Floor Statements

Mr. President, 100 days ago, our Nation was safe and our economy was considered the envy of the world. We had disease surveillance programs that were in place to stop the spread of deadly viruses like Ebola, no matter where they broke out in the world, and the security contracts at detention camps that have been filled with ISIS fighters were still being paid.

And if our Nation was attacked by a foreign enemy or if we were thrown into a global pandemic or even a global economic crisis, our allies had our backs. They had our backs because they knew that in their darkest hour, the United States would stand with them.

Then, unfortunately, the Trump administration took over, and in 100 days, this administration has undone six decades of investments that have made the United States more respected and influential than any other nation.

The administration and the President have raised and lowered and raised and lowered tariffs against some of our closest allies and neighbors, spiking costs for Americans and hurting our manufacturers and the defense industry.

Instead of the promised golden age of America or golden age of prosperity and lower prices, of safety and security, of our enemies bowing to our demands, the resulting chaos has left us weaker and more vulnerable. From global financial markets to New Hampshire supermarkets, consumers and businesses aren't sure what to expect.

They are looking at higher prices, at layoffs, at longer wait times, and at uncertainty, which many businessowners I have talked to tell me it is just as bad as higher tariffs because they don't know what to expect, and they can't plan.

I recently met with a New Hampshire company called New Hampshire Ball Bearings. It is a company that makes bearings for the aerospace industry, and they do a lot of business with our Department of Defense.

They are concerned because once the tariffs were announced, their only domestic steel manufacturer has increased its cost to be equivalent to what out-of-state companies--out-of-country companies are charging.

But worse than that, they said that their lead time for steel that they use for the aerospace industry and for our Department of Defense has gone from 20 weeks to 2\1/2\ years. I mean, think about that. The lead time to get the steel they need to make the ball bearings has gone from 20 weeks--which is a long time in and of itself--but now it is 2\1/2\ years because of the tariffs.

And the administration's attacks against U.S. research and academic institutions, against our international students, have also caused serious damage to our reputation as a global hub for STEM talent, not to mention those students who are graduating from our colleges and universities who we want to attract to stay in the United States because they are the next generation of talent.

The policies of this administration have left us more vulnerable to the spread of deadly diseases like Marburg and Ebola. They have crippled our response to disasters like hurricanes in the Caribbean, as we enter what is expected to be an active hurricane season.

And just today, the Secretary of Defense said he would end the Women, Peace, and Security program at the Department of Defense. Now, he mistakenly said this was a program that was put in place by the Biden administration. That is not true. He didn't even--he wasn't even concerned enough to go back and look at the history.

This is legislation, and it is a law--it is not a rule--it is a law that we passed in 2017 during the first Trump administration. I know because I sponsored it. The House sponsor was our current Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. It had support from our current National Security Adviser, former Congressman Waltz, and it was bipartisan legislation.

It is not some DEI program--some program that is designed to provide women an advantage in the Department of Defense. What it is is a program that gives us a security advantage.

Every combatant commander who has come through my office has highlighted the strategic advantage that this program gives to our U.S. forward deployed forces, and it gives us that advantage because our adversaries don't have this kind of program.

One of the reasons we passed it in the first place is because what we know from the data is that when women are at the table in a negotiation to end conflict, that the negotiations that are agreed to have a better than 30-percent chance of lasting 15 years or longer because women are at the table.

It is an advantage that it gives us because China and Iran and North Korea and Russia don't have that role for women in their military. What Secretary Hegseth's action has done is not only showed his ignorance, but is now putting our military at a disadvantage because of that ignorance.

Now what these kind of actions do is to create opportunities for our adversaries to gain influence. It is not just giving Vladimir Putin the chance to keep stringing along American negotiators, to continue to play President Trump as he is trying to secure a Ukraine peace deal, but across the globe, China is stepping in everywhere the United States is retreating.

After the earthquake in Myanmar, the Chinese Embassy flooded social media with images of Chinese rescue workers responding to crises, instead of the United States because we weren't there at all because the three people we sent to assess the damage to see what we needed to do to help were fired while they were in Myanmar trying to figure out what we can do to help that situation.

So China's image is being bolstered at our expense.

Across Africa and Latin America, Chinese Ambassadors are giving interviews focused on the unreliability of the United States as a partner. They are inviting local officials to all-expense-paid trips to Beijing to discuss further cooperation.

China is now replacing a canceled American program for child nutrition in Cambodia, and Beijing just announced an early childhood project in Rwanda, where the United States recently cut our program.

They are even moving in, picking up the PEPFAR Program that we have walked away from in Africa, after saving millions of lives. These cuts represent a serious strategic error on behalf of the United States because for less than 1 percent, about 1 percent of our annual budget, America has been able to build partnerships around the globe that have reduced the threat of illness and the spread of disease, including here at home, because thanks to these programs around the world, we have nearly eradicated polio, we have cut malaria deaths by half, and we have saved 25 million lives from HIV/AIDS. And these successes strengthen America's reputation on the global stage, they help counter our adversary's influence, and they help us here at home, because it means that diseases like bird flu don't reach America's shores, where they are now. It means that we can track those diseases.

So whether it is through its mismanaged trade war or deliberate weakening of U.S. standing overseas, the administration is facilitating China's global rise. That is why, as the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I am committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to preserve the vital programs that we need to keep our country safe.

I am committed to speaking up for American families and small businesses that have been shouldering the burden of higher costs because of President Trump's trade wars.

So I know he is not listening, but I call on President Trump to reverse course, to spend the next 100 days fulfilling the promises that he made during his campaign--promises to make our Nation safer, to make it more secure, to make it more prosperous.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it wasn't that long ago that Sudan was on a path to recovery after decades of violence and civil war.

Back in 2018, Sudanese citizens took to the streets to protest the conditions in their country. This movement pushed Omar al-Bashir, who was indicted by the ICC for a campaign of mass killing and rape, out of power, and this set the country on a course for a better future. Sadly, that future was disrupted when the military overthrew the civilian-led Government of Sudan.

Then, 2 years ago, the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General al- Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, led by General Hemedti, plunged Sudan into war. In the 2 years since, over 150,000 people have died and 12 million more have been displaced.

You can see this poster reflects the results of what is happening in Sudan. In just 2 years, 12 million more people have been displaced and are in camps. This is actually one of the nicer camps.

With acute famine levels at historic highs, 30 million people are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. You can see some of the Sudanese people with their dishes lined up to get some assistance.

As so often happens during war, the impact has been especially devastating to women and girls. During raids by the armed factions, women and girls have been abducted and forced into sexual and domestic slavery. One U.N. report found that gender-based violence skyrocketed by 288 percent last year. Again, you can see the impact. According to UNICEF, 221 children have been raped, including a case involving a 1- year-old baby.

If this is true, we just can't ignore it as another horrific detail of a distant conflict. The world is watching, and we must hold the people who are perpetrating these acts accountable for their crimes.

The U.S. Government has determined that both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during fighting in Sudan. And the Rapid Support Forces have led a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

In January of 2025, the U.S. Treasury Department took a positive step. It sanctioned the leader of the Rapid Support Forces and the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces for their armies' lethal attack on civilians in Sudan. But more needs to be done.

Cease-fire after cease-fire has failed. Peace negotiations have stalled, and outside countries--the UAE, Turkey, Iran, as well as Russia and China--continue to send weapons to the factions. Why? Well, because Russia doesn't want to give up its port access to the Red Sea, China doesn't want to abandon the nearly $6 billion of investments it has made in Sudan since 2005, and the UAE doesn't want to abandon Sudan's wartime gold trade. According to mining industry sources and research by Swissaid, nearly all of Sudan's gold trade flows through the UAE.

The United States needs to stand up and say enough is enough.

For people who say ``Well, what difference does it make? That is Africa. That is a long way away from the United States. Why does it matter?'' well, because, sadly, what happens in Africa, what happens in Sudan doesn't stay in Sudan. If you can't be outraged because of the moral horror of what is happening there, you should be outraged because the terrorism and the potential disease that can cross the borders of Sudan can come to the United States, and we have seen that too often in the past.

As ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I am committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle here in Congress as well as folks in the Trump administration because we must hold these groups accountable for their war crimes. We must support them in ending the violence.

Right now, both sides in the war continue to bomb, to raid, to siege schools, markets, and hospitals. The Sudanese Armed Forces are intentionally denying humanitarian aid. They are blocking medicine and other relief items. The Rapid Support Forces continue to lead an ethnically charged campaign of violence in Darfur.

Sadly, so many of the foreign assistance programs that we had in place have been ended or are under review.

The United States, the Trump administration, and Congress must create a clear policy to address this conflict. We must resume foreign assistance to the region and Sudan to limit further humanitarian suffering. We must set aside our differences, bring an end to the violence, and renew our commitment to setting Sudan back on the path to a civilian-led democracy.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 1602 and ask that it be reported by number.

This bipartisan amendment supports extending vital healthcare tax credits for working families.

Twenty-two million Americans rely on premium tax credits to get the healthcare they need, but those tax credits are supposed to expire this year. Without our action, people will see the cost of their premiums increase by $3,000 next year, and millions will lose their healthcare.

I want to thank my colleague Senator Murkowski for her work on this issue.

I urge adoption of this amendment and ask for a voice vote only if everybody votes yes--just seeing if you are awake.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to join my colleagues because I am so concerned about the damaging impact of President Trump's tariff taxes. I call them taxes because that is what they really are, but those tariffs, particularly on Canada, although we heard today that he announced a number of others.

I have been hearing from a lot of small businesses in New Hampshire. But on Monday, I visited a bakery in Derry, NH, that may have to go out of business due to what President Trump is proposing on tariffs on Canada.

The owner of Chatila's Bakery moved to the United States 36 years ago. He was a cardiologist and his brother a Ph.D. scientist. They are from Lebanon. He became a citizen, raised his family, and sent his daughter to college. He and his brother got interested in sugar-free desserts and candies because their mother was diabetic. So he spent the last 36 years building his business. And now he might have to sell his factory because of the trade war that President Trump has started with Canada.

Chatila's Bakery makes sugar-free desserts. They get some of their ingredients from Canada. All of those ingredients are now more expensive.

While I was there, he showed me a fuel bill he had just gotten that said that because of the tariffs, his fuel bill was going up.

But, more important than that, 85 percent of his business comes from exporting to Canadian customers. Most of his sales contracts in Canada were canceled after these tariffs went into effect last month, so he says he is going to lose between $400,000 and $500,000 this year in the business.

Now, President Trump says he is worried about trade imbalances and that he wants to support exporters. Well, here is an American small business and an exporter, and because of what this President is doing with his reckless trade war, this small business owner might go out of business.

Mr. Chatila said to me:

When I came, this was the American dream, which is why we

built it. But now, you see it in front of yours eyes. It's

just melted, like ice.

I asked him what he would like to ask President Trump if he had the opportunity, and his question was to the President:

What do you want me to do? If you really care about your

country, why don't you support small businesses, which are

the backbone of every community?

I think that said it about as well as anybody I have heard. We know, sadly, that his business is not the only one. Many of our small businesses in New Hampshire are reliant on travel and tourism.

I have heard from business across our State about Canadian tourists canceling plans already, about bookings that they rely on that are not going to come through. Last week, we saw that airline tickets from travelers coming from Canada this summer are down more than 70 percent from this time last year. That represents lost business for my constituents and for businesses and communities across this country. All of this will put their businesses at risk, and it will do so when they are also facing higher costs for inputs because of these tariff taxes.

Two weeks ago, I visited a bus company that runs buslines between the seacoast of New Hampshire and Boston and New York. They are facing $500,000 in added costs because of these tariffs. Now, on top of that, he stands to lose business because fewer people are visiting the United States. He also goes between the seacoast and Logan Airport--all of that because the President has damaged the relationship we have with one of our closest allies.

It doesn't make sense to me. What is the logic of antagonizing those allies and partners whom we rely on?

Lest anyone forget, the President is claiming that the flow of fentanyl from Canada justifies all this. Well, fentanyl and other drugs are serious issues, and I have spent much of my time in the Senate doing what I can to help stop those drugs from entering the United States and to getting help for those who need it. Just last month, the Senate passed the HALT Fentanyl Act, which is legislation I cosponsored, along with a lot of my colleagues, which would permanently schedule fentanyl-related substances.

Imposing tariffs against Canada is not the way to fight fentanyl and other drugs. This kind of legislation, like the HALT Fentanyl Act, is something that is going to have much more of an impact. CBP statistics show that all of the fentanyl seized along the northern border from the beginning of 2022 until now is 71 pounds. Now, that is a lot of fentanyl, and that could kill a lot of people, so I don't endorse that by any means, but when you compare that with the 67,966 pounds that have been seized along the U.S.-Mexico border for the same period of time, wouldn't it make more sense to focus on where most of this fentanyl is coming from?

Instead of imposing tariffs, we should be working cooperatively with our allies and partners, and Canada has taken a number of steps to crack down and to stop drugs from coming into the United States.

The tariffs in place before today are likely to raise costs by nearly $2,000 for the average household. That is money many families in New Hampshire and across this country can't afford to pay when they are trying to cover the costs of groceries, of housing, of childcare, of energy--all of those things that President Trump, when he was running for President, said he was going to address.

I have heard from many New Hampshire families about how these tariffs will raise prices for keeping their homes warm, for putting gas in their cars. Now the Trump administration has reportedly fired the entire staff of the LIHEAP program that helps families and seniors heat their homes when they can't afford to pay.

The message to the American people from this administration is increasingly clear: They do not care about you and what your needs are. So voting for Senator Kaine's resolution presents an opportunity for Congress to help Americans who are worried about higher costs. I intend to vote for this resolution to end the tariffs on Canada, to lower costs for Americans, and to help our small businesses. I hope all of my colleagues will do the same.

I just want to add that, in the last hour, President Trump announced a new tax of 10 percent on everything Americans import, with far higher taxes on many countries. Everything from the EU will now face a 20- percent tax--Japan and South Korea, 25 percent. I mean, again, the rationale for why we are going after our allies and partners makes no sense.

This is a tremendous tax increase on American businesses and families. It is likely the largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history. This new Trump tariff tax will add at least another $3,000 to the costs for an average household.

Again, this President promised he was going to lower costs for families. This does nothing to do that. He is taxing all of the goods that people buy every day. What he doesn't tell you is that the reason he is doing this is so that he can give more money to provide tax cuts for the top 1 percent of

the income earners in the country, so the billionaires.

I don't think this tax increase is going to help the small business owner I visited on Monday or the families in my State and across this country who are trying to afford groceries. I intend to vote to end those tariffs on Canada today when I have the opportunity. I hope my colleagues will join me.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I want to start, before I get to my question, by just saying how proud I am of you and how proud we all are of you. I think I am old enough to remember Strom Thurmond's filibuster. I can remember being in high school and seeing the news every night and the reporters coming from the steps of the Capitol because they were filibustering the civil rights bill. What I am proud of is that your focus on democracy and the opportunities that democracy opens up for all of our rights, in my mind, cancels out what Strom Thurmond did to prevent African Americans and others from getting the rights they deserve in this country. So I am proud of that.

(Applause.)

You talked earlier this afternoon about the rule of law and the overreach of this administration. As part of that, you went through a litany of Agencies that Congress had established that this President is trying to take away. I just want to point out that--and you mentioned this earlier--one of those Agencies that Congress established is the U.S. Agency for International Development, and earlier today, we had a shadow hearing roundtable--the Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee. It was on the dangerous consequences of funding cuts to U.S. global health programs. I know that, as ranking member on the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, you would have really been interested in this. I am glad you were here on the floor, but I wish you could have heard what we heard from the people who testified.

We heard from Atul Gawande, who used to be the Assistant Administrator of USAID--of their global health program. We heard from Dan Schwarz, the Vice President of Management Sciences for Health. That is a contractor who works on global health programs. And we heard from Nick Enrich, who is the former Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID.

They started out by talking about what global health has accomplished through USAID. PEPFAR has saved more than 26 million lives. It has reversed the spread of HIV/AIDS. They have done malaria prevention and control for over a half a billion people. They have eradicated smallpox and eliminated most of polio. They have reduced infant mortality by more than 59 percent since 1990. They have supported cholera, measles, and Ebola outbreak response.

One of the things Dr. Gawande pointed out was that they took the response to the Ebola outbreak from 2 weeks--many of us remember that during the Obama administration when Ebola was coming to the United States. They took that response from 2 weeks down to 24 to 48 hours to be in there in responding to the Ebola epidemic.

And what has this President done? What have Elon Musk and DOGE done? They have gone into USAID. They have cut the global health workforce from over 800 to about 60. They have taken the system that was designed to make programs more efficient, and they have dismantled it. When the inspector general, Paul Martin, reported on food rotting in ports, he was fired.

USAID has been the largest civilian ground force to address global goals. As Dr. Gawande said, what we learn from USAID is that prevention is a whole lot more efficient and a lot cheaper than emergency treatment. He said that what we spend on global health through USAID has been $9 a household in America in a year--$9. Think about what we have done with that $9.

As they were going through the litany of programs that have been cut, the one that caught my eye was that 75 percent of the pandemic threat comes from diseases jumping from animals to humans. That program has been terminated--75 percent of the threat of future pandemics.

So, as we think about the rule of law and the overreach of this President, would you agree with me that there has been no consultation with Congress about any effort to move USAID into the Department of State and that, because Congress created this Agency, Congress has got to be involved in reauthorizing whatever comes next and that this President and his DOGE boys need to understand that before they take any more steps at USAID?

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize this week as National AHEC--Area Health Education Centers--Week.

The AHEC program, originally authorized in 1971, began by working in conjunction with other Health Resources and Services Administration programs to develop health professionals to staff brick-and-mortar community health centers across the country. Today, AHECs offer hands- on and

innovative health career curriculums for pre-college level students and are committed to continuing education, clinical training of health professionals, and responding to community health needs. The Nation's 300 AHECs operate in nearly every State and in multiple U.S. territories.

AHEC clinical training placements put students in a variety of real- world settings, such as urban and rural community health clinics and health departments that provide care to traditionally hard-to-reach populations. Students, in particular those working through their AHECs, are more likely to remain in the communities where they trained, making it critically important to establish training opportunities in rural and underserved areas.

The need to strengthen the healthcare workforce continues. According to new data from the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. could see a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034, and the American Hospital Association says more than 200,000 new registered nurses are needed each year to meet increasing healthcare needs and to replace retiring nurses. AHECs have continued to work towards addressing workforce shortage areas, especially in rural and underserved communities. Just in the past 5 years, the AHEC program has trained 2 million healthcare professionals.

I have had the opportunity to work closely with the New Hampshire AHEC and have witnessed the amazing work they do. The mission of the New Hampshire AHEC is to support workforce development activities for current and future healthcare workers in the Granite State. In 2024, the New Hampshire AHEC offered continuing education to over 4,500 healthcare workers, improving treatment options for patients suffering from diseases such as diabetes and substance use disorder. In addition to working with providers, they also offer trainings on chronic disease, chronic pain and diabetes self-management to patients in the community. More than 3,000 individuals have participated in these programs since 2010.

The New Hampshire AHEC team were pioneers in identifying the need for a workforce that bridges healthcare and community. Over the past 27 years, New Hampshire AHEC has focused on building the healthcare workforce by offering both day and residential programs for high school students, while also providing didactics and community-based experiences for health professions students across the State. I cannot stress enough how important the New Hampshire AHEC is for our communities and how important it is that the program continues to be supported by Congress. AHECs not only address current healthcare gaps and challenges, but they recruit, train, and bolster our future health workforce. On behalf of my constituents at the New Hampshire AHEC program and the national AHEC program more broadly, I call on my colleagues to join me in recognizing March 24 to March 28 as National AHEC Week.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to come to the floor today to support Ukraine. I am especially pleased that we have colleagues from both sides of the aisle who are here to support the Ukrainians in this unjust war against Russia.

Now, I understand and appreciate the desire for peace in Ukraine, and I understand why we should end the senseless killing of innocent people. I think if you ask Ukrainians, they want this war to end too. They are watching how this war is destroying their country, but the best way to make a deal here is to give Ukraine as much leverage as possible.

I am pleased to hear today that there is the potential for a cease- fire; that as part of that, U.S. intelligence sharing would be turned back on. I think we should also keep sanctions on Russia. I think NATO membership should be on the table for Ukraine because Vladimir Putin only understands strength.

When he invaded Crimea in 2014, a lot of people, including myself, didn't think our response was strong enough. We were concerned that Vladimir Putin couldn't be trusted to abide by negotiated agreements, and 3 years ago, of course, Putin proved us right when he directed his forces to attack Ukraine again in a full-scale invasion.

His missiles struck kindergartens and maternity wards, and they continue to strike innocent civilians. His soldiers carried out massacres in places like Bucha, where just a few weeks ago, I saw firsthand, along with Senators Bennet and Tillis, the lingering effects of trauma of what Vladimir Putin and the Russians did in Bucha.

We heard about the indiscriminate murdering of civilians, the rape and the torture of innocent bystanders. Well, Russian soldiers rushed into Ukraine from the north, from the south, and from the east. Many predicted that the country would fall within weeks, if not days. But as we stand on the floor today, Ukraine is still standing. That is thanks, in no small part, to the strong bipartisan support that Ukraine has enjoyed here in Congress.

I think that support--that strong bipartisan support--has been there because we understand that this is a fight for democracy. This is the fight to stop the overturning of the international rules-based order, to stop a dictator like Vladimir Putin from going into a country and thinking just because he wants to take it over, he can.

We know that not only are our allies watching what happens here, but so are our adversaries. North Korea is already fighting on Russia's side against the Ukrainians. Iran is providing missiles. China is providing support. They are watching what America does here.

We understand, as Republican and Democratic Senators, that to have a lasting peace in Ukraine, we need to make sure that Russia is accountable, and that we have security guarantees.

Now, there are a number of ways to do that, and they don't necessarily mean U.S. troops on the ground or even NATO troops on the ground. Europe is working through different options.

As I said, Senator Tillis and I were recently in Ukraine, along with Senator Bennet, and we saw firsthand that despite Russia's advantages in size and manpower, that Ukrainians are not giving up. Ukraine now has one of the most advanced militaries in the world, the most advanced in Europe.

I came away impressed by their ingenuity, their ability to innovate in the face of Russian aggression. Ukrainians are sharing those lessons from the battlefield with our U.S. military. They are helping us prepare for the wars of the future, and it is not just something that we understand in Congress is important, but my constituents in New Hampshire understand how important it is that we support the Ukrainians.

I brought with me today a poster from a community effort in New Hampshire that has raised $4 million to support the people and children, particularly, in Ukraine. They provided 3 million-plus pounds of food, 10,000 sleeping bags, hundreds of generators, and 900 children are in trauma counseling because of their effort. They raised over $4 million from New Hampshire to support the Ukrainians.

Americans across this country understand why this fight is important to us. It is why we are here on the floor today to reiterate that we stand with Ukraine, and I urge all of my colleagues who support Ukraine, Republicans and Democrats alike, to join us--join us in speaking up for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity; join us in pushing to strengthen Ukraine's place at the negotiating table; join us in calling on Moscow to withdraw from the Ukrainian territory that it has seized.

Thousands of Ukrainians have given their lives in this fight. They have been on the frontlines for all of us. As a group of women in the Ukrainian military said to me in the first year of the war: Give us the equipment; give us the arms so that we can fight the Russians so that you in America don't have to.

Well, they have been on the frontlines for all of us defending the international order that has served American interests since the end of World War II. I hope we will continue to support them in that effort.

Mr. President, I yield to my colleague Senator Murkowski.

Madam President, I come to the floor today because I am concerned about President Trump's actions to, I believe, start a trade war with our top two trading partners, Canada and Mexico.

All goods coming from Canada and Mexico, as of midnight last night--I guess midnight today--face a 25-percent tax; that is, all except Canadian energy, which is taxed at 10 percent. Trump's tariffs will make everything from gas to heating, to groceries, to lumber and more, more expensive for everyday Americans.

I think it bears repeating that tariffs are paid by consumers. They are paid by Americans, not by other countries. And what the President is doing amounts to a new tax for Americans. For example, heating oil and propane that keeps hundreds of thousands of Granite Staters warm in the winter is going to cost more. We are going to add about $150 to $250 to the cost of heating homes in New Hampshire.

And gas prices are going to go up. In New Hampshire, half of the fuel in our cars and trucks comes from Canada, and U.S. refineries across the Midwest use Canadian oil.

The United States imports 80 percent of its potash fertilizer from Canada, and this tariff makes farming and food more expensive.

It is unclear how the American auto industry is going to continue to operate. Ford's CEO said these tariffs will ``blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we have never seen,'' with up to $12,000 added to the cost of a car.

And this will make lumber and electrical equipment that we need to build housing--at a time when housing is already in short supply--it will make them more expensive and harder to find.

Those are just a few examples.

There are countless other imports that American businesses and families rely on that are going to be hit hard, and these tariffs do nothing to bring down those costs. They do just the opposite.

These tariffs could add $1,200 to an average household's yearly cost, and we won't have to wait very long for the impact to be felt. It is already being felt on Wall Street and the stock market. Target's CEO said this morning that the consumer ``will likely see price increases over the next couple of days.'' And for small businesses, these tariff taxes will be felt by small businesses in all of our States.

I was here, a month ago today, sharing stories from businessowners in New Hampshire who weren't sure how they were going to keep operating if specialized machinery that they can only get from Canada suddenly costs 25 percent more. Since that time, I have heard from even more people in New Hampshire, more small businesses.

Last week, I heard from a small company in Windham, NH, that makes allergen-free cookies, and they can only get certain ingredients for those cookies from Canada. The CEO built her business, which now employs 30 people, and now she can't be sure if they are even going to be able to keep going, let alone keep growing.

When I spoke with business representatives across New Hampshire last month, the theme they kept coming back to was ``uncertainty.'' As a former small businessowner, I know that uncertainty is the most destabilizing aspect of running and growing a business. Yet that is what this administration keeps creating.

Yesterday, we learned that new orders from manufacturers dropped in February for the first time in 22 years. For the first time in 22 years, new orders from manufacturers dropped because companies can't work with this level of uncertainty.

Last Wednesday, the President was talking about Canadian tariffs going into effect April 2. The very next morning, he announced 25 percent tariffs would go into effect today. The whiplash is hard to imagine.

I spoke, last month, about a bus company, C&J Bus Lines, in New Hampshire that was worried about these tariffs and what it would mean for the bottom line. Well, the CEO moved up his delivery date to get three buses in late March before these taxes were set to go into effect, but his costs just went up more than $450,000.

Businesses plan months, quarters, or years in advance. They need to place orders and plot out their growth in order to succeed. How can they plan when they can't even know whether their costs are going to go up 25 percent overnight? How can a developer know if they can start building the housing that New Hampshire desperately needs if their lumber costs 25 percent more overnight? And how can a family already struggling with high costs continue to pay the rent or put food on the table if their household costs are going to go up $1,200 this year?

I want families and businesses to know that the whims of this President are not going to cause them to break the bank on everyday items they need to get by. That is why I introduced the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes on Imported Goods Act. It is a simple change, really. It says that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, can no longer be used to place taxes on imports.

If the President needs to block some dangerous product, he still can. But if there is a real threat, we would want to stop it, not just add a tariff tax. That is what my bill does. It would stop these tariffs on goods and energy coming from Canada and Mexico, and it would give businesses and families more certainty to plan for the future and to keep their hard-earned dollars in their pockets.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 151 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I know that my colleague from Oregon wants to speak to this issue, but I just want to respond in a couple of ways.

I know my colleague from South Carolina cares about the issues that I am going to address, but he mentioned fentanyl, and that is what the President has used to justify the tariffs. He

says this is a way to stop the flow of fentanyl into our country, but he has forgotten a few inconvenient facts.

First, it is that, in 2024, CBP, or Customs and Border Protection, seized about 43 pounds of fentanyl along our northern border--about 1 percent of the fentanyl coming into this country. Now, it has long been known that fentanyl is not coming from Canada, and that hard drugs and firearms flow north from the United States into Canada.

In fact, on February 25, the Canada Border Services Agency announced the seizure of 410 pounds of methamphetamine and 42 pounds of cocaine from two commercial trucks seeking entry into Canada at the Coutts port of entry. Seizures like this are not uncommon. Wouldn't it make more sense if we agreed to work together with our Canadian allies instead of putting a tariff on them?

The second fact that bears mentioning is that the vast majority of the fentanyl crossing the southwest border is transported by Americans, hidden in their cars and trucks. That is why I have supported--like most of my colleagues in this body have supported--more money for technology and personnel to better find these drugs before they enter the United States. That is why I supported the border bill last year that this President stopped because he wanted a political issue.

On China, we can debate another time whether this is actually the right long-term strategy with China. But more important than that, my bill does not prevent tariffs against countries like China that have unfair trade practices. Both President Trump, in his first term, and President Biden have already placed tariffs on numerous imports from China to respond to its unfair trade practices, exactly what section 301 of the Trade Act is for. That tool remains available.

My bill only addresses the ability of the President to tax imports on a whim. And I want to note that, thanks to this President, we now have higher taxes on imports from Canada than from China. I don't know how that makes sense--that we are taxing our allies more than we are taxing our adversaries.

So I would say: Is this really about China, or is a more important motivation here to raise costs on American families to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy?

As the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I take very seriously our ability to use sanctions or other tools in foreign policy. This bill does nothing to limit the use of sanctions under IEEPA, nor does it prevent an embargo or fully blocking dangerous imports.

But I don't think a tax is the right solution for those issues. In fact, this is breaking the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that President Trump negotiated just 6 years ago. And if we are going to break the very deal we have negotiated--I think, one of the most important achievements of the first Trump administration--why would people want to work with us in the future? Why would they want to work with a Trump administration? How does being an unreliable partner to our closest allies help our national security?

I think it is important to be clear on this: Donald Trump's trade war doesn't create any manufacturing jobs tomorrow in the United States. In fact, it is far more likely to cost us tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs. Half of the goods that America imports are intermediate components, that means parts that our companies manufacture into finished goods. Every one of those items coming from Canada or Mexico just got 25 percent more expensive.

And we have already heard from automakers. They are not sure how much this is going to add to the bottom line of cars. I think that is a lot of risk for tariffs that President Trump can't justify for any other reason, other than because he wants to get funding to support a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.

Yet the President is talking about wanting to cut deals with Russia for economic development. I don't see the logic in going half way around the world to deal with a dictator--a murderous dictator, by the way--like Vladimir Putin. At the same time, we are damaging relationships and cutting off trade with our closest allies right here in North America.

I am happy to listen to somebody's explanation here, but I don't think it makes sense, and it seems entirely contrary to American values to me. So I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will see the folly in what the President is doing, will recognize the impact on the economy and American families because of these increased costs, and agree that these tariffs should be rolled back.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today in support of S. J. Res. 10, which would terminate the misguided national energy emergency that President Trump signed on his first day in office.

It has been 37 days since President Trump declared, for the first time in this Nation's history, a national energy emergency. This is an attempt to throw red meat to the base of the Republican Party and to seem like Donald Trump is the oil and gas President.

But there is no evidence to support that. In fact, the evidence we have points in exactly the opposite direction. This emergency was declared despite the fact that the United States is producing more oil than any other country ever in this Nation's history. And we have been doing that for the past 7 years.

The emergency was declared despite the fact that the United States is in the midst of a clean energy boom and a manufacturing renaissance. We generated 17 percent more electricity in 2023 than the high point of the first Trump administration. Clean energy jobs are growing at twice the rate of the economy overall. And this emergency was declared despite the fact that, as the Wall Street Journal headline noted after the election: ``Trump's Oil and Gas Donors Don't Really Want to `Drill, Baby, Drill.' ''

They are very happy to lock in demand for the long term. But increase supply and potentially undercut profits? Not so much.

So we find ourselves with an emergency declaration in search of an emergency. But it is not without consequences. President Trump has assumed vast power for the executive branch through this emergency designation. He is encouraging the use of eminent domain that could literally allow the government to take your land away. He is waiving away key protections for clean water. And he is suggesting that a timeline of just 7 days is sufficient for public comment on projects that could cause irreparable harm to historic and cultural resources.

President Trump campaigned on ``lowering the cost of everything'' and he promised:

Your energy bill within 12 months, will be cut in half.

Voters responded to those promises, and Americans do want to see lower energy costs. I am all for that. I focused, as Governor, on how we could address the high energy prices in New Hampshire. We permitted two gas pipelines through the State--both gas coming from Canada. And we negotiated a deal with our largest utility company that lowered rates 16.5 percent.

I am all for lowering energy costs. We absolutely should be talking about that. But let's take a step back here, and let's talk about what President Trump's energy policies actually are and how they affect the American people. In the first 37 days, we have seen the Trump administration cut off funding for solar, wind, and clean manufacturing projects that are cheaper and faster to build than fossil fuel infrastructure. We have seen him halt energy efficiency programs and we know energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest way to deal with our energy needs.

He has prepared a 10-percent energy tax in the form of tariffs on heating oil, propane, gasoline, and other energy we import from Canada. And that hits New Hampshire really hard because of the energy sources we get from Canada. I talked about the two gas pipelines that come down from Canada. And because we have so many households that burn No. 2 fuel oil to heat our homes and because it is cold in New Hampshire at this time of year, that hits us really hard.

He has fired more than 1,000 workers at the Department of Energy, including those who were keeping State energy programs and weatherization up and running to respond to emergencies and to help folks like we have in New Hampshire stay warm this winter.

And tomorrow, what we expect is that Senate Republicans will roll back a commonsense fee on venting or flaring of methane rather than capturing it for productive use. If that passes and the President signs it, it will cost the taxpayers $2.3 billion over the next 10 years, effectively lighting money on fire to save Big Oil a few bucks.

In New Hampshire, as in other States, President Trump's actions have sown chaos and uncertainty. They are raising costs for families, for farmers, for small businesses, and for town budgets.

For example, the tariffs that are set to go into effect--and I understand the President has now decided he is going to wait until April--but they could mean about $150 to $250 more for the average family in New Hampshire who are using heating oil just to keep warm through the winter. President Trump's efforts to cancel promised funding for electric charging infrastructure in New Hampshire harms our travel and tourism sector, particularly in northern New Hampshire where ski areas and other outdoor recreation drive our local economies. A recent study found that the State risks losing an estimated $1.4 billion in overall economic impact if we don't build up our charging infrastructure.

One small business owner in Barrington, in the seacoast of New Hampshire, told me that he has nearly $3 million in projects. Those projects are on hold this year, including work for school districts with the State and with other customers to install solar projects that provide long-term taxpayer savings. They are on hold because of what President Trump has ordered.

Farms and local shops across rural areas of New Hampshire are nervous about receiving promised reimbursements for energy-saving work through the Rural Energy for America Program, the REAP program. At least one business owner at Seacoast Power Equipment has been covering interest with the bank until his grant--which he has a signed commitment for--is actually paid out. Of course, this is affecting his bottom line.

Then we have Super Secret Ice Cream in Bethlehem, NH, the northern part of our State--an award-winning small business that provides the best ice cream you have ever eaten. They were gearing up to install solar panels using $15,000 in Federal funds. Now that project is on hold. Many family-owned

businesses like Super Secret Ice Cream have very tight margins, and this small investment of $15,000 would help Kristina and Dan grow their business and lower the electric costs that they are paying to store their ice cream.

Then we have the town of Peterborough in the western part of New Hampshire. They plan to use funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to enhance much-needed workforce development. But, of course, they have had to wait far too long for Federal approvals.

And in rural towns like Berlin in the northern part of our State, residents eagerly signed up for federally funded projects that will insulate and add solar arrays to their manufactured homes. This is a real solution to their high utility bills. But these projects are now on hold because the contractors are uncertain that they are going to be paid.

I could go on, as I know my colleagues could, but since we have people waiting, I want to close with a point of agreement. In his Executive order, President Trump stated:

We need a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of

energy to drive our Nation's manufacturing, transportation,

agriculture, and defense industries and to sustain the basics

of modern life and military preparedness.

That makes sense to me. I agree with that. But, unfortunately, that is about the only thing he said related to energy in the past 37 days that does make sense. Lowering energy costs, creating good jobs, and increasing America's economic competitiveness in the world--those ought to be things that we can all agree on. But if we give up our leadership on clean energy now, the People's Republic of China, who President Trump claims is our greatest competitor--and I agree with him on that. I just don't understand how the Trump administration policies are allowing us to be competitive--but China is going to be more than happy to fill the void for its own economic advantage.

I think we should also agree Americans deserve clean air, clean water, and a chance to have a say in what happens in their communities.

I want to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on these goals. That work starts by ending this disastrous, misguided emergency declaration and by stopping the chaos. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to restore Congress's appropriate role in setting energy policies that benefit the American people by supporting this resolution.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with my colleague from North Carolina Senator Tillis.

Mr. President, I am pleased to come to the floor today with my friend and colleague Senator Tillis. He and I have cochaired the Senate NATO Observer Group. We have traveled together on a number of occasions, and we just came back on Tuesday from a very brief trip to Ukraine. We were joined by Senator Bennet, who is not able to join us right now. But I think it is important for us to come to the floor and to talk about what we saw and what we heard in Ukraine.

It was incredibly powerful to travel to Ukraine, to see firsthand the situation on the ground there, and we visited a number of places during the day. We met with residents in downtown Kyiv who had lost their homes in the January 1 missile attack there, an attack that landed only about 2 blocks from the Presidential Palace.

While we were there actually meeting with the folks who had lost their homes, the air raid sirens went off, which is a pretty usual occurrence apparently in Kyiv. Fortunately, it was not aimed at us in downtown Kyiv but another outlying community. But it was a warning of more incoming Russian missiles.

And I have seen the reports in the last couple of days that say that Vladimir Putin wants peace, but I have to say I am skeptical because if he really wants peace, nothing is stopping him from calling off those missile and drone attacks, attacks that are not targeting just Ukraine's military but that are targeting civilians throughout the country. They are damaging power stations that Ukrainians depend on for electricity for daily life.

And, in fact, we visited one of those power stations. This is us. You can see it was a very cold day. You can't see the power station in the background, but it was a unique design that had been done by the Ukrainians in a very short period of time with help from the United States to protect that site from Russian attacks. And, in fact, they had just had, in late December, a missile that hit the side of the transfer station in ways that, if they had not had the reinforcements, it would have taken down that station.

But what is interesting is that not only have they figured out the design on the station, but they had what they call a mobile firing team; that is, two machineguns--you can see, just barely see, one of them on the truck--and a radar, which is down here sort of out of sight, again, done with U.S. dollars.

They were able to protect that transfer station and have those mobile firing teams at a number of sites around the country to protect their electricity grid because what we know and what we heard is that the Russians are trying to shut down their power grid because they want to freeze out the Ukrainians in this war.

We also visited a children's hospital that was bombed in July. We visited with two teenagers, one young woman who was 16 who not only lost her mother in a Russian attack, but she lost her ability to walk.

I think she had had, Senator Tillis, about 16 operations at the point that we saw her, and they were pleased that they thought she was going to actually be able to walk again, thanks to the great care she got at the Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital that the Russians bombed--deliberately targeted in July.

But like so many Ukrainians, the young woman we met with hasn't given up. Her father sat by her side, surgery after surgery. And despite the odds, she is learning to walk again. She reflects, I think, the resilience, the perseverance that we witnessed every place we went in every meeting that we had.

Despite Russia's advantages in size and manpower, Ukrainians have not and will not give up, and we should not give up on them either.

Ukrainians have developed robotic mobile firing teams, as I said. They have been able to make incredible innovations to fix damaged battlefield equipment. We had a chance on our way into Ukraine to go through Poland, where they are moving equipment into Ukraine and where we saw the center where they have a group chat with people on the frontlines to help them with instructions on how to fix the equipment in realtime as it gets damaged.

This not only saves time and money for the Ukrainians but for us. It is an incredible learning opportunity for us as we think about what we need to do to support our own military. So the Ukrainians are sharing their battlefield innovations and insights. It makes the United States stronger, and it shows how much of the assistance we have given to Ukraine is actually going to benefit us here in America.

When the assistance was frozen in January, it had a major impact on the ground. We spoke to NGOs in Poland, people who are supporting Ukrainian refugees in that country. And as one of them was preparing to give us a presentation, he stopped. He turned to us, and he said: I can't give this presentation and act like everything is normal.

I thought he was one of the most impactful people we heard from. I don't know if you felt that way, too, Senator Tillis.

But he said that on January 24, the U.S. Embassy told me to stop all work. He said: I had to fire single Ukrainian mothers who escaped the war and now have no jobs and no way to feed their children. He had to stop psychosocial support services for those who are traumatized by the war. One girl they had been treating for self-harm is gone, and he doesn't know if she is alive or not. He was worried she might take her own life.

Along with the stop-work orders, the NGOs were told to remove all American flags. Think of that. American flags are coming down in Poland, one of the most pro-American countries that we can have.

The people that we spoke to said that their trust has been broken. The decades of investments in these alliances that we have made were gone with just one phone call.

Now, I understand that people are tired of this war. But if we think giving Russia or China free rein won't affect us here in the United States, we are wrong. The Russians are thrilled. Vladimir Putin has to be loving this. He has always wanted to undermine NATO.

``Peace for our time'' is what Chamberlain said when he signed the pact with Hitler. Appeasement doesn't work with dictators. When Vladimir Putin gets what he wants, it puts Americans in danger. We understand this. Putin can't be trusted. That is a realistic assessment of the battlefield.

One Ukrainian woman who lost her husband and son in the fighting told us she would support cease-fire negotiations but with security guarantees for Ukraine. Simply freezing the frontline won't do anything, she warned, because in a few years Russia will invade again. And she is right. Putin invaded Crimea in 2014. He invaded Ukraine again in 2022.

There must be a guarantee that Russia won't attack again in a couple of years. I believe NATO membership for Ukraine needs to be on the table. This is not only going to protect Ukraine from future attacks, it will put Ukraine in the best possible negotiating position.

Putin wants Ukrainians to be afraid. We saw that when we visited Bucha. Some people may remember this was a suburb of Kyiv. It was under siege for 33 days, held by the Russians. We talked to the mayor, to the priest of the church, we saw the mass graves where people were buried, the 500-plus people, civilians, who were killed in Bucha. They were killed just going about their daily lives.

This is the picture of the body of one of those civilians killed. You know how they identified her? It was her manicurist. She identified her by the manicure.

We met with the investigators who showed us the picture of the Russian commander who gave the order to kill the civilians. He did it because he wanted to frighten the population. Vladimir Putin is responsible for this. He is responsible for the bodies in Bucha and for thousands across Ukraine, and he has to be held accountable. We cannot let him get away with this.

I want to end by underlying an important point. There is bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress. I believe we will continue to support funding and that if we had another supplemental bill that came to the floor, it would pass with Republican votes because Americans like Senator Tillis and I and Senator Bennet, who went with us, we have been impressed by the Ukrainians' courage, by their resilience, by their willingness to defend their freedoms and our freedoms. They have kept their economy and their people going throughout this horrible war.

But by June, Ukraine is going to start running out of what they need. That is why we need to use the nearly $300 billion of Russian-seized assets to help Ukraine rebuild. That is why I called on Secretary Rubio to prioritize the waivers for unfreezing aid to Ukraine.

Thousands of Ukrainians have given their lives in the fight for a sovereign Ukraine. They have been on the front lines for all of us defending democracy. To abandon them now would not only be a gift to Putin, it would endanger our allies and the security of the United States.

I yield the floor to my colleague Senator Tillis.

The Senate is not in order.

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 436 and ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, this amendment would extend vital Affordable Care Act tax credits for millions of Americans. We all know that healthcare is still too expensive. Unfortunately, this reconciliation bill that we are ultimately going to vote on is going to make that worse.

In New Hampshire, we hear every day about people rationing medicines, skipping appointments, and delaying care all because of costs, but we can act now to lower those costs. We can extend those premium tax credits because if we don't act, they will skyrocket and 4 million Americans will lose their health insurance.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment to reinforce our support for working families and their access to healthcare.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Amendment No. 436

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to call attention to the Trump administration's unconscionable disregard for air safety.

Last month, here in Washington, we saw the deadliest commercial aviation event on U.S. soil in over 23 years, and while this loss of life was horrifying, it was, unfortunately, not unimaginable. In recent years, near misses at airports across the country have increased, and the incident at DCA illustrated just how quickly these dangerous situations can take a turn for the worse. Several times last year, runway incidents were narrowly avoided due, in no small part, to the heroic actions of the certified, professional air traffic controllers who staff our towers. These controllers are hard-working Americans. They often log 6-day weeks and 10-hour days, and that is on a good week.

So even before this week's misguided and frankly stupid--I mean, I have to stay, I think it is a stupid decision to lay off hundreds of FAA workers and air traffic controllers who have been overworked and understaffed.

This is not a new problem; we have known about it for years. For years in Congress, we have been sounding the alarm about the need to invest in our air traffic control workforce. In last year's FAA reauthorization bill, we worked in a bipartisan fashion to address this issue--to support our air traffic control workforce so they can do their vital, often lifesaving jobs effectively.

By partnering with the national air traffic control union and the FAA, we successfully adopted a new staffing model in the reauthorization bill. They have been making good progress, but, of course, we have more work to do.

It is important to acknowledge that any response to the tragedy at Reagan National Airport must include a commitment to reinforce all parts of our aviation safety workforce. Controllers would be the first ones to tell you that they don't work in a vacuum. The equipment they use is maintained by hundreds of dedicated support personnel who go through years of highly specialized training.

Many towers and facilities operate in buildings and on equipment that is 5, 10, even 15 years old. When something goes wrong, they need to know that there is someone on call to fix things because lives literally depend on it.

Americans need to know that the skies are secure and that their safety is a top priority. Sadly, I can't say that the actions we are seeing from this administration does any of that.

Secretary Duffy said he wants to surge air traffic controller hiring, and I agree with him on that. We can and we should hire more air traffic controllers but not at the expense of the rest of the FAA's workforce. We could hire any number of air traffic controllers tomorrow, but without the dedicated support staff that make their work possible, it wouldn't matter.

So how is the administration responding to the American people's distress over increasingly frequent close calls and indeed crashes-- sadly, like the one we saw in Toronto this week? Well, over the weekend, this administration fired nearly 400 FAA employees, some of them in my State of New Hampshire.

We heard an outpouring of concern over the weekend from controllers, pilots, airlines, and passengers who want to know that they are going to be safe when they fly. I am sure the administration must be hearing this, too. But when asked about the impact of the irresponsible and reckless effort, this is what Secretary Duffy had to say:

Zero critical safety personnel were let go.

So I am not sure I understand this. We are telling the American people that if a communications system goes down while the plane is approaching the runway, the person who knows how to get it back up and running isn't critical? That if the power goes out at an en route facility while 747s are flying overhead, the 18 fired maintenance personnel who know how to turn the lights back on won't be necessary? That the staffers who develop innovative safety and flight procedures every time there is an incident to make sure your plane takes off on time and arrives safely are fair game to be fired? Because we just lost 13 of them.

To anyone who is worried about our national security--good news. According to this administration, the FAA employees working on a classified radar system to detect cruise missiles aren't all that important either. They also were fired.

So I am going to say that again because this administration thinks that the civil servants at the FAA's National Airspace System Defense Program are apparently not critical to our safety. None of this makes me or my constituents sleep better at night, but I will bet you it makes our enemies happy.

The administration has tried to defend this by saying that everyone who was fired was probationary. They would like you to believe these are all brandnew employees--sort of the philosophy that the last one in is the first one out. That is not how the system works, and it sure as heck isn't how you keep Americans safe. In fact, employees who were promoted based on stellar performance within the last year--many of them who have been with the FAA for 10 or 15 years--are also labeled as ``probationary employees'' when they start their new positions. So, in fact, the administration just fired some of the people with the most experience, not the least.

This speaks to what is a bigger problem. Time and again, we are seeing this happen with so-called government efficiency experts. Listen, like most of us in this Chamber, I think we should do everything we can to make government run efficiently and effectively, but indiscriminately freezing hiring across the board and pushing out thousands of civil servants make that problem worse, not better.

Last week, hundreds of employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration were fired without warning. This week, the administration is scrambling to try to hire most of them back because they didn't realize they oversee our nuclear stockpile.

The Department of Energy fired more than 1,000 employees, including three-quarters of the State and Community Energy Programs Office. Now, I don't know if the people who are making these decisions in the administration even know what that office does, but I can tell you that in New Hampshire, we depend on them because they help keep weatherization programs up and running, and they support emergency operations in the wake of disasters.

With folks in New Hampshire dealing with some of the highest home heating costs and worried about how they are going to keep themselves warm this winter and States around the country still recovering from floods and fires and winter storms, I can't imagine why anybody would think that it is a good idea to get rid of the people who are helping make sure those programs operate.

Then on Monday, we found out that dozens of USDA employees--the Department of Agriculture--who have been working to prevent bird flu were fired, and then the White House realized what they had done. They panicked, and they tried to bring them back. Now, that is on top of all of the people around the globe who have been monitoring the bird flu potential epidemic who have already been fired with the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Just this afternoon, we heard that nearly 500 employees at the National Institute of Standards and Technology would be fired, including almost 60 percent of the CHIPS Office. So the effort that we stood up--that this Congress stood up--to try to make sure we could compete with China, with Taiwan in the production of semiconductors, which are included in almost everything we use, from our cell phones to our refrigerators, to our cars--60 percent of those people are now gone. So who is going to provide that effort we need in order to compete with China? These are the staff that make sure our high-tech semiconductor manufacturing industry stays competitive.

Example after example shows that the firings that Elon Musk has taken credit for have not been thought through. Either he is doing it deliberately in an effort to undermine the United States or he is doing it because he is so ignorant, he has no idea what any of these people do or what the operations do. Either way, it is inexcusable.

I heard from a constituent this week who worked for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department for 24 years, and she just took a job as a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year. Her job focused on implementing the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act. As my colleagues on both sides of the aisle know, this involves conserving bird and wildlife habitat, hunter education, and shooting ranges. Its funds come not from taxpayer dollars but from excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment. Yet her job was terminated under the guise of government efficiency.

She has a mortgage. She has kids in college who need healthcare coverage. But her main ask to me was to help put a stop to these firings and to simply help her get her job back because, like most of our public servants, she cares about the mission of her work.

Over and over, we are seeing this administration take out irresponsible, reckless initiatives, with devastating consequences for critical positions, without taking a second to think through or learn about what those positions do. When things inevitably break as a result, they don't own up to their mistakes. Instead, they try to convince you that keeping the lights on at control towers or inspecting airplane engines, making plans to manage some of the busiest airspace in the country really isn't critical to your safety. Well, I don't believe that, and I don't think you should either.

For the sake of the American people, we can and we must do better.

I don't think people elected Donald Trump to dismantle this country's air traffic control system. I think they elected him because they wanted to see inflation go down, they wanted to see their grocery prices reduced, they wanted to see help with rental costs, with mortgage rates, with energy costs. What have we seen in the weeks since Donald Trump got inaugurated? No effort to address any of those things. All we have seen is an effort at retribution against his perceived enemies, at firing and undermining services and programs within the government that serve the American people.

For the sake of our citizens, we must do better. I am calling on this administration to right this wrong as quickly as possible before it is too late.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to join my colleagues with a great deal of concern to discuss the Trump administration's nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to be the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

To put it very simply at the outset, Robert F. Kennedy--RFK, Jr.--is unfit to lead the highest health office in our Nation.

First of all, RFK has no--let me repeat, no--health or medical experience. That, in and of itself, should be a redflag on this nominee, who is supposed to be tasked with leading our Nation's health Agency.

But, sadly, that is not where the redflags end.

From his radical and dangerous opinions on vaccines and public health to his promises to cut medical research, to his ever-changing position on women's rights to access reproductive healthcare, he has proven that he lacks the credibility, the knowledge, and the capability to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Let's take a step back. When President Trump ran his campaign, he ran a campaign on lowering costs for working Americans. Well, where has that promise gone?

We saw today that inflation has gone up in the last quarter. It is over 3 percent now. And we have seen nothing from President Trump's first weeks in office that addresses the high cost of healthcare, of food, of housing, of childcare.

Two weeks ago, this administration, including the Health and Human Services Agency, halted funding across the board for programs like our community health centers and substance use treatment programs. These centers are often the main source of healthcare for their communities. They serve the people across the States of this country.

In our office, I heard from programs like Coos County Family Health, a community health center that provides lifesaving care to rural patients across the northern part of New Hampshire, what we call the North Country. Their programs for training new doctors and providing services for victims of domestic violence were, and still are, at risk, thanks to Trump's Executive orders and funding freeze.

I heard from Navigating Recovery in Laconia. That is a substance use treatment service that depends on Federal funding for more than 50 percent of its budget. They are worried about keeping their doors open. This is an organization with providers who will literally sit with a patient by their hospital bed, following an overdose, to make sure they are getting the best guidance, the best treatment, and the follow-on services, like housing and childcare, that allows them to start their recovery.

This is a real issue for us in New Hampshire, where we have been hit very hard by the opioid epidemic.

The Trump Executive orders and funding cuts will force Navigating Recovery to lay off staff and to curtail assists, should those funding cuts continue.

These are actions on the part of the White House that don't lower costs for family. They do just the opposite. They put people out of work, and they weaken our ability to care for our most vulnerable populations.

But when he was asked if he would reverse this policy of cutting funding for programs like substance use recovery, RFK refused.

The thing is, we should be taking steps right now to lower costs for families and children. Half of the uninsured Granite Staters site costs as their reason for not being able to afford health insurance. More than two-thirds of people in New Hampshire have delayed care, and another 25 percent have delayed buying needed prescriptions or said they have to ration their meds.

We could help these people right now. We could pass the Healthcare Affordability Act, which would make permanent premium tax credits in the Affordable Care Act that have cut healthcare costs for 24 million Americans, nearly 70,000 from New Hampshire.

Passing that bill would directly help constituents like the man in Newmarket who contacted our office. He is 55 years old. He is a patient at Lamprey Health Care, which is a community health center. He had been uninsured and avoided going to a doctor his whole life. But, sadly, he was recently hospitalized for 10 days because of complications from untreated diabetes. He had sepsis, and he had an infection in his foot.

Unfortunately, he didn't have insurance when he was hospitalized. But, luckily, Lamprey Health Care sat with him and helped him purchase health insurance on healthcare.gov, helping him avoid potentially devastating medical debt.

These tax credits are vital to his and to millions of Americans' ability to afford healthcare. But, again, when asked about these tax credits, RFK refused to say that he would support extending them--so much for any concern about lowering costs for families.

Now, if this administration is not trying to lower costs, what are they doing to help the people they swore an oath to serve?

Last Friday, our research institutions got a notification almost overnight that their funding through the National Institutes of Health would be gutted. This decision threatens our ability to find cures for diseases, to get ahead of public health crises, and to hire and retain talent. I think it was made rashly and irresponsibly, without really understanding what the impact would be.

Slashing those funds won't make research more efficient. Instead, it is going to cripple our ability to treat and cure horrific diseases.

Dartmouth College, which is in Hanover, NH, is one of our preeminent research institutions in the country. Last year, Dartmouth received nearly $100 million in NIH funding to help with its cutting-edge research to treat diseases like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and Alzheimer's. This NIH decision--this decision by the Trump administration will cut Dartmouth's funding by $38 million. And we don't know what the future impact of that would be.

Will we miss the next cure for pediatric cancer? Will we fail to advance treatments in Alzheimer's?

What we do know is that this has an immediate impact on the people living in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire. More than 1,300 employees are supported by Federal grants at Dartmouth, and the vast majority of these are supported by the National Institutes of Health. The job loss, the economic impact that will result from this decision will be devastating.

And, sadly, once these jobs are gone and the researchers leave, there is no going back because they are going someplace else. They are going overseas.

But we, unfortunately, know that RFK supports this decision because he has publicly supported gutting NIH staff and research. If Robert Kennedy is confirmed, I fear he will do nothing to push back or to reverse these reckless decisions.

The Secretary of HHS also holds immense power over ensuring that women in our country have the ability to access reproductive health services, including abortion. Interestingly, I thought this was something that RFK and I agreed on, but now I am not clear what he supports.

He used to proudly say that he was pro-choice, but since being nominated, that belief seems to have disappeared overnight. The only thing I think he truly believes is in his desire to do whatever Trump wants, even if it means compromising his own values.

Women in this country need to know that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will defend our rights to access all the healthcare we need. But at every turn, Republicans and the Trump administration have pushed forward dangerous policies intended to threaten access to full reproductive care.

They put on the Supreme Court the Justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and at the State level, they have instituted draconian abortion bans that threaten the lives of mothers.

Women are literally dying--dying--from a lack of care because of these bans on our health. This is 2025. How did we get here? I remember before Roe v. Wade. I remember when hundreds of thousands of women died from back-ally abortions. Are we back to that point?

Everyone knows that banning abortion and making women seek dangerous options does not stop abortions. It makes them more deadly. But with RFK at the helm, that is the grim reality we face.

He is not someone I trust to defend a woman's right to access reproductive healthcare. He is not someone I want leading Health and Human Services.

One of the few issues that we have some actually insight into are his views on public health. His dangerous, radical, and wrong beliefs about vaccines are well documented. Every child who gets sick or dies from a disease that could be prevented by a vaccine is a tragedy.

RFK will not only undermine public confidence in vaccines; he indicated that he intends to continue to profit from anti-vaccine lawsuits. It is shameful, and it is corrupt.

We have also heard reports that the Trump administration plans to cut as much as 50 percent of Health and Human Services' staff and decimate the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC is our first line of defense for public health, most importantly tracking and responding to outbreaks of diseases not only domestically but abroad as well. The Trump administration has already taken steps to gut our global health and aid efforts, from withdrawing from the World Health Organization to cutting the CDC and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

They argue that these efforts are wasteful and unnecessary. But just last Friday, we were notified in New Hampshire that we had only the third confirmed case ever in the United States of clade I monkeypox, or Mpox. The case is travel-related, meaning the patient caught the disease abroad and brought it home.

Sadly, these diseases don't just stop at countries' borders. They don't just happen overseas. They affect us here at home. The Trump administration's efforts to eliminate our public health infrastructure doesn't make America safer, it doesn't make America stronger, and it doesn't make America more prosperous. It does the exact opposite.

And Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is complicit. He is complicit in these efforts, and he will only continue them should he be confirmed.

America deserves a leader at HHS who values science, who protects public health, who defends women's rights to reproductive care--to the full range of reproductive care--and who upholds the integrity of our country's core health systems. RFK, Jr., has shown time and again that he is not that leader.

His dangerous rhetoric on vaccines, his reckless plans to gut critical Agencies, and lack of understanding of basic healthcare make him uniquely unqualified to advance the well-being of all Americans. I urge my colleagues to reject his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I yield 30 minutes of postcloture debate time to the Democratic leader.

Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to join a number of my colleagues because of my concern for the national security of the United States.

Whether it is a terror attack, a cyber attack from a nonstate actor, whether it is a threat from Russia or China or Iran, we in the United States are the targets of foreign adversaries every single day.

But thanks to our intelligence community and the thousands of Americans who dedicate their lives to our security, we are safe. These brave men and women are counting on us to have their backs, which is why the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard is so concerning. Our adversaries will be thrilled if we confirm Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence--none more so than Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ms. Gabbard has not hidden her positive views of Russia and President Putin. While Ukrainians fight valiantly to protect their homeland and defend freedom and democracy, Tulsi Gabbard cozies up to Putin and publicly defends Russia's brutal invasion. The former Congresswoman has parroted Russian propaganda, saying that the war could have been avoided if NATO and the Biden administration had ``simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns.''

We know that the nominee is problematic when the Kremlin has such nice things to say about her. On November 17, 2024, a major Russian state-controlled news agency called Tulsi Gabbard ``superwoman'' and noted her past appearances on Russian TV. I don't relish the idea of America's Director of National Intelligence, a role that includes such sensitive responsibilities as producing the President's

daily brief and setting U.S. policy for intelligence-sharing with foreign entities--I don't appreciate the fact that she is called ``superwoman'' by a mouthpiece for the Kremlin.

Not only does Putin have kind words for Ms. Gabbard, but they also share mutual friends, namely ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Since her clandestine meeting with Mr. Assad in 2017, a visit that took place while she was serving in Congress, former Congresswoman Gabbard has faced numerous questions about why she went to Syria and arranged this meeting in the first place.

She has answered none of those questions, nor has she provided any substantive details on her conversation with Assad. In fact, Ms. Gabbard has repeatedly refused to call Assad what he is, and that is an enemy of the United States, a brutal dictator who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians--Assad, who is Putin's best buddy in the Middle East, Assad who is backed by Iran, whose regime openly seeks to undermine and destroy American interests and values worldwide--this is the person who co-Presidents Musk and Trump want to lead our intelligence Agency, to spearhead our national security operations?

Well, that doesn't make me comfortable sleeping at night. To talk amiably about a brutal dictator who is openly opposed to American interests and human rights, a dictator like Assad--and like Putin, for that matter--shows, at best, a lack of judgment and, at worst, allegiance to our adversaries.

And even in cases of proven espionage against the American intelligence community, the very organization she seeks to lead, Tulsi Gabbard instead has sided with criminals. Of course, I am speaking about her support for Edward Snowden. In 2020, while she was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, she introduced a resolution suggesting that the Federal Government should drop all charges against Edward Snowden. There was only one other Member who cosponsored this resolution, and that was former Congressman Matt Gaetz.

In 2025, Ms. Gabbard still refuses to call Snowden what he is: a traitor to the United States. When she was asked about that at her hearing, she was given several opportunities to indicate that she understood that Edward Snowden is a traitor who put at risk the lives of thousands of Americans in the intelligence community. She refused to acknowledge that he is a traitor.

With such a track record, how are we supposed to expect that she will properly classify our enemies? How are we to expect that she would label Xi Jinping or Kim Jong Un enemies of the United States or simply as foreign leaders or as friends? Who knows what Ms. Gabbard will do?

I think there is a stark difference between our adversaries who want to undermine the United States and those who are our allies. It doesn't appear that Tulsi Gabbard understands the difference.

How can the men and women of the intelligence community trust that Ms. Gabbard will protect their secrets; that she will protect our secrets, the secrets of the United States? How many Russians are going to risk their lives to pass along information to our intelligence officers if they are worried that Ms. Gabbard will sell them out? How much will our allies in NATO and the Indo-Pacific share with Ms. Gabbard in charge?

The work of American covert operations and intelligence-gathering is based on one central principle, and that is trust. I wouldn't trust Tulsi Gabbard any further than I can throw her.

I think this Chamber faces a choice. We can choose to defend America's national security and keep our promise to our constituents to protect their lives and safety and their interests, or we can choose to give a gift to Vladimir Putin and our adversaries, to usher them into the inner halls of the American intelligence system.

I know which choice I intend to make. I intend to vote no on Tulsi Gabbard, and I hope that my colleagues, particularly those across the aisle--at least some of them--will have the courage to do the same.

I yield the floor.