Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill requires the imposition of sanctions with respect to the sale, supply, or transfer of gold to or from the Russian Federation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill requires the President to submit to Congress a report on U.S. Government efforts to collect, analyze, and preserve evidence and information related to war crimes and other atrocities committed during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill modifies statutory definitions relating to narcotics and drug trafficking.

Madam President, yesterday, President Biden traveled to Phoenix, AZ, to visit the site of a new semiconductor manufacturing plant.

I am a proud proponent of domestic semiconductor manufacturing because it has become a matter of economic and national security, and it enjoys broad bipartisan support here in the Senate through the CHIPS and Science Act.

It is exciting to see the sort of announcements that we were seeing in Arizona and these new chipmaking investments on American soil. But it is hardly the most pressing or most urgent matter on the minds of Arizonans or Texans or any other border State communities as well as folks across the country.

It is only about 150 miles from Phoenix to the United States-Mexico border, which has been willfully neglected by the Biden administration.

Under President Biden's administration, we have broken one record after another when it comes to illegal immigration at the southern border, and the system is now near its breaking point with the expiration of title 42, which is the public health title which has given the Border Patrol the authority to repel people coming across the border--some of them, at least--using that tool. But when that goes away, Border Patrol, absent any change in administration policy, will not be able to return those individuals--mainly adult males--back across the border for illegally entering the United States.

So despite the President getting on Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, flying to Phoenix, AZ, a border State, the President's trip did not include a short trip and visit to the border. After all, the President has pretty good transportation. He has got Air Force One. Can you imagine? It would just take a quick hop to the border to give the President the opportunity to learn because he has not visited the border once since he took office.

He could have done what I have done and what other Members of the Senate have done when we visited the border. He could have asked the Border Patrol agents to share their challenges, ask what he could do to help.

He could have asked what can the Federal Government do to make your job easier in order to address this crisis.

He could have talked to Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operation officers about their efforts to interdict the drugs that took the life of 108,000 Americans last year alone, virtually all of which comes across the southern border.

He could have just simply said thank you, thank you for your service to the countless men and women who are on the frontlines of this crisis each and every day.

Unfortunately, President Biden couldn't be bothered to make that trip.

As he was leaving Washington yesterday, a reporter asked the President why he would visit Arizona, a border State, and not go to the border.

The President responded:

Because there are more important things going on.

Talk about a slap in the face to every single person who is troubled by what is happening at the southern border.

Every day, migrants are being exploited by people who care nothing about their welfare but view them simply as a commodity to make money. The stories of the abuse of migrants who take the long and dangerous trip from their home across the southern border are legion. The President could have learned more about that and expressed concern and say: You know, what can we do to discourage people from making that long and dangerous trip into the United States and being subjected to sexual assault and other forms of abuse?

He could have asked about the fentanyl, the synthetic opioids, and other dangerous drugs that are coming into our country and killing innocent people in our communities. We have had a number of teenage children, schoolchildren, killed when they consumed a pill that they thought was maybe a prescription drug like Xanax or Percocet, which was contaminated with fentanyl. It just takes a pencil lead portion of fentanyl to kill you. Unfortunately, that has been happening because of the border crisis and the drugs flowing across the southern border.

The cartels and criminal organizations are getting rich off the trail of death and destruction that they have created. But let it be known: President Joe Biden thinks there are more important things to do.

That is more outrageous than disappointing, but it is really both. It is outrageous and disappointing to hear the President of the United States admit this outright. But as dangerous, outrageous, and disappointing as it is to hear him say it, we really shouldn't be surprised by his inaction when it comes to addressing this crisis.

For nearly 2 years, President Biden and his administration have ignored the crisis at the border so he refuses to visit. You know, he might just learn something. He might find out that this is not about root causes, which is what Secretary Blinken and others, Vice President Harris, have said. They think illegal immigration is a result of root causes.

Well, there is a component of that--people experiencing violence or poverty in their home country who want to come to the United States-- but it is also about drug smugglers. It is also about criminals who have been deported for endangering Americans, and yet they come back across the border to do it again and again.

So the President might have actually learned something if he had just taken a few minutes to talk to the people who work and live on the border.

So he refuses to visit; he avoids talking about it; he acts like there is nothing wrong when, in fact, we are experiencing an unprecedented humanitarian and security crisis.

Since President Biden took office, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 4 million--4 million--migrants at the southern border. During the full 8 years of the Obama administration, Customs and Border Protection didn't see that many migrants. In 2 years, we have seen more than they saw in 8 years during the Obama administration.

President Biden's policies have not only tolerated this situation, it has actually made it worse and encouraged more migrants to make the trip to our

border and successfully get into the interior of the United States.

Whether or not President Biden wants to admit it or not, there is a crisis at the southern border. Everybody who takes 30 seconds to learn about it understands it. And the truth is, this crisis, as bad as it is, is getting worse because of the President's open border policies.

From day 1, the Biden administration decided they needed to dismantle all of the policies of the previous administration that deterred illegal immigration. It is not just about catching people who come into the country illegally; it is also about discouraging people from making that trip in the first place. And the Biden administration's policies create the impression that anybody who can make it to the border can make it into the interior.

The administration has rolled out a steady parade of rhetoric, policies, and guidance that sent a clear message: Cross the southern border and you will be able to successfully make your way into the United States.

So it is no surprise that this message that has been sent by open border policies and a lack of enforcement, it is no surprise we have seen these unprecedented numbers.

For the first time on record, Customs and Border Protection logged more than 2 million border crossings in a single year. They encountered nearly 2.4 million migrants in fiscal year 2022.

In October, we logged the highest number of migrant encounters on record. This is 230,000 in a single month.

If this happened in any one of the States represented by my colleagues that are not border States, I wonder what their reaction would be. When Governor Abbott or Governor Ducey or Governor DeSantis had put some of these migrants on a bus and sent them to Washington or Chicago or New York, Mayor Adams said: This is a crisis. Mayor Bowser in Washington, DC, said: We need the National Guard to come out when just a few thousand migrants make their way into the interior. But when 230,000 show up on the border of Texas in a single month, they could care less.

As shocking as these statistics are, they don't tell the full story. Whether we are talking about migrant encounters, drug seizures, terrorist arrests, you have to remember, these are just the ones we know about.

When Border Patrol agents are asked to process and care for thousands of migrants a day, that means they are not on the frontlines securing our border. They can't stop the drug smugglers if they are filling out paperwork or providing formula to an unaccompanied child.

New reporting from FOX News shed light on how many individuals evaded Border Patrol just last month. Law enforcement refers to these as the ``got-aways.'' But they don't pull that number out of thin air.

The United States-Mexico border includes an extensive network of physical and technological barriers. Some sections have 30-foot steel walls, others have vehicle barriers, others include sensors, cameras, and other surveillance equipment.

Known got-aways are those who are spotted by some form of surveillance but not apprehended by the Border Patrol, and last month, Border Patrol logged more than 73,000 got-aways.

Let's see, in October, we logged the highest number of migrant encounters on record, more than 230,000 in a single month. And during that same month, 73,000 more migrants were got-aways. These are 73,000 people who did not want to encounter Border Patrol. They weren't seeking asylum; they were trying to evade law enforcement and probably for a very good reason.

Of course, even that data doesn't tell the full story. These are just the known got-aways for a single month. There is no way of knowing how many actually evaded detection entirely, especially over the course of the last 2 years.

It is not just the people we are concerned about. It is dangerous drugs like fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, as well as illicit weapons and drug money.

The criminal organizations and cartels that take advantage of and exploit the administration's open border policies are, in two words, commodity agnostic. In other words, they will deal in drugs, weapons, or people as long as it makes them money--commodity agnostic.

President Biden and his policies are the best thing that ever happened to their dirty business.

It is making them rich while trading on human misery and death. I disagreed with President Biden's assessment that there are more important things than what is going on at the border. That is easy for him to say, sitting in the White House in Washington, DC.

The people I represent, who live and work along the border, are overwhelmed. And this is a Federal responsibility. This shouldn't be up to the States because this is an international border. By definition, it is a Federal responsibility.

This state of chaos is also hurting the migrants who are sold lies by the cartels and traffickers and are duped into paying thousands of dollars a head to come to the United States. And, you know what, you go to Houston, TX, and some of those same migrants are held hostage, working in prostitution or forced labor by the people who say they will turn them in to the authorities and reveal the fact that they are illegally in the United States unless they continue in that forced labor or that prostitution.

As I said, this is hurting our border communities, which are now apparently expected to carry the weight of feeding, caring for, and transporting thousands upon thousands of migrants. And it is weighing on the men and women in our law enforcement community who put their lives on the line to secure the border and to protect the American people.

I wonder if President Biden knows that last month three Border Patrol agents took their own lives--two from Texas and one from New Mexico. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see the toll this crisis is taking on these brave men and women who have been begging the administration for support for nearly 2 years. This isn't asking them to do something over and above what is required because all they are asking is for the administration to enforce the law, to let them enforce the law, and to relieve them of the burden of this abdication of responsibility.

So if President Biden had taken a few minutes to hop down to the border in Air Force One when he was in Phoenix yesterday, he might have learned some of this. Over the years, I have had the pleasure of learning from and working with the men and women who live and work along Texas's 1,200-mile border with Mexico. We are talking about law enforcement officials, local officials like the county judges, the mayors, the private property owners, the small business owners, and folks who run nonprofits. They have provided an unvarnished view of how decisions in Washington impact their communities, the economy, and our national security.

And President Biden could have learned this--Vice President Harris, too. I have taken the opportunity, along with my colleague Senator Cruz, to introduce dozens of our Senate colleagues to these people on the border that I am talking about so they could gain a better understanding of the challenges that they are up against and the things that we could do that would make their life and the conditions on the border better.

And I will just issue an open invitation, Madam President. I am happy to invite President Biden to come to Texas, to the border, and I would be delighted to introduce him to these people that I have talked about--law enforcement, small businesses, local elected officials, private property owners--that are being absolutely overwhelmed by this border crisis created by President Biden's open-border policies. If he would take the time to actually listen to their experiences, there is no way he would continue to believe that there are more important things going on.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I know the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Michigan are trying to work through some differences on a potential unanimous consent request, but I have asked them if I might make a few remarks if they are not quite ready yet, and they have graciously allowed me to do so.

What I want to talk about is--it is December 6. It is 19 days until Christmas, and the 117th Congress is quickly coming to a close, but there is a lot of work that needs to be done in the meantime--first, the National Defense Authorization Act, which I hope will be the next order of business.

You know, when people ask me, ``What are your priorities when it comes to representing the State of Texas in the U.S. Senate?'' I say: Well, it is clear there is one priority, and that is the strength and security and safety of our Nation and our way of life--to preserve and protect the peace and to protect the freedom of all Americans.

The way we do that is through the National Defense Authorization Act. It is, I believe, the most important piece of legislation that we consider each year, among other important pieces of legislation. This is how we support our troops, how we support our military families in an all-volunteer military, how we maintain our military bases, how we modernize our weapons systems and airframes and invest in the next generation of weapons.

I believe what Ronald Reagan said--that we maintain peace through strength--and when we don't make our national defense a priority, when we neglect the most important responsibilities we have here, it sends the wrong message to our adversaries and those who would take advantage of a power vacuum left by an America that refuses to lead.

The National Defense Authorization Act is how we strengthen our relationships with old allies and forge strong partnerships with new ones. For example, as a result of the invasion of

Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, now Finland and Sweden have said they want to become part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is certainly not what Mr. Putin contemplated when he said he was invading Ukraine because he didn't want a potential NATO member on his border. Well, as a result of his blundering invasion and wrongful invasion of Ukraine, he is now going to have Finland as a NATO partner on his border with some, I believe, roughly, 800 miles of common border.

We know that this is an increasingly challenging global threat landscape, and we have to do everything we can to make sure our troops have the training and the equipment and the resources needed to counter adversaries of today and tomorrow.

Given the state of the world, preserving our military readiness has never been more important. China and Russia have, obviously, grown more aggressive in their efforts to disrupt the global order. North Korea continues to threaten the United States and our allies with its nuclear capabilities. Iran, which is the largest state sponsor of terrorism, continues to threaten democracies in the Middle East, including our ally in Israel, and to threaten not only regional conflict but something worse.

This is a fragile time for global peace and security, and a strong National Defense Authorization Act is the principal way that we supply our military with the resources and certainty needed for our commanders to plan for the future.

But this legislation is about much more than maintaining a strong national defense. It is about empowering and supporting the men and women behind it. America's servicemembers are volunteers, and they have made a commitment not everyone is willing to make in joining the ranks of America's heroes who have defended our country throughout our Nation's history. They make sacrifices each and every day in order to keep our families safe and our Nation at peace, and we owe it to them to give them the support that they need. That includes not only the training, technology, and equipment they need to do their jobs but also the pay and benefits that their families depend on.

In short, a strong National Defense Authorization Act is critical to the success of our servicemembers, their families, American security, and, indeed, world peace. We simply can't neglect this important responsibility or delay it any longer. I think the majority leader, the Senator from New York, has already delayed it to the point that here we are, backed up against Christmas, with no time to spare. Congress needs to pass this annual Defense authorization bill ASAP--as soon as possible. I hear the House is planning to take up the Defense Authorization Act this week, and I hope that the Senate will follow in short order.

For the past 61 years in a row--61 years--Congress has managed to overcome partisan differences and pass this legislation. I hope that will continue this year, but I am becoming more and more concerned given the crunch that we are experiencing here 19 days before Christmas.

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

Madam President, throughout this Congress, I have been more than a little puzzled about the House's refusal to advance commonsense bills that pass the Senate with unanimous support. I know my Senate colleagues have shared their concerns as we have watched bipartisan bills sit in House purgatory with no explanation as to what the reasons for the holdup are.

We are talking about bills that help prevent child sexual abuse, support disaster relief, cut redtape, and increase payments to the child support program. These are hardly controversial matters. All 100 Members of the Senate supported these bipartisan bills and countless others, but they are still collecting dust on the House calendar.

With the end of the 117th Congress less than a month away, it looks like the logjam may finally begin to break. Last week, the House finally passed the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Reauthorization Act that I authored with Senator Klobuchar. This bill will continue critical grants for mental health courts, crisis intervention teams, and other programs to promote public safety, improve mental health outcomes, and reduce recidivism. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in June, and while I am disappointed that it took so long for the House to act, I am glad it finally did with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Last week, the House also passed legislation to rename the post office in Arlington, TX, not exactly a monumental piece of legislation. But the important part of it was that it honored our friend and former colleague Congressman Ron Wright. This legislation passed the Senate with unanimous support back in May, and over the last 6 months, it has gotten caught up in partisan jockeying in the House. I am glad the House finally advanced this bill so that we can honor the incredible life and legacy of Congressman Wright.

As I said, the logjam looks like it is beginning to break, but we still have a way to go.

Despite advancing these two overwhelmingly bipartisan bills, the House still refuses to pass another incredible bill, the Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Act. Senator Whitehouse and I introduced this bipartisan bill to help incarcerated individuals struggling with drug abuse.

There is a well-established link between drug abuse and crime. And in order for individuals who have been incarcerated to have the best shot at leading healthy and productive lives, they need to break the cycle of addiction.

The Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program--or RSAT, as it is sometimes called--provides incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for substance use disorders. The treatment is coupled with programs to prepare these men and women for reentry and to provide community-based treatment once they are released.

Our bill updates the program and expands access to treatment in jails and prisons around the country so that we can reduce recidivism and build safer, healthier communities. More than two dozen organizations have endorsed this bill, including law enforcement, criminal justice, and behavioral health groups.

As I indicated, it passed the Senate with unanimous support last year, but for some unknown reason, the House has refused to take it up so far. I can only hope that this will change in the waning days of the 117th Congress.

As bad as it is to block any of these commonsense, bipartisan bills, one of the most confounding is a bill to improve the way police respond to an individual experiencing a mental health crisis. This has been a major issue, something we have led on here in the Congress.

Why the House refuses to act now is beyond me, but the American people have witnessed one disturbing incident after another in which a seemingly benign encounter with police turned deadly. These have included everything from routine traffic stops to encounters with individuals experiencing a severe mental health meltdown.

We all agree that deadly force should be a last resort. Unfortunately, police officers don't always have the training and the resources they need to defuse potentially dangerous situations. That is why this training and these grants are so important, to deescalate the confrontation.

As we all know, our communities ask a lot of our law enforcement officers. In addition to fighting crimes, they are often the first to respond to domestic disputes, drug overdoses, and, yes, mental health crises. They are expected to function as peace officers, social workers, mental health professionals, and crisis response experts of all stripes.

We have tried to lessen the burden on police through bills like the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Reauthorization Act, but those bills alone are not enough. Law enforcement has asked Congress for more support to improve deescalation training, and we need to deliver.

That is exactly why I worked with Senator Whitehouse, the Democratic

Senator from Rhode Island, to update and reintroduce the Law Enforcement De-Escalation Training Act. This legislation will ensure that all of our officers have the skills they need to defuse a potentially dangerous situation that could endanger them or perhaps the individual experiencing the crisis.

Again, use of force should come into play only when absolutely necessary, and this legislation will provide law enforcement with the ready knowledge of what alternatives exist. It will help train police in deescalation tactics, the most effective and safest ways to interact with people experiencing mental health or suicide crises, and how to work as part of a crisis intervention team.

Law enforcement has specifically requested this training, and I am not willing to second-guess them when they say these are important techniques to keep their officers and the general public safe. They are certainly not ``soft-on-crime'' policies.

This bill has a list of endorsements that is as long as it is diverse. Law enforcement groups, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Association of Police Organizations, and the National Sheriffs' Association have all endorsed this bill. So did the Major County Sheriffs of America, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and the National Criminal Justice Association.

This legislation also has the support of major mental health groups, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the American Psychological Association, and the Meadows Health Policy Institute.

It received the endorsement of folks on the conservative end of the spectrum, such as the American Conservative Union, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Right on Crime.

It has the support of faith-based groups, including Prison Fellowship, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Catholic Prison Ministry Coalition.

It has also received the support of the National Association of Counties, which represents local leaders throughout the country.

Despite this long list of advocates and stakeholders who support this bill and the fact that the Senate passed it unanimously, the House, for some unknown reason, blocked it this last week. While it received majority support, it failed to clear the two-thirds threshold necessary under the House suspension calendar.

Many of the people who voted against this bill are the same ones who supported deescalation training grants multiple times in previous years. They are even on record promoting their support in the media.

As recently as 2 months ago, grants for deescalation training were uncontroversial. It is tough to understand what has changed and why anyone would vote against this bill now.

It provides the funding and the training that law enforcement desperately needs and that will help make encounters between law enforcement and people experiencing a mental health crisis much safer for all concerned. It will help build public confidence and trust in our law enforcement agencies, and, like I said, it has the support of a full range of stakeholders.

There is no ideological or political reason why people would not support this bill, as Members of the Senate and Members of the Congress across the political spectrum have seen the wisdom of passing this legislation. But I must say that anyone who considers themselves ``pro- police'' or pro-law enforcement should be pro this legislation.

I am disappointed, as I said, that the House blocked this bill from heading to the President's desk last week, and I am hopeful that Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer will schedule another vote at a simple majority threshold soon.

I look forward to that second vote because, as we know, House Republicans have been very clear about their support for America's police officers.

Earlier this year, they rolled out their ``Commitment to America'' framework, which included a commitment to build a nation that is safe. Part of that commitment is to ``oppose all efforts to defund the police.'' I stand by that commitment 100 percent, and no one who supports the Commitment to America should waiver in their support of law enforcement, including this particular piece of legislation.

In order for every American to not only be safe but to feel safe, we need to enact long overdue reforms to ensure police are more responsibly serving our communities, and that is that they have the training and tools they need in order to do their dangerous and difficult job.

The Law Enforcement De-Escalation Training Act will go a long way to give those officers the funding and training that they have requested and that they need in order to do their jobs better.

Just as House Republicans have promised, we must give America's brave law enforcement officers the resources they need in order to protect and serve our communities.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, earlier this week, I did something I haven't done in a number of years, which is to attend a session of the U.S. Supreme Court, their oral arguments.

Of course, as you know, during the COVID pandemic, even the Supreme Court had to change the way it operated, but now the Court is back in the Supreme Court Building, meeting together, and listening to oral arguments and deciding some of the most important cases that are confounding the country and our legal system.

But the case that I listened to oral arguments in hit very close to home because the style of the case was United States v. Texas. It centers on a memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, which he released last fall. In it, he provided specific confirmation--indeed, actually direction--to our Border Patrol agents that they would no longer have any hard and fast rules when it comes to removing illegal entry into the United States, particularly by those who commit serious crimes. So rather than a mandatory rule, Secretary Mayorkas said: Well, you have to weigh these various factors to see whether somebody who is guilty of a serious crime should be removed from the United States.

Under this memorandum, officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement were discouraged from arresting or removing illegal immigrants unless they posed a threat to national security, public safety, or border security. That sounds reasonable, but it is a little more amorphous, a little more vague than specifically people who have committed aggravated felonies.

The memorandum, though, goes on to say that the Agency will prioritize anyone who poses a ``current threat to public safety,'' but it is unclear exactly what that means. The guidelines state that this ``is not to be determined according to bright lines or categories.''

If you are a law enforcement officer, like the Border Patrol, what do you want? You want bright lines. You don't want categories. You don't want some woke statement about, well, on one hand, you have to consider these factors; on the other hand, you have to consider these factors. They need bright lines so they can make, perhaps, even life-and-death decisions.

But what Secretary Mayorkas has said in this memorandum is that there

is really no clear guidance, no clear definition for our Border Patrol in terms of the people they need to detain and remove from the United States because they are a public safety threat. I would hope that crimes like murder, rape, and aggravated assault would meet this balancing test by Secretary Mayorkas, but the memo does not offer any specifics. It is, on this hand, you have to consider these factors; on the other hand, you have to consider these without any real guidance.

We know it is unfair to our law enforcement officials to not provide them with better guidance because they have to make difficult decisions--sometimes split-second decisions, sometimes life-and-death decisions. And to have somebody come back and say, ``Well, you didn't properly balance the considerations,'' as opposed to having a bright line rule or category, which is less discretionary and which provides much more clarity and certainty, I think it is a disservice to them, as well.

What about domestic violence, what about child pornography, what about driving under the influence of alcohol, money laundering, embezzlement? You can look in this memorandum and you won't find any answers to those questions, just the old balancing test: On the one hand, think about these things; on the other hand, think about those.

The administration has offered such vague guidance with the term ``current threat to public safety'' that different ICE officers may well reach different conclusions.

Making matters worse, the memo outlines mitigating factors. So not only do you consider these factors and these factors and balance them, then you need to consider mitigating factors that an officer should consider whether to enforce the law or simply walk away. This includes the age of the migrant, as well as how long they have been living in the United States, as if a migrant entering the country illegally somehow would acquire some equity or vested interest because they have been here longer than somebody else. That makes no sense at all.

The memorandum also said that the law enforcement officer must also include a consideration of the physical or mental condition of the migrant. It even directs ICE officers to consider how the removal of somebody illegally in the United States would impact other people and their family.

Just to be clear, these are not mandates from Congress. This is the product of a made-up memorandum by the Secretary of Homeland Security. Congress has given the Department the authority to exercise some prosecutorial decision, but there is a difference between prioritizing certain offenses for removal and effectively exempting entire categories for enforcement.

I think one of the problems that Secretary Mayorkas has is that he thinks he has the authority to pick and choose which laws to enforce. He has no such authority. Now, he does have authority in terms of prioritizing them.

But, basically, he said that somebody who was in the country illegally because they violated immigration laws is the lowest of priorities for detention and removal. That is what gets you several million people over the last couple years. That is what gets you a border crisis, which allows for the illegal importation of the drugs that killed 108,000 Americans last year--that sort of wokeness and lawlessness.

We have seen previous administrations prioritize the removal of terrorists, transnational criminals, or people who pose a threat to public safety or national security, and that is fine. I think we can all agree that law enforcement should use its limited resources to address the biggest threats but not in the process exempt other people who have violated the law from any potential consequences. It defies all common sense to instruct a law enforcement officer to turn a blind eye when they encounter individuals who came here illegally and committed other crimes just because those crimes aren't, in the opinion of Secretary Mayorkas, serious enough or because of the age of the individual or how long they have actually resided here in the United States.

The lower court, the District Court for the Southern District of Texas, found that Secretary Mayorkas's memorandum guidance doesn't justify common sense. They found that it breaks the law. Congress has provided the requirement and said that the Secretary ``shall take into custody'' noncitizens who commit certain crimes--``shall.''

The question Chief Justice Roberts kept asking is, Does ``shall'' mean ``shall'' or does ``shall'' mean ``may,''--because the law, which Congress has passed and was signed by the President of the United States, says that you ``shall take into custody'' illegal immigrants who commit certain crimes and you ``shall remove'' those individuals once they are released from criminal custody. So the word ``shall'' is mandatory. It is not discretionary. Congress's law that we passed isn't just a polite suggestion. It is an instruction, it is a direction. It is a requirement. It is a mandate.

The reality of this situation, however inconvenient it may be for some of our colleagues, is that by entering the United States illegally, these individuals have, by definition, broken the law. The Secretary of Homeland Security doesn't have the authority to determine whether those individuals should face the legal consequences that Congress has mandated. That is our job, and the decision was made long before President Biden or Secretary Mayorkas took office.

The State of Texas is disproportionately affected because we have a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, and we are seeing the bulk of this wave of humanity and the drugs coming across the border, and it has imposed a significant burden on our border communities and on our State.

But I believe that the State provided a strong case that the Justices should vacate this dangerous and illegal memo once and for all. If you think about it a minute, by saying, ``Well, you have to weigh these factors against these factors and, oh, by the way, if somebody is of a certain age or has been here a while then you exclude them entirely,'' what this memorandum did and does is sent a clear message to the world that if you come to the United States illegally, you will be able to stay as long as you don't get caught committing a murder or some other heinous crime. But if you commit other crimes, you still might be released by the Department of Homeland Security because there is no bright line rule requiring removal under those circumstances.

This turns on its head what the obligation of the Secretary of Homeland Security should be. He takes an oath similar to the one we take to uphold the law, the Constitution and laws of the United States. I believe it is a clear violation of his oath and his responsibility to try to provide this watered-down memorandum. It is completely impossible for an individual Customs and Border Protection officer to know how they should strike the balance. It is going to be second- guessed.

As I said earlier, two Border Patrol agents looking at the same individual may weigh these factors differently. Well, it is contributing to the Biden border crisis that we have seen raging for the past 2 years. The United States, as we like to say, is a nation of laws, not men and women. In other words, it doesn't depend on who you are. It depends on what the law is, and we all have the same obligation to follow the law. The Secretary simply doesn't have the authority to cherry-pick which laws he wants to enforce and which ones he doesn't.

Congress writes the laws, and the executive branch is charged with enforcing those laws as written, not as how you wish they would be-- nothing more and nothing less. But, unfortunately, we have seen, time and time again--not for days, not for weeks, but for months and even now years--that the Biden administration has simply failed to clear this very low bar--enforce the law.

It is discouraging ICE personnel--again, ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement--from enforcing our immigration laws.

You remember that, a couple of years ago, some of the more radical members of our colleagues' political party said: You should abolish ICE. We shouldn't enforce any of our laws.

But the consequences are pretty clear now. They failed to secure the border or provide frontline law enforcement and agents with the resources they need in order to do their job. These can sometimes be very dangerous jobs.

What is more, the administration has actually sanctioned villainizing Border Patrol and ICE personnel for doing the very job that we asked them to do--enforcing our immigration laws.

Frequently, if you talk to the Border Patrol agents, they will talk about the push factors that encourage people to leave their home country, like poverty and violence. And then they talk about the pull factors, or what they can expect to encounter at the border as to discourage them from coming or to encourage them.

There has been no attempt by the Biden administration to address the pull factor that encourages people to make the dangerous trek from their homes and come to the United States illegally.

That would be something called deterrence, discouraging somebody from illegally coming to the country in the first place. And the asylum program, which has now resulted in millions of cases on the backlog of immigration courts, there has been no effort made to try to fix the broken asylum process, no attempt to strengthen law enforcement and to actually remove people who have no legal right to be here in the United States.

If you go to the border now--as I have been many times--and you talk to the Border Patrol agents, they will tell you that they routinely detain people from as many as 150 different countries. This isn't just people coming from Mexico or Central America; these are literally people coming from around the world. You will find Ukrainians. You will find Russians. You will find people from the Middle East. You will find people from Iran, North Korea, China.

The fact of the matter is that if you have enough money, if you are willing to pay the price that these human smugglers require, you can make your way into the United States and through our southern border illegally.

So it is an abdication of duty and a complete embarrassment to our law-abiding society. I think many Americans watch what is happening at the border, and they wonder, is this the same country I grew up in, or did I miss something? Because they feel like something has gone terribly awry with this sort of lawlessness and chaos.

The Biden administration's laissez faire attitude toward our Nation's immigration laws is absolutely disgraceful, and there must be consequences. The American people deserve better than this, and I hope to see more accountability next Congress once Republicans take control of the House.

That means that we will have new chairmen of the various committees, and they will call people like Secretary Mayorkas before those committees and hold them accountable. But until that happens, I don't expect things to get much better, because if the Biden administration hasn't been motivated to get off the dime and actually do something about this chaos and lawlessness at the border, I don't know what it will take to change their minds.

But sometimes when public officials don't do what they are supposed to do and you can't change their minds, sometimes you need to change who those public officials are. Unfortunately, we may have to wait until the next election to do that.

Immigration enforcement is a bigger job today than it was a few years ago, and I am afraid it is getting ready to become even more challenging. Just last month, the DC district court judge vacated the Center For Disease Control's title 42 order, and the judge granted a 5- week stay which will expire here in less than 3 weeks.

Title 42--just to remind everybody--is a pandemic-related order designed to protect public health. It is not really an immigration order, but it is a public health order. So when people are coming across the border untested and unvaccinated, we recognize that is a potential to spread even more of the coronavirus.

And so Border Patrol has told me as long ago as about a year ago that they have been able to expel some people, particularly adult males, from coming across the border using the title 42 authority. But that is getting ready to go away in 5 weeks--or less than 3 weeks now.

And we have not heard any plan out of the Biden administration for how they are going to do the job without that authority, because they simply refuse to use any other authorities, like expedited removal, in order to discourage people from illegally entering the country.

Back when I sat down with some of the leaders of the Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol, about a year ago now, they told me that once title 42 goes away, unless there is another alternative plan for controlling people's access to the border, they will lose control completely.

At this point, title 42 is one of the few remaining tools we have to prevent even more chaos at the border. Of the more than 230,000 encounters at the southern border in October, 230,000 migrants came to the border, more than 78,000 were removed under title 42.

You might ask what happened to the rest of them. Well, they were ushered into the country, perhaps never to be heard from again, based on weak asylum claims or other refusals by the Biden administration simply to enforce our immigration laws.

But 78,000 is not inconsequential. That is 78,000 people the Border Patrol didn't have to process, feed or house, or take care of. But once title 42 is gone, that will all change. And the consequences will be dire. It has been 2 weeks since the Federal judge struck down title 42, and I have yet to hear a peep out of the Biden administration what they will do to address these consequences.

A few weeks ago, President Biden held a post-election press conference and was asked what he intends to do differently over the next 2 years, given the fact that 75 percent of the voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction. He said: Nothing. He intends to do nothing differently.

Three out of four Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, and the President of the United States of America says: I am not going to change the direction.

The Senate majority leader shared the same sentiment, calling the election results a vindication for Democrats. Given their recent comments, President Biden and Senator Schumer don't seem to recognize there is a problem at all. In fact, they seem happy with the way things are going, and they have assured us that Democrats are just going to keep moving in the same direction.

So if you think this is bad--and two-thirds of the voters believe we are headed in the wrong direction--just get ready, because it is about to get worse.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, as the Senate knows, this week, we will be voting on a bill called the Respect for Marriage Act. Tonight, we will vote on a procedural matter to move that legislation along.

Supporters of this legislation have framed it as a way to protect the rights of same-sex couples to get married in any State in America. To be clear, that is already the law of the land. It has been so since 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled in the Obergefell case, and there is no reason to believe that this decision is in any imminent jeopardy.

Some colleagues have tried to claim that because of the Supreme Court's decision in the Dobbs case, which overruled Roe v. Wade, that somehow that has opened the floodgates of the Supreme Court to overrule all of the precedent that it disagrees with. Well, the Justices, in their concurring opinions in Dobbs, made clear that is not true. For example, they mentioned landmark precedents like Griswold v. Connecticut, Loving v. Virginia, and, notably, Obergefell v. Hodges.

One Justice wrote:

I emphasize what the Court today states: Overruling Roe

does not mean the overruling of those precedents, and does

not threaten or cast doubt on those precedents.

I don't know what more the Supreme Court can say to indicate that Obergefell is not threatened by this Court anytime soon. So I am left with the conclusion that this idea that we have to pass this legislation in order to preserve what has already been recognized by the Supreme Court as a constitutional right, that this is based on, frankly, a scare tactic. Nevertheless, some of our colleagues claim this legislation is absolutely necessary.

But while this bill does not move the needle on same-sex marriage, this legislation will raise serious issues for religious liberty. We all know that many Americans hold sincere beliefs--religious beliefs-- objecting to same-sex marriage. Obergefell did not place any new requirement on those individuals or their religious institutions. The Obergefell decision coexists today with other Supreme Court precedents, like Masterpiece Cakeshop or Fulton v. City of Philadelphia or Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

Each of these decisions recognized that religious liberties shall and must be protected as required by our Constitution; namely, the equal protection clause and the free exercise clause.

For example, Obergefell doesn't compel Catholic priests or Jewish rabbis to conduct marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, but it certainly doesn't subject religious organizations or faith-based institutions or even private citizens to lawsuits for exercising their deeply-held religious objections to same-sex marriage. If the Respect for Marriage Act becomes law as it is currently proposed, without amendment, that would change. Unlike Obergefell, this legislation expressly empowers private litigants to sue religious institutions, faith-based organizations, and private parties who oppose or have sincere, religious-held beliefs against same-sex marriage.

Think back to the Masterpiece Cakeshop lawsuit. The owner of a bakery in Colorado declined the request to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because it didn't align with his religious beliefs. If this legislation passes, we can expect similar lawsuits by secular warriors targeting people, from cake bakers, to florists, to website creators, to venue owners, or just about any other small business that doesn't bend a knee to their world view.

But it is not just individuals with deeply held religious beliefs who will have a target placed on their backs; it is also religious institutions themselves. I am not talking about churches or synagogues or mosques; I am talking about many of the faith-based social service agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and charities that are supported by people of faith as part of their mission. Well, this legislation would permit a private lawsuit against let's say an institution of higher learning, like a major university, or your child's preschool or Mother's Day Out. It includes religious charities and nonprofits that carry out incredibly meaningful and important work, and it includes anyone acting ``under [the] color of State law.''

Now, that is an interesting choice of the scope of this right of a private right of action--anyone acting under the color of State law. This is a very broad term that comes directly from the text of the bill, and it is not clear entirely who would be subject to this provision.

If a person receives a professional license from their State to serve as a lawyer, an accountant, a bartender, a realtor, or a barber, are they acting under color of State law? I think that is a plausible argument. If a nonprofit receives public funds to perform a service on behalf of the government, are they acting under color of State law? It is not clear, and it needs to be clear.

The range of people who can be sued will only be limited by lawyers' imaginations. Trial lawyers and the Biden Department of Justice could have a field day. Individuals and organizations that are trying to do good works consistent with their faith would be forced to spend a small fortune defending themselves in court, just as the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop did for 10 years.

This legislation could open the door for the government to take serious action against religious institutions for adhering to their sincerely held religious beliefs. The Federal Government could deny grants for research to colleges and universities like Baylor University, Southern Methodist University or Texas Christian University in my State. Faith-based groups and nongovernmental organizations could be barred from working with the Federal Government to take care of the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who are coming across our border as part of the current border crisis. Cities and States could deny foster care permits and licenses to religious organizations that do an immeasurable amount of good, including Catholic Charities, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and Buckner International. The Internal Revenue Service could seek to revoke the tax-exempt status of organizations that fail to comply with this new secular mandate.

Now, lest we think that is a fever dream or a conspiracy theory, let me just take you back to the Obergefell argument. Justice Alito asked the Solicitor General if an institution that opposed same-sex marriage could lose its tax-exempt status. The Solicitor General said: ``It's certainly going to be an issue.'' He was correct, and now the issue is front and center.

Now, I believe that the sponsors of this legislation sincerely believe that the consequences I am describing will not follow. They may believe, in good faith, that they have protected the free exercise of religion and religious liberties. But I don't believe they have been successful in doing that. That is why I believe that the amendments that have been proposed by Senator Rubio, Senator Lee, and Senator Lankford should be voted on to make clear what I think the sponsors of this legislation intended to do but weren't quite successful in clearly accomplishing.

Well, just remember the IRS has virtually unlimited authority to target religious schools, nonprofits, and organizations by revoking their tax-exempt status, leaving them to the dead end of ruinous and years-consuming litigation.

Now, this isn't, like I said, a farfetched conspiracy or an unrealistic doomsday scenario. We have seen what a politically motivated Internal Revenue Service can do.

Perhaps we all remember the IRS targeting controversy under the Obama administration. Under the leadership of Lois Lerner, bureaucrats subjected conservative groups to a different level of scrutiny, when examining their tax-exempt status, from left-leaning groups. Employees of the IRS actually developed a spreadsheet that became known as the ``Be on the Lookout'' list or simply the BOLO list. If the name of the political group included terms like ``tea party'' or ``patriot,'' it was subjected to a different level of scrutiny.

These IRS bureaucrats delayed the approval of these organizations' tax-exempt status and requested completely unnecessary information. It asked some applicants to disclose the names of their donors, as well as the amounts of each donation, which is constitutionally suspect. A pro- life group was even asked to provide the percentage of time that the group spent on prayer groups compared with their other activities.

Well, this IRS targeting scandal happened about a decade ago, but, since then, the IRS has been given even more power and more authority. The most recent reckless tax-and-spending bill, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act,

gave the Internal Revenue Service an additional $80 billion and 87,000 new IRS agents. This army of new agents would have the capability to turn its attention on every church school and organization that did not recognize same-sex marriage because of their sincerely held religious beliefs.

So you have to wonder: Who will be on the BOLO list next? Given everything we have seen and the experience we have had in this area, I can't say I have much confidence in how this will be handled.

So, to summarize, this legislation does not move the needle in terms of the rights of same-sex couples. They can already marry in every State in the country, and this bill doesn't change that. What it will do is force religious organizations to make an impossible choice: Abandon your beliefs or face the wrath of the U.S. Government.

So let me just repeat what I said a moment ago. I believe the proponents of this legislation thought they were protecting and preserving the religious liberties of people with sincerely held religious beliefs. But when they include a private right-of-action for someone acting under ``color of State law,'' it refers to any public act, any right or claim, and, as I said, you can interpret ``color of state law'' to cover everything from professional licensing to teaching certificates, to building permits, to food and beverage licenses.

So, I think, if the proponents of this legislation really believe that protecting religious liberty should be our goal, the best way to accomplish that is to allow votes on these amendments by Senator Lee, Senator Rubio, and Senator Lankford, who provided an extra clear assurance that this legislation does not constitute a national policy endorsing a specific view of marriage.

I know it may sound like a simple clarification, but it could mean the difference between faith-based nonprofits ending up in the crosshairs of the IRS or some private-party lawsuit claiming they are operating under color of State law and the ability to maintain their tax-exempt status or carry on the important good work that many organizations do in our communities all across the country.

So if that indeed is the purpose of our colleagues--to try to protect those religious organizations, those people of faith who are doing good works that we want to encourage and we want to support--then I believe that we can accomplish their goal by passing the amendments that have been proposed by Senator Lee, Senator Rubio, and Senator Lankford. If that is their goal, they shouldn't have any objection to this clarification.

But we simply can't stand by and allow this legislation--or any legislation, for that matter--to foot stomp the First Amendment rights of people of faith. Unless this bill is amended, it will invite a wave of lawsuits against churches, synagogues, mosques, and religious nonprofits, simply because they are living in accordance with their faith.

One other thing I should point out that was mentioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is that, in the one area that I would call it a safe harbor to protect religious liberty--I think it is 6(b) in the bill that has been offered--the protection of religious liberty that, again, I think, our colleagues in good faith intended to provide, is limited to those ``whose principal purpose is the study, practice, or advancement of religion.'' So that clearly would involve things like church services or religious observations at a mosque or synagogue. But would it cover a church's daycare facility that provides for the children whose parents attend their church? Would it cover universities like I mentioned earlier--Baylor University, a Baptist university, Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University--and the work they do? How about Catholic Charities, which is one of the principal providers of humanitarian services at the border, which resulted due to the border crisis that we are experiencing.

None of those would be protected, I would argue, under the limitation in section 6(b), and this was actually pointed out by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. I think they are right.

But again, if the goal of the bill is to preserve religious liberty, I think the bill needs to be amended. Religious liberty is the cornerstone of our democracy. It is explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, and we cannot allow it to be trampled on.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, since the real President, President Biden, was elected to office, the southern border--my State shares a 1,200- mile common border with Mexico--has been absolutely overwhelmed by the number of migrants entering the United States.

The United States is the most generous country in the world when it comes to legal immigration. We naturalize almost a million people a year, which is, I think, part of the secret to our economic success. We see the best and the brightest from all around the world who want to come to America, who want to enjoy the kind of prosperity that Americans enjoy and the freedom and opportunity to pursue their dreams. Legal immigration, I think, has been part of the secret sauce that has helped to make our country great, and we need to protect that.

Illegal immigration is a disaster. What is happening now on the border and what has happened in the last 2 years under the Biden administration has been nothing short of a humanitarian and public safety crisis.

It is a little bit of a disappointment--it is more than a little bit of a disappointment--when President Biden campaigned on the promise of policies that were sure to lead to this exact situation. On the one hand, he said: I want to be a uniter. I want to work together to solve our Nation's problems.

But then to see him completely abdicate the Federal Government's responsibility to control uncontrolled migration across the border is inexcusable. Once President Biden took office, his administration continued to send a clear message to the cartels, to the human smugglers, and to the migrants that our border was open. Oh, and don't forget the drug cartels, who depend on an open border to sell their poison all across our country, taking the lives, last year, of 108,000 Americans alone.

Some people have said: Well, apparently, every State is now a border State.

I think that is true, particularly when you see the epidemic of fentanyl being so pervasive in all of our communities. We are losing students in our high schools on a regular basis who think they are taking something like, let's say, Xanax or Percocet or something else, but it is laced with fentanyl, and it kills them because only a very small piece of fentanyl can take your life. It is that powerful.

Unfortunately, the administration is now trying to play catchup to its failures and abdication to provide security across our southern border. In the last fiscal year, for the first time on record, annual border encounters reached nearly 2.4 million. When I say border encounters, that does not count the so-called getaways, which is what the Border Patrol calls them--the hundreds and thousands of people who don't turn themselves in and claim asylum. These are people who want to evade law enforcement. They are very likely involved in either criminal activity or have a criminal record themselves or, perhaps, they are just smuggling drugs into the United States. Those are the getaways. So the 2.4 million is a low number for the number of people to have come across the border in the last 2 years, and there is no indication that things are slowing down.

I know Vice President Harris--named the border czar for President Biden's administration--when she talks about immigration, she says: Well, we need to get back to the root causes.

She talks to the President of Guatemala or Honduras or El Salvador and says, well, we need to make life better for people there so they don't come here, which is totally ignoring the scope and the gravity of the human smuggling networks that operate internationally.

I mentioned this morning, in the Judiciary Committee, where the Presiding Officer was, too, that the Border Patrol regularly encounters people from as many as 150 different countries. So the fact is the criminal organizations that make money on human smuggling will smuggle you from anywhere in the world, including from countries of particular concern to us when it comes to terrorism, for a price. So, where coming from Central America or Mexico may cost you $5,000 or $10,000, if you are coming from Pakistan, Iraq, or Iran, it may cost you $15,000, and it goes on and on and on and on.

So Vice President Harris, apparently, doesn't understand what we are up against when she talks about root causes. People want to come here, and they will pay to come here and to evade a lawful system of controlled legal immigration, which, as I said, has been a good thing for our country, in favor of transnational criminal organizations getting richer by the day by

smuggling people from all around the world, along with the drugs that I mentioned earlier that took the lives of 108,000 Americans last year alone.

In fiscal year 2018, we saw an average of 43,000 migrants at the border every month. That was in 2018, 4 years ago, 43,000. In fiscal year 2022--fast-forward 4 years--the monthly total has skyrocketed from 43,000 to 198,000 a month. We are seeing 4\1/2\ times more people coming every single month, and, not surprisingly, the Border Patrol can't keep up.

This is part of the strategy of these transnational criminal organizations. They will send children unaccompanied to the border, knowing that the Border Patrol--as they should--is going to try to take care of these children as they process them through the asylum system. What that means is that they are not on the border when they are back, filling out paperwork or changing diapers, and that is when the drug cartels come through.

It is like a four-lane highway into the United States, and it doesn't stop in Texas. It goes to New Jersey. It goes to Illinois. It goes all across our country, not to mention that the Border Patrol doesn't have the space to house this many people. So they simply let them go, in many instances, with a notice to appear for a future court hearing if somebody invokes asylum laws. But they don't have the personnel to control this humanitarian crisis, this flood of humanity, coming across the border.

As I said, the people coming across are a hodgepodge. Some are economic migrants. We can understand people fleeing poverty or violence--we are human beings too. We understand--but it also creates an opportunity for criminals and drug smuggling and other nefarious actors to come across because we don't know who is coming across. Because there are so many of them, they have overwhelmed our capacity to monitor, and hundreds of thousands of them, simply, are the gotaways.

We don't have enough people to do the job of patrolling the frontlines and arresting the people who need to be arrested and interdicting the drugs that need to be interdicted. I know Chairman Durbin, our friend and colleague from Illinois, mentioned this morning in the Judiciary Committee hearing the fact that Customs and Border Protection has interdicted tons of drugs. That is a good thing, but nobody is under any illusion that they have gotten anywhere near all, much less the majority, of the drugs that have come across the border. They haven't. So this is, unfortunately, another manifestation of the broken policies of the Biden administration and the Biden border crisis.

We don't have enough immigration courts to keep up with the backlog as people are released by the millions into the United States and told to appear for a court hearing. The last figures I saw showed that about half of the people didn't show up for their court hearings, but there has been no effort made to follow up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to repatriate those people who don't comply with their notice to appear.

Honestly, there are millions of cases in the backlog, and the cartels know that, too, and this is another way for them to game the system, and this is another incentive for people to come. You know, the Border Patrol talks about the push factors--violence, poverty, things that cause people to want to leave their homes to go somewhere else--but they also talk about the pull factors, which is the perception that the border is open, and there is no impediment to people coming here outside of our legal immigration system. That is another reason the numbers are so huge--because there is simply no deterrence.

As I said, this isn't just a problem in Texas and other border States. My border communities don't have the resources to help each and every migrant who arrives penniless, malnourished, and, maybe, without any place to really go. The truth is the entire system is buckling under the weight of this border crisis, but if you think things are bad now, they are about to get worse.

Earlier this week, a D.C. district court judge vacated the Centers for Disease Control title 42 order. You will remember, title 42 is a public safety order which empowered the Border Patrol to turn back people coming across the border into the United States because infectious diseases can spread when people who haven't been vaccinated, who aren't tested, are released into the interior of the United States. So this is a public health order that enabled the Border Patrol at least to use that tool to try to modulate the flow of humanity coming across the border, but a district judge here has vacated title 42 now.

The judge has granted a 5-week stay, giving the Department of Homeland Security until midnight on December 21 to come up with a new plan. But this isn't a time to start scrambling and come up with a plan; it should have been happening years ago.

I still remember meeting with the Border Patrol leadership and Customs and Border Protection. They said when title 42 goes away, if we are denied that tool to be able to control the flow of illegal immigration, we will lose control. There will be no disincentive for people not to come across the border into the United States illegally.

Title 42 has been one of the few remaining tools that have been used to prevent even greater chaos than what I have described, and now, with it potentially likely going away, even that tool will be lost. But, of course, the administration has jettisoned almost every policy we had in place to secure the border and discourage migrants from undertaking the dangerous journey to our southern border.

Title 42 has given the Department of Homeland Security the ability to quickly expel some migrants--usually adult males--and to prevent our border facilities and local communities from becoming even more overwhelmed than they already are. Once this authority goes out the window--and that appears to be imminent--the situation is going to get much, much worse.

Of the more than 230,000 encounters at the southern border last month, more than 78,000 were removed under title 42--230,000 encounters; 78,000 removed using title 42. But if title 42 goes away, that is 78,000 more people each month who are likely, then, to make their way into the United States.

Title 42 also provided some means to control the need to process, house, and feed migrants coming across the border, but now, with all of the restraints of title 42 off, it is going to get much, much worse, and the consequences will be dire indeed.

As I said, the Biden border crisis is entirely predictable, and it is a result of the Biden administration dismantling what few tools that were available to Border Patrol and to the U.S. Government to control unrestricted access to the United States.

It seems to me that the only consistent policy of the Biden administration has been that whatever the previous administration did, whether it is build infrastructure, provide more technology, more boots on the ground, whatever the policy of the previous administration was, we are going to do the opposite--not because it makes sense; just because the previous administration did it, they are going to undo it.

Of course, those people who do claim asylum are met with a 2 million- case backlog. On average, it takes about 2 years for the case to be adjudicated. But migrants know this. They plan on this. This is part of the sales pitch of the human smugglers. They say: Just go to the border and claim asylum, and then you will be put in a queue of 2 million people, and you have to wait for your case to be called.

Of course, more than half of the people don't show up. That is part of the plan. And those who do show up, we know that 90 percent of those cases failed to meet the legal standard for asylum. In the meantime, those migrants, if they had had their case adjudicated, would have found they had no legal basis to the stay in the United States. They are able to live and work here for years in the meantime.

I mentioned the notice that many migrants are given to appear for a court date, but because of the volume of people coming across, at one point, the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection didn't even issue those notices to appear for a date certain for a court setting, and they gave migrants a notice to report. These are people who have evaded the legal process to make their way into the United States, and we give them a slip of

paper that says: Oh, when you get to where you are going--whether it is Chicago or New York or Washington, DC--go turn yourself in to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE.

I just don't know how stupid the Biden administration thinks the American people are because the American people are not stupid. They understand that this notice to report is another means for people to make their way illegally into the United States and to stay here, and it is an incentive for more and more people to come.

Law enforcement is not just enforcing the law; it is actually sending a message of deterrence: Don't do that. We have lost all message of deterrence because migrants who make their way into the United States, they call back home, and they say: I made it. They watch TV. They see the migrants flowing across the border unrestricted. They say: Well, I guess if they can do it, I can do it too.

Given the massive influx of people coming across the border every day, the Border Patrol's facilities are completely underwater. Rather than stand up new facilities or hire more personnel to make the expedited removal process function properly, the Biden administration has just continued to release more and more people into the interior of the country. In many cases, these people are released without any real information about who they are, where they are going, and what they are going to do when they get there.

Senator Lankford and I have asked the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the impact of these practices, and the results are pretty shocking. The GAO reported that some of the migrants had their appointment with ICE scheduled for August 2024, nearly 2 years from now. That was just the appointment to receive the notice to appear, which begins--begins--the proceedings in immigration court. Tack on the average of a 2-year process for a single case to be adjudicated by an immigration judge, and you are looking at a 4-year-plus waiting period.

If the administration doesn't come up with a plan to fix these problems before title 42 is lifted, we will be looking at a pull factor to end all pull factors. Here is why.

Earlier this year, Secretary Mayorkas said that Customs and Border Protection detention facilities could hold approximately 18,000 people. Now, that sounds like a big number, but those beds fill up quickly. Once title 42 goes away, every single person who crosses the border will have to be processed by the Border Patrol.

The administration previously said we could see as many as 18,000 migrants every day if title 42 was lifted. That is a day, so all 18,000 of those beds could fill up as a result of a single day's migration. Then the question comes, what do we do with the rest when the only detention facilities we have are full?

When these facilities are filled to capacity, agents are left with no other choice. The migrants are released, which is, again, part of the business model of the human smugglers and transnational criminal organizations that operate these illegal smuggling networks. They realize that they have overwhelmed the capacity of the Border Patrol and U.S. policy to keep people who should not come into the country out. They may be given a notice to appear, but that is a document that tells asylum seekers when and where to present their claims in court, or they may be paroled into the country and enrolled in the so-called alternatives to detention program. Years are likely to pass before that long-awaited court date arrives. When it does, maybe the person will show up; maybe they won't. But either way, one thing is certain: When word gets out, as it always does, that migrants are being released from custody, more illegal immigration will follow.

This creates a huge public safety risk, not because of the migrants themselves but because of the chaos that mass migration creates. When thousands of people are crossing the border every day, it completely overwhelms the Border Patrol, as I said. If agents are caring for unaccompanied children, they can't patrol the frontlines. If they are knee deep in paperwork, they can't stop dangerous criminals, people with criminal records, from slipping across the border.

The chaos at our southern border provides an excellent disguise for dangerous individuals. Gangs, cartels, criminal organizations are paying close attention to the state of our border. They see the gaps, and they know how to exploit them. Every day, cartel and gang members attempt to sneak across the border. The dedicated men and women of the Border Patrol arrest a number of them. Last fiscal year, agents apprehended more than 750 gang members, but, as we know, law enforcement is overwhelmed, and that means countless others have been undetected and slip through the cracks.

No one is suggesting that title 42 is a permanent solution or a partial solution to our border security problems--far from it--but the administration should have been planning years ago for the day that title 42 would be lifted because once title 42 is lifted, unless other policies are put in place for expedited removal of people who cannot legally enter the country, for example, we are going to lose control of the border entirely.

But the administration has shown zero interest in working with Congress to craft real change. That needs to change. Before title 42 goes away, the administration must implement a serious plan quickly and efficiently--and, yes, fairly--to enforce our immigration laws at the border and deter further illegal immigration. They need to ensure the Border Patrol facilities are equipped with the resources and the personnel needed to manage the massive influx of migrants.

But the fact of the matter is, those overwhelmed Border Patrol agents, those overwhelmed facilities, those overwhelmed border communities need policies that can only be passed by Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States, but so far, our Democratic colleagues have shown zero interest, turned a blind eye, really, to any of these concerns about an unrestricted flow of humanity across our border--again, of course, with the drugs that the cartels sell here in the United States. But the administration needs to change their approach.

I saw the forced resignation of the head of Customs and Border Protection--the former police chief, I believe, in Arizona--but this is just scapegoating. They are firing him, hoping people won't realize that what is really failing is not the officials heading up these government Agencies; it is the administration; it is the policies of the Biden administration itself and the failure of our Democratic colleagues to work with us to try to come up with solutions.

And I am not just here complaining. I am here offering constructive proposals. More than a year ago, Senator Sinema, who happens to represent a border State of Arizona, a Democrat; Henry Cuellar from Laredo, TX, a Texas Democrat; and Tony Gonzales, a Republican Congressman, we came up with the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act, something that would not solve all the problems but would be a modest first step in the right direction.

But what we are told by our Democratic colleagues is they are not interested in that or, at least, they are not interested in any solutions until and unless you provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of people here in the country without proper documentation, in other words, illegal migrants, people who have broken our laws. They want a mass amnesty.

And they still don't want to change the policies that are creating this influx of humanity across the border. Our Democratic colleagues have had the White House. They have had majorities in the House and the Senate. They have Democratic colleagues who are chairing the committees in the House and the Senate who could actually mark up and pass legislation to deal with this crisis. And maybe you can't do it all in one piece of legislation. Maybe you can just do it one step at a time. But they have done none of that--zero, zip, nada.

And the only conclusion you can reach in the face of this failure to respond to this acknowledged crisis is that they don't care. Well, I can guarantee you, the American people care. The parents who lose children as a result of fentanyl overdoses because of the unrestricted flow of illegal drugs across the border, they care.

Our major cities and rural areas of the country that have experienced a spike in the prevalence of drug distribution and violent crime, they care,

because the distribution network for the drugs that come across the border is all across the United States, mainly operated by criminal gangs who are responsible for a lot of other criminal conduct and a lot of the gun violence and deaths you see every weekend, for example, in cities like Chicago. Those are criminal gangs fueled by the broken border and the Biden border crisis.

Something has got to change, Mr. President. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is going to take for the Democratic leadership at the White House or the Senate or the House to say: Enough is enough.

Ultimately, I know that power lies with the American people. They can change, or they can change their elected representatives in the next election. So something is going to give. The status quo is not sustainable. The country, the border, is on fire. People are dying, and we are straining the whole legal system that is designed to expedite the entry of people through a legal process and turning the reins over to the transnational criminal organizations and international drug networks that profit hugely by the failure of Congress and the failure of the White House to act.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the vote on the passage of S.J. Res. 63: I for 20 minutes; Senator Moran of Kansas for 5 minutes; Senator Paul of Kentucky for 15 minutes; Senator Marshall of Kansas for 5 minutes; and Senator Wyden of Oregon for 10 minutes.

Madam President, I have the unwelcome task of saying farewell to my right hand: my chief of staff, Beth Jafari. It is literally impossible to separate my Senate career from Beth's influence because she has been a leader on Team Cornyn for the last 20 years.

Back in 2003, I made what I now recognize as one of the best employment decisions I have ever made. That is when I hired Beth to be my legislative director. This Houston native had spent nearly a decade working in the House of Representatives before she came to the Senate, but she had had a short period of time wherein she practiced law and recognized the satisfaction and reward of public service more than the enhanced paycheck of the private practice of law.

To me, one of the great benefits is she knew Texas; she knew Congress; she understood Washington and all of its strange ways. I was confident then and am now that she was the perfect person for the job.

Beth quickly developed an expertise in both the processes and the people of the U.S. Senate. She understood the ins and outs of every policy area and which Members cared the most about what issues. She built strong relationships with staff on both sides of the aisle and earned a reputation as a trustworthy and honest broker, and she empowered our own legislative team to notch up win after win for Texas.

When my first chief of staff left in 2007, I knew there was only one person for that job, one person I could literally trust with that job. Beth didn't seek that job in order to raise her own profile or impress the DC power players. That has never been her MO. Instead, she saw an opportunity to champion an incredible team and help us accomplish important things for Texas. That is one of the first things you come to know and appreciate about Beth: She loves Texas. She loves her sports teams, especially her beloved Aggies. She loves the music, the hole-in- the-wall Tex-Mex joints, but most of all, she loves people.

Madam President, election day has come and gone, but there is still quite a bit of uncertainty about what the next Congress will look like, particularly in the House of Representatives.

As final ballots are being counted in a number of States, there is a lot we still don't know. But here is what we do know: We know that Democrats will maintain a razor-thin majority in the Senate, and I emphasize razor thin. In a few weeks, Georgia voters will head back to the polls to determine whether Democrats will hold 50 or 51 seats.

We won't know the result of that race until December 6 at the earliest. Now, suffice it to say, this is not the result I would have hoped for. Like all of my colleagues, I have heard firsthand about the pain and frustration families have felt due to Democrats' policies. Their runaway spending habits have fueled inflation. Their open border policies have ushered in the largest migration crisis we have ever witnessed. The epidemic of fentanyl deaths is compounded by the Biden and Democratic open border policies. Their anti-police, soft-on-crime rhetoric has harmed public safety, and their detached-from-reality energy policies have sent gas prices soaring and undermined our national security.

Best I can tell, our Democratic colleagues still don't have a plan to address any of those issues. It has become an exercise in finger- pointing, and the latest scapegoat is now the former Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus. Even if the Biden White House and congressional Democrats--even if they did have a plan, it doesn't look like there is much appetite for action.

If Republicans had won the majority, these issues would have been at the top

of our list, but, unfortunately, we came up short this time. I know many of my Republican colleagues are eager to have a frank discussion about the path forward for our party, and it is essential that we do so.

We need to ensure that in 2 years our policies and our message will resonate with the voters. So I agree with the need to have a frank, meaningful conversation--debate even. We shouldn't be afraid of spirited debate in the U.S. Senate. After all, debate about what our message should be and what our priorities should look like, that is essential.

Those discussions will begin tomorrow, and I hope there will be plenty of time to listen to one another and then to work toward consensus on a clear, concise, and impactful plan of action.

In terms of what to expect from our Democratic colleagues, I don't expect much to change. Given that Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema-- given their strong support for the 60-vote threshold for the Senate to act, I believe that will remain firmly intact. If the majority leader tries to go nuclear--as he has threatened to do time and time again-- and blow up the rules of the Senate, he simply doesn't have the votes. That is the good news.

There will be no Green New Deal. There will be no court packing, no DC statehood, no mass amnesties. Republicans, maybe with some Democratic support, will block the most radical aspects of the agenda for progressives in the Democratic Party, and we will continue to fight the irresponsible spending and government overreach our colleagues have pushed the last 2 years.

Instead, we will push for commonsense policies to bring down the costs and improve the standard of living for working families. We will work to increase domestic energy production, rather than go hat in hand to autocrats in the Middle East, and we will secure the border. I hope we can do this through bipartisan progress. These are the top issues facing families across the country and they deserve our attention and, more than that, they deserve our action here in the Senate.

Unfortunately, it is not just the Senate that is in a bit of a holding pattern. Several House races have yet to be called, and it is not clear which party will hold the majority. Republicans have a lead right now, and I am optimistic that that is where things will end up in the House. A Republican majority in the House would force our Democratic colleagues to abandon partisan governance, which has dominated in the last 2 years, as they have held the White House, they have held the House, and then had a working majority in the Senate.

But now Democrats would no longer be able to abuse the budget reconciliation process to circumvent the normal legislative process. They would be forced to work in earnest to find common ground, which is what the American people, I believe, clearly want.

Again, we are all eager for the ballot counting to conclude. It has been nearly a week since election day, and everyone is eager to have a final roster for the 118th Congress.

While there is a lot we still don't know, there are some exciting things we do know. The Senate will welcome at least five new Republicans at the start of next year. Katie Britt, Ted Budd, Markwayne Mullin, Eric Schmitt, and J.D. Vance will join the ranks of the Republican conference.

Each of these individuals is coming to Washington with a fresh perspective, right off the campaign trail, and a long list of ideas to improve the lives of folks in their State and across America.

While I am sad to see our retiring colleagues go, I am eager to welcome this new blood, this new energy, and these new ideas into the Senate.

There are also some new faces joining the Texas delegation. Given the explosive population growth in our State, we have added two new House seats this cycle, bringing the total to 38 House Members from the great State of Texas.

Next Congress, we will welcome five new Texas Republicans in the House, and I am eager to work with these men and women to solve some of the biggest issues families in our State are facing.

But if the truth be known, I am happy to work with anybody who shares my interest in trying to make life a little bit better and to address the critical issues facing American families today, which brings me to my next topic, the National Defense Authorization Act.

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

Mr. President, despite the gridlock that occasionally grips this Chamber, the Senate has managed to advance some great bipartisan bills since the beginning of this Congress.

All of the attention seems to focus on our disagreements, not where we agree, and there is no question that there are big disagreements here and for good reasons. But the media seems to miss the smaller but no less important bills that earn bipartisan support every day.

Over the last couple of years, the Senate has unanimously-- unanimously--approved bills that I have introduced to support victims of child abuse, provide tax relief to survivors of human trafficking, strengthening our trade relationships with Canada and Mexico, and building safer and healthier communities.

It is no secret that our country is in the midst of a mental health crisis. We do not have a mental health delivery system in America. We made some great strides recently with the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act that made an unprecedented investment in community- based mental health care.

We all know that the mental health crisis does not discriminate. It affects people of all ages, from all walks of life, and it is creating serious challenges for law enforcement who are often the first to respond when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis. Police officers will tell you that they don't have the training or expertise, ordinarily, to assist these individuals in the most effective way possible because they are not mental health professionals. We can't expect the police to solve every problem that they face on the streets of our country, whether it has to do with mental health, drug overdoses, homelessness, or the like. They have simply been asked to do too much without the resources or support they need, and that needs to change.

That is where the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program comes in. For nearly two decades, this program has provided critical grants to help law enforcement assist individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. That includes mental health courts, crisis intervention teams, and other programs that promote public safety and improve mental health outcomes and reduce recidivism.

Communities across my State of Texas are working to bridge the gap between criminal justice and mental health, and I was able to hear about some of that work during the August recess.

In the city of Pharr, in the Rio Grande Valley, for example, I sat down with local law enforcement officers and mental health professionals, as well as local civic leaders, to talk about the city's innovative mental health unit.

The Pharr Police Department launched this unit in 2020 to improve the quality of outcomes for individuals in crisis and the community as a whole. Mental health officers are trained to respond to these crises in the most effective and compassionate way possible, and the city of Pharr has experienced great results over the last couple of years. The program has even been recognized as the ``Organization of the Year'' at the Texas Crisis Intervention Team Association annual conference.

It is a shining success story, and the Pharr Police Department is eager to do more. That is why the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Grant Program is important--because it provides additional resources.

In the past, the mental health unit in the city of Pharr received a $550,000 grant, which will be used to expand the reach and impact of the program in the community, and I introduced a bill with Senator Klobuchar, our colleague from Minnesota, to ensure that these grants can deliver even bigger benefits.

Our bill would allow grants to be used for mental health courts and veterans treatment programs--two incredible resources to provide individuals who are struggling with the treatment they need.

Grant recipients could also use these funds to improve officer training. As I said, most police officers aren't trained to deal with people in a mental health crisis, and things like deescalation training are really important for the safety of the person experiencing the crisis as well as the law enforcement officer.

But these grants can also enhance services for substance use disorders and suicide prevention programs, and they would be able to invest in 24/7, 365-day crisis response capabilities.

All of these recommendations in this legislation came from the men and women on the frontlines. They come face-to-face with America's mental health crisis every day, and these are the changes that they have suggested and asked for.

But, obviously, I am not alone in supporting the program. As I said, this bill was introduced with Senator Klobuchar, and it has more than a dozen bipartisan cosponsors, including the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And the bill passed the U.S. Senate last summer with unanimous support.

So that is just one example of the bipartisan work we have done here that doesn't get a lot of attention but will go a long way to improve our criminal justice system and how it deals with people who are struggling.

Last year, the Senate approved legislation that I introduced with Senator Whitehouse, the Senator from Rhode Island, to help incarcerated individuals break the cycle of addiction. This legislation updates the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program and expands it to treatment in jails and prisons across the country. The program has already provided incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for substance use disorders. That treatment is coupled with programs to prepare these men and women for reentry and to provide community-based treatment once they are released, hopefully, to help them lead productive, law-abiding lives.

Our legislation opens up even more opportunities for successful rehabilitation and continued recovery, and it

gives providers more options when it comes to treating substance use disorders. It requires program staff to be trained on the science of addiction, evidence-based therapies, and strategies for continuity of care. And it ensures programs are affiliated with providers who can continue treatment after incarceration.

We have done a lot of good work, if I can say so myself, on a bipartisan basis, to try to deal with things like addiction, things like mental health crises because typically what happens in the absence of these programs is law enforcement ends up getting a 9-1-1 call, and they have nowhere to take the person other than to the local jail.

Not that long ago, I met with a group of major city police chiefs, and I was asked by a friend of mine--one of the police chiefs--who said: Would you like to meet the largest mental health provider in the country? He is the police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

So in the absence of these kinds of programs, these innovative programs, what you are seeing is people warehoused in jails or prisons, only to repeat their offenses again because the core problems that they are experiencing aren't being addressed. That is true in addiction. That is true with mental health.

So these changes that I am talking about were not drafted in a vacuum. We consulted with law enforcement, criminal justice specialists, and behavioral health experts. And, once again, this bill passed unanimously in the Senate.

Despite the fact that these two bills that I have talked about got support of 100 Senators, both have hit a brick wall in the House. The House has yet to schedule a vote on either one of those pieces of legislation. It is not clear to me why the House won't take up and pass these obviously nonpartisan, important pieces of legislation.

These are two bills to improve the way our criminal justice system supports people who are struggling and gives them the best possible shot at healthy and productive lives.

They were drafted here, as I said, on a bipartisan basis, based on feedback and input of the people who know this topic best, and they will improve public safety and individual outcomes.

So I hope the House will take up and pass these bills without further delay. I hope there isn't a resistance to these bills because some of this money goes to fund police departments.

As we have seen over the last couple of years, some of our Democratic colleagues reflexively oppose any effort to send funding to police departments. We all remember the ``defund the police'' movement.

When this became a major political liability, though, obviously, those who had advocated for defunding the police tried to run for cover.

Last week, the House passed a partisan police funding bill that is loaded down with so many poison pills that it stands no chance of becoming law here in the Senate. In short, they can now say they voted for a police funding bill, even though they know it is guaranteed to go nowhere.

Meanwhile, there are great bipartisan bills that do support the police that are just one vote and a signature away from becoming law. The difference is, these aren't messaging bills. These aren't designed to provide people with political cover or mistaken positions that they have taken in the past. The goal was never to make a point or force a tough vote on our colleagues across the aisle.

Bipartisan, good policy--these bills give law enforcement the tools they need in order to succeed at the very difficult job we know they have, and both of them passed the Senate without a single dissenting vote.

So given the fact that America is facing a mental health crisis and an overdose epidemic, there could not be a more important time to take up and pass these bills.

So I hope if anybody in the House is listening in the leadership, they will consider the fact that by one vote they can get these bills on the President's desk, and we can't let antipolice rhetoric stand in the way of good policy or helping those who deserve and need our help.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, this week, the Senate has one extremely important item on our agenda: to keep the lights on; in other words, to pass a government funding bill. We are just 3 days from the end of the fiscal year, and the Democrat-controlled Senate has yet to pass a single appropriations bill--no funding for our military, no funding for veterans services, no funding for border security, nothing.

Now, this deadline does not sneak up out of nowhere; it arrives on the same day every year. Yet here we are, 3 days before the funding expires, and not a single appropriations bill has been voted on.

The majority leader conceded a long time ago that the regular appropriations bills would be punted to a later date and we would pass a short-term funding bill to bridge the gap. As a general rule, I am not a fan of short-term funding bills. They don't provide the stability or predictability we need to plan for the future. That is especially true for America's military, which is operating in a dynamic threat environment with countless unknowns. In order to plan for and prepare for the future, government Agencies need a predictable budget, and stopgap bills simply don't cut it.

As though this last-minute funding gambit isn't dramatic enough, the majority leader has raised the stakes even higher. He is not putting a clean funding bill on the floor; he is weighing it down with partisan freight. This is part of a political horse trade that happened a couple of months ago. In order to get the senior Senator from West Virginia to vote for his reckless tax-and-spending bill, the majority leader promised to attach permitting reform to the government funding bill. Forget the fact that Senator Manchin's permitting bill was nowhere near complete; the majority leader blindly agreed to tack it on to must-pass legislation.

Senator Manchin, the senior Senator from West Virginia, finally released his bill last week, and it became clear why he was so desperate to attach it to a must-pass continuing resolution. That is because the bill doesn't even come close to delivering the real commonsense changes that were promised. The provisions meant to speed up the approval process for new projects lack teeth, making them unlikely to produce any real progress.

The bill doesn't touch the environmental reviews, which cause a lot of delays to happen in the first place. On top of that, it is a power grab by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, granting them unprecedented authority to force electric transmission lines on States. Under the current law, States have the authority to decide whether or not to grant transmission lines to run through their States. It is part of something called State sovereignty, federalism. Under this bill, that would change, though. The unelected leaders at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could override a State's objection to a new project transmitting renewable energy.

In short, if a State like Illinois needs a new interstate transmission line to help meet its clean energy mandates, its neighbors will have no choice but to oblige. It will be forced on them. Folks in Indiana or Ohio or any other State could be forced to help subsidize the costs of Illinois' renewable energy. This is a far cry from the kind of commonsense permitting reform that Senator Manchin has been talking about.

This bill falls short in almost every regard, which is why we have seen such broad bipartisan opposition. There aren't many Energy bills where my vote aligns with that of the junior Senator from Vermont, Senator Sanders, but this is one of them.

Despite the strong opposition to Senator Manchin's bill, the majority is still moving forward with a procedural vote this evening. He knows it will fail. It will not succeed. Then, Senator Schumer, the majority leader, will have a choice: pass a clean funding bill to keep the lights on, to keep government open, or shut down the government over their reckless tax-and-spending spree deal cut behind closed doors last summer.

If you remember, a couple of months ago, at the same time he professed publicly and privately that the disastrous, radical tax-and- spending spree bill was dead, the senior Senator from West Virginia was negotiating a sweetheart deal in secret, unbeknownst to Republicans and, by the way, unbeknownst to all Democrats other than the majority leader. Fast-forward to today. When that deal falls apart this evening, he will need to abandon his secret deal with Senator Schumer.

For our country's sake, I hope the majority leader and Senator Manchin won't shut down the government. With so much economic uncertainty already, the last thing we need is a government shutdown.

Legislation

Madam President, this is the last week the House of Representatives will be in session until after the election. Once the Chamber gavels out at the end of the week, Members will go home, and they won't return until November 14. That doesn't leave a lot of time to accomplish the work of the American people. In fact, after this week, the House is scheduled to only be in session for 4 more weeks this year.

As my colleagues here in the Senate know, the House has a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. Since the start of the Congress, the Senate has passed a long list of bipartisan bills that are still awaiting action in the House. Many of these bills passed this Chamber unanimously and will provide critical support for our communities.

Here is just one example. Last year, Senator Padilla, the junior Senator from California, and I introduced a bill to support infrastructure and disaster relief projects all across the country. Our bill would open up billions of dollars for States and local governments to put toward their most critical projects without adding a penny to the deficit. That is because the money that would be freed up has already been appropriated for COVID-19 relief but is in excess of what the States and local governments need for that purpose. Our bill would take the handcuffs off and allow them to spend that money if they want. They are not required to do so, but if they want, they can spend up to one-third of their excess funds on infrastructure or disaster relief, and it doesn't add another penny to the deficit.

Over the last year and a half, I have heard from leaders all across my State of Texas who are frustrated about the handcuffs that have been put on them when it comes to spending the money that Congress had appropriated for COVID-19 relief. Senator Padilla told me he is hearing the same thing from leaders in California. So we got to work. We spoke with folks in our States as well as our Senate colleagues and administration officials, and we came up with legislation that was simple but very effective in providing that sort of flexibility that our local communities and our States have asked for.

With some places, that means pandemic-related expenses, which will

take the priority. Our legislation won't interfere with any plans to spend that money on already-approved pandemic expenses, but it will give the States and localities without that need the option to invest those funds in infrastructure projects.

Usually, what happens here in Washington is the U.S. Congress appropriates money, and it literally takes a couple of years to get the money from DC down to places like Austin, TX, where the Texas legislators can then figure out how to disburse those funds. Now, we know they already have the money in their hands, but they simply can't use it because of the restrictions placed on those funds.

Senator Padilla's and my bill would remove those restrictions for important purposes, like infrastructure and like disaster relief; things like widening highways, constructing bridges, extending railways, expanding broadband. Our bill includes a long list of qualifying expenses.

It also will allow leaders to put their funding toward disaster relief, which is a major need in areas all across the country. Places like Texas and Kentucky, for example, have experienced devastating flooding in the last few months. Puerto Rico, we know, has just been hit by a terrible hurricane and is still trying to restore power. Florida is bracing for impact of Hurricane Ian as it makes its way to the gulf coast. California continues to battle destructive wildfires.

Our bill would allow leaders to open up disaster relief funds virtually instantly, as soon as the President signs the bill into law. They already have the funding in hand. They won't have to wait for a Federal disaster declaration or emergency funding from Congress; they could write the check themselves and mobilize resources instantaneously. It is no surprise this bill passed the Senate 100 to 0. It was unanimous.

These are the sorts of commonsense things that will benefit communities all across the United States. This bill will open up tens of millions of dollars for infrastructure projects in communities all across the country, and it will support critical disaster relief efforts as well. It will empower State and local leaders to make the best decisions for their communities. It will ensure that this funding can deliver on its intended purpose, which is to alleviate the financial burden imposed by the pandemic on our State and local governments. I hope Speaker Pelosi will bring up and pass this bill as quickly as possible. It would help her State of California, but more importantly, it would help the entire country.

But this is just one of many bipartisan bills that are currently sitting in the House since the start of Congress--the Senate's unanimously approved bills that I have introduced to prevent and identify child sexual abuse; to provide incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for their substance use disorder; to facilitate more cross-border trade with our neighbors to the north and the south; to support programs and help individuals experiencing mental health crises; to provide tax relief to survivors of human trafficking; to equip law enforcement officers with the tools they need in order to help people in crisis.

It would be a shame if the Speaker declined to bring these bills up and pass them. I am sure they would pass by overwhelming votes in the U.S. House of Representatives, as they did here in the Senate. But the House is only scheduled to be in session a few more weeks this Congress. It is time to get moving on these commonsense, noncontroversial, nonpartisan bills. Otherwise, we will have to start back at square one next year.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.