Floor Statements

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.

Madam President, I understand the statement by my friend from Michigan. I have to tell you, though, I wish this was rolled out in an orderly fashion. It has been 6 weeks of chaos and unanswered questions, and the Federal Government is about to fire thousands of Federal employees because they did not bend to their will.

Many Federal employees asked for a medical exemption and were told no. Literally, they brought a letter from their doctor and were told no. Individuals asked for religious accommodation and were told no, they will not get it. It is one thing to say it is offered; it is another thing to say it was actually extended.

I will tell you, from talking to people in my State in the Federal workforce, they are not getting those orderly religious accommodations, those orderly medical exemptions. They are not getting it. They are being told ``No, it is a mandate,'' and then they are being told ``You are about to lose your career. Is it worth it?'' These are individuals literally choosing between their health and their job.

By this January, I don't know how many thousands of Federal employees we are going to have out of our system and how much wisdom we are going to lose out of all these Agencies. But this horrible game of chicken that the President is right now playing with not only Federal employees but with people all over the country is a terrible thing to do to our economy and to individuals who are seeking the best service.

It is amazing to me how many individuals served through the entire pandemic faithfully and took great risk to serve their neighbors who literally the President is about to fire as their thank you. That is wrong. That is wrong.

I stood last week and talked to individuals who work for American Airlines, who are really concerned and frustrated, who love working with American Airlines but are now receiving a mandate coming down on them that they are digging in and saying: I am not going to do it. I have already had COVID. I have recovered. I have natural immunity. Why am I being asked to do this as well?

And they are getting only that the President is mandating it, and: We do Federal work, and so it is going to be required.

It is the same thing happening to packing companies, to manufacturers, to small businesses around the country.

Let me just read you a story. One employee who called our office last week is currently in cancer treatment for the fourth time and is receiving an experimental treatment. She is being told that she will be terminated from her job November 24 if she doesn't get vaccinated, because the President is requiring it on everyone.

That does not sound like an accommodation that is occurring because of medical accommodations.

It is nice to say in DC: Talk to the people in your State what is actually happening on the ground.

All of this push that is happening around healthcare workers all around the country, what does that really look like?

When we talked to an administrator of one of our nursing homes. Most of the individuals in our nursing homes, thankfully, as residents and as staff, have been vaccinated; but some have had COVID, and they are concerned about getting the vaccine. Whether that is rational or not, that is where they are, but they have natural immunity.

This particular nursing home that we talked to, 20 percent of her employees have said that they will not take the vaccine. This particular nursing home in a rural area will close and expose all of those residents and their families to chaos because Biden said: I am losing patience.

It is one thing to say we need to be able to push back on this pandemic. I absolutely agree. It is another thing to irrationally close down nursing homes that are taking care of patients that, by the way, were filled with people--frontline workers--who put their life at risk last year to serve people.

And now to push those people out and fire them this year?

``You are welcome,'' apparently, is what the President should be saying to them.

All I am asking for is reason. All I am asking for is to consider those 44 million Americans who have natural immunity and to accept what we all know scientifically to be true. All I am asking for is real medical exemptions. That is not irrational. All I am asking for is real religious accommodations.

Those are things that should be straightforward, common sense, and doable. But for whatever reason, the train is barreling down the tracks. In the debris field is our Federal workers, individuals who work in private companies, healthcare workers across the board.

I, just this weekend, received an email that was a long email from a very shy physician in one of our major hospitals in Tulsa. She told me flat out: I don't seek personal attention. I don't do media stuff.

In fact, she said: I don't even have social media at all.

But she detailed out her healthcare decisions and what was going on in her own life and said: I do not want to receive this vaccine.

As a physician at a major hospital in Tulsa, she is about to lose her job because President Biden's patience is running thin.

What do her patients do next?

Mr. President, don't play chicken with our families. This is real to them. They do not need to lose their job because they have medical conditions, religious accommodations, or they have natural immunity. They have suffered through COVID once, and now you are going to fire them for that?

Let's have a real dialogue, not a rushed ``My patience is wearing thin.''

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Senate is currently taking up a nominee to the Bureau of Land Management: Tracy Stone-Manning. There is a lot that I can say about Tracy Stone-Manning, but there are some key features that come out if you are going to deal with the Bureau of Land Management.

You walk into a leadership role where you have thousands of people working under you and around you, and you have care for the forests, and you have care for a lot of things that are running our environment.

This particular leader was involved, when she was in college, in a group that was gathering to be able to spike trees. She has admitted that she is the one who actually wrote the letter to be able to actually lay out what they had done, where they drove a spike into some trees, intentionally designed to be able to threaten loggers who would come through that area; that if they actually put a chain saw to that, there is a decent chance it would break the chain and it would come at the logger or that if they put that log in a sawmill, it would split the bandsaw and throw debris across all the workers who are there. To be clear, tree spiking is an act of ecoterrorism.

Now, this individual will be voted on by this body to lead the Bureau of Land Management. I wish I could say that was the only issue that was there, but as you read through her writings--she wrote multiple different things about dealing with environmental issues, but one of the things that were most painful to me to be able to read was a section that she wrote where she had a picture of a child, and in the picture of the child, it said: ``This is the greatest environmental threat that we face''--children. In her philosophy, the world has too many kids, and the way that we can protect the environment is to have fewer children in the world. I happen to think children are a blessing, not an environmental threat.

But this body is about to vote on putting Tracy Stone-Manning to lead the Bureau of Land Management.

Mr. President, it is one of the most basic questions that we get in almost any setting: What do you do? It is common conversation, back and forth between adults or teenagers or college students alike: What do you do?

It is a philosophical issue, though, that really has to be addressed, and, interestingly enough, it has become a greater divide between Republicans and Democrats of late. It didn't used to be that way.

The simple conversation about ``what do you do'' and encouraging people to be able to be engaged in productive work and what they do seemed to be something that was unified.

Democrats and Republicans alike rallied in the 1990s, as Bill Clinton declared: We are ending welfare as we know it. A 60-year experiment of sending out checks to individuals, saying we are going to help people escape poverty by sending a check to individuals, and if we give them a check, they will rise out of poverty.

Bill Clinton stood before the Nation and said: I campaigned to end that because that experiment didn't work, and he focused in a whole different direction, encouraging, as he spoke often on deadbeat dads, individuals that should pay their child support, need to pay it, and he highlighted how many people weren't doing that because those families were left exposed.

And he talked about the dignity of work, saying: To help people to be able to escape from poverty, we need to incentivize work and stop just sending a check to individuals but instead attach that to work.

The Nation stood and cheered and rallied around a moment to say: Let's help people, but let's help people actually rise.

There is a statement that I heard often, even during that time period: Let's not make welfare a hammock; let's make it a trampoline, that they can get assistance for a moment and be lifted out and to be able to rise to other things.

I thought that was a settled issue, until just last year. I suddenly started hearing President Biden on the campaign trail, and now in office, with my Democratic colleagues in the House already passing something over there in their committees, saying: We want to actually go back to welfare as we knew it. We want to be able to go back to that failed experiment, when we used to just mail checks to people, and so people in government would feel good to say: We took care of childhood poverty.

I have already heard people--even today in this body--say: If we pass this $3\1/2\ trillion proposal, we will cut childhood poverty in half. That was a statement that was made pre-1990s, when government believed if I just mailed a check, suddenly children would rise out of poverty because the numbers are right. But, actually, what we discovered was inflation would rise as checks were mailed out, and families were trapped in permanent levels of poverty because there was a disincentive to actually engage in work.

Now, again, this used to not be a Republican-Democrat thing. This was just a thing that we could look at the data.

Brookings Institute, which is a left-leaning think tank--I think we could all commonly agree with that. The Brookings Institute has, year after year, gone back to be able to look at how people actually escape poverty. How does it happen? What are the features that are there if people--if it is true in their life that they escaped poverty. They have identified three areas; that if these three areas are true, you will escape poverty.

No. 1, graduate high school. People that graduate high school, much lower level. No. 2, have a full-time job; have an income; if you actually are working full time. And, No. 3, if you wait until 21 to be married and then have children after marriage.

If those three things are true, the Brookings Institute said only 2 percent of the people actually are in poverty. Seventy-five percent of those folks in poverty that graduate high school, get a full-time job, have children after marriage--if those three things are true, 75 percent of them rise into the middle class.

This is not rocket science in some ways; it is just human nature. But the bill that is being set in front of us that is $3\1/2\ trillion in entitlements--and just to be able to put in perspective how large that is, if you combined the budgets of all 50 States, the total budget of all 50 States, it is $2 trillion. This new entitlement bill is $3\1/2\ trillion that is being proposed--$3\1/2\ trillion of new entitlements that would go to individuals that removes things like an incentive to work. It says you can get childcare tax credits, even if you are not working; that no matter if you are working or not--and the current limit, by the way, don't forget, is only $2,500 of income in a year. If you will do at least $2,500 worth of income in a year, then you get additional assistance. It is the encouragement to say the State will come alongside of you, but we have got to help you to be able to rise out of this spot--even that is taken away.

There is a marriage penalty that is included in this. Ironically, when I read from the Brookings Institute, and they say, ``Do you want to help people rise out of poverty,'' there is actually a marriage penalty in this where it actually punishes.

So we seem to be punishing work and punishing marriage rather than encouraging people to be able to rise.

Listen, this statement should be common for us: What do you do? It is not just meaningful for individuals and for communities, it is meaningful for children because, in school, children will be asked: What do your parents do? And if it is nothing, it matters to a child. A child has the example that is set in front of them, and it becomes a generational issue. We should encourage each generation to be able to rise and be a part of our society, not to be disconnected but to be engaged with all of our society. That develops community between individuals. It helps our economy to grow. It is what made us the most powerful economy in the entire world because we had what we called the American work ethic.

The American work ethic was a very simple principle that everyone should have the opportunity to be able to do whatever job they choose to be able to do, to be able to have access to the economy.

And if we find any individual or any group that is blocked out of the economy, government steps in and clears the path to make sure there is a level path to be able to be engaged so that everyone has that option to be able to engage in the economy; that everyone has the chance to be able to rise.

That does not get better by telling people: Oh, sit down. You don't have to work. Oh, sit down right over there. We will take care of all your kids all the way through. You don't have to engage.

It sounds nice unless you are living in it. And then it traps people in generational poverty--urban, rural, across the country. It traps people in generational poverty. That doesn't help families. That doesn't help children. That doesn't bless families and help them to be able to rise out of poverty. It keeps them trapped in it.

We have a philosophical difference. How do we help people in poverty? I believe we help people in poverty by clearing out of every opportunity and making straight level paths, setting that in front of individuals and saying: You are an American. Go after the American dream. Apply the American work ethic: try, graduate high school, get a job, get married, stay engaged, bless your children. I believe that is the best way to be able to help our Nation.

Apparently, others believe that it is better just to be able to say: No. You can't do it. Sit down. I will send you a check.

I don't think that casts a vision for their children, and I don't think that helps our Nation.

If you want to make it very straightforward and simple, the census said that we have 21 million children who have a parent that lived outside the household in 2018. Thirty percent of those children were in poverty--three times the rate of children in households where both parents were present.

I could read the Brookings. I can read the census data. But I think we all know it in our gut; that we provide purpose and meaning to people when they can answer the question: What do you do, and it matters to our country and to them as a family.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, so we are approaching a conversation about two big issues here--one is a government shutdown, which I have challenged this body a lot about of late to say: Why are we approaching another government shutdown? And then, on top of that, we can't seem to get any of the 12 appropriations bills done, which there are 12 of them to be done by September 30, but exactly zero of them have actually gone through committee because this body is so consumed with focusing on a $3\1/2\ trillion new entitlement package--$3\1/2\ trillion--a straight partisan package that would create a whirlwind of new entitlements.

To give you a perspective of how big 3\1/2\ trillion is, 3\1/2\ trillion is about the total revenue that the Federal Government brings in in an entire year with all taxes, all fees. All everything is about $3\1/2\ trillion. This is an additional package on top of that, of entitlements of 3\1/2\ trillion new dollars in entitlements.

Now, if I go back to 2017, when we were trying to be able to supercharge the economy and to be able to create more jobs, we passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And in 2017, when we passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it did exactly what we wanted it to do. It simplified the Tax Code for the vast majority of individual filers, it reduced taxes for just about every single filer, and it increased wages across the country. And it increased revenue coming into the Treasury because it stimulated our economy, which created more jobs, which created more opportunity for more people to make money. When more people make more money, they pay more in taxes, and it comes and covers it. That is what we did.

My Democratic colleagues are now proposing $2.1 trillion in tax increases--tax increases not to cover our deficit, tax increases to create new entitlements and to spend even more money. And the several ways they do it are very, very painful, as I read through their proposal.

One of those is that they are proposing to change the corporate tax piece, which sounds so good to say: We are just going to change the corporate tax piece so only corporations will pay this--the problem being 1.4 million C corporations in the United States, and 84 percent of those corporations that are out there have 20 employees or less.

So they can throw around the big corporations, and everyone thinks it is Conoco and Apple. It is--the vast majority--small businesses designed as C corps.

And how are they going to make them more competitive? They are going to make those C corps more competitive by raising the tax rate for all those corporations to make their tax rate higher than China.

Let me run that past you again. To make us more competitive globally, they are going to make our tax rate higher than China's tax rate, while we are trying to be able to compete with China on the world stage.

Not only that, there is a global minimum tax that is already out there that is a small tax that is out there for every corporation. You know who has that already? The United States does. You know how that was created? It was created in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 to make sure companies couldn't scam out and couldn't move their money into other places, that they would be here. But if they decided to move to a tax haven, it wouldn't be there. But we set it at a rate to make us competitive.

They want to take that rate and supercharge it and make it one of the top rates in the world.

Now, the statement from Janet Yellen is that she has already talked to all of the other countries about this global tax, and they have said: Yes, we are on board with a global tax. You go first.

Can I tell you something? I remember being a middle-school boy--any male does. I remember being a middle-school boy and hanging out with my friends and all of us were talking about doing something dumb, and it always ended with someone saying: Let's all do it. You go first.

That is what is being proposed right now by Janet Yellen, saying: Let's have the highest tax rate in the world, and other countries will come and match it, and they will be competitive with us. You go first.

I can assure you, that didn't work out well as a middle-school boy; that is not going to work out well for our companies, and it will not work out for our economy.

There is this statement that should be ringing in the back of everyone's head, this simple statement that was made years ago called inversions. Do you remember that old statement when we used to talk about corporate inversions? That was American companies being bought by international companies and moved overseas for their headquarters. That was a common conversation during the Obama administration, but something happened. That term went away because in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill, that stopped, and now American companies started buying foreign companies and moving them here, and everything shifted.

This $3.5 trillion monstrosity of new entitlements will flip that again, and we will start hearing the word ``inversions'' because American companies will be moved overseas. It is going to happen when we have a really bad, uncompetitive rate.

Now, people may again say: Well, we are just going to stick it to rich people, but everyone kind of quietly knows that prices will go up, fewer people will get raises in those companies, and it will be less competitive for the United States long term. Everyone knows that.

This $3\1/2\ trillion bill of new entitlements is also funded by giving the IRS billions of additional dollars to do more enforcement and to allow the IRS, as Janet Yellen has asked for over and over again, to be able to track transactions of Americans of $600 or more, either deposited in your account or out of your banking account.

I can assure you, banks all over my State in Oklahoma are already saying: Don't make us turn in the transactions of every one of our people to the IRS. Why does the IRS need this?

Interestingly enough, I have actually asked the Commissioner of the IRS: Can you manage that much information?

And his answer was a very straightforward: No, we can't even manage the information we have now, much less the amount of information that would come at us of transactions of $600 and more.

This is the wrong direction. I could go on and on. In fact, I could give you 3\1/2\ trillion reasons why this is the wrong direction. It is the wrong policy. It is the wrong thing stepping out of an economy that is damaged by COVID. It is the wrong set of policies long term for our economy. It discourages work. And what we are facing right now in workplaces all over the country, from small to large companies, they are all saying the same thing: It is tough to get workers. Well, if you think it is tough to get workers now, wait until there is $3\1/2\ trillion in new entitlements dumped into the economy and see how hard it is to be able to hire workers then. This is the wrong direction for our country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week, President Biden announced that he had lost patience with the American people and that he was demanding people get a vaccination.

Now, I have had the vaccine. I am grateful for the vaccine. But it is an entirely different issue for the President of the United States to wag his finger at the American people and to say: I know what you have chosen, but I choose something different, and you are going to follow me.

To literally instruct every employer with 100 employees or more, every Federal contractor, every Federal employee to bend to the will of the President and take this injection, that is a very different thing.

There are over 39 million Americans right now, that we know of, that have already had COVID-19, have survived it, and have natural immunity. The President's demand for a vaccine ignored those almost 40 million Americans that already have natural immunity. His demand was: I know you have natural immunity. I want you to get this vaccine as well.

It ignores cancer survivors who are very, very careful about what goes into their system. It ignores people with religious objections, and there are millions who have religious objections. It ignores individuals who just don't want to do it because they are an American and they don't have to and they do not like to have a Federal Government instructing them what they are going to actually put in their body.

Now, ironically, this was a random selection of companies that have 100 employees and up, so I assume that if you have 99 employees, you are all fine, but if you have 100 employees, it is totally different. There seems to be no accounting for where your employees work. Are your employees all tightly packed, all 100 in one small room, or are your employees all working outside? Do you have 100 employees, but they are in 19 different locations?

There seems to be no accommodation for any of those. It is just the President saying: I have lost patience. You need to go get the vaccine immediately.

So, by Thanksgiving, he is planning on laying this vaccine mandate down on the country. There are multiple problems there, as I have already outlined: the 40 million people who have already survived COVID and don't want to do the vaccine, the individuals in different medical treatments, the individuals with different other religious issues that they have.

But it is also an issue of trying to have a mandate come down from the Federal Government with an Executive order. That is not how our system works. The President of the United States does not have the ability to be able to just demand behavior from the American people. That is not their role.

It has been interesting to me. I have had several people who have reached out to me and said: I found out that the President's order exempts Congress. So how come you get an exemption and I don't?

I quickly responded back to them: Because we are a coequal branch of government, and the President is trying to find everybody under his purview to be able to do this. But the judicial branch and the legislative branch aren't under his purview. Neither should be the American people because the American people do not work for the President of the United States. And companies of 100 people or more, their chief executive, their leadership does not work for the President of the United States.

So now what? There are lawsuits that are pending, but those lawsuits can't move forward until the actual paperwork comes out from the White House. When the actual paperwork comes out in the next couple of weeks, we assume--we have not been told--then they will have what is called standing in the courts, and litigation from across the country will be able to speak into and Federal judges across the country will be able to move on an injunction on this out-of-control mandate and to be able to say they cannot just compel people to be able to go take a shot because the President wants them to get it.

So that will be the first big step. There will be legislative challenges that will come through this body. They are slower, so the Federal courts are the fastest response to this. But there will be multiple other groups that will push back on this, myself included.

Listen, why would we not respect those individuals who have already had COVID-19? According to an article that is in the Wall Street Journal just today, there was a study out of Israel that shows that the immunity from natural immunity is 27 times more effective than the shot--27 times, according to the study that has just recently come out.

To ignore that and to say that is not enough is absurd--or to compel Americans, whether they have had COVID or not, to be able to have a behavior just because the President has ``lost patience'' is not who we are as Americans. It is not constitutional. It will not stand in the courts and should not stand. We should push back on this.

Mr. President, you are very aware because in the committee that we both sit on, we have worked through a process of trying to form an answer to a problem that is coming at us again in 2 weeks.

Two weeks from now, we will hit the end of the fiscal year. At the end of the fiscal year, according to the Budget Act of 1974, we should have already passed 12 appropriations bills out of this body, 12 appropriations bills out of the House, have conferenced those two bills, sent it to the White House for a signature. That is the instructions that should be done by the end of the fiscal year.

The problem with that is the Senate has not passed a single one of those appropriations bills even out of committee--not one. So our government is not funded 2 weeks from now, which means the countdown clock will begin again toward when we are headed to another government shutdown, and the conversation will be: Are we going to have another government shutdown? Are we going to be open? What is going to happen to Federal workers?

Agencies across Washington, DC, and across the country will shortly get instructions for here is what to do in case of a shutdown in your Agency. Here is who, of employees, would be nonessential, what needs to happen to them; essential, what needs to happen to them.

And the chaos will begin in all these Agencies because 2 weeks from now we are headed toward the end of the fiscal year and not a single appropriations bill, of the 12, has been taken up in committee. Not one of them is even scheduled even to be debated on the floor of the Senate. We will not have appropriations bills done 2 weeks from now. It is not going to happen.

So here are the alternatives: There will be what is called a short- term continuing resolution of some length or we will have a shutdown 2 weeks from now.

For the past 3 years, Senator Maggie Hassan and I have proposed a very straightforward solution to end the threat of government shutdowns. Our straightforward proposal to stop government shutdowns is a simple way to be able to solve this issue. If we get to the end of the fiscal year, September 30, midnight, and we have not finished the work that needs to be done on those 12 appropriations bills, automatically a continuing resolution will kick in to prevent a government shutdown. But starting the very next day, October 1, the Senate and the House have mandatory quorum calls every single day until we finish the 12 appropriations bills. We stay here to be able to finish our work. But the work has to be done.

Why is that important? Because Federal Agencies shouldn't constantly be worried about another government shutdown, and the American people should be able to interact with their own government. Now, all of us know the government actually doesn't shut down, but it moves into shutdown mode. Some people have to show up for work; some people do not. But everyone is paid. Some people can get access to a permit when they contact their

Federal Agency; some people cannot. Some people can get licensing; some people cannot. Some people can work through the process with the Corps of Engineers; some people cannot.

And this chaos for the American people and for people who work for the Federal workforce happens all over the country simply because Congress did not get its job done.

Well, the solution is simple. Hold the American people and the Federal workers harmless and push Members of Congress to actually finish the work. This is not a partisan solution. It is just a solution. That is why Republicans and Democrats alike have agreed to the simple solution that Maggie Hassan and I have come to, to be able to end government shutdowns and to say let's continue the conversation that needs to be done, but let's not have yet another shutdown.

This body knows, in the past 40 years, we have had 21 government shutdowns--21. The last one needs to be our last, but I don't know if it will be because 2 weeks from now we are headed to the end of the year, and there is no solution on the table for how to avoid a government shutdown again.

Senator Hassan and I and multiple others again filed our bill today and said: We know how to stop government shutdowns. Keep us at work. Hold the American people harmless, and let's get the task done.

Honestly, I have had people say: That is such a creative solution, and it is such a simple process to get done. I have smiled at them and said: Actually, it is not all that creative. It is the same thing that my mom did when my brother and I were growing up at the house. When my brother and I were in an argument, she would put the two of us in our room and would say: You guys work it out. When you work it out, then you can come out of the room.

It is really no different than that to say Members of Congress should stay at the task until we solve the budget work and we should not leave with the budget work undone and leave the American people experiencing another government shutdown.

Let's not have shutdown 22. Let's end government shutdowns, and let's get our actual budget work done, on time, as is expected by the American people.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 3792 and ask it be reported by number.

Mr. President, this amendment would add language to prohibit funding for abortions consistent with the longstanding Hyde amendment, which has been the law of the land since 1976.

The Hyde amendment has enjoyed decades of bipartisan support, including from then-Senator Joe Biden, and it has been signed into law by Democratic and Republican Presidents alike.

The Hyde amendment reflects a decades-long consensus that millions of Americans who are profoundly opposed to abortion should not be forced to pay for the taking of human lives of children or incentivize it with their taxpayer dollars. A 2020 Marist poll found that 60 percent of Americans, including 37 percent of people who identify as pro-choice, oppose the use of their taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions.

Similarly, the Weldon amendment has been in law since 2004. It protects individuals from being forced to participate in abortion if it would violate their conscience.

Millions of Americans of faith and of no faith know that the only difference between a child in the womb and outside the womb is time. Just because they are smaller people doesn't mean they should be any less protected by law.

Mr. President, I would ask for the yeas and nays and remind everyone these amendments have been in place since 1976 and 2004. It doesn't expand anything.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that myself, Senator Sinema, and Senator Carper be allowed to finish our remarks before the vote begins.

Mr. President, I want to set some context of where we are financially at this point.

Everyone knows last year the difficulties of COVID-19 and what happened and the extraordinary measures that were taken to be able to offset the economic damage that was significant. CBO, as of July 21 of this year, estimates the Federal deficit for 2021 will be $3 trillion, much of that based on what was done last year during an emergency time period. It is 13.5 percent GDP. That deficit, in 2021, will be the second largest since World War II, since 1945.

Now, this year, in the year that we are finally working our way out of COVID-19, though still taking it seriously--this year, there is $2 trillion in additional spending in March of this year. There is a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that is in front of us now and a $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill that, apparently, we start in 2 days.

Listen, I have been told over and over again throughout the course of this debate that the infrastructure package would be paid for, and then, later, I was told, well, mostly paid for, and then CBO came out a couple of days ago and said a quarter trillion dollars of it is not paid for--a quarter trillion dollars according to CBO's estimates.

To make matters worse, part of the rest of it that CBO does estimate is still areas where I would look at and go: That is pretty shaky estimation--for instance, the unused unemployment benefits from earlier this year. That is an area that I look at and I think, OK, if you are taking unemployment benefits that were borrowed with debt money, then not spending them, and then, later, going back and grabbing them and saying now we are spending them, and they are ``paid for,'' that would be the equivalent of me taking out a $20,000 car loan but, yet, buying only a $15,000 car--so using the extra $5,000 to buy cat food and donuts after that and say it was paid for. It is not paid for. The extra $5,000 would go to debt reduction. In this case, it is $53 billion, not $5,000. That area is total debt spending as well. Though CBO may score it, it is really not there.

One of my favorite areas of scoring in this I find fascinating in the course of this conversation. This bill mandates the sale of over 87 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Almost the identical amount is assumed to be collected from the sale of 87 million barrels of oil to be able to pay for the electric car charging stations. So, literally, this bill sells oil to then pay for the electric car charging stations. This bill also delays to get a score for this--it delays a Medicare Part D regulation that had already been delayed already.

My concern is this: We are not paying attention to the most basic element. This is a quarter trillion dollars unpaid for, according to CBO, and many other areas are pretty shaky pay-fors in this.

My simple suggestion is this: Let's do infrastructure, but let's do the infrastructure we can afford. If we can't afford an extra quarter trillion of this

trillion-dollar bill, then let's back it up to $750 billion. That should be pretty straightforward. If we can't pay for that extra amount, we shouldn't do that extra amount.

Point of Order

So, saying that, Mr. President, in the pending measure, Senate amendment No. 2137 to H.R. 3684 contains a matter within the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Budget that was not reported or discharged from the Committee on the Budget. Therefore, I raise a point of order against division J, title IX, section 905 of the amendment, pursuant to section 306 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. President, I do object.

Reserving the right to object.

I would say this is a complicated issue to walk through the issues of immigration, and there are a lot of questions that hang out there. Secretary Mayorkas was in front of our committee on May 13 to be able to walk through the issues we are facing.

Just as a quick review, we had a record number of people illegally cross the border in March. That was beaten in April. That was beaten in May. That was beaten in June. That was beaten in July.

In July, we had 210,000 people illegally cross our border, that we know of.

The DHS, in a recent court filing--actually filed in a court filing where they made this statement:

Based on current trends, the Department expects that total

encounters this fiscal year are likely to be the highest ever

recorded. . . . The Department also expects that these

numbers will climb even higher if the CDC Order [Title 42] is

enjoined.

There is a real issue that is going on. So when Ale Mayorkas was in front of our committee, our committee had direct jurisdiction for oversight in what is happening in Homeland Security. There have been a lot of changes that have been done this year in how we are enforcing or not enforcing the border.

We have record numbers of individuals crossing the border. The border wall and that whole infrastructure, as well as the technology on the southern border, all the construction has stopped on that. The best we can tell, we have spent $2 billion this year not building the wall.

Currently, it is not getting better. It continues to be able to get worse. We have 10,000 migrants in the Rio Grande Valley currently being held right now. That is 783 percent overcapacity in the Rio Grande Valley right now.

And on the Interior enforcement side with ICE--we have 6,000 ICE agents--and the last number that we saw last month, they did 3,000 deportations among 6,000 ICE agents in a month. The standard for them to actually interdict, detain, or deport an individual has now reached such a high standard that they have to contact regional leadership and ask permission by name to be able to interdict someone.

That has dramatically slowed down what is happening in Interior enforcement, what is happening at our border area.

And as we continue to be able to watch the number of individuals cross our border that are COVID positive, we have this odd situation where the Nation and the President are talking to companies and telling companies, ``you need to mandate vaccines and you need to mandate masks,'' when at the whole time we are literally bringing people from all over the world across our southern border and releasing them into the United States.

We have legitimate questions that need to be answered. May 13, when Ale Mayorkas was in front of our Committee, there were multiple questions that I had. It was a very cordial interchange and very frank going through the issues. I asked him very specific questions for specific numbers.

He said: I will follow up with that.

We wrote him a list of specific questions and asked for specific answers for that. To their credit, 2 months later--2 months later--we got a list of answers to the questions that I had asked. That was 24 hours ago.

The very specific answer on the issues--I asked about the volunteer force in DHS. The humanitarian exceptions to Title 42, including the policy documents, they were very commendable on how they actually answered those.

To DHS, I would ask specific questions on how they are handling sex offenders, because ICE agents have told me over and over again sex offenders are not being interdicted in the numbers they were in the past. They gave us very specific answers on that.

But the problem was, half of the questions they gave us answers to and half they did not. For instance, we asked about the study that they started January 20th on the border wall. That study was supposed to be 60 days. It has now been more than 200 days. We just asked for the status of that study and, if we could see any of it, what were the findings.

Instead, I was sent a press release that they had put out. That is not what I need. In fact, that press release was copied in multiple places in the document to say ``this is responsive.'' That is not responsive.

There is a new process that has been put in place by this DHS called notice to report, where literally there is a large number of people crossing the border at once. They are taking those individuals out, doing biometrics, background checks and releasing them into the country with the statement of: Turn yourself in at an ICE office somewhere in the country.

No administration has ever done that. As far as we can tell, 55,000 people this year have been released into the country under a notice to report. That is a new process that is undefined. The questions we asked about that were completely unresponsive.

The Supreme Court made a decision on what is called a notice to appear just this year that should change the process from how DHS handles notice to appear. We asked very specific questions on how DHS is handling this issue based on the Supreme Court decision that was made a few months ago. They were completely unresponsive on that.

We asked about cost analysis for the border construction, what is happening on eminent domain on those issues and areas where they are choosing not to do eminent domain, and they were completely unresponsive to that.

So literally half our questions they answered completely, and half our questions they sent us fluff.

I am the only one who is holding this up--I am very aware--but it is also my committee of jurisdiction that specifically has border management. I am the one who is supposed to ask these questions, and I am asking these questions, and they are not unreasonable questions.

We are just asking to be able to get an answer to the questions so we can figure out what is the process and what is happening.

As recently as today, I learned that ICE is currently looking at a facility in western Oklahoma to do what they are calling a surge overflow temporary facility. That surge overflow temporary facility they are looking to open is in western Oklahoma, to move people from the border, process them in western Oklahoma, and then release them from western Oklahoma.

It is not an unfair question for me to ask: What is this facility? What is its purpose? And will individuals who are not legally present in the country be released in western Oklahoma?

This is the same question that has been asked by mayors and leaders in Arizona, who have a facility like this in Arizona, where processing was done there and then they were released from there. And mayors and individuals there have asked the question: Why are individuals who are not legally present in the country being brought from the border to my town, and then released in my town?

It is not unfair for me to be able to ask that as well. I have already had that conversation with the Secretary of DHS. I do not have an answer.

So, yes, I object because we need to get some straightforward answers to some very straightforward, very fair questions.

I object.

I object.

Madam President, I have an amendment that we are calling up. It is a very straightforward amendment.

This deals simply with how we handle E-Verify. The E-Verify system is very simple and straightforward. It has been used all over the country. It is a nonpartisan issue that we have used for decades now.

It verifies whether the people that we are actually hiring, and all this purchasing that we are doing, this massive billions of dollars will actually be--the simple, straightforward piece of it is, we are putting billions of dollars into our economy right now. We are doing a lot of infrastructure with this bill.

The promise should be that we are not just buying American, but we are actually hiring Americans as well. This is a bipartisan issue, quite frankly.

President Biden, just today, released a statement that this is a once-in-a-generation investment in our infrastructure and will create good-paying union jobs, repairing our roads and bridges, replacing lead pipes, building energy transmission lines.

It invests in clean energy, manufacturing, and zero-emission vehicles, ensuring that the jobs in the clean energy industry are good- paying, quality American jobs. That is a great promise to be able to make, and it is a great statement to make.

What this amendment does is to make sure it actually is American jobs. We know there is a tremendous pull factor with the American good- paying jobs that are out there. This E-Verify requirement puts in place, both for the contractors and subcontractors, they will actually be American citizens.

So, with that, I ask support for this bill.

Madam President, are there any of my 2 minutes left?

Madam President, this is not just a mandate; this is just a statement, if we are going to put American tax dollars in place, that we are actually hiring Americans to do it.

If we are going to build America, let's also hire Americans in the process. That shouldn't be inconsistent with our basic values.

Vote on Amendment No. 2233

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, there are a lot of issues we are working through right now in the Senate.

Obviously, infrastructure is in conversation, and what is going to happen with some spending dealing with National Guard, Capitol Police.

We are working a lot on issues, like Afghan translators--trying to get those folks who walked alongside our soldiers for 20 years and risked their lives out of harm's way before the Taliban slaughters them.

We are engaged in a lot of issues. There are a lot of things happening behind the scenes. I thought it might be helpful to be able to give a couple of things I think we need to consider.

One is what is happening in the State Department right now. State Department engagement on the issues of passports is a major issue. It is a frustration for a lot of Americans. And I would tell you, a lot of Oklahomans that we deal with on a day-to-day basis on our team are very frustrated with trying to get their passport renewed. They didn't travel last year, obviously, with COVID, but now they want to be able to do some traveling in places where they can.

Good luck with that, as we have found. Right now, the backlog at the State Department is about 18 weeks. Today is the 29th of July. That means if you turn in your application for your passport today, you may get your passport December 2. Merry Christmas. If you plan on traveling Thanksgiving, you need to pay the extra fee to do an expedited delivery though we are at the end of July right now.

The problem?

The State Department still hasn't brought all of their staff back. They are not engaging. The rest of the country is open and operating, and the State Department is still studying how they are going to come back in, and millions of Americans are just waiting for their passport

I have spoken to leadership in the administration about this exact issue. In fact, I talked to some leadership who literally said to me: Oh, I wasn't aware there was a problem.

Listen, there is a problem, and it is not just in the State Department. It is in multiple other agencies. As America opens back up, trying to be able to manage all the issues with COVID, they are very aware of masks and vaccines and spacing.

But companies have figured out how to do this. For some reason, multiple agencies have not and it is causing real problems. It is not just problems in our economy with permitting and other things, some of the policies that have been put in place are causing real problems across our economy for just individuals.

We have an unemployment rate right now in June at 5.9 percent. We don't know what it will be for July, but it is getting better and better all the time. In Oklahoma, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. We have a lot of people employed because we turned off the extra unemployment benefits at the end of June and people came back to work. That is a good thing for them, for their families, for their kids, and for our economy. As we continue to be able to reengage, that is helpful.

But what we are seeing right now is inflation, consumer price increases like we have not seen in more than a decade. The Consumer Price Index increased by 5.4 percent. That is the most in 13 years.

We are watching the rapid rise in prices that Americans feel. It is a direct result of this $2 trillion bill that was done in March, where it paid people not to work, sent checks to individuals, and did lots of other benefits.

Many people, even economists from the Obama administration, said: Don't do this. It will cause inflation.

What have we seen?

In just the last 5 months: milk prices up, bread prices up, bacon prices up, price of gasoline up, price of wood up, price of building materials up, price of rental cars up, prices of used cars up, shortages in different supply chains--things we all identified in February and March and said we need to be attentive to.

If you dump $2 trillion into the economy, what does that do?

In the middle of this dialogue about inflation rising right now and everyone in America is seeing the rise in prices, there is a conversation about trillions of dollars more of spending--more of spending.

What effect do you think that will have? We have already seen the effect of what happened in March. What effect do you think it will have to add another, as is being forecast, $3.5 trillion more spending?

Sometimes we can't wrap our head around the issues of millions and billions and trillions because it all seems like numbers. There is a big difference between millions and billions and trillions. The best way I can describe this is, if you have a million seconds rather than a million dollars, a million seconds is about 11\1/2\ weeks. That is a lot. But a billion seconds is 31\1/2\ years. That is a big difference. Brace yourself because a billion seconds is 31\1/2\ years, but a trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

These are big numbers that are being thrown around and it is hard to wrap our head around how much spending is really going on, but the concept of throwing out $3.5 trillion is mind-boggling.

Let me give you one more. A trillion miles--if I were to say: How far is a trillion miles? A trillion miles is if you left Washington, DC, today and flew to the planet Pluto 334 times. From DC to our furthest planet 334 times, that is 1 trillion miles.

This is a lot of money that is being thrown around and has real consequences, knowing the debt and the borrowing and the tax changes, but how much things actually cost.

I am continuing to challenge my colleagues when they discuss all these big numbers and say: Let's throw all this money out there; it will have no consequence.

I will tell you, the people in Oklahoma feel what is going on. They may not know, but they feel it in the prices every day, what is going on in supply chains, and they are very aware. And the No. 1 question that I get asked when I am out and about in places in Oklahoma is: Where is all this money coming from?

It is a fair question.

There is this back-channel conversation right now happening on immigration as well. Right now, the news is focused on 10 million other things, and I literally have people in my State saying: Things must be going better at the border now because I don't hear about it much anymore.

I will smile at them and I say: I happen to be on that committee and be very engaged in the issues of border management and border security. Things are not getting better; they are getting worse.

March was the highest number of illegal crossings in 20 years. It was beaten in April; it was beaten in May; it was beaten in June. Current trend, that will be beaten in July. Just last week--just in 1 week, last week, the Rio Grande crossing--just that one sector in 1 week had 20,000 interdictions--in 1 week. At one time, they had 15,000 people who they were detaining.

So what is happening with that?

I keep hearing from the administration that we are going to take on the root causes. The root causes is a simple way to say we will deal with this later. Because if you want to talk about root causes, it is a statement saying that, basically, the problems are in Central America; we can't stop it.

Well, that is a nice note, except for here is a list of the countries that have crossed our border illegally just this year. It is over 100-- over 100 countries where individuals have illegally crossed the border.

So what about Brazil? What about Chile? What about Colombia? What about Guinea? What about Indonesia? What about Mauritania? Are we going to go after the root causes there? What about the Philippines, Indonesia, Romania, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates?

This is just a few of the people who have illegally crossed this year in big numbers.

Listen, this whole conversation about root causes is a distraction. We do need to be engaged in the Western Hemisphere. We do need to deal with our drug addiction in this country that causes the flow of drugs to be able to move through South America, Central America, Mexico into the United States. We do need to be aggressive in how we are handling cartels. But to somehow believe that if we poured enough money into the Northern Triangle that suddenly this would all end is false.

We are the greatest country in the world. The root cause of immigration into this country is the great power of the United States, both for freedom and for our economy. People from all over the world want to come here.

We have a million people a year who legally come to the United States--legally, a million--and folks who don't want to wait in line, who pay a cartel and move through Mexico to be able to get here literally from all over the world. If we do not enforce our borders, these numbers will continue to rise as they have every single month in this administration. Every month, the numbers get bigger.

We have got to get on top of this. I wish I could say the administration is taking it seriously. I wish I could say they have a plan. I wish I could say they have released out their studies that they said they were going to do. But they have not released out their studies. They have not released out their plans, and I continue to ask week, after week, after week.

The first hint that I got of what they planned to do came out in their budget. In their budget, they reduced funding for ICE, and they reduced the number of bed spaces for ICE. I was shocked. The numbers continue to skyrocket, and in their first release of what they plan to do on it, they asked for a 1,500-bed space reduction in ICE capacity for detention.

Now, honestly, when I got it, I thought: I can't believe they are putting this in print, but I already knew that it was going on. Why did I already know that it was going on? Because, as I have tracked the numbers all the time, I have watched the number of deportations and ICE detentions dramatically decrease. While some people are focused on the border, they lose track of the fact that not only is this administration not enforcing our southern border, they are not enforcing the interior of the country.

We have 6,000 ICE agents in the United States, 6,000 professional law enforcement-career folks who are in the country, arresting individuals who are illegally present in the country, with the first priority being criminal illegal aliens. That is their first priority, the safety and security of the United States. Of the 6,000 agents in the United States, in May, they did 3,000 total arrests--3,000 among 6,000 agents in a month. That is a record low because the administration changed the rules for ICE agents on who they could interdict.

The first big rule change they made is that ICE agents cannot arrest someone who is not legally present unless they get permission from regional leadership by name to arrest that individual. This means, if they go into a place to arrest someone and they encounter one person they received permission to actually arrest but also find three other criminal aliens there, they cannot detain or arrest them. They have to leave them and request by name later to go back and get them. And guess what. They are not there. Shocking. And it is not all criminal aliens. There are only certain criminal aliens they are now allowed to actually detain. That is a big shift from every previous--every previous-- administration.

Let me give an example that I actually gave to Secretary Mayorkas and asked specifically about some recent frustrating moments from our ICE agents.

Just a few days ago, ICE reached out on a previously deported alien by name. This person had been convicted of a sex assault of a minor under age 14. The alien was at large, and they asked permission to be able to go after this alien and to be able to do a street arrest. Remember, they had been deported before. They knew they were in the area. There were previous sex offender convictions. They were denied the ability to go after that person. They were told, no, they don't meet the standard.

Case No. 2. Another person who was previously deported had a previous conviction for indecency with a child, sexual contact. They were a registered sex offender. They believed they were in the area. They were asked if they could pursue an arrest. Regional leadership told them no, they could not.

Case No. 3--this just happened last week--is of a previously deported alien, twice. So this means they were for the third time in our country illegally. There were previous convictions for alien smuggling--that is, trafficking of people--theft, and illegal entry. They knew they were in the area. They asked if they could do the arrest. Regional leadership told them no.

I could go on and on.

ICE has a different set of rules now from what they had in the past. It is not just criminal aliens anymore; it is that they have to be really high criminal aliens. I could give you lists of people who have multiple DUI offenses, and ICE asked if they could detain them, and they were told no.

Listen, we have all said in this room that we should engage with criminal aliens and that criminal aliens should be deported. I don't know of a person in this room who hasn't said it. We stopped in May deporting criminal aliens. Are we going to do nothing about that?

If you don't believe me, call Secretary Mayorkas. He will send you a copy--that I have as well--of the interim guidance that was put out in May for ICE agents, limiting who they could deport and the process for deportation. I have asked him specifically: If someone goes to pick up a criminal alien and there are other aliens who are there, can they be picked up? The answer has been no.

We have a problem not just on our southern border but what is happening in our country and the issue of enforcement, and we would be wise if we would pay attention to this.

I am fully aware that there are many individuals in this body who do not like the southern border wall. That has been a topic of great debate in this room for several years. But is this body aware that in January of this year, when President Biden ``paused'' the border wall construction and said: I am going to spend 60 days studying it, that 60-day study is still not complete 200 days into the Presidency? He has still not completed the 60-day study.

On top of that, the pause of that construction, during that time period, we are still paying contractors to not do construction. So far this year, we have paid contractors $2 billion--billion with a ``b''-- not to construct the wall. Now, you may think it is a waste to construct the wall. I do not. But please tell me you at least believe it is a waste to not construct a wall and still pay contractors--to not construct a wall.

We are currently paying contractors $3 million a day to watch the materials that had been delivered by January 20 that were sitting on the ground--for steel, for fiber, for cameras, for lighting, for roads. We are paying $3 million a day to have them watch the materials on the ground to make sure they are not stolen--$3 million a day. That is a waste.

As people cross our border in record numbers, a new policy has been instituted on our southern border, called a notice to report. This, again, has never been done by any administration. A notice to report is when the line gets too long on the southern border, with people crossing the border, when they are trying to check everyone in--if the line gets too long, Border Patrol is instructed to grab the folks in the back of the line and give them a notice to report. That is a card telling them where ICE Agency offices are around the country, and they can just go ahead and go and turn themselves in at whatever ICE Agency they want to turn themselves in to anywhere in the country. So far, 50,000 people this year have been given one of those cards at

our southern border and told ``turn yourself in wherever you go in the country''--50,000.

My shock, as I am trying to track the number, is that 13 percent have actually done it. I was surprised the number was that high. But that means 87 percent of the people who we have handed a card to and said ``turn yourself in wherever you go in the country'' have not. Eighty- seven percent--we have no idea where they are of the 50,000 people who were released into the country because the line was too long at that moment

Listen, we can disagree about a lot of things on immigration, but handing people a card and saying to just travel anywhere you want to go in the country and turn yourself in when you get there--can we at least agree that is a bad idea? Can we at least agree that paying contractors $2 billion not to construct the wall is a bad idea? Can we at least agree that criminal aliens who had been previously convicted and are being picked up for another charge should at least be deported in the process? Can we at least agree, if you want to deal with the ``root causes'' in the Northern Triangle in Central America, that it does not deter the people from over 100 countries who have crossed our southern border this year illegally? There is a bigger problem. Can we at least agree that we should address this?

We have a great deal of work to be done. I would encourage all of us to get the facts, to get the details of what is really happening, and to understand that when over a million people have illegally crossed the border just this year, that we know of, that is a problem. It is a problem that hasn't been there in the past anywhere close to this kind of number, and we should address it in this body.

I have written letters. I have made phone calls. I have done reports. We have done research. I have sat down with Secretary Mayorkas. I have held nominees for DHS. I have done everything I can do to bring this issue to the forefront. Although others seem to ignore it, this is an issue that we should not ignore. National security is not something we should be flippant about, and not everyone crossing that border is just coming for a job. We should engage.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, a few weeks ago, President Biden nominated Tracy Stone-Manning to be the leader of the Bureau of Land Management. Many people in my State don't know much about the Bureau of Land Management. We don't have a lot of areas actually managed in our State by BLM. It has more than 10,000 employees. It manages roughly an eighth of the Nation's land, including 65 million acres of our forests. The land holds 30 percent of our minerals. Whoever leads this entity leads the issue of how we are managing our forests, how we are handling our minerals, how we are handling our energy development, livestock grazing, recreation, and, yes, timber harvesting.

The individual President Biden nominated we now know was an Earth First! ecoterrorist. She actually typed out, as she has admitted in the past, a threatening letter that was sent out to leaders who were doing forestry in Idaho, saying in her letter that she typed out--and she has admitted that she typed out the threatening letter--that ``we,'' as she put it, drove 500 pounds of spikes into the trees in the Idaho forest and then threatened them, to say: If you harvest those trees, it will not be good for you.

The challenge that we have here is that we have an individual who has admitted that she actually was a part of a group to do tree spiking. Now, what we don't know is if she actually drove a spike. We have no idea. But we do know that she turned evidence on the other people who did and admitted as a part of her plea bargain that she is the one who actually did the letter from a rented typewriter to be able to make sure she couldn't be traced and even in the letter said: If you find me, it would be ``your worst nightmare.''

So what do we do about this? Typically, when you are going to deal with the person who handles forestry for the United States and the Bureau of Land Management and you find out this person has been involved in tree spiking, which actually is designed to injure or kill people who are logging or people who are actually harvesting the lumber in the sawmills and actually processing that lumber, it would cause a pause.

I cannot imagine what it is going to be if she is actually confirmed in this position, and the individuals who come to her to get a permit to be able to do any kind of forestry work, because they would have to actually come to her office, what they would think when they actually walked through the door, because the Bureau of Land Management notices timber sales and signs off on timber sales for the country. The Bureau of Land Management is the one that makes forest product sale plans. The Bureau of Land Management is the one that develops, maintains, and revises the plans for all public management, including identifying areas for timber sales. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management is also the group who sends in the firefighters to the wildfires to be able to put out the fires, which could be including some of these same trees in the days ahead that apparently still have the spikes in them from decades ago. Understanding this is not just a loose issue. Individuals from the Biden administration just recently have talked about how timber harvesters and haulers are critical to forest management across the country. We need these individuals to help with our forest management. We have wildfires in the areas that individuals in the Biden administration have testified because we are actually not maintaining our forest management enough. We are not doing enough harvesting and thinning in those areas, and so it is actually a problem.

In fact, Christopher French, the Deputy Chief of the National Forest System, recently testified the Forest Service research indicates we need to dramatically increase the extent of impact of fuels treatment, such as thinning, harvesting, planting, and prescribed burning across all landscapes.

But yet the leader for the Bureau of Land Management who has been recommended is an individual who has been outspoken in opposition, so much so that she has been active in actually promoting spiking trees.

And it is not just spiking trees. It has also been her environmental issues about grazing land--understanding the Bureau of Land Management is responsible for millions of acres of grazing pastureland across the West. Because the Federal Government owns so much land across the West, many ranchers actually then lease out some of that land for grazing. She has been outspoken as an opponent against this. That is not going to help our ranchers across the West.

And what was most stark to me was this presentation that she had years ago, where she designed several of what she considered to be environmental-focused advertisements, this being one of them where she has a picture of a young girl, and the heading is: ``Can you find the environmental hazard in this photo?''

And then she lists out at the bottom of it: ``That's right. It's the cute baby that's the environmental hazard.''

With this statement below that, she wrote: ``We breed more than any other industrialized nation.''

Listen, I understand every President has the right to pick their team, but when the leader of the Bureau of Land Management considers this little girl to be an environmental hazard, have we not crossed a threshold of saying our problem with our environment is that we have too many little girls?

Honestly, is anyone else disturbed by this as a possibility to lead the Bureau of Land Management, to make a decision about how we are going to manage our forests, how we are going to handle our grazing land, and what is going to be the general attitude about permitting and people?

Because, apparently, from what she wrote, one of the biggest environmental hazards we have as a country is we breed too much.

I don't think that little girl is a hazard. I think it is a little girl. And I will absolutely oppose Tracy Stone-Manning to lead the Bureau of Land Management. And I would ask my colleagues, even one of my colleagues on the other side, to say: Do you not see a problem with this nominee?

If so, let's find another person. Surely there is another Democrat out there who doesn't have this set of views, who can lead our forestry, our grazing area, and our mineral rights. Surely there is one more Democrat who is out there somewhere who does not share these views, because I don't think that little girl is a hazard. I think she is a blessing.

With that, I yield the floor.

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