Floor Statements

Mr. President, last week we paused as a Congress to recognize half a million people who have died in the United States due to COVID. Unfortunately, that number is still climbing. Half a million. That is a lot of families that are affected. Those are a lot of lives lost. That is a lot of pain that we have experienced as a nation, and obviously that is a global pain that is being experienced.

Over the last now 11 months, this Congress has gathered in a bipartisan way five times, with wide bipartisan majorities, to be able to address the issue of COVID-19. We have allocated $4 trillion, all of it borrowed, all of it--none of this was budgeted money--all of that borrowed money, with a common agreement that this is a pandemic and a crisis and that to be able to stabilize the American economy, we have to do what we have to do, but we should not do more than we have to, knowing that every dollar we are spending is borrowed.

Last year, at almost this exact same date, this Congress gathered together and put together a $2 trillion CARES Act package. It was an aggressive package because we saw the shutdown of the American economy. Quite frankly, we saw the shutdown of the world's economy at that time period. Literally, the world seemed to stop by the end of March, and we all went into seclusion. We saw dramatic spikes in unemployment and desperate need around the country, but we all knew this was a crisis moment and we would get through it and we would get out of it.

Now, almost a year later, where we saw unemployment soaring to 15 percent-plus across the country, we are now at 6.7 percent unemployment. Every State is opened at some stage, and some States completely opened. Many schools are open. Some schools continue to stay closed and say they are afraid and that they are not going to reengage, while thousands and thousands of other schools around the country are open and taking care of their kids in person.

We have seen this patchwork of response, but one thing is very true about right now versus 11 months ago. We are in a very different place now, as an economy and as a nation, than what we were 11 months ago. But the strange thing is, now, 11 months later, my Democratic colleagues are putting forward a $1.9 trillion package, almost the exact same size of what we had getting into the beginning of this. They are doing it. As just about everyone sees we are at the end, they want to borrow another $2 trillion.

It is not just $2 trillion to be able to spend toward COVID. I wish that were so. One percent of this package actually goes toward vaccines. Five percent of this package actually goes toward public health. In the school funding portion of it, 95 percent of the funding in the school funding portion of it, which is $170 billion for school funding, won't even be spent this year at all--at all.

Let me run that past you again. Ninety-five percent of the $170 billion allocated for funding for schools won't be spent in the year of the pandemic at all. It is future spending. To give you a picture of how big $170 billion is toward education, the total U.S. education budget for the entire Department of Education this year is $66 billion. For the entire year, for all of education in the whole country, it is $66 billion, and my Democratic colleagues say: But we need to spend $170 billion just for COVID, which, by the way, we are not going to even start spending until next year.

Do you know why? Because this bill is not about COVID. I wish it were, because there is real need out there. I wish it were. This is for things like $350 billion to go to cities and States, to be able to bail out some of their pension funds and other things that are there.

Why do I say that? Because when you look at the statistics of the revenue loss for the States--across the entire United States, the revenue loss for all States is .1 percent from last year--.1 percent-- not 1 percent, .1 percent change, because almost every State is dependent on property tax, and as people who pay property tax know, you are still going to have to pay your property tax. So the revenues, quite frankly, continue to stay strong.

In many of the cities that I have in Oklahoma--in fact, one of the cities in my State just last week reported their revenue for sales tax revenue is up 20 percent--20 percent, in their revenue--because people are staying home and shopping more. They are doing more shopping online, so the tax revenue is actually coming back into their States and their cities even more in many of these communities.

But there is $350 billion allocated to these cities. You would think, well, there will be some fair distribution. Actually, that would be nice, but it is not true. They set up an unemployment formula that is based on, those States that shut down the longest and

kept everything closed the longest, they are the ones that actually get the most money.

So, in other words, if you reopened your economy and you worked to get your schools opened and you worked to get jobs opened, you get a chance to have very little support. If you stayed closed and kept your schools closed and kept your businesses closed, well, then you will get additional dollars coming in, regardless of what your revenue is--even for big States like California that their revenue actually went up last year.

Let me run that past you again. California's revenue went up last year. They get $27 billion out of this, after their revenue went up.

Remember that, in the CARES Act last March, this Congress added $150 billion to cities and States, $150 billion, and spread that around the country to be able to cover it because there was a panic to think there were going to be major losses, but at the end of it, .1 percent off of the previous year.

This has additional funding for Planned Parenthood. I am not sure why abortion is needed for COVID relief, but they have additional money for Planned Parenthood included. They have a tunnel for San Francisco, which clearly is not COVID related, a bridge in New York State, $50 million for climate justice grants. There are--on and on and on--all these additional things that are just stuck into the process.

And I would say this Congress has been active to be able to do what it takes to be able to help in every moment, but we have also tried to be wise in the process to say let's spend what needs to be spent when it needs to be spent.

Let me give you an example of that. As I mentioned, for vaccines in this particular bill, 1 percent is set aside for vaccines. That would be interesting except for the fact, in vaccines, the CDC has distributed only $3 billion of the almost $9 billion that Congress has allocated to the CDC for vaccine distribution. They still have almost $6 billion remaining for vaccines right now.

They have spent only $20 billion of the $37 billion allocated for the vaccine treatment and development and testing--only $20 billion of the $37 billion for the actual development and treatment--still another $6 billion remaining for distribution.

And on top of all that, today the Biden administration said they have struck new deals with vaccine folks so they can get vaccines to every single American by the end of May. They already have all that they need for vaccine distribution, development, and purchasing, yet this particular bill asks for billions more in vaccine because that sounds like a good idea--except, when you check the facts, they already have all they need for the vaccine purchase, development, distribution.

But it sounds good, kind of like, we need more money for education. It sounds good when you say you need more money for education, except for the vast majority of the education funds, like around $86 billion, is still unspent from the previous bills in education money that was sent.

For the ag money that has been allocated, $26 billion for ag just done in December, only $24 billion remains of that $26 billion. In other words, ample funds are still sitting there for ag, for assistance for schools, for vaccines, for testing.

There is $14 billion still remaining in the fund for testing, untapped. But my Democratic colleagues can go to the microphone and say we need money for schools and for vaccines and for testing. And everyone is like, ``Oh, my gosh, certainly, we do,'' until you check the facts and find out this is not about vaccine and testing and schools at all. It is about all the pet programs that go with it, and it is about allocating billions and billions and billions of dollars to agencies so they can hold them and use them for other things.

That is what this is about, and it hides under the cloak of COVID, and it hides behind the pain of half a million Americans who have lost friends and family members.

Don't use their pain to be able to amp up government. Let's have the debate about issues that we need to have on government, but don't abuse the pain of Americans and pretend you are trying to fix something that we are not trying to fix.

I yield floor.

Mr. President, in 1932, 11 years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, Maxine Horner was born in Tulsa, OK. She was Maxine Cissel at the time. She grew up in segregated Greenwood, a district recovering from the devastating effects of the massacre, just a little over a decade before.

Her parents were exceptionally protective and instructed Maxine and her siblings not to go into certain stores in

downtown Tulsa, knowing their children wouldn't be welcome. They didn't want their children to experience the pain and humiliation of being told to leave a store or to not sit at that end of the counter.

Her mother once told her, though:

Never let the color of your skin get in the way of

achieving your goals. If you put your mind to it, you can do

anything and be anyone.

Maxine was part of the first class to graduate from Booker T. Washington High School, which, at the time, was an all-Black school. She was proud of the education she received at Booker T. and spent 2 years studying at Wiley College before returning back to Tulsa.

She got a job working for Congressman James Jones, an opportunity that sparked some political ambitions in her. In her fifties, she returned back to school and received a bachelor's degree from Langston University in 1985. Despite being decades older than her fellow classmates and occasionally being mistaken to be the professor in her class rather than one of the other students, she finished her education.

In 1986, she ran for the Oklahoma State Senate and became one of two women to be elected for the first time into the Oklahoma State Senate as an African American.

Maxine was a true trailblazer. She worked hard for her constituents, and she championed education and the arts.

Her life was full of some poetic justice, quite frankly. She grew up in the Greenwood District in the wake of the Tulsa Race Massacre, but in the late 1990s, she sponsored the State legislation that created the Tulsa Race Riot Commission. She also cofounded the Greenwood Cultural Center. After she left office, she continued to fight for the victims of the massacre and chaired the committee overseeing the search for the burial sites--work that is still going on today.

As a young teen, she recalls going into the Tulsa Union Depot and seeing drinking fountains labeled ``Colored'' and ``White.'' But as a State senator, she sponsored the legislation that created the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, which now occupies the old Tulsa Union Depot building, where they don't have drinking fountains labeled ``Black'' or ``Colored'' and ``White.''

As a student, she attended segregated schools. As a Senator, she championed the Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program or what we now call Oklahoma's Promise--a scholarship program for low and middle- income students in Oklahoma. Oklahoma's Promise helped over 75,000 young Oklahomans pursue higher education. She left quite a legacy.

Two weeks ago, on February 8, Oklahoma lost this transformational giant. Maxine Horner passed away at the age of 88, and she will be certainly missed by her families, and she will be missed by Oklahoma

Mr. President, it is the end of February. Almost exactly a year ago, America was getting its first cases of COVID-19, and they were being reported in the media. We were learning about it but didn't know much at that point. We knew it spread across China. We knew what was happening there. But in the weeks ahead and by the middle of March, just a few weeks from now, our country started going into lockdown.

We experienced something we had never experienced as a country: a mandatory shutdown across the entire country, followed by instructions to senior adults and people with comorbidities to stay in their homes and not get out. For millions of those senior adults, they asked the same question almost a year ago: When can I get out of my home? When can I see people? And the answer consistently was: Once there is a vaccine. When we get a vaccine in place, this will be better. We don't know how long that will take, but once we get a vaccine, we will be able to turn this around.

Seniors heard that over and over and over and over again for the last 11\1/2\ months. And, now, thankfully, millions of seniors have been vaccinated. We have 42 million Americans that have gone through the full regimen. In my State, almost 20 percent of the adults in my State have already had their vaccine. We are one of the top States in the country, by percentage, getting vaccines out to individuals. Almost every person in every assisted-living nursing home, critical care facility, staff, and residents have been vaccinated. Almost every single senior adult in my State has been fully vaccinated, and we are into the second round now of teachers and those with comorbidities and other folks that has already begun.

But interestingly enough, seniors are still asking the same question. I had my shot. I had my second shot. It has now been the 10 days past my second shot, but nothing is changed.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked CDC a very simple question. It is the question that I am getting asked that I continue to ask CDC. When will instructions come out on what seniors need to do now? Can they get out? Can they hug their grandkids? Can they go to Walmart? Can guests come to assisted-living facilities?

They were all together during Christmas and Halloween and now Valentine's Day, and they are used to having kids come in and sing songs and people come to visit them. None of that happened last year, and now, they are asking a simple question: When will CDC give guidelines for what happens now? CDC currently has said over and over again: Wait. We are thinking about it. We are researching it.

CDC needs to act on this. Seniors have been cooped up for a year. They were told months ago, ``Once you get a vaccine, this will get better,'' and they are now finding they had their vaccine and nothing is getting better. They need hope. They need to know the next step.

So my simple challenge to CDC has been: Do for the seniors what you did for the schools. CDC put out extensive

guidelines: here is how schools can reopen, it is safe to reopen for schools, here is what needs to be done. Help our seniors out by getting clear guidelines out into the public. Give instructions to assisted- living facilities; give instructions to these grandparents. What do they need to do now that they have been vaccinated? How much travel can they have? What are the risks? And let them make the decisions on it.

Folks are counting on them to be able to lay some of the science out there, and it is time to get the information out to those folks so they can make the right decision. CDC, we need you to step up.

With that, I yield the floor.

Thank you.

Now, while this was going on, Officer Eugene Goodman responded to the initial breach. You all may have seen footage of Officer Goodman previously, but there is more to his heroic story. In this security footage, you can see Officer Goodman running to respond to the initial breach.

(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)

Officer Goodman passes Senator Mitt Romney and directs him to turn around in order to get to safety. On the first floor, just beneath them, the mob had already started to search for the Senate Chamber.

Officer Goodman made his way down to the first floor, where he encountered the same insurrectionists we just saw--watched--breach the Capitol. In this video, we can see the rioters surge toward Officer Goodman. Recall that the rioters are in red, and Officer Goodman, in this model, is in blue. Watch Officer Goodman, who backs up the stairs.

(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)

(People chanting: ``USA.'')

Unidentified Speaker. That's my muffin. I paid for that.

Unidentified Speaker. You work for us.

Unidentified Speaker. Where is the meeting at?

Unidentified Speaker. Hey, where do they count the fucking

votes?

Unidentified Speaker. Hey! Hey!

Unidentified Speaker. Do it! Do it!

Unidentified Speaker. Where are they counting the votes?

Where are they counting the votes?

Unidentified Speaker. Right there. Hey.

Unidentified Speaker. These people. These people. These

people. We have no weapons. We have no fucking weapons.

Unidentified Speaker. No, no.

Unidentified Speaker. Motherfucker.

Although they were shouting that they did not have any weapons, we know from the earlier video that that is not true. The second assailant through that breach was the one carrying a metal baseball bat. We know there were other weapons there that day.

Did you hear the other shouts?

We're here for you. He's one person, we're thousands.

And--

Where do they count the votes?

They were coming at the urging of Donald Trump to keep Congress--a separate branch of government--from certifying the results of a Presidential election.

As the rioters reached the top of the stairs, they were within 100 feet of where the Vice President was sheltering with his family. And they were just feet away from one of the doors to this Chamber, where many of you remained at that time.

I also want to show you a different angle from the security footage of Officer Goodman's acts. This video is on the second floor of the Senate wing of the Capitol. The red dot, as you recall, represents the insurrectionists. The blue dot is Officer Goodman, who led the mob away from the Chamber, just minutes earlier.

(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)

On the left-hand side of the video, just inside the hallway is the door to

the Senate Chamber. And watch how Officer Goodman provoked the rioters and purposefully draws them away from the door to the Senate Chamber and toward the other officers waiting down the hall.

The rioter seen carrying a baseball bat in this video is the same one we saw moments ago breaching the window on the first floor.

While all of this was going on, Vice President Pence was still in the room near the Senate Chamber. It was not until 2:26 that he was evacuated to a secure location. This next security video shows that evacuation.

His movements are depicted by the orange dot in our model. The red and blue dots represent the location where the mob and Officer Goodman were and where Officer Goodman led the mob away from the Chamber just moments ago.

(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)

You can see Vice President Pence and his family quickly moved down the stairs. The Vice President turns around briefly as he is headed down.

(Video presentation of 1-6-2021.)

As Pence was being evacuated, rioters started to spread throughout the Capitol. Those inside helped other rioters break in through doors in several locations around this entire building. And the mob was looking for Vice President Pence because of his patriotism, because the Vice President had refused to do what the President demanded and overturn the election results.

During the assault on the Capitol, extremists reportedly coordinated online and discussed how they could hunt down the Vice President.

Journalists in the Capitol reported they heard rioters say they were looking for Pence in order to execute him.

Trump's supporters had erected a gallows on the lawn in front of the Capitol Building. Another group of rioters chanted: ``Hang Mike Pence,'' as they stood in the open door of the Capitol Building.

You can hear the security alarm through the door in the background. And you can hear the mob calling for the death of the Vice President of the United States.

(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)

(People chanting: ``Hang Mike Pence.'')

This wasn't an isolated area or incident where that was being told, where that was being said. It was going on everywhere.

Here is another example of the crowd outside yelling: ``Bring out Pence, bring him out.''

(People chanting: ``Bring him out.'')

(People chanting: ``Bring out Pence.'')

After President Trump had primed his followers for months and inflamed the rally-goers that morning, it is no wonder that the Vice President of the United States was the target of their wrath after Pence refused to overturn the election results.

Listen to this man explain.

(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)

Unidentified Speaker. While Congress, cowards, hid in

their--inside, and were escorted away because of fear of the

people. Of course they are cowards. They can't face the

people. They can't do the right thing. Pence lied to us. He

is a total treasonous pig. And his name will be mud forever.

Now the real battle begins. And it looks like the American

people are very pissed. So good luck with that. Peace out.

``Peace out.''

Several insurrectionists described wha they had planned to do if they encountered the Vice President or other lawmakers. One of them, Dominic Pezzola, also known as Spaz, is a member of the Proud Boys, as we discussed. Pezzola came to the Capitol on January 6 with deadly intentions. He commandeered a Capitol Police shield, used it to smash a glass window, entered the Capitol, and paved the way for dozens of insurrectionists.

As you recall from an earlier video, Pezzola was one of the first wave of rioters to breach the building. On the left, you can see a screen shot from the video of the break-in we showed earlier. And on the right, you can see Pezzola in the mob chase Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman through the building. Pezzola is the man in the center of the photo with the gray beard.

Pezzola has since been charged with eight Federal crimes for his conduct related to January 6. According to an FBI Agent's affidavit submitted to the court, the group that was with him during the sack of the Capitol confirmed that they were out to murder ``anyone they got their hands on.''

Here is what the FBI said:

Other members of the group talked about things they had

done that day, and they said that anyone they got their hands

on they would have killed, including Nancy Pelosi.

And, I quote:

[T]hey would have killed [Vice President] Mike Pence if

given the chance.

They were talking about assassinating the Vice President of the United States. During the course of the attack, the Vice President never left the Capitol, remained locked down with his family--with his family--inside the building. Remember that as you think about these images and the sounds of the attack.

The Vice President, our second in command, was always at the center of it. Vice President Pence was threatened with death by the President's supporters because he rejected President Trump's demand that he overturn the election.

The mob also went after the Speaker of the House, who alongside the Vice President, was presiding over the joint session of the certification in the House Chamber.

The chilling evidence shows that on January 6, armed and organized insurrectionists trained their sights on Speaker Pelosi. They sought out the Speaker on the floor and in her office, publicly declared their intent to harm or kill her, ransacked her office, and terrorized her staff. And they did it because Donald Trump sent them on this mission.

As the insurrectionists got closer, Capitol Police rushed the Speaker from the House floor at 2:15 p.m., mere minutes after the Capitol was first breached. They recognized immediately that she was in danger. The Speaker was not just rushed from the floor; the Capitol Police deemed the threat so dangerous that they evacuated her entirely from the Capitol Complex, rushing her to a secure offsite location.

The insurrectionists' intent to murder the Speaker of the House is well documented in charging documents that are now available. We know from the rioters themselves that if they had found Speaker Pelosi, they would have killed her.

I have already discussed Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola, who has since been charged with eight Federal crimes for his conduct on January 6. As you will recall, according to the FBI agent's affidavit submitted to the court, the group he attacked the Capitol with confirmed that ``anyone they got their hands on they would have killed, including Nancy Pelosi.''

William Calhoun, a lawyer, from Georgia, also participated in the insurrection that day. And he, too, has been charged for his actions. This insurrectionist detailed his criminal activity at the Capitol online. Calhoun wrote about his involvement on his own Facebook page.

Here is the post. Calhoun stated:

And get this--the first of us who got upstairs kicked in

Nancy Pelosi's door and pushed down the hall towards her

inner sanctum, the mob howling with rage--Crazy Nancy

probably would have been torn into little pieces, but she was

nowhere to be seen.

``Crazy Nancy''--that is Trump's nickname for the Speaker

of the House. Then he explains that he and his group only

abandoned their claim to the Speaker's office when ``a SWAT

team showed up.''

He writes:

Then a SWAT team showed and we retreated back to the

rotunda and continued our hostile takeover of the Capitol

Building.

``Retreated,'' ``hostile takeover.'' He is using military terms for this attack.

The mob continued to look for Nancy Pelosi throughout the time they occupied the Capitol, including invading her offices.

Watch now how the mob searches for Speaker Pelosi's office, which is marked in red, and the House Chamber itself.

(Text of video presentation of 1-6-2021.)

Unidentified Speaker. Where are you, Nancy? We are looking

for you?

Unidentified Speaker. Nancy! Oh, Nancy! Nancy! Where are

you, Nancy?

During the siege, the Speaker's staff took cover in her office, hiding in fear for their lives for hours, as rioters broke in and ransacked her office.

As the rioters were breaking into the Capitol, her staff retreated into an interior room. Eight of them gathered in a conference room. About the same time, Capitol Police announced the Capitol had been breached, Speaker Pelosi's staff heeded the call to shelter in place.

On our model, you can see the rioters in the Rotunda in red and the Speaker's office, again, in orange

This is a security video, so there is no sound.

(Video presentation.)

As you can see, the staff moves from their offices through the halls and then enters a door on the right-hand side. That is the outer door of a conference room, which also has an inner door that they barricaded with furniture.

The staff then hid under a conference room table in that inner room. This is the last staffer going in and then barricading themselves inside the inner office.

After just 7 minutes of them barricading themselves and the last staffer entering the door on the right, a group of rioters entered the hallway outside and, once inside, the rioters have free rein in the Speaker of the House's offices.

In this security video, pay attention to the door that we saw those staffers leaning into and going into.

(Video presentation.)

One of the rioters, you can see, is throwing his body against the door three times until he breaks open that outer door. Luckily, when faced with the inner door, he moves on. Another rioter later tried unsuccessfully to break through that inner door. At this point, the mob had already broken into the Speaker's formal conference room that is in the back of the hall at the top of the video.

I want to play some audio we have of the Speaker's staff with the rioters at the door that day. You can hear the terror in their voices as they describe what is happening to them as they are barricaded in that conference room. Please listen carefully because the staffer is whispering into a phone as he hides from the rioters that are outside the door.

(Text of video presentation.)

Unidentified Speaker. They're in the hall. We need the

Capitol Police to come into the hallway. They're pounding on

doors trying to find her now.

You can hear the pounding in the background as that staffer is speaking. One of those staffers explained later that they could hear the mob going through her offices, breaking down the door and yelling: Where are you, Nancy?

The mob also pillaged and vandalized the Speaker's office and documented their crimes on social media. They stole objects, desecrated the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States.

As you can see in these photos, rioters broke down a door. They also shattered a mirror. At 2:50 p.m., several rioters, including Richard ``Bigo'' Barnett, entered Speaker Pelosi's office. The world is all now too familiar with the images from these slides. If you look closely, however, at the now-infamous pictures of Barnett with his feet on the desk, you might see something that you didn't notice previously. Here is a better look. As this photo highlights, he is carrying a stun gun tucked into his waistband. The FBI identified the device as a 950,000- volt stun gun walking stick. The weapon could have caused serious pain and incapacitated anyone Barnett had used it against.

Richard Barnett bragged about his actions. He was proud of the way he desecrated the Speaker of the House's office. He left a note:

Mr. President, I would like to call up my amendment No. 837 and ask it be reported by number.

The First Amendment of our Constitution states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. This has not been a controversial thing in our history and also does not have an asterisk next to it saying, ``Unless there is a pandemic.''

We don't restrict freedom of religion. We just don't do that. This has been a great debate in our Nation over the past year as we have seen restrictions on churches and mosques and on synagogues.

This is a very simple statement. All this is asking for is to make sure that we treat faithbased entities the same as we do secular entities. It is not asking for special treatment. It is saying that if you treat a bar one way, then a block away, you have to treat a synagogue the same way; if you treat a store one way, a block away, if there is a church, you have to treat them the same way; if there are outdoor gatherings that are allowed in the city, there has to be outdoor religious gatherings also allowed.

It is asking for the same treatment, not special treatment. That is all that this is--to try to affirm this.

I didn't think this would be controversial. Quite frankly, I thought this would be something we could voice vote, but I am understanding this is something we may actually have to take a vote on.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Madam President, 2 weeks ago, I heard these words:

History, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity.

We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors. We

can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join

forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature. For

without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.

President Biden's inaugural address had some pretty glowing terms. I am grateful to hear statements about unity. The challenge now is to actually live that out and see that actually done, because while those words are beautiful, over the past 2 weeks, there have been almost two dozen hyperpartisan Executive orders that have come out of the White House, and there doesn't seem to be a push toward actual bipartisan unity here on this floor.

In fact, in the first 10 days of the Biden administration, he has signed more Executive orders than the last four Presidents combined in their first 10 days. President Clinton signed 2; President Bush signed 2; Donald Trump signed 7; President Obama signed 9; and Joe Biden, in the first 10 days, signed 22 Executive orders--22. And some of those Executive orders seem to be purely spiteful, just to say: President Trump put this in, so it must be bad.

Let me give you an example. The Trump administration required, through an Executive order, every Agency to compile all their guidance documents into one place so that small business owners and people who work in small businesses could find the Federal requirements from each Agency in one spot. They didn't have to hunt all over the place to be able to find their Federal requirements. Now, that doesn't seem like a partisan statement. That just seems like good government. But in the first 10 days of President Biden's term, he got rid of that good guidance piece and said: No, Federal agencies can go back to playing hide and seek with their rules again, and small business owners will just have to figure out where it is. There won't be one place in each agency to find guidance.

Why would you do that, other than just, if Trump did it, it must be bad?

Listen, we have to find ways to actually live unity and to be able to do what is best for the American people. We live in a constitutional system. We have more than 300 million people. We have great disagreements on policies, but we come together to work them out.

During 2020, in a time of divided government, this body, the House of Representatives, and the White House passed five different COVID relief bills, all with strong bipartisan majorities. We passed all 12 appropriation bills with strong bipartisan majorities. I didn't agree with everything on every one of those bills, but we worked together to be able to resolve it. And now, suddenly, it has become a ``we don't want to talk across the aisle anymore,'' literally 2 weeks after saying: Do you know what we need as a country? Unity.

Two weeks later it is: How do we cram through something on a straight partisan vote? How do we block out all Republican voices from the entire country and make sure their voices are not heard?

Does that feel like unity, 2 weeks into a Presidency?

Ten of my Republican colleagues sat down with President Biden. We appreciate his time, and he gave 2 hours of his time to listen.

He has proposed $1.9 trillion in additional spending the very first day on COVID--$1.9 trillion. This is only a few weeks after we just passed almost a trillion-dollar package dealing with COVID. Literally, two-thirds of that trillion-dollar package has not even gone out the door yet, has not even been spent, has not even been allocated.

There are billions and billions of dollars still unallocated for vaccines, for testing, for schools--all kinds of different things that we allocated in December--and it is already like: That is not enough. We need more.

Literally, the CDC and the NIH have billions of dollars unallocated right now from previous bills that have already been sent. And when my team contacted the White House team and said, ``Hey, we see this big proposal; can you tell me what these dollars are allocated for?'' their response was: It is an emergency. We need a big package.

They literally couldn't tell us what the money would be spent for.

Now, I have to tell you, this is not just a partisan issue for me. I asked the

exact same thing of the Trump administration. When they made a big proposal, I went back to them with the exact same question: What is this money to be used for? They couldn't answer it. So I continued to press for months until we got an answer, until we got a right amount. That seems like a reasonable thing for us to do, regardless of who is in the White House, to say: This is the American people's money. And, in this case, none of it is actually money that is allocated. All of it is borrowed.

So before we spend a dime of money that we borrow from China, we should probably know what it is actually for. In the $1.9 trillion package proposal, there is even a section in it that is a $50 billion fund to spend for needs, however the administration wanted to fill that blank in--$50 billion. No, thank you. We have a basic responsibility to be able to ask questions on this.

If the reports are accurate, when 10 Republican Senators sat down with the White House to talk about a different proposal to be more targeted toward the actual needs right now, if the reports are correct--I wasn't there at the time, but if the reports are correct-- every time a proposal came up, some of the President's team sitting against the wall facing the President would shake their head to signal the answer to President Biden: Say no to that one as well.

We have to find a way to be able to actually work things out. Why is this so difficult when we did it five times with a divided government last year? And now the focus is that we can no longer talk to Republicans. Where did the unity go?

Some of these Executive orders require a lot more attention and a lot more conversation instead of just imposing things on the American people because that makes a difficult situation worse.

On his first day in office, President Biden dismantled the title IX protections for women and imposed new gender identity requirements. Now, I agree with President Biden, every person should be treated with dignity and respect. But I also believe that extending respect and dignity mean being honest about scientific and biological realities of sex and the differences between men and women.

All people--all people--should be afforded equal opportunity, but that also includes women and girls. Title IX was put into place to make sure that we had equal opportunity for women and girls in all areas. And under the guise of ``preventing discrimination,'' suddenly now women and girls are being discriminated against.

President Biden's Executive order to ``prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity'' is now a mandate to force school districts to allow biological boys to compete against biological girls in high school sports. You might think: What is the big deal about that? Well, in Connecticut, two high school athletes who were born male, but now identify as female, won 15 women's championship titles that were once held by girls--in fact, 9 different girls. Those titles are gone from those girls. Female athletes are losing medals, podium spots, and chances for scholarships, or chances to play on a team with their peers.

Every person should be respected in our Nation, but there is a reason that title IX was created. This should demand more conversation in this body, not trying to impose it in an Executive order. Americans are not united in this issue. We are united that people should be respected and have every opportunity, but don't run over one group to be able to provide special status to another group.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, when there was an Executive order that was released on the issue of abortion--in fact, multiple Executive orders--on the week of the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

For unity, President Biden gave the ironically titled ``Memorandum on Protecting Women's Health At Home and Abroad''--once again, message. It is a good message, but it falls short of a standard about unity.

According to the most recent Marist poll, 77 percent of Americans oppose using taxpayer dollars to support abortion in other countries. Yet under the guise of unity, we are now spending money overseas on promoting and providing abortion. At a time when we have record debts and deficits, the Biden administration made one of its first priorities in the very first week to take some of the dollars that we do have and spend it to promote and provide abortion overseas in other countries. That is our foreign aid now.

As if funding abortion providers at home and abroad wasn't enough, the memo also directs the United States to withdraw from the historic Geneva Consensus Declarations. Thirty-five nations have agreed to four basic pillars. These are the four pillars that we just withdrew from: pillar No. 1, better health for women; pillar No. 2, the preservation of human life; pillar No. 3, strengthening of family as the foundational unit of society; and, pillar No. 4, protecting every nation's national sovereignty in global politics. That was so controversial that the Biden administration withdrew from that with 35 other countries.

Ironically enough, while President Biden pulled out of that treaty protecting women's health, he actually installed us deeper into a treaty with Russia. In his first week in office, President Biden agreed to a straight extension for 5 years of the outdated New START Treaty with Russia. The treaty was supposed to manage the proliferation of nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia, the two big superpowers, but it was written so long ago and is so out of date that it completely leaves out other superpowers, like China.

So while Russia has to mind an agreement, China continues to accelerate. The current status is that China will double its nuclear stockpile in the next decade, but they are not even in this treaty.

In addition to that, multiple areas are not even addressed in this New Start Treaty. That is why there was such a push in the previous administration to renegotiate it, because the New Start Treaty doesn't even include Russian weapons like ``air-delivered ballistic missiles, nuclear powered underwater drones, hypersonic glide vehicles,'' and ``Nonstrategic nuclear weapons.'' They were not even included. So even under this agreement, Russia can accelerate in those areas and say they are still meeting the agreement. And President Biden just extended it for 5 more years and said: We are not going to negotiate it for 5 more years. Let's just keep going.

The shift has moved from stopping nuclear proliferation to dealing with climate change. Why can't we do both? Why can't we pay attention to the environmental issues of our globe but also pay attention to the issue of nuclear proliferation? It is not like this is going away. It hasn't.

President Biden also took several issues on immigration, specifically border security. Right after the inauguration, speaking on unity, he puts out an Executive order with bizarre doublespeak in it that stated this: ``The United States is a country with borders and with laws that must be enforced.'' But the order itself after that literally put a 100-day moratorium o all deportations. It is like: We need to enforce our laws. And then the first step of it was that for 100 days we are not going to actually enforce our laws.

Now, this is not just some crazy piece here. The 100-day moratorium for deportations included individuals who are listed as criminal aliens. It also included people who had what is called a final order of removal from a court. That means that they have gone through every appeal in our court system here and a court has said: No, you do not qualify to be here legally. They have ordered them removed from the country. President Biden said no, we actually want them to be able to stay, even after a court order.

There is this great myth that ICE is roaming through cities in America just rounding people up. The fact is, in 92 percent of ICE enforcement and removal operations, those individuals have a criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge--92 percent. But President Biden immediately put a 100-day moratorium on it and said: Those individuals don't need to be deported. We will think about it for 100 days.

Now, thankfully, a Federal court has already stepped in and stopped that. Their statement was that this moratorium has--this is the quote from the Federal court--``no reasonable justification.'' I agree. That is not enforcing our laws. That is not engaging in bipartisan unity.

The vast majority of Americans want legal immigration. The vast majority of Americans also believe that if someone has committed a crime in our country and they are not legally in our country, they should be deported. But the message that is being sent out is that those individuals won't.

As odd as it may seem, on January 26, President Biden instituted a travel ban from Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland, most of the EU, from South Africa, and said: Those folks can't come because of COVID threat. But at the same time he said he wants to evaluate title 42, which may allow people to come into the United States from Mexico, and do catch-and-release again here in the United States. So at the same time saying that business travelers from all over the world really don't need to come because of COVID threat, they are also looking at our southern border and saying: Yeah, but people coming from South America, Central America, they may be OK to come into the country and then be released while there is still a hearing pending.

May I remind this body, in the past year we have lost 21 people from the Department of Homeland Security along our southern border. Twenty- one agents and officers have died from COVID exposure while interacting with people coming from South America and Central America.

Why in the world do you close down the borders to business travelers and then start talking about opening them up to people not legally crossing the border? This is not the America we are looking for.

I had a lot of people in my State who were shocked, in the first days of the Biden administration, when he stopped the Keystone Pipeline and then he stopped all energy exploration on Federal lands. Those are jobs in my State. As President Biden likes to talk about, those are union jobs that are all over the country.

Thousands of people lost their jobs on day one of the Biden administration with a unilateral declaration: We are not going to do energy exploration, and we are not going to complete this pipeline.

What does that mean? That means to the Federal taxpayer, royalties are down because they are not gaining royalties off of the use of that land, so the taxpayer loses. That means jobs are down all over the country, especially in the west. And that means prices will go up for the consumer.

We are not running all on electricity right now. We are still running on oil and gas for the vast majority of our vehicles. And while I am all for multiple, different types of energy, that is not what is happening right now.

We should address this. We should work for unity. But right now, we are not even having dialogue. We are not even included in the conversation. If we are going to have unity, we have to talk about the hard issues and actually come to a decision on how we are going to resolve those.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, if you buy a new GM car, a Nissan, Honda, Kia or Toyota, even a Hyundai, you will notice they have started installing a new feature in their cars. It is a reminder, when you turn off the engine, to check your backseat.

Quite frankly, I rented a car not long ago, and it started dinging, and I kept trying to figure out what I had done and kept looking around until I saw the little monitor on the dashboard. It just said, ``Check the backseat,'' which I thought was great because the makers of those cars all believe every child is precious and they shouldn't be harmed.

We have all heard stories like this, but I distinctly remember last summer seeing in the news a story about an infant who died because they were left in a hot car. That is why these carmakers are making this feature now.

I remember, as I saw the story on the news, just the reports and how angry people were in the community. And they were angry at the store, and they were upset on the news. They couldn't believe that a mom had left a child in the backseat of a car and they had slowly died in the heat, because no one wants to see a child harmed. Everyone believes that every child is precious.

I remember, when I saw the story on the news last summer, turning to my wife and saying: I can't figure out our culture sometimes because that same mom and that same baby could have gone into an abortion clinic just a few months before and that child's life could have been ended, and it wouldn't have made the news. In fact, no one would have flinched.

In fact, the very same people who were furious at that mom for leaving her child in the hot car to die would have argued for her right to destroy that exact same child--in fact, would have called it her reproductive right or even the new euphemism out there, ``reproductive care.'' Same child, same mom--nothing was different but a few months in time.

``Reproductive care'' seems like such a nice little euphemism, but what it really means is paying someone in a clinic to reach into the womb with a surgical instrument, to pull the arms and legs off of a child in the womb so that they will bleed to death in the womb and then suction out the little boy or girl's body parts one at a time.

That is what ``reproductive care'' means, and I don't understand why that is normal but leaving a child in the backseat of a hot car is a tragedy.

Maybe it is because, as a nation, some people are afraid to answer the most obvious question: Is that a baby? That is the most obvious question. That face, that nose, those two eyes, that mouth, that chin, those fingers--is that a baby? That is really the only question: Is that a child?

Maybe there is a second question that needs to be answered: Are all children valuable, or are only some children valuable?

We seem to have a great deal of debate today in our society--and we should--about facts. People say we can't seem to agree on the same set of facts and truth. You can't have your facts and my facts; we just only have facts. The media, Big Tech, activists have all decried our loss of ability as a nation to just accept clear facts in front of our face--the obvious truth.

So let me ask the question again: Is that a baby? Yes or no? Because if we are all supposed to say, ``Let's at least agree to the most basic of facts,'' how about that one? Is that a human child with a future and a purpose and a name? Are all children valuable or are only some?

Gold is valuable. It doesn't matter its size. I have gold in my wedding ring. Many people have gold in their wedding rings. If we found a small piece of gold on the floor, it would be valuable. It wouldn't matter its shape. It wouldn't matter its size, small or large. We don't discriminate. Gold is valuable because everyone universally recognizes its worth. Every single Senator in this room recognizes the worth and value of gold. It is around $1,800 an ounce right now to be able to get gold. We all seem, no matter how small or large, to agree gold is valuable, but we can't seem to agree that all children are valuable. Literally, gold is more precious to some people in this room than children are.

Children aren't valuable only sometimes or only certain children. Children are valuable. It can't be just that if a mom or dad wants a child, they are valuable and, if they don't want a child, they are not valuable; they are disposable. The mom or dad gets to choose who are precious and who is medical waste.

Is that a child? That is really the only question that has to be answered, because everything else flows from that.

There are political conversations in this room about the value of children, and every time it comes up, it gets noisy. People will say: Well, you don't fund enough money for education or childcare or healthcare in communities. So you don't love children.

I would say I have voted for the exact same bill you did last year, for billions of dollars for assistance in childcare, billions of dollars for early childhood education, elementary and secondary education, higher education. We did additional assistance for SNAP benefits last year and assistance of benefits for moms in need, increased healthcare for all communities, for federally qualified health centers to make sure we get healthcare to every single community. I voted on those exact same things multiple other people did in this room. I care about children outside the womb.

But those questions really aren't the question. They are distractions to the question. And I get it, because if I ask, ``Is that a child?'' people will respond: Well, do you spend enough for childcare or healthcare? And I still say: Wait. Stop and answer my first question. Is that a child?

Maybe I should ask a more basic question: Does everyone in this room believe in the principle that we should do unto others as we would want done unto us? What would you have wanted done to you when you were in the womb?

I don't address this issue lightly. This is a difficult issue for some people. I don't think an abortion is a flippant thing, that anyone walks into an abortion--I don't mean anyone who had an abortion is somehow gleeful about it. Quite frankly, I can't imagine that anyone who had an abortion would ever forget the sights and sounds and the smells of an abortion, knowing that a helpless child is dying at that moment.

I grieve for the moms and dads who will never ever forget that they went into a clinic and paid someone to get

rid of their child in the name of reproductive care. I can't imagine what their emotion is. But we as a society have to answer this question still for every child who has yet to come.

Forty-eight years ago this week, the Supreme Court made a decision that has now resulted in the deaths of 62 million children in America-- 62 million. That is hard to fathom. Unlike so many other Supreme Court decisions, America has not forgotten about this one. Our culture has not just moved on and accepted it.

Every year since 1974--the first year after the Roe V. Wade decision--individuals from across the country have gathered in Washington, DC, in defense of the unborn. Friends, families, church leaders, community folks--they have all marched in the rain, in the sleet, the snow. It is cold every year this week in January, but they come.

This year will be different. Due to COVID-19 and the ongoing security concerns in Washington, DC, marchers are staying home, and they are engaging virtually. Maybe this is one more moment where even more people can get involved online, because I expect the rally this year will draw an even larger number of people--students, families, people, quite frankly, from all over the world--to ask a simple question: Will we recognize the most obvious thing in front of our face--that is a baby.

President Biden this week celebrated the passage of Roe v. Wade by declaring that he wants to pass a Federal law requiring abortion to be provided in every single State in America. It is not just trust a Court decision from 1973; he wants us to proactively require in statute that every State demand abortion in their State and that Federal taxpayers, with hard-earned tax dollars, should actually be required to pay for those abortions all over America.

It wasn't long ago that Senator Biden was saying things like, taxpayers shouldn't be required to pay for abortion; they shouldn't be required to pay for something that they find so morally objectionable. It wasn't that long ago that Senator Biden was talking about abortion being safe, legal, and rare. But now, as President, within the first week, he is moving as fast as he can to promote abortion and demand taxpayers pay for it.

In fact, painfully so, President Biden's nomination for the Secretary of Health and Human Services has actually no healthcare experience at all. It was a little surprising to a lot of us when we saw it because we are used to seeing the leader of Health and Human Services be a physician or scientist, which would make sense in the time of an enormous global pandemic to have a physician leading Health and Human Services. But he actually nominated someone whose biggest qualification is that he is one of the most radical advocates for abortion in the country. He did it as a House Member. He did it as an attorney general in California. And clearly the promise was made that he will do it if you put him in Health and Human Services.

Let me just give an example of what I am talking about for Mr. Becerra. I can't process some of these things. Mr. Becerra, when he was the attorney general for California, actually went to Mississippi to be able to lead a suit against Mississippi--another State, obviously-- because that State was talking about limiting abortion to only the earliest days. Their belief was, after a child feels pain, we should at least not tear a child limb from limb in the womb when their nervous system is developed. Mr. Becerra led a coalition of State attorneys general to fight Mississippi and say: You can't protect children that way.

He actually argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit against the Little Sisters of the Poor, trying to require that group of nuns to provide birth-control services--literally attacking the Little Sisters of the Poor to kind of push this whole agenda.

When he was a Representative in the House of Representatives, he voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. So if a child, in a botched abortion, is actually delivered instead of destroyed, he wanted to say, no, even after they are fully delivered, that child can still be destroyed, even though they are fully delivered, which would make sense because he also, as a Representative, fought against the partial-birth abortion ban. It was a rare procedure, but it was a procedure where they would deliver the child--all but the head--and then penetrate the head with scissors and kill the child. He fought against that.

He fought against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which really is odd to me. All it did was criminalize--if someone attacked a pregnant woman and killed her child, they could also be liable for that death as well. He also didn't want to recognize the child as a child even if the mother saw the child as a child.

He also fought against crossing State lines for minors, saying they shouldn't have to get their parents' permission if they crossed State lines to go get an abortion somewhere else.

As the attorney general in California, he fought to require churches to pay for abortion care in their healthcare plans when it directly violated their religious belief.

Unbelievably so, he also fought to be able to require pro-life medical claims, where you could go and say: I don't want an abortion, but I do want a sonogram. I want to be able to get some more information about this child.

If you went into one of those pro-life centers and got a sonogram, he fought to require there to be a poster on the wall that would say: If you would rather have an abortion, here is the place that you would go.

This is beyond just protecting abortion; that has moved to promoting abortion, encouraging the death of children.

It got even so bizarre that in California, when there was a video taken of a Planned Parenthood group of folks who wer trafficking the body parts of children and it was caught on video, instead of confronting the folks who were trafficking the child body parts, he went after the folks who took the video, the whistleblowers, and exposed them.

This is not an attack on Mr. Becerra. It is just a shock to me that all of those things seem normal. I don't understand that culturally. I don't understand how the person who is being appointed to lead Health and Human Services can say that children are subhuman: I don't have to recognize that as human, although I am leading Health and Human Services. That is apparently optional tissue, not a human child.

I believe that children are human and that we should honor every child's life. It should be baseline for us to be able to say that if a child is actually delivered in a botched abortion and has been fully delivered outside the womb, we should help that child get medical care. I don't understand why that is so hard.

I don't understand why it is so hard to say that some people are actually appalled by the taking of a child's life. Don't force them, with their tax dollars, to pay for it. I don't understand why that is controversial.

I don't understand why it is controversial that when a child can feel pain in the womb, we shouldn't dismember a child in the womb. I don't understand why that is controversial.

I don't understand why it is controversial to some that if a healthcare provider who has sworn to protect life--that that person shouldn't be compelled to take life in an abortion procedure by their employer. I don't understand why that is controversial, but for some reason, it is.

Among our most basic rights in America are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. One of the most basic things that come out of our founding documents says these things are referred to as ``self- evident.''

Facts are facts, especially when those facts have a face. How can you look at that picture and say that is not a human child? How can we not acknowledge the simple facts?

I do understand for some people this is very difficult because they fought for years for abortion, and they don't want that to change because if it changed, they would have to admit there have been the deaths of millions of children on their watch. That is not a simple thing to admit. But please do not tell me you are following the science, because that child has 10 fingers and 10 toes and a beating heart and a functioning nervous system. That child has DNA that is different from the mom's or the dad's. That is not random tissue; that is a separate person, and science

would confirm that. So please don't follow tell me you follow the science wherever it goes because some facts are obvious, and the science is clear.

This all gets resolved when we answer one simple question: Is that a child or not--because everything else goes from that.

For those of you joining the March for Life online this week, good for you. Keep going. Don't give up. Defend the facts that are self- evident. Speak out for those who can't speak for themselves because millions of future Americans are counting on it, and they are watching for someone to admit the facts--the facts that have a face.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in America, we settle our differences in elections. What happens if you don't trust the election count or you are concerned that so many courts denied or dismissed cases within hours after they were given thousands of pages of evidence?

The reason we have a Congress to settle our Nation's divisions and the rules of the Senate make sure that every opinion in the Nation is heard is so issues like this can be addressed.

The constitutional crisis in our country right now is that millions of Americans are being told to sit down and shut up. Their opinions matter.

During the electoral challenge on January 6, 2005, Senator Ted Kennedy stood on this floor and said this. He said:

I commend the many thousands of citizens in Massachusetts

and other States who insisted that treating today's electoral

vote count in Congress as a meaningless ritual would be an

insult to our democracy unless we register our own protest

against the obviously-flawed voting process that took place

in so many States. We are hopeful that this major issue that

goes to the heart of our democracy is now firmly implanted on

the agenda for effective action by . . . Congress.

I agree. The U.S. Constitution does not allow me to assign different electors to a State, nor should it. The U.S. Constitution does not give the option to the Vice President of the United States to just unilaterally decide which States are in and out, and it should not. Each State decides its electors through its people.

A small group of Senators, including myself, have demanded that we not ignore the questions that millions of people are asking in our Nation, so we have proposed a constitutional solution. Pause the count. Get more facts to the States before January the 20th. We proposed a 15- member commission, just like what was done after the failed election of 1876. We are encouraging people to spend 10 days going through all the issues so States can have one

last opportunity to address any challenges. Then the States, as the Constitution directs, would make the final decision on their electors.

I have some colleagues who have said that a 10-day commission is not enough time, so they have counterproposed just ignoring the lingering questions.

We need to do something.

(Mr. GRASSLEY assumed the Chair.)

My challenge today is not about the good people of Arizona.

Mr. Vice President, you said things more eloquently than how we say it in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, we say something like: Why in God's name would someone think attacking law enforcement and occupying the United States Capitol is the best way to show that you are right? Why would you do that?

Rioters and thugs don't run the Capitol. We are the United States of America. We disagree on a lot of things, and we have a lot of spirited debate in this room, but we talk it out, and we honor each other, even in our disagreements. That person, that person, and that person is not my enemy. That is my fellow American. And while we disagree on things, and disagree strongly at times, we do not encourage what happened today--ever.

Now, I want to join my fellow Senators in saying thank you to the Capitol Hill Police, the law enforcement, the National Guard, the Secret Service who stood in harm's way. While we were here debating, they were pushing back. And I was literally interrupted midsentence speaking here because we were all unaware of what was happening right outside this room because of their faithfulness and because of what they have done. I want to thank them.

Ronald Reagan once said: Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

The peaceful people in my State of Oklahoma want their questions answered, but they don't want this, what happened today. They want to do the right thing, and they also want to do it the right way. They want to honor the constitutional process, but they also want to have debate about election security because they want to make sure it is right, which is why it is an important issue that still needs to be resolved.

Transparency in government just doesn't seem like a bad idea. Obviously, the Commission that we have asked for is not going to happen at this point, and I understand that. And we are headed tonight toward the certification of Joe Biden to be the President of the United States, and we will work together in this body to be able to set a peaceful example in the days ahead.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to talk to this body again about healthcare and the cost of healthcare. This has been an issue and an ongoing dialogue for a long time around the Senate and around Congress.

It is an issue that was supposedly settled when the Affordable Care Act was passed, but, ironically enough, my Democratic colleagues have now joined Republicans in saying they want to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. They are not using the term ``repeal and replace''; they are just saying they want to do Medicare for All. Built into that is completely taking out the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with something different.

So, ironically, in some ways, we are in the same spot. We have both come to the same realization that the Affordable Care Act didn't pass-- it actually did pass, but it is not working. So now the challenge is what to do with healthcare.

We are now trying to break into pieces what we can actually do together to get this done, beginning with the cost of prescription drugs.

I continue to hear from Oklahomans all over the State about how hard it is to deal with the cost of prescription drugs, how rapidly the costs are increasing, and how sporadic the cost changes really are. They will have a drug that costs a small amount one month and come back a month later and find a dramatic increase for the exact same drug. They can go pharmacy to pharmacy and find a different price for the exact same drug or find that the pharmacy closest to them doesn't offer that drug, and a different pharmacy is the only one that is allowed to have that drug. The complexity is driving them crazy and rightfully so.

As we peel back the layers on pharmacy issues, we are finding that the complexity is that cost overruns being built in are too high.

For the past few months, we have looked at every step in the drug process, from the approval to research and development, to try to figure out how the cost is actually getting to the consumer.

Along the way, several things have occurred. The administration has aggressively been approving generics. In fact, the administration has approved a record number of generics. Those generic pharmaceuticals are much less expensive than the branded pharmaceuticals. Many of those have been waiting a very long time at the Food and Drug Administration to actually be approved. The Food and Drug Administration is rapidly getting those out the door, and that helps consumers.

Something else we have done in Congress is to try to address something called the gag clause. The gag clause is one of those things that was behind the scenes that no one knew about except for the pharmacists because, if you came in with your insurance card to pick up your prescription, the pharmacist knew the actual cost you would pay if you paid in cash. Often, you could get that same prescription for less by paying in cash than you could if you were to pay with your insurance card, but the pharmacist was prohibited from actually telling you that. We have addressed that in Congress, in a bipartisan way, to release that gag clause and allow pharmacists to actually tell people their options on pricing.

You might say: That is an absolutely crazy thing. Who put that gag rule in?

Well, the system, and the structure behind the scenes that negotiates all of it, said: If you want to be a pharmacy that sells these drugs, you have to submit to these rules. As we found, the culprit behind many of these issues is a group called pharmacy benefit managers. You will hear it referred to as just the PBMs.

Those pharmacy benefit managers are supposed to negotiate between the manufacturers and the insurance plans to lower the prices. In many areas, they have lowered prices, but they have also given preferred formulary placement to some of their preferred pharmacies so some pharmacies get that drug and other pharmacies that are competing with them don't get access to that drug. Often, it is the drug that is the highest margin drug only their pharmacies will get and other pharmacies will not.

It has become an anti-competitive piece in the background, when it was supposed to be something that was a highly competitive piece to actually help the consumer.

Unfortunately, PBMs have created one of the most elaborate, complex, and opaque system of pricing, which has a tremendous amount of market distortion and at times has limited patients' access to those drugs. Oftentimes, it is a system they have been able to take advantage of and have created financial incentives to help their bottom line in the process rather than actually help the consumer.

Many consumers have heard about rebates, but they wonder who is getting a rebate. They go to their pharmacy to pay for their drugs, and they are not getting the rebate. There is a rebate going somewhere, just not to them.

Here is the challenge. We are trying to peel back with greater transparency what is happening in the pharmacy benefit manager world and figure out how a small group--it is actually three companies that have 90 percent of the market nationwide, how that middleman in the process actually handles pricing and negotiation.

If you talk to any pharmacist anywhere in the country--and certainly across my great State--who is an independent pharmacist, they will all express their frustration with pharmacy benefit managers and their access to some drugs and not others and the stipulations they deliberately put there to hurt them and help others.

I have joined my colleague Senator Cantwell in trying to shine some light on the operations of PBMs within the drug chains. Consumers deserve greater transparency. That will help us understand the actual cost of drugs and how those costs are actually getting to consumers or not to consumers in the process. The PBMs need greater examination, and we are finally taking that up to walk through the process.

On the Finance Committee, we are dealing with several issues. Led by Senator Grassley, we are walking through Part B of Medicare, Part D of Medicare, and trying to examine what can be done to help the actual consumer. Our goals are how do we actually increase the options in drugs that are out there, how do we stop the cost increases, and how do we decrease out-of-pocket costs for pharmaceuticals.

In Part B--these are drugs that are often intravenous, but they are done in a hospital setting or in an inpatient setting. As we are working through that process, we are trying to find the perverse incentives that are built in because, right now, physicians are actually paid a percentage of the medicine they prescribe in Part B. That means if there are three medications that are out there, if a doctor prescribes the highest cost medication, they get a much higher reimbursement. It is not a flat amount. Now, all three may be intravenous, but whichever is the most expensive actually helps the doctor the most. I am not challenging doctors and saying they are always prescribing the branded drugs and the most expensive in the process--that is between the doctor and the patient to determine--but there is no doubt a perverse incentive is built into this; that if they prescribe a more expensive drug, the doctor and his office actually benefit from it. We need to fix that.

In Part D, there are reforms that can actually slow the growth in cost increases and allow people to have greater access to drugs. We are not interested in some kind of formula where we are actually going to decrease the patients' options of what drugs they can actually get in their formulary. That is a great thing about being an American; that we don't have limited formularies. It is very open in the process so Americans can try different pharmaceuticals to see which one works best for them. That is not chosen by government; it is chosen by them and their doctors. The Part D definitely needs a redesign of the benefit structure because right now things like the doughnut hole drive up costs for consumers. We are exploring a way to limit the out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries so there is a lifetime cap sitting out there. There is an opportunity to know that if I end up with cancer or some other rare disease, I am not going to have these out-of-control costs on the pharmaceutical side and know there is not a doughnut hole waiting for me, where when I get a couple thousand dollars in, I am suddenly going to have a very expensive time. So I can afford my insurance in January, February, and March, but from April to August, I can't afford prescriptions anymore. We can't have that. We have to address those issues because that dramatically affects the out-of- pocket costs.

There are lots of other options we are looking at while working through this process, like the rebates, as I mentioned before, actually getting to the consumer, not to the companies behind the scenes, and dealing with how to take greater advantage of biosimilar drugs--very similar to the generic drugs but just in a different category and at a reduced cost--to allow them to have opportunities to get to those drugs faster. We have to deal with some of the patent issues to make sure drug manufacturers can't hold on to their patents abnormally long so the generics can't actually get out to people or bundle them together to restrict their patents.

We have to end this practice of surprise medical bills. Some folks have no

idea what that is, and other folks know all too well. They look at their insurance. They go to a hospital that is in network, and their doctor is in network. So they go to a hospital that is in network, and they go to a doctor who is in network, but they get a giant bill from an out-of-network anesthesiologist, or the lab is out of network and the hospital is in network, and they get a giant bill from the lab. We are working to end the practice of having labs that are out of network or certain specialists a doctor has sent them to--the patient assumes they are in network, but then they find out that certain individuals who have taken care of them are out of network.

We are also dealing with the issue of air ambulance surprise bills, which has been a great challenge for those folks in rural America who are having to be transferred long distances to get to a hospital and then are getting an enormous bill for an out-of-network air ambulance as a surprise billing. There are ways we can address this to deal with the out-of-pocket costs.

We are focused on areas where we can find agreement and things we can do to work through this process.

There is much to be done in the area of prescription drugs and in the area of in network, out of network, and surprise medical bills. We should be able to find common ground, and I am grateful I am part of this dialogue to help try to find ways we can come together, get this resolved, and get a better situation for American consumers and patients in the days ahead.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to rise today to speak to the Senate and compliment two of my colleagues, Senator Jim Inhofe from my State of Oklahoma, my senior Senator, and Senator Jack Reed, for their leadership and bipartisan work on this year's National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020.

This is a complicated bill. It has had hundreds of amendments, both in committee and in the initial managers' package that came out of committee that has already been debated, and there are a lot more amendments that are still being debated in the process.

It is an incredibly complicated issue to bring the authorization and information for all military for the next year. It is something that Congress has done for a long time. But for Jim Inhofe, this is his first year to chair this committee and to actually be the driver for this, and I think he has done an exceptional job of walking through this piece of legislation.

It is a $750 billion authorization. There will be additional appropriations that have to be done to be able to designate that, but that is exactly what President Trump had asked for and said is what is needed, and it is what the Department of Defense has said that they would need to keep our country safe and to prepare for the future.

There are a lot of elements in the bill. I want to identify a few of them, beginning with a 3.1-percent pay increase for our troops. That is something that is much needed. The pay for our troops has been very, very behind for a long time, and this starts an initial process of getting them a little bit above inflation to start trying to catch up.

It also deals with an issue that is very important to our military families, and that is their housing. There are many areas and many bases and posts around the country and around the world where the housing has fallen behind: mold issues, plumbing issues, electrical issues, roofing issues, and flooring issues. It is important for the members of our military to have a safe place that they come home to that really feels like home. They are traveling around the world. They are in difficult places, and as much as their families can be kept safe and have a place that they can make home as a family--that is exceptionally important. For those single men and women, it is important that they have a place where they can actually get rest and have connection with each other. This bill deals with additional funding to deal with housing, which is much needed.

This bill also deals with spouses, in their transition from facility to facility, being able to pick up an additional job. For many of the spouses who are traveling with our men and women in the military, when they move to a new base or post, they also want to pick up a new job in that place. It takes months to do that transition now.

There is also an issue with licensing. If they have a professional skill in one State, when they move to another State, there are some additional hurdles for them just to move to that next State. This bill helps deal with that and, again, helps those families know that when they move, as we ask them to move to different locations, it is a little bit easier on their family to also pick up a second job if they choose to do that.

Oklahoma is home to Altus Air Force Base, Tinker Air Force Base, Vance Air Force Base, Fort Sill Army Post, McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, and, of course, the amazing facilities for our Army and Air International Guard. We have a lot of folks in Oklahoma who are veterans who come back to Oklahoma to retire, and a lot of folks who are actively serving there. This bill deals with every one of those facilities in some way.

Let me give a few examples. The KC-46 tanker--a brandnew tanker that will be the refueler for the next generation--has already begun its delivery. It

is coming to Altus, and it is already there at Altus Air Force Base. In fact, I had the privilege, along with Senator Inhofe, to ride in from Seattle on the very first KC-46 tanker coming to Altus Air Force Base in the 97th Air Mobility Wing. That wing does all the training for every pilot who will fly the KC-46 for the decades ahead. Whether they are in the Reserve or in the Guard or Active Duty, they are going to be connected to Altus Air Force Base for the KC-46. It has long been awaited, and it is finally arriving.

This bill does the authorization for an additional 15 tankers, as we are modernizing that force, and we will do a few every single year for quite a while.

The bill includes funding for the procurement of critical Army weapons and combat vehicles, including the Paladin Integrated Management System upgrade, which is assembled in Elgin, OK, right next to Fort Sill. The Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill organizes, trains, and equips all the Paladin units in the Army Paladin Integration Management. In fact, the skills that are coming in at Fort Sill Fires Center of Excellence are asked for all over the world. Almost every one of our allies and every single foreign base is asking for the good folks from Fort Sill who are trained to help protect our men and women around the world.

Additionally, Senator Inhofe and Senator Reed and all their staff have worked to get in some of the amendments that I brought in on the base text. Those amendments--they heard it out. We got a chance to have dialogue. They have now been included long term.

One of those that I worked with one of my colleagues on--Senator Shaheen--we worked on a sense-of-the-Senate on dealing with Turkey. Turkey is a NATO ally. They worked very closely with us in the development of the F-35, but we have a problem. The leadership in Turkey is now reaching out to Russia to buy the S-400 air defense system. The F-35 is incompatible with the S-400 Russian system sitting right next to it. We will never ever allow the F-35 to sit next to the Russian S-400 system.

We tried to make that clear in multiple conversations with Turkey and with Turkey's leaders. We tried to bring this up over and over again. I worked with Senator Inhofe, along with my colleagues, Senator Shaheen and Senator Jack Reed, to make it clear that we will not allow the F-35 to be sold to Turkey if they are also going to purchase the S-400 from Russia.

I maintain my strong support for the F-35 program and applaud its advanced capability. The military actually will be shaped around the F- 35 in the days ahead, based on its capabilities. But we cannot allow Turkey to have the F-35 and also buy a Russian system at the same time.

One of my other amendments that I dealt with when I was dealing with Turkey and the F-35 and the security of that advanced weapons system also dealt with something that some folks may not have noticed, but I did, and other folks have as well, and that is the retirement of chaplains.

We lose track at times that when people enter into the military, these mandatory retirement ages will sneak up on folks. Well, it is especially so for chaplains because many chaplains actually enter into their service in the military after--as a second career. For many folks in the military, that is their first career, and then they have a second one, but not so for chaplains. Many of them are pastors or missionaries or counselors in hospitals and other locations. They get into their service and then time out.

Chaplains need a little bit of extra time to serve so they can serve a full term with the U.S. military. One of our amendments in this bill allows those chaplains to be able to complete service and be a part of that.

There are many other aspects of this bill that is literally hundreds of pages long that deal with military service. I want to bring up one additional element. It is an element that has been in great debate in conversation here in Congress, and it deals with the country of Iran.

This bill deals with not the military policy specifically with Iran but deals with our defense and our preparation for any enemy, including Iran. There is an amendment coming up for debate and conversation that changes the rules of engagement with Iran, that literally says to this administration that they cannot engage in any hostilities with Iran. They can only defend themselves if attacked but cannot respond until they get a vote from Congress.

I cannot imagine a worse set of rules of engagement for anyone in the U.S. military who is forward-deployed and facing risk from Iran than to say: You can respond when Congress votes for it.

I will certainly vote against that amendment, as it comes up as one of the final amendments, to say to our military leadership: I will not handcuff you in the face of the threat that is Iran.

I have heard folks on this floor and in the media want to lay the issues we have with Iran on President Trump. May I remind this body that we had 444 hostages taken in Iran in 1979. Iran was the mover that bombed Beirut and our Embassy there in the 1980s. Iran is the one that attacked the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and killed many of our folks in the 1990s. The reason Bashar Assad is still in power in Syria right now is because Iran and their forces have brought them up. The reason there is a civil war in Yemen right now is because Iran is providing the weapons there and the insight to be able to instigate that civil war that is happening in Yemen right now. The reason there is constant peril on Israel's borders all the way around is because Iran is funding Hezbollah and Iran is funding Hamas.

Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and the instability in the region is not something new and is not President Trump's fault. It has been a long-term issue with not only the United States but all of the West and all of the region.

Our issue is not with the Iranian people. They are smart. They are entrepreneurs. They are well educated. But they also live under the thumb of a ruthless regime led by the ayatollahs. That regime squashed the Green Movement several years ago in Iran--the people just wanting more freedom.

The issues we are facing with Iran right now are not President Trump's fault, are not because he is being mean, just as Iran's attack on the Khobar Towers and the murder of many of our people was not because President Clinton had put sanctions on Iran the year before. It wasn't President Clinton's fault that the Khobar Towers were attacked; it is not President Trump's fault in this case. He has pushed back on a terrorist regime and is demanding that they change their ways not only in the nuclear setting but also in conventional terrorism around the region and, quite frankly, around the world. We cannot allow them to continue to terrorize their neighbors.

No one wants a war with Iran. That is why we have used sanctions and diplomatic means to address this. All these accusations that the President is secretly going to try to take us to war with Iran I find absurd, especially for the man who is trying to get us out of a war in Afghanistan, out of a war in Syria, and out of a war in Iraq. Suddenly, secretly, he wants to get into a war with Iran? That is absurd.

All of the region is looking to us to help push back on the biggest bully in the region for decades, and every President since Jimmy Carter has tried to isolate and push back on Iran. I do not want to suddenly limit President Trump from trying to isolate and push back on Iran because some folks don't trust him.

In the days ahead, we as a nation will cautiously, diplomatically, economically isolate Iran to try to bring them into cooperation with the rest of the world, but in the meantime, let's not handcuff our folks who are in harm's way in that region and tell them: If you want to respond, come and get a vote from us first.

In closing, I again thank Senator Inhofe, who has done tireless work on this NDAA, and Senator Jack Reed for their great bipartisan leadership on this. They have done yeomen's work on this.

I hope that this bill will not only pass the Senate but that we will put it on the President's desk in the days ahead and give some stability to our military forces around the world and that they will know we understand that 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and in every time zone in the world, they are standing watch for peace and freedom. They are not a threatening presence. They are a peaceful presence, and

their strength has brought exceptional peace to the world. I am grateful for them and for their families and for the amazing sacrifice they make every day.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I started working on election security with Senator Klobuchar in 2017. At the time, I served on the Senate Intelligence Committee. We have worked together, from the beginning, to make this a bipartisan--in fact, nonpartisan--issue. Elections are an American event. They have partisan results, but the act of voting is an American event, not a partisan event.

We had a hearing in the Rules Committee. We worked through the process. We continue to get feedback. In fact, she and I worked incredibly hard to be able to reach out to and have multiple meetings with secretaries of State from all over the country to be able to hear as much feedback as we could from the States, because elections are run by States. Elections are not run by the Federal Government. Each State runs their own election. Each county or precinct or parish has its own structure for doing elections. In fact, one of the strengths of our system is the diversity of how elections are actually done. So we had to do a lot of work behind the scenes with all of these different States, to meet with their leadership, to meet with Governors, and to meet with as many groups as we possibly could to get it.

The basic goal from the beginning was to achieve a piece of legislation that had a couple of features in it.

First, ensure timely information sharing between the Federal Government, State, and local officials because we learned in 2016 it was not timely information that was shared. The Federal Government had visibility on what Russia was doing; the States and the precincts did not. It took up to 14 months for the States to find out what the Russians were doing. That can never happen again.

Second, we must expedite security clearances for the State and local election officials. Again, we had this issue in 2016 when Federal officials saw what was going on by the Russians but said that the State individuals didn't have enough security clearance. So, instead, they got a nebulous memo that said to watch out for these IP addresses, with no explanation as to why. That can never happen again.

Third is a way to verify the results of our elections. That should be straightforward. Every State, every precinct should be able to verify that--to go back to the people in the area and say: This is how you voted, and this is how we verified that the number is accurate, that there aren't additional ballots showing up later that the machines didn't count, that suddenly pop up from nowhere. There are no hanging chads. There are no inconsistencies. So people can look and say: That was done efficiently and professionally.

The administration is taking steps on the first two of these. In fact, we had multiple hearings with DHS to talk about what they are doing to get security clearances. Now every single State has individuals within their State who have security clearances. Every State has greater cooperation now with the Federal Government. Multiple layers of cyber security have been offered to every single State so that each State can use their own cyber protection or add an additional layer from the Federal Government. It is up to that State to choose. It is not a mandated piece that has come down on them. Almost every State has taken that, though, and has said that they want those additional layers of cyber protection because it is not just about the voting machine or the piece of paper; it is how it is counted, how it is presented, how the unofficial results go out in the States the night of the election. All of those things matter.

DHS has leaned in, and they have done aggressive work on this in the last several years. That is why the 2018 election went so smoothly. DHS has done a tremendous amount of work already on this.

I have been clear, though, through this process that this cannot be a way of federalizing elections and trying to run the elections or saying that every piece of election equipment has to be run through some bureaucracy here in DC, whatever it may be. This is a State responsibility that the State has to take on. Right now, there is not a way for the States that do not have an election system--pieces of hardware for their elections--to change that hardware before 2020. The first of our elections is not in November 2020; it is 8 months from now, when our primaries begin. States cannot purchase the equipment, put it into place, train the volunteers, and make that transition before the 2020 election. So the emphasis is, what can we do to assist States in cyber protection? What can we do to get information to them? How can we run this?

In the days ahead, Senator Klobuchar and I completely agree that every State should have a system with backup paper ballots--every State and every precinct. Right now that is not so, but no matter how much money we throw at the States right now, they could not make it so by the 2020 Presidential election. It is not possible to get there.

In the 2018 omnibus, we added $380 million to go to the States. Not all of that $380 million has even been spent yet. There is still quite a bit of it that is banked. But that has all been allocated to the States, and the States are deciding the best way to use that. In States like mine--Oklahoma--we use optical scanners and paper ballots. That money was used in my State to assist in cyber protection of the system, the transition of the information, and how the unofficial results get out to the public. It is a good way to use those funds to make sure any threats are being mitigated.

My State, like 21 other States, was one of the States that the Russians tried to engage in our election systems. They came to the State election board in my State, tried to get into it, found out the door was locked, and moved on to another State. They did not get into our system. But there are other areas where we could protect it.

Of the $380 million we allocated just last year, much of it has not even been spent. So I object to another $380 million on top of that when the first part of it hasn't been spent yet, and it will not make a difference in this year's election because the $380 million for last year was really preparing for the 2020 elections.

Here is my concern long term. I don't want election security to become a partisan issue. It would be easy for it to become that. H.R. 1, when it came out of the House, was clearly a very partisan bill.

I find myself at odds today with a partner in this, Senator Klobuchar. We have worked together in a very nonpartisan way to resolve this issue. I think we still can resolve this and we can actually get a result, but a partisan proposal will not get us an end result in which both parties come together and resolve this.

I reiterate again that election security should never be a partisan issue. This is about the preservation of our democracy, and it is something that all parties--Independents, Republicans, Democrats, and all parties--agree should be a central issue.

Having stated all of that, begrudgingly, in this proposal because it is not a bipartisan proposal--I look forward to working through it and getting a bipartisan proposal done in the days ahead--I must object.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about Juneteenth and the VA MISSION Act.

The VA MISSION Act is a remarkable transition that is happening right now in VA centers across the country, but I need to pause for just a moment in recognition of today's date.

Today, as many people here in the Senate know--and if they don't know, they should know--today is June 19. In the South today, we recognize it as Juneteenth.

The Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, but it took 2 years for that information about the emancipation of the slaves to reach multiple areas of the South. The date that was officially recognized was June 19, and that is the day we recognize each year--June 19--as Emancipation Day. In Oklahoma, in my great State, it actually didn't reach us until June 14, 1866--almost a year after it reached Texas. That is how long communication took at the time, to get the information.

It is a remarkable thing to think about. One hundred and fifty-four years after emancipation reached the Southern States and the word of that reached them and after the end of the Civil War, we still as a nation pause on June 19 every year to remember how horrible it was to treat humanity as property. May we not forget where we were so we never get close to that again.

Mr. President, we are 8 months away from the first primary of the 2020 election. There is a false belief that the 2020 election is a year and a half away when it is 8 months away.

In his May 29 speech, Robert Mueller made the statement that there were multiple systematic efforts to interfere in our election. That allegation deserves the attention of every American. FBI Director Chris Wray made the statement that the 2018 election was a dress rehearsal for the big show.

There are a few statements that we can argue about in this body. I find absolutely no one arguing in this body that the Russians didn't try to interfere in our election of 2016. If you go all the way back in history to 2012, the Russians actively engaged in the Ukrainian election. In that election, they found multiple ways to interfere and to change the stories on social media. They found multiple ways to interfere in their election internally. That interference in 2012 was their practice run for what they launched on the United States in 2016.

It is not just against us. The Russian Federation has attacked every single NATO country's election--every one of them. It just happened to come to us last. I have no doubt that this will not be the last time the Russians will try to interfere in our elections.

As I walk through the entire first section of it over and over again, what is clear from the Mueller report is they repeat what they have found and how they went through the process of what the Russians were trying to do in working with social media entities to try to create fake American accounts in order to put out fake information online and in trying to find as many different places as they could in order to put out stories to create confusion and chaos.

I have had multiple folks back in my State who have asked me, why would the Russians do this? It is because the Russians cannot match us militarily, economically, or culturally, so they use alternative ways of doing warfare. For them, their favorite type is just stirring up chaos. They look for every time Americans or any free democracy argues with another, and when they find democracies arguing with each other, they reach in and take both sides and try to elevate the arguments.

Basically, what I have told folks at home is that it is like two kids on the playground who are fighting. There is always a third kid on the edge of the playground who screams ``fight, fight, fight'' in trying to get as many people as possible to come to the fight. Well, the Russians are that other kid on the playground. They are not actually one of the kids fighting; they are just trying to make it louder and bigger.

The Russians have actively engaged in trying to stir up any kind of controversy, and elections are just one place in which a democracy has controversy. They stir up controversy just as much anywhere else they find it, but it is easier at election time when Americans are making decisions and taking sides on their own. They do this on social media, but we also know from the Senate Intelligence Committee and its excellent work in its bipartisan process, as well as from the Mueller report, of what they were trying to do in their reaching into election systems.

There were 21 States that had their elections systems probed by the Russians. That means, electronically, the Russians went in to see if the doors were locked. If they found that a door was locked and they couldn't easily get into the system, they would move on to another State and see if they could find a way to get into its system. The good news in this process is that the Russians were not able to get into a single election as far as their affecting any of the votes.

Through all of the investigations from every single State, from an intelligence investigation, from our intelligence community and its investigations, from the FBI and its work, and from the Mueller report, there were no votes that were changed. We know that. We also know that the Russians were looking and what they were trying to find. What they did find is access to voter databases. That tells us, for the next election, they will be looking to see if they can get to that again. This is the lesson we need to learn from this as they do their spearfishing--as they reach out to different election systems.

Here is what I think we can do in the days ahead and what we can have as our basic findings. As a nation, we need to be prepared for this. There are a couple of ways we can do it, and we have made very clear proposals in order to take this on.

We need to give security clearances to each and every State so that if we discover something on the Federal side and if anyone in the intelligence community identifies there is a problem, one can rapidly get to a State and ask, are you aware of this? That was not present in 2016. We didn't have points of contact between the Department of Homeland Security and every secretary of state in each State so they could also maintain rapid security, not only just normal communication but at the classified level as well.

We need the DHS to voluntarily engage with every single State and ask, would you like an additional layer of cyber protection? I can't imagine a State would not choose to add an additional layer on top of its existing cyber protection.

We also need to encourage States to be attentive to any vulnerabilities they have in their election systems. This is not something we can do at the Federal level. At the Federal level, we don't tell States and counties and precincts how they should do their elections; that is a State's unique responsibility.

We have a different election system in Oklahoma than what they have in Louisiana and in Texas and in Kansas. Although there are border States right around us, you would think we would all share and do it exactly the same, but we don't. That is actually a strength of our system. The Russians can't get into one system, hack into it, and then get into our entire election system, because States do it differently across the country. Yet we do need to be attentive if any State has a vulnerable system.

Right now, the greatest challenge we have is with the States that actually use paperless voting systems, for there is no way to verify the accuracy of those votes. If all of the votes are done electronically--and there are States that don't do it, like mine. We don't do it that way, but some States do. In fact, there are five States that do it that way. You are basically walking up to an iPad, pushing different buttons, and then walking away. That all looks very clean, and there is no threat like there was in 2000 of hanging chads because you can see it there. The problem is, if there were a problem with that software, there would be no way to verify that vote.

In my State, you mark on a paper ballot, and you run it through an optical scan. At the end of election day, they count up all of the things from the optical scan, and the paper ballots are secured away. If there is a question about a machine and its count, we can go back and verify it.

In other States, they have systems that are very similar to that of an iPad in which you can kind of push your way through the buttons on it, do it all electronically, and look at it. When you decide ``this is exactly how I voted'' and you push the final button, it prints a paper receipt, basically, that is kept there. Then you can verify how you voted on the paper, which is stored on the machine, and you can also look at it electronically. It is very clean and very easy. There are other places that only use paper and count it all by hand because they are in the rural areas.

Any of those systems work. There is no reason for the Federal Government to tell each State how to do its local elections, but we do need to encourage those States to have systems that allow them to go back and audit and verify. We don't need to have anything at the end of election day that makes Americans doubt the strength of our democracy or the capability of our democracy to hold an election.

So here are the basic recommendations that are coming from the Senate Intelligence Committee and with which I will concur:

States should continue to run elections. We do not need to federalize elections, and we do not need to require that there be Federal certifications for election machines. There is no reason to play Mother May I? with someone in Washington, DC, on how it works. States need to run their elections, but the Federal Government should always be there to assist States and to say: If you have a question or if you want a second opinion, we can offer that.

The DHS should continue to create clear channels of communication between the Federal Government and appropriate officials at the State and local levels. Again, in 2016, when Jeh Johnson contacted State officials and said there was a problem with the election that was coming, State election officials pushed him away and said: We don't know who you are, and we don't know why you are calling us. We can't ever have that again.

The DHS should expedite security clearances for appropriate State and local officials.

The intelligence community should work to declassify information quickly. The last time the warnings came out about the Russian engagement in our election, it took over a year for States to learn that it was the Russians who had been trying to reach into their systems. That can never happen again.

On a national level, we should create voluntary guidelines on cyber security, best practices for public awareness campaigns, promote election security awareness, and work through the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the National Association of Secretaries of State, and the National Association of State Election Directors. All of them have a role. We should have active communication among each other and among the DHS. States should also rapidly replace outdated, vulnerable election systems.

I have had some folks say to me: Do you know what? Those five States that don't have auditable systems are going to need Federal assistance because it is going to be expensive. That seems like a great argument unless you look at the 45 other States that have figured out how to do it without Federal assistance. This argument that it is going to take $1 billion to help those last five States do what the other 45 States have found a way to do without Federal assistance just doesn't wash with me. Those five States can do the same thing that the other 45 States have done and have auditable, efficient election systems.

We don't want Russia, Iran, or North Korea to tamper with our elections in 2020 or, for that matter, for there to be any domestic interference. We need to be able to prove the accuracy of our elections, and it shouldn't be a challenge for us in the days ahead. We are 8 months away from these elections, and we need to complete what we have started.

I do need to mention one thing. I am exceptionally proud of the DHS and the work it did in 2018. There were no grand stories about election problems in 2018 because the DHS officials worked tirelessly to help States and walk alongside them. State secretaries of state and local volunteers all around the country worked exceptionally hard to pay attention to the election issues. We cannot stop focusing on that. We need to be aware that the Russians don't just do it once; they do it over and over again, as every one of our European allies can tell us. They will keep coming with misinformation, and they will keep coming to try to destabilize. We, as well, can be clear and push back on this in the days ahead.

I have a bill called the Secure Elections Act, which we worked on for a couple of years, that answers all of these questions, and I look forward to its passage. In the meantime, I am grateful that those at the DHS are paying attention to this, and I encourage them to continue to not only consider these recommendations but to apply them.

I yield the floor.