Floor Statements

Mr. President, in November of 2017, I spent some time in western Ukraine, sitting down to be able to have a meal and be able to talk to a group of Oklahomans from the 45th Infantry of the Oklahoma National Guard. Some had been in Ukraine since January of that year, and they were still there in November. They spent the entire year in 2017--the Oklahoma National Guard--training the military of the Ukrainians. Why? Because Russians, in 2014, had moved into Crimea and had crossed the border into the eastern part of Ukraine in what is called the Donbas and taken over two different areas that--they said there were separatists that were doing it. They were Russian speakers, so they clearly should be under Russian domination. And they moved in.

It was an entire year that Oklahomans spent with Ukrainians developing friendships, training them, preparing them for battle against a very large Army in the Russians. They hoped to be able to push the Russians out of the eastern side of their country.

And as we sat and visited and talked, they told me about the tenacity of the Ukrainian fighters, their commitment to their families, and their commitment to be able to be independent, to

be a separate functioning democracy, to engage with the rest of the world as any independent sovereign nation would choose to be able to do. That was 2017.

To Oklahomans, this conversation about Ukraine and the Russians surrounding Ukraine on three sides is not theory. Some Oklahomans know the names of Ukrainians that are currently on those front lines. They served alongside of each other, and they have stayed in contact, calling them friends. If you go into the Ukrainian Embassy today for the United States, you will see a picture of some Oklahomans up on the wall because they remember that group of Oklahomans that came to Ukraine to help them prepare for a day they hoped would never come and to be able to be ready to push the Russians out of the eastern part of their nation.

But today--literally, right now--Ukrainians living on the border, especially in the north, can literally hear the sound of Russian artillery practicing just miles away. They have been able to hear that sound for days and days now as they do live fire exercises just on the other side of the border. They are seeing that the Russians have amassed well in excess of 100,000 troops. They gathered troops from Russia from the far east next to their border with China and had moved them all the way to the west to be able to surround Ukraine on three sides with naval forces and with ground forces.

They are very aware the Russians have moved their special operations. They moved in field hospitals. They are very aware they are doing live training exercises in preparation. They hope that it is only saber- rattling, but they hear the sound of the guns just a few miles away.

Since hearing from the Russian perspective, even within the last 24 hours, the Russian diplomats have spoken to the BBC just in the last few hours. And they spoke and said they have no intention of any aggressive moves, that they are a sovereign nation and that they can move their forces anywhere they want to be able to move on any inch of their land, and if they want to put their forces all right there along the border with Ukraine, that is their sovereign right to do that.

And then they replied back in what must be one of the great Russian statements of all time: that the West is not reporting that the Ukrainians have also moved 100,000 troops next to the border with Russia. They must think the entire world is delusional. A Russian diplomat called it ``myth'' that the Russians intend to do aggression and said they would only move into Ukraine if they were provoked.

Now, mind you, U.S. intelligence released publicly just a few days ago a plot the Russians had, that they already created a film--a movie, if I can say it that way, a newsreel--that they had staged a Ukrainian attack on Russians, and it laid out actors that looked as if they were dead and set up all of these Ukrainian implements from war and these different vehicles surrounding burned-out Russian tanks so they could show the world that Ukrainians actually attacked them first, except our intelligence actually exposed that plan. But the Russians are still repeating over and over again that they will only attack if they are provoked, as they work to be able to stage a provocation.

People forget in the world that when the Russians are in Belarus, they are a half-day drive from Kyiv, but they are also a half-day drive from where they are stationed right now from Warsaw.

This is a tenuous time. This is not a new moment for the Russians to act aggressively toward their neighbors. In 2008, Russia invaded the country of Georgia. In 2014, as I mentioned, Russia annexed Crimea and moved in. In 2014, they also moved into the Donbas region. During that time in 2014, Russians--in July of 2014, the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade launched an anti-aircraft weapon against MH17, a passenger aircraft flying from Amsterdam to Malaysia--not even coming to Ukraine. They launched an anti-aircraft weapon against that flight flying over Ukraine, and the Russians murdered 298 people because they flew over an area that they were working to be able to overtake.

It is clear, the Russians, in their aggression, and Putin, in his attempt to make sure the whole world pays attention to him and shows that he is a powerful man because he can round up the entire world to be able to look at him when his economy is literally in tatters-- Russia's gross domestic product for the entire country is smaller than the State of Texas's gross domestic product. Yet, with his nuclear weapons and disproportionate allocation to his military and his control of oil and gas in the region, he continues to be able to saber-rattle and force the world to be able to look at him, the whole while declaring that he is a sovereign and he can move troops anywhere he wants to move. But also, by the way, Ukraine is not sovereign enough to make a decision about their own defense, demanding that Ukraine never become a member of NATO.

Can I remind the world, NATO is a defensive alliance--a defensive alliance. The NATO alliance exists--and it is an incredibly successful alliance--the NATO alliance exists to be able to react if they are attacked. NATO does not cooperate in attacking anyone. NATO is set up to defend each other when attacked. Ukraine is not a NATO nation, but NATO nations surround Ukraine. And we are all extremely aware of Putin's focus on trying to be able to push out and to recreate the USSR again.

We should pay attention. We should not pretend this won't affect the world. We have seen oil prices around the world already accelerate based on just Putin's actions right now. We have seen that he is trying to be able to manipulate oil prices for the benefit of Russia but to the detriment of everyone else. We can see that.

The issue is, what are we going to do about that? How are we going to actually engage? Well, our Nation has given over $400 million in assistance to Ukraine every year since 2014, including this year--$464 million in assistance to Ukraine. As I mentioned before, Oklahomans and multiple others have gone to Ukraine and been able to train their military for them to be able to defend themselves. We have assisted the Ukrainian people with counterartillery radars, coastal defensive implements, geospatial intelligence, counterunmanned aerial system equipment, electronic warfare, demining equipment, small arms--we have tried to be able to help the Ukrainians defend themselves.

We need to also speak with a unified voice that if Russia decides they are going to move across that border into Ukraine, that there are strong, unrelenting sanctions coming on that nation and that economy that is smaller than the economy of Texas; that we are keenly aware of how they survive based on oil and gas sales; and we are well-prepared to be able to fill in the supply from other nations that are buying from Russia; that they would be welcome to be able to buy from us or from any other nation ready to be able to sell to them; to be able to supplant what Russia is choosing to do; to be able to use energy as a leverage point on every country in the region to say: Don't respond or we will cut off your energy.

We need to make it very clear that the world stands with the free people of Ukraine and we will bring severe consequences on the economy of Russia that will be long-lasting--not only primary sanctions, but secondary sanctions. In other words, if individuals choose to be able to do business with Russia, they have to choose: They can either do business with Russia or do business with the United States of America. You can't do both. You have to pick.

With the largest economy in the world, I believe most would rather work with a free market, a free nation, than to be able to work with an unstable Russia.

But we should be clear. Russia has gone back on its words in the Minsk Agreement. Russia has gone back on its word on multiple different treaty agreements. We cannot trust what they say, but they should be able to trust what we will do if they choose to attack the free people of Ukraine.

Let me just say this: I firmly believe that the best thing that we can do is to work to keep a war from ever starting rather than engage and try to stop it once it starts. We should speak clearly as a nation. We should speak clearly from the administration. We should speak clearly from Congress with a unified, nonpartisan voice that the people of the United States want to do

what it takes to keep a war from starting so that Europe doesn't see yet another land war. That is going to take focus from this body.

So what do we need to do? We should make the clear offer that we will provide energy to the rest of the world, that if Russia cuts them off, we will rapidly move to be able to fill the gap. We should make it clear about our primary and secondary sanctions. We should make it clear on diplomatic channels and in public what we will do. We should continue to be able to work with our allies to be able to build a strong coalition and to reaffirm the NATO alliances there. We should continue to be able to make it very clear to Russia that if they choose to be able to move into Ukraine, it would be not only economically disastrous, but NATO is well prepared to be able to defend our alliance. And we should stand with the people of Ukraine and continue to equip them as they work to be able to protect themselves.

The people of Ukraine, in the times that I have been there--and I have been there several times--the people of Ukraine will be glad to be able to drive you through Kyiv and point out the places where they fought for their independence. They are a proud people. They do not want the Russians taking over their country. And they have fought for their independence once, and they are prepared to fight for it again. They should know we are prepared to stand next to them.

Let's pray for the people of Ukraine who, right now, hear the guns practicing on the other side of their border. Let's pray for peace, but let's also do the work to build the groundwork for peace, as well.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I really believe you can tell a lot about an administration's priorities based on the people that they put in place in each location. And that is true for every administration.

There are more than 300 million Americans. Many of them are passionate about serving our Nation. We have many great Federal employees who spend their entire life serving our Nation. So there are a lot of individuals to be able to choose from to be able to put in different administration roles, but their background tells you a lot about what the priority is and the purpose is.

For instance, I would say Xavier Becerra, who is leading HHS, who has no healthcare background at all, who is an attorney now leading our Nation's healthcare focus--the major issue for him: He was the most vocal proponent of abortion while he was in Congress. While he was attorney general in California, he was an activist pushing abortion in every single country--even suing other States when they limited abortion as the attorney general of California.

He was an activist about abortion. He would increase abortions in America. That was a major reason he was put in that spot with HHS. Why else would you put an activist attorney leading our Nation's healthcare area?

You can say the same thing with some of the major nominations that have come in for DOJ: Kristen Clarke, Vanita Gupta. Both of them are outspoken proponents of the ``defund the police'' movement, and now they are actually in the Department of Justice.

Kristen Clarke wrote: ``We must invest less in police and more in social workers.'' She also wrote: ``We must invest less in police'' and more in social supports for our schools; less in police, more in mental health aid. It was the main focus of the ``defund the police'' movement that she continued to be able to drive in her op-eds and her writings. That is why she was selected, clearly, to go to the Department of Justice.

Vanita Gupta did the same thing. She said: It is ``critical for state and local leaders to . . . decrease police budgets and the scope, role, and responsibility of police in our lives.''

There is a reason she is selected to be able to be in that spot. It matches with the priorities and values of the administration.

It is the same thing when you look at Defense. In national Defense, Alexandra Baker, when she was put to be Under Secretary of Defense, she said she is outspoken in beliefs that climate change is the leading national security challenge that we face--the leading national security challenge. I am sure the folks in Russia and Ukraine would be glad to be able to hear that our leading challenge currently is climate change in the Department of Defense.

Listen, these are all sets of priorities when you look at them and you look at the different individuals, and it is the same when we look at what is happening right now with Ms. Sarah Bloom Raskin being nominated to be the Vice Chair of Supervision at the Federal Reserve. This is no just ordinary position. The Vice Chair of Supervision of the Federal Reserve will have an immense amount of regulatory and supervisory power to push her agenda and to control many aspects of the Federal economy.

She is in lockstep with President Biden's agenda to take on fossil fuels. The problem is, the direction that she is trying to lead the Federal Reserve is to be able to engage in picking winners and losers, not just from a policy aspect but from a capital aspect, from the Federal Reserve.

This is not something I am just writing in to be able to say. This is something she stated over and over and over again--that the Federal Reserve should be able to reach in and to be able to make it more difficult to get capital for anyone who handles fossil fuels.

Why is that important to us? Well, because 70 percent of the energy in the United States is fossil-fuel related. So what happens if, suddenly, it gets harder to be able to do natural gas investment, it gets harder to do oil investment in the United States?

Well, two things happen with that. It is pretty straightforward. We import more energy, and the prices go up. That is what happens, because we are not going to have a decreasing amount in the foreseeable future. That is not just me saying that. That is President Biden's U.S. Energy Information Administration.

If you look at the charts and details that they put out about what is going to happen for oil and natural gas usage, they would forecast all the way up to 2050 that it is going to be about what it is. Worldwide, it is going to go up significantly, but in the United States, we are still going to need oil and natural gas at about the level we are at right now, at least through 2050.

Now, we can talk a lot about carbon capture, and I am all in on that conversation. But making it harder and more expensive to actually get oil and natural gas while we know we are going to need the same amount or more, who pays for that? Well, consumers do.

So let's look at the simple facts on this. In January of 2020, before COVID starts striking worldwide, natural gas prices: $2.02 a unit. Natural gas prices in January of 2022, the latest number we have: $4.38.

Let's look at gasoline for every person that is actually filling up their

tank. If we go back to, let's say, February 2019, well before the pandemic--we will just compare February to February. Before that time period, it was $2.39 a gallon. Today, the average price is $3.47 a gallon.

What are we experiencing? Policy pressure on limiting access. And what is happening right now is that Sarah Bloom Raskin has been nominated to step into the Federal Reserve, and her primary issue is: Make it even harder.

When our gasoline prices have gone up almost 50 percent in the last year, I would have to say this administration is intentionally finding ways to be able to make the price of energy more expensive, to be able to push people to other energy resources. Who feels the pain of that? Every single American.

I wish I could just say this was hyperbole, but let me read just a few things to you.

During the COVID pandemic, the Federal Reserve was stepping in and trying to stabilize companies around the country that were struggling and that were challenged. And we all know plenty of companies that were struggling or challenged.

One of the things the Federal Reserve did, like they did for every other company, was also to stabilize oil and gas companies, because if those oil and gas companies tanked, that means we have got to get energy from overseas in the days ahead. So they did what they did to every other entity. They were neutral in it and said: If you are a company that is providing an infrastructure, we are going to provide you access to resources the same as everyone else--except Sarah Bloom Raskin wrote this: The Federal Reserve ``buying troubled assets from the fossil fuel industry'' is ``dangerous.''

She said: ``It's bad for the economy, bad for the environment, bad for all of us.''

If Sarah Bloom Raskin was in the Federal Reserve during the COVID pandemic, we would have likely seen multiple energy companies across the United States collapse for lack of capital, and, right now, we would be buying even more gasoline and even more oil or natural gas from Russia instead.

I am not sure how that solves the problem, but her priority is this simple statement she has made: ``Financial regulators must reimagine their own role so they can play their part in the broader, reimagining of our economy.''

Now, I don't know how many people who I would run into in Oklahoma who would say: Do you know who I want reimagining our economy? Not the free market but someone in DC--I would be interested in them at their office, working with the capital assets across the country and managing who gets access to capital and who doesn't. I would like to have someone I have never met, in DC, reimagining our economy based on their preferences.

I don't meet many people like that in Oklahoma. They want a fair playing field, they want a level playing field, and they want free markets.

Do we want a clean economy? Absolutely, we do.

I would challenge anyone in this Chamber to look at the energy breakdown in Oklahoma and compare it to your State's energy breakdown, in the amount of renewables that we use in our State versus what you are using in yours.

We are passionate about a clean-energy future, but we are also realists in the process and not trying to drive the price up for every person in the process.

Maria Robinson has also been nominated to be Assistant Secretary of the Office of Electricity. I met with her earlier this week. Ms. Robinson is from Massachusetts. She has vocally opposed natural gas pipelines coming into New England. She was pretty clear that she understands they use dirtier home heating oil in the Northeast, but she doesn't want natural gas pipelines coming in. But she didn't seem to oppose when a Russian tanker pulled in and offloaded natural gas into Boston Harbor. So, literally, buying natural gas from the Russians, not from the United States, didn't seem to be an issue. But she did make this statement: ``I would certainly be a part of [the] group of folks who oppose any new gas pipelines.''

In my conversation with her, I asked her about--I just picked a day. January 16, 2022, is the day picked just in our conversation. I said: That particular day in New England, 24 percent of the energy generation was from fuel oil. Over 30 percent was from natural gas. And 8 percent was from renewables--8. That particular day, 24 percent was from home heating oil, over 30 percent natural gas, and 8 percent from renewables.

So my simple question was this: What are you planning to substitute in that? How is this going to work?

Her response was, well, in our area in New England, we are working on connecting our grid more to other parts of the country to deliver electricity to us.

What that really means: We don't like windmills. We don't like to look at them in Boston Harbor. We don't like offshore wind. We want windmills built in Oklahoma, and you guys just ship us our electricity so we can flick on the light.

Ms. Laura Daniels Davis. She has been nominated to be Assistant Secretary for the Office of Land and Minerals Management. She is currently in her role already with DOI. In her role in DOI, she has already made the change that routine permitting decisions that are typically made in the field to expedite the process of making permits, those have all been pulled up to her desk in Washington, DC, where they have slowed down dramatically.

The clear signal was this: If you want to do any oil and gas development, it has to come through me, and it is not going to be rapid like it used to be. So if you are going to invest capital, just understand your capital is whether I make that decision or not.

They have not held a single onshore oil and gas lease sale, even though they are required by law to do so. They just ignored it for a year and said: We are studying it.

There is also a 5-year leasing plan that is required for offshore oil and gas development. So while they have cut off onshore, offshore there is a 5-year lease plan that has to be put in place that is due by June of this year. So far, we have no signal they have even begun that, and it takes months to be able to develop it.

Why are these individuals being selected for these positions? Because it is very clear they have certain priorities in place. They were selected because they are going to block out anything that deals with oil and gas, and their focus is to cut it off right now--cut off pipelines, cut off new leasing, cut off offshore leasing, make it harder to be able to get access to capital. All of that will raise prices for American consumers.

Today--today--it was announced that the inflation rate in the United States is now at 7\1/2\ percent. It continues to rise month after month after month. I would say to you: That is directly connected to a group of policies that have been put in place to make energy more expensive-- and it is--to make it more difficult to be able to do a lot of things in permitting and such--and it is.

Yes, we are recovering from COVID. I am very aware. But the policies that are put in place are also driving this.

We have 2 million people that have illegally crossed the border last year--2 million. That is an enormous number. That 2-million number did not happen by just the calendar and by COVID. Policies were put in place that have led to a flood of people illegally crossing our border. Policies are being put in place by individuals who are directly leading to 7\1/2\ percent inflation in our country.

Can I say to you this? Half of Americans alive have never in their lifetime experienced inflation like they are experiencing right now? Half of the Americans alive do not know what 7\1/2\ percent inflation is going to mean to them personally, but they are learning quickly because what they thought they were going to buy last month, they can no longer afford this month. And it doesn't look better next month. And if we don't deal with real consequences for people, including who is put into different positions, this never gets better.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last weekend, I spent time down at the southwest border, an area the Presiding Officer is very familiar with.

This time, I was in the Rio Grande Valley. The Rio Grande Valley area has the highest area of illegal crossings across our entire 2,000-mile southwest border. In fact, it is interesting to be able to track just the movement across that border.

This is from 2014 to 2022. It is what has happened along this area of the border, just this one specific area, what is called the Rio Grande Valley area. It is around McAllen and Brownsville--that area. This shows, each year, what happens.

It starts in October, way down here with the numbers low. In some years, it came up, but just about every year, it went up and down. It was down significantly in November and December because, again, in Central America, they celebrate Christmas as well, and a lot of folks want to head back home, even, or be there. So immigration doesn't cross from south to north significantly in most years in October, November, December, January, except for this really odd line right here that seems really out of balance with all the rest of the lines from the last decade.

It is this line right here. This line is actually from last year. This line shows a number of 2 million people who illegally crossed our southwest border last year whom we know of--2 million. That is this line.

Typically, every other year, it is way down low when you get to October, November, December. That is over here. Here are the low months--but not this year. It has already started way up high. In fact, what is interesting is, for October, November, December, if you take any one of those months, there are as many people illegally crossing the border in the Rio Grande Valley in October, November, or December as over the last 3 years in that month combined.

Let me run that past everybody again. If you take any month--October, November, December--there were higher illegal crossings that we know of than over the last 3 years combined in any year that we know of.

My fear is, as some people have said, we have a problem on our southern border. I actually believe the Biden administration's policy is working exactly as they designed it to work--exactly. They created a structure in a system to allow as many people as possible to be able to cross our southern border, and it is working exactly.

Why would I say that? Well, in the first days of the Biden Presidency, when you stop border wall construction, when you announce they are going to change dramatically every policy in how we are interdicting individuals, when they cancel all foreign agreements with Mexico and with Central America that are actually limiting the number of people there, and then you don't replace them with anything, you have got to know that this is what is going to happen. Then, a year later, when nothing has changed, this is what is going to happen.

The agents in the Rio Grande Valley whom I talked to anticipate that by the time we get to the summer, we are going to be at 9,000 people a day who are illegally crossing our southern border--a day. There are many months in the past that we didn't have that many people crossing the border illegally. They are anticipating, on this trend line, 9,000 a day who will be coming. So far, what has the Biden administration done? They have stuck with their plan because it is doing exactly what they thought it was going to do.

I am amazed at the number of people I have talked to who have grown numb to what is happening on our southern border, and the media has just looked away and said: We have talked about how bad it is for a year; that is old news now. So they no longer talk about the 2 million people who have illegally crossed our border.

But, in going down last weekend and spending time with the Border Patrol, the CBP, ICE, and other leaders who were there, they could tell me firsthand the stories from last week, late at night, of the five Syrians they picked up who were crossing the southern border in the brush. Those 5 Syrians were part of the count of the 2 million people from last year that will now be who knows how big this year. They told me directly the story of a Nicaraguan single adult male whom they picked up crossing the border in the Rio Grande Valley, who told them under questioning that he was a member of the Nicaraguan military. Within 48 hours, he was released into the United States, and they were furious about it. Their question was very, very simple. A single adult male, member of a foreign military is now somewhere in our country, and they have no idea why, because they are doing their job but the policies that they have to work with right now of how many people they have to be able to cut loose, and how hard it is to be able to detain people, and the limiting policies of the Biden administration are fulfilling exactly what they are designed to do.

There has been a lot of conversation on the floor, and I have brought several times to this body the construction of the border barriers down in the southwest. This is something that members of the Border Patrol have asked for again and again and again: Close the gaps. They always say: Close the gaps.

There are these massive gaps where it was under construction. On January 20th of last year, construction stopped. Over and over again, people have said: Close the gaps. Close the gaps--those gaps we have to patrol.

Let me give you an example. When I got down there, they had now announced, by the way, they are closing the gaps. And everyone went: Great, the gaps are being closed.

But I got down there to be able to look at the gaps being closed, and let me show you what it looks like. This is an aerial shot when we were up in a helicopter with CBP, getting a chance to be able to literally watch people crossing the border illegally. From this aerial shot, I hope you can see. This was the existing wall that was constructed during the Trump administration--this tall, 30-foot wall with the anti- climb portion on it. Here is where the construction stopped. It was all the way through here, and then there was a gap, and then they had started another section here. They were getting ready to be able to put up the other sections, but they had to stop.

The Biden administration has now announced that they are going to close the gaps. I hope you don't miss it. They have announced the gaps are closed. Can you see this tiny, little picket fence on the bottom here? Probably not. This tiny, little picket fence that is at the bottom, that is what they say is ``close the gaps.'' So it is no longer just open. They have a tiny, little decorative fence there, and that is their announced ``we have closed the gap.''

That is not going to deter anyone. They know it full well. It is not designed to deter anyone. It is designed to allow the administration to say, ``We closed the gap,'' and hope no one looks at it because that gap will fulfill exactly what it is designed to fulfill; that is, to allow people in, not keep people out.

That doesn't help the Border Patrol. And they know it because it is not designed to be able to help the Border Patrol, and they know it.

Federal courts require the Biden administration to put in place what was a Trump policy before dealing with those individuals coming to seek asylum in the United States. It is called MPP. Some people call it ``Remain in Mexico.'' This policy basically said, if you want to be able to come into the country, you had to pause, get in line, register so we know who you are. We would set up an orderly process, and then you would have to stay in the border region until it was time for your hearing to occur. There was a dramatic drop in individuals who were illegally crossing our border because they knew they wouldn't automatically get in--what is called catch and release--that they wouldn't just come across, be released into the country, and wait 2 years until the hearing. Two years, that is what it used to be, to be able to wait until the hearing, until they shifted to the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, and they said you have to stay here in the border region until it is time for your hearing. Within months they would come forward, they would get their hearing and get to make their determination, whether they fulfilled the asylum or not.

The Federal courts have said to the Biden administration: You have to put that policy back in place. So after months of delay, they have agreed to do it. It is one of the places I wanted to stop in and see.

This is an overview of the Brownsville location for the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy. This overview shows the setup that they have created there in Brownsville to do the hearings. There is an intake area for processing, a gathering area, a medical area. There are six courtrooms that are set up. The courtrooms that are set up are all set up as large courtrooms where up to 22 different defendants could be here with their attorneys. All the courtrooms have videoconferencing set up as a full- on courtroom for that location. There are, in each location, 120 individual office spaces set up--120--where individuals that had illegally crossed the border could meet with their lawyer. So 6 courtrooms, 120 meeting spaces, all the ancillary space--this is a massive complex.

When I was down there last week, they have, so far, handled three people--three--and they weren't sure how many they were going to handle this week. Why? Because on the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy--MPP, whatever you want to be able to call it--they have created a system with so many exceptions in it that they could tell the Federal courts, ``Yes, we are doing it,'' but, in reality, they are not--realizing that this month they have had about 45,000 people illegally cross the border in this zone just in January, but only 3 they made eligible to go through this process, of the 45,000.

Why? Well, they made a whole set of stipulations. They said: If you come in a family group, you are not eligible to come in here. If you declare that you have a medical issue of any type, no matter how minor it may be, you are not eligible to be able to go through this program. If you are LGBT, you are not eligible to be able to go through this program. If you are 75 years or older, you are not eligible to be able to go through this program. If you are Nicaraguan, you are not eligible to go through this program. If you are Venezuelan, you are not eligible to go through this program.

Do you get the hint? They set so many criteria up to be able to list out--no, no, no, no, no, no--that the poor three people who were left who

didn't fit in those categories, they are going through. By the way, each person is given 24 hours with their lawyer before they actually have to go through this process, so counsel could give them the full list of all the items that they could select and say: If you meet any of the criteria, verbally, if you just say you meet any of these criteria, then you are out. And what does ``you are out'' mean? You are released into the United States, and you await your hearing.

Remember when I said that during the Trump administration those hearings would take up to 2 years before you got to an asylum hearing? Well, when I met with DHS officials this week, it is not 2 years anymore; it is now 6 years. You illegally cross the border, you get a paper, they release you into the country, you get on a bus or on a plane, literally go anywhere you want to go in the country, and set a date 6 years from now to show up at your court hearing. That is on average, by the way. Some are longer than that.

Now, you tell me, what happens if someone illegally crosses the border, they are processed within 48 hours, given a document that says you can be here 6 years to go anywhere you want to go in the country-- what do you think they are going to do when they pick up their cell phone? I will tell you what is happening. They are texting a family member back home. They are texting friends back home and saying: I got in, and here is how I did it. Come join me.

And they are--2 million people last year. And the response so far has been decorative fencing, what they actually call guardrails in the area, and empty courtrooms.

By the way, this was the middle of the day when I was there--empty courtrooms with no one being processed, all so they can say they did something.

American taxpayers paid millions of dollars for this setup so they could say they are doing something when they are actually doing nothing, getting the results exactly as they planned.

Oh, but, of course, everyone is being required to be vaccinated correctly before they reach the country. Of course, everyone is being required to be vaccinated, except they are not.

If you are a legal green card holder, you are required to be vaccinated. President Biden is trying to vaccinate everyone in private businesses, in the Federal workforce, Federal contractors. Members of the military are being kicked out of the military this week if they are not vaccinated. Oh, but if you cross the border illegally, you are given the option whether you want a vaccine or not. It is offered to you for free, but it is not mandated; it is voluntary.

What is the result? Well, some of the results are pretty obvious. The numbers are skyrocketing. As I showed you before, these are record numbers of individuals crossing the border illegally. That is seeable.

Let me tell you what is not seeable at this point. The drug cartels in Mexico are getting richer and richer and richer. They are moving record amounts of drugs across our border, making an incredible amount of money for the cartels, continuing to strengthen those drug cartels on the border. But each of the individuals who cross our southern border also pay a fee to the cartels--each of them.

You don't cross the southern border into the United States without crossing through one of the cartel areas, and each one of them has to pay. It is somewhere around $4,000 to $30,000 per person to be able to cross through Mexico and into the United States--$4,000 if you are from Guatemala; $30,000 if you are from China.

And none of us should be surprised.

Just last year, people from more than 100 countries crossed into the United States, that we picked up and interdicted, illegally--more than 100 countries. This common conversation about, well, it is all folks from Central America--there are a lot of folks from Central America coming, but it is people from over 100 countries, including those five Syrians who were picked up just last week.

Do some rough math. If people pay between $4,000 and $30,000 a person and there were 2 million people who crossed illegally last year that we know of, that is $10 billion paid to the cartels--$10 billion. And our open borders are allowing the cartels to rake in that kind of cash.

When I visited with the Border Patrol and got a chance to be able to talk to them, their morale is awful, as you can imagine. They are doing their job. They are busting it every day, but they are frustrated. They are frustrated at the policies that they are having to enforce, when they are used to being law enforcement folks enforcing our southern border, and now, they are hotel check-in staff who are just greeting people at the border, processing them, and releasing them into the country.

That is not what they signed up for. They signed up to protect our country, and, literally, they cannot. In this case, law enforcement is handcuffed, and the criminals are released. It shouldn't be that way, and they know it.

Usually, October, November, December, and January are lower months-- not so this time. They are exhausted from a record amount of illegal crossings last year, and they were hoping to get a bit of a break. But with the policies in place, it didn't matter how cold it is. People are still coming.

On top of all of that, here is what else happened last month, just one example. This is a Border Patrol vehicle that had just interdicted a group of folks at the border. I don't know whether you can see it or not, but that is a giant bullet hole in the front of it, and that is another bullet hole in it, and that is another bullet hole right behind the passenger window. By the way, at this particular moment, they had actually already picked somebody up, and they were sitting in that back seat.

The Border Patrol every day risk their lives to be able to enforce the law. And for this group of folks they pick up, within hours, they are released, and they are somewhere in the country waiting on a court hearing 6 years from now, if they ever show up for the hearing.

Do you want to know how frustrated this group of law enforcement is? They risk their lives for nothing because this is the policy of the Biden administration.

This is not an accident. This is what it has brought. As they run through, tonight, the heavy brush, along a very cold Texas-Mexico border, they will pick people up, and they will faithfully do their job because they have over and over again, only to have a policy that cuts them loose.

How long?

Listen, Border Patrol agents have families too. Their families matter as well. And all this talk about we are going to be compassionate to the families of people who are illegally crossing the border--what we are really doing as a policy is enriching the cartels in Mexico; encouraging people to make a very dangerous journey; releasing them into the country with not a legal status, to live in the shadows of our Nation; and putting law enforcement at risk for their life.

This should not be.

And while the country just seems to move on and ignore the chaos at our border, this is still what is going on tonight, and it needs to stop. This administration has the ability to change policy and to change direction on our southern border, and they are not. They are not doing it on purpose, and the results are chaos. I wish I were wrong on this.

There is something called title 42. Title 42 means we have a COVID epidemic happening. OK. And under a COVID epidemic or under any kind of epidemic, law enforcement is able to take some individuals, single adults from certain countries, and turn them around and send them right back in and say: You can't come in because of the epidemic.

We have enormous numbers of those individuals coming, and right now some of those individuals from some of those countries are being turned around, thankfully.

And when I have asked DHS: What is your plan for those individuals once the COVID epidemic ends? And it does, God willing, end one day. When it ends, what is your plan?

We are now 13 months into this administration, and they still have no plan. That is not just my guess; that is my point-blank asking: What is the plan to turn people around once the COVID epidemic ends for that small group of folks that you are turning around?

They don't have one. It doesn't take 13 months to be able to determine what you are going to do. That just tells me the plan is, when the COVID epidemic ends, those folks get in too.

When does this end? Who is going to stand up and help us?

Just enforce the laws of our country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I guess I am one of those extreme Republicans that believe that a child who sucks their thumb, wiggles their toes and fingers, feels pain, has a beating heart, has a functioning nervous system, has DNA that is different than the mom or the dad is a baby.

I didn't think that was an extreme position to see a child as self- evident. That is a child. Now, I understand Americans are divided on whether children in the womb are convenient or inconvenient, and if they are inconvenient, they can be thrown away as medical waste, but if they are convenient, they are kept.

I just think every child is precious, and I think every child should be honored and protected. So I guess that makes me extreme.

The bill that I bring today is a bill that just looks at the millions and millions and millions of Americans who believe like I do. Many of them work in hospitals, and they joined the healthcare profession and got a medical degree because they wanted to save life. They wanted to be a part of protecting individuals at their most critical times, but they also had this real belief--that is a science-based belief, by the way--that a child in the womb is just like a child outside the womb, the only difference is time.

Forty weeks ago, you were 40 weeks younger. That child in the womb at conception and the child outside the womb is just 40 weeks older, just like you are 40 weeks older than what you were 40 weeks ago. It is still a child.

For the millions of Americans who believe like that, we have had conscience-protection laws on the books, for a long time. In fact, there are 25 conscience-protection laws on the books in America right now. Many of these have not been controversial. In fact, if we go through the church amendments, when they were done, they protect the conscience rights of individuals and entities that object to performing or assisting in the performance of abortions or sterilizations against their religious beliefs or moral convictions.

When that passed, almost 50 years ago now, it passed 92 to 1 in this body. It just wasn't that controversial. We understood that people disagreed on the issue of abortion. And why would you ever compel someone to be able to perform an abortion when their conscience objects to that?

In 2004, Congress created the Weldon amendment. It is on all of our annual appropriations bills. The Weldon amendment bars Federal Government, State and local government, and recipients of Federal funds from discriminating against healthcare entities that refuse to provide, pay for, or provide coverage or refer for abortions. It has not been that controversial.

In fact, it was on the Consolidated Appropriations Act last year, which passed 92 to 6. This has not been that controversial to be able to honor the rights of individuals.

Now, there are some things that have changed. Some of these 25 laws have not been enforced. In fact, these 25 conscience protections that are on our books right now are dependent on the executive branch to actually enforce those laws. If I go back during the Trump administration, they confronted California because California mandated that insurance providers had to provide abortion coverage. Well, that is not consistent with our law.

And so the administration pushed them and said: No, you can't compel a religious institution that has a moral objection to abortion in your State; you can't make them buy abortion coverage and actually pay into that system--though California is.

So the Trump administration said to them: No, you have got to allow those folks to have the option; that is the Federal law. And that was in the process of being enforced until this administration took the leadership and Xavier Becerra, who was the attorney general of California, then moved to HHS and immediately dropped the suit against California, his old State--curious.

So the religious entities don't have any recourse in California because the executive branch won't enforce it.

Let me give you another example. There was an employer, University of Vermont Medical Center. They were pressed with a lawsuit against them for knowingly, willfully, and repeatedly violating the Church amendments. They had nurses that were there that said: I have a conscience issue. I don't want to participate in abortion, and the University of Vermont Medical Center would compel them to perform abortions or they would lose their job.

It is in direct violation of Federal law and the conscience protections. So there was a lawsuit against them to be able to have them actually carry out Federal law.

When the Biden administration came in, Xavier Becerra immediately dropped that lawsuit. There was no settlement. There was no statement about it. Though it is Federal law that you can't violate someone's conscience protections, they said: We are not going to enforce that Federal law--though it was in the process of being enforced.

So the question is, For religious entities in California or for a nurse in Vermont, where do they go? If the entity that is charged under Federal law--25 Federal laws, to be exact, to actually allow people to have conscience protections--if that entity says, ``We won't do it,'' what happens?

Well, this bill is very straightforward. It just gives the ability for that individual to be able to press a suit for their own rights.

If the Federal Government will not enforce the law, this allows that individual to step up and say: Then, I will then file charges that you are in violation of Federal law for this--to protect their rights as a citizen.

Quite frankly, it is not any different than what any other citizen would do anywhere else--that if they had some civil violation against them that was clearly in violation of their rights, they would be able to go to court and be able to say: My rights have been violated; here is the statute. And they would have their day in court.

That is not allowed currently in Federal law. It has to be the executive branch to carry it out. And, as we have learned, it is under the whims of the executive branch whether they are going to carry that out or not.

But, listen, this is really not that controversial in America. The most recent survey that was done by the Knights of Columbus that actually just came out this week asked a question about conscience protections. It was a very straightforward question. And the answer came back: 75 percent of the individuals surveyed said that doctors and nurses should not be forced to perform abortions if they have a religious objection.

Now, we are very divided on the issue of abortion, but our Nation is really not that divided on the issue of conscience protections. This is, Can an employer compel someone to do something that violates their religious beliefs or moral beliefs? And if they don't, they lose their job. That is the only question that is in this, and that is why I bring it to this body today. That is my simple request.

Now, this body knows, and Senator Murray, who is on the floor with me today, knows full well of my beliefs about the value of every single child. I do look forward to a day that we are post-Roe as a nation and the Supreme Court of the United States is not compelling every State to have abortions carried out that are elective abortions in their State.

A post-Roe nation is not a nation that has no abortion. It is a nation where, State to State, each State makes those decisions.

I have brought bills dealing with everything from chemical abortions to 20-week, pain-capable bills dealing with Down syndrome children, dealing with Planned Parenthood, dealing with all sorts of different issues.

This issue today is very specific, though--just about conscientious objectors. Should they be compelled to violate their beliefs by their employer?

So as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 401 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further 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, to the Chair, we will as a nation process through this in the days ahead. This body has very strict laws that cover my State and many other States for a lot of other things.

In my State, if you go to build a building in the southeast part of my State, you have to do frequent inspections to make sure the burying beetle is not going to be harmed in that area because it is considered threatened.

If you are in the western part of my State, you can't build certain buildings in certain places or carry out certain farming activities because the lesser prairie-chicken is there.

If you are in California, they pour their water--their great water-- out of the mountains into the ocean because if they don't, it may harm the smelt.

If you are building a bridge in Oklahoma, at certain times of the year, and a migratory bird puts up a nest in that construction area, you have to stop construction, because migratory bird eggs are valuable, burying beetles are valuable, prairie-chickens are valuable, smelts are available, but we throw children in the trash.

We have got to figure this out as a nation, and, currently, we seem to be afraid to talk about it or even to protect the rights of individuals who disagree about this in the workplace. We have got to figure this out as a nation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in the last 6 years, Democrats have filibustered 589 bills and nominations--589. That was their right as the minority at the time. That right has been protected. It was their right to demand that their voice be heard, but it seems like that was then; this is now.

Two years ago, when Senator Tim Scott brought a serious policing reform bill to the Senate floor to debate at a moment of national debate on supporting law enforcement, Democrats filibustered that bill and would not allow open debate on that bill.

Just last week--just last week--55 Senators voted for sanctions on Russia as they surround the borders of Ukraine. Just last week, 55 Senators voted for that, but that wasn't enough, and the voice of the minority was protected when Democrats blocked sanctions on Russia as they threatened Ukraine. That was their right to do, but it seems like that was then; this is now.

This letter in 2017 was sent. Twenty-seven Democratic Senators wrote a letter to Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer asking that there be no changes in the legislative filibuster, including this sentence that they all wrote together:

We are mindful of the unique role the Senate plays in the

legislative process, and we are steadfastly committed to

ensuring that this great American institution continues to

serve as the world's greatest deliberative body. Therefore,

we are asking you to join us in opposing any effort to

curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of Senators to

engage in full, robust, and extended debate, as we consider

legislation before this body and in the future.

That was then; this is now.

Then-Senator Kamala Harris, Chris Coons, Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Michael Bennet, Joe Manchin, Angus King, Mark Warner, Bob Casey, Martin Heinrich, Jeanne Shaheen, Sherrod Brown, Brian Schatz, Maria Cantwell, Mazie Hirono, Jon Tester, Tom Carper, Maggie Hassan, Tammy Duckworth, Tim Kaine, Jack Reed, Ed Markey, Debbie Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Bob Menendez all asked me to join them in opposing any effort to curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of Senators to engage in full, robust, and extended debate.

I will. I would be glad to join you in that because I believe this body is a unique body in the world, just like you did in 2017. I don't know what has changed. Debate is still debate. Difficult issues are still difficult issues. And when my Democratic colleagues filibustered almost 600 times in 6 years, it was their right, as it has been for two centuries.

This is the one place in American Government where the voice of the minority is heard--the one place. This is the one place where minority opinions have to come to the forefront.

A discussion about changing the rules of the Senate with simple 51 votes and to be able to shift this to a body, on legislation, where whoever is ahead on the football game gets to decide the rules for the rest of the game is not really a set of rules at all, and it will fail to protect the voice of the minority in America, this unique thing that we have where even if you lost an election, you know at least your voice can still be heard and you won't be run over.

A conversation that is happening in this body today to say we are going to permanently block out the opinions of the minority in America is a wrong decision, and I will join the 27 Democratic Senators who asked me 4 years ago to join them in opposing that change because it is the wrong direction.

I have enjoyed listening to some of the speeches--and I have listened all day to speeches of my Democratic colleagues--about how broken the Senate has become and about how it needs to be restored to its status as the world's greatest deliberative body. I agree.

Senator Manchin, who just spoke before me, made that same challenge to say: Let's do it. Let's actually engage in debate. Let's solve these issues. Let's actually work behind the scenes. Let's not talk at each other through the media; let's actually talk to each other. Let's close the door and actually get a chance to be able to work through things and be off the C-SPAN camera for a moment and not do the show. Let's actually engage in real dialogue. Let's solve the issues.

That is what we are supposed to do. What we are not supposed to do is to say: You know what, I don't want to do that kind of hard work behind the scenes. I will just change the rules, blame it on you, and walk away.

That is not what we are supposed to do as a Senate.

I have been told today that I refuse to stand on the side of democracy. I

was told by President Biden last week that I either stand with the Republican Abraham Lincoln or the Democrat Jefferson Davis and I should make my pick. Well, I would say, for me, personally, as a member of the party of Lincoln, I probably stand with Abraham Lincoln.

I am concerned that my friends on the other side of the aisle--and I do have many friends on the other side of the aisle. I am concerned that somehow they have convinced themselves that when they filibuster, it is righteous, but when I filibuster, it is evil and that this time it is different. And somehow with the filibuster, we can change it a little bit and only be a little bit pregnant, and it will all be fine.

I just don't think it is going to work that way, and I think a century from now writers will look back on this day and will identify what started the crack--when the Senate started to say: We no longer are going to try. We are just going to become the House and run over the minority, and the voice of the minority in America is no longer going to count.

I stand on the side of the filibuster, like Senator Schumer did in 2017, when he stood right over there and looked in the eyes of Senator McConnell and said, ``I hope the Republican leader and I can, in the coming months, find a way to build a firewall around the legislative filibuster, which is the most important distinction between the Senate and the House. Without the 60-vote threshold . . . the Senate becomes a majoritarian institution like the House, much more subject to the winds of short-term electoral change. No Senator would like to see that happen so let's find a way to further protect the 60-vote rule for legislation.''

I stand with Senator Durbin when he said, ``I can tell you [ending the legislative filibuster] would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers. We have to acknowledge our respect for the minority, [and] that is what the Senate tries to do in its composition and its procedure.''

Listen, we disagree on some elements on this bill, and I have heard the debate.

I will tell you, I have been outspoken to protect the rights of every individual to vote in our State. I am proud of the voting laws in my State. We have early voting. We have no-excuse absentee voting. We engage people to be able to vote in every community, and we fight very hard to be able to make sure that every place and every precinct has the shortest line possible. That has been a big deal for our State for a long time.

You go back to the 1965 Voting Rights Act and you look across the South and the States that went under preclearance, my State was not one of those because in my State, even at that time with Jim Crow laws, we were protecting the rights of individuals to be able to vote, as it should be.

But my State is being thrown under the bus currently. My State is currently being accused by some of my colleagues as being a State that is on the list of 34 evil States that have passed voter suppression laws in this past year.

Do you know what my State's guilt is? We passed a law this past year that said, if you are going to vote absentee by mail, you have to request it 15 days before the election. We did that because the U.S. Postal Service asked us to do that because the U.S. Postal Service said if a ballot is going to be mailed out to somebody and get mailed back in time and get counted, we need 2 weeks of time to do it, not 7 days.

By the way, my State is on the list of the 34 evil States doing voter suppression, but the State of New York passed the exact same law, and somehow, they are not on the evil list. But they also followed the encouragement of the U.S. Postal Service to give 15 days for the ballot to go out and to come back.

My fellow colleagues, that is not voter suppression, that is making sure every vote counts--but somehow my State is on the list.

We do get a little frustrated when we get accused of being racist when we disagree on some issues in this bill.

We have some disagreements on whether felons, as they walk out, should be able to vote immediately. That has been State-to-State decisions. I understand some States do that, some States do not. My State hasn't voted for folks who are convicted sex offenders and rapists and murderers, the day they walk out of the prison, to have their voting rights returned. By the way, some of the folks on the Democratic side of the aisle, your State has not either. This bill changes that. Can we have an honest conversation about convicted rapists walking out of prison and voting the next week, whether that is something that should be restored right away--by the way, even during their time of parole?

We have disagreements on voter ID. We have disagreements on same-day registration. We apparently have disagreements on whether we should have House candidates for Federal office get to take a salary from Federal tax dollars while they are running for office and get a 6-to-1 match, where the 6 is the Federal dollars and the 1 is the private dollars if you are running for the House of Representatives. No, I don't think I am a racist because I disagree with whether House candidates should be able to take a salary from Federal tax dollars while they are running for office and get a 6-to-1 match, but that is what I am being accused of consistently.

We have a disagreement on automatic registration of voters. Apparently, there are some other disagreements because, even in the bill itself, it gives a waiver for people who are illegally present in the country who ``accidentally'' get registered to vote; that it gives them some immunity in that process.

We have disagreement on how much control unelected folks are going to have on redistricting.

We just have disagreements on these things. Can we not have disagreements and debate these things out and not be called a racist in the process; that you are joining with Jefferson Davis if you disagree whether House Members should be paid while they are running for office out of Federal tax dollars?

I don't think this is about voting rights anymore. I think this has become about power.

I don't have any doubt that we need to protect the voting rights of every single individual. That is why I am grateful the 1965 Voting Rights Act is there. But I want to make sure that we are protecting our Republic and that we stay engaged in what it takes to actually guard, day-to-day, how we vote, how we make decisions, and that we admit there are differences in voting between Alaska, Oklahoma, and New York.

Now, again, we disagree on some things, and there are some things in this bill that even some of the folks in this room, their own States don't agree with. The State of New York doesn't allow same-day registration. In fact, they just voted on that in November and voted it down. The people of New York said: We don't want to do that.

The State of New York doesn't allow no-excuse absentee ballots. My State does. We have done that for years. The State of New York doesn't allow people to bring food and water to people in line. The State of New York requires people to request an absentee ballot to do it 15 days before the election, exactly like my State does.

Listen, let's debate the issues. Let's take the time needed to resolve it, and let's actually resolve it.

We talked a lot about division and things that are hard. If you don't mind me taking a bit of a detour, there are things that we agree and disagree on, some of them profoundly. One of them, I want to mention as well.

You know, this week would have been Betty White's 100th birthday. You talk about America's sweetheart. I can't find a soul who doesn't like Betty White. If you find somebody who doesn't like Betty White, will you let me know who that is because that is one hard heart.

Everyone loves Betty White.

Betty White spent 70-plus years raising money in support of the Humane Society--overwhelming support, millions of dollars that she raised for the Humane Society, and there was broad support for puppies and kittens. So I can just ask the question: Who disagrees with Betty White, puppies, and kittens? See, we have got common ground already.

But it is interesting to me, and I am astounded at times, how we see some things so similar and some things so different--hard issues at times.

Let me give you a Rorschach test. Can I do that? You know a Rorschach

test, the ink blot? Let me give you a Rorschach test.

What do you see in that picture? I see a child when I look at it. That looks a lot like a baby to me. Now, you may look at it and say, ``I don't see it. I see a castle or I see clouds,'' but in this particular Rorschach test, it happens to be a modern sonogram of a child.

Why do I bring this up? Why do I bring this to the floor today?

It is fascinating to me on the debate today that as a Republican I can be accused over and over of not caring about the challenges of voting in America, when I would be willing to ask the question: Does this child get to vote 18 years from now or does she get disposed of? What happens to her?

I do believe every life matters, no matter how old or how young, how small or how big, regardless of race or color or national origin or sex or ability. All people have inherent value. All people have worth and all should be protected in America. This is the United States of America.

And that child matters. Forty-nine years ago, the Roe v. Wade decision was made. It is coming up this Friday, the 49th anniversary, actually. That is why I bring it up.

There will be tens of thousands of students out for the March for Life. It will be an absolutely spectacular and beautiful display of dignity and value of every single human life.

In 1973, just a few months after that decision was handed down, Nellie Gray and some other pro-life leaders like the Knights of Columbus and other groups--they decided that one way they could continue the national dialogue about children was the March for Life until Roe v. Wade was overturned. And I am going to march again with them this year, and it will be freezing cold again this year, like it usually is in late January.

A lot has changed since 1973. Times have changed the conversation on abortion. Where it used to focus on cells and tissue and viability, now science recognizes that babies can feel pain, have a beating heart. That child already has fingerprints, in fact. By that age right there. It already has fingerprints.

By conception, that child has DNA that is different than the mom's and different than the dad's. Every single person in this room was once in your mom's womb, and the only difference between you now and you then is time. That is it.

And I will be very blunt, my greatest hope is that, after 49 years, this will be the last March for Life in a Roe v. Wade America; that this will return back to the States to be able to make decisions.

In my State, we will step up to this Rorschach test, and we will say, ``That looks like a baby to me,'' and we will start protecting the value of every single child.

We have brought bills to this floor that have been filibustered, bills on conscience protection, just giving the rights of a nurse--of a nurse--who told her employer, ``I don't want to perform abortions. I have a conscience issue with that,'' and then was hired, and later, her hospital said, ``You have to participate in this abortion.''

We have laws in America that protect that. They just have no teeth at all. So individuals do get forced into performing abortions against their conscience. We brought that to the floor, but it got filibustered.

We brought to the floor the protections of children in the womb who have Down syndrome; that they couldn't be aborted simply because they have Down syndrome, but guess what. That got filibustered and blocked.

We brought bills to the floor saying that if a child was born alive in a botched abortion, they had to get medical care, but it got filibustered and blocked.

By the way, I wish the people in this room had the opportunity to meet some of the folks whom I have had the opportunity to be able to meet who are abortion survivors because I hear from people all the time: That never happens. That never happens. I would like you to meet some of them who literally survived a botched abortion, that they were delivered alive and someone in the room took them to the hospital in their own vehicle, usually, and they survived.

I wish you had the opportunity to be able to sit down with Dr. Alveda King. The daughter of Dr. King is a great civil rights leader, and, yes, it is the niece of that Dr. King you are thinking of, who is an outspoken proponent for life and speaks often of grace to people.

I wish we had the opportunity to be able to talk more about chemical abortions and what is actually happening in that industry, where people are literally being mailed drugs from all over the world to be able to perform abortions at their homes or in their dorm rooms or hotel rooms, where this child is being delivered into a toilet and flushed; about how we have a much larger incidence of deaths of moms in chemical abortions than there is in surgical abortions; and about the statistics that have been kept, which, by the way, were blocked from being kept and are other than just deaths. From 2007 to 2017, there were 3,800 what they call adverse events from chemical abortions that had occurred.

Why do I bring all of this up?

I bring it up because this week, we are going to remember 49 years of Roe v. Wade, and we are going to start a dialogue in the days ahead about how States are going to handle life and what that Rorschach test is. Is that a baby or a tissue? We will have to face that reality.

I bring it up because it is a rare moment for us to have a real, bipartisan conversation today. As the body knows, it is not often we all sit in our chairs and actually talk to each other. We typically talk to each other through the media rather than talk to each other in here.

I brought it up because the conversation about her has been filibustered over and over and over and over again, and we don't get to have a real debate about her. We just move on.

When do we get to have a conversation about her--that is, a real dialogue--and determine what direction we go as a nation? For her sake, I hope it is soon because she matters.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my friend, through the Chair, the Senator from Virginia, for the engagement. We will continue to be able to engage and be able to talk through this.

Part of our challenge on dealing with this dialogue today is none of our side has actually seen the proposal tonight. It is a secret proposal that is coming out that all the conversation is that this restores the talking filibuster.

We are like: Really? What does it say?

Then, in the next, I guess, couple of hours, there is going to be a proposal pop and say, ``Here it is; we are changing the rules of the Senate with a 51 vote,'' when we haven't even had the opportunity to even see it.

So we talk about trying to be able to bring dialogue and debate on all of these things. That is not dialogue and debate on the rules. That is trying to ram through a change with a straight 51 that none of us have even seen.

And as we go through this, you had mentioned before the letter that is out there. You are correct. I read through the letter. I have definitely read through the whole letter, but I could have also brought a bunch of quotes from folks that I see all around the room that make statements like, ``I will never change the legislative filibuster,'' or, ``I am 100 percent opposed

to changing the legislative filibuster,'' or, ``We should not change the filibuster using the nuclear option.''

So there were lots of other quotes from lots of other interviews because, obviously, around 2017, when the letter came out, there was lots of media that asked point-blank: What do you mean by that?

And so there is a lot of clarification with it. So you are right. I read the letter, and it has the vague language. But I could have read lots of quotes that we have that were very, very specific on it.

At the end of the day, if we are going to solve the issues in the Senate, we are going to have to actually work together to be able to solve the issues. What makes this the greatest deliberative body is not that 51 can do what they want. What will make it the greatest deliberative body is when we have to actually talk to each other.

When I was elected in 2014, most of the phone calls that came to me personally between November and January were some of you who called me and said: My name is . . . . We are going to disagree on a lot of things, but let's start working now on what we will agree on.

If we start doing away with these rules and just move it to a 51 basis, those conversations end and it is not a deliberative body. Suddenly, it is a ``we can get what we want with 51'' body. That is the House. That is why we bring it up.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, we are in the same spot in the Senate we have been at five times before in the past 12 months. My Senate colleagues are bringing up a bill on voting to federalize our elections.

This time is different. This time their demands have changed. It is not just, ``Vote for my bill or take a vote.'' It is, ``If you don't do this, we will blow up the Senate permanently.'' Oh, that is a different thing. So let me set some context on this because this requires some conversation about where we are, what this conversation is all about, and what this really means for the future.

So first let me begin with the bill itself. There is no question 100 Senators here have all been through an election process. We are all experts on elections. We have walked through it in a way that most Americans have never walked through before. We are passionate about fair elections. We are passionate about the people who actually vote because those are the people who are actually engaged in our society. As we have millions of people who check out, don't care, and don't vote, we encourage people to vote, to pay attention.

The laws in our States are a little bit different on voting because each State is a little bit different. That is not something new. That is actually written into the U.S. Constitution. It has been that way since 1789. They have always been a little bit different.

In 1965, our Nation took a strong, bold step to be able to make sure that we protected the rights of every single individual to be able to vote because there was a season in American history where Black Americans were being pushed out. There were poll taxes. There were Jim Crow laws. There were things that actually pushed people away from voting.

So, in 1965, our Nation passed the Voting Rights Act. I will talk a little bit more about that in a moment. That Voting Rights Act still stands today to be able to protect the right of every individual in America to vote. If a single person or group of people are suppressed in their voting, are prohibited from voting, Federal courts today have the right to be able to step in on any jurisdiction, any State in America, to be able to protect the rights of individuals to be able to vote.

I bring that to this body as a reminder because, for some reason, an enormous portion of this body on the left side of this room is running around the Nation and saying, ``If we don't do something right now, there will be voter suppression in America, and we have to change that,'' when they all know, in 1965, we passed the Voting Rights Act, and that act still stands today to be able to protect the rights of individuals.

I hear people wander around the Nation and get on news channels and say the Voting Rights Act has been kicked out by the Supreme Court, when they know that is a lie. They know it is. One section of the Voting Rights Act the Supreme Court took out several years ago. It was the section that required what is called preclearance. It created a formula for States that had done a lot of oppression against Black Americans. It created a certain formula for them. If they made any changes in their voting laws, they had to get preclearance for that.

It stayed in place for decades. Even though their State had cleaned up their voting laws and had changed, for decades it stayed there, until the Supreme Court looked at it and said: You can't hold this over these States a generation later for something that a previous generation did.

And so the Supreme Court kicked that one section out but kept everything else, including protecting the rights of every single American from voter suppression. Every law in every State in America could be challenged in a Federal district court, circuit court, and to the Supreme Court to make sure the rights of individuals are protected.

Now, people here may not know that that still exists based on the way that the news has talked about voting of late and based on all the conversation about voting, but that is the law of the land right now.

So what is being brought to this body to vote on then? Well, here is what has been brought to this body to be able to vote on: a long list of things that they

want to be able to address and to be able to say they want to change voting in America to be able to remake it in their image, except it is not in the image of their States because many of my Democratic colleagues don't actually have, in their own State, the things that they are actually putting into this Federal legislation; meaning, literally, they are taking over from officials in their own State, telling their own Governor, their own legislature that they are wrong and that they are going to set them straight.

We have a disagreement on some of these issues. I will grant you that. Some of these areas in the bill we go: Let's talk about it. Most of the areas in their bill we look at and go: Are you kidding me? We just disagree on this--things like same-day voter registration, where a person could literally walk in and say, ``I never registered to vote before,'' tell them their name, and then vote on the spot. Honestly, I have a problem with that because there is no way to be able to validate they didn't vote in Oklahoma City, then vote in Tulsa, then vote in Muskogee, OK. There is no way to know. They just voted, and they did same-day registration, so there is no way to verify that person is actually that person.

Interestingly enough, they also include in their bill undermining State voter ID laws, so the combination of the two is pretty powerful. You can't call for ID, but you can register on the spot. That is a formula for fraud.

It is not just my opinion; it is the State of New York's opinion. The State of New York does not have same-day voter registration. In fact, this last November, it was on the ballot in the State of New York, and the people of the State of New York overwhelmingly said that is a terrible idea and voted it down. Yet Senator Schumer stands right over there and tells every State, including his that just voted this down: No, you have to do this. We are going to require it because some people in this body think it should be required.

We have a disagreement on that. That is a real disagreement we should be able to debate and talk about. Instead, my Democratic colleagues are saying: If you disagree with me on this, I will blow up the rules of the Senate, and we will get what I want no matter what.

Can we not have a disagreement that same-day voter registration may be a bad idea, when even the State of New York and the people of New York think it is a bad idea?

They have a mandate for using ballot drop boxes. I don't have a problem with ballot drop boxes, but their ballot drop box issue is you can't provide security. If you have any kind of security setting for it or any kind of chain-of-custody requirement, then that is going to be oppressive and suppressive.

You know, I think it is a good idea, when dealing with a ballot, that you actually know where it went and if anyone changed it; if people dropped off multiple ballots, when it is only legal to drop off one. I think it may be important to know if you are going to verify an election. We have a disagreement on that.

We have a disagreement on the issue of felons voting. Now, each State makes that decision whether they are going to allow felons to vote, but in this piece of legislation Democrats are bringing, they are saying: No, felons have to be given the right to vote when they get out of prison.

Now, I understand we may disagree on that, but I want you to understand what they are saying. My Democratic colleagues are saying: I will blow up the rules of the Senate and change 250 years of history in the Senate to get my way if you don't allow rapists, convicted murderers, and convicted sex offenders to be able to vote. They are so determined that sex offenders get the right to vote, they are willing to blow up the rules of the Senate to get it.

Can we not have a disagreement on if we are going to force States to mandate that convicted murders, sex offenders, and rapists get to vote again?

In this piece of legislation, they provide government funding, taxpayer funding, for Members of the House of Representatives just down the hall over there. Here is the way they set it up: If you are running for the House of Representatives and you raise small-dollar donations, then taxpayers will fund your campaign on a 6-to-1 match. It gets even better because you, as a candidate, could actually take a salary from that as well and actually be paid by the taxpayer to be able to run for office if you are running in the House of Representatives. Can we not have a disagreement on that?

I don't meet many people in Oklahoma who say they want to fund House Members running in New York State or California or Illinois or even in Oklahoma. They don't want to fund them with their tax dollars. If their tax dollars are going to education or roads or national defense or border security, they are all in, but if they are funding a political campaign with their tax dollars, I just don't meet many people who are very excited about that. But my Democratic colleagues are saying: If you don't support that, I will blow up the Senate, and I will destroy 200 years of history in the functioning of the Senate to get my way because, to them, having Federal funding for elections is so important, they are willing to blow the Senate tradition up so they can get their way.

There is a general counsel who works for the Federal Election Commission. You never met him. You don't know his name. He is an attorney who works with the Federal Election Commission. Their bill gives that attorney a tremendous amount of power to oversee elections in America. Do you know who he is? I don't either. But if this bill passes, it is a pretty powerful individual. Can we have a disagreement about that or is this about, if I don't allow someone no one even knows their name, a Federal Election Commission attorney, to be able to run elections in the country, I will blow the Senate up.

There is a section of it in this bill that talks about preclearance. We actually don't know how many States would fall into preclearance on this. Many of my Democratic colleagues say: Well, it is not very many. You have to have some sort of violation in the past to be able to get it. But, actually, if you read the fine print in the bill, it says if there has been a consent or out-of-court settlement on things related to an election any time in the last 25 years, you would suddenly now be in preclearance.

So, literally, 20 years ago, if your State made some agreement on elections, if there was some settlement that was done with DOJ during that time period, didn't even go to court; you just settled it to resolve it--said, yes, that was a mistake that was done--now that is going to come back to haunt a future generation.

And States will get drawn into preclearance, which--let me describe what that means. Preclearance means your State legislature can no longer pass legislation on elections until you contact the Attorney General of the United States and ask permission first. So now your State legislature works for the Attorney General of the United States, whoever that person may be in the future. It actually gives them the ability to be able to control anything on election law in your State, even though we don't even know who that is, and we don't know how many States are actually included.

What I have heard over and over again from my Democratic colleagues is, well, if we don't do this right now, our elections are destroyed in the future because have you seen the things that Republicans are doing all over the country? Have you seen the terrible laws that have been passed since 2020?

Actually, I have. My State is one of them. And I was surprised when I saw my State on the list of 34 different laws that are out there that have been passed that are terrible for America so we have to be able to federalize all elections. I was surprised to see my State on the list. When I looked on the list to see what was the terrible thing that passed in my State, here is what I discovered: Our State passed HB 2663. HB 2663 did a couple of things. It added an extra day of early voting for the general elections. They added an extra day of in-person early voting.

And it said, if you request an absentee ballot, you have to do that 15 days prior to the election. Do you know why we did that? Because the U.S. Postal Service contacted every State and asked them to do that because the Postal Service said: We can no longer guarantee we can get something mailed to a person and give them time to get it actually mailed back in time for the election. So to make sure people's votes actually count, we did what the

U.S. Postal Service actually recommended to us. We moved our request for an absentee ballot to 15 days before the election to make sure every vote would count.

You want to know something fun? So did the State of New York. They made the exact same change. So, apparently, the State of New York is also into voter suppression the same as the State of Oklahoma is.

Do you know what is really happening? My Democratic colleagues are running around the Nation getting on the news and saying there are 34 new laws passed by Republicans; they are destroying the right to vote. And apparently no one in the media is saying, ``List one,'' because if they would have listed one, they would have listed the State of Oklahoma added--added--an extra day of in-person voting and did what the U.S. Postal Service asked us to do, the exact same thing that the State of New York did.

Let me give you some other things that have happened in other States. In Florida, there is a requirement that voters provide the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver's license number or their Florida ID number when they request a mail-in ballot to make sure it is actually them. It is pretty straightforward. That doesn't sound like voter suppression; that sounds like just verifying that a person who is asking to vote by absentee is actually the person voting.

They made it very simple. You can just do any number. They are not even showing ID. They are saying you can just give the last four digits of your Social Security number, which everyone has. All they are just trying to make sure is that person is actually there and is actually who they say they are, but they are listed as being voter suppression there.

Arizona is requiring a voter signature on early ballots, as do a lot of States already. That has not been a big issue on that.

In Louisiana--this is a really big one in Louisiana. Louisiana and Utah--now, I understand why Democrats are challenging this. In Louisiana and Utah, they required that deceased voters be taken off the voter rolls. Those who are decreased, they are taken off the voter rolls. That is being listed as voter suppression.

I have to tell you. I have a friend of mine who said to me: When I die, would you make sure that I am buried in a blue State because I want to make sure I can continue to vote. It is a running old joke about ``I want to keep voting when I am dead.''

The State of Louisiana and the State of Utah, all they did was say: We want to be able to clean up our voter rolls to be able to take off the names of people we know and have verified that they are actually dead. But that is considered voter suppression, and my Democratic colleagues are running around the Nation saying there are 34 new laws that are suppressing the right to vote, when this is the kind of stuff that has actually been passed around the country.

Now, they will say: Oh, you can list those; I understand those. But there are a couple of them that are really egregious. I have heard several folks say: Do you realize that the State of Georgia--the State of Georgia and the law that they passed won't allow people to be able to pass out water to people in line? That is voter suppression.

Well, did you know that new law in Georgia has been the old law in the State of New York for years so that you couldn't campaign in line? People who are actual poll workers, who are volunteers there, they can pass out food and water. But the State of Georgia did a law just like the State of New York already has. I haven't heard Senator Schumer say that is voter suppression in New York, but he declared that to be voter suppression in Georgia. In fact, even Georgia Senators here stood up to be able to protest that they were playing baseball in Georgia because of it. The State of New York already has it.

I have also heard folks say: Well, there are some of the things that these States have passed that they are actually removing the ability of the State chief election official to administer elections. That is dangerous because then just a legislature can declare whoever they want to declare. That sounds horrible. If true, that would be terrible. It just doesn't happen to be factually true, but it is just getting spun like crazy that Republican States are out there taking away the rights of their people to be able to vote and their vote be counted. It is just not factually true.

They will go to Georgia and say they stripped the Secretary of State's authority to oversee elections. Here is what Georgia actually did. The Georgia secretary of state is still the chief election official for the State of Georgia.

They still oversee all election activities in the State, nothing changed on that. But Georgia did replace the secretary of state on the State election board with a nonpartisan chair, making the secretary of state a nonvoting member. That did happen. The law did provide new authority to the board to suspend county or municipal election superintendents and to appoint superintendents to oversee the jurisdiction. Yep, that is part of the law, but that would only happen after an investigation by a performance review board, a hearing by the State election board.

The board then must determine that the election administrator in the jurisdictions committed at least three violations of State election law or as demonstrated nonfeasance, malfeasance, gross negligence, and the administration of elections. It also prohibits the board from suspending more than four superintendents. It allows for a suspended superintendent to petition the State for reinstatement.

It adds a whole process of due process that actually gets carried out. Why do they do this? Well, because there were actual examples in the election of election workers that were fired by the county elections directors for shredding voter registration applications. That is a crime.

So they set up a process with full due process not to overturn elections, but to make sure county election officials actually are following the law. That doesn't sound like voter suppression to me. That just sounds like running free and fair elections.

Oh, but Arizona--Arizona has a new law that provides the attorney general to have the authority to defend the State's election laws in courts rather than the secretary of state, so they just shifted their responsibility of who defends State election laws.

The secretary of state is still the chief election officer in Arizona but actually doesn't go to court. Their State attorney general does. That kind of makes sense to me, but, apparently, my Democratic colleagues don't agree. They have spun this whole web of myth and said, We have to federalize every election in America. We have to take over every State voting system in America. Washington, DC, needs to be the one to be able to run everything--or else if we don't, we'll destroy the traditions of the Senate and get our way no matter what.

Could I just read to you from the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the law that is still in place in America?

It says:

No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or

standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied

by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the

right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account

of race or color.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, still the law of the land, and it should be.

So what is happening now with this? Well, there are two big issues here. One is this fight over voting, whether States make decisions on voting or whether Washington, DC, Democrats make decisions on voting for their States, even if it is a Democrat State.

And then the next big issue is, are the Democrats in this room actually going to destroy the filibuster and silence the rights of the minority in America? Now, if you would have asked me 4 years ago, I would have said: No way, that is not going to happen, because a group of Democrats and a group of Republicans joined together and said: We are committed to not destroying the legislative filibuster. Why? Because it is what makes the House and the Senate different.

The House and the Senate are not just one is bigger and one is smaller. The House and the Senate operate differently. And the Senate has been the place for two and a half centuries where the debate occurs and there are rights of individual Senators to be able to debate the issues, defend their State, and talk about the rights of Americans. This happens in the Senate.

The majority rules the show in the House. If they have 218 of 435, they

don't care what the other side thinks. People who always talk about bipartisanship never bring up the House of Representatives--they just don't. Bipartisanship doesn't happen in the House of Representatives the way it happens in the Senate, but the reason it happens in the Senate is because of this thing called the filibuster.

It was interesting, when I was first elected to the Senate in 2014, the people that called me between my election and when I came were almost all Democrats--almost all of them. They wanted to introduce themselves. They wanted to say: What are you interested in? Because in the Senate we have to work together to be able to get things done.

And so I had all these Democrats that reached out to me to say: Let's find areas of common ground. We are going to disagree on lots of things, but let's find the things we are going to agree on because we have to come to consensus, because we are the U.S. Senate.

That is commonly understood by Senators, which is why in 2017, in the middle of the year, a group of Republicans and Senators wrote a letter--this letter--to Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer. In that letter--I am going to read it right here from this paragraph, it says:

We are mindful of the unique role the Senate plays in the

legislative process, and we are steadfastly committed to

ensuring that this great American institution continues to

serve as the world's greatest deliberative body. Therefore--

Here's their request.

Therefore, we are asking you to join us in opposing any

effort to curtail the existing rights and prerogatives of

Senators to engage in full, robust, and extended debate as we

consider legislation before this body in the future.

This group of Senators in 2017 wrote to Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and said: Do not allow any changes. We are fully committed to making no changes in the filibuster. Don't allow it to happen for legislation. Don't allow it. Here were those that signed this document and said: This is what we believe.

Kamala Harris, now Vice President of the United States; Chris Coons, who led the letter among all Democrats; Patrick Leahy is the person who has held this institution together; Dianne Feinstein; Amy Klobuchar; Kirsten Gillibrand; Cory Booker; Michael Bennet; Joe Manchin; Angus King; Mark Warner; Bob Casey; Martin Heinrich; Jeanne Shaheen; Sherrod Brown; Brian Schatz; Maria Cantwell; Mazie Hirono; Jon Tester; Tom Carper; Maggie Hassan; Tammy Duckworth; Tim Kaine; Jack Reed; Ed Markey; Debbie Stabenow; Sheldon Whitehouse; Bob Menendez--all said don't change the legislative filibuster.

In fact, they asked me, along with everyone else, to join them in opposing any efforts to make changes to the filibuster. It didn't just stop there. There were lots of other conversations that happened during that time period. There were lots of interviews and dialogue about it. Let me just read some of the comments that were made during that time period.

George Stephanopoulos on ABC's program asked of Dick Durbin, the No. 2 leader for Democrats--asked Dick Durbin, ``What do you think about doing away with the filibuster?''

Dick Durbin replied this in 2018:

Well, I can tell you that would be the end of the Senate as

it was originally devised and created going back to our

Founding Fathers. We have to acknowledge our respect for the

minority, and that is what the Senate tries to do in its

composition and in its procedure.

That is Dick Durbin in 2018.

Jon Tester was asked in 2019 about the legislative filibuster, and he said:

I don't want to see the Senate become the House.

He then said:

If you're asking about the filibuster changes, I am a no.

That would be a mistake.

Senator Angus King made this comment in 2020. He said:

I know it can be frustrating, but I think legislation is

better when it has some bipartisan support.

Senator Dianne Feinstein in 2020 said:

I think it's a part of Senate tradition, which creates a

sobering effect on the body, which is healthy.

One more comment from Angus King. Angus King was asked about it on CNN, about the filibuster, and he replied back he is 100 percent opposed to killing the filibuster--100 percent.

Senator Cory Booker responded about the filibuster. He said:

My colleagues and I, everybody I've talked to, believe the

legislative filibuster should stay there, and I will

personally resist efforts to get rid of it.

Senator Chris Coons, when asked about this in 2018, he replied:

I am committed to never voting to change the legislative

filibuster.

Never.

Senator Jacky Rosen in 2019 was asked about this, and she replied:

I think we should keep the [legislative] filibuster. It's

one of the few things that we have left in order to let all

of the voices be heard here in the Senate. . . .

She also said:

We have to look not at just when you're in the majority,

but what does it do when you're in the minority? You have to

be mindful of that.

Jeanne Shaheen was asked on CNN about the legislative filibuster in 2021, and she answered just simply:

No, I would not support eliminating the 60-vote threshold.

Would not do it.

Senator Jack Reed was asked in 2017, during the same time period this letter came out, which he was a signatory for, and he said:

The filibuster is not in the Constitution nor the original

Senate rules, but we have a bicameral system for a reason and

this legislative tool serves a critical purpose in ensuring

the functioning of our democratic republic. Yes, it sometimes

slows the process down, and some have abused or subverted it.

But it remains an important part in our system of checks and

balances.

I agree. I agree with that Jack Reed.

Senator Bernie Sanders even was asked about the filibuster in 2019, and he just replied:

No, I am not crazy about getting rid of the filibuster.

Senator Mazie Hirono from Hawaii said:

I'm not particularly in favor of getting rid of the

filibuster because that just means majority rule. That's what

happens in the House.

Senator Bob Casey was asked in 2019 about the filibuster, and he just replied:

I'm a yes [on keeping the filibuster].

One of my favorites, Senator Sherrod Brown was asked about this in 2019, and he replied:

I think there are ways of getting things through Congress

with the legislative filibuster still in place. . . . it

takes a chief executive that knows what she's doing or what

he's doing.

Listen, this is not some trivial exercise. This is 250 years of history my Democratic colleagues are planning to flush down the toilet because they don't get their way on a bill we rightfully have very strong philosophical disagreements on.

Hey, I don't agree on giving rapists and sex offenders who are convicted felons voting rights when they get out of prison; I am not alone on that. I don't agree in Federal tax dollars being used to be able to pay for political campaigns. I am not alone in that. That is not that crazy.

I don't agree that my State should have to go play ``Mother, May I'' with some future Attorney General because they want to add another day of voting. I am not alone in that. But to say, ``If you don't do this now, I will destroy the Senate'', is a toxic shift for our Republic, and it is a violation of what you have said before in public, in fact, written to the leadership of the Senate and said: Please don't do this, and we will not do this. And now, years later go: It is not convenient. That was when we were in the minority. We had one opinion. Now we have different core beliefs because we are in the majority.

Interestingly enough, Joe Biden today stood in Georgia and made this statement. He said:

Today I am making it clear: To protect our democracy, I

support changing the Senate rules whichever way they need to

be changed to prevent a minority of Senators from blocking

action on voting rights. When it comes to protecting majority

rule in America, the majority should rule in the U.S. Senate.

Well, that is fascinating. Now that he is President of the United States, it is my way, or I will destroy the whole place. When he was Senator Joe Biden, he had a different opinion.

Senator Joe Biden wasn't about ``I am the President, so I get what I

want.'' Senator Joe Biden made this statement:

Folks who want to see this change want to eliminate one of

the procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of

guaranteeing individual rights, and they also have a

consequence, and would undermine the protections of a

minority point of view in the heat of majority excess.

But now he says: No. I am in the majority. I should get my way.

Senator Joe Biden said:

I have been here 32 years, most of the time in the

majority. Whenever you are in the majority, it is frustrating

to see the other side block a bill or a nominee you support.

I have walked in your shoes, and I get it. . . . Getting rid

of the filibuster has long-term consequences. If there is one

thing I have learned in my years here, once you change the

rules and surrender the Senate's institutional power, you

never get it back.

Senator Joe Biden said:

Simply put, the nuclear option would transform the Senate

from the so-called cooling saucer our Founding Fathers talked

about to cool the passions of the day to a pure majoritarian

body like a Parliament. We have heard a lot in recent weeks

about the rights of the majority and obstructionism. But the

Senate is not meant to be a place of pure majoritarianism. Is

majority rule what you really want?

That is what he said as a Senator, but as President, his demand was, majority rule or we will break every rule in the Senate to get what we want.

Senator Schumer, in his public statements, has been very clear. ``It would be doomsday for democracy,'' he said, ``if you change the filibuster.''

This is the statement Senator Schumer made in 2017, the same Senator Schumer who has spent the last 12 months trying to find a way to tear down the filibuster. In 2017, when there was the debate going on around this, Senator Schumer said on the floor of the Senate, standing right there, ``I hope the Republican leader and I,'' he said, ``can, in the coming months, find a way to build a firewall around the legislative filibuster, which is the most important distinction between the Senate and the House. Without the 60-vote threshold for legislation,'' Senator Schumer said, ``the Senate becomes a majoritarian institution like the House, much more subject to the winds of short-term electoral change. No Senator would like to see that happen so let's find a way to further protect the 60-vote rule for legislation.''

That was Senator Schumer in 2017, but now it is: I am in power. I am going to do what I want.

This is not a flippant issue, and as I have spoken to some of my Democratic colleagues, they seem to believe we will just take this vote and no one is going to care. In fact, some of my Democratic colleagues are saying: We know we are going to lose. Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema have already made public comments. They are not going to go with this, or, we are going to take this, make a statement. Our progressive base wants us to be able to do this. It has no consequences. It is not going to pass anyway, so we will just do it--except they are forgetting that 5 years from now, 10 years from now, there will be another time just like this. Maybe Democrats will be in a slightly larger majority. Maybe Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin won't be here at that moment, and the majority leader, Democrat Senator, at that point will step forward and say: You voted on this in 2022. It is time for us to vote on it now.

Democratic activists will rush at you and will say: Don't you dare change what you did. Tear the place down. Let's get what we want.

I have spoken to so many of my colleagues and said: Don't do this.

They have quietly responded back to me: I don't want to do this.

I am not here to attack my colleagues. You each make your own decisions. But these are decisions that matter. These are the decisions that 100 years from now will still guide the direction of the Senate. These are the decisions that will direct our Republic.

We are the only body that has a protection for the minority voice; I think the only legislative body in the world that is designed like this. It has been part of the secret sauce of America that the minority in America, however large or small it is, has a voice.

My Democratic colleagues are now saying: We no longer want the minority to have a voice in America. If you are in the minority opinion, you don't count. Sit down. Shut up. We are in the majority.

That has never been the American way, not in 250 years. This has been the place where we have argued, debated, and where, yes, I have talked to House Members who have said good bills went to die. But the Senate has been the spot where all Americans get to speak. And my Democratic colleagues are seriously considering this week saying: No more, because we want to pass a voting bill that gives Federal dollars to House candidates and gives felons the right to vote and takes away voter ID.

What in the world? What has this body become that people who signed this document, page after page of it--I mean, I could bring out page after page of Senators who have signed this and have said ``Do not take away the legislative filibuster'' but now are just flipping and flippant and saying it won't matter. Yes, it does. One hundred years from now, this week will still matter.

I encourage my Democratic colleagues to think carefully on this one because this one counts.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, there are so many problems going on right now in the country. As I interact with people in Oklahoma, they are frustrated with where things are going with the economy. The rising inflation is literally inflation we have not seen for 40 years.

People who are 40 years old and younger have never experienced an economy like we are experiencing right now. But for those who lived during the time of Jimmy Carter, they all remember extremely well what it was like--what it was like to literally every single week when you go to the grocery store for prices to be higher, to be able to watch prices accelerate month after month after month.

The policies that have been put in place this year by the Biden administration and folks in this body have led directly to rampant inflation across our Nation and are causing a major problem.

The debt ceiling was voted on just days ago here in this body. It was $2\1/2\ trillion. That $2\1/2\ trillion has been set aside for the next 13 months or so.

There is an enormous gathering of debt. We continue to be able to see the inflation continue to rise. And in the middle of it is a conversation about this bill that is called Build Back Better.

Now, we haven't seen all the bill yet. It is 2,000-plus pages. But the pages change every week, and they have for weeks and weeks. We still have large sections of the bill that is being dropped out that just says: ``We will add in more information here later.''

But the sections that we do have, and that have been scored, there are major problems here. This is not just a Republican-Democrat conversation; this is the direction-of-the-country conversation. Is this really what we want to do and the direction that we want to go?

This bill--it was scored independently by CBO, looked at this bill and said if it looks out over 10 years with these policies in place, it would add $3 trillion more in debt.

Now, as it is written, with all the budget gimmicks and everything in it, they say: Well, it actually will only add $365 billion in debt-- though the White House continues to claim that it is all paid for; it is all paid for; it is free; it is free; it is free.

The more we dig into it, the more problems we see. Some of those are philosophical changes. This bill changes what has been entitlements in the past. Entitlements have been connected to actually work to incentivize people to be able to work, knowing that people don't grow out of poverty by constantly getting government benefits. You are trapped in poverty. Work is what actually helps people escape out of poverty.

That is what Bill Clinton talked about often, about changing welfare as we know it. This bill actually changes it back to welfare as we knew it and shifts back entitlements to say you don't have to actually be working to receive all these government benefits. In fact, this bill even says you don't even have to be an American citizen to receive all these benefits; that if you are illegally present in the country, you get thousands and thousands of dollars in government benefits. If you are not working, but you are able to work and you choose not to, you get thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in benefits.

I have to tell you, for the folks I know who leave for work at 6 a.m. and head to work, they are a little frustrated that their tax dollars are going to people still in bed, who are not engaging. But that is what this bill does;

it changes us from a situation where we incentivize work to we incentivize not working.

Part of that is in the child tax credit that is being discussed. I and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted to change the child tax credit for this year that was already in place, that already incentivizes work, that helps individuals with small children who need help. That has been in place in the Tax Code. In fact, Republicans also voted for that in the past with a work incentive.

That was changed in March of this year in a straight partisan vote. And it was done for a temporary basis because of COVID, to actually allocate dollars to families, regardless of if they are working or not during the time of COVID.

Now, the conversation is, that needs to be extended, not just through COVID but to just keep extending it, to take away the work requirements, to take away the requirement to be a citizen of the United States to receive these dollars, and to actually make it where you are getting a monthly check rather than just a tax incentive at the end of the year based on if you were working or not.

And the working requirement is not high. It is, literally, if you worked and earned $2,500 in a year, you qualify for the tax credit. But they take away even that requirement for your family.

The childcare piece has been interesting because I have heard a lot of my Democratic colleagues talk about, well, we are going to give free childcare to folks.

The problem is--a multitude of issues with this. One is, if you are a faith-based entity for childcare, you are excluded from this, which about half of the childcare facilities around the country are provided by churches and faith-based nonprofits--rural and urban areas, they are all cut out.

The other challenge is, while they talk about free childcare, free childcare, free childcare, a very liberal think tank just did the math on this, what it would mean for middle-class families who actually do childcare at that same facility. Middle-class families who are paying right now for childcare would, after this bill is put in place--they estimate that it would cost $13,000 more a year for childcare if you are not getting the subsidies.

So if you are getting the subsidies, it is free. If you are a dollar past the subsidies, you are going to pay $13,000 more a year for your childcare.

I hope you are tracking the cost of natural gas as it is raised because it is about to go up again. If this bill--what I call the ``Build Back Broke'' bill--passes, the cost of natural gas and the cost of heating across America will go up because there is a new fee on methane.

I could go on and on and on with the issues that are in this bill that are content, that are philosophical issues, that are issues that affect people who live in my State and will raise the cost for them.

Some people ask me: Who are the folks who actually like this bill?

Well, there are quite a few folks who like this bill. The folks who are in wealthy Democrat-run States, they love this bill because the wealthiest individuals in the highest tax States--and those are the blue States--the wealthiest individuals in the highest tax States, they get a huge tax break in this bill. For the wealthiest individuals, they get an $80,000-a-year cut in their taxes, what they call State and local taxes. So if you are in New York or New Jersey or Illinois or in California and you are in the top 1 percent, you get an $80,000 cut in your taxes. They like this bill.

Somebody else who likes this bill are the wealthy who actually buy electric vehicles--incredibly expensive, beautiful vehicles, many of them, but they get $12,500 off of their vehicle based on this bill.

The environmental activists love this bill because billions of dollars actually go directly to these environmental activist groups. Many who were active in the Biden campaign, they get additional billions of dollars coming in. In fact, there are billions of dollars to create a new Civilian Climate Corps--a group of young people who will travel around the country actually promoting environmentalism, paid for with Federal tax dollars. They like this bill. Unions like this bill because, currently, if you donate to a nonprofit, you are able to take some of that off of your taxes. But under this bill, that goes away, and it is replaced with if you pay union dues, you get to write this off your taxes. So unions definitely like this bill.

And the folks who really, really like this bill--reporters and journalists. Reporters and journalists love this bill. So some of them are not talking about the content of this bill. The reason I say that, because this bill pays half the salary for reporters and journalists all over the country. This bill puts in place that half the salary of reporters and journalists in every city and every community across America will get half of their salary paid for by the Federal tax dollars.

Let's see, government-paid reporters and journalists--what could go wrong with that?

There are a lot of issues in this bill. And as we talk through this bill, and as, thankfully, this bill is slowing down dramatically so that people are able to see the contents of this bill, I have more and more people who catch me and say: I have a major concern with this bill and, I have to tell you, I have had for months. And we continue to be able to speak out on issues that change the direction for our Nation that are actually built into this bill.

Christmas

Mr. President, it is the middle of December, and we are still hanging out in DC. We are actually past the date that we were supposed to not be here any longer, according to our official calendar, but there is work to be done. And we continue to be able to do the work. It is a contentious body and, at times, a contentious nation.

I was with a group of folks yesterday for an early morning breakfast. And as we prayed together, one of them looked at me and said: I need a little ``Prince of Peace'' right now.

So can I just for a moment in this Chamber pause and just do a quick reminder of what is coming over the next couple of weeks, not about the heat of battle in this room but where we are in this season?

Reading from the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah 9:6 says: For a child will be born to us. A son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders, and His Name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. And there will be no end to the increase of this government or of his peace. It sounds like this in Luke, Chapter 2:

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus,

that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was

the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.

And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each

to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the

city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is

called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of

David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged

to him, and was with child. While they were there, the days

were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to

her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid

Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the

inn.

In the same region there were shepherds staying out in the

fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an

angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory

of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly

frightened. But the angel said to them, ``Do not be afraid;

for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be

for all the people; for today in the city of David there has

been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will

be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and

lying in a manger.'' And suddenly there appeared with the

angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and

saying, ``Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace

among men with whom He is pleased.''

When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the

shepherds began saying to one another, ``Let's go straight to

Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which

the Lord has made known to us.'' So they came in a hurry and

found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in

the manger. When they had seen this, they made known the

statement which had been told them about this Child. And all

who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by

the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering

them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and

praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as

had been told to them.

A little peace on Earth will be helpful to this body and to our Nation on this day.

Merry Christmas to you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is sort of hard to be able to recognize a simple fact that this is the United States of America, home of the free, land of the brave.

Then why is it such a difficult conversation with so many people in my State when they ask this question: Are we still free as a nation?

Why are we having this conversation? Are we still free as a nation? Of course, we are.

We are having this conversation because September 9, the President of the United States announced he was losing patience with the American people, and he was going to put a new demand on every single office in America, every workplace; that anyone who had 100 or more people in their company, every single person in that company had to be vaccinated because the President was losing patience with them. He said it is for health risk.

COVID-19 is serious. I have been vaccinated. Everyone in my family has been vaccinated. I am exceptionally grateful for the vaccine. But to be able to reach into companies with this one simple statement: If you don't follow my instructions, so the President says, you will be fired--that every person in the country now doesn't work for their employer, they now work for the President of the United States. May I remind us, we are the United States of America, home of the free, land of the brave; that we are a people who make our own decisions and live in a free nation.

What is interesting is, there is all this conversation about everyone needs to be vaccinated or we are not going to ever get to herd immunity; we will never get to herd immunity; we will never be able to put down COVID-19. How many times have we heard that statement over the past year and a half? We have got to get to herd immunity.

Well, I don't know if anyone has looked lately at the CDC's website. But if you go to the CDC website, it will list out percentagewise how many people have been vaccinated or currently

have natural immunity in their system. And if you go to their website and see it, the number that they have for 16 years old and up is 92 percent of America. Ninety-two percent of Americans either have natural immunity, antibodies in their system, or they have received the vaccine and have that set of antibodies in their system.

May I remind us again, how long have we been talking about herd immunity? I understand COVID is a tenacious disease. I take it seriously because, like every single person in this room, I have lost family members and friends who have died due to COVID. But we do not have the right as Americans to assign to the President of the United States that that President can actually go to any company he chooses and pick and choose the companies and say, this company, everyone has to be vaccinated; that company, they don't. If you have 95 people, it is no big deal. If you have 100 people, they are toxic. If you are FedEx and UPS, you need to all be vaccinated, but if you are the U.S. Postal Service, you don't have to be vaccinated. That kind of picking and choosing that the President has done around our economy, that is not the role of the U.S. President.

For all of us who take this disease seriously and for all of us who have been vaccinated and stand up frequently and talk about the importance of vaccinations, we also believe that we are Americans and that we are free people.

So what are the mandates that are down now? Well, there was a private-sector mandate for every company of 100 or more. There was a Federal contractor mandate that if you have a company that works for the Federal Government, regardless of your size for any Federal contracting, that you have to also have every person vaccinated. There are Federal employers who all have to be vaccinated, members of the military, reaching into the National Guard, which, for the first time ever, they have violated the law, saying that they are going to literally cut the pay for members of the National Guard who are not vaccinated, though the law clearly states they cannot reach into a State National Guard and literally pick and choose individuals they want to pay and don't pay. They have already dropped that out there and saying they are going to do that as well.

They have reached out to members of the healthcare community and told them, if you have Medicare or Medicaid, then you all have to be vaccinated. What has been the response? The American people have responded loud and clear that they believe we live in the land of the free. And while millions and millions have been vaccinated, they all turn around and say, it was also my choice to be able to do that.

Companies in my State are literally requiring employees to sign two forms: One saying that they will get vaccinated and the second form saying, if you have a negative reaction to the vaccine, you won't sue our company.

What in the world? That is not who we are.

So what has happened in just the last couple of weeks? Well, the courts have finally gotten involved. First off, the courts have done a nationwide stay on the private-sector mandate. That is what we are talking about tonight, putting a nail in the coffin with a vote in the U.S. Senate to say: No, we will not allow this.

There has been a nationwide stay put in for those individuals that are on Medicare and Medicaid and those healthcare workers. There has been a nationwide stay now for Federal contractors, for universities, for individuals around the country that have any connection with the Federal Government.

The courts have already stepped in and said the President doesn't have the authority to do this, and this vote tonight is whether this body agrees that the President should have unilateral power to declare whatever he wants for any private-sector business in the country or if the President doesn't have that authority to do that. That is all this vote is. This vote is not about vaccines and, as has been falsely accused, this whole group of anti-vaxxers that are out here.

This is a very simple vote: Do the people in this body believe that the President of the United States has the authority to declare that any employee in any company of 100 or more to do what he wants?

I say no, because we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, and it is time for us to go on record on if we believe that or not.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we have a problem in our Air National Guard right now.

This body knows full well where I have been on vaccine mandates coming down from the President. I have adamantly opposed the vaccine mandates on private-sector employees, which I find absurd that the President is announcing to every company with 100 people or more: I am going to take over the contracts for employment in your company; and no matter how long that employee has been there and how valuable they are to the company, you need to fire them if they don't follow the vaccine mandate.

That is not the right of a President. It has formed chaos in our Federal workers. It has formed chaos in our contractors for Federal employees.

Now, let me tell you what is happening in the National Guard right now. Tuesday of this week, November 30, the Secretary of Defense sent out a letter saying that, by today, December 2, every person in the National Guard had to be vaccinated or they would no longer be paid.

Now, that applied to the Air National Guard as of today; but to the Army National Guard, that doesn't apply until June 30. Let me run this past this body again. If you are in the Air National Guard and you are not vaccinated by today, you won't be paid anymore. You also can't show up at drill this weekend. You can't go into any training at all, as of this weekend. But if you are in the Army National Guard, you have until June 30 to be able to fulfill this mandate.

Now, I have been clear I am adamantly opposed to the mandate, period. But to then make it unequal between the Air National Guard and the Army National Guard is even worse.

And on top of all of that, what the administration did as of this week--they sent out information for the Air National Guard members and, I assume, for the Army National Guard starting in June that this is going to be a different process.

Title 32 is the authority for the National Guard. Now, for folks who aren't following this or the folks in this body who do, some people get confused between the Reserves and the Guard. They are not the same. The Reserves are like Active Duty. The Guard actually work for the Governor of each State.

Each State has accountability for the Guard members, and there is a responsibility to make sure they are trained and ready and equipped for Federal service if they are called up for Federal service. But when they are under what is called title 32 authority, they work for the Governor of the State. If a unit is not prepared, the State is punished for their lack of preparation. So funds can be taken away from the State but not going down to individual members of the Guard.

What did the Pentagon do this week?

The Pentagon, this week, announced that not only are they not going to pay individual members, but they are literally reaching down into a unit, identifying members that have not received the vaccine, and they are not going to pay that person.

There is no authority in law for the Pentagon to do that. In fact, that issue was debated in this body several years ago, and this body voted no on that. The Pentagon does not have the authority to reach into the Governor's National Guard and determine who will be paid and who will not be paid in the National Guard, but that is exactly what the President is trying to do and what the Pentagon is trying to do.

Why is this a big issue?

Because the Air National Guard, as of tomorrow, that are not vaccinated will not be paid, and this weekend they cannot go to drill.

Why is that a big issue?

Many of the folks in the Air National Guard that are not vaccinated are the pilots.

Listen, if we are going to talk about military readiness, I understand the differences of opinion here in the vaccine mandates. And some people have no issue with the vaccine mandates. I do. But we should all agree on military readiness. We should all agree on following the law and not allowing the Pentagon and the President to deliberately violate the law that we wrote and the President has signed in violating title 32.

Last night, I was on this very same floor, at this very same desk, asking for amendment on the NDAA. Today, I understand I am not getting that amendment on the NDAA. I have taken that same amendment and I have moved it into language that we can use as a standalone bill.

This is a very simple, straightforward, no issues, no ancillary anything on the bill. It simply says that we cannot allow the administration or the Pentagon--any one of them--to violate the law, to be able to reach into a National Guard unit and identify individual members and not pay them.

That is already the law. We are just affirming the law that already is.

And the second thing is not allowing them to be able to cut off pay based on their vaccination status in the National Guard when they are in title 32 status. That means they are working for the Governor of that State; they have not been activated to Federal duty.

This is a big issue, and it is a big issue right now because the Air National Guard members and many of our pilots are about to stop training right now. And in the days ahead for the Army National Guard, I remind this body of a number that most of us know. Only 40 percent of our Guard members are vaccinated, meaning 60 percent are not.

Are we really ready to lose that much readiness over this issue?

I would hope not.

So, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of Calendar No. 174, S. 3299. I further 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 look forward to working with Senator Reed on this. He has been a good partner dealing with this. He is passionate about protecting our military and keeping our forces ready.

I very much appreciate his partnership in that, and I look forward to our ongoing dialogue on this. I have had multiple phone calls to leadership in the Pentagon and leadership in the National Guard. I am not getting clear answers on this.

As I have tried to be an advocate for the members of our Air National Guard, I want to be able to make sure that we provide them that opportunity to be able to serve and that we don't lose access to readiness. So I very much appreciate his partnership in that.

Government Funding

Mr. President, it is my understanding that in a short period of time we will be voting on the continuing resolution.

The continuing resolution has now been passed in the House. It has been delivered over to the Senate. This maintains our government operations for the next 2 months.

I have been a person who has expressed my frustration that we have not taken up the vast majority of the appropriations bills, even in committee. It is my understanding that even as of today, 9 of the 12 appropriations bills have not even been discussed in committee, and all 12 of those bills

should have been done by September 30. We are now well past that now.

On September 30, we passed a continuing resolution that went until tomorrow. Now we are passing another one that is going to go into February. As I read through it, as it just came over from the House of Representatives, and was scanning quickly through it when they actually released the language in it this morning, I was interested to be able to see a couple of things that popped out to me in particular, serving on the Homeland Security Committee. Serving that position in Homeland Security and some of the issues that we deal with on a day-to-day basis on oversight, I was fascinated to see two particular areas that popped out to me in this. One of them was dealing with unaccompanied minors.

The administration earlier this year took some of the COVID money that had been allocated in March and used that COVID money to deal with unaccompanied minors. We have yet to get a full accounting of how much that was. But then when the continuing resolution was passed just September 30, 2.5 billion with a ``b''--2.5 billion additional dollars were allocated just to deal with the surge of unaccompanied minors for this year.

Well, that was a few months ago now. This continuing resolution is allocating another $1.5 billion to unaccompanied minors. So they took we don't know how much money of the COVID money for unaccompanied minors, and then if this bill passes tonight, which I assume it will at this point, it is another $4 billion just on the unaccompanied minors. Let me remind you how large of a figure that is, an additional $4 billion.

Before we lose track of that, what jumped out at me first when I went through this was a surprising number. In the continuing resolution that just came over from the House just minutes ago, there is a request for an additional $7 billion for Afghan refugees. When you say ``OK, I understand,'' in the September 30 continuing resolution, there was $6 billion for Afghan refugees over there. That is $13 billion for Afghan refugees. The best that we can tell, we have 69,000 Afghan refugees who are in the process, and we are allocating $13 billion for it.

Now, we all thought--and we had the conversation here--that $6 billion that was allocated was an enormous amount of money that was allocated, but now, 3 months after the refugees started being able to move out of Afghanistan in that debacle of a withdrawal that happened, now we are talking about not $6 billion but $13 billion. That is around $200,000 per person so far.

If that was not bad enough, in the continuing resolution done September 30, because of the enormous size of this amount of money and because of how little information has actually come to this body, there was a demand in it that by November 30--that was 2 days ago--the Department of Homeland Security would have to turn over a report of actually what is happening with the Afghan refugees. Has anyone in this body read that report from DHS now on how they are handling the Afghan refugees? I would go ahead and preemptively answer no because none of us have seen the report yet.

Here is what we don't know but yet this body demanded in the last CR to be able to get from DHS. We demanded to know crazy things like this: the number of lawful U.S. permanent residents who were evacuated out of Afghanistan. We don't have that number yet. We don't know how many were special immigrant visa holders. We don't know how many were actually applicants for special immigrant visas. We don't know the number that had any other immigrant status. We don't know the number who actually worked for our government who were actually evacuated. We have not been told although we demanded to have it by November 30.

We don't know the number of people who work for a partner government or any other entity that we were affiliated with although we asked for that. We don't know the number of people who actually came through the process and then were later determined to be security threats to the United States and had slipped through the process. We asked for that. We asked for that to come in by November 30. That has not been turned over.

We asked for the number of people who were getting paroled and their parole was then terminated because of some other criminal activity or something else. We asked for that. That is a number they have. They have not turned that number over.

We asked for even the number of interviews that had been conducted. We have yet to receive that. In fact, there has not been a single public hearing in the Senate on Afghan refugees--not one. So not only have we not received anything in writing, we have not even received any testimony from anyone from DHS on this.

Listen, we gave DHS $6 billion and said: We are going to allocate this money to you. We just want to know who we are allocating it to and what it is going to be used for.

That doesn't seem unreasonable. But not only is this body not holding DHS accountable for not answering our questions, we are handing them $7 billion more tonight. Does anyone else see this as an issue?

I am all for keeping the government open, but this body has a responsibility of oversight. We have pretended we are doing oversight, but we are actually not doing oversight--not a hearing, not a report, nothing. Thirteen billion dollars.

So, yes, I am going to oppose the CR tonight. I am not holding up the vote. I understand full well the responsibility of all 100 of us to put ourselves on the record. But if we are going to actually say we are going to do oversight, let's actually do oversight.

It is not unreasonable, when we all agree these are the facts and figures that should come from DHS to just tell us what is going on with the Afghan refugees, that we actually expect they are going to turn those things over.

So in the days ahead, I hope we will actually hold a hearing and actually get the facts. I hope we will actually demand that they turn over to us what we have required, and I hope we get a full accounting of how they are spending $13 billion on what we understand were 69,000 people, most of whom have not even been moved in and across the United States yet--$13 billion.

With that, I yield floor.

Madam President, in reserving the right to object, here is my problem.

Yesterday--and I mean yesterday--the Secretary of Defense released out a memorandum. The memorandum was about pay for National Guard members and the vaccine. We have National Guard members in very large numbers and percentages all around the country who have not been vaccinated at this point.

Now, there are two sets of rules for the National Guard--one for the Air National Guard. Their deadline for the vaccination is tomorrow. Now, remember, this memorandum came out yesterday. Their deadline for the vaccination is tomorrow, December 2. For the Army National Guard, their deadline is the 30th of June--so two sets of rules for the Air National Guard and for the Army National Guard. They are completely different--6 months apart, plus.

For the Air National Guard, this word came out yesterday with this statement:

No Department of Defense funding may be allocated for

payment of duties performed under title 32 for members of the

National Guard who do not comply with Department of Defense

COVID-19 vaccination requirements.

Then there is this statement:

No credit or excused absence shall be afforded to members

who do not participate in drills, training, or other duty due

to failure to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

What does this mean in real life?

Well, in real life it means, as of tomorrow, members of the Air National Guard, not the Army National Guard--they have 6 more months, plus. But members of the Air National Guard, as of tomorrow, even if they are not on Federal duty, will no longer be paid, will no longer be allowed to drill. That means, this coming weekend, Air National Guard members who were headed to drill who have not been vaccinated can't drill.

What does that mean in real life?

Well, National Guard members don't get TRICARE free and taken care of and provided for by the taxpayers like Active Duty does. To get TRICARE from them, it comes out of their checks, but if they are not getting a check, then it interrupts their payments.

So what the Secretary of Defense did yesterday was announce that Air National Guard members, as of this weekend, will not be paid anymore, will not be allowed to drill anymore, and we have thousands of them all over the country. At the last check, the Guard had about 50 percent compliance on the vaccination.

In some areas of the Guard, they have very serious concerns--well, let me just identify this--not just as a readiness issue in that we have individuals who have served in the Guard for years who now are, suddenly, not going to be paid and are going to have their insurance at risk. It is not just that, but this is also a federalism issue. I know this gets lost in the conversation, but the National Guard is not Active Duty. They are not reservists. The National Guard, when they are under title 32, actually work for the State. The National Guard in my State works for the Governor of my State. The Governor of my State is their commander in chief. According to the U.S. Constitution, for the Guard members, their officers are selected by the Governor of the State. That is how we set up the National Guard. It is not the Active Duty. It is not the Reserves. They are different. The time when they are federally connected is in what is called title 10, and the U.S. President actually calls them up, and they shift from title 32, under the States' authority, to title 10.

Do you want to know what the separations are even in funding? Let me make it clear.

The way the statute actually lays this out under title 32, section 108, is, if there is a Guard unit that is not complying, then the DOD can cut funding to the State, not to individual members. What is this memorandum? It is not cutting funding to the State; it is cutting funding to individuals who are within the Guard. That is not allowed under title 32, section 108. The consequences for a Guard unit not being ready is to cut off funding to the State. That is how the section works. In fact, even just a few years ago, in an NDAA just like what we are debating, there was a section to allow the DOD to be able to reach into units and to be able to take on and punish individuals with their pay, and that was blocked here in this body. It was not allowed. But this administration is going around Congress, around the States, reaching into

individual airmen and docking their pay, and, so far, this body is letting them.

That is a terrible precedent. That is terrible for the families in this National Guard unit. It is terrible for the morale, even because the Pentagon gave one set of rules to the Army Guard and another set of rules to the Air Guard, and these individuals, as of this weekend, will not be paid anymore unless this body acts.

So my request is very straightforward. The amendment that I bring to the floor protects the National Guard not just in my State but all over the entire country because there are Air Guard members in every one of our States who are worried about what is going to happen tomorrow to them when they have been faithfully serving their country.

All that I ask is we file this simple amendment; that we allow a vote on this simple amendment in this body; and that we prohibit the discharging of the withholding of pay and benefits to National Guard members based on their COVID-19 vaccination status.

It is very straightforward. It is very clean. It does nothing but say: We stand with our National Guard members, and we will not allow their pay to be cut, not only because we stand with them individually, but we also disagree with the interpretation of the Pentagon, which is not allowed to reach into a unit, select individual members, and not pay them. That is not the way that it works under title 32, section 108.

So, yes, I ask to modify the request to include my amendment No. 4863.

Mr. President, tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments on a case out of Mississippi commonly known now as the Dobbs case.

That case is all about a Mississippi law, where Mississippi passed a law saying, at 15 weeks, a child in development in the womb can be protected after that time period.

That strikes right at the heart of Roe v. Wade, where, in the arbitrary ruling from the Supreme Court in 1973, they made up a new rule saying when a child is viable--not something that is in law at any spot. It created that out of whole cloth.

Tomorrow morning, the Supreme Court will reopen that conversation about viability. It is an important discussion for us to be able to have as a nation, and it is vital that we talk about it here as well. As it is being discussed across the street at the Supreme Court, there are issues that we should discuss as well.

So, for the next few moments, there are multiple different Senators who are going to speak on this one issue: When is a child a child, and when should States have the rights to protect their own citizens' lives?

The Supreme Court has made that murky and has the option tomorrow to be able to make that clear. This conversation, though, will circle around what should that legal standard be and how should we protect the lives of every citizen, no matter how small they are.

There will be multiple Senators who will be speaking on this, the first of which will be Senator Steve Daines, who leads the Pro-Life Caucus in the U.S. Senate.

In December of 1952 and again in December of 1953, the Supreme Court was packed. There were lines out into the hallway, with people waiting to get in to hear oral arguments. In December, the Court would hear arguments on the legality of segregation brought by Thurgood Marshall, representing the Brown family in Topeka, KS.

Just 56 years before Brown v. Board of Education, segregation was protected by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. They ruled that separate but equal facilities were constitutional, thus enshrining the national

disgrace of segregation into America--an absolutely terrible decision by the Supreme Court that haunted our Nation for decades. It took 56 years before the Supreme Court corrected its wrong.

Now that more than a century has passed since the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the Nation still celebrates the Court that decided the Brown v. Board of Education case, as Justices righted a great wrong against millions of people. There was a simple lesson in that decision: When the Court made a mistake, it should fix its mistake.

In a lesser known case that affects just about every American now, in 2018, the Supreme Court overturned by a 5-to-4 decision 51 years of precedent on the collection of taxes for businesses called the physical presence rule. Many people now know it as the internet tax rule. It changed the way taxes were collected on the internet.

When they made that decision in 2018, there was great confusion and consternation, statements that it would be impossible to implement it and it would bring certain destruction to internet commerce. In fact, in the dissent in that 5-to-4 decision, the minority in the Court stated this:

E-commerce has grown into a significant and vibrant part of

our national economy against the backdrop of these

established rules, including the physical-presence rule. Any

alteration of those rules with the potential to disrupt the

development of such a critical segment of [our] economy

should be undertaken only by Congress.

The Court should not act on this important question of current economic policy solely to correct a mistake it made over 50 years ago. It was hand-wringing by the Court, the minority there, that they opposed correcting the obvious mistake of the Court from 51 years before because it could hurt the cyber economy. In other words, doing the right thing involved a risk.

Well, yesterday was Cyber Monday. It was one of the largest single days of purchasing online in history. The Court did the right thing, and the economy kept going. There was a simple lesson in that decision: When the Court made a mistake, it should fix its mistake, even if it was 50 years later.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in what could potentially be the most consequential case for human rights in 48 years.

Tomorrow at 10 a.m., nine Justices will hear arguments and ask questions of the attorney general of the State of Mississippi and counsel representing an abortion clinic in Mississippi. Tomorrow morning, the Court will consider whether all previability prohibitions on elective abortions are constitutional.

Tomorrow, this Court has the opportunity to uphold the self-evident truth to personhood, the facts of science and of our heart's declaration, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Simply stated, the Court has an opportunity to correct its mistake from 1973, 48 years ago.

In 2018, the Mississippi Legislature enacted the Gestational Age Act, which limits abortion to 15 weeks of gestation except in a medical emergency and cases of severe fetal abnormality.

Jackson Women's Health Organization, an abortion clinic in Mississippi, sued. Federal courts held that the law was in violation of the Court precedent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Now it is known as the Dobbs case. It stands before the Supreme Court at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

This case presents an opportunity for the Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade and turn the role of legislating on the issue of life back to the States, where it was pre-Roe v. Wade.

In Roe v. Wade, as this body knows extremely well, the Supreme Court decided the Constitution guarantees the right to have an abortion until the viability of a child, with very little understanding of the term ``viability.'' Years later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court also said that the government couldn't place an undue burden on access to abortion, which has been used to block many laws that aim to protect women and children.

Both decisions were completely arbitrary and not based in constitutional law. ``Viability,'' quite frankly, is impossible to define because children develop at different speeds. One child, Curtis Means, left the University of Alabama at Birmingham Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit after he was prematurely delivered at 21 weeks, 1 day--the youngest child to be born ever. Another child, though, may not survive if they were even delivered at 32 weeks. Viability was completely invented by the Court in 1973 as a standard and is impossible to actually track.

America has not forgotten about these children. We have not moved on, and we have not just accepted Roe v. Wade, because when we see a child, as this one is at 15 weeks, we actually see a baby, shockingly enough. Forty-eight years ago, the Supreme Court may have decided that a woman has a right to an abortion, but we never lost track of humanity. Abortion is not just a medical procedure; it is the taking of a human life.

I talked this morning with an abortion survivor. And, yes, they do exist by the thousands. She is in her forties. She has children of her own now. She survived a botched abortion and was actually delivered alive during an abortion procedure. She was taken by a nurse to the NICU unit of that hospital, and she is still alive and thriving today. I sat there with that abortion survivor, thinking that abortion is not about random tissue; it is about a person--quite frankly, this morning, the person who was sitting right in front of me.

Now, I understand full well I am a pastor who is now a Senator. I am fully aware that I have a Biblical worldview. My dedication to children is not just because I am a follower of Jesus and believe that every person is created in the image of God; I also firmly can look at the science. The science is clear to anyone who is willing to get past the talking points and actually look into the womb.

At the moment of fertilization, a new and distinct human being comes into existence. It is not just a fertilized egg; it is a new human. This new cell, which is called a zygote, shows behavior that is unlike the behavior of any other cell around it that is in the woman's body. The DNA inside that cell is different than the DNA inside any other cell in the mom's body. That cell has everything that he or she needs to become a fully developed human being.

Everyone listening to me right now--everyone--was once a single-cell zygote, completely dependent on your mom for nutrition. That is why we encourage moms to eat good foods, take prenatal vitamins, stop smoking, and all those things, because we want to protect the development of her child. Why? Because we all recognize that that is a child, and what a mom does now will affect the future for that child.

As the baby grows in his or her mother's womb, it continues to develop. At 15 weeks, as this baby is--and that is what the Mississippi law is all about, is a baby who looks just like that. At 15 weeks, a baby has a heart, lungs, skin, eyes, a nervous system. By 15 weeks or a little over 3 months of pregnancy, this preborn baby is moving around in response to touch. All of her organs are formed, and she just needs more time for them to grow and develop. Her heart already has four chambers. It has already beaten millions of times and pumps more than six quarts of blood per day. She cannot breathe outside the womb, but she is breathing inside the womb. She has arms and legs. She has 10 fingers and 10 toes and normally by this point already shows a preference for being right-handed or left-handed. She has eyes, lips, a nose, fingernails, eyebrows, even taste buds. She can feel pain.

This decision has ethical, moral, and medical implications. Look in the mirror, anyone in this room. You have fingers and toes and lips and a nose and fingernails and eyebrows and taste buds. You can feel your heart beating. The only difference between you right now and this child is time. That is it.

But for some, it is easy to just close their eyes and ignore the self-evident fact because it is easier to talk about Court precedent or choice, because if we look at each child and recognized this child for who she is, it is hard to process that in the last 48 years, 62 million children have died by abortion in America. And for some, they can't allow themselves to acknowledge what is self-evident because it would be too painful to think about 62 million children.

Can I tell you, 62 million children is the combined population of Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota,

Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, West Virginia, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, Kansas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Nevada, Iowa, Utah, Connecticut, Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, and Oklahoma--combined.

A Court decision that led to the death of 62 million children is a Court precedent that needs to be discarded.

Prior to 1973, each State had its own laws on abortion. That is what would happen again if the Court overturns Roe v. Wade. We will have a patchwork of laws on abortion, just like we do right now on homicide.

In some States, like mine, if a pregnant mother and her child are killed, the perpetrator faces two charges of murder, one for the mom and one for the child. In other States, the perpetrator would only face one charge of murder because that State doesn't recognize that child's existence at all. I think that is absurd, but that is a law in one State, and it changes from State to State. People can speak to their own State legislators about changing that law in their State and about recognizing the value of every child, even a child in the womb, but until they do, that child is a nonentity in some States. That kind of difference in homicide laws is allowed by the Supreme Court already. This Court should give that same right to every State for every preborn child, not just for some.

The law being debated in the Supreme Court tomorrow reflects the will of the people of Mississippi, just as many pro-life laws in Oklahoma and in our legislature have reflected the will of the people of Oklahoma.

The arbitrary, outdated viability standard established by the Court makes it harder for States to protect women from physical risk that accompany late-term abortions. It makes it difficult to allow States to protect preborn babies in the second trimester, who can experience pain. The viability standard prevents States from banning dismemberment abortion. The viability standard deters States from protecting children diagnosed with Down syndrome, developmental disabilities, and children being aborted simply because they are male or female. It also prevents States from protecting the lives of their own citizens at any stage of development.

I don't understand how infants have become a partisan issue. I really don't.

There are some issues, as I talk to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, where I can see their perspective and their point of view. I may not agree, but I can understand their point of view.

But on this issue I do not understand how some people see a baby sucking their thumb in the womb and they see them only as medical waste. I don't understand how some people can support an abortion in one moment, but when they talk to a woman who has had a miscarriage, they immediately respond with ``Oh, I am so sorry.'' If a miscarriage is the loss of a child, then what is an abortion?

I don't understand how the same person who fights to protect the right to abort children also brings a gift to a baby shower and celebrates a mom and a baby. How can one child be worth celebrating and the other child be medical waste? I just don't understand that compartmentalization.

Frankly, I don't understand how some people who are pro-abortion justify protecting Bald Eagle eggs in Federal law but have no problem supporting the taking of human life in the womb.

Children are not medical waste. Children are beautiful, innocent, and valuable. Some people who are pro-abortion call pro-life people horrible names, and they say they are trying to limit a woman's choice and her freedom while they work to protect her right to have her own baby literally have its arms and legs torn off in the womb so the child would bleed to death in the womb and then each body part would be suctioned out separately.

I don't consider that freedom. I consider that cruel and inhumane.

They say it is a woman's choice. But when does the child get to choose? Some people in our Nation actually celebrate the death of children like it is some glorious empowerment of a woman that she is able to pick and choose which baby will live or die based on her decision. I don't think that is empowerment. I think that is barbaric.

Mother Teresa stated: ``It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.''

Change begins tomorrow. Tomorrow the Court will have the opportunity to uphold our Constitution; eradicate the outdated, oppressive, and deadly precedent; and turn our discussion about life over to the legislators in each State. Now is the time for this Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Our Nation prides itself on human rights and individual liberties, but we have this huge, glaring exception: We deny the obvious fact of a child until they are born. We ignore a child's existence until it is convenient.

I really believe, in the decades ahead, our Nation will catch up and we will look back on these years with grief. We will be shocked that when we saw a pregnancy test that said ``positive,'' somehow we didn't figure out that meant positive for tissue; it meant positive for a baby.

I look forward to the day when the United States will be a beacon of justice for every child and not just a few; when we will be a Nation that protects the weak, not just a Nation that stands up for the strong; when we will lead the world to protect the innocent and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves; when America is a beacon of hope for every child.

Southern slave owners in 1830 denied humanity to their slaves. Men in 1900 denied women a right to vote. The United States rounded up Japanese Americans in World War II and put them into camps.

All three of those were considered legal and appropriate at the time. All three of those were fought tenaciously when they were changed, and all three of them are a national embarrassment now.

There was a time when the Court ruled that separate but equal was justice. Then, six decades later, they reversed course, ending segregation. Justice requires, when the Court gets it wrong, that they correct their own mistake. This time there are millions of children counting on the Court getting it right.

``Blessed are those who have regard for the weak; the Lord delivers them in times of trouble''--Psalm 41, verse 1.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on September 9, President Biden told the American people that he was losing patience with them and they needed to get vaccinated right now. He laid down a series of Executive orders on Federal employees, on Federal contractors, on companies that had-- individuals that had 100 employees or more, on individuals that worked in any healthcare-related, anything that dealt with Medicare or Medicaid. It reached out to millions of people.

He set a date that was within 3 months, knowing full well it would take months to actually write the rule and it would create chaos across the country as everyone tried to figure out how to do this mandate.

I fully believe that was the purpose of setting a close deadline; it was because it would have that much chaos in the country dealing with the vaccine mandates. Well, mission accomplished. It has created chaos across our economy and across lots of families.

What is the situation right now in America dealing with COVID?

We are on the backside of our second peak. We have seen hundreds of thousands of people lose their lives to COVID. We have seen hospitals fill, get back to order; fill again, get back to order.

But in the meantime, three vaccines have been developed, multiple different treatments have been developed, a multitude of tests have been developed, which has been the primary issue that we have every year with the flu.

We don't panic every year on the flu because we have testing. We have treatment. We have vaccines. We now have, for COVID, testing, treatments, and vaccines. It becomes much more manageable.

In the meantime, right at 80 percent of all Americans who are 12 years old or over have already had at least one dose of one of the vaccines.

Let me run that past you again: 80 percent of Americans have had at least one dose of one of the three vaccines, of those 12 years old or older.

About 45 million Americans have recovered from COVID; had it, tested positive, and have recovered. The vast majority of Americans, by far-- like, not even close--the vast majority of Americans have been vaccinated or have recovered from COVID or both.

But is the administration OK with that?

No, they are not. The administration has laid down their own law to say, if Americans do not get the vaccine--those 20 percent left that haven't gotten the vaccine that are 12 years old or older, if they don't get the vaccine, this administration is going to find some way for them to lose their job; which, for many people, will also mean lose their insurance; lose their pension; and, sometimes, lose their home.

But the President's response is: I don't care. Go get the shot. That is what I want you to do.

Well, Mr. President, mission accomplished.

Let me tell you a story of an individual that works in the eastern part of my State, who works for one of those companies that is 100 people or more. He didn't want to have the vaccine. The reason is not even important, but he said he didn't want to take the vaccine. So what happened in his company of 100 or more? They fired him a couple of weeks ago.

You are welcome, Mr. President. Thanks for firing him.

Oh, it gets better. He lost his house because he couldn't pay the mortgage, and this adult man has now moved in with his family while he tries to figure out what happens next for him.

Do you know why?

Because the President said he was losing patience and he didn't care if this guy lost his house, lost his job, lost his insurance. The President was just saying, go get it, or else.

Well, thanks. Right before Thanksgiving, he is experiencing the ``or else.''

One of my constituent's husband is facing termination. He is from another one of those large companies. He has worked for them for 30 years. He has a

secret clearance from the DOD. And his doctor gave him an exemption because his cardiac numbers fluctuate so much. And he is one of those high-risk individuals for blood clots, which can be a side effect of the vaccines. So his doctor has encouraged him not to take the vaccine.

So he went into his job. He asked for the medical exemption, and he was given two forms to sign. The first of the forms said he had to agree to take the vaccination or he would lose his job. The second form agreed that, if he took the vaccination, he would not sue the company if he had a negative reaction.

So here is a man who has to choose between taking the vaccine, knowing that his doctor has told him not to do it, and if he does take it, if he has a negative reaction, the company wants to be held harmless for it. And he has to sign a document saying the company will be held harmless for it or lose his job.

Do you know why?

Because President Biden said he was losing patience.

So this family gets to sit around over Thanksgiving not talking about football but talking about whether he is going to lose his job or possibly have a blood clot in the hospital.

Which would you like to have that conversation on over Thanksgiving?

There is a company that does electrical engineering that also has one of those Federal contracts they talk about. Some of the employees don't do the Federal contracting. They work for other issues. Fifty people of the 250 in the company have said they don't want to take the vaccine, and so they are in the process of losing their jobs. And that company will not be able to fulfill its Federal contract because hiring 50 more electricians is not that simple right now with the economy that we are currently in.

A constituent told us that her employer is going to lay her off on December 8 because she hasn't had the vaccine yet. So she will spend Thanksgiving discussing this with her family as she approaches the time where she is about to be laid off. She works in one of those companies that has a Federal contract. She reached out to her primary care doctor, who is at the VA, by the way, and the VA instructed her that they are not writing exemptions for medical exemptions.

She is on her own.

Why?

Because the President is losing patience, and he has decided he is going to throw all of these families in chaos or they are going to lose their job, because he said so.

Why have I been fighting this mandate since September 9 when the President actually announced it?

Because it was obvious to me what was coming. It was this.

Everyone could see it, apparently, but the White House. Americans are stubborn people. That is what has made us the most prosperous, freest people in the world. We are entrepreneurs. We take risks. We understand the consequences for our risks. But we also go do because we can; we are Americans.

And now the President of the United States has announced: I don't care; you are going to get this, or else.

So what is the real effect of this? All of this chaos?

Oh, this is just part of it. There is a whole lot more.

How about the EMS folks that are in rural Oklahoma, that are having a hard time actually keeping some of their drivers and folks in because they have chosen not to take the vaccine?

What happens in 3 weeks from now when people get sick at their house or have a heart attack and EMS can't respond because those folks got fired from their jobs because the President said, I am losing patience? What happens?

I will tell you what happens. People die. Other families are going to struggle through this process as they are figuring out where they are going to go to work because they lost their career, because the President said: I have lost patience with you.

Tell me this: For the person that is the JAG officer in the military, works in the National Guard, and for whatever reason--whether it is a religious accommodation, medical accommodation, or whatever it might be--they chose not to take this vaccine, when they get a dishonorable discharge, what happens to them?

They lose their law license is what happens to them. They are disbarred, and they are no longer practicing their profession.

What happens to the State trooper in Oklahoma that also serves on our National Guard?

When they get dishonorably discharged, they don't just lose their military career; they lose their civilian career.

What happens to the nurse or doctor that serves with the National Guard? When they get drummed out, what happens?

They lose their military career and their civilian career. That is what happens.

Do you know why?

Because the President decided he was losing patience with the American people and they have to do what he says to do, not what they want to do. That is why all this chaos is happening.

I heard from a constituent, 28 years of Federal service--28 years of Federal service. I am not going to give the administration that they work in, but they work behind the scenes in an exceptionally important, exceptionally difficult task--serving their neighbors as a Federal employee. She doesn't want to retire, but she doesn't want to take this vaccine either.

So do you know what she is doing?

She is retiring.

And what is going to happen in this agency in Oklahoma when they lose this cornerstone person at this Agency?

They will struggle to figure out what she did, how she did it. And people in Oklahoma will get less help in that Agency because a long- term, vital civil servant is about to get run out of civil service because President Biden decided he lost patience with her.

That wasn't in her civil service contract. That was never negotiated with any other collective bargaining rights agreements, never. There is no addition in any collective bargaining rights agreements for Federal employees that they have to get a vaccine mandate if the President decides that they do, but he decided--that is, President Biden decided--he was going to take this on.

And so she is going to be discussing over Thanksgiving what she is going to do post-retirement, wishing that she could stay a little longer to be able to build up a few more years, and thought she was going to be able to, but, instead, she got ran out because she and the President had a difference of opinion about a brandnew vaccine.

Now, I have said to this group before several times--and I will say it again--I have had the vaccine. I encourage others to take the vaccine. Eighty percent of Americans who are 12 years old or older have had the vaccine.

There are plenty of Americans who have had the vaccine who support the vaccine but do not want their next door neighbor to get fired because they disagree on the vaccine. In fact, I don't know a lot of people who do, though I have met some that are just that heartless to be able to say: I don't care what you think. I want to feel better forcing you to go get the vaccine.

I have met some of those folks, but I don't meet many of them. Most of them say: I freely made the decision; they should be able to freely make the decision, as well.

But apparently that is not where the President is and, unfortunately, that is not where some of my Democratic colleagues are because multiple times we have brought an end to the vaccine mandates to multiple committees in multiple places over the last several months and it gets knocked down every time.

Just this week, we filed a Congressional Review Act dealing with just the OSHA piece. We have another one coming dealing with all those on CMS to make a simple statement: We have got to stop this vaccine mandate. It is causing chaos in our families. It is causing chaos in our economy, and anyone who doesn't think it is is not talking to people at home.

So we will bring this in the next 18 days to the floor of this Senate, and we will force a vote on it and put everyone on record: Do you stand with the American people, who strongly affirm the vaccine but strongly oppose the mandate, or will you be one to say: I don't care. I stand with the President. I am losing patience with people, this 20 percent that haven't done the vaccine. I

am losing patience with them, and I am just going to force them to do it, as well--because that decision is coming to every single person in this body.

This could be turned off right now, and one section of it already is turned off. The Fifth Circuit Court reached in on the issue of private employers and said that this was way overly broad of the President. No kidding. It was unconstitutional for the President to reach into companies and to say: I don't care who it is, how important they are to the company. If you don't make them do the vaccine, you have to fire them.

The Fifth Circuit said you cannot do that. Thank you, Fifth Circuit, for finally joining in on that.

OSHA has now said that they are not going to enforce that, but there are lots of other companies that have done it anyway. And, I will tell you, for this individual in Eastern Oklahoma who has already been fired and lost his house, it is too late for him for suddenly the Biden team to say: Just kidding. We are going to pull that back. His life has already been wrecked by you.

What else is happening? I have reached out to multiple different Agencies to be able to talk this through. It has been fascinating to me, when I have talked to different Agencies. By the way, the Federal Agency mandate for all Federal employees is next week to be able to have that done. But when I talk to leaders of Agencies of multiple different Departments across this town, none of them seem to know how many of their employees have actually been vaccinated yet--none of them. They all say: Well, we think it is quite a few.

I say: How many folks have not been vaccinated?

We have x number of folks who have been reported to us, but they don't seem to know. It has become chaotic.

For Federal workers, their unions have finally stepped in--finally. I have been shocked at how slow the Federal unions were to this. They finally stepped up and asked for an extension of the President to say: Don't put the mandate down for next week. Give people more time because, literally, people are sitting around over Thanksgiving deciding whether they are going to keep their job or not.

And if 10 to 20 percent of the workforce across the Federal workforce leaves, we are in such chaos that there is no way we will be able to finish serving people as we desperately need to be able to do across the Federal Government.

What would I recommend? I had some very frank conversations with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or the EEOC. It was interesting to me, when I visited with the EEOC. That is the group that protects workers--Federal workers or private--from discrimination and protects workers from inappropriate termination. When I talk to the EEOC, what I hear from them is that they weren't consulted through the process of developing this new vaccine mandate and all the exemptions that should be in place.

Can I just tell the workers of my State and the workers across the country a simple thing? If your employer will not accept your religious accommodation that you put in or your medical exemption that you put in--if they do not accept those--you need to go to the EEOC and file a complaint because the EEOC has rules about terminations that are inappropriate terminations. If individuals are being terminated from private companies, even if they are Federal contractors or Federal employees, I encourage you to go to the EEOC and file a complaint if they are not hearing your medical accommodation or your religious accommodation. That is your right as an American.

When the President of the United States is running over your rights, you have every right to be able to appeal that personally. You don't have to hire an attorney. You can file that complaint on your own to be able to make sure that your employer knows that you are filing an EEOC complaint against them for inappropriate termination, for not accepting your medical exemption and your religious accommodation.

Interestingly enough, when I approached the Office of Management and Budget a month ago about how they are going to handle religious accommodation, they said: It is not the business of Federal workers to decide and individuals' faith. We are just going to accept that.

But when the document came out, there was a six-part test of whether you are religious enough to be able to turn down the vaccine. They literally created a six-part test that every supervisor can go through and check to determine if you are religious enough to be able to turn this down.

This would be the first time that I know of that the Federal Government has actually reached into an entity, to individuals, and said: We are going to decide for you how religious you are.

That is how crazy this has become.

I encourage you, again, if individuals have said that you are not religious enough to be able to ask for this accommodation, go to the EEOC, file a complaint against your employer--whether that be a Federal Agency, whether that be a private entity--and make sure that they are well aware of what is going on.

If you work in a Federal Agency and you have an initial appeals process that actually goes through, go through that. Go through that process. But if you are denied or not heard, you do have rights as an American, and I would encourage you to be able to stand up for your rights as an American against unjust hiring and unjust firing in this process.

Let me read this last letter to you. As we have fought through this process and find every leverage point I can find for the people in my State to be able to make their own decisions, it has been difficult to be able to talk to people in the struggles that they have.

Let me read one. This gentleman wrote to me:

I retired after 20 years of Active-Duty service in the

military to enjoy time with my family and the supreme

blessings of freedom and peace our country has secured at the

expense beyond human measure. Now, many of our undaunted

servicemembers and veterans alike face possible unemployment

because we refuse to take a vaccine. Some are being coerced

into taking it because they can't support their families

while unemployed. The very people who risked their lives and

the well-being of their children face persecution for a

personal medical choice.

His comment to me: This is not American.

I agree. That is why we are fighting this. That is why we are continuing to push this. That is why we are bringing a Congressional Review Act up to put every single person in this body on record: Do you support forcing people to take a vaccine or be fired, or not?

I do not, and I hope that 99 other of my colleagues also do not.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I object.

Madam President, in reserving the right to object, this is an astounding thing. This is a conversation that has happened today about amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act.

Now, I haven't been here very long, but, typically, an NDAA takes about 2 weeks on the floor to be able to process, and there is a lot of conversation about different amendments. There are managers' packages; there are big groupings of packages that come together that are noncontroversial; and there will be a series of votes that are side by side with other votes. It has already been set up for 20 votes. That is terrific. That is a great start.

Then there is a request for some other things that are pretty typical, actually. There have been requests just in the last couple of minutes on military contractors and the vaccine mandate that will certainly affect our military readiness. That is certainly defense related.

There is human trafficking in China and whether products are coming through. That is pretty straightforward. In fact, that passed unanimously through this body. That doesn't seem that controversial to be able to be in here.

There are conversations about fentanyl and the origin of fentanyl, where that is coming from. That shouldn't be controversial to try to protect the country, but, suddenly, that amendment has been blocked.

Nord Stream 2--Ukraine and Russia--has not been a controversial issue for us. This body has laid down sanctions multiple times on the NDAA on this exact issue, and now it is being blocked. You can't even debate it.

Myself and Senator Daines both brought up things tonight dealing with border security, which is certainly national security: 1.7 million people we know of have illegally crossed our southwest border this year. It is the highest number of illegal crossings in the history of our country--1.7 million. But, on January 20 of this year, President Biden stopped construction on the border wall--in many places, literally where they only had to hang the gates and install the electronic infrastructure there. That was all that was left, but it stopped.

Why is this connected to national security?

Well, certainly, border security is national security. Also, part of this funding did come out of defense funding. It is being done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in many places.

On top of that, this year, so far--just so far this year--we have paid contractors $2 billion not to build the wall. These were contracts that had already been let out to do the construction. We are continuing to pay about $3 million a day to contractors not to complete the wall in sections, by the way, that career individuals had selected--that section and that design--and then had to prove that that was the right place and the right design to both Republican and Democrats in this body, which they did. Now we are wasting $2 billion to not do national security.

My amendment is very straightforward. We take the contracts that are already out there, and we complete those sections of the wall that have been approved by career individuals. Let's complete those sections and not just throw the money away and waste two billion of American taxpayer dollars, but actually use it for national security.

So, in saying that, I ask that the request be modified to include my amendment No. 4100.

I object.

Mr. President.

Mr. President, I have a real concern for our economy, for the future of what is happening right now, and a lot of it wraps around the vaccine mandates that are being laid down by President Biden.

On September 9, President Biden had announced: I am losing patience with the American people, and it is time for you to get vaccinated.

And he laid down a rule on every Federal worker, every Federal contractor, everyone in the military, and everyone who is in a private business with 100 employees or more. He created a new mandate.

He literally reached into union shops and changed their collective bargaining agreement unilaterally and said: The President's going to add a new feature in your collective bargaining agreement, and it is going to be that you are going to have a vaccine or you are going to be fired.

He told every police officer; he told every firefighter; he told every doctor, every nurse; he told every member of the military, no matter how many badges they wear or how many decorations they received: You will be fired if you don't follow my instructions.

It didn't matter if they were frontline workers. It didn't matter if they laid their lives on the line all of last year. It didn't matter. He declared to them: You will be fired if you don't follow my instructions.

He made it very, very clear: If you have already had COVID and recovered and have natural immunity, I don't care.

If your personal doctor has told you not to--his perspective in what is coming down is, if the CDC from Washington, DC, says it's OK, it doesn't matter what your personal doctor says.

While he said you can have a religious accommodation, so far, as I checked in with the military services, no one has been given a military or religious accommodation. And across the Federal workforce, I have yet to hear a soul getting a religious accommodation.

The words are: ``We are going to pay attention to your local doctor.''

The reality has been totally different. And we have pushed in every way possible against this administration, and will continue to do that not because it is unjust, not because, quite frankly, I think the vaccine is the wrong thing to do--I think it is the right thing to do-- but the mandate is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

Americans have a lot of different reasons to not take a vaccine. Allow Americans to be Americans.

I have a friend of mine who, by the way, is a liberal Democrat. Yes, I have liberal Democrat friends. He called me and said his son has had long-term COVID. Eight months he has been in recovery from COVID. He does not want to have the vaccine not knowing how his body will react to that. This week, he will lose his job because the President of the United States told him he is losing his patience.

That is not right.

Build Back Better Agenda

Mr. President, on a separate but related subject, we continue to be able to walk toward a $2 trillion proposal coming down. We hear the House is taking it up even in the next 24 to 48 hours. Of course, we heard that over and over again lately.

There has been a real concern about what is happening in the economy because of rising inflation. Oklahomans are paying $175 more a month right now for their basic utilities, groceries, and gasoline--$175 more a month that they are paying because of the rising inflation that has happened this year.

That inflation, you can take it right back to the middle of March, when a $2 trillion package was passed in this body on a straight partisan vote that everyone on this side of the aisle was saying: Don't do this. This will cause rising inflation.

And it was done anyway.

As simple as I can state it, it was if you add a lot of extra money and you discourage people from working, you will get fewer products and more buyers. It is not hard to be able to see what is going to happen as a result of that.

Larry Summers, who used to be my Democratic colleagues' favorite economist--he was the National Economic Council director to President Obama--has been a very outspoken progressive economist. He wrote in February, challenging this body not to do that $2 trillion package, saying this:

There is the risk of inflation expectations rising sharply.

Stimulus measures of the magnitude contemplated are steps

into the unknown. For credibility, they need to be

accompanied by clear statements that the consequences will be

monitored closely.

At that same time in February, he said:

Based on the proposal that's out there, there will be an

individual that normally has $22,000 worth of normal income

in a year that will move to $30,000 in benefits for the year,

and that will cause problems.

And, boy, has it. Employment all over the country has had all kinds of chaotic moments where employers are trying to hire employees and they are making more on benefits than they are at work, and it has caused all sorts of chaos across our economy.

It is interesting, several progressive economists in March of this year, right after the bill passed, made general statements, like: ``A relief plan is different than a stimulus.''

It doesn't matter. It is not a stimulus. It is a relief plan, so we can spend as much as we want.

This was my favorite--one of the economists came out and said: ``The risk of generalized overheating in the goods market appears low . . . ''

``The risk of generalized overheating in the goods market appears low . . . '' That was the statement of the economists in March of this year.

Yet the reality is, this year, there is a backup at the Port of Long Beach and people can't get supplies all over the country, and exactly what was forecast in February and March is occurring in our economy right now.

Larry Summers again identified it this way. He made the statement:

The pandemic had punched a $20 billion hole in Americans'

monthly wage income [and] Biden [has] proposed filling it

with $100 billion.

He said:

I know the bathtub has been too empty, but one has to think

about what the capacity of the bathtub is and how much water

we're trying to flow into it.

What do I mean by that?

That $2 trillion package that was in March caused all the economic issues of this year. It has caused all the inflation, all the challenges in employment across our economy and across our workforce.

It is now being followed up, apparently, by another $2 trillion proposal that is coming in the coming days. If we had giant inflation with the last one--by the way, with the highest inflation rate since 1982. If we had that inflation from that $2 trillion package, what is going to happen when you put another $2 trillion on top of the last $2 trillion in this economy?

The simple fact is, quoting Larry Summers, we don't know what will happen. We are literally taking ``steps into the unknown.'' But I can tell you, it is not hard to predict.

That is just the economic issues.

As I look at this package--it is hard to be able to look at the package that is being proposed. I have heard quite a few folks back in Oklahoma on the weekend say to me: What all is in this $2 trillion package that a couple weeks ago was at $3.5 trillion? Now we hear it is $2 trillion. What actually is in it?

And I smile at them and say: I am not sure yet. I hear bits and pieces.

To tell you how much it is moving around, last week, when it was released to the public, it was 2,400 pages. By this morning, it was 1,700 pages. But wait. Now this afternoon, it is 2,000 pages long. That is in a week. It has moved from 2,400 pages to 1,700 pages, to 2,000 pages, as the proposal continues to be able to change over and over again.

It is incredibly difficult to be able to track what all is in it, but we can track some things that are in it.

There is a massive hole that is holding for immigration, as we have now seen three different major proposals on immigration on how to be able to give amnesty to the largest number of people. Several have already been knocked down by the Parliamentarian, but it seems to come back again just to try

to find a new way to be able to do amnesty for as many people that are here illegally present in our country as possible. That seems to be a piece of this economic proposal that is out there.

We do know in this proposal that it finds as many ways as possible to be able to fund gaps in Hyde funding.

Now, what is that?

Using Federal dollars to be able to pay for abortions in our country--an agreement that has been in our country since 1976--that we have strong disagreements on a child's life.

I happen to believe that a child is a child is a child, and every child is valuable, no matter how small they are. Many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't believe children are valuable until they can see them. They have to be born before they are valuable. I believe there is no difference in a child in the womb than a child outside the womb other than time.

This bill is full of areas to go around the Hyde rules to start allowing the funding with Federal dollars to pay for the taking of human life.

I am disappointed how obsessed my Democrat colleagues seem to be about finding new ways to pay for the taking of human life of children. That has not been so, even as recently as 2 years ago.

Quite frankly, Senator Biden was outspoken about protecting the Hyde protections. Now, President Biden and this body seem to be focused on how many ways we can increase abortions in America.

There are a lot of energy aspects in this: the new tax on natural gas, where just 5 or 6 years ago, we called the ``bridge fuel to the future'' to be able to reduce carbon. Now, natural gas is receiving punishment in this in brandnew taxes.

There is a block on production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Some of my Democratic colleagues celebrate, saying: ``We are going to cut off anything from Alaska and protect that region,'' which is remarkable to me. We are now buying more oil from Russia than we are from Alaska, right now--twice as much, in fact, more oil from Russia than we are from Alaska.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is an area 19.3 million square acres--19.3 million acres. That is about half the size of my home State of Oklahoma. That is an enormously large area. And in that area, there are 2,000 acres that would actually be set aside for oil production. So to put it in perspective, ANWR is half the size of my State of Oklahoma, and the oil production area that will be needed is a third of the size of the airport that I fly out of, the Will Rogers airport in Oklahoma City.

If you took a third of the size of the airport, that is the size of, actually, the oil production area that will be needed in an area half the size of my entire State. Yet that is being blocked in this bill.

We will see the price of energy go up, but we will see a new benefit for electric vehicles that are here. For even very, very wealthy Americans, they will get a benefit of $12,500 on new luxury vehicles that they want to be able to purchase, as long as they are electric.

There are direct attacks on the school choice in this bill that actually goes after any kind of private institution or faith-based institution. It says that you will get funding for a secular government school for one level, but if you are in a faith-based school, it is a different level or none at all.

If you are in a pre-K program or a childcare program--and in many rural communities all across our State, when you come to Oklahoma, in many rural communities, the pre-K program and the childcare program is run from a local church. Oh, but they won't be allowed to be able to be a provider in this. You have to be a secular provider because religious institutions are being blocked out by this bill.

It does supersize the IRS, though. It adds $79 billion to the IRS to increase audits--$79 billion. To give you a perspective of how big that is, the normal IRS budget for a year is $12 billion. Yet this bill gives an additional $79 billion to the IRS to be able to increase audits. And if anyone has a belief those audits are only going to connect to people that make $400,000 or more, I have a bridge to sell you.

I have to tell you, as I read through the bill--and it does take some time, and it is difficult to be able to get through it because it is changing so much--I am amazed at some of the things that are in it that have been slipped through this: $350 million are sent to unions to provide for electronic voting systems for unions--$350 million. There are $4.28 billion being set aside for training activities in industry sectors and occupations for climate resilience. There are whole sections in this bill, as I go through it, that are set aside for specific areas: $20 million for State, local, and Tribal governments to mitigate online services to the dot-gov internet domain. To be able to help cities go to the dot-gov internet domain, there is $20 million that is set aside.

And there are some set aside for even some of my colleagues who are here today on the floor: $49 million carve-out for Native Hawaiian climate resilience programs in the Office of Native Hawaiian Relations.

It depends on the State that you are in and the perspective that you are in, but as I go through this bill and start identifying the programs, I hear broad descriptions of different programs, and I hear all these different sales of what is in it. But when you read through the bill, when you go through the details of the bill, this is the kind of stuff that you find.

Oh, by the way, one last piece in this ever-changing bill, just within the last hour and a half, they have added a new section of the bill over in the House side. It is a bill dealing with State and local tax deductions that will help the wealthiest Americans get a bigger tax cut. Yes, I did say that correctly. Currently, for Americans who are in high-taxed States, they can only deduct $10,000 of their State and local taxes, only $10,000 off their State and local taxes that they can actually deduct from their Federal tax.

The new proposal that just came out in the last hour from the House of Representatives increases that to $72,500 in deductions off your State and local taxes. That will be a great tax benefit to the wealthiest Americans--$72,500.

All that we are asking is, Show us what the real bill is. Let Americans be able to see the real bill. Have the transparency and the ability to be able to actually track through what this will mean day to day, what this will mean to our economy, because we have seen what $2 trillion did to our economy this March--what is another $2 trillion going to mean on top of all of that coming up this fall?

I think we are walking into the unknown, except this time, I think we do know what is about to happen to our economy. We need to see this bill and stop this bill before it damages our economy even more than we have already been damaged.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I do have to make a quick comment before I jump into a unanimous consent request.

I did appreciate hearing the majority leader talk about how the minority and the majority stood up around Reconstruction. And I found it interesting that he continued to talk about the majority and the minority standing up for the rights of slaves and the rights of individuals, conveniently leaving out it was the Republicans at that time that were the majority that were actually standing up for the rights of all individuals of all races to be able to vote and to be able to be engaged, and it was the Democrats at that time that were working very hard to be able to block the rights of individuals to be able to vote.

So I did have to find it personally humorous when he seems to not be very shy about saying Republican and Democrat on this floor, at that moment he used majority and minority. But I digress. On to other issues.