Floor Statements

Mr. President, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the case that will come before our Nation's highest Court on December 1, is truly a historic case. It is about a law the State of Mississippi passed in 2018 to ban almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

When I was a member of the State legislature in Nebraska in 2010, we passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Nebraska's bill banned most abortions after 20 weeks, the point when science at that time told us that unborn babies start to be able to feel pain. We were the first State in the country to pass a law of this kind, and in our Nebraska unicameral, we passed it with 44 ``yes'' votes and just 5 ``no'' votes.

Nebraska has a unicameral--1 House, 49 Senators. We have pro-choice, pro-life, Republicans and Democrats that voted for this bill. We had pro-choice Republicans. We had a number of pro-life Democrats. In fact, we had a former Democratic National Committeeman vote for this bill. All we cared about was protecting the most vulnerable people in our society--unborn children.

I was proud to support Nebraska's bill. I was proud that pro-life Democrats, pro-choice Republicans, put their differences aside to vote for it. And I am proud today to stand with Mississippi as their law comes before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Back in July, I joined more than 200 of my colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives in filing an amicus brief supporting Mississippi's bill. In our brief, we argued that the precedence the Supreme Court set in Roe v. Wade and a later case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, are outdated. When Roe was decided nearly 50 years ago, babies born before 28 weeks were not expected to survive. Today, the miracles of modern medicine have allowed babies born much earlier to not only survive but to go on to live full and happy lives.

Just last year, a little boy was born right next door to Mississippi, in Alabama, at 21 weeks. He was 132 days premature, and he weighed just 14.8 ounces. Fifty years ago, it would have been unthinkable-- unthinkable--for him to live beyond a few days. But this July, he celebrated his first birthday.

Fifty years ago, ultrasounds and sonograms were not widely available. Today, they are an essential part of prenatal care. The pictures that these technologies enable families to see of their unborn children, even at the early stages of pregnancy, are often nearly identical to the newborns they will soon become. The advancements of the last 50 years have left no doubt about the humanity of the unborn. And as science continues to progress over the next 50 years, new developments are going to keep allowing babies born earlier and earlier to survive and to thrive.

The laws of just about every developed country have kept up with this rapid progress, but here in the United States our laws are stuck in the past. The United States is one of only four nations on Earth where certain States allow abortions up to the day of birth. That puts us in the uncomfortable company of China, North Korea, and Vietnam. Ninety percent of countries around the world limit abortion at 15 weeks, the same point as Mississippi's law, and some even earlier. In Europe alone, there are eight countries with laws that are stricter than Mississippi's. That includes Germany, where abortion is illegal in most cases just after 12 weeks. Women seeking

abortions before 12 weeks in Germany also have to go through a 3-day waiting period and a mandatory counseling session.

Mississippi's law isn't that different from Germany's. In some ways, it is even more lenient, but it is still being challenged in our court system based on legal decisions from decades ago.

Our laws are outdated, and America's unborn children are paying the price. Since 1973, more than 60 million abortions have taken the lives of more than 60 million American children, many of whom could have survived outside the womb.

It is past time for the United States to move into the 21st century. The Supreme Court has a chance to help us do that by upholding Mississippi's law in the Dobbs case, and I hope they will.

With that, I would yield to my colleague from Kansas, Senator Marshall, who is also a doctor, a gynecologist, and obstetrician.

Madam President, I rise today to congratulate Gen. John E. Hyten on his retirement from the U.S. Air Force. I also want to extend my congratulations to his wife, Laura, and note the remarkable bond they share. Their partnership in life has enabled his success in uniform, and his achievements are truly theirs.

Across four decades of service, General Hyten has risen through the ranks to become one of the most respected voices in our military, and many in this Chamber rely on his deep knowledge and expertise. This is especially true on matters relating to space and nuclear deterrence.

I got to know General Hyten when he became a Nebraska constituent following his appointment to be the commander of U.S. Strategic Command in 2016. This was actually General Hyten's second tour of duty at Offutt Air Force Base, having previously commanded the 6th Space Operations Squadron there in the late nineties.

During his 3 years as the commander of STRATCOM, I was privileged to work closely with him, not just as the senior Senator from Nebraska, but also the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee's Strategic Forces subcommittee, which directly oversees STRATCOM's mission areas.

During this span, we witnessed a marked shift in the strategic landscape, with worrying trends with respect to adversary behavior in space and investment in nuclear arms greatly accelerating. This elevated the importance of STRATCOM's mission and meant that, as its commander, General Hyten was on the front line of some of the most daunting security challenges facing our Nation.

During his tenure, he played a key role in the Department of Defense's response to these evolving threats. As space transformed into a warfighting domain, his candid advice was invaluable in Congress reorganization of the Department of Defense's space enterprise, including the creation of the Space Force and elevation of Space Command to a full-fledged unified combatant command.

He was also an extremely effective advocate for our Nation's nuclear forces, which continue to be the bedrock of our national security. As a vocal champion of nuclear modernization, he helped make the case for renewing the triad and broadening the modernization conversation to increase focus on nuclear command, control and communications--or NC3-- systems, as well as National Nuclear Security Administration's nuclear complex.

He played an important part in drafting the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, which marked the first time since the end of the Cold War that an NPR occurred against a backdrop of growing nuclear threats and therefore had to confront the uncomfortable reality that Russia and China had not followed our lead in reducing nuclear stockpiles.

He explained the problem with his customary candor: ``When we started de-emphasizing nuclear weapons, what did the rest of the world do? The rest of the world did exactly the opposite. So if we de-emphasize nuclear weapons, we're putting the country at jeopardy and we can never allow that to happen.''

Those sage words are still true today and should continue to guide U.S. nuclear policy. They also reflect another of General Hyten's characteristics that I value greatly: his unwavering focus on the threats facing our Nation. A tireless advocate for a return of threat- based planning, he always endeavored to base his approach on the changing threat picture and to educate those around him about the activities of our adversaries.

When he was nominated to be the next Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I felt very strongly that he was the right leader, with the right expertise, at the right time. I knew he would bring all of the qualities that distinguished him as a STRATCOM commander to bear in his new role, and he did not disappoint.

As Vice Chairman, he continued to discharge his responsibilities with great professionalism and dedication, and his confirmation to the position also meant that the Nation could benefit from his leadership for 2 more years.

Sadly, that time is at an end. And while the 40 years of exemplary service Gen. John Hyten has rendered make this retirement well-earned, I hope he will continue to share his wisdom and counsel. I wish General Hyten and his wife, Laura, a wonderful retirement together and all the best in their future.

Madam President, 50 years ago this coming February, President Nixon made history as the first American President to visit the People's Republic of China. He thought that by inviting China to join what he called ``the family of nations,'' he could incentivize the Chinese Communist Party to liberalize at home and refrain from exporting its brand of communism abroad.

That may sound naive because, as we look back on those 50 years, the changes President Nixon hoped for never came. But he held out hope for change because he had faith in the Chinese people. He was an incredible admirer of their culture and their remarkable history.

And even though these past few decades have proven Nixon wrong about the CCP, he was right to have faith in the people of China. That is why we have to be specific when we talk about what the future holds for our two countries.

The Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party are not the same thing. In fact, the opposite is true. We have seen countless examples of the Chinese people's bravery, from pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong to 1989's protests in Tiananmen Square.

They were born deserving the same universal rights that we enjoy in the United States: freedom of speech, assembly, religion, and so many more.

They deserve to live in a country that recognizes those rights and understands that true power comes from the consent of the governed, not from the iron fist of the party oligarchy.

Unfortunately, that iron fist is how the CCP has kept its grip on power for so many decades, and they have shown no signs of slowing down under President Xi Jinping.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of President Nixon's groundbreaking trip, we need to reflect on what those 50 years have brought us.

China has not become a democracy. Instead, the Communist Party is weaponizing new technologies to consolidate their rule. Through what President Biden's chief adviser for Asia, Kurt Campbell, has called digital authoritarianism, the CCP can now track the Chinese people's every movement with facial recognition. They have developed a social credit system that ranks the likability and trustworthiness of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens. Using these and other technologies, the CCP is committing genocide against their own people.

Since April 2017, the CCP has detained over 1 million leaders and other Muslims in specially built internment camps in Xinjiang province. These are Chinese citizens, and their own government is subjecting them to forced sterilization, sexual abuse, forced labor, physical and psychological torment, and political indoctrination.

This is government-sponsored ethnic cleansing, and now China is starting to carry out this kind of state-sponsored racism and genocide outside Xingjiang.

In the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the CCP is curtailing the use of the Mongolian language by shutting down Mongolian-language social media websites and prohibiting schools from teaching certain classes in Mongolian. The next steps could be similar to what we have seen in Xinjiang.

Sadly, ethnic minorities are not the only people to find themselves on the wrong side of the CCP's many abuses of power. Under President Xi, China has broken its promises to the free people of Hong Kong. Under the pretense of protecting national security, new laws have led to the arrest of thousands of people for doing nothing more than exercising their God-given rights.

Taken together, all these things paint a picture of a Chinese Government that is doubling down on its communist roots and doing whatever it takes to control its people.

None of this should surprise us. This is the same government that forcibly sterilized its citizens as part of its one-child policy, and gunned down thousands of students who were peacefully protesting in Tiananmen Square.

And now they are turning their attention abroad. They are growing more aggressive towards other countries by the day, in ways that comply with international norms and in ways that defy those norms.

In 2013, President Xi formally launched his signature foreign policy effort: the Belt and Road Initiative.

Through this program, China offers lucrative infrastructure investments and economic development deals to smaller and poorer nations. The ultimate goal is to create a global coalition that could challenge the longstanding network of alliances and partnerships that have been built by the United States. Since Belt and Road began, 139 countries have joined, and on every continent China is using it to expand their power.

But here is the catch: If developing countries that welcomed these investments want construction to continue on their new highway system or skyscraper, or if they want access to funding for future projects, they cannot speak out against China's actions. This is why leaders of Muslim-majority countries who have spoken out against these crimes in the past have suddenly fallen silent.

Just look at Turkish President Erdogan, who said China's crimes against the Uighurs are ``a genocide, and there is no point in interpreting this otherwise.''

He said that in 2009. Today, he won't even talk about it, and he has ordered the police to break up protests about these atrocities in Turkey.

Pakistan's Prime Minister, usually a champion for Muslims around the world, has also fallen under Belt and Road's spell. In June, he refused to answer questions about Xinjiang in an interview with Axios's Jonathan Swan.

China's other strategies for reshaping the rules-based international order are far less subtle. They are using the infrastructure they build to spy on foreign leaders or even take over disputed regions in neighboring countries.

In Ethiopia, the CCP offered to build the new headquarters of the African Union. African Union workers soon discovered that the building's Huawei servers had been shipping their data to Shanghai every day for years and that the building was riddled with Chinese surveillance devices.

This is a perfect example of China's strategy of military-civilian fusion, or the way the CCP forces so-called ``private'' corporations like Huawei to do their bidding.

Another example hit much closer to home. In 2016, the Chinese company with CCP ties tried to buy a hotel in San Diego. Well, the hotel has a view of Naval Base San Diego, the home port of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet. The deal was ultimately blocked, but the fact that such a transparent attempt to keep an eye on our forces almost went through is cause for serious concern.

China is also building artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea. Many in this body will recall when, in 2015, President Xi stood next to President Obama and he lied, saying that China does not intend to militarize those islands. He broke his pledge within a year.

Along with this geographic expansion, President Xi is investing in China's military. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China now spends nearly three times as much on the People's Liberation Army as they did just 10 years ago. They now have the world's largest navy in terms of total number of ships, a title the U.S. held until 2 years ago.

China's navy currently numbers about 355 ships and submarines. They have 2 aircraft carriers and at least 32 destroyers, 48 frigates, and 65 attack submarines. This is not a navy designed to protect a coastline; this is a navy designed to project force on a global scale.

Former Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger called what China is doing the ``largest peacetime military buildup in the modern era, and maybe one of the largest in history.'' He said that in response to my questions at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing earlier in June.

And what is this new, more powerful military's highest priority?

The peaceful island of democracy, Taiwan. President Xi has been very clear about his desire to bring Taiwan

under the CCP's control. The only thing stopping him is 100 miles of ocean: the Taiwan Strait.

But the CCP's ambitions won't end with Taiwan. India, Japan, South Korea, and many countries in the South China Sea are feeling the effects of China's aggression in ways no one expected even a decade ago. And to back up their global agenda, the CCP is hard at work expanding China's nuclear arsenal.

As Admiral Richard, the commander of STRATCOM, wrote earlier this year:

China's nuclear weapon stockpile is expected to double--if

not triple or quadruple--over the next decade.

A new report out yesterday from the Pentagon paints a worse picture. It predicts that China could have at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, roughly five times what they have now. As part of this expansion, China is building at least three new missile fields, each capable of holding over 100 ICBMs. And maybe most concerning, China recently tested an extremely sophisticated new weapons system that combines space capabilities with advanced hypersonics. This nuclear capable prototype could give China a unique edge over our own arsenal.

Madam President, this needs to be a wake-up call for us. We must change our approach to China. We can't keep pretending that these problems don't exist.

Thankfully, concern about China's rise is an area of bipartisan consensus here in Congress. But recognizing that there is a problem is not enough. We have to get our act together and we have to do something about it. There are many ways for us to push back against the CCP, but, by far, the most fundamental thing we can do to safeguard against China's rise is to invest in our military.

The old adage ``peace through strength'' still applies today, but the Biden administration has proposed raising defense spending by only 1.6 percent, and taking this year's inflation into account, that means we have a proposed cut. That defies basic logic. The world is not getting safer. Threats like China are not going away.

When we met earlier this year to review the President's budget request and write our annual defense authorization bill, the Senate Armed Services Committee debated defense cuts.

What was the result?

A huge bipartisan majority--25 of the 26 members--voted to authorize an additional $25 billion in defense spending, which primarily supported the unfunded priorities of our commanders.

This provides our military with the real budget growth necessary to keep pace with an adversary like China. It makes critical investments in readiness and in modernization, as well as in research and development programs that help America keep our technological edge.

It also includes a number of specific investments that would strengthen our force posture in the Indo-Pacific theater.

Most importantly, the bill authorizes an additional $230 million to begin improving missile defense capabilities on Guam. Guam is a key element of our regional presence, but it has been increasingly threatened by China's growing arsenal. INDOPACOM commanders have warned of this threat since 2019, and the situation has only grown direr since then.

The resources authorized by this bill would begin to address this threat, and by improving our defensive capabilities in the region, we can keep conflict from beginning in the first place.

Like many of my colleagues, I am at a loss to explain why the Democratic leader hasn't brought the NDAA to the floor. Even if we voted on it today, this would still be one of the latest NDAA votes in history.

So as we celebrate Veterans Day next week and consider the sacrifice and service of America's bravest, we should all remember our responsibility as Members of Congress, to give our military men and women the resources they need to successfully complete the missions that they are given. We cannot afford to delay any longer.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss where things stand after 9 months under President Biden.

To start, American citizens are still left behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, even though the President said in August that he would get every single American home safe before pulling out our troops.

And the numbers are much worse than the administration has led us to believe. As of this week, the State Department is in touch with more than 400 Americans who are still in Afghanistan. About half of those-- at least 196 American citizens--want to leave, but they have been unable to do so.

Leaving even one American citizen who wants to come home at the mercy of the Taliban is a failure in leadership. It should never have been an option. But it has been 2 months, and there are still 196 Americans in Afghanistan who want out. That is unconscionable.

President Biden should have done what was needed to bring every last American home, like he promised he would do in August. That is his No. 1 responsibility as President, to ensure the safety of the American people.

But maybe we shouldn't be surprised, since he hasn't been able to secure our own border. In fact, he doesn't even try to secure our southern border.

Customs and Border Protection reported recently that they apprehended more than 1.7 million migrants attempting to cross our southern border illegally over the span of just 12 months. That is the highest total ever recorded in a single fiscal year. And if border agents encountered 1.7 illegal migrants, imagine how many were able to cross into our country undetected.

CBP encountered nearly 200,000 illegal migrants last month alone, meaning that apprehensions were up by more than 230 percent in September 2021 compared to September of 2020.

If you want to know why we have this crisis at the border, ask the migrants themselves. Many have been very honest about why they risk their lives to travel thousands of miles to the United States. If you ask them why--ask them why they are here--their answer is simple: The President promised to let us in.

We are a nation of immigrants, but we cannot have effective legal immigration if illegal immigration is spiraling out of control.

Illegal immigration means cutting in front of millions of people who have been waiting years to come to the United States the right way. Our message as a nation needs to be that if you want to come here, you have to follow our laws. You cannot just walk across the border.

President Obama said it well a few weeks ago in an interview on ABC News. He said:

And we see tragedy and hardship and families that are

desperately trying to get here so that their kids are safe,

and they're in some cases fleeing violence or catastrophe. At

the same time, we're a nation state. We have borders. The

idea that we can just have open borders is something that . .

. as a practical matter, is unsustainable.

Well, ABC cut that portion of the interview out. I suppose they can't allow a former President of the United States to disagree with the radical leftwing of their party.

This is all taking place against the backdrop of the highest inflation rate in decades and massive supply chain issues that threaten to cripple our recovering economy. The White House insists these problems are only going to affect the upper class--they are high-class problems. Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the other day that our supply chain issues are nothing more than ``the tragedy of the treadmill that's delayed.'' What an out-of-touch thing to say. She must be talking about her friends and neighbors here in DC because I don't know many Nebraskans who are spending thousands of dollars on in-home treadmills.

Rising costs and shortages are hurting everyone--most of all, the tens of millions of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck. The President's shameless ``buy now, pay later'' policies are forcing hard- working Americans to pay an extra dollar for a gallon of gas while they watch the real value of their retirement accounts slump.

They might not live in Washington or New York or San Francisco, but these are real people. They are small business owners who are wondering if they will be able to get the supplies that they need to meet historic demand this holiday season. They are millions of hard-working Americans who rely on propane to heat their homes who are worried about getting priced out of a warm house this winter. They are families who don't know if they will be able to put food on the table for their kids.

Anyone who thinks most people's first concern is whether the newest Peloton is going to arrive on time, they have no idea what working Americans do to get by every single day.

What has the response to these unprecedented problems been in the media? The Washington Post said it is ``time for some new, more realistic expectations.'' I think people will find that ``lower your expectations'' is not a very optimistic and it is not a very inspiring slogan for the party in power.

And as dangerous as this wave of inflation is, it is really not like nobody saw it coming. Larry Summers, the liberal economist who directed the National Economic Council under President Obama, has been sounding the alarm for months. He is not the only one. Dozens of leading experts have warned against borrowing trillions of dollars to expand the reach of government when inflation is already running rampant.

But, earlier this year, Democrats in Congress spent nearly $2 trillion on an entirely partisan basis under the pretense that it was necessary to fight the pandemic. So what is the fix? What is the fix? How is President Biden going to pull America back from the brink of stagflation?

Well, he wants to spend even more of the American people's hard- earned money. The President said in August that the massive, multitrillion-dollar spending spree he wants this Chamber to approve ``won't increase inflation. It will take the pressure off of inflation.''

Well, he leaves how that might happen to our imagination. In reality, trying to spend our way out of inflation is like trying to put a fire out with lighter fluid; it is absolutely delusional.

We cannot just keep spending more and more, not when, as the senior Senator from West Virginia said recently, ``[m]illions of jobs are open, supply chains are strained, and unavoidable inflation taxes are draining workers' hard-earned wages as the price of gasoline and groceries continues to climb.''

Out-of-control spending is how we got here in the first place, and the longer we keep at it, the worse it is going to get. Some Democrats are fond of saying that this bill will cost zero dollars because, well, it might be paid for through new taxes. The truth is that their plan would create trillions of dollars in new entitlements, and even if they do find a way to pay for it, which I doubt, that doesn't mean it is free. That money has to come from somewhere, and the Joint Committee on Taxation has shown that two-thirds of Democrats' proposed new tax burdens--they would fall on the lower and the middle class of this country.

I wish I could say the outrageous pricetag is the only thing wrong with the Democrats' tax-and-spend boondoggle, but what is actually in their plan might even be more irresponsible. It would allow the IRS to snoop on Americans' bank accounts if their inflows and their outflows exceed $10,000 per year.

Now, that is a lot of money, but let's put it in perspective. Federal agents would get to see your house and car payments, how much you spend on groceries and gas, heating bills, school costs for your kids, and everything else that you spend in a year just to get by. So spending over $10,000 a year on these essentials that are in our lives, they would let the IRS be in just about every American's bank account.

Democrats' plan would also expand green energy tax credits for wealthy Americans so they can buy expensive electric vehicles they can already afford. A millionaire can buy the most expensive new Tesla for $150,000, and under what the senior Senator from Oregon has proposed, they will be able to claim a tax credit worth $12,500. Nebraska taxpayers don't need to be subsidizing new electric cars for rich Americans.

And maybe worst of all, the House plan does not include the Hyde amendment, which Republicans and Democrats have agreed on for decades. If the radical left succeeds in taking that out, taxpayers will be required to pay for abortions for the first time in more than 40 years.

The American people have been watching this country bounce from crisis to crisis to crisis, and after so many disasters in a row, one poll shows that President Biden's approval rating is down to just 37 percent. Barely a third of Americans approve of the job this President is doing, and a majority say this administration is not competent.

That should tell President Biden that his agenda isn't as popular in the rest of America as it is in the beltway bubble. But, instead, the President is forging ahead with more Federal Government controls.

There is now even talk of a Federal vaccine mandate. The government is going to twist an obscure labor law beyond recognition to force Americans to take that vaccine.

I believe in the vaccines. I believe they are safe and effective and we should be encouraging people to choose to get vaccinated, but the government--the government--simply has no business requiring Americans to do it. Under the President's new Executive order, businesses with more than 100 employees are being forced to comply with the vaccine mandate or submit employees to weekly testing; otherwise, they will risk losing crucial employees.

I recently signed on to a letter led by the junior Senator from Alaska that urges the President to reconsider. There is absolutely no precedent in American history for a Federal vaccine requirement, and President Biden will be on entirely new legal ground if he moves ahead with this.

One of the most unsettling things I have seen from this administration wasn't something that they said or did; it was something that they left unsaid. When Jen Psaki broke the news that the Federal Government was going to try to force through this mandate, she smiled. In response to a reporter who asked if the President had the power to enforce vaccination for private employees--not Federal contractors, private employees--she said, ``Yes. Stay tuned.'' And then she grinned.

Without saying anything, she showed that the Biden administration is relishing this chance to push the limits of Executive power. When you take that together with the incompetence that has been on display since January, from the Afghanistan debacle to the crisis at our southern border, to our administration's complete disregard for how inflation is devastating hard-working families and the poor in our country, I think you start to get a good idea of what the Biden administration is all about.

They are going to trample on the Constitution to advance a radical left agenda that is truly unprecedented in American history, and they don't care how many disasters they continue to create.

Thank you.

Madam President, I would ask consent that the 5:15 vote occur immediately.

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

Mr. President, on August 16, as everything was collapsing in Afghanistan, President Biden said:

We have developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon

capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed

on any direct threats to the United States in the region and

to act quickly and decisively if needed.

He was stating that we don't have to have an on-the-ground presence in Afghanistan to keep Americans safe and that we can rely instead on over-the-horizon strikes, where we use drones and other assets to take out terrorists from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Since then, we have learned that the President wasn't being truthful.

At the Senate Armed Services Committee's open hearing on Afghanistan's disaster, CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie testified on the immense challenges we face in preventing terrorist groups, like al-Qaida and ISIS, from using Afghanistan as a launching pad to attack us here at home.

What President Biden seems to conveniently ignore is that a successful over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy requires more than just the ability to hit targets across long distances. We also have to be able to identify targets; we have to be able to locate targets; and we have to be able to reach those targets.

To do this effectively, we first need a U.S. presence in the region or at least a reliable on-the-ground partner there. Without that, our ability to gather the intelligence necessary to pick the right targets is severely degraded.

We saw the tragic consequences of acting on incomplete intelligence on August 29, when a drone strike mistakenly killed 10 innocent Afghans, including 7 children and an aid worker with ties to the United States.

Second, we need a reliable way to actually get to the target.

President Biden likes comparing Afghanistan to countries like Yemen and Syria, but there is a huge difference between these countries. Afghanistan is landlocked, and our drones can't just fly over the ocean to get there, like they can to Syria and to Yemen.

When it comes to Afghanistan, our drones have to cross over other countries on the way, and those countries are not obligated to allow us to use their airspace.

General McKenzie confirmed to me during our hearing that, because we have withdrawn from Afghanistan, we need to rely on Pakistan's airspace if we want to reach targets like ISIS-K or al-Qaida, and that should concern every American.

Pakistan, historically, is the Taliban's fiercest international supporter, and they could revoke our access at any point. And if they do, we would need to ask China, Iran, or Central Asian nations with close ties to Russia for permission to use their airspace or even their bases in order to conduct counterterrorism operations.

When I asked about this during the SASC hearing, Secretary Austin confirmed recent reports that the U.S. military--the finest fighting force in the world--has had conversations with Russia about using their bases in Central Asian nations on Afghanistan's northern border.

Secretary Austin insisted that we haven't asked for Russia's permission to use these bases; we are simply considering an offer that they made. But if we have to consider an offer from the Kremlin just to keep al-Qaida from surging back in Afghanistan, President Biden hasn't put America on a very strong footing.

The bottom line is that our chaotic exit from Afghanistan has made it much harder for the U.S. military to keep the American people safe from terrorists.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Milley said during last week's hearing that Presidents are elected to make strategic decisions. He also told us that the Afghanistan withdrawal was a strategic failure.

And he was right. The way things stand today, we are at risk of recreating the same conditions that existed before 9/11. The Taliban is running things in Kabul, and given their longstanding partnership with al-Qaida, it is naive to expect that they would prevent these terrorists from operating freely.

Anyone who says that we are safer today than we were 20 years ago is getting ahead of themselves, and that goes for President Biden too. He needs to be more honest about what his decision to leave Afghanistan, no matter the cost, means for our Nation's security.

Real leaders take responsibility for their mistakes; they do not make excuses for them. And, unfortunately, that is all we have heard from the President so far.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I have heard so many inspiring stories about how small businesses across the country adapted to COVID-19 and refused to give up, even when the odds seemed overwhelming.

Mac's Creek Winery in Lexington, NE, is a great example. Owned by two generations of the McFarland family, this winery and brewery has been a Nebraska favorite since 1999. Like so many other small businesses, they were forced to shut their tasting rooms' doors when COVID hit.

But the McFarlands soon pioneered a new way to share their work with the world. They began hosting virtual tastings through Facebook Live, inviting their community to join them from home and enjoying these Nebraska-made wines.

Their first event in March of 2020 attracted just a few dozen viewers, but their livestreams soon grew to reach thousands of people across the country. HGTV featured them on their website, and they won best virtual event at the Nebraska Tourism Industry Awards last September.

When I visited Mac's Creek earlier this year, I had the chance to see firsthand how they have bounced back from the pandemic. Mac's Creek beat the odds, and they even turned last year's hardships to their advantage. But years before COVID, they overcame an even greater challenge, one that threatened to destroy their entire business.

In 2013, herbicide drift from neighboring farms wiped out nearly all of their 4,000 grapevines. This accident cost them well over $1 million in lost production and set their growth back by at least 5 years.

They couldn't just move their vineyard somewhere else, so just as they did last year, they looked at what they needed to do and they turned to innovation to find success. With help from a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mac's Creek was able to buy purpose- built drones to keep an eye on their 25 acres from above. These drones can help them look for early signs of herbicide drift and stop it from happening before it even starts. And they haven't suffered another incident since.

This Nebraska business took on a risky investment to protect their crops. Their drones are an example of what is known as precision agriculture technology, and Nebraska leads the United States in its adoption.

Producers from wineries to cattle ranchers can use drones and other 21st-century equipment to look after their life's work. For example, if a corn farmer wants to use less water, precision ag technology can help them calculate exactly how much to use. They can produce the same amount of corn using as much as 35 percent less water.

If a rancher wants to equip their feed bunks with sensors that track feed intake, monitor animal health, and even measure emissions from their cattle, precision ag can help them do that.

And these technologies don't just measure inputs. Autosteer and mapping technologies can also make farms more efficient, allowing producers to use less fuel to get better results. All of these things are potential uses of precision agriculture technology, and all of them help producers become more efficient with their resources.

This equipment, it has been around since the 1990s. But like all technologies, it is constantly changing. As it grows more advanced, the market for it expands as well. And we have seen a huge rise in demand in recent years.

Precision agriculture is revolutionizing the way America's producers put food on our tables, but these technologies aren't cheap. Many farmers with small- or medium-sized operations would love to have these cutting-edge technologies, but their cost puts them just out of reach.

The adoption of precision ag equipment has been greatest on large farms, where the savings spread across many acres can generate enough to make this equipment cost effective. This equipment has the potential to transform the way producers of all sizes manage their farms, but if it only helps a small family farmer save maybe $5 an acre next season, a $150,000 investment starts to look a lot less attractive.

Madam President, the World Economic Forum estimates that if just a quarter of the world's farms adopted precision ag practices, farm yields globally could increase by 15 percent. They have also shown that greenhouse gas emissions and water use could decrease by at least the same amount. Adopting these technologies in Nebraska has already helped producers reduce soil erosion and carbon output while also increasing water quality in the area around their operations. And according to a recent report about the environmental benefits of precision ag, even at the current levels, this equipment already saves 30 million pounds of herbicide, 100 million gallons of fossil fuels, and 500 million gallons of water every single year. And that is just in the United States.

These technologies can help us feed a growing population while also caring for our environment. We should be encouraging more producers to turn to precision agriculture, and that is why I am joining with the senior Senator from Minnesota to introduce a bill to create a loan program that would help them do just that.

My bill would establish the Precision Agriculture Loan Program, which would offer low-cost and low-term loans to producers who want to adopt precision ag technologies but they may be unable to make these investments through traditional banks. This would be the first Federal loan program dedicated entirely to precision ag, and instead of upward of 5 percent in interest, producers could pay interest rates under 2 percent on loans 3 to 12 years in length. These loans would cover precision ag technology that improves efficiency or it reduces inputs. My bill would help the math start to make sense for our producers who would like to adopt these technologies, but they haven't been able to afford them.

It is rare to find an issue that is so clearly a win-win for everyone involved. From the University of Nebraska to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the Nebraska Farm Bureau, and the American Conservation Coalition, support is growing for making precision agriculture more accessible.

Another bill I introduced with Senator Klobuchar in April, which would help farmers connect precision ag technologies to each other through the internet of things, has been met with a similar outpouring of support. That is because precision agriculture--those technologies-- really have no drawbacks. It is better for ag producers, rural communities, consumers, and the environment, all at the same time.

The biggest obstacle is the cost, and that burden falls mostly on the smaller farms that can't afford to take the risks. Well, my bill will give smaller operations the backing that they need to manage those risks.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, last Friday, I joined Nebraskans to honor the dignified return of Cpl Daegan William-Tyeler Page of the U.S. Marine Corps, one of 13 servicemembers killed in the terrorist attack at the Kabul airport. It was heartbreaking, but to see the thousands of people who lined the streets of Omaha between Eppley Airfield and Braman Mortuary was truly amazing. The outpouring of honor by the community during the procession was a solemn display of Nebraskans' love for one another and for this country. Nebraskans showed their gratitude for Corporal Page's service and offered support to his grieving family.

Corporal Page was only 23 years old when his life was needlessly cut short in Kabul. He was born in Iowa, but his family moved to Nebraska when he was 5.

He was a proud U.S. marine. He enlisted shortly after graduating from Millard South High School in Omaha. He was stationed in Pendleton, CA, but multiple deployments took him all around the world, to Japan, South Korea, Australia, Jordan, and Afghanistan.

After he finished his service, he planned to attend trade school in Nebraska, hoping to eventually become a lineman.

Corporal Page was also a beloved son, brother, grandson, and friend. He was especially adored by his younger siblings. To them, his family said, he was not just a hero in the Marines; he was their real-life hero, too.

And he had a soft spot in his heart for animals, most of all his three dogs.

He loved hockey. He played on a State champion club team in high school, Omaha Westside. And he was a diehard fan of the Chicago Blackhawks.

He was a member of Boy Scout Troop 331, where he gained an appreciation for the outdoors and of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Millard.

Hunting and being outside with his dad were among his favorite ways to spend his time, but he was also an avid skateboarder, amateur photographer, and an excellent sketch artist.

His family has asked Americans to remember him for his ``fun-loving spirit, tough outer shell, and [his] giant heart.''

Corporal Page's dignified return to Omaha came just 1 day before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which brought us to Afghanistan in the first place. He was just 3 years old on September 11, 2001, and his death came at the very end of a war that had lasted nearly his entire lifetime.

We are also going to hear this afternoon about the other servicemembers who lost their lives in Kabul on August 26. Like Corporal Page, most of these men and women had their whole lives ahead of them. Like Corporal Page, most of them were probably too young to have any memory of the event that took us to the country where they gave their lives. His sacrifice and that of these 12 other servicemembers must not be in vain. It is now up to us, both here in Congress and in our daily lives across this country, to live up to the lofty example that is set by their selflessness.

I ask that we remember him and his family in our prayers and that he rest in peace.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 3128, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, Americans making over $100,000 a year claimed nearly 80 percent of electric vehicle tax credits in 2016.

According to the National Resource Defense Council, a leftwing environmental advocacy group, EVs cost $19,000 more than gas-powered vehicles.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to say wealthy Americans should pay their fair share in taxes. Yet they want to expand the tax credit to disproportionately benefit even more people with six- figure salaries.

Everyday Americans are living paycheck to paycheck because of the sharp rise in costs due to inflation, but my colleagues on the other side want to subsidize luxury vehicles only the rich can afford using money from hard-working taxpayers, and my amendment would put a stop to that.

It simply prohibits individuals from claiming the tax credit if they make over $100,000 a year or if the car they are buying costs over $40,000. There is nothing wrong with the well-off buying fancy cars. I just don't think America's hard-earned taxpayer dollars should help to pay for it.

While I question why we are subsidizing this industry at all, the least we can do is to show bipartisan support for denying taxpayer subsidies for the rich.

Mr. President, we have a pickup truck.

Vote on Amendment No. 3128

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Carper and Senator Capito for the work they have been doing here on the floor. I appreciate their diligence in trying to get amendments up.

I am glad to offer this bipartisan amendment with my colleague from Nevada. It would promote transparency among all Federal funding avenues for broadband infrastructure deployment.

Right now, funding is divided among several Agencies: FCC, NTIA, USDA, HHS, Treasury, and many others. Some of these programs have detailed maps of where funding is going, but some do not. Even when there are maps, it still requires searching through several web pages and sources to find out what you are looking for, if you can find it at all.

Without a clear picture of where the funding is going, it will be increasingly difficult to avoid duplication and distribute resources where they are needed the most. So our amendment would create an online mapping tool through an interagency process so we can view the latest progress of all of these deployment projects in one place. I would urge adoption of the amendment.

Thank you.

A recorded vote would be fine.

Mr. President, I would like to speak for a moment about

Mr. President, I would like to recognize the 100th anniversary of Oregon Trail Days. This Nebraska tradition honors our State's history as one of the first stops on the Oregon Trail. Settlers would start their journey on the banks of the Missouri River, passing through Kansas before turning north into Nebraska. Their journey took them through hundreds of miles of central and western Nebraska, including past Chimney Rock, the most noted landmark on the Oregon Trail's nearly 2,200 miles.

Oregon Trail Days has commemorated this pioneer history every year since 1921, when it started as a small, 1-day parade. Today, this festival has grown into a 4-day celebration that takes over the town of Gering in the Nebraska Panhandle for 1 weekend each July. Oregon Trail Days has something for everyone: Visitors can enjoy concerts, parades, an arts and crafts fair, sporting events, food shows, car exhibitions, and even a chili cook-off. This is a wonderful opportunity to get together and remember the adventurous spirit of the pioneers who settled our land, and who built strong communities for their families across Nebraska.

Mr. President, I am honored to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Oregon Trail Days here in the Senate. Here is to 100 more years of this beloved tradition.

Mr. President, today I would like to congratulate Randall ``Randy'' C. Gordon on his retirement from the National Grain and Feed Association, NGFA, after nearly 43 years of service.

A native Nebraskan, Randy graduated from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln, UNL, with undergraduate degrees in journalism, history, and political science. After college, Randy worked at UNL's Agricultural Communications Department and freelanced for the Omaha World-Herald.

Randy's NGFA story began on July 1, 1978, when he was hired as the director of information services. In 1987, he was promoted as NGFA's vice president for communications and government relations. A voracious reader and writer, in 1996, Randy authored a history of the first 100 years of the NGFA for its centennial celebration, entitled ``A Century of Agricultural Abundance Through Free Enterprise.'' In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration awarded Randy for his contributions to preventing the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, in the United States. In 2012, Randy became president and CEO of NGFA. Through more than four decades of NGFA service, Randy has made countless contributions to the U.S. agricultural industry.

As the senior senator from Nebraska, I congratulate Randy on a successful and impactful career representing crucial aspects of the agricultural value chain. Randy, I wish you, your wife Barbara, and your children and grandchildren good health as you enter retirement. You have done Nebraska proud.

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

Mr. President, I like to think that infrastructure is in my DNA. My father was Jerry Strobel, a civil engineer who spent his entire career with the Nebraska Department of Transportation. Now, that was back when it was still called the Department of Roads. He eventually became director/State engineer and served under two different Governors, Kay Orr and Ben Nelson, one Republican and one Democrat.

My dad used to take my two brothers and me on weekend road trips across Nebraska to check up on our infrastructure--trips that he would call ``inspection tours.'' Many of the photos that I have from my childhood are of my brothers and me standing on partially finished bridges, in front of bulldozers, and next to highways that were under various stages of completion. He taught me how to drop a plumb line and showed me how to handle his surveying equipment.

Those trips with my dad taught me that infrastructure takes a long time to plan, it takes a long time to permit, and it takes a long time to build. Even short stretches of a single highway can sometimes--well, it can take years to finish. To get the most out of our limited taxpayer resources, we must condense that process to save both time and money.

I learned that reliable infrastructure doesn't happen by accident, and when I was elected to the Nebraska Legislature, I brought that appreciation with me. As chair of the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee, I introduced bills like the Nebraska Build Act. The new revenue from that bill has funded over a dozen important infrastructure projects across Nebraska.

Nebraskans and all Americans know what actual infrastructure is. It is roads and bridges, but it is also ports and airports and railroads and pipelines and waterways and broadband. Those things are a core responsibility of government. The American people also know what infrastructure is not. If Congress passes a bill to reform Medicare, that is not infrastructure; that is healthcare.

We all know that words don't change their meaning overnight to suit one party or the other's political goals, but President Biden seems to think they do. He is asking us to support an infrastructure proposal that could eventually top $2.7 trillion, which redefines that word to mean policies such as climate research and federally funded home or community care services--things that have nothing to do with what we have traditionally called infrastructure.

Less than 6 percent of the $2.25 trillion that is identified in the Biden proposal would go to roads and bridges. Barely 4 percent would go to broadband, and less than 2 percent is for airports. At the same time, hundreds of billions of dollars would be funneled to things like housing, Medicare, and electric vehicles.

The President wants to enact trillions of dollars in new taxes to pay for

all of this. Proposals being discussed include raising the capital gains tax to the highest level in history, as well as forcing American businesses--and then, ultimately, their customers--to pay the highest combined corporate tax rate in the developed world. Congressional Democrats have also proposed getting rid of the estate tax exemption, which would make the Federal death tax apply to hard-working, middle- class families for the first time in decades. This would hit our small, family Main Street businesses and our family farms, making it even more difficult to pass their life's work on to their children.

Infrastructure has always been bipartisan, and it has always enjoyed widespread support. I would gladly--I would gladly--support a bill that takes our very real infrastructure problems seriously, and I told President Biden that when I met with him at the White House a few weeks ago. But his proposal simply doesn't do that. The President's plan asks the Senate to vote for a policy wish list of priorities that no one--no one outside of Washington, DC's bubble--has ever dreamed of calling infrastructure.

When it comes to real infrastructure, the Senate does have bipartisan roots. We passed the FAST Act by a vote of 83 to 16 under President Obama in 2015. We passed an FAA reauthorization 93 to 6 under President Trump. And the Senate unanimously approved water development bills and my pipeline safety bill last year. I see no reason why the administration can't tackle this important issue in a bipartisan way once again, and the President, who represented Delaware in the Senate for more than 35 years, knows better than most that we do this every day. We do it on bills like the HAULS Act, which I reintroduced in March to provide more flexibility to ag and livestock haulers and which has won support by both Republicans and Democrats. There is also bipartisan support for my bill to establish an online portal for reporting blocked railroad crossings.

My Democratic colleagues and I find common ground on infrastructure more often than we disagree, and that includes bills like the Rural Spectrum Accessibility Act, which made internet access more widely available in rural areas.

History shows that infrastructure is a bipartisan issue, and it can be once again. But, right now, our friends on the other side of the aisle are pushing this wish list of priorities for their progressive agenda and calling it infrastructure.

For our part, Senate Republicans have made it clear that we are willing to work with the President on a bill that actually addresses our Nation's ailing infrastructure and makes targeted investments to meet the needs that we have.

We introduced our own framework last week. It draws on our past bipartisan successes, like the FAST Act, and it focuses on roads and bridges, broadband, and other actual infrastructure. It matches or raises the funding levels in the FAST Act, such as $299 billion versus $226 billion for roads and bridges, and provides nearly twice as much funding for transportation safety programs and rail and Amtrak grants.

We have spent enormous amounts of money in the last year to deal with COVID-19, and Republicans and Democrats both voted for five bills, totaling around $4 trillion, to address that very real crisis. Another $1.9 trillion passed on a partisan basis in January. That is $6 trillion of new spending in 1 year--$6 trillion of new spending in 1 year. That level of spending is not sustainable. Adding another $2.7 trillion that is in the President's plan to this spending that we already have is not sustainable.

Our proposal is clear that funding for infrastructure should be fiscally responsible. It should use existing, proven formula programs as much as possible, and it should make regulations less burdensome. This is what President Biden should be focused on, and I hope that he takes us up on our offer.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.