact that the White House Counsel hasn't even called me back--a U.S. Senator trying to do his constitutional duty, advice and consent of the Senate? The Senator from Rhode Island and I are of the Senate.

So why don't we work on this principle that, if there is a nominee, a circuit judge nominee, and if a Senator from a State in that circuit wants to meet with that nominee--to do his constitutional duty--that we should all agree to do that no matter who is in the White House. I would agree to that principle in a heartbeat.

Madam President, today, I wanted to rise on the Senate floor and talk about a topic of utmost importance to my State, the great people I have the privilege of representing, and what the Biden administration is doing to good, hard-working American families in Alaska. It is what I call the anti-Alaska agenda, or the Biden administration's war on working families.

I know that Americans all across the country have felt pain--economic pain, health pain, unfortunately, too many deaths as a result of the pandemic. Right now, we are seeing high energy prices and empty shelves. There has been a lot of suffering in America. We are a resilient people, however.

My State, like many, has been hit very hard by the pandemic, particularly economically--our energy sector, our fishing sector, our tourism sector. And as we are coming out of this pandemic and everybody trying to work together--we all want growth and opportunity in America--we have now been hit with this--with this. This administration has issued, in its first 9 months in office, 20 Executive orders for Executive actions solely focused on Alaska.

I came down to the floor 2 weeks ago to talk about this. It was 19 then. You wait a week or 2 with the Biden administration in Alaska, and it is up to 20. I am sure they have a lot more ready to go. Twenty-- there is no State in America that is getting this kind of attention from the Biden administration, and we don't want it.

What I am going to be continuing to ask my Senate colleagues to do-- and I am going to start with the President of the United States, who was a U.S. Senator for many years, decades--put yourself in the shoes of the people I represent.

Let's imagine that a Republican administration comes into office and issues 20 Executive orders or Executive actions focused on Delaware-- tiny, little Delaware. The Senators from Delaware, including the former Senator, now-President, would be down on the floor of the U.S. Senate raising Cain, raising heck--I don't think I am allowed to swear here-- because of this, because they want to stick up for the people they represent. Imagine that.

These Executive orders and actions are not some kind of simple abstractions; they are 20 orders and actions that go to the heart of what Alaskans do in terms of our economy: work, keeping food on the table, keeping lights on in their homes, paying the mortgage, keeping their kids in college, keeping their cultures thriving, keeping our communities from crumbling, particularly in rural Alaska. Some of the poorest communities in America is where this administration is targeting the people I represent.

Very few people in my State--Democrat, Republican, Native, non- Native--support this war against Alaska. This is not a partisan issue back home, and here is why: because real people, real families, real communities are being hurt--your fellow Americans. It has got to stop.

I have demanded a meeting with the President and his team to just walk him through this.

Mr. President, do you know what you are doing to one of your States that you are sworn to defend?

These orders threaten the well-being of my entire State, but they particularly threaten the people who live in rural Alaska, who are dependent on the land and natural resources for so much of their economy, so much of their tax base.

Here is the thing, I know what some of my colleagues or those who are watching are saying: Oh, it is just resource development issues in Alaska.

Well, I will talk about that. It is some of that, but it is not just resource development issues that are happening here. Let me give you one that really burns me up.

We had a bipartisan bill last year, last Congress, to provide what you will now call racial justice, racial equity, to Alaskan Native Vietnam veterans who served their country when most Americans were avoiding service and missed out, because they were overseas fighting for their Nation, on the opportunity to apply for what is called a land allotment. There was a deadline that happened, a complete injustice.

Native Vietnam veterans coming home, not treated well because they are Native, not treated well because they are Vietnam veterans, and then told: Oh, by the way, the land you were supposed to get, you don't qualify.

So we got a bill to pass to say that is an injustice. The previous administration signed it. They were implementing it. And when this administration came into office, the No. 1 issue I asked Secretary Haaland to commit to was to finish getting the Executive order out on these land allotments to implement this bipartisan bill because these Native Vietnam veterans aren't living that long.

The administration delayed it for 2 years. Why? It has nothing do to with oil and gas or mining. Why? These Vietnam vets, many aren't going to live for 2 more years. They did it anyway.

That is 1 of 20. Let me give you another one.

We have had, down in southeast Alaska, the issue of the Tongass--that is the largest national forest in the country. Every elected official-- Governor, Senator, Democrat, Republican--in Alaska, the last 30 years, has pressed with the roadless rule, an exemption to the roadless rule, so we can have an economy there; roads for southeast communities. Every elected Governor or U.S. Senator, didn't matter the party, that is how important this was. We were able to get an exemption in the last administration. I appreciate what President Trump did on that.

This administration comes in, and they reverse it. One of the 20. Guess how we, the Alaska delegation, found out about that reversal. A front-page story in the Washington Post. The Secretary of Agriculture wanted to brief the Washington Post and all the extreme environmental groups who wanted this before they let the people of Alaska or their representatives know. These are the examples.

And, yes, the list also includes resource development projects. But here is the thing on that--I have a folder full of letters. These are letters from the elected leaders, Tribal leaders, borough leaders, Alaska Native Corp. leaders, Native leaders in my State--dozens of letters. Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation, Native village of Kaktovik--that is a Tribe--City of Utqiagvik, City of Atqasuk, City of Wainwright, Inupiaq Community of the Arctic Slope--that is another Tribe--the Voice of the Inupiat Arctic, these are all Alaskan Native leaders who live in the North Slope, some of whom live in the Arctic National Wildlife area. Every single one of these great leaders in my State, every one, was writing, even begging, this administration not to do this--not to do this. And they ignored them--they ignored them.

This is a letter from Edward Rexford. He is the President of the Native Village of Kaktovik. He wrote to Secretary Deb Haaland after she suspended oil and gas leases in the ANWR, which we passed. What the Secretary did, in my view, was clearly illegal.

Edward Rexford wrote: ``You have changed our future with one stroke of a pen without any explanation or consultation with us--the tribe that lives within the Coastal Plain.''

His village, Kaktovik, is the only village within the coastal area of ANWR. That is it. There is no group of Americans who should have a greater voice in the development of this area than them. But they didn't even get a phone call--not a phone call, not consultation, Tribal consultation, which is required by law--none of it.

That is all part of the 20 Executive orders and actions that I said are hurting people, hurting communities, hurting families, hurting Native cultures.

I will tell you this: The Biden administration loves to talk about how they are committed to environmental justice and racial equity, but it is with a caveat.

Here is the reality: They want to help unserved minority populations around the country. And I think this is a good goal, but it comes with a caveat. Unless, of course, they are indigenous people of Alaska, then the Biden administration targets them.

Look at this folder. These are communities of color in my State, and all they do is get targeted, not helped; targeted, their economic opportunity. And then the things that most Americans take for granted that don't exist in these communities--clinics, flushed toilets, gymnasiums--all of that comes with economic opportunity. And when you shut it down, you are really hurting indigenous people in some of the most impoverished communities in the country. But I guess they seem OK with that.

I want all of my Senate colleagues to do just a quick thought experiment. Imagine what it would be like, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican--but just think about it: A Democrat and a Republican administration comes in or you are a Republican and a Democrat administration comes in and changes the future of your State with a stroke of a pen, as Edward Rexford said, for the people you represent. Imagine an administration coming in with 20 Executive orders in 8 months, shutting down your economy as you are trying to get out of a pandemic.

Every Senator here would be mad. Every Senator here would be mad. And the one thing I very much enjoy about serving in this body is we are a collegial body. We have our differences, but I certainly have friends on both sides of the aisle, try to work with everybody, try to be respectful with everybody. The Presiding Officer and I chaired committees together, worked together on a lot of things.

And here is the thing, if a Republican administration came into power and targeted one of my colleague's States with 20 Executive orders in 8 months and whoever it was came to me and said: ``Hey, Dan, you know this is unfair. My constituents are really being attacked, really being hurt. Could you reach out to the Republican administration and say: Hey, come on. Tone it down. Geez, Louise, 20 Executive orders in one State,'' I would help, and I think almost every Senator here would help. That is what we do here.

And I want to say that some of my Democratic colleagues here, when I have talked about this, when I have told them about this, when I have spoken about this, a number of them have come to me and said: ``Hey, Dan, give me the list. Give me the list of 20. Maybe I can't help you on every one of them, all of them. Maybe there are some I actually like. But I do want to try and help.''

That is what has happened. That is what makes this body a good place. To those Senators, I really want to thank you. And I am going to ask for your help because I would do it for you.

And this is unacceptable. Tens of thousands of people I represent are being hurt by the Federal Government, by the President and his White House. So I appreciate that from my colleagues. And this is, in general, how this body works. It makes this a special place.

But I will say this. Not all Senators have been so gracious and senatorial and collegial. To the contrary, a few of my colleagues are helping lead the charge in the war on Alaska's working families. They seem to be putting a ton of effort into it themselves. I am not sure why, but they spend a lot of their time and energy focused on doing this: shutting down the Alaska economy, hurting working families, and ridiculously and absurdly acting as if they speak for the very people I am privileged to represent, as if they don't have enough to do in terms of helping their own constituents.

So I am going to make an example and give an example of one. The leader of this small group is the senior Senator from New Mexico. Here is a sampling--three letters in the last year and a half he has written, signed, or led, focusing on shutting down Alaska's economy and hurting the great people I have the privilege of representing.

Two of these letters deal with the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--controversial, no doubt. In 2017, we voted to provide the opportunity for development in that small area, what we call the 1002 area. The President signed it. It came into law.

Now, I know most of my colleagues on the Democratic side didn't agree with that. We have legislation we don't agree with. I accept that. I am still very good friends with so many.

But, afterward, the senior Senator from New Mexico led letters to all the top banks in America and all the top insurance and financial institutions in America and didn't just say don't invest in the ANWR but said ``don't invest in any oil and gas development project in the Arctic.''

What is that, the Arctic of America? That is my State.

So now you have, as opposed to collegiality, a small group, led by this Senator, writing the biggest banks in America, the biggest financial institutions in America, trying to muscle them, saying: Don't invest anything in Alaska.

That is not what this body is all about. I would never do that to a colleague. I would never write all the banks of America and say: Don't invest in poor communities, Native communities in New Mexico or in the New Mexico oil and gas industry. I wouldn't do that.

Who does that?

Well, unfortunately, a few--not many, a few--Senators are doing that.

Absurdly, this Senator had the audacity, in one of his letters, to try to speak for the people I represent. He put in the letter: The people dependent on the Arctic Refuge don't want you to invest there.

That is patently absurd. Just read the letters from all the people who actually live there, all the people who live there, who overwhelmingly want opportunities for oil and gas development and for jobs and economic opportunity.

You would think, with all of New Mexico's problems, this Senator would focus on his own constituents.

So I reached out to him and the few others who wrote these letters. I have reached out. I wrote my own letter to them saying: Hey, I was disappointed to see you do that. Why didn't you come talk to me? I wouldn't do that to you. And, by the way, what you are doing is really going to hurt my constituents.

This is a letter I wrote to this Senator and a few others: I would appreciate the courtesy of talking about this before you go do it. You clearly don't understand the indigenous communities that I represent.

I even provided a Wall Street Journal op-ed from the mayor of the North Slope Borough, Harry Brower, the Inupiaq mayor, who had a lot to say to the banks who weren't going to invest in his community.

But I got no response. To the contrary, just a few months ago, this same Senator led a letter to the Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, asking her to shut down a very important energy development in Alaska called the Willow Project. This is that letter--just about 4 months ago.

Let me talk about the Willow Project. The Willow Project is not in a controversial area; it is in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, set aside by Congress decades ago for oil and gas development. Every Native group in Alaska supports this project, all the unions do, 2,000 direct jobs, billions in revenues for some of the poorest communities in America, the lowest emissions of any major oil and gas development project in America.

This is a huge win-win-win for everybody--not even controversial. Yet the senior Senator from New Mexico wrote Deb Haaland saying: Shut down the Willow Project in Alaska.

Why is he doing this, literally trying to kill thousands of Alaskan jobs and impoverish Alaska Native communities?

Do the people in New Mexico know that their senior Senator spends so much time trying to give Alaska oil and gas workers pink slips and impoverish Native communities? I wonder. I wonder.

I thought, for just a moment, maybe I should do something against New Mexico, but then I was like, no; you know what, that is not my style. I wouldn't want to hurt New Mexico oil and gas workers or Native communities. They are all great Americans, I am sure. We are a great country. I wouldn't want to target them the way this Senator is targeting my State, trying to hurt thousands of Alaskan working families.

And it should be emphasized and I want to emphasize, that is not how we work here. That is not what I have seen in my almost 7 years in the U.S. Senate, Senators trying to attack other Senators' States, specifically focusing on hurting working families.

The vast majority of the Senators I know wouldn't do that at all. That is not how business is conducted here in the U.S. Senate. To the contrary, most of us generally try to help each other. We don't always agree; that is for sure. But particularly when States have unique challenges that could hurt their citizens, when my colleagues would come to me, ``Hey, Dan, can you help out on this,'' I usually try to help. But I certainly don't go on offense and try to hurt like this administration is doing and the senior Senator from New Mexico.

But I thought the better course to fight back--because I am going to fight back, OK. I am going to fight back. These are my constituents who are hurting. The better course to fight back against these attacks on Alaskan working families was not to try to hurt New Mexicans but just show this, the rank hypocrisy of what the senior Senator is actually doing and saying.

One of his main reasons, in this latest letter, to shut down Alaska, in trying to deny Federal permits for the Willow oil and gas project, is to ``achieve climate goals.'' OK? That is in his letter to Deb Haaland.

But if you do just a little digging, this Senator seems fine with trying to achieve these goals on the backs of Alaskan workers and Alaska Natives but not on his own constituents, not on the backs of his own constituents--to the contrary.

Guess which State in America has gotten way more Federal oil and gas drilling permits than any other State in the country--guess which one. It is certainly not Alaska. It happens to be New Mexico. It just so happens to be New Mexico.

Guess where the Secretary of the Interior is from. New Mexico. Hmm. Is that a coincidence? I wonder, in their frequent phone calls, when they talk about concerns of climate and shutting down oil and gas in Alaska, if shutting down oil and gas in New Mexico ever comes up.

I am pretty sure it doesn't. How do I know that? Because close to half of all oil and gas drilling permits issued by the Department of the Interior, by New Mexican Deb Haaland, in 2021 have gone to one State. What State is that? New Mexico--2,286 Federal oil and gas drilling permits; almost half of all the permits in the country to one State.

So here is the bottom line. Here is their view. Shut down Alaska, hurt working families in Alaska, supposedly, to help America's climate goals, but then quietly say ``drill, baby, drill'' in New Mexico, with more permits by far than any other State in the country--almost 2,300. If that is not rank hypocrisy, I don't know what is.

So I am going to start asking questions about this and, by the way, so should the press. I sure hope our friends in the press think that, hmm, there is something a little strange going on here. Clearly, there is hypocrisy happening. But, you know, that happens here occasionally-- or maybe more than occasionally. But is there anything else going on?

And I hope the press in New Mexico ask their senior Senator why he is so darn focused on hurting the good people of Alaska--because I wouldn't do that to New Mexican oil and gas workers or New Mexican Native communities.

And finally, I am going to ask questions in another area. The Biden administration is clearly trying to shut down my State. It is there for everybody to see. Everybody back home

knows it. But here is the thing. They can't do it illegally, and they can't do it unethically. And right now there is strong evidence that they are doing just that.

What do I mean? Today, I sent this letter that I would like to be printed in the Record to the inspector general of the Department of the Interior.

Here is what I am asking in this letter. There is very strong evidence that at least four senior political appointees at the Department of the Interior who have been involved in many of these 20 Executive orders and Executive actions shutting down my State were actually, in their previous jobs, working on the very same issues and advocating for the very same outcome--meaning they are working with a special interest group to say shut down the Willow Project.

And then when it came to the Interior, they are working on whether or not to shut down the Willow Project. Now, most of us know, if that is true, that is clearly illegal and clearly unethical.

We have documented this letter--four senior Department of the Interior officials, all of whom who are trying to

shut down my State--and I think there is strong evidence that they are violating ethics laws and violating the law. So I have asked for a detailed investigation by the Department of the Interior Inspector General into whether or not these individuals have violated Federal ethics laws in their quest to hurt working families in my State.

Let me conclude with this. I am a supporter of responsible resource development in America of all of the above: energy, wind, solar, oil-- in every part of our great country, in Alaska, of course, in New Mexico--all across our great land. And I am a supporter of the great men and women who do this in Alaska and New Mexico and Texas and North Dakota.

What is happening in my State right now, this is just wrong, and I am going to fight. And any other Senator who would be going through what my State is going through, with your constituents being harmed, you would be down on the floor fighting, too.

The vast majority of the U.S. Senators here--Democrats and Republicans--I think deep down in their hearts know that this is just wrong. You don't come in with a new administration and say, Hey, let me target one State and beat the heck out of their working families. It is just wrong.

And I am hopeful that my colleagues here--and I am asking them because we need the help. I have great people I represent--proud, tough people, but I can't fight the whole damn Federal Government when they are focused on shutting you down. So I am hopeful that my colleagues-- all of my colleagues; I will share the list of the 20--that you can help me get the Biden administration and some misguided hypocritical U.S. Senators to enact a cease-fire in their war on working families and Native communities in the great State of Alaska.

I yield the floor.