Floor Statements

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.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to join a number of my colleagues in expressing my opposition to Russell Vought to head up the Office of Management and Budget.

Mr. President, but I want to start, before I do that, in responding to my colleague from Wyoming. We have worked closely together over the years. We have both been on the Foreign Relations Committee.

To his comments on the ICC, because I was also in the meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I also share concerns about the way the ICC has operated. I think we should be able to come to an agreement, to a compromise, on how this bill gets written. And, in fact, that is what the Prime Minister and his entourage suggested--that this Senate should work together to get this done.

But, unfortunately, what we saw was an unwillingness on the part of my Republican colleagues to come to a compromise, to actually provide the protections that we are hearing from American businesses that they need in order to continue to not be sanctioned for work that they have already done for the ICC; that we are hearing from our colleagues from the European nations who have people working at the ICC that they need so that they are not sanctioned.

And, unfortunately, the Senator from Arkansas, with who we worked to try and get this done, was not willing to look at the compromise. Five words divided us on the ICC. And because he didn't think we were serious, he said ``No, I am not going to compromise

with you. I am going to have this my way or the highway.''

Well, that is not the way we get things done in the U.S. Senate. That is not the way we should get things done in our government. And I think we are ready to come back to the table at any time, but we need to see a willingness to work together to get this bill done. And I stand ready to do that; I know Leader Schumer stands ready to do that; but we need to see our colleagues on the other side of the aisle also stand ready to do that.

So I will yield my time to Senator Schumer, and then I will come back to speak on Russell Vought.

Mr. President, now I would like to go back to my concerns about the nomination of Russ Vought to be the head of the Office of Management and Budget because that is an office that determines the services that millions of families and small businesses rely on. And yet he supported unilaterally taking away those services and help for more than 2,600 Federal programs that were ordered to cease activities with less than 24 hours' notice.

And in every State in the country, we heard confusion and panic and chaos. Since then, I have heard from thousands of Granite Staters who are worried about what those cuts mean for them and their families. I have heard from healthcare providers from our community health centers, from our nonprofits, from our police departments, from so many people who provide services to the State of New Hampshire.

And it has now been more than a week, and despite not one but two Federal judges ordering the Trump administration to stop holding up funds, we are still hearing reports of frozen payment systems and missed reimbursements. I know my Republican colleagues are hearing those concerns, too. But despite this outpouring, we are still here today contemplating confirming Russell Vought, the architect of this reckless, unprecedented, and misguided policy.

He was directly involved in drafting the memo that OMB sent out that started all of this last Monday. That memo was so extreme that it provoked concern and outrage from both sides of the aisle about the breadth of payments that were being halted.

Russ Vought then had to walk back parts of the memo that he worked on just the day before. And all of this happened, and he wasn't even a confirmed nominee. I am very worried about what he is going to do if he actually gets confirmed for this job. We know from what we saw that last week was just a short preview of what he plans to do.

The justification that we have heard since that memo is that the memo wasn't meant to cut off funding to all of the programs that saw their funding

halted. It wasn't meant to stop Medicaid in every State or to shut down HUD's system of rental assistance or homelessness funding. But I will tell you, if that is your defense, that just means that OMB sent a memo that was so poorly drafted that Agencies across the Federal Government thought it required them to cut off all these programs that people and towns depend on.

So either the OMB, under Russell Vought's direction, deliberately stopped funding for 2,600 programs for water and sewer projects, for housing, for meals for seniors, or they were so incompetent that without meaning to, they sent a memo to the whole Federal Government that had that effect.

Well, regardless of which answer it is, I think the person who is behind that, Russ Vought, the man leading that effort, should not be running the Office of Management and Budget that determines how funding goes out in the Federal Government. I think this is especially true because there is no question that Russ Vought and President Trump intend to take away some of the funding that Congress has provided on a bipartisan basis to help families in New Hampshire and around the country save money on things like their energy bills, to help address pollution, like PFAS.

I would just remind folks that we passed the bipartisan infrastructure law on a strong bipartisan vote. Nineteen Republican Senators voted with the Democrats to invest in our communities. We worked shoulder to shoulder, Republicans and Democrats, to prioritize things like energy efficiency, water infrastructure--funding that this administration says it is looking at cutting off even though communities are depending on it.

Well, I plan to continue to stand up and defend funding that Congress provides to make necessary investments in all of our communities. I hope my Republican colleagues will do the same.

Then this past weekend, we learned that Elon Musk, the world's richest man, who has never been elected, along with unelected, unconfirmed DOGE employees--the ``DOGE boys,'' we call them--now has access to the payment system at the Treasury Department. That is a system that processes more than $5 trillion worth of payments every year. That is everything from tax refunds and Social Security checks to reimbursing towns for work they are doing on sewers or roads. They have access to Social Security numbers, to health information, and so much more.

This is a system that the vast majority of people working at Treasury can't access and they shouldn't be able to because this is private information.

You may have heard that Treasury only gave ``read only'' access, but if that is the case, why is Elon Musk talking about using this access to stop payments to a charity that helps seniors with housing? What is he doing in the Treasury records anyway? Why does he need that information?

This week, we are hearing confirmation that Musk's team didn't just have ``read'' access. In fact, they had administrator-level access, giving them the ability to make changes to this payment system.

One specific Treasury employee refuted Treasury leadership's denial that they gave a DOGE staffer write access. That is the ability to change the code and to change the checks that get sent out by Treasury. The employee said:

I am looking at his access request right now, and it has

the Deputy Assistant Commissioner instructing the team to

disregard all previous instructions and assign him--

The DOGE person--

read/write privileges for the database.

So he can change what is in that database. That doesn't sound like read-only access to me.

I think it is unacceptable for an unelected billionaire to be taking over the payment system that our government relies on--that millions of Americans rely on--and trying to stop those payments.

Fortunately, the original OMB memo is rescinded, but this fight is not over. Instead, this access to the Treasury's payment system could be the next front in stopping funds going out to the American people.

We can and we do intend to continue to push back on these illegal actions to stop funding that is required by law.

Despite knowing better, Russell Vought has never shied away from his belief that the executive branch can disregard the law and override spending decisions that are made by Congress. He clearly believes that this administration should be above the law and should be able to take away funding that helps millions of Americans.

Russ Vought is the architect of Project 2025. That proposed a budget that would cut Medicaid--just Medicaid--by $2.1 trillion over 10 years. It would slash SNAP, the food program, by $400 billion. We have people in New Hampshire who count on the SNAP program in order to be able to feed their kids. His proposal would cut funding that helps low-income Americans go to college by more than $250 billion. It would eliminate the Affordable Care Act tax credits that help millions of Americans afford healthcare.

These are not cuts that lower costs. These are not cuts that create jobs. These are not cuts that enhance public safety and make it easier for people to afford their rent and their groceries. It is beyond ridiculous that anyone could propose these cuts with a straight face while also supporting trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and corporations in this country.

I am not one to claim that the Federal Government can't be run more efficiently. I think we can always do everything better, and it is important to all Americans to make sure that our government runs effectively and efficiently. But indiscriminately freezing hiring across the board and pushing out thousands of civil servants makes that problem worse, not better.

Last week, more than 2 million Federal employees received emails offering to pay their salaries for the rest of the fiscal year in exchange for resigning now. I mean, that in and of itself is questionable because this Congress hasn't appropriated dollars to pay those employees. And why would somebody who wants to improve the effectiveness and efficiency in government pay people to go home and not work? That is what this email said.

At the time, this included hundreds of thousands of individuals working in critical national security roles. It included, for example, every single air traffic controller in the country just days before we tragically saw the worst aviation incident in nearly 30 years. They have since walked that offer back, stating that it should not apply to employees who are critical to national security.

But, like the claim of the funding freeze, they say that was always their intent, that they must have made a mistake. I am not sure which option is worse--that we are short more than 3,500 air traffic controllers and Russell Vought really wanted to pay the ones we do have not to work or that he blasted out an irresponsible, reckless, nontargeted effort that could have had devastating consequences for critical positions without taking the time to think it through.

What is more, they tried to convince us this offer will save money, making it clear that even if we lose thousands of key employees with no plans to replace them, we will be better off. Well, tell that to the people in New Hampshire who are trying to get answers on their Social Security or their income tax checks; tell that to the students who need help with their FAFSA form so they can apply and get help to go to college.

Vought has relentlessly attacked the millions of career civil servants who show up every day, no matter who is in power, to keep the lights on and the wheels turning. Some of these have served our country for 30, 40, even 50 years, through countless Presidents and Congresses. We are not talking about political appointees here; we are talking about people who write the checks at the Social Security Administration, about the caseworkers at the Department of Housing and Urban Development who make sure that people have roofs over their heads and food to eat.

We are talking about doctors and therapists at VA hospitals who work around the clock to provide lifesaving care and benefits to the veterans who have sacrificed so much for our country and program operators at the Small Business Association who help entrepreneurs get loans.

They are the forest rangers who show up in all weather conditions-- like the

White Mountain Forest in New Hampshire--to ensure there are safe and enjoyable recreational opportunities for hundreds of millions of visitors to our national parks and forests.

Speaking of the weather, there are the meteorologists at the National Weather Service, the people we rely on to prepare for hazardous storms.

These employees contribute to the maintenance of nuclear submarines, which is an essential tenet of our national security, a crucial part of our capability to deter major conflicts. Any impact to our shipyard--we have the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard between New Hampshire and Maine that does maintenance on our nuclear submarines. Any impact to that workforce will strain our shipbuilding industrial base that is already saturated with demands to meet the requirements of our Navy. So why did they get an email giving those employees the option to resign?

This administration has said repeatedly that it wants to restore the ``warrior ethos'' at the Pentagon, but if Russell Vought gets his way, there isn't going to be anybody left at the Pentagon.

Now, we are hearing that Elon Musk's team is plugging into our air traffic control system. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has repeatedly asked for what they need--more funding, targeted investments in workforce development, shorter hours, and upgraded technology. We need to get to work in this Senate, in this Congress, on legislation that addresses these issues. Handing the keys to the Nation's air traffic control system over to an unelected, inexperienced billionaire who cuts first and asks questions later isn't the solution.

Russell Vought will tell you over and over again that government doesn't work, but he says this at the same time that he is doing everything in his power to break it, with zero regard for how that is going to hurt you and your family.

This week, we have seen and we heard more horrifying parts of Russell Vought's agenda. He is teaming up with Elon Musk.

Last year, for the first time, thanks to PEPFAR, more than half of new HIV infections were outside of Sub-Saharan Africa--one of the most successful health programs ever in U.S. history, put in by George W. Bush. One of the only things that has stood between Americans and so many of the diseases that come from overseas is USAID.

I was listening to the Prayer Breakfast this morning. I heard President Trump talking about his admiration for Billy Graham, for Franklin Graham, for the good work that they do. Then a few minutes later, I heard the morning news, and I heard them talking about what is happening in Sudan, where we have a famine and millions of people desperate because of a conflict there and what is happening.

The news report said: If we don't get our foreign assistance turned back on to help the Sudanese, 8 million people are going to starve to death in the coming months.

I can't imagine that Billy Graham or Franklin Graham would have supported or supports the idea of 8 million Sudanese dying because we have turned off the foreign assistance that we provided because Elon Musk doesn't like the U.S. Agency for International Development. I think Billy Graham and Franklin Graham--Billy Graham when he was alive and his son Franklin--would say: These are also God's children, and it is important for us to support people around the world who are dying.

You know, it is not just those kinds of situations like we have in Sudan. We have significant diseases that are breaking out in parts of the world, and we don't have people on the ground. There is the outbreak of Ebola that is happening in Africa. Some of us remember in 2014 when Ebola came to the United States. We don't have any aid workers anymore because, under Elon Musk's order, they have shut down those programs. They are bringing those people home. So there is nobody there to make sure that that Ebola outbreak doesn't go across borders and doesn't wind up in the United States.

There is a Marburg outbreak--another hemorrhagic disease--that is happening in Africa. It has a 90-percent mortality rate. Right now, we have no real treatment and no vaccination for the Marburg virus. Yet, again, we have taken our teams of people who have helped in-country to treat the Marburg virus--we have taken them home. We have said: Go ahead. Cross whatever country lines you want. Come to the United States because we are not going to prevent that.

And do you know we have got a bird flu epidemic now? You may have heard there is a new strain that has just been discovered in a house in Nevada. We have had about 70 people who have been infected with bird flu. We have had somebody die from that. We used to monitor bird flu outbreaks around the world, but under this shutdown of USAID and its programs, we are not monitoring bird flu anymore. So that bird flu can come to the United States. We don't know. Nobody seems to care in the Trump administration if that happens.

These things don't just happen overseas. They affect us here in America. It is in our interest to ensure that these efforts that help with diseases and that help prevent Vladimir Putin and Russia from their nefarious activities in Europe and Moldova and Romania and Ukraine. That has also happened, the aid to help Ukraine in this war against Russia. That has all been cut off. That doesn't make America safer. That doesn't make us stronger. That doesn't make us more prosperous.

I hope my colleagues will stand against Russell Vought, who has been the architect of so much of this carnage. Sadly, I don't think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will do that. I hope that we can reverse some of this harm that is being done to so many people around the world that is going to come home to roost in America if we don't address it.

So I have taken all of my time.

I yield the floor.

For those struggling with mental health issues, I vote no.

Mr. President, I am happy to be on the floor this afternoon with my colleague from New England, Senator Welch from Vermont. We are neighboring States that have been spooning for a very long time. But we are here today to talk about a very serious issue, and that is the tariffs that President Trump is talking about imposing on goods from Canada and Mexico and the impact that will have on Americans.

On Saturday, President Trump announced a 25-percent tariff, which would be a tax on imported goods from Canada and Mexico; and a 10- percent tariff, which would amount to a tax on imported energy from Canada and on all goods for China--so 10 percent on all goods for China and 10 percent on energy for Canada.

He has also threatened universal tariffs on all countries. Thankfully, the tariffs that he announced on Canada and Mexico appear to have been delayed for a month, but the tariff taxes on China are now in effect. Even though many of these tariff taxes were delayed, they are still scheduled to go into effect next month, and they have created unnecessary panic and uncertainty among businesses and families across the country and in New Hampshire.

I want to point out in the beginning, very clearly, that it is not foreign countries who pay these tariff taxes. It is Americans who pay these tariff taxes. These are tariff taxes on imported goods, meaning that the person or company who is importing the good will be footing the bill. And these costs will be passed on to American consumers and businesses.

You don't have to take my word for it. Best Buy's CEO said:

The vast majority of that tariff will probably be passed on

to the consumer as a price increase.

And Walmart's CFO said:

There will probably be cases where prices will go up for

consumers.

Columbia Sportswear's CEO said about tariffs:

We're set to raise prices. . . . [and] it's going to be

very, very difficult to keep products affordable.

If we look at the cost of just the tariff taxes that were originally announced on Saturday, those would raise costs for the average American household by more than $1,200 a year. If we get into a trade war, with increasingly high tariffs on both sides--and that is what appears could be happening with China--those costs will go up even more.

President Trump campaigned on a promise to lower prices for everything. The tariffs that he is talking about would have the exact opposite effect.

I am glad the administration and the President listened to reason. He delayed the start of these tariffs. But I hope we don't have to be back here in a few weeks making this case again.

I want to make sure that people understand what these tariff taxes will do and highlight some of the areas where Americans would be directly affected.

First is energy. America imports more oil and gas from Canada than any other product. In New Hampshire, more than half of the gas in people's cars comes from Canada. These tariff taxes would make gas prices go up, and they

could even lead to supply shortages because refinery and delivery infrastructure just doesn't turn on a dime.

President Trump's new 10 percent tariff tax on energy from Canada would also directly raise the cost of keeping warm for Granite Staters during the coldest months of this year. In New Hampshire, our No. 1 import from Canada is heating oil, and nearly a quarter of a million households in New Hampshire--that is about 40 percent of our households; more than Vermont, I think--rely on fuel oil to heat their homes. We are the second highest State in the Nation, next to Maine, that relies on No. 2 heating oil to heat our homes. Another 100,000 Granite Staters rely on propane, and about 30,000 homes use wood.

So that is about 60 percent of New Hampshire that relies on delivered fuel to stay warm. Much of that is coming from Canada. The average home in New Hampshire on heating oil uses about 600 gallons in a winter. And for older, draftier homes--and, sadly, we have a lot of those in New Hampshire, those who are further up north--families may be using upward of 1,000 gallons a winter. And with temperatures dipping as low as 20 below zero in the State in recent weeks, heating oil is a real necessity.

My constituents are already getting notices. I don't know, Senator Welch, if the same is true of your constituents, but I bet it is. They are saying those notices tell them their costs are going to go up if these tariffs go into effect.

On Sunday, I heard from Derek in Sandwich, NH, who received a letter from his heating supplier, Irving Oil, that informed him that his bill for heating oil would be going up.

The letter stated:

As you may be aware, the U.S. Government has announced a

new tariff on imports from Canada, including the heating oil

or propane that Irving Energy delivers to you.

The letter went on to describe that the tariff costs will be added to the price that he pays, even though he already has a contract.

Derek wrote to me:

I will now have less to spend locally. My local businesses

will suffer through lost business and increased costs. Then

their suppliers and employees will suffer.

It is a real hardship.

On Inauguration Day, this year, heating oil cost an average of $3.93 a gallon in New Hampshire. Tacking an ill-advised 10-percent tariff tax on heating oil from Canada could mean about $150 to $250 more for many in New Hampshire just to keep warm through the winter. And while for Elon Musk and his billionaire friends and the billionaire friends of the President $150 to $250 may not sound like a lot in a winter, there are a lot of people in New Hampshire for whom $150 to $250 is the difference between staying warm and being cold in the winter.

Let me also be clear: We don't use gas and heating oil from Canada because we don't produce it here in the United States. We do it because it makes logistical and economic sense, because in New England, we are at the end of the pipelines that are coming from Texas and the South.

The United States produces more oil than any other country in the history of the world. That was true during the last 3 years of the first Trump administration. It was true for the last four years of the Biden administration. But for New Hampshire, the St. John refinery in Canada simply provides us the closest, lowest cost supply. And, by the way, that refinery sources as much as half of its crude oil from the United States. So it is helping oil producers in the United States send their oil to the refinery, and we get it back in New Hampshire and New England.

President Trump campaigned on cutting energy prices in half. Reckless tariffs on Canada and Mexico would make those prices higher, not lower. New Hampshire families shouldn't be punished for what the Wall Street Journal has just called ``The Dumbest Trade War in History.''

That is not all. These tariff taxes will affect groceries because the United States imports 38 percent of our fresh vegetables, 60 percent of our fresh fruit, and more than 99 percent of the coffee that we drink. If we take all these together, Americans could be seeing an extra $200 a year on their grocery bills because of the Trump tariff tax. That doesn't include the longer term impact of taxes on farm equipment or fertilizer. America imports about 85 percent of the potash fertilizer we use, and much of that comes from Canada.

We already have record-high prices for coffee and eggs--if you can find eggs. Some groceries stores are sold out. One of the things that just happened in the last week is that because of the stop-work order that President Trump put on our services that we provide overseas to track bird flu, we are no longer tracking the bird flu that has helped drive up the cost of eggs. So it could get worse, and we are not even going to know about it until we see those prices reflected at the grocery store.

Any new 25 percent tariff tax on these imports would make our food more expensive at a time when families are already stretching and straining their household budgets.

Tariffs sometimes get talked about as a way to support American manufacturers, but that also misses the mark. Half of the products the United States imports are either raw materials or intermediate components, and that means the parts we make into cars or electronics. All of these inputs would get more expensive for American manufacturers, which is only going to make it harder for them to compete internationally.

One of the messages I hear regularly from businesses is that uncertainty is one of the hardest things for them to deal with. One example of this is a call I got 2 weeks ago from a small business owner in New Hampshire who sells specialized agricultural equipment both in the United States and overseas. This is a family business with five employees. His father founded it 50 years ago. He reached out specifically because he is worried about what tariffs on the components he buys from Canada could do to his business. For the specialized equipment that he needs, there aren't a lot of manufacturers out there. So he reached out to my office asking if he was going to have to pay $5,000 more in costs for each of the machines he sells.

He took over this business just a couple of years ago, and he has been working to invest to modernize it and expand. Now he has to worry about whether he can try to grow the business, whether he might face new foreign competition, or even if he can pay out bonuses or give raises to his employees. He can't even be certain what kind of pricing schedule he should send out for the year because his costs could go up $5,000 next month.

Last week, I heard from another small business, Granite State Packing. It is a startup meat processing company that is only 2 years old. They started just 2 years ago, and they already have 10 employees.

Last year, they actually got $1.6 million in a grant from USDA to expand their operations. That is going to allow them to double their workforce. In order to expand, they placed an order for $500,000 in new equipment because the specialized equipment they use isn't made in the United States.

Now, depending on how and when these tariffs go into effect and when their equipment might get delivered, they could be looking at a bill-- an increased bill--for $125,000. That is going to affect whether they can follow through on the expansion, whether they can actually add the staff they want to add, and they don't have any way of knowing if they are going to face an unexpected $125,000 bill because President Trump and this administration haven't made up their minds what they are going to do about these tariffs.

Over the weekend, I had another business owner from C&J Bus Lines. They run a great bus line from the seacoast of New Hampshire to Boston. The owner told me that they have ordered seven buses from Quebec, new buses. They are made in Quebec. These tariffs would add $150,000 to the cost of each bus. Between that and the higher fuel costs they would pay, they could be looking at $1.3 million more in added costs this year because of the Trump tariff tax.

No small business can easily just absorb a 25-percent price increase, nor can they plan on how to grow their business and keep providing good-paying jobs with this kind of uncertainty.

Make no mistake, I am glad the administration delayed these tariffs. I hope they understand how this action

would affect America's small businesses and the impact this would have on the economy.

Let me finally just talk about the housing impacts because New Hampshire has an affordable housing crisis. These tariffs would make that worse.

Lumber makes up about 15 percent of the cost of building a house, and a lot of building materials, in addition to lumber, are imported. The National Association of Homebuilders wrote in part that ``imposing additional tariffs on these imports will . . . ultimately be passed on to home buyers in the form of increased housing prices.'' That means that this 25 percent tariff tax would directly add to the cost of building a home at a time when too many Granite Staters and too many Americans across the country already can't afford housing.

We shouldn't pretend that American tariffs are going to go unanswered. Other countries are going to retaliate. Getting into a tit- for-tat trade war is not going to help working Americans pay their bills.

Families across New Hampshire and America are worried about the high cost of housing, about the cost of groceries, and about what it costs to heat their homes. Business owners are similarly worried about costs or unexpected expenses. I am hearing regularly from them about the impact of the uncertainty on their ability to grow their businesses because of these tariffs.

President Trump promised during his campaign to ``lower the price of everything,'' but instead of doing something to lower costs, what he is doing now, what his administration is doing, is planning to add a 25- percent tariff tax to countless imports from Canada and Mexico, and they have already added a 10-percent tariff tax on goods coming in from China.

Again, while this was delayed at the last minute, this would raise costs for everything from groceries, to housing, to energy. It would disproportionately hit lower income families.

I am glad for the delay--I don't want people to misunderstand that-- but how is a business or a family supposed to plan when they don't know if important costs like gas or heating or groceries are going to spike any day?

I want to finish by reading a quote here. The quote says:

Tariffs are inflationary and would strengthen the dollar--

hardly a good starting point for a US industrial renaissance.

That is a quote from Scott Bessent, the new Treasury Secretary who just got confirmed, when he wrote to his investors just a year ago. I happen to agree with what he said then, but unfortunately the administration he just joined seems to be willing to risk more inflation.

These sweeping tariff tax increases would hurt American families, businesses, and workers. I am glad the taxes on goods from Canada and Mexico were delayed. I hope this administration can provide everyone with certainty that they won't go into effect next month.

I yield to my colleague from Vermont.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to join my colleagues to express my deep concerns about the Trump administration's extreme decision to take away services that millions of families and small businesses rely on. This is a decision that does not lower costs, that does not create jobs, that does not enhance public safety, or keep our communities safe. It is a decision that actually will hurt people in my State of New Hampshire and too many across the country who rely on services that are now in jeopardy.

On Monday night, more than 2,600 Federal programs were ordered to cease activities with less than 24 hours' notice. They were given little guidance on how this should be carried out, and in every State across the country, confusion and panic among too many people followed.

Since that order, I have heard from countless Granite Staters who are worried about what this means for them and their families--from healthcare providers to nonprofit organizations to so many who are doing essential, lifesaving work. Many of these organizations are waiting on promised funding for projects that they have already completed, funding for which they went through the process. They were guaranteed they were going to get these awards, and now they are in jeopardy.

The Trump administration claims it wants to lower costs for folks. Well, let me be clear: This unprecedented decision does nothing to bring down the price of food, the price of housing, the price of childcare, the price of medications, or other lifesaving needs that families have. So what we saw this afternoon is that the administration tried to walk back their order; they rescinded the memo. Sadly, uncertainty and confusion remains because the White House says that they rescinded the memo but that the freeze wasn't rescinded.

So like a lot of people in New Hampshire, I am concerned, and I am frustrated. In my State and across much of the country, there is an affordable housing crisis. Because of the administration's action, housing organizations across New Hampshire are not able to use Federal funds. I heard from the executive director of the housing authority in the city of Rochester. They said they have 170 families who are at risk of being homeless if they can't get their operating funding--and that is just one housing authority.

Despite what the administration said about rental assistance not being affected, at no point yesterday did the Department of Housing and Urban Development say that this money would continue to be available. Housing funding that keeps all of these families and hundreds more across New Hampshire in their homes is at risk of being cut off.

Yesterday, we also heard from the Mortgage Bankers Association. They were asking for clarity because they couldn't be sure if they could help families complete the purchases of their homes.

The person we talked to said:

Americans are going to the closing table tomorrow and

deserve to know that their loan will close on their home

purchase. Without this clear assurance that the Federal

Government will ensure new loans or pay claims under these

programs, there will be severe harm to borrowers and

disruption to the mortgage market.

Well, HUD gave that clarity for single-family mortgage insurance but not for multifamily properties, such as apartment buildings. That affects 20 percent of the multifamily housing construction across the country. Let me just say that again. It affects 20 percent of the multifamily housing construction that is happening right now. We are talking about 130,000 apartments nationally that are jeopardized by this administration's actions.

Now, we know we need to build more housing. We are already millions of units short of what we need. In New Hampshire last year, for the first time, the average price of a house was over $500,000. And our rental vacancy rate? In a healthy rental market, the vacancy rate is about 5 percent. In New Hampshire, it is 0.6 percent. There is no rental housing. This careless action means higher rents and home prices in the future.

Our housing shortage is much of why the most recent point-in-time count for homelessness found it up 18 percent across the country. We have far too many people in this country who don't have a roof over their heads, and that is especially dangerous during these winter months. Meanwhile, even though 2 weeks ago New Hampshire's nonprofits and State and local governments were awarded more than $14 million to help shelter people and support them, today, they couldn't access that money. That means they won't have the funding they need for rent or to get reimbursed for supportive services.

I want to be clear: Even after a judge stayed the order, my constituents still cannot access their funding. The Presiding Officer is a former Governor. He knows what that means. People in our States can't get the housing that they are counting on. If they can't get their funding, that means more people are forced to live in their cars, on the streets. It means more people can't get the help they need with substance use disorders or in finding work. It means

more people are stuck without permanent housing. These are veterans; they are families; they are victims of domestic violence. They are all placed at risk because of this order.

I heard from one constituent who has a mortgage from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She has owned her home for 20 years now. She is almost at the point where she has paid off that mortgage, but without the mortgage assistance that she gets from the USDA, she is worried that she might lose her home entirely.

Another of my constituents, Kathleen, lives in housing for seniors. She has debilitating medical issues that make it hard for her to leave her home. She gets all of her food from a local food bank. She called my office because she is worried, if this funding stops, she will be on the street, and she doesn't know where her meals are going to come from.

That is what this order and these cuts are threatening--leaving seniors without a roof over their heads, not knowing where their next meal is going to come from.

It is not just in housing that people are concerned. The effects on communities are significant. The chaos of this order is hurting communities that have been promised funding for improvements they have made to their water infrastructure, to their energy use, and even to city parks.

We heard from the town of Conway, which is in the heart of the Mt. Washington Valley in the White Mountains. With help from the Environmental Protection Agency, Conway has fixed an aging sewer pipe, their sewer main, to keep sewage from leaking into the groundwater.

New Hampshire is really good at working at the local, State, and Federal level to address critical infrastructure. This week, Conway received word that, at least for now, they can't get paid, thanks to this order from the Trump administration. Conway has already done the work, they have already paid the contractors, and as of today, they are waiting for reimbursement of about $400,000 from the Federal Government. That is a big deal for a town in a rural area that has fewer than 10,000 people. It affects their tax base. If the Federal Government doesn't come through with the money that has been promised, then taxpayers in Conway are going to have to make up that difference.

It is unacceptable for the administration to suggest that it won't pay this bill, leaving families on the hook for unaffordable rate hikes.

I have also heard from one town administrator who is not yet sure how broad the scope of the administration's order is and how it is going to affect their ongoing wastewater infrastructure project that is using a mix of Federal and non-Federal funds.

Their pump station relies on tarps to keep out the elements. The structure and equipment that keep the sewer system functioning face imminent failure. Without the Federal funding--which, just to be clear again, has already been committed--there is no way this town can complete this project. That the whims of an unconfirmed budget director can create this degree of uncertainty is maddening.

I have heard from Kristen Murphy, who is with the town of Exeter. She is very concerned about the pause and the impact it will have on energy efficiency funding.

The Energy Efficiency Community Block Grant Program was poised to host a presentation in February for resident-owned manufactured housing on funding opportunities for energy efficiency. That is particularly important for those people who live in manufactured housing. And I did when my husband and I were in graduate school. We lived in what we called a mobile home; now it is manufactured housing. I know how challenging it is to keep them heated and warm and comfortable for the people who live there.

As Kristen pointed out, support for these manufactured housing communities is essential because a greater percentage of their annual income goes to home heating costs than it does for most people.

The administration's actions also threaten other projects in Exeter, like a landfill solar array that is currently under construction, improvements to critical stormwater infrastructure, and funding for a multigenerational community center.

There are a dozen other small towns in my State--from Gorham in the northern part of New Hampshire to Keene in the west over the Connecticut River Valley along Vermont--that have made improvements to their parks and community spaces through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. These towns have matched Federal funding dollar for dollar to improve quality of life in their communities, and as of today, because of the uncertainty and the way this order is being interpreted, taxpayers are left holding the bag.

In the area of childcare and nutrition, the chaos and confusion from the White House over the past 2 days have created significant uncertainty for early education programs, and it risks further fueling the childcare crisis.

Again, like housing, we have a childcare crisis in New Hampshire. The cost of childcare for the average family, if they have a toddler and an infant, is over $30,000 a year.

While the administration claimed yesterday afternoon that Head Start Programs wouldn't be affected, Head Start Programs have been frozen out of their payment system. While, hopefully, that should have been made available again, my office is still hearing reports of system delays and reduced availability that is harming programs.

Fortunately, the timing of this uncertainty has not disrupted services in New Hampshire so far, but I am hearing stories of programs in other States that had to temporarily stop serving families because they were not able to access the funds they needed.

It is unclear what the impacts of these shifting policies will be on child care and development block grants, which working families rely on to be able to afford care for their children while parents are at work.

My office has heard from the Childcare Network Collaborative in New Hampshire with significant concerns that childcare providers may be prevented from accessing community development block grant funding that they have already been awarded. These funds are intended for the purchase of a building that will prevent huge rent increases for childcare providers and help fuel an expansion of childcare in the rural parts of northern New Hampshire.

Childcare programs are also concerned about the potential impacts on other Federal programs that the families they serve rely on. For example, while the administration eventually said yesterday that SNAP payments wouldn't be affected, programs are finding it hard to reassure families about whether they will actually get their monthly payments on time given the disruptions that we have already seen to programs that were not supposed to be affected according to the administration's own words. So more chaos and uncertainty.

That is why so many of my constituents are telling me they simply do not trust what they are hearing from the White House.

Families relying on programs like SNAP for food and WIC for women, infants, and children to keep from going hungry already struggle to make their benefits last until the beginning of the next month. Any payment delays, even if it is just a few days, will cause needless suffering for hungry children. It is cruel to be putting struggling families through this unnecessary anxiety.

When it comes to law and order, the President often speaks about his commitment to law and order. In 2020, he criticized Democrats who supposedly wanted ``to defund'' and ``abolish'' the police. Yet here we are with the President stopping Federal funds from going to police and law enforcement agencies. Make no mistake, this stoppage could place lives and livelihoods in jeopardy.

I heard from Strafford County Sheriff Kathyrn Mone about how the cutoff of funds will affect them. I live in Strafford County, so I know the sheriff there very well. Strafford County was awarded a $715,000 COPS technology grant to buy much needed modern and interoperable portable and mobile radios for first responders. The U.S. Department of Justice notified the county on Monday that they are going to withhold these funds, forcing the county to place a hold on the order of new, updated radios.

Now, this may not sound like a big deal to some, but this equipment helps Strafford County first responders protect Granite Staters. If first responders can't communicate effectively, by definition, they can't respond to emergencies and crimes.

When I was Governor, we had a horrible shooting in northern New Hampshire. Two State troopers, a judge, and a newspaper editor were killed. As they were trying to get the perpetrator, our State police couldn't talk to local police, they couldn't talk to the Vermont law enforcement, they couldn't talk to the Canadians, and they couldn't talk to Maine--all of whom were involved in trying to catch the perpetrator--because they didn't have the communication, the radios they needed to keep people safe.

In the same vein, the town of Newington on the seacoast was awarded $80,000 to replace 20-year-old radios and technology that can't communicate with modern equipment. The town was on the verge of submitting its invoices to be reimbursed for buying this crucial public safety equipment when the Trump administration stopped the flow of Federal funds.

If they are in an emergency, like a natural disaster or a mass shooter, Newington's police and fire departments would not be able to communicate on their current radio equipment to coordinate an effective response with Federal, State, and local partners. This lack of coordination among first responders could result in Newington's police or fire departments not arriving in time to fight a fire or to rescue people in need of help. The lack of modern radio communications could result in people not getting medical care quickly enough.

Again, this is much needed equipment that allows officers to communicate quickly and effectively to not only protect the people they serve but to protect each other.

Thanks to President Trump, Newington is being forced to pause its upgrade of 20-year-old equipment.

It should also be noted that the White House payment freeze means that the businesses who sold Newington the radios and associated equipment are not going to get paid in a timely fashion.

So let's call it what it is: Stopping funds to law enforcement and first responders puts lives and businesses in jeopardy.

It also affects defense contractors. New Hampshire has a strong defense industrial base. We have a lot of companies that do great work to protect our men and women who are serving. The Federal funding freeze is hitting those small businesses and manufacturers that rely on defense contracts to pay their workforce, which is critical to maintaining our national security.

For example, the New Hampshire APEX Accelerator program relies on grants from the Department of Defense to help small businesses navigate Federal contracting. In New Hampshire, government contracts and subcontracts totaled $4 billion last year. Now, that is not just some number that helps fuel our economy. For people from big States, maybe that doesn't sound like a lot of money in your economy, but in New Hampshire's economy, that is a lot of money, and it is an investment in our national defense. It is a manufacturing worker's ability to support their family. So let's not lose sight of what and who we are talking about here.

The freeze blocks funding under the Defense Production Act, which expands the defense industrial base under national security emergencies. Right now, we have a lot of businesses in New Hampshire that are receiving funding under the Defense Production Act to support their operations. These grants strengthen military readiness and capacity.

In the area of health, this pause will also cause real harm to healthcare providers and patients across our State. Everyone from our largest hospitals down to individual patients is reaching out to my office. They are confused, and they are scared.

The most immediate consequences will be felt by safety net providers like community health centers. They are vital to caring for our most vulnerable populations. Their patients are often uninsured for healthcare. Sometimes they are homeless. Some of them suffer from substance use disorders or mental illness. They rely on their community health centers just to get through the day.

As much as 50 percent of community health center funding comes from Federal grants, and their operating margins are slim.

Lamprey Health Care in Newmarket, in the southern part of New Hampshire, tried and failed to draw down Federal funds yesterday. They have another scheduled drawdown for early next week. This means that Lamprey has a limited number of days before the Trump administration's order limits the services they can provide to the community.

Amoskeag Health--another one of our community health centers-- provides services in Manchester, our largest city. It would also suffer from a funding pause. Thirty-five percent of their funding comes from Federal grants, and they only have 19 days of cash on hand, which would cover just 1 week of payroll. They are scheduled to get funding on Monday, and that is now in the lurch.

Federal funding to train the healthcare workforce is also being threatened. New Hampshire struggles to retain and recruit healthcare providers, and Federal funding is critical to ensuring we have enough providers in rural and underserved areas.

Last week, Elliot Hospital--one of the largest hospitals in the largest city in Manchester--received notice that $3 million in funding for its nursing expansion grant program was put on hold. There are currently 80 potential students enrolled in this program. The program is designed to address the acute nursing workforce shortage by attracting local applicants in the greater Manchester community. The funding freeze now puts that effort in jeopardy.

And Coos County Family Health, the northernmost county in New Hampshire, up along the Canadian border, is another community health center where access to healthcare can be extremely limited. Patients frequently have to drive hours to get access to some of the most basic services.

Coos County Family Health received a planning grant through the Health Resources and Services Administration, HRSA, to establish a rural medical residency program. Just this week, they received their accreditation, which is so exciting. They were so excited. And now the process begins to recruit and retain future doctors. The sole purpose of this program is to train health providers in Coos County, an area that struggles to attract talent. When we train these doctors in rural areas, they are more likely to stay after residency and become core members of the community. Any other week, this would be great news: more doctors to treat patients in need. But, today, their future funding through HRSA is at risk, thanks to the uncertainty created by these Executive orders.

Training doctors to treat sick or injured patients shouldn't be a controversial issue, but according to this administration, it is.

Coos County Family Health also uses Federal funding to support the victims of domestic violence that come into their practice. Specialized staff offer the victims counseling and support services--things like access to shelter. The staff connects victims with law enforcement and even offers prevention programs in local schools. Without Federal funding, they will be forced to lay off these staff members.

I don't know. Does the administration think that domestic violence survivors are unworthy of our support? Does this administration believe that causing chaos is more important than protecting our most vulnerable? Maybe this is what President Trump meant when he said he wanted disrupters. I don't believe this is what the public wanted.

Mental health programs are also at risk. New Hampshire's suicide rate is higher than the national average, and we need every available resource to help address this issue.

Northern Human Services and the National Alliance on Mental Illness use funding from the Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention grant to provide afterschool support to youth experiencing suicidal ideation or those who have recently attempted suicide. We are literally talking about taking away services from children who are thinking about committing suicide. I heard

from the folks at NAMI, the New Hampshire Alliance on Mental Illness. They were almost in tears when they talked about what was going to happen if they couldn't serve these kids who need help.

And there is also Navigating Recovery, offering around-the-clock substance use disorder services in the city of Laconia. They are a small nonprofit, and they make use of every dollar they get by offering 24/7 support for individuals that have just overdosed, and that includes literally going into the hospital to be with the patient as they recover. They offer wraparound services like connecting individuals to housing, job opportunities, and childcare so they can find stability as they go through recovery.

And 53 percent of Navigating Recovery's funding comes from Federal sources, including the State Opioid Response grant program. I have worked for years to get dollars to the State under that SOR program, including last year when New Hampshire was awarded nearly $30 million.

And I have to say, in the first term of the Trump administration, President Trump was very supportive of these dollars. We worked with his administration to get additional funding to address the fact that New Hampshire was one of the hardest hit States. So I don't know why, suddenly, they are willing to put that funding at risk by this freeze, because it has done more to prevent fatal overdoses and support recovery services than any other Federal program. Navigating Recovery uses those dollars on the ground. Without it, they would only have weeks before they start laying off staff and stop offering services.

Despite what this administration claims, it is the individuals who will pay the price of this uncertainty and chaos. This spending freeze is yet another example of the administration ignoring how their policies affect individuals' peace of mind, the livelihoods and the health of Americans at risk.

And then we are seeing broader attacks by the Office of Management and Budget on Federal employees. The Trump administration didn't stop at ripping funding away from vulnerable Americans this week. While much of the public's focus has been held by that order, they have continued their relentless attack on Federal employees.

Over 2 million civil servants working in thousands of essential fields--from healthcare to law enforcement to national security--who keep our country running, are under attack. And listen, I think we need to be more efficient and more effective, and we may have people who are not doing their jobs the way we want them to, but what this order has done is created confusion over the spending freeze--the hiring freeze instituted by the President's Executive order.

The administration claims this is temporary, but thousands of Americans who had job offers on the table saw those offers revoked-- even those who were ready to fill some of our most urgent vacancies, like at the VA. Even though the Department of Veterans Affairs said it would not apply this hiring freeze to many VA positions dedicated to providing veterans' healthcare and benefits, many crucial programs that veterans depend on will not be able to hire staff to serve our veterans.

For example, the VA will not be hiring caseworkers who help veterans get into permanent housing and related support. They won't be able to hire the personnel that literally keep the lights on and buildings running, such as fire protection, housekeeping, plumbing, boiler plant operation, laundry services, and other essential roles.

And we should remember that, year after year, the VA has had challenges in addressing these critical gaps. Last year, the VA reported almost 3,000 severe occupational staffing shortages. But that didn't stop this administration from pulling every pending job offer the day they took office. And while some have been reinstated, others are still in limbo. In just one example, VA employees at a facility focused on research and care for veterans with late-stage cancer were told their jobs were under review and they may be terminated altogether.

Now, I know everybody in this Chamber believes that we have made a commitment to those who have served this country in uniform, and we don't want to fail our veterans when they return home and enter civilian life. So how does this firing of people who take care of them help us fulfill that commitment?

And then, if we want to talk about jobs that keep Americans safe, let's talk about keeping planes from falling out of the sky or colliding on runways. I worked closely with the National Air Traffic Control Union and the FAA's Collaborative Resource Working Group to adopt a new staffing model in last year's FAA reauthorization bill.

We have a significant number of air traffic controllers in New Hampshire. They do a great job of keeping people in the flying public safe as they enter North America, all the way down to New York, in some of the most congested airspaces in the country. Now, the FAA made good progress in hiring last year as a result. They are still more than 3,500 controllers, however, short of their staffing target, and the controllers we do have work 6-day weeks, 10-hour days on a good week. They are exhausted; they are overworked; and they face severe mental health challenges as a result.

The FAA estimated that 10 percent of the Federal air traffic controller workforce would depart last year as a result of these conditions. And despite this, these air traffic controllers still haven't been told conclusively whether or not air traffic controllers are exempt from the hiring freeze.

Now, if preventing us from filling shortages and taking care of some of our most vulnerable wasn't enough, OMB is actively trying to get rid of the civil servants we do have. This week, millions of Federal employees received emails offering to pay their salaries for the rest of the fiscal year in exchange for resigning now--and that included every single air traffic controller in the country.

Now, you might be asking yourselves why, when we are short more than 3,500 air traffic controllers, did we offer to pay the ones we have not to work? Well, like the hiring freeze, this order is an irresponsible, reckless, nontargeted effort that could have devastating consequences for critical positions.

What is more, they are trying to convince us that this will save money, making it clear that even if we lose thousands of employees with no plans to replace them, we will be better off.

Well, that is bad news for tourism in New Hampshire, for those who work closely with U.S. Forest Service personnel and depend on sound management of the White Mountain National Forest, and it is bad news for people who value clean air and clean water.

This message was also sent to more than 780,000 civilian employees who work for the Department of Defense. In New Hampshire, we have almost 8,000 civilians who work at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard that we share with the State of Maine. There are four public shipyards in the United States. Our employees in Portsmouth have the best on-time, on-budget record of any of the public shipyards. These employees contribute to the maintenance of our nuclear submarines, an essential tenet of our national security and a crucial capability to deter major conflict. Any impact to their workforce will strain a shipbuilding industrial base that is already saturated with demand to meet the requirements of our Navy.

The bottom line: If the shipyard can't get boats to the fleet on time, our Nation is less safe.

The freeze on Federal assistance also affects critical programs that support men and women in uniform, including DOD's financial assistance and grant programs that support servicemembers and their families.

This administration has said repeatedly that it wants to ``restore the warrior ethos'' at the Pentagon. I don't know about you, but slashing our defense workforce doesn't help me sleep any better at night. I don't think that restores the warrior ethos.

So in conclusion--I see my other colleagues here, and I know they are waiting to speak--the actions this week have only created confusion, chaos, and stress. That is the best-case scenario, if it ends right now. But if not, if the Trump administration and Elon Musk get their way and cut these programs, working Americans will be the ones to suffer the most.

The need for housing, sewers, and childcare doesn't go away when this administration says they don't want to

pay the bills. These costs just get pushed down to towns and end up coming out of people's paychecks. It ends up being paid on the backs of our local taxpayers.

Now, again, the administration tried to walk this back by rescinding Monday's memo, but then they added confusion by claiming that the underlying funding freeze was still in place. And they are unable to answer basic questions about who and what will be affected.

Maybe it is just me and the hundreds of Granite Staters whom I have heard from, but if you are going to stop all the critical funding that helps seniors, children, and families across this country, you need a better answer than we are hearing from this White House.

Instead, what we heard during the White House briefing--when asked one of these basic questions, Americans were told: We'll check on that and get back to you.

So to Granite Staters who have called my office in distress, wondering what this far-reaching, unprecedented move means for their lives and their livelihoods: Don't worry. The White House is going to get back to you.

That is outrageous--and this, despite not one but two Federal judges who have ordered the White House to stop holding these funds. The administration has made it clear that they intend to move forward with vague, irresponsible Executive orders that jeopardize billions in infrastructure, energy, healthcare, workforce, and educational investments.

Hard-working families, businesses, and nonprofits have been calling my office asking for clarity, and this administration hasn't been willing to provide any.

Common sense calls for all of us to work on a bipartisan basis to help our constituents to put an end to the chaos and uncertainty that has been created by this administration in only its second week.

I hope we can do that.

I yield the floor.