Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am here on the floor today to ask unanimous consent for a long, long overdue resolution. It is a resolution that I guarantee most Americans are going to be like: What? Wait. What? We haven't done that yet? The Senate, the Congress, hasn't done that yet?

It is a resolution on this: recognizing the heroic service of our Vietnam veterans and finally issuing an apology--yes--for the way in which tens of thousands of them were treated when they came home after serving their Nation.

So that is what I am going to do right here. I was told a couple of minutes ago that someone was going to object, and I was like: Whoa. Really? Let's have that debate. Let's have that debate.

But good news: no objection. So what I wanted to do briefly is just explain the reasoning behind this resolution.

I think, as a country, when you look at the broad sweep of American history, we have always rightfully respected, lionized, and celebrated America's veterans--think about it--in the last several decades.

The World War II generation--we even have a name for them: the ``greatest generation''--sacrificed over 400,000 Americans killed in action, saving the world from dictatorships in Europe and in the Pacific. The ``greatest generation'' literally defended freedom all over the world. When they came home--and to this day--we celebrated them, and we lionized them with ticker-tape parades, as it should be. At that moment in our history, the respect for our veterans was sky- high.

Then you had the Korean war, and unfortunately, in my view--I am a Korean war history buff, and I have studied this a lot--you had kind of an attitude of benign neglect. Even the phrase the ``forgotten war,'' which I don't like--it should be called the noble war, actually--kind of indicates this benign neglect. The veterans came home. People didn't really celebrate what they did. It wasn't really like World War II. It was just kind of, OK, get on with your life; you did your duty. They sacrificed, of course, but there wasn't a lot--it was kind of benign neglect, as I mentioned.

Then the Vietnam war happened, and we all know what happened, but to this day, I think most Americans maybe don't even understand what happened, but there is no doubt our country went off-kilter, and the respect given to our servicemembers--World War II was certainly at the high level, even the Korean war with its benign neglect--this respect hit rock bottom. It hit rock bottom.

You know, it is just really sad. We all have heard stories of veterans coming home--corporals, enlisted guys, young officers. They did their duty. Some of them were drafted and said: It is my turn to go. For whatever reason--Vietnam was, of course, very contentious, but for whatever reason, when they came home, a lot of people in the American public took it out on them--slandered, spit upon, all kinds of horrible epitaphs.

I remember one of my first mess nights as a Marine officer--I was a brandnew second lieutenant, and we had a mess night with a lot of these old retired marines--a very formal, sacred setting in many ways. One of the officers there talked about how he came home from Vietnam. His dad was a World War II vet. He had been in 12 months of combat. He came home to see his father. He hugged his dad. They were walking outside of the airport, and somebody threw red paint on him and his dad. Could you imagine that? You just sacrificed for your country. You are in uniform with your father, who is a World War II vet. What did we do that for? I don't know if there is ever going to be an answer. But this happened literally to tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans. It shouldn't have happened, but it did.

So what we can do here in the Senate is just say: Hey, we recognize your great service. It wasn't easy. You were doing your duty. And if you were treated horribly--which a lot of them were when they came home--again, maybe you go attack President Johnson or President Nixon-- not attack but criticize them--but why take it out on the lance corporal? That is what happened, and it shouldn't have happened.

So what we can do here--and we are going to do it in a second. I am really glad no one is objecting. I hope no one is objecting. My resolution, S. Res. 778, has a lot of Senators supporting it. It is simply acknowledging the courage and sacrifice of our veterans from the Vietnam war and apologizing for the treatment that so many of them received when they came home--pretty simple--and welcoming them home, finally, from the U.S. Senate.

This resolution lays out their heroic service. It talks about the sacrifice. Mr. President, 58,000 members of the Armed Forces lost their lives. More than 300,000 Americans were wounded in Vietnam. Yet many who served bravely and faithfully to the United States during the Vietnam war were repeatedly targeted with shameful attacks when they came home. Why? I don't know. That never really happened in our history before, and it should never happen again.

Here is the beautiful thing about our Vietnam vets: Instead of being wracked and incapacitated by bitterness or anger, our Vietnam veterans--and I have seen it throughout my career in the military--when they came home, they said: Here is what we are going to do. We were treated really poorly. We are going to work really hard to make sure that the next generations of veterans who serve overseas aren't treated poorly, that we get back to this level of World War II treatment.

Guess what. The Vietnam vets succeeded in that. The vast majority of Americans look at our veterans--whether they agreed with the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else, when they see the vets, they say: Thank you for your heroic service. We may not have liked the war, but we are certainly not going to take it out on you, lieutenant or corporal.

That group--our Vietnam vets--had a lot to do with us getting back to that level.

I saw this throughout my entire military career. I just retired out of the Marine Corps a few months ago after 30 years. I will give you one example. I had a sergeant from one of my Marine Recon units who was killed by an avalanche in Alaska--a great guy. So we were having a service to bury him. It was very somber. I was just a captain, but I was the lead officer overseeing this service. These guys pulled up on motorcycles--Vietnam vets. There were like five of them at this service, just sitting there.

After the service, they came up to me.

I said: Hey, thank you, guys, for coming to the service of my sergeant.

I said: Did you know him?

No, we didn't know him. We just saw that he was killed, and we wanted to come here to honor him.

Think about that. Those are Vietnam veterans in my great State of Alaska who probably didn't get treated well but who said: We are going to go to the funeral of this Marine sergeant to make sure he gets the respect that everybody should have gotten and certainly that the Vietnam vet generation should have gotten, but so many didn't.

So this resolution does that. It recognizes the extraordinary sacrifice of our Vietnam vets. It commends them for their courage and sacrifice. It urges the President and on behalf of the Congress to formally acknowledge the widespread mistreatment of veterans of the Vietnam war when they came back home. It offers, on behalf of the Congress, a long overdue apology, and it encourages and expresses support for increased education in the schools of the United States to reflect on and learn about the courage and sacrifice of this group of veterans and, unfortunately, sometimes the lack of support when they came home. So that is what the resolution does.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 778, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, with that, given that there is no objection, that Senate resolution has now passed in the United States. It unanimously is on record finally, in 2024, thanking our Vietnam veterans for their service, for their sacrifice; acknowledging the mistreatment they got when they came home; welcoming them home; and saying, on behalf of the Congress of the United States, we do apologize for the mistreatment that you received, and we know that you are the key to making sure future generations of veterans are honored.

So to our Vietnam vets, welcome home.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to pay a special tribute to a very special Alaskan, Suzanne Downing. Suzanne turned 70 this year, and--big news for Alaska--sold her news site Must Read Alaska to businessman Jon Faulkner of Homer, who has already

done a great job with it. So thank you, Jon.

Established in 2015, Must Read Alaska is a conservative online site that has a huge impact in Alaska. Suzanne's reporting gives voice to issues and opinions that a large part of our State can't get elsewhere, particularly in her unwavering commitment to holding the mainstream media accountable or, as Suzanne puts it, ``at least on their toes.''

Tens of thousands of Alaskans read Suzanne's stories on Must Read every day, in part because of her crisp prose and her point of view, but also because she is so prolific. She works 10-hour days, at least, writing two, sometimes three or more stories a day, covering local political races, national issues, foreign policy, you name it. Must Read Alaska has been so successful in Alaska in large part because she offers an outlet for conservative voices and ideas, but also because of her knowledge on many different subjects, particularly on all things Alaska. This is knowledge that comes from real world experiences, the kind of varied experiences that so many journalists lack today.

So let me talk briefly about Suzanne's interesting background. Suzanne moved to Alaska as a child in 1969, only 10 years after statehood. She lived with her family along Auke Bay near the capital city of Juneau in a small cabin on the water. Juneau would eventually be her home as an adult. In Juneau, she worked in various capacities: in the state legislature, at the University of Alaska Southeast, in shops in downtown Juneau, and as an editor of the Juneau Empire. She worked in commercial fishing in Cook Inlet and on a crab boat out of Kodiak. As I said, she has an interesting background, and there is more.

Eventually, Suzanne became a mom and finished her technical writing degree at Oregon State University. She got a job as a reporter and editor on Bainbridge Island in Washington State for the island's weekly newspaper. After 3 years, Alaska called Suzanne home once again, and she was hired as the Sunday editor of the Juneau Empire, eventually working her way to full-time editor.

Suzanne then moved to Georgia, where she was the editorial page editor for 3 years for the Augusta Chronicle before meeting her husband Patrick Yack. They moved to Florida, where she worked in the inner city for Fresh Ministries, an Episcopalian group which offered wrap-around services for the poor.

After Hurricane Katrina hit, she created a ministry called ``Neighbors to the Rescue,'' which connected volunteers to families who had escaped the path of the hurricane and could not return to their Louisiana homes.

The cutting-edge technology she deployed in ``Neighbors to the Rescue'' caught then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush's attention. She was hired as the Florida State Director for faith and community based programs, expanding ``Neighbors to the Rescue'' statewide.

After 7 years away, Suzanne returned to Alaska in 2007, where she worked as a philanthropic program developer for the newly-founded Alaska Community Foundation. This position reconnected her with people across the State, and the next year, she was hired by then Alaska Governor Sean Parnell to be his speechwriter. Suzanne stayed with his administration until Governor Parnell left office in 2014. The next year, Suzanne started Must Read Alaska, which indeed turned into a must-read for Alaskans of all political persuasions.

In addition to news and opinion, the site serves as a community message board of sorts, celebrating the success of local Alaskans, small businesses, and highlighting events throughout the State, uniting a large State with a small population. Importantly, in addition Suzanne's own reporting, Must Read Alaska also offers space for other conservative columnists. In fact, it is one of the things that Suzanne is most proud of. Other outlets across the State tend to shut these voices out--to their detriment. In fact, one of the sites most-read stories was by Juneau sage Paulette Simpson, who wrote a column about the ferry system.

Suzanne's job is not easy. It is grueling to write as much as she does. And I can image that it takes an emotional toll, too. She is often under attack--sometimes viciously--from those who take issue with her politics. But I know she has thick skin and takes strength from so many in Alaska who defend her. They, as well as I, fervently believe that defending your beliefs, and giving others a space to do so, is the right thing do to. And Suzanne is doing that. I also know that she is buoyed by her love of our State, our country, and by something her grandfather, the Presbyterian Reverend Robert H. Price, used to tell her: ``The world will hear from you.'' Indeed, the good reverend, whom Suzanne was very close to, was prophetic. The world has heard from her.

The sale of Must Read Alaska is thankfully not the end of Suzanne's news career. She is still one of the board members, as well as the day- to-day manager of the publication. While remaining very hands-on, Suzanne is now happy to spend more of her summers in Skagway, AK, where she and her husband Pat plan to dote on their granddaughter Aven Rain Call.

I know I, as well as thousands of Alaskans, look forward to seeing Must Read Alaska's continued success as the conservative news source for many more years to come. With Suzanne's guidance, I know it will be. Congratulations again, Suzanne, on all of your great accomplishments, happy birthday, and thank you for all you do for our State and our country.

Mr. President, like my good friend from Iowa, Senator Grassley, I am going to come down to the Senate floor to talk about the national security supplemental we are voting on today. I commend the senior Senator from Iowa. He is a great U.S. Senator. It was a really good speech. I am going to reinforce some of what he just said on the importance of this bill, but, importantly, the broader context of how we actually got here and where we need to be going in terms of our Nation's defense.

In my view, the current occupant of the White House, President Biden, has gotten a free pass on his numerous huge national security missteps that have been undermining our Nation's security and have forced the Congress of the United States to actually take action.

That is the whole point. We are taking action. I am a supporter of this legislation, but we are doing it because of the failures of the current occupant of the White House. I am going to encourage my colleagues, particularly my Republican Senate colleagues, to vote in favor of this bill.

But I think it is important to put it in the broader context of what is going on in the world. I made a couple of speeches on this before. I am just going to reiterate some and add to some of the challenges we are facing because of the Biden administration.

First, I think it is pretty obvious to everybody--to anyone who is watching--that we are in a new era of authoritarian aggression led by this dictator, Xi Jinping. Look at him. He gets in his ``cammies'' every now and then, threatening his neighbors.

By the way, China is going through the largest peacetime military buildup in the history of the world. If that doesn't make you a little nervous about what is going on around the world, it should. This guy is a brutal dictator. But it is led by him, Putin, the ayatollahs in Iran, the terrorists in Iran--the largest state sponsor of terrorism--and the ``Mini-Me'' North Korean dictator. They are all working together. They want to undermine our interest. They want to undermine the interest of our allies. They are driven by historical grievances. They are paranoid about their democratic neighbors. They are more than willing to invade them, as we are seeing across the world--whether Israel, whether Ukraine.

Again, they are working together, and they are spending boatloads of money on national security issues, military buildups. This is actually led by this guy. He is the big one that we have to keep a close eye on. That is No. 1.

We are in a real, real dangerous era. This is one thing I do agree with the Biden administration on.

We have had the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs come and say: Hey, we are in the most dangerous time since probably the end of World War II.

Dictators are on the march. They are invading their neighbors. They are massively building up their military, and they are all working together. It sounds a little bit like the 1930s to me.

The second reason we need a defense industrial base supplemental is our own industrial base--our ability to produce weapons for us, for America--has completely atrophied. I could give a speech for hours. This, again, is part of the Biden administration's fault.

But we can't build Navy ships. We can't build Navy subs. Every component of our industrial base is shrinking. It is brittle. It has atrophied. Yet we are in this dangerous period. So that is pretty alarming.

By the way, it is our responsibility, in article I of the U.S. Constitution, for the Senate and the House to raise an army, to provide and maintain a navy. My view is it is the No. 1 constitutional duty we have--securing this Nation. Yet we are behind.

The Navy just put out, 3 weeks ago, this alarming report saying the U.S. Navy is behind on every ship platform that they are building--3 to 5 years behind--carriers, subs. Almost 40 percent of our attack sub fleet is in maintenance, not even out to sea.

He is scared to death of U.S. subs. What is this guy doing? He is cranking out 10 to 12 ships--high-end navy ships--a year. The Chinese Communist Party's navy is now bigger than the U.S. Navy. The danger is our industrial base can't produce weapons the way it could.

And then the third reason I think we need a national security supplemental is given how weak the Biden administration has been on national security. The current budget of this President shrinks the Army, shrinks the Navy, shrinks the Marine Corps. Do you think Xi Jinping is impressed by that? He is not--neither is Putin, neither are the ayatollahs. That is what they are doing.

By the way, this President, in every budget he submits to Congress for the military during these really dangerous times, what does he do? He cuts it. He cuts the military. I am going to get more into that.

These are the big three reasons that I have been supportive of this bill. But here is the thing. When you read the bill and look at it and dig into the details, it is less of a foreign aid bill and much more of a bill to enhance our industrial capacity. It is not a perfect bill, and I am going to get into that in a minute. There is no such thing as a perfect bill, by the way, but almost 60 percent of this national security supplemental bill that we are going to be voting on goes directly into our industrial base, directly into our ability to build submarines--like $6 billion for submarines, $6 billion with the AUKUS agreement, $5 billion for 150mm artillery shells, over half a billion for

counter-UAS systems--Patriots, Javelins, Harpoons, Tomahawks, HARM missiles, TOW missiles--built by Americans for our own defense. That is in this bill. It is in the bill. That is a really important component. Almost 60 percent of this bill goes into that.

And it has other things in it: $3 billion for our troops in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, right now--who are in combat right now, taking incoming missiles from the Houthis. The USS Carney almost took 100 different missiles and drones. With sailors in combat, this replenishes their weapons systems and helps our troops in combat.

By the way, in my view, just that element alone is enough to support this bill. You have American troops in combat in the Middle East.

And, of course, this bill does go to help our allies and partners-- Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine--who are facing existential threats, literally, from their very aggressive neighbors.

But, again, a lot of this is going to stay home. We are not sending subs to any of those countries. We are building submarines to be ready, if we have to, in a conflict with China. Xi Jinping--that dictator I was just showing you there--is scared to death of the nuclear sub capability of the United States.

This is mostly about us protecting our country and our industrial base to produce weapons for America. I think it is going to put a lot of workers to work. But this bill, primarily, if you read it, is about protecting our Nation.

As I said, it is not a perfect bill. There are a number of things-- there are some amendments we were debating a couple months ago here on the Senate floor. For example, I think the direct budget support, the economic aid--that should go to our European allies to help the Ukrainians with that, that should go to the Gulf Arab allies who want to support Gaza in terms of economic aid. We should be providing the lethal aid.

But, I will say, Speaker Johnson definitely improved the bill from what the Senate sent over a couple of months ago. I applaud him for his impressive leadership.

There are a number of improvements, like the direct budget support and economic aid are now in the form of forgivable loans. That was a President Trump idea. That was a good idea.

On the REPO Act, Senator Risch has been pushing on that hard. He has done a great job on that. That would enable us to seize Russian assets and use them to help pay for the Ukraine war.

There is a requirement that makes the Biden administration lay out a much more detailed strategy on Ukraine and forces them to provide Ukrainians ATACMS weapon systems.

It focuses on fentanyl. It focuses on TikTok and the improvements there, breaking the tie between the Chinese Communist Party and control of this popular app.

The House did try to take up some border security issues. I certainly wish those would have passed. I am not sure my Senate Democratic colleagues would have voted on it. That would have made it better.

But there are many improvements. The Speaker did a good job on it.

Mr. President, we had some critics on the left and on the right of this bill. I want to just address a few of those as we are getting ready to vote on this. Some are quite serious.

Some of my Republican colleagues have said: Hey, the Europeans need to do more, particularly when it comes to Ukraine.

I actually agree with that. No one in this Chamber has worked harder on the issue of making sure our NATO allies meet their 2-percent obligation in terms of defense spending.

I had an amendment to the Sweden and Finland accession treaties that we voted on here that said it is the sense of the Senate that all of these countries have to meet their 2-percent-of-GPD obligation on defense as a NATO member. That passed 98 to 0 here in the Senate.

I had an NDAA provision that is now law that says the Secretary of Defense shall prioritize training and troop deployments for countries in NATO with U.S. forces that meet their 2 percent obligation.

So I agree with those critiques, but some of the critiques from some of my colleagues--let's just say they weren't serious.

You might remember one--that this national security supplemental is some kind of secret trap for a future impeachment of President Trump. I am pretty sure that is not what Speaker Johnson was working on the last 2 months.

That this national security bill will ``strain our industrial base.'' Actually, it will do the opposite. I think that is clear. It is going to make generational investments in our industrial base that hopefully will continue for years. They will continue for years.

That the national security supplemental sends the ``wrong signal'' to what the warfighter in America needs for actual threats we face. Well, I find that really curious. Let me give one example. I worked directly with the INDOPACOM Commander, Admiral Aquilino, on exactly what he thought he needed to help American forces defend Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait. That is in the bill. The original bill from the Biden administration had very little on that. We made it a lot better, a lot stronger. But working directly with INDOPACOM and the admiral--there is no better expert in the world on what they need to fight in the Taiwan Strait. So, again, that criticism seems really off base and not a serious critique if you actually are one of the Senators doing the homework on what our warfighters need.

But the biggest issue I have with some of the arguments and critiques of this national security supplemental that are actually coming from the left and the right in the House and in the Senate is their claim that deterrence is divisible--deterrence is divisible. Now, what do I mean by that? Their argument, and I have heard it a lot, is that you can cut off aid to Ukraine, let Putin roll over them, roll over that country, move up to the borders of the Baltics and Poland--NATO allies, by the way--but somehow we can still be strong in the Taiwan Strait with regard to Xi Jinping and the ayatollahs in Iran.

So deterrence is divisible. You can kind of show weakness with regard to Putin but strength with regard to Xi Jinping and the ayatollahs. Well, that is not how the world works. Deterrence is not divisible. How do we know that? Well, I think we know that because of this debacle.

Joe Biden's failed approach to national security has shown us that deterrence is not divisible. What am I talking about? When this happened, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal--``Biden's debacle,'' as The Economist put it on their front cover--many in this Chamber-- Democrats and Republicans, by the way, myself included--predicted that, given this botched Afghanistan withdrawal, dictators around the world are going to be emboldened to press us other places. Stand by. Putin and Xi are going to invade somewhere else because of this. I didn't only hear that from people here; I have talked to world leaders who have said there was no way Putin would have invaded Ukraine if it hadn't been for this Biden debacle.

So deterrence is not divisible, and that is exhibit A, which brings me to my final point here.

The press, our friends in the media, as usual are missing the bigger story on what is going on on this national security supplemental. All the focus has been on the House and how Republicans in the House have delayed the Senate bill for 2 months, that we Republicans in the Congress are not taking foreign policy seriously, and that this bill's passage is some kind of victory for President Biden's foreign policy leadership. But here is what I think is going on: This national security supplemental bill actually exposes even further the weakness of the Biden administration's approach to Ukraine on foreign policy that has only brought the world chaos.

I was at a Sunday talk show the other day and made the point--a very simple question: Is the world a safer place for America and its allies today relative to 4 years ago? I think everybody knows the answer is no, it is not even close. There is chaos all over the world.

I think what is really important is to focus on how we actually got to this point, why we need this defense supplemental in the first place. The reason we do is the failure of the current occupant of the White House's policies with regard to foreign policy and national security. That is the entire reason we

have to bring this bill, this national security bill, to the floor and why it is so urgently needed now. This bill is not some kind of exhibit of Joe Biden's foreign policy triumph; it is a needed correction of Joe Biden's foreign policy failure.

First, as I noted, the Afghan debacle certainly emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine. I think that is a view that is commonly held.

Secondly, our own border debacle has been something that has made it so Republicans who would normally support strong national security were, with a lot of good reasons, saying: Hey, let's take care of our own open borders and national security at the southern border first. The President has not done that. We have an open border that is a humanitarian and national security fiasco in America.

Third, this President, with regard to Ukraine, has not been in it to win it. What do I mean by that? Every major weapons system that the Ukrainians have said they need, they have delayed and delayed and delayed because they were fearful of Putin. Let's just call it like it is. The list is long: HIMARS, Stingers, Javelins, tanks, Abrams tanks, F16s, even the ATACMS that are in the House bill, forcing the President to say that we are going to get these really important, long-range, accurate artilleries to the Ukrainians. This is the No. 1 issue we heard from President Zelenskyy a couple months ago when we were in Munich--that they are just not getting weapons they need.

Imagine if the Biden administration had gotten all the weapons systems I just mentioned to Ukrainians a year and a half ago. And what has happened every time? This body--Democrats and Republicans--has gone to the President, saying: Mr. President, give them these weapons.

Well, we are going to delay. We don't want to escalate with Putin.

Escalate with Putin? He invaded a country.

They are not in it to win it.

The President called an LNG pause on our allies. Our allies in Europe are apoplectic about that.

Not in it to win it.

Finally, this President has never explained the stakes of why this is so important. He has given two speeches on Ukraine. Two. Two major speeches. And do you know what he does? He attacks Republicans in his speeches. That is not leadership. That is not leadership. Especially on a big national security issue, you want to bring people together and explain the stakes. Speaker Johnson has done more to explain the stakes in a calm, reassuring manner in the last 2 weeks than President Biden has done in 3 years.

Finally, again, in terms of lack of seriousness on national security issues, I think the most damning issue is the lack of seriousness with regard to our national defense. As I mentioned, the President puts forward budgets to cut defense spending every year.

I have asked the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs--three hearings in a row in the Armed Services Committee--if this is the most dangerous time since World War II, why are you cutting defense spending? Why are you going to bring defense spending in America next year to below 3 percent of GDP? We have only been there four times since World War II. Why are you dramatically undermining readiness?

They don't want to do that. The Secretary of Defense doesn't want to do that. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs doesn't want to do that. So why are they doing it? The answer to that is, this is where our Democratic colleagues always are. Since Vietnam, just look at what every President who is a Democrat who has occupied the White House has done--Carter, Clinton, Obama, and now Biden. They come in, and they cut defense spending, and they cut readiness. This is in the DNA of the national party.

Republicans have a different tradition. It is this tradition: Peace through strength. Peace through strength--that is our tradition.

To my Republican colleagues and friends in the Senate, our tradition is much more serious, it is prouder, and I will tell you this: It is much more supported by the American people. Peace through strength, not American retreat.

As I am encouraging my Republican Senate colleagues to vote on this national security supplemental, this is in line with the peace through strength tradition we have in this party. Think about it--Teddy Roosevelt; Eisenhower; Reagan, of course; the Bush Presidencies; and, very much in the tradition of peace through strength, the Trump Presidency. I was here. Heck, I ran for the U.S. Senate in 2014 primarily because the second term of the Obama administration cut defense spending by 25 percent. Readiness plummeted--plummeted. Shocking how badly ready our troops were. When the Trump administration came in, working with Senate Republicans when we were in the majority, we reversed it. Peace through strength.

So through arguments, facts, understanding history, a serious view of the world, peace through strength--my Republican colleagues, we need to keep this tradition going, especially during these dangerous times. We certainly can't rely on our Democratic colleagues to support that. We certainly can't rely on this White House. President Biden cuts defense spending every year to support that. That is a really important reason why I encourage my colleagues to support this national security supplemental--imperfect bill, yes, but needed during these very dangerous times.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I came to the floor of the Senate last night to talk about a big choice President Biden was going to make today. Unfortunately, he made the wrong choice for America, for our allies, for Alaska, for my constituents.

The choice was whether he was going to make a big decision to shut down two of the biggest resource development areas in America, a place we call the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska in the Ambler Mining District of Alaska, some of the biggest deposits of critical minerals in America--in the world--and one of the biggest, most prolific basins for oil and gas in the world, where we in Alaska produce these minerals and these resources, which we need, better than anybody, with the highest environmental standards in the world.

The President shut them down today--shut them down today. It certainly hurt American workers and benefited the dictators of the world. He won't sanction Iran for oil and gas, but he sure as hell will sanction Alaska.

It is a little crazy. If you are an American watching: Why would we do that? I will get to that.

It is a real disappointment, a dispiriting day in Alaska. I talked about how infuriating this was, particularly for my constituents, workers, Alaskans, but particularly for the Inupiat Alaskan Native people who live on the North Slope of Alaska. One of these rules--the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska rule--directly impacts them.

I am frustrated. Senator Murkowski is very frustrated. Congresswoman Peltola is very frustrated. We put out a press release denouncing this decision this morning.

But the people who are really, really frustrated and, to be honest, insulted are these great Americans, these great indigenous leaders in my State because they are the ones this rule is going to impact. This rule is about the North Slope of Alaska, an incredible place. They are the leaders. They are the indigenous people who live there.

As I mentioned in my remarks last night, the Biden administration just won't listen to them at all. You want to talk about cancel voices for indigenous Americans? The Biden administration won't listen to them. This group of great Alaska Natives, as I mentioned last night, have come to Washington, DC. These are the elected leaders of the North Slope where this rule was solely going to impact. They came to Washington, DC--flew 4,000 miles eight different times--to meet with Secretary Haaland to say: Madam Secretary, this is our land. Don't do this. You are going to hurt our future.

You are going to hurt our prospects to live. We have been living there for 10,000 years.

Do you know how many times Secretary Haaland met with these great Americans--eight different trips to Washington, DC? Zero. Zero.

So, again, I will just show this real quickly. It is really important. This is the area of Alaska that I am talking about, the North Slope, right up here. This whole area is the North Slope of Alaska. It includes ANWR, the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska. This is a rule that will impact this whole area. The size is about the size of Montana. We are a giant State.

These are the leaders. We have a borough, mayor, and borough assembly. We have Tribal leaders, leaders of Alaska Native corporations. These are all the elected Inupiat leaders.

This part of the State, that is where the rule was announced today, and every one of them tried to come here and say: President Biden, Secretary Haaland, don't do that to us. It is going to really harm us, and we know more about our land than you guys do. We have been living there 10,000 years.

These are great Americans. Their voices were canceled. But I will tell you, when I saw the press release from the President of the United States today and Secretary Haaland today on this decision, I don't think I have ever been more disgusted in my 9 years as a U.S. Senator from what I saw from this White House, from this President, and this Secretary of the Interior.

Here is why, Mr. President. You know me. I am a pretty calm guy. I don't use words like ``lying.'' OK. Here is what happened today. This administration won't listen to these great people--never did. So they are canceling their voices. Then, today, they are stealing their voices--stealing their voices. As I said, I have never seen anything more despicable than this. The Biden administration won't listen to these great Americans, but then when they put their press release out today, they are telling the rest of the country: We are doing this to benefit the indigenous people of the North Slope. That is in the press release. They won't listen to them because they don't want the rule and then they put the statement out today and they told the American people: We are doing this to help these great Americans.

Stunning.

Mr. President, that is what you call a baldfaced lie. So here is the statement from President Biden, himself, a couple of hours old, and he said:

I am proud that my Administration is taking action to

conserve more than 13 million acres [of their land] and to

honor the culture, history, and enduring wisdom of Alaska

Natives who have lived on and stewarded these lands since

time immemorial.

That is the statement of the President of the United States. That is a baldfaced lie because he is saying: I am the President. I am doing it to help these great Alaska Native people. And guess what. They were totally opposed to this rule, and Secretary Haaland wouldn't even meet with them.

It gets worse. Here is Secretary Haaland's statement. She said: We are taking this action today to safeguard ``the way of life for the Indigenous people''--those people--``who have called this special place their home''--their home--``since time immemorial.'' That is Secretary Haaland.

This is just unbelievable. Like I said, I have never seen anything like this. The Biden administration won't listen to the indigenous people of the very place they are going to do a huge rule on, negatively impacting their lives, and then when they put the statement out on why they are doing it, they tell the rest of the country they are doing it to help them.

I have never seen such hypocrisy and lying from the President, from the Secretary of the Interior.

And by the way, a little bit of an aside--it is not just lying, it is unbelievable hypocrisy--particularly as it relates to the Secretary of the Interior. When she announced these proposed rules to lock up the North Slope of Alaska, she said she was going to do it because of the ``climate crisis and to deliver on the Biden administration's most ambitious climate agenda in history.''

So that is their rule. We are shutting down the North Slope of Alaska, hurt these great Americans because of the climate crisis. We are going to go after Alaska and the Inupiat Natives. So that was the goal. Ignore their voices.

But if Secretary Haaland was really interested in the climate crisis, I am wondering why she doesn't do more with regard to her own State-- her own State. What am I talking about here?

In the first 2 years of the Biden administration, over half of all permits--9,000 Federal permits--to drill for oil and gas on Federal lands went to which State? Can anyone guess? Alaska? Hell, no. They are shutting us down every day. More than half--over 9,000 permits to drill for oil and gas on Federal lands--went to which State? You guessed it. New Mexico. Whose home State is that? Oh, my gosh, the Secretary of the Interior.

Get this number. And, look, if there is anyone in the press listening, can you please write this story? I am going to get to that in a minute.

At the beginning of the Biden administration, New Mexico--New Mexico is in the red, gray is Alaska. Alaska has been about steady for over a decade, about 500,000 barrels a day. That is a lot. We were a lot more at one point--steady. At the beginning of the Biden administration, New Mexico was about a million barrels a day. You know where they are now? Almost 2 million barrels a day. Whoa. Where are the radical environmentalists wanting to shut down New Mexico? Wait a minute. No one is touching New Mexico. They increased production under President Biden by a million barrels a day on Federal land. Where is our intrepid American press to write this story?

Think about this one. Think about the flip side of all this. A Republican administration gets elected. They say we are going to shut down the oil production of a Democrat State. We are going to crush the Native people in that Democrat State. We are not going to listen to them at all. And then we are going to make sure that that home State of the Republican Secretary of the Interior is going to be drill, baby, drill on Federal lands--2 million barrels a day, increased by a million barrels a day. And what is this administration doing? Folks are shutting down Alaska. We are steady at 500,000. Drill, baby, drill for Secretary Haaland and New Mexico on Federal lands.

If that story were happening right now, the New York Times, the Washington Post would be writing about it every day. They would be calling it a scandal. They would be looking for corruption. They would be calling for resignations. But this identical situation--I don't think the press has written about it once. No wonder the American people don't trust the media. It is such an obvious story of hypocrisy to write about and nobody does.

I am digressing here. I want to get back to what happened today. As I mentioned, the President and the Secretary put out statements today saying: Well, we did this to help the Inupiat Native people of Alaska on the North Slope.

It is a lie. It is a lie.

Let me get back to this. It is simply not true. How do we know? Because I am going to do what the Biden administration didn't do. I am going to give voice to my constituents who live in this place that just got shut down today.

Here is a press release from a group called the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this press release printed in the Record.

Let me talk a little bit about the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat. It is a nonprofit organization established in 2015 by the North Slope region's collective elected Inupiat Native leadership. It is dedicated to preserving and advancing the North Slope, the Inupiat culture, and economic self-determination.

It includes local governments, Alaska Native corporations, federally recognized Tribes, and Tribal nonprofits across that entire North Slope region.

The board of directors of the Voice previously issued a strong resolution in opposition to the Biden administration's NPR-A rule that went into effect today, impacting their ancestral homelands.

Just because it is really important, I want to give a sense of how many people. It is literally tens of thousands that the Biden administration is ignoring. The Voice of the Arctic Inupiat constitutes the following communities and organizations: Point Hope, Point Lay, Wainwright, Utqiagvik, Atqasuk, Anaktuvuk Pass, Nuiqsut, Kaktovik.

Members include the Arctic Slope Native Association, Atqasuk Corporation, the city of Atqasuk, the city of Kaktovik, the city of Wainwright, the Inupiat community of the Arctic Slope, the Native village of Atqasuk, the Native village of Kaktovik, the Native village of Point Lay, the North Slope Borough School District, the Olgoonik Corporation, the Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, the city of Anaktuvuk Pass, the city of Barrow, the city of Point Hope, Ilisagvik College, the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation, the Native village of Barrow, the Native village of Point Hope, the North Slope Borough, Nunamiut Corporation, the village of Wainwright, and the Tikigaq Corporation.

That is who is represented. That is tens of thousands of my constituents, and they are all against this rule. And they all live in the region where the rule is going to impact my State. And these are great people, by the way--whaling captains, veterans. Alaska Natives serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country--patriots. They love America. They are defenders of their culture. They are generous. They are humble. I am so honored to represent these great Americans as their Senator.

So here is her letter, and I am just going to quote from it because it shows just what a travesty and what a bunch of baloney the President of the United States and Secretary Haaland's statements were today. Remember, they wouldn't meet with these people--these great people--and now their statements say: We are doing it on their behalf.

So let's see what they said in their press release today--the elected Alaska Native leaders who, supposedly, had this rule done for them by Joe Biden's graciousness--a big lie. Here is the president of the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, Nagruk Harcharek, who is a great American.

The federal government has again excluded the Indigenous

North Slope Inupiat from policymaking by issuing a final rule

for the NPR-A that does not reflect our communities' wishes.

Oh, I thought Deb Haaland and Joe Biden said it did.

He continues:

This is a deeply concerning trend by [the Biden]

administration that regularly claims to be the most

Indigenous friendly government on record. Yet, [the Biden]

administration's record does not live up to its own rhetoric.

As a result, the final NPR-A rule [issued today] will hurt

the very residents the federal government purports to help by

rolling back years [of] progress, impoverishing our

communities, and imperiling our Inupiaq culture. To quote one

of our [great] 20th century leaders, ``There's not much you

can do when your own government says shut up. It hurts.''

That is the leader of the Voice in his press statement today. But Secretary Haaland and President Biden just put out a press statement saying: We did it to help that guy.

It is a lie--a big lie.

Let me get to some of the other leaders in this press statement. And by the way, if you are a national media journalist, can you please quote this, one of you guys, please? New York Times, you never--you never--listen to the voice of the Native people. You cancel them all the time. Washington Post, come on. Do your job. Quote these people. Don't just quote Haaland and Biden. It is frustrating.

OK. Here is the mayor of the North Slope Borough. So, remember, this is a big borough--huge, actually. Like I said, I think it is bigger than Montana. Josiah Patkotak--I happen to know him too. He is a great American, a wonderful leader. Here is what he said--the mayor, remember. He is elected, the borough mayor. He is an Inupiat Native. ``The [Department of the Interior] seems to believe that they [can] care about this land''--our land--``more than we do.''

Mayor Josiah Patkotak said:

The elected leaders of the North Slope spoke--

Native leaders--

in unison in opposition to this rule [during] the

rulemaking process. To refuse to listen to our voices is to

say that you--

Federal Government, Joe Biden, Secretary Haaland--

know better--better than the people who have been this

land's stewards for the past 10,000 years, and who depend on

its continued health for [our] own survival.

This is the mayor of the North Slope Borough. He continues:

We deserve the same right to economic prosperity and

essential services as the rest of this country [as other

fellow Americans] and are being denied the opportunity to

take care of our residents and community with this decision

[by the Biden administration.] It is insulting and,

unfortunately, representative of the federal government's

treatment of our Indigenous voices for decades.

So, Mr. President--and I am talking now to President Joe Biden--don't keep calling yourself the most important administration with Indigenous people. You are screwing the people of the North Slope of Alaska.

Let me continue. This is another leader, Tribal Secretary Doreen Leavitt, whom I also know, from a great family.

As the North Slope's federally recognized tribe, we have

experienced a severe lack of [progress,] meaningful

engagement, including a lack of notice for tribal

consultation, something we are still waiting for to this day.

From the Biden administration.

As a federally recognized tribe, we are required to follow

federal laws and policies when engaging in the government-to-

government relationship, but [the Biden] administration has

failed to follow its own policies, executive orders, and

department consultation guidelines.

So that is the Tribal secretary. Let me give you a couple of other quotes. This is from the CEO of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, President and CEO Rex Rock, Sr., who is a really good friend of mine, like a brother to me.

He says:

On multiple occasions, the elected leadership of the North

Slope shared with [the Biden] administration officials our

unified opposition to this rule. The [Biden] administration

has chosen to ignore the consensus opinion of Indigenous

organizations from our region.

Remember, this rule only impacts their region. He continues:

As stewards of the Arctic for millennia, the North Slope

Inupiat know our lands better than anyone else. Alongside our

region's tribes, local governments, and Alaska Native village

corporations, we will continue to fight to have our voices

heard.

Well, they certainly weren't heard at all in this case. By the way, in their press release, they give this narrative, just so you know I am not making it up. Here is what they said about consultation. This is in their press release. I hope the New York Times writes this story.

Local Indigenous elected leaders made every effort to

highlight the negative repercussions of the Proposed [NPR-A]

Rule to the White House and the [Department of the Interior],

but they were stonewalled repeatedly by federal officials

more concerned with advancing their proposal than listening

to the legitimate concerns of Indigenous people [of the North

Slope.]

They continue:

Secretary Deb Haaland herself ignored or denied at least

eight meeting requests from North Slope Inupiat elected

leaders, including an inexcusable decision to deny a meeting

during a recent multi-day trip to our home state of Alaska.

Wow. Wow. No kidding. I am like getting sick to my stomach here; I am so mad.

Let me end with one more quote from another great leader, the Olgoonik Corporation president and CEO, Hugh Patkotak, whom I also know well.

He says:

This [NPR-A] rule and the process by which it has been

finalized is a setback for [our] Corporation and the future

generations [of Alaska Natives] who intend to continue living

on [our lands] the lands of [our] ancestors, in our Inupiat

community of Wainwright.

There are private landowners neighboring the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska.

He continues:

Today's final rule was not something we asked for, [was not

something we] wanted, or [is something we] support.

This was imposed on them. But Joe Biden says they wanted it.

He continues:

As the neighboring landowner to the NPR-A, we are

frustrated this rule could impede responsible infrastructure

and economic development opportunities [for our community.] I

will reiterate what I've said previously, when a government

entity writes rules about the area in which our people live

and subside, they must come to us first.

In this case, they never came to them at all--complete ignoring of the Alaska Native voices in my State.

``That didn't happen here,'' he concludes.

So let me conclude. As you can tell, I am frustrated. Senator Murkowski is frustrated. Congresswoman Peltola is frustrated. The whole State of Alaska is frustrated.

As I mentioned, this is now 62 Executive orders and Executive actions exclusively focused on Alaska, from the Biden administration, to shut us down. The vast majority of the people I am honored to represent have been opposed to every single one of them, but this one is the ultimate insult, because the President of the United States today used his voice to lie to the American people and say: I am doing this on behalf of the Alaska Native people who live in the North Slope region.

That is a lie. And you just heard directly, and I hope the media writes it. But that is a lie. It is a sad and dispiriting day for me and my constituents, but, in particular, for the Native leaders of Alaska, whose voices were canceled. Secretary Haaland never listened to them.

That was a press conference we all did with the banner: ``Secretary Haaland, hear our voices.''

She didn't. By the way, that is her job--trust and responsibility for the Native people of America. She certainly failed on that today.

But, as I mentioned yesterday more broadly, this administration is fine with sanctioning Alaskans--Alaska Natives, in particular--but, heck, Iran, New Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, it is ``Drill, baby, drill'' in their parts of the world.

Both President Biden and Secretary Haaland didn't do their consultations and now have put out statements insulting these great people by saying that what they did today was to benefit them. It is going to harm them. You just heard their voices.

I am not canceling their voices. I am trying to lift up their voices. We all know what is really going on here, and that is President Biden doesn't care about these people. He is taking direction directly from the far left, the lower 48, ecocolonialists--what we call ecocolonalists--lower-48 radical environmental groups that come up and try to tell the Alaska Native people how to live their lives, and who don't give a damn about the indigenous people of the North Slope of Alaska, and whom the President thinks he needs for his reelection. So he is appeasing them.

He is certainly not listening to my constituents. Like the dictators in Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing, these ecocolonialists are overjoyed by this decision of the Biden administration to have shut down major resource development areas in America, while the Alaska Native people who have lived in the North Slope region for thousands of years are despondent, discouraged, and insulted.

So am I. But we, collectively, will continue to fight this administration and, when we have to, like today, expose the lies that they are telling to the American people.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I am going to come down to the Senate floor right now and build on my Senate colleague from Alaska, Senator Murkowski's, remarks that she just made dealing with national security, the challenges we are facing as a country, the authoritarian dictatorships on the march, and what the Biden administration is actually going to do to my State--our State, Senator Murkowski's and my State--tomorrow. What we have been told by the Biden administration: Hey, Alaska Senators, here it comes. More crushing of the State of Alaska.

And why this should matter, not just to my constituents--which it really does; they are going to be really upset about it--but this should matter to every American who cares about our country's national security and energy security and jobs and the environment.

So we all know the United States is facing very serious global national security challenges. In fact, we are living in one of the most dangerous times since World War II. I think anyone who is watching recognizes that. We had the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense testify in front of the Armed Services Committee just last week. They said that.

Dictators in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and North Korea are on the march. They are working together to undermine America's national security interest and those of our allies across the globe. That is happening. I think pretty much everybody here recognizes that.

At other times of dangerous global challenges and peril, the normal policy approach of Democrat administrations, Republican administrations--doesn't matter--has been to maximize our country's strengths while undermining the strengths of our adversaries. That is how you beat them. And here in Congress, over decades, we have supported such policies.

But the Biden administration is not normal. Indeed, this administration deliberately is undertaking policies to punish Americans, undermine our core strengths, while continuing to empower our adversaries.

Now, OK, I know some of you who are watching say: Wow. That is a pretty big charge, Dan. What are you talking about? Well, let's get into that. What am I talking about?

I have this chart right up here. The President is making a choice tomorrow. Is he helping out with our dictatorship adversaries or is he going to help out working men and women in Alaska and our country's national security?

Let's take the example of Iran. Due to the successful comprehensive approach to sanctioning Iran's energy sector by the Trump administration, by the end of the administration--3 years ago--Iranian exports were down to about 200,000 barrels a day, leaving Iran--the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, the country that swears to wipe Israel off the map--by the end of the Trump administration's massive sanctions policy against Iran, they had about $4 billion in foreign reserves. For a country that size, that is not a lot--$4 billion.

So what do we have with the Biden administration? They started their appeasement policy of Iran from day one, and one element of that was to stop enforcing these oil and gas sanctions. I don't know why, you know, appeasement. Maybe we are going to get back into the JCPOA they thought.

But they did that. There is no one who doubts that. Jake Sullivan and the President of the United States, they will all admit it because here is the result: As a result, the amount of oil that Iran has started to export over the last 3 years has been up every year, and it is about over 3 million barrels a day--200,000 barrels a day at the end of Trump, 3 million barrels a day now.

Foreign reserves that the Iranians have are about $75 billion. Four billion at the end of Trump, 75 billion right now during the Biden administration.

And, of course, the terrorist leadership of Iran is using this windfall, as everybody knew they would, to fund their terrorist proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis. Remember, you don't have those proxy terrorist groups at all if you don't have Iran.

Iran funds them; they train them; they resupply them with missiles.

So these groups are not only vowing to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth but aggressively targeting the U.S. Navy and American sailors and marines in the Red Sea. So that is happening.

China is buying about 80 percent of that Iran oil. So they are being helped by this policy that the Biden administration has to lift sanctions on the Iranian oil and gas sector. And, of course, China is also dominating rare earth and critical minerals throughout the world.

Hardly a day goes by without a story being published in the American media about the danger to America's economic strength, transition to cleaner energy, and national security that is posed by China's domination of critical minerals around the world: mining them, processing them.

So those are two important trends that are happening: Iran's dominance on exporting oil and gas, the funding they get from that. The Chinese benefit; they get oil at a discounted price, and China continues to dominate critical mineral around the world.

So what is the Biden administration doing to reverse these very troubling national security trends? They are undertaking policies that will make them much worse. Tomorrow, the Biden administration has let the media know--they started leaking this at the beginning of the week. By the way, they let the Alaska delegation know much later. They wanted the liberals in the media to know. But here is what they are going to do. They are going to announce that they are shutting down from further development two of the most important areas of energy and critical mineral development in America, the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska, what we call NPR-A, and the Ambler Mining District in Alaska.

So, tomorrow, the Biden administration is going to announce that it is sanctioning Alaska. They are not going to sanction Iran. They let China produce all the critical minerals. Tomorrow, they are going to sanction Alaska, Americans, my constituents.

I mean, you can't make this stuff up. They are coming after the people I represent, and the terrorists in Iran: Hey, drill, baby, drill. It is nuts. It is an insult.

Let me give you a little more detail on what this means. I talked about the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska. This is a part of the North Slope of Alaska, about the size of Indiana. It was set aside by President Warren Harding in 1923 for oil for the country, particularly the U.S. Navy. They actually called it the Navy Petroleum Reserve, and then in the 1970s Congress called it the National Petroleum Reserve. This isn't ANWR. This isn't a wilderness area. This is an area designated by this body for American oil and gas development because we need it.

This is one of the most prolific oil basins on the planet Earth. Estimates close to 20 billion barrels of conventional oil, 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, as I mentioned, one of the most prolific areas in the world for oil production.

It is right next to existing infrastructure. And, oh, by the way, it is developed with the highest environmental standards in the world.

Do you think the Iranians have high standards?

Do you think the Chinese do, when they mine their critical minerals?

Do you think the Russians do?

Do you think the Saudis do?

They don't.

The place that has the highest environmental standards in the world on resource development, by far, is my State, hands down. Everybody knows it.

So what does the Biden administration do? Drill, baby, drill for the ayatollahs who don't give a damn about the environment. Alaska, with the highest standards in the world--we are going to shut you down.

So tomorrow the Biden administration is going to announce it is going to take 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve off the table for development.

Wow, that is a good idea, Joe. That is a really good idea for the national security and energy security of our country. Let the terrorists here drill and let Putin drill, and you are going to shut down Alaska--13 million acres.

Let's go to the Ambler Mining District. It is considered one of the most extensive sources of undeveloped zinc, copper, lead, gold, silver, cobalt anywhere in the world. Senator Murkowski did a good job just a couple of minutes ago explaining what we have in the Ambler Mining District in Alaska in America. Again, when we mine in Alaska--highest standards in the world, by far. Not even a close call.

Do you think the Chinese have high environmental standards when they mine?

Yeah, they don't.

So this part of Alaska, part of America, is critical for the minerals we need for our renewable energy sector; for our economy, of course, to compete against China; and for our national security--F-35s have all kinds of critical minerals that we need and rare Earth elements.

But, tomorrow, the Biden administration is going to announce that they are going to reverse a previously permitted road--by the way, with a 7-year EIS that cost 10 million bucks which we paid for in Alaska that was permitted. Tomorrow, the Biden administration is going to announce that they are going to reverse that permitted road and say: Ah, Ambler Mining District, America--sorry, off limits.

Our adversaries will certainly be celebrating these national security suicide measures of the Biden administration. It is only going to strengthen them. Putin, Xi Jinping, the terrorists in Iran, North Korea--they are going to be like: Holy cow, these Americans have all this stuff in Alaska and Joe Biden and his radical allies are going to shut it down.

Xi Jinping is going to be like: Damn, the Americans are going to be more reliant on us for critical minerals. I guarantee you they were worried about the Ambler Mining District. But don't worry, Xi Jinping. Joe Biden is sanctioning my State. Don't worry. He is sanctioning Alaskans. He won't sanction the Iranians; drill, baby, drill with them. But you are going to sanction Alaskans.

So this is just insanely stupid policy. Everybody knows it.

But I want to mention something else. These policies are also lawless. Even my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who don't always get it when it comes to American energy, Alaskan energy--you should get it when we pass laws that say: You got to do X, Y, and Z, and when we pass laws that say things like ``shall.''

The Biden administration doesn't get it, especially when it comes to Alaska. We passed, in 2017, the requirement to do two lease sales for ANWR. My State had been working on that for 40 years. The leases, the first one was done during the Trump administration. The Biden administration came along and said: Oh, we are going to cancel those leases. No reason--lawless.

But let me just give you an example. So they are going to take half of the NPR-A off the table tomorrow for development--13 million acres-- even though Congress, in 1980, directed the Secretary of the Interior to conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing for oil and gas in the NPR-A. So we are telling any executive branch official: Hey, you got to develop the NPR-A. It is for America. It is for the oil and gas that we need. Tomorrow, Joe Biden is going to say: Congress, we don't need to listen to you.

That is lawless action No. 1 as it relates to NPR-A.

But lawless action No. 2 that they are going to announce tomorrow on the Ambler Mining District is a real shocker. I mean, even Joe Biden and his lawless administration have to be blushing on this one.

By the way, there were some emails. There was a FOIA request when they said: We are going to cancel those ANWR leases even though Congress said we had to do it. This is the Biden administration canceling the leases. OMB--in emails back and forth between the Interior and OMB and the Biden administration--OMB was like: Hey, wait a minute, where do you get the legal authority to do that?

This is the Biden administration's OMB. This is in emails with the Interior, Deb Haaland. They are like: Yeah, whatever. We don't care. We are just going to cancel them.

So then, they are going to take NPR-A off the table, and now with the Ambler Mining District, the law is very, very clear. I will read it to you.

This is on the Department of the Interior's website right now as we speak. Their website says ANILCA--a really important law, Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which was passed in 1980-- mandates a right-of-way to the Ambler Mining District. Senator Stevens put that in there. Congress agreed.

Here is a poster of Secretary Haaland's Department of the Interior website right now. It says:

(ANILCA) requires that a right-of-way access be permitted across NPS lands for this project.

The Ambler mining project, OK? That is what the Department of the Interior website says right now.

And here is actually the language from the law:

Congress finds that there is a need for access for surface

transportation purposes across the Western (Kobuk River) unit

of the Gates of the Arctic National Preserve (from the Ambler

Mining District to the Alaska Pipeline Haul Road) and the

Secretary shall permit such access . . .

``Shall.''

I ask unanimous consent to have this printed in the Record.

The Biden administration, tomorrow, is going to say: We don't care about the law. We are going to take that off the table and reverse the EIS and the road that you guys have, tomorrow--for good. Again, who is going to benefit?

Who is going to benefit?

Well, I think these dictators are going to benefit--the Ayatollah, Xi Jinping. Certainly, the Alaska workers aren't going to benefit. That is a big issue.

The Presiding Officer is my friend, but I am going to say something I said on the floor many times. When it comes to national Democratic policy, when they have a choice between that guy or that woman building a pipeline--the great men and women who built this country--their interests--because everybody wants to develop resources in my State; that is the Trans-Alaska Pipeline--or the interests of the radical far left who is driving these policies to shut down my State, every time, the national Democratic leaders go with the radical far left, and they tell that young woman who is building that pipeline: Good luck. Sorry for your job that you just lost.

So the working men and women of Alaska, of America, because these are big projects, they are going to lose.

But I will tell you who else is going to get hurt really badly by this--and this is a fact--by these decisions tomorrow: These great people. These great people.

This is a picture of some of the Inupiat Native Alaskan leaders from my State. They live on the North Slope of Alaska. They have been living there for thousands of years--thousands of years. They are fully, unequivocally against this rule that Secretary Haaland and the White House are putting out tomorrow--100 percent against it--the tribal leaders, the borough leaders--that is our new borough mayor, the North Slope borough, Josiah Patkotak--the Alaska Native Corporation leaders. They are fully against this. Every Alaskan Native leader who lives up there--this is where they are going to do this. This is their homeland. And the Biden administration tomorrow is going to look at them and go: We don't care what you think. We don't care what your interests are. The lower 48 eco-colonialists are telling us what to do, so you Alaska Natives, tough luck.

Now let me tell you a story that is really infuriating. We held a press conference a couple months ago in Alaska, led by these great Alaskan Native leaders. They are wonderful, incredible people. They have been living in Alaska for tens of thousands of years. They don't like this rule, so they come to DC. They came to DC eight times--eight different times--traveling over 4,000 miles. The leaders of the North Slope, where the Biden administration is going to issue this rule tomorrow, eight times they came to DC, flew here, and asked for a meeting with Secretary Haaland to advocate: Madam Secretary, this is bad for us. Bad for our future. Bad for our economy. Bad for jobs. We do not want this rule. Hear us.

Eight times they have come here.

Do you know how many times Secretary Haaland met with them, the leaders of the North Slope, the Inupiaq Native leaders of the North Slope? Eight times they came to this city flying 4,000 miles. Guess how many times Deb Haaland, who has an Indian trust relationship with these great Americans, guess how many times she met with them?

You know the answer: Zero. Zero.

They came here. They came here eight times.

So we held a press conference with that banner: ``Secretary Haaland, Hear Our Voices.''

She doesn't want to hear their voices.

She doesn't want to hear their voices.

She won't hear their voices.

You want to talk about cancel culture?

This administration talks a big game about, oh, we are going to take care of the indigenous people of America, the people of color. But, guess what. There is a giant asterisk when it comes to that policy on the Biden administration: Not if you are an Alaskan Native. Not if you are an Alaskan Native. If you want to develop your resources, we are not going to listen to you at all.

Eight times they came to this city. Eight times Deb Haaland said: Sorry, I am not listening to you. I am not going to listen to you. I am not going to meet with you.

So what is going to happen tomorrow? The Biden administration is going to issue a rule that every single one of these leaders is adamantly opposed to, and not one official in this administration gives a damn.

Let me give you a couple of quotes from these great Alaskan Native leaders. This is Charles Lampe, President of the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation. This is about the Department of the Interior's actions locking up their lands. These are their lands. This is not Interior's lands, not Deb Haaland's lands.

We will not succumb to eco-colonialism and become

conservation refugees on our own lands.

That they have lived in for 10,000 years.

The [Inupiat] people have every right to pursue economic,

social and cultural self-determination.

My community unapologetically supports the leasing program.

ANWR--that is what he is talking about.

Many people try to steer the debate to caribou. For

Kaktovik, it's about our people and having an economy to

survive.

Here is Nagruk Harcharek. He is the president of the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, this great guy right here. He is talking about the NPR- A rule that Secretary Haaland won't meet with him on. In this press conference, here is what he said:

[This NPR-A rule from the Department of the Interior] is

yet another blow to our right to self-determination in our

ancestral homelands, which we have stewarded for over 10,000

years.

That is Nagruk Harcharek right there, talking:

Not a single organization or elected leader on the North

Slope [of Alaska] which fully encompasses the [National

Petroleum Reserve of Alaska] supports this proposed rule.

None of them do.

Joe Biden, Secretary Haaland, are you listening? None of these great Alaskan Native people want this rule. And you don't give a damn.

He continues:

In fact, everyone has asked the [Department of Interior and

Secretary Haaland] to rescind the rule . . . [These] actions

will also foreclose on future development opportunities and

long-term economic security for North Slope Inupiat

communities . . .

The Native communities.

You can tell I am a little mad because these great Alaskans are being canceled. Secretary Haaland will not hear their voices. We are going to see that tomorrow. They are going to issue a rule that locks up a huge chunk of their homeland.

Here is the bottom line: The Biden administration sanctions Alaskans--sanctions them--while the terrorists in Iran and the communists in China get strengthened by their policies. No wonder authoritarians are on the march.

You are sanctioning us. You are sanctioning them. The goal is to sanction the terrorists, not these great Americans whom you won't listen to.

When I say ``sanctioning Alaskans,'' I am not just talking about what we are going to see tomorrow--which, by the way, again, every American should be worried. They are going to shut down one of the biggest oil basins in America and one of the biggest critical mineral basins in America. For what? Well, I think we all know for what. Joe Biden is kowtowing to the far-left radicals because that is the way he thinks he is going to get reelected.

But how bad is it when I talk about sanctioning Alaska? Here is how bad it is: My State, since the Biden administration came into office, has had 60 Executive orders and Executive actions exclusively focused on Alaska--60. Tomorrow, it will be 61 and 62. It hits every part of our State--every resource development project, every access to Federal lands, every infrastructure project.

We got a lot done during the Trump administration, a historic amount of things done for Natives, for non-Natives--things we had been trying to get done for Alaska for decades. During the Trump administration, working with a Republican Congress, we got a ton done. The Biden administration comes in, and on day one--day one--they start their war on Alaska.

This is a tough chart to read. These are the specific 60 Executive orders and actions targeting Alaska by the Biden administration on day one.

By the way, that is the President's first day in office, January 20, 2021. He issued 10 Executive orders and Executive actions exclusively focused on Alaska--10.

So this administration loves to sanction us. It loves to sanction Alaskans. When that happens, you are hurting the country. We need Alaska's resources--our oil, our gas, our renewables. We are proud of all of it, and we have the highest standards in the world on the environment. So this is really bad for my State.

By the way, I was in the Oval Office last year, trying to convince the President not to keep crushing Alaska, and I handed him this chart. At the time, it was 46 Executive orders. Now it is 60--62 tomorrow. I handed him that.

I was respectful--I am in the Oval Office--but I said: Mr. President, do you know what you are doing to my State? Do you have any idea what you guys are doing?

At the time, it was 44 Executive orders and Executive actions singularly focused, exclusively focused on Alaska.

I handed him this. I said: Sir, this is wrong. You know it. I know it. It is wrong. If a Republican administration came in and issued 44 Executive orders and actions targeting little Delaware--sorry; it is little--and you were still a U.S. Senator, sir, you would be on the Senate floor, raising hell every day, because it is wrong. You know it, and I know it, and it is wrong.

But let me end by saying this: It is not just wrong for Alaska. It is not just wrong for Alaska. It is wrong for America. The President is making a choice not just whether to stiff the working men and women of our great Nation, which he is doing with these orders tomorrow, not just whether he is going to hurt my constituents, which he is going to do tomorrow, particularly the Native people, but whether or not to damage our national security even greater. When you shut down the great State of Alaska's potential and ability to produce natural resources for America, you are hurting the country--it doesn't matter where you live. He is making a choice to favor these terrorists over these workers, to favor these terrorists over these great Native people in my State.

Here is the message they are going to be sending--the Biden administration is going to be sending to the world tomorrow. They are going to be sending this message to the dictators in Iran, in China, in Venezuela, in Russia. President Biden is essentially going to be saying this: We won't use our resources to strengthen our country. Sorry, Alaska. You are off the table. But we are going to let you dictators develop your resources--Iran--to strengthen your country.

I will end with this: I will never forget a meeting I had many years ago with the late Senator John McCain and a very brave Russian dissident named Vladimir Kara-Murza. A lot of my colleagues know who Vladimir Kara-Murza is. As a matter of fact, a bunch of us wrote a letter on his behalf. Putin has poisoned him twice. He survived those, but now he is in jail in Moscow, and I worry about his life--a brave man, a wise man.

Senator McCain, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and I were having a meeting, and at the very end of the meeting, I said: Vladimir, one more question. What can the United States do to further undermine the Putin regime and other authoritarians around the world? What can we do?

He looked at me without even hesitating, and he said: Senator, it is easy. The No. 1 thing the United States can do to undermine Putin and other authoritarian regimes is produce more American energy. Produce more American energy.

We are not doing that tomorrow. The Biden administration is going to tell the world that we are going to shut down Alaska in terms of critical minerals and any more oil and gas development. Joe Biden is fine with our adversaries producing more energy themselves and dominating the world's critical mineral supply while shutting down our own as long as the far-left radicals he feels are key to his reelection are satisfied. So they are probably going to be satisfied tomorrow, and so are our adversaries. They are going to be gleeful. But certainly the people I represent and I would say the vast majority of Americans who understand these issues are going to be once again dismayed that this administration is selling out strong American national security interests and American strength for far-left radicals whom he listens to more than the Native people of my State or commonsense Americans.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, we seem to be in unprecedented territory here. So I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Madam President, has there been a successfully invoked point of order to dispose of an Article of Impeachment prior to opening arguments by the House managers?

Thank you, Madam President.

Unprecedented territory.

Mr. President, I want to talk about some of the important issues that we are debating here on the Senate floor. Actually, they are quite important, and we are having a good debate. I want to just talk about some of the votes that we have taken in the last couple of days.

We voted on what I think was termed--really focused on--the Senate's border bill. A lot of people worked hard on that. I know the Presiding Officer did and Senator Lankford.

I did not vote to proceed to consider that bill. There are a whole host of reasons. I think the most important, from my perspective, was this administration--the Biden administration--came in and said: We are going to have a policy of full open borders--which they have. There is no doubt about that. Every American knows it, sees it. It impacts people in Alaska negatively--over 300,000 illegal immigrants in December, an alltime record, and on track for 10 million.

In my view, the border bill did not go far enough, and it is hard to trust the administration, even on provisions that we would want them to enforce, given their disastrous record for the last 3 years. So I was a no on that.

Then we turned to the national security supplemental. I want to talk a lot about that this afternoon because it is very important. I voted, actually, to proceed to the debate, to start debating--hopefully, amending--this important bill.

It is being called many things. Some are calling it the Ukraine bill, the Ukraine aid bill, the Israel bill. Having read it, having worked hard over the last 4 to 5 months to actually shape it, I think it should have a different name, maybe this name: the fighting authoritarian aggression national security bill. But probably the best title for this piece of legislation that we are now debating should be the national security industrial base renaissance bill.

I hope my colleagues take a look at it. I hope they read it. But I am going to explain why I think it should be called that, and then we are obviously going to have a good debate on this bill.

I am hoping that this bill--and I have mentioned this to my Republican colleagues, in particular--when people look at it and we debate it and try to make it better here on the floor, that it will unify the Republican conference, and, at the end, hopefully, get more support, because I think there is an important reason.

There are a lot of reasons why I think this can unify Members of the Senate, Members of the Republican conference. First, let me just go into one of the most obvious, which I think almost everybody agrees with. If you don't, maybe you are not reading the news. But we are in a real dangerous period, led by this guy--this new era of authoritarian aggression, as I call it, where you have dictatorships on the march, very aggressive. That is Xi Jinping, the dictator of China. They are going through the biggest peacetime buildup in world history of their military--biggest peacetime buildup ever, of any country ever.

I keep close tabs on what the Chinese are doing. This guy likes to dress up in fatigues. He is an aggressive, authoritarian dictator, working very closely with Putin; working very closely with the ayatollahs, the terrorists in Tehran; working very closely with Kim Jong Un, the dictator in North Korea.

These dictatorships are all working together. I won't go into all of it, but if you go to Armed Services hearings and Intel hearings, they are working closely together, and they are willing to use military force, particularly against their democratic neighbors, either directly or through proxies--like Hamas, when they invaded Israel--to try to undermine American interests and those of our allies. That is happening.

We are in one of the most dangerous periods since World War II right now. That is one reason that a bill like this should unify us.

Another is that our industrial base in the United States has dramatically withered, particularly in its ability to protect us. What do I mean by ``protect us''? To produce weapons systems, to produce ammunition. Again, this is a fact. If you don't believe that, well, maybe you should do a little more research.

Our industrial base is withering. It is a shadow of its former self during the Cold War, certainly, during previous wars.

Mr. President, let me just give you an example. You know a lot about submarines. We are supposed to be building 1.2 Virginia-class subs a year. That is our goal. We can barely build one a year. This is making our sub fleet, which is one of our greatest asymmetric advantages over this guy, shrink.

Even worse, 37 percent of our attack submarine fleet--that is about 18 subs--are in maintenance or idle or awaiting maintenance, just sitting there because we don't have the industrial capacity to maintain our submarine base. Anyone who studies this knows this is a giant, giant problem.

We all know this. If the bullets start flying, if a dictator like this launches a war against one of our allies, or Putin does or Iran does--they are trying to sink U.S. ships in the Red Sea right now, anyway, literally troops under attack--when the bullets are flying, that is not the time you need to build up your industrial base. So if we are in a real dangerous period, which we are, and the American ability, in terms of our industrial base, to protect our own country has withered, which it has, that is another reason we should be thinking: Let's do something about it.

A third reason the people on my side of the aisle should be taking this legislation seriously is that it is an opportunity to make up for what has been an incredibly weak Biden administration approach to national security. I talk about this a lot, but this administration is not serious about national security. The President has put forward three times in his budget each year Department of Defense cuts, inflation-adjusted cuts. He will crank up the EPA and the Department of the Interior 20, 25, 30 percent. The DOD, every year, Joe Biden cuts it.

The current budget shrinks the Army, shrinks the Navy, shrinks the Marine Corps. Do you think he is impressed by that? He is not.

In next year's budget, the Biden budget will bring the United States below 3 percent of GDP on military spending. It is probably the fourth or fifth time we have been below 3 percent in 80 years. Do you think he is impressed with that? He is not.

We have an administration, led by civilians at the Pentagon, who are not focused on lethality, who are not focused on warfighting, who have been distracted by some of these far-left social issues, which, in my view, have no business being in the Pentagon with our warfighters.

So this bill that we are debating right now is a chance to start a course correction in the dangerous world we are facing because of dictators like this and the very weak response of the Biden administration's approach to national security and defense, which they have always--go look at the budgets--always prioritized dead last of any Federal Agency.

So what does it do? Let's take a look. This is from an article from the Washington Post based on a study by the American Enterprise Institute on what this supplemental--this is actually where it was in November--what this does.

I think the most important point that I want to emphasize here is that this bill is primarily focused on rebuilding our military industrial base in this new era of authoritarian aggression. That is the principal focus.

Over half of the dollars that are in this bill--over half, over $50 billion--go directly to America's capacity, our capacity in States all across this great Nation, mostly in the Midwest and on the east coast, some out in California, to build weapons, to build ammo, and to be ready for war if it comes--over $50 billion. There will be thousands and thousands of jobs created by these direct investments in America.

This is a generational investment in our ability to defend ourselves. What do I mean by ``generational''? Some of these investments we will see 15 or 20 years from now, hopefully, still producing weapons, submarines.

Let me just give you a few examples. Let's start with submarines. Our greatest comparative advantage, relative to China--they are catching up in a whole host of areas, but not in terms of subs. This has $3 billion to go directly into the American submarine industrial capacity, which will unlock another $3 billion from our AUKUS agreement with Australia. That is $6 billion to our industrial base for submarines. There is $5 billion for 155 artillery shells; over half a billion for counter-UAS systems. On the other weapons systems, this is directly invested in America--Patriots, GMLRS, Javelins, Harpoons, Tomahawks, HARMs, TOW missiles--built by Americans for our defense.

Do you get the picture? Over $50 billion of this bill will go directly into our industrial base to defend ourselves. Working-class Americans, America's national security will benefit.

This is replenishing our weapons stocks, our ammunition stocks, for the U.S. military and, yes, for our allies to purchase, some of whom are at war today--Ukraine, of course, and Israel.

Now, there is a lot of focus on Ukraine and a lot of arguments about whether to provide continued lethal aid. I strongly support that. But this bill also focuses on other allies, which, like I said, in the Republican conference, I believe unifies us. Ukraine has been a debate. But let me start with Israel.

I have been out to Israel twice in the last year, including about 10 days after the October 7 attacks, with a bipartisan group of Senators. It is, obviously, our most important ally in the Middle East--one of our most important allies in the world.

Here is what I think a lot of people miss. Right now, if you go there, you will see it; you will feel it; you will understand it. Israel is under an existential threat to the very existence of their State and their people, as clear as day--Iran, all the proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis. This is not an exaggeration.

This Defense bill has close to $17 billion for Israel in U.S. forces, in U.S. Central Command, that, right now, are being attacked--right now: Iron Dome, David's Sling, interceptors--about 2\1/2\ billion for CENTCOM operations for our U.S. Forces, who are literally taking missiles from the Houthis right now on Navy ships in the Red Sea. I think everybody agrees: You have to fund our troops.

Let me give you another area that I think unifies us; should unify all Senators; I think it unifies a lot of Republicans. And that is Taiwan and INDOPACOM.

Taiwan has been kind of--not kind of--a big focus of mine throughout my career. I just retired from the U.S. Marine Corps last week, actually, as a colonel, after 30 years of service. My first deployment as a U.S. Marine was to the Taiwan Strait in 1995 and `96. Two carrier strike groups and a Marine amphibious ready group that I was a young infantry officer on, we were there as a U.S. commitment when the PLA was threatening to invade Taiwan. That is called the third Taiwan Strait crisis. It was their first Presidential election. American commitment was there.

I finished out my Marine Corps time as the chief of staff with the Marine Force's Pacific Command, which is a whole focus on Taiwan. The first time I ever visited Taiwan as a U.S. Senator, I will never forget. A number of Senators were there. We got on the bus. The head of our AIT embassy, essentially--not really an embassy, unofficial embassy--he welcomed us, an American citizen: Welcome to Taiwan. One of the most dynamic economies, one of the most vibrant democracies on the planet. And the only reason it exists today is because of the commitment of the U.S. military and America. For eight decades, we have kept Taiwan free.

The initial supplemental that came up to the Senate, it didn't have a lot for Taiwan or INDOPACOM. A number of us knew why. President Biden was getting ready to meet with President Xi Jinping. They didn't want to ruin the mood music at that meeting, so they didn't put much in to defend Taiwan--help us defend Taiwan--as the Taiwan Relations Act requires. So a number of us worked together--Senator Collins, in particular, and my office. This bill has about $16.4 billion for INDOPACOM relevant munitions, security assistance, capacity expansion to deter China in the Taiwan Strait and throughout the INDOPACOM theater.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the list to be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, these are areas that I think can unify us: industrial base, workers, Taiwan, Israel. Like any bill, there are things in here I don't like: too much direct support to Ukraine, direct budget support. I think the European Union--Europeans--should be doing that, not us. Senator Collins did a good job of limiting that. It still has too much.

If we have an amendment process here, I have an amendment that would strip that. Focus on lethal aid, not budget support where the Europeans can do that. There are other amendments out here to enhance what we give our allies.

President Biden's team recently said we are not going to send any more LNG to Asia or Europe.

I just spoke with a very senior European elected official who thinks that is a real bad idea. We have an amendment that said you can't do that, Mr. President. We have to send energy to our allies. So there is a lot more we can do to improve this bill.

I will end with this. You know, one of the arguments against this bill will say: Well, you know what, we don't have to do anything in Ukraine; we will let Putin roll. But we will be real strong in Taiwan. We will be real strong all over the rest of the world. We will deter these authoritarians there; don't worry so much about Ukraine.

But, as you know, that is not really how the world works. It is not how the world works. Deterrence is not divisible. American credibility is not divisible. You can't say we are going to be real strong in the Taiwan Strait, but, you know, no problem in Ukraine or with Israel.

These authoritarians are working together, and we need a strategic response through this very dangerous period. And how do we know deterrence is not divisible? I think the Biden administration demonstrated it with their botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

When that happened, a number of us, myself included, said: Watch. Watch. The authoritarian regimes around the world are going to test. They are going to probe. They are going to go into different areas and press. And, of course, that happened. I don't think you have the Ukraine invasion by Russia without the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

But, again, what I am trying to do here with my colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--is say: It is not a perfect bill. I want to amend it. I certainly hope we can get to an amendment process. I know a lot of people want to get to that. But there is a lot in this bill--more than half dedicated to American industrial base, billions dedicated to Taiwan, billions dedicated to Israel--that I think should unite us. And I am hopeful that is going to happen.

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, as you know from presiding at this time frequently, it is my favorite time of the week because I get to come down to the Senate floor and talk about our Alaskan of the Week. This is somebody who is doing something great for our local communities, our State, maybe the country, maybe the world.

I have been doing this for several years now, and it really helps highlight what makes Alaska, in my view, the greatest State in the greatest country in the world.

I would like to talk about, at the beginning of this speech, a little about what is going on in Alaska. We have seen all the snowstorms across the country this week. Trust me, that is just another day in our State. I think by Christmas Eve this year in Anchorage, my hometown, we had close to 100 inches already of snow, so no worry about a white Christmas back home.

It is actually a really beautiful time of the year--great to get outdoors. I have done some skiing already. People are out snow machining. If you are watching on TV or in the Gallery, come up to Alaska any time of the year. In winter, you can see the northern lights. In summer, you will have a great time fishing, hunting-- whatever you want to do. It is truly an incredible State. Year-round, we want people to visit--our great fellow Americans to come up. You will have a fantastic time.

Now, it is not always the easiest place to live. It is far from the lower 48 here. The weather can be extreme. It can be pretty harsh. As a result, the people in the communities bond a lot. They have to. They work together, particularly in some of our most remote communities.

Every community in Alaska--in America--needs to be able to share reliable, credible information. Local journalism across this great Nation of ours is vital--more vital, probably, in Alaska than any other State, I would say. It isn't talked about nearly enough how vital that local journalism is. We all benefit all across the country from thousands of local reporters who are working on stories day in and day out. That is certainly the case in Alaska. I believe that we should be saluting these frontline journalists--local journalists--for doing this important work a lot more here.

What we are trying to do is do that today for one of the alltime best. Our local reporters in Alaska are so important. So what I would like to do today is introduce to the U.S. Senate and the American people a great Alaskan of the Week, Maria Downey--longtime Anchorage journalist, news anchor--who for more than 40 years has brought Alaska's news directly to our homes and kept us informed about our State, our communities, our country--with professionalism, sincerity, kindness, and grace.

Let's talk about Maria Downey--Alaskan of the Week, Maria Downey. She moved to Alaska from Florida with her husband Ron in 1981. In 1981, a lot was going on in Alaska.The Trans-Alaska Pipeline--which, by the way, this body approved--was flowing.

Madam President, I am honored to be on the floor with my colleague, Senator Kaine from Virginia, and we are getting ready to pass in the U.S. Senate, unanimously, a resolution commending Taiwan for its history of democratic elections and expressing support of Taiwan's democratic institutions and its upcoming elections this Saturday.

This resolution we have has half the U.S. Senate as cosponsors, and we are going to pass it here in a few minutes. That means every Senator in the U.S. Senate is supporting this.

So why are we doing this? Well, it is very important. Taiwan has a Presidential election this Saturday. And, of course, the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping are doing everything they can to coerce the Taiwanese people to interfere in the election, and that is something that we are not supportive of at all.

This resolution goes through the history of Taiwan's democracy. It mentions that on Saturday, January 13,

Taiwan will hold its 8th Presidential election and 10th legislative election since it began its transition to democracy.

It then moves to the sense of the U.S. Senate, where we are commending Taiwan for the example it has set for self-governance--not just in the Indo-Pacific region, but throughout the whole world where the Senate regards the democracy of Taiwan as a great strategic strength for the free world and an indispensable component of contemporary United States-Taiwan relations, and a sense of the Senate in this resolution that we all--all 100 of us--remain concerned about the Chinese Communist Party's aggressive interference that is happening right now.

We have had two very good articles recently in our American press. Here is one from the Wall Street Journal.

(Mr. BOOKER assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal article entitled ``China Isn't Backing Off Taiwan: President Xi Jinping is using military pressure and propaganda to sway the island's presidential election in January'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Washington Post article entitled ``4 ways China is trying to interfere in Taiwan's presidential election'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we are almost certainly facing a volatile and maybe even dangerous period in the Taiwan Strait because of the Chinese Communist Party. The election is January 13. The inauguration won't take place until May. So what we need to do as a country is to provide steady, unwavering resolve and support of Taiwan's democracy, and, of course, we need to continue to critically enhance cross-strait deterrence.

I will end with one final thing before my colleague from Virginia, I know, wants to say a few words on this important resolution. But this is also a vulnerability for the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping himself. Think about it. This undermines--this election--all of these elections in Taiwan--undermine the central premise of the Chinese Communist Party's rule that one dictator knows what is best for 1.4 billion people, in perpetuity, for as long as he is alive.

What I guarantee you the dictators in Beijing are worried about is that people in China are going to look across the Taiwan Strait and go: Wait a minute. How come we can't do that? Chinese democracy, how come we can't do that?

What we are doing right now is showing commitment and resolve for Taiwanese democracy.

I am proud to say, many, many years ago, on the eve of Taiwan's first election, the Chinese Communist Party moved its military up. They shot missiles over Taiwan. This is now referred to as the ``Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.'' It was a huge crisis in 1995, 1996. And President Clinton, to his credit, sent two carrier strike groups and a Marine amphibious ready group to show American commitment and resolve.

I was a young infantry officer on one of those Navy ships during that time in the Taiwan Strait, showing American commitment and resolve, and that is what we are doing with this resolution on now their eighth Presidential election in Taiwan, and I am honored to be here with Senator Kaine to pass this unanimous Senate resolution in support of Taiwan democracy.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Virginia. And right here, I have the resolution. As I mentioned, half the U.S. Senate--Democrats and Republicans--are cosponsors of this important resolution commending Taiwan for its history of democratic elections, expressing concern about the Chinese Communist Party's interference in this upcoming election, and expressing our support for Taiwan's democratic institutions.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 521, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, for those watching all over the world, this Senate resolution, with 50 Democratic and Republican Senate cosponsors, has now passed the U.S. Senate as an official resolution commending the people of Taiwan for their democratic elections and expressing our support for the upcoming election this Saturday.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I know this might be one of the last presiding duties of the year, so I appreciate the Presiding Officer taking the time on the floor before she gets to go home.

I want to talk about two issues today here on the Senate floor. One is a really important one. It is a policy issue that we have to solve. What I am trying to do today is just make sure my colleagues--because a lot of them get kind of fed some misinformation on this issue and then the American people writ large--know what is going on so we can fix this issue. I am hoping the White House and the administration and the Treasury Department--that everybody is watching because this is an easy one.

Imagine this, if someone came to you and said, ``All right. Let's see. Is there legislation that we could pass that would help end slave labor in China, with the Uighurs; help make sure we had a really strong environment for our oceans and our fisheries; help make sure we weren't funding the Russian war machine to go kill innocent civilians in Ukraine; help make sure we keep strong American coastal communities; and help promote the great American fishermen, who work so hard all over this great Nation?'' We have been doing it way before the founding of the Republic. If there is legislation that could do all of those things, wouldn't you want to support it--oh, by the way--and that could undermine our adversaries, the two big adversaries we have, Russia and China?

Is there legislation pending in the U.S. Senate that could do all of these things? The answer is yes. Hell yes. I just want to make sure all of my colleagues know, because when I bring this to the floor when we come back in the new year, I just want to make sure everybody supports it because it is a no-brainer. It is a no-brainer.

So what am I talking about? Well, it is my U.S.-Russian Federation Seafood Reciprocity Act. It has a bunch of cosponsors, Democrats and Republicans. Senator Cantwell is a big, big promoter of this, just for one example. But let me just give a little bit of background because people are saying, I am sure: Wait. You have a piece of legislation that can do all of that?

Yes, I sure do. And why anyone would not support it--well, once they get educated, they will support it. So let's talk about it just very briefly.

What is the background here? I am going to go way back, almost 10 years. So the Russians invade Crimea. You have an aggressive dictator, Vladimir Putin, trying to invade everybody, right? We have to make sure he doesn't win in Ukraine. The Obama administration smacks them with sanctions, OK? I wasn't here then, but that is what happened. This was in 2014. But I supported that. Then the Russians retaliated.

Now, one of the things they did when they retaliated was that they said: We are going to ban the importation of all American seafood into Russia. Now, Russia has a big seafood market, OK? So Russia said that no American seafood can come into Russia.

By the way, my State is the superpower of seafood. The great State of Alaska is responsible for the harvesting of over two-thirds of all fish and seafood in America--two-thirds, 66 percent. We are the superpower of seafood. Now, there are a lot of other great States that export seafood. I am not sure the great State of Nevada does, but that is a whole other topic.

So this is really important to my constituents. Tens of thousands of my great constituents are involved with this. So imagine that. Russia is still allowed to import in the United States almost duty-free, and we can't export one fish, OK? That has been the situation since 2014. Right there, that is just unfair, OK?

So I tried to work with the Obama administration, with the Trump administration, and with the Biden administration to fix this--unfair.

By the way, the Russian seafood guys were eating into our fishermen's market in our own home, in our own U.S. market--not fair.

By the way, American fishermen--Alaskan fishermen--have the highest standards by far in the world on the environment, on sustainable fisheries, on the management of fisheries and our oceans--this is something Senator Whitehouse and I have passed legislation on--and on workers' rights, OK? They are the highest in the world. It is not even close. So the highest standards on the planet are right in America, are right in Alaska. Russia and China--I am going to get to them--have the lowest in the world, OK? So keep that in mind as we talk about this issue.

So then it literally takes a war to fix this. Russia brutally invades Ukraine. The Biden administration is putting together a sanctions package.

I call the White House and say: Hey, look, how about including in your sanctions package a way to fix this unfair trade situation where Russia won't allow us to import one fish, and they can export into the United States all they want. No way.

So, to his credit, President Biden said--or his team: Hey, I agree with Senator Sullivan. Let's smack them with sanctions on fish.

So the Biden initial Executive order hitting Russia after they invaded Ukraine said Russia can't import in the United States. Great. I have been working on that for 10 years, and it is only fair.

So what happens? Hmm--these sneaky authoritarians--by the way, the Russian seafood industry is controlled by oligarchs who are literally taking a lot of that money and funding it for the Putin war machine. So remember that, my colleagues who might want to object to this later. Money is going to fund the Putin war machine from fisheries, OK? That is a fact.

So, anyway, the little, sneaky authoritarian regimes--Putin and Xi Jinping--are working together, and they are like: Hey, let's avoid those American sanctions. We will take the Russian seafood caught by Russian fishermen in Russian waters, and we will send it to China, and we will have slave labor in China transform it, and then we will send it to the United States. We will sneak around those sanctions--a big loophole--using slave labor.

So that is what they are doing right now. They are doing it every day by the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not in the billions. They are avoiding these sanctions by saying: Let's take the Russians' seafood, with the worst environmental standards in the world, and we will send it to China. We will use slave labor by the Uighurs to transform it, and we will call it Chinese fish. Then we will send it into the American market.

That is happening right now--right now. So my legislation is simple. It closes the loophole.

By the way, it is a really good idea because word is getting out that the Chinese fishing industry is a disaster. They take these big fleets. They go all over the world. They ravage the high seas. They ravage fisheries wherever they go. They are like--what is a good analogy? I don't know--rats in the water, right? They destroy the high seas fisheries. They go off the coasts of smaller countries in South America and Africa that don't have coast guards and can't enforce anything. They are literally like the abuser of the ocean and the world--China,

Madam President, I am going to end my remarks today on a high note and a very important one.

It is Wednesday. I like to come down and do what we call the ``Alaskan of the Week.'' I can see the pages are already kind of excited, right, because, let's face it, this is the most exciting speech of the week and certainly the most interesting. So what I like to do is come down--by the way, I know the press generally likes it because it is normally a signal that it is the end of the week. Everybody is going home. This is usually the last speech of the week. I think this might be the last speech of the year this year.

What we do with the Alaskan of the Week, we talk a little bit about what is going on in Alaska--I will get to that--and then I like to highlight someone who is doing something great for my State. It might be, you know, someone local. Our first Alaskan of the Week, I think, was a librarian who had been a librarian for 40 years--amazing woman-- and then we have superstar world athletes, gold medalists in swimming, and things like that. So we just cover the whole gamut.

Now, usually there is a poster board. I made this a very special Alaskan of the Week poster board. This might be the first time ever it has got Santa on it, and you are going to see why--a Santa-oriented speech.

So, of course, right now, I am getting ready to head home in a couple of hours. I was just home over the weekend. There are no worries in Alaska right now about a white Christmas. Anchorage, my hometown, I think we have had close to 100 inches of snow already. Look, for us, that is a lot. I am talking about November, right. So we have a white Christmas coming, for sure.

It is magical, of course, in Alaska. We have got reindeer. We have got one that actually lives in downtown Anchorage. We have visitors coming. We have got a great town called North Pole, AK--North Pole, AK--and we have the Santa Claus House in North Pole, where Santa lives. By the way, this is true. This is what my Alaskan of the Week speech is all about.

If you write a letter to Santa addressed to the North Pole, your letter will end up at the Santa Claus House in North Pole, AK. Why wouldn't it?

By the way, this house is not to be confused with the abode of a North Pole city council member. North Pole, AK, is a city a little bit north of Fairbanks. This city council member, by the way, his name is Santa Claus. His legal name is Santa Claus. He is a member of the city council. I know him well. Look, I am not ripping him. He is a Bernie Sanders Socialist, true. Now, why wouldn't he be? You know, the guy gives out free gifts to everybody. That is true. He is a good guy.

So, Santa, if you are watching, hello--Santa Claus, city council member, North Pole.

But in all seriousness, Interior Alaska--this is in the interior part of our State--has the greatest, most kind people and generous. And in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, our Alaskan of the Week is the Miller family who is the owner of Santa Claus House in North Pole, AK, which has been a fixture in our State--and really for the country--for over 70 years--70 years. The Miller family founded Santa Claus House and has been running it for 70 years, making North Pole, AK, literally what it is today. They built the whole community.

Let me help you get into the holiday spirit by describing just how magical the Santa Claus House in North Pole, AK, really is. If you drive down Saint Nicholas Drive--I am not kidding--by St. Nicholas Catholic Church, by the way, you will see a huge house lined with red trim and murals of a reindeer and Santa's sleigh. Just outside is a barn with a real reindeer, a massive, decked-out Christmas tree, and a 42-foot-tall Santa Claus statue welcoming you to Santa's workshop.

The magic does not end there. Inside the house, you are greeted by a Christmas tree decorated with every ornament you can imagine, a live countdown to Christmas Day--of course. Why wouldn't there be one every day of the year--and a professional Santa Claus ready to hear every Christmas wish from the thousands of visitors--and I am not just talking Alaskans but Americans, people from all over the world who visit Santa Claus House in North Pole, AK, every year. And you are also likely to meet and see several members of the extended Miller family working to make the Santa Claus House the winter wonderland it is. They have been doing it for four generations, keeping the spirit of Christmas alive.

Let me take you back four generations to the original founder of Santa Claus House. That is Con and Nellie Miller. Born in 1913, Con and his mother just didn't see eye to eye. They decided that it was best that he join the Navy.

He joined when he was 15--a little young. This is just in the great Alaska spirit. You know, I have talked about it a lot over the years. We have more veterans per capita than any State in the country, so being in the military and a veteran is very normal in Alaska. It is a great part of our culture.

This young guy Con left Colorado and spent 3 years in the Navy, starting at the age of 15. How he got in, I have no idea. He was on a gun boat in China. Then he got out. Then Pearl Harbor happened. And of course he is a patriot so he rejoined the Navy. He fought in the South Pacific during the Second World War--so a great American, ``greatest generation'' individual, Con Miller.

After the war ended, Con and his wife Nellie ended up in Fairbanks with the goal of running a clothing store. To supplement their income, Con sold

clothes in the surrounding rural villages, often donning a red Santa suit each Christmas. He quickly earned celebrity status as the local Santa Claus in Interior Alaska--the first that many children had ever seen--ever--in rural Alaska.

In 1952, the Millers built a trading post 13 miles south--sorry, if I said north--south of Fairbanks in the newly named North Pole, AK. So just a little south of Fairbanks, the big city in the interior. One day, while working hard at his new store, a young Alaskan boy recognized Con and asked: Well, hello, Santa. Are you building a new house? The inspiration clicked, and Con thought, Hey, why not? Let's do this. And so the Santa Claus House was born.

In addition to purchasing groceries, locals could mingle at the soda fountain and pick up their daily mail at the Santa Claus House under the direction of the post mistress, Nellie Miller--Con's, a.k.a. Santa's, wife. It was a mail contract station that served North Pole's first post office for almost 20 years. So there you have it, North Pole, AK, became a post office for America.

The Miller family lived above the store and was essential to its operation. All three kids: Terry, Mike, and Merry--yes, Merry Christmas, spelled M-E-R-R-Y, not M-A-R-Y--worked alongside their parents. Despite their insight behind the scenes as employees, current owner and manager Mike said they believed in Santa as much as anyone else. Of course, they did. Everybody believes in Santa.

As North Pole grew--it is growing; it is a great community, like I said, just a few miles outside of Fairbanks--the Santa Claus House grew with it. Inside the store's emphasis on Christmas delights slowly replaced the aisles of canned goods. Meanwhile, the Miller family established themselves as pillars of the North Pole community--not only North Pole but all of Interior Alaska.

Con Miller served as the mayor of North Pole for 19 years--the city's longest serving mayor--while Nellie Miller acted as a marriage commissioner for the community. Back then, that was a real job, a marriage commissioner.

Eventually, both of their sons, Terry and Mike, also found politics. The late Terry Miller was a State legislator. He was president of the State senate and was elected to be our Lieutenant Governor in 1978. Mike, who was helping around the Santa Claus House, also served in the legislature as senate president from 1983 to 2001. This is a dominating political family in Alaska, two State senate presidents.

I knew the Millers. They are a great, great family. Both Miller brothers, very highly respected across the aisle. This is, and was, and has been a great family committed to public service.

Begun over 70 years ago by Con and Nellie Miller, the Santa Claus House continues as following generations of Millers keep up that Christmas spirit and keep it thriving in North Pole, AK. It is still a family-run business.

Mike Miller is looking forward to the next generation continuing to run the family business with his daughter Carissa and son-in-law Paul and staffed by several grandchildren. Isn't this just a wonderful story? It really warms your heart as we head into the holiday season.

We all know Santa's job is a hard one, and it is also no small job running the Santa Claus House for the world. In addition to the family, there are between 40 and 60 employees year-round working there.

Besides being a delightful tourist attraction worldwide, the Santa Claus House understands the true meaning of Christmas and uses its name recognition for good works in the community, organizing food drives for the Fairbanks Food Bank that is used throughout Interior Alaska and many other charities.

Mike said: I think we have really worked hard to bring the spirit of Santa to our community, ``the spirit of giving and family and caring about one another. I hope we have done a small slice [in this service] of helping people to realize that Christmas is about caring about one another, giving, and [about] being good neighbors.''

That is Mike Miller.

They have done that in a huge way. They have done more than give a small slice. For the past 70 years, they have given their all toward spreading the magic, the wonder, and the joy of Christmas to Alaskans, to Americans, to people all over the world.

So thank you to the Miller family and to the incredible institution of the Santa Claus House in North Pole for making our State a more jolly place, a more generous place, a more caring place, and for keeping the spirit of Christmas alive--not just now during the holidays but year-round in the great State of Alaska.

And, of course, to the Millers and Santa Claus House, congratulations on being our Alaskan of the Week.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.

Mr. President, I want to begin by offering my sincere thanks to the chairman of the Finance Committee, my friend Senator Wyden of Oregon. I am honored to be on the floor with him today to talk about these housing issues and this really important bill, the Workforce Housing Tax Credit Act, which, as he already mentioned, is bipartisan and bicameral.

As Senator Wyden already mentioned, our country is facing a lot of challenges right now: inflation, fentanyl coming through our borders, national security threats all over the place overseas. But it is very obvious, and anyone reading the paper knows, that we are also experiencing in rural and urban America a severe housing crisis. Everywhere I travel in the great State of Alaska, I hear from Alaskans reeling from the scarcity of housing, and it is everywhere--Anchorage, Fairbanks, Sitka, Ketchikan, Kodiak--every single small rural village in my State. It is everywhere.

I know it is a big challenge in Oregon, but it is a big challenge all over the country, and it is a challenge that impacts low- and middle- income families. It stands as a stark obstacle to getting and keeping jobs, to having a family, to building communities. This is really foundational stuff in terms of what matters in communities--housing.

So solving this challenge has been one of my top priorities, and I really want to thank Senator Wyden and his team for being so patient in working with us--a really good partner here. This is going to take all kinds of solutions. There is no silver bullet here. It is going to take everybody pulling on the same oar--the Feds, State, private sector, Tribes, nonprofits--but this is an important start.

I actually hosted the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Marcia Fudge, in Alaska this past August. We held a roundtable and some meetings on urban housing issues and on rural housing issues. It was very well attended. I want to thank all of the Alaskans who took part. They weren't shy with Secretary Fudge--she got an earful--and there is a whole host of things we are going to follow up on with her: challenges dealing with overregulation from HUD, homelessness definitions, housing formulas for cities. But it was progress our getting her up to Alaska.

So this is progress. This is progress. What Senator Wyden and I have introduced is an exciting and creative bill that will broaden a tried- and-true Federal tax incentive program--the low-income housing tax credit.

This all started during the 1980s, during the Reagan administration. It is market-based. It is private sector-focused. It is a proven, successful formula that will help catalyze the private sector to build more housing in urban and rural areas for working families. That is why we actually named it the Workforce Housing Tax Credit Act. Teachers, law enforcement, first responders, nurses, healthcare officials, electricians--the backbone of so many communities--are, right now, priced out of the market to buy a home. Expanding the low-income housing credit will help address the core issues of not just homelessness and overcrowding in many places in Alaska, particularly in rural Alaska, but it will empower hard-working Alaskans to stay in our communities and build a more robust workforce.

Now, sometimes, when you bring legislation down on the Senate floor, you are not sure who is going to support it. Well, I am very proud to say that, back home in Alaska, this bill has enormous support-- liberals; conservatives; mayors; our Governor; the mayor of Anchorage, our biggest city; the chair of the Anchorage Assembly. I know these guys really well. They don't really get along on much, but they support this bill. We have Tribal groups. We have private sector groups. We have home builder groups. It is a super big list.

I think that is the signal for Senator Wyden and me that we are on to something here. We are on to something here. If there aren't homes in communities for hard-working families, then entire communities are shut off for growth. Housing is a catalyst for community and economic development and good jobs and pride in where you live.

This bill offers one solution that will actually lead to the construction of these kinds of housing developments. How do I know that? How can I say that? Because, as the chairman of the Finance Committee already said, we know this works. The low-income tax credit already works. We know that, and we are building on that program in the best way to ensure that the private sector will actually use this program to break open other bottlenecks for economic development.

Importantly, this bill provides flexibilities to States and developers to decide what is best for their communities. It is not a one-size-fits-all Washington mandate. We don't like those in Alaska. As I mentioned, it has broad support--bipartisan, bicameral.

Once again, to my friend from Oregon, I really want to thank Senator Wyden. He was very patient with me and my team as we had a number of edits. We were trying to make sure that this would work for America and Alaska. Sometimes, my State has some really unique challenges, and he accommodated so much and was very patient with us. You can tell, again, from the reaction of this broad-based group of stakeholders back home in my State, that this has a lot of support.

So I thank Senator Wyden again. I look forward to working with him and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in getting this over the goal line and addressing one of the big challenges in America that, I think, impacts every State in the country. This is one of the many tools we will use to try to address it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am going to pose a simple question here related to this guy. That is the dictator of China, Xi Jinping. Imagine if a Chinese financial institution, one of their banks, one of their private equity funds--they have a lot of them. Imagine if a Chinese financial institution started to invest in the United States in big technologies that would make the U.S. military much stronger. What do you think would happen to those executives in China? They are taking

Chinese money, and they are pouring it into companies that work directly with the Pentagon, making the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force stronger and more lethal. What would this dictator do to those Chinese executives?

I will tell you what he would do. A, he would never let them do it. But if they did do it, he would arrest them, put them in jail, and shoot them at sunup. That is what he would do.

There is not one person in this body, not one person in America-- heck, not one person in China--who would disagree with that.

That is what he would do.

So what happens when American investment companies--financial institutions, private equity firms, hedge funds, venture capital firms, investment banks--what happens when they invest in Chinese companies that make the Chinese military more lethal and stronger? What happens?

The answer: pretty much nothing. Worse, we have a hard time knowing which American firms are even doing this.

This is a huge knowledge gap in an asymmetrical advantage that our biggest adversary--right here, Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party--has over us.

They can't invest. They won't invest. They will get the death penalty if they invest in an American company that will help our military become stronger.

We have, who knows, a lot of financial institutions investing in Chinese companies to make their military stronger. We have financial companies that are investing in the Chinese Communist Party, companies that are producing things like advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, hypersonics--all technologies that are critical to dominating the 21st century battlefield. This is a giant American national security issue.

I don't normally come down to the Senate floor and quote Lenin. I am not a big fan of Lenin. But he purportedly said that ``capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.''

There is a little bit of that going on right now here in the United States of America. We have executives in this country and certain financial institutions--by the way, these American financial institutions and executives owe everything to their success by being American, being in the greatest country in the world, with the rule of law and our capital markets and our dynamic economy. Their success is because of the great Nation we live in, and yet some, kind of addicted to making more money--listen to Lenin. They are like, you know, maybe I will do that advanced chip manufacturing investment in the Chinese economy; maybe I will help them a little bit with artificial intelligence or quantum computing.

By the way, quantum computing, if you get really good at that, you can break any code that our military uses. You are toast if you can't communicate in a covered fashion--encrypted.

This is really dangerous stuff. I was first, actually, made aware of this many years ago by, in my view, one of the best Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for our military that we have had in decades, Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford. He is just a fantastic Marine officer, just a fantastic Chairman. He is very measured, very smart, very strategic.

He raised this issue with me many years ago: Senator, we, America, have financial institutions--American financial institutions using American investment money--you know, the Iowa teachers' retirement plan, the laborers' retirement plan. They are taking that money, and they are investing it in China in some really advanced technologies.

There is a problem. The Chinese don't have that kind of investment capital and professionalism to grow these companies, but we do.

So this was first brought up to me by a great Marine general. So I started digging into it over the years and years, and it is a giant problem. Senior administration officials in the Biden administration agree. A whole host of top national security officials in the Trump administration agree. This is a bipartisan issue in terms of the concern. It is a blinking red light for our national security.

So some might ask: Well, wait a minute. What is wrong with an American financial company making an investment in the Chinese private economy?

Well, look, it depends on what part of the Chinese private economy. If you want to go make more hamburgers over there and sell--I don't know--refrigerators, that is fine. But these are investments in some of the critical technological needs of the military that will enable whichever military dominates these sectors to dominate the 21st century battlefield.

And, by the way, there is no such thing as a private company in China. If you are a private equity firm in America, you are saying: Well, I am just investing in this private company in China to help them with their quantum computing capability.

We all know that this guy and the Chinese military--the PLA and the Chinese Communist Party--they own that. They own that. They will take it, use it, dominate it.

So what can we do about this problem? Well, look, there are a lot of ideas on what we can do about this problem. I am working on legislation that would actually have the U.S. Government, believe it or not--and I am not a big government guy--look into the investments being made by American financial institutions into some of the most high-tech areas of China, what we would call outbound CFIUS. CFIUS is this process for inbound investment.

Let's look at what is happening outbound. It is a little more controversial. I think we need it, unfortunately, because we have a lot of--not a ton but, certainly, a number of--American financial executives who are like: Look, man, whatever--patriotism, I will leave that at the door. I am not really worried about that. I am not worried about that guy. I just want to make a big buck. It is too bad, but we got them. So we need this.

Here is an easier starting point. Let's have a transparency provision that enables us, the U.S. Government, to say: All right, big financial American firms or private equity firms or hedge funds, the American investment dollars that you are getting from the Illinois teachers' retirement fund, we want to know if you are putting that into quantum computing that can help this guy dominate Taiwan.

We want to know that. We want transparency. It is pretty good idea.

Now, Senator Cornyn offered a bill--I was a cosponsor of it--that we attached to the NDAA, saying we want outbound investment transparency. We want to know: What are American financial firms doing helping this guy become stronger?

It is pretty easy. Guess what, Mr. President. It is super bipartisan. That bill is brought to the floor as part of the National Defense Authorization Act and passed 91 to 6--91 to 6. Very few things pass 91 to 6 here. That did because it made sense. It is very bipartisan and relatively simple. It is just transparency.

Hey, Sequoia Capital--I am going to talk about them in minute--a big private equity firm, are they investing in quantum computing that can help this guy dominate the world? We should know, especially if it is American investment dollars, right?

So that is a good start. There is a lot of agreement.

Here is a letter from Dr. Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter dated November 29, 2023, be printed in the Record.

He was talking about how we need to be able to track U.S. capital flowing into China, and it would be extremely concerning if that Cornyn amendment didn't make it into the final NDAA.

So he is saying: Hey, Senators, House Members, make sure that stays in.

Thank you, President Roberts of Heritage.

He also wrote the leadership of the House and Senate: Senator McConnell, Senator Schumer, Speaker Johnson, and Congressman Jeffries.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter dated November 16, 2023, be printed in the Record.

The letter says this is really important--this Outbound Investment Transparency Act, 91 to 6. Let's get it in the final NDAA.

It is pretty simple, pretty noncontroversial.

But, Mr. President, as you know, nothing here is ever simple. Evidently, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Patrick McHenry--I don't know him. He seems like a nice guy, from what I hear. But, boy, is this guy misguided because it is all over the press that he fought like crazy to strip this provision out of the

Mr. President, I am honored to be down here again with Senators Graham, Ernst, and Young. We were down on the floor 2 weeks ago, and at that time, we promised military members and their families that we had their back; that we would keep coming down to the Senate floor to try to move forward their nominations and confirmations that have been stalled.

By the way, after that session, 5 hours, we tried to move forward nominees who have nothing to do with the policy dispute that is at issue here--I think we are all in agreement on the policy dispute--we received hundreds of text messages, e-mails from military families, saying: Thank you for having our back. Somebody has our back. Somebody is speaking out for us.

So we have told them we are going to do that as we are moving into Thanksgiving. My colleagues and I, we are going to keep our word. We keep our word to our military.

Now, during that time in the last 2 weeks, we have all worked hard together. Senator Tuberville is here. Senator Lee is on the floor. We are all working hard to try and resolve this. We have ideas. Senator Graham is going to talk a little bit more about litigation, about switching the holds from the innocent members of the military to the civilians who are making the policy, that is the appropriate--to fighting this abortion policy of the Biden administration, DOD, and the

Finally, tonight we are going to bring up some more members. I hope my colleagues don't object. When they are going to talk, I am sure they are going to talk about the Biden policy, which we all disagree with. Four Senators on the floor who were on the floor 2 weeks ago, we have a lot in common, but two big things are strongly pro-life and strongly pro-military because we are veterans. We have served. We know what sacrifice means, and we want to make sure we are protecting our military members and their families. That is a core principle, certainly, of Republicans, and we need to do that.

What I am hopeful for--hearing from my colleagues on the floor--also questions that we didn't hear from last week. My colleague from Alabama said many times that if you bring up nominees one by one, he would be fine with it. On September 6, he said: I am not holding up nominees from being approved. They can bring them to the floor one at a time, and I won't block them.

Well, that is what we are doing.

By the way, this is regular order. We did some research. There has only been two times in the last half century where there was a recorded vote on a brigadier general--twice. We are doing more than regular order here by moving these individually.

And, finally, this is the most important question I think we all think is imperative; it needs to be answered for our military members: Why punish patriotic military members over a policy dispute they have nothing to do with and can't fix? Why punish people who have seriously sacrificed for America--more than probably anyone else on the floor here, certainly--over a policy dispute they had nothing to do with? Why punish their families and the war heroes supporting these families you will hear about tonight who have served our country so faithfully, when they have nothing to do with the dispute on the floor? Why punish some of the most combat-experienced members of the military whom we need on the field now--one of the most dangerous times in the last 70 years-- when they have nothing to do with this dispute?

So I was home Veterans Day in Alaska. My State has more veterans per capita than any other State in the country--very patriotic citizens. The events I went to, young Alaskans, old Alaskans really honor our veterans. Whenever I am at a ceremony and I am speaking, I always call out our Vietnam vets for special recognition because what happened to them should never happen again to any military members.

What happened to them? There were huge policy disputes over the Vietnam war at the Pentagon level, but people took it out on the troops. People took it out on the troops. They punished the troops over a policy dispute these troops had nothing to do with. They were serving honorably.

Americans always said, We will never do that again. Well, guess what? It is happening again. Troops are being punished. Families are being punished over something they have nothing to do with.

So my hope tonight is we get my colleague to lift the blanket hold and not object to these individual noms. But it is also important to understand what a blanket hold is. It is about individuals. Who are these heroes? Who is being punished? How have they served their country? How have they sacrificed?

We are going to hear a little bit about that, I hope. I think Americans who are watching will be proud when they hear about these great patriots--for those listening--but also might make you sad or frustrated or even angry that we are not keeping faith with these faithful patriots.

I am now going to turn the floor to my colleague Senator Ernst.

Heroes.

Heroes.

Mr. President, I want to begin by thanking Senator Ernst, my good colleague--joint operations here--giving voice to these great Americans.

Now, look, if you are watching--I know it is almost 2:30 in the morning--but you are watching your American system. You have got to be proud. I am so proud. These are great Americans. These are the best of what we have. They are heroes, and their families are heroic.

And, look, a core principle as Republicans that distinguishes us, in my view, from the other side is our serious focus on national security, readiness, a strong military, and, yes, taking care of our military and their families. That is what we stand for. And it just makes me proud to listen to who we have up for confirmation to be a one-, two-, three- , or four-star General. We need them.

Senator Graham said: Hey, we are coming on to the holidays. It is true. I had two Thanksgivings where I was deployed overseas, and it is not easy, right? You are missing your family. You are out there protecting your country. You don't think many people are even thinking of you when the rest of the country is celebrating and you are doing your duty.

So what we said 2 weeks ago is we are not--we will have your back. If you are a military member who is being held up right now, we will have your back. And that is what we are doing.

Like I said, I don't relish this. I didn't relish it 2 weeks ago. Kind of down here, as I mentioned, more in sadness and frustration than anger. But I also come from a State that is incredibly patriotic-- Alaska--more veterans per capita than any State in the country. And they expect this of their Senators. Stand up for our men and women in uniform and don't punish the military for something they have nothing to do with.

Every one of those people Senator Ernst talked about who we were going to try to confirm tonight have nothing to do with the dispute that we are all in agreement--every Senator on the floor right now is in agreement.

I have been working with Senator Tuberville for months together to try to reverse this policy of the Biden administration. I agree 100 percent it violates the Hyde amendment. It violates the rule of law. So I want to keep working with Senator Tuberville and others on ways to reverse that.

But what we can't do, what we shouldn't do, but what is happening right now is we are punishing those who have nothing to do with it. And why punish patriotic military members over a dispute that they have no ability to fix and they didn't cause? Go after the civilians. Let's do it. I am taking them hostage in terms of holding them. They have the power. But why punish these war heroes who have served our country so faithfully? Why single out the Americans?

You know, we have all kinds of Federal workers, but there are very few Federal workers who sign a blank check with their life. That is all the people Senator Ernst read. They sign a blank check with their life, saying: All right.

You know, less than 1 percent of our great Nation's population does this--less than 1 percent. And nobody has told me--I mean, Senator Lee had a lot to say tonight. I agree with 99 percent of it, in terms of his talk about the Constitution and who has the ability to make laws. I couldn't agree more. But no one has come out and said: But here is why we are going to punish those people Senator Ernst just read about.

I don't think we should be doing that. I think we should be giving them a voice, and that is what we have been trying to do.

So, as I mentioned, one of my goals tonight that I mentioned in my remarks was to bring up these nominees one by one, try to get them cleared, as Senator Tuberville mentioned. But it was--he had mentioned he was fine with a while ago.

By the way, this is regular order. We did some research. There have only been two Brigadier Generals confirmed by a recorded vote in the last half-century, OK? Twice that has happened in

the last half-century. So the regular order is actually--you do it by voice vote and en bloc.

What we are offering is, hey, we will do it by voice vote individually, every one. We will be down here for all 450. Senator Ernst and I would stay here all weekend to do that. But it is very clear from my colleagues that that is not going to happen.

Look, to be honest, if I were blocking all these military heroes, I wouldn't want their bios being read on the floor, but we are going to do that, because here is the other thing about this: There are a lot of emails and texts, and a lot of people are tweeting about this, but guess who can't go out and have a press conference on this. The military members. It is not their job.

Finally, one other issue--and then I am going to start talking about the people we are going to bring up--is that we really have to think about this issue as a strategic risk to the force. We have 450 officers, one-, two-, three-, and four-star Generals.

Yes, I know a little bit about the military, having served for 30 years. The system is kind of stymied, so even the ranks below one, two, and three star are starting to kind of get blocked. So I am not saying that Senator Tuberville has a hold on those, but it is impacting those ranks as well.

Where I am very nervous, because I talk to a lot of my peers in the military, is that, you know, you work 30 years, you do deployments, you sacrifice--a big sacrifice for your families. These great men and women have options, and at a certain point, they time out in terms of their ability to move up or they have to get out. So if we start to lose a generation of our best, most combat-capable military officers over this, especially during this very dangerous time, that is going to be a huge strategic national security mistake.

So what I want to do, similar to Senator Ernst's focus, is bring to the floor and to the attention of the American people the people we were going to try to get confirmed tonight. I know they are going to be objected to, so, like Senator Ernst, I am going to talk about them because, again, I think the American people need to know this. The American people should take pride in these people because they are great patriots. And, remember, less than 1 percent join the military. I don't know what the percentage is that gets to flag officer rank, general officer or Admiral, but it is the best--not just the best in America but the best in the world, and we need them. We need them.

This dispute that is happening right now--again, I fully agree the Biden administration launched this. We are fighting it. But we need these people confirmed. Let's go after the confirmations of the civilians who actually are in charge of the policy. We have that option, too.

So one of the first nominees I was going to bring forward is on Calendar No. 95. That is Col. Robert Weiler. He is being promoted to Brigadier General of the U.S. Marine Corps. He is a Colonel right now-- 28 years--command of the 5th Marine Regiment.

I used to be in that regiment. That is the most storied infantry regiment in the Marine Corps.

He has deployed, I think, seven times to Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine that family's sacrifice. He received a Silver Star for bravery, gallantry, and intrepidity in action against the enemy while serving as a commanding officer of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 5th Marine Regiment.

I am going to read that citation. There are not many Silver Star recipients in America. Here is one right now who could be confirmed to Brigadier General. He has earned it. And he is no ``woke'' military member; he is a warrior.

Here is his citation for the Silver Star. It is one of the highest awards for combat valor that we have.

The President of the United States of America takes

pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Captain Robert S.

Weiler, United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry

and intrepidity in action against the enemy while serving as

Commanding Officer, Weapons Company, Second Battalion, Fourth

Marines, FIRST Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force

. . . in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM II from 6 to 10

April 2004. On 6 April, Captain Weiler led elements of

Weapons Company against an enemy force that was attempting to

isolate and destroy a squad-sized element of Echo Company.

Another unit, an adjacent Marine Corps unit.

As the column moved east along Route Nova, they were

ambushed by enemy forces. Despite the barrage of intense

enemy fire, Captain Weiler calmly directed the tactical

employment of the unit, leading to the relief of the

embattled squad.

OK. Saving American lives. Saving the lives of other marines. That is what this is. And then he led the destruction of the besieging enemy, so he killed the bad guys.

On 7 April, he led the company on a mission to reinforce

[another Marine Corps] unit in contact. As they moved

northeast along Route Apple, the column encountered heavy

rocket-propelled grenade and automatic weapons fire. During

the ensuing three-hour firefight--

Think about that, America. We have been on the floor for 3 hours. These guys were in an intense firefight for 3 hours--

he repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to direct [his]

unit's counterattack, personally leading squads as they

assaulted enemy firing positions. His courage and leadership

were further displayed during Operation BUG HUNT. Heavily

engaged by enemy forces over a four-hour period--

Four hours; combat--

Captain Weiler continued to fearlessly lead Marines as they

destroyed a tenacious enemy. By his bold leadership, wise

judgment, and complete dedication to duty, Captain Weiler

reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest

traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval

Service.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have this Silver Star citation printed in the Record.

It doesn't mention it here, but do you know what else he received during that firefight--two firefights? The Purple Heart. So he was wounded in action by the enemy. Then, later, several months later, he received a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with combat distinguishing device for heroic achievement in combat.

He took decisive action directing fires of his raid force, quickly gaining fire superiority and suppressing the enemy. Although dazed by a blast from a mortar round, he continued to lead and direct his team, which led to the capture of all five insurgents on the target raid list.

That is another combat medal he won.

So we were going to bring him up for promotion today to Brigadier General, a complete American war hero, but unfortunately Colonel Weiler's promotion to Brigadier General is being blocked.

By the way, he had nothing to do with the policy and dispute that we all agree on, that we have to overturn

that. Nothing to do with it. Nothing. When he gets promoted to Brigadier General, he won't have any ability to fix it. This is a war hero punished for an issue he has nothing to do with.

OK. Calendar No. 93. This is for Brigadier General Ronald Ragin--yes, that is how you pronounce it; it is not spelled that same way--to be Major General. He is in the U.S. Army. Like Senator Ernst, who is an expert in Special Operations forces, this General is an expert in Special Operations forces.

Most recently, he is serving as commanding general, 21st Theater Sustainment Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa. His command assignments: troop commander, combat sports squadron, 11th Armored Calvary Regiment; company commander, 225th Forward Support Battalion, 25th Infantry Division; battalion commander, Group Support Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group-Airborne; squadron commander support, 1st Special Forces Operations Detachment, Delta Force. OK. You are not even supposed to say that, I don't think. Are you? OK. Delta Force, the most elite Special Operations force. It is not even supposed to be talked about. A Delta Force commander.

This guy is unbelievable, his record. So he is an expert in Special Operations forces, a Delta Force commander, brigade commander for Sustainment Brigade, numerous deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, Airborne, 7th Special Forces Group, U.S. Special Operations Command, and we are trying to move him from a one-star to a two-star General.

He is an American hero who, by the way, has nothing to do with the dispute. He is being punished--not being promoted, being punished over something he has nothing to do with. That is a great American hero right there.

Let's look at another one here we are going to bring up, another U.S. Army Brigadier General to move to the grade of Major General. That is two-star. This is Brigadier General Lance G. Curtis. Again, another Airborne platoon; served at all levels of command--82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne; numerous deployments; executive officer; deputy commander for U.S. Forces Afghanistan in Kabul during Operation Enduring Freedom; battalion commander of the 87th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, GA, and at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, during OEF; commander for Special Forces Command, United States Special Operations Command; and the executive officer of the commander of Army Personnel; finally, deputy director of headquarters in the U.S. Army, G-4.

Again, I mean, think about this. This is decades of service--decades. These are great patriots, and they are being punished over an issue they have nothing to do with and can't fix.

No. I am getting through--this is really important for me to make sure the American people hear about these warriors, so I am prioritizing--

No, I won't.

Mr. President, the next hero that we are trying to confirm is BG Michelle Donahue to be Major General of the U.S. Army. With 26 years of service, currently, Michelle Donahue is a Brigadier General. She has served in the 1st Infantry Division in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Her combat tours include deployments to Jordan with the 528th Special Operations Support Battalion; a deployment to Iraq; a deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom; a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014 as the squadron commander for the Regimental Support Squadron.

Brigadier General Donahue has served as special assistant to the 37th Chief of Staff of the Army and to the 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, operational command and command at the highest levels with the Chief of Staff of the Army in terms of being a special assistant there and trying to get promoted from Brigadier General to Major General-- that is a two-star General--and she is being blocked over something that she has nothing to do with. Again, we need these warriors on the field.

Speaking of warriors, this is another nominee who has made the grade of Major General, that is a two-star General. He is Brig. Gen. Thomas Harrell. He most recently served as the director for the Defense Health Network and as the commander of the 59th Medical Wing.

Now, this is also really important. You don't hear about this element of our military that much. The leaders who lead the medical units are so important. Brigadier General Harrell has commanded a squadron level, a DOD hospital, an Air Force medical center. He previously served as the commander of the Air Force Medical Readiness Agency, as the Defense Health Agency Headquarters' deputy director of medical operations of the Air Force, as the deputy director of medical services in the entire U.S. Air Force, and as the subunified Alaskan Command surgeon general at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. It is a really important job in my State.

He also received an Air Medal for valor. Let me read that:

Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Harrell contributed to national

security objectives by flying missions in support of

Operation Iraqi Freedom. These flights were accomplished in

the face of enemy threats to include small-arms fire, anti-

aircraft artillery, and surface-to-air missiles.

Think about that. That is a medical officer taking incoming enemy fire to go save lives. That is a hero.

His superior ability in the presence of perilous and

dangerous conditions was manifested in the performance of

medical observers in addition to addressing the in-flight

health needs of the crew and combatants, culminating in the

safe and timely delivery of cargo and combat troops.

That is a war hero right there. Unfortunately, if we move to get that Brigadier General promoted to Major General tonight, it looks like it is probably not going to happen.

We are also looking at Brig. Gen. Jeannine Ryder to be a Major General in the U.S. Air Force. She is Calendar No. 106. Jeannine Ryder, again, is part of the Air Force medical agency units and chief of the Air Force Nurse Corps.

OK. Again, these are really, really important jobs that we need.

Again, this is somebody in a very competitive world who has moved all the way up the ranks from a one- to two-star General. She has been involved in the execution of medical readiness programs, expeditionary medical capabilities, and the direct support and implementation of policy, plans, and programs for healthcare operations of the Air Force Medical Service to more than 44,000 U.S. Air Force personnel at 76 military treatment facilities. That is unbelievable. Brigadier General Ryder has commanded at the flight, squadron, and group levels in both deployed and in garrison environments.

Prior to her most recent assignment, Brigadier General Ryder was the commander of the 59th Medical Wing, market director of the San Antonio Military Health System, Joint Base San Antonio, Lackland, TX.

She is very deserving of a promotion and can't be promoted over something she has nothing to do with--nothing. And if she got promoted, she wouldn't be involved in fixing it either.

You know, when we came down here 2 weeks ago, it kind of struck me because we have 450 officers right now, and we are standing with them. We are standing with them. We are pro-life Senators who are standing with them. I think we have emphasized that enough, but we will emphasize it again. One of the things that struck me 2 weeks ago was how many one- and two- and three-star Admirals with very significant deployment experience, particularly on submarines, are now being blocked.

As anyone who knows about our challenges in the Indo-Pacific theater, Xi Jinping, who was visiting America--I haven't gotten a read out of the President's meeting, but I am worried that they are weak on them and that they are weak on the military.

Again, what I want to do with my colleagues here on the floor is actually get through this issue and turn to the bigger readiness problem, which is the weakness of the Biden administration. But where we don't have weakness is in submarines. We need more submarines, but we have the best commanders in the world. Xi Jinping is scared to death of the American sub fleet--scared to death. They know if they try to invade Taiwan--and we have subs in the Taiwan Strait--we will take out their

whole invasion force. But we need good commanders.

And 2 weeks ago, there were six sub commanders who were objected to-- six. As I mentioned then, I guarantee you the Chinese Communist Party's military apparatus is going, like: I can't believe our luck with the thing we are so frightened of.

And you can't produce a sub commander overnight. It takes 30, 40 years.

So we have some Navy officers here. This is Calendar No. 234, VADM Jeffrey Hughes. He is a two-star Admiral to be Vice Admiral. His naval career is unbelievable.

For 34 years, he served as a detachment officer in charge headed tours of a helicopter anti-submarine squadron where he deployed on the USS Carr, the USS Elrod, the USS John Hancock, supporting strike group deployments with the USS America, which is an aircraft carrier, and the USS John F. Kennedy, another aircraft carrier.

He is a pilot who hunts subs. As an MH-60 helo pilot, he was named the Pilot of the Year and was the corecipient of the Commanding Officer's Helmsman Award for calendar year 1993--so the best of his class. He served as executive officer and the 14th commanding officer of the Fighting Vipers. He was the Helicopter Maritime Strike Wing commander, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and a recipient of the Navy and Marine Corps Association--peer-selected--Leadership Award.

This is a great Navy aviator leader. As a flag officer, Admiral Hughes has served as commander of Navy Recruiting Command, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group Two, and, most recently, deputy chief of Naval Personnel/commander, Navy Personnel Command. He is an incredible Navy leader.

We need more Navy officers confirmed. He is being blocked over an issue he has nothing to do with. We would like to move him on regular order tonight. Regular order would be an individual vote, and we are ready to take it. Unfortunately, it is going to be blocked. So that is not good for our national security. As I mentioned, the Biden administration's budget right now shrinks the Navy. That is horrible. But we, at least, need to get our great Navy officers on the ships in the command.

The next one we are looking at is a Brigadier General to be a Major General in the U.S. Air Force. He is a Brigadier General by the name of Curtis R. Bass. He was Calendar No. 110. Again, boy, look at this guy's resume. Unbelievable. He was the senior executive officer of the 22nd Air Force Chief of Staff, the commander of the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System Combat Flying Squadron at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

By the way, our military members in the Middle East right now are taking fire. They are in combat. Some of the officers who are being blocked--I have talked to some of them in the Middle East, whose promotions are being blocked, are taking fire from the enemy. What? You don't think they are bitter right now? I know they are bitter. They are taking fire from the enemy. One-star Generals, Colonels--I know this; I have talked to them--are being blocked over something they have nothing to do with. They are risking their lives right now. Right now. That is a fact.

So he is another one of the Air Force aviation intel systems--one of the best--who just recently served as deputy commander of the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. He is a tremendous operator who is being blocked over something he has nothing to do with and has no ability to fix.

These are apolitical members, right? By the way, of this blanket hold--we have done the research--we have never had a blanket hold for this long, of this duration, and with this many officers in the history of the United States of America.

The next officer we are going to bring forward is Air Force Brig. Gen. Jason T. Hinds to, again, be promoted to Major General, U.S. Air Force officer. Boy, oh, boy. Look at this guy's background. He has flown all kinds of positions, including First Fighter Wing, commander; F-22 Fighter Squadron, commander; F-22 instructor pilot and flight examiner; F-15C instructor and weapons officer. I think he has over 4,000--4,000--hours of flying. I mean, this is probably one of the best pilots in the world. He previously served as the director of Plans, Programs, and Analyses at the U.S. Air Force in Europe and Air Forces in Africa and at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

He has been selected to be a two-star General from a one-star, which is really hard to do--really hard to do. Unfortunately, we can't get him confirmed despite the fact that he has nothing to do with the policy that we all want to fix. Everyone here wants to fix that policy, but he has nothing to do with it, and he is being punished for this.

There are a lot of Air Force officers. Boy, are these men and women impressive. This is Brig. Gen. Charles D. Bolton to be Major General of the U.S. Air Force. Brigadier General Bolton most recently served as the U.S. Transportation Command Global Operations Center chief at Scott Air Force Base. For 29 years, he has commanded in the U.S. Air Force, including, most recently, the 386th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron in southwest Asia and the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing.

Prior to his current assignment, he was the deputy director of Operations, Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base.

He is a master navigator with almost 3,000 hours in a C-130E and a C- 130H. He is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School, with multiple tours to Iraq, Afghanistan, Inherent Resolve, Iraqi Freedom--multiple tours.

By the way, Senator Ernst and I are not even talking about it, but think about the families behind all of these officers and all of these deployments and their children and how much they have sacrificed. That is something else we need to think about. It is not just the men and women in the military wearing the uniform. It is their families, and this is really negatively impacting the families as well.

As Senator Ernst has said, they don't have a voice. We are trying to give them a voice. We are trying to say: We are remembering. We are remembering. We have your back. We are down here again. We told you we would be down here again, and we are down here again.

The next one is another Air Force one-star General to be Major General. This is John R. Edwards. He was on Calendar No. 110.

He most recently served as the director for strategic capabilities policy on the National Security Council. He has a 28-year military career. Get this, he has commanded the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, the 479th Flying Training Group at Pensacola Naval Air Station, and the 96th Bomb Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

He has served on the joint staff at the J-8. Prior to his current assignment, he was the director of nuclear enterprise, Defense Threat Reduction Agency--just amazing experience.

He is a master combat systems officer with over 2,500 flight hours, including 237 combat hours in Operations Allied Force and Enduring Freedom.

He also has a Valor Award. Let me read that. It is an Air Medal for combat action at the onset of Operation Anaconda. That was the military operation in Afghanistan. His aircraft extended its alert interdiction time over the battlefield to support coalition ground units, providing crucial firepower for American troops in contact.

What does that mean? That means we had troops who were on the ground in combat, and he came in with air power to suppress the enemy, saving American lives. His crew then released 45 MK-82 gravity bombs, destroying the enemy troops that were threatening friendly American ground units.

During another mission, his attack aircraft struck nine targets using a complex combination of joint direct attack emissions, and all targets were destroyed, saving countless American ground forces.

That is an American hero right there. I just read his Air Medal combat citation--an American hero--and his career right now is being punished for something he had nothing to do with.

We have another one, a Brigadier General in the Air Force, Sean Choquette to be Major General. He has 33 years in the U.S. military, 2,800 hours flying, 300 deployed combat hours flying in terms of Uphold Democracy, Southern Watch, Iraqi Freedom,

Enduring Freedom, and Inherent Resolve.

He has commanded at the company squadron and wing levels. That is literally every level of command in the Air Force. This is a great leader, a great leader.

Again, he was awarded the Defense Superior Service Medal in terms of combat operations in Inherent Resolve, Deliberate Resolve, and Freedom's Sentinel. He enabled the United States and 17 coalition nations over the time he was in command to deliver 20,000 strike sorties, 39,000 flight hours, and employ and deliver over 8,000 weapons.

This is a warrior whom we need right now, who is on the bench. He can't get confirmed through no fault of his own on anything.

The next officer we were looking at trying to promote was Maj. Gen. Greg Masiello to be Lieutenant General--a three-star General. He was most recently the military deputy to the Under Secretary for Policy at the Pentagon. And, if confirmed, the Agency that he would lead focuses on operations all over the globe.

Prior to his current position, he was the executive officer for the Air Anti-Submarine Warfare, Assault and Special Missions Programs at Naval Air Systems Command, where he previously served as NAVAIR's commander for logistics and industrial operations.

He understands the systems in our Pentagon. He is to be promoted to three-star General. We are here talking about his service.

The next officer that we were going to try and promote through regular order, by the way, and by individual voice vote--I still haven't heard why that is not acceptable--was Rear Admiral Jeffrey Jablon to be a Vice Admiral, a three-star Admiral.

Again, when you look at Admiral Jablon's career, he is one of the ones that I was talking about recently with incredible experience as a submarine commander--incredible.

He was a fleet naval submarine warfare strategist at U.S. Special Operations Command, commander of the Submarine Development Squadron 12, deputy commander for training, Naval Submarine School, and prospective commanding officer instructor.

Remember, these are nuclear-powered subs, the most advanced warfighting machines in the world. The Chinese are scared to death of them. But you cannot just grab an Ensign or Lieutenant and say: Hey, go command a nuclear sub.

It takes decades--decades--to train somebody on a nuclear sub.

He has commanded at all levels in terms of the submarine force, and we are trying to get him promoted to three-star Admiral.

Again, this is a huge strategic advantage we have over China, our submarine force. Yet so many of these Admirals are being blocked. They are being blocked.

I have a few more--actually, we have a lot more. It is coming on 3 a.m. I really appreciate my colleagues being here. But we are trying to give voice--trying to give voice--to these heroes whom we need on the field of battle right now.

The next one we were trying to get confirmed tonight was VADM William J. Houston to be an Admiral, to be a four-star Admiral. He was on Calendar No. 202.

Again, this officer's submarine experience is unbelievable. He had many key positions, including division officer of the USS Phoenix, which is a sub; engineer officer aboard the USS Hampton, which is a submarine; the executive officer aboard the USS Tennessee, which is a strategic ballistic missile sub.

He has commanded and was commodore of Submarine Squadron 20, out of Kings Bay, GA. He also served as the flag lieutenant for the commander, Submarine Force U.S. Atlantic Fleet; Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board, special assistant to the Director of Naval Reactors; and the deputy commander for Sub Squadron 20, among other roles.

Again, this is a four-star Admiral. I think he has 35 years of experience with submarines--the weapons system that Xi Jinping has nightmares about--and we are keeping him on the bench over an issue he has nothing to do with--nothing. That is the whole thing.

We want to solve this issue. We are pro-life Senators. We are pro- military Senators. And these men and women--every American, I hope you are listening. I know it is 3 in the morning. We are here to give them voice. But if you are an American and you read about Admiral Houston's background, think about what his family has gone through. Think about the options he has in his world.

We don't want him to leave. We don't want any of these people to leave. We need them. This is the most combat-experienced group of general officers probably since World War II.

Let me turn to another branch, the U.S. Army. This is MG Anthony Hale to be Lieutenant General Hale.

Major General Hale is an expert in Army intelligence--Army intelligence. He has served at U.S. Special Operations Command. He currently is the deputy chief of staff of the G-2 for the entire U.S. Army. The G-2 is the group in the military in charge of intelligence.

His deployments, I think--I am reading his bio here--six or seven deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan. He has gone all the way up the chain in the U.S. military--Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq--several times. He is the top intel officer for the U.S. Army--top intel officer for the U.S. Army--and his career is on hold right now, like 450 others.

But, again, we could confirm them tonight. This is regular order, by the way--regular order. This is, actually, more than regular order. The Senate has only done this twice--rollcall votes--in 50 years, for one- or two-star officers.

The next officer we were looking to promote is MG Thomas James. He is a two-star General to Lieutenant General. We were looking to move him forward. He is an expert in space. He was supposed to be the deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, and, boy, do we need that. That is a whole other warfare element that people don't talk about.

He also has a tremendous background in Special Forces and several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. His family sacrificed. He was the deputy commander for Joint Functional Component Command for Space, leader of the 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne)--Airborne--and a space expert.

Again, we are trying to make sure he knows--Major General James, of the U.S. Army, to be deputy commander of U.S. Space Command. We are thanking you, General, and your family. We are thanking you for your service, General, and your family. We are trying to move your promotion, which was hard to get, well-deserved. We are trying to move that forward.

We are trying to fix the policy that we all don't like here on the Hyde amendment issues. There are a lot of ways of trying to do that, but we think punishing General James and his family, in my view, doesn't make any sense.

Senator Lee mentioned Senator Tuberville has the right to do it. I agree with that. He does. But I don't agree with the tactic.

Mr. President, the next officer we are looking to promote was Major General Spain, U.S. Air Force, to be Lieutenant General, three-star General. He is to be the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations for the entire U.S. Air Force. That is a huge job.

He has got over 30 years of military service. He is a pilot. He has served as a weapons officer for the 58th Fighter Squadron. He led the Nation's first Operation Noble Eagle deployment to the National Capital Region. He has numerous deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan. He served as the 53rd Wing commander, the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing commander. He has led the operations for the J3--that is military operations--for U.S. European Command during Afghanistan and the J3 at USEUCOM in response to Russian aggression in support of Ukraine, up to and through the invasion.

He was a command pilot with more than 2,300 hours in multiple aircraft, primarily the F-15C and F-22. An incredible warrior there, incredible warrior. Combat sorties. Here is an Air Achievement Medal, Legion of Merit. Senator Ernst was talking a lot about Legion of Merit.

Skilled fleet. Led a rotation force of over 10,000 coalition personnel, 50 combat aircraft. His combat team executed

over 5,600 sorties in 52,000 flying hours, offloaded nearly 2 million pounds of fuel, collected intelligence on 172,000 targets, supported 3,800 strikes against the Islamic State and Syria in Iraq.

You don't think we need him now? We are bombing terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria as we speak. That is exactly the kind of officer we need in the field fighting, not on the bench.

Mr. President, the next one we are looking at was Col. Paul Sellars to be a Brigadier General. Colonel Sellars, like a lot of the people we have spoken about tonight, has a very significant background in Special Operations. He has deployed numerous times to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, with Special Forces operations. He has also conducted exercises in the INDOPACOM region, Philippines, Malaysia. And he has served with the J3 for Special Operations Detachment in the Pacific.

Again, Paul Sellars, Colonel, to be Brigadier General--incredible background--and, right now, he can't get promoted over something that he has no involvement with. So we are giving him voice.

The next one, Mr. President, is BG Jacqueline Brown to be the grade of Major General. Jacqueline Brown is currently serving as the Director of Operations, Networks, and Space and Information Systems--so the G-6, the group that is bringing in all the communications. Over 30 years of service in the U.S. Army. She served as executive officer, Army chief information officer, and the plans and strategy division chief of the Army G-6.

She, like everybody else, has deployed to Afghanistan, to Iraq. She has been a chief of operations and plans for the G-6 for the Army's 3rd Corps at Fort Hood and has served at different levels in her career, starting in the 6th Signal Battalion, Fort Richardson, AK, and later battalion signal officer in the 106th Military Intelligence Battalion.

I was talking about how medical units are so important, but so are the information systems, comms systems, space systems. And BG Jacqueline Brown is one who has an amazing career. We are trying to get her promoted to two-star, and I hope we can do that soon.

Just a couple more, Mr. President. This one should be known to everybody here: Col. Matthew Good, Col. Matthew Good. He is a great marine. Many of you know him because he served as the top marine liaison to the U.S. Senate recently, but he has an incredible bio. He knows many legislators. Going on 30 years as an infantry officer. He served as a faculty member at Marine Command and Staff; multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and has moved up the chain in the Marine Corps like a good Marine infantry officer.

He served as a platoon commander, a rifle company commander, a weapons company executive officer, a rifle company commander, a company operations officer, and deployed, like I said, numerous times to Iraq and Afghanistan. And everybody who knows him knows what a great leader he is--measured, great advice. I relied on Colonel Good's advice many, many times over the last several years when he was here as the lead Senate liaison. Just a fantastic guy, and so many of us know him; and, right now, he cannot get promoted to Brigadier General. He should be but can't be.

Mr. President, the next officer we were trying to promote tonight was BG Richard Appelhans, who recently served as commander of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort Huachuca. So, again, this is a top army officer. He deployed several times: Korea, Kuwait, Germany, the Netherlands, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq. Geez, that is like seven deployments right there. Think about his family.

He began his career as an armor officer, and then he transitioned to military intelligence. He has served in a variety of command and staff assignments and now is trying to get promoted to two-star General. We think he should be. He has nothing to do with the current dispute-- nothing--and no ability to fix it.

I haven't heard one reason why putting a hold on 450 apolitical military officers who are being punished--I just--I don't understand it.

Mr. President, another marine Colonel to be promoted to Brigadier General--infantry officer who has led and served at the highest levels of every infantry unit he has commanded: forward observer, guns platoon commander, fire direction officer, artillery. He is actually an artillery officer. 26th MEU, Marine Expeditionary Unit. Deployed all over the world, extensive experience in the INDOPACOM region, serving with 12th Marines during Operation Enduring Freedom. The 12th Marines is a Marine artillery unit. Completed several deployments to Iraq, awarded the Combat Action Ribbon.

Again, a great marine, great hero, a Colonel to a Brigadier General. And his promotion is being stalled.

Let's do another Brigadier General. Colonel to Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps. This is Adolfo Garcia.

Same thing, Mr. President: Multiple deployments. Iraq, Afghanistan, 12th Marines. He is also an artillery officer. He served on the Joint Staff, so he has a lot of knowledge at the big level of the Pentagon and as a military secretary to the 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps. So really knows his combat issues and higher-level Marine Corps issues--exactly the kind of officer you want--going from Colonel to Brigadier General. He has earned it, 30 years in. Again, not involved in this dispute.

So my final one--we have a number more, but it is almost 3:30, and I think our attempts at trying to get these officers promoted were not successful. Hopefully, we can get through this. I am hoping--I don't think anyone in the Senate thinks it is good to punish 450 officers over something that they have no control over.

I am going to finish this final one, and then I will.

This is Col. Trevor Hall, 33 years in the Marine Corps. He served as both enlisted and--a military enlisted and officer. His command experience includes rifle and weapons platoon commander, 3rd Battalion 6th Marines; multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He served with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He served in support of Operation Desert Thunder, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Unified Protector--that is Libya. Combat marine moving from Colonel to Brigadier General.

That is one more that we would want to promote tonight. We have several others, Mr. President. It is 3:30. I am hoping that, my colleagues, we can continue to make progress. I am committed to continue to work with Senator Tuberville and others on moving forward, but at the same time, we have got to keep faith with these military members. We have got to keep faith with them. Many of them are deployed right now. A number of them are in combat.

And we committed to come back down here and try to move these, and we are going to keep doing it. Hopefully, we can move forward with my colleagues here to, as I mentioned, focus on the big issues of national security and readiness, which I believe, with regard to the Biden administration, are legion. I have been fighting those in the Armed Services Committee.

The Biden budget shrinks the Army, shrinks the Navy, shrinks the Marine Corps right now. That is music to Xi Jinping and Putin's ears. Next year's budget will be below 3 percent of GDP. We have only been below 3 percent of GDP maybe four or five times in the last 70 years. So that is not a good number. We need a much more robust military. I want to work with my partners, including those on the floor here, to focus on those issues. But we need to get through this, and it is important. We need to fix the policy, the abortion policy, that we all disagree with here. There are a number of ways we can do it. Again, I have worked with Senator Tuberville on ways to do that.

And I do agree with my colleagues here that this was started and provoked by the Biden administration. But punishing these 450 members and their families is not the best way--is not the way to go about doing that.

So, Mr. President--do you want to say anything else?

My colleague had a question.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

By the way, Mr. President, I appreciate your staying late, 3:30. And it is important work.