Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it recess until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, January 19; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; that upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 5746, the legislative vehicle for the voting rights legislation; further, that the cloture motion on the House message to accompany H.R. 5746 ripen at 6:30 p.m.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. President, January 6, 2022, marks 1 year since the attempted coup at our Nation's Capitol.

I am deeply grateful for the Capitol Police for their heroic acts on that dark day. The American people will always remember the sacrifices they made to protect our democracy.

But marking this date has another purpose, too. The January 6 insurrection made painfully clear that American democracy is seriously at risk. In November of 2020, American citizens braved a deadly pandemic to cast their ballots. But following that election, the defeated President refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

Instead, he falsely sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the election and inflamed his most dangerous supporters to attack this Capitol. His attempts to cling to power through lies and violence were a violation of his oath of office and a grave abuse of power that can never be tolerated in a free and democratic society.

We mark this anniversary not only to reflect on that dereliction of duty, but also to call out the ongoing efforts to undermine our democracy.

Threats to our democracy are not new. For years, in State after State, Republican legislatures have passed laws making it harder to vote, all on a purely partisan basis with simple majority votes. They have imposed strict voter ID requirements and purged voter rolls to disenfranchise minority voters. They have made it harder to vote by mail and register to vote. They have gerrymandered districts for partisan political gain.

Over the past year, these shameless efforts have become even more brazen. Just as the former President was clear that he wanted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Trump and his allies are entirely transparent about their goal of overturning future elections. Today, Republican opponents of democracy are exploiting every possible avenue to allow their party to maintain control, even if that means overturning the will of the American people.

Rather than putting a stop to these attacks on voting rights, the Supreme Court has enabled them. The Roberts Court gutted the core of the Voting Rights Act, which is why Republican legislatures right now can pass anti-voter laws with ease.

Last year, they destroyed what was left of the country's landmark voting rights law, making it nearly impossible to block laws with racially discriminatory effects. They twice overturned key protections against dark money in our elections, and they gave a green light to partisan gerrymandering.

The Senate must not turn a blind eye while the Federal judiciary and State legislatures lead an all-out assault against free and fair elections in America. It is clear that Donald Trump's Republican Party is embracing an increasingly authoritarian movement.

In 2006, the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized unanimously in the U.S. Senate. And yet today, only one Republican supports the Voting Rights Act, and none have endorsed the Freedom to Vote Act. The Senate filibuster means that Mitch McConnell gets a veto and Congress cannot protect the sacred right to vote unless Republican politicians agree, all while they are actively undermining our democracy in State after State.

My view on this is simple: We did not swear an oath to protect a procedural rule like the filibuster, which has been the tool of racial segregation and Jim Crow. No, we swore an oath to defend the Constitution. When the Senate rules stand in the way of voting rights legislation, then those Senate rules must change.

A year after an insurrection at our Nation's Capitol, we must do more than speak up about the importance of democracy. Now, we must act. It is time to end the filibuster, time to protect voting rights, and time to defend our democracy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote, I would have voted no on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 453, David L. Cohen, of Pennsylvania, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Canada.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote, I would have voted no on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 454, Mark Gitenstein, of Washington, to be Representative of the United States of America to the European Union, with the rank and status of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote, I would have voted no on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 521, Jonathan Eric Kaplan, of California, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Singapore.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote, I would have voted no on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 617, Jamie L. Harpootlian, of South Carolina, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Slovenia.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote, I would have voted no on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 621, Scott Miller, of Colorado, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Swiss Confederation, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Principality of Liechtenstein.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote, I would have voted no on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 623, Michael M. Adler, of Florida, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Belgium.

Mr. President, I would like to offer my congratulations to Janis Santos as she retires as CEO from Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start after 48 years of leadership in early childhood education and care. She deserves recognition for her steadfast commitment to ensuring that children of all backgrounds have access to high-quality early education.

A graduate of Holyoke Community College and the University of Massachusetts, Janis began her professional teaching career in western Massachusetts. She soon became a trailblazer in her field. After opening Parkside Early Learning Center in Ludlow in 1973, she went on to join Holyoke Chicopee Head Start, Inc., as executive director in 1979. She continues to lead Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start, which has grown to be the second largest Head Start Agency in Massachusetts and one of the largest providers of early education in western Massachusetts. In her career with Head Start, she has held several leadership positions, including chair of the Massachusetts Head Start Directors Association, chair of the New England Head Start Association, vice chair of the National Head Start Association, and member of the national advisory panel for the Head Start 2010 Project.

In 2003, while serving on the board of directors of the National Head Start Association, she testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in a hearing on the reauthorization of funds for Head Start. Her advocacy on behalf of the children and families in Head Start programs is powerfully important. I want to offer my gratitude to Janis Santos for her lifelong commitment to America's children and for all she has done to advance early childhood education and care in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I congratulate her on

her retirement and wish her the best of luck in her next chapter.

Madam President, I rise today in support of Rachael Rollins, the U.S. attorney nominee for the District of Massachusetts.

Rachael grew up in Massachusetts. Her dad fought in Vietnam, and then returned to Massachusetts to become a corrections officer. He sent his oldest daughter to college, UMass Amherst, and then to the law school at Northeastern, and then she went on to get a master's in law from Georgetown.

She has had experience across a broad range of public service jobs. In 2018, she decided to run for district attorney of Suffolk County, which includes the city of Boston. And in that race, she promised to decriminalize certain low-level offenses, such as shoplifting or drug possession.

The people of Suffolk County embraced her and embraced her ideas, giving her 73 percent of the vote. She is the first woman of color to be elected as a DA in Massachusetts, and if confirmed by this body, she will be the first Black woman to serve as U.S. attorney in Massachusetts.

She has the enthusiastic support of my partner Ed Markey and myself.

A dedicated public servant, Rollins has devoted her career to transforming the criminal justice system so that it actually reduces crime and provides equal justice for all. Her reform efforts have frequently focused on the root

causes of crime and have taken aim at poverty, substance use disorders, and racial disparity.

Since her nomination was announced, dozens of prominent Massachusetts Republicans, Democrats, and nonpartisan law enforcement officials, numbers of community advocates, and members of the legal community have written in support of her nomination. Among those who have spoken out publicly on her behalf are Massachusetts former Republican Governor Bill Weld, former U.S. attorneys and Suffolk County law enforcement executives, and many, many others. These are the people who know her best, the people who have worked with her, the people who know her record of success as a prosecutor.

Now, Rachael has implemented some innovative policies--exactly as she promised to do when she ran for district attorney. Those policies may not be the preferred policies of some Senators, but the facts speak for themselves.

These policies are designed to improve the administration of justice and to reduce crime, and they work. In the months following her start as a DA in 2019, homicides in Suffolk County reached a 20-year low. While homicides increased in 2020 as part of a nationwide trend following the start of the pandemic--a trend that was also seen in States like Arkansas and Texas--recent data from the Boston Police Department shows that homicides in Boston declined by nearly a third in the first 9 months of 2021. That drop--a drop of nearly a third in homicides--stands in stark contrast with nationwide crime statistics. It is not just violent crime, either; the city saw a decline in property crimes like thefts and burglaries this year as well.

Rollins has demonstrated that progressive policies can be effective in cutting serious crimes, which seems to frustrate her opponents. The policies that Rollins has pursued have helped drive down crime in our State, but it is also the strong partnership she has built with law enforcement leaders from Suffolk County that has been crucial. In fact, leadership from the Boston Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police, the Revere Police Department, the Chelsea Police Department, the MBTA Transit Police Department, and the Winthrop Police Department wrote a joint letter to the Senate to express their strong support of Rachael Rollins to be U.S. attorney.

While they admit they have not always seen eye to eye with her, they also note that Rollins ``respects us and the work we do to keep our communities safe. She can admit when she is wrong. She can also be incredibly persuasive when she is right.''

They add:

Each of us have worked closely with DA Rollins on pressing

and significant issues within our respective jurisdictions.

She is responsive, attentive, and diligent. Her focus is on

victims and how the community is impacted by violence and

harm.

Nobody should be surprised that Rollins' approach to prosecution is yielding reductions in crime. Nonpartisan research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research confirms why this is the case. After an analysis of 17 years of data and over 67,000 cases from the Suffolk County DA's Office, the study found that defendants whose misdemeanor charges were dropped before arraignment were 58 percent less likely to return to the criminal justice system in the next 2 years, and they were more likely to avoid charges for any serious violent crimes.

By pursuing these policies, Rollins has freed up limited resources in her office to focus on the people and the crimes that actually pose the biggest threats to the community.

Now, critics are quick to distort these statistics and Rollins' record and the details of her approach. This partisan sniping here in Washington bears no relationship to the reality on the ground in Suffolk County, MA. For example, even with her reform policies in place, Rachael has prosecuted more drug traffickers than her predecessor. Between January 1 and October 12 of this year, the Suffolk County DA's Office prosecuted 147 trafficking cases. Of those, charges of trafficking in fentanyl accounted for 67 percent of the total drug trafficking prosecutions. Just by comparison, her predecessor prosecuted only 130 trafficking cases during the entirety of 2018, of which only 40 percent involved fentanyl trafficking charges.

Now, look, it is no surprise that some rightwing voices have sought to make an issue out of Rollins' nomination, and it is unfortunate that many Republicans who should know better have fallen in line behind this campaign of fearmongering.

When a rollcall vote on her nomination was forced in the Judiciary Committee in September, Republicans quickly tossed out three decades' worth of precedent and attempted for the first time in over a generation to override the President's choice of a U.S. attorney nomination.

I want to remind my colleagues that every single one of the 85 U.S. attorneys nominated by Trump--every single one--was moved by voice vote despite significant disagreements about the policies, views, and records of several of those nominees--every single one of them. But Rachael Rollins and President Biden couldn't get that same kind of consideration.

This kind of political grandstanding has unjustly deferred the confirmation process, not only for Rachael Rollins but for many other well-qualified nominees who just want to get to work serving the people of this country. It is also extraordinarily disrespectful to the scores of on-the-ground law enforcement leaders in Massachusetts and others who support this nomination.

Our police chiefs, our prosecutors, our former U.S. attorneys, our former Governors, Republicans and Democrats, do not need to be told by national politicians who know nothing about our community that their support and their understanding of what we need just really doesn't matter. They do not need to be told that the personal political benefit of attacking this well-respected prosecutor is somehow more important than what all of the data and all of their own experiences tell them about what actually reduces crime and improves the administration of justice in Massachusetts. What our law enforcement professionals need, what the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts needs is for the Senate to confirm this highly qualified nominee.

Now, I have every confidence that Rachael Rollins will continue her partnership with law enforcement, with community advocates, and with other key members of the legal community to ensure the safety and well- being of all of the people of the Commonwealth in her new role. I look forward to the renewed energy and innovative vision that she will bring to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Senator Markey and I want to publicly thank our Massachusetts bipartisan advisory committee for all of the work they did to identify and recommend candidates like Rachael Rollins to the role of U.S. attorney. I want to thank President Biden for nominating her to this position.

I urge my colleagues to set aside nasty personal attacks on a supremely well-qualified woman and to support the discharge and ultimate confirmation of Rachael Rollins, a supremely qualified candidate who is ready to serve on day one as the next U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act.

As written, this legislation authorizes $778 billion in defense spending just for next year alone. That is more money than we spent on defense during the Korean or Vietnam wars. It is even more money than we spent at the height of the extraordinary Reagan defense buildup in the 1980s.

Now Congress is set to pass this bill with virtually no debate and with virtually no discussion about how much money we are spending. Congress keeps the spigot of cash wide open so long as it is for defense. And please note that not one single dollar of this huge defense budget will be offset either with new taxes or with new spending cuts someplace else.

Meanwhile, do you know how much money the President's Build Back Better plan will cost, on average, each year if Congress passes it? $175 billion. That is about one-fifth the size of this Defense bill. And unlike this Defense bill, every single dollar of the President's plan will be offset with new revenue or savings.

But here is the thing: When we want to invest $175 billion a year on childcare and paid family leave and expanding access to healthcare and fighting the climate crisis, and when we are going to offset every single dollar for those new expenses, everybody suddenly becomes so very concerned about spending. When we want to make investments that directly benefit people across this country, we are told ``that costs too much'' or ``that is socialism.'' But when we spend nearly five times that amount of money in the Defense bill, it is just a shrug of the shoulders. Look around this Chamber. It is empty.

And let's be clear where most of this defense money is going. It is largely going to the defense industry. The Pentagon will take this money and give approximately $400 billion to contractors. And nearly 40 percent of that will go to a handful of giant contractors.

This is a huge amount of money in an ordinary year, but 2 years into a global pandemic that has killed 765,000 Americans, it is irresponsible to spend this much money on stuff that isn't saving Americans from what is actually killing them. America's spending priorities are completely misaligned, and the threats Americans actually are facing, the things that are quite literally endangering their lives--like COVID-19 and the climate crisis--don't get this kind of attention.

Let me be clear. We can spend far less money on defense and still protect Americans and American interests. And you don't have to take my word for it. The Congressional Budget Office recently published a report outlining three different avenues for cutting $1 trillion in defense spending over the next decade. None of the three proposals were even close to radical. And, by the way, none of them achieved any savings from nuclear modernization, contract spending, and closing bases.

And before somebody cranks up the outrage machine, let me say I do not believe that we should spend nothing on defense. There are real threats to our Nation and real interests that we must defend. There are some situations that may require military solutions. But this Defense bill goes far beyond that threshold. This bill continues to feed into the wrongheaded idea that America's strength can only be measured by our military domination.

This bill is another example of Congress granting the Pentagon virtually unlimited resources while, at the exact same moment, pinching pennies on things that will make the American economy work for our children and for our seniors, for workers and students and retirees, for everyone who isn't part of a tiny little slice at the top.

These misplaced priorities chip away at the strength of our Nation, and, ironically, they undermine the foundation upon which our military is built. If we don't come to recognize this soon, then all this money will have been wasted, and the world's most powerful military will rest on a foundation of sand.

There are important and valuable provisions in this Defense bill. There are even places where we should spend more money, like on cyber defense, but it is long past time for us to rationalize the Pentagon's budget and align it with the threats we actually face. And this Defense bill, like so many before it, fails miserably to do that. For that reason, I will vote against it.

I yield the floor.

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 rise today to express concern about a culture of corruption among top officials at the Federal Reserve.

Officials at the Federal Reserve are entrusted to make decisions that affect the global economy and touch the lives of every person in our country. These officials have access to private information, often gathered at the expense and even by legislative mandate. There is no room for self-dealing by Federal officials. There is no room for even the appearance of self-dealing. Every member of the Federal Reserve should know that without a reminder from Congress. But, evidently, there is a problem at the Fed. We don't know the scope of the problem or how long it has been going on, but a very disturbing picture is emerging.

Last month, it was discovered that, during the economic turmoil of 2020, as the Fed was called on to take extraordinary measures to support our economy, Robert Kaplan, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, made multiple million-dollar-plus stock trades.

It was also disclosed that, in the same period, Eric Rosengren, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, made multiple purchases and sales related to his stakes in real estate investment trusts and other securities.

A new report last week revealed that a third key Fed official, Vice Chair Richard Clarida, also traded between $1 million and $5 million out of a bond fund into stock funds exactly 1 day before Fed Chair Powell publicly suggested possible policy actions that would significantly affect bonds and stocks.

The Federal Reserve makes hugely consequential decisions--decisions involving interest rates, trillions of dollars' worth of lending and debt, and the regulation and supervision of the banking and financial systems. The year 2020 was particularly consequential, with the Fed taking unprecedented steps to backstop financial markets in response to the pandemic. To make these specific decisions, Fed officials needed access to vast quantities of proprietary, nonpublic data and information about individual firms, the state of the economy, and upcoming Fed actions. Under these circumstances, for Fed officials to actively trade in the market raises legitimate questions about conflicts of interest and insider trading.

These Fed officials' actions show, at a minimum, very bad judgment. They also suggest that some Fed officials believe that building up their own personal wealth is more important than strengthening the American people's confidence in the Fed.

In his years as Chair of the Fed, it is not clear why Mr. Powell did not take steps to prevent these activities. Surely, he understands that this kind of behavior by Fed officials corrodes the public trust in the Fed and that, in turn, such corrosion undermines the effectiveness of the Fed.

Surely, he understands that the Fed officials' trades run afoul of Agency guidelines, which state Fed officials should ``avoid any dealings or other conduct that might convey even an appearance of conflict between their personal interests, the interests of the [Federal Reserve] System, and the public interest.''

Surely, he knows that, according to the Fed's policies, its officials ``have a special responsibility for maintaining the integrity, dignity, and reputation of the System. Accordingly, they should scrupulously avoid conduct that might in any way tend to embarrass the System.''

Surely he is aware that the Fed's policies instruct officials to ``carefully adhere to the spirit, as well as the letter, of the rules of ethical conduct,'' and to ``exemplify in their own conduct the high standards set forth in those rules.''

As the sitting chair of the Federal Reserve, the responsibility to safeguard the integrity of the Federal Reserve rests squarely with him. Setting the right culture at the Fed and making sure safeguards are in place to prevent self-dealing and to protect the public's confidence should be the minimum standard any Federal Reserve Chair should meet. And once there is a problem, a quick and aggressive response is critical. Chair Powell has failed at both tasks.

Last week, I said that I would not support Chair Powell's renomination because in one decision after another, he has consistently failed to serve as an effective financial regulator. But that is not his only failure.

Chair Powell has also failed as a leader. Our Nation needs leaders who are willing to set aside and enforce strong ethics standards and who act swiftly when a problem arises.

Our Nation does not need a go-along-to-get-along leader who doesn't know or doesn't care when, on his watch, people with great responsibility advance their own interests over the interests of our Nation, or someone who drags his feet in dealing with problems that shake the public's confidence in the institution he leads.

We need changes at the Fed. I have already called on key Fed officials to voluntarily abide by stricter ethics standards. Yesterday, I asked the SEC to investigate these trades to determine whether these Fed officials may have broken laws on insider trading, and I will continue to push Chair Powell to vigorously enforce the ethics standards that already exist and to put stronger ethics standards in place at the Fed.

In the last Congress, I introduced sweeping ethics legislation, the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act. This legislation would ban all individual stock ownership by Members of Congress, by Cabinet Secretaries, by senior congressional staff, by Federal judges, by White House staff, and by other Agency officials while in office.

It would prohibit all government officials from holding or trading stock if its value might be influenced by their Agency, their department, or their actions. And it would require senior government officials and White House staff to divest from privately owned assets that would present conflicts of interest. This far-reaching legislation would also tighten conflict of interest and recusal requirements and shut the revolving door between industry and government.

Now, look, this proposal won't solve every problem. And for any officials who have engaged in illegal insider trading, we don't need a new law to hold them accountable. But the proposal would dramatically reduce the possibility for any appearance of impropriety at the Fed and at every other Federal Agency and in Congress and in the White House.

I urge Congress to pass this legislation and to restore Americans' trust in our elected leaders and the officials who make key decisions-- key decisions not only about the economy, but about public health, the environment, and every other aspect of government.

There is a lot of housekeeping we need to do, and the faster we start, the faster we get it done.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am here to honor the memory of my friend and the friend of every working person in America, Rich Trumka.

We lost Rich this morning, and all I kept thinking is the kind of man we have lost and what that means to all of us.

Rich was real. He was a third-generation coal miner who rose to become the president of the United Mine Workers and the president of the American Federation of Labor. Rich was also a hunter, and he had the patience of a hunter--the planning, the long hours, sometimes long days, but always on his target. And Rich was a fighter He was relentless. When Rich got in a fight, Rich never gave up. Might not plan every one of those fights, at least not the first time out, but he never gave up.

From his growl to his laughter, Rich was real all the way through. He lived his heart every single day. He was always Rich.

Back during the financial crash in 2008, 2009, we were trying to build an idea for a consumer agency to make sure that people wouldn't get cheated next time around the way they had been, and what led up to that crash. Rich was there, and he was there because he had seen firsthand what it is like. He had seen his brothers and sisters in the labor movement, who had lost their homes, had lost their jobs, and seen their pensions disappear because a handful of greedy banks and feckless regulators had permitted the rich and powerful to take over our government and to take over our economy, and they brought that economy to its knees. It fell hard on working people, and Rich was determined that would not happen again.

I remember the day when President Obama announced that they were ready to lay out the first--first outlines of what the financial response should look like, what kind of laws we should pass here in Congress in order to make sure that this didn't come again. And there were a bunch of folks who were invited to the White House. I was invited. It was my first time there. I am looking around--wow.

And a bunch of people crowded, and all we cared about was: Hand us the list. I want to see what is on it. Is there a consumer agency on this?

And we get in our assigned seats, and I am sitting on these tiny, little chairs, jammed together so they can get as many people as possible. And Rich, who was a man of considerable size, is sitting directly behind me, kind of mashed up against the back of my chair and leaning out, and we were on the aisle, both of us, and furiously going through it to see what is there.

And, sure enough, the White House had said there is going to be a consumer agency, or at least that is what they are going to ask for.

So I am smiling. I turn and I say: See this? You see this?

And he said: Yeah.

And I said: You know, it makes me a little nervous for you to be right behind me here.

And he leaned over and he whispered in my ear and he said: I will always have your back, Elizabeth.

And I reached back, patted him on the leg.

And it was true. I never got in a fight for working people that Rich Trumka wasn't already there, that he was already in that fight, that he already saw what was happening to working people on the ground, and what it was that we needed our government to do by way of response.

Rich fought for decades for working people. It was his true north. He never varied from that. He never wanted anything for himself. All he wanted to do was to see workers get more power so that they were playing on a level playing field, to see workers be able to work in safe conditions, to see workers get a chance to build some real security for themselves and for their families.

Rich measured everything that came his way against that test: What is it going to do for working people? And if you could show him this is going to help working people, Rich was in it all the way.

During COVID-19, Rich was here back and forth and back and forth, trying to push this government to get more workers' safety in place, more regulations that were going to protect people so people weren't out there dying trying to do their jobs.

Rich was there, trying to protect the economic security of workers, people who had been laid off, people who had been shut out of the workplace. It was Rich who helped lead the charge, watch out for working families.

He didn't need the glory. He didn't need the spotlight, but, boy, he was in there pushing in the way that only Rich Trumka could do it.

Rich understood that when we put workers at the center of our policies, then families win; when we put workers at the center of our policies, then our economy wins; when we put workers at the center of our policies, then our Nation wins. That is how Rich lived, and that is how Rich died.

To Rich's family, I am so sorry for your loss. For Rich's brothers and sisters in the labor movement, I am so sorry for your loss. Rich is gone, and that is a hard blow to you and to our whole Nation, and this is the moment to honor Rich's legacy not just with words, but by staying in the fights that Rich led us on, by staying in the fights relentlessly for workers' rights.

We are going to miss Rich.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, and that upon the conclusion of my remarks, the Senate resume executive session, as under the previous order.

Madam President, almost exactly a year ago today, I stood here and called for Congress to take action to protect renters before the expiration of the eviction moratorium enacted during the early weeks of the pandemic.

Today, like a year ago, we are only hours away from a fully preventable housing crisis.

The CDC's eviction moratorium expires tonight at midnight, putting millions of families still recovering from the economic fallout of COVID-19 at risk for losing their homes, from losing the bedrock of their safety and stability.

Right now, more than 11 million renters report being behind on rent. That is one out of every seven renters. And people of color, who have been hit hardest by this pandemic, are disproportionately at risk. Nearly one-quarter of Black renters report being behind on rental payments.

Last year, Congress worked together to account for that staggering reality. We provided more than $45 billion in emergency rental assistance. That money is now finally getting into the hands of landlords around the country. It is helping families who lost jobs get caught up on the missed payments.

But the money is getting out too slowly. Some States and local governments opened their assistance programs only last month. Some hadn't spent a single dollar by the beginning of June.

Now that is starting to change. In June, States delivered more than $1.5 billion in emergency rental assistance. That money went to help nearly 300,000 households, but there are still billions of dollars to distribute and millions of families in need.

We have the tools, and we have the funding. What we need is the time.

Look, I agree that the eviction moratorium is not a long-term solution, but let me be very clear: it is the right short-term action. It is how we keep families safely in their homes while States deliver emergency aid. It is how we keep families who are starting to recover from the worst economic crisis of their lifetimes get back on their feet.

Millions of jobs have been lost, businesses are still shuttered, and childcare for too many families is still a patchwork of uncertainty. The recovery underway in this country is historic, and it will continue, but it has not yet reached every family.

But the need is not just economic. We are still in the throes of a public health emergency that is trending in the wrong direction. Cases of COVID-19 are rising. Hospitalizations and deaths are rising. The Delta variant is more contagious, threatening to spread faster among the half of the country that remains unvaccinated.

Needlessly evicting families would risk escalating our public health crisis. The CDC understood that reality when it issued an eviction moratorium in September. The Agency was clear, and I want to quote the language they used: ``Housing stability helps protect health.''

That's right. Research shows that moratoriums aid in reducing infections and deaths due to COVID-19. And research also shows that when eviction moratoriums expire, there is an associated increase in COVID-19 and mortality.

Yesterday, Congresswoman Cori Bush sent Members of Congress a letter. Congresswoman Bush has lived through eviction. She has been unhoused. And I want to quote her letter. She said:

I know firsthand the trauma and devastation that comes with

the violence of being evicted, and we have a responsibility

to do everything we can to prevent this trauma from being

inflicted on our neighbors and communities.

Cori Bush is exactly right.

My office has heard from so many people in Massachusetts who are terrified about the possibility of losing their homes. I know that each of my colleagues here must be hearing these stories. In every State in this country there are families sitting around their kitchen table right now trying to figure out how to survive a devastating, disruptive, and unnecessary eviction.

Congress has a choice to make. It is a privilege for us to represent people, and we have a duty to exercise our power on their behalf. Every Senator in this Chamber should be grateful that they have the power right now to keep families safe.

My colleagues understood the stakes in March of 2020, when Congress passed the CARES Act eviction moratorium into law. They understood the stakes when we provided historic funding for emergency rental assistance. I urge them to join me now in continuing this lifesaving protection as States distribute assistance to keep renters housed; to keep landlords paid; and, most of all, to keep families safe.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.