Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill amends the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, to modify requirements under that act relating to exemptions.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill amends the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, to modify requirements under that act relating to exemptions.

Madam President, it was a busy weekend for the U.S. military, which has now shot down three unidentified objects over North American airspace in as many days.

On Friday, an F-22 took down an object hovering over Alaska, which officials described as being about the size of a small car. On Saturday, an F-22 brought down an object over Canada that was described only as cylindrical. On Sunday, an F-16 shot down another unidentified object over Lake Huron, which was traveling at about 20,000 feet--low enough to interfere with commercial air traffic.

Given the high profile of the Chinese spy balloon, this is, obviously, of great interest to the American people.

Over the last several days, starting in late February, the American people watched as China's surveillance balloon traveled across the country before President Biden finally instructed the military to shoot it down off the coast of South Carolina. That was just 9 days ago. The military is still recovering pieces of that balloon from the bottom of the Atlantic in an effort to gain some answers, but given everything that has happened in the interim, the swirl of questions has only grown.

The United States has shot down four objects flying over our country since February 4, and they have identified one of those four objects. Based on what we know now or perhaps what we don't know now, we know the government has shot down three objects of unknown provenance. Since they don't know what they are, presumably, they don't know where they came from; yet the President ordered them shot down. We have not been told whether they were emitting any sort of signature, like heat, which might be picked up by an infrared sensor, or some other signal, with data either coming from or going to that object. So you can imagine that the American people have a lot of questions about these unidentified objects as well as the broader threat to our national interest.

They are looking to the administration for answers, and the only path forward is full and complete transparency. President Biden needs to explain what happened and just how concerned the American people should be, and he needs to consult with Congress and share the information he has with us. Until that happens, speculation will only intensify. If you don't know what the cause of a particular concern is or an anxiety or maybe even a threat, it is only human nature to speculate and imagine the very worst. So the last several days have prompted a lot of questions, and I hope the administration will provide some necessary answers soon.

I expect the Chinese spy balloon and these unidentified objects will be the topics of discussion in the Senate this week. I know all of our colleagues, Republican and Democrat alike, are eager to learn more, and I hope the administration will be what it has not yet been, and that is forthright and transparent.

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

Mr. President, this evening, President Biden will deliver his second State of the Union Address.

Presidents, of course, typically use the speech as an opportunity to claim credit for all the ways Americans' lives have improved under their leadership. Former Presidents have touted everything from economic growth to progress battling the opioid epidemic.

In this case, President Biden hasn't given his speech writers much material to work with. Families in Texas and across the country are still being battered by inflation. I know there are hopes for inflation to abate, but yet the Federal Reserve has shown no indication that they will fail to increase the discount rate--in other words, interest rate--meaning that, more and more, they are concerned still about the impact of inflation.

Inflation, as we have seen, means that people's standard of living is decreased because their earned income does not go as far as it used to, and we know high prices have wiped out wage gains, giving most workers a pay cut.

We also know that public safety remains a matter of serious public concern, and starting from the impact of the ``defund the police'' movement to now the difficulty law enforcement has actually recruiting and retaining an adequate number of officers, we know crime continues to be a matter of widespread public concern.

Then there are the failed policies at the border, which have led to a humanitarian and public health crisis.

The humanitarian part is evidenced, obviously, by the millions of people who show up at the border with every expectation they will be admitted to the United States.

The public health crisis comes from the 108,000 Americans who died from drug overdoses, where those drugs almost exclusively transited the U.S.-Mexican border into the United States. We know the chaos of mass migration has helped make the drug runners' job easier, and we know of the devastating impact it is having across the country.

I don't know how much of this the President will actually talk about, whether it is inflation, whether it is crime, or whether it is the border, but these are the kitchen-table issues most American families care deeply about--the cost of groceries, the ability to put gas in your tank, and living in a safe neighborhood and raising your family.

I don't know whether the President will dwell on any of those topics at all, but just to recapitulate, inflation now is the highest it has been in 40 years. We know that many cities have broken their alltime homicide records, and we are still in the midst of a completely unprecedented crisis on the southern border.

We have seen some pretty big missteps on the world stage too. For example, the Biden administration led a deadly and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the loss of 13 servicemembers and countless Americans stranded in Taliban territory.

The administration continues to try to revive the failed Iran nuclear deal and to give Tehran even more resources to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

Just last week, the administration hit an embarrassing new low when the People's Republic of China flew a surveillance balloon across the United States, spying on the U.S. military and on all civilians. It took 7 days before the administration finally gave the green light to shoot it down off the coast of South Carolina. To be specific, it wasn't just the administration; it was the President of the United States who gave that instruction 7 days after it began its transit across U.S. territory.

During his first 2 years in office, President Biden had a pretty big advantage: His party held the majority in both Houses of Congress. He had the golden opportunity to enact his agenda and address the biggest problems facing American families. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of overlap between the Biden agenda and the American agenda.

While people were struggling to keep up with high gas prices, the administration waged war on American energy. While parents questioned what was being taught in their kids' classrooms, the administration threatened to unleash the FBI on concerned parents who spoke out at the school board meetings. While inflation raged, Democrats poured even more fuel on the fire by spending an additional $2\1/2\-plus trillion on purely partisan spending bills; namely, the American Recovery Act and the so-called Inflation Reduction Act--all passed without a single Republican vote but which added easily $2.5 trillion to our national debt. So it doesn't come as a surprise, I guess, that voters decided to change the direction of the country in the last election by electing a Republican majority in the House.

Tonight, for the first time, President Biden will deliver his State of the Union Address before a divided Congress--a Democrat-controlled Senate, a Republican-controlled House, and a President who ran on the promise of governing from the middle and bringing us together but who hasn't shown a willingness to do that so far.

I think we are all eager to know how President Biden will broach all of these topics this evening. Will he simply try to gloss over his claimed successes and ignore his failures? Will he try to blame Republicans for the current state of our country even though Democrats controlled all the levers of government for the last 2 years? Or will he finally acknowledge the many problems that proliferated under his leadership and get serious about solutions?

One of the most critical areas where we need to see real leadership is the current border crisis, which has been raging since President Biden took office 2 years ago. Day after day, month after month, migrants have crossed our border in unprecedented numbers. Over the years, we have seen plenty of migration surges but nothing like this.

Last fiscal year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection logged nearly 2.4

million border crossings, shattering the previous record. In December, Customs and Border Protection encountered more than a quarter of a million migrants at the southern border--a quarter of a million people in a single month, which is a new record.

The President has not offered a single serious plan to address this crisis. Secretary Mayorkas keeps saying: Well, this is something Congress needs to weigh in on. But they have engaged in zero outreach or any visible indication that they actually do want a congressionally passed solution to this problem, one that the President would have to sign into law.

The only policy changes that the President has offered will do nothing to stop people from coming because they just parole them faster. In other words, they show up at the border, and they are given a piece of paper and told: Go to the closest Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in wherever it is you are locating in the interior of the United States--with no followup and no real assurance that they will actually go to an ICE office and ultimately end up in front of an immigration judge.

We know that is part of the game, too, because if the human smugglers flood the zone with people, they can overwhelm the capacity of our immigration court system to actually deal with these asylum cases. Those who ultimately end up before an immigration judge are only successful in roughly 10 to 15 percent of the cases, but if you flood the zone with enough people, you can overwhelm the capacity of the court system, and you can basically succeed in living permanently in the United States even though you have not complied with our immigration laws to do so.

We know that for 2 years, the men and women on the frontline of the border have been pleading with the administration to do something. Law enforcement are understaffed and overwhelmed by the workload they are expected to shoulder.

Nonprofit organizations and local governments are trying to mitigate the humanitarian crisis that has landed on their doorstep, and legitimate trade and travel have taken a big hit. Mexico was our single largest trading partner. Yet legitimate trade and travel are hampered by this flood of humanity coming across the border as well.

So I hope the President will be candid with the American people tonight and acknowledge not only what he views as his successes but where more work needs to be done. Now that he no longer enjoys a majority in the House and the Senate but now has a divided Congress, I hope he is candid enough to acknowledge that the only way we are going to be able to solve some of these problems is to finally work together to do so.

We know that what the President shouldn't say is that he will somehow use his Executive powers to create new categories of immigrants or microscopic pilot programs. It needs to center on the basic idea of enforcing our immigration laws and reforming our asylum system. That is the only way to restore order and get this crisis under control.

Legal immigration has, to my mind, been one of the greatest successes America has to show to the rest of the world--legal immigration, orderly, humane, and legal--but what we are seeing now is the antithesis of orderly, humane, or legal. It is just the opposite.

We know our country is facing a diverse set of challenges in our homes, schools, workplaces, and along the border, and on the world stage, democracy itself continues to be under attack by hostile autocrats and dictators. The American people deserve to hear the President explain his plan to address each of these looming challenges, and I hope he does so tonight.

Once the State of the Union concludes, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders will deliver the Republican address. She is a champion for workers and families who have been left behind. I look forward to hearing her response to President Biden's speech, and I expect to see a stark contrast between the cloistered unrealities of the Biden administration and the reality that American families are facing.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, last weekend, the New York Times ran a story entitled ``How a Drug Company Made $114 Billion by Gaming the U.S. Patent System.'' This is an infuriating account of how a pharmaceutical company maintained a monopoly on a popular drug and the impact it has had on patients and taxpayers.

The company is AbbVie, and the drug is Humira, one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. It is an anti-inflammatory medication that is commonly used to treat arthritis and other conditions.

Despite the fact that Humira has been available for two decades, its first competitor didn't hit the market until earlier this week. That wasn't due to a lack of interest by other companies or an inability to produce the biosimilar that could earn Food and Drug Administration approval. It was because AbbVie used a maze of overlapping patents and an aggressive litigation strategy to stave off any competition.

Unsurprisingly, this led to big earnings for the company--$114 billion in revenue since 2016--and it has come at a high cost to patients who rely on this drug to maintain their health. The list price for Humira is more than $80,000 per year, per patient. That is higher than the median household income in Texas.

So depending on the patient's insurance, that price could be lowered significantly for the consumer or the patient themselves. A woman in Kentucky said her employer's health insurance plan kept her payments at around $60 a year. But, of course, we know that, if the insurance company is paying retail or some negotiated price, ultimately that price is going to be passed along in terms of higher insurance premiums for the consumer.

So there is a lot of bait and switch going on here. Once she retired and switched to Medicare, the cost skyrocketed to $8,000 a year. So her private insurance kept her payments to $60 a year, but when she changed to Medicare, it went to $8,000 a year. This is, again, part of the shell game in healthcare and in pharmaceuticals.

I can't imagine anyone living on a fixed income who could afford such an expensive drug. The good news, at least for this specific drug, is that, at long last, Humira's monopoly has come to an end. Earlier this week, the first biosimilar came to market, and more are expected later this year.

Humira is one of the most egregious examples of patent abuse, but it is far from the only one. Other pharmaceutical companies are engaging in this practice every day, and there is nothing to prevent others from using this same playbook. I hope that will change soon.

Earlier this week, Senator Blumenthal, the Senator from Connecticut, and I reintroduced a bill called the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act to put an end to this anticompetitive practice that keeps drug prices artificially high.

There are two practices in particular that this bill will address. One is called patent thicketing--patent thicketing--which involves building layers upon layers of patents to prevent competitors from ever hitting the market. That is what AbbVie did with Humira. The company has--or has had, until just now, with its monopoly ending--as many as 134 active patents for a single drug--134 patents.

Now, I am a firm believer in the patent system. I believe we ought to protect investments made in cutting-edge and lifesaving drugs, and we ought to reward those who invent these lifesaving drugs with an exclusive right to sell it for a period of time. That is what the patent law does, and it incentivizes more and more people--more and more scientists and medical researchers--to come up with new lifesaving drugs.

But getting 134 patents on the same drug should outrage all of us. Like I said, this drug has been available for 20 years. AbbVie has spent years and exorbitant amounts of money, but, apparently, they still profited. They spent a lot of money fighting competition off in court, all to maintain control of the market on this drug.

Like I said, patents and exclusivity periods are not inherently bad. Discovering new cures is a time-, labor-, and money-intensive process, and we don't want to discourage that. Before a company spends years and hundreds of millions--or even billions--of dollars researching a new cure, conducting clinical trials, and undergoing the regulatory review, it needs to know that it can recoup its investment and maybe--just maybe--make a profit.

And many of the new drugs that are invented and tried do not succeed. So success is certainly not guaranteed. That is why the United States offers robust protections for intellectual property through the patent system.

The patent system gives innovators the confidence they need to invest their time and resources into research and development. Once that new innovative drug hits the market, the manufacturer can enjoy a limited time period as the sole supplier before generic versions become available or other competitors.

Patents are the key behind the incredible medical innovation that occurs here in the United States, and we need to find the right balance between stopping the bad actors who will game the system and, at the same time, encouraging the development of future cures.

I believe the bipartisan bill that Senator Blumenthal and I are reintroducing strikes that balance. It places a reasonable limit on the number of patents that a manufacturer can contest. That will deter gamesmanship while preserving the incentives necessary for the patent system and for innovation.

The other anticompetitive behavior this bill will address is something called product hopping, which occurs when a company develops a reformulation of a product that is about to lose exclusivity and then pulls the original product off the market.

This is done not because the new formula is more effective but because it prevents generic competitors. One example is the drug Namenda, which is used by patients with Alzheimer's, a terrible disease. Near the end of the exclusivity period, the manufacturer switched from a twice-daily drug to a once-daily drug. It didn't change the

basic molecules. It just changed the prescribed dosage and taking, instead of twice a day, to once a day.

That move prevented pharmacists from being able to switch patients to a lower cost generic, even though it is just as effective, so the company could continue to profit. The Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act puts an end to this practice by expressly prohibiting manufacturers from engaging in product hopping. It also facilitates market entry for generics and biosimilars, which lead to more options and lower prices for patients.

These reforms are, obviously, desperately needed. Patients in Texas and across the country are experiencing sticker shock at the pharmacy counter like never before. Many have tried to ration their critical medications, for example, in order to make them last longer. Some have been priced out of their medications entirely.

There is a clear need for Congress to step in and address the blatant abuse of the patent system, and I am optimistic that we will be able to do something important about it.

The Judiciary Committee will hold a markup next Thursday to consider this legislation and other bipartisan proposals to address sky-high drug prices. Last Congress, the Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Act passed the Judiciary Committee with unanimous bipartisan support, and I hope we will see the same level of support this go-round.

Over the last few years, we have held many hearings and advanced many drug pricing bills to the Senate floor, but, unfortunately, progress seems to often end there. We haven't had much success in getting those bills through the House and signed into law. I think I can speak on behalf of colleagues on both sides of the aisle and say I hope this year is different.

I have heard from many Texans who are frustrated by the lack of lower priced generic drugs. Given the impact of inflation on family budgets, that strain has only grown greater over the last few years. So there is a bipartisan desire to stop the anticompetitive behaviors that I have described here today that are costing patients and taxpayers a fortune, and I hope we can make progress this Congress and finally put a stop to some of the gamesmanship.

Senator Blumenthal and I are committed to moving our bipartisan bill across the finish line, and we are eager to have others of our colleagues join us by cosponsoring this bill. But more important than that, it is important we actually get it across the finish line, get it through the House, and get it to the President's desk. So I hope this bill will continue to receive broad bipartisan support, and I am happy to work with anyone who has ideas to help us get there.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today, the family of Tyre Nichols will celebrate the life of a 29-year-old man who was brutally killed by police earlier this month. In the wake of this tragedy, we have heard the predictable renewed calls for police reform legislation here in Congress, something that we attempted not that long ago.

In the summer of 2020, Senators from both parties introduced police reform bills after other high-profile tragedies like the George Floyd murder. Senator Tim Scott, on our side--the Senator from South Carolina--led those efforts. I was proud to work with him in crafting something called the JUSTICE Act, which would reform, retrain, and restore trust in America's police officers, something that I believe is very important. This package of bills included a number of initiatives to improve accountability and transparency and deliver real change to our communities across the country.

I remember, after the George Floyd murder, I asked my friends, the mayor of Houston and the mayor of Dallas, if they would assemble a group of community leaders so that I could better understand what the relationship was, particularly between communities of

color and the police in those cities. It was pretty eye-opening. While many young people and many not so young people are raised to believe that the police are their friends and people you could depend on and call if you are in trouble, in some communities, there is a lack of trust and confidence in the police because of a very different experience that they have had in those communities.

I believe there still is a broad bipartisan appetite for these types of reforms that were included in the JUSTICE Act. I was optimistic that we could, at the time, pass a police reform bill that was desperately needed, but when Leader McConnell tried to bring that bill to the floor, our Democratic colleagues blocked it. That is right. They blocked it. They refused to allow the Senate to even debate or consider this legislation.

Strangely enough, this package included a bill by Senator Booker and then-Senator Kamala Harris to make lynching a Federal crime, but they voted to block the consideration of the bill that included their bill to make lynching a Federal crime. It just didn't make any sense to me then, and it doesn't make any sense to me now.

This would have strengthened the use and accountability for body cameras--I am talking about the bigger bill now, of course--improved access to deescalation training and duty-to-intervene training, and established two commissions to give us a better understanding and recommendations on the challenges that needed to be addressed in the long run. But, as I said, our colleagues across the aisle blocked it. This important point is worth remembering now as our Democratic colleagues renew their call for police reform.

Now, in light of the filibuster of the JUSTICE Act, I introduced a stand-alone bill that included deescalation provisions from Senator Scott's legislation, and I worked with my colleague Senator Whitehouse on a bipartisan bill that was signed into law last December. So at least that piece of the JUSTICE Act did become law. It was signed into law by President Biden.

Deescalation training is very important. That doesn't mean that rogue police officers will always follow their training. Indeed, these officers, if they were trained to deescalate these conflicts, certainly did not follow their training, and they will be held accountable, as they should be, by the prosecutors who will bring charges against them. But it bears repeating that Republicans tried to bring a police reform bill to the floor 2\1/2\ years ago, and our Democratic colleagues stood in the way.

Mr. President, on another matter, today, President Biden and Speaker McCarthy will sit down to discuss options to avoid a debt crisis and rein in government spending.

The one thing that President Biden and Speaker McCarthy agree on is that we cannot breach the debt ceiling. I guess that is at least a start. From there, there doesn't seem to be a lot of common ground, not yet anyway. With a potential default on the horizon, this topic has gotten a lot of attention, but as we all know, America's debt crisis didn't appear overnight. It has been building for decades.

As I have said before and will say again, Republicans and Democrats have not exactly covered themselves with glory when it comes to deficit spending and increasing the debt. Washington has spent and spent with no meaningful steps to balance the budget. We are writing checks-- spending money--that we know people of my generation will never have to pay back but that younger generations certainly will. That strikes me as profoundly immoral. The national debt has skyrocketed from $3.2 trillion in 1980--$3.2 trillion in 1980--to $9.7 trillion in 2000 to $31.5 trillion today.

I think it was Everett Dirksen who said, years ago, ``A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.'' Nobody ever thought to use the T-word until recently.

During COVID-19, we worked together to avert a public health crisis and an economic catastrophe during the pandemic, and we did that on a bipartisan basis, but in the last 2 years, our Democratic colleagues have spent another $2.5 trillion-plus in purely partisan spending bills: the so-called American Recovery Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

There has been more than $2.5 trillion in partisan spending, and the President takes the position that he won't even negotiate on the debt ceiling, when he is the one person whose signature is required to sign something into law. And by his signature, he has raised the debt more than $2.5 trillion in partisan spending in the last 2 years, and he won't even negotiate? It strikes me as unsustainable and certainly irresponsible.

The President was happy to take a tour across America to brag about these costly bills, but when we hit the debt limit, he is nowhere to be seen. He is pointing the finger of blame at the Republican House of Representatives and at the Speaker and suggesting that, well, if you want to cut spending, tell us where you would cut.

Let's look at spending that the President and Democrats were solely responsible for. If we could cut back $2\1/2\ trillion of spending, that would do a lot to address the current level of debt. But the President's position is, it is not my responsibility. I don't really care. And he wants to try to lay all of this at the feet of Speaker McCarthy. It is wildly inappropriate and irresponsible.

In short, President Biden has made clear that he expects Congress to raise the debt limit with no conditions attached, but that also means to let this runaway spending and accumulating debt continue. That is the part he doesn't say but is implicit in his position.

Republicans have made clear that his position is untenable. For one, it is a matter of financial prudence. Congress can't raise the debt ceiling just to keep spending like there is no tomorrow. We need to get government spending in check, and the best way to do that is on a bipartisan basis. But there is also a matter of practicality.

Republicans now control the House, meaning that the only viable path to success means compromise. We have a divided government--that is what the midterm elections gave us. Some of my colleagues like to say that divided government is the best time to do hard things. I think that is true, but if it doesn't change behavior, those hard things never get addressed.

President Biden can roll out as many ultimatums as he wants, but the reality is his party no longer controls all the levers of government like it has during the last 2 years. And in order to avoid a debt crisis, which he said is nonnegotiable, he is going to have to work with Republicans.

Today's meeting with Speaker McCarthy is a start, but at minimum, I hope the President will walk back his statement about not negotiating and understand that he has no choice but to work with Republicans, just like Speaker McCarthy has no choice but to work with President Biden. That is the nature of a divided government that the voters gave us with the midterm elections, and we need to get serious about workable solutions.

Secretary Yellen has said she thinks that the government will not default before June, which means we have approximately 4 months to work this out. I hope today's meeting between the President and the Speaker marks the beginning of bipartisan negotiations, and I am eager to learn more about their discussion.

20th Anniversary of Space Shuttle ``Columbia'' Accident

Mr. President, on a final matter, today marks a solemn anniversary for our country. Twenty years ago today, the Space Shuttle Columbia was making its return to Earth on the heels of a mission dubbed STS-107.

After 16 days in orbit, the shuttle was bound for Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where members of the astronauts' families and countless spectators gathered to watch its landing, which is always an exciting and inspiring sight.

The shuttle was traveling across the southern part of the United States, and as it crossed Texas on a beautiful Saturday morning, something terrible happened. Folks along the flight path stood in their yards, excited to watch a glimpse of Columbia returning from its 28th mission. They watched the orbiter streak across the sky at some 12,000

miles an hour, when, suddenly, they heard a loud noise and saw the shuttle begin to come apart.

We soon realized that the worst had happened: The shuttle broke into several pieces as it reentered Earth's atmosphere, and all seven astronauts aboard lost their lives.

The crew of Columbia included two Texans: Rick Husband and Willie McCool, along with Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon. They were scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center just 15 minutes after passing over Texas.

The disaster left a field of wreckage that stretched from Fort Worth, across East Texas, and into Louisiana. Texas is a big place, but that means virtually the whole breadth of our State was covered with wreckage.

The government, of course, immediately launched a massive search to recover pieces of the space shuttle in order to determine what went wrong. NASA officials, National Guard troops, and law enforcement at all levels began scouring the landscape to recover pieces of the shuttle. Divers from the Environmental Protection Agency led efforts to recover pieces that fell into the Toledo Bend Reservoir near Hemphill.

Some 25,000 volunteers from Texas and Louisiana helped search an area that covered 2.3 million acres. They ranged from college students at nearby Stephen F. Austin to teams of ham radio operators who helped law enforcement with communications. As Texans and Americans do, people from all walks of life came together at a time of tragedy and rallied behind a unified effort to help bring answers to a nation in mourning.

This tragedy happened just a couple of months into my first Senate term, and I witnessed this massive response effort in action.

In the aftermath, I visited an area in Nacogdoches, which is over in East Texas, where tents were set up by search teams. It was remarkable to see the dedication of men and women firsthand engaged in this effort.

Search crews battled the rain and cold temperatures as they combed through pine forests and underbrush searching for wreckage. Recovery teams and volunteers found everything from a 600-pound piece of a main engine to the sole of a spacesuit boot. These discoveries, of course, were crucial to the investigation, which helped NASA understand what went wrong and how we could prevent similar accidents from occurring in the future.

In the months and years since, the Agency underwent an extensive transformation of its culture and operations to improve the safety of future missions. Jon Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon, whose wife Laurel was killed on Columbia said:

Their sacrifice has evolved into a safer space program.

Those changes are no consolation for the families who lost loved ones 20 years ago today, but I hope they can find some comfort in the knowledge that these American heroes made a lasting impact on America's space program.

I appreciate the Texans who came together in the wake of this tragedy to preserve pieces of Columbia and provide NASA and these families with answers that they so earnestly sought. Their efforts, then and now, have helped make the Nation's space program safer and more successful.

As we mark the 20th anniversary of the loss of Columbia, I am proud to cosponsor a Senate resolution to commemorate the loss of Columbia and honor its crew. I appreciate the bipartisan support of Senators on both sides of the aisle who have joined in this effort, and I hope the resolution will pass unanimously today.

Today, we pay tribute to seven courageous individuals who lost their lives aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. We remember, we honor, and we celebrate their commitment to research, exploration, and the pursuit of the extraordinary. We honor their legacy by continuing to push the boundaries of scientific discovery and human space.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, over the past few days, we have seen a number of headlines with surprising announcements about the impact the Biden administration's new border policies have had. Reuters, for example, ran a story last week titled ``U.S. arrests of Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants plummet.''

Dallas Morning News had a story titled ``Biden administration says illegal border crossings already falling under new policies.''

The Wall Street Journal ran a story over the weekend with the headline ``Migrant Arrests Fell by Roughly Half in January After New Enforcement Measures.''

Well, by reading those headlines alone, you might assume that the administration had finally done something it has refused to do over the last 2 years, and that is to take action to address the migration crisis, the humanitarian and public safety crisis that has been occurring at our southern border. You might think that they started using authorities they already had under existing law to enforce those laws at the southern border and deter would-be migrants from making the dangerous journey north. Well, if you made those assumptions, you would be wrong. That is not the case at all.

As we know, the border has been operating at a state of crisis for at least the last 2 years. Last year alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered 2.4 million migrants, completely shattering previous records. Last month, we broke the record for monthly encounters. The Agency logged more than a quarter of a million--more than 250,000--border crossings in December alone.

Here is the ugly little secret that the Biden administration so far has failed to acknowledge: Vice President Kamala Harris talks about going to Central America, talks about root causes of the migration crisis, and Secretary Blinken talks about root causes, assuming that this is a regional matter affecting Mexico and Central America and that it is primarily people who are coming to the United States strictly for economic reasons or to flee violence. But the fact of the matter is, people are coming from all over the world to our doorstep and seeking asylum.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a bipartisan congressional trip to El Paso, an urban area. We then went to Yuma, AZ, which is a sleepy little agricultural community right there along the border of Arizona and California. The acting Border Patrol chief told us that they had people from 176 countries, speaking 200 languages, seeking asylum, coming to the Yuma port of entry.

You might ask, how in the world is that possible? That doesn't sound like root causes; that sounds like a global network of human struggling that is exploiting our asylum laws to gain entry into the United States.

Well, Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona, who was with us, said: Well, Mexicali, which is a relatively large city in northern Mexico, just across the border from Yuma, has an airport, and presumably people are flying into Mexicali from disparate places around the world because they know that if they show up at this port of entry in Yuma, they are likely to gain entry into the United States by claiming asylum, and they know that because of the backlog in asylum cases, their case is not likely to be heard for literally years and that if they did ultimately appear in front of an immigration judge, their chances of successfully gaining asylum, according to the legal standard under American law, was about 10 percent. So it doesn't surprise anybody that many of them don't show up for their court hearing but simply hope to evade detection and be able to permanently settle in the United States.

This is what the Border Patrol calls ``no consequences'' associated with illegal immigration. What they have told me and anybody else who will listen is that if there are no consequences to coming to the United States and exploiting our asylum system or illegally coming to the United States, then people are going to keep coming.

Indeed, that is what we have seen with an absolute lack of deterrence because of nonenforcement and because of the Biden administration border policies. People all over the world are taking advantage of the Biden administration's weak policies. They are crossing our southern border at an alarming rate, imposing huge burdens on the border communities in States like mine, like Texas, that do not have the resources to meet the demands of this crisis.

It wasn't that long ago that Del Rio, TX, a small community of 35,000 people, had 15,000 Haitians arrive in their city and claim asylum. As it turned out, many of those Haitians had been living in South America, having fled Haiti previously, but they had been living more or less peacefully in South America. But because they saw an opportunity to come to the United States and exploit this same asylum system, they showed up in Del Rio, TX--35,000 people--15,000 of them, overwhelming the capacity of that small city to deal with them.

Until recently, the administration saw two options when it came to migrants. Option No. 1 was to use the authority granted under title 42 to expel these individuals to Mexico. Of course, title 42 is a public health title that has been in place because of COVID. Option No. 2 was to parole them. Basically, that means to grant them permission to enter the United States, where they would await immigration court proceedings, which, as I said, because of the backlog, because of the sheer volume, will take years.

Under the administration's so-called new plan, there is now another option for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. So that is four countries. There is a new option for people coming from those four countries. It apparently doesn't apply to the other 172 countries that the Yuma Border Patrol

chief has said that they have encountered. But under the administration's new plan, there is an option for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans that will allow them to remain in the United States legally for 2 years and receive work authorization.

What more of a magnet do you need for people to come to the United States than to give them a work permit and to say: You can stay here legally for 2 years while you await your court proceeding. All they have to do is submit information online before crossing the border and wait for the administration to give them the green light.

Well, the Border Patrol, in educating me and others about what is happening at the border, they talk about push factors and they talk about pull factors. The push factors, we all understand. That is poverty, violence, people wanting a better life. We don't begrudge people who want a better life, want a piece of the American dream, but we do--we should--insist they come to the country through legal means, not illegal means, not exploiting vulnerabilities in our asylum system.

But there is no greater pull factor than this idea that there will be no consequences to coming to the United States, that you will successfully make your way into the United States, into the interior, and you will be able to stay. That is the ultimate pull factor, and that is the reason there is zero deterrence under President Biden's open border policies. Apparently he wants to continue that when it comes to people coming from these four countries.

Well, there are several problems with this plan that I alluded to. First of all, it is not a solution to the open border policies that currently exist. It doesn't discourage migrants from making the long, dangerous journey; it just artificially lowers the numbers.

Here is what I mean by that. Before this so-called new policy, if a migrant from one of these four countries was apprehended at the border, they would be encountered by the Border Patrol and either removed under title 42, repatriated, or paroled into the country.

Every month, Customs and Border Protection reports a total number of migrants released into the United States, giving us an understanding of just how big, what the magnitude of this crisis truly is. Last month, for example, more than 130,000 migrants were paroled into the United States. One hundred thirty thousand were given the paperwork to move into the United States.

The administration has taken a lot of heat for the fact that it is engaging in catch-and-release at an unprecedented pace. Basically, what that means is that rather than being detained while your asylum status is determined--and, as I said, the vast majority will not ultimately qualify if they appear in front of an immigration judge--catch-and- release just makes this worse.

Rather than stop the practice and actually detain and remove migrants without legitimate asylum claims, the Biden administration came up with this new policy to, in effect, cook the books. The 30,000 migrants a month who enter the United States as part of this new program won't even be included in the monthly statistics that have become a huge political albatross for President Biden. If migrants enter the United States on a legal basis, which is exactly what this program provides, they will never be tallied as part of the migration crisis.

They have taken 30,000 people and said: OK, we are going to make your entry into the country legal--so, by definition, it is no longer illegal immigration--by a wave of the magic wand.

In short, this new policy lets the administration roll out the welcome mat for tens of thousands of migrants while making it seem like the numbers have actually gone down, which they have not.

Problem No. 2 is that any progress is all but guaranteed to be temporary.

According to the administration, we have seen a 97-percent drop in the number of illegal crossings for migrants from these four countries, and, as I said, these are just 4 of the 176 countries represented by the folks who show up at the one Yuma Border Patrol crossing currently. So it is just four countries.

It appears, now, that there are thousands of migrants who would have previously arrived at the border who are now waiting for the Biden administration to approve their online application. But what happens after those 30,000 spots are filled? What happens when it takes months rather than weeks for migrants to receive the green light?

I can tell you exactly what will happen. Migrants from these four countries will start coming across the border illegally once again.

Will they be expelled under title 42? Will they be paroled into the interior? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure. Once the line gets too long, we will be right back where we started, only with an added challenge: There will be a new population of tens or even hundreds of thousands of people living and working in the United States on what is supposed to be a temporary basis. As Ronald Reagan once noted, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.

Third, the new program normalizes migrants coming to the United States based on facts that would not qualify them under our current laws for asylum. The administration's description of urgent humanitarian reasons that would qualify a Haitian migrant for the program, for example, points to gang violence, the aftermath of an earthquake or a cholera breakout that worsened political, economic, and social conditions. Now, we can all agree that these are terrible conditions, but they don't meet the standard for a valid asylum claim.

That leads to perhaps the biggest problem of all: that the administration circumvented--did an end run--around Congress to implement this policy, which has basically teed up an even bigger headache.

President Biden is following in the footsteps of President Obama by creating a new category of immigrants without consulting with or getting the agreement of Congress. As we saw with President Obama and the deferred action for childhood arrivals, his use of Executive action 10 years ago has now created more problems for this population of young people who came here as children and who are now adults because the courts have so far said that President Obama didn't have the authority to do what he purported to do.

By the way, if you go back and do an internet search and see what President Obama said shortly before he granted this deferred action for childhood arrivals, I think he said, perhaps as many as 17 times--I could be off a little bit--that he did not have the authority. He said he did not have the authority to do what he ultimately did, and, unfortunately, now the courts are agreeing with him, putting the livelihood and future of these young people in jeopardy.

It has been more than a decade since DACA was established, and the fate of these young people is still being litigated in court. It is a terrible circumstance to find themselves in, and this won't be any different.

The Biden policies will allow migrants to live and work in the United States for 2 years, and then what? Well, will they leave voluntarily? I doubt it. Will they be apprehended and removed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement? No, I doubt that. Or will this be another group of migrants who will live in the shadows?

There is no question that our immigration system is broken. I have yet to find a person--a responsible person--who thinks our immigration system is working the way it should. It is big, it is outdated, it is inefficient, and it is not serving our Nation's interests well. But if the President wants to undertake immigration reform, as he says he does, this is not the way to go.

By end-running Congress to try to establish new categories of immigrants, he is poisoning the well. He is making it harder for us to do what many of us would like to do, and that is to take on the monumental task of securing the border and creating a legal immigration system that serves our Nation's interests and one that we can be proud of.

But, by poisoning the well, the President is not gaining new allies. He is just ensuring that more people will resist any potential legislation that we might take up soon. So despite what the initial data may suggest, what the spin doctors here in Washington have been selling to the news media, which has gullibly been accepting that, as if this is somehow a big deal for a negative trend in terms of illegal immigration, it is not so. The President hasn't

solved the problem. He has just swept it under the rug, and he has, arguably, made it worse.

This crisis is complex, but the solution isn't. The administration needs to engage with Congress and enforce our immigration laws that are on the books and those that are being exploited by the international criminal networks that are smuggling people into the United States on a daily basis.

We need to work together to address those gaps that are being exploited. If migrants from any country see that the United States is quickly detaining and removing people who do not have a legal basis to remain in our country, the flow of illegal immigration will drop dramatically. That is the only viable path forward and where the administration should focus its time and effort.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the killing of Tyre Nichols has reignited a national debate about the excessive use of force by police, and rightfully so. This unarmed 29-year-old was brutally beaten by Memphis police officers with an egregious, excessive use of force.

Within the Republican conference, Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina has been our leader on police reform matters, and I have been proud to work with him on bills to help improve policing in our communities and public safety. One of those bills was the Law Enforcement De-Escalation Training Act, which, by the way, was just signed into law last month.

This new law will ensure that all police officers have the opportunity to acquire skills to defuse a potentially dangerous situation like the one we saw in Memphis. Use of force should only come into play when absolutely necessary, and this legislation will provide law enforcement officers with the knowledge of what alternatives are available to them, which invariably will make their lives better and safer and also protect the life of the individual who is being detained.

This has the potential to save lives and prevent another senseless and entirely preventable tragedy like this from reoccurring.

I am glad this legislation is now the law of the land, and the Department of Justice must implement it as quickly as possible.

Madam President, on another matter, last Friday I was in Austin, my home, and had the opportunity to speak at a conference that included some of the leading experts in all things dealing with declassification and government transparency.

It was cohosted by a number of academic institutions in Texas and the Public Interest Declassification Board, or PIDB.

Most of us had never heard of this group before, but the PIDB leads incredible work to help advise the President and the executive branch on ways to modernize the classification and declassification processes which safeguard our national security but also protect public trust in our institutions.

I joined an onstage conversation with my friend Will Inboden, who leads the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin.

We talked about the circumstances under which classification is important. Controlling access to certain sensitive information enables the United States to remain at least one step ahead of our adversaries. It also protects sources and methods that allow us to collect clandestine intelligence and protect the lives of those intelligence professionals who are engaged in collecting that information, as well as the avenues into those sources that are important to collecting this intelligence. Obviously, we don't want to jeopardize either the individuals involved or dissuade anyone from wanting to work with us in the future or to allow some of our access to dry up because it then becomes a matter of public knowledge.

But we know classification is not always the right answer. There are many circumstances in which declassification safeguards our national security.

One example is the way in which the United States Government declassified and shared information with our allies in the run-up to Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine.

The decision to declassify some important intelligence gave Ukraine enough battlefield awareness to push back after the initial attack and save countless lives. It also unified Western response, leading to quick condemnation of Russia's attack and resources for Ukrainian forces.

Declassification is an important tool with which we share information with our friends and allies around the world, but it is also another way to show the American people what their government is doing. It builds trust and transparency. It inspires confidence in the incredible work that our intelligence professionals are doing, and it equips scholars with the information they need to conduct academic research that informs decision making.

Obviously, there is a very delicate balance between transparency, which drives democratic self-governance, and secrecy, which is sometimes necessary to protect sources and methods of information that are important to protect our national security.

Policymakers and scholars have long debated this balance, but it doesn't often garner much attention in the public square. At least that was the case until recently.

Over the last several months, law enforcement have uncovered classified documents in unsecured locations. For example, documents were discovered at President Trump's home in Florida. They were uncovered at President Biden's home in Delaware and in his private office in Washington, DC. And they were found at the home of former Vice President Pence in Indiana.

All of these discoveries paint a deeply concerning picture, because those of us with access to classified information know that the only appropriate place to view classified information is in a secure setting.

Now, we have no idea--we, as Congress--no idea what these classified documents contain. We don't know who had access to them. We have no insight into the possible ramifications for national security. So there are a lot of unanswered questions that need answers.

This really addresses Congress's unique role, as a coequal branch of government, to provide oversight of the Federal Government. As elected representatives, we have the duty to our constituents and to our country to ensure their government is working for them, and oversight of the intelligence community is a big part of that job, and it is part of the system of checks and balances.

Now, in most cases, oversight happens out in the open at congressional hearings, but this is, obviously, a different sort of case. We are talking about classified documents that were never meant for public consumption.

That is why we have the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that I serve on and the House Committee on Intelligence, both of which were created after the Church Committee made recommendations about oversight that needed to be put in place over the intelligence community--both the police, the community itself, to make sure that those tools were not abused, but also to restore public confidence that

that oversight was occurring and that abuses were not occurring at the same time.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is one of the most bipartisan on Capitol Hill, and I credit our leadership for keeping us above the political fray.

Chairman Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, and Vice Chairman Rubio, a Republican from Florida, operate arm in arm to lead the kind of oversight that I believe helps instill confidence in the intelligence community and in our intelligence professionals.

The committee has a responsibility to examine the facts of these cases and understand the potential risk it could create for national security.

Unfortunately, in a hearing we had with the Director of National Intelligence, we seem to have hit a brick wall, at least initially. Despite the high profile nature of these discoveries, the Biden administration will not allow Congress to perform its constitutional oversight duties.

Back in August, Senator Warner and Senator Rubio sent a letter to the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General requesting the classified documents that were seized at Mar-a-Lago.

Members of the Intelligence Committee are accustomed to reviewing, handling, and protecting classified information. It is something we do on virtually a daily basis. This document request was not to make this public. This was a request for committee members to review the documents in a classified setting. The administration refused.

In the months since, classified documents have been discovered at more locations, and, again, the administration has refused to provide access to this intelligence.

The Justice Department, as we know, has appointed special counsel to oversee two of these probes, but yet they refuse to share the documents or any information about them.

Now, it is one thing in an investigation conducted by law enforcement to say: We are going to protect the person being investigated, and we are going to protect the integrity of the investigation by not making that public. We understand that, but this is something far different.

When a current and former President of the United States and a former Vice President of the United States have classified documents in unsecured settings, we need to know who had access to it, what the intelligence reports contain, not because we are curious or we want to interfere with an investigation by the Justice Department but because we have an independent constitutional responsibility to protect the national security of the United States and to protect the intelligence community from unjustified criticism.

Several years ago, the Intelligence Committee investigated Russia's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. This was a case like now, where special counsel was appointed, but Congress did not have to wait. It wasn't forced to wait for that inquiry to be completed by former FBI Director Mueller. Those investigations happened concurrently. The special counsel's investigation happened at the same time as the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation occurred. These investigations-- both that of the Intelligence Committee and that of the Department of Justice--should happen concurrently now as well.

As I said last week, the Director of National Intelligence, Director Haines, testified before the Intelligence Committee. I was eager to learn more in a secure setting, protected from public dissemination, what was going on with these documents, what they meant, and who produced them. Were they stale or were they current intelligence? What sort of access did our adversaries have to them, and what did they learn if they did get access to them that we need to know about and prepare for?

I don't think any of our colleagues expected a full analysis of these documents, but I was alarmed by the complete lack of transparency by the Director of National Intelligence to the oversight committees in Congress like the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Without going into detail, Director Haines essentially said that once the Department of Justice initiated its investigation, her office stood down and did not inquire any further as to what these documents contained. So far, the Department of Justice refuses to share details of these intelligence products that were discovered at these unsecured locations.

As I said, we have no idea what is in these documents, who could have seen them, or how big of a risk it creates for national security, but we do need the answers to those questions that only a review in a classified setting in a secure facility by the oversight committees--we need the answers that only that sort of inquiry will reveal.

We could have a major national security risk on our hands or it could be a nothing burger, but the Department needs to be expedient and fully transparent in sharing this information with Congress and the intelligence community, again, in a classified secure setting, not for public dissemination.

If you worry about leaks, which are rampant here in Washington, DC, I must say, the record of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is pretty darn good when it comes to no leaks.

Senator Rubio and Senator Warner have been clear that the Department of Justice will not stonewall Congress. This is not a partisan matter. It is not tenable for the position of the Department of Justice and for the Biden administration to take that position. As policymakers with an independent constitutional responsibility, we need to know the full details so we can conduct the risk assessment and determine how best to respond. President Biden's Department of Justice cannot stand in the way of Congress's constitutional oversight role.

Now, many in the press have said: Well, what sort of things might the Senators on the Intelligence Committee do to compel the cooperation of the Department of Justice?

Well, I hope we don't have to go there. I hope this produces a negotiation that will address the concerns both of the Department of Justice and of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It is well known what sort of tools are available to Congress--things like appropriations, things like nominations--but I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that. But we have a job to do, and we are going to do it, with the cooperation of the Biden administration or without their cooperation.

So all options are on the table to ensure not that we get to see what we want to see for political or other inappropriate reasons but to make sure our national security is not at risk.

Again, this is a bipartisan desire to see these documents and evaluate the risk they could pose to our security. It is time for the administration to cooperate with us in that effort.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on February 4, 2023, the tight-knit community in Cass County, TX, will gather to solemnly honor the 50th annual remembrance of the end of the Vietnam war and pay tribute to one of its heroes, U.S. Air Force Sergeant John O'Neal Rucker.

Sergeant Rucker grew up in Linden, a town nestled deep in the heart of the piney woods of east Texas. After graduating high school, he answered the call to serve in the Armed Forces and volunteered for the U.S. Air Force.

During his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Sergeant Rucker volunteered for assignment in Southeast Asia. According to the AC-119 Gunship Association, Sergeant Rucker was initially directed to Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, in April 1972. In July of that year, he took a temporary duty assignment to Da Nang, Vietnam, with the 18th Special Operations Squadron.

After spending leave at home in Linden over Christmas 1972, Sergeant Rucker returned to Vietnam with the anticipation that his time on the battlefield would soon come to an end, as the war appeared to be winding down. On January 27, 1973, the 21-year-old Sergeant Rucker was off-duty and asleep in his barracks when rockets struck Da Nang Air Base, instantly taking his life just hours before the Paris Peace Accords took effect, finally ending the Vietnam war. Sergeant Rucker is remembered as one of the last American servicemembers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam.

Shortly after his death, a marble plaque to honor Sergeant John O'Neal Rucker was unveiled at Da Nang Air Base in March 1973. Thousands of miles away, his hometown of Linden dedicated a monument to him in November 1973 outside of the Cass County courthouse. Today, Sergeant Rucker's life and legacy remain forever engraved in the hearts and minds of his family, friends, and community.

Texas is home to generations of servicemembers and veterans who have defended our freedoms at home and abroad. Our Nation's rich history has been strengthened by the dutiful service and sacrifice of our courageous military women and men, and we owe them our deepest respect and greatest appreciation. May God bless Sergeant John O'Neal Rucker, all of our fallen servicemembers, and their families.

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

Madam President, January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and it is a great opportunity to improve awareness about the scourge of human trafficking and redouble our efforts to end it.

Throughout my career, I have worked with law enforcement, nonprofits, and advocates of all stripes to try to crack down on human trafficking and strengthen support for human trafficking survivors. These experts have helped me identify steps that we together can take in Congress to end modern slavery.

I am proud that one of those bills was signed into law earlier this month. The Abolish Trafficking Reauthorization Act, which I introduced with Senator Klobuchar, the Senator from Minnesota, is officially the law of the land. This law extends critical support to survivors of human trafficking, provides resources for law, funds prevention research, and promotes increased reporting to prevent human trafficking. It is a step in the right direction in our fight to end modern slavery, and I was glad to discuss the importance of this law with advocates and experts in Texas just a couple of weeks ago.

On January 11, National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, I had the pleasure of sitting down with some remarkable people in Dallas who are leading the fight. We gathered at the Letot Residential Treatment Center, which provides a full range of services to human trafficking survivors, specifically girls between the age of 13 and 17. Letot offers safe shelter, which I have learned is perhaps the most important thing, a safe place for these survivors to actually live. But it also provides education, job training, and mental healthcare to these young victims to help them find a clear path forward one day at a time.

I had visited the same facility a few years ago to learn about the work they do, and I was encouraged to note their continued impact in Dallas County, one of our largest counties in Texas.

I also learned about the dedicated work of New Friends New Life, which helps exploited girls, women, and their children to rebuild their lives and to move forward toward a brighter future. The organization also promotes a men's advocacy group, which raises awareness and mobilizes men to take action against sex trafficking and exploitation.

In addition to learning more about the impact of these organizations, I was able to hear from local law enforcement, including Dallas District Attorney John Creuzot. John noted that Texas is No. 2 in the Nation when it comes to human trafficking and added that Dallas is a major hotspot because it is at the crossroads of so many interstate freeways.

Rescuing victims of human trafficking, disrupting trafficking operations, and pursuing justice is a major focus for law enforcement. For sex trafficking in particular, they are working with groups like Traffick911 to free young people from this terrible life. I am blown away by the incredible work being done in North Texas to support survivors and ensure justice is served. What I heard from these survivors really underscored how critical these efforts are.

One of the women I heard from was Dr. Tanya Stafford, an inspiring and passionate advocate for survivors of human trafficking. Tanya told us she was only 13 when her mother sold her to a man for drugs. You heard that right. When she was 13 years old, her own mother sold her to a man for drugs. Then, for 10 years, she was hidden in plain sight until, finally, a neighbor intervened. As Tanya put it, ``she saw something, she said something, and she did something.''

Every single day, concerned neighbors and friends call tip lines and help victims like Tanya escape from human trafficking. Incredible organizations like Letot Residential Treatment Center and New Friends New Life help these victims of human trafficking rebuild their lives. Law enforcement and groups like Traffick911 help to free victims from human trafficking.

The brave survivors are what have impressed me most of all. To have these survivors talk about their own personal story, with all of the potential for embarrassment that suggests, speaks to me to the courage of these survivors, who are willing to use their own personal example to help save others from a similar fate.

It was inspiring to hear them talk about overcoming the incredible trauma and adversity. Their stories are a reminder of why it is so important for us to continue this fight, and that includes everything from awareness and education to legislating here in Congress. There is no better time than Human Trafficking Prevention Month to build on these efforts.

I want to thank the experts, the advocates, and the survivors, as well as all of our Senate and congressional colleagues who are leading on this fight.

Respect for Child Survivors Act

Madam President, the day after my conversation in Dallas, I traveled to Houston, another one of our major metropolitan areas, to discuss a new law that will have a big impact on child sexual abuse victims. The seed for this legislation was first planted in September 2021, when the Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on the repeated failures of the FBI's investigation into the Larry Nassar case.

U.S. gymnasts delivered powerful testimony about the FBI's mishandling of their investigation and inspired a bipartisan push to fix the broken process that failed them and countless other victims.

Again, Senator Klobuchar and I worked with law enforcement, victims' rights groups, and all our colleagues here in the Senate to identify reforms that would actually make a difference. Those discussions eventually led to the Respect for Child Survivors Act, which was signed into law earlier this month. This law mandates the use of multiple disciplinary teams, or MDTs, in FBI interviews with child victims.

Just by way of footnote, most of these kinds of cases are investigated at the local or State level, and, frankly, most local level law enforcement have worked with the child advocacy centers around Texas and around the country to try to minimize the repetition of the trauma on these child victims and to help preserve testimony needed to convict their abuser. But the FBI has a much bigger portfolio and, generally, is not trained in how to deal with these victims of sexual assault, particularly child victims. Now this new law mandates training for the FBI.

These MDTs, the multiple disciplinary teams, that they will now work with, include mental health and medical professionals, caseworkers, and other individuals who advocate for a child's well-being. The primary goal, of course, is to protect these young victims and ensure that they are not retraumatized during the investigation, which is going to be intrusive by its very nature.

There is a mountain of evidence, thank goodness, that this approach actually works. During the discussion in Houston, I sat down with a full range of

experts on this topic at the Children's Assessment Center, which is a pioneer in the successful use of MDTs. For more than 30 years, it has cared for sexually abused children and, in the process, established the gold standard for the right way to protect victims of child sexual abuse.

The folks I spoke with and listened to that day stressed the importance of this approach. For example, Houston Police Lieutenant John Colburn said that the partnership between law enforcement and the Children's Assessment Center makes a ``tremendous difference.'' He said that children are able to share their experiences in a more comfortable way, and law enforcement can take peace in the knowledge that these incredibly difficult conversations are happening with trauma-informed experts who are equipped to handle them properly.

That is why this legislation is important.

One of the individuals we heard from was Rebecca Whitehurst, a former U.S.A. gymnast and one of the hundreds of survivors of the Larry Nassar episode.

She said:

It is deeply gratifying to know that you have listened to

our voices and learned from our experience to ensure that

systems improve and that justice is served.

Rebecca concluded her comments by saying:

Children should be totally protected from those who [would]

harm them, and those who [would] fail them should be held

accountable.

I couldn't say it better myself.

With this new law on the books, I am confident that the FBI will be better prepared to handle similar investigations in the future with compassion and efficiency and ultimately bring perpetrators to justice.

This was all possible because of the brave gymnasts who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee a year and a half ago. They showed tremendous courage by speaking out, by talking about personal, intimate matters that were necessarily embarrassing to them, but they overcame that, knowing that they could well make a difference for some future gymnast or some other child sexual assault victim in the future. I hope they will take some comfort in knowing that their stories brought about this change.

We need to ensure that the FBI's mistreatment of these victims and their reports is not repeated in the future, and this law will help make sure that goal is accomplished.

Like so many of us--we learn from our constituents. We learn from men and women who take the time to share their experiences with us, and I am grateful to those who did so in Dallas and Houston and, again, especially the survivors. They are doing incredible work to root out human trafficking and support survivors and ensure that justice is served.

I am proud of what we were able to accomplish last Congress to strengthen their efforts, but there is still more work for us to do. I appreciate all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol who have worked together on these efforts in the past, and I am eager to accomplish even more this Congress.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.