Floor Statements

Mr. President, Mr. Fetterman and I appreciate the work being done to advance the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, H.R.5334, in the Senate. This bill will honor Senator Graham's legacy, help dismantle Putin's war machine, and strengthen the U.S. national security.

This legislation aims to shut down various revenue streams Russia uses to continue its unprovoked war against Ukraine, and we must consider how it can be most effectively implemented. Helium is a byproduct of natural gas and has largely been produced in the United States, Qatar, and Algeria. However, Russia has been catching up. Russia has doubled its helium production since the beginning of the war and is now the third largest producer of helium in the world. Despite the limited need for helium in Russia, reports indicate that Russia is still increasing its helium production at multiple plants. This increase in production contributes to Russia's long-term strategy to export helium, which will help to continue financing Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Helium is a vital industrial gas used in superconducting magnets, advanced lasers for medical technology, rocket fuel and missile guidance systems, and manufacturing for critical parts of our information infrastructure such as fiber optics and semiconductors. We must ensure these critical industries do not rely on Russian helium and unwittingly provide financial lifelines to Putin.

Section 102(b)(3) of the legislation subjects to potential sanctions ``any foreign vessel the President determines, based on credible information, is used by the Government of the Russian Federation or Russian persons to move crude oil, uranium, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, petroleum, petroleum products, petrochemical products, coal, coal products, arms or other goods for the purposes of circumventing sanctions imposed by the United States or other countries.''

Section 112(a) of the legislation further provides for ``duty for all goods, including oil, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, petroleum, petroleum products, petrochemical products, coal, and coal products imported into the United States from the Russian Federation.''

The ``other goods'' language in section 102(b) and the ``all goods'' language in section 112(a) is sufficiently broad that helium and other natural gas byproducts should qualify as a ``good'' under this legislation. Should this bill be enacted into law, the President should consider using authorities under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, H.R.5334, to weaken Russia's production of natural gas byproducts, including helium.

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

Mr. President, 4 years ago, Congress passed our legislative response to one of the deadliest school shootings in American history. It happened in Uvalde, TX, at Robb Elementary School. Nineteen innocent children and two adults--teachers--lost their lives that day.

It was a devastating--a devastating--occurrence. Unfortunately, it was not

an isolated event. Americans around the country, though, joined in the suffering of these families' experience as they mourned the loss of their loved ones.

Flags at Federal buildings and military installations were lowered to halfstaff. We all knew we wanted to do whatever we could do to prevent something like this from happening again if there was anything that we could actually do legislatively.

The much harder question was, What would that look like?

In the days that followed, we heard from many Americans--Texans, North Carolinians, and folks all around the country--saying that no parent should ever have to send their child to school wondering will that child be safe, and no child should have to go to school wondering if they were going to be a victim of a mass shooting.

We knew that whatever we did, it would not bring back those teachers and innocent children from the act of pure evil that unfolded on May 24, 2022. But we knew that--Senator Tillis, Senator Sinema, Senator Murphy, and I took on the task of trying to come up with a bill that would actually make a difference, that would save lives.

But we knew we had to do it consistent with the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but we felt like we could make some progress and save lives.

As negotiations continued, there was pressure mounting from some corners of this Chamber to do things that maybe sounded pretty good, but they wouldn't actually change the results or maybe they would be unconstitutional in depriving law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights.

During the meetings that we had together, I think we concluded that if we actually wanted to be successful in doing something that would make a difference and save lives, that we couldn't just try to do something that perhaps was a good press release or might make the evening news; we actually had to do something that would be meaningful and that would result in saving lives.

I have long been a champion of Second Amendment rights. That is probably no surprise. Texans believe in the Second Amendment. But some of these proposals, obviously, were unacceptable to me, personally, but they, as I said, failed to address the problems that we have seen in these school shootings in a way that would be meaningful.

The best solution, in my view, was that we needed to find some way to come to grips with the mental health crisis in our country and particularly that affecting young people and, in this case, in the wake of COVID and the isolation many of these young people had.

But we also knew that we needed to be narrow and specifically tailor policy changes that would save those lives. So we worked together and passed a bill called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which passed the Senate on June 23 and was signed into law June 25 of 2022, 32 days after the shooting.

Now, the Senate does not ordinarily operate at that sort of speed, I can assure you, as we all know, but we wrote this law carefully and deliberately to ensure no law-abiding citizen's Second Amendment rights would be impaired.

To be plain, if you didn't suffer from a mental illness or you weren't a criminal, you would not be affected by this law. That was true then, and it is true today.

What this bill did do is made a historic investment in mental health and school safety and commonsense measures to prevent dangerous individuals from being a harm to themselves and others.

Texas, like all the States, has received significant amounts of money; in the case of Texas, hundreds of millions of dollars from this law--more than $312 million, to date, to strengthen our mental health care and school hardening--to make it more difficult for violent individuals to attack soft targets like schools typically have been but no more.

Universities use these resources to partner with local school districts to provide training for mental health professionals to support students, and school districts have used these resources to upgrade their security systems, to implement threat alert systems, and improve emergency response plans.

I saw some of these firsthand when I visited R.L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth, which received more than $350,000 for specialized emergency radios and safety upgrades.

The BSCA, as it is called, also expanded certified community behavioral health clinics around the country, which has allowed mental health clinics to expand their coverage to include not only mental health but substance abuse disorders.

We have all come to be aware of the fact that we simply have not treated or provided the resources for people suffering from mental health challenges that are necessary to help them not only get better but prevent them from descending into self-harm or harm to others.

There are now more than 500 community-based mental health centers operating in 46 States, and additional States have added to the CCBHC Demonstration Program recently announced by the Health and Human Services Secretary, Secretary Kennedy, that was directly linked to this law that we passed 4 years ago.

Now, of course, there has been a lot of misunderstanding living in the world we live in with social media and officeholders and would-be officeholders running in political campaigns. There is a lot of misunderstanding about what this law did and what it did not do.

For example, some have described this bill as a gun control law, which it is not. So, today, together with my colleague--our colleague-- Senator Tillis of North Carolina, who is a great partner in this legislation, we want to address some of the widespread misconceptions about the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and just set the record straight.

One of the things I heard most in the recent campaign I ran in was that we had passed a red flag law which would make it possible for an aggrieved partner or spouse or family member or maybe even a neighbor to basically turn in somebody and have their firearms confiscated without due process of law.

We decided upfront that although some States did have red flag laws, that No. 1, it was important that there be appropriate due process requirements before they can access any of the resources in this law and, secondly, that there not be a national red flag law--leave this up to the States.

The truth is, the BSCA actually makes it harder to implement red flag laws because you can't do so and access this money unless you enhance the due process protections that are necessary to protect what is a constitutional right.

Our legislation created this due process framework that I know you will hear more about from Senator Tillis, but I knew that my State, Texas, would never pass a State red flag law, and the last thing I was going to do was to support or embrace a red flag law, national law, that would preempt Texas law. So we wanted to make sure that the funding that was available was available for crisis intervention programs, veterans courts, mental health courts--just to use a couple of examples--that did not have those red flag laws while making sure those States that did could not gain access to this money unless they provided an enhanced due process procedure.

So it is false to argue that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act created an incentive for more States to pass new red flag laws, and the statistics bear it out.

Only 4 percent of the total money appropriated was obligated to red flag-related activities--4 percent--in States with existing red flag laws, and those States now had to comply with the law so a stricter due process standard applied.

The vast majority of BSCA funds have gone, instead, to State mental health programs, veterans courts, as I mentioned, crisis intervention, school safety measures. The only States to implement a new red flag law were two States that already had begun the process to pass one before the BSCA passed.

So the BSCA--Bipartisan Safer Communities Act--did not cause or leave any State to pass new red flag laws. What we did is made it harder for those laws to be abused in those States that had them by providing for this enhanced level of due process protection of this Second Amendment constitutional right.

Another misconception I heard on the campaign trail or saw on social media was that we somehow created a mandatory waiting period before somebody could access a firearm if they were going into a store to purchase it for those under 21. Once again, this is false.

Many individuals who create acts of violence like school shootings have a history of violence, are known to local law enforcement, and are essentially ticking timebombs. That is what happened in Uvalde, TX, 4 years ago. The Uvalde shooter was a deeply troubled young man known by everybody in the neighborhood to be trouble, and there were warning signs that, I think, demonstrated the fact that he was not only a potential danger to himself but also others.

He was isolated, a bully. He self-harmed. He had a history of fighting, threatening fellow students, and abusing animals. He bought weapons and ammunition within days of turning 18 because the juvenile records in Texas were not uploaded into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System like they are for adults.

So there was virtually no possibility of any record of this potentially derogatory or disqualifying information that would have been available at the time of his purchase.

If a person's record includes disqualifying criminal convictions or mental health adjudication, it shouldn't matter whether it occurred a day before their 18th birthday. And what the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act allowed law enforcement officials to do was go back and look at those juvenile records. That information must now be available on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The BSCA incentivizes States to upload these juvenile records, but it places a strict time limit on how long the review process can take place. If a determination is not made in that window, the purchase proceeds.

Interestingly, far less than 1 percent of firearms background checks are affected by the checks for under 21-year-old buyers that this bill deals with, but yet we know that it has made a real difference.

There was the 18-year-old attempting to purchase a long gun in Nebraska who as a minor made terroristic threats and was placed in a mental institution, or the 20-year-old drug dealer with a juvenile felony adjudication who attempted to purchase a long gun in Arizona. These individuals would have never been discovered before the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

States agree with its efficacy, including Texas, which passed the law soon after the BSCA passed to ensure that juvenile mental health records would be available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

This leads me to another important provision in the BSCA, which gives the Department of Justice tools to prosecute individuals for straw purchases. So, for example, if a drug dealer knows that his or her criminal conviction would disqualify them from purchasing a firearm legally, they can't get their boyfriend or girlfriend to buy it for them without violating the law. Straw purchases are the primary way that criminals and illegal aliens arm themselves, and the Trump administration has used these new criminal provisions enacted in the BSCA to target cartel members.

Ryan Routh, who made an attempt against President Trump's life at Trump International golf course in September of 2024 acquired the gun via a straw purchase because his prior criminal record would have prevented him from buying it legally.

Before BSCA, the only penalty a criminal faced for a straw purchase was lying on their firearms transaction, a minor offense which many prosecutors would not bother to pursue.

The BSCA also created a new firearms trafficking law. Since drug cartel members can't legally purchase firearms, they rely on firearms traffickers to arm them and carry out their violence.

Now because of this law, the Department of Justice has a tool to combat cartel violence and prosecute individuals who engage in firearms trafficking. Indeed, the Department of Justice has convicted 459 criminals under the straw purchasing and firearms trafficking laws-- 459--while another 716 violent criminals are currently facing charges under this law.

So we all want our communities to be safe, but we also want to make sure that we respect the rights of law-abiding citizens; and no law we would pass restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens, were we to do so, would make a difference. No law-abiding citizen is a threat to their community.

But this is one of the reasons why I was a vocal critic of President Biden's open border policies which allowed millions of people to come into the country, including some criminals and cartel members. It is the reason why I opposed the ``defund the police'' movement that left a wave of unchecked violence and crime in America's blue cities.

And that is why working together with Senator Tillis, Senator Sinema, and Senator Murphy, we made sure we passed a law which actually would invest in mental health resources to identify individuals who were suffering before they became a danger to themselves or others.

We literally made the single largest investment when we passed this law 4 years ago of community-based mental healthcare and made our schools safer for all of our children so they can focus on why they are in school in the first place: to learn.

And parents don't have to worry at home about is my son or my daughter going to be safe, all the while protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

So as I reflect back on my time here in the U.S. Senate, there are a few legislative accomplishments I have made that have helped the people of Texas and our country at large--at least I hope that is the case-- but out of all of these, the BSCA was one of the most critical in tangibly making the country safer for families and children.

Parents may not know when they interact with security systems at the entrance of their child's preschool that they are actually benefitting from this law, but the BSCA has made a difference, and it will continue to do so.

So I am proud, working together with Senator Tillis and Senator Sinema and Senator Murphy, that we were able to accomplish this even in the face of organized opposition.

What I did learn--and maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise to me-- is that there are cottage industries in Washington, DC, that spread misinformation about legislation that is actually challenging to pass because it does involve something like a constitutional right--the Second Amendment--but strictly they do it for the purposes of raising money from their membership for using in political campaigns.

But the one reason we are here in the Senate, the one reason I am proud to be here is because we are willing to take on some of these hard, complex issues on occasion and to try to come up with tangible results that benefit our constituents and all the American people.

So I yield to Senator Tillis.

Mr. President, I just wanted to say there is one thing that Senator Tillis said that I disagree with, and that is that he said he is not a statesman. He is. And it took a lot of

political courage to do something that we knew we were buying trouble because we knew that this can be such an emotional issue and so easy to mislead people about what the facts are, that we knew that there would be a political price to be paid in order to take on this challenge.

But one of the things that I think, as we are talking about the harm of a young person who is suffering from mental illness or with a criminal record, a juvenile record of that--I am sure you are aware of this, but I just happened to double-check. The Pew Poll says that 62 percent of the gun deaths in America are suicide.

These are people--perhaps a disturbed young person--

--suffering mental problems who got--who actually then used that gun to kill themselves or harm themselves.

Has that been your--

--your experience?

And one of the things that I learned back, years ago, when I had a protective detail and I was the whip, is my Capital Police officer said there is this phenomenon, which I never fully appreciated before. If you think about it, some of these mass shootings are actually an act of suicide themselves because these shooters go into these situations, knowing--or likely knowing--that they will never make their way out of it. But they don't have the courage to take their own life. They need to take other people down with them, and there is a phenomenon called death by cop, where they know that by engaging a law enforcement officer, that they ultimately will be killed of necessity by the law enforcement officer to prevent causing more harm.

But I want to ask just one last question. Are you aware, has anybody contacted your office, or have you read anything in the press or seen anything on broadcast media that would indicate that a single law- abiding American has been denied access to their Second Amendment rights because of this law?

As I do yours.

We yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, there is an old Chinese saying attributed to Deng Xiaoping that goes:

Hide your strength, [and] bide your time. Hide your

strength, [and] bide your time.

China has, of course, been hiding its strength and biding its time for many years now.

For too long, the West has turned a blind eye to what has been happening in the People's Republic of China--controlled, of course, by the Chinese Communist Party. We allowed them to join the World Trade Organization, naively hoping that, by allowing them to participate in the global economy, that they would somehow adopt Western principles of freedom and democracy. As I said, that was a naive hope, and it didn't happen. To the contrary, China benefited from this access to global markets and became a major world economy, but they actively resisted Western standards as we know now.

China continues to refuse to follow international norms. They use their access to sensitive technologies to steal them. They have become a major global power that we, of course, cannot trust. We should take President Xi at his word when he says that China plans to ``reincorporate'' Taiwan by 2027--less than a year away. He has told the People's Liberation Army to be ready for that by 2027.

Never in the history of the world has the United States competition-- strategic competition--with China mattered more. Perhaps the most critical nexus of this competition is in manufacturing in critical industries, such as advanced semiconductors. We know semiconductors underpin all modern technology--everything from the phones in our pockets to the avionics in an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, even in our washing machines and our refrigerators. Chips power far more than consumer electronics. They are integral to the energy grid--cell towers, water treatment plants, agriculture equipment--and other forms of critical infrastructure.

They also play a huge role in our national defense. Missile defense systems; advanced fifth-generation fighters like the F-35, as I mentioned; artificial intelligence; data centers--all of these require an astounding number of the most advanced semiconductors. Now with the global AI competition becoming a two-country race between the United States and China, it is clear that control of the future of the world economy will come down to which nation can produce the most advanced semiconductor chips and secure complex and highly vulnerable supply chains.

Today, more than 90 percent of the world's most advanced semiconductors are made other than in the United States--mainly Taiwan but, of course, South Korea where Samsung is located as well.

Going back to 1990, the United States produced nearly 40 percent of the world's semiconductors. But over time, we lost our advantage in this critical industry.

By 2021, this figure had decreased to 12 percent, and by 2024, our share represented only 8 percent of the advanced semiconductors made in the world.

With China threatening the invasion of Taiwan and the possibility of disruption as a result of another pandemic, or perhaps a natural disaster, this issue has never been more important.

Should they be successful in their quest to pull off the so-called reunification with Taiwan, President Xi could cut the United States off from our ability to access the most advanced chips made in the world by a Taiwan semiconductor company and bring our defense production to a grinding halt at the snap of a finger.

But don't just take my word for it. In a widely cited 2023 report from the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, it says:

A significant shock to the delivery of chips . . . could

have an impact as large as either of the two previous

economic recessions in the [United States]: The global

financial crisis [of 2009] and the global pandemic [of 2020].

Well, we might ask: How do we find ourselves in this place with this incredible vulnerability? How did the United States go from producing almost half of the world's chips to now less than 10 percent?

Well, Dan Wang, who wrote the book ``Breakneck,'' has maybe a suggestion. He says one difference is that America is run by lawyers, and China is run by engineers.

Now, as a recovering lawyer myself, I don't think that is a complete explanation. But the point is, this has been a point of focus by the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China for decades now while they have hidden their motives and bid their time, and now we find ourselves in an increasing position of vulnerability and in a competition with them for this most advanced technology to fuel the data centers, the training, artificial intelligence that are going to determine how everything from our weapons systems to our industrial economy work in the future.

But the difference is this: China has a willingness to violate international law, and it has a centralized economy. It doesn't have to worry about permitting. It doesn't have to worry about the bureaucracy. It doesn't have to worry about the slow rate at which the Pentagon creates and produces new weapons systems to compete and to keep a country strong.

Conversely, we have a market economy in the United States that does provide a lot of strength--and particularly in terms of strategic capital--but we need to identify the importance of this essential technology before we begin to do something about it.

And now we know we also have vulnerabilities when it comes to things like critical minerals and rare earth element producing. There are only two places in the United States that actually produce the motors that are made from magnets that are produced from rare earth, and 90 percent of it is done in China.

But literally this is another example of a component of the technology that

goes into almost every piece of technology--certainly everything with a motor in it--and we are dependent, still largely, on China for access to those rare earth elements and the critical mineral processing.

China built its empire of industrial inputs on the back of forced labor and diplomatic manipulation--that is another difference between the United States and China.

What they can't produce at home, they coerce others to produce for them in places like Africa, Southeast Asia, and even Latin America at prices that undercut world markets with almost no humanitarian protection for their laborers.

China has done this in a multitude of industries, as I said, not just semiconductors.

Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China has become the primary buyer of rare earths from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the heart of Africa and Tanzania and other parts of Africa.

This has allowed them to solidify their control of the supply chain for these rare earth elements, which I said are essential to literately every electric motor, and they have enforced strict export controls to maintain their position.

They have used this strategy to create a near global monopoly on the mining and processing of rare earths and critical minerals such as lithium, which is used to produce magnets and other essential components for vehicles, drones, defense systems, and much more.

China has also cornered the market on raw materials that make up all of our pharmaceutical ingredients--so-called API, active pharmaceutical inputs. These are--can you imagine the United States and other countries around the world dependent on China to produce the medications that we take on a regular basis to keep us healthy and cure disease? But that is where we are right now. We have been asleep at the switch and allowed China to hide their motives and bide their time until they put us in an incredibly vulnerable position.

Well, the United States finally started to wake up to this during the COVID pandemic when we began to ask: OK, where can we get the masks and the gowns necessary for medical personnel that treat people with COVID infections? Lo and behold, we didn't make any of it in America. All of it was made in China. And that is just one simple example.

With global supply chains thrown into disarray, we found ourselves with a shortage of many essential goods--particularly those that require semiconductors. The demand for electronic devices for students and new remote work policies helped America realize the urgent need to reshore--that is, to bring back to America--some of the manufacturing capability which we had, over the years, allowed China to attract to our detriment.

Even industries like auto manufacturing were severely disrupted by the lack of local chip supplies.

The Trump administration had already contemplated the issue of chips and this vulnerability before COVID and asked Congress to act. And I still remember the Secretary of State, in particular, Mike Pompeo and the Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross were the first ones in the first Trump administration to bring this to the attention and to sound the alarm.

But the pandemic made clear as day that we could not afford to kick the can down the road on something as essential as semiconductors. So back in 2020, I got together with our colleague Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, to introduce the CHIPS for America Act.

The goal of the bill was pretty simple--to restore American leadership in the semiconductor manufacturing industry.

It authorized the creation of a CHIPS Program at the Department of Commerce to support all chipmaking activities on American soil from R&D to manufacturing.

Within 6 months, with the good help of our friends across the Capitol in the House of Representatives--particularly my friend Michael McCaul, Congressman from the Austin area--within 6 months, the CHIPS Act became law; and about a year and a half later, it was fully funded by Congress through the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act.

This law provided nearly $40 billion in manufacturing incentives for semiconductors to bring that capacity back to American soil and roughly $13 billion for research and workforce development because it pays more than a minimum wage to do these highly sophisticated manufacturing jobs of producing these advanced semiconductors. So training of the workforce was really very, very important and continued investment in research and development so we can stay ahead of the Chinese competition.

But, obviously, most important to me in the CHIPS and Science Act was the major investment that this produced in my State, the State of Texas. We used this funding to build new semiconductor fabs at Samsung, Texas Instruments, and other places, create new workforce pathways, and quickly upskill Texans for these industries that accelerate advanced chip manufacturing.

In 2023, Governor Abbott signed the Texas CHIPS Act to build on our work at the Federal level and further invest in the Texas chips industry.

This State law established the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Consortium and the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund to further incentivize investment in this critical industry, which contributes more than $469 billion--$469 billion--to the Texas economy.

So today, Texas has the second largest semiconductor workforce in the Nation totaling more than 42,000 well-paying jobs thanks to these investments. And I am proud to say that Texas has not only become a national, but a global leader in the semiconductor industry.

Now, there is certainly a lot more work that needs to be done to address America's supply chain vulnerabilities, not only for semiconductors but for mining and processing rare earth elements and active pharmaceutical ingredients as well.

But the CHIPS and Science Act was an important step toward reshoring our critical industries.

My friend Will Inboden, the former Executive Director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas who now serves as executive vice president and provost at the university, summed it up perfectly. He said:

In the 19th century, the key ingredient of military power

was gunpowder. In the 20th century, it was petroleum, and now

it is semiconductors.

I am proud this legislation has proven to be a contributor to reshoring American manufacturing in an industry that will determine who controls the future of the world.

Were it not for the CHIPS and Science Act, we may not have been in a position to help build the artificial intelligence economy, with the advent of these huge data centers, necessary to train the AI models so that we can be a leader and indeed win the competition with China. If we didn't have access to these advanced semiconductors and continued to be dependent on those produced over in Asia, it is doubtful we would be able to be where we are in terms of leading in that competition.

So thanks to the generational investment that was made in this legislation, if we have the fortitude and determination to do so, the United States has the potential to both design and build, here right at home, the infrastructure we need in this century and the next.

The truth is, we live in very exciting times. Technology is rapidly advancing in life-changing ways--sometimes even faster than we know how to keep up with. But what is critical is that America continues its leadership and continues to lead this revolution.

I want to make sure that future generations can live in a world where the United States--not the Chinese Communist Party--remains dominant and in a world where we continue to lead from a framework of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law.

Keeping up with domestic manufacturing in critical technologies like semiconductors is essential to that end.

So as I look back, I am very proud of the work we all did together through this CHIPS and Science Act, which transformed not only our national security but transformed Texas and put us in the posture to ensure that America leads the way for generations yet to come.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon is prepared to let this essential foreign intelligence surveillance tool go dark unless we accede to his demands. And frankly, the demand for a warrant to search lawfully collected foreign intelligence makes no sense whatsoever.

Section 702 is probably the most important law most people have never heard about. It protects American citizens by saying that only foreigners can be the object of surveillance, but necessarily sometimes, when the communication is between a foreign target and an American citizen or a U.S. person, that call is documented in metadata, so-called--time, place, and persons who have made the call. That is lawfully collected intelligence.

What this requirement would mean is that the FBI, mainly, would have to go out and try to prove the elements of a crime, a probable cause that a crime has been committed, in order to get a judge to issue a warrant to look at lawfully collected intelligence, which is basically the metadata. If content is required or asked for by the FBI, they have to go before a judge and establish why that is.

But one of the basic points of confusion is that some people think that gathering intelligence is the same thing as investigating a crime. It can be sometimes, but basically seeking intelligence is forward- looking in order to prevent future acts, for example, of terrorism. Criminal investigations look backward to see if a crime has been committed and are subject to criminal penalties, which do include, particularly with U.S. persons involved, all the constitutional protections that U.S. citizens and U.S. persons enjoy. Foreigners do not enjoy Fourth Amendment protection against this sort of surveillance.

So first of all, I believe that this is misguided. We have heard from the intelligence community that this requirement will slow down collection of intelligence, including and during occasions where time is of the essence. So courts have found that none of these queries require or implicate Fourth Amendment protection. So the very foundation for this argument has been rejected by the courts that have reviewed it.

Senator Wyden's bill would be akin to asking police officers to get a warrant every time they happen to look at legally collected evidence in their evidence locker. It makes no sense whatsoever. Requiring a warrant for every query of already lawfully collected information in the 702 database would significantly hinder the ability to respond to emerging threats.

For that reason, I object.

Mr. President, if the Senator will allow me to respond--

--what we are talking about is the contact between the foreign target and the U.S. person or American citizen. We are not talking about content. That would require another step to find that content approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. So I think there is some confusion about what is already collected and what would seek to be collected but which would require another step.

Mr. President, once again, the Senator from Washington is objecting to a clean extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, section 702, which would prevent us from going dark on foreign intelligence risks and threats to our country. As for the sorts of things that he has talked about here, since 2024, Congress has passed dozens of transparency and accountability reforms that have actually worked. Congressional oversight, of course, is critical.

The Senator and I and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee are here. We all serve on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that performs important oversight functions to make sure that the balance between privacy and security is the right balance. Indeed, the bipartisan Cotton, Grassley, and Warner bill, which is available to us to vote on, has almost two dozen additional protections included. We should be taking up that bill, not threatening to go dark and create dangers to our Nation.

Also, it is not just the program that expires on Friday. There is a lot of oversight protection built into the current bill and past FISA reauthorizations. If that goes dark, all of those previous protections that were negotiated, that I know the Senator from Washington believes in--those would go away. So, in addition to being in danger--the American people and our national security--it would eliminate the very sorts of privacy protections and transparency that the Senator from Washington is arguing for here on an expanded basis.

Under those circumstances, I object.

I am sorry. I had a mental warp there.

I apologize to my friend the Senator from Oregon. I do know the difference between Oregon and Washington, and I am not confused about that.

Mr. President, there is a risk of this necessary and critical intelligence tool not being extended. The President has called for an extension for, I think, up to 3 weeks, July 2, in order for further negotiations to take place so that, hopefully, there can be bipartisan buy-in to the ultimate product that comes out of this.

To that end, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the bill at the desk. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, all we are asking for is an extension--a clean extension--of the current law, which includes a lot of the reforms that the Senator from Oregon has advocated for and gotten included in the current state of the legislation. As I said, those will go away if this program goes dark after this Friday.

Further, as for the authority to work with the various institutions that are essential to collecting this foreign intelligence for the safety and security of the American people, that will go away, endangering the American people and our national security. In fact, 60 percent--60 percent--of the President's daily intelligence brief contains 702 intelligence product. The Senator from Oregon knows that well.

This is simply too big a risk for us to take to allow this to go dark. All we are asking for is a little bit of additional time to continue these negotiations in order to find consensus so that we can continue to protect the American people while finding the appropriate balance between our national security and individual privacy rights.

Mr. President, as one last response, there is absolutely no justification for risking this program going dark on Friday. These negotiations can and should continue. That is how we solve problems around here on a bipartisan basis, but we don't risk catastrophe with our national security in exchange for demands that could well be addressed during an extension until July 2.

So I regret we find ourselves in this situation. The clock is ticking on our national security because this program will go dark come Friday.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar No. 693; Calendar No. 713, with the exception of RDML Michael E. Campbell and RDML Matthew W. Lake; and all the nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Coast Guard with the exception of PN846; that the nominations be confirmed; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's actions and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading, S. 4744.

I now ask for a second reading and, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 265, S. 872.

I now ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendments be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered and read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills en bloc: Calendar No. 410, S. 736; Calendar No. 411, S. 825; Calendar No. 412, S. 3041; Calendar No. 414, S. 4394; Calendar No. 419, S. 1890.

Mr. President, I ask further unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendments, where applicable, be agreed to; and that the bills, as amended, where amended, be considered read a third time.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the measures en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 11; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; further, that, at 11:30 a.m., the Senate proceed to executive session and execute the order in relation to the Dahl nomination; also, that notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motion filed during today's session ripen at 1:45 p.m.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, yesterday, at the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee hearing, some of our colleagues suggested that the United States started a war against Iran 92 days ago. I believe the facts are to the contrary. Iran started a war against the United States and our ally Israel in 1979 from the date of the Iranian Revolution.

This is the backdrop to President Trump's military campaign known as Operation Epic Fury. While the operation has formally concluded--and there is ostensibly a cease-fire--there doesn't seem to be a resolution of the conflict to be sure. Meanwhile, there has been a block in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's energy supplies flow ordinarily. At the same time, the Iranian economy is collapsing.

Operation Epic Fury built on the success of last summer's Operation Midnight Hammer, which targeted three nuclear facilities--successfully eliminating top nuclear scientists--and it concluded within 12 days.

Negotiations, of course, are ongoing to address the underlying issues between Iran and the United States and Israel, particularly Iran's nuclear program that led to this conflict in the first place. And it remains to be seen if a permanent, durable resolution is possible.

Now, bizarrely, Democrats have almost universally criticized President Trump's actions toward Iran, and there has been a great deal of pressure on the administration to bring these negotiations to a close under any terms.

But ever since Bill Clinton was President, Republicans and Democratic Presidents alike have warned us about the risk of a nuclear Iran. And President Trump, to his credit, was in charge when we finally did something decisive about it.

But in order to assess how these ongoing hostilities should end, it is worth taking a step backward and remembering why we started down this path in the first place.

The ostensible purpose of Operation Epic Fury--building on Operation Midnight Hammer last summer--was always to prevent the Islamic regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon and to stop them from continuing to enrich uranium, as President Trump pointed out last year--that remains the goal--and to dismantle their ability to enrich uranium in the future, I might add.

The President has made very clear that he does not want Iran to ever get a nuclear weapon, and in a normal world, you would think there would be unanimous agreement among Republicans and Democrats.

Well, I agree with President Trump's position, and I hope we stay the course and complete the job that we started. Last summer, he summarized the situation well, and this is the quote: You can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.

That remains our ultimate objective: peace. But if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, we will not have peace. We will have a ticking nuclear time bomb. Yesterday, in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, our former colleague Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the existential threat that Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon would create.

He said: If Iran ever acquired a nuclear weapon, they would be able to hold the world hostage. They would hyperscale their efforts of global terrorism and completely try to drive us out of the region and ultimately destroy the State of Israel. And you wouldn't be able to do anything about it--he said--because they would have a nuclear weapon and would threaten to blow people up if you tried to move against them.

The radical regime of Iran is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism, and they have made it abundantly clear to the United States and to the world that they cannot be trusted. They support, of course, terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah, al-Qaida, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis.

Recall that Iran provided materiel support for attacks on American soil in the runup to September 11, 2001. They backed and sometimes directly carried out attacks on Americans over multiple decades in the Middle East. They funded and trained Hamas terrorists who murdered more than 1,200 innocent men, women, and children, including 46 Americans, on October 7, 2023. Closer to home, Iran is also actively financing drug trafficking activities in Central America and is using the proceeds from this illicit commerce to continue funding their terror activities around the world.

Once Iran achieves a nuclear weapon, they will have complete leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. They can continue to fund terrorism around the globe, including here in the Western Hemisphere. The President's actions against the Islamic Republic of Iran demonstrate his understanding and appreciation of the danger that a nuclear Iran would pose to America and the world.

Now, of course, if possible, we should always hope that there could be productive negotiations and a cease-fire, but it has to be verifiable. We have to achieve the goals that the President has set out for us, and we can't back off of that without badly botching the leverage that we have now to accomplish these goals.

Perhaps the most significant current point of contention is that Iran has, of course, effectively, closed the Strait of Hormuz in attempting to choke off the global energy supply, leading to higher gas prices here at home. Treasury Secretary Bessent has acknowledged that, if the strait is not opened, a global financial crisis could ensue. At the same time--and as a checkmate--the United States has blockaded Iranian ships as well, which has proven to be extremely effective and has created enormous leverage for the United States and our allies.

The Iranian economy is in very bad shape and is in desperate need of relief. Again, this is another part of the maximum leverage campaign that the President started years ago. Given this, they have, obviously, proposed--the Iranian regime that is--that the United States unfreeze its assets and deliver sanctions relief as part of any negotiated deal.

Reporting from Reuters noted just a few days ago that Iran is ``pushing for a limited interim agreement with the United States in a bid to ease mounting economic pressure and stabilize the situation at home, while avoiding major concessions on its nuclear program.''

I sincerely hope we don't take the bait. Agreeing to these demands would be a grave miscalculation. If the United States were to give Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for reopening the strait, there is no doubt the money would be put to nefarious purposes. Plus, there is no promise or no guarantee they won't simply close it again in order to extract more concessions in the future.

If we remove the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and passage through Iranian waters without eliminating their nuclear program and the highly enriched uranium as well as their capacity to enrich in the future, then we forfeit a key point of leverage against the regime, and we will have failed to accomplish our goals in defanging the regime.

Operation Epic Fury and the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports has been extremely successful in reducing the threat posed by the Iranian regime. More than 13,000 targets have been struck, including Iranian ballistic missile sites, ballistic missile and drone manufacturing facilities, weapons production and storage bunkers, and surface-to-air missile facilities. Iran has lost many of its missile launchers, and missile attacks have fallen by 90 percent. More than 150 Iranian Navy vessels have been damaged or destroyed.

As these negotiations for a resolution to this conflict proceed toward their conclusion, it is important that we keep a couple of things in mind.

First, we must resist the temptation to declare this war has been futile or unsuccessful. We are not done yet. Weakening the world's No. 1 state sponsor of terror and removing its ability to acquire nuclear weapons will make the world a safer place.

Second, we must remember why the United States and Israel took such decisive actions in the first place, and we have to make sure the job is finished in such a way that it will provide for a lasting resolution and lasting peace.

I know there is a lot of pressure on President Trump and this administration to end the conflict as soon as possible on any terms, but that would be a serious mistake.

I believe President Reagan aptly captured this point in an address he gave to Congress after a summit with the Soviet Union, when he said:

We know that peace is not just the absence of war. We don't

want a phony peace or a frail peace. We didn't go in pursuit

of some kind of illusory detente. We can't be satisfied with

cosmetic improvements that won't stand the test of time. We

want real peace.

I hope President Trump will not waste this once-in-a-generation opportunity to end Iran's nuclear program, to recover the enriched uranium and eliminate their capacity to enrich in the future, and to force the opening--reopening--of the Strait of Hormuz and make it impossible for the regime to continue to hold the world hostage.

I hope President Trump will stay strong in pursuit of these objectives and that, if the Iranian regime will not yet agree to those in a verifiable manner, then I hope the President will use his authority as Commander in Chief to do so and force them to the negotiating table on terms that we insist on, not on what they demand.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this year, as we all know, we are celebrating America's 250th anniversary. This, of course, is an opportunity for all of us to reflect with gratitude on the many liberties and freedoms that we enjoy--fundamental freedoms not enjoyed by most of the rest of the world--all of which help make America an exceptional nation.

America is a country envied by millions or perhaps billions of people around the world who long to experience the liberties we too often take for granted here at home. But it is also true that many countries do not share

our values. Instead, they impose authoritarian or theocratic rules on their own citizens, as we have witnessed in recent years.

Even on continents like Africa, countries like Nigeria have come under international scrutiny for violating the rights and freedoms of Christians and other religious groups as their legal system has become more and more entwined with theocratic rule--in this case, Sharia law.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report last July detailing some of these abuses. The report found that Nigeria's enforcement of so-called blasphemy laws has created restrictions on the religious freedom of Christians and other faith groups.

Nigeria's Constitution grants authority to local governments to adjudicate their laws through Sharia, or religious, courts. In some states, this has resulted in the charging, fining, and imprisonment of non-Muslims. Twelve states in Northern Nigeria have been permitted to implement laws derived from a Sharia framework criminalizing blasphemy. They have also enforced Sharia-based code punishment that utilizes corporal punishment, including amputation and stoning, for certain offenses. Some state governments in Nigeria have thrown several people into prison for violating blasphemy laws, including a Christian nurse and a humanist, who were both released last year. Several more remain in prison to this day under similar charges, with some even sentenced to the death penalty.

In Europe, as a result of massive migration from Middle Eastern countries, there has been an increase in the practice of Sharia law in various Muslim enclaves--frequently, pockets of parallel legal norms in some urban centers.

While we as Americans allow freedom of speech and expression and religion, it is hard to imagine a judge in another country imposing the death penalty on someone for having different beliefs or for a judge to throw someone in jail for sending a message online that a religious judge finds offensive, which, of course, would never happen in America because of the First Amendment in part, which protects religious freedom. But this is a road that America could go down if we do not remain vigilant and committed to the foundational principles of individual liberty, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion enshrined in our Constitution.

These incidents occurring in Nigeria may seem far away, but they underscore the dangers of what can happen in a country that is not guided by the values that we hold dear here in America, and they offer a glimpse of what could happen in free Western countries like the United States if Sharia law became entwined in a nation's governing philosophy. As I mentioned, because of massive Muslim immigration from the Middle East into Europe, this is happening right now in many enclaves across Europe.

Back home in Texas, my constituents have become increasingly alarmed at immigrant enclaves that seek to adopt Sharia law right here in the United States. Last summer, a group of individuals attempted to create a Sharia law compound in Josephine, TX, known as the East Plano Islamic Center, otherwise known as EPIC City. This complex would have been a planned community strictly for Muslims centered around a mosque and a private Islamic grade school. The developers planned to have homes available for sale to noncitizens but restricted to those who would supposedly ``contribute to the overall makeup of [the] community.'' In other words, they would seek to bar people not sharing their same beliefs.

This is clearly a very lightly veiled attempt at religious discrimination and, of course, is prohibited by Federal law, including the Fair Housing Act, among other civil rights laws. Naturally, many of my constituents were concerned, as was I. There is something so alarming about this planned community where only residents of a particular faith are welcome and allowed to purchase a home and where principles of religious law like Sharia law would govern daily life, education, and commerce.

I wrote a letter to the Department of Justice asking them to investigate EPIC City for potential violations of Federal civil rights laws. Governor Abbott has been instrumental in making sure that this planned community will never come to fruition, and I am thankful for his leadership and remain committed to ensuring that Texas does not ever allow such a community to be created. Furthermore, I plan to introduce legislation here in the Senate to ensure that any attempts to impose or adopt religious law, including Sharia, never become realized.

Our country was founded on principles of liberty, equality, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. We cannot shrink from these ideals by allowing certain individuals to advocate or embrace Sharia law, nor can we allow advocates for Sharia law to enter our country and actively work to undermine our Constitution.

We welcome legal immigrants from around the world, regardless of religious belief, who want to become Americans through a legal, orderly process, but we want Americans not just in name only but in terms of their willingness to embrace the very values ensconced and protected by our Constitution. We want them to become fully assimilated as Americans, as America always has.

By recommitting ourselves to our Constitution and to our founding principles, our country will see another 250 years of liberty and justice for all.

I yield the floor.