Floor Statements

Mr. President, 12 years ago, the U.S. Congress was on the precipice of passing historic climate legislation--legislation that may not have been perfect but would have cut carbon pollution by 80 percent by the year 2050, and it would have set us on a path to a healthier, cleaner, safer world.

Unfortunately, despite that bill passing through the House of Representatives, a bill which Congressman Henry Waxman and I were able to craft and to move through the House of Representatives, even though the Senate and the Senate Democrats had a supermajority, that legislation was ultimately defeated by the same legislative body, the U.S. Senate, that I serve in today. In 2009, the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing rather than something substantial that would give us a fighting chance against this generational crisis, which is why we have spent the

last 12 years in the climate wilderness, with full-blown Republican obstructionism and no meaningful congressional action on climate justice all the while. That wilderness literally burns to the ground because of climate change.

In the intervening decade, we have suffered the consequences of climate inaction. Weather that used to be extreme is now the new normal, and that normal is deadly. Our addiction to fossil fuels has put communities at risk--worsening asthma, cancers, and disease in general--and has exposed working people to criminal price gouging from Big Oil and Big Gas.

Throughout this summer, the United States has experienced devastating heat waves, putting 100 million Americans under heat warnings across the country. People are dying in Kentucky. Children are dying in Kentucky as a result of the extreme rain and floods--rain that still hasn't stopped. Those are so-called 100-year floods. Well, now they are happening on a weekly basis--in Kentucky. Over and over again, communities throughout the United States are facing deadly wildfires, storms, and droughts, all of which have become more frequent and more severe over the last 12 years.

But instead of giving up after that missed opportunity more than a decade ago, we reengaged. We rebuilt and reenergized a stronger, smarter climate movement, one that expanded carbon calculators to include climate justice; one that swapped complicated carbon trading systems for direct funding for environmental justice communities in our country; and one that exchanged an environmental-above-all strategy for a 21st-century contract with communities, with the promise of climate justice, well-paid union jobs, and cuts to climate pollution so all of our children and grandchildren can thrive on a livable planet.

So let me be clear. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is not the Green New Deal that America wants and needs. I wish it were. But I have learned a hard truth throughout my years in Congress: Perfect ideas can only live on through imperfect legislation.

As the author of both the Green New Deal and the Waxman-Markey climate bill, I know we cannot wait another 12 years for billions of dollars in investment to fight the climate crisis. This is not the bill we wanted. It is not the bill I would have drafted. But we need a package now to fight for and resources to fight with.

This bill will not correct every economic injustice in our society or rectify the economic disparities between Big Oil billionaires and working families, but it starts a process that we absolutely need to level the playing field.

The Inflation Reduction Act makes sure that every billion-dollar corporation finally pays a higher tax rate than a preschool teacher. Last year, a preschool teacher in Massachusetts paid 8 percent of their average $39,000 salary in Federal taxes. ExxonMobil paid only 2.8 percent of their $9.3 billion U.S. earnings in Federal taxes. Chevron paid a mere 1.8 percent of their $9.5 billion in U.S. earnings in Federal taxes in 2021. A kindergarten teacher in Massachusetts paid 8 percent on $39,000 of income.

Who did more for America last year--all of our kindergarten teachers or the executives at ExxonMobil and Chevron? Who contributed more to our society?

That is our challenge right now to pass this legislation because the status quo is immoral. It is outrageous. And unless we pass this bill, that disparity is perfectly legal. They can evade their responsibility to contribute to solving the problem which they created: the climate crisis.

Right now, they are letting preschool teachers contribute more than they are to a problem that families across our country are suffering from. By passing the Inflation Reduction Act, we can make sure that Big Oil finally pays more in taxes than preschool teachers. We can take that revenue and reinvest it into clean energy and healthier communities.

This bill will not give the climate movement the trillions needed to confront the crises of systematic racism, economic inequality, a broken health system, and climate injustice. But thanks to our relentless fighting, this bill contains a historic $60 billion in environmental justice investments.

Let me say that again: $60 billion will be in this bill to begin the process of rectifying the problems for Black and Brown and indigenous communities all across our country who have always been the victims of climate change, of environmental injustice.

This has never happened before in any bill in U.S. history. It is in this bill, finally. Now, that is the message of the Green New Deal. That was something that was driving FOX News and the oil companies crazy when we said we have to rectify environmental injustice as well as part of the Green New Deal. It is in this bill. It is in this bill, $60 billion. And that will begin to start righting the wrongs brought by polluters in our most vulnerable communities.

This could be a downpayment on clean air and safer communities everywhere, not just the suburbs, which have always breathed cleaner air than inner-city communities because they don't plant these oil and gas and other facilities in the suburbs; they put them right next to what they believe are the least powerful communities in our country.

We know this bill will not get us to the critical mark of 50 percent emissions reductions, 2005 levels, by 2030, which is the baseline of what we need to meet our 2050 targets. However--however--this package gets us to 40 percent reductions economy-wide, and, more importantly, it puts our economy on an emissions reductions trajectory that positions us to enact more clean energy and climate justice provisions in the future to meet the 50 percent goal. Securing these emissions reductions now is the start which we need, and we need it now.

This legislation reflects the largest single investment in climate justice and environmental protection in our Nation's history. And it meets the climate test. First, it reduces emissions, creates good- paying union jobs, and provides funding so that we can begin the long process of repairing historic harms in our environmental justice communities with that $60 billion investment.

Second, the bill lowers energy costs for consumers. Price-gouging and tax-dodging big oil companies are charging Americans more than $4 a gallon for gasoline, shaking money out of their pockets at the pumps all across our country. And what we are going to do is just point to the electric vehicle owners who pay an equivalent of 75 cents a gallon right now in our country in order to go the same distance. And we are going to open up this opportunity to tens of millions of additional Americans once we pass it.

The Inflation Reduction Act provides tax credits to low- and middle- income Americans so they can buy a new or a used EV, break their addiction to Big Oil, and save money on their daily commutes.

And, finally, the Inflation Reduction Act will make sure we make things in America again. The domestic manufacturing tax credits in this bill for the first time ensure that we will build electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines here in our own backyard, in the United States. American-made infrastructure means good-paying union jobs. And a new study released today shows that this bill will create--get ready--9 million new jobs in our country. That is what we are talking about. That is what we will be debating on the floor of the U.S. Senate over the next several days.

And I am especially proud of a provision I authored with Senator Chris Van Hollen and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell that would fund a national climate bank to ensure vulnerable American communities will have access to capital to invest in local clean energy projects and fuel a new generation of entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds.

How big is this program? Twenty-seven billion dollars and a climate bank that communities across the country can apply to at the lowest possible interest rates for their greening of their housing units, the greening of any other part of their community. And what McKinsey has estimated is that for every dollar that is in the bank, $27 billion, it will unleash $7 to $10 of private sector investment--meaning we are looking at $200 to $300 billion that are going to get unleashed just in this section in that one program.

And critical Defense Production Act funding will ensure that we have robust domestic supply chains to install heat pumps in American buildings and responsibly source critical minerals for clean energy technologies made in America.

We have to break this whole addiction that we have not only to foreign oil coming into our country but also being dependent upon other countries for the clean energy technologies. We are going to do it here. That is what this bill says. We are going to tell people we don't need your oil any more than we need your sand. We are going to do it right here. We are going to build the technologies right here in our country.

So my time in Congress has taught me this: We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Ending up with nothing might be a viable political option, but it is not a viable planetary option. This is a good bill with broad-based appeal that lowers costs for consumers, fights inflation with deficit reduction, protects our environment with critical justice investments, and provides affordable healthcare access to all Americans.

In 2009, zero was an option, which this Senate took. Zero is not an option we can take. We must pass this legislation. And we will begin a pathway for generations to come that says: We understood your anger. We understood why you as a younger generation believe that the system had failed you and that it had not provided the solutions which you deserve.

So let's pass this bill and keep fighting the cities and States and in the White House and in Congress so that we can finish the job in the years ahead, meet our climate targets, and finally pass the Green New Deal that our country deserves.

This is our moment. And the beauty of it is that there is a poetic justice in it. And it is that Chevron only paid 2.8 percent on their profits last year. ExxonMobil only paid 3 percent on their profits last year. They are the ones who are going to pay for the solutions to the problems which they created. They are going to be the source of the funding because we are going to force them to finally pay their taxes, to pay their fair share of the dues to live in this great country.

That moment of justice is arriving. And it is justice. They are the ones who should be paying for this. They are the ones who have a moral, political, and economic responsibility to pay for this bill. And they right now are screaming; they are absolutely angry that we are going to take this action. But I will tell you this. We are going to be forced to do it with no Republican support because the GOP now stands for ``Gas and Oil Party.'' It now stands for ``Gang of Polluters.'' That is the GOP of today. And they are going to say: Oh, my goodness, look at all the socialism that is going into this package for wind and solar and all-electric vehicles and batteries. And you know what this young generation's response is? What do you call tax breaks for oil, gas, and coal for 100 years? If that is not socialism, what is? And all we are looking for is fair treatment for the renewable energy revolution because once we give them the same kinds of incentives, get out of the way because we are going to have that revolution that young people in our country have wanted for so long.

So it is all on us, the Democrats. It is our moment to deliver for the American people and guarantee the resources we need to keep fighting for the future we deserve.

And, by the way, after we have created those 9 million new jobs, that is forever going to be a new political constituency in our country. They are going to be saying to Senators who are going to vote no today: What are you doing? You are voting against my new job that has been created?

And so this is just the beginning. And we are going to telescope the timeframe ultimately in order to finish the job.

Yes, we are now in a sprint to solve the problem because every night on every TV station, the lead stories are: floods and fires and every other imaginable consequence of climate change. And it is time, the moment has arrived, and the U.S. Senate, with only Democratic support, is ready to take the action that the younger generation in our country has been ready for.

I thank you for giving me the opportunity of being here.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, an illegitimate, stolen, and radicalized U.S. Supreme Court is putting the fundamental rights of Americans in jeopardy. Last month, the extremist Court took away the right to abortion, a right on which millions of Americans have relied for almost 50 years, undermining their health, their safety, their freedom.

The rightwing majority that overturned Roe v. Wade owns its control of the High Court to then-Leader McConnell's and Donald Trump's and Senate Republicans' theft of two seats on the Supreme Court. The Justices used their ill-gotten power to cast aside decades of precedent--precedent, which during their confirmation hearings they promised to honor, respect, and follow.

If anyone thinks this newly empowered Court's decision to strip Americans of a longstanding constitutional right won't be shamelessly repeated, they are wrong. What the Supreme Court just did with Roe is a preview of coming atrocities from this Supreme Court.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the decision overturning Roe v. Wade. And that concurrence is like a movie trailer for an upcoming horror film that Americans are forced to watch written, produced, and directed by a captured illegitimate Supreme Court. In his opinion, Justice Thomas made clear that he believes Americans have too many privacy rights under the U.S. Constitution, that the Supreme Court had erred in recognizing those rights, and that the Court should take them away as well--just as it did with the right to abortion.

This bears repeating.

A sitting Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States is arguing that Americans have too many rights.

What mistakes was Justice Thomas talking about?

Well, Justice Thomas urged the Court to correct the error the Court committed when it recognized this right to same-sex marriage in its 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

He told the Court to fix the mistake it made when it recognized the right of Americans to engage in private, consensual sexual activity in its 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas.

Then he said the Court got it wrong when it recognized the right of Americans to use contraception in its 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut.

But it is Justice Thomas who is in error, who is wrong, who has made a mistake. These are all fundamental, privacy-based rights which the Supreme Court correctly recognized. They should all remain the law of the land.

Today, I want to talk about the right to contraception that this extremist and out-of-touch Supreme Court and legislators in red States are taking aim at.

The Supreme Court has recognized the constitutional right to contraception for more than half a century, since its decision in the Griswold case in 1965. Over time, the Court has affirmed and expanded that right: in its 1972 decision, a Massachusetts case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, recognizing the right of all people to access contraceptives regardless of marital status; and in its 1977 decision in Carey v. Population Services International, which held that a State could not constitutionally prohibit the distribution of contraceptives to minors.

The right to contraception is therefore a fundamental right that the Court has repeatedly recognized and reaffirmed. It is a right that is central to a person's health, to their well-being, to their life, liberty, equality, and economic and social freedom in our country. It is a right grounded in the need and ability to make decisions about one's own body, one's own family, and one's own future. It is a right that is woven into the fabric of a free, pluralistic, and modern society. And it is a right that we must codify and make part of our law so that far-right, extremist judges and elected officials cannot take it away in order to advance their own blatantly political agendas.

That is why I have proudly introduced the Right to Contraception Act with my colleagues Senators Mazie Hirono and Tammy Duckworth, with Senator Blumenthal and Chair Patty Murray of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and have been joined by more than half of the Democratic Senate caucus.

The Right to Contraception Act would codify the Supreme Court's decision in Griswold, recognizing the right to obtain and use contraception. The Right to Contraception Act would enshrine that right in Federal law, and it would guarantee a healthcare provider's right to prescribe contraceptive products and services and information related to them.

The bill would also protect a range of contraceptives that are legally marketed under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The Right to Contraception Act would authorize the

U.S. Attorney General, as well as individuals and healthcare providers harmed by unlawful restrictions, to go to court to enforce the rights the bill establishes.

In short, the Right to Contraception Act would safeguard the rights established by more than 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and would protect access to contraception even if Griswold were overturned.

The concerns that have led to the introduction of this bill are not merely hypothetical. Justice Thomas's concurring opinion was a call to action that some Republicans and red States are eagerly heeding by continuing to attack and restrict the right to contraception.

Several States have already gone after access to contraception by cutting off the public funding for it, by seeking to define abortion broadly enough to include contraception, and by allowing healthcare providers to refuse to provide services related to contraception based on their own personal beliefs.

And the harms that would flow from abolishing the right to contraception aren't merely theoretical. Attacks on healthcare, especially reproductive healthcare, fall hardest on historically marginalized communities, including Black, indigenous, and other people of color, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, people with low incomes, those living in rural and underserved areas, and immigrants.

Last week, we all on our side proudly watched the House pass its version of the Right to Contraception Act by a vote of 220 to 195, though it is dismaying that only 8 House Republicans--only 8--voted to codify that right.

With the right to abortion stolen, the right to contraception threatened, and the need to protect and expand access to contraceptive methods and information on contraception, it makes it more imperative than ever that we pass this legislation. We can't wait for the next hammer to drop. We have an urgent obligation to take the first exit off this slippery slope that leads to the loss of our most personal freedoms--chief amongst them: the right of all Americans to make their own decisions about their bodies, their families, and their own futures.

We can't sit idly by and watch as decades of precedent, privacy rights, and progress are violated. We can't wait for the worst to come--because it is already at our doorstep.

To my anti-choice Republican colleagues, if you would deprive Americans of the choice to end a pregnancy, how can you also deprive them of the ability to prevent a pregnancy in the first place?

Unless your ultimate aim is, really, to exert control over the bodies of others, especially the bodies of women, then I expect to hear no objection to the unanimous consent request to pass the Right to Contraception Act. Otherwise, the Republican position will be clear to everyone: no abortion but no birth control to prevent the need for one.

That is where the Republican Party is today. I urge my Republican colleagues not to object to our unanimous consent request.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 4612 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I thank the Senator from Iowa, but her bill would not ensure access to birth control, and it fails to codify the constitutional right to birth control across the United States.

In fact, her bill would actually restrict access to birth control for individuals under the age of 18--requiring a prescription even if the Food and Drug Administration has approved an over-the-counter option. And we cannot lose sight of the fact that this bill does nothing to address the reality that, for many women, true access means being able to afford birth control as well.

Last month, I cosponsored a bill that would guarantee that insurers fully cover over-the-counter birth control without any out-of-pocket costs. No one should have to jump through ridiculous hoops or pay extra just to get the birth control they need, not to mention that this bill would do nothing to prevent States from restricting or even banning access to birth control.

The reality that Republicans refuse to acknowledge is that an over- the-counter option doesn't help patients if their States are chipping away at their right to birth control.

So, with the Senator from Iowa's objection to my unanimous consent request and with her counter unanimous consent request, the Republicans have made their position crystal clear: no abortion but no birth control to prevent the need for one.

Republicans have just shown the American people where they stand on their right to contraception. While Republicans won't protect our fundamental rights as the Supreme Court and rightwing State legislatures take

them away, my Democratic colleagues and I will continue our efforts to keep in place the fundamental, privacy-based rights that Americans have had for decades and codify into Federal law the right to contraception.

As a result and for those reasons, I object.

Mr. President, on Monday, these Chambers will be empty, but our hearts will be full because we will be joining the American people in commemorating a historic moment in our Nation's story-- Juneteenth, the formal end of slavery in the United States.

One year ago today, we stood together, across party lines, to pass this legislation to memorialize this important day as a Federal holiday. Though we celebrate this anniversary today, on

Monday, communities across our Nation have been marking Juneteenth for more than 150 years.

The celebration of Juneteenth dates back to June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers led by Major General Gordon Granger traveled to Galveston, TX, with the announcement that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free.

This was 2\1/2\ years after the date of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Either the news of Lincoln's order had not reached many, including those in Texas, or local officials refused to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation.

Decades later, I introduced, along with my partners in service, Senators Cory Booker and Tina Smith and Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act to honor the day that these Americans took their first steps into freedom and finally made Juneteenth a Federal holiday.

On June 17, 2021, I was honored to stand with Vice President Kamala Harris, Senator Smith, Representative Jackson Lee, Senator Cornyn, Senator Warnock, and Ms. Opal Lee, while President Biden signed the National Juneteenth Independence Day Act into law.

And why do I mention Ms. Opal Lee? Well, because she is the grandmother of the Juneteenth movement, who fought for years to make Juneteenth a Federal holiday, from Fort Worth, TX, an activist, an educator, who walked 2\1/2\ miles every day, fighting for the United States to finally have Juneteenth a Federal holiday. And at the age of 94, she saw that become a reality in the White House.

And in doing so, Juneteenth finally took its rightful place amongst other Federal holidays so that all Americans in all States can celebrate Juneteenth just like they celebrate Memorial Day. The same way they celebrate Martin Luther King Day, they now celebrate Juneteenth.

Juneteenth is a holiday that requires us to remember, reflect, and recommit to the principles that undergird our Nation, liberty and justice for all, but that we have never fully embodied.

We continue to strive to live up to these principles today. Systemic discrimination and mistreatment of Black and Brown Americans still permeates our society--from our criminal justice system to our schools, to our healthcare systems, that is why it is so important that we can learn from our past and honor the heroes in our history who have bent the moral arc of our Nation toward justice.

We face a long road toward justice and equality in the United States, and for us to move forward, that path must be lit with the recognition of our Nation's history.

Juneteenth is our Nation's history. Disparities and injustices reflect the unfulfilled promise of a nation built upon the notion that all people are created equal.

And it has roots in our Nation's original sin--slavery--a crime against humanity that we have for far too long failed to fully acknowledge or to address.

In commemorating Juneteenth as a Federal holiday, we will not fulfill our obligation to right all these wrongs or fix what remains broken, but it is the truth of our history. We must read these missing chapters to understand our national story of freedom and independence.

And right now, in red States across the country, extremists don't want us to learn from our own history. They are burning books and threatening schoolteachers in an attempt to stop our young people from understanding our Nation's past and how it sheds light on our present.

These extremists are afraid that learning about our Nation's history, including many dark chapters as well as the many triumphs, is a threat. And instead of empowering our children to learn from their example, they wish to silence the stories of the brave women and men who have fought for racial equality, and those who continue to fight today follow in that tradition.

Critics say that this discourse will divide us, but that couldn't be less true. More than 150 years since the freeing of the last slaves in America, our Nation stands at a crossroads on our path to racial justice and equality.

We must recognize our wrongs, acknowledge the pain, acknowledge the suffering of generations of slaves and their descendants, and understand the structures of inequity that continue to oppress communities of color and, importantly, learn how the freedom fighters of yesterday and today embody the truest values of our Nation.

We have them to thank for our march toward a more perfect Union, but there is more work to be done. As Ms. Opal Lee said when talking about Juneteenth as a unifier, ``I truly believe that we can do so much more together rather than apart.''

Together, thanks to the work of this Chamber and so many Americans across our Nation who have fought to tell the full story of our past, Americans will commemorate Juneteenth on Monday.

In doing so, we will join with one another in honoring our past and recommitting to the work which lies ahead.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 925, Alan M. Leventhal to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark; that there be 10 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form on the nomination; and that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote without intervening action or debate on the nomination and the Senate resume legislative session.

Madam President, I just want to say that I appreciate the position of the Senator from Mississippi, but I will say this on behalf of Alan Leventhal: He is a favorite son of Massachusetts. He has left an indelible mark on our community, on the surrounding community, and he has done just incredible work in his life.

He is in a senior position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked to train the next generation of innovators and leaders. He has received broad accolades for his transformational work as chairman of the board of trustees at Boston University.

In every professional, philanthropic, and personal endeavor, no matter how big or challenging, Alan has embodied excellence.

The men and women of our Foreign Service and locally employed staff in Copenhagen will have an exceptional advocate and an accomplished manager and Ambassador, and our strong ally Denmark will get a committed partner with a direct line back to Washington to further strengthen our bilateral relationship. This is critical, as we rely on Denmark--a key member of NATO and of the European Union--to sustain its leadership role in defense of Ukraine in the wake of Russia's invasion.

So I think it would be invaluable to have him on duty right now, especially at this critical time in European history. I understand the objection of the Senator from Mississippi, and I look forward to working with him and other Senators in order to find a route to removing the objection to this extremely qualified candidate as Ambassador to Denmark.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 6 p.m. today, the Senate vote on confirmation of the Lindenbaum nomination and the cloture motions on the Padin, Sweeney, and Morrison nominations; and that if cloture is invoked on any of those nominations, all postcloture time be considered expired and the Senate vote on confirmation of the nominations at a time to be determined by the majority leader or his designee, following consultation with the Republican leader.

Mr. President, what is the current threat of nuclear annihilation?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock measures how close humanity and the planet is to destruction. The answer is: 100 seconds. That is tied for the closest we have ever been to planetary ruin since the clock started in 1947.

Recent nuclear events are likely to turn the dial even further. The size, diversity, and lethality of North Korea's weapons continue to grow, as does its threat to our allies in the region. North Korea's Kim Jong Un has fired more than a dozen missiles this year. Preparations are being made for another nuclear test.

Iran is just weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon, the tragic consequence of Donald Trump blowing up the Iran nuclear deal that President Biden is now trying to stitch back together.

In Xinjiang, the same province where China has constructed forced labor camps, more than 100 domes, likely housing missile silos, dot the landscape. The Pentagon says these sites are part of the evidence behind China's quest to double its nuclear forces in the next 5 years.

Belarus's authoritarian leader Lukashenka has made a deal with the devil, Vladimir Putin, to stay in power. Part of the price for Putin's lifeline was a demand that Lukashenka amend the Belarus Constitution to allow for the placement of Russian nuclear weapons on its territory, further taunting Ukraine and all of Europe with existential ruin.

European leaders are readying the distribution of iodine tablets in the event of mushroom cloud drifts overhead. The continent's residents are building fallout shelters right now.

It should come as no surprise then that in a recent poll, 70 percent of Americans said they fear that Putin will use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. These global fears are well-founded. We fought over the course of decades to make nuclear weapons taboo, but they are making a big comeback. In January, the five nuclear weapons States of the Nonproliferation Treaty affirmed that ``a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.'' But actions speak louder than words, and the actions of Russia in Ukraine, the hundreds of missile silos taking form in China, and the $51 billion the United States is set to spend on nuclear weapons this year alone tell us that nuclear weapons are still very much in vogue.

The Doomsday Clock was created at the start of the nuclear age, and in the past 75 years, the minute hand has fluctuated. It has inched closer to midnight with the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapons test, India's ``Smiling Buddha'' test, and more recently, President Trump's threats of ``fire and fury'' against Kim Jong Un.

When the destructive power of nuclear weapons has been curbed, the clock has receded from midnight. Kennedy and Khrushchev answered the Cuban Missile Crisis by banning atmospheric and undersea nuclear tests; Bush and Gorbachev retired thousands of nuclear weapons made obsolete by the fall of the Iron Curtain; and Obama locked down nuclear material around the globe, keeping it out of the hands of terrorists.

I fear that we are seeing echoes of the darkest days of the Cold War--a time marked by fear and distrust of an adversary's true intentions; a time when the gold-plated defense establishment plowed ahead with new capabilities without any consideration of how proliferation begets proliferation; a time when the myth of a ``bomber and missile gap'' with the former Soviet Union spurred an arms race that brought us to the brink.

Thankfully, President Biden has taken some steps to crank the minute hand back from midnight. While Trump was intent on dissolving the New START treaty with Russia, President Biden saved it in his first days in office. The treaty's value, especially in the context of Russia's war in Ukraine, cannot be overstated. The treaty puts our eyes on Russia's strategic forces so we can be confident in distinguishing between Putin's nuclear bluster and actions that should legitimately raise the alarm.

But the New START treaty is not enough. Putin's provocations about nuclear escalation, coupled with his brandishing of battlefield nuclear weapons, highlight our need to negotiate new systems into a future treaty or agreement with Russia. Putin's invasion of Ukraine threw a wrench into progress in the U.S.-Russia strategic dialogue, but when the moment arrives, we need to restart these discussions, and we need to be bold.

The use of nuclear weapons as coercive tools means it is essential that we do not welcome any new members to the nuclear weapons club. President Trump failed us by creating a minefield of obstacles against cleanly reentering the Iran nuclear deal, but President Biden knows that the alternative to reentry is far worse: We will see more enrichment, more proxy attacks, and risk a direct war with Iran versus the United States.

We must also hold our partners to the same verification standard as we hold Iran. Saudi Arabia must come clean about its illicit nuclear and missile cooperation with China. We should insist that Saudi Arabia adopt the Additional Protocol to its International Atomic Energy Agency Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement so that we can be sure that any future nuclear program turns out peaceful megawatts, not megatons; so that it is an electricity program and not a nuclear weapons program.

Kim Jong Un's recent missile launches show that we ignore the North Korean leader at our own risk. In consultation with our allies, we need to break the endless cycle we have seen: a provocation from the North, followed by sanctions, then another provocation, sparking a fresh round of sanctions. Our policy is stuck in an endless loop of nuclear Groundhog Day. It is time to concede that a leader like Kim Jong Un, who is willing to divert resources away from his starving people in order to strengthen his weapons of mass destruction program, cannot be coerced to disarm by piling on sanctions alone. While the denuclearization of North Korea is a worthy long-term goal, we have to humble ourselves to pursue the art of the possible--incremental steps that reduce the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula.

In facing all of these challenges, we cannot continue to preach temperance from a barstool. As the leader of the only country to have used nuclear weapons in a conflict, we can't afford to take a back seat when it comes to reducing nuclear risks. The President must use his position to send the message that responsible nuclear weapons powers don't roll out new weapons systems in military parades; they sit down in good-faith negotiations to reduce the sizes and uses of their nuclear deterrents--and that must include China.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has set back the nonproliferation regime, but it also creates an opportunity for President Biden to challenge China's Xi to join him in reassuring a rattled world that firing on nuclear reactors is off limits, that threatening countries with existential weapons is unacceptable, and to show the world that the inevitability of a ``Sputnik moment'' with China does not have to come to pass. Our two countries may disagree on a lot, but we can embrace the organizing principle that the only way to win an arms race is not to run in one.

For instance, we are concerned about China's development of maneuverable hypersonic systems and its plans to expand its ICBM force, but Pentagon leaders admit that Beijing's concerns about advances in U.S. missile defenses are partly the impetus for that buildup. We are concerned that China may be drifting away from its no-first-use doctrine, but both the United States and Russia explicitly allow for the use of nuclear weapons in response to a nonnuclear attack. We fear that China may use new civilian nuclear reactors to churn out massive amounts of separated plutonium for bombs, but other countries in the region also have the capacity to divert fissile material from a peaceful to a nonpeaceful program.

If President Biden can get Xi to the negotiating table, we have a chance to shape an alternative future to the inevitable doom that the Pentagon has previewed--one that does not see the United States and China joining Russia in pursuit of new innovative, more lethal ways to kill one another; one that instead negotiates near-term confidence- building measures to reduce

nuclear risks with China and that can ultimately lead to the conclusion of formal arms control agreements between our countries. The United States cannot do it alone, but we can break the cycle of nuclear escalation and secure a future wherein the fate of millions no longer hangs on the whims and judgments of fallible leaders or the military- industrial complex.

We need President Biden to outline that bold action plan that draws inspiration from our better angels, not from the unhinged policies of nuclear weapons overkill that Stanley Kubrick lampooned in ``Dr. Strangelove.''

In my book ``Nuclear Peril: The Politics of Proliferation,'' written in 1983, I wrote:

Nuclear proliferation is a problem too long ignored. Now,

before it is too late, the public must draw the line. The

stakes are too high.

The public clearly understands that the stakes for our planet have never been higher, but it is not too late, not yet. Once the clock hits midnight, though, our time is up. It is time for action, not rhetoric. This issue is one that can no longer be ignored.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in the aftermath of last week's leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, we are facing one of the lowest moments in history for our Nation's highest Court.

An illegitimate, far-right majority on the Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey and take away a fundamental constitutional right that has been the law of the land for almost 50 years--the right to a legal, safe abortion. Every American deserves the right to make their own decisions about their own bodies.

While the leaked opinion may only be a draft, we cannot ignore the profound threat it poses. That is because the opinion is the outrageous culmination of a rightwing campaign to take over the Court and take America back to the days when far too many faced not only a loss of liberty but a loss of life when seeking abortion care.

It validates the theft of two Supreme Court seats by President Trump, then-Leader McConnell, and Senate Republicans.

It confirms that conservative Justices lied to the Congress and the American people about their commitment to the Court's precedent and the rule of law.

Overturning Roe v. Wade will undermine the health, safety, and freedom of millions of Americans, and it will create horrific pain and hardship for people all across the Nation, especially those without the means or resources to travel to States where abortion will remain safe and legal.

Already, for pregnant Americans in red States across the country, access to abortion is functionally denied because of a lack of funds, geography, immigration status, and other barriers. This war on people of color and the poor is already being waged, and we cannot let the Supreme Court provide deadlier weapons.

If the extremist rightwing of the Court is willing to abandon something as fundamental as the right to privacy and the right for Americans to make decisions about their own bodies, then we are on a slippery slope to the undoing of other fundamental rights the Court has recognized as being grounded in the right to privacy, including the right to use contraception or the right to marry whomever you love.

But this was the goal of the Republicans and the rightwing all along: steal the Supreme Court seats, steal an election, and steal the rights of Americans.

This is the direct consequence of an anti-majoritarian and anti- democratic national electoral system that allowed two Presidents, who both lost the popular vote, to nominate more than half of the current Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and allowed them to be confirmed by Senators representing a minority of the Nation's population.

This is the racist, misogynistic, xenophobic manifestation of a radical rightwing, extremist vision of America that is out of step with the vast majority of Americans. In fact, by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans say Roe v. Wade should be upheld.

This egregious and overtly political act cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Faith in our judicial system is in jeopardy, so we are left with no other choice. We have to immediately pass Federal legislation that protects millions of Americans' right to choose, that lifts dangerous and discriminatory bans on abortion, and that removes unnecessary limits on reproductive freedom.

The Women's Health Protection Act will do all of that by codifying Roe so as to affirm it as the law of the land. The Women's Health Protection Act enshrines in Federal law a healthcare provider's right to provide abortion services and a patient's right to receive them.

Among its provisions, the bill would prohibit previability bans designed to undercut the right to an abortion, like the 15-week ban imposed by the Mississippi law at issue in Dobbs or specious ``heartbeat'' bans like the one imposed by Texas's SB 8.

The Women's Health Protection Act would prohibit bans that do not make exceptions for the patient's health or life. I am appalled that any Member of Congress could consider themselves in support of women but then support a ban that explicitly devalues life.

This bill would also ban so-called TRAP laws--the targeted regulation of abortion providers--that impose onerous and unwarranted requirements on facilities and providers who do nothing to promote health but, rather, make it nearly impossible for healthcare providers to keep their doors open.

The bill would also prohibit requirements that providers share medically inaccurate information and impose medically unnecessary and manipulative tests and procedures like mandatory ultrasounds.

It would prohibit limitations that prevent providers from caring for patients by telemedicine--a service that we have all learned to have been invaluable over the course of the pandemic and one that is all the more necessary for abortion care given the already draconian laws in some red States across the country.

It would bar other unjustified, onerous, and discriminatory practices intended to place obstacles in the path of those seeking abortion services.

In short, the Women's Health Protection Act will safeguard the rights established by 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and would protect abortion access even if Roe is overturned.

This bill is all that is standing between the America we have known for decades and one that plunges millions of people back in time--into despair, pain, poverty, and forced parenthood.

If we fail to act, we know Republicans will. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, 28 States are poised to ban abortion outright. Of those, 13 States already have trigger bans in place--activating laws that would ban abortion automatically when Roe is overturned.

These bans and attacks fall hardest on those most marginalized, including people of color, LGBTQ people, people with low incomes, and those in rural communities. Many of these States would criminalize abortion. Those seeking abortions and those performing them would face the prospect of prison.

It is not just at the State level. The Republican leader in the Senate has said the quiet part out loud: If Republicans gain control of the Senate, they could consider Federal legislation that bans abortion as passing on the floor of this Senate.

We can't sit idly by and wait for the worst to happen. It is already at our doorstep. We must make the right to safe and secure reproductive health and freedom the law of the land. We must do it now.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to urge my colleagues to vote no on this motion to instruct from Senator Barrasso.

If we want to talk solutions to the energy price crisis, if we want to talk solutions to the climate crisis, we have bills to do that.

Our Federal oil and gas leasing programs include critical State and public involvement that this amendment is attempting to undercut and sabotage and to try to weaponize this bill in order to have the hope of prompting yet another giveaway for oil and gas companies, which is not going to do a thing to help the American people or the American economy.

Oil and gas companies already have more than 1,500 offshore leases that they are not currently using, encompassing a swath of ocean larger than the entire State of Maryland. The top 25 oil and gas companies posted $237 billion in record profits last year, which they should be using, if they want, to drill there, but they are not doing it.

So we need to focus on delivering clean energy, efficient solutions to communities, not undercutting Federal processes and giving more handouts to Big Oil.

I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

Vote on Motion

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

Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. When confirmed, Judge Jackson, who currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the

District of Columbia Circuit, will take the seat on the Supreme Court that Justice Stephen Breyer has held for almost three decades, so I would like to first offer a few words about Justice Breyer as he prepares to step down from the Bench.

Justice Breyer has served the Court and the Nation with grace, expertise, humility, brilliance, and an unwavering dedication to justice. He has worked tirelessly to build consensus among his colleagues, and he has always kept in mind the real-world impacts of the Court's decisions on the American people.

Justice Breyer knew that ``justice for some'' was a failure of the Court. From his opinions on voting rights to reproductive rights, to the Affordable Care Act, he has been a key voice in many historic decisions that have affected so many Americans. We owe him a great debt of gratitude. And I am honored and privileged to call Justice Breyer a dear friend, and I wish him the best in his retirement.

Now, in looking for Justice Breyer's successor, President Biden said that he wanted to nominate a ``persuasive'' Justice, someone in the mold of Justice Breyer, and with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden has found that person.

I am confident that Judge Jackson--who clerked for Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court--will follow in his footsteps as a Justice who will make a lasting contribution on the Court through her pragmatism, evenhandedness, and deep understanding of the Constitution and the impact that the Court's decisions have on all Americans.

And as the first African-American woman Justice on the Bench, Judge Jackson's historic nomination is an important and long overdue step toward making the Supreme Court better reflect the Nation whose people the Court serves.

Fifty-four years ago yesterday, our Nation, our world, lost the guiding light of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to assassination. That loss was incalculable. We can only imagine the society we would live in if Dr. King were still with us, preaching, marching, teaching, and I have no doubt that Dr. King would be on the steps of the Capitol as the loudest and proudest voice in support of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be our next Supreme Court Justice and the first Black woman to serve on our highest Court.

He would know that with the appointment and confirmation of Judge Jackson, we would take the long overdue step to make the Nation's top Court look more like and better represent all of the American people.

The legacy of the more just, more equal society that Dr. King pushed us to create is alive and it is well in this confirmation and on the floor and hearing rooms of the U.S. Senate this week.

The Judiciary Committee held 4 days of hearings on Judge Jackson's nomination, including 2 days of testimony from the judge herself. As we all saw, some of the questioning of Judge Jackson from some of my Republican colleagues was nothing short of offensive, distorting her record, and tinged with racism and sexism. But Judge Jackson responded with poise. She responded with brilliance. She calmly addressed and corrected her questioners' false and misleading premises.

And she did so while demonstrating deep knowledge of the law and the Constitution, respect for precedents, and displaying precisely the kind of temperament we expect of someone sitting on the Nation's highest Court.

The hearings showed the Nation that Judge Jackson possesses all of the essential qualities of a jurist committed to the words engraved above the entrance to the Supreme Court itself ``Equal Justice Under Law.''

Of course, to anyone who knew Judge Jackson before her introduction to the Nation as a Supreme Court nominee, none of this was surprising. Judge Jackson's qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court are second to none. She holds broad experience across the legal profession--as a Supreme Court clerk, as a Federal public defender, as an attorney in private practice, and as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, as a Federal district court judge, and as a Federal appellate judge.

It was, therefore, surprising to no one that she earned a unanimous ``well qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association. Let me speak for a moment about one aspect of Judge Jackson's background that stands out, and that is her experience as a public defender.

When confirmed, Judge Jackson will become the first-ever Justice with background as a public defender and the first Justice with significant criminal defense experience since the service of Justice Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991. That work as a Federal public defender has unjustly come under attack from my colleagues across the aisle who suggest that being a public defender means that she is soft on crime.

But my Republican colleagues--who far too often focus singularly on the constitutional right to bear arms--would do well to remember that among the Constitution's other enshrined rights is the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel in criminal cases. Without that right, criminal defendants who cannot afford an attorney would find it difficult or impossible to navigate the Court system with their rights protected, including the fundamental right to a speedy and fair trial.

My Republican friends may also want to consider that Judge Jackson comes from a law enforcement family, with a brother and uncle serving as police officers, and that she has won the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Nation's largest police union.

Now, let me remind my colleagues that public defenders do not select their client. They take on every assigned case because they are committed to preserving and defending constitutional rights for everyone. As a Federal public defender, Judge Jackson represented the most vulnerable among us. She represented the clients other lawyers avoided, and in doing so, she followed a long and honorable tradition in the American legal profession that began with John Adams stepping forward in 1770 to represent the British soldiers who committed the Boston Massacre because he feared that they would not receive a fair trial without adequate representation.

By confirming Judge Jackson, we will affirm that the rights of those who cannot afford a lawyer are just as important as the rights of those who can pay lawyers charging $1,000 an hour; that the rights of the indigent and powerless are just as important as those of the rich and the powerful.

Public defenders also experience firsthand and, therefore, understand better than other lawyers just how our justice system treats the accused, how it treats people of color, how it treats low-income people. Every day, public defenders see the systemic biases and prejudices that permeate our criminal justice system.

At a time when the United States holds more people behind bars than any other Nation on Earth--including authoritarian regimes like North Korea and China--the highest Court in the land would greatly benefit from a Justice with a public defender background. Public defenders serve as a unique bulwark of liberty and racial justice. So we should welcome a public defender on the Supreme Court, especially one as well qualified as Judge Jackson. Her singular perspective and voice are sorely needed.

Judge Jackson's service as a trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is also of particular note in this nomination. Only one of the current Supreme Court Justices--Justice Sotomayor--has ever served on a trial court. And as a trial court judge, Judge Jackson worked to ensure the parties before her understood her approach to deciding cases.

Judge Jackson has explained that, as a trial judge, she emphasized speaking directly to the individuals who appeared before her, not just to their lawyers. She used the parties' names and treated them with respect. She sought to ensure that those whom her rulings would directly impact clearly understood the proceedings in which they were involved, what was happening, and why it was happening.

This approach speaks to a judge who understands the importance of accessibility to the law, to a judicial process that isn't shrouded in mystery, and to a system that fulfills its promise of equal justice under the law to everyone. We will be fortunate to have such a Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.

I have had the opportunity to meet with Judge Jackson one-on-one. I came

away deeply impressed and convinced that President Biden has made a great choice. The Senate has already confirmed Judge Jackson three times on a bipartisan basis--most recently in June of 2021, when she was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit. The Senate should again confirm her with bipartisan support.

And when Judge Jackson is confirmed and becomes Justice Jackson, the first African-American woman ever to take a seat on the High Court, she will be an inspiration to so many across our country and around the globe. She will especially be a role model for young Black girls everywhere, showing them that in the United States of America, nothing is beyond their reach.

Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once said:

Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.

History says it is time for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and I am honored to help her and the Court and our country make history with her confirmation.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, Donald Trump relit the fuse that leads to an Iranian nuclear bomb by abandoning the Iran nuclear deal. Now Republicans are urging President Joe Biden to let it go boom.

President Barack Obama crafted the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. He had inherited two quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he was right to prioritize diplomacy to prevent us from falling into a third quagmire.

Donald Trump's unilateral exit from the Iranian deal in 2013 created a nuclear crisis where one did not exist. In the years since that withdrawal, Iran has crept closer to a bomb, restricted access to international inspectors, and set us on a potential collision course to war with Iran.

Our European allies wanted to build upon the Iran nuclear deal, but President Trump and his arms control assassin, John Bolton, used it as target practice, leaving the Biden administration and our allies to pick up the pieces.

On the Republicans' watch, Iran's breakout time, or time required to build enough nuclear material for its first nuclear bomb, went from more than 1 year down to just weeks.

There is simply no good alternative to reentering the Iran nuclear deal. Trump has already tried the alternative. It has failed miserably and made the United States more vulnerable and made the Middle East more vulnerable.

Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out a series of demands for Iran in 2018 that read more like a fantasy novel than a foreign policy speech. And where did it get us? Absolutely nowhere, except it got Iran closer to a nuclear weapon than it has ever been before.

No, the reality is that the alternative to diplomacy, our Plan B, is likely to include more sanctions which will lead to more enrichment of uranium and the prospect of another Middle East conflagration. In short, Plan B stands for ``Plan Bad.'' That is what is being urged by the Republican Party, by the Trump supporters. ``Plan Bad'' would endorse Trump's disastrous policy of ``maximum pressure,'' one that gave us maximum enrichment of uranium and other activities prohibited under the Iran nuclear deal.

Plan B means that China's reported work to give Saudi Arabia--Iran's nemesis--the building blocks for a nuclear weapon will only accelerate, and other Gulf countries will jump into the race for a nuclear bomb as well.

Plan B means that Iran's nuclear facilities that are above ground will go underground.

Plan B means that cameras and international inspectors that keep a continuous eye on Iran's facilities will be shuttered permanently, leaving us in the dark about Iran's nuclear intentions.

Under Trump, we saw ``maximum pressure'' generate ``maximum tension'' that put us on a perilous path to war. Trump's Plan B to diplomacy was and continues to be a complete failure.

Indeed, we saw this in 2019, when tensions rose to a decades-long high with the assassinations of Qasem Soleimani, followed by Iran's retaliatory strike that injured 200 U.S. troops at an Air Force base in Iraq. Never had we been closer to a war with Iran.

If the sides currently negotiating a new Iran deal are unable to get to yes on a deal, I fear that we will see increasing calls from my Republican colleagues to take military action against Iran. That is not a good option.

My Republican colleagues need to be honest with the war-weary American people that doubling down on the failed policies of the Trump era will likely lead Iran to retaliate by lobbing greater numbers of missiles at our troops or at the region's energy infrastructure. Iran will double down on these failed policies, and that may lead to Iran creating a sea wall to stop traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, creating more of a supply chain pain. And my colleagues need to be honest that doubling down on these policies risks adding to the number of Gold Star mothers who have lost children to unnecessary wars far from home. And, perhaps, most importantly, my colleagues should be honest with the American people that these failed policies have led Iran closer to a nuclear weapon--not further away from a nuclear weapon, closer to a nuclear weapon--day by day, week by week that we have followed the Trump plan.

These are life-and-death stakes. Doubling down on the failed policies of Trump and expecting a different result in Iran is truly the definition of insanity.

The Iran nuclear deal is not a panacea nor was it ever intended to be a panacea. What it is, is a verifiable agreement that cuts off each of Iran's three pathways to a nuclear bomb.

First, Iran will, again, have to cap its enrichment level and ship out its stock of enriched uranium that would otherwise be potential feedstock for a nuclear bomb.

Second, Iran will finish the conversion of its Arak reactor, which will close off its plutonium path to a nuclear bomb.

And, third, and most importantly, inspectors from the international watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will once again get access to the soup to nuts of Iran's nuclear fuel cycle.

If we listen to the same voices who rejected a good deal in search of the impossible, who preached brinksmanship over diplomacy, we will find ourselves stuck, as we are today, with an Iran that could have the ultimate weapon to back its coercion--a nuclear bomb.

Fortunately, this screenplay does not have to end with American men and women marching off to another war in the Middle East, and it does not have to end with Iran entering the worst of exclusive clubs, those with nuclear weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent nuclear saber rattling has brought home the stakes of nuclear diplomacy with Iran. A homicidal leader armed with weapons of annihilation is a threat to global peace.

When Putin ordered an increase in the alert level of Russia's nuclear forces a couple of weeks ago, he postponed U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile tests for fear that, in the fog of war, Russia could misinterpret an ICBM launch off the coast of California as a first nuclear strike against Russia. That also explains President Biden's reticence to impose a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Putin is failing. Ukraine and its people are winning, with our help. Every fabricated justification for Putin's senseless and illegal war has crumbled. But a direct U.S.-NATO military intervention would pull the world's two largest nuclear powers closer to a war. No simulation, no exercise, no war game can assure us that such a war does not metastasize to engulf all of Europe and lead to the use of nuclear weapons.

Mr. President, here is the scary reality: Vladimir Putin could kill millions upon millions of Americans right now using a fraction of his 4,500 nuclear weapons. That is the perennial threat of nuclear arms.

Conventional logic says that we are safe because a Russian nuclear strike would be both homicidal and suicidal for Putin, but we cannot bank on the fact that Putin, the pariah, has a moral basement. President George W. Bush famously said he looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and he saw his soul. Thank goodness President Biden sees it for the dark space that it is.

As a result, Russia's war in Ukraine calls on us to challenge tired, old Cold War assumptions that basing our nuclear posture on the balance of terror and relying on the rationality of our leaders will keep the peace--no, it will not. That assumption has to be completely reanalyzed in view of what Putin is doing right now, that pursuing President Reagan's star wars fantasy to knock out nuclear-tipped missiles in space before they fall on American cities is wise; it is not. There is no guarantee that some of those nuclear weapons would not come and destroy American cities and that we should spend a quarter of a trillion dollars to replace the very same U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles that the President won't even test during a conflict due to fears of escalation; we should not.

Unfortunately, our American democracy and Russia's autocracy do share one major thing in common: Both our systems give the United States and Russian Presidents the God-like powers known as sole authority to end life on the planet as we know it by ordering a nuclear first strike.

As President Richard Nixon grimly described these powers once:

I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25

minutes, 70 million people will be dead.

We know all too well that American Presidents are not infallible, neither is our early warning system, which is why we need an emergency break to ensure that a case of mistaken identity--a false missile launch--or a President gone wild does not trigger the unthinkable.

We cannot uninvent the atom, its military applications, and technological know-how. The nuclear Pandora's box is sadly forever opened. We must, however, do everything in our power to be able to look the next generation in the eye and say that we did everything-- everything--in our power to avert the unfathomable, a nuclear war on this planet; and that includes supporting negotiations that not only end Russia's war in Ukraine, but also future negotiations to end the budding 21st century nuclear arms race which is spinning out of control.

Mr. President, I was a teenager during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Had President Kennedy listened to his generals rather than to his better angels, we might not be here today. This building might not be here. ``Bert the Turtle'' public service advertisements told us to duck and cover under our school desks. Backpack nukes designed to repel the Soviet advance on West Germany rolled off the assembly lines. U.S. and Soviet leaders were awoken in the middle of the night to false alarms of nuclear Armageddon. These events must forever belong to our past, not to our future.

A future held together by the fear of annihilation is a burden, not an inspiration. But Congress can shape a safer more inspiring future by supporting President Biden's efforts to reenter a good Iran nuclear deal, and we can and we must hold ourselves to a higher standard than Russia when it comes to resting the fate of humanity in the hands of just one human being.

This is a subject that should command the attention of every single American. We have to move further away from the threat of a nuclear catastrophe, not get closer to it; and that is why we must support a reentry into a good Iran nuclear deal. The alternative is frightening for the future, not just of the Middle East, but for our country and the entire planet.

Mr. President, I have six 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 ask unanimous consent that the following legislative fellows in my office be granted the privileges of the floor for the remainder of the Congress: Joshua Melko, Arthur Bowman, Violet Doucette, Natalya Scimeca, and Meghan Kleinsteiber.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 573, which was submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 400, 647, and 775; that the Senate vote on the nominations, en bloc, without intervening action or debate; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.