Floor Statements

Mr. President, in 1946, the National School Lunch Program was signed into law by President Truman--broadly supported in a bipartisan manner. And for 76 years, we have been providing food for our children's schools so they have every opportunity to learn and to be successful. Over the years, we have added school breakfast, and then summer meals, and other support.

At the beginning of COVID, we worked together on a bipartisan basis to make sure our children still had access to healthy meals, even though they weren't able to physically be in school. We have worked together to provide critical funding and flexibility until now. Our kids are counting on us to do this again.

In 22 days--22 days--healthy meals for many American children will stop if we can't get the bipartisan support necessary to extend the flexibilities and the funding that allows schools and summer programs to keep feeding our children healthy meals--22 days.

Again, critical funding will stop in 22 days. That is not very far. Summer programs need to be planning right now. And many children are already starting those summer programs. Critical funding is going to stop in 22 days, even though supply chains are still broken and costs are still rising.

In July 2020, with bipartisan changes we made in the middle of the pandemic, almost 6 million children received summer meals, and that was double the year before. This was a great thing for children and families across the country.

During the school year, the roughly 30 million children who participate in school meals knew that they could count on breakfast and lunch each day. They may not get supper, they may not get other food, but they could count on breakfast and lunch.

These are real kids, the same as my grandchildren and yours, and they need our continued support to be healthy and to be successful. That is what this is about. They want to spend their summers playing with their friends and their school days focusing on learning, not just trying to ignore a headache and a growling tummy.

There is a little boy in Coopersville, MI, who got summer meals for the first time because his school district could deliver to his neighborhood. If local sites can't open or flexibility doesn't happen, if these options end at the end of the month in just 22 days, 20 percent of the meal providers in Michigan will likely no longer be able to provide that healthy food in the summer.

Kids have always been able to count on healthy meals at school, but next year is going to bring new challenges for children, for families, for schools.

Take the little girl in Port Huron, MI, whose family is doing their very best to make ends meet as they recover from the pandemic. Over the past 2 years, she has been able to get school meals without her parents and her school having to worry about lots and lots of paperwork and redtape. But when the flexibilities end, schools will be right back at it, having mounds of paperwork for too many families, which, too often, result in kids who need help being missed or left hungry. Schools may also be forced to increase the price of meals for children, and that is going to be very difficult for many working families.

This lack of action is not only about our children, which, of course, that should be enough that this is about our children; but, too often, when we talk about the budgets and the programs, we lose sight of the people who are doing the work to feed our children, and they have to make the hard choices on how they are going to continue to do that.

For example, 357,000 students get their meals at a school in the Miami-Dade school district. It is the fourth largest school district in the country serving more than 35 million meals each year to young people. But because of the uncertainty in the supply chains, Miami-Dade has struggled to find a single distributor to serve their school district.

While this contract has since been addressed, many districts have not been so lucky, because if we go back to low reimbursements in the fall, they are finding they can't find vendors, providers, that will bid for those contracts.

Issues are popping up all over the country. In Fort Worth, TX, kids have increasingly limited options for food. Again, supply chains have broken down; food supply chains have broken down. The school district is reporting over 400 options out of stock, things as simple as orange juice or chicken wings.

In a Cleveland school nutrition program, they have got 67 open positions they are trying to fill, which is the other issue right now coming out of the pandemic as we look at our labor shortage.

Outside Portland, OR, school food staff are going to grocery stores to get the food and supplies they need when their distributor cancels their order, and they are paying up to 10 times more doing that in a retail store.

Starting this month, kids will have fewer options for healthy milk and other dairy products when the main dairy serving Northern Virginia schools is going out of business. There are a lot of challenges.

When Senator McConnell, Leader McConnell, said he didn't want to extend the funding and flexibilities because the pandemic is over--the effects of the pandemic are not over, nor is the pandemic. We are managing it better. Thank you to the President's leadership and all of our hard work to make sure we have the vaccines, and the testing, and the therapeutic medicines, and so on, but the supply chains that broke down when you shut down an entire economy--not just an American economy, by the way, but global economy. These are still trying to be fixed in so many different ways to try to get things up and going, which, of course, has led to the increased cost in inflation.

So we are in a situation where our schools, going into next year--not only this summer but next year--are going to have a very, very difficult time making sure they can provide healthy meals to our children, and there is no excuse for that to be happening if we come together and act.

The fact is, we are seeing shortages across the board. Healthy options are hard to find, and there are delays for new equipment so schools could safely store prepared food. What happens when school food staff are faced with challenges like this? Kids don't eat;

that is what happens. And that is not OK.

Nationwide, 90 percent of our schools and summer programs count on the funding and flexibility that is currently in place--90 percent of our schools. All of this in red, 90 percent--over 90 percent--count on the flexibilities, they count on the funding that we put in place during the pandemic that is still needed because of the challenges going on. This is who is counting on us to act to be able to help them feed children.

Starting July 1, 22 days from now, that is going to stop for many schools. I have been told that if we don't act, one-third of our schools will be in such a dire situation that they may not be able to continue the National School Lunch Program at all. Let me repeat that. One-third of our schools may not be able to provide healthy meals to our most at-risk children through the school lunch program at all if we don't come together and do something to help them. And we know what to do. We just need the bipartisan support to do it. This is a shocking failure of our country's responsibility to provide for our children and set them up for success.

Throughout the pandemic, Democrats and Republicans have come together to make sure that schools and summer meal programs have the tools they need to feed hungry kids. We need Republicans to join us again. We are working to return to normal, but we aren't there yet. It is so urgent that we pass my Support Kids Not Red Tape Act right now. I am extremely grateful that we have every Democratic Member of the U.S. Senate and Independent Members and two of our Republican colleagues leading the way: Senator Murkowski and Senator Collins. It is a bipartisan, broadly supported way to make sure our kids aren't going hungry. But time is running out, and we only need eight more Republican colleagues to join us. We have 52; we need 8. We need eight more Republican colleagues to join us to be able to provide support for our children and support for our schools throughout the next year as we are working our way through all of these supply chain issues and so on that are getting in the way.

Our kids are counting on us. Twenty-two days--twenty-two days--that is what we are talking about. We have got 22 days before all of the support, all of the funding to be able to make sure that as many children are getting healthy food in the summer as possible, the children who need it--and in the schools that we have a school lunch program and that we are able to provide healthy meals so that kids can focus on learning, they can focus on being kids, they can focus on being successful--not just how they are going to manage their hunger through another day.

Twenty-two days, Mr. President. Our kids are counting on us. We need to act.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have seen requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, first I want to thank my friend from Ohio for his passionate leadership on this very, very important issue and the importance of standing with Ukraine. I want to thank him for that.

Nomination of Chavonda J. Jacobs-Young

Mr. President, we are about to vote on a very important position in the Department of Agriculture, and I am urging my colleagues to confirm Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young as our next Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics at the Department of Agriculture.

It is critical to quickly confirm Dr. Jacobs-Young because without Agency leadership and senior staff, the research Agencies at USDA can't do the really essential work that our producers are counting on.

Dr. Jacobs-Young is extremely qualified. She has held leadership roles at multiple research Agencies at the USDA and the White House. She will be the first woman of color to serve in the USDA's highest scientific post.

She was the first African-American woman in the country to receive a Ph.D. in wood and paper science and the first woman of color to serve as the Administrator for the Agriculture Research Service.

She has even got her own statue on the National Mall as part of the IfThenSheCan exhibit to celebrate contemporary women innovators in science, technology, engineering, and math--her own statue on the Mall.

Her commitment to science, research, and education is a true inspiration.

I am excited about the nomination of Dr. Jacobs-Young, and I know that she will help protect scientific integrity at the USDA and build a diverse and resilient scientific workforce. I appreciate the cooperation of my colleague and friend, our Ranking Member Senator Boozman, in moving this nomination forward, and I urge my colleagues to vote to confirm Dr. Jacobs-Young today.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I had originally, before yesterday, planned to speak today at length about the fact that in 36 days children across the country are going to lose healthy meals they have been getting in the summer, as well as meals during the school year, and schools are going to be put in a very difficult situation--up to one-third of the schools may not be able to offer school meals at all.

So that was my intent in coming to the floor, but after what happened, the horrible situation in Texas, 19 more children, a teacher, a grandma dying, now I wonder if it is how many more kids will be killed in the next 36 days.

We don't have to live like this. We don't have to live like this where we are begging for 8 more Republicans to join us, 52 of us, who want to make sure kids get healthy meals. We don't have to live like that, and we don't have to live in a situation where parents are afraid--where people are afraid to go to their place of worship or they are afraid to go to the grocery store, where they are afraid to just live because of some random shooting by somebody who got a hold of a-- of a gun, a military assault weapon or didn't have to go through a background check and went to a gun show or whatever it is, whatever it is that is causing the carnage in our country related to guns and mass shootings.

It is not happening in other countries--it is not happening in other countries, and they have as many challenges as we do. But in other countries, that may be somebody going into school with a knife and the kids get hurt, but they live. Here, it is assault weapons. It is shooting children indiscriminately in an elementary school. We don't have to live like this. We don't have to live like this.

The question is, how many Republicans would join us to save children's lives from gun violence? How many? Can we just get started? You know, Leader Schumer has put two bills on the calendar related to background checks: the bipartisan Background Checks Act--closing the gun show loophole, requiring background checks for gun purchases made through private unlicensed dealers--and the Enhanced Background Checks Act, which would provide a national background check system, enough time to thoroughly review gun sales.

Now, these are not controversial. Neither is feeding children by the way. These are not controversial. Ninety percent of the public says, duh, of course, of course.

Now, the folks that don't want us to do it are the folks that make the guns. They make a lot of money. They are trying to pit us against each other. They put out all kinds of crazy theories. They are funding our Republican colleagues to stop anything from happening because, God forbid, if the profits of the gun manufacturers would go down because maybe there were a few less guns that were on the street.

This is not rocket science. We know what to do. I grew up in a northern Michigan community surrounded by legal gun ownership--my own family, my friends, my relatives. You know when the assault weapon ban went in for 10 years, nobody in my family stopped hunting. Nobody in my family had to say, oh, well, we can't do what we want to do because military assault weapons aren't available.

That was put in by Democrats. It was then repealed by Republicans. And we saw violence--violent shootings that had gone down tremendously, suddenly go up. So there is a lot of different things that we could do. And the question is, will we come together on any of them? Will we start with comprehensive background checks? That is the question.

Will we have Republicans joining us? Every action we take--or inaction--relates to our values, and it relates to our will to do it.

We can do anything if we want to do it. I mean, last week we came together on this floor to address baby formula for the WIC program, and we did it together. It was great. One of the fastest things I have ever seen move through here, and I appreciate that. I appreciate Senator Boozman joining me in that.

But why can't we then extend that, first of all, to making sure in the summer, kids get healthy food that they are going to start losing in 36 days and that during the school year we are supporting our schools to provide healthy meals for all of our children in a time of supply chain breakdowns, costs going up.

And what happens when we start hearing in the fall from those schools that have to stop all school meals because somehow we couldn't come together and prioritize feeding children?

And on top of that--I mean, I hate to say feeding children is, you know--all of this is important, but their lives--we can't even come together around basic commonsense measures that will begin to address what is happening with the random shootings and the killings of our babies, of our children. We can do better than this. We have to do better than this. We have to do better than this.

We only need 10 Republicans--we need 8 Republicans to help us feed healthy kids in the summer and on into the--give kids healthy meals this summer and in the fall, 8. We only need 10, we only need 10 Republicans to join us on background checks, closing the gun show loophole.

We don't need everybody. We don't need everybody. Some folks can go run and stand with the gun manufacturers and what has become incredibly extreme NRA dangerous positions.

Folks, we just need 10--10 people to stand up and go: This is too much. This has gone too far. We can do better than this.

Because if not now, what is the number? I would like to ask Leader McConnell, what is the number?

How many children will he describe and how much sympathy will he show for dead children on the floor of the U.S. Senate before it is enough? How many? One hundred more? Two hundred more? A thousand more? When is it enough, when too many children have been killed? When is it enough?

It is past enough right now. We can do better than this for our kids, and I hope this is the moment that Republicans in the U.S. Senate will step up and join us.

As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills, en bloc: Calendar No. 185, H.R. 767; Calendar No. 186, H.R. 1170; Calendar No. 187, H.R. 1444, Calendar No. 189, S. 2932; Calendar No. 325, S. 3825; Calendar No.

326, S. 3826; Calendar No. 328, H.R. 735; Calendar No. 329, H.R. 1298; Calendar No. 330, H.R. 2324; Calendar No. 332, H.R. 3579; Calendar No. 333, H.R. 3613; and Calendar No. 334, H.R. 4168.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the bills en bloc be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of Judge Stephanie Davis, who is nominated to serve on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Davis has spent her entire career in Michigan, and we are better for it. Judge Davis began work in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Michigan in 1997. During her time there, she served in the office's civil and criminal divisions. She prosecuted fraud, bank robbery, embezzlement, violent crime, public corruption, and criminal conspiracies involving drug trafficking, as well as money laundering. She oversaw community and law enforcement initiatives and led the office's diversity efforts.

In 2016, Judge Davis became a magistrate judge for the U.S. District for the Eastern District of Michigan.

In 2019, with the strong support of both Senator Peters and myself, Judge Davis was nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Michigan. Her confirmation was bipartisan, and so was her support in committee for this Sixth Circuit nomination.

Judge Davis has done an outstanding job every place she has been serving the people of Michigan, and I have no doubt that she will continue her strong record of public service on the U.S. court of appeals.

I have had the opportunity to get to know Judge Davis, and it has really been a joy. She is not just an extremely accomplished jurist, she is also a wonderful person, and those qualities, no doubt, are needed more than ever these days. So it is with great confidence that I urge my colleagues to support this wonderful nomination.

Mr. President, I would now ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess until 2:15 as is part of the schedule.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have two requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I remember being a new mom and then a new grandma, and all you want to do is hold your baby close and savor every single moment. Instead, parents across the country right now are in a panic--forced to search high and low to find baby formula, the safe baby formula that they need, any safe baby formula.

Almost half of all of our babies born in the United States receive their baby formula through a really important program called WIC--the Women, Infants, and Children program--that we are so proud of, and it is something that has made sure that safe baby formula and healthy food is available for pregnant moms and for babies throughout the first years of a baby's life. So, as all of this has happened now with this emergency--and it is a huge emergency, a huge crisis--there are no options here when children--you know, when babies need to eat. When babies are born, they need safe baby formula.

This has been an ``all hands on deck'' moment for all of us. That is why, as chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee--and I am so proud the Presiding Officer is a member of our committee, is a very valued member of our committee--I am joined with our ranking member, John Boozman, to introduce legislation today to make sure that the USDA can be as flexible as possible in getting our moms and dads and, most importantly, babies the critical baby formula that they need right now.

We are doing this in conjunction with the House, which also has bipartisan legislation. It is my understanding that they will be voting on that soon, and I am hopeful that we can do the same thing. This should be something that brings us all together as quickly as possible.

As an example, the reason we need the bill dealing with WIC--and there is a lot and so much positive that comes from this program. But right now, we make sure that there are safety standards, high-quality safety standards, and that we negotiate, through a competitive process, the best price for moms and babies, but we now need to have flexibility so when a family--for instance, maybe, in Traverse City, MI, or in Lansing or in Detroit--goes to a grocery store and there is only one brand on the shelf and it is not the brand under the WIC contract, that they can buy it. If that is the only thing available, they need to be able to use their WIC support to be able to purchase that.

That is something that our USDA Secretary has jumped into gear to be able to make that happen, but we have got to make sure that that can continue, or we have got to make sure if a parent, again, goes to the store and there are different sizes of formula cans or different prescriptions that normally would not fit under the WIC contract, that they can waive those because we have to be able to get whatever is safe baby formula to families as quickly as possible.

These may sound like small things, but they are the difference right now between whether or not our families on WIC are able to actually get the formula that they need.

In order to make sure that that continues, we have introduced legislation that will guarantee that the flexibilities the USDA needs will continue beyond the public health pandemic flexibilities that they are currently operating under. They have short-term flexibilities because of the public health pandemic. We want to make sure this is permanent and that whether it is a recall, a safety recall, a supply chain breakdown--whatever it is--that, with all hands on deck, the USDA has the capacity--the authority, the tools--to be able to move forward and make sure that they can respond as quickly as possible.

We also want to guarantee that formula manufacturers that want to compete for these WIC contracts have a plan in place to respond to any kind of shortage so we don't have this situation happen again. There is just no excuse, frankly, for what happened here.

I want to thank Secretary Vilsack and the USDA for moving quickly once they were notified about the Abbott plant shutdown.

I am deeply concerned that they were not given a heads-up earlier. The FDA was working for months, evidently--for a few months--with Abbott around concerns as it related to the safety standards and so on at the plant, and the USDA needed to know sooner so that they could prepare sooner. They understand how serious this is, what an emergency it is. So, when they found out, they went immediately into gear to make sure that our moms and babies, if at all possible, in any way possible, could get what they need. That has to be a top priority, not just for the moms and babies on WIC; all moms, all parents, all babies need to make sure that it is an ``all hands on deck'' and that we are moving as fast as possible.

That is why I also want to thank President Biden and the FDA for working with other baby formula manufacturers to increase supplies.

Supplies are going up. I am very anxious to see more manufacturers of baby formula. I think we, as in every area, it seems, of our economy, have too much consolidation--that is certainly true here--and we need more competition, and we need more baby formula manufacturers competing for our contracts. We need to have a contract that gives the best price to WIC's moms and dads and babies, but we need to make sure that we have as many large and small companies that are competing for that to be able to make sure that we have the formula available and that we are getting the very best price.

I also want to thank them for carefully and thoughtfully opening up imports from the European Union. We certainly have other countries that have the same very high safety standards that we do. We have got to make sure that anything that comes in is of the very highest safety standard.

We know that, right now, we have got to make sure that baby formula is on the shelf. Children--babies--need this every day, not ``let's wait a month or 2 months.'' This is like today that this needs to be happening. Again, there needs to be a sense of urgency to do whatever we can related to this issue and look at all aspects of it to make sure that this does not happen again, if at all possible. This should not be happening again.

Within our WIC bill, we are focused on what we can do to support the USDA to have the maximum flexibilities to support moms and babies and on what we can do to make sure the manufacturers are prepared if something

like this were to happen--some shortage--down the road. We need to make sure that we are looking at every aspect of this and acting now, as fast as possible, and then preparing for the future.

I want to thank, again, Senator Boozman and welcome all of our Members on both sides of the aisle to join us in what, I hope, will be legislation that moves very, very quickly.

The Access to Baby Formula Act is something that every single Member of the U.S. Senate should be supporting so that we can move this legislation out as quickly as possible, working with the House, and getting this done.

Mr. President, I remember being a new mom and then a new grandma, and all you want to do is hold your baby close and savor every single moment. Instead, parents across the country right now are in a panic--forced to search high and low to find baby formula, the safe baby formula that they need, any safe baby formula.

Almost half of all of our babies born in the United States receive their baby formula through a really important program called WIC--the Women, Infants, and Children program--that we are so proud of, and it is something that has made sure that safe baby formula and healthy food is available for pregnant moms and for babies throughout the first years of a baby's life. So, as all of this has happened now with this emergency--and it is a huge emergency, a huge crisis--there are no options here when children--you know, when babies need to eat. When babies are born, they need safe baby formula.

This has been an ``all hands on deck'' moment for all of us. That is why, as chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee--and I am so proud the Presiding Officer is a member of our committee, is a very valued member of our committee--I am joined with our ranking member, John Boozman, to introduce legislation today to make sure that the USDA can be as flexible as possible in getting our moms and dads and, most importantly, babies the critical baby formula that they need right now.

We are doing this in conjunction with the House, which also has bipartisan legislation. It is my understanding that they will be voting on that soon, and I am hopeful that we can do the same thing. This should be something that brings us all together as quickly as possible.

As an example, the reason we need the bill dealing with WIC--and there is a lot and so much positive that comes from this program. But right now, we make sure that there are safety standards, high-quality safety standards, and that we negotiate, through a competitive process, the best price for moms and babies, but we now need to have flexibility so when a family--for instance, maybe, in Traverse City, MI, or in Lansing or in Detroit--goes to a grocery store and there is only one brand on the shelf and it is not the brand under the WIC contract, that they can buy it. If that is the only thing available, they need to be able to use their WIC support to be able to purchase that.

That is something that our USDA Secretary has jumped into gear to be able to make that happen, but we have got to make sure that that can continue, or we have got to make sure if a parent, again, goes to the store and there are different sizes of formula cans or different prescriptions that normally would not fit under the WIC contract, that they can waive those because we have to be able to get whatever is safe baby formula to families as quickly as possible.

These may sound like small things, but they are the difference right now between whether or not our families on WIC are able to actually get the formula that they need.

In order to make sure that that continues, we have introduced legislation that will guarantee that the flexibilities the USDA needs will continue beyond the public health pandemic flexibilities that they are currently operating under. They have short-term flexibilities because of the public health pandemic. We want to make sure this is permanent and that whether it is a recall, a safety recall, a supply chain breakdown--whatever it is--that, with all hands on deck, the USDA has the capacity--the authority, the tools--to be able to move forward and make sure that they can respond as quickly as possible.

We also want to guarantee that formula manufacturers that want to compete for these WIC contracts have a plan in place to respond to any kind of shortage so we don't have this situation happen again. There is just no excuse, frankly, for what happened here.

I want to thank Secretary Vilsack and the USDA for moving quickly once they were notified about the Abbott plant shutdown.

I am deeply concerned that they were not given a heads-up earlier. The FDA was working for months, evidently--for a few months--with Abbott around concerns as it related to the safety standards and so on at the plant, and the USDA needed to know sooner so that they could prepare sooner. They understand how serious this is, what an emergency it is. So, when they found out, they went immediately into gear to make sure that our moms and babies, if at all possible, in any way possible, could get what they need. That has to be a top priority, not just for the moms and babies on WIC; all moms, all parents, all babies need to make sure that it is an ``all hands on deck'' and that we are moving as fast as possible.

That is why I also want to thank President Biden and the FDA for working with other baby formula manufacturers to increase supplies.

Supplies are going up. I am very anxious to see more manufacturers of baby formula. I think we, as in every area, it seems, of our economy, have too much consolidation--that is certainly true here--and we need more competition, and we need more baby formula manufacturers competing for our contracts. We need to have a contract that gives the best price to WIC's moms and dads and babies, but we need to make sure that we have as many large and small companies that are competing for that to be able to make sure that we have the formula available and that we are getting the very best price.

I also want to thank them for carefully and thoughtfully opening up imports from the European Union. We certainly have other countries that have the same very high safety standards that we do. We have got to make sure that anything that comes in is of the very highest safety standard.

We know that, right now, we have got to make sure that baby formula is on the shelf. Children--babies--need this every day, not ``let's wait a month or 2 months.'' This is like today that this needs to be happening. Again, there needs to be a sense of urgency to do whatever we can related to this issue and look at all aspects of it to make sure that this does not happen again, if at all possible. This should not be happening again.

Within our WIC bill, we are focused on what we can do to support the USDA to have the maximum flexibilities to support moms and babies and on what we can do to make sure the manufacturers are prepared if something

like this were to happen--some shortage--down the road. We need to make sure that we are looking at every aspect of this and acting now, as fast as possible, and then preparing for the future.

I want to thank, again, Senator Boozman and welcome all of our Members on both sides of the aisle to join us in what, I hope, will be legislation that moves very, very quickly.

The Access to Baby Formula Act is something that every single Member of the U.S. Senate should be supporting so that we can move this legislation out as quickly as possible, working with the House, and getting this done.

Madam President, I rise today to honor and remember the veterans throughout Michigan's history who have given their lives on behalf of our country.

Even before Michigan was a State, these brave patriots have been willing to risk everything--even their lives--in order to defend our Nation, our people, and our way of life.

Perhaps the stakes were never higher than in World War II. Totalitarianism threatened free countries and free people, echoes of which we are tragically seeing today in Ukraine. Americans--and Michiganders--would not stand by and watch democracy die.

We planted victory gardens. We purchased war bonds. And we built an Arsenal of Democracy strong enough to defeat dictators and defend freedom around the world.

More than half a million Michigan men and women served in our Armed Forces. For more than 15,000 of them, it was the last thing they ever did.

We can never repay them for their sacrifice. But we can remember them, honor them, and share their stories.

That is the aim of the Michigan World War II Legacy Memorial in Royal Oak. Ground was broken for this special place just last month.

The memorial will feature statues representing life on the battlefront and the homefront. A series of pillars will stand for Michigan's contributions to the war. A brick walkway will tell the stories of those who fought and sacrificed. And a wall of stars will commemorate the lives that were lost.

Each one of the 1,300 stars will represent more than 10 Michigan men and women who gave their lives for our country. One of those stars shines for Pfc. Walter Wetzel of Roseville.

On the morning of April 3, 1945, Pfc. Wetzel was guarding his platoon's command post when it came under fire. German troops fought their way close to the building and threw two grenades into the room Pfc. Wetzel was defending alongside his fellow soldiers. Pfc. Wetzel shouted a warning and threw himself on top of the grenades, sacrificing his own life so that others could fight on.

For this supreme act of bravery, Pfc. Wetzel was awarded the Medal of Honor, which is now on display at the Michigan Heroes Museum in Frankenmuth.

Pfc. Wetzel deserves to be remembered, as does everyone who laid down their lives for our country. It is incredibly fitting that Michigan would honor their sacrifice in such a lasting way.

This Memorial Day, we remember all Michigan veterans who gave their lives in service to our country. And we salute all of our veterans who are still with us. It is only because of their sacrifice that our democracy endures.