Floor Statements

Mr. President, it has been a rough weekend in Texas. Last weekend, tragedy struck the city of Allen, TX, and a driver in Brownsville drove into a group of migrants, killing a number of them and injuring others. In both cases, the circumstances surrounding these incidents are still being investigated.

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, people of all ages visited a popular outdoor mall in the suburbs north of Dallas. That is where Allen is. Shoppers filtered in and out of stores with their children and were enjoying what appeared to be a normal weekend, but, as we know now, the day took a tragic turn when a man drove up to the crowded shopping mall and got out of his car with a gun and began firing. Shoppers ducked behind cars and ran into stores. Customers crowded into tiny storage rooms. Parents used their own bodies to protect their children. The shooter murdered eight innocent people and wounded seven others before being killed himself by police. The victims were between the ages of 3 and 37.

A patch on the shooter's clothing and his social media posts suggest that he might have espoused White supremacist and other extremist views. As I said, law enforcement is still gathering information about him and his motives, but what we know so far is that he was discharged from the army prematurely due to mental health reasons. But it is unclear if that discharge or any other factors would have legally disqualified him from purchasing a firearm.

Obviously, a dishonorable discharge, a felony conviction--those sorts of things--would result in your being prohibited under existing law from purchasing a firearm, but we don't know whether there are other circumstances beyond his premature discharge from the army after only 3 months due to mental health reasons which rise to the level necessary to invoke one of those disqualifying actions.

So at this moment, there is still a lot we don't know. And, of course, at times like this, we are all trying to make sense of this unspeakable tragedy. Obviously, I am eager to learn more about the circumstances that led to this attack. But one thing is for sure, and that is local law enforcement officials leading this investigation and searching for answers have already done heroic work, thanks to an Allen Police Department officer who was at the mall for other reasons and who was able to respond quickly and neutralize the shooter. But for that police officer, many others would have been injured and died.

So I am grateful to the police officers, the emergency medical technicians, and healthcare workers who responded to this tragedy--as I said, especially the heroic officer who responded to gunfire and immediately ran toward the danger.

The shooter was carrying multiple weapons and had five additional guns in his car. If not for the quick action of that police officer, there is no question that even more families would be grieving today. I have spoken to local officials who are responding to this crisis, including Mayor Ken Fulk and Police Chief Brian Harvey. I offered my condolences and offered whatever help we might be able to provide, whatever assistance we can provide.

One of the things Chief Harvey told me that he particularly appreciated is the FBI had come forward with crime victim services, a number of FBI agents providing that assistance to the victims of this terrible shooting, which relieves a lot of the pressure on this local police department. And, of course, the FBI is now taking the lead in the investigation, supported by Texas Rangers, the Department of Public Safety, and, of course, the Allen Police Department.

So, today, I join all Texans in grieving this senseless tragedy. We mourn the eight lives that were stolen and lift up the survivors, who will never forget the horror they endured that day.

I know, Mr. President, because I have been part of negotiations over the last few years involving the so-called Fix NICS legislation-- Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and I took the lead

on that bill to try to fix gaps in the background check system. The one area of consensus between people who are avid supporters of the Second Amendment and those who believe that we ought to ban some types of weapons, even for law-abiding citizens--the one area we can agree on is that people with criminal records and people who are mentally ill should not be able to purchase firearms. And that is simply enforcing current law.

So we were able to do something in the Fix NICS bill a couple of years back--I think it was 2018 now--that I believed met my test for whether we should do legislation like that, and that is: Will it save lives? And I believe it has.

More recently, we passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which is so new that it is only now being implemented. This bill did, of course, a number of things. It provided for an enhanced background checks for gun purchasers between the age of 18 and 21. The reason why that age group is so important is because the profile of many of these disaffected young men--who are obviously suffering from severe mental illness, who are so tortured that they not only want to commit suicide, they want to take other people with them--that cohort, that group of young purchasers, I believed we needed to go back and look at some of the juvenile records for mental health adjudications, for criminal convictions.

These are the sorts of things that, if you had been an adult, would disqualify you, and you would not be able to purchase a firearm under existing law. But in Uvalde, TX, Salvador Ramos turned 18 years old, and even though everybody in the neighborhood knew he was a ticking time bomb--he had tortured animals; he had posted threats on social media; he shot his own grandmother who insisted he go back to school after a long absence due to COVID restrictions--he was able to purchase firearms without revealing anything about his juvenile record, without consulting with the local police, who knew him well.

That has all changed by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. And the most recent tally I saw from the FBI is that approximately 100 different purchases have been intercepted for individuals between the age of 18 and 21 who had disqualifying juvenile records that are now being queried as a result of that bill.

But the other parts of it that were so important are that we made the single largest investment in community-based mental health care in American history in that bill. We were able to find an offset so it didn't involve spending new money, but it was billions of dollars in investment so more communities can have locally based community health services. Because, frankly, there are too many people falling through that net. The net doesn't really even exist.

And we also made sure that our schools provided more comprehensive services. Part of the problem, though, is that, as there is more demand for mental health counseling and treatment, there are not enough people qualified to provide those sorts of services. So this is a huge problem.

The bill provided grants and incentives to educational institutions so more people would train in those areas and so there would be more resources available for people suffering from psychological stress or even mental illness so that they can hopefully get better and become productive members of society.

So I know, at times like this, people say: Well, we need to do something. Twice in recent history the U.S. Congress has come together on a bipartisan basis to do something that meets that test I mentioned a moment ago: Will it save lives? And I believe, in both instances, the legislation we passed that was signed by the President will save lives.

But, of course, then we see what happened in Allen, and we wonder: What else is there? I mentioned the fact that these mass shooters, not only are they taking the lives of innocent people, they are, essentially, committing suicide themselves. They know they are not going to make it out of here alive. And there is this phenomenon that I learned from law enforcement called ``suicide by cop'' where actually mentally ill individuals who are unwilling to take their own life will encounter the police in a violent encounter which results in their loss of life, which, essentially, is a way of their committing suicide.

I believe these mass shootings are also a form of suicide because these shooters know they are not going to make their way out of it. But, tragically, not only do they take their own life; they take the lives of innocent others.

So we grieve with all the families and the entire community in and around Allen, TX, as we do each time one of these incidents occurs, and we will continue to look for ways we can find solutions to this sort of violence. But eventually or ultimately, I believe, what we are talking about are crimes; that while we can investigate crimes, we can prosecute crimes, we can punish crime, and we can even deter crime, but we haven't yet figured a way to stop crime.

But, hopefully, there is more we can do.

Mr. President, I honor today Judge Ricardo H. Hinojosa for his lifelong commitment to the rule of law, particularly his 40 years of extraordinary service in our Federal judiciary. Currently, Judge Hinojosa is the longest serving Federal judge remaining in active service.

Born in Rio Grande City, TX, to Miguel and Josefina Hinojosa, Judge Hinojosa learned the value of hard work early on, graduating valedictorian from Rio Grande City High School. Judge Hinojosa then went to the University of Texas, where he graduated with honors in 1972. Judge Hinojosa continued his studies at Harvard Law School. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1975, Judge Hinojosa clerked for a year on the Texas Supreme Court. Judge Hinojosa then entered private practice in McAllen at the law firm Ewers & Toothaker. Rising to the level of partner in 1979, Judge Hinojosa specialized in business litigation and employment law. In 1983, President Reagan nominated Judge Hinojosa to be a U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Texas. On May 5, 1983, he received his formal commission.

During Judge Hinojosa's 40 years on the bench, he has served with distinction, fairness, and impartiality. His peers, colleagues, and the Texas legal community have recognized his immense impact by awarding him the University of Texas Distinguished Alumnus Award, the Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, and the Border Texan of the Year.

As a district court judge, Judge Hinojosa has tirelessly worked to improve the rule of law. Indeed, he has taken on leadership roles in the Fifth Circuit Judicial Counsel, the Judicial Conference of the United States, and on the U.S. Sentencing Commission. In these various positions, he has helped craft solutions and made recommendations to improve sentencing, the operations of the courts, and access to justice.

Judge Hinojosa's distinguished service extends beyond the courtroom. Judge Hinojosa served on the board of directors of the John G. and Marie Stella Kennedy Memorial foundation, the board of trustees of the University of the Incarnate Word, the board of trustees of the University of Texas Law School Foundation, and the board of directors of the Ex Students Association of the University of Texas.

It is evident that Judge Hinojosa has dedicated his life and career to serving others and improving communities in Texas and beyond. For this work and the work that he has still yet to accomplish, I would like to recognize him. Thank you, Judge Hinojosa.

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

Mr. President, since President Biden took office, he and our Democratic colleagues have been on a

mission--a mission to replace every car in America with an electric vehicle.

Think about that for a minute. There are 280 million cars on the road in America, and our colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle want to replace every single internal combustion engine with a big battery with wheels on it, known as an electric vehicle. They are determined to please the Green New Deal enthusiasts by shoveling mountains of taxpayer money into this effort, and they are making some headway.

Last summer, our Democratic colleagues abused the rules of the Senate to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on something called the Inflation Reduction Act, which, in true Washington form, does not actually reduce inflation. But that is the name they gave to it. More importantly, this massive bill included a variety of pet projects, from a supersized Internal Revenue Service to handouts for rich folks who want to buy electric vehicles.

Wealthy Americans, the only ones who can afford these expensive cars, can receive up to $7,500 in taxpayer assistance to buy an electric vehicle. So, in effect, you and I and everyone in the country is subsidizing, with our tax dollars, a private, well-to-do person to buy an electric vehicle, most of which costs in the $60 to $70 to $80,000 range and up.

Democrats passed this bill at a time when most people can't afford their basic expenses. That is because of inflation, another product of profligate spending. Working families are struggling to keep up with the cost of everything from gasoline to groceries, to rent and electricity. Our Democratic colleagues responded by forcing every person in America to subsidize wealthy people's purchase of an electric car.

Initial estimates pegged the costs of these EV tax credits, as they are called, at just over $30 billion. That is a lot of money. But private forecasters have recently reevaluated that number based on more precise projections. They said that the actual cost of the electric vehicle credits will be closer to $196 billion--6\1/2\ times higher than advertised.

Again, hard-working families are suffering under inflation. When everything costs more, their purchasing power is diminished. Washington, DC, and our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle said: Well, your life is not quite hard enough; so we are going to make it harder. We are going to force you to subsidize wealthy people's purchase of these cars.

Unfortunately, that is not the end of the story. The administration recently rolled out new rules to ensure--or at least to claim--that, by 2032, two-thirds of new passenger vehicles sold in the United States will be electric.

By 2032, President Biden will be long gone. Probably many Members of the U.S. House and Senate will no longer be in office. Nevertheless, the administration says that, by 2032, we are going to mandate that two-thirds of new passenger vehicles be run on batteries, be electric.

Of course, this announcement was met with applause by those who think that every driver in America should drive an electric vehicle, that somehow this is the price that has to be paid in pursuit of climate change or to combat climate change.

But everybody else in America understands this is an unrealistic mandate because, like I said, with 280 million cars on the road, only about 6 percent max of the new cars sold in America are electric vehicles--only 6 percent of the new cars sold.

But the Biden administration says that, by 2031, two-thirds of the cars have to be electric vehicles. So making the leap from 6 percent to 66 percent--which is two-thirds of the new car sales--in less than 10 years is an impossible task, and it comes with a lot of risks and hurdles.

One of the most obvious ones is cost to consumers. At the end of last year, the average price of a new electric vehicle--this is just the average price--was more than $61,000. That is only a few thousand dollars less than the median household income in my State.

Most families don't have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on fancy electric cars. As we have seen over the last few years with inflation, people are already struggling to keep up. They are not in the market for a fancy new electric vehicle that costs more than they make in an entire year.

Another big issue has to do with how these vehicles are going to get powered. One of my favorite questions for my friends who are enthusiasts for this mandate and these taxpayer subsidies--one of my favorite questions--is this: Do you actually know where electricity comes from?

No, it is not just that wall socket that you plug an appliance into. Electricity is generated by the same source that produces most of our other energy: natural gas, some nuclear, some coal, some other types of energy--hydroelectric energy, depending upon the location. But all of that energy use, including fossil fuels, is needed to produce affordable energy that then becomes electricity, that you can then plug your vehicle into.

So this pie-in-the-sky idea that we are going to somehow cool the climate by everybody driving an electric vehicle is just--well, it is unattainable, and it is, frankly, ridiculous.

Last year, 60 percent of America's electricity was generated by fossil fuels, including 40 percent by natural gas and nearly 20 percent by coal. Despite the fact that we will need these energy sources to power the electric grid and charge electric vehicles, we know the folks on the left side of the political spectrum have waged a war on fossil fuels. Well, this will turn out about as well as Europe's dependency on Russian oil and gas, on a sole source of energy, which they found out did not turn out well at all once Russia invaded Ukraine and they tried to diversify their energy sources. Putting all of our eggs in one basket with unrealistic goals and mandates to achieve a social outcome is bound to be unsuccessful.

Our colleagues across the aisle have also made these energy sources more expensive by instituting a methane fee and tax hikes on energy producers, which, invariably, get passed on to the consumer; and they are consistently, it seems, trying to make fossil fuels less affordable in order to push our country toward renewables.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to renewables. We generate more electricity from wind turbines in Texas than any other State in the Nation. One reason our State continues to prosper economically is because we have the most affordable energy costs that come from an all- of-the-above strategy. We don't try to put all of our eggs in one basket--that is bound to be unsuccessful. We say: Well, let's do as much as we can using renewables--solar, wind--but we are also pragmatically clear-eyed about where electricity comes from, and we need all of the above.

So one big important issue that I think was overlooked when the Inflation Reduction Act was passed by strictly Democratic votes in the Senate is that renewables only accounted for 22 percent of America's electricity generation last year--22 percent. It is growing, but it is not nearly sufficient to generate the electricity necessary to charge your electric vehicles.

Either consumers have low-cost, reliable energy from fossil fuels or an all-of-the-above strategy, or else, they are condemned to an expensive and unreliable grid powered only by renewable energy sources. Those are the only options at this point, and I am afraid that is exactly the path that our Democratic colleagues are heading down.

But since COVID-19 hit, we have seen what happens to vulnerable supply chains for the components we need to do all sorts of things. We spent a lot of time and money and focus on advanced semiconductors. That is really important because if we lost access to those advanced semiconductors, it would tank our economy and it would also jeopardize our national security. But the supply chain for electric vehicles is a vulnerable one as well. The feature that differentiates electric vehicles from those with an internal combustion engine is a battery. And, actually, what you can think of is the electric vehicles are like a battery on wheels run by a computer. And--this should really come as no surprise, but you would think this would have been vetted before-- here is where batteries come from.

Last year, China's battery manufacturing capacity accounted for 77 percent of the global total. Its production capacity is greater than that of the rest of the world combined. You can

see Poland at 6 percent, the U.S. at 6 percent, and everybody else is at just 11 percent.

China is home to 6 of the world's 10 biggest battery makers and completely dominates the global battery-manufacturing market. Nobody else even comes close. By 2027, it is estimated that its manufacturing capacity is expected to increase nearly sevenfold--sevenfold. In that same timeframe, the United States is expected to see a twelvefold increase, but we are starting at 6 percent. That is not going to get us anywhere near where China is or where they will be by 2027.

China will still command more than two-thirds of the world's battery- manufacturing capacity and the United States will be in second place with a measly 10 percent. Anyone who doesn't recognize and appreciate this issue hasn't been paying attention. Over the years, the Senate has been spending a great deal of time analyzing and addressing supply chain and particularly security gaps. As I had said, the pandemic taught us many lessons--many tough lessons--but one was the importance of a resilient supply chain. And we tried to make sure--we tried to learn from that so those lessons would not be in vain.

I mentioned semiconductors. That may be the best example. The global chip shortage affected everything from personal electronics to cars to defense assets and critical infrastructure.

We came to appreciate the hard way how reliant we had become on other countries for these semiconductors, these integrated circuits. And that made us incredibly vulnerable to another pandemic, to a natural disaster or, heaven forbid, a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

So Congress responded appropriately by creating the CHIPS Program to bolster domestic chip manufacturing and close this massive security gap.

But now our Democratic friends seem content to replace one vulnerability with another. As they continue to push for arbitrary and unrealistic electric vehicle goals, we will find ourselves in a similar situation when it comes to the batteries necessary to run these electric vehicles. To be blunt about it, we will be at China's mercy which, as we all know, is a very dangerous place to be.

Despite the fact that China dominates the supply chain for the critical minerals used to produce batteries, most of those minerals are not actually mined in China. They come from reserves around the world. The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, is home to the world's largest cobalt reserve. Indonesia is the leading producer of nickel. And three of the largest lithium reserves are concentrated in South America in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile.

Critical minerals are not safe from Chinese influence just because they are mined beyond China's borders, because China has made a huge investment in processing those critical minerals in China. In other words, they are mined in these countries, exported to China for processing, where they control access to the critical minerals that are needed to build batteries, among other things. China has aggressively increased its own processing capacity.

Part of the problem, I might mention, is because it takes so long and requires an arduous, bureaucratic Rubik's Cube in order to get a permit to build things in America. And that is true whether it is from fossil fuels or the transmission lines from green energy that can transmit the electricity generated from wind turbines in Texas or anywhere else. You don't have those problems in China. They also don't have the same concerns we have for the environment.

As we know, China is building more coal-fired power plants than any other country in the world. What happens in China does not stay in China when it comes to those emissions.

So, right now, we have a general sense of the problems that we are confronting, but we are lacking some specifics when it comes to critical minerals, particularly. We don't know what reserves are under the control of foreign adversaries. We aren't guaranteed to receive a heads-up before major deals are made regarding mining rights and processing. Indeed, China has shown itself to be expert at operating surreptitiously under the cover of companies that sound like they come from somewhere else, where actually the People's Republic of China--the Chinese Communist Party--actually has controlling interest in those companies.

So we are not able to identify the many risks of the global supply chain or critical opportunities for new trade partnerships. We need to address the blind spots that are protecting China's dominance in critical minerals and battery production. And we are not going to be able to do it overnight and certainly are not going to be able to meet President Biden's goal of two-thirds of new cars being electric vehicles by 2032. It is just not going to happen unless we are going to go to China and get those batteries.

So a number of us are working to try to solve the problem. I think that is the appropriate response.

I hope this is a topic where we can work together and that we are in bipartisan support, much as we did on the CHIPS Act, where Senator Warner, the senior Senator from Virginia, and I introduced that bill back in June of 2020, and we ended up passing that into law, as I indicated earlier, because both sides of the aisle saw a need to come together and come up with a solution.

We need a solution in this area, too.

Well, our colleagues on the other side have repeatedly prioritized some ideological obsession with all electric vehicles over the practical ramifications. Most Americans can't afford to purchase these pricey vehicles. Given the war on fossil fuels, our electric grid may not be able to sustain them, even if they could. By increasing our reliance on battery-powered vehicles, we are certain to increase our reliance on China. Given the major costs and risks, you have to ask, is this really worth it? Can we afford the risks? Will it actually--can it actually work? Will this have an impact on emissions as our friends across the aisle seem to believe?

The answer is no. China is responsible for nearly one-third of all global emissions. As I said, they build more new coal-fired power plants than any other place on the planet. So China is responsible for nearly one-third of all global emissions, more than 2\1/2\ times the amount emitted by the United States.

When it comes to U.S. emissions, passenger vehicles are only a fraction of the total. In 2021, the entire transportation sector accounted for 28 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. So if every car and every truck on the road was operated by an electric battery and electric vehicle courtesy of China, that would only account for 28 percent of the emissions. So this is not a solution to what our colleagues across the aisle are actually saying they are trying to do.

Transportation is a significant source of emissions, beating out electricity production, industry, and agriculture, but that doesn't mean that personal vehicles are responsible for 28 percent of the emissions, because you have to include cars, SUVs and minivans, and trucks that drive all across America. So regular working families driving their kids to school or to work account for a little over one- half of the transportation emissions. The remainder comes from semitrucks, airplanes, trains, buses, ships, pipelines. In total, personal vehicles account for a little over 16 percent, and the U.S. emissions account for only 12.5 percent of global emissions.

So we are not talking about a solution that our friends across the aisle say they want to accomplish. We are not going to eliminate our dependence on all of the above sources of energy, and we are certainly not going to solve what they perceive as a problem with the climate by forcing hardworking American families to subsidize electric cars for rich people.

My purpose in speaking today is to demonstrate that these goals set out for by the President and which our colleagues have voted for in pursuit of their climate agenda are unrealistic. They are dangerous, and they are shortsighted. We will continue to shine a bright light on the facts as I have tried to do today so the American people can understand exactly what is going on here. This is more a pursuit of an ideological agenda rather than a practical solution to the real problem.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as we all have observed in recent years, we have witnessed a deeply concerning string of attacks, verbal and otherwise, against Federal judges. I am not talking about fiery speeches or statements by activists and organizations that happen to disagree with a particular ruling. That is their right under the First Amendment to the Constitution. What I am talking about are physical threats, including those from elected officials who want to control another branch of government and because they don't like the decisions that the judiciary is handing down in a given case.

A few years ago, five of our Democratic colleagues filed a friend of the Court brief in the Supreme Court on a case involving gun rights. These Senators made a not-so-subtle threat to the Justices that unless the Court ruled in a certain way, the entire institution could be, quote, ``restructured.'' Some might call that coercion or intimidation.

Last year, one of our Democratic colleagues took another jab, calling the Supreme Court's conservative majority ``stolen,'' ``illegitimate,'' and ``far right.''

But without a doubt, one of the most shocking and reckless examples of what I am talking about occurred 4 years ago with New York's senior Senator, now the majority leader of the United States Senate. As the Supreme Court considered an abortion case, the Democratic leader went to the steps of the Supreme Court and threatened two Supreme Court Justices by name if they did not rule a certain way. He said:

I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh:

You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.

You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these

awful decisions.

Now, it might be more understandable if these words were said by some person on the street who didn't have the sort of education and background and responsibilities of the majority leader of the United States Senate, but coming from the leader of this institution, those words were shocking and reckless and even dangerous.

I hope it doesn't come as a surprise to the majority leader that when he talks, people listen. That is true for Senators in this Chamber. I know sometimes we think nobody is listening to what we say, but when we say something like that, people do listen. I have no doubt that some heard Senator Schumer issue unveiled threats against Supreme Court Justices, and they viewed that as permission to take action on their part--for example, the individual who was prepared to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh. No doubt this person of unstable mental mind heard some of the rhetoric and was moved to action. Thank goodness for the law enforcement officials who were able to interdict him.

Last summer, as the Supreme Court considered another case involving abortion rights, an organization released the home addresses of the Supreme Court Justices, some of whom still have young, school-age children at home. They encouraged protesters to show up at the Justices' homes to harass and intimidate them, which just so happens to be a Federal crime. It was a disgusting breach of privacy and a massive security risk for these members of the Court and their families.

It was sadly met with nothing more than a shrug by some of our Democratic colleagues. The Senate majority leader said he is comfortable with protests happening outside of the Justices' homes, even though it is a Federal crime.

The White House confirmed that President Biden believes this is a constitutional right, to protest, even though it is a Federal crime. President Biden and Attorney General Garland have not seen fit to bring any charges against these protesters for their attempts to intimidate members of the Supreme Court at their homes at all times of the day and night. In fact,

some sources indicate that the Garland Department of Justice was discouraging U.S. marshals, who were ostensibly there to protect the Justices and their families, discouraging them from actually making arrests.

For the Justices and their families, this was not a peaceful exercise of these protesters' First Amendment rights; these were moments of complete fear.

A few weeks ago, Justice Alito--one of those members of the Court-- spoke to the Wall Street Journal about this period of intimidation, saying that Justices who were believed to be in the majority were what he called ``targets of assassination,'' no doubt referring to what happened or what nearly happened to Justice Kavanaugh. He said: ``It was rational for people to believe that they might be able to stop the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs--that is the abortion decision involving the Mississippi law. He said: ``It was rational for people to believe that they might be able to stop the decision in Dobbs by killing one of us.'' As we know, there was an incredibly close call.

When the man who said he intended to kill Justice Kavanaugh was arrested, he had a Glock 17 semiautomatic pistol. He had ammunition. He had a knife. He had a hammer, crowbar, and zip ties. He told authorities that his plan was to break into the house, kill Justice Kavanaugh, and then commit suicide. Thank God he was caught before anyone was harmed.

This should serve as a clear warning that it is time to lower the temperature. When angry mobs gather on the Justices' front lawns and members of the High Court feel like there is a bounty on their heads, something needs to change. But instead of backing off, some of our colleagues appear to be doubling down.

Earlier this year, the senior Senator from Oregon delivered an incredibly dangerous speech here on the floor of the Senate advocating that the Biden administration actually ignore a potential court order that he disagreed with. This was a senior Member of the legislature, the Senate of the United States--the world's greatest deliberative body--instructing the executive branch to disregard an expected order from a sitting Federal judge. That is, in effect, ripping the Constitution into shreds and throwing it out the window. The remedy for a decision that a judge hands down that you disagree with is to appeal that decision. That is the remedy.

But now some of our colleagues have escalated their threats beyond mere rhetoric. Fifteen of our Democratic colleagues recently wrote a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee that is responsible for funding the Supreme Court. They recommended cutting the Supreme Court's budget if it fails to meet their demands to implement a preferred code of ethics. In short, they wanted to use the power of the purse to, frankly, coerce a coequal and separate branch of government. The Founders must have been rolling over in their graves.

The threat doesn't just raise separation of powers concerns; it also raises serious security risks. It has been less than a year since Justices watched mobs of angry protesters assemble on their front lawns and an assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh was narrowly averted.

In light of those security threats, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that I introduced, along with Senator Coons of Delaware, to extend security protection to the Justices' families. We unanimously passed that.

How quickly some of our colleagues seem to have forgotten the dangers that Supreme Court Justices face every day. Threatening to defund the Supreme Court and its police protection in an enhanced threat environment is incredibly irresponsible.

Sadly, the attacks on America's independent judiciary, our crown jewels, doesn't end there. Last week, the majority leader sent a letter to the chief judge for the Northern District of Texas to try to intimidate him into doing what the majority leader wants. The Senator from New York, Senator Schumer, is unhappy with the way some of those judges have ruled in recent cases in the Northern District of Texas, so he believes he should determine how cases are assigned in the Northern District of Texas.

This new approach certainly is more nuanced than going to the steps of the Supreme Court to issue direct threats that ``you won't know what hit you,'' but his demand is the same: Do what I want or there will be consequences.

Of course, this was made without any consideration for what is best for the functioning of the courts, access to justice for private litigants and indigent defendants, and the importance, again, of protecting the independence of the judiciary.

Years ago, Justice Scalia wrote that it is one thing to have a parchment Constitution, one that offers all sorts of protection. He said that, in fact, the former Soviet Union had one of the best Constitutions on paper of any country in the world. But the difference between the Soviet Union and the United States of America is that we have an independent judiciary, a coequal branch of government.

I am reminded of something Chief Justice John Roberts said a few years ago about our independent judiciary. He said:

We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or

Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of

dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to

those appearing before them.

I agree with the Chief Justice, but apparently the majority leader does not agree. He wants the chief judge for the Northern District of Texas to somehow reassign cases in a way to make sure that Biden judges or Obama judges get those cases and certainly not Trump judges or Bush judges. This turns the whole idea of an apolitical judiciary on its head, and it undercuts the legitimacy, in the eyes of most people, of what that separate branch of government is doing.

We need an independent branch of government to enforce the Constitution and to say, as Chief Justice Marshall said in Marbury v. Madison--I think it was 1804--that it is emphatically the duty of the Supreme Court to say what the law is, and they do that by interpreting the Constitution.

The majority leader has even threatened congressional action if the chief judge fails to meet his demands. But I would encourage the chief judge of the Northern District to do what Chief Justice Roberts did when he was invited to attend the circus that was the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning; that is, respectfully decline.

We are not here to bully any judge into doing what the majority leader wants or what any of us want, which would ultimately undermine the legitimacy of the court because they don't like some of the rulings. Again, the remedy for a ruling and a decision you don't like is an appeal. It happens every day across the country.

Our Founders deliberately designed the Federal Government with three separate but coequal branches. Through this system of checks and balances, they sought to prevent any one branch from forcing another to bend to its will.

Unfortunately, many in today's Democratic Party are trying to blur the line between the legislative and judicial branches and act as if the judges are supposed to be partisan players. It doesn't matter what case is before a court or what the ruling ultimately is. Elected officials must lead by example and support the independence of the judiciary and, certainly, not actively attempt to undermine and subvert the legitimacy of the courts.

I can't count the number of times I have disagreed with a court ruling, but I have never suggested that the judge or judges deciding the cases were illegitimate. I have never threatened judges with violence if they reach a decision I don't like, and I certainly have never advocated for defunding the judiciary if a judge fails to deliver my preferred outcome.

As Justice Scalia said, an independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our Constitution and is absolutely essential to our democracy.

And, while judges' decisions may not always be popular, they should be given due respect. The defamation and intimidation of Federal judges is dangerous both to the judges themselves and to the health of our constitutional democracy.

It is time to lower the temperature and show respect for our Constitution, which means to show respect for the independence of the Federal judiciary.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, over the weekend, the small town of Cleveland, TX--more or less in East Texas; east at least of Conroe and the Houston area--they experienced a shocking crime. We are still learning more details about the perpetrator and exactly what happened that led to such horrific bloodshed, but here is what we know right now.

Late on Friday night, 38-year-old Francisco Oropesa was firing his gun in his front yard in this rural part of the State. His neighbor came over and asked him to stop, respectfully, because it was just about midnight and the neighbor explained he had an infant at home who was trying to get some sleep. He asked that Oropesa shoot farther away from the home, hoping to minimize the disturbance to his 1-month-old son. Oropesa refused. He said he could do anything he wanted on his property and continued shooting.

The neighbors did what anyone else would do under the circumstances: They called law enforcement. They called the police. The gunshots continued, so the neighbors called the police again, eventually calling five times.

Before police could arrive, Oropesa stormed his neighbor's home with a gun and began firing, and he killed five people before fleeing. He remains at large. All of the victims found inside the home were killed in what law enforcement has described as execution-style shooting.

The first victim was 25-year-old Sonia Argentina Guzman, a mother of three. Sonia's husband Wilson had been the one to go to the door and ask that the shooting stop so their 1-month-old son could get some sleep. While Sonia's husband, infant son, and 2-year-old daughter survived the shooting, her eldest son did not. At just 9 years old, her son, Daniel Enrique Lazo Guzman, was also murdered by Oropesa. The other victims were family friends who had been at their home that evening. This includes 21-year-old Diana Velasquez Alvarado, 31-year- old Julisa Molina Rivera, and 18-year-old Jose Jonathan Casarez.

I can't imagine the shock and grief these families are experiencing today. What they thought was just a normal Friday night surrounded by family and friends turned into a life-shattering day because of the actions of this criminal. My prayers are with these families as they search for peace, healing, and justice.

In the wake of this tragedy, Governor Abbott's office announced that the suspect had been in the United States illegally and had been previously deported four times. He never should have been in the United States in the first place.

As devastating and unimaginable as this story is, it is not entirely unique. I remember the murder of Kate Steinle in 2015. She and her father were walking alongside a pier in San Francisco when she was shot and killed. The man who killed her was an illegal immigrant who had been deported not once, not twice, but five times. He had seven felony convictions.

I want to be abundantly clear about one point: The actions of these criminals do not and should not reflect on the tens of millions of law- abiding immigrants in this country. Any attempt to frame immigrants in general as a threat to our country is completely devoid of facts and detached from reality.

But my point in sharing these stories is to prove that there are devastating

consequences when the Biden administration simply refuses to enforce the law both at and inside of our borders.

Since President Biden took office, now about 2\1/2\ years ago, Customs and Border Protection has logged more than 5 million border crossings--an unprecedented number. Most of these individuals probably came to the United States for economic reasons, which, as we know, does not in and of itself qualify them for asylum. Some are probably escaping persecution, which will likely qualify them for asylum under the U.S. law. Some--although certainly another small percentage--are dangerous criminals who have been convicted of serious crimes.

Since October, Border Patrol has arrested more than 5,000 convicted criminals at the border who have been convicted of everything from burglary and assault to drug trafficking and murder. The big caveat to remember is, these are just the ones we know about. When thousands of migrants illegally cross the southern border every day, it completely overwhelms our border patrol and law enforcement authorities.

Law enforcement is pulled from the frontlines to help feed and care for these migrants, including unaccompanied children, creating a veritable gateway for dangerous criminals and drugs to make their way into the United States undetected.

Earlier this year, Border Patrol told news outlets that 1.2 million migrants had evaded law enforcement since President Biden took office. In other words, we know how many law enforcement encountered, but the so-called ``got-aways''--1.2 million of them--we have no inkling what they are up to, whether they are economic migrants simply looking for a better life. My guess is, probably not. My guess is that they were probably either convicted criminals who knew they would not be allowed into the United States or they were people who were transiting the United States, carrying drugs into the interior.

These ``got-aways''--that number is not just one pulled out of thin air. These individuals are detected by cameras, sensors, or other forms of surveillance but never arrested or processed by Border Patrol because they are simply overwhelmed. These are the ones who are running away from the Border Patrol instead of turning themselves in to claim asylum, like the majority of immigrants.

I have no idea where these 1.2 million people are or what they are doing, but neither does President Biden; neither does Customs and Border Protection; neither do any of our law enforcement Agencies know where these 1.2 million migrants are or what they are doing. Maybe, just maybe--I would say in all likelihood--inside of that number, some subset are probably murderers, rapists, child abusers with lengthy rap sheets. Maybe they are cartel members smuggling fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into our communities. Maybe they are members of criminal gangs like MS-13 or other transnational gangs.

The truth is, President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, as Secretary of Homeland Security, have no idea who or what is coming across our border every day.

When title 42, which, as we all know, is the public health title that has been used to expel some migrants during the pendency of the pandemic--when it expires next Thursday, the number of migrants coming across the border every day will soar, making it even easier for criminals and gang members to sneak into the United States, along with the drugs that have taken too many lives in recent years.

One hundred and eight thousand Americans died of drug overdoses last year, 71,000 from fentanyl. All that comes across the border. We know where it is coming from, but President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have done too little to stop it. In fact, their policies have encouraged more and more people to come.

Law enforcement depends in part on deterrence, people knowing that ``If I try, I am unlikely to be successful, so I am not going to try in the first place.'' That is how law enforcement manages their business. But when people see no likelihood of negative consequences, they are going to keep coming, and we understand exactly why. Unfortunately, this allows dangerous individuals into the United States, and the odds of them being arrested and removed by the Biden administration are extremely low.

So this is a problem not only at the border, this is a problem once these individuals make their way inside the United States.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE, is charged with removing individuals who are illegally present in the United States.

In fiscal year 2020, the Agency deported just over 100,000 individuals. That is fiscal year 2020. For context, U.S. Customs and Border Protection logged 458,000 border crossings during that period.

Once President Biden took office and the welcome mat came out and people knew that our borders essentially were open, things have changed dramatically. In fiscal year 2022, the number of deportations fell to just over 38,000--from 100,000 in 2020 to 38,000 in 2022--while the number of border encounters has skyrocketed. Customs and Border Protection logged nearly 2.4 million border crossings that year.

So day after day, the Biden administration is allowing more and more migrants to enter the United States illegally, despite the fact that the vast majority of these individuals have no legal basis to stay, but they are depending on their system being overwhelmed and so are the people who are getting rich, getting paid by the head to smuggle those individuals into the United States.

But at the same time, the administration is doing less and less to actually enforce the law and remove those who have been found to have no credible claim to remain in the United States. The Biden administration simply refuses to enforce America's immigration laws, and its policies have real and deadly consequences.

It is dangerous for the migrants to make the long trip from their home in the hands of cartels who care nothing for them. They don't care about people. They just care about the money and the drugs. As a consequence, many migrants are hurt and abused and extorted by the cartels and coyotes en route. Many girls and women are sexually assaulted in astonishingly large numbers.

It is hurtful to law enforcement who are overworked, unappreciated, and burnt out. These policies hurt the border communities like the ones I represent that are expected to shoulder the massive weight of this humanitarian crisis because the Federal Government and the Biden administration refuses to do its job. It hurts small towns, medium- sized towns, and large towns all across America that have been infiltrated by fentanyl and other deadly drugs. And as we saw again this weekend, the administration's policies victimize people who are attacked by dangerous individuals who never should have been in the United States in the first place.

How much pain and suffering will our country have to endure before the Biden administration takes this seriously? It is past time to secure the border, enforce our immigration laws, and prioritize the safety and security of the American people. Until then, I am sad to say, innocent people will continue to suffer due to the administration's failed policies.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, as everyone in America knows, fentanyl is ravaging communities across the country. It is killing more than 70,000 people a year in the United States alone, making it the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 49.

The fentanyl epidemic does not discriminate. It kills old people, young people, rich people, poor people, people from major urban areas, and people from the countryside. One of the most alarming trends of what we are seeing is the rise of fentanyl-related deaths among teenagers. In 2021, 77 percent of all teenage overdose deaths involved fentanyl, the synthetic opioid.

We continue to hear and read of heartbreaking stories of teens who overdosed in their bedrooms or in a car or at school. Sadly, this is a recurring nightmare in communities across Texas which have experienced a wave of overdoses among teens.

Last fall, I sat down with a number of people in Dallas to learn more about the community-wide effort to fight fentanyl. I heard from parents who lost their children, as well as law enforcement officials, local elected leaders, healthcare professionals, and school administrators.

I learned that most of the time, these teenagers think they are buying something that is relatively innocuous--Xanax or Percocet--only to find out that it is a counterfeit pill made to look like a prescription drug that is laced with a deadly dose of fentanyl.

And it doesn't take much. If you look at the end of your pencil, the piece of lead sticking out of the end of your pencil, that amount of fentanyl can kill you.

People will frequently refer to these not necessarily as overdoses but poisonings, because in most cases, the victims have no idea that they are taking a lethal dose of fentanyl. That was the case for Patricia Hammad's daughter, Cassandra, who died from a fentanyl overdose 2 years ago. Patricia told me that Cassandra took the pill because she thought it was a Xanax, but, actually, it contained a lethal dose of fentanyl.

I heard a similar story from parents in Hays County when I visited there in February at a high school. Darren and Shannon McConville lost their son Kevin to fentanyl last summer. Darren told me that Kevin took a pill to help him sleep at night, and that that pill cost him his life.

Earlier this week, I heard more heartbreaking stories from folks in Carrollton, TX, outside of Dallas. Lilia Astudillo told me about her 14-year-old son Jose, who loved playing sports and spending time with his brothers and sisters. One night, Jose took a pill that he thought would help him calm down before he went to bed. When Lilia went to wake her son up for school the next morning, it was too late. Her happy and talented son had died.

I also heard from another brave parent, Ryan Vaughn, who told me about his 16-year-old daughter Sienna. She was a cheerleader at Plano High School, and she loved going to concerts and thrift shopping. Sienna's father told me that he talked to her about the danger of drugs many times. Had she been offered fentanyl, he knows she would have said no. But when her friend came over for a family get-together and gave her what seemed to be an innocuous pill, she had no idea and she said yes. Later that evening, the Vaughns found their daughter and her friend overdosing. They were able to save her friend using Narcan. But for Sienna, it was too late.

These families in their communities have experienced every emotion in the book, including shock, fear, devastation, and anger; and they have channeled their grief and fury into action.

On Monday, I was at R.L. Turner High School and heard from Saniyah Rodriguez, who heard the telltale noise of somebody overdosing in the bathroom and saved that student's life using the lessons she learned on a video at school.

She said it took weeks before she could even go back into that bathroom having witnessed what she did--the gurgling noise of a fellow classmate overdosing was emblazoned upon her memory. Despite being traumatized by her experience, she was adamant that students cannot keep quiet about fentanyl. They must speak out and they must get help when a classmate needs it.

All around the school, in bathrooms and the hallways, there were signs in English and Spanish about the dangers of fentanyl. Communities across Texas are doing the best they can to fight fentanyl head-on, and I am grateful for the work they have done to protect and educate our children. But that is only one piece of the puzzle.

Law enforcement works around the block to take deadly drugs like fentanyl off the streets. And, fortunately, those responsible for dealing fentanyl-laced pills to students in Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD have been arrested and charged. But, again, this is just one other piece of the puzzle.

When I spoke with the grieving parents in Hays County, which is in San Marcos right outside of Austin, TX, where I live, they stressed the importance of securing the border and preventing fentanyl from ever getting across the border into their communities in the first place.

Shannon McConville, who lost her son Kevin, was especially adamant about the need to do more to stop fentanyl from getting into the country in the first place. She said, when it comes to the border, the Biden administration is failing.

I completely agree.

The Biden administration has simply abdicated its responsibility at the border in the name of a humane response to the border crisis, but there is nothing humane about what is happening. We are losing more than 70,000 Americans a year to fentanyl, and given the rate that fentanyl is coming into the country, I fear the worst is still to come.

The most crucial step at this moment is to stop the poison from coming into the country in the first place, but it is all about money. The cartels continue to get rich. They care nothing about the deaths of these parents' children, and they care nothing about the devastation that they are bringing to our communities across Texas and across the country.

The most crucial step is to stop it before it gets here. Until that happens, the situation will only get worse. More fentanyl will come across the border and seep into our communities. More of our children, more of our neighbors, more of our friends, more of our loved ones will die from fentanyl poisoning, and the cartels and criminal organizations will continue to get rich from the suffering that they cause because they don't care about our suffering. They don't care about our grieving. They don't care about the deaths of these young people and the potential that has been snuffed out at an early age. All they care about is the money.

I appreciate everyone who joined me in Carrollton, on Monday, to talk about this crisis. I am especially grateful, as I said, to Saniyah Rodriguez and the families of Jose and Sienna, who had the courage to tell their stories. It has got to be incredibly painful to tell the stories about your sons or daughters losing their lives to this drug. This is not something that they look forward to doing, but they are driven to do it by the conviction that maybe, just maybe, the losses of their children's lives will not be in vain; that the Federal Government will step up and do its job to stop the poison from entering the country in the first place; and that maybe, as a result of their telling their stories and getting visibility on this issue, that it will save another life.

There is nothing that can prepare you for the pain a parent feels from losing a child, especially in such a cruel, unexpected, and unnecessary way. These are, admittedly, emotional and difficult conversations, but they

are important. As Jose's mother told me, we cannot let overdose deaths become faceless statistics.

People need to remember that these are not just data points. These are bright, young, loving people who were stolen from their families and from this world. They are our children, our grandchildren, brothers, sisters, friends, and classmates.

Until the Biden administration steps up and does its duty to secure the border and takes action to stop this fentanyl from entering the southern border in the first place, there will continue to be more and more victims and more and more grieving parents and families and friends like I heard from at the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District this last week.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent to be able to complete my remarks before the vote.

Mr. President, this week, the House is expected to vote on legislation to begin to rein in Congress's out-of-control spending and avoid a debt default. As the American people know, this is a critical task that has become more urgent by the day.

The United States hit its debt limit, basically maxing out on our national credit card. We maxed out on our credit card in January, and the Treasury Department has been using what they call ``extraordinary measures'' to prevent the government from defaulting on its debt. Because it depends on how much revenue is coming in the front door from taxes, we don't know exactly when these measures will be exhausted, but experts say it could happen as soon as June, which is only 1 month away. So clearly it is time to get serious about solutions.

From the beginning of this discussion and debate, two things have become abundantly clear: One, default should be avoided at all costs. This is something that Republicans and Democrats both agree to. Our economy is still stabilizing from the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, our banking system has endured two high-profile collapses, and inflation continues to wreak havoc on family budgets.

The latest RealClearPolitics average for the Biden administration's handling of the economy says that only about 37 percent of the American people believe President Biden has done a good job on the economy. So clearly they are feeling vulnerable to any shocks to the economy that might occur should the debt limit not be passed.

We know that if the United States defaults on these debts, all of our challenges will only get worse. Social Security and Medicare benefits would be delayed. Members of the military and Federal employees would not get paid. We could see skyrocketing mortgage rates, sinking stock prices, and an instability all across our economy.

In short, this is not a time for a game of chicken; this is a time for responsible people to step up and to do their job. A default is the very last thing our country needs, and Congress and the administration need to act before it is too late.

I am glad we agree on that point, but the second point is where there is clearly a difference of opinion. It is clear that America's borrowing and spending are unsustainable. With $31

trillion in national debt and almost $1 trillion a year being spent on interest to pay the bondholders who hold that debt, we know we can't continue down this path. National debt has catapulted from $3.2 trillion in 1980 to $9.7 trillion in 2000. Today, it is $31.7 trillion. Those numbers are so big, I am sure most of us have difficulty grasping them, assuming we could at all--$31.7 trillion in debt.

While the national debt poses a significant economic risk, it also invites significant security risks. Every day, America is spending more and more money on interest payments--like I said, about $1 trillion for the bondholders who own that debt. Each dollar that goes toward servicing the debt is a dollar that can't be spent on other priorities, like keeping America safe.

For years, our top defense officials have warned about the risk of the national debt continuing to grow. In 2010, I remember then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen said:

The most significant threat to our national security is our

debt.

Since then, our national debt has more than doubled. That trend is not going to change on its own. It requires a change of behavior-- behavior by the administration and by Members of the U.S. Congress. We need to act as soon as possible to rein in out-of-control spending and protect America's long-term financial stability and our national security. Future generations are going to have to pay that money back, and we ought to do everything we can to avoid that result, if there are things we can do at least to mitigate it.

So these are the two basic truths that the majority of Americans agree on: A default is unacceptable, and secondly, we need to get our fiscal house in order. Unfortunately, President Biden refuses to engage on either one. This is really unbelievable to me. The President of the United States, the leader of the free world, and he said: Eh, not my problem. How irresponsible, how reckless is that?

From the beginning, President Biden drew outrageous redlines and tried to dictate what a solution would look like. And, actually, it wasn't a solution; it was just a patch. The President ruled out any negotiations over spending reforms and said he expected Congress to raise the debt limit with no conditions attached.

We know that any bank or credit union in America that issues a credit card--that once you have maxed out on your credit limit, they want to know: OK, if you want us to raise that limit, you are going to have to tell us how you are going to pay the money back that you already owe. But President Biden said: No, we want to keep spending, and we want to keep raising the debt limit, but we don't want to do anything about reforming spending or changing the curve when it comes to reining in spending.

These unrealistic declarations by the President don't make him look tough; they just make him look out of touch. Just because President Biden wants something doesn't mean it will happen.

As the President knows, Democrats no longer control both Chambers of Congress. During the first 2 years, the President could snap his fingers and expect Democrats to advance his agenda without a single Republican vote. And that happened, most recently on two bills which are partisan bills that added $2.7 trillion to our national debt. And now the President says: It is not my problem.

Well, this isn't a monarchy. We got rid of a King a long time ago. This isn't the Biden empire, and the President's wishes can only count for so much.

The reality of the situation is that any solution to the debt ceiling must be bipartisan and bicameral. It has to be approved by a Republican-led House and a Democrat-led Senate and a Democrat President. Right now, President Biden's clean debt ceiling increase simply has no way to pass.

So we are at an impasse, and there is only one way forward; that is, the President must do what Presidents have always done before this time, and that means come to the negotiating table. That is the only way to avert a debt crisis that both political parties want to avoid.

For months, Republicans have urged President Biden to sit down with Speaker McCarthy and hammer a compromise.

Other than a single meeting where they literally touch gloves and then walked away, like two boxers in a ring, the President has been completely absent without leave. He has been AWOL.

He continues to parrot demands that he knows are unreasonable and impractical, and he refuses to acknowledge the reality of the problem.

Well, since President Biden took office a little over 2 years ago, he has been on a spending bender. He pushed Democrats in Congress to pass two massive partisan bills that I mentioned a moment ago, totaling about $2.7 trillion. These were strictly party-line votes by Democrats, with no Republican support, that added $2.7 trillion to the debt, and now President Biden said: Not my problem once the debt ceiling has hit.

He stuck taxpayers for a ridiculous set of pet projects, everything from handouts for labor unions to subsidies for wealthy people so they would buy electric vehicles, even though most Americans can't afford one.

President Biden didn't just rely on Democrats to indulge his spending habits; he also ran off with the taxpayers' credit card by himself.

The President single-handedly claimed to be able to spend $460 billion in an Executive order erasing student loans off the books for tens of millions of borrowers. That case is now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Clearly, he does not have that authority, but he claimed to have it, and now we have a case pending before the Supreme Court to decide that.

So President Biden, in addition to the $2.7 trillion in partisan spending bills, has no trouble adding to that debt by another $460 billion. But he doesn't want to negotiate the debt ceiling increase. He doesn't want to talk about how do we get back on a glidepath to more responsible spending habits.

Despite the President's record of spending like there is no tomorrow, he refuses to talk about spending reforms--at least so far. He said he won't even entertain the idea that this is a topic worth discussing with the Speaker of the House.

As I said, that is a completely reckless and irresponsible position to take, and even members of the President's own party are lining up to criticize him. The Senator from Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar, recently said that President Biden should sit down with Speaker McCarthy. Senator Klobuchar is right. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, in the House of Representatives, said that the administration can't keep waiting. Senator Manchin, from West Virginia, went so far as to criticize the President's refusal to sit down with Speaker McCarthy as a deficiency in leadership.

With a potential default on the horizon, it is time for President Biden to change his tune. He needs to abandon this reckless ``my way or the highway'' attitude and sit down and do what Presidents have always done, and that is to negotiate a solution.

From the beginning, it was obvious to everybody that a bipartisan compromise was the only path forward. That is the most fundamental tenet of divided government. Nobody can do it by themselves, so you have to work out solutions together.

It is simply unacceptable for any President to stand by with these kinds of outrageous redlines when we are potentially just weeks away from a possible default, considering, especially, the fragility of the economy as it currently exists. And this would make it catastrophic.

So President Biden has wasted months already with his reckless position, and it is time to get moving. I appreciate Speaker McCarthy's efforts to break the stalemate and get President Biden to join him at the negotiating table.

I will repeat, in closing, the only way to avoid a debt crisis is through a bipartisan negotiation. Republicans have known that all along. Many Democrats are now acknowledging that as well, and it is time for President Biden to get the message.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, since President Biden took office just a little over 2 years ago, more than 348,000 unaccompanied children have crossed our southern border. To be clear, these 348,000 children did not arrive in the United States by themselves. Children often make this dangerous journey with friends, neighbors, or other relatives, and, of course, in the custody of transnational criminal organizations--or what are otherwise known as coyotes--that get paid to smuggle people into our country.

The sad reality is that many of these children come to the country in the care of these cartels, human smugglers, coyotes. Parents pay smugglers thousands of dollars to bring their child to the United States, but the truth is, the money doesn't guarantee their safety. The journey to the southern border is not easy or safe. Children are subjected to violence, exploitation, and sexual abuse on the way to the United States. Why in the world would anybody think, if I turn my child over to a criminal organization that will smuggle them into the United States--how in the world would they ever have the confidence that they would be safely transported here? So it, sadly, is not surprising.

As folks along the southern border in our border communities in Texas will tell you, trying to help these migrant children when they get here is no small task. There are laws that spell out how long a child can remain in custody, as well as the resources they must receive, things like, of course, food, water, medical care, and adequate supervision. And I believe we do have a responsibility, once those children get to our border and into our custody, to make sure they are safe and well cared for.

Given the huge number of children crossing the border every week due to the administration's open border policies, that job--caring for these unaccompanied children--has gotten nothing but more difficult, and we have seen the harrowing consequences.

At the start of the Biden administration, holding cells in detention facilities were lined with children and other teens sleeping on gym mats, with only a thin aluminum blanket to keep them warm. Thousands of children were stuck in Border Patrol facilities, which were never designed to hold children in the first place, but many were detained out of necessity beyond the 72-hour limit contained in the law at massive public facilities like the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio. These were used as emergency shelters because there was nowhere else to put them.

But, unfortunately, most of the public lost interest in these children after that point. Certainly, the Biden administration appears to have lost interest in these children once they made it past the border and were released from these various detention facilities, because once children were placed with sponsors in the United States, save for a couple of isolated reports that should have served as warning beacons, Congress and the public didn't have any information about how they were doing, whether they were healthy, whether they were being treated appropriately--anything about their well-being.

Well, that information deficit was recently filled by an investigative story by the New York Times. In February, the Times published its first story detailing the widespread child exploitation of migrant children. It includes stories of unaccompanied migrants who were working in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws--for example, a 15-year-old girl who packages cereal at night in a factory; a 14-year-old boy who works on a construction job instead of going to school; a 13-year-old child day laborer; children working in meat processing plants, commercial bakeries, and for suppliers for automakers. This is all documented in the investigative report by the New York Times. We aren't talking about part-time gigs after going to school; these are grueling and dangerous full-time jobs that are meant for adults, not children.

So the big question is how they got there. How on Earth did the Biden administration allow so many vulnerable children to be exploited? After all, the

administration should have been aware of the history of migrant children being exploited by their sponsors.

In 2014, the Office of Refugee Resettlement placed eight children with members of a human trafficking ring who posed as family or friends. These children were forced to work on an egg farm in Ohio with no pay for 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. They lived in deplorable conditions and were threatened with violence unless they complied. It was a disgusting and heartbreaking case of abuse that rightfully garnered a lot of attention. Given the sheer volume of cases the Biden administration has managed the last 2 years, it should have been on alert for similar stories and similar cases.

The percentage of sponsored children who could not be reached a month after their release increased from 20 percent in 2020 to 34 percent in 2021.

Let me say that again. These children are supposed to be placed with sponsors checked out by the administration, by Health and Human Services, but in 2020, 20 percent of those children were unaccounted for 1 month later, and in 2021, it was 34 percent.

Unfortunately, these warning signs went ignored, and the Biden administration did nothing to try to correct the problem.

As the Biden border emergency crisis ramped up, emergency shelters were filling up, and the administration had a major public relations problem on its hands. Its top priority wasn't, apparently, the safety of these children but the speed at which they could be moved from the border to sponsors, with no followup.

The Biden administration wanted to get these children out of the shelters and into the care of these sponsors as quickly as possible. To make that possible, Health and Human Services loosened vetting requirements and urged case managers to move faster, with little regard for the danger that was created for these migrant children.

In a staff meeting last September, Secretary Becerra reportedly told employees:

If Henry Ford had seen this in his plants, he would never

have become famous and rich. That is not the way you do an

assembly line.

This is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a person who is leading the Agency that is meant to care for these children, and he is telling his employees to create a manufacturing assembly line. He deliberately pushed for speed, speed, and more speed because of the public relations problems that the administration was experiencing.

Just 1 year earlier, during Secretary Becerra's tenure, nearly a dozen managers from the Office of Refugee Resettlement sent a memo expressing their concerns about labor trafficking--exactly the problem the New York Times investigation exposed. They said they feared that the Office had come to reward speed over safety. But apparently nothing changed.

Earlier this week, the New York Times published yet another story with even more details on the administration's failure to protect migrant children. One of the most startling revelations was the sheer scale of the crisis.

This chart shows the number of calls to Health and Human Services each month reporting trafficking, neglect, or abuse of migrant children who have been placed with sponsors by the U.S. Government--specifically by the Biden administration's Health and Human Services Department. As you can see, the Department was receiving fewer than 50 calls a month back in 2018, but that number climbed in 2019 and 2020, and starting in 2021, the number of calls skyrocketed. And of course these weren't just cases in which somebody spotted abuse and spoke up. We have no idea how many cases went unreported. But it has become breathtakingly clear that this widespread abuse wasn't caused by missteps; it was a result of intentional policy decisions from top administration officials.

As it turns out, the White House and Federal Agencies were alerted again and again that these children were at risk and did nothing.

In 2021, the most senior career member of the Office of Refugee Resettlement sent an email to her bosses warning them that children were likely to be placed in dangerous situations. When her warning was ignored, she filed a complaint and requested whistleblower protection. Not long after, she was moved out of her position. She then filed another complaint arguing that she was retaliated against--a move that is against the law.

Sadly, this is not an isolated event. Within Health and Human Services, at least five staffers have filed complaints and said they were pushed out of their jobs for sharing concerns with their leadership about this extraordinary crisis of abuse or neglect.

Well, the Labor Department was aware of child labor violations too. Last year, investigators identified major instances of child labor violations that took place in auto parts factories and meatpacking plants. As they continued to uncover more and more cases of migrant children being exploited, the Department shared its concerns with the White House. Former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh confirmed that the Department included details about these situations in its weekly reports to the White House, so the White House was clearly informed about these issues. In December, the Labor Department even released a public report showing a 69-percent increase in child labor violations since 2018.

Well, miraculously, the White House now claims to have no knowledge of this disturbing trend. Susan Rice, who serves as Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, which oversees virtually every aspect of domestic policy affairs, claims no knowledge of this problem.

We know that when the border crisis reached its fever pitch during the summer of 2021, Ms. Rice's team received a memo from Health and Human Services' managers about labor trafficking. Two people confirmed that Ms. Rice was told about the contents of the memo, but the White House now disputes that claim.

Health and Human Services also provided the White House with frequent updates on a group of children being exploited in Alabama, but the White House now says senior officials were never made aware of this situation.

Again and again, the Biden administration was told but failed to heed the warnings of these migrant children being exploited.

And, now, after major investigative reporting has been done by the New York Times, they refuse to accept responsibility and apologize. Instead, they have decided the blame game is what they need to do. So HHS blames the Labor Department for failing to enforce child labor laws. The Labor Department says it shared information with HHS and the White House, but they failed to respond. The White House blames both Departments because, even though they passed along information about potential abuse, they somehow didn't mark it as urgent.

Well, to state the obvious, the Biden administration shouldn't need to be told that potential child exploitation is an urgent matter and deserves attention. It is self-evident. Given the history of migrant children being exploited and the massive scale of President Biden's border crisis, the administration should have been on top of this from the beginning. Clearly, they weren't, and they still aren't. Ultimately, the children they claim to be helping are the ones paying a terrible price.

As the New York Times makes clear, the Biden administration knew the children were being exploited and willingly failed to act. It repeatedly brushed aside warnings and continued to prioritize speed over safety.

So the American people need to know: Is this an example of gross negligence, of whistleblower chilling, or, just simply, a willful violation of the law by the Biden administration?

Right now, the answer to all of those questions appears to be a big and resounding yes.

We need answers from Secretary Becerra, the Secretary of Labor, and Susan Rice on how this could possibly be allowed to happen and how it could continue to happen as I speak. We need accountability, and we need to see proof that there are changes being implemented to prevent this from happening in the future.

Time and time again, the Biden administration has claimed that its approach to the border and immigration is fair, orderly, and humane. But there is nothing fair about putting children in the care of people who will exploit them. There is nothing orderly about ignoring warnings of child labor violations, and there is nothing humane

about the way migrant children are suffering in silence across America.

Every Member of this Chamber, Republicans and Democrats alike, should be absolutely outraged by the Biden administration's abdication of responsibility--of their obligation and our obligation--to protect these migrant children.

I hope, now that the New York Times has detailed the abuses that are occurring, that it will somehow finally get the attention of the Biden White House, and they will finally take appropriate action to protect these children they claim to be helping but who are, in fact, being sacrificed to those who would exploit them and take advantage of them.

I yield the floor.

Well, Mr. President, we are now back in session after a busy 2-week recess where I know many of us were traveling in our States or parts of the world and attending to our duties here in the Senate in various capacities. But now we are back here in Washington, DC, and it appears to me that we have a whole lot we need to do before the Fourth of July recess.

But before we begin the day-to-day task of legislating, the majority leader, it is reported, is expected to ask for some personnel changes in the Senate.

Senator Feinstein, our colleague from California, has been out for a couple of months due to some health issues--not an uncommon occurrence here in the Senate, and I know the entire Senate joins me in wishing her a quick recovery and a speedy return here to the Senate.

But given the tight margins in this Chamber, her absence has created some complications for Senator Schumer within the Senate Judiciary Committee on which I serve.

Without her vote, our Democratic colleagues are simply unable to advance the most controversial and partisan judicial nominees whom the President has selected.

Given the lack of Republican support, these partisan nominees simply cannot move to the Senate floor for a vote. To get around the issue, Senator Schumer has come up with a unique proposal. He wants to temporarily replace Senator Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee.

The idea is to remove her from the committee for an unspecified period of time, name a replacement, and then reinstate Senator Feinstein when she returns. This is, it turns out, unprecedented. Over the years, Senators from both sides, as I indicated a moment ago, have needed time away due to various health issues. Never, not once, have we allowed temporary substitutes on committees, and now is not the time to start.

Republicans are not going to break this precedent in order to bail out Senator Schumer or the Biden administration's most controversial nominees. Yesterday evening, the majority leader said he spoke with Senator Feinstein, and she hopes she will be back soon. We all hope that she comes back soon.

But it is another reason not to go along with Senator Schumer's ploy for temporary appointment of a member of the Judiciary Committee. Senator Feinstein has been a mainstay of this body for more than three decades, and I hope to see her back in these Halls soon.

But until then, President Biden's most controversial partisan judicial nominees will have to wait.

Mr. President, as I said, this Chamber has a lot to do--the 100 of us who

serve in this Chamber. One of the most critical tasks we have is to avoid a debt crisis. Back in January, the United States hit its debt limit, and the U.S. Treasury Department has begun using what they call extraordinary measures to prevent the government from defaulting on its debt.

Since then, we have been operating, literally, on borrowed time. We don't know exactly when those measures will be exhausted. It depends, in part, upon tax returns or tax revenue being generated, and that can be a little bit unpredictable. But experts have said that it could occur as soon as June, which is a little less than 2 months away.

As we know, nothing happens very quickly here in the Senate. It takes time to negotiate, to write, debate, and pass legislation; meaning, it is time to get serious about preventing a fiscal crisis. From the get- go, President Biden drew outrageous red lines and ruled out any negotiations over spending reforms.

Clearly, that was not a realistic nor a responsible position to take. President Biden has signed partisan spending bills totaling $2.7 trillion just in the last year or so alone, and now he says it is up to the Republicans in the House to deal with the debt ceiling, and he is not going to negotiate. That is not a responsible position for the President of the United States to take.

Moreover, the national debt is now $31.6 trillion and counting. Congress cannot just raise the debt limit and continue to borrow and spend like there is no tomorrow.

Yes, this is like your child maxing out their credit limit and then asking you or the bank, perhaps, to raise the credit limit without regard to repaying the debt or at least some of the debt that they owe. No responsible actor acts that way, and the President knows it.

So President Biden needs to get off his high horse. He needs to come to the negotiating table, and I am sure Speaker McCarthy will more than meet him halfway.

Yes, we all agree, we need to avoid a debt crisis. No one wants the United States to default on its debts, but we also need to enact broader reforms to rein in spending, and that has traditionally been what happens when the debt ceiling is increased.

We can't just slap a bandaid on the problem and call it a day. We can't just continue to indefinitely raise the debt limit and burden more and more of future generations with the responsibility that we ourselves should embrace because it is our responsibility and not those future generations.

It is time for Congress to buckle down and get government spending in check, and this is a prime opportunity to have that debate and those votes. Of course, this is just one piece of the Senate's work to promote financial responsibility. We also need to pass regular appropriations bills on time and through the regular order. Move them out of committee, across the floor, give Senators a chance to offer amendments, and then vote. That is what we call regular order around here.

Instead, what we have gotten, at least last year, was a $1.7 trillion bill, I think that was the final pricetag, an omnibus bill, which denied the opportunity for any Member of Congress or the Senate to offer amendments or debate different portions of it, to either add to or reprioritize some of the spending or--Heaven forbid--to cut some of the wasteful spending.

Instead, we were given the choice of an up-or-down vote, and that, of course, is the way the leadership likes it. That is the way Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer, the Senate majority leader, likes it because it maximizes their authority, while it casts the rest of us who have been independently elected to this body on the sidelines as spectators, only to be called into action once the final vote is called.

Well, unfortunately, Congress hasn't had much of a success record when it comes to regular order for appropriations bills. The Senate and House Appropriations Committees, as we know, are charged with writing 12 separate bills to fund different components of the Federal Government.

They are supposed to pass, as I indicated, both Chambers, the House and the Senate, and then those differences are reconciled and then signed into law before September 30 of every year. But that didn't happen last year, as I said. The Democratic-led Senate did not pass a single regular appropriations bill. And, again, that is not by accident; that is by design.

But it doesn't serve the interest of our constituents; it doesn't serve the interests of rank-and-file Members of the Senate to be relegated to the sidelines like a potted plant; and it doesn't give the American people what they are entitled to, which is the kind of robust debate, prioritization, and, yes, some spending restraint and cuts, particularly in areas where we can all agree that that spending is not a high priority or is, indeed, wasteful.

Instead of that regular order, we saw a temporary continuing resolution, which doesn't help the Pentagon or any other element of the Federal Government actually make plans for a yearlong spending appropriation, but rather has to deal with stopgap spending bills, pending this big Omnibus appropriations bill at the end of the year.

And, of course, all of this happens in a rushed fashion, completely out of the public's view. We simply cannot accept this as the new normal. We need to abandon this habit of continuing resolutions and last-minute omnibuses and return to regular ontime appropriations bills.

In order to plan and prepare for the future, Federal Agencies and certainly our military are looking at daunting challenges all across the globe. Whether it is in Europe or in Asia, in North Korea or in the Middle East, we have daunting national security challenges facing us. And this kind of inappropriate power play, frankly, by the leadership of the House and the Senate we saw demonstrated last December does not serve the interest of our military, our national security, or the public interest.

And it results in big, bloated, spending bills that Congress simply doesn't have the opportunity to parse. Well, we know that it takes time to do that so it shouldn't be put on the back burner until we are approaching the end of the fiscal year, which is coming at the end of September. We need to get that process moving now.

Mr. President, earlier this week, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Under Secretary Mayorkas's leadership over these last 2 years, we have seen more than 4.8 million migrants encountered at the southern border. We have seen deadly drugs pouring into our country, killing more than 108,000 Americans in a single year. There is no question but that the transnational criminal organizations, known as the cartels, are fueling the chaos and the destruction.

When Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the Judiciary Committee just a few weeks earlier, I brought up the role that the cartels were playing in this ongoing crisis. I asked the Attorney General if he was familiar with the business model of the cartels: Flood the border with migrants, overwhelm law enforcement, and then allow the movement of the illegal drugs across the border and into the interior of the United States.

Attorney General Garland said, yes, he was aware--not only that, he highlighted actions that he had taken at the Department of Justice to crack down on these operations.

Earlier this week, when I posed the same question to Secretary Mayorkas--I asked if he was familiar with this tried-and-true strategy of the cartels, and he was clueless. He said: I am not aware of any such strategy.

I don't know how that could possibly be true. This is a well-known tactic that has been used throughout Secretary Mayorkas's tenure. One of the most notable examples was in 2021 when the small town of Del Rio, TX, all of a sudden was flooded with 15,000 migrants from Haiti. Thirty-five thousand people live in that small town, and they were overwhelmed by the huge volume of people from--I know it is hard to imagine but from Haiti.

To state the obvious, the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector doesn't have the capacity to process or care for that many individuals at one time. In an attempt to help, the administration moved agents from other checkpoints to the sector where the surge was happening. But, after all, that is exactly what the cartels had hoped for. As there was a surge of agents to Del Rio, that left other portions of the border unprotected.

Administration officials later told congressional staff that this massive surge of migrants was a coordinated effort by the cartels. They directed Haitian migrants to a single location so that other areas would be left uncovered and clear a path for their illicit trade.

Officials from the Biden administration admitted that this surge was coordinated by the cartels, but yet the Secretary of Homeland Security is unaware? How could that possibly be? Secretary Mayorkas is either trying to deceive the Senate or he is completely unaware of the reality on the ground. I think both of those are fireable offenses. Either you are lying or you are completely oblivious to the threat to public safety posed by the current crisis, which is singularly of the making of the Biden administration and their unwillingness to use the tools they have, the laws that are already on the books, in order to deal with this crisis, this humanitarian crisis and this public health crisis.

Every day, the United States is getting played, and criminal organizations whose illegal businesses are making them a lot of money are getting richer. These groups are what I like to call commodity- agnostic because they deal in any product or service that makes them money. They really don't care. They certainly don't care about the migrants, who are frequently abused and many of whom unfortunately are left to die on that long and dangerous journey from their home.

We are well aware of their drug trafficking operations, which bring all sorts of illegal drugs into the United States. Over the years, law enforcement has interdicted everything from marijuana to methamphetamine to cocaine and heroin, but recently, we have seen an alarming rise in fentanyl.

When I was in Mexico City just a couple of weeks ago visiting with the Drug Enforcement Administration, they said fentanyl is made from chemicals that are imported from China to Mexico, where the cartels simply mix them up and then put them through an industrial-size pill press and make them look like regular prescription drugs, although these are laced with

fentanyl--a deadly drug in very, very small amounts.

We know a lot of communities throughout Texas and throughout the country have experienced waves of deaths caused by unintentional fentanyl poisoning. In other words, the person taking the pill--usually a teenager--thinks they are taking something innocuous that won't kill them certainly. They may think they are taking anything from a painkiller or other sorts of prescription drugs, and then they unknowingly ingest a lethal dose of fentanyl. Of course, the cartels continue to get rich, and the destruction caused by these overdoses and drug abuse continues.

We know that these cartels, again, are commodity-agnostic. They don't just traffic in drugs; they also prey on vulnerable people who want to come to the United States. They spin a web of lies and false promises to convince migrants to make the journey to our border under their care, but, like all the other things the cartel deals in, it comes at a price.

There are a lot of factors that determine how much it costs somebody to make their way to our front doorstep on our southern border. Typically, it is thousands of dollars a head, but really it just depends on where you are coming from.

Recently, in Yuma, AZ, a sleepy agricultural community, the Border Patrol Chief welcomed a bipartisan delegation of Senators there and said: We have encountered people who speak 200 languages from 176 countries in this sleepy little ag community.

Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona said: Well, in all likelihood, people are flying into Mexicali--which is a city in northern Mexico--and then simply calling an Uber and making their way to the border and then claiming asylum, only to be released by the Biden administration into the interior of the country.

Those are the lucky ones. Those who turn themselves over to the coyotes, the human smugglers, frequently end up dead. We all remember last June when a tractor trailer rig smuggled migrants in San Antonio. It was found abandoned in sweltering conditions. Fifty-three people died, trapped in the back of that truck.

Those who survive often arrive malnourished or abused. Many women and men are injured or otherwise abused. Many women and girls are raped along the way. Some arrive pregnant.

As we know, the customers of these criminal organizations aren't limited to Mexican or Central American citizens; these are international criminal networks. Consistent with what the Yuma Border Patrol Chief told us, last year, Customs and Border Protection encountered migrants from 174 countries. People from every corner of the globe are traveling to Mexico and crossing the U.S. southern border, all in the tender care of these transnational criminal organizations.

Of course, given the nature of this business, it is tough to estimate just how much the cartels are making from their human smuggling operations, but last year, Homeland Security investigations estimated that the cartels were making roughly $13 billion a year just from migrant smuggling alone.

There is no question that their success is built on a breakdown of enforcement by the Biden administration. If our border was truly secure, if people knew they would not be able to just enter our country willy-nilly but had to follow legal pathways, the cartels wouldn't be able to flood the zone with migrants to clear the way for their smuggling operations.

Unfortunately, instead of making the cartels' jobs harder, the Biden administration's policy of open borders just keeps making it easier. Rather than secure the border and enforce our laws, the Biden administration continues to send a message loud and clear that our border is open for anyone to come across.

For more than 2 years, the administration has refused to enforce the law, ensuring that the cartels' illicit gateways remain wide open. They have released hundreds of thousands of migrants into the United States, some of whom will wait as long as 10 years before they can even begin the immigration court process--talk about a major pull factor. If someone is on the fence about making the dangerous journey to the United States but sees that virtually anybody who shows up is able to stay in the United States for a decade at least even before facing an immigration judge, their decision to come is far easier.

As though the cartels don't have enough business already, they are about to be given the gift of a lifetime when title 42 ends in 6 weeks on May 11. Title 42, of course, is a public health law which has given the Border Patrol one tool to deter and to return migrants out of the country. It has given the Department of Homeland Security the ability to quickly expel migrants and prevent our border facilities and local communities from becoming even more overwhelmed than they already are. But once it disappears in May, the floodgates will be wide open.

Law enforcement and border communities have been bracing for the migration surge that is sure to come once title 42 goes away. They are worried that they don't have the people, the facilities, or the resources to manage this flood of humanity, and the administration has done zero to inspire confidence.

Just last week, Secretary Mayorkas visited El Paso, which has been at the epicenter of this crisis since late last year. The streets and the shelters have been filled with vulnerable migrants with nowhere else to go, and its leaders are very anxious about what will happen on May 11.

During his visit, Secretary Mayorkas met with Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations officers to thank them for their hard work. These men and women have been on the frontlines of this crisis for more than 2 years, and they deserve our unending gratitude for the sacrifices they made. But they deserve more than our thanks; they deserve our help so that they can do the law enforcement and do the job they have pledged to do. But we have designed the system to fail because we have made it impossible for them to do their job the way they are trained to do.

While Secretary Mayorkas couldn't be bothered to meet with other stakeholders in El Paso, he might have actually learned something. When I visited the city in January with a bipartisan group, we took the time to meet with law enforcement, local elected officials, business owners, nongovernmental organizations, and many others. They told us about the strain this crisis has placed on the entire community, and they shared their fears about what might happen once title 42 is lifted if there is no alternative plan put in place.

Unfortunately, during his most recent trip, Secretary Mayorkas didn't take the time to hear from a full range of stakeholders who were on the frontlines. He didn't sit down with those elected officials to discuss the caravans of migrants that are forming just across the border in Juarez, across from El Paso. He didn't offer advice about how the communities should prepare for what happens when title 42 is eliminated or what the Federal Government was prepared to do to help.

So, once again, our border communities in Texas are doing the backbreaking work of managing this crisis with little or no support from the Biden administration. With the end of title 42 in sight, the administration needs to prepare for what is to come, and they need to help get ready to deter this huge flood of humanity. They simply can't ignore the problem and hope it goes away. That hasn't worked for the last 2 years, and it certainly won't work now.

March is quickly coming to a close, and the challenges are only going to grow from there, as the spring months are typically some of the busiest for migration. That is because mild temperatures make the journey a little less dangerous and folks want to come to the United States, many to work during the summertime.

Our border communities are bracing for this perfect storm of policies and circumstances that will hurt everybody except the cartels. Their drug trafficking and human smuggling operations have never been more profitable, and they are gearing up for an even bigger windfall thanks to the Biden administration and the end of title 42.

These criminal organizations will continue to extort and profit off the backs of vulnerable migrants. They will coordinate migration surges to distract and overwhelm law enforcement,

and they will smuggle fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into every corner of this country. And they will get richer while migrants and communities throughout America suffer.

The administration has 6 weeks to come up with a plan. They know the clock is ticking, and they had better get to work. And, even more significantly, they ought to work with us on a bipartisan basis to come up with a solution.

Senator Sinema from Arizona and I; Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo; and Tony Gonzales, a Republican from the largest border district in the country--the four of us--introduced a bill called the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act. We did that almost 2 years ago. Yet our Democratic colleagues, even though they have had the majority for 2 years preceding this last election, did nothing to have hearings on that proposed legislation or to offer a markup or a vote on the bill. And, certainly, we were happy, if somebody had a better idea, for them to come forward. But all we heard were crickets.

Well, the clock is ticking, and we know what is going to happen in May unless something changes, and I hope it will.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank our friends from North Dakota, from West Virginia, and from Nebraska for being here today to talk about producing low-cost energy, which would reduce emissions.

I am from an energy-producing State. In Texas, we are an ``all of the above'' State. We actually generate more electricity from wind than any other State in the Nation.

While I know many people think of the Lone Star State as being primarily an oil and gas producer, which we are, we really are an ``all of the above'' State because we found that, for example, when the wind doesn't blow and the Sun doesn't shine, then you need a baseload from some source, whether it is nuclear, whether it is natural gas. We have even had instances where, because of very, very cold weather, 100-year cold snaps, even natural gas does not supply that baseload. But here again, it is a reminder of how vulnerable we all are to a secure and affordable energy supply.

If we needed a recent historical reminder, when Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine and threatened to cut off the sole source of energy for essentially all of Europe, they had to scramble for alternative sources and diversify their energy supply. That ought to be a lesson to us that we should not put all of our eggs in one basket, but we should pursue an ``all of the above'' energy strategy.

One of the biggest hurdles to energy development in America today, whether it is fossil fuels or green energy, is the permitting process. Any project with a Federal nexus, whether it touches Federal land, crosses State lines, or uses Federal funding, has to wade through a swamp of redtape. This process is not just cumbersome, it is also time- consuming and expensive. On average, it takes 4\1/2\ years to complete the environmental review for potential projects. Again, that is just the average--4\1/2\ years. Many projects take longer. In fact, it takes more than 6 years to complete the environmental review for a quarter of the projects.

Whether we are talking about drilling for oil and gas, building wind farms, mining critical minerals, building pipelines, or any other energy project, the permitting process is a major impediment. It puts the boot on

the neck of America's energy producers; it raises costs for consumers, who need more, not less, energy; and it delays the jobs and investment that these projects would create.

Earlier this week, a coalition of more than 340 organizations sent a letter to Congress advocating for commonsense permitting reform. This group includes organizations that represent traditional energy producers, like the American Petroleum Institute and the American Gas Association, but it also notably includes renewable energy groups, such as the American Clean Power Association and the American Council on Renewable Energy. It includes industries that are supported by American energy production, like pipeline contractors, builders, truckers, and engineers, as well as groups that advocate for small businesses and consumers. This is a very diverse range of stakeholders, and they agree on this one thing: It is time to fix America's broken permitting system. They described it as ``the biggest obstacle to building the infrastructure of the future,'' and I agree.

I know that sometimes people think that building things is going to encourage more fossil fuel production, but the simple fact is, the same transmission lines that carry electricity from wind-generated turbines--you need those for any type of electricity, whether it is nuclear power, whether it is natural gas, whether it is wind. All of these require certain basic infrastructure, and they are all slowed down and made more expensive by the antiquated permitting process. This problem harms American energy security and stands in the way of new jobs and investments in communities all across the country.

It is time--it is really past time--for Congress to simplify and expedite the permitting process. This is at the top of the to-do list for our Republican colleagues in the House. As we have heard this week, they are expected to pass a package of bills to overhaul the broken permitting process and make other reforms to boost energy production and bring down energy costs for consumers.

Unfortunately, the majority leader, the Senator from New York, didn't waste any time attacking the House bill. He called it a ``partisan, dead-on-arrival, and unserious proposal.'' That is hardly the recipe for productive, bipartisan negotiations between the House and the Senate.

As the majority leader knows, Senator Manchin, the Senator from West Virginia--his permitting reform didn't have the votes to pass the Senate, let alone the House. But the good news is that Senator Manchin and Senator Capito--both from the great State of West Virginia--are leading the efforts in this Chamber to work on a bipartisan permitting reform bill.

The only way to fix the broken system is to work together, to utilize our committees, and to craft a bill that can gain the requisite support of at least 60 Senators.

As a top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Capito has been on point on this issue. She and Senator Barrasso, who is the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, are our leaders in trying to find a way to fix this broken process and promote America's energy security.

As I said, there is strong bipartisan support for commonsense permitting reform, and I hope the majority leader will not stand in the way.

I yield the floor.

Regular order.

Regular order.