Floor Statements

Mr. President, thank you for passing that very important piece of legislation.

The official name of that legislation that just passed the Senate is the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act. This is a really good day for Alaska right now and for our small businesses and working families and the overall economy in Alaska, across our State.

I want to say this is also a good day for the Congress. Both Houses, over the last week, have been able to come together, Members on both sides of the aisle, when they recognized that a relatively narrow segment of this great Nation--my State, Senator Murkowski's State--had a huge challenge right now with our economy relating to tourism. Senators and Members of the House worked together, and we just passed a piece of legislation that is going to the President's desk. It is really going to help.

This pandemic has really hurt a lot of our economies in different States. I would say the Alaskan economy has been really hammered--the energy sector, the commercial fishing sector, and, of course, our tourism sector. But we have hope.

As I mentioned, we just passed the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act. This bill, cosponsored by Senator Murkowski and myself here in the Senate and Congressman Young in the House, is going to give our tourism season and the tens of thousands of Alaskans in that industry and the hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses in Alaska in that industry that are hanging by a thread--it is going to give them a fighting chance this summer.

These are businesses whose owners have put their life savings, their hard work, their hopes, and their dreams into these small businesses, and many have been on the brink financially because of the pandemic and because the short cruise ship season that drives the tourism economy in Alaska was about to be canceled again this summer. That is now not going to happen.

Think about these numbers. In 2020, last year, during the pandemic, Alaska was estimated to get--we were supposed to get, prior to the pandemic, a record number of tourists via cruise ships: 1.5 million. It would have been the alltime record. Of course, in 2020, with the pandemic, none of them showed up, not one, and 2021 was shaping up to be the same.

Think about that. These small businesses get almost all their revenue during the summer season. That would have been 2 years with no revenues. No small business can withstand that.

So 2021 was looking to be canceled again as a result of the CDC, which took too long to provide clear guidance to the cruise ship industry, but they are now working cooperatively with our communities back home in Alaska and the industry. So that is good news. That is starting to happen. It is really important.

But even with the CDC cooperating an working constructively, which is now happening, 2021 wasn't looking good anyway because of a law--dating back to the 1880s, by the way--a U.S. law that made it impossible, without Canada's cooperation, to sail to Alaska on a cruise ship. It was impossible unless we got a bill from Congress passed that would allow cruise ships to sail to Alaska without stopping at a Canadian port, and that is just what we did. That is just what we did.

I want to thank, again, Members of the House and Members of the Senate. We are hoping that this bill is now going down to the White House for a signing by the President as soon as possible.

I know I am speaking on behalf of Senator Murkowski and Congressman Young in thanking all the Members of this body and the House for that work. We are going to have a fighting chance in Alaska for a summer tourism season that was looking very dismal just a couple of weeks ago.

One of the reasons it was looking very dismal is unfortunately because of our neighbor, who hasn't been really helpful. In Alaska, we have one neighbor, if you don't count Russia, and that is Canada. We don't have our wonderful lower 48 State neighbors; we have Canada.

We read in the Canadian press the last several weeks that there was no way the Americans could get their act together to pass a law that would fully bypass Canada--no way. That is what the Canadians were saying, Canadian politicians. So there wasn't a lot of need to work with us.

Well, here is a message for Canada: Never bet against America. Never bet against America. Pretty much every country in the history of our country's history that has bet against us has lost.

I would say that our delegation, the Alaska delegation, is probably the most pro-Canadian delegation there is. It is certainly more knowledgeable than most on Canadian issues. We work together on all kinds of things, big and small--trade issues, military issues, NORAD issues, mining issues. We, in my view, have a typically great relationship. Alaska-Canada is really strong. But that relationship needs cooperation, collaboration, and on this issue, it really didn't happen. So next time we ask our Canadian colleagues for cooperation, we think that is important, but we didn't need it, ultimately.

So I mention in closing, good news for Alaska. But I will say this to anyone watching on TV: This is good news for America. Why is that? Here is a message for the rest of our beautiful country: Alaska is open for business. Come on up. We are safe. We are healthy.

By the way, if you come up, you can get a vaccine. It is open to all tourists.

We are beautiful--breaching whales, soaring mountains, salmon-choked rivers, the best people in the world.

It has been a tough year. Now, I am not just talking Alaska; I am talking the whole country. We know it. Everybody has been at home.

To our fellow Americans who are ready to get out and see our beautiful Nation, come on up and see one of the most beautiful parts of America--really, one of the most beautiful parts of the world. Come on up to Alaska. We are waiting there for you. If it is on your bucket list, there is no time like the present to do it. Get on a cruise ship. Fly up. I think the Canadians have still blocked the border, so it is hard to drive up. That is a whole other issue. But there will be cruise ships heading up to the great State of Alaska, hopefully by mid-July. In fact, I have a call with several cruise ship executives this afternoon, and I am going to encourage them, in the aftermath of the U.S. Congress passing this bill, encourage them to rev up their cruise ships and get up to Alaska soon. We know that demand is high.

To all Americans, we would love to have you.

In closing, to my fellow Alaskans, while this tourism season certainly won't be one of our biggest--it certainly won't be like what we were anticipating in 2020--we are confident now, with this action, there will be ships, and there will be people. Help is on the way. We are a resilient, strong, tough State.

Thank you, Alaskans, for your patience. We now have a fighting chance at a decent summer tourism season in 2021. Hopefully, every American citizen watching this will head on up to Alaska. You will have a great time.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I want to thank Senator Murkowski for her hard work.

For the Alaskans who are watching, what just happened here is kind of quick but important. The U.S. Senate just passed our bill, the PVSA suspension act, that is going to give our tourism season and the thousands of Alaskans in that industry and the hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses that are hanging by a thread a fighting chance for this summer--a fighting chance for the summer. That just passed the U.S. Senate and is going over to the House.

So, again, I want to thank Senator Murkowski for her leadership on this and, of course, the Senators that she mentioned who were very engaged: Senator Lee, Senator Markey, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Cantwell, Senator Wicker.

You know, this, to me, is an example of the U.S. Senate working at its best--at its best. What was going on here and what we did for the last several weeks is we went to all of our colleagues and said: Look, we have a unique problem right now. In the Great State of Alaska, we are so proud of how we have done in terms of getting through the health aspects of this pandemic, but our economy is getting crushed for a whole host of reasons I have talked about on the floor here many, many times. One of the huge areas is the tourism sector and the unique challenges we have with the borders being closed by the Canadians, which is not helpful; the cruise ship industry not being able to move; and the millions of passengers who were expected to come to Alaska on cruise ships.

So we were going to each Senator and saying: Look, we know you have big, philosophical differences on some things that relate tangentially to this issue, but right now this issue is very narrow. Help us help our constituents. That is it. It is not going to impact any other State.

And to our colleagues' credit, all of them said: OK, Senator Murkowski, Senator Sullivan, we will help.

And that is a good spirit of cooperation. We essentially went to them and said: Hey, if your State had a problem uniquely focused on just your citizens, we would help you.

So that is what you just saw here. It took a little while. That is OK. Nothing moves fast in the U.S. Senate, but that is a step forward-- an important step forward.

But we still have work to do, as Senator Murkowski mentioned. This bill right now is going to be heading over to the House, right now, and we certainly hope, with the great leadership of the dean of the House, Congressman Young, and all his relationships in the House, that the House is going to show the same cooperative spirit that we just witnessed here on the U.S. Senate floor. So we are hoping for that. That is the next step.

But as Senator Murkowski mentioned, we are working all kinds of different angles--plan B, plan C, plan D. We need the CDC to continue its progress, finally--frustrating but finally. They need to continue to provide detailed guidance to operationalize their lifting of the no- sail order.

And as Senator Murkowski also mentioned, we are going to continue to work with our friends in Canada--``O Canada.''

Now, you know, in Alaska, we have one neighbor. We don't have any of our wonderful lower 48 States as neighbors. We have Canada. We don't really include Russia. Canada. So I would say that the Alaska delegation is probably the most pro-Canadian, certainly the most knowledgeable about Canada issues of any delegation in the U.S. Congress. We work to help them out on issues--big issues, small issues, trade issues, NORAD, military issues, mining. We have a great relationship--the Alaska-Canada relationship. But, to be frank, we are not getting a lot of help right now. The border is closed--fully closed. We think that is pretty draconian, to be honest.

Alaskans are having a hard time even driving home to get through Canada. We put forward a number of very reasonable suggestions to try to accommodate what we are hoping will be a fighting chance for our tourism season, for our small businesses that have been so decimated by this pandemic.

To our colleagues in Canada, reasonable compromises in the event that we don't make progress here--we are making progress here in the U.S. Congress. That is good, again, so that we can have a fighting chance for somewhat of a tourism season this summer. But up until now, all of these suggestions--they are really not even neighbors to the north; they are neighbors for us to the east--haven't gotten a lot of cooperation. So this is not the cooperative spirit that has defined the Alaska-Canadian relationship for decades, and quite frankly, we have been disappointed by it.

So to our House colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--you have just kind of witnessed two examples of cooperation. What happened here on the Senate floor just a couple of minutes ago was really good cooperation. All 100 Senators essentially had to agree to move this bill forward, and they just did. That is what just happened. That is good cooperation.

We haven't had such good cooperation from our Canadian neighbors-- disappointing. But look, my own view is that we need to start making sure that the Alaska economy is not held hostage to another country. We are going to start working on that.

But until then, to our House Members, please, if you can look at what just happened in the Senate, listen to Congressman Young, whom you all know is a great advocate. If we can get this done in the next 24, 48 hours, our State--your fellow Americans, who are working hard like everybody else here to get out of this pandemic--will have a fighting chance

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is Thursday, and it is that time of the week I come down on the Senate floor and get to do one of my favorite things of the whole week. I get to recognize the special Alaskan, someone whom we call the Alaskan of the Week.

But before I talk about our Alaskan of the Week--and my good friend from Texas, Senator Cornyn, just talked about the importance of supporting our police and leaders in the police forces, and it is National Police Week. It is very appropriate that the Alaskan of the Week this week is outgoing Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll.

I am going to tell you a lot about Chief Doll's great career in Alaska. I want to first begin by just giving a quick little update. I know people who watch the Alaskan of the Week want to know: Hey, what is going on in Alaska right now? It is such a great place, a special place.

Right now, it is approaching midnight Sun time in most places across the State. I will give you one example. In Anchorage, the Sun officially rose at 5:16 a.m. and will set at 10:37 p.m. That is a lot of daylight. Twilight actually starts around 4 a.m. and ends around midnight.

We are getting to that midnight Sun time, summer solstice time. A frenzied energy hits the State at this time of year. It is all the more so because the State is opening up, like so many States across America now, after a

long year of hunkering down--late night walks, softball, yard work, gatherings.

If you are watching and you have never been to Alaska, it is a great time to be in Alaska. I urge everyone in the Gallery and at home to come on up to Alaska.

You may have seen some of the action on the Senate floor a couple of minutes ago. It is looking more and more like we are going to have, hopefully, at least part of a cruise season. But we are welcoming everybody to come to Alaska this summer. You will love it. Heck, you can even get vaccinated if your State is not doing that for you, so come on up.

We all know that what makes the State truly great is not the hours of Sun it gets or its salmon-choked streams and rivers or the magnificent wildlife--moose, bear, caribou--or the soaring mountains, all of which, of course, in Alaska we have in spades. Nothing makes our communities, our State, our country strong like the people who live in our communities, and none are perhaps more important to community strength and cohesion than our brave first responders, our police officers who wake up every day determined to protect others.

I know there is a movement across the country, and Senator Cornyn just talked about it--in my view, a dangerous movement--and that is the call to defund the police. It makes zero sense, by the way. You want your communities safe, and you are going to get rid of your police? It makes no sense.

Here is the thing about police officers like Chief Doll and first responders. These jobs are not only important, in my view, they are sacred. Now, every job in America is an important job, but there is something special, there is something even sacred about the job of our first responders--police, firemen, our military--whose job it is literally to go lay down their lives for their fellow citizens if called to do that. That is sacred.

I think it is important for all of us here in the Senate to be very clear how much we support our police and our first responders all across the Nation, especially during this week. That is why I am so honored and thrilled in many ways to be able to recognize our Alaskan of the Week this week, who is outgoing Anchorage Police Department Chief Justin Doll, who has served with APD for 25 years and has been the chief of the department since 2017. Justin has worked with, supported, and overseen more than 600 members of the APD, brave men and women who keep about 300,000 residents in the Anchorage area, my hometown, safe--roughly 200 square miles.

Let me tell you a bit about Justin, who also happens to be a Marine Corps brother of mine--a man of service, a man of honor, courage, and commitment. Born and raised in Oregon, he moved with his family to Anchorage in 1985 when he was just 12 years old. The country was coming out of a recession. Alaska was doing well. His parents saw opportunity, so they packed their U-Haul and drove up to Alcan.

His mother ended up working in an orthodontist office, and his father worked for 22 years at the famous Hotel Captain Cook, one of the great locally owned hotels in all of Alaska.

Justin graduated from West Anchorage High School, and after a few years in college, he joined the Marine Corps Forces Reserves. Now, he didn't join just any Marine Corps reserve unit; he joined Echo Company, 4th Recon Battalion--the premier cold weather recon unit in the U.S. Marine Corps, reserve or active. How do I know? Because I was serving in that unit with Chief Doll for 5 years. As a matter of fact, I was Justin's platoon commander. Now, he laughingly describes himself as my Marine Corps disciplinary challenge. I don't remember him as a disciplinary challenge; I remember him as a fine marine and a great NCO who did a really good job with Echo Company.

In 1996, he was in the Reserves at that time, and he got a job with the APD. A lot of the marines in Alaska join our law enforcement, which is another great path into service. He didn't grow up wanting to be a police officer, but when presented with an opportunity to serve his community as he was serving in the Marines, he jumped at it, and he excelled. Throughout the years, he served as a patrol officer, an academy instructor, a motorcycle officer, a SWAT team member, a patrol shift commander. He was on the bomb squad and was a commander of the Homicide and Robbery/Assaults Detective Units. He did it all, and he did it all well.

Here are some of the ways in which his colleagues and his bosses have described him throughout his years in his fitness reports: ``Outstanding performance''; ``proactive leadership''; ``Gives credit where credit is due''; ``genuine concern for his fellow officers''; ``earned the respect of everybody''; leadership philosophy is to help guide and train up leaders to rise''; ``committed to excellence.'' Those are his reviewing officers' remarks.

His executive assistant, Gia Currier, talks about how, when people would meet Chief Doll, community members--young kids; it didn't matter--he never introduced himself as ``chief.'' He would just say: ``Hey, I'm Justin.'' She said:

He makes me proud to work at APD, and I am grateful to have

had the opportunity to work and learn from him.

It should be noted here that, in the meantime, in 2000, he married fellow police officer Monique, and in so doing, like many of us-- certainly, like me--he married up. Like Justin, Monique also rose through the ranks to become one of the APD's top detectives. In fact, she was the lead in catching one of the most sickening serial killers in Alaska's history, Israel Keyes. We are so grateful for her dedication and service to our State and our community.

We have a very unique community in Alaska, in Anchorage. We have earthquakes. Not too far away, we have volcanoes. We have 100-mile-an- hour windstorms. Our moose charge, and our bears attack sometimes. Once, when he was at a national training event with big-city police officers from across the country, he was talking to his fellow police chiefs, over beers, about bears and what was going on in their respective cities. He told the group how just the day before, a brown bear had charged, mauled, and tragically killed an Alaskan resident.

Terry Monahan--at the time, the police chief for New York City--said:

What? In the city? How do you deal with that?

By the way, I am pretty sure Justin, when he was telling that story to us, cleaned up the language from the New York City police chief when he recounted that story. But these are the many things that a police chief in Alaska has to deal with, has to be ready for, and has to be able to lead on.

Like all cities, we have had serious problems with crime. As a matter of fact, in 2017, right when Justin took over as the chief for the Anchorage Police Department, my hometown of Anchorage was going through a very serious, major crime spree. Violent crime was way up. Homicides were breaking records. Property crime and vehicle crime were way, way up. Justin got to work. He focused on making sure his officers had the training they needed to do their jobs. His goal was ``to set them up for success and let them be successful.'' His motto: ``One Team, One Mission.'' It sounds a lot like a marine: ``One Team, One Fight.'' He put a focus on engaging with the community. He organized the beats so that the officers got to know the people in their areas and patrolled those same areas during the course of their time. He brought back walking beats in the downtown area. He and his officers attended community council meetings and joined the communities throughout the entire city in smaller gatherings.

Now, as I mentioned, Anchorage is a big city in terms of area, but in a lot of ways, it is really a small town. Word gets around. When you get to know your police officer, you trust your police officer, and you begin to work with that person to make your community safer. That was Justin's philosophy, and that is what started to happen. At its heart, community policing is not more complicated than that, according to Justin, Chief Doll. Getting to know one another, respecting one another, trusting one another--that is how communities become safe.

He also worked on forming partnerships with the Department of Justice, the Attorney General's Office, and the FBI, which doesn't always happen in other localities across the country. Again, Anchorage is a big city and a small town. Federal agents were also having their cars stolen. They had

friends whose houses were getting broken into. This crime spree became personal for everybody, and everybody started to work together--with Chief Doll in the lead to solve it. Again, word got around. All of it-- training, empowering police officers, working with the Feds, community engagement--started to work.

We still have challenges, no doubt, in Anchorage, but since the time Justin Doll started, homicides have gone down almost 50 percent. The rates of property crimes and other violent crimes have also come down. That is a win. Mostly, it is a win for the people of Alaska, for the people of Anchorage. So Justin is leaving the department a winner, and he is also leaving the department with good memories. That was important to him.

There are challenges, and he recognizes those. Burnout, he said, is a problem, particularly these days. He didn't want to get that, and he hopes his fellow officers don't get that. According to Justin--he said: ``The world's a little insane right now when it comes to law enforcement,'' and he sees for himself what that does to the morale of his officers. He has experienced how disheartening it is to have the whole force, not just in Alaska but across the country--these are hundreds of thousands of good police officers across our Nation who have very, very stressful jobs--being disparaged because of the horrific actions of a few.

Across the Nation, he said:

We have completely lost sight of the fact that there are so

many people doing a good job keeping communities safe every

day. These are people who really want to do a good job and

take care of the people and citizens around them.

We should remember that, especially during this week, National Police Week, when we remember the sacrifices of so many of our frontline heroes.

Justin and Monique, his wife, will be leaving the force permanently in June. The current acting chief is Kenneth McCoy--also a very impressive officer. We are all rooting for Chief McCoy. Of course, we are rooting for Justin and his future endeavors. As we are for all of our police officers across the country, we are thankful for Chief Doll's service--fulfilling his sacred duty--for keeping us safe, and for keeping our communities whole.

So, Justin, one more time, congratulations on a great job. Congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week.

Semper Fi.

Energy

Madam President, I would like you to hear a quote: ``You know, if you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you, clearly.'' That was from our Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, yesterday, as she told reporters all about the cyber attacks on the Colonial Pipeline and the ensuing gas shortages and price spikes.

Think about that, America.

Of course, the media just let her go. They didn't ask her if she knew that, just as meat doesn't come from a grocery store, energy just doesn't come from a wall. It doesn't just appear like magic when you plug into it. It comes from many sources, including from natural gas, including from oil.

The media didn't ask about natural gas--yes, and oil--needing pipelines.

The media didn't ask her if she knew that all energy, including alternative energy, requires transmission lines--lines that are also subject to being attacked like the Colonial Pipeline.

They didn't ask her if she knew that the cost of an electric car, the average price, is more than $55,000. Maybe that is a bargain for her, but for the people the Biden administration is putting out of work in the energy sector, that is a huge pricetag.

The media certainly didn't ask the Secretary of Energy how this cavalier, condescending attitude, once again, about our energy sector-- one of our country's huge strengths that employs hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans--is received by the average American who is being hurt right now.

There are so many questions that were not asked, so many questions that aren't being asked about the Colonial Pipeline issue, and so many that continue to not be answered by the administration when it comes to this specific situation and how this administration's energy policies threaten to make this short-term disruption of our energy supplies into a long-term reality across the country.

The cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline is a warning for America not just from a cyber security standpoint but from a broader energy perspective standpoint.

I participated yesterday in the briefing of U.S. Senators by the Secretaries of Energy, Transportation, and Homeland Security on this cyber attack that is creating disruptions in energy supplies across the country, particularly on the east coast. Here is the advice I gave these members of the Biden administration: Respectfully, I said that I fear that this is going to be commonplace, this kind of disruption--and not just from a cyber standpoint--if we don't change the Biden administration's energy policies for America.

What was I talking about? They are restricting the production of American energy. That is one of the great comparative advantages of our country--that of producing more in oil, more natural gas, and more renewables than any other country in the world. They are restricting the production of oil and gas.

You have senior administration officials going to Wall Street saying: Don't invest in energy companies. You have Federal Agencies that are either killing pipelines or slow-rolling pipelines. None of this is good for the country.

So here is the advice I gave them. Pipelines are good. We need them, as this Colonial Pipeline shutdown certainly demonstrates. Importing more oil from our adversaries like Russia is bad, but, by the way, that is what is happening with the Biden policies. So we need a change.

We have plenty of oil and gas for Americans. We should produce it, as we do, with the highest environmental standards for the benefit of our own citizens and not restrict it or, this issue, this kind of disruption is going to be much more commonplace in our country.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, Madam President, my colleague Senator Murkowski did a good job of explaining some of the economic challenges--actually, the dramatic economic challenges--facing our State: small businesses, families, workers by the thousands who are really hurting right now because we lost the tourism season last year due to the pandemic and are on the verge, possibly, of losing another one, which could be devastating. That is the purpose of our legislation, to focus on lifting the challenge and bringing relief so that we can bring tourism back to Alaska. We are open for business.

You know, we have been able, in Alaska, to weather the health impacts of this virus in a way that we are proud of in Alaska, with one of the lowest death rates per capita--any death, of course, is horrible--but one of the lowest death rates, one of the highest testing rates per capita with regard to this vaccine, the highest vaccination rates per capita, which is a minimiracle if you look at how big our State is. But the economic impacts have been devastating, as Senator Murkowski laid out. Our commercial fishing industry, our oil and gas industry, our tourism industry--these sectors of the Alaska economy, which are critical, have lost thousands of jobs.

So this bill, the Alaska Tourism Recovery Act, is something that is very narrowly focused. It is very narrowly focused. It is to give our State a fighting chance this summer with regard to our tourism sector.

Now, I very much appreciate Senator Blumenthal and Senator Lee, with regard to their passion and focus on the issues that they have raised tonight. Some of the safety regulations on cruise ships, the PVSA Act-- these are issues that they feel very passionate about, and I appreciate that.

As they know, what we are trying to do here, Senator Murkowski and I, is not tackle those issues so much as to tackle the issue directly before Alaskans, and that is how to salvage a summer tourism season.

So despite what you have witnessed here on the Senate floor, I want to say I appreciate their willingness to continue to work with us. The clock is ticking, but we do have Senator Blumenthal's and Senator Lee's strong commitments to work with us to resolve these issues--both the ones that they care about and, certainly, the ones that matter to Alaskans--very soon.

To our fellow Alaskans, my message is, don't give up right now. Here on the Senate floor, despite what you have seen, there has actually been momentum and movement, and I am confident we can get there, and even with the CDC--even with the CDC.

Some of you might recall that I was here on the floor last week with Senator Scott of Florida, trying to move our legislation relating to the CDC's role here. We are starting to see progress with them. So we are going to continue to fight and continue to try to move this.

Do not give up, Alaska, on our summer tourism. We haven't. To the contrary, we have made progress. We are not there yet.

Finally, to our Canadian friends, we are going to continue to work with all of you as well. You can be part of the solution to help Alaska, to help Canada, in a cooperative spirit, as you are seeing here on the Senate floor from all of you on a number of these issues. It would be very much appreciated.

I anticipate and look forward to reaching out to my colleague and

friend, the Minister of Transportation, and others in the Canadian Government to try to make sure we can get this spirit of cooperation that will benefit both our State, our country, and your country.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to complete my remarks, given the time constraints.

Mr. President, I rise today to oppose Colin Kahl's nomination for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and I advise my colleagues to do the same, as we are getting ready to take a vote on this very important position in the Pentagon. That, to me, is one of the most important positions we have at the Department of Defense.

While I have many policy disagreements with Dr. Kahl, which I have discussed at length with him, I want to say I have a long history of working across the aisle, with Democrats and Republicans, on defense issues, even with those with whom I don't agree on their policies. As a matter of fact, the Presiding Officer and I have a very strong working relationship, and we don't agree on a lot of issues, particularly on issues of the military.

I serve on the Armed Services Committee, and I take these matters very seriously. They are some of the main reasons I ran for the U.S. Senate 6\1/2\ years ago. I focus a lot on military personnel, uniform and civilian, whom we put in the Pentagon and who have this enormous responsibility to oversee the Department of Defense.

Whether they are Assistant Secretaries, Under Secretaries, admirals, or generals, I try to understand where they are coming from, and I have a record of strongly supporting almost all of them, whether they have been in the Obama administration, the Trump administration, or even are in the Biden administration. For example, I not only supported the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, knowing that I wasn't going to agree with him on everything, but I actually introduced him at his confirmation hearing because I served with him in the military, and I know he is a man of honor and character. I strongly supported the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kath Hicks, given her background and knowledge. Yet some nominees I have not and I will not support, particularly in this area that is so important to our Nation's defense. I will object to these people because, like Dr. Kahl, I don't believe he has the temperament or judgment to do the job.

Like I said, I have looked at and focused on dozens and dozens of members with regard to their temperament and judgment who need Senate confirmation to the Department of Defense. The vast, vast majority, Democrat or Republican, I have supported but not this one. And this is a really important position. The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is essentially the No. 3 position in the Pentagon.

As I mentioned, it is my view and, I believe, the view of most of my colleagues, at least on this side of the aisle, that Dr. Kahl does not have the temperament or judgment. In fact, I believe that he has the potential to be a liability to our national security and our defense and not to be viewed favorably by the men and women he is supposed to lead.

Let me talk about temperament and give a little bit of background.

Not even a year ago, a number of Senate Democrats, my colleagues, wrote of the official who was nominated by the Trump administration for this same position, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, BG Anthony Tata. The letter that was signed by a number of my Senate Democratic colleagues, many of whom are on the Committee on Armed Services, focused on that nominee's record of ``offensive and inflammatory comments which would disqualify you from serving in your current position and the position for which you have been nominated.'' That is one of the quotes. Remember, this was for the same position but with the Trump administration.

This letter also read that he had made inflammatory remarks regarding the President--that would be President Obama--and inflammatory remarks regarding rhetoric for Members of Congress as well. Again, that was last year. This is the standard that was being used.

This letter goes on to read:

Your multiple past statements cannot be dismissed as simple

aberration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this letter dated July 24, 2020

You have almost the identical situation here. What happened with General Tata is that his nomination, for a lot of these reasons, was withdrawn by the Trump administration. Yet now you have the same, almost identical issues with this nominee, and when I showed this letter to my Democratic colleagues, they were like, ``Oh, no. That's OK.'' It is not OK. It is not OK.

So let's talk about temperament and tweets with Dr. Kahl.

Really, the issue here is, is he more of a political hack who is tweeting all of the time--he tweets quite a lot--or is he somebody with the temperament of a partisan internet troll, or is he a measured national security professional who can lead the Pentagon in the No. 3 position? Unfortunately, I think it is the former issue, not the latter. He has a long history of tweets.

Just like the issues that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle objected to last year for this same position with the Trump administration's nominee, who was withdrawn for these reasons, here is just a small example of Dr. Kahl's tweets. These are the same issues that my colleagues were concerned about. There have been a lot of attacks on Members of Congress. OK. That is fine. We are in the public arena.

Here is what he wrote:

The GOP used to pride itself as the party that put values

front and center in U.S. foreign policy. Now they are the

party of ethnic cleansing.

OK. I don't think we are the party of ethnic cleansing. That is pretty strong stuff.

He tweeted more:

Let's not mince words. The Trump administration kidnapped

children. The Republican Party, in terms of national

security, are now part of a ``death cult.''

He retweeted the now discredited Lincoln Project attacks. I know a lot about them. It spent a lot of money in my race. It is a very discredited group of people, by the way. Very disturbed are some of their leaders at the Lincoln Project.

He calls and tweets that the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, is a moron, is repugnant, is a coward. He went on to call my colleagues in the Senate many additional things that I won't repeat here. He did this a lot.

No matter what your views are of my colleagues or of the former President, words matter, and attacks matter. If you can't refrain from making them, maybe you don't belong in the No. 3 position in the Pentagon. That was the conclusion that pretty much everybody made last year, so why should it be different with this candidate? It shouldn't be different.

Don't get me wrong. It is a free country. You are allowed to tweet and criticize the Commander in Chief and Members of Congress all the time. That is fine. That is what America is. That is what democracy is. But that doesn't mean you get a free pass to be the No. 3 guy at the U.S. Department of Defense, which is what he wants.

So that is temperament, and I don't think it is a good temperament with which to lead the Pentagon at all.

Let's talk about judgment, especially policy judgment. The questions of temperament are often closely aligned with but they are not the same as judgment, particularly as it relates to policies. Judgment is being able to assess a situation, use history as a guide, and take appropriate action.

I think this nominee lacks judgment, which is something that was shown when he was then-Vice President Biden's National Security Advisor. Let me provide a few examples.

First, as many know, he was a staunch advocate for the Iran nuclear deal and, I believe, an advocate on being soft on Iran.

By the way, it is not always said in public, but a bipartisan majority of U.S. Senators and a bipartisan majority of Members of the House all opposed the Iran deal, but in my view, appeasing the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, these terrorists--leaders with the blood of thousands of American troops on their hands--is not smart policy judgment.

Dr. Kahl doesn't seem to know when we can press the Iranians, and this is a really big issue. Every time someone tried to press them-- draw a redline, take aggressive action--he criticized it.

Dr. Kahl, in 2015, argued for sanctions relief on Iran, claiming that the vast majority of the relief would go to butter, not guns. Well, we know how that turned out. That money went to arming terrorists and the continuation of Iran's proxies around the Middle East and around the world who were committing terrorism.

Dr. Kahl said that pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal was ``a dangerous delusion.''

He said: The ``hawks in Congress''--and I think he meant that as an insult. By the way, I view that not as an insult, particularly after the Obama-Biden administration cut defense spending by 25 percent and drastically reduced readiness--who are supporting pulling out of the Iran deal ``won't be satisfied until they get the war they have pushed for decades.'' Really? I didn't want war with Iran. Those who opposed the JCPOA--again, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senators--didn't want a war with Iran. We just thought the JCPOA was misguided.

After the U.S. strike that killed Iranian terror commando Qasem Soleimani, Kahl tweeted the following:

Trump has started a war with Iran and Iraq.

Really? I think what the President and our fine military did when they killed General Soleimani was reestablish deterrence, which we had lost in the Middle East when this terrorist killed thousands and wounded thousands of U.S. service men and women and never had to pay consequences. We reestablished a redline and said: If you kill Americans, you are going to pay.

Guess what. That war never happened, although Kahl predicted it

Even Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Zarif, acknowledged in these tapes that we have been talking about here on the Senate floor that the killing of Soleimani ``was when the United States delivered a major blow to Iran more damaging than if it had wiped out an entire city in an attack.'' That was from the Foreign Minister of Iran's knowing that what we did was very significant.

Dr. Kahl, if you look at his tweets, wouldn't have done that because he thought it would have ``brought the war that the hawks want.'' We didn't want a war, and we didn't get a war.

Just like John Kerry, who is now being accused of leaking secrets that Israel had--one of our most important allies--to Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, I believe he is soft on Iran.

We are going to get to the bottom of the Kerry issue, by the way. It is alleged what he did, but if he did it, if he sold out Israel for Iran, he needs to resign and be fired. We are going to get to the bottom of that.

Let me mention one other issue. It is a sensitive one--I admit it-- but I think it is also an important one with Dr. Kahl.

At his confirmation hearing, he said that one of his priorities was to ``stamp out `systemic racism' within the ranks of the military.''

Now, look, I care about this issue, and every organization has bad people in it. I spoke on the Senate floor last year about some of these issues. I put forward legislation last year in the NDAA that looks at why we aren't having promotions of African Americans at higher ranks and at the highest ranks of the military. This is an issue I care about, but when he said this in his confirmation hearing--systemic racism within the ranks--I was very curious. Has he served in the ranks, maybe? No, he hasn't. I have for 26 years--still serving. Where did he get the information? That is a broad statement to make about our troops whom you want to lead.

During the hearing, Dr. Kahl admitted he had ``no credible evidence to back up that kind of statement.'' Well, that is a real lack of judgment.

You are besmirching a bunch--a big portion of the force, with no credible data to back it up, and you want to be the No. 3 leader in the Pentagon?

This is judgment, and this is one of the many reasons I am going to vote against him, and I hope that my colleagues do.

Let me end with one final thing. Dr. Kahl made a statement in his confirmation hearing about the requirements of the job:

The position of undersecretary of defense for policy, while

it's a political appointment, is not a political job. It's a

policy job, one that requires [whoever is in the position] to

be nonpartisan.

Well, given his judgment, given his temperament, I don't believe Dr. Kahl has lived up to his own assessment of what is required to serve in the Pentagon's third most important defense role. I don't believe he has the qualifications for this position. There are plenty of good policy experts--Democrats, I am sure, who do--and I would encourage my colleagues to vote against this nomination for these reasons.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today on the Senate floor to call for the resignation of John Kerry as a member of the Biden administration's National Security Council.

Now, I don't do this lightly. As a matter of fact, in my entire time in the Senate, I have never called for anyone's resignation--Obama- Biden administration, Trump administration, Biden administration now. I have been tempted, particularly when some in government have tried to hurt my State. A lot of that is going on right now with the Biden administration. But his record--John Kerry's record--of undermining working families and working against American national security interests is too much to bear. He needs to go.

Today, I have heard such disturbing news that, if true, it should absolutely result in the call of John Kerry either being fired or resigning. Enough is enough. Why am I saying this? First, he is killing jobs, arrogantly killing American jobs. That is a fact. He is putting hard-working Americans, particularly in the energy sector--the great men and women who make our country strong by developing oil and gas resources; a lot of my constituents--in the name of climate goals, he is putting them out of work. He is going to Wall Street, saying: Don't finance these projects anymore. That is what reporters are saying.

On these issues, I completely and adamantly disagree with the arrogant way--frankly, callous way--he says: Hey, people need to move on to better jobs. But for this issue alone, I wouldn't be calling for his resignation. This is a major difference in the Biden administration's policies and priorities with regard to the American people. I think it is going to really come back and hit this administration hard because the vast majority of Americans don't agree with putting people out of work, energy workers out of work during a recession and pandemic, but that

is going to be decided in the voting box in the elections. The American people will ultimately decide whether arrogantly putting thousands and thousands of energy workers out of work right now is a good idea.

In the name of these climate goals, he has also been a strong appeaser of countries that threaten ours.

Let me take you back to 2015. I was a brandnew U.S. Senator. President Obama and President Xi Jinping are meeting in the Rose Garden.

President Xi Jinping from China tells the President of the United States and the American people: No, we are not going to militarize the South China Sea. We won't do it.

Of course, the Chinese Communist Party was not telling the truth to the President of the United States and the American people. They started to do this already, militarizing one of the most important sea routes in the world.

Many of us here in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, said: We need to stand up for our interests. We need the U.S. Navy to do freedom of navigation operations.

The Secretary of Defense wanted to do this. The admiral in charge of the INDOPACOM area of responsibility wanted to do this. But we now know, in principals' meetings, we delayed doing this for almost 3 years because John Kerry said: We don't want to get the Chinese mad, or they will go back on their Paris climate deal and commitments--which, by the way, are way out in the future.

This is true. This is true. This happened. Again, in my view, this bordered on treacherous but not treasonous. I didn't call for his resignation then. I was mad about it. By the way, a lot of people in the Obama administration were mad about this, including the Secretary of Defense. We lost a lot of time.

It certainly makes me nervous that John Kerry is out in Beijing again. What kind of deal did he cut this time with China, the Communist Party of China, which won't keep any commitments? But, again, that wasn't a call for resignation.

The straw that broke the camel's back came out today, and it is the reason I am up here calling for John Kerry to resign. It is a tape that was leaked of an interview with Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Zarif.

First, some background. Zarif was being interviewed by an economist and journalist who is an adviser to Mohammad Khatami, the pro-reform cleric who served two terms as Iran's President. An edited version was intended to be public of this interview only after Iran's current President left office in August, but it was leaked.

Zarif, according to reports, says many interesting and telling things in the tape, one, for example, that, in my view, the rightful killing of General Soleimani, the Quds Force commander, in January of 2020 when he was in Iraq looking to kill more American soldiers--Zarif said this ``was a major blow to Iran, more damaging than if it had wiped out an entire city in an attack''--that was what a lot of us were arguing at the time--and that unlike what John Kerry had been telling the public when negotiating the Iran nuclear deal in the Obama administration, it is the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, not Zarif, who calls the shots in Iran. That is all on the tapes.

But the most disturbing part of the interview that was leaked was when Zarif said that John Kerry told him, the Iranian Foreign Minister, about covert Israeli actions against Iranian interests in Syria. Now think about that. According to news reports, Zarif is heard as saying:

It was former U.S. Foreign Secretary John Kerry who told me

Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces

in Syria.

That is Zarif saying John Kerry told him that, classified information about one of our most important allies in the world, Israel.

Zarif said that he ``listened to this information [from Secretary Kerry] in astonishment.''

Now, when I read this today, I was astonished as well, that a former Secretary of State, now a member of President Biden's National Security Council--who wasn't confirmed for that, by the way, by this body--would reveal the secrets of one of our most important and enduring allies in the region to an avowed enemy and the largest state sponsor of terrorism, a country that was responsible for the killing and wounding and maiming of thousands of American service men and women, whose leaders have the blood of American soldiers on their hands. He is telling them that information.

It is unclear why John Kerry would relay such information to the leaders of the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, but here is a guess: During the Trump administration, after that administration pulled out of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, which John Kerry negotiated--and by the way, a bipartisan majority of U.S. Senators in this body were against that deal--John Kerry started to freelance. He admitted to meeting with Zarif in 2018 to try to salvage the nuclear deal. In other words, he was likely acting and working against the previous administration, the elected administration, the Trump administration, and many of us here in Congress who applauded when we pulled out of the JCPOA.

Madam President, I would ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article written today by the National Review titled ``John Kerry, Enemy of Israel.'

The beginning of this article says:

Let's pause to reflect on how monumentally stunning it is

that the former U.S. secretary of state allegedly tattled on

Israel to Iran.

It goes on to say: A high-ranking American official would feel comfortable sharing this kind of classified information ``with an autocratic adversary--a government that's murdered hundreds of Americans, regularly kidnapped them, interfered with our elections, and propped up a regime that gasses its people--about the covert actions of a long-time critical American ally.''

What else did Kerry tell Zarif, this article asks? Press reports don't say, but if this is true, if John Kerry told Iran--the leaders of Iran--about issues relating to our most critical ally in the region, Israel, which Iran has repeatedly said they want to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, if he did this, he needs to resign. If he did this with the intent of undermining the current President of the United States at the time, President Trump, and the Members of this body, he needs to resign.

He is a member of the current administration's National Security Council. It has become clear that our adversaries, whether Beijing or Iran, like it when John Kerry is in charge of foreign policy and national security. Why? Because they know how to use him to their advantage. And our allies fear him. Why? Because they know his judgment is off on so many issues. So, too, do America's working families.

We need to look into this. If this is true--if this is true--I certainly hope other Members of this body, Democrats and Republicans, will join me in calling for the resignation of John Kerry. Enough is enough. The redline that was crossed, if this is true, revealing secret information to one of America's most sworn enemies, with the blood of thousands of American military members on its hands, undermining the interests of one of our most important allies, the State of Israel, if this is true, John Kerry needs to go. He should resign or he should get fired by the President of the United States.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is Thursday, and by now many know-- particularly our members of our press corps--that it is time for what I feel is probably one of the best moments in the Senate each week. It is time for the ``Alaskan of the Week.''

We get to talk about Alaska, talk about somebody who is doing extraordinary things for our State, for our country a lot of times, and I like to give an update when I do my ``Alaskan of the Week'' speech on what is going on in Alaska.

It is spring, of course. The Sun is high in most parts of the State-- actually, in all parts of the State. Spring--we call it breakup, actually, relating to the ice on the rivers--it is upon us.

Now, of course, it can still snow, and it still gets pretty cold in a lot of places in Alaska, but winter is on the run. The promise of summer is in the air, and what a glorious summer it is going to be.

We aren't out of the woods yet on the pandemic in Alaska, but we have managed--we are proud of it, I am proud of my fellow Alaskans--the pandemic, the virus, as well as possible.

One of the things that is happening right now, our vaccination rates have been, almost from the beginning when we got the vaccine, the highest per capita in the country. Despite our huge challenges in terms of size, limited population, it is really kind of a minimiracle--No. 1 vaccination rates in America in Alaska. We did it by dog sled, snow machine, small airplanes to make that happen.

So if you are watching, America, please come on up to Alaska. It is safe. It is open for tourism. This summer we want you to come on up.

By the way, not only will you have an amazing experience, our State just announced a few days ago you will get a vaccine if you come to Alaska. If your State is too inefficient or bureaucratic to actually get a vaccine, come on up to Alaska. You can have the trip of a lifetime, and you and your family can get vaccinated. We want you up there. We are open for business. We want to see Americans come on up and enjoy our great State as we are getting through this pandemic.

It is a naturally beautiful place, you will see, but the people in my State work hard to keep it pristine and are really what makes it such a great place.

So, today, in honor of Earth Day, I wanted to honor Homer, AK, resident Beth Trowbridge, who has spent her career--about 40 years, four decades--working to keep our waters in Alaska and our beaches clean and pristine.

So let me tell you a little bit about Beth. Originally from St. Louis, Beth first came to Alaska in 1981 as a college student to work on the Youth Conservation Corps in Fairbanks, AK, the interior.

She only intended to stay a year or so--by the way, this is a very common story--only intended to stay a year or so, but as so many do, she got to Alaska and fell in love with the State so she transferred to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks where she got her degree in Northern and Alaska Native studies.

Now, Beth loves the wilderness. She loves living off the land, studying the plants, studying the animals. She said: ``There are beautiful and amazing people and amazing resources'' in Alaska. She said she always loved the sense that, while we can all live there, nature in Alaska is always in control--the earthquakes, the volcanoes, the extreme weather, the coldness. They are a constant reminder that, in her words, in Alaska ``there are the bigger forces out there''--a lot bigger, and she wants to keep it that way.

So she became a steward of her environment and dedicated her life to educating others so that they, too, could become stewards.

With all the talk about climate change, I fear that not nearly enough attention is given to those outside of politics, like in this town, who work day in and day out to care for the environment in the place they call home--in their communities, in their States, every day on the ground at home, making a difference.

That is what Beth has done. After college, she got a job as the education coordinator for the Prince William Sound Science Center, where she authored the ``Alaska Oil Spill Curriculum.''

Then, in 2000, she began her work--in many ways, her life's work--for the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, or CACS, in the drop-dead gorgeous community of Homer, AK, surrounded by the beautiful Kachemak Bay. Some people call Homer ``the place where the land ends and the sea begins''; others, ``the cosmic hamlet by the sea''; and others, ``the halibut capital of the world.''

If you haven't visited Homer, America, you have got to go to Homer. My goodness, it is beautiful. In Alaska, we just call it awesome, in part because of people like Beth and organizations like hers that keep it that way.

In 2012, Beth became the organization's executive director and helped expand the good work that CACS has been doing since 1982.

Now, this organization is primarily an educational organization and offers people of all ages, really from across the globe--not just Alaska, not just America, everywhere--opportunities to connect with the outdoors, learn about coastal environments through guided walks, tours, educational programs, overnight school programs, and so much more.

So think about this impact. Homer, where CACS is located, is a town of about 6,000 people. CACS educates roughly 16,000 people through these science-based programs every year. That is a big impact. They have camps for everyone, and I would encourage anyone who is listening who is going to go to Homer to sign up for one of these camps to explore the unique marine ecology, the tidal pools, and the abundant sea life; to watch whales, seals, and sea lions; to swim against the backdrop of the Kenai Mountains; and to go into the forest and learn about the forest, wildlife, and adaptation in the forest. There is so much to do.

One of the big initiatives of this important organization is to deal with marine debris. So today, on Earth Day, let me put a plug in for the marine debris programs in my State and across the country. This is an issue that I have been very focused on since my time as a U.S. Senator, working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We have gotten a lot done.

We passed the Save Our Seas Act a couple of Congresses ago, and we passed the Save Our Seas Act 2.0, which the Congressional Research Service called the most comprehensive ocean cleanup legislation ever in the history of the Senate. It was just passed and signed into law in December. So we are making progress.

I do want to give a shout-out to one of my good friends, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. You know, some of us miss his weekly ``Wake Up'' speeches. I think mine is the only weekly speech anymore. Senator Whitehouse, I am not sure what happened. But Senator Whitehouse and I have worked closely on this kind of legislation--ocean debris, ocean cleanup, and to help organizations like CACS with marine debris cleanup and to call attention to this issue that is solvable. We can solve this--marine debris, ocean plastics--and it is bringing a lot of people in America and across the world together.

One of CACS's biggest annual events is the annual Kachemak Bay Coast Walk. It involves more than 200 volunteers who adopt a section of Kachemak Bay shoreline. And, again, you have got to visit Kachemak Bay, one of the most beautiful places on the planet Earth. Trust me. Surveying changes, collecting data on marine life and human impact and cleaning up beach litter and marine debris is what people do every year with the Kachemak Bay Coast Walk. It is the kind of great local work that really makes a difference. It brings people from all across Alaska together--people who know how special and beautiful Kachemak Bay is-- and it creates community. It creates community, and that is so important, not just for our State but for our oceans and the coastline.

So that is one of the many things Beth has done.

Beth and her husband, Charlie, who is a retired shellfish biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have four children. The youngest is finishing eighth grade, and the oldest is 33.

Beth develops environmental curriculums for schools. She is a Rotarian, a Girl Scout leader, and keeps CACS running seamlessly. She says she does all of this because she has a passion for sharing the outdoors with people--Alaskans, Americans, people from all over the world, but especially the next generation--and she hopes that her work not only will have an immediate impact on the environment but helps people to understand the challenges of our oceans and to focus more on cleanup, because who doesn't want to clean up our oceans?

Local businesses, she is noticing, are using more recyclable material. People are leaving less trash behind. People are talking more about cleanup and ownership, and that is how you make a difference at the local level, and it spreads out all over the State and the country.

Beth said:

I hope that, through my work, we can provide the

opportunities to understand and appreciate nature. I am proud

of where I live. I love Homer. I want to take care of it. I

hope that others [in the community] feel that way too.

Beth, that is a great sentiment, and it is also one of the many reasons we are proud to honor you today with this very prestigious award, being our Alaskan of the Week. Congratulations.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my friend and colleague Senator Scott from Florida.

Madam President, I am honored to be on the Senate floor with my colleague Senator Scott from the great State of Florida. We are here to talk about an issue that really matters to both Alaska and to Florida and, I would say, that actually matters to the whole country.

Let me begin by saying that, like all States, my State, the great State of Alaska, struggled through the pandemic. There were a lot of challenges. I am proud to say that, with regard to the health challenges of the pandemic, I am very honored and privileged and proud to represent a great group of Americans, my fellow Alaskans, who came together on the health side despite our huge challenges in terms of its being a giant State with a dispersed population.

We worked together, and on so many indicators of health that were directly related to the pandemic, Alaskans did very well. We were the No. 1 per capita in terms of testing throughout almost the entire pandemic. Remarkably, we have been the No. 1 State per capita in terms of vaccine distribution, which is a mini miracle, if you know Alaska, given how big it is. We had vaccines going out of snow machines, dog sleds--you name it. We were getting it out to everybody in a more efficient way than in any other State in the country and, importantly, thank God, with one of the lowest per capita death rates in the country. We are proud of that.

Yet our economy--like many but I would say almost uniquely--is getting hammered, and people are suffering economically, first by the pandemic, of course, and now, unfortunately, by our own Federal Government. Let me just give a couple of examples.

The energy sector is very important to Alaska and very important to America, and, yes, we still need energy. Oil and gas, we need them. We have some of the greatest workers in the world in my State, but the Biden administration thinks we don't need them. It has been crushing my State with nine Executive orders directed solely at the State of Alaska to shut us down--nine by this administration. There is no State in the country that is getting that kind of attention. We don't want that attention.

Regarding commercial fishing, our State has been what I like to call the superpower of seafood. Over 60 percent of all seafood harvested in America comes from Alaska. This has been hurt by the pandemic.

The issue that we are here to talk about today is tourism, which is so important to Alaska and so important to Florida, and it is what I want to talk about with my good friend Senator Scott. It is about bringing relief to our fellow Americans--Floridians, Alaskans--and working to immediately pass the CRUISE Act. That is our bill, which would provide relief to coastal communities in our country--in Alaska and in Florida--and would enable a responsible return of cruise ship activities, which are so important to the small business owners in our States, whose livelihoods depend on having a robust tourism sector.

Let me just very quickly mention one thing. Alaska is open for tourism--one of the most beautiful places in the world. In fact, America, if you want to come and have a great vacation, come on up to Alaska this summer. Not only will you have an amazing experience, but we just announced 2 days ago that you can get a vaccine. Come on up. If your State is too inefficient for you to get a vaccine, have a great vacation in Alaska, and you will get a vaccine in Alaska as well. You can do both. You can see the most beautiful State in the country. You can fish, see glaciers, wildlife, climb mountains, whale watch. If you do that, it is going to help our economy and help the small businesses--fishing guides, hotels. I know Americans want to help one another. That is what we have been doing for the last year. We want you to come up, stay safe, and get a vaccine.

But here is what we need. To enable that to happen in Alaska and in other parts of the country, we need the CDC to better understand its job, its mission, and its role. This particularly relates to the issues of cruise ship passengers and the ability for cruise ship vessels to start to return to America's waters as they are doing throughout the rest of the world. In Asia, Europe, and Latin America, people are cruising safely right now, but the CDC is dragging its feet. It is dithering.

I have been meeting and my staff has been meeting with them, certainly, weekly. I have met twice with the CDC's Executive Director, but all we get is foot-dragging. All we get are excuses. All we get is guidance that is muddled, confusing, and simply unworkable.

Here is the thing: In my State, communities are dying, and no one seems to care. At the CDC, the bureaucrats there don't seem to give a damn about what Americans are suffering through right now, literally. I don't know how many times we can be on calls with them wherein we get no response. When people lose jobs and lose businesses, that has a health impact too.

Here is what our simple bill does, the CRUISE Act.

First, it will require the CDC to issue recommendations for how to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 to passengers and crew on board ships. This will be in addition to what the industry has already put forward, and there are over 70 recommendations.

Second, our bill will establish an interagency working group that will develop recommendations to facilitate the resumption of passenger cruise ship operations in the United States--in Florida and Alaska. The recommendations will facilitate the resumption of passenger cruise ship operations no later than July 4, 2021. Our bill will require the CDC, on no later than that same day, Independence Day, to revoke the order entitled ``Framework for Conditional Sailing and Initial Phase COVID-19 Testing Requirements for Protection of Crew.''

Our bill, finally, ensures that the HHS and CDC retain all appropriate authorities to make and enforce the regulations necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases on individual cruise ships.

This is a commonsense bill. We need the CDC to continue to work with us, certainly, but to recognize that by dragging its feet, tens of thousands of Americans are going to continue to suffer when they don't have to.

We can do this responsibly. My State and the State of Florida want to do this responsibly, but we can't wait any longer. Our tourism season in Alaska is very short. Our businesses need to know that they can open again, and our citizens need help.

I yield the floor to my colleague from Florida, whose citizens are experiencing some of the same devastating impacts that my fellow Alaskans are.

Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 1105 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, to my colleague from Washington, whom I have the utmost respect for, it is true that at the beginning of the pandemic, there were all kinds of challenges with the cruise ship industry. There is no doubt about that. We saw that, but that was over--well over--a year ago. We didn't know anything about the virus then, we didn't have vaccines then, and we didn't see the economic devastation then. It is a very different period right now, a year later.

What we are asking for is the CDC to move. That is what our bill does.

You know, Senator Murkowski and I had a meeting--our second meeting-- with the CDC Director just 3 weeks ago, and in that meeting she told us that they were going to issue all the guidance for the cruise ships-- issue it all so people can plan. They said that they could anticipate with this guidance that we could meet cruising opportunities to start by mid-July in Alaska. They said that with this guidance the CDC wouldn't have to be approving every move--every move going forward--and they said that they would take into consideration this huge progress we have made on vaccinating Americans.

In my State, in southeast Alaska, there are communities with 60, 70, 80 percent vaccination rates. That is where these cruise ships are going to be going.

The unfortunate thing is that not one thing the Director of the CDC told us turned out to be true. That is not good. Her staff or somebody in the CDC needs to be held responsible for telling us something that was not true at all.

Again, what is happening right now is an economic and health devastation. In my State, the estimates are up to $3 billion worth of damage just in Alaska alone because of the foot-dragging, mixed messages, and unresponsiveness when it comes to the CDC's guidance.

As my friend from Florida just mentioned, airlines, schools, hospitals, and hotels have all gotten CDC guidance and have been able to open. But for some reason, they are focused on this industry, which negatively impacts thousands of small businesses across America, in Florida and Alaska. And I certainly hope that the CDC, seeing that we are trying to move this--and it is a bipartisan issue, by the way--will start to do its job--will start to do its job and make the commitment that was made to me and other Senators to get this moving quickly in terms of guidance so we can be having tourism, cruise ships, and otherwise in America by mid-July. That is what I was told by the Director 3 weeks ago. They need to keep that commitment.

I yield to my good friend from Florida.

Mr. President, I wanted to come down to the Senate floor for a couple reasons, but first I want to talk a little bit about what happened in Alaska last weekend--actually, a really important meeting between the United States and China, our senior diplomats, their senior diplomats. It took place in Anchorage, and let's just say the meeting was as frosty as the Alaska air.

It was a tough meeting. The Chinese came out, kind of took a little advantage of being extra verbose in their opening statements, going against the 2-minute, agreed-upon time limit.

It was a bit of a tongue-lashing, I think, of the U.S. team, our Secretary of State, Tony Blinken. I think our team pushed back appropriately--the National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan; Kurt Campbell, who also works at the National Security Council. But this was the first face-to-face meeting between the United States and Chinese diplomats with the Biden administration.

What we saw was a very confident China, a very aggressive China that showed up in Alaska. For example, they were talking about ``Chinese- style democracy.'' We also know that as a dictatorship.

Earth to the Chinese Communist Party: There is no democracy in China. You run an authoritarian regime, so don't try to fool anybody. It is a dictatorship, not a democracy.

But the bigger issue is this: Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party clearly believe that it is rising, that its rise for this century is unstoppable, and that the United States--and the West but particularly the United States, our country--is declining and there is nothing we can do to stop this. They say this in private. They say it in public. And they believe it. They are confident to the point of being cocky, as we saw in Alaska, to the point of calling their dictatorship a democracy, which, of course, it isn't.

Now, my view--and I think it is the view of every Senator here; I certainly hope it is; I think it is--is that it is never a good idea to bet against the United States. Every major power in the world that has done so has lost that bet. That is a fact, but we clearly have work to do. We have a lot of work to do as it relates to this challenge.

I have been coming to the Senate floor for the last 6 years talking about this issue, talking about this challenge, talking about some of the things that we need to do to address the biggest U.S. strategic challenge for this century. It is the rise of China.

Now we have a new administration in power, and it was clear from the Alaska meeting that the Chinese Communist Party plans to aggressively challenge the Biden administration.

Now, I have a lot of disagreements already with the Biden administration, especially the way in which they are treating my State. I have been speaking on the Senat floor--eight Executive orders focused on Alaska, shutting down our economy, killing jobs. And I will fight them hard on this. But, on China, I believe it is imperative that we all work together, not as Democrats and Republicans but as Americans, as we have done when other major powers have threatened the United States.

The Communist Party of China clearly sees one of our major weaknesses as our political divisions. They write about it. It is in all the intel. They talk about it. Look, we are a democracy. We are transparent, unlike them. Our political divisions are on full display. You see them tonight. By the

way, we have had political divisions since the founding of the Republic.

China doesn't share their political divisions with the world, but they have them, no doubt about it. But here is a fact. Here is a fact, and we all need to know this. Every American needs to know this. Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party's worst nightmare is seeing a determined, long-term, bipartisan, strong U.S. strategy to deal with the rise of China, to deal with the rise of China for what they are: our No. 1 geostrategic challenge for this century. That is why we need to work together on this issue. It is something I have been calling for for a long time. And here is the good news: It is something that is starting to happen. It is something that is starting to happen.

Now, I had a good opportunity to meet with Secretary Blinken, to meet with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his top China national security official, Kurt Campbell, when they were in Alaska. I also was able to get a good debrief from Secretary Austin about his visits in Asia, particularly in India.

The Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor talk about dealing with China from what they call positions or situations of strength--situations of strength. They actually took that term from former Secretary of State Dean Acheson when he was doing something that they are currently trying to do now: putting together a coalition, a long-term strategy, in 1947, 1948, 1949 to deal with the Soviet Union, and they did it with Democrats and Republicans. NATO, the strategy of containment--these were all things that came together in this body.

So I want to talk very briefly about some of these positions of strength that the administration is trying to put together as it relates to China, and I think it is in our interest to help them.

First of all, I think it was important and, of course, as an Alaska Senator, I was glad that meeting took place in Anchorage, but it was also a symbol. One of the things that the Chinese Communist Party frequently states--Xi Jinping frequently states it--is that Asia should be for Asians. The subtext of that is, we are trying to kick the United States out of Asia.

Well, here is more news for the Chinese, for the Communist Party of China: We are an Asian nation. We have been an Asian nation for centuries. My hometown of Anchorage, where this meeting took place, is closer to Tokyo than it is to this city, Washington, DC. The Aleutian Island chain goes to the other side of the international dateline. We are an Asian nation. We are not leaving. We have been there 200 years; we will be there 200, 300, 500 more.

So that is No. 1, and I am glad they held the meeting in Alaska for that reason, on American soil, and they chose to do that purposely. But let me talk about a couple of other positions of strength that I think it is incumbent upon us to try to help this administration with, help our country with. Some are going to be up to the Senate and the House. A lot more are going to be up to the President and his team. Where we can influence it, we should.

As I mentioned, politically being unified on issues that relate to China is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party fears the most, and it is starting to happen. Legislation to outcompete China economically--critical, critical. The more that we can do that, the more that we can show we are united, the more important what we do here is going to matter in the long-term competition with regard to China.

Let me give another one. Allies. Allies. The United States is an ally-rich nation. China is an ally-poor country. They have very few allies: maybe North Korea; Russia maybe, maybe not. China doesn't really have allies; they have customers.

We have a network, and it is one of our most important strategic advantages. We need to build upon that network of allies, deepen it, expand it. And I will give the administration a lot of credit for setting this up in an important way for their first meeting, the leaders of the quad.

The quad is the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, started by President George W. Bush, taken to another level by President Trump, and taken to a really high level by President Biden, the leader level. It was a really smart move. The quad can help anchor our alliances in the region in a critical way. Three of the four biggest economies in the world are part of the quad. Some of the best militaries in the world are part of the quad. So to have that meeting, even though it was virtual, with the leaders--the President, Prime Ministers--of the quad was smart and something I think they should be commended on. Then to have the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense go to Korea, go to Japan; continue on, the Secretary of Defense, to India--also very smart.

The Chinese know this is a huge weakness of theirs, and it is a huge strength of ours. As Senators, the more that we can do to encourage this on our own, go to these countries, reinforce the importance of these alliances--it is clearly a position of strength that the administration is off to a good start with.

Let me give another one, a position of strength. Our military. Our military. This is going to be pretty simple. If we see dramatic cuts to our military--and right now the Biden administration is debating this. There is a real fight going on internally: Where is the budget going to be? We can't see cuts.

The second term of the Obama-Biden administration cut defense spending by 25 percent. They gutted readiness. The Chinese and the Russians were applauding that whole period. We have worked hard to build that up under the Trump administration and Republican Senate. They need to keep it going.

And here is going to be a test. Last year in the NDAA, we put in the Defense bill a bipartisan piece of legislation called the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. The admiral in charge of the INDOPACOM region testified in front of the Armed Services Committee very recently. His replacement testified yesterday. All of them said we need to fully fund the Pacific Deterrence Initiative--a bipartisan part of the Defense bill last year--and $4.6 billion is what they think we need to reorder the balance, particularly in the area of the Taiwan Strait. That is public.

The administration is debating this right now. They need to fund it. This body will approve it. That is going to be a position of strength that is up to them, but people are watching. We are watching, our allies are watching, and, of course, the Chinese Communist Party is watching.

Let me give one more, one more that I think is critical: taking advantage of America's resources, critical minerals: Yes, energy; yes, natural gas; yes, oil. Prior to the pandemic, we were the world's energy superpower, largest producer of oil in the world, largest producer of natural gas in the world, largest producer of renewables in the world.

This is a good thing for our country. Our allies in the region know it; the Chinese know it. And again, there is a debate within the administration right now on energy.

The President has recently told some of our great Union leaders he is ``all in for natural gas.'' We should do that. That is the reason we reduced greenhouse gas emissions over the last 15 years, more than any other country--big country--in the world because of the revolution of natural gas. Our allies need that. They know it is a national security strength that we have.

On the other hand, we have other elements in the administration that clearly want to unilaterally give away our energy comparative advantage, restrict production of oil and gas. It makes no sense.

So energy, energy is another position of strength that we should be encouraging, and I certainly am encouraging the Biden administration to recognize it as something good for our economy, good for jobs and, yes, really good for our national security and really important in our competition with China. The Biden administration national security team knows this. I think they recognize it. But again, we will be watching. It is important.

This is going to be an issue that we are going to be focused on here in the U.S. Senate, in my view, for the next 50 to 100 years, if we are doing it right. If we work together, if we work from positions of strength, as the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor have mentioned, are focused on, the way this is going to end is the way it ended with other major powers that

have challenged the United States. I am very confident of that, and I think most of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are. We need to get working together on that.

Mr. President, it is not Thursday yet, but it is almost Thursday, and that is when I love to come down to the floor of the U.S. Senate to recognize an Alaskan who is doing something great for our State. And as many know here, we call this person our Alaskan of the Week.

Now, it is one of my favorite times of the week. I know that a couple of Hill watchers like it too. I want to give a shout-out to Chris Cioffi from Roll Call. He actually did a piece in Roll Call today about the ``Alaskan of the Week'' series. So thank you, Chris. I hope you are watching. It is a little late, and it is not Thursday. But anyway, I appreciate the shout-out in your series today.

I am going to get to the punch. Our Alaskan of the Week tonight, this week, is Rod Boyce, a friend of mine, a former longtime editor of one of my favorite--actually, it is my favorite newspaper in Alaska, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. He clearly is deserving of this great, important award.

But before I talk about Rod, let me give you a little update about what is going on in the State. First, some good news, something we are all very proud of in Alaska. The economy is hurting; we are not proud of that. But in terms of the pandemic, the health elements, our State continues to be the No. 1 State vaccinated per capita of any State in the country. This is a minimiracle, by the way, because we are a really big State, and we are really spread out, a really small population. And yet, the Federal Government, Tribal healthcare system, VA, State of Alaska, everybody coming together is making it happen.

About 3 weeks ago, we announced that anyone over 16 could get a vaccine. And some communities are hitting 60, 70 percent vaccinated already in Alaska. Really important. We are opening up. If you are watching, and you don't live in Alaska, come visit. It is going to be safe, but we are very proud of that accomplishment because it has taken a lot of work.

Of course, it is cold in Alaska, but the Sun has been shining. The snow has been amazing. We have had a lot of it recently. The spirits are up. We have an Iditarod winner. Congratulations to Dallas Seavey on your fifth Iditarod win. Incredible, incredible.

You know, some may take issue with the claim that Alaska is the most unique State in the Union, but consider this: Every year, teams of mushers and their dogs barrel hundreds of miles across the State toward the city of Nome, in some of the harshest conditions, rugged conditions on the planet Earth.

Certainly, these are the kind of events that we think make Alaska unique and a big sense of community. I have said it before: Alaska isn't always the easiest place to live. It is far from the lower 48. The weather can be extreme, very tough. But as a result, the people and communities bond, and they work together, particularly in some of our most remote communities. We are one big community in the great State of Alaska, as my colleague from Nebraska knows.

Every community in Alaska, in America, needs to be able to share reliable, credible information. On that topic, of course, there has been a lot of negative attention in the past couple of years paid to some in the national media, particularly in the last few years. But the vital role, the vital role of local journalism and how that role that plays in different communities across our country, in my view, hasn't had nearly enough attention, and it is a positive role, our local reporters.

So our Alaskan of the Week, Rod Boyce, who, until just a few weeks ago was the longtime editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, spent nearly his entire career, 35 years, ensuring that Alaskans stayed connected through local news.

Now, Rod himself hasn't made huge headlines in the State. As a matter of fact, that is one of the reasons for the Alaskan of the Week, to do a shout-out to someone wh has not gotten a lot of recognition. The only time Rod has gotten a lot of headlines was one instance of a mushing mishap. I am going to talk briefly about that. But as an old-school newsman, he liked to stay behind the headlines, behind the scenes.

But he has been behind the scenes of so many of those headlines in our State. For years, he worked tirelessly--first at papers across the State and then for 27 years at the News-Miner--to keep the great community of Fairbanks and North Pole, AK, the interior part of our State, connected and informed.

So here is a little bit about Rod. Born in London, England--I have known Rod for many years, but I did not know that fact. Born in London, England, his family moved to Southern California in the 1960s. His father designed and engineered refineries. And Rod's father and his wife--Rod's mom--raised both him and his sister.

He wasn't sure what he wanted to do in life, but he was inspired by a trip he took to England early in his college career, came back with a camera that he actually found on a bench in the Heathrow Airport. It is an interesting detail. And he found his calling in journalism. He was the editor of the school newspaper at Humboldt State University and did some stints at small papers, landed at the Sacramento Union--the oldest paper in the West, by the way--one that Mark Twain used to write for. It was his first experience with a good old-fashioned newspaper war. The younger, afternoon paper, the Sacramento Bee, decided to take on the establishment Sacramento Union. Eventually, the Bee won. But by then, Rod had made his way to the great State of Alaska to enter another, even bigger newspaper war: the Anchorage Times, the established paper, versus the upstart Anchorage Daily News.

Any person in news in Alaska who has been around a while will talk about that newspaper war with something of awe in their voice. Both papers then were fully staffed up, at least 30 reporters each, bureaus all across the State, even bureaus here in DC, pre-social media days, pre-Twitter days. Reporters spent their days on the streets, knocking on doors, stealing each other's scoops. It was called shoe leather reporting, and some great journalism in Alaska emerged.

Eventually, the upstart, the young Anchorage Daily News--still around--won the war. So Rod was on the losing team. He began to work for a small chain of six or seven rural papers called Alaska Newspapers, Inc. It was here that Rod got his first glimpse of rural Alaska. He learned about fisheries issues, ate his first piece of muktuk. That is whale blubber. He experienced the beauty and became aware of the heartbreak of rural Alaska, the true spiritual soul of our State, one of the spiritual souls of America, I would argue.

After a few years with Alaska newspapers, he took the job that he has been so good at for almost three decades, editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, which is my wonderful wife Julie's hometown. It is the first city I lived in with Julie and our brandnew daughter of ours, Meghan, and, of course, I can still consider the News-Miner to be my hometown newspaper.

As I mentioned, Rod was an editor for 27 years for this great interior Alaska paper. The News-Miner is small but mighty in Alaska, punching way above its weight, winning numerous journalism awards, breaking important stories on health crises, injustice, scandals, economic opportunities, everyday stories about everyday people, the kind of stories that draw us together as communities.

As Rod said, ``It's not just national journalism that matters. Local journalism matters [too].''

To that end, it was his policy, until he just retired a couple of weeks ago, to have at least 95 percent of the front page of the News- Miner devoted to local news. That is a great idea.

So many Alaskans have interests, hobbies, lifestyles that many here in the lower 48 just don't understand, Rod included. For many years, he spent his days in the newsroom and his evenings and weekends mushing dogs. And he still mushes. He loves it. It is a family affair. He and his wife Julie used to put their daughter, Edie, in a sled when she was just in diapers. And Edie is still doing it. The most dogs they have ever

had now is 27. It is down to 18. This is hard work. It is tons of work. My wife Julie and her family also raised sled dogs. It is really hard work, particularly in the cold, interior Alaska winters. And it is also dangerous, as Rod can attest.

In 2000, when competing for the first time in the 200-mile Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race on the Kenai Peninsula, he took a wrong turn. It was snowing hard. It was difficult to see. The trail got obliterated. And he couldn't figure out how to get back on the trail. So he staked his dogs and hunkered down on a ridge to build camp. He had some candy, Reese's Pieces, dried lamb for the dogs. He had a cooker, thermos, some fuel, some twigs. He had bunny boots, fortunately, but not a parka.

He spent his days exploring, going as far as he dared to try to find the trail at night. At night, he could hear the helicopters above, looking for Rod, but they couldn't see him through the cloud cover.

What was going on turned out to be one of the largest land search and rescue missions in Alaska history, trying to find Rod Boyce, the intrepid editor of the News-Miner. But he didn't know that. He just knew that his days were ticking away. Rod's wife Julie was worried sick, of course, but kept it together throughout. On the sixth day-- sixth day--almost a week, when the sky cleared, he headed out again and a snow machine came his way. ``I think I am the guy you're looking for,'' he told the driver, Ron Poston. Ron gave him a candy bar and a ride to safety.

That night, he and his wife celebrated with a beer and a cheeseburger. His feet were in bad shape, but otherwise he was unharmed. When he made it back to the newsroom, his fellow reporters put up markers that led from his parking space into the building in case he got lost again. He thought it was pretty funny.

On January 22, Rod Boyce left the News-Miner to take a job as a science writer and public information officer at the very cool and esteemed Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He spends his days now writing about Tsunamis and the skies and the heavens. He said:

It is a nerd's dream . . . I had a good 35-year run in

newspapers and was very fortunate to experience the things

that I did and interact with all sorts of public officials

and regular folks on the street. I got to see them at their

highs and lows, their tragedies and their happiest moments.

He still has hopes for local news. ``A local news outlet can tie a local community together and that is super important. I hope that never changes,'' said Rod.

Me, too, Rod. Here is to local journalism. Here is to the mighty Fairbanks News-Miner, and here is to Rod Boyce. Thank you for being the guy behind the headlines all these many years. Thank you for keeping our communities and interior connected, and congratulations on perhaps one of the biggest awards you have ever received, our Alaskan of the Week.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is not often I come down to the floor to say I have a lot in common with the Senate majority leader, Senator Schumer from New York. In fact, in my 6 years in the Senate, I don't think I have ever done that.

But after reading his remarks prior to the vote that we took yesterday on the Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh, I thought I would come down and make a few points on that nominee, that vote, and some issues I have in common with the majority leader and now-Secretary Walsh and maybe some issues I don't have so much in common with the majority leader but I think I do have with Secretary Walsh, which is why I voted for him.

First, as I mentioned, I, too, supported our now-Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh, for some of the reasons that Senator Schumer did. Let me explain. Secretary Walsh started in the Laborers' Union, Local 223, in Boston, age 21, following in his father's footsteps. Now, as many people know, the Laborers are the biggest building construction union in the country. They build things--pipelines, roads, oil wells, bridges. They have made America strong. I am a big fan of Laborers and leaders like Joey Merritt back home and Terry O'Sullivan, whom I am going to talk a little bit about.

Secretary Walsh followed his father's example and joined the Laborers in

Boston. He is also the son of Irish immigrants, which is something that is near and dear to my heart. And Senator Schumer said he has something very much in common--yesterday, when he spoke about Secretary Walsh-- with Secretary Walsh because his grandfather was an immigrant from Eastern Europe who also, when he came over to America, got very involved with the labor movement. That is really a very common, powerful story of the American dream, common to millions--Senator Schumer's family, Secretary Walsh's family, and it is certainly a story that I have in common with those two.

You see, my great-grandfather was from a family of Irish immigrants, and he was also very involved in the labor movement. In fact, he was one of the original cofounders of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the IBEW. He was its first grand marshal.

I have something I am quite proud of here. It is a page from the history books of the IBEW, talking about my great-grandfather's great work for the IBEW when it first got off the ground.

I look forward to working with Secretary Walsh on helping the men and women in America, certainly in my State, who build things. They have succeeded. They rise up and help others rise up--other working men and women--the way Secretary Walsh's father did, the way Senator Schumer's grandfather did, the way my great-grandfather did. It is a great American story.

But I must say that my views and Senator Schumer's diverge on some of the other things he may have been speaking about when he talked about Secretary Walsh's nomination yesterday.

One, he was critical of some of the Trump administration's Department of Labor policies as related to the men and women who build things-- these working men and women--despite the fact that prior to the pandemic, with some of the policies that we implemented here, the United States had the strongest economy in decades, the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, wages were finally going up after 2 decades of stagnation. And very importantly for the working men and women of this country, there was a huge expansion and boom in the American energy sector, ``all of the above'' energy: oil, gas, renewables, as important to the Presiding Officer as it is to Alaska.

Let me describe one other narrative that I believe certainly is true that I have seen in my professional life in Alaska--in America but certainly back home in my State--and that is the narrative that I am not so sure my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to highlight. But I am going to highlight it because I think it is really important, particularly now, and it is this: When national Democrats, whether during the Obama administration or now, during the Biden administration, are set up with the choice where they have to choose between the interests of the working men and women in this country who build things versus the interests of the extremists--radical environmental groups who want to kill jobs and shut them down--they almost always sid with these groups who kill jobs, not the working men and women of America, not the working men and women of Alaska.

This is true. My colleagues sometimes don't want to admit it, but it is true. Do you know who else has seen it, and do you know who else I believe knows it is true? Secretary Walsh as a laborer. He has seen it. That is another reason why I voted for him.

He and his fellow laborers, whether in Boston or Alaska, also know that this issue is true. When there is a choice between the working men and women of America who build things versus the extremists who want to shut things down, way too often, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle go with the extremists, not the men and women who build things in this country.

Now, this narrative is not only continuing under the Biden administration; it is accelerating, and it has been bad for Alaska, bad for America, bad for working families, and, to be honest, it is a bit surprising. President Biden came into office talking about his blue collar roots, but right now, the record is anything but supporting the men and women who build things.

Here is a snapshot of what is going on in my State. In the first 4 weeks of the Biden administration, there were eight Executive orders focused on Alaska--eight. No other State has had that many Executive orders focused on Alaskan working families.

Day one, ANWR--trying to shut that down. We got that done in this body. They also killed the Keystone Pipeline--10,000 jobs, laborers' jobs. Marty Walsh knows a lot about that. It goes on and on and on. There are Executive orders right now that, from my State's perspective, are focused on hurting working men and women.

There is another one I will talk about. It is a project we have, a big energy project in Alaska called the Willow project. This has been permitted by Democratic and Republican administrations for 25 years to finally get it going--the Clinton administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, everybody. It is in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, a place set aside by Congress over 70 years ago for oil and gas development and good jobs. It is not controversial at all. The Biden administration has put a hold on that. Here is the estimate. It is a $7 billion project that will produce American energy and an estimated 2,000 direct jobs on the Willow project. This isn't some pie-in-the-sky project that we were starting this winter. There were 2,000 direct jobs, 75 percent of which are union jobs, and they are saying ``We are going to put a hold on it''-- thousands of additional supporting jobs, and they are going to put a hold on that. Why? Well, we know why, because in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, some of the most extreme radical environmental groups in the country sued to stop it, and they were successful.

So guess what happened in Alaska this winter during a recession. The 2,000 men and women who were working on this project were given pink slips and told to go home. That is what happened.

Mr. President, don't just take my word for it. I want to quote again from Terry O'Sullivan. He is the head of the Laborers, the biggest construction union in the country. This was his reaction after day one of the Biden administration, where there was a choice of working men and women who build things like pipelines or the radical extremist environmental groups who want to shut down and kill American jobs. It is a choice--day one, the radical environmentalists win.

Here is what the head of the Laborers--remember, Marty Walsh, Secretary Walsh is a Laborer from Boston. Here is what the head of the Laborers, the great American Terry O'Sullivan, said:

The Biden administration's decision to cancel the Keystone

XL pipeline permit on day one of his presidency is both

insulting and disappointing to the thousands of hard-working

LIUNA members--

Those are the Laborers.

--who will lose good-paying, middle class family-supporting

jobs.

By blocking this 100 percent union project, and pandering

to environmental extremists--

Remember, this is Terry O'Sullivan talking, not Senator Sullivan talking.

--a thousand union jobs will immediately vanish and 10,000

additional jobs will be foregone.

That is Terry O'Sullivan. Remember the choice: Men and women who build things and make our country great versus extremist groups like the Center for Biological Diversity--they go with the extremists.

Here is Mark McManus, general president of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters. They were going to build the Keystone Pipeline, too, just like LIUNA members:

In revoking this permit, the Biden Administration has

chosen to listen to the voices of fringe activists instead of

union members and the American consumer on Day 1 [of the

Biden administration]. Let me be . . . clear.

This is Mark McManus still talking.

When built with union labor by the men and women of the

United Association, pipelines like Keystone XL remain the

safest and most efficient modes of energy transportation in

the world. Sadly, the Biden Administration has now put

thousands of union members and workers out of work.

This is why the Secretary of Labor we just confirmed--and I was glad to support him because he is a Laborer. He knows how to build things. He knows these politics. This is why it is important to have his voice because

the voice of the extremist is much stronger in this administration. It is not just policies of killing union jobs--the men and women who build things for America--but if you listen, it is how the new members of this administration talk about these jobs. Listen. You have to listen, and what you hear is a condescending tone as it relates to these jobs. You may have heard John Kerry and Gina McCarthy, the climate change czars in the White House, who were saying in one of their press conferences that we need to help people make ``better choices'' on their jobs. That is pretty condescending. They are talking about laborers. They are talking about my oil and gas workers in the great State of Alaska or in Colorado.

The Secretary of Energy, in her confirmation hearing, talked about how some of the jobs might have to be ``sacrificed.''

Even in the Environment and Public Works Committee--and I am a very bipartisan guy--some of my Senate colleagues on the other side of the aisle were recently talking about: We need to encourage people to get more ``relevant jobs.''

What is more relevant than powering America?

Until recently, the men and women who built America--pipelines, oil and gas rigs, roads, bridges, the men and women with dirt under their fingernails--were celebrated, which is as they should be. They built this country. They powered this country. They won wars for this country. By the way, they often fought in wars for this country. Then they came home. They got good jobs in the building trades as laborers, operating engineers, pipefitters, teamsters, IBEWs--the IBEW like my great-grandfather helped start. Not so much anymore.

The new Secretary of Energy is now calling them ``fossil workers'' who are from ``fossil communities.'' I am not kidding. Listen to her. I have been trying to give them a little bit of advice: Don't use that term. It is condescending. You are talking to workers as if they are some kind of dinosaur that should be put in a museum. Communities? Fossil communities? Really?

Madam Secretary, if you are listening, ditch that language. It drips with an attitude of being condescending toward these great Americans.

Well, I was just home in my State with a bunch of these so-called ``fossil workers'' this past weekend. These are some of the best, most patriotic Americans anywhere. They are tough; they are hard-working; they love their country, but I will tell you they are concerned. They are concerned. Why? Because they know that exactly what I have been talking about here is happening--the radical, extremist environmental groups want to kill and are killing jobs.

By the way, as for that lawsuit I talked about on the Willow Project, 200 Alaskans were sent home during a recession. Men and women who have to pay mortgages and pay tuitions were sent home.

So my workers in the great State of Alaska are concerned. They know that these groups they are sending have a beeline into the White House and that they want to kill jobs--energy jobs--in my State and in America. They are worried that the majority now, the Senate majority, has similar views, so they are nervous.

Yet I am hopeful on one thing. Given his background and his heritage--now I am talking about the Secretary of Labor, Secretary Walsh.

I believe that, when the decisions are made--and I hope when the decisions are being made in the Biden administration to kill more good- paying energy jobs that built this country--and when they are coming before the Biden administration, the new Secretary of Labor is going to stand up for the working men and women, stand up for the laborers in Boston whom he knows so well or the laborers in Alaska whom he knows so well and look at the other Cabinet members and say: Not on my watch. We are not going to kill any more of these jobs.

That is what I am hopeful for. That is what he committed to me to do, and that is why I voted for Secretary Walsh as the new Secretary of Labor.

Mr. President, I have one more topic I would like to talk about today. It is another important one, and it is one that many have been talking about here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Many have spoken very eloquently about this topic, and depending on when they have spoken about it--this year, this week, last year, a decade ago, a century ago--it is a topic that is really fundamental to this institution, and it looks as if Members in this institution are trying to change the institution forever. Now, I am talking about the filibuster.

As you know, there has been much talk recently about the possibility of getting rid of the filibuster. This is an action that will fundamentally transform this institution, certainly, but I believe, frankly, it will transform our country. I don't think this is a wise move at all. The irony is--and I am going to talk about it--until very recently, the vast majority of my colleagues, Republican and Democratic, were in agreement on this topic in that getting rid of the legislative filibuster was not a wise move for the Senate and not a wise move for America.

Now, this might seem like an insular issue--something that people in Washington, DC, get incensed about, wound up about, and the people back home might not necessarily care because it might not impact them--but I don't think that this is the case at all. This rule, the filibuster, is at the very heart of what keeps extreme legislation, pushed by a small minority of the public, from passing. It is a rule that, in the Senate, certainly encourages, if not demands, compromise and bipartisan work both when one's party is in or out of power.

Now, look, our instincts as Senators--all of our instincts--are to get things done for our States, for our country, but what is good for Alaska isn't always good for Colorado, and what is good for Colorado isn't always good for New York. What is good for the majority isn't alway good for the minority and vice versa and isn't always good for the Nation. That is the heart of federalism. It is also why the majority can't wield unfettered power in the U.S. Senate. With the exception of a few laws, what is required here is typically 60 votes on legislation. It is what separates this body, the Senate, from the House.

For the good of the country, if you look at our history, we must work together, find compromise, find consensus, find solutions, particularly on major legislation, to get a broad-based buy-in from all Americans or most Americans. This is what the filibuster has required.

Remember, the Framers understood that, here in the Senate, we would be different from the House. We would be the bulwark against what James Madison called an anchor, a necessary fence, against the fickleness and passions that pervade the House. No offense to our Members of the House of Representatives, but as George Washington is said to have told Thomas Jefferson, the Framers created the Senate to cool House legislation. It was the cooling saucer you had with regard to the tea in the cup.

Indeed, the Senate--often referred to as the ``world's greatest deliberative body'' in its earliest days--was founded on the right of unlimited debate. That is what the filibuster is. Even in the first session of the Senate in 1789, Senators used this right to debate and debate and debate in order to delay consideration of legislation. It wasn't until the mid-1800s that this tactic was coined the ``filibuster.''

The point is that this procedural rule in the Senate has been here, in one form or another, since the founding of the Republic, and when you hear my colleagues talk about it as some new, recent procedure, it is just not factually accurate. Before the 1900s, there was no formal procedure to even end debate if a Senator chose to talk a bill to death. It wasn't until 1917, during a debate about arming Merchant Marine vessels during World War I, that the Senate established the cloture tool, giving the body the ability to end debate by a certain margin of Senators.

Now, as some of my colleagues have been debating recently and have mentioned throughout its history, we have seen the filibuster, cloture used for good. We have used it to stop legislation, and it has also been used for ill--to delay much needed, historic reforms like civil rights legislation during the

fifties and sixties, legislation which was filibustered by Democratic Senators until the filibuster was finally broken in the sixties. It has also been used for many other purposes, but Members on both sides have used it for centuries. In fact, one scholar's account was that the very first Senate filibuster was over a bridge across the Potomac River. I am not sure why, but I guess it was an important issue back then.

So slowing things down, cooling passions, that is what this body was designed to do, and that is what this procedure has done for decades. That is why my friends on the other side, who are undertaking a push to get rid of this, need to think. They need to stop. They need to think. The American people need to understand the consequences, and our good friends in the media who are covering the Senate need to write some real history about this.

As my friends on the other side of the aisle know, this is one of these issues that, when the shoe was on the other foot, we did not take action. What am I talking about? Recently, the Republicans held the majority in the Senate, and, recently, with President Trump, we had a Republican in the White House. There was frustration, and they wanted to move things quicker, and the President, President Trump, was pressuring many Senators: Let's get rid of the filibuster. We didn't. We didn't. We told the President: It is not a good idea for the Senate, and it is not a good idea for the country.

That is what we did when the shoe was on the other foot. We said no. It is not good for this body, and it is not good for the country. The Republican President was pushing: We need to get things done. We need to get rid of it. No.

Let me just read a few of the things that were said recently about the necessity of keeping the filibuster.

My friend from Delaware, in 2018, said:

I am committed to never voting to change the legislative

filibuster.

Now, he said that when a Republican President was in the White House.

My friend from New Jersey, in 2009, said:

My colleagues and I--everybody I have talked to--believes

the legislative filibuster should stay here, and I will

personally resist any efforts to get rid of it.

My Democratic friend from Montana said just a little over a year ago:

I am a ``no'' on changing the filibuster. The move to make

the Senate like the House, I think, is a mistake.

I could go on.

I don't want the Senate to become like the House. The

consequences of getting rid of the filibuster are too great.

These are all words spoken very recently by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Even more impressive, just a few years ago, we had 61 Senators--33 Republicans, 25 of whom are still here, and 30 Democrats, 27 of whom are still in the Senate today--who sent a letter. I have it right here.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this letter sent to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, saying we have to maintain the 60-vote threshold for filibusters involving legislation.

Mr. President, this was sent in April 2017. Now, what was going on in April 2017? Republicans had the majority, and President Trump was pressuring us to get rid of the filibuster. We said no.

This is what the letter said:

Regardless of our past disagreements on that issue, we are

united--

Remember, 61 Senators, 27 Democratic Senators, who are still here, just 3 years ago said this--

we are united in our determination to preserve the ability of

Members to engage in extended debate when bills are on the

Senate floor.

We are mindful of the unique role the Senate plays in the

legislative process, and we are steadfastly committed to

ensuring this great American institution--

The U.S. Senate--

continues to serve as the world's greatest deliberative body.

Therefore, we are asking you to join us in opposing any

effort to curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of

Senators to engage in full, robust, and extended debate as we

consider legislation before this body in the future.

That is the letter. Twenty-seven of my Democratic friends said ``Don't get rid of the filibuster'' 3 years ago. Where are they now?

Why is it that when this topic comes up, Senators Manchin and Sinema are the only ones the media focuses on? How come they are not asking the questions of the other 25--one-quarter of the entire body--who wrote this letter? What happened? Where is their conviction?

When the shoe was on the other foot, we said we are not doing it, but they now want to do it. Nobody is asking them. I think the media should take a look at every Senator who signed this letter 3 years ago and say: Hey. Why did you change your opinion so quickly? Three years ago, you were adamantly against the filibuster, getting rid of it. What happened? Could it be that you now have power and you--but we didn't do that when we had the power, when we had the White House.

It is a really important question. Actually, it is so important, I would welcome any of my colleagues who signed the letter, Democrat or Republican, to come on down and explain to your constituents, explain to the American people why you switched so quickly and what you think it is going to do to the structure of the U.S. Senate and literally to our country.

What strikes many of us is how, on so many issues, people change their side--it happens on both sides--when people are holding power from different perspectives.

Let me provide another example that even hits our media friends. In 2004, when George W. Bush was President and Republicans had the majority, they were evidently considering getting rid of the filibuster, and they didn't.

The New York Times wrote the following:

The Republicans see the filibuster as an annoying obstacle,

but it is actually one of the checks and balances that the

founders, who worried greatly about the concentration of

power, built into our system.

It is the New York Times saying the Founders built the filibuster into our system.

People who call themselves conservatives should find a way

of achieving their goals without declaring war on one of the

oldest traditions in American democracy.

The filibuster. That is the New York Times. So Republicans heeded the advice of the New York Times. It doesn't happen a lot, but it did.

So let's see where the New York Times was on this one just about a month ago.

The filibuster is a centuries-old parliamentary tool that

has been transformed into a weapon for strangling functional

government. The filibuster must go.

Well, so much for the New York Times's convictions. I wonder why they are changing their tune. I wonder why they are changing their tune. Probably the same reason that some of my Democratic colleagues are changing their tune after signing this letter.

So I will end with one final quote. This is from a politician we all know well, all very familiar with him. It is from a speech on the Senate floor by U.S. Senator--in 2005, U.S. Senator Barack Obama. He spoke about how the American people expect their politicians to work to create a more perfect union.

What they do not expect is for one party, be it Republican

or Democrat--

This is former Senator, former President Obama speaking right here on the floor--

to change the rules in the middle of the game so that they

can make all the decisions while the other party is told to

sit down and keep quiet.

Sounds a little bit like what is going on with this filibuster debate.

I understand that Republicans are getting a lot of pressure

to do this--

``This'' meaning get rid of the filibuster--

from factions outside the [Senate] Chamber, but we need to

rise above the ``ends justify the means'' mentality because

we are here to answer the people--all of the people, not just

the ones who are wearing our particular party label.

That was Senator Obama--former Senator Obama, former President Obama saying in 2005: Don't do it, Republicans. You have the power. You have the Presidency. You have the Senate. Don't get rid of the filibuster.

Well, I couldn't agree more with our former President. Again, when we had the ability to do this just 3 years ago, we said no.

I hope our friends in the media will write about this. Don't hold your breath. But here is one instance when the shoe was on the other foot. Because it was so important to America, so important to this institution, we declined to make the power move.

It would be really good--whether it is President Obama, who has spoken out about this now; or the New York Times, who has changed their tune; or all 25 of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who signed this letter 3 years ago saying ``Don't do it''--come on down, speak to the American people. Tell them why you have had such a drastic change of heart.

But I will tell you this: If we do do it, you are going to regret it; we are going to regret it; the American people are going to regret it. And do you know what? In my discussions with some of my Democratic colleagues, and I am not going to name names, they know that. They know that. They are getting a lot of pressure. Majority Leader Schumer is getting a lot of pressure from the far left.

Don't let the far left ruin this institution. Don't let the far left bludgeon you guys into changing America, because I think deep down in your heart of hearts, especially all of you who signed this letter 3 years ago know what the right thing to do for the U.S. Senate is and the right thing to do for the United States of America is, and it is to continue to keep what the Founding Fathers devised for this body.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we just voted on Secretary Michael Regan to be the new EPA Administrator. I want to congratulate him on his vote. He is now the new EPA Administrator.

I sit on the Committee on Environment and Public Works. So we had hearings for Mr. Regan--Administrator Regan, I guess we want to call him now--and I have had a number of conversations with him. I actually voted for him to move out of committee to come to the floor for this vote that we took today.

I like to come down to the floor to explain my votes because sometimes I support the Biden administration's Cabinet officials. I introduced Secretary of Defense Austin at his confirmation hearing. I served with him many years ago when I was a marine and he was a four- star general in the Army. I have a lot of respect for the Secretary of Defense.

Then there are other times when I am a ``no.'' What I typically like to do is come and explain the noes but not always. On this one, for Secretary Regan, for Administrator Regan and his team, I want to explain it because I will say that I was impressed with him. I think he is qualified. He was essentially the EPA administrator for North Carolina. Both of his Republican Senators introduced him at his hearing and voted for him, I believe, today, and I have had good conversations with him as well.

Here is the thing: I was trying to get commitments from him. Now, this is very normal in the confirmation process. You work with the nominees and try to get commitments. Sometimes they give them, and sometimes they don't, but that is what we do--give advice and consent. We have been doing this since the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution on what the Senate should be doing in these confirmation processes that we are going through right now with the Biden administration. So I wasn't asking for a lot in terms of commitments from this administration for the great State of Alaska, but it was important to me.

Why was it important to me?

Unfortunately, the Biden administration has launched a war on working families in Alaska. Now, that sounds like a pretty dramatic statement, ``a war on working families in Alaska.'' What I am looking for is a ceasefire. My State, like a lot of States, is hurting economically. We are doing very well and I am very proud of Alaska on the health side. We are No. 1 in terms of vaccinations per capita in the country, which is remarkable, if you have been to my State, as it is so huge and the populations are so spread out, but we are working together, all of us, and we are achieving really remarkable results. We have been No. 1 in testing per capita throughout the whole pandemic, and we have had some of the lowest per capita death rates throughout the whole pandemic. But we are being really hit hard economically in the energy sector, the tourism sector, and the commercial fishing sector.

So why am I looking for a ceasefire?

In the first 2 months of the Biden administration, there have been eight Executive orders, if you include the recent statement by the President and the Prime Minister of Canada, which had a focus on Alaska, which have been focused on my State. Usually, it will be on economic development projects and usually on access to Federal lands. Eight. There is no State in the country that is getting that kind of attention from this administration, and we are hurting. It is not even close. Show me any other State represented in the U.S. Senate Chamber that has eight Executive orders directed at your State. It won't exist. Trust me--my constituents don't like all the attention.

So I want to ask the President--not the Presiding Officer but the President: Mr. President, Mr. President Biden, sir, you were a U.S. Senator for three decades. Let me just ask you this question: If a Republican administration came into office and focused its attention on shutting down Delaware with eight Executive orders inside of 2 months, you would be on the floor every day like me, talking about it, asking for some relief. That is all we are asking for--a ceasefire on the hard-working families of Alaska.

This is what I asked Secretary Regan. A commitment on these is not a big issue. I told him, if I could get a commitment on these things, I would come down to the floor and give a speech in favor of his confirmation.

One was of a very big energy project in my State that has been permitted for almost 25 years. It started with the Clinton administration, in a place called the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, and was set aside by Congress for oil and gas development. That is what the NPR-A is. We do it responsibly, better than any place in the world, but this is a project that was started by the Clinton administration and moved forward by the Bush administration. There was a big NEPA environmental impact statement by the Obama administration, called the Integrated Activity Plan for NPR-A, which was approved. It was completely noncontroversial because that is what this part of Alaska is set aside for. Then the Trump administration finalized a very large but responsibly developed energy project. We started it this winter with no controversy. It has estimates of 2,000 direct jobs, with thousands more indirect jobs. All we wanted was a commitment to keep it going. That is it--simple, status quo. Couldn't get it. Couldn't get it.

There is litigation with regard to this project right now. About 200 people--almost 200 workers--have been sent home with pink slips during a recession. Those were great jobs by the way. We tried to get a commitment on this. We couldn't get it. By the way, 75 percent of those 2,000 jobs were union jobs and high-paying--building trades, laborers, operating engineers, teamsters. They are great Americans, by the way. Seventy-five percent. Noncontroversial. Twenty-five years of permits. No one has been against this. So I just wanted a commitment on it. No. Like I said, it is a war on working families.

Here is another one. Here is something that a lot of people don't know about Alaska: 60 percent of the country's wetlands, of America's wetlands, are in my State--six zero. Now, we have the most beautiful State. We love our wilderness. We love the outdoors. We care about the Alaskan environment more than anyone else and--trust me--more than anyone else in the

EPA. That is for sure. We have 175 million acres of wetlands. So this creates challenges.

Unlike most of the lower 48, we have not dredged and filled these areas in the past. If you look at the east coast, at its environments-- no offense to some of my colleagues whose States are up the corridor here--holy cow. And you wonder about my environment? Geez Louise. But it is hard to do compensation for projects where you haven't had dredge and fill before, because we have so many wetlands. So, in 2018, the Corps of Engineers and the EPA had an MOU to address some of these mitigation challenges. It wasn't controversial; it was creative. I thought Secretary Regan thought it was creative when I talked to him about it. So we just asked for a continuation of this. These are really simple commitments, good ideas--couldn't get it from the Secretary.

Now, look, here's my own view. I think Mr. Regan wanted to--I explained these to him. I think he was reasonable, someone who has done this in his State and knows each State is unique. He cares about jobs. He cares about environmental justice. That is a big issue in my State when a lot of these communities that are getting targeted are actually Alaska Native communities. They are killing jobs in those communities. That is environmental justice; that is for sure. So my instinct was he wanted to make these commitments, but I think he was told no. I don't know that, but I'm pretty--well, I can't say. But I think he was told no by the White House. This raises a much bigger concern about this nominee.

My good friend, the esteemed Senator from West Virginia, Senator Capito, was on the floor earlier. She also sits on the EPW Committee. She is the ranking member on the committee. She gave a really important speech on why she also voted no for Mr. Regan. And I think she had the same feeling I did. He knows the issues, is qualified, cares about different States' challenges. But she raised a concern that I want to reiterate because I think it is going to be a really big concern, and I think it is going to come to a head here soon, and that is this: There is concern, not just among Republican Senators--it is all over the press, and she cited it--that Mr. Regan, who is now the EPA Administrator might not be the person in charge of the EPA. Now he's Senate-confirmed. He is the one who has to come before the Congress for hearings, for oversight, but what are we talking about here?

Well, the former EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy, is in the White House. She is out talking to the press all the time. She's an unaccountable czar on these issues, working behind the scenes--and, actually, not even behind the scenes. She was recently quoting about herself, saying she's the orchestra leader of all of these issues.

Wait, what about the EPA Administrator? I thought he was the Senate- confirmed person nominated by the President. The big, big concern is that he is not going to have the authority or the decision-making capacity and is going to be told what to do by a shadow EPA working out of the White House run by Gina McCarthy. That is not just me. That is not just Senator Capito. That is all over the press. Read it. Inside EPA--she was quoting from that, Senator Capito was. No transparency there? All these previous Obama administration EPA alumnae in the White House running it.

By the way, if I am the new EPA Administrator, Mr. Regan, I wouldn't want that notion out there. But with all due respect, sir--and, again, congratulations--it is out there, and you need to tamp this down because it is going to come to a head.

Look, my State did not fare well under the Gina McCarthy EPA. There is a long list: the waters of the United States--I won't get into the details of the disrespect to my constituents. Armed EPA officials with body armor, rifles, were going after gold miners and placer miners in Alaska because they thought they were violating the Clean Water Act. No kidding. Read about it. Chicken, AK--go Google that. We were not big fans.

So I believe Mr. Regan wants to work with Alaskans. I believe he understands the concept of cooperative federalism on these environmental issues. I don't believe he would authorize armed guards to terrify small placer miners in the interior of Alaska the way the previous Administrator McCarthy did and talk to the press in a blatantly disrespectful way to my fellow Alaskans. It was shameful, in my view. But this issue is going to come to a head.

Who is in charge? Regardless of whether you are a Democrat or Republican, if you voted for the EPA Administrator or you didn't, we want him in charge because he is the Senate-confirmed official nominated by the President, not an unelected official in the White House who I guarantee wouldn't have been able to get confirmed. So it is going to be a challenge.

And it is not just Gina McCarthy. We had an EPW hearing today, and I raised the issue of the other czar--John Kerry, the former Senator. But he is not confirmed. He hasn't been appointed to a Senate-confirmed job. He and the President are at loggerheads on a really big issue. President Biden, the President of the United States, recently in a meeting reported by the press with labor leaders, said: I am all in on natural gas. That is important. That is a huge issue for our environment and our workers. The President of the United States said ``I am all in on natural gas'' to the men and women who build pipelines. He told them that recently in a White House meeting. He is the President of the United States.

Now John Kerry--I think some people think he is President of the world. He is flying around on his airplane right now, and he is telling people he is not for natural gas. Well, I wonder who is going to win that debate.

But this goes to this issue: These are going to come to a head. Who is in charge here--the President of the United States or the President of the world--on natural gas? I hope it is the President of the United States because natural gas is going to be key for our workers, for our environment, for our national security. And at the EPA level, who is in charge? Mr. Regan? I hope so. Or Gina McCarthy? It is looking more and more like she is in charge.

So that is why a number of us, despite being impressed, wanting to work with the new EPA Administrator voted no, and I certainly hope that the unaccountable team of McCarthy and Kerry in the White House are not going to be running the policy, but it is going to be the people who were actually confirmed by the U.S. Senate because that is the way our system of government is supposed to work.

So, Mr. President, for those reasons, although I again want to congratulate Mr. Regan, I respectfully declined to support his nomination, and we will see. We will see who is going to be ultimately in charge.

I want to work with him and his team. These issues are so important to my State. I want him to help convince others in the Biden White House for the ceasefire that my constituents need.

We need to get to work, and I am hoping he is going to be a constructive partner in that regard

Mr. President, most mornings I get up kind of early, and I go for a run on the Mall, run by the Capitol, this beautiful building, the Senate, the House, the people's house, which recently was open for all of us to enjoy. And now, as most Americans know, it is ringed with gates and razor wire and troops. It looks a little bit like the Green Zone in Baghdad, not the U.S. Capitol.

Here's the thing. When I go running--I do this most mornings; I did it this morning--you see these wonderful National Guard men and women who are serving their country still here behind the fence, behind the razor wire. And they are literally about every 50 yards, sometimes closer, standing post all night--all night--hundreds of them, American soldiers.

They are doing their duty, and we all appreciate it. I talk to them. I just say: Hey, how you guys doing? How is morale? You want to be here? You think it is time to go home? I think it is time for you to go home, and I am going to try and help you with that.

Now, look, most are stoic. They are tough. They are soldiers doing their job. But make no mistake, they want to go home. They are standing their post all night, 1, 2, 3 in the morning,

every 50 yards, for what? For what? I don't think they know what for, and neither do I.

Now the assault that took place on our democracy on January 6 was a dark day for our country, no doubt. I will remember that for the rest of my life. But the Members of Congress did something really important that same day. We reconvened right here in the U.S. Senate, even amid some of the broken glass and smashed doors in the House. We finished our constitutional duty to count the electoral college votes. The rioters that day--who should be prosecuted--did not win. That was important.

But that was 3 months ago, and our Nation's Capitol is still decked in layer upon layer of barbed wire and metal fencing. More than 5,000 troops still roam the Capitol instead of being where they know they should be: home with their families, back to their jobs--these are National Guard members, so their work is obviously being disrupted--and back to their States and their communities.

The cost of keeping them here since January at this juncture is over a half billion dollars. But here's the thing: I pay close attention to these issues. I keep asking: OK, I understand this; they were here after the 6th, and they were here for the inauguration, but what is the threat now? Give me an intel threat--a credible intel threat--that requires 5,000 troops and razor wire all across the U.S. Capitol, the people's house. What is the credible intel? I have not gotten any credible intel that I am aware of.

We learned yesterday that the Secretary of Defense approved the request for these soldiers to be here for another 60 days. Here is what you didn't hear about in those reports. I have a lot of respect for the Secretary of Defense. As a matter of fact, as I mentioned in my remarks earlier, I introduced him at his confirmation hearing. But this decision on whether there should be troops here or not is actually not his decision. It is our decision. It is the Members of Congress's decision. That is the threshold issue: Should we still have the troops here? It is the majority leader's decision. It is the Speaker of the House's decision. So why do we still have troops here? Why is the Capitol still in high security lockdown?

I think it would be really important for the majority leader to come to the floor and not only tell us but tell the troops, tell the American people what is going on.

Remember, this is not our House. This is not our building. This belongs to the people of America. We are privileged to be here, certainly, but we need answers.

And I will tell you who else needs answers. The troops need answers.

My own view is we need to get these troops home. We need to tear down the wall. We need to open the gate. And this is not just my view; this is a widely held view. Democrats and Republicans all agree.

Just look around the Capitol Hill neighborhoods. These signs are everywhere. So are other signs. ``Free the People's House.'' ``Don't Fence the Capitol.''

What is happening right now--we all love our military. Our military normally is a symbol of strength for America. But right now, the military here is not a symbol of strength. We are telling the world, through razor wire, that American democracy is fragile and that it is afraid. American democracy is not fragile, and it is not afraid. So these troops are a symbol not just to Americans but to the rest of the world that the Capitol lives in fear or weakness.

There was evidently some kind of vague--it wasn't credible--threat on March 4 from some nutjob group, QAnon--however the heck you pronounce it--and we had the entire House on the other side of this great building call it quits, went home, and said: We are not going to do any work. That is exactly the wrong answer. That is not what we did on January 6.

So what we need is we need our leaders in the House and in the Senate to come down here and tell us why we are still in an armed camp. One can't help but wonder if there is something else going on here. Why do the leaders of the House and Senate still want thousands of troops and razor wire around the Capitol? I hope they don't fear the people they represent. I don't fear my constituents. Is there intel that they have that we don't know about? How long can we expect this green zone in our Nation's Capital to continue? The American people need answers.

But here is the key issue. At the end of the day, this is a law enforcement problem. It is not a military problem. To make it a military problem is dangerous. If the Capitol Police need more officers, then let's have that discussion, but we are a citizen- controlled government, and our military, whom I respect so much, should not be used for an extended period of time here on the Capitol grounds to handle a law enforcement issue, especially at the most important symbol of democracy in America, probably the most important symbol of democracy in the world.

So here is what we need to do. It is time to tear these walls down, open these gates, and send our brave National Guard troops home.

I yield the floor.

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