Floor Statements

Mr. President, our dedicated Federal workers deserve to get paid, and I am glad this deal means that the government will reopen, that public servants will be returning to work, and that they will receive their paychecks, including backpay.

I am also pleased that this deal will prevent Donald Trump from further delaying SNAP benefits for hungry children, senior citizens, and families. Using hungry people as political pawns,

which is what Donald Trump has been doing, is disgusting.

But this legislation does nothing--nothing--concrete to lower costs or protect healthcare for millions of Americans from MAGA Republican attacks. There are 22 million Americans who are going to see dramatic increases in their healthcare costs at the end of this year, 22 million Americans who are going to be very concerned about the healthcare of their families.

I cannot support this deal. I cannot support a deal that does not say to those 22 million American families, including 337,000 of them in the State of Massachusetts, that we have not been able to reach an agreement here because Republicans refused to come to the table to talk about their healthcare costs that are about to skyrocket--and for many of those 22 million families, skyrocket out of the ability of those families to even have health insurance. This is on top of their housing bills, their grocery bills, their electricity bills--all of their day- to-day needs that are absolutely skyrocketing.

And, of course, if they can't already deal with all of those other bills, seeing those bills skyrocket thousands of dollars for their healthcare or tens of thousands of dollars for their healthcare, because of the Republicans' decision to kill critical Affordable Care Act tax credits, is going to be devastating for those families.

I have one constituent, Jeff from Natick, who, right now, because of the healthcare tax credits, has a $30,000 bill for his stage IV cancer drugs--lung cancer. If they expire, his bill is $300,000 a year. That is what we should be debating out here.

By the way, there are 22 million stories just like that one that are about to hit American families. This health insurance timebomb, coupled with deep cuts to Medicaid, will also be a brutal one-two punch which devastates community hospitals throughout the United States, leaving millions of Americans with reduced care or no care at all.

Here is what we have right now. Twenty-two million American families are starting to think about what is going to be on their table for Thanksgiving--just coming up in 2, 3 weeks for all of them. They are saying: We are losing the tax subsidies, the tax credits that help us to pay for our healthcare bills. So 22 million Americans will have that as their primary conversation this Thanksgiving.

The Republicans who serve in the House and Senate are not going to have that conversation because their healthcare coverage is going to continue.

What about those 22 million American families, this Christmas or this Thanksgiving, who are losing their benefits? What are the Republicans saying to them, because they are going to be scared? They are going to be angry that they will not be able to afford this holiday or any holiday in the future because their healthcare bills are just going to be going up by thousands--tens of thousands--of dollars a year, which they don't have.

Again, it is in the context of their electricity rates, their food costs, their clothing costs. Everything is skyrocketing for them, and they are not getting raises that will help them to pay for it--22 million American families.

Let me just tell you, I heard from Laurie in North Truro. The insurance for her and her husband is increasing from $6,000 a year to $26,400 a year.

Who can afford to pay more on health insurance? Who can afford to pay $20,000 more on their health insurance and just get the notice now that it is over on December 31, and have the Republicans just walking away from that problem for Laurie and for 22 million other Americans?

Now, they are going to have to decide: Do they take the funding from retirement savings or do they just do without other things in their families' lives, because $20,000 is a lot for a family who are not millionaires?

Millionaires don't qualify for this tax credit. It is just regular families. It is middle-class families. That is who qualifies. They just don't have 20 extra grand under the cushion that can pay for their health insurance.

This is a tragedy in the making and one that we can avoid. But let's not fool ourselves. Trump and MAGA Republicans have been shutting down the government since Inauguration Day--gutting Medicare, gutting Medicaid, gutting the Affordable Care Act. That was their big vote in the first week of July of this year, 2025--gutting, gutting, gutting, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act.

They have been committing the greatest healthcare heist in history, and it is all to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. They are looting the healthcare for middle-class families, poor families, in order to pay for tax breaks for people who already have too much.

The top three hedge fund managers in the United States have more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of our entire population combined. Think about that. It is that bottom 50 percent that qualifies for Medicaid, that qualifies for the Affordable Care Act tax subsidies. That is who we are talking about right now. Those are the people who are going to be most negatively impacted.

The American people want us to stop this healthcare heist. They don't want Democrats to be driving the getaway car with all of those tens of billions--hundreds of billions--of dollars which will just be transferred into the bank accounts of the wealthiest people in our country. So we should just be fighting for transformative policies to fix our broken healthcare system and bring us back from the brink of this crisis. That is what the American people want us to do. That is what they want us to fight for.

Even when it is hardest, even when we are in the darkest moments, we have to remember what we are fighting for. A better future is still possible, one where one missed medical bill won't lead to bankruptcy; a future where families don't have to choose between a prescription and a meal, a future where no malignant corporate greed in our healthcare system shutters hospitals and endangers patients, a future where universal healthcare is taken for granted and not taken away, a future where families can afford their healthcare and their rent and their electricity bills and childcare and to save money for college or vacation or retirement. That is the future that we should be fighting for, but the American people did not see that from the U.S. Senate yesterday.

So that is where we are right now. We are in the throes of a healthcare crisis wherein 22 million Americans this Thanksgiving will be at their tables--if they can even afford to celebrate Thanksgiving-- looking at tens of thousands of additional dollars, potentially, on their healthcare bills. It is a catastrophe looming.

The Republicans, so far, have refused to do anything about it. That is what we should be discussing. That is what we should be debating: How do we solve this problem? Instead, the Republicans are just punting this issue. They are absolutely ignoring the consequences for those 22 million American families.

So I will just say this: These families, they are scared. These families, they are angry.

But I will say this: In addition to those 22 million families, tens of millions of other families are angry for them. They are pissed that people are going to be victimized by having their tax credits just be pulled away from them for their healthcare bills, and then that healthcare is going to be unaffordable for them--22 million people and their families in our country. That is what we should be talking about here.

Now the Republicans, at the eleventh hour, are asking us to trust them that they will have a vote on extending the tax credits Americans rely on to afford their insurance.

Remember when, earlier this year, Trump promised, We are not going to touch Medicaid? Remember that? Trump said: We are not going to touch Medicaid. Four months later, he decimated it. Remember when Trump promised he would love and cherish Medicare? Then he slashed a half a trillion dollars from Medicare. How are we supposed to trust him?

So, to all of the Senate Republicans who are inclined to oppose a simple 1-year extension of the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits when a vote is held in December--credits that are hugely popular in both red and blue States--just remember that you do so at your own political peril. The American people are watching. They are

angry. They want to know who is on their side, and they are going to remember your vote. They are going to remember your vote if you do not solve this problem.

Thanksgiving is going to be the worst Thanksgiving ever for millions of families in their knowing that they are going to lose their health insurance, and the Republicans can do something about it. Unless and until they do so, then we are about to hit a healthcare tragedy that could have been avoidable and that the Republicans have, in fact, created.

This is a man-made crisis, and that man is the President of the United States, and the Republicans here on the floor of the Senate are following him blindly in a way that is going to result in harm to 22 million Americans and their families. So this is the moment. This is the time. This is the place. This is where people should be standing up to fight for those people.

Health is the first wealth. Health is the most important wealth. Without your health, you have nothing. You have nothing. Everything else is built on health--everything--and the Republicans are taking away that healthcare from 22 million Americans.

This is not the way to send families into Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is not the way we should be treating people. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Yale University has made it very clear that 50,000 people additionally are going to die per year if all of Trump's healthcare cuts go into place. That is 500,000 people dying over the next 10 years if these healthcare premiums--Medicaid--are slashed. That is on this body. That is on this Senate. That is on the Republican leadership.

All I can say to you is that this is a mistake; it is a historic mistake; it is cruel; it is wrong; it is not what we should be doing to those who are the most vulnerable, to those who are the most in need in our country; and that is what the Republicans are about to perpetrate upon this country.

We are better than this. You can't have trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the wealthiest and then say we don't have enough money for those who are the sickest. If you have room for a tax break only after you have taken care of the sickest people--the people most in need of healthcare in our society--that is when you have room for tax breaks for billionaires. The Republicans are doing just the opposite: First, tax breaks for billionaires; then we will see what is left over.

``Oh,'' they say. ``We can't afford healthcare for 22 million Americans. We can't afford to take care of their families because we don't have enough money.''

Why don't you have enough money? Because you gave the tax breaks to billionaires. You gave the tax breaks to billionaires. That is why you don't have enough money.

And who are you going to take it out on? Are you going to say, all of a sudden, with your green eyeshades, that you are really concerned about the Federal budget deficit? And are you going to take it out upon those who are the least healthy? to those most in need of help in our society? No. We are better than that.

So this is a historic mistake, but just remember that Republicans have always harbored an ancient animosity toward Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. They voted against all of those programs. Now, with Donald Trump, they have the ability to gut them, and that is what they are doing. That is what they are doing. When they have a chance to stand up and say, ``No. Let's be reasonable. Let's keep the healthcare subsidies, which are most needed,'' they are just walking away right now.

Donald Trump operates under ``The Godfather, Part 1'' rules. He gives them offers they can't refuse. And we saw that with Senators who tried to stand up to say: No. The Medicaid cuts are too deep. The Affordable Care Act cuts are too deep.

Trump just called them and said: Your career is over. You will not be a Senator again.

So now we are seeing the remaining Senators who are here who are Republicans, and they are just saying: Whatever you want, Mr. Trump, whatever Russell Vought wants at OMB, and whatever Stephen Miller wants, we will do. We are not going to have a negotiation. We are not going to sit down.

Before they cut the Medicaid and the Medicare programs back in July, did they negotiate with us? No, they did not. They refused to negotiate with Democrats at all. That is who they are. They saw their one opportunity to slash it once and for all.

All I can say is that we are in an incredible moment. The Republican House Members still are not back in Washington. They have been in a 6- week witness protection program. They refuse to come back to Washington. They refuse to sit down. They refuse to negotiate. So we are witnessing Robin Hood in reverse. We are seeing money taken from the poorest and given to the richest--that is what this is all about-- and what they are taking from the poorest and the middle class is their healthcare. It is their protection.

So, from my perspective, this is a mistake--it is a historic mistake--and it is a mistake that will come back to haunt the Republican Party at the ballot box next year.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I stand here today on behalf of the people of Massachusetts to say that we are angry.

We are angry that Trump and MAGA Republicans are doubling the costs for millions of Americans and that their healthcare bills are going to skyrocket when they promised lower prices.

We are angry that Trump and MAGA Republicans are stripping Medicaid from the most vulnerable people in our communities.

We are angry that Trump and the MAGA Republicans are making families with hungry children go to food pantries for their next meals and forcing families to choose between groceries and rent.

We are angry that Trump and MAGA Republicans are using public servants as pawns in their hateful, political games.

And we are angry that, during all of this, the Republicans have refused to come to the negotiating table.

The House of Representatives has been out for 6 weeks. They are in a political witness protection program across our Nation--refusing to come to Washington to sit down to negotiate on these issues.

Americans are counting the hours that are left to solve this healthcare crisis for them and their families. They are looking around for help, and they are looking around for hope, but they are all looking, instead, at cruelty, pain, fear. That is the agenda of Trump's MAGA Republican Party.

Last weekend, I met with Jeff from Natick, who is fighting stage IV lung cancer. He pays $35,000 a year for an affordable care healthcare plan--$35,000 a year. If he can't keep that insurance plan on December 31, he will have to pay $300,000 a year. Jeff does not have $300,000. That is about to hit him in about 7 weeks.

Barbara retired early to take care of her spouse with dementia. Her bill is going from $7,500 a year to $18,000 a year. She cannot afford that. There are 22 million stories like Jeff's, like Barbara's. There are 22 million of them who will be facing Thanksgiving and Christmas over the next 7 weeks, and there are no answers for them--22 million people. That is outrageous. These people are afraid, and they are angry.

By the way, we saw a lot of that anger come out on Tuesday night. They came out angry. They came out, out of fear, to vote. That is what happened. It is only going to build and build and build as each day goes by, and we cannot get an answer from the Republicans on how we are going to handle those people. How are we going to give them what they need for those families?

It is very difficult to fathom the abject cruelty of this President, who is happy to force Grandma to choose between paying for her prescription and paying for her heating bill, to force a caretaker to choose between being there for their parent with Alzheimer's or picking up an extra shift, to force a single mom to choose between paying for a checkup or paying for extra school snacks.

Since they took over in January, the Republicans promised that they were going to solve the healthcare crisis in our country, and all it has done is grow and grow and grow. Then they pass a bill to take away all of the healthcare coverage for all of these 22 million people and then transfer the money to billionaires in tax breaks. They swiped the healthcare of 22 million vulnerable people for billionaires.

Ralph Waldo Emerson--the great Massachusetts poet--said that ``health is the first wealth.'' MAGA Republicans and Trump have looted that wealth--that health--for those people. These people are angry, and they are afraid. They are afraid. They don't have the backup funding that millionaires and billionaires have.

Now, my father drove a truck for the Hood Milk Company. He drove a truck for the Hood Milk Company. I am his son. I believe that God created a world where every single person is able to receive the healthcare they are entitled to, to three meals a day, to put children through school, to keep them safe from illness, to give Americans dignity in tough times. Those are the families we are talking to right now. It is the milkmen. It is the workers in nursing homes. It is the children across our country who are going to see loved ones lose their healthcare in 7 weeks, and the Republicans refuse to come to the table.

Every American has a right to live in dignity in tough times. That is where we are right now. They are facing increases in electricity costs, in healthcare costs, in food costs, in clothing costs--in everything. We can solve at least the healthcare part of this issue right here. The richest Nation in the world can ensure peace and health and opportunity for every man and woman and child in our country.

We are the wealthiest Nation in the history of the world, and the Republicans are about to let 22 million of them lose their health insurance or see it increase by double or triple or, in the case of Jeff from Natick, 10 times--from $30,000 a year to $300,000 a year--and he is in stage IV lung cancer. And we are not even discussing this?

The House of Representatives is on a vacation for 6 weeks. Well, those 6 weeks--if you project them forward from now, we are talking about Christmas. That is what we are talking about.

What in the world is in the mind of Donald Trump that he would allow these families for the next 6 weeks to worry about where the coverage for their families is going to come from?

The very least we can do is extend the Affordable Care tax credits for one more year and provide some desperately needed relief for those who are struggling to get by, who need our help right now, who need the peace of mind right now.

Of those 220 Republicans in their political witness protection program across the country, they are going to have health insurance for their families. They don't have to worry this Thanksgiving or Christmas about the conversation that is going to take place.

All we are asking for is a vote to provide that healthcare for the next year for those families and reopen the government so the Federal workers can get paid and go back on the job. It is pretty simple. We are looking for any Republican anywhere to come and discuss it with us, negotiate it with us, and they just keep saying: No.

So this anger--this anger that people are feeling--these people are pissed off at the Federal Government. They are pissed off that they are losing coverage for their family members, and they want the Republicans to come to the table and solve this problem. What we saw on Tuesday night was the beginning of this anger being translated into action.

They asked an ancient Greek philosopher once: When will we know true justice?

And he answered: We will know true justice when those who have not been harmed are as angry as those who have been harmed.

Across our country right now, those who have not been harmed are angry on behalf of those who are about to be harmed--22 million people losing their health insurance, seeing skyrocketing health insurance premiums. These are families--42 million of them--without food stamps, without a SNAP program for nutrition for their families. People are angry, and they deserve an answer.

All we are asking for is 1 year so that we can negotiate this issue-- 1 year so we can give peace of mind to 22 million families so that they will know they will have health insurance after this Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today in defense of one of the most sacred pillars of our democracy: the freedom of speech.

Last Saturday, President Donald Trump declared on social media that comedian Seth Meyers' jokes about him were ``100% ANTI TRUMP, WHICH IS

Mr. President, it is telling that the Republicans have objected with an unrelated bill. This is a classic Republican move. They are scared of supporting anything critical of Donald Trump, but they don't want to defend his actions at the same time, so they object and pivot to an unrelated issue. But don't be fooled. The Senate Republicans just blocked a resolution stating that it is not illegal to criticize President Trump. I am genuinely shocked that we can't agree that the First Amendment protects our right to criticize the President.

This is unfortunately an era where Donald Trump wants to be King, and too many in the Republican Party are allowing him to believe that is possible in a democracy with a Constitution and a First Amendment that guarantees the right of free speech and the right of freedom of the press.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I agree with my colleague, for sure, that during a government shutdown, lawmakers should not be paid. That is why I am having my pay deferred during this period.

But the real answer to this shutdown isn't to withhold pay from lawmakers. It is for Republicans to stop holding the healthcare of Americans hostage for millions of Americans, including 337,000 people in my home State. It is for the House Republicans to return here to Washington. They are in a political witness protection program right now, back in their home States. They should come here and negotiate on these issues.

We are seeing the consequences of this Republican shutdown every day--reduced SNAP benefits, canceled flights, rising healthcare costs.

Enough already. Let's sit down. We can open the government and protect the healthcare of all Americans with one vote on the floor. My Republican colleagues are kind of twisting themselves into knots trying to use the shutdown to block my free speech resolution. That is ridiculous. We should have the vote on free speech.

Because of that, I object.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Kaine for his leadership on this issue, highlighting it, meeting on it, bringing it to the attention of the American public. The same thing is true for Senator Wyden and Senator Klobuchar.

Thank you so much for your leadership.

And I rise to join them in highlighting the devastating impact President Trump's economic policies are having on small businesses across our country. Small business owners are struggling in President Trump's economy.

Let me just say this: 97 percent of all the companies in America that engage in trade are small businesses, and those small businesses represent one-third of all trade that our country engages in.

They are not big companies. They can't buy a year or 2 years' inventory in advance. They live week to week. They live month to month. And that is pretty much where they have been since April. They have been trying to survive. They have been trying just to make it through this hectic, unpredictable, roller coaster of tariffs, which the President has been imposing.

And these small businesses, they are unbelievably struggling in this economy right now. Thanks to President Trump, just this year, electricity costs are up 11 percent. Food prices are up. The cost of coffee is up 19 percent this year. Bananas are up 7 percent. Beef is up 13 percent. The cost of healthcare for millions of small business owners will increase by an average of 114 percent.

This is going to be a massive hit on small businesses and small business workers if the Affordable Care Act tax premiums expire. It is going to be 10 million small businesses and small business employees in our country that are going to see a spike that is going to be dramatic for their healthcare.

And 42,000 jobs we have lost in manufacturing this year--42,000 down, not up--not as promised. And that is supposed to be at the center of his tariff policy? We are losing manufacturing jobs at an accelerated rate after Joe Biden increased manufacturing jobs.

And I would like to, again, really point out what a great job you have been doing, Senator Kaine, on this in putting a great big spotlight on all of this, because this is absolutely central to the economic well-being of our country.

So back in May, I introduced and tried to pass my Small Business Liberation Act, a bill that would have protected small businesses from Trump's tariff chaos, just saying: Get those 97 percent of all the businesses engaged in trade--the small businesses--get them out of this war. They can't survive that war. Big businesses, maybe, but not little businesses. They just can't do it. But the Senate Republicans blocked that proposal.

Then I did it again. Republicans blocked my proposal just to spare the small businesses, and, unfortunately, Republicans have not shown the courage yet on Trump's tariffs, just capitulation, as they do on so many other issues.

By opposing my bill and preventing those sensible resolutions from moving forward in the House, Republicans are allowing Trump to tax any good from any country for any reason--no rules. And the only reason is Trump doesn't have the legal authority to do that. He doesn't have the legal authority to do what he is doing right now.

Trump claims to have authority under a 1977 law signed by Jimmy Carter, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This law was so uncontroversial in 1977 that it was passed on a voice vote.

Now, can you imagine? Jimmy Carter is President. There is a bill that is going to allow Jimmy Carter to become a dictator, to impose tariffs on any country in the world, to jack up the price anywhere they want on any product, at any time; anything that ticks him off, including some little commercial about Ronald Reagan, and all of a sudden, boom, we are smashing you, Canada.

Does anyone here really think the Republicans and the Congress, in 1977, at the height of Jimmy Carterism, were giving him unlimited authority to be able to impose tariffs?

You know that did not happen. He doesn't have the legal authority to do this, and I can tell you because I was there on the floor of Congress when it happened in 1977. I know there was no debate on this.

And so that is what we are talking about right now. The Congress did not give Jimmy Carter King-like powers--I can guarantee you that--on a voice vote. But Trump, he thinks he can exercise these emergency powers and tax any import for any reason. Our latest emergency? It is a television ad, a Canadian-produced and featured audio of former President Ronald Reagan denouncing the tariffs. And, in retaliation, President Trump decided everyday Americans and small businesses should pay 10 percent more on imports from Canada.

It is very clear, Trump is just making all of this up. He is making it up as he goes along.

And, for Massachusetts, it is very important. Every fifth grader-- when I was in the fifth grade and all fifth graders in Massachusetts-- in the geography book there is one chapter entitled: ``Our Friends the Canadians.'' And why is that? Because they are our leading trading partner. It is only like a 3- or 4-hour ride to get up to Canada. It is who we are. We trade with them every single day. We do $10 billion of trade with Canada. That is whom we do business with.

And this 10 percent additional tariff, you know who it cascades down onto? The small businesses of Massachusetts. Ordinary citizens, they are going to be further crushed. That is whom we partner with.

And he knows he doesn't have this trade authority. Small businesses have had enough of Trump's illegal actions and have successfully challenged the tariff authority twice already. He lost in the district court. He lost in the circuit court. And next week, this case is going to be heard in the Supreme Court. So small businesses have already won twice, and now they are going for the final round in the Supreme Court, hoping that they won't engage in creative legislative history reinterpretation of that Republican unanimous vote in 1977 that allowed Jimmy Carter to become a King on tariffs.

So the President says it is ``enemies of the country'' who are suing him. If that is how you view Main Street in America--Kiwanians, Rotarians, small business, chambers of commerce all across the country--they are the ones bringing the suit and have already won twice and are now heading for the showdown on the Supreme Court.

For small businesses, this isn't about politics; it is about survival. And right now, Trump's tariffs are taxes for them. So far, it is $30 billion coming from small businesses that Trump then transfers into tax breaks for the wealthiest people in our country or for the Argentine Government, but it is not staying on Main Street. They are not getting the rewards for the work which they have done.

A small business in Massachusetts that designs and manufactures and sells outdoor recreation equipment told me that they have paid an extra $500,000 this year because of Trump's tariff taxes. Earlier this week, they received a $40,000 bill from imports from Taiwan. It is just a small business.

And, meanwhile, big businesses have CEOs meeting directly with the President and receiving generous exemptions.

It is Robin Hood in reverse. Trump is taking from hard-working, regular people, and he is transferring the wealth to the millionaires and billionaires in our country. It is absolutely economic craziness that the President is engaging in. He is punishing Main Street. He is turning Main Street into ``Pain Street'' in every single State in our country.

And that extra increase in the tariffs from Canada puts a special burden on Massachusetts and our small businesses, our workers.

So it is very clear this tax is not being paid by other countries. American small businesses pay the tax. Main Street is paying this tax. And President Trump is taxing food and clothing and toys and even tea. And as a small business owner reminded me, the last time there was a tax on tea, there was a revolution in our country that began in Boston.

Small businesses have no lobbyists, no Mar-a-Lago, no golden gifts for President Trump, no margin for error. There will be no invitations to the new ballroom, but I am not going to back down. I am going to continue to stand up for small businesses across the country, across Massachusetts, from red States to blue States, who are bearing the burden of these tariffs, and I hope that our Republican colleagues will join us today by voting to pass this resolution.

And, again, I thank you, Senator Kaine, for your leadership, and the same to you, Senator Wyden and to Senator Klobuchar. This is a very important moment in the economic history of our country.

I yield the floor.

Well, thank you, and thank you so much for raising all of these issues about the threat to our democracy. Authoritarianism is running rampant. Healthcare, education, our environment are all being threatened in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

And so I would ask if the Senator would yield for a question.

Thank you. So Republicans are shutting down the government to cut Americans' healthcare. In fact, Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans have been shutting down our government since day one. We are witnessing a Robin Hood in reverse as Republicans make deep healthcare cuts and steal from those most in need, all to pay tax breaks to CEO billionaires in our country.

And as a result of Trump's ``Big Ugly Bill,'' over 320,000 Massachusetts residents could lose insurance coverage. That is almost 5 percent of the entire State. The Commonwealth could lose over $2 billion in Medicaid funding, absolutely, with Massachusetts hospitals losing $424 million each year, erasing 19,000 healthcare jobs in the State of Massachusetts alone.

After ripping healthcare away from hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents, MAGA Republicans are now willing to dramatically raise health insurance costs for even more families. If the premium tax credits from the American Rescue Plan expire at the end of this year, 337,000 additional Massachusetts residents will see their health insurance costs spike. In the process, our residents collectively will lose $425 million in tax credits each and every year, averaging over $1,300 per enrollee each year. Some can see their premiums surge over $1,000 a month, leaving them an annual premium of more than $25,000.

So this healthcare premium bomb is about to go off all across our country on kitchen tables--dramatic increases in the costs for healthcare for families. That is just unacceptable.

The price of groceries is up. The price of electricity is up. And now Trump and his MAGA Republicans want to jack up the cost of health insurance, forcing families from Boston to the Berkshires, from Portland, ME, to Portland, OR, to make difficult choices to make ends meet.

Right now, thanks to these tax credits, a couple in their thirties earning $50,000 in the city of Boston with two children could pay just $4 a month for their health insurance premiums. But soon, if Trump and MAGA Republicans decide to let these credits expire, that couple will receive a notice in the mail that they will have to pay $176 a month, a 4,000-percent increase costing thousands of dollars more per year.

A 62-year-old couple living in Watertown that earns $86,000 a year could pay $1,700 more each month.

A 58-year-old living in the Berkshires making $32,000 a year could see their premiums increase by 170 percent.

Last week, Democrats on the Small Business Committee, on which I serve as ranking member, released new data showing over 10 million small business owners and their employees rely on the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits to afford health insurance.

Small businesses are the heartbeat of our economy. But Republicans are turning Main Street into ``Pain Street.'' Republicans are making a Jenga tower of our healthcare system. They remove one block, access to Medicaid, and then another, health insurance tax credits. They already have put us into a healthcare crisis.

But they don't stop there. Republicans have cut or frozen over $1.3 billion in grants to Massachusetts from the National Institutes of Health for lifesaving medical research and clinical trials. They are gutting our public health workforce by revoking temporary protective status for Haitians and Venezuelans and directing ICE to terrorize lawful immigrants who are disproportionately healthcare and human service workers.

We know these cuts will have even worse impacts on Black and Brown communities. Right now, 60 percent of Black children rely on Medicaid for their healthcare. Sixty percent of Black children in our country rely upon Medicaid for their healthcare. If these cuts go through, millions could lose access to checkups, asthma treatments, and mental health care to keep families healthy and children in school. It would leave parents with impossible choices between medicine and meals. And restrictions on Medicaid don't just trim budgets, they cut into lives.

With each Jenga block Republicans remove from the tower, Americans' healthcare becomes more and more unstable. We know how Jenga ends. The tower collapses. That is where we are heading right now.

But Democrats are not going to let our healthcare system collapse. The Republicans want to loot the healthcare system of tens of billions of dollars and then hand it over in tax breaks to the Republican billionaires who are their supporters. Well, the Democrats are not going to drive the getaway car in the biggest healthcare financial heist in the history of our country. We are not going to do that. We are fighting to keep the premiums affordable.

Republicans call it a government shutdown because they don't want to admit what they and Trump are doing. It is a healthcare shutdown and Speaker Johnson has Republicans in a political witness protection program right now. They are scattered all over the country. We want them to come here so we can negotiate with them to solve this healthcare problem.

We can solve the government shutdown and end the healthcare crisis with one vote--one vote on the floor of the House and the Senate. It wouldn't take more than that. They just have to come here.

Right now, what we have is a President saying: Well, there is nothing to negotiate on the shutdown.

So, ultimately, that is going to be the challenge which this country is going to be facing because the Republicans are refusing to come to negotiate.

We are calling on Donald Trump and Republicans to reverse their cruel cuts, return the funding they looted from our healthcare system, and restore access to essential care for all Americans.

So I have a question for my colleague. As this ticking healthcare timebomb gets closer to exploding, how will it hurt Americans' wallets and our national economy?

Would the Senator yield for a question?

I want you to follow up a little bit on that University of North Carolina Sheps Center study. I requested them to do that study. It came back, and it was a blistering, scalding indictment of the Republicans' support for these dramatic cuts to our healthcare system.

And it concluded, as you said, that over 330 hospitals--rural hospitals--in our country, would close. That was 30 in Kentucky, 30 in Louisiana--disproportionately in rural America.

Could you talk about that, maybe a little bit more, especially in terms of your home State of Oregon but what that portends for the rest of the country in terms of the provision of healthcare services and then the flooding of the other hospitals' emergency rooms, the increase in the premiums for those who can afford health insurance--but the costs are just going to skyrocket--and elaborate, if you could, just a little bit more on that looming crisis?

Mr. President, we are down here telling the Trump administration that their energy emergency, as they call it, is the emergency for our country. Trump, Secretary Chris Wright--this whole administration is using emergency authorities to make up a crisis that is resulting in our electric bills going sky high all across our country, and our clean energy jobs are going up in smoke. This energy emergency is just fossil fuel gaslighting of the American people.

Since Trump took office, electricity prices have gone up more than 10 percent--twice as fast as general inflation, which also remains historically high thanks to the Trump administration running our economy into the ground. Their tariffs and their healthcare policies are leading to higher prices--the price of food, the price of clothing, the price of electricity--because of the Trump policies.

So why is this happening? For starters, Trump and the Republicans are failing Econ 101. On the demand side, Big Tech is demanding big amounts of electricity for its data centers. Data centers are projected to demand up to 130,000 megawatts of electricity load by 2030--as much electricity as is used by more than 100 million American homes. Do you want to hear that again? This is all going to happen in the blink of an eye. They are going to be consuming as much electricity as 100 million homes in our country.

On the supply side, well, Trump is cutting off our cheapest and quickest-to-deploy sources of energy that can meet this demand. Trump's sham energy emergency pushes fossil fuels as the solution, but those fossil fuels are polluting, they are pricey, and they are getting pushed abroad to the highest bidder as exports. These fossil fuel exports actually increase energy costs here for Americans. This is what Senator Kaine has been talking about, trying to raise the profile of these issues.

Last week, the Trump administration announced that they are killing nearly $8 billion in grants for grid development and energy innovation, targeting States that did not vote for Donald Trump in 2024. This week, rumors have been swirling about the impending cancelation of tens of billions of additional energy grant dollars that would be out there trying to create more electricity, more energy here in the United States. These lawless terminations hamstring American competitors, drive up energy costs, and hurt domestic manufacturing.

But this is nothing new for this chaos administration, which has already prevented hundreds of thousands of clean energy megawatts from getting onto the grid. That is more than $42 billion in private sector clean energy projects and 80,000 clean energy jobs already wiped out by Donald Trump in the first 9 months of his administration.

Wright, Vought, Burgum, Trump--it is a fossil fuel cabal. It is not a Cabinet; it is a cartel that is now running the United States of America right out of the Oval Office, killing all of the new energy sources that we need from wind and solar, from batteries, all-electric vehicles--this incredible transformation that was taking place in our country that they are now just trying to completely and totally kill.

Republicans' ``Big Ugly Bill,'' which eliminated programs working to lower household costs and get clean energy built, is expected to cause wholesale electricity prices to rise by 74 percent over the next 10 years--that is just in one bill--while keeping 350,000 megawatts of wind and solar off the grid over the next 10 years.

Just think about that. There are massive amounts of wind and solar all lined up, ready to get on to the wires that go up and down the streets of our country--the grid--and what the Republicans are doing is saying: We are killing it all.

Of course, if you don't have all of that extra electricity and AI consumes all of the remaining electricity, guess who is going to pick up the tab? It is going to be residential homeowners. It is going to be small businesses. They will have to pay much higher rates for the remaining electricity. There will be a bidding war for the remaining electricity in our country. Each individual family cannot compete against these big AI companies. So the ``Big Ugly Bill'' is going to mean a lot of big ugly bills arriving in mailboxes for pretty much every American over the next 10 years for their dramatically skyrocketed electricity.

Their crazed push to produce more fossil fuels, whether by cutting pollution regulation, selling off our public lands, keeping retiring coal plants online, will cost Americans billions more. We will see blackouts and we will see bigger bills because Trump and the Republicans want bigger profits for their fossil fuel buddies--buddies who contributed to Trump's campaign and have gotten paid out big time in return, with more than $4 billion in brandnew handouts from the government this year alone.

Let's call Trump's energy agenda what it really is: oil above all, not all of the above.

Trump's energy agenda is killing American energy, especially the most affordable and the most ready-to-go energy out there because--here are the facts: Last year in the United States, 94 percent of all new electrical generation capacity was wind and solar and batteries. Let me say that again so everyone can hear it. Last year, 94 percent of all new electricity came from wind and solar and batteries.

You wouldn't know that if you listened to the White House. You wouldn't know that if you listened to the Department of Energy or the EPA because they are just lying about it. They are just flat-out lying about the role that wind and solar can play in our system because they are over here just doing the bidding of the natural gas and the coal industry. That is who they are.

They are looking at the future in a rearview mirror while young people are looking to the future. Young people want to have this renewable energy revolution unleashed for their century, for the 21st century.

Solar panels today cost 1 percent of what they cost just 30 years ago--1 percent. That is how much it has dropped. Crazy.

They say it is not working, in the White House. What is happening to them? It is working too well. The oil, gas, and coal industry--they are afraid of the future competition that comes from the technologies of this younger generation in our country. They can smell it coming, that their future is in the rearview mirror. That is what this whole thing is all about.

There is a way of now producing solar energy. Even solar plus storage is cheaper than running any coal-burning plant in the United States of America. But you wouldn't know that from listening to Donald Trump, when he says: I love coal. I love clean coal.

Well, young people love clean solar, clean wind. It is cheaper, and it doesn't lead to asthma, it doesn't lead to lung cancer, and it doesn't lead to genetic damage that can hurt future generations of those families who are nearby those coal-burning plants.

Trump and Republicans have taken aim at renewables because they are just plain scared. Even with all the subsidies that Big Oil and Big Gas get from our government, renewables are winning on the market.

Trump is doing his fossil fuel donors' dirty work and keeping American-made competition off of the grid. These are Trump energy taxes on the American people.

So let's shine a spotlight on this fossil fuel gaslighting. Trump's declaration is the energy emergency. Trump's declaration is the energy emergency. He is stopping the future from arriving. He is stopping this generation from deriving the benefits of a revolution that can be led by the United States and then spread around the world--a solar revolution, a wind revolution, a renewables revolution.

We should be the leaders, so let's end his sham declaration so we can get lower bills, not raise barriers to affordable, American-made, clean energy.

I urge my colleagues to enthusiastically support Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's resolution. This is a critical debate. This goes to, yes, the prices for electricity for all American families, all American small businesses, but it also goes to the future of our planet.

Are we going to reduce the greenhouse gases we are sending up? Are we going to recognize that we have a generational responsibility to be the leader? Because the planet is running a

fever, and there are no emergency rooms for planets. We have to engage in preventive care. That is what the wind and solar and battery storage technologies all represent. They represent that future--a healthier future, a safer future for all generations of all children in all countries of the world. The United States should be the leader and not the lagger.

I thank you, Senator Kaine, and I thank you, Senator Heinrich, for bringing this resolution onto the floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Matthew Sheffield, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, I rise today to seek unanimous consent to pass H.R. 5100, a bill to extend the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs for 1 year. This bill was unanimously passed by the House of Representatives, led by the Republican chairs of both the House Small Business Committee and the House Science Committee.

Hundreds of small businesses have written to Chair Ernst and to me, urging the passage of the House bill to avoid ending the program. The National Academies, including Trump's former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, wrote to us, urging the passage of H.R. 5100.

And given that the House will not be in session today, any objection or modification to this unanimously passed House bill will result in the program's ending. Yet here we are, watching the clock expire on one of the most bipartisan and successful small business programs in our government.

If we don't pass this bill, more than $4 billion worth of research and development funding for research institutions and small businesses is at stake. SBIR and STTR have led to technologies that have changed American lives: the world's smallest heart pump, new cancer therapies, Alzheimer's treatments, GPS, and Qualcomm wireless communications systems.

This program has gone above and beyond the expectations of those who enacted it more than 40 years ago. For every SBIR dollar spent, the program returns $22 to $33 in economic benefits; and this number includes, contrary to recent rhetoric, positive returns on investment from the top 25 companies, and 63 percent of the top 25 companies have commercialized their technology. In 2024, 60 percent of SBIR awardees had won their first awards in the last 5 years, and, annually, 30 percent of awardees are new entrants.

If we don't pass this legislation today, we will be hitting the ``off'' switch to the light bulb of innovation in our country.

But that is not to say that the programs are perfect. In May, I introduced a 52-page bill with suggested improvements and extensions for the programs.

I want to provide small businesses with the certainty they deserve by making the programs permanent to ensure we do not watch the clock hit zero again. I want to increase how much

Agencies are required to allocate for these programs in order to maximize our innovation potential. I want to strengthen our commercialization efforts through better data collection, training, and designated commercialization officers. I want to increase the number of new entrants by reauthorizing and codifying new programs that aim to reach underserved populations.

I, like all of my colleagues, want to make sure that our technology never falls in the hands of our adversaries. That is why I want to continue the bipartisan program enacted in 2022, which has identified and mitigated foreign risk in its short period of implementation.

According to the Department of Defense, only 0.04 percent of their applications have been deemed a foreign risk. If H.R. 5100 is not enacted, the current safeguards we have in place for foreign risk go away. Small businesses cut off from government funding will be left vulnerable, opening the door for foreign adversaries to swoop in and acquire American technology, and I know that none of my colleagues want that situation to become a reality.

The SBIR and STTR Programs are not graduation programs. They are research and development programs. These programs work because of their merit-based competition nature--Darwinian, paranoia-inducing competition. Kicking successful companies out of these programs would be like cutting your highest scorers after winning the NBA title. Instead of innovation, we would get decimation. We would be stifling potential technology critical to national security, our economy, our health, or to the next energy revolution in our country.

It should not matter where these technologies come from, whether it is Massachusetts or Texas or New York or North Carolina or Iowa or any State. Our standing on the world stage of innovation depends on these small businesses, and a lapse in the program would be devastating. It would lead to expansive layoffs, setbacks to scientific advancement, leave government-funded technology vulnerable to foreign adversaries, and cut billions for small business innovators.

We are already seeing the impact of uncertainty in the programs. Last week, the Department of Defense delayed their SBIR applications, and we have heard from multiple Agencies that they will do the same if the program is not reauthorized.

To be clear, this was not in response to a government shutdown but in response to Congress's not coming to an agreement on the reauthorization of the SBIR and STTR Programs.

That is why five of the six negotiators, including the two Republican House chairmen, for these programs have agreed on a 1-year extension. We all want to see improvements made, but we need the time necessary to ensure that we are making informed, evidence-based decisions that do not harm American innovation.

So, from my perspective, I ask my colleagues to work with the other five corners, pass the 1-year extension, and work toward a longer reauthorization with the improvements we all want to see.

With that, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be discharged and that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5100; further, I ask 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.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I rise to oppose the substitute amendment offered by the Senator from Iowa.

The SBIR and STTR Programs expire at midnight tonight, separate from everything else that is going on here in the Senate today. The only bipartisan option to avoid the program ending is to pass H.R. 5100 as passed by the House of Representatives already before us. The Republican chairmen in the House have already passed it over to us.

As I said previously, we all have changes to the program we would like to enact, and that is just going to take time. They recognize that over in the House, the Republican chairmen.

We should extend these programs, which we should do on a bipartisan basis, while continuing to work on a bipartisan basis to address the Senator from Iowa's concerns, along with other reforms that other Senators and House Members would like to make.

I object to this amendment because it guarantees a lapse and because it would, No. 1, punish successful, innovative small businesses; No. 2, force small businesses to avoid pursuing the riskier, more cutting-edge ideas that keep American innovation at the forefront--it is the small companies that do the innovation; big companies buy that innovation from small companies, but it is the small companies that do the innovation in our country; and No. 3, prevent Agencies from being able to fund technology that aids their mission if that technology comes from a successful small business. The so-called waiver included in the amendment would only result in party politics as opposed to merit-based competition.

Finally, the wide-sweeping foreign due diligence changes would require Agencies to forgo the flexibility to determine their own risk tolerance. It would also leave the door open for Agencies to deny applications on any grounds they see fit, even if it is not in statute or regulations.

To top it off, this proposal aims to dismantle the entire SBIR and STTR Programs, while only extending authorization for 1 month.

Now is not the time to play games with small businesses and American innovation. We must make sure we do not hand over our crown jewel-- American small businesses and decades of American innovation--to our foreign adversaries by allowing this program to end.

So I ask my colleagues here, I ask my colleague from Iowa to join me and the Republican chairs of both the House Small Business and Science Committees to pass the overwhelmingly supported extension for 1 year on a bipartisan basis so we can work out the differences. We should not allow this program to end.

We never cap what big businesses can get from the Federal Government. Their tax benefits are permanent. Their ability to go to the Defense Department or other Agencies with big contracts--that is never capped, and we should not be capping small businesses.

That is why we need to have the discussion, because it is critical that this program continue tomorrow.

So with that, I object.

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

Madam President, the First Amendment is the beating heart of our democracy. It protects the right of Americans to speak freely, to criticize their leaders, and to entertain and inform without fear of government reprisal. The Framers did not write an exception for late- night comedians or for political satire. They did not carve out an exemption for monologues that offend those in power. The principle is clear: In America, the government does not get to decide which jokes are permissible and which criticisms are punished.

Yet, yesterday, we saw a shocking breach of this constitutional order. Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, went on a partisan podcast and threatened ABC, the American Broadcasting Company, and its parent company, Disney, over a joke told by comedian Jimmy Kimmel. Carr called Kimmel's comments the ``sickest conduct possible'' and suggested revoking the broadcast licenses of ABC affiliates.

He then delivered a line toward ABC and Disney. It sounded like something out of ``The Godfather.'' He said:

We can do this the easy way or [we can do it] the hard way.

Let me say that line again:

We can do this the easy way or [we can do it] the hard way.

That is not oversight; that is intimidation. That is not regulation; that is retaliation. That is ``The Godfather'' giving Disney an offer they can't refuse from the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. That is the language that mobsters use to shake people down, and it came from the mouth of the FCC Chairman of the Federal Government, with vast legal authority to punish Disney and ABC and their affiliates.

The chilling effect was immediate. Within hours, Disney and ABC indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel from the air. A comedian was silenced because a government regulator, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, flexed his authority.

This is not an isolated slip of the tongue; it is part of a broader pattern by the Federal Communications Commission under Brendan Carr's leadership. Over and over again, he has used his office to attack and undermine journalists and broadcasters and news organizations that dare to speak in ways which he personally dislikes. He has threatened media companies with investigations for their editorial choices. He has amplified partisan attacks on reporters who cover him critically. He has turned the FCC into the ``Federal Censorship Commission,'' with his being the censor in chief.

These are not the actions of an independent regulator; they are the actions of a partisan censor. And make no mistake, if left unchecked, this campaign will not stop with ABC or with Disney. Every newsroom, every broadcaster, every local affiliate will hear the message loud and clear: Criticize the people in power, and you risk your license, your livelihood, your very ability to operate.

That conversation is taking place in newsrooms all across our country today. Look what happened to Disney. Look what happened to ABC. Be afraid. Don't think that the First Amendment protects you anymore. Don't think that you have a right to speak what your opinion is.

The FCC was created to ensure that the public airwaves--our shared national resource--are used in the public interest. It was not created to dictate what late-night hosts may joke about. It was not created to punish networks for broadcasting opinions that government officials dislike. It was not created to be the speech police for the United States of America.

The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, sitting in his office, watching TV, saying ``I don't like that. I am taking away their license,'' is not what the Federal Communications Commission was established to do in our country. Yet Chairman Brendan Carr has pretended otherwise. He has distorted the FCC's mandate to serve his own partisan ends. Instead of acting in the public interest,

he is trying to force broadcasters to act in Donald Trump's interest. If you say something that Donald Trump doesn't like, we will take away your license. We won't allow you to be a broadcaster anymore. We will fine you.

He should know better. It was not too long ago, before he was Chairman, when Brendan Carr was singing a completely different tune. He actually condemned perceived attempts by ``government officials to silence political speech that they don't like.'' That is the old Brendan Carr. He defended talk show hosts, saying:

From internet memes to late-night comedians, from cartoons

to the plays and poems as old as organized government itself,

Political Satire circumvents traditional gatekeepers and

helps hold those in power accountable. Not surprising that

it's long been targeted for censorship.

Did I say that? No. Brendan Carr said that--Brendan Carr. But this is a different guy now. He just got a job in the Trump administration, so he is bending the knee to Donald Trump on all of these issues, because, then, he rightfully defended the First Amendment. He said:

Free speech is not a threat to democracy--censorship is [a

threat to democracy].

Chairman Carr has betrayed those principles, and he should resign. He is not fit to be the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission. He is using it now to intimidate people whom he considers to be political enemies of Donald Trump. That is not his job.

But that is not enough. The Senate must speak with one voice in rejecting his unconstitutional actions.

The resolution I bring before this Chamber today condemns Brendan Carr for weaponizing government power against Disney and ABC. It affirms that the Federal Communications Commission does not and must not have the authority to punish broadcasters for the content of their programming. It declares that no American--whether a comedian, a journalist, an ordinary citizen--should ever have to fear government retaliation for speaking their mind. And it doesn't make any difference whether you are a Democrat or Republican, whether a Democrat doesn't like what a Republican said, whether a Republican doesn't like what a Democrat said.

We have to stand for the Constitution, not for censorship, to stand for freedom and not intimidation, to stand for a free press, not a government-controlled press.

Chairman Carr has shown himself unwilling and unable to uphold the responsibilities of his office, but the Senate can still uphold our responsibilities to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution--the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the one they put up first because they knew that free speech and freedom of the press was what ultimately would protect the democracy against dictators and Kings and those who would subvert our Constitution to their own individual whims.

By passing this resolution, we can make clear that the First Amendment is not negotiable; it is not partisan; it is not subject to the whims of a single regulator.

From my perspective, again, the First Amendment is the beating heart of our democracy. It protects the right of Americans to speak freely, to criticize their leaders of both parties, and to entertain and inform without fear of government reprisal.

So, Madam President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 407, submitted earlier today; and, further, 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.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize and congratulate the Boston Passport Agency on its 100th anniversary. For a century, the dedicated public servants at the Boston Passport Agency have connected the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts--and travelers from across New England--to the wider world. Today, the agency continues to safeguard the integrity of the U.S. passport and ensure families, students, servicemembers, business leaders, and humanitarian workers can safely travel across the globe.

I celebrate the Boston Passport Agency's centennial milestone on September 17, 2025, which marks Constitution Day and Citizenship Day. On this day, every year, we recognize the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and celebrate those who have become, or are on their path to becoming, U.S. citizens. Every American--whether they were born on U.S. soil or immigrated to our shores--offers their own unique story, traditions, faith, and values to the fabric of our Nation. For the last 100 years, the Boston Passport Agency has taken part in the incredible task of honoring American stories--one passport at a time.

The Boston Passport Agency tirelessly serves the public trust. Day in and day out, agency professionals uphold the highest standards of security, while delivering the responsive, compassionate service Commonwealth residents have come to know and appreciate. Whether it is assisting a college student preparing for a semester abroad, a grandmother traveling to welcome a new grandchild, or a family navigating the urgency of a medical or humanitarian emergency, the agency meets the moment with expertise, diligence, and care.

Over the decades--and especially in recent years--the Boston Passport Agency has displayed remarkable resilience and innovation. During periods of unprecedented demand and global uncertainty, including public health disruptions that strained travel systems worldwide, the agency's personnel adapted operations and devised creative ways to serve the public, all without compromising security. In partnership with local communities, elected officials, and Department of State leadership, the agency's staff helped reduce backlogs, protect against fraud, and strengthen processes essential to both national security and individual liberty.

The economic and cultural impact of the Boston Passport Agency's work reverberates far beyond the walls of its office. By powering international research collaborations, trade and tourism, and educational exchanges, the

Boston Passport Agency enriches our region's institutions, industries, and communities. The agency enables small businesses to reach new markets, assists families in cultivating bonds across borders, and supports Americans in representing our Nation's values abroad.

We also honor the great people who make up this institution; their professionalism and diligence have made possible the extraordinary journeys of so many. On behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the leadership and staff of the Boston Passport Agency--past and present--for a century of exemplary service and stewardship.

I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the Boston Passport Agency on its 100th anniversary and in wishing its team continued success in the years ahead.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Unfortunately, I cannot support the Senator from Iowa's proposed legislation.

I agree that we must reauthorize the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs before their authorizations expire at the end of this month. However, the legislation proposed by the Senator from Iowa would decimate American innovation conducted by small business and make wholesale changes to the law without proper data, full information, or appropriate vetting.

I am opposed to this bill because, one, the best research proposals will not be funded; two, technologies like the world's smallest heart pump, oxygen delivery systems for military and submarines, and technology to improve radiation threat detection in public spaces would not exist if the Senator's legislation were the law; three, successful innovative small businesses will be punished solely because they are successful in the program; four, businesses will avoid pursuing the riskier, more cutting-edge ideas that keep American innovation at the forefront, ahead of our rivals in the world; five, agencies will no longer be able to fund technology that aids their mission if that technology comes from a successful small business. And this is only a fraction of the concerns that not only I have but that the SBIR and STTR communities have raised with me.

These programs have gone above and beyond the expectations of those who enacted it. Since the program was established, more than 30,000 small businesses have provided $70 billion in research and development to the U.S. Government. For every SBIR dollar spent, the dollar returns anywhere from $22 to $33 in economic benefits. These programs work because of the merit-based competition nature of the programs.

Darwinian paranoia-inducing competition--that is what wins. Competition drives innovation, and meaningful innovation always comes from our most nimble allies--small businesses, not big corporations. It is the small businesses that innovate, and then big companies might want to purchase that breakthrough, but it never comes from those big companies.

That is why, in May, I introduced legislation to not only make these successful programs permanent but further increase their research and their efficacy.

My SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2025 would, one, make permanent the SBIR and STTR programs; two, maintain their merit-based competitive nature; three, increase research funding for small businesses and partnering research institutions; four, strengthen commercialization efforts; five, maintain the tough, bipartisan foreign due diligence program established by our predecessors Senators Cardin and Paul just 3 years ago, which is working; and six, dismantle barriers to increase participation from underserved populations and new entrants.

I am greatly disappointed that we have not been able to come to a bipartisan agreement on how to reauthorize these programs, though my Democratic colleagues and I have continued to show up to negotiate in good faith. However, I am glad that the House Small Business and House Science Committees sensibly came together on a bipartisan, clean 1-year extension for the programs. This extension was unanimously reported out of the House Small Business Committee just yesterday.

Should that legislation come to the Senate and the Senator from Iowa block my reauthorization legislation, I will support the House's 1-year extension. It is important that these programs do not face arbitrary, wholesale changes that would weaken American innovation and small businesses' role in it. It is also critical that these programs do not face a lapse in reauthorization as it would set the program and our innovation ecosystem back by years.

Therefore, I object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be discharged from further consideration of S. 1573 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. Further, I ask 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.

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator. I am happy to continue to negotiate with her. Again, in my opinion, a 1-year extension gives us the time to do that.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, President Donald Trump's so-called Golden Dome for America is the latest reincarnation of President Ronald Reagan's ``Star Wars'' fantasy: thousands of space-based missile interceptors supposedly capable of stopping a missile strike from any adversary anywhere in the world.

President Trump suggests it could protect the United States from a nuclear attack. But in reality, the Golden Dome is fool's gold. It will make us poor, less secure, and more isolated. It is a gold-plated boondoggle that will enrich defense contractors and ignite a new nuclear arms race.

The Golden Dome is a trillion-dollar mistake in the making. It will be much more effective at wasting taxpayer dollars than wasting any missiles. It is a defense contractor's dream and a taxpayer's nightmare.

The potential costs are astronomical. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that even a limited system against just two-- two--incoming missiles, let's just say from the Soviet Union--would require 2,000 space-based interceptors and can cost as much as $542 billion. The American

Physical Society estimated that to counter a larger attack of 10 missiles, we would need a system of 40,000 interceptors, costing about $1 trillion. And a system to defend against hundreds of incoming missiles from Russia or China would cost trillions more.

As Senator Tim Sheehy from Montana said, the system ``will likely cost in the trillions, if and when, Golden Dome is completed.''

President Trump has pitched this Golden Dome as a $175 billion project and, so far, Congress has approved $25 billion as part of the reconciliation bill, plus billions more in the Defense authorization bill. And that is just a drop in the bucket. But by the way, the bucket has a hole in the bottom. So this money is just going in and going to waste.

They want to add trillions more to something that won't work; it will make us more vulnerable; the Soviets and the Chinese will be responding; and it is just going to cost more money with less protection for the security of the American people.

Even worse, experts say that Trump's Golden Dome would be ineffective and alarmingly easy to defeat. And these are three main reasons why it would be easy to defeat: First, space-based interceptors, like all satellites, would be sitting ducks for anti-satellite weapons. Russia and China already have anti-satellite weapons they could use to attack our space-based interceptors. And Russia is reportedly developing a nuclear weapon that could be deployed in orbit around the planet and detonated in space to destroy satellites.

We cannot count on space-based interceptors to protect us because in a crisis, one of the first things Moscow and Beijing would do is to destroy them. And we just saw Putin and President Xi shaking hands this past week--just shaking hands.

Second, Moscow and Beijing have already started to develop new systems to get around U.S. defenses, including Russia's nuclear-powered cruise missile and China's fractional orbit bombardment system. Whatever new space-based defense system we deploy, there is a cheaper way for our adversaries to get around it.

Third, Golden Dome would be no match for our adversaries who could overwhelm the system by simply building more and cheaper missiles.

If we build a system to stop 500 missiles, they will field 600 missiles. In fact, the Golden Dome would push Russia and China to do exactly that--expand their arsenals, reject arms control treaties, and plunge the world into a terrifying new nuclear arms race.

Instead of making America safer, we would be inviting a catastrophe, not just for the United States but for the entire world. That is particularly true given that the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control treaty, New START, will expire in just 6 months, leaving us with no limits on Washington and Moscow's nuclear arsenals for the first time in 50 years--no limits on either country. And China wants to move to catch up fast.

Who benefits? Not the American people, not our troops, not our allies. The real winners are defense contractors. SpaceX, for example, led by Elon Musk, is a frontrunner for Golden Dome contracts.

Meanwhile, even if the system could work in theory, we can't trust the Trump administration to build it. The Pentagon is gutting its independent testing office, the very entity that tells us whether these high-priced systems actually work. The office was targeted specifically to limit scrutiny over Golden Dome because, according to one official, the program has ``to be successful for Mr. Trump.'' So it is going to be in darkness. We won't actually know what is going on because they have to get it done for Mr. Trump.

But that just leads to problems because, ultimately, overconfidence breeds hubris and hubris breeds disaster. That is what they are setting up. That is not national security; that is corruption, pure and simple.

History should have taught us this lesson. We have seen this movie before. The original Reagan-era ``Star Wars'' program burned through $400 billion without producing an effective defense for our country. Forty years later, despite decades of research, technology still can't deliver on the fantasy of a perfect missile shield. Golden Dome is just ``Star Wars'' with a brandnew name but a much higher pricetag for the American taxpayer with the same limited security for our people.

What is worse, it violates decades of bipartisan policy. Since 1999, Congress has agreed that U.S. missile defenses should only be designed to stop limited threats, like those from North Korea, not the much larger nuclear arsenals of major powers like Russia and China.

Golden Dome blows up that carefully drawn line with no plan, no strategy, no regard for the consequences because we shouldn't be kidding ourselves, Russia and China will move. It is only going to make the world more dangerous because the system Donald Trump wants to build will not work.

Golden Dome is science fiction, not effective missile defense system. Systems like Israel's Iron Dome have proven useful against short-range conventional rockets. But deploying weapons in space to counter hundreds of strategic nuclear missiles is not only impractical, it is dangerous.

Republicans already increased defense spending by $150 billion in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill. It is not beautiful, though, to trigger a nuclear arms race. It is not beautiful to have paranoia be built into the Russians and Chinese that have been building even more and more nuclear weapons themselves. That is not beautiful for the American people; that is bad for the American people.

GOP really stands for ``Grotesquely Overfunded Pentagon,'' without any effective weapons in their defenses ultimately emanating.

Instead of chasing an impossible dream that risks bankrupting us and destabilizing the world, we should be investing in what actually works: diplomacy, arms control, smart defense. Think of what we could do with $1 trillion instead of wasting it on Golden Dome: fund up to 2,500 new hospitals in the United States--at $60 million apiece, we could have 2,500 new hospitals; forgive the loans of nearly 4 million students-- average student debt is $37,850; cancel medical debt for 68 million Americans--$2,200 a person or at least 230 billion across 100 million Americans. We could get that done. We could help people pay their medical bills. We could build 650,000 affordable housing units in our Nation with that trillion dollars that we are going to waste in outer space. We could build 60,000 new wind turbines to have our electricity come from offshore wind, onshore wind to power our vehicles and the homes which we have in our country. We could provide 37.5 billion meals to school kids across our country. We could fund universal pre-K for the next decade. Congressional Research Service reports from 2021 said it would cost $109 billion over a decade to feed all the kids in America that need food.

We need to fund education, not annihilation; Medicaid not missiles.

It is time Republicans understand the reality that national security also means health, housing, and financial security. But no, the Republicans and Donald Trump want to spend more on a ``Star Wars'' missile defense and the nuclear arsenal, among many other things.

We have seen this Republican playbook before. They claim we must cut spending on education, on healthcare--like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act--on housing, on foreign aid, on climate solutions, but when it comes to defense contractors, they open the purse strings, pouring billions of dollars into the pockets of their well-connected friends.

It is just shameful that they want to cut Medicaid, Medicare, wind, solar, Pell grants for kids to go to school and then say unlimited funding for the Defense Department for a Golden Dome in outer space that is not going to work.

President Trump says his Golden Dome will ``complete the job'' Reagan started. Well, it is not going to complete the job; it is just going to start the same job all over again because it never worked for Ronald Reagan. What it will really do is bury arms control negotiations between the United States and Russia and the Soviet Union. It will balloon the deficit. It will boost the bottom line to billionaires and make our country less safe.

That is why I am offering my ``Golden Dome is Fool's Gold'' amendment to the Defense authorization bill to be considered out here on the Senate floor. No taxpayer dollars should be spent on space-based interceptors until

the Secretary of Defense submits to Congress: One, a plan describing Golden Dome and how much it will really cost; two, a certification by the President that Golden Dome won't start a new arms race with Russia and China; three, a written commitment from the Pentagon's testing office that will have the resources it needs to provide effective oversight of a space-based interceptor program; four, an independent technical review by the National Academy of Sciences on the military and cost effectiveness of Golden Dome.

Before we waste a trillion dollars on an outdated idea that history tells us is a fool's errand, we owe it to the American taxpayers to have a plan, to know how much it will cost, and to ensure that it will work. How can anyone oppose this? Anyone who does is not serious about protecting our country. They are selling you fool's gold.

Sadly, we listened to another fool before. We paid $400 billion for Reagan's Star Wars fantasy and got nothing. Are we really going to buy into that same program again?

This is dangerous spending: nuclear weapons we don't need and missile defenses that don't defend but will provoke others into building more nukes and aiming them directly at us. Real security means investing in our hospitals, our pharmacies, our community health centers, our schools, our communities, our climate change response, to a real threat to America and a real threat to the planet--climate change. That is what we should be doing.

Real security means funding public schools, hot meals for students so they can learn and grow.

Real security means tackling the climate crisis head-on--building a clean energy future here at home and breaking the grip of the fossil fuel companies that they have over the Trump administration.

The doomsday that Americans fear in the 21st century isn't being vaporized by a nuclear bomb. It is the doomsday diagnosis of cancer, that is what people are afraid of at home as the Trump administration slashes NIH funding for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's, for diabetes. That is what people are afraid of. That is where the real security is that people want in their homes, where the cures for these diseases are being found--not an evisceration of mRNA research to find a cure for cancer and other diseases.

This medical debt that people are running up, the rent payment that people have to make, the loan payments, the grocery bills, electricity bills--that is what we should be focused on here. That is the real security that people are calling upon the Senate to provide for them.

So let's finally put people before the Pentagon, nurseries before nukes, buses before bombs. Let's not trade real security for a tarnished gold illusion. We must put a stop to this reckless plan before it launches America into the next unwinnable nuclear arms race.

When those Russian missiles are coming across the North Pole aimed at the United States, the least that we should be able to say is that we tried, we really tried to end the nuclear arms race.

That is not what the Golden Dome is going to accomplish. It is going to accomplish just the opposite. It is going to make that nuclear war more likely. It is going to make the Soviet Union and China more paranoid and bring us closer to that day when we see that catastrophic set of mushroom clouds exploding, not just in the United States but all across the planet.

This is the time, this is the place, we are the people here on the Senate floor who have to make the decision to kill this idea before it winds up killing millions of Americans and others around the world.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 1593 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; 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 with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, you know, I am very troubled that the Senator from Ohio has objected because, obviously, what I am trying to do here on the Senate floor is to make it possible for there to be an exemption for small businesses in our country. Small businesses are 97 percent of our businesses, and they are 30 percent of all companies that engage in trade.

Right now, small businesses are caught in a crossfire. They are seeing this chaotic world of tariffs that the President is engaging in absolutely ripple through their business plans. And it is all across our Nation.

The reason that I have risen today as the ranking member on the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee is to draw the attention to Main Street being turned into ``Pain Street'' all across our country.

Big companies, they are in a position where they can forward order by 6 months the inventory which they need. They can do planning that is absolutely outside of the capacity of a small business in our country.

Small businesses live week to week, month to month, and they are, right now, trying to plan for what the future might look like. It changes day to day, and it changes product to product, depending upon which country President Trump is playing games with on that particular day, minute--just impulsive commentary out of the President.

There is, without question, an impact on small businesses, because that recklessness is being felt by small businesses. These rising prices are affecting them disproportionately.

In response to the President's dramatic tariff escalation, on Thursday night--which is going to go down in history; it is going to go down in history, Thursday night, as one of the most important economic days in the history of our country. My goal was to just seek unanimous consent for my Small Business Liberation Act to be put in place, which exempts small businesses from the tariff wars. It gets them out of the crossfire.

When he was running for President, Donald Trump said:

Starting on day one, we will end inflation and [we will]

make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of

all goods.

Yet after 6 months in office, things have gotten more expensive, as evidenced by Thursday's concerning inflation reading. That is true whether you are buying supplies to run a business like a restaurant, a store, or a small factory, or you are a consumer shopping for everyday items like groceries or clothing or shoes or school supplies for your kids.

Parents are going to be out in the next few weeks buying the school supplies, buying new clothing for their kids. And the prices have already gone up, and they are going to be going up higher. We are going to see the same thing when people are out buying things before Thanksgiving, buying items before Christmas. Prices are going up, and it is going to be rippling through our economy.

Now, with yesterday's very discouraging jobs report, we see the terrible bind in which the President has left our country.

What was Trump's reaction to yesterday's very, very disappointing jobs report? It wasn't to end his chaotic policies, which are casting a cloud over our economy for the last 4 months; it was to fire the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was just her job and all of those dedicated employees to bring the news to the President. Instead of accepting it and deciding to adjust his economic policies, he just fired the person who brought the news, fired the messenger of the news--by the way, leaving economists, on a bipartisan basis, across the country to be criticizing the President over the last 24 years, because they rely upon the accuracy of those numbers.

Economic data does not lie. Donald Trump does lie. He lies about almost everything.

In an ordinary world, a poor jobs report might cause the Fed to lower interest rates. The Fed has a dual mandate: maximum employment and price stability at the same time. But because of the President's chaotic tariff policies, the Federal Reserve can't lower rates without risking making inflation even worse. And inflation is increasing.

Without tariffs, lowering interest rates might be an easy call. Rising unemployment and weak job numbers would mean cutting rates. But the Fed can't ignore the extraordinary amount of uncertainty and confusion the President's trade war has injected into the economy, especially with regard to prices.

The New York Times wrote this week:

Mr. Powell emphasized that there was still substantial

uncertainty about how much more consumer prices will rise in

response to Mr. Trump's tariffs . . . [following] a notable

jump in inflation in June.

Chairman Powell knows what every small business owner in America knows: Tariffs drive up costs. He has watched, along with the rest of us, as they have risen since President Trump took office, and he knows that so long as the threat of tariffs hangs over this Nation, they are likely to increase even further.

This is just a sales tax that he is imposing on every good coming into our country. And that price is then reflected in an evaluation of the increase in inflation. It is pretty simple. So you can't, in any way, argue that there is not a direct correlation, a direct relationship.

The President would have you believe this doesn't matter. But that just shows how little he cares about how much businesses and families have to pay for the things which they need.

So on Thursday, we saw Chairman Powell's predictions about rising costs borne out with the latest inflation reading, which showed the price of goods across industries moving in the wrong direction due to tariffs.

But you don't have to read the Wall Street Journal to know things are more expensive than they were before the President launched his trade war. Just talk to the owner of your local small business. Ask them if their supply costs are going up. Ask them if they know what has been happening since the President started whipsawing the economy on Liberation Day--or what should really be called Obliteration Day--for Main Street across the country and the customers of Main Street.

The unemployment rate is going up. How can small business owners be hiring new people if they are uncertain

about what that tariff environment is going to be?

Take coffee. Just take coffee, for example, which the President seems to think we should tax. Only 1 percent of coffee Americans consume is grown in the United States--in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, to be precise. Onshoring coffee, like many other products we use every day--bananas are another good example--is not an option. We have to import it.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, coffee prices have already gone up 30 percent compared to this time last year, and that is before we see the 50-percent tariff the President is threatening Brazil with in the hope that he can pressure--Trump can pressure--Brazil, the supreme court of Brazil, into dropping the case against coup-plotter Jair Bolsonaro inside of the country of Brazil as a part of the domestic political scene in Brazil. Trump wants to use tariffs on Brazil as a way of influencing their judicial system.

Who is going to pay the price? Well, the people who are going to pay the price are the people who buy coffee in the United States of America. He wants to impose a 50-percent tariff on Brazil. Brazil imports account for one-third of the coffee consumed in the United States, so this additional tariff is going to make for a particularly bitter brew of coffee for American consumers. ``Good to the last drop'' this is not.

Similarly, restaurants are seeing the costs of their ingredients rise and grocery stores are paying more to stock their shelves. Grocery prices were 2.4 percent higher than a year ago. But the Yale Budget Lab expects food costs to rise by an additional 3.4 percent in the short run.

Fresh produce could go up as much as 6.9 percent in the coming months because of tariffs. For the cost of clothing, that increase is a staggering 37.5 percent. And keep in mind that all of these forecasts were made before the President unleashed a slew of new tariffs on Thursday night.

What about small manufacturers that the President claims he wants to save? Well, they can't afford to purchase the equipment and materials they need because their expenses are rising as well.

According to the Institute of Supply Management, the cost of manufacturing materials increased by 17 percent. The cost of manufacturing materials increased by 17 percent during the first 6 months of this year.

Over the past 3 months, we have lost 37,000 manufacturing jobs. Can I say that? Trump says he wants to return manufacturing to America. In the last 3 months, we have lost 37,000 manufacturing jobs.

This would suggest that tariffs are setting domestic manufacturing back and not moving it forward.

The Trump tariffs will disproportionately affect low-income individuals, women, and minorities by increasing costs on household goods that these groups spend a large portion of their income on, including clothes and groceries and household appliances.

By the way, in general, women and minorities are not running big businesses in America. They are over here in small businesses. That is where minorities are. That is where Black and Brown entrepreneurs are. That is where women are. They are in small businesses. So they are not only going to be disproportionately harmed, those small businesses, but then consumers who are poor, they are going to be hurt.

As we look past the summer and into the fall, I want everyone to think about where this continued economic insanity is leading us.

Rising prices will mean that parents will have to spend more to buy clothes and shoes for their kids as they head back to school. It will mean putting food on the table is a lot more expensive. It will mean the holiday season is a lot less joyful when we have to cut back on gifts for our families. And for small businesses, it will mean they will have to choose between stocking their shelves and paying their workers. This is tragic because it is completely avoidable.

It is time for us to stand up to the President and end this tariff madness for small businesses in our country, for ordinary Americans in our country before it becomes more and more unaffordable for those small business owners and it becomes more and more unaffordable for their customers.

That is why I ask unanimous consent for my Small Business Liberation Act to be passed here on the floor because that bill would provide small business relief from Trump's disastrous, destructive small business-killing tariffs that have absolutely turned Main Street into Pain Street all across our Nation.

Small businesses are crying out for some certainty and stability after 4 months of chaos and confusion. We must stand up for them and grant them the relief which they are looking for.

And I am joined by the national Chamber of Commerce in asking for that relief. This is a letter which I have in my hand from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to Secretary Bessent and Secretary Lutnick.

Here is what they say. They say:

The Chamber requests the administration take immediate

action to save America's small businesses and stave off a

recession. Specifically, while you continue to negotiate, we

are asking that the administration immediately use its tariff

flexibility to implement a tariff exclusion process that:

Provides an automatic exclusion from the new tariffs for

any small business importer.

This is the Chamber of Commerce speaking:

Small businesses do not have the margin or the capital

reserves to sustain the increased tariffs, nor do they have

the ability to quickly modify supply chains.

That is what my unanimous consent was all about. Just get these businesses, these small businesses, out of this economic war. Preserve them. Otherwise, those are the businesses that are going to, unfortunately, experience an extinction experience.

Those are the businesses that are going to be laying off people, increasingly, in large numbers.

So from my perspective, this is without question a very important motion on the floor. The Senator from Ohio has objected to exempting small businesses from the tariff regime, and I think ultimately we are going to see that those small businesses are the economic canaries in the mine shaft, that they are the ones who are suffering now. We are seeing it already in the inflationary numbers and in the higher unemployment rates and in the economic slowdown that has been reported just in the last week.

That is all I have been asking of the Republicans--just get these small businesses out of this fight. So it is very, very disheartening to me to know that the Republicans are standing here and objecting to that protection for small businesses in our country.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I request that I be allowed to finish my unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I would just say this. Right now, here is what American small businesses know: Unemployment is going up. Inflation is going up. Tariffs are going up.

It is a tax. It is a sales tax that all Americans are paying. It is having a profoundly negative impact on our Nation. People are having Pepto Bismol moments in the marketplace, on Main Street, across our country. They are having Maalox moments in the marketplace. Their stomachs are churning as they look at all of this economic data.

Lutnick and Bessent are the Smoot-Hawley of the 21st century. We already did this once with Smoot-Hawley. They are repeating history. As Mark Twain said, there is no educational benefit to the second kick of a mule. This country got kicked in the behind by Smoot-Hawley, and Lutnick, Bessent, and President Trump are about to have that second kick affect every American in a profoundly negative way.

I thank the Presiding Officer for granting me that unanimous consent 1 minute in the continuation of debate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as ranking member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, I rise today to oppose the nomination of Casey Mulligan to be Chief Counsel for Advocacy at the Small Business Administration.

On April 2, the committee reported out the Mulligan nomination by a vote of 10 to 9. Not one Democrat voted in support.

Dr. Mulligan represents yet another radical departure from the norms we should expect from government, courtesy of the Trump administration.

The Office of Advocacy was created to serve as an independent voice for small businesses. It is charged by statute with examining how Executive actions affect small businesses. However, Dr. Mulligan, an economist at the University of Chicago, subscribes to an ultraconservative school of thought that opposes regulation in almost any form.

Dr. Mulligan actually rejects regulations that protect the environment, safeguard fair treatment of workers, and keeps products from injuring consumers. He has a decades-long track record of questioning basic protections that most Americans take for granted. He has cast doubt on the need for a mandatory minimum wage. He called into question paid sick leave and unemployment insurance. He vigorously opposes ObamaCare and even went so far as to make the absurd argument that ObamaCare was responsible for making the great recession even worse.

This is the leadership that President Trump envisions for the independent Office of Advocacy. But this office is just too important to entrust to someone like Dr. Mulligan.

As I stand here, countless small businesses across the Nation are facing the threat of closure because of President Trump's destructive trade war. Yet since coming under the control of this administration, the Office of Advocacy's Trump-appointed interim leadership has not yet held a single roundtable about tariffs or even, as far as anyone can tell, published a single word about how tariffs might be harming small businesses across our Nation.

We have 13 million small businesses in America. Do you think that would be something that the Small Business Administration would be thinking about?

How is it that an office whose sole purpose is to call attention to how small businesses are affected by administration policy has failed to mention tariffs even once? Are they talking to small businesses or are they looking over their shoulders and saying, ``No, we are just going to remain silent about the obvious,'' worried that anything that runs counter to the Trump administration's policy will lead to their dismissal.

That is my concern, and that should be America's concern. If the interim leadership at the Office of Advocacy is too scared to raise the obvious point that small businesses are being crushed by the Trump tariffs, we can only imagine what the President's handpicked nominee will do if he is confirmed.

The Office of Advocacy needs strong, independent leadership that can stand up to the administration when small businesses are under threat.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on this nomination so that our Nation's 34 million small business owners have a real advocate looking out for them and not just another Trump yes-man.

At this point, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I want to start tonight by addressing those on my side of the aisle.

My friends, I am taking the floor with a simple message to you: Don't give up. We cannot give up. We can't afford to give up. The American people are demanding we don't give up. They are demanding we get up, and we fight back.

We have to fight back against the attacks on our healthcare system, against the attacks on families across our country--especially the poorest--on reproductive rights. We can't give up on our neighbors seeking asylum or education through our country's lawful processes. We can't give up on affordable energy that keeps the lights on, bills low, and our air clean--wind, solar, all-electric vehicles, battery storage technologies; the future. We can't give up.

Republicans have taken a battering ram to the American healthcare system, a system that was already too expensive, too inaccessible, too complicated for too many Americans. And what have they done? They have passed legislation to slash $850 billion from Medicaid, $500 billion from Medicare, $300 billion from the Affordable Care Act, and they are slashing NIH research--research on Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes. Alzheimer's--slashing the funding to find a cure for the diseases which run through every family in America, just slashing it. Slashing the Centers for Disease Control, slashing it. Just an absolute evisceration of the healthcare system in our country.

And what are we going to see? According to the Yale University, 51,000 additional deaths per year over the next 10 years. A half a million people dying because of those cuts in those programs. That is what the Republicans have done in their Big Beautiful Bill. People are going to die because of that.

And how have they done it? Well, Trump and his backers have done this by breaking the basic functions of democracy, violating institutional norms, and treating people's lives as expendable. He has done it through corruption, intimidation, illegal power grabs, and plain cruelty.

Already, the Republicans cut $2.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $11.4 billion from the Centers for Disease Control, and cut programming for mental health, environmental health, and reproductive health. People are about to receive notices that their insurance costs are going up. They are going to be skyrocketing. Hospitals and Planned Parenthood clinics are already closing. Americans aren't experiencing this one at a time because it is happening all at once across our country.

Republicans acted on Trump's Big Oil-funded vendetta against wind and solar energy by cutting incentives for the cleanest and the cheapest sources of electricity, all to pad the pockets of their fossil fuel friends: the oil, the gas, and the coal industry.

The companies that have created the climate crisis are the ones that have

given hundreds of millions of dollars to Donald Trump for his election last year, and now they are collecting by promising to destroy wind and solar and all-electric vehicles and battery storage technologies--the competitors to the energy sources of the 20th century and the 19th century--destroying the future for young people, who are looking to a clean energy future in the 21st century.

Trump's ``One Big Ugly Bill'' eliminated the residential clean and efficient energy incentives; they ripped out the funding for heat pumps. They are pretty much pulling them out of the walls, pulling solar panels off of roofs--in other words, committing highway robbery on homeowners who want to lower their bills, breathe clean air, and ensure a livable future for their families.

The ``Big Ugly Bill'' is going to mean a lot of big, ugly healthcare and big, ugly, higher energy bills arriving in the mail by the millions for families all across our country.

Republicans are forcing us backwards. Republicans are looking at America in a rearview mirror, not straight ahead toward the future which we should have for every family--a cleaner, healthier, more fair, and more safe future for everyone. No, that is not where they want to take us.

Democrats must stop the bleeding and fight hard for something better. And that means us. As part of that fight, we should not agree to a government funding deal that makes Americans' lives harder and more expensive. We can say loud and clear that we want to reverse Medicaid and Affordable Care cuts; no cuts for research into cancer and Alzheimer's and diabetes; no attacks on affordable, renewable energy; no cuts to affordable housing; to save public broadcasting; to protect public weather services; to save the EPA from being destroyed.

The Republicans are turning the EPA into ``Every Polluter's Ally.'' It is an open door for the oil, gas, coal, and polluting industries all across our country over at the EPA right now. DOGE is just saying: Welcome. Tell us what other environmental protection you want us to take off of the books that have helped to increase life expectancy in our Nation.

Beyond our fights for programs that help working families, we should not agree to a government funding deal that doesn't stop the lawlessness of the Trump administration. The Trump administration must spend what Congress allocates. If Republicans won't say that out loud-- that Donald Trump should follow the laws passed by this legislative body--what good are the funding laws that the House and Senate passed that are signed by the President? What is the whole point of having a House and Senate if Donald Trump and Russell Vought over at OMB say: We don't have to pay any attention.

OMB is not written into the U.S. Constitution. There was no revolution to make sure that Russell Vought at OMB gets to decide which programs get funded. When people were going down Mass Avenue in Massachusetts--from Arlington, to Lexington, to Concord--they were saying: No taxation without representation. We want a House. We want a Senate. We are going to have a revolution. We don't want a King. We want controls. We want safeguards.

If we can pass a bill that funds programs that better the lives of Americans in every State but Republicans refuse to commit that they won't then cut that same funding with a partisan vote later because Trump tells them to, what good are our funding laws? What was the whole point of bipartisanship in the first place?

Even if Republicans say that they will keep the promise of that funding, how can we believe them? How can we buy their promises when they have broken them before, over and over again? As recently as this month, they broke their promise.

Republicans are the ones who started the government shutdown on January 22, the day of the first Executive orders to cut funding across the government. We started this administration with Trump unilaterally and illegally withholding bipartisan-passed funding from whole Departments, like USAID, to targeting individual recipients, such as Harvard University in Massachusetts--cutting the funding at Harvard for cancer, for Alzheimer's, for diabetes, for Parkinson's, for the diseases for which they were looking to find a cure for families.

Republicans then unilaterally passed a continuing resolution last March because they and Trump refused to negotiate with Democrats. Republicans unilaterally passed a reconciliation bill to fund only their priorities, including lavish tax breaks for the wealthy and huge increases to the Defense Department budget, while gutting Medicaid and food assistance and Medicare and kicking 10 million Americans off of healthcare--10 million Americans are going to lose their healthcare--halting funding to clean up our air; causing energy bills to spike by attacking affordable, renewable energy.

Republicans also raised the debt limit in that bill because they didn't want to negotiate with Democrats over that.

Republicans unilaterally passed, in the dark of night, cuts to public broadcasting and global health just a couple of weeks ago, even though Congress had previously passed that funding on a bipartisan basis.

Democrats and Republicans vote for it, it goes down to the White House, and the President signs it. And the President says: Oh, not binding on me. I can now do whatever I want.

So everything that is taught to kids in the sixth grade about how our bills become law--that is just going into a shredder. That is just Etch A Sketched right out of history.

The President wants to be a King.

And that is where it all started 250 years ago, right along Massachusetts Avenue in Massachusetts: The redcoats are coming. King George wants to be controlling us without any representation from the people who are in the Colonies.

That is what we fought for--right here. The whole revolution was fought to build this building so that there was representation. Republicans just don't care about that.

Just this month, Trump's budget czar Russell Vought said he wanted the appropriations process to be less bipartisan--less bipartisan.

Remember when Trump said he didn't know anything about Project 2025? Remember when he said that? They asked him in September of 2024: What about Project 2025?

Don't know anything about it, says Trump.

In October: What about Project 2025?

Don't know anything about it, he said.

Well, Russell Vought is now the head of OMB. He wrote Project 2025. Trump gave the job to Russell Vought to then implement Project 2025.

Would you all agree that the President had a very high prevarication coefficient as he was talking about his knowledge of Project 2025? Do you all agree he knew exactly what he was doing; he was just lying to the American people? I think so.

The White House and Vought are saying they will use their own pocket rescissions--just another term for illegal impoundment of taxpayer money--to enact DOGE cuts in anything that Congress passes.

So I will quote Mark Twain to my Democratic colleagues. ``There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule'' to your behind.

Maya Angelou put it more nicely: When someone tells you who they are the first time, you should believe them.

So Republicans are already plotting to eliminate the Department of Education through another partisan vote to steal taxpayer money for their own purposes. And I don't want to urge them to do the right thing because I have no confidence and no evidence that they will do the right thing, regardless of our request that they remember the bipartisan spirit that has always defined the appropriations process. To quote the great comedian Oscar Levant, they ``will double cross that bridge when'' they come to it. That is who they are. They are double- crossers. We can all see what happened in that rescission process, and we know they are planning more double-crossing coming right down the line.

Republicans are asking us not to believe our own eyes that have seen them cut funding to our States and to programs that save lives in our country. They are asking us not to believe our own ears that have heard them say they are going to cut and they are going to withhold funding for our special needs students, for cancer research, for farmers.

Republicans and Trump do not care about working with Democrats. When they say ``bipartisan process,'' what they really mean is ``We are going to do whatever we want to do. We are the Republicans; we are in charge of the whole country. We don't need to talk to anybody.''

Democrats don't have many tools, being in the minority, but an important one is doing everything we can to slow down this Trump march to increased costs, lost healthcare, and ultimately an economic catastrophe. So I have continued to vote against all Trump nominees because their only job is to execute Trump's illegal and unconstitutional agenda. I am voting no.

Those who have gotten bipartisan support have acted in their jobs just as partisan as the rest of them. Anyone who has stood up for independence and the rule of law--they have been fired by Trump. Just show that you have independence. Just show that you are going to stand up for the Constitution. Just raise a question. They fire you in the Trump administration. And what have Republicans done about it? Nothing. More nominations for more unqualified candidates.

I wasn't aware that Donald Trump placed one of his tariffs on courage, because we appear to be experiencing a Congress-wide shortage. And that is what is troubling, I think, to the American people because that is what is going to cause the problems that are about to be seen across our Nation.

The Trump administration thinks Congress is irrelevant, and unfortunately Republicans don't appear to have any interest in disabusing them of that notion. Just look at the Department of Energy. This month, the Department of Energy announced openly that it is ignoring the appropriations law on funding for wind and solar and all- electric vehicles--or, as young people call it, the future.

Only today, the Government Accountability Office said that the Department of Energy broke the law by failing to distribute funding for the Renew America's Schools Program, as directed by Congress.

We have to ask ourselves: How is passing another appropriations law going to address that lawlessness? It is like the definition of insanity--doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

And it is just not about budgets. It is not just about dollars and cents. It is about common sense. That is what we are going to have to bring to this process because Trump and his henchmen have been on a deregulatory blitz.

The latest and perhaps the most egregious is the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator's--Lee Zeldin--announcement this week that the Trump administration is repealing the finding that climate change endangers our lives and health and safety. That is like a doctor repealing the finding that smoking causes lung cancer--but that is the head of the EPA under Donald Trump working for the oil, gas, and coal industry--or a firefighter repealing the finding that a lit match can burn down a house. That is the head of the EPA for Donald Trump. He says there is no such thing as climate change that needs any kind of action by the American people for the next generation of Americans--to protect them.

All I can say is, you can try to censor information, you can try to silence scientists--and they are firing them, the biologists and the chemists at the EPA, by the hundreds. They are just firing all these people who were summa cum laude in college, all the kids that sat in the first row in your high school class, all those biologists and chemists. They are firing them all. They don't want to hear about climate change. They don't want to hear about the science.

So you can try to bury the facts, you can try to bury the reality, but you can't change that. You can't change it.

The endangerment finding is backed by science. The endangerment finding is backed by law. It has withstood every single attempt to challenge it so far.

You are saying: What is the endangerment finding? Well, in Massachusetts v. EPA, in a Supreme Court decision in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had to determine: Do greenhouse gases in large amounts endanger the lives and well-being and welfare of citizens in the United States? And the EPA made that finding under Barack Obama, using science, saying: Yes, there is an endangerment.

That is the law we have operated under for 15 years. That is why we have cleaner cars. That is why utilities don't send up as much pollution up into the air--because of that finding. That is why we have lowered the temperature, lowered the thermostat in the United States and across the planet. We have just reduced the temperature.

Well, the endangerment finding gave the EPA the power to regulate planet-warming greenhouse gases as air pollution under the Clean Air Act because climate change threatens our welfare, and that authority came from the Supreme Court of the United States.

Driven by the devastation that climate change wreaked on its citizens, Massachusetts sued the EPA for not regulating the gases that contribute to climate change, and Massachusetts won. The Supreme Court agreed that the EPA was obligated to safeguard people from the actual and imminent threat that greenhouse gases pose to people everywhere, and that is known as the endangerment finding.

Nearly two decades later, that danger has only gotten worse, more intense, more acute, and more personal for everyone in our country and around the world, and we have to be the leaders, not the laggards.

You can't preach temperance from a barstool. You can't tell the rest of the world to do something if you are not doing it. You can't tell someone not to drink a beer or have a cigar in their hand if you have a cigar in your hand and a beer in the other hand. No one is going to follow you.

That is where Donald Trump has taken us now on climate change. That is where Lee Zeldin has taken us on climate change. He has given away the moral authority, the technological leadership that should be the United States of America.

And I breathed--I breathed--that dirty air from wildfire smoke. I have seen horrible floods steal the livelihoods of Massachusetts farmers and warming waters wreck the fishing grounds off of our coast of Massachusetts. I have grieved with those who lost lives in hurricanes, those who were forced from their family homes thanks to rising tides.

Look at those families and tell me that this isn't dangerous. Look at those young people who worry about their future and see every year hotter than the last. Every year is warmer than the preceding one, and that is because the oil, gas, and coal industry continues to send more and more of these greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere. Look at the families paying skyrocketing electric and home insurance bills, wondering how they are going to keep their kids safe in a crisis and keep food on the table. Tell me their welfare isn't hurt by the climate crisis.

This endangerment finding keeps us safe. It says that there is danger and something must be done about it because you can't fix what you won't face. There is danger from sending all of those pollutants up into the atmosphere. Then, like the ceiling here, it is captured, and then the heat is held in, and the planet gets warmer and warmer, and the fires become hotter and hotter, and the floods gets bigger and bigger, and the storms get more and more violent because we keep the heat in because of the greenhouse effect of all of those pollutants.

This administration just continues to bury its head in the sand and will bury Americans along with it. We are going to lose a lot of lives.

Now, we have discovered a second endangerment finding. Lee Zeldin and Donald Trump are a clear and present danger to the welfare of our Nation today.

I think it is pretty clear to young people that they have made their own endangerment finding. They know Donald Trump is a danger to them. They know Lee Zeldin at the EPA is a danger to them.

How did they justify this decision in the White House when all of the science in the world is against them? The Trump administration found five crank, faux scientists and gave them a platform for lies and misinformation. These known climate deniers argued that our seas aren't rising more quickly and that extreme heat caused by global warming can't affect our crops.

Putting these five climate deniers in charge of a climate-science report is like putting a vaccine denier in charge of the national health Agency. Wait. Wait. I am sorry. They did that as well. They did that as well. A vaccine denier is running the Department of Health and Human Services. It is unbelievable.

In an era where science should be venerated, in fact, it is just being disregarded across all of Trump's Agencies.

This report put out by the Department of Energy ignored the overwhelming scientific consensus and ongoing body of evidence that climate change puts us in danger, evidence that we are already bearing witness to. You don't need to be a climate scientist to see that storms are becoming more furious and more deadly.

Just this month, we saw extreme weather take the lives of loved ones in Texas in that flooding and in New Mexico, and those floods were supercharged by climate change. That climate change was driven by the greed of the fossil fuel industry, the oil, gas, and coal industries.

This sham Department of Energy report is an attack on common sense, and it is an attack on public safety.

Trump and Zeldin are arguing that American transportation emissions don't contribute to global climate change. EPA's own data shows that if our transportation sector was a country, it would be the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

They argue that sea levels aren't rising, that warming temperatures can't kill. That climate denial is going to cost lives. They are just denying science. They are denying reality. They are denying what everyone sees 3 nights out of 7 on their television sets as the lead story--these wild storms and wildfires that affect all parts of our country. They are saying that warming temperatures can't kill. Well, again, climate denial costs lives.

This is Trump's America, where EPA stands for ``Every Polluter's Ally.'' It is just a revolving door. Come on in, tell us which environmental regulations are making you less profitable, and we will give you permission to ignore those environmental laws and send more pollution up into the air--more cancers, more asthma, more disease in children and pregnant women. We will just give you a permission slip to go and do it.

Your health is sacrificed for their wealth.

Trump and Zeldin and their whole cabal of polluters should be ashamed, and they should be held accountable.

From day one, Trump has had it out for any technology that might save money for working Americans, usually for reasons that range from the personal, like his problems with water-efficient toilets, to the personally enriching for Donald Trump.

Look at wind power. Trump's crusade against wind power dates to 2006, when he bought an 1,800-acre estate in Scotland near a planned wind farm that he warned would be ``really ugly.'' You know he just wants better views for the golf courses, for which he is willing to violate our ethics laws.

Now look at his fossil fuel donors. In April of 2024, Trump demanded $1 billion in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, at Mar- a-Lago. Give me $1 billion, he said, and I will take care of those environmental problems for you. And the fossil fuel industry has been cashing it in for favors ever since.

In the first 2 weeks alone in the Trump administration, Trump's top 15 fossil fuel billionaire donors--otherwise known as the ``oilgarchy''--increased their wealth by a collective $2.4 billion.

In the ``Big Ugly Bill,'' mom-and-pop taxpayers were forced to give $18 billion in handouts to Big Oil and Big Gas. That is the One Big Beautiful Bill that the Republicans brag about. Do they brag about the $18 billion they gave to the oil, gas, and coal industry? You are not going to hear that when you hear the litany of the things they were concerned about. That is on top of the $35 billion the fossil fuel industry already gets in tax breaks and has gotten for decades and decades and decades.

Do you know what drives them crazy? When we give tax breaks for wind and solar, all-electric vehicles, battery storage technologies. That is what drives them crazy--when the competition can finally get up and compete.

That is what Donald Trump is doing in return for the funding from the oil, gas, and coal industry. He is just unleveling the playing field so that the fossil fuel industry, as they were in the 19th and 20th centuries, can dominate in the 21st century, regardless of the environmental impacts and the health impacts on the American people.

The result of Trump's showboating on trade, besides higher costs for American families--Trump said the European Union would buy $750 billion of energy resources from the United States over the next 3 years. You heard him say that just last week. This is more than pay to play; it is pay to slay our chance at a livable future--our clean air, our clean water, our affordable energy bills.

The One Big Beautiful Bill's attacks on clean and cheap energy just absolutely are ahistorical. In the ``One Big Ugly Bill,'' Republicans took aim at the cheapest form of energy out there: renewable energy. It is cheaper than oil and gas and coal, and they hate that now. It is a young person's vision for the future.

Their legislation essentially puts a new tax on cheap, clean power-- raising costs for ratepayers everywhere as projects to install new generation slow to a crawl, which is deeply ironic given that nearly 80 percent of clean energy investments from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that they sought to destroy have gone to Republican districts, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in red districts across this country. Think about that. Trump is actively working to destroy economic growth and jobs in the very places that got him elected.

More demand, less supply. More costs, less relief. Bills going up by more than $100 a year per family. We are already seeing energy costs start to spike, rising nearly three times higher this year than during Biden's term and rising three times as fast as general inflation.

This is a predictor of coming atrocities due to the Big Beautiful Bill. Electricity rates are spiking across our country. People are seeing it in their bills on their kitchen tables. Energy is getting more expensive more quickly for every family across our country, and that is all thanks to the Republicans' ``Big Ugly Bill.''

But that is not all. The ``Big Ugly Bill'' will increase emissions equivalent to putting 72 million new cars on the road and eliminates pollution-reduction programs, leading to approximately hundreds of additional premature deaths in our country every single year. This means more asthma, more heart attacks, more families losing loved ones--all because Republicans want to give billionaire polluters another bonus.

Kill the new industries, Trump says, Big Oil says. Kill those new industries. And they did.

Undermining clean energy means all of us breathe dirtier air, costing Americans in expensive trips to the emergency room for asthma attacks, lost schooldays, lost workdays. Asthma is already responsible for nearly 1.8 million emergency department visits, over 94,000 hospitalizations, more than 3,500 deaths annually. And what the Republicans have done in cooperation with Donald Trump is it is supercharging--it is supercharging--asthma visits to emergency rooms in our country.

Cutting clean energy is making all of those health benefits go away, and the economic burden of asthma is staggering. Let me give you the numbers. It costs our healthcare system approximately $50 billion each year, almost $3 billion in lost school and work days, and $29 billion from mortality. The cumulative impact of breathing dirty air from living near a highway or a powerplant means your risk of lung cancer skyrockets. Nearly $24 billion was spent on lung cancer in 2020, and it costs each patient $200,000, on average. But wait, there is more.

At the same time that the bill slashes Medicaid and slashes the Affordable Care Act as it pays out to dirty, expensive energy that pollutes your lungs, it also cuts billions in historic investments from the Inflation Reduction Act, in environmental justice, and air pollution reduction programs, even at schools.

This included the $20 billion climate bank that I secured with Chris Van

Hollen in the Inflation Reduction Act, which is projected to spur more than $250 billion in public and private sector investment to create jobs, lower Americans' energy costs, strengthen our energy independence, combat the climate crisis, deploy solar, deploy charging stations for electric vehicles. That was the climate bank, which I was able to create with Chris Van Hollen. They want to eliminate that. They have taken it to court. It was working too successfully. Anything that is working to deploy clean energy technologies, they hate.

Republicans also targeted clean car regulations that saved drivers money at the pump. Instead of the dawn of the clean energy future, Republicans are sunsetting incentives that would spur clean domestic manufacturing for industries.

This bill is on track to destroy more than 840,000 American jobs by 2030 in the clean energy sector. This is the largest job-destroying bill to ever pass Congress--killed 840,000 new jobs. Never before has Congress done anything like this, deliberately, intentionally killing all of those jobs. And that means fewer manufacturing, solar installation, home efficiency contracts all across our country.

States with the largest job losses: Texas, Florida, Indiana, Georgia. They voted to destroy the jobs in their own States. They were going to be the center of this revolution. That is where the manufacturing plants were. But the oil, gas, and coal industry, they said to Donald Trump: Kill it. And each of them received, as it is said in ``The Godfather,'' part 1--they each got an offer they couldn't refuse. So as a result, they voted to kill all of that job creation.

This isn't a red State or blue State issue; this is creating a national economic crisis. The States with the highest spikes in energy prices: South Carolina, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Their prices are spiking right now and have been and are going to continue to spike because of this bill.

This administration has made their tradeoff clear: your future for their profit. That is Trump's ``Art of the Deal.'' You give up your future, and we get to make billions. So this is absolutely something that young people in our country, the next generation, they are going to be devastated by these decisions. And it is going to unfold next year, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now.

They are going to be looking back, saying: What did that generation think? How could that Congress kill wind and solar and all electric vehicles? Because the Republican bill is going to make the United States a laggard, not a leader, in innovation. Already China is investing four times more than the United States in renewable energy. Instead of catching up and overtaking China, this bill will cede more jobs and progress to China.

In fact, in 2024, China installed 357,000 megawatts of wind and solar. That is roughly the amount of wind and solar that the United States has installed in our country's entire history. China did it last year. You would think we want to take them on. You would think that is a challenge for the United States in our innovation, our entrepreneurial spirit. And instead, Donald Trump said to the Republicans: Let's just surrender. Let's give up. Let's not compete in the energy sectors of the future. Let's let the Chinese sell the electric vehicles to the world. Let's let them sell the solar panels, the batteries, the wind technologies to the world. We are not going to do it.

And by the way, he did the same thing with the biotech sector. When you slash the NIH budget, China is saying: Thank you. We didn't like the fact that the United States was ahead of us. We don't know what we deserved to get this gift from Trump, but thank you for giving us the clean energy and biotech future for the 21st century--and asking for nothing in return. That is what Trump just did. That is what the Republicans are doing out here.

Between January and May of 2025 alone, China added 198,000 megawatts of solar and 46,000 megawatts of wind. China now has more than 1 million megawatts of solar energy on the grid. China also produces 80 percent of the solar panels. Do you want to compete with the Chinese? No, says Trump. I don't want to compete. I don't like solar. I don't like wind. I don't like batteries. I don't like all-electric vehicles. I don't want to compete. America, we are 5 percent of the world. Let's just control the 5 percent of the world that is the population of the United States. Let the Chinese have the other 95 percent of the world for the clean energy future for the 21st century. That is the decision the President made, and Republicans went along with it just this month.

By contrast, the United States had approximately 1,200 gigawatts of utility-scale power on our grid. The United States added only 50,000 megawatts of solar and 4,000 megawatts of wind throughout the entirety of 2024--not too shabby but only a fraction of what China was able to accomplish. China sold over 11 million electric vehicles in 2024. China continues to be the world's EV manufacturing hub and is responsible for more than 70 percent of global production of electric vehicles.

The United States remains a net importer of electric cars, with imports increasing by nearly 40 percent in 2024. How are we going to catch up if Republicans would rather hamstring the industry? We are not close to winning this race. The Republicans won't let us even get to the starting line.

In fact, they don't even know where the ball game is. They are still driving around trying to find out where this game is. It is as though they don't understand that China is targeting our key industries: biotech, clean energy. And instead of responding with a plan--and we can beat China with a plan. You can't beat them without a plan. And what they did, the Republicans, in unison with Donald Trump, with JD Vance breaking the tie, the Vice President of the United States came here to cast the vote that said: We are giving up on biotech. We are giving up on clean tech. We are just going to let the Chinese have it. Just absolutely insane, economically.

So since the start of the Trump administration through April 2025, the Trump administration has already cost America more than 62,000 clean energy jobs, over $14 billion in private sector clean energy projects, and these vanishing projects were winners for the grid, for your wallets, for our economy.

In 2024, 94 percent of all new electricity generation added was from wind and solar and batteries. That is 50,000 megawatts of solar, 4,000 megawatts of wind, 11,000 megawatts of battery.

So think of it this way: If you are the oil, gas, and coal industry, you are looking at 2024, and you are seeing 94 percent of all new electricity being wind and solar and batteries. It is driving them crazy because this year would be 94 percent and next year would be 94 percent and the year after and the year after. And natural gas would, slowly but surely, just recede, recede into the rearview mirror of American history. And the coal industry would join them.

So they hate it. They had to kill it. They had to kill the revolution that they said was never going to be competitive. And when it became competitive, they said: Now, we are going to kill it. Utility-scale solar, onshore wind are the cheapest energy technologies to operate and quickest to build even without subsidies. Solar panels today cost 1 percent of what they cost 30 years ago.

Can I say that? Solar right now costs only 1 percent what it did 30 years ago, and these cheap, clean megawatts of power are powering our economy in red and blue States, and compare these with the fuels of the past.

Last year, only 2,500 megawatts of natural gas were added and zero from coal. That is a losing streak if I ever saw one. Trump and Republicans like to characterize Democrats' interest in addressing climate change as quasi-religious.

Well, here is the real gospel. Clean energy is not polarizing; it is popular in the polls. Seventy percent of registered voters support the IRA, with over 70 percent of voters saying the United States needs to use more renewable energy than it does today. That is not religion; that is stimulus in solar panels.

That is why Republicans are using every trick up their sleeve to rig the game while eliminating programs and incentives that lower energy costs and reduce pollution. An energy demand that is increasing, driven by power-hungry AI data centers and natural gas

exports out of our country, Republicans are choosing to strangle America's supply of cheap solar and wind.

And thanks to Republicans and their ``Big Ugly Bill,'' wind deployment is expected to drop from 200,000 megawatts and solar by 150,000 megawatts by the year 2035 compared to prior estimates before they passed their bill.

It is absolutely unbelievable the stuff that was working and cheapest and cleanest, they are destroying. The stuff that is dirtiest and more expensive, they are giving tax breaks to. It is the opposite of what the rest of the world wants. And China knows they are going to be selling the solar panels, the all-electric vehicles, the batteries, the wind to the rest of the world, 95 percent of the population. And we are pulling out of that competition.

This is economics 101. High demand plus low supply means higher energy prices for everyone, forcing families to pay at least $130 more per month on energy bills in 5 years and $170 more per month in 10 years.

It goes even beyond the ``Big Ugly Bill.'' We are living in their big ugly world. Earlier this month, the Department of the Interior released a memo stating that all decisions related to wind and solar energy projects on Federal lands now require the Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum's personal signoff. Who is Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum? He was a fossil fuel guy. Now, you have to go to the fossil fuel guy to get permission to deploy wind and solar.

A few weeks later, the Trump administration came out with new messages, new measures to further sabotage wind, and the staff at the Department of Energy are now full-time coal lobbyists.

Can I say that again? The staff at the Department of Energy are full- time coal lobbyists who have been brought in. Coal, yes, the dirtiest source out there, both a major contributor to the climate crisis and to the public health threat for communities nearby. That is who is running the Department of Energy.

Just like Trump, coal is outdated, costly, dangerous. Perhaps it is no surprise that he is in a weird love affair with coal. It is just weird that he loves this technology from 100 years ago. He just can't move to the future.

Coal has shrunk from nearly half the country's electricity generation in 2008 to only 15 percent at the start of this year, a trend driven primarily by competition from cheaper fossil gas and renewables. Building new solar, even solar plus storage, is now cheaper than running existing coal plants in the United States. It is already winning.

From today's Twitter post of coal captioned, ``She is the moment''--a type of coal, mind you, that has not been mined in the United States for more than 80 years--to spreading misinformation that coal is critical to modern technology, some of the coal love affair has just been plain weird.

But more concerningly, they are actively spending your ratepayer dollars to keep retiring coal plants online.

With Trump's sham energy emergency Executive order, he has enabled the Department of Energy to use emergency authority to keep coal online, forcing working families to pay more in order to line the pockets of those Big Oil billionaires.

That is not an energy emergency. This is a Trump energy tax on the American public. It is a deliberate strategy to make sure working families stay dependent on a damaging fuel source that makes a handful of billionaires richer by the day while everyone else pays the price in higher bills and a deterioration of their health.

The truth is that Trump's gutting of cheap and reliable wind and solar has created a reliability risk to our grid, in addition to the rapid proliferation of massive, load-sucking data centers.

AI is incredibly energy intensive. One ChatGPT search uses ten times the amount of power needed for a Google search. It took the energy consumption of 28,000 households to train ChatGPT4. Data centers are expected to demand 130 gigawatts of electricity load by the end of this decade, equivalent to the electricity used by about 100 million U.S. homes.

This will require adding 10 to 20 additional gigawatts per year to the electricity grid. Data centers are expected to demand--

I thank you, Madam President, and I will conclude, and I will be back because this subject is just too important.

We are now in a climate crisis. It is only going to worsen. NOAA is predicting higher than normal hurricanes coming our way. They are going to be supercharged.

The planet is running a fever, and there are no emergency rooms for planets. We have to engage in preventive care. The Republicans have removed that care, and so we have to have this debate, this discussion.

And I thank my colleagues, but especially my Democratic colleagues. We have to continue to fight. We have to continue to stand. We have to continue to ensure that the American people know that we are in this battle for the clean energy future for the next generations of young Americans who are out there depending upon us to lead that fight for them.

I yield the floor.