Floor Statements

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1029 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, it is going to be a late night with a lot of votes. I want to take this opportunity to demonstrate our strong Republican support for Medicaid and Medicare right now.

My amendment is very simple. It says we are going to strengthen and improve Medicaid for the most vulnerable populations and strengthen Medicare so that it is available for years to come.

Now, I know my Democratic colleagues are going to try tonight to use scare tactics to message that Republicans don't support these vital programs, but we do. These are critical programs that Republicans support. Heck, President Trump has repeatedly said that these programs are not going to be touched. People rely on Medicare and Medicaid. Alaskans rely on Medicare and Medicaid, and we are here to strongly support them. We should all agree that we want to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse in our healthcare system, including in Medicare and Medicaid, and we must maintain our safety net programs. We can do both and make them stronger.

So I hope every single Member of the Senate tonight votes to support my simple amendment, which would strengthen both Medicaid and Medicare for the most vulnerable Americans. I ask for everybody's vote.

Mr. President, read the amendment.

We support Medicare and Medicaid. It is that simple.

Vote on Amendment No. 1029

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

Mr. President, I want to add to what my colleagues have been saying here.

It is a big disappointment for us on this side of the aisle that our Democratic colleagues blocked this bill to do what needs to happen with regard to the ICC.

Senator Ricketts was just making a really good point with regard to the blatant anti-Semitism at that organization, and it is not new. We all know this is happening, which is why it was a disappointment we couldn't move forward. It is also something we know that has been happening at the U.N.

I had a Wall Street Journal op-ed a couple of months ago when President Biden was getting ready to go to make his last major speech at the U.N. I strongly but respectfully requested the President make his speech about focusing on the systemic anti-Semitism that has existed at the United Nations for years and to call out the true terrorist in the world, which is Iran. President Biden didn't make that speech.

I had a meeting with the U.N. Secretary General and now former Senator Ben Cardin, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. It was a bipartisan meeting with the U.N. Secretary General. You know, we pressed him. We pressed him hard on his leadership of the U.N. and the systemic anti-Semitism that exists in these international bodies, in these international organizations.

The U.N. is going to have a wake-up call with our new Ambassador, Elise Stefanik. I think she is going to really raise these issues, really press these issues. She is going to be a modern-day Jeane Kirkpatrick, who, in my view, was the best U.N. Ambassador ever under President Reagan. She is going to bring it.

So, to the U.N. Secretary General, stand by. You are going to hear a lot more of this from our incoming U.N. Ambassador. She is going to do a great job.

Mr. President, it is nearing the end of the week, and normally, that is when I come down to the Senate floor to do my weekly--I try to make it weekly--Alaskan of the Week speech.

Now, I know for the pages, this is their favorite speech of the week. You get to hear about Alaska; you get to hear about some great Alaskan doing some great stuff. I usually try to give a little update about what is going on in our great State because it is always something interesting. And then I encourage people watching on TV: Come on up to Alaska; you are going to have the trip of a lifetime if you do it.

So today the Alaskan of the Week is someone very special to me and my wife. I am going to talk in detail about all she has done for our State. Her name is Kathlene Rowell. And she has worked for me in Alaska going on 15 years. The Presiding Officer understands that as a former Governor, where you have great staff that do amazing things, not just for you and your team but for the whole State.

Her title in the office has been deputy State director, but she has been so much more than that. She has literally been the glue that has kept my whole team together, not just since I have been in the Senate but even before I became a Senator.

So I am going to talk about Kathlene real quick here in a minute as the Alaskan of the Week. She so much deserves it. Just wanted to mention a few things.

We are all, of course, praying for the people impacted by the fires in California. We are all ready to stand by to help. The States are coming together. My State is certainly a State that understands natural disasters, and, you know, even in Alaska right now, Anchorage just last week--didn't make any news down here--was hit with hurricane-force winds on Sunday, up to 130 miles an hour. A lot of people--hundreds-- were without power, a lot of property damage. So, you know, we are thinking about our Alaskan colleagues who were hit by that hurricane-- there is no other word--typhoon.

And, of course, praying for everybody in Los Angeles. You know, with a State and population that big, we all know people. I have a good college roommate

buddy of mine Tom McMillin, my two sisters-in-law Janine and Jennifer, they are all being real negatively impacted by that. So we are thinking about them.

In Alaska, I always like to give an update. The Sun is actually coming back. We hit the winter solstice. In Anchorage, we are gaining about 4 minutes of sun a day; in Fairbanks, we are gaining about 5 minutes of sun a day; and in about a week, January 22, the Sun will rise again in Utqiagvik, AK--Barrow, AK--the top of North America. That will be the first time the sun comes up over the horizon in 2 months. So they get a dark winter, and it is cold up there.

The Iditarod, the Last Great Race, is coming up March 2. If you are thinking about coming to Alaska, don't think just this summer. Come up in the winter, too; it is great. So that is a little bit of update to tell what is going on.

Now, back to Kathlene Rowell, the rock in our office whose last day-- oh, it breaks my heart, breaks my wife Julie's heart. Her last day was yesterday.

So little bit of background about Kathlene. She moved with her family to Alaska from Chicago when she was 3 years old. Her father worked in the oil fields and had been commuting to Alaska, Illinois, Chicago-- back and forth. He thought it was time for the family to come together, so they settled in beautiful Eagle River, AK, a gorgeous--and I mean gorgeous--patriotic community, mountainous community right outside of Anchorage.

Kathlene went to Chugiak High. Go Mustangs. She was an excellent, driven student. Anyone who knows Kathlene knows that ``excellence'' is her motto. Everything she does is excellent.

But we got confirmation from her good friend Robyn Engibous--on my staff, my deputy chief of staff here in DC--who went to school with Kathlene and remains very close, that, yes, Kathlene was a straight-A student. We knew that. She showed horses. She worked at the coffee shop in Eagle River called Jitters, a mainstay in that great community. She excelled academically.

Went to college first in Colorado, then in Washington State. Did a semester with the National Outdoor Leadership, which she loved, and then came back to Alaska, finished up, and graduated from Alaska Pacific University which, very importantly, she did well there. But really, really importantly, she met her husband Ben who is a great guy. Great guy. They are a great couple.

So that is Kathlene's early background. She then worked in the parks division, division of parks and rec, right at the department of natural resources. That is when I first met her. I was the new commissioner at DNR--we call it DNR in Alaska; that covers everything in Alaska. We worked in the same building. I was a brandnew commissioner, and I was looking for a special assistant--a young, smart, talented, special assistant--as the commissioner of the department of natural resources.

Now, this is a big job, right? If Alaska were its own country, it would be the envy of the world in terms of resources, strategic location, critical minerals, our military, you name it. DNR has a lot of responsibility over all these things.

Matter of fact, not to go on a tangent here, but I had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today titled ``Greenland Is Nice, but Alaska Is Better.'' Goes into all this stuff about how great Alaska is.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, ``Greenland Is Nice, but Alaska Is Better,'' be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks. Just to give you a sense of our great State there.

So I needed a special assistant. And I was looking at all these resumes and these lawyers and stuff, and here, for the young pages, this is the value of what they call an elevator speech. You have heard of an elevator speech, right? You have to make a pitch; you have to make it quick. So I am getting on the elevator, Kathlene at the time she is probably mid, early twenties. She is very young-looking, so then she looked a lot younger than her early twenties.

And she gets on the elevator, and, boy, oh, boy, it was the elevator pitch: Commissioner Sullivan, I understand you are looking for a special assistant.

The elevator is going up, all these people are listening: I believe I have the qualities, the hard work, the ethics, the commitment to excellence to be your special assistant. I would like to come by your office and interview.

Boom, the door opens. I was like, dang, that was impressive. Elevator pitch. So she made that. Came in, interviewed, and I am like, I am hiring her--none of these gung ho, high-falutin lawyers; I am going to put my trust in this young Alaskan. And, boy, oh, boy, I am so glad I did. It was the best elevator pitch I have ever seen.

Kathlene rolled up her sleeves and learned everything she could, and before you knew it, she was running the department of natural resources, which in Alaska is the giant organization of hundreds and hundreds of people, the key to our economy.

She was working with my other special assistant John Katchen. She was hugely essential to the things we got done at our department of natural resources. We negotiated against ExxonMobil for a giant natural gas deal. You want to talk about a tough thing. Exxon brings in like 25 lawyers to negotiate against a group of 3 of us, right? We took them down.

She organized summits. She helped us redo our State's oil tax regime, which is creating a big spur of development right now. Kathlene was essential in all of this, bringing more producers up to Alaska, a great teammate. Her heart was in serving our State.

Fast-forward a few years, I am going to run for the U.S. Senate--not an easy run. A lot of good Republicans in the primary. There was a Democrat incumbent here; that is never easy. And the first person I said I am going to hire on my campaign team, first person, was Kathlene.

Now, it was a risk. She had a 1-year-old at home at the time, Benjamin, who is now joined by his brother Niles. By the way, Kathlene is a great mom. Her boys are now 12 and 8. When she first started working for me, she had no kids. She has got a beautiful family with her husband Ben and her two wonderful boys.

But it was a risk. She had a great State job, and she is going to, you know, join this guy throwing his hat in the ring. You know, I am not so sure it was looking like an easy deal, but she left her easy-- not easy--her secure State job, the first person I hired on my campaign. Organized it. Traveled. And I am pretty sure I would not have won without Kathlene's great work. That was in 2014.

And then she stayed in our office in Alaska, became the deputy State director. And you know how it is, she has been with me and my team, my wife, longer than any other staff member, and she has done an incredible job.

Now, we all know how important staff are, both here in DC and especially back home. They work hard. Let's face it, you know, government jobs aren't always the best: You certainly could probably be making more money in the private sector; the hours can be grueling. But great staff, they are vital to what we do.

They are vital to the work that we get done here in the Senate, in DC, and really vital back home where the work they do for our constituents and the places they travel to are essential. They are essential.

And here is a big thing: As you know, the help that our offices back home do to work for the people we are honored to represent is vital because there are so many giant Federal Agencies--Social Security, the VA, IRS, the Department of Defense, Immigration--that are giant labyrinths that people don't know how to get through.

Our Federal Government can be unwieldy and often unforgiving. So when Alaskans need help on all those things--Social Security checks; VA benefits, we are the State with more veterans per capita than any State in the country; Medicare; the IRS comes screwing up something--they come to us and we work on these cases.

This is a rough number, but since I have been in office, our Alaska staff has worked on more than 12,000 of these cases, and they are really complicated and take hours and hours. We always have at least one person attached to these cases, something they will always remember, and their lives are impacted by whether they are resolved in a good way or bad way.

And as I am sure you probably believe, you don't always hear about this

part of the job of representing people in our great Republic; but in my view, it is probably the best part of the job because you have a direct impact on someone you represent, and you can literally change their lives.

We do that, we put our heart and soul into it, but nobody has put their heart and soul into it more than Kathlene. She has made all of this happen, 12,000 cases.

Now, I also have a fantastic director of constituent services in Anchorage, Carrie Keil, who has completed more than 3,600 of these cases herself. She is amazing. But here is what Carrie said about Kathlene: Kathlene is at the helm of the ship. She is the captain of the ship. She makes all of this possible. She is a master communicator. Her loyalty and integrity to the people of Alaska are unmatched.

That is what you want with great staff.

Margaret Sharpe, she runs our Mat-Su Valley regional area, our regional director, Margaret, who does a great job. She calls Kathlene our hero: She is our conscience. She is the gatekeeper of decorum. She is all about kindness and respect. She keeps all of us kind.

Isn't that a great compliment? That is from Margaret on my team.

Elaina Spraker, another great member of my team, our Kenai regional director on the Kenai Peninsula. Covers Kodiak as well. Elaina does a great job. She says that she has never worked

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for 7 minutes prior to this vote.

Madam President, I was coming down here to try to pass

my bill, the Pay Our Military Act. This bill would have made sure that we are paying our military, including our Coast Guard, in the event of a government shutdown.

A few hours ago, this looked like we really were going to have to do this. We ran the hotline on the Republican side. Every Republican Senator voted for this. And it makes sense.

This has usually been a bipartisan issue. If there is a government shutdown, which none of us want, we need to pay the men and women who are on the frontlines, in our country, overseas, many in dangerous situations defending our freedom--to make sure they are paid, to make sure they are paid.

The good news is, it looks like, just walking onto the floor here, the House is overwhelmingly passing the continuing resolution. It is not, I am sure, the deal I would have negotiated, but, nevertheless, it looks like there is a likelihood of that coming over here tonight soon, we hope, after the passage. It is likely going to pass in the House overwhelmingly and will likely pass here in the Senate later this evening. So we will likely not have a government shutdown, which is good.

And our military, who is doing a great job around the world, won't be subject to this crazy situation, which has happened before: The government shuts down, and the young men and women defending our freedom all around the world are not getting paid.

So with that, I am not going to ask for unanimous consent on this bill. I was hopeful nobody was going to block it. I am not sure if anyone was going to block it. At prior times, when we had been barreling toward a government shutdown, the Senate has actually taken action in a bipartisan way to pass this legislation--no troops getting their pay cut off. I was hopeful that was going to happen tonight. Maybe it would have; maybe it wouldn't. I am not going to bring it up.

What I want to do is just wish our troops a Merry Christmas.

You know, a lot of people are going to be serving away from their families, serving in dangerous parts of the world. I will tell you, in my great State, the great State of Alaska, our military has been really, really busy. It doesn't make a lot of news in the lower 48, but we have had two Russian incursions into our ADIZ in just the last week--young men and women flying in the middle of the night, going and intercepting Russian bear bombers and fighters. They are doing a great job, a professional job. It is dangerous work.

So to all of our troops, Merry Christmas. Keep up the great work. I am really glad that I am not having to bring my bill to pay all of you.

If the government shuts down, and if we ever have another government shutdown, I sure hope my Pay Our Military Act will get unanimous, bipartisan support.

If the U.S. Congress can't keep funding our government, the men and women in our military should not suffer the consequences when they are defending our freedom around the world.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are on the floor here in the U.S. Senate debating and discussing the National Defense Authorization Act-- the NDAA, as we call it--one of the most important bills of the year because it sets our defense policy, defense spending numbers; it lays out the things that Congress wants to do, hopefully, to focus on modality for our troops; and it is about taking care of our military men and women and their families. So it is a very important bill.

We are here at the end of the year, unfortunately, and I am going to complain a little bit. We got this bill done in June in the Senate and never brought it to the Senate floor. I am just going to be a little blunt. It is the majority leader. Senator Schumer doesn't prioritize national defense. He doesn't. Every year, the NDAA, under his leadership, has come to the floor at the very end of the year--no chance to amend it; no Senate floor vote. It is wrong that we don't prioritize it. He doesn't prioritize national defense.

We are looking at one of the most dangerous periods that we have seen since World War II. Dictators are on the march around the world-- Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. They are all working together. And look at what we are doing with regard to defense spending. We are hitting, with President Biden--look at that--3 percent of GDP. We have been at 3 percent of GDP or lower only three or four times since the end of World War II. That is not a number you should aspire to if you want a strong American defense, especially during a dangerous time, but we are going down--3 percent. The Biden budget would bring us to below 3 percent next year.

Again, this is being jammed through at the end of the year. We never debated it on the Senate floor.

We did a lot of good work in the U.S. Senate. I want to particularly do a shout-out to Senator Wicker, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. He will be the chairman of the Armed Services Committee starting in January. That will be really great for our military, for our country.

In our bill, we got an additional $25 billion added to the Biden budget to make our military stronger. One of the disappointments of the NDAA that we are debating now--that was a bipartisan addition to the budget. Remember, it is a Democratic-controlled Senate, a Democratic- controlled Armed Services Committee.

I do want to do a shout-out to Senator Jack Reed, the chairman, as well.

Senator Wicker's leadership got us an additional $25 billion, which we need--our military needs, our troops need, their families need--and this final bill just leaves that on the cutting room floor. Hey, it is one of the reasons I was thinking about voting against the bill, but there are a lot of good things in the bill.

So we don't want to be at this level, but we all have to come together here, Democrats and Republicans, recognizing the dangerous world in which we are now living.

Now to some of the good things in the NDAA. I do want to do a shout- out to the work that was done, particularly as it relates to pay raises for our most junior enlisted servicemembers. These are the pay grades E-1 to E-4. They are going to get a 14.5-percent pay increase. That is very significant. As a matter of fact, I have been doing this for almost 10 years now. That is the biggest pay raise I have seen ever. And they needed it. Our troops need that money. Their families need that money. Inflation has been really, really undermining their ability to live on bases in Alaska or Georgia or other places.

There has been a recruiting crisis in our military. I think it has a lot to do with the leadership of the Biden administration. In 2024, Army, Air Force, and Navy all once again failed to meet the recruiting goals.

So this pay raise is needed. This pay raise will help. So that is a big positive about this bill.

Some other things.

It improves the support for Israel and its capabilities against Iran during this very existential-threat time Israel is facing.

We are starting finally in this bill to reverse the shrinking U.S. Air Force, and we are starting to finally attack the issue of Navy shipbuilding. We are in the worst crisis in almost 50 years in terms of building ships for our country. That is a bipartisan assessment by the Congressional Research Service saying that manning, maintaining, and building ships hasn't been this bad in almost half a century. We have to get on this.

The Chinese are building ships at a rapid rate, and we can't build anything. So we are starting to turn that around. This bill should start turning that around. President Trump and his team, I am really hopeful, are going to turn that around. I have talked to President Trump about this very topic, our very weak industrial base, and how we are getting outbuilt by the Chinese. We need to turn that around.

Of course, Mr. President, I was honored to work hard on some really important things for the great State of Alaska. The father of the Air Force, Billy Mitchell, Gen. Billy Mitchell, called Alaska the most strategic place in the world. It is. Our enemies know that, and Americans should know that. So we are building up our military in Alaska.

I consider Alaska contributing--our great State contributes many things to our Nation's defense. I like to say there are three pillars of the strength of Alaska for America.

We are the cornerstone of missile defense. All the missiles that would intercept anything shot at New York or Miami or Chicago, they are all based in Alaska, with the exception of four at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

All the radar systems that track these missiles, again, are all based in Alaska.

We are the hub of air combat power for the Arctic and Asia-Pacific. We have over 100 fifth-generation fighters--F-22s, F-35s--in Alaska. No other place on the planet Earth has that kind of fifth-gen combat capability.

We are the place where expeditionary forces--now the 11th Airborne Division for the U.S. Army--can deploy in a moment's notice anywhere in the world because we are so strategic.

Those are the three pillars. We are going to build on those pillars in this bill.

I was able to get close to $750 million in military construction for the great State of Alaska. That is good for Alaska, it is good for our economy, and it is good for our workers. But most importantly, when we are talking about national defense and the NDAA, it is really good for the national security of America.

Mr. President, overall, I am going to be supporting this bill. It is important. It should have gotten here way earlier. We should have been able to have amendments for it. Again, I don't know why Senator Schumer, whenever he was in leadership, always brought this at the end of the year. He never prioritized the NDAA--never.

But I will say, I am disappointed about a couple of things in this bill. This is just an area where the Congress of the United States has to start getting a lot more serious.

I have this chart here. It says ``Xi's Appeasers in Congress.'' That is tough language. That is Xi Jinping, the dictator of China.

I and others had some provisions. I am going to mention three of mine that were focused on going after the Chinese Communist Party--very bipartisan provisions in the NDAA. Yet somebody, in the middle of the night--I don't know who; an appeaser for Xi--strips these measures out of the bill, and the final bill doesn't have them. The final bill doesn't have them. These are the most bipartisan things. Yet we have Members of Congress that don't realize this guy is a dictator that we need to be ready to defeat. When we have anti-China stuff--anti-Chinese Communist Party stuff, Members of Congress, somewhere, somehow, stripped this. Who the heck is appeasing Xi?

Let me just give you a couple of examples. It is a mystery, and it is frustrating. Come on--what are we doing?

No. 1. See down here? This is the New York Times from last week: ``China Bans Rare Mineral Exports to the U.S.'' Well, we knew that was coming. China dominates critical minerals, rare earth elements. So we are very vulnerable to the Chinese.

(Mr. KELLY assumed the Chair.)

Here is the good news: We have critical minerals in America. We have great critical minerals in Alaska. We have them in Arizona. I see Captain Kelly on the floor. We have minerals that can make our country less dependent on China when they blackmail us like this.

So I had a provision, Mr. President. We have a road in Alaska to go to what is called the Ambler Mining District. It has critical minerals. It is one of the biggest sources of critical minerals in America. We have a road. The previous administrations--starting with President Obama, President Trump--certified this road, right-of-way. Of course, President Biden, who will listen to the radical environmental groups no matter what--even when it makes us weaker to China--he killed the road.

In the markup of the Senate NDAA bill, I said to my colleagues: Colleagues, we need this road because it is going to make us less dependent on China.

Guess what. That provision in the Senate NDAA passed 20 to 5. I believe the Presiding Officer voted for it. Bipartisan. Everybody agreed.

We need to do more to have our own critical minerals so we are not dependent on China. That was good. It was good for our country, good for our military, good for Alaska. Yet somebody stripped it out. I heard it was Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader. I don't know. Maybe he is pro-Xi Jinping. But he stripped out the provision that was going to make us stronger in terms of critical minerals, the week that the Chinese said they were going they ban exports of critical minerals to America.

Good job over there, Minority Leader Jeffries. Way to go. I am sure Xi Jinping was applauding your actions.

Second, Mr. President--now, this one might seem a little bit small- ball, but it was important to me, and I think it was important to America. Somehow, someway, the Chinese have dominated global fishing. OK. They are the largest seafood producer and consumer and exporter of fish, rising to almost $93 billion in 2023.

But here is the deal: They use ghost fleets. They have a horrible environmental record. They use slave labor on their ships. They are about as bad as it gets in global fishing.

Well, a constituent of mine back home said: Hey, Senator, why are we selling Chinese communist fish to our military members, to our commissaries, to our chow halls? Soldiers, sailors, marines eating this fish. It is horrible fish, by the way.

Why are we selling this to them? Why is our military buying communist fish from the Chinese when they can buy great Alaskan seafood, freedom fish? Why?

I don't know. It is a great question.

So I had a provision saying: Hey, you think the Chinese are letting their military eat great Alaskan freedom fish? Do you think the Chinese buy Alaskan fish? They don't. So why the heck are we buying Chinese fish?

So I had a provision in the NDAA in the Senate that says our military, our commissaries, our chow halls, our soldiers, our sailors-- we are not going to buy Chinese communist fish. Why should we help those guys? They don't buy our fish. Let's eat American fish, Alaskan fish, Mississippi fish, Maine lobsters.

That vote in the Armed Services Committee, on which the Presiding Officer sits with me, passed unanimously--unanimously. Everybody agreed. Heck, why are we buying Chinese communist fish? Let's buy Alaskan fish for our troops.

Guess what? Somebody--I think it was Hakeem Jeffries again, in the middle of the night, said: Nope, we are going to strip that out. We are going to strip that out. Let's undermine Alaska and American fishermen, and let's promote Chinese slave labor, fishermen, and continue to export and have our military members eat that fish.

What a dumb idea. Who is doing this? Who is the Xi Jinping appeaser in the Congress? I don't know. Hakeem Jeffries, I heard it was you. Maybe you want to come and talk to us. But why would you get rid of that provision? It helps Alaskans. It helps fishermen. It helps American fishermen. It helps our troops. It helps the military.

Nope, we are going to rip that out, and we are going to make sure Chinese fish exports, which use slave labor, can still go onto our military bases.

I can't believe it, but that is what happened.

Then, finally, this outbound investment provision. We have been working on this issue. Senator Cornyn, in particular, has done a great job--and so has Senator Casey--on this. This is an amendment of ours that we got in the NDAA. All it says is--unfortunately, we have some finance firms in America--I have sat down with a couple of these guys. I still can't believe it. I am like: Hey, where is your patriotism? We have American hedge funds, private equity groups, and even some investment banks, who invest big-time in Chinese military capabilities--in quantum computing, AI, advanced chip manufacturing--in China.

And all this provision says is: Hey, we want to know who is doing that. We want to know who is doing that.

That passed in the U.S. Senate with over 90 Senate votes--over 90 Senate votes. We finally got it in the NDAA, and it got stripped out. That got stripped out. Again, I think it was Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries did that one that time, too.

So, again, these are all things--every one of these--Ambler Access for critical minerals in Alaska to compete against China, banning Chinese communist fish on U.S. bases for our military and commissaries so we get fish from Alaskans and other great American fishermen, outbound investment. Hey, who is investing in quantum computing? We want to know. We want to know. American investors using, you know, Iowa teacher pension funds to help the Chinese get stronger? Are you kidding me?

All these were in the Senate bill, and all these got stripped out by the House. Come on, guys. Whose side are you on? Really?

So here is what I want to say. I want to end with this: We all know it is a dangerous world, and this is what we have to get back to: Peace through strength. Peace through strength.

You can do that in many ways--getting stronger from a military perspective, stronger from a natural resources perspective, stronger from an energy perspective. This is what President Trump ran on. This is what Republican Senators ran on. This is what Republican House Members ran on. This is what was in our platform in Milwaukee, the Republican Party platform--very similar to the Reagan 1984 platform. It is what the American people want.

So, Mr. President, I am going to vote yes for the NDAA tomorrow when we vote on it. I want to commend Senator Reed and Senator Wicker for their hard work on this bill. It should have been brought up way earlier--way earlier. But we need to do better. We need to do better. And I sure hope, when we work on this bill again next year, that whoever is doing the appeasing in China is no longer going to do that-- no longer going to do that.

We need to return to peace through strength. It is a dangerous world.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, my colleagues have been down on the Senate floor for the last hour talking about the world that the Biden- Harris administration left us in terms of national security, and it is a really important topic. It is a much more dangerous world, and it also impacts not just what is going on globally but at home as well, particularly in a State like mine where the Biden-Harris administration has literally been at war with Alaska because we have a lot of resources.

Now, you are thinking, Well, why would that happen? So when you are governing, as this administration demonstrated to the American people and Alaskans, you make choices. You make choices. President Biden's choices involved: Do you support hard-working Alaskans, particularly in the energy sector or do you support anti-American dictators, particularly when it relates to America's energy?

And the choices, unfortunately, in the last 4 years is, when this administration was thinking about, Hey, where do I get my energy-- Americans need energy. Our allies need energy, particularly after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. We told all our allies: Hey, get off Russian oil and gas. OK. Where should we get it? Well, we should get it from places like Alaska, hard-working Alaskans, not from dictators like in Venezuela or Iran.

But the choice that this President made almost every time was about selecting dictators over Americans, over Alaskans, when it comes to energy.

Now, this is particularly true as it relates to the policy the Biden- Harris administration undertook with regard to Iran. Think about what they inherited. The Trump administration's Iran policy was very effective. What was it? No. 1, maximum pressure on the Iranian energy sector.

When President Trump took office, under the Trump administration's sanctions, Iran's oil exports were reduced in 2020 to about 200,000 barrels a day from 2.7 million barrels a day. This was crushing them. Their foreign reserves, Iranian foreign reserves, went to about $4 billion in foreign reserves by the end of the Trump administration. That is not a lot at all. This was working.

The Trump administration's policies in the Middle East, particularly as it relates to Iran, also involved taking out the world's No. 1 terrorist, Soleimani.

By the way, a lot of people now commend President Trump for that. I remember the classified hearing we had here in the Senate right after that happened. So many of my Senate Democrat colleagues were criticizing Mike Pompeo and others for killing General Soleimani, which was a huge gift to countries around the world because he was the No. 1 terrorist in the world.

And, of course, the Trump administration launched the Abraham Accords. The Presiding Officer and I went to a number of the Abraham Accord countries together prior to the October 7 attacks, where the opportunities for peace had been growing prior to the October 7 attacks.

So that was the Trump administration's policies with regard to Iran and energy. What did they do when the Biden administration came in? They made choices, and the choices were to appease Iran. The choices were to lift sanctions on the Iranian oil and gas sector. When they lifted these sanctions over the last 4 years, this has dramatically enriched Iran. They almost have $100 billion in oil revenues now-- again, choosing dictators over Americans and Alaskans.

And, of course, Iran, what did they use this money for? To train and equip and supply the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

So what happened domestically? I will tell you what happened domestically. In my State, the great State of Alaska, that has got minerals and oil and gas for our Nation, for our allies, for Alaskans in huge abundance, the Biden-Harris administration came in, and they said: We are going to shut down Alaska. We are going to lock up Alaska. We are going to prefer energy from our adversaries than from our own country, and that is what they did. Sixty-eight Executive orders and Executive actions in the last 4 years--68--exclusively focused on shutting down my State.

I don't think there has ever been a Federal Government that focused on one State to crush them more than the Biden administration did to the great State of Alaska.

So as I mentioned, this is all about choices. I wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal a couple month ago saying the Biden-Harris administration sanctions Alaska more than it sanctions Iran. It sanctions hard-working Alaskans more than it sanctions the terrorists in Iran. That is fact. That is what has happened when you have an administration that goes on bended knee all over the world--Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia--begging for oil when you are shutting it down in our own country, particularly in my State.

So this is what we got--4 years of this--sanctioning a State, sanctioning

my constituents when the President goes on bended knee to Venezuela, to Iran, and won't sanction them at all. Does that make sense? No. But that is the world that we watched and dealt with over the last 4 years. I am quite confident that the incoming Trump administration is not going to do that anymore.

Stand by, Iran. Maximum sanctions are coming back your way. Maximum pressure is coming back your way. And I am also very confident that the Trump administration, with a Republican Senate and a Republican House, is going to help the State of Alaska, which has more critical minerals and oil and gas than almost anyplace in the world, to once again produce for the benefit of Alaskans, for the benefit of Americans, and the benefit of our allies.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, it is Thursday afternoon; and, well, I don't know if our new pages know the significance of Thursday afternoon, but it is usually the time I come down and talk about our Alaskan of the Week. Hopefully, everybody can see that. It is kind of a special poster board today because it has the Capitol Christmas tree on it. I want to talk about that Capitol Christmas tree.

The Alaskan of the Week is--for the reporters who are still around here on Thursday afternoon and the American people, they all view this as their favorite speech of the week. I am just saying. Not bragging. It is true, because we talk about someone really special in Alaska. It could be someone national, a great hero; it could be someone who did something great for their local community. Then we talk a little bit about what is going on in Alaska. Most of the country is intrigued by our great State--little snapshot of what is happening.

Let me do that right now.

Winter is not coming; winter is here. In fact, winter came before Halloween. We had a lot of snow in Anchorage before Halloween. Now we are getting a ton of snow. It is cold. There is a lot of snow. The holiday spirit is upon us. We love that. The northern lights are out. It is literally a winter wonderland.

If you want to come up to Alaska--people in the Gallery--come on up. You will have the best visit of your life. Summer, winter, fall--it doesn't matter. By the way, in Utqiagvik, AK--that is our northernmost community referred to previously as Barrow, AK--the sun went down November 19, and it is not coming up until January 23 of 2025. It is kind of dark in Utqiagvik right now. They are not going to have a sunrise until late January. We love them up there. They are tough, great Americans, patriotic Americans.

Everyone in my State is already enjoying winter. So if you can't come up to Alaska to enjoy winter this winter, we are going to bring a little bit of Alaska here to DC. That is right. The Capitol Christmas tree, which will be lit up in front of the Capitol building for the month of December, is coming all the way from the Tongass National Forest. The Presiding Officer cares a lot about the Tongass, we know that. It is just outside of Wrangell, AK. That is a journey of almost 5,000 miles. And this is no living-room-size Christmas tree, folks. It is an 85-foot Sitka spruce. That is a big tree. You are going to see it out in front of the Capitol here very soon.

I am sure everybody listening--and we know there are millions of people listening to this Alaskan of the Week speech--millions--they have a lot of questions.

Wait. How do you transport a tree that size almost 5,000 miles across America?

There are a lot of moving parts, including seven different vehicles and multiple-force servicemembers on tree-watering duty. You don't want your tree to dry out when you drive it across the country. And, of course, the intrepid truckers--truck drivers--who have taken up this charge to successfully and safely deliver Alaska's Christmas tree to America's Mall, to the Capitol.

These Alaskans, Fred Austin and John Shank--longtime Alaska truck drivers, both Teamsters--are the men responsible for driving for 3 weeks to deliver this tree to Washington, DC. And they, Fred and John, are our Alaskans of the Week.

By the way, I love the Teamsters. I am a big fan of the Teamsters. During the pandemic, I went out in our backyard in Anchorage and gave a speech making all the Teamsters our Alaskans of the Week because they were keeping our economy open when, essentially, the rest of the country, the rest of Alaska, was shut down.

So here is to the Teamsters.

Here is to Fred and John.

Let me give you a little background on this tree that Fred and John shared with me and my team recently. This gigantic tree was cut down outside of Wrangell, AK, as I mentioned, in late October. It was shipped from southeast Alaska--that is where Wrangell is--to Seattle, the Presiding Officer's hometown, on November 3. It was escorted by Forest Service members who are caring for the tree. Like I said, watering it, keeping it fresh the whole trip.

When we checked in on Fred--and they are here now or are going to be here tomorrow morning. We checked in on them. They were just about to stop in Omaha, NE. By the time they conclude their journey, which will be tomorrow, they will have stopped in 12 States, 17 towns across America. And if you were lucky enough to be one of those Americans to live within driving distance of any of their stops, these guys would have been hard to miss.

Thousands of Americans have come out to see this tree going across the

country. The upper half of this tree is already covered in Christmas lights and is visible through Plexiglass in the 85-foot custom-built trailer which serves as a gigantic autograph book that has collected thousands of signatures across the country from Americans and Christmas enthusiasts all across our great Nation.

Let's talk about these two great Alaskans, our Alaskans of the Week.

Fred first. Transporting a tree of this size that many miles requires, like I said, a crack team, which is why Fred and John were chosen. Two Teamsters--get this--with a combined trucking experience of over 130 years. Do the math. These guys know how to drive trucks. Fred has been trucking for 71 years. He is only 89 years old right now, born in 1935. A good year for wine, he says. Fred started trucking at the age of 18. He is literally probably the most experienced truck driver in America driving that tree.

Like so many Alaskans, Fred is a veteran. By the way, Alaska has more veterans per capita than any State in the country. We are very proud of that, our patriotic heritage in Alaska. And I would venture to guess that there are few Navy veterans still around today who were part of the U.S. Navy blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a big point in American history. Guess what? Fred was. He served on the USS Mullinnix and was in the Navy 6 years. He was defending democracy then and spreading Christmas cheer now.

Fred literally has done it all. Fred came to Alaska with his family in the mid-sixties and--no kidding--settled in North Pole, AK, a very fitting hometown for what would be his task today, delivering America's Christmas tree.

Some of you ``Alaskan of the Week'' fans might remember the Alaskan of the Week about a year ago, last December, when I spoke about the North Pole, Alaska's Miller family, and their Santa Claus house.

So, again, Americans, you want to come up and see a part of our great State, come to North Pole, AK, in the interior. The Santa Claus House is still going strong. If you write a letter addressed to Santa in the North Pole, your letter will end up at the Santa Claus House in Fred's hometown. When you get a reply, it is postmarked North Pole, AK--no kidding.

So why did Fred decide to head north to the great State of Alaska? He said:

It's in our blood to go find the frontier. That's been the

history of the world. It was time [for me] to go north.

Now he is making this almost 5,000-mile trip to bring the Last Frontier to Washington, DC.

Driving down south is an experience for Fred, much different than driving in the Last Frontier. Fred says that there are ``lots of highways and traffic. At home in Alaska, if you want to beat rush hour, you just have one more cup of coffee.'' There are not a lot of traffic jams in our State. Down here, it is a lot more coffee, pots of coffee.

This is his first year transporting the Christmas tree, and he said that the best part has been watching the reaction of people seeing the tree on the road or at one of the town stops.

Like I said, there have been thousands of people watching this incredible Alaskan tree going across the country.

Fred said:

People come out to watch the truck [and tree] go by. They

wave at us to honk our horn.

We are loving it. And the tree, of course, at 85 feet, is hard to miss for ``prepping the country for the holiday spirit.''

Accompanying Fred is John Shank, also an Alaskan and a Capitol Christmas tree delivery veteran. By the way, he is probably the only veteran. And I am not talking about military veteran; I am talking about, he has delivered the Christmas tree before, driving a truck. This is John's second time delivering Alaska's Christmas tree for the country. So go figure on that one--he is probably the only guy in the history of the country who has done this twice. He did it in 2015, which, by the way, was the only other time an Alaskan Christmas tree has made it for the Capitol Christmas tree since the tree-lighting ceremony officially began in 1964.

But this drive is nothing compared to the 6 million miles John has banked during his nearly 50-year trucking career. Again, these guys, these Teamsters, these great Teamsters are some of the best truck drivers in the country.

I said 6 million miles. For reference, there are only 17,600 miles of public roads in Alaska. During his career, John has effectively driven one of Alaska's public roads more than 340 times. Go figure that one out.

Originally from Michigan but raised by his family in Fairbanks, John's regular route as a trucker for Lynden, which is a great Alaskan transportation company--the route he has usually done is from Fairbanks to the oilfields up in Prudhoe Bay.

By the way, those of you who watched the different Alaska reality shows, those are the ice road truckers--great show. Tough duty, by the way, driving a truck from Fairbanks up to the North Slope, hundreds of miles in the winter, on ice.

John has done this so well that he was nominated for the American Trucking Association Driver of the Year--not Alaskan Driver of the Year, American Driver of the Year--both in 2014 and in 2017.

John came to Alaska in 1975 to transport food for dog mushing veterans but also likes to say that he came up to Alaska ``for the adventure. And I've been here ever since.'' It is such a great State.

He said the highlight of his trip so far across the country was their stop in Indiana, where he reunited with almost 30 members of his extended family in the Hoosier State who had been tracking the tree and, of course, their fellow family member John on his trip all the way to Washington, DC.

The tree is a family event all around. During the scheduled stops along the drive, families throughout America--thousands of them--have come to admire the tree and get excited about Christmas. ``Seeing family, seeing kids looking at the tree with rosy cheeks,'' John said, reminds us it is Christmastime.

So there you have it--two jolly Alaskan men--one literally from North Pole, AK--spreading special Alaskan Christmas cheer with this beautiful tree right here across America as they transport America's Christmas tree, Alaska's Christmas tree, to Washington, DC. All they are missing are some reindeer. See them right here? You know, in Alaska, we get a lot of reindeer. I am sure my State would happily loan a few reindeer down here to DC. You can come see them yourself, by the way, up in our State. One of them, Star, a reindeer, actually lives in downtown Anchorage and is always welcoming to visitors.

But in all seriousness, the tree, as I mentioned, will be arriving here in Washington, DC, tomorrow. Alaskans from across the State have been working for months on the over 5,000 decorations that will go on this tree. It is going to be beautiful. It is going to reach for the heavens, light up the night sky here in DC. An Alaskan tree in our Nation's Capital will truly mark the beginning of a joyful holiday season for all of us.

So thank you, Fred and John, for taking this enormous trek to bring the Capitol Christmas tree and a whole truckload of Christmas spirit across America to DC.

Thanks to all the Alaskans who helped make this happen.

Thanks to the Teamsters who keep our State and country's economy rolling strong.

Fred and John, Merry Christmas and congratulations on one of the highest honors anyone in America can achieve--our Alaskan of the Week. Great job, gentlemen. We will see you tomorrow out there with your Christmas tree.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following fellows in my office be granted floor privileges for the remainder of Congress: Michael Polyak and Akacia Halliday-Isaac.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted

to speak for up to 20 minutes and that Senator Paul be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall vote.

Mr. President, I want to compliment my good friend from Montana, Senator Daines, who was on the floor just now talking about government accountability. That is what I am going to talk about-- government accountability. We need much more of it, and we need much more of it in the Veterans Administration.

So today, what I am going to be doing is I am going to ask for unanimous consent on my bill, the PRO Vets Act, that we all need to move forward, both on funding the VA--I am going to talk about this shortfall--but also on having some reforms to the VA. They are very simple.

I will be really disappointed if any of my colleagues come down here and block my unanimous consent request. That is just me asking all my Senate colleagues to pass this bill right now. But when you hear about it, you will say: Why wouldn't we pass that? Holy cow. The VA needs a little accountability--actually, a lot of accountability.

But here is what is going on. A little context of my legislation-- which, by the way, right now already has 15 cosponsors. We just put this together 2 weeks ago, given the crisis at the VA, and it has 15 cosponsors.

Just 6 weeks ago, Congress was officially informed and many of us were surprised--by the way, I sit on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, so I am very focused on these issues. Our committee was informed that the VA was experiencing a $15 billion shortfall and that by the end of this week, tomorrow, they need an additional $3 billion or veterans across the country, including in my State--the great State of Alaska has more veterans per capita than any State in the country, so we love our veterans; it is a very important constituency of mine--they wouldn't get their benefits unless we act real quick.

The House acted 2 nights ago, and we are going to get this money done. We will get it. We want to make sure our veterans have their benefits. But in exchange, we are asking: Hey, what is going on over at the VA? I mean, we see this all the time--mismanagement, last-minute requests for money, illegal bonuses up to $11 million just a couple of months ago paid out to people in the VA who don't deserve it.

My bill is very simple. It is going to bring accountability to the VA--of course, that is a vital institution for our veterans and our country--with some more oversight and accountability. It is not complicated at all. It is basically two things. We are going to fund this short-term $3 billion amount of money the VA says it needs ASAP, even though they didn't inform us until 6 weeks ago.

By the way, the total amount they need in terms of how they screwed up the budget is $15 billion. That is a lot of money.

So it just says--the bill requires two things. It institutes a 3-year requirement for the Secretary of the VA to submit quarterly, in-person budget reports to Congress to encourage greater oversight and financial accountability--that is pretty simple--and the Secretary should come to us quarterly with these budget estimates and brief our committee, the VA Committee, in person--easy--and for any future financial shortfalls, which we are experiencing right now, it would result in the withholding of bonuses for senior VA and OMB personnel who worked on that budget. That is it. That is it, Mr. President.

Most people would say, ``Hey, that is pretty good reform; it is not too much,'' but, remarkably, I think one of my Senate colleagues is going to come down here and object.

So we are going to throw $3 billion at the VA, and we just have simple reforms: The Secretary comes quarterly to the committee and says: Hey, we are not going to blow through the budget again. Here are our quarterly estimates.

By the way, if you are part of the team at a senior level that screwed up the budget, you don't get a bonus.

What is wrong with that? Maybe my colleagues won't object. That is it. That is the bill, because we are going to give the VA, again, additional money that they didn't plan for.

This is not the first time this has happened. As a matter of fact, I have been on the VA Committee going on 10 years. I really like the committee. As I mentioned, veterans in Alaska, veterans in America are so important. But the VA in DC often screws up the budget. It often comes up with scandals. Heck, like I said, just a couple of months ago, $11 million went out to senior VA officials for bonuses that they didn't deserve.

In a hearing yesterday, I asked: Has anyone been held responsible for that?

No.

Anyone held responsible for this budget oversight?

No.

So, as I mentioned, there have been a lot of these kinds of scandals. Some of you might remember the VA secret waiting list at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care System.

CNN described the secret waiting list as the following:

The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by

Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide

that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months

to see a doctor.

Forty of them died waiting. Pretty scandalous.

The hospital in Colorado had a budget overrun in 2016, and Congress had to do what we are doing right now--jump in immediately, at the last minute. That was budgeted--it was three times the amount it was budgeted that they ran over to build that hospital. But we again acted--hundreds of millions of dollars at the last minute because of VA mismanagement.

Here is the thing: The Congress--even the Veterans' Affairs Committee--is becoming numb to these kinds of shortfalls and these kinds of dysfunctional approaches to management for our veterans.

Let me be clear. I work with the VA in Alaska all the time. The people on the ground helping our veterans--the vast, vast majority do a great job. But the problem seems to be here in DC, with this giant bureaucracy.

Last week, the inspector general--President Biden's inspector general for the VA, in front of the House, testified along the following lines about a report they just had in terms of an investigation of the VA. They said: Our staff--the inspector general's staff--``routinely finds breakdowns in processes, infrastructure, governance, leadership, and other failings that erode the foundational elements of accountability'' at the VA.

Last week, the IG of the VA said that.

These breakdowns impede [the] VA's efforts to make certain

that patients receive timely, high-quality healthcare and

that veterans and other eligible beneficiaries are afforded

the compensation and services they are owed.

So here is the Biden administration IG, inspector general, saying: We have big problems at the VA.

Now we are seeing it with another cost overrun.

Like I said, $15 billion budget shortfall for the VA right now. We only heard about it 6 weeks ago; and I, with several members of the VA Committee, 6 weeks ago as soon as we heard about this, sent a letter to the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee at the end of July saying: Hey, we need an immediate hearing, right now. Let's do it right now and have the Secretary testify in person to tell us what the heck is going on. What are you doing over there? OK?

The chairman didn't do that. He waited till yesterday to hold the hearing. The Secretary didn't show up to come testify, and we heard all kinds of things from the witnesses from the VA.

But what we didn't hear is anything about accountability. We did hear this, by the way, and if--I think most Americans, most Alaskans, would find this stunning. The VA has a new rule. We went through a pandemic 4 years ago. People were doing remote work. Guess what? Most of the Federal Government is still doing remote work. Most Federal employees still, like, work in their pajamas next to a computer at home.

The VA's new rule is that you are required to come into the office twice in a pay period. Excuse me, what? Some of those VA workers in DC work at home in their pajamas. Can you believe that, America? We have these big, beautiful Federal buildings here and

nobody comes into them. I mean, come on.

So maybe the Secretary was teleworking yesterday, part of his rule that you only have to come in twice a month to work. So we need accountability. We need accountability.

Now, as usual, the VA and other bureaucrats are saying, hey, this is actually a good thing that we have a $15 billion shortfall. This is a good thing because more veterans are getting benefits.

Well, listen, I voted for the bill that is helping our veterans with regard to burn pits. I voted for all that legislation, and it is good that we are getting veterans to have more benefits that they have earned, but that doesn't excuse the VA mismanagement of its budget or the idea that Congress, if it is going to appropriate more money at the last minute, which is what we are going to do--and I am supporting that--that we apply accountability.

Here is what the legislative director for the VFW supplied in written testimony to the House last week:

``Since news of the funding shortfall became public, the

communications on the matter from the VA has been

inappropriately positive''--

So this is the VFW saying: Hey, VA, don't spin this.

That it is positive because the VA is ``delivering more benefits than ever,'' as if the VA's miscalculation that now threatens the delivery of all compensation, pension, and education benefits is somehow a positive thing.

So the VFW is looking straight at the VA saying: Don't spin this. The $15 billion shortfall you just told us about, we have got to rush to fund it or veterans across America are going to lose their benefits? That is not positive. No matter how they spin it, it is not positive. It is called mismanagement.

So, again, all I am asking for as part of the money that we are going to appropriate on an emergency basis for the VA is to simply pass my vets act, my Pro Vets Act.

And, again, here is all it does: The Secretary of the VA has to come in quarterly to the committee, in person, out of your pajamas, and tell us what the budget is so we don't have this again.

And if you are part of the VA or OMB team that put forward a budget that the VA went over, you don't get a bonus. That is eminently reasonable. Reasonable, Mr. President. And I hope my colleagues here will support it.

So I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 5074, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be consider made and laid upon the table.

While I have worked closely with my colleague from Washington on the Veterans' Affairs Committee in the Senate, I know she is committed to veterans, and I want to work with her on these matters. I will say, though, I would disagree with her on one major issue. She mentioned growing pains and the PACT Act has expanded veterans' benefits. And that is good; I voted for that bill. But this isn't about growing pains. This is about what the IG just testified to the House on last week, and it is systemic problems of accountability at the VA.

And to be honest, if you are on the committee, you know that more than anybody because we see it all the time. So I am disappointed that simple reforms, accountability, the Secretary coming in quarterly, in person, not teleworking like 99 percent of the VA currently does--and shouldn't do, by the way--telling Congress where they are in the budget so you are not going to have another overrun.

And then if you made the mistake--and there is a big budget overrun, you don't get a bonus. Very simple. I am really disappointed that we can't undertake basic, simple accountability reforms when we are, once again, at the last minute, scrambling to make sure due to the VA's mismanagement, Congress is coming in with additional money making sure our veterans get their benefits, that is not the way to run a really important Federal bureaucracy and organization like we have at the VA. And I am disappointed that my bill is not being passed right now, in addition to getting the additional funding to the VA for our veterans.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, you know what time of the week it is, and I think our pages are learning. But it is a special time of the week here in the Senate because it is Thursday, and Thursday is when I usually come out and talk about the Alaskan of the Week.

Now, look, the press--where are they? I am not sure they are around right now, but they love this speech. They call it probably the most important speech of the week in the Senate, regardless of what is going on. The Presiding Officer is a big fan and the pages are because I like to tell stories about what my constituents are doing back home to earn them this very prestigious title--very prestigious, by the way--the Alaskan of the Week.

I like to begin this speech, as you know, talking a little bit about what is going on back home in Alaska.

Here in the Senate, we are all getting ready to go on a recess work period, we call it. We are all going to be going home, seeing our constituents. Speaking of things in Alaska, I just happened to host our Senate lunch. On the Republican side of the Senate on Thursdays, one of the Senators hosts lunch every Thursday. Today was my day to host, which is kind of exciting.

I am not going to brag, but I think a lot of the Senators like it when Senator Murkowski or I host because we bring in great salmon, halibut. So we had a feast for lunch today. My wife Julie was here, which was really special.

We brought in peonies. A lot of people don't know Alaska is now becoming a huge peonies flower producer. I didn't even know what a peony was a couple of years ago, but now we are big into that. So if you saw these peonies all over the Senate today, they were from Alaska.

What I like to do at the lunch is talk a little bit about Alaska. I have this fact sheet with these great facts about Alaska. And during the lunch, we have a video cam going, literally a live feed video of what is happening in Alaska in the Katmai National Park, Brooks Falls. That is the real famous place in Alaska where all the big brown bears gather by the falls because the salmon are trying to jump up through the falls, and the brown bears are literally catching them in their mouths and eating them right there. So that is a live feed in the lunch that we just had, dozens of bears. It is awesome.

If you are interested in watching it, just go on Brooks Falls, live feed. It is awesome to watch. So there is a lot going on in our to State.

It is kind of dangerous right now. One of the things that I showed to my colleagues is this slide. It is going to be hard to see, but this is a slide of Russian and Chinese strategic bombers--not good. That is a Bear bomber, Russian. That is a Chinese bomber. It is the first time in history they were working together to push into our airspace, Alaska airspace--Russian-Chinese strategic bombers coming into Alaska airspace. Our brave military men and women in Alaska jumped them. Over 10 fighters, fully armed to the teeth, said: Hey, China, Russia, get out of our airspace. Go back to your countries.

So up in Alaska, we are on the frontlines of a lot of this great power competition. These authoritarians are on the march pushing. We are not going to let them push in our State. So there is a lot going on. And I was talking about that at lunch.

By the way, I was talking about this, too: My wife Julie and I were recently up in Utqiagvik, Barrow. That is the highest point of North America. These are too hard to tell, but we were able to see some polar bears, beautiful polar bears in the wild. We took some photos-- magnificent, beautiful animals. So there is just a lot going on.

I always like to make the pitch to people watching here in the Senate or on TV: Come up to Alaska. You will have the greatest trip in the world. It is an incredible place, a lot of fun. Especially now, it is beautiful. You would just love it.

So a lot happening there, as I was talking about to my colleagues at lunch today. But I want to talk about the people.

Today, we have a really great Alaskan of the Week who I know super well. I just want to talk about what a great job she has done. Her name is Julie Kitka. She has been, for over three decades, the president of a really important organization in Alaska called the Alaska Federation of Natives--the Alaska Federation of Natives, AFN, as we call it, in Alaska.

I also want to give a shout-out to Ben Mallott. He is actually related to my

wife. He is going to be the next president of AFN.

So great job, Ben.

He has already been working at AFN for a long time. But what we really want to talk about is Julie Kitka's legacy and what she has done to help literally tens of thousands of people in our State.

Now, I have talked about this a lot in my speeches here, but the history of Alaska is very epic. But one of the big elements of our history is who owns our lands, who manages our lands. Sometimes it is a fight, sometimes it is cooperation, but it is a really important issue.

One of the largest, most important parts of that history, after America purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, was what rights to the lands would the Native people have? By the way, it was their lands to begin with, right? So what kind of rights do the Native people of Alaska have to lands?

This question has been going on since the purchase in 1867 of Alaska from Russia.

(Ms. HIRONO assumed the Chair.)

And believe it or not, Madam President, this issue is still in limbo into the late 1960s, when the Alaskan Native people from across the State organized and formed the Alaska Federation of Natives--AFN, as we call it--to push for the rights to their lands.

This fight got turbocharged in the late 1960s when oil was discovered on Alaska's North Slope during a crisis in terms of a worldwide shortage of oil. And the Congress was like: We need to produce energy in Alaska, and we need to produce energy fast.

Well, wait a minute. The Native people are saying: Hey, these are our lands. What about the settlement?

So Congress came together and passed a lot of really important legislation relating to these issues in Alaska. One was called the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Act, the TAPS Act; but the most important was in 1971, and it was called the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act--ANCSA, as we call it back home.

This is the largest and certainly the most innovative indigenous land settlement in U.S. history, probably in the history of the world, to be honest. It is no exaggeration to say that: 44 million acres of land going from the Feds and the State to the Native people to own it--fee simple, by the way. Very innovative. Very different from what happened in the lower 48 with Indian reservations, a very different system. Congress did that.

And it created AFN, the Alaska Federation of Natives. Actually, if you look at the AFN symbol, it has kind of a three-ring symbol that has Aleut, Eskimo, Indian--the symbol of everybody working together. And, trust me, in Alaska, the history of different groups wasn't always so cooperative. There was a lot of conflict between different Native groups.

And AFN came together. As a matter of fact, at lunch today, I was telling a story about Alaska. I even told a story about my mother-in- law, my wife's mom, Mary Jane Fate, who is a great Alaska Native civil rights leader. She was one of the leaders, when AFN was being formed, who came to Congress and lobbied Senators on ANCSA. And she actually got a very conservative Senator, James Buckley, a great Senator from New York, to be a cosponsor of ANCSA because it was so innovative: a private sector approach to Native ownership of land that created Alaska Native corporations--all done right here in the U.S. Senate. And the AFN, Alaska Federation of Natives, pushed that and made it happen. Great leadership.

So now AFN represents about 140,000 Alaska Natives, hundreds of Alaska Native corporations. And for 34 years, Julie Kitka has been leading AFN--such an important organization to our State--and Julie has done a great job. Now she is stepping down. We are going to miss her. I am going to talk about that.

But let's talk about Julie's life. She is the second of five children, born to a Chugach Native father and a Kansas German mother. Growing up, she alternated between living in Cordova, AK, her father's hometown, and Washington State, where she started college at Western Washington University in 1971.

By 1973, Julie returned to Cordova to work in a cannery there and later was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, their enrollment office and their adoption division. By the way, she processed over 12,000 adoption applications for Alaska Natives during that time.

And it was during this time she first became acquainted with the Alaska Federation of Natives, which, again, as I mentioned, was pretty new. Julie began taking grad school classes. She is very smart. Like I said, I have known her for many, many years. And she later dropped them to help take care of her sick daughter.

And then AFN said: Hey, this woman is really smart. We are going to hire her in kind of an accounting-bookkeeper position. They saw her really smart brilliance when it came to her business acumen and her business degree. And that was in 1984, just 6 years before she would begin her tenure as the AFN's longest serving president. So AFN made an early, very smart investment in Julie Kitka.

She moved up the chain quickly. She sat in on meetings with intelligence, curiosity. She was hired as a special assistant to the president. And Julie remembers the next few years at AFN as one of huge possibilities.

As I said, Madam President, this was an amazing settlement. Congress did great work--the House, the Senate--very innovative, hundreds and hundreds of pages. And Julie said: ``There were [enormous] opportunities left and right. During those first meetings,'' after ANCSA was passed, ``folks would show up with briefcases like `business people,' and they'd be full of smoked salmon and seal oil.''

That was Julie talking about the early days.

While unprecedented, the structure of Alaska Native corporations-- again, created by this body, Congress of the United States--through ANCSA, opened up incredible possibilities for the State. Julie said: ``It is beyond our imagination how successful things turned out'' with that legislation.

Now, look, it wasn't perfect. We are always trying to amend it and fix it.

She goes on to say: What Congress did by doing this settlement, land settlement experiment, with ANCs gave us a pathway to engage with the economy, to strengthen self-determination. The corporate model was an innovative tool which could be modified easily.

Now, pivotal changes began to happen at AFN. Workshops, conventions began to roll out across the State to help people prepare to implement this really far-reaching legislation.

And part of the legislation said: All right, this is going to pass in--it passed in 1971. Twenty years later, the Alaska Native corporations would essentially be open to the public, enabling outsiders to buy into ANCs. And this, to be honest, Madam President, was a challenging time. It was a scary time.

Julie remembers it as challenging and scary. A lot of corporations back in those days--ANCs--were losing money. This legislation, after a 20-year period--the 20-year period in 1991 really loomed large.

So she and the other Alaska Natives, working with the Congress and the Senate, worked hard to ensure continued Native ownership of ANCs. This was really important work. And they did this work. Julie came to Congress in Washington, DC, with AFN many, many times to serve as a lobbyist, advocating for ANCs in this legislation, this period in the early--late 1980s and early 1990s.

And with the help of her great persuasive talents, AFN was able to include key provisions in legislation here in the Congress that have resounding impacts today, including land bank protections preventing the taxation of undeveloped Native lands, special benefits for our Alaska Native elders, and the designation of ANCs as small or disadvantaged businesses.

Madam President, as you know, these relatively small changes grew later into really, really important changes for our ANCs and have created important legacies for the success that we have seen in so many of these Alaska Native corporations.

By January 1990, Julie had done such great work that AFN said: Hey, you are going to be our president. You are going to be our leader.

And she has done that for 34 years. She presided over AFN. By the way, the Alaska Federation of Natives Conference, the AFN convention, as we call it, every year in October in Alaska, is the biggest, largest meeting of indigenous Americans each year in the country. And, by the way, it is a great

event. It is a great event. I love going every year. It is a lot of fun. So many Alaskans, Native and non-Native, are there. It is fantastic.

So Julie has built all of that. AFN is one of the most important organizations in our State.

Thirty-four years later, Julie talks about some of the seminal programs and initiatives created during her time. AFN helped establish the Job Corps center, which is still thriving in Palmer, AK--a beautiful campus there--training Alaskans in their jobs. It is fantastic work they do.

AFN worked to establish Alaska Native education equity, the growing recognition and importance of Tribes.

Julie Kitka also did a great job working with our military and Alaska Natives and AFN. Alaska Natives, like Native Hawaiian and lower 48 Indians, serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country. Special patriotism, I like to call it. That is what they do.

Julie Kitka did a great job focusing on those issues and forming dozens of joint Federal and State partnerships that have lasted for decades. Julie said that none of this would have been accomplished without bridge building:

It was always about partnerships--nothing was ever done

alone. We had conferences all the time to break down barriers

and self-limiting silos.

Partnerships--what a great way to focus on leadership, Madam President. That is what she did.

So after 34 years as the president of AFN and 40 years as an employee of AFN, Julie has now decided to step down. What a career. What an impact on Alaskans.

And, by the way, she shows no sign of slowing down yet. This April, the full Alaska congressional delegation, myself included, selected Julie to lead the Denali Commission, an independent Federal Agency, to work on economic development and infrastructure issues in rural Alaska. So we certainly have not seen the last of her incredible work or work ethic on behalf of Alaska and all of our fellow Alaskans.

Julie, to you, congratulations. It has been an honor working with you on some of these critically important issues. I know that everybody at AFN, all Alaskans, Native and non-Native, send their congratulations. You have built an incredible legacy. You have worked so hard for our State and our communities. And now you have received one of the most prestigious awards in Alaska: being our Alaskan of the Week. Congratulations on a job well done.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I want to join my colleagues here on the Senate floor and talk about the importance of national security right here in the Congress of the United States. It is certainly one of our top priorities--protecting our Nation.

You know, President Ronald Reagan, who very much focused on the issue of peace through strength--and I am going to talk about that here in a minute--he once said:

We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of

freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that

the tyrants are tempted.

``It is then that the tyrants are tempted.''

Tyrants like this guy--that is Xi Jinping sporting some cammies there with his military--tyrants like this guy and the tyrants around the world, they are tempted. They are tempted. They are on the march.

Look at this poster. That is Xi Jinping again in his military uniform. He kind of looks ridiculous, from my perspective, but, hey, they are on the march.

Putin, the terrorists in Iran, Kim Jong Un in North Korea, Venezuela, for goodness' sake--all the tyrants are working together, and they are on the march because the forces of freedom, as President Reagan said, have become weak.

You have heard it from my colleagues from North Carolina and Mississippi. We are on Armed Services together. By the way, they are both doing a great job. Let me make sure everyone can see that. Thank you. Yet this body has not taken up what we need to take up.

Just a couple of examples. Senator Budd was talking about the chaos in the Middle East, the appeasement of Iran by the Biden-Harris administration.

By the way, in my great State, just this past week, we had a joint Russian-Chinese strategic bomber patrol come into our ADIZ, into the kind of territorial airspace right near Alaska. It never happened before in the history of the country--Chinese and Russian joint bomber patrols, with fighters, coming into American airspace. The tyrants-- this guy--they are tempted. They have never done that before.

We heard about this. We all know this started due to the botched, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that has sent the message of weakness.

Our wonderful military up in Alaska scrambled 10 fighter jets, fully armed, went and greeted the Chinese and the Russians, and said: Not today, guys. Turn around. Get out of our airspace.

But that was an escalation. It never happened before.

In the United States, we need to be stronger--much stronger than the Biden-Harris administration has enabled us to be.

So what can we do here on the Senate floor? Well, what we can do--and you have heard my colleagues talk about it--is that we can bring up the National Defense Authorization Act.

Like a lot of my colleagues who have been talking on the floor right now, I serve on the Armed Services Committee and was glad to work on this bill in a bipartisan way. I saw Chairman Reed here a minute ago on the floor. He did a great job, the chairman of the committee. We dramatically increased the top-line number that we need in terms of our military, the men and women who did the mission like they did last week in Alaska.

By the way, that is not an easy mission, flying 1,000 miles from their base to go intercept the Russians and Chinese with fighters. That was not an easy mission. Our military members did it really well.

But here is the issue: For so many of my Democratic colleagues, especially the majority leader, the military and bringing the NDAA on the floor is just not a priority. I mean, no offense to some of the people we are confirming right now, but these are not priorities. The time on the Senate floor reflects priorities, and the majority leader has kind of indicated: Hey, even though we have a good NDAA; even though our country is in peril right now, with the dictators on the march; even though the House already passed a version, the Senate--ah, forget it. We will do a tax judge. We won't bring the NDAA to the floor.

I know a lot of Democrats who worked hard--the Presiding Officer is one--who worked hard on this bill. A lot of my Democrat colleagues want the bill on the floor. For whatever reason, the Senate majority leader, during this dangerous time, will not bring a bipartisan bill strengthening our military to the floor.

Why won't he do that? Why won't he do that? Well, I will say there is a major, major difference between our parties--a major difference. What is that difference? Well, I like to proudly proclaim that the Republicans have been, are, and I hope will always be the party of peace through strength--peace through strength.

By the way, if you take a look at the Republican Party platform that we issued in Milwaukee at our convention a couple of weeks ago, it is all about returning to peace through strength. That is what the platform is about.

By the way, I took a look at the Republican Party platform in 2024 and the Reagan-Bush platform in 1984 on peace through strength. They are almost identical. That is what we believe in. That is what President Eisenhower believed in, Roosevelt, Reagan, and President Trump certainly did in his first term.

Here is the difference--you know, I know some of my colleagues don't like it when I say this, but, hey, the truth hurts--the Democrats are the opposite of this. When the Democrats have gotten into power in the White House, what do they do? They always come and cut defense spending, and they always undermine readiness. That is why the Senate majority leader is saying: I don't want to bring the NDAA to the floor. That is not our priority. We don't do that.

Let me just give a couple of examples.

Jimmy Carter cut defense spending in his first 3 years in office, and the Russians and Iranians took advantage of America's weakened posture.

Bill Clinton cut the size of our military by one-third, upending a decade of progress under the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations.

Barack Obama slashed the Pentagon's budget by 25 percent during his second term. Our military readiness plummeted. I remember coming to the Senate in 2015. I was the ranking member on the Readiness Subcommittee and was shocked to see that 3 out of 58 brigade combat teams in the U.S. Army were at their highest levels of readiness--3 out of 58. Obama slashed readiness.

Of course, now we have the Biden administration. Every year Biden- Harris have been in office, they have cut defense spending. Every single year. This year's Biden-Harris budget shrinks the Army, shrinks the Navy, and shrinks the Marine Corps. That is a fact.

Next year's budget, in the next 2 years, if the Biden-Harris team is reelected, we will go below 3 percent of GDP.

Take a look at this chart. It shows it. These are the numbers on GDP. That is 15 percent during the Korean war; 8, 9, percent during Vietnam; the Cold War, Reagan era, 5, 5\1/2\ percent; Bush, about 4\1/2\ percent; right here, 3 percent.

We have been below 3 percent of GDP four times since World War II. That is the wrong message to be sending to dictators in the world. That is what the Biden-Harris budget for the Department of Defense does right now.

Now, we can fix this. We can work on the NDAA, which, as I mentioned, in a bipartisan way, we significantly increase the top-line budget.

I want to commend Roger Wicker, the Senator from Mississippi, the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, for his great leadership on that.

By the way, the White House is against that. They love going below 3 percent. And during the Biden-Harris administration, they will crank up spending for other Federal Agencies by double digits--some up 20 percent--but Homeland Security, securing the border, and our military men and women, they get a cut. Again, that is what national Democrats do.

Our tradition is what the American people want, particularly during these dangerous times: peace through strength. And one way we can do that right now on the Senate floor is to bring the NDAA to the floor-- to bring the NDAA to the floor. And yet the Senate majority leader doesn't want to do that. It is not surprising. That is the tradition of national Democrats: weakening our military, not taking it seriously, not a priority.

But that is not what the American people want, Madam President. We need the NDAA to the floor now, during these dangerous times.

And my colleagues and I--I am glad to be with all of them on the floor. By the way, I am pretty sure there are going to be some Democratic Senators calling for this, too. They are not doing it right now, but we need it on the floor today, and I am honored to be here with so many Republican Senators making the same call.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall vote.

Mr. President, I have a resolution that I am looking forward to passing here on the Senate floor. I am pretty sure no one is going to object to it, but we will see in a minute.

Before I begin, I want to do a huge shout-out and congratulations to Alaska's own Alev Kelter and the U.S. women's rugby team. Thanks to Alev's score late in the first half, the Americans beat the vaunted Australians in rugby to deliver the women's rugby team's first Olympic medal in rugby sevens.

So great job, Alev. Great job to the American women's rugby team in getting some medals there for our great Nation.