Floor Statements

Madam President, I want to express my gratitude to the Senator from Ohio for his excellent remarks and for his support getting us to the point we are today, which is on the cusp of a historic accomplishment--and that is to make sure that the supply lines of advanced semiconductors remains available to American businesses and, even more importantly, to our national security.

Now, 2 years ago, Senator Warner, the senior Senator from Vermont, and I introduced the CHIPS for America Act. It has been a long, strange trip till today.

I daresay at the time we introduced the bill, there were many people who didn't know the difference between chocolate chips and microchips. Frankly, that is an exaggeration, but the point is that most people are really unaware of the dependency of our economy and our national security and, frankly, just the quality of our life on access to these microcircuits known as semiconductors. And over time, the semiconductor manufacturers have been able to make them smaller and smaller and more and more powerful until your cell phone, which is essentially a minicomputer, contains thousands of these microchips. Again, whether you are talking about a laptop computer or a new car or a washing machine or just some desktop computer, all of them depend on access to these semiconductors.

As I said, Senator Warner and I introduced the bipartisan CHIPS for America Act 2 years ago. Eighteen months ago, this legislation became law; that was as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. Thirteen months ago, the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill to fund the program. Unfortunately, as the Senator from Ohio mentioned, the House failed to respond to the bipartisan USICA, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, and sent over a partisan bill, which has delayed our consideration of this important legislation unnecessarily.

Today, I am optimistic that the Senate will follow up on its commitment to enact this chips funding into law before we break for the August recess. This afternoon we will take a procedural vote to kick- start consideration of the legislation. Of course, as we lead up to this important vote in debate, many of us have been talking about the size and shape of the bill on both sides of the aisle. And there is still some things that need to be decided, and the fate of the bill is not yet secure. Being the majority leader, Senator Schumer will ultimately be the one to determine what the size and shape of the bill will look like, but I am encouraged by where we stand.

This bill will not, however, be the Senate's U.S. Innovation and Competition Act or the USICA bill or the House's massive partisan America COMPETES Act. This will be a far more narrow bill that focuses on the core issue of semiconductor manufacturing. Semiconductor manufacturing is, as I said, the key to our economy and our national security. As it turns out, most of the manufacturing capacity has been built overseas, primarily in Asia, because it is significantly cheaper to build those manufacturing facilities there rather than here. I am not opposed to additional Commerce provisions, for example--that have already been voted on as part of USICA--being included, but anything else that is included by Senator Schumer must be bipartisan, and those decisions have to be made very quickly. The time for voting on this bill should not be delayed any further.

Over the last three decades, the United States has gone from making 37 percent of these microcircuits, or semiconductors--37 percent--to only about 12 percent now. When you look at the most advanced chips, the smallest and the most powerful, none of these are made in the United States--none. Now, Taiwan's Semiconductor, located in Taipei, Taiwan, has a great business model: American companies design the chips, and they make them. As I said, it is cheaper to make them in Asia than it is here in America, but post-COVID we have come to realize the vulnerability of our supply chains for virtually everything.

When you look at our dependency on the supply chain of these advanced chips and what it might mean to our country, well, it is shocking. The CEO of Micron, out of Idaho, has said there is a 35- to 45-percent cost gap between domestic and overseas production. Now, if you are talking about making toys or something like that or furniture items, it is great to have a cheaper alternative where that product is manufactured overseas rather than here in America. That is good for consumers as it makes things a lot more affordable, but when you are talking about a sole source for the most advanced semiconductors, that goes from being a convenience to a nightmare, and, of course, during the pandemic, we experienced a number of supply chain vulnerabilities. Now, as the economy around the world continues to expand, anybody who has tried to buy a car, a dishwasher, or a computer over the last couple of years has likely been impacted with higher costs or long delays or both.

As a matter of fact, due to the shortages of supply, that has necessarily driven the costs higher, which has further exacerbated inflation, but there is an even more important reason to get this bill done.

The chip shortage and our lack of domestic manufacturing capability is a huge national security risk. That is why the Secretaries of the Departments of Defense and Commerce sent a letter to Congress a few weeks ago, saying very clearly:

Funding the CHIPS Act is critical to our national defense.

That is why the Republican-led Senate passed the original bill and helped it become law during the previous administration. That is why I hope the current Congress will fund it with today's vote--or with, actually, this week's vote.

Whether it is advanced fighters, the fifth-generation stealth strike fighter, like the F-35; whether we are talking about quantum computing, the next generation of computing; or whether we are talking about missile defense systems or the Stinger or Javelin missiles that we have exported to Ukraine for them to defend themselves against Russian aggression, all of them depend on semiconductors. As a matter of fact, a single rocket interceptor used in Israel's Iron Dome, for example, contains more than 750 chips. An overreliance on other countries to produce the key components to our most vital defense assets is a huge and unacceptable risk.

As I said, that is why Senator Warner and I initially introduced the bill in June of 2020 and why it has received such strong bipartisan support.

Building a new foundry--or ``fab'' as they are sometimes called--is a huge undertaking and requires a massive investment. A single foundry can cost upward of $10 to $20 billion--$10 to $20 billion. Without some level of support from the government, these investments simply won't materialize, at least not in America. Other governments, as you have heard, have made similar investments in semiconductor manufacturing in trying to make sure that their supply chains are not vulnerable. Countries like China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, and a number of others have included an over-$100 billion pledge to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the European Union alone. The United States simply cannot get left behind, and we can't keep dragging our feet.

It doesn't just take a lot of money to get these foundries up and running; it also takes time. Last year, I hosted a roundtable in Dallas, TX, to talk about the impact of the chip shortage with industry leaders. During our conversation, a Qorvo executive talked about how it can take years to receive all of the high-functioning equipment that is necessary to make semiconductors. That is why there has been such a big push in Congress to get this funding out the door.

Chip makers who have to make decisions about where and when to build their next manufacturing facilities need to know that these incentives are available for them to build those foundries here in America, and the window of that decision-making process is closing rapidly. If it closes--if we continue to drag our feet and not fund the chips bill-- they are going to pull their investments from new or expanded foundries in the United States and take them overseas. This isn't just a ``Chicken Little'' claim. Companies have put out the warning call, and I believe them.

One company called GlobalWafers is planning to build a new silicon wafer factory in Sherman, TX, which would create up to 1,500 new jobs and produce 1.2 million wafers a month. Silicon wafers are an essential component of semiconductors. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that the CEO told her that their plan to build this factory in Sherman, TX, is contingent on Congress passing the CHIPS Act. Unless the funding is approved by the August recess, which is rapidly approaching, the company will scrap its plans for that facility.

As you heard from our colleague from Ohio, the CEO of Intel expressed a similar sentiment for a planned Ohio facility. He said the company would expand chip production in Europe instead of in America if Congress fails to pass this funding.

Another company, NXP Semiconductors, is weighing new investments too. It is looking at expanding one of its factories in Austin, TX--a project that would cost, roughly, $2.6 billion. The company is planning to decide later this year whether to move forward with that investment or to take that investment to Europe or Asia.

In other words, there are real consequences on the line. If Congress passes this chips funding act in the coming days, we can shore up this domestic supply chain vulnerability, bring good jobs back to America, and protect our economic and national security, but if we fail to act or if we fail to act with dispatch, all of those benefits will evaporate, and all of those dangers will become our worst nightmare. Instead of here in America, those benefits from building those fabs will rain down on communities on the other side of the planet instead of here at home.

It has been more than a year and a half since the CHIPS Act became law, and we simply cannot afford to wait any longer. Every day that goes by creates additional risks. Unless Congress gets this job done in the coming days, these companies will simply go elsewhere.

Chips funding will help secure our most critical supply chains. It will create thousands of well-paying jobs and boost our global competitiveness by providing made-in-America chips to our friends and allies around the world. So we have a big opportunity ahead of us but big risks in not acting as well, and success, I believe, is our only option.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, it has been more than a year since the U.S. Senate passed the bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, commonly known as USICA. It includes an important provision that Senator Mark Warner, the Senator from Virginia, and I introduced more than 2 years ago called the CHIPS Act, which is designed to shore up a dangerously vulnerable supply chain of high-end semiconductors from Asia to the United States.

The fact is that the United States makes zero percent of those advanced semiconductors that are necessary for everything from your iPhone to fifth-generation Joint Strike Fighters like the F-35.

Unfortunately, after we passed the bipartisan bill in the Senate, the House decided to go the partisan route and

add additional, unrelated pieces of their wish list, everything from handouts to labor bosses to money for a U.N. climate slush fund.

We were in the process of stripping out these partisan provisions through the conference committee that was appointed by the House and the Senate when Senator Schumer made a big decision. He said that Democrats were likely to bring to the floor another reckless tax-and- spending bill like Build Back Better, although in a different version. Our Democratic colleagues got the bright idea that they wanted to revive something like the Green New Deal, increase taxes on working families, and give runaway inflation even more staying power.

Well, Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, and Members of the Republican conference thought that was a bad idea and said that there would not be a bipartisan conference bill and a partisan, reckless tax- and-spending spree bill. It wasn't a threat; it was just a statement of fact. There is no such thing as negotiating with our Senate colleagues on the Democratic side while they sit on the sidelines drafting partisan legislation.

The provisions negotiated out of the bipartisan bill wouldn't land in the trash; they would simply be recycled through a partisan reconciliation bill. But Senator Manchin, the Senator from West Virginia, put an end to that last week when he killed the bill that would increase taxes on families and small businesses and implement costly Green New Deal climate policies. In my book, that is a big win for the American people, who are already facing high prices at grocery stores and at the filling station.

With this reckless tax-and-spending spree reconciliation bill dead and buried, there is now an opening to do something that we can agree upon on a bipartisan basis. I spent the weekend talking with a number of our colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, and I am cautiously optimistic that we can now proceed to a vote on the USICA bill or some version of it. Based on our discussions, it sounds like the majority leader will bring a narrower bill to the floor that focuses on chips funding--again, something that has been pending now for more than 2 years--as well as tax incentives for manufacturers.

This bill will not be USICA, though, and it won't be ``Endless Frontier,'' which was the name of the bill when it was initially introduced, and it sounds like a far cry from the COMPETES Act, which was the House's partisan response; rather, from all reports, it focuses on the core issue of reshoring American semiconductor manufacturing here in the United States.

With COVID-19, we became aware of a lot of supply chain vulnerabilities that I think we just, frankly, were not aware of. It is one thing to be aware of a supply chain for things like toys or consumer items, but it is another to be dependent on a supply chain--a foreign supply chain--for something as critical to our way of life and our economy and our national security as advanced semiconductors.

What Senator Warner and I initially proposed and what I hope we will be voting on this week provides market-based incentives to close the cost gap between manufacturing overseas in places like Taiwan and doing so here in the United States. According to a Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company located in Taipei, they figure it costs about 30 percent less to manufacture these high-end semiconductors in Taiwan than it does in the United States.

If we are going to get some of that manufacturing capacity back here to the United States to protect us against potential blockades, whether it comes from a military conflict or a pandemic or a natural disaster, we are going to have to find a way to provide incentives for those manufacturing, fabrication facilities to be located here in the United States. That is what we are talking about.

There is a closing window of opportunity for us to act. Secretary Raimondo, the Secretary of Commerce in the Biden administration, has made clear, as have various CEOs of semiconductor companies, that if the United States does not act soon, they will have to make a business decision to locate their manufacturing facilities in other places in the world where those incentives are already provided. But it does nothing to protect the U.S. economy or national security to have another fab or manufacturing facility located somewhere else around the world. We need them here in the United States if we are going to protect our economy and guard against those national security threats.

So if we don't make a decision soon--and I am talking about in the next couple of weeks--then we can kiss those manufacturing facilities goodbye, and places like Texas, Ohio, Arizona, and other States around the country that might benefit from that construction and the high- paying jobs that go along with them will see them taken to Europe or somewhere else.

Well, even though the Senator from West Virginia said he would not support the reckless tax-and-spending portion of the reconciliation bill, it is possible our colleagues will move forward with a slimmed- down version of an already-slimmed-down reconciliation bill that would require the Federal Government to set a price for drugs covered by Medicare--a move which I believe will stifle innovation. Price fixing always results in scarcity, meaning consumers--particularly seniors-- will have less access to choice. It would also extend ObamaCare subsidies for insurance companies and prop up the struggling healthcare marketplace.

It is clear that I oppose those provisions and the perennial effort to legislate on a partisan basis, but the truth is, if the Democrats have 50 votes plus the Vice President, they can pass it notwithstanding Republican opposition. We all understand that. But given the fact that these horrific tax increases are off the table as a result of the announcement from the senior Senator from West Virginia, I believe we are in a posture where we can go forward with the chips funding and other related provisions, and I hope we will be able to take action on that in the coming days.

Mr. President, inflation continues to batter American families at a rate we have not seen in 40 years. Since last year, the prices of items that Texans use every day have increased more than 9 percent. That is, if your paycheck is still the same, you have 9 percent less purchasing power just since last year. At the grocery store, the price of bread is up nearly 11 percent. Chicken is up more than 17 percent. And the price of eggs has jumped a whopping 33 percent.

I sense there is a huge disconnect between the folks here in Washington--perhaps in Congress--that this does not have a dramatic effect in terms of our daily lives; but to the people we represent, the 29 million people I represent, this is real, it is happening now, and it is to the detriment of their quality of life.

Groceries aren't the only thing that are challenging family budgets. Electricity is up 14 percent.

I will be traveling with some colleagues to the Rio Grande Valley this afternoon. I looked at the weather forecast for today and tomorrow. It will be 104 degrees in the Rio Grande Valley; and, no, it will not be a dry heat. And demand on our electricity is real because people cannot live without air-conditioning and climate control; but in order to run your air-conditioning, you are going to have to pay 14 percent more for that electricity this year as opposed to last year.

Propane used at summer barbecues costs 26 percent more. And gasoline prices--there are about 280 million cars on the road today that run using gasoline. The price has jumped 60 percent since last year. If people want to go on a vacation, they just commute to work, they want to take their kids to summer camp, they have got to pay 60 percent more for gasoline than they did last year. And, for the first time, the national average price has exceeded $5 a gallon. Over the last few weeks, thankfully, prices have fallen slightly--and I emphasize the word ``slightly''--but there is no reason to celebrate. The national average is still about $4.60 a gallon, which is about a buck and a half higher than it was last year alone.

So the American people are looking to Washington, DC, to their elected leaders, and they are wondering: Why aren't you doing something about it? They want to know what the Biden administration's plans are to address these rising costs, especially when it comes to things that are not--I mean, there are some things you can substitute for others. I even saw a woman on the news who said she decided to become a vegetarian because she couldn't afford the meat cost in the grocery store. But there are some things that are simply irreplaceable, and gasoline to drive your car is one of them.

Well, one of the most logical ways to increase the supply of gasoline--because it really is about supply and demand--would be to boost American production of our domestic energy supply. That way, we could reap the economic benefits of strong production here at home, along with the jobs that go along with it. We could continue to use our capability to export things like natural gas to countries that previously were dependent almost exclusively on the Russian Federation.

Actually, the capacity of the United States to produce energy at home and export it around the world has changed the geopolitics of the planet in a very positive way. But, unfortunately, we see the Biden administration has taken a different approach. He knows that a part of his political base would have an absolute meltdown if the President showed anything other than contempt for the domestic energy producers. So he has come up with a different strategy that, frankly, makes no sense whatsoever.

So he is on a trip to the Middle East. He is going to visit with Muhammad bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and ask him to increase production of oil and gas from not the United States but from Saudi Arabia. Forget American energy producers. President Biden would rather go, hat in hand, and talk to an autocrat, an oligarch in the Middle East, than take his boot off the neck of American energy producers.

So, apparently, the President is not anti-fossil fuels; he is just anti-American fossil fuels. President Biden's trip illustrates a remarkable show of his priorities. He views the crown prince in Saudi Arabia as a more dependable ally than energy producers in Texas.

Well, the decision to shop for oil in the Middle East instead of harnessing what is in our backyard is absolutely baffling. The sooner the administration views domestic energy producers as a friend and ally rather than enemies, the better we will all be off.

We are fortunate to live in a resource-rich country. Growing up, I learned in school that countries that are endowed with great natural resources have an advantage over other countries that do not have those natural resources. And we do have them here in the United States, along with the technology to develop them. But, for some strange reason, we just simply refuse to do so--take what is a gift and ignore it completely and go, hat in hand, and talk to autocrats in other parts of the world and ask them to do what we should be doing here domestically.

Mr. President, during my time in the Senate, I have spent a lot of time learning from folks who live and work along our 1,200- mile border with Mexico about the challenges that region and that border present. I have worked with local leaders who know the advantages and the challenges of living along an international border better than anyone else in the country. Of course, I have spoken with a number of Border Patrol agents--these, of course, are frontline law enforcement officers--as well as our local sheriffs and others, who have come face-to-face with human tragedy, exploitation, and many other forms of heartbreak and hardship. I have learned a great deal from the nongovernmental organizations--the so-called NGOs--that go above and beyond the call of duty to

care for the migrants who often arrive sick, abused, and malnourished. When it comes to border security and commonsense immigration policies, the input of these experts is invaluable. It is irreplaceable.

Later this week, I will be traveling back home to the Rio Grande Valley along with a number of my Republican colleagues so that they, too, can learn from the true experts about the border crisis. Senator Cruz and I are leading a visit to the Rio Grande Valley to receive an update on the current state of circumstances at the border.

I know, with everything happening here in Washington, DC, and around the country, it is easy to lose sight of what is happening on the border, the humanitarian crisis that is occurring at the border, so I want to remind anybody who is listening about what we have seen over the last 2 years during--well, actually, it is the first year and a half of the Biden administration. For a year and a half now, border communities have been overwhelmed by the sheer number, the volume, of migrants crossing the border. Since President Biden took office, the Border Patrol has encountered nearly 3 million--3 million--people along the southwest border. That is almost an incomprehensible figure, and it is far from the normal situation.

Let me provide a little historical context. At this point during the Obama administration, an average of about 46,000 migrants were apprehended each month along the border--46,000 during the Obama administration. During the Trump administration, that number was cut in half to 24,000 migrants every month. But during the Biden administration, so far, that figure has skyrocketed. On average, more than 185,000 migrants cross our southern border every month. That is 7\1/2\ times more than we were seeing just a few years ago.

And there is no question--certainly in my mind--and I don't think any rational review of the facts would lead to another conclusion other than that President Biden's policies are the driving force for this crisis. The President ran on the promise of policies that would lead to this exact result, and we have heard stories from migrants who explicitly came to the United States because of the signals the Federal Government is sending that if you can make it to the border, you are going to be able to make it into the interior of the United States.

But even though the President's policies have encouraged many people to make this dangerous trip from their homes across the border-- particularly in temperatures like we are encountering in Texas now, where for the last 33 days we have seen 100-degree-plus temperatures-- these migrants are coming from their home, traversing huge expanses of land, and showing up at the border--if they do show up--as I said, sick, dehydrated, suffering from assault.

The fact is, if you visit Brooks County, TX, where Falfurrias is located, they have a Border Patrol checkpoint. What the coyotes do-- that is the name given to the human smugglers--is they will transport people from the stash houses on this side of the border, up the highway, but then, before they get to the border checkpoint where the Border Patrol is, they will tell all the migrants to get out of the vehicle and here is a jug of water and maybe a power bar, and we will see you on the north side. They will have to walk around the checkpoint and then reconnect with the coyote, with the smuggler, on the north side. But the fact is that a number of these individuals don't make it; they die in Brooks County from exposure. Certainly, the coyotes care nothing about humanity but only about money. If someone is sick or lame or can't keep up, they get left behind to die.

Well, it is clear, too, that this administration has failed to prepare for what I think most people could have predicted given the green light that the Biden administration has posted at the border welcoming anybody and everybody who wants to come to the United States from anywhere in the world without complying with our immigration laws. When thousands of people are crossing the border every day, it overwhelms the Border Patrol's capabilities. That is part of the plan, because when thousands of people overwhelm the Border Patrol at the border, many of them have to go away from the border for paperwork, to process unaccompanied children and perform other tasks. So they are not there when--guess what--here come the drugs.

Last year alone, 108,000 Americans died of drug overdoses. Virtually all of those came across the southern border. The one that we are most concerned about now--but we are concerned about all of them--is opioids, synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which are enormously powerful and have resulted in the death of far too many Americans. Part of that is because of the border crisis.

Now, the drug cartels make a lot of money doing this. The human smugglers charge $5-, $10-, $15,000 a head to bring people across the border. This is a huge moneymaking criminal enterprise. But, in response, the Biden administration has failed to prepare and failed to embrace policies that would deter people from making this dangerous trip in the first place.

Last fall, I visited the Del Rio Sector with a group of about 30 Border Patrol agents at their muster. That is their meeting right before they are deployed out into the field. When they were asked to raise their hand if they would be working out in the field that day patrolling, not a single hand was raised. These men and women who would normally be out on the frontlines stopping dangerous people and drugs from sneaking across the border--they are filling out paperwork, they are watching unaccompanied children, and they are transporting migrants.

This is part of the cartel's plan. It looks like, to coin a phrase, we are playing checkers when they are playing three-dimensional chess. The cartels have simply adapted their policies to exploit what they see as weakness at the border. This is a dangerous situation. If Border Patrol agents are caring for unaccompanied children, obviously they can't patrol the frontlines. If they are knee-deep in paperwork, they can't stop criminals and drugs from coming across the border.

The chaos at the border provides an excellent camouflage and disguise for dangerous people coming across. Gangs, cartels, criminal organizations are paying close attention. They see the gaps, some of which they create themselves, and they are taking full advantage. Every day, criminals attempt to sneak across our border. The dedicated men and women of the Border Patrol arrest a number of them if they can locate them. Many of them get away. Since October, agents have apprehended more than 450 gang members. But, as we know, they are outnumbered and overwhelmed, meaning that countless others slip through the cracks.

According to some reports, more than 300,000 migrants evaded Border Patrol between October and the end of March. That is 300,000 on top of the 3 million whom I mentioned a moment ago who have been encountered during the Biden administration. So that is 300,000 additional who have evaded Border Patrol in just 6 months. These are known as ``got- aways,'' the ones Border Patrol sees on surveillance cameras. But the number could well be significantly higher.

The cartels and the human smugglers who help people illegally enter our country are not fools. They pay close attention to the rhetoric of the President and politicians here in Washington, and they watch television from their home country and see that people who show up at the border can by and large enter the country without any consequences. They know our immigration laws better than the average American, better than the average Member of Congress, and they know how to exploit them to their advantage. They will flood the system in one area to distract the Border Patrol and take advantage of the security gaps.

This is an important point. These cartels and criminal organizations are what one Border Patrol agent called commodity agnostic; in other words, they are in it for the money. If they can make money by smuggling--by trafficking in young girls or in economic migrants or drugs, they will do it because that is why they exist: because of the money they derive from their crimes.

As I suggested, one of the biggest moneymakers is drug trafficking. Since October, Customs and Border

Protection has seized more than 7,700 pounds of fentanyl and more than 120,000 pounds of methamphetamine. Add the other drugs--cocaine, heroin, and other dangerous drugs--that have been seized, you have 440,000 pounds of drugs that came into our country in only 8 months, and that is just the drugs we were able to locate and confiscate.

These criminal groups also profit off the backs of migrants. Again, to them, a migrant is not a human being. It is a commodity; it is a moneymaker, a way to wring a dollar out of somebody else's misery.

And a couple of weeks ago, we received a tragic reminder of how ruthless these criminals are. Smugglers abandoned a tractor-trailer packed with migrants in San Antonio, my hometown, leaving the truck to bake in the Texas heat. Fifty-three migrants died in what has been described as the deadliest human smuggling incident in U.S. history. It is a devastating reminder that this isn't about politics. Lives are actually on the line.

President Biden has talked about the need to treat immigrants humanely. I agree. This isn't about treating them inhumanely, but 53 migrants dying in the back of a tractor-trailer rig in 100-degree Texas temperature is not humane either.

Migrants are dying. Drugs are pouring into our country. And all the while, these criminal organizations are getting richer and richer.

I don't know how President Biden and Vice President Harris look in the mirror knowing that this is happening on their watch. I do know that President Biden and Vice President Harris have not been down to the border and talked to the same experts that I have learned from over the years. I think they would learn a lot. I would welcome them if they decided to come.

Instead, the President has sent a signal to the cartels and human smugglers that they can continue to abuse, rape, and get rich off of vulnerable migrants. We have even seen some in the administration villainize the dedicated law enforcement officers who are trying to keep our communities and our countries safe. And despite the recordbreaking levels of migration, we know the President still refuses to visit the border.

He is in the Middle East. He is visiting Muhammad bin Salman and other officials in Israel and elsewhere, but he won't go to the border where this crisis is happening, in large part because of his failed policies.

As I have said, throughout my time in the Senate, I have learned a lot from these dedicated leaders in border communities who deal with this crisis firsthand. Their input has been invaluable to my work in the Senate. And I look forward to seeing some of these folks later this week and introducing them to a number of our Senate colleagues.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, month after month, week after week, day after day, family budgets are being battered by inflation--inflation made worse by the reckless spending habits of the Federal Government and particularly of the Biden administration.

Gas prices are up nearly 50 percent from a year ago, and grocery bills--as any of us can see when we go to the grocery store--have soared. From eggs to milk to meat to produce, everyday essentials cost more today than they did last year.

The pain of inflation is having a dramatic impact on the American people. This quote from the New York Times yesterday sums it up pretty well:

Widespread concerns about the economy and inflation have

helped turn the national mood decidedly dark, both on Mr.

Biden and the trajectory of our nation.

It is a sentiment I have heard over and over again in my conversations with my constituents in Texas, and it is one that is increasingly visible in public surveys. A recent poll from the New York Times and Siena College found that more than three-quarters of voters think that the United States is headed in the wrong direction--three- quarters of the country. Only 13 percent said the country was on the right track.

With voter confidence at a concerning low, our Democratic colleagues have made an interesting calculation. They are trying to resurrect their ``Build Back Broke'' agenda. Now, you may remember this bill, which was called Build Back Better, but I think it can more accurately be described as ``Build Back Broke'' or ``Build Back Bankrupt.'' This bill went out with a whimper last year because our Democratic colleagues didn't even have the support among their Members to pass it in an evenly divided Senate where the Vice President breaks the tie.

So they have now chosen this moment, for some reason, to bring it back. To have a shot at passing this proposal, our Democratic colleagues have slimmed and trimmed the bill, but it still packs a painful punch, especially where it has to do with energy prices.

Last month, the national average of gasoline exceeded $5 a gallon for the

first time on record--5 bucks a gallon, plus. Since then, prices have fallen some, but the national average today is still $4.66 a gallon. Now, that is better than $5, but it is certainly no reason for celebration, and it still costs almost 40 bucks more to fill up a pickup truck today than it did a year ago.

In standard fashion, the Biden administration has tried to blame someone else. Mr. Biden has implausibly blamed Vladimir Putin for the high price of gasoline. So rather than acknowledge the impact of its own policies which have discouraged investment in new production, new supply, the administration is trying to blame the very energy companies that we are depending on to produce more oil and gas so we can make more gasoline and so we can bring the price down.

I have heard from oil and gas producers in Texas who are working to ramp up production and bring down prices for consumers. It is as if the law of supply and demand has somehow been repealed during this administration. They simply don't get it that if you want to bring down the price of something, you need to increase supply or reduce demand. This administration doesn't understand that it is not as simple as just pushing a button on a machine to increase output. This is a process that takes time. It takes investment. It takes time to build the pipelines and the infrastructure. It takes time to drill the wells and produce the oil and send it to the refineries to make into gasoline and jet fuel.

While industry is working to increase supply, Washington Democrats are looking for new ways to put an even tighter squeeze on domestic energy. You would have thought that the Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the irresponsibility of not maintaining multiple accesses to energy. As a matter of fact, Mr. Putin had convinced most of Europe to depend solely on Russian supply, and then when that is no longer available or when he uses it as a weapon, they are looking around for alternatives. But they are not easy to come by. They take time, and they take some investment.

According to reports, we are hearing that our Democratic colleagues are considering a new tax that would require energy producers to pay hefty fees if they emit more methane than our Democratic colleagues would allow.

Natural gas accounts for about 40 percent of our electricity, double the amount of renewable resources. You know, we are having a hot spell in Texas. I know it is July. It is always hot in Texas in July, but we are having a particularly bad spell of 100-degree-plus days in my hometown of Austin, TX, and across the State. And one of the problems is that, for some reason, the wind that we depend on to produce electricity from wind turbines has died down during this hot period, so not only do you have the constraints on natural gas and other sources of energy, but now even renewable sources like wind are not producing as much electricity as we need in order to maintain the grid, in order to maintain things like air-conditioning.

Hitting producers of natural gas with a methane fee and other proposed tax hikes isn't going to change the fact that we need natural gas to keep the lights on. We have seen emissions reduced by about 15 percent over recent years, primarily because the country has transitioned from coal to natural gas. You would think that would be something that we would celebrate, and certainly our energy supply continues to transition as we come up with new and different ways to satisfy our demand and our economy's need for affordable energy.

One change this tax that our Democratic colleagues are considering would have is on energy costs for American people. Electricity costs are already up 12 percent from last year, and with this new methane fee, they would certainly rise even more. So instead of policies that would reduce the pain at the pump and at the grocery store of sky-high prices, actually, our Democratic colleagues are considering policies that would make it worse.

I understand this proposal is still in the drafting phase, but it is an example of the sort of things that our colleagues are considering in their ``Build Back Broke'' reconciliation bill. Last go-around, the ``Build Back Broke'' included tax credits for rich people buying expensive electric vehicles. Now, most of my constituents in Texas can't afford an $80,000 electric vehicle, but if you are a well-to-do person and you can pay that price, you will get a tax credit, courtesy of Uncle Sam and the Federal Government and our Democratic colleagues. But you won't get it if you are buying a used car on a parking lot because you need to take your kids to school or you need to be able to drive to work.

Our colleagues also propose to provide billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded rebates and grants to cover the cost of retrofitting private homes--not public buildings but private homes.

While the climate policies would be sure to hurt working families, another piece of this proposal would give the richest Americans another cause to celebrate. The so-called millionaire tax break has been scrapped and revived many times over the past few years. It is extremely unpopular among working families for a very simple reason: It allows millionaires and billionaires in blue States to pay less Federal taxes. It is a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. That is the proposal.

When our colleagues tried to include this provision in their most recent partisan spending attempt, the price for this tax cut for millionaires and billionaires was $285 billion. That is quite a tax cut for the wealthiest people in America.

According to the liberal Tax Policy Center, 93 percent of those making a million dollars or more would receive a tax break averaging about $48,000--a $48,000 tax cut for people making a million dollars or more or at least 93 percent of them.

So this isn't an attempt to support those who are struggling to make ends meet or to bring down high prices that are wiping out family budgets; it is a get-out-of-jail-free card for the wealthiest people in America who don't want to pay their fair share of taxes.

Under this proposal, two-thirds of those making more than a million dollars would receive a tax cut next year. Nearly 90 percent of those earning between $500,000 and a million dollars would receive a tax cut. These aren't the families who have been forced to buy just a few bucks' worth of gasoline because they can't afford to fill up their car or remove items from their shopping list because they simply find them to be too expensive or have to make conscious choices for cheaper items at the grocery store in order to feed their family to deal with inflation. We are talking about not making their life better but making life maybe a little bit better for the wealthiest of Americans.

If this proposal were enacted, about 70 percent of the benefit would go to the top 5 percent of earners; that is, people making $366,000 a year--roughly six times the median income in Texas.

The millionaires who stand to gain the most from this change are those who live in blue States like New York or California that have higher State and local taxes. They would get to deduct up to $80,000 of their State and local taxes and send the bill to the American taxpayer.

Working families in Texas should not be forced to subsidize the tax bill for Manhattan millionaires. Inflation is already pummeling folks in Texas. The last thing we need to do is to send more tax breaks to the wealthiest of Americans, who are not hurting at this time when the vast majority of Americans are hurting.

Well, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise when the majority leader of the Senate is from New York and the Speaker of the House is from California, two of the highest taxing States at the State and local level. And I understand they are hearing from their constituents saying: We want our old tax break back that we lost in 2017. But you shouldn't prioritize tax breaks for the wealthiest of your constituents over dealing with the rising costs of working families.

This proposal won't ease the burden that Americans are facing or help our country build back better; it will ensure that we never reach the prepandemic economy that was the envy of the world. No PR blitz or no spin doctoring can hide the truth about this reckless tax-and-spending spree proposal that apparently the majority leader is considering. It wraps ill-conceived tax plans, irresponsible spending, and hurtful energy policies into another partisan exercise.

And let's get this straight. No Republican is going to vote for this. So if, in fact, our Democratic colleagues can pass it--and they can if all 50 Senators on the Democratic side and the Vice President vote for it--it will be they who own it and who will be accountable to the American people in the upcoming midterm elections. But it is fair to ask where have these policies gotten us so far.

While the administration has kept its foot on the neck of domestic energy policy while the President is making, apparently, a trip to Saudi Arabia to talk to Muhammad bin Salman about increasing Saudi production of oil--not here in America, which would create jobs, which would create more supply, arguably bring down price at the pump--he is going hat in hand to a foreign leader in a nondemocratic country and saying: Will you please open the spigot just a little bit more?

I think it is embarrassing.

We have also seen our Democratic colleagues spend nearly $2 trillion on a party-line vote earlier this year that helped ignite inflation to its current 40-year high levels. This new tax-and-spending spree--or, I should say, the old tax-and-spending spree bill which is now being repackaged and presumably resold--won't be any different from the earlier one.

So it isn't time to hand out tax breaks to the well-off or push our country toward unrealistic energy goals at a time of more demand and not enough supply. We need more domestic energy supplies. That would provide relief for working families and a shot at waking up from the economic nightmare that we find ourselves in.

So this reconciliation bill--this ``Build Back Broke'' bill that is apparently being contemplated by our Democratic colleagues--is not the solution. It is making the problem worse.

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

Madam President, during the immediate past recess, the bipartisan conference committee negotiations over the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, otherwise known as USICA, have officially come to a screeching halt. It has been more than a year since the Senate actually passed this bill--more than a year.

Eight months later, House Democrats passed their own partisan bill, which looked more like the failed ``Build Back Broke'' agenda, rather than a serious attempt to protect our national security by countering the Chinese threat.

And earlier this summer, a conference committee was appointed and began negotiating a compromise bill that would finally fund the CHIPS Act and make other critical investments in our national security and competitiveness. Of course, the CHIPS Act was designed to try to bring back on shore American manufacturing of advanced semiconductors, which I will talk more about in a moment.

But with the CHIPS funding on the five-yard line, the majority leader, the Senator from New York, has tossed a grenade into the end zone.

And why would you possibly jeopardize such an important national security priority? Apparently, so Democrats can try to, yet again, pass their unpopular social welfare bill that doesn't even appear to have universal Democratic support. Forget the bipartisan bill to safeguard our national security; forget commonsense safeguards to protect our most critical supply chains; forget new American manufacturing jobs and big investments in States all across the country.

Senator Schumer has chosen to revive the ``Build Back Broke'' bill because we are just months from an election where polls suggest that his party is going to get swept out of control and then instead of majority leader, he will become the minority leader.

So let's take a moment to recall how we happened to get here. More than 2 years ago, Congress began working to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing and address a major supply chain vulnerability.

Semiconductors or microcircuits underpin all of the modern technology we depend upon every day: the cell phones in our pockets, the cars in our driveways, the tractors our farmers drive, and missile systems that our troops use abroad.

Chips keep us safe; they keep us connected; and they ensure that we have fresh food, clean water, and a way to get to work every day. The United States relies on strong supplies of semiconductors, and we lead the way in chip design, but here is the kicker. While we lead the way in chip design, we outsource the actual manufacturing abroad.

That is right. We manufacture none of the world's most advanced chips--zero.

Seventy-five percent of these chips come from East Asia, and a whopping 90 percent of them are made in Taiwan. Given the explicit threat of war by the Chinese Communist Party against Taiwan, that is a grave cause for concern.

Furthermore, having just lived through a pandemic, consider what another pandemic or natural disaster might do to disrupt the supply chain of these critical semiconductors.

And when you consider the fact that global chip demand is expected to increase by 56 percent over the next decade, it is clear that the problem is going to get worse. A major disruption in our global chip supply would halt manufacturing on everything from laptop computers to cars, to anti-tank Javelin missiles being used in Ukraine against Russian aggressors.

This is a matter of both economic and national security, which is why addressing the chip shortage has been a bipartisan priority. In 2020, 96 Senators supported passing the CHIPS for America Act as part of the national defense authorization bill. That was way back in 2020.

And it took less than 6 months from the time it became law until the Senate passed a bill to fund the CHIPS Program. That bill was called the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act passed by the Senate with a vote of 68 to 32.

Despite the broad bipartisan support for the CHIPS Program, the House refused to pass the Senate bill not because it was a bad bill, but because it wasn't a partisan grab bag that provided billions for longstanding liberal policies.

Their ``Build Back Broke'' agenda was 6 feet under, and they saw a must-pass national security bill as a convenient way to resurrect it. Their partisan legislation known as the COMPETES Act, included handouts for labor unions, a key supporter for the Democratic Party. The labor bosses were promised some pretty big benefits that never came to pass, and this was the way that House Democrats saw to respond.

They also tacked on a range of unrelated partisan provisions, like an $8 billion payment to a U.N. climate slush fund, which has provided more than $100 million to China. The stated purpose of our efforts in USICA--the United States Innovation and Competition Act--has been to counter threats from China, not to subsidize them with taxpayer dollars, which apparently is what the House has chosen to do.

Well, throughout the conference committee process, Republicans have pushed back against the long list of unrelated and downright harmful provisions.

This bill should be about safeguarding our critical supply chains and strengthening our competitiveness, not doling out partisan political favors.

Negotiations have made progress, but, frankly, we are running out of time, and time is of the essence. Last month, more than 120 tech CEOs sent a letter to congressional leaders urging quick action on this legislation.

And we are seeing signs that a failure to act will lead to these critical investments being made not in the United States but outside of the United States, just the opposite of what we hoped to attain.

A company called GlobalWafers is planning to build a silicon wafer factory in Sherman, TX, that would create up to 1,500 jobs and produce 1.2 million wafers a month. These silicon wafers are an essential component of semiconductors.

But last month, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said the CEO told her that the plan was contingent on Congress passing the CHIPS Act funding. Unless the funding is approved by the August recess, the company will scrap plans for the facility.

A couple of weeks ago, the CEO of Intel expressed a similar sentiment. He said the company could expand chip production in Europe instead of the United States if Congress fails to pass this funding.

So the stakes are high, as is the need to move quickly, but apparently none of that matters to the majority leader and House Democrats. They have chosen to ignore this rapidly closing window of opportunity and the national security risks associated with the current chip shortage.

They have chosen to ignore the jobs and investments this bill would bring to States all across this country. They have chosen to ignore the symphony of voices from across the spectrum who want to get this done.

And for what? Apparently, another unwanted and unnecessary partisan spending spree--this trillion-dollar proposal known as a reconciliation bill, which is a spinoff of Build Back Better, which I affectionately call ``Build Back Broke.''

This proposal would attack oil and gas producers at a time when gas prices remain at record highs, and one of the most urgent needs of everyday, working American families is to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump so they can afford to take their kids to school and go to work.

Yet the partisan reconciliation bill that the majority leader contemplates bringing up would actually make that problem worse, not better.

This partisan reconciliation bill would also increase taxes on American families, as their budgets are already being pummeled by inflation. And it could be that we are already in a recession, technically defined as two quarters of negative GDP.

Well, one thing President Obama recognized back after the great recession of 2008, is it is not a time to raise taxes, and apparently the current Biden administration did not learn that lesson, nor did the majority leader.

This bill would simply make inflation worse, not better. Why the Democratic leader has prioritized partisan politics over sound, bipartisan policy is lost on me. Why he would elevate partisanship above national security is lost on me. And why he would show contempt for the challenges families are facing due to failed policies of the Biden administration is lost on me.

But now he is doubling down. His decision to pursue this partisan reconciliation bill won't just hurt families, it risks our ability to pass critical CHIPS funding on a timely basis.

To reiterate the words of the Republican leader: There will be no bipartisan USICA as long as Democrats are pursuing their reckless tax- and-spending agenda. Our Democratic colleagues cannot spend their mornings working on a purely partisan spending spree for the next 4 weeks and expect Republicans to work with them on a bipartisan bill in the afternoon.

We simply don't have time for these antics. Bipartisan conference negotiations require compromise and confidence that the person sitting across the table from you is negotiating in good faith.

Senator Schumer's tactics have jeopardized the good faith that has driven this process up until now.

From the beginning, what was originally known as Endless Frontiers to now the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, or USICA--this has been a big bipartisan effort.

Two years ago, I introduced the CHIPS for America Act with Senator Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on which I sit, and a Democrat. We worked in good faith to get it signed into law as part of the national defense reuthorization act. And we all worked together--68 of us--to make sure that the bill was funded through the bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act.

And more recently, I have been trying to help broker an agreement that can get this bill signed into law as part of the conference committee process. My desire to fund the CHIPS Act has not changed, but Senator Schumer's choices have taken an already difficult job and made it nearly impossible.

He is trying to turn what has been a bipartisan process into a partisan exercise. I hope the Democratic leader will reconsider and will abandon his partisan spending spree so that we can spend the next 3 weeks passing the CHIPS funding as part of the USICA with broad bipartisan support.

This is a matter of national security and economic competitiveness, and it should not become a victim of partisan games.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I came to the floor to talk about the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. But first, let me just express my gratitude to the Senator from West Virginia for his longtime commitment to come up with a bipartisan solution. This is not easy.

And there are a lot of examples of good-faith attempts to try to come up with an answer that can get the requisite number of votes. And I know the Senator from West Virginia knows how hard that is. But it hasn't deterred him from contributing to our efforts, and I think our product that we are voting on is better for that. I want to say thank you.

Madam President, I thank my friend, our friend, from West Virginia for those generous remarks.

As we all know, a lot of people have been working on this issue, for the last few weeks especially, intensely. And this included, obviously, a lot of people beyond those that I have the time to name here. But we finally introduced our proposed legislation last Tuesday, exactly 4 weeks after the last terrible shooting in Uvalde, TX. I am not a patient person by temperament or personality. So I was hoping we would get here faster. But the truth is, since it requires consensus and persuasion, sometimes it takes a little longer than you hoped for. And I appreciate the space that both the majority leader and the Republican leader have given us to come up with something that will achieve a result.

So often around here, people do things and say things not with the intention of actually passing legislation but with the intention of making a political statement, or messaging, as it is sometimes called. That is not what we are doing here. We are not looking to posture or to try to embarrass anybody. We are trying to find a solution to a very real problem. And I think what we have come up with will, in the end, pass the test, which I know so many of us believe is the standard. And that standard is: Will it save lives? Will it save lives? And I believe the answer to that is yes. And that makes this worth doing.

Well, from the beginning, I was optimistic that we could reach a bipartisan agreement, but I know that on both sides of the aisle, there were some places that we could not go. As the Senator from West Virginia said--a proud defender of the Second Amendment, as am I--I was not going to go anywhere in this negotiation that jeopardized the rights of law-abiding Americans under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Some people act as if the Second Amendment is somehow different than the rest of the Bill of Rights--the freedom of speech, the freedom of press, the freedom of association, the freedom of religion. Well, it is right there all in the same 10 first amendments to the U.S. Constitution, called the Bill of Rights. So it is entitled to no less respect than those other constitutional rights contained in the Bill of Rights.

But I think we have come up with a way to make good public policy and also to maintain that commitment to the Constitution. Some people want to create a false choice. I don't think we need to go there because there is not a false choice, as I said, between the Constitution and the Second Amendment and making good public policy. They don't have to overlap or interfere with each other. Both can stand on their own merits. Well, as I said, law-abiding gun owners are not the problem. And that was a redline for me.

During the course of our negotiations, our Democratic colleagues did push for a range of provisions that I believe stood no chance of becoming law, particularly in a 50-50 Senate. We know that if Democrats want to do everything their way or Republicans want to do everything our way, almost by definition in a 50-50 Senate, nothing will happen.

And to me, that was one of the most important things we are doing here. One is demonstrating that our institutions--in this case, the U.S. Senate--can actually work at a time when a lot of people are questioning whether our institutions can work and also questioning whether it is possible to come up with some bipartisan piece of legislation rather than fail as we have so many times before and each side sort of returning to their corner of a boxing ring and trying to message it to their base and not actually get a result.

So there were a lot of things that the President has asked for in this bill. For example, a ban on so-called assault weapons, which are a semiautomatic long gun, named, I guess, because of focus groups or polling assault weapons, but it is really a semiautomatic rifle. And there was also some discussion about high-capacity magazines. Neither of those are part of this legislation.

Now, I know there are Members who would perhaps love to have that, but they understand that to press that point to its logical extreme would mean we would not have anything at all. There is also no mandatory waiting period. There is no potentially unconstitutional requirement that gun owners store their weapons in a particular way.

Unless a person is adjudicated mentally ill or is a violent criminal, no one's Second Amendment rights will be impacted by this legislation, period. We know already that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System--which is the gold standard, in my

view, to make sure we draw the line in the right place between law- abiding gun owners and those who cannot, under existing law, purchase a firearm. For example, if you have been adjudicated in a mental institution, you can't buy a firearm. If you have been convicted of a felony, if you have been dishonorably discharged from the military, if you are addicted to drugs--all of those are current questions in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which if you answer yes to, then you cannot legally purchase or possess a firearm.

Some wanted to include more categories, but we did not. We essentially are, by doing what we have done here, saying we are going to make sure that existing law is enforced but not add additional requirements.

Well, some of our colleagues like to say that to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals, we need to limit the rights of law- abiding citizens. But as we know, the bad guys--the criminals--aren't going to respect the law; they are going to get the guns by any means they can, including illegally.

Frequently, they obtain firearms on the street or through straw purchasers. Background checks don't deter them because they don't buy them from a Federal firearms licensee, which does a background check. They buy it from a member of a street gang or someone else.

So we have rejected those attempts to add restrictions, as I say, on law-abiding gun owners, but we have added stiffer penalties for straw purchasers and gun traffickers. That, I believe, is the most effective way to deal with the problem of street sales of illegal guns through trafficking and straw purchasing. That is a way to improve public safety.

Following the shooting in Uvalde 4 weeks ago, I said I wanted to look at reforms that might have prevented this terrible tragedy from occurring.

To me, that is the best way to approach these cases because it is hard, sort of in the abstract, to say what it is we could do that might save lives. Frequently, we can look at the fact pattern of what happened and say: Here is where there was a failure, and here is another place there was a failure. Unfortunately, in Uvalde, there were multiple points of failure.

One is a lack of our access to juvenile records. This young man showed up after he had his 18th birthday. Right now, the criminal background check system doesn't look back before you were 18 to see whether you had a mental health adjudication or some disqualifying criminal conviction.

That is a problem because if somebody who we know, in retrospect, is sort of a ticking timebomb as a result of his troubled past, there is no way under the current system to get access to that information.

So one of the things we have done here is to say: Let's see if we can work with the States to make sure that they supply to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System information that had it occurred as an adult post-18 would clearly disqualify someone from purchasing a firearm. This is a little bit of a challenge because every State kind of does things differently, and there is no way we can compel the State to provide the information, but I would think that Governors and State legislatures would want to work with us to try to keep guns out of the hands of people who we know are a threat to themselves and a threat to public safety.

Our bill incentivizes the States to upload whatever juvenile records they have to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to ensure that any disqualifying criminal convictions or mental health adjudications are available.

This is, to be clear, not an expansion but a clarification of the types of conduct and records that would disqualify somebody if you were an adult that are not currently available because we don't look past the 18th birthday--behind the 18th birthday to juvenile records.

So what we are doing is simply ensuring that those records, which would already disqualify somebody had it occurred if they were an adult, are available and could be considered as part of that background check.

If the background check for a buyer under 21 returns a potentially disqualifying record, what we have provided in this enhanced background check is an opportunity for the FBI to ask more questions.

And under our legislation, we don't change this part of it. The NICS system--the National Instant Criminal Background Check System--has 3 days to do a background check. But because it is computerized, 90 percent of them are done just in a matter of seconds, but on occasion the FBI has other information they need to investigate.

This was a real problem, for example, in Charleston, where Dylann Roof, somebody we know had a misdemeanor drug conviction--and on further inquiry, the FBI would have found out he was addicted to narcotics, which is also a disqualification. But because there was no opportunity to expand the background check beyond just the 3 days under current law, it wasn't part of the NICS system. And, unfortunately, he bought a gun and killed a lot of innocent people at Mother Emanuel Church there in Charleston.

So giving the FBI, for this cohort of 18- to 21-year-olds, an opportunity, if they come across something that needs further investigation, to give them up to an additional 7 business days to look into it.

I will give you another example. Let's say they come up with a record that demonstrates there was an assault. Well, there are different types of assaults against someone. It may be a bar fight or punching someone in the nose or it could be domestic violence. Well, the first is not a disqualifier under the law, but if the assault conviction actually turns out to be domestic violence, it would be. And so that is the kind of information that we are giving the FBI an opportunity to explore in this extension of the background check.

But this is not a mandatory waiting period, and it doesn't apply to gun buyers of all ages. For example, if somebody is 19 years old and they do the background check and they do what we require here, which is inquire of the juvenile record repository and the repository for mental health adjudications and local law enforcement, and they find nothing, then the transaction can occur in a matter of hours or a matter of days.

There is no mandatory waiting period. And this really addresses only that cohort of 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds, which has become a common profile for young shooters who have shot innocent people everywhere from Uvalde to Sandy Hook in Connecticut and other places.

The profile, unfortunately, is very sad and very tragic, people who are a danger to themselves and others, and that is the reason why we thought this enhanced process was important.

We also included comprehensive due process requirements relating to firearms. I have talked about the fact that this is a constitutional right, and of course the Constitution guarantees due process of law. And a lot of folks are, frankly, concerned about these red flag laws, these crisis intervention orders when somebody is demonstrated to be a danger to themselves and others.

And the concern is that not all of these red flag laws contain robust due process requirements. What are we talking about? Well, due process generally is understood to include notice, the opportunity to be heard, the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses, and to present evidence in front of an impartial judicial officer.

So, in order to make sure that none of the grant funds would be available to States that did not have robust due process requirements and had red flag laws, as 19 States and the District of Columbia do, we have very strong due process conditions on the grants that are available.

But many States don't have red flag laws. For example, Texas does not, but we sure have a lot of crisis intervention programs that are sort of focused on the same sort of problem.

We have mental health courts, veterans courts, drug courts. We have something called assisted outpatient treatment for people who, under court order, can be an outpatient and be required to show up for their counseling or treatment but also to take the medications that their healthcare provider requires them to take if they are going to manage their mental health challenges. That is done under a court order but as an outpatient. So it is another way of sort of addressing this

problem of people having unmanaged mental health challenges and, in some cases, becoming a danger to themselves and others.

We firmly rejected the idea that the Federal Government would impose a national red flag law. And we did not view it as appropriate for the Federal Government to make the grant funds that are available through the Department of Justice be seen as an incentive to sort of nudge States or encourage States to pass their own extreme risk protection orders.

Those are decisions that are made at the State level, not here. But like I said, we provided robust due process requirements of any grants that go to those States. And it may be, as one of my colleagues said this morning, in his State, they have red flag laws, and he thinks that money could be used to ensure that the rights of law-abiding gun owners are protected by a robust due process.

And for States that don't have red flag laws, as I mentioned, there are other ways this money can go to help and address a similar problem. So all States will have access to these funds through the Department of Justice Byrne JAG law enforcement grant program.

So while some have said that taxpayer dollars are being used to violate someone's Second Amendment rights without due process, that is, clearly, a false accusation. Unfortunately, we know that when there is so much money to be made and so many people to be recruited to one cause or another when it deals with this general subject matter, that a lot of reckless and irresponsible and false statements get made, which is the reason I am here explaining what is in the bill and what is not in the bill.

One of the things that was very important to our Democratic colleagues is the definition of the ``boyfriend loophole.'' Just by way of explanation, under current law, before we passed this bill, if you are married to someone, if you are cohabitating with someone, if you have a child with someone and are not married or cohabitating or if you are in a relationship which is, for all practical purposes, similar to a marriage but not official, if you commit a domestic violence offense in your State and are convicted of that misdemeanor domestic violence, you are forever barred from purchasing or possessing a firearm.

One of the things we negotiated, frankly, because I think it just makes a lot of sense, is that for this category of boyfriends, so- called, roughly defined as recent or current serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature, if you find yourself in one of those relationships and you commit an act of domestic violence, one of the things we negotiated is 5 years later, with a clean record, then you can have your Second Amendment rights restored.

And I think that is an important protection, again, of Second Amendment rights. Well, we would not agree that someone who was convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence against a girlfriend 30 years ago would be forever barred from their Second Amendment rights or someone who just had a casual dating relationship.

But as I said, we did include a provision to restore the Second Amendment rights to certain individuals who have a clean record of not committing any additional criminal acts, including domestic violence, for a period of 5 years.

We all know that there are plenty of people who make mistakes but then turn their lives around, and this legislation opens up the anatomy for individuals to have their Second Amendment rights restored if they do that.

We have worked throughout this process with a lot of different people, from the school safety portion to the mental health portion, and we have worked with law enforcement, and we have worked with a variety of groups, including some of the groups that represent gun owners as well as those who have advocated reform of our gun laws. I thought it was important for us to hear from everybody.

And now it may be that in the end, some of these outside groups do not love 100 percent of what we are doing here. We know that no piece of legislation is perfect. By definition, it is a compromise and a consensus to try to find that common ground. And so some outside groups may say: Well, we can't support that because it doesn't give us 100 percent of what we want, but frankly there is never a bill that passes that gives one side or the other 100 percent of what they want.

So just to conclude, just to repeat myself for emphasis, this bill does not infringe on law-abiding citizens rights under the Second Amendment. It doesn't actually expand the background checks system. It doesn't impose mandatory waiting periods or any other restrictions.

There is a lot of misinformation and, believe me, I think that is what social media was created for, for spreading misinformation or disinformation.

So there is a lot of misunderstanding about what is in this legislation, which is the reason I wanted to come to the floor and set the record straight.

This bill does, however, include important targeted reforms, complete with robust due process protections, that I believe in the end will keep our children and our communities safe while respecting Second Amendment rights.

Over the last couple of days, we have had a chance to have even further and more robust discussions among not only Republicans, but Democrats, and I appreciate those who perhaps may have been skeptical to what we were trying to do here--their willingness to keep an open mind, to ask us hard questions, and to force us to come up with good answers that will address their concerns. That is how we pass legislation here in the Senate; and my hope is that through those good- faith negotiations and debates and discussions, we can continue to build additional support for this legislation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, tomorrow will mark 1 month since the tragic shooting in Uvalde, TX.

A high school dropout with a history of violence and mental health struggles purchased 2 AR-15s within days of turning 18, and he passed a background check.

He then shot his own grandmother because she wanted him to go back into the classroom rather than drop out of school, and then went to the Robb Elementary School through an unlocked door.

He then opened fire on two fourth-grade classrooms, killing 19 students and 2 teachers.

The American people were shocked, outraged, and devastated by this attack and collectively asked: How can we prevent this from happening again?

Well, the discussion surrounding this topic causes emotions to run high, and I understand why.

For too long, some politicians have tried to pit the right to live in a safe community against the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. They make it seem like our country can only have one or the other--either the Second Amendment or safe schools and churches and grocery stores. And, of course, this is a false choice.

Law-abiding gun owners are not the problem. Men and women who buy guns to protect themselves and their family to hunt or engage in sports--they are not a public safety problem.

Following the shooting, I promised to do everything in my power to try to answer that call to do something. I don't believe in doing nothing in the face of what we saw in Uvalde and we have seen in far too many communities. Doing nothing is an abdication of our responsibility as representatives of the American people here in the U.S. Senate.

At the same time, I reiterated my bottom line, which is: I would not support any provisions that infringed on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Again, they are not the problem.

But I knew that this effort was about the art of the possible; looking at areas where we could agree and setting aside those areas where we could not.

I was fortunate to find partners who were thoughtful and realistic about how we could pass this bill.

I want to thank Senator Murphy, Senator Sinema, Senator Tillis, as well as a larger group of Senators without whom this legislation would not be on the cusp of passage. Thank you. Thank you for not listening to the naysayers and the critics and those who would spew disinformation and outright lies about what we are doing here and for standing up to the responsibility that we all have as U.S. Senators to do our very best to make progress, to try to answer the call in the face of these tragedies, and try, in the end, to save lives, which is what this is all about.

Now, less than 1 month after the shooting in Uvalde, the Senate will vote soon on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. This legislation will protect our schools, protect our communities, and safeguard the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: No parent should ever fear for the safety of their child at school, and no child should be afraid to go to school in fear of their safety.

This legislation responds to that in a positive and affirmative way. This bill includes targeted, commonsense measures to prevent violence and to save lives while respecting our Constitution.

(Ms. BALDWIN assumed the Chair.)

Madam President, the dirty little secret is America is experiencing a mental health crisis. Our mental health delivery system is a scandal. Too many people are not getting the sort of attention and care they need in order to manage their mental health challenges. And many of them can be saved from the fate of Salvador Ramos or Adam Lanza if they can get access to timely care and the medication that will help them manage their mental illness. So this bill will represent the single largest investment in community-based mental health care in American history.

That is huge. That is enormously important. And to me it may be the most important aspect of what we do here.

So police officers answering a 9-1-1 call from somebody in a mental health crisis, they don't have to take that person to jail where they won't get help. They can take them to a community-based mental health delivery system--to a clinic. And a person experiencing a mental health crisis, they don't have to go to the emergency room. They can go to a clinic and get the sort of care and help they need in order to manage their condition, whatever it may be.

This bill will also provide support and services for our schools. Our schools should be sanctuary--a sanctuary--for our children, not a place where they plan on what will happen during the next shooting and how they can hide under their desks or try to make their escape. Schools should be a sanctuary. And this bill will provide the kind of services that will help identify students in crisis and help intervene to provide them the assistance they need.

This bill also provides major investments in school safety and security. It includes physical safety measures. We probably can't eliminate human error like we saw in Uvalde, TX, but we can promulgate the best practices, which we have done in this bill, from the best minds based on evidence--what works and what does not--to make sure we keep unauthorized visitors out of the hallways and the classrooms as well as evaluate current protocols and, like I said, develop best practices.

Again, those who say we need to infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens under the Constitution in order to make good policy are offering a false choice. Passing good public policy and supporting the Constitution are not mutually exclusive.

One of the ways we are providing assistance to the States is through crisis intervention grants which will provide the States with funding to implement programs to help those in crisis and prevent them from committing self-harm or harm to others.

We have rejected the idea of a national red flag law, even though 19 States and the District of Columbia have chosen to do that themselves, and one of the ways we can help is to make sure that these funds assist State officials in training them on how to make sure that the due process rights of an individual are protected, as they should be.

This legislation also closes a gaping hole in the background check system which is the lack of juvenile records. This is a real challenge because most juvenile records are sealed or expunged. But we know that Salvador Ramos, who went in at 18-years-old and passed a background check--he was a ticking timebomb. Everybody knew he was struggling with his mental health challenges, and he was slowly circling the drain because he didn't get the help that might have prevented his self-harm, not to mention the harm to others.

But if a person's record includes a criminal conviction or mental health adjudication that prohibits them from purchasing a firearm as an adult, it shouldn't matter whether they were 17 or 18 at the time. That information should be available on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and that is what this bill will encourage. Our bill incentivizes the States to upload this information to ensure that disqualifying criminal convictions or mental health adjudications are available.

Unless a person is convicted of a crime or adjudicated as mentally ill, their Second Amendment rights will not be impacted by this legislation, period.

Let me close by saying, I am grateful to Senator Murphy, who has been a good-faith partner. He would like to do a lot of things in addition to what we have done here, but he was pragmatic and realistic enough to know that if we were actually going to be successful, we weren't going to be able to do everything that he wanted. Conversely, there were things that we did on our side that were outside of our comfort zone that, frankly, we are having to explain to people, but that is what a good-faith negotiation looks like. And again, I think, on balance, the good we are doing here and the potential we have to save lives is worth any sort of concession we might have had to make during the negotiation.

Let me also express my gratitude to Senator Sinema, the Senator from Arizona, who has been a key partner in the negotiation as well as Senator Tillis, the Senator from North Carolina. But the truth is, a lot of people were involved in this. And I want to thank all of our colleagues who helped us round out this legislation and make sure it delivers the benefits that we sought. We also worked with a variety of stakeholders from education to mental health groups, to law enforcement, as

well as gun rights groups. And I appreciate everybody who has helped us make this product better. And obviously we don't agree on a lot of things, but I am encouraged about how much common ground we were able to find.

Our bill has earned the endorsement of more than 100 mental health and education groups, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Association of School Psychologists. It has received the support of law enforcement organizations, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association, the National District Attorneys Association, and the Major Cities Chiefs Association. It has been backed by domestic violence groups such as the National Network to End Domestic Violence and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

I believe we have in the Gallery tonight people who have suffered unthinkable losses of loved ones in some of these mass shooting incidents. But I want to tell them that their advocacy has turned their pain into something positive. I believe the best antidote for the sort of unthinkable loss that they have suffered is the knowledge that something good will come out of their tragedies, something that will save lives.

This broad support for this legislation shows that it is a meaningful comprehensive response to the tragedies we have experienced. And I am proud of what we have been able to do together. And I am very optimistic about the impact it will have on our schools and communities across the country. So, thank you, colleagues, for working together in good faith in a bipartisan way.

I think in one way we have demonstrated to people that our institutions can work. Many have come to doubt whether we are capable of making our institutions work, including the world's greatest deliberative body, the U.S. Senate. And we have proved that we can, when sufficiently inspired by the people in the Gallery and others, when they say do something to come together and find common ground that will help keep our communities safer, protect our children, and save lives.

I look forward to voting yes and moving this bill one step closer to the President's desk for signature.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to thank the National Sheriffs' Association for its tireless work on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. I ask unanimous consent that their letter of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill prohibits certain former employees of the intelligence community from providing certain services to governments of countries that are state sponsors of terrorism, the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print my bill for introduction in the Congressional Record. The bill prohibits certain former employees of the intelligence community from providing certain services to governments of countries that are state sponsors of terrorism, the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation.

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

Mr. President, 28 days ago, an 18-year-old young man opened fire on students at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. He murdered 21 people--19 children and 2 teachers. In the process, he effectively committed suicide as well.

This was an attack that was so cruel, so brutal, and inhumane that it has brought much of our Nation to its knees in mourning. Since the shooting, my office has received--as I am sure many other Members of Congress have--I have received tens of thousands of calls and letters and emails with a singular message: Do something.

Do something. Not do nothing, but do something. Texans are disgusted and outraged by what happened at Robb Elementary, and they want Congress to take appropriate action to prevent the loss of more innocent lives.

I don't want us to pass a bill for the purpose of checking a box. I want to make sure we actually do something useful, something that is capable of becoming a law, something that will have the potential to save lives.

I am happy to report as a result of the hard work of a number of Senators in this Chamber that we have made some serious progress. In particular, over the last few weeks, Mr. Murphy, the Senator from Connecticut; Ms. Sinema, the Senator from Arizona; Mr. Tillis, the Senator from North Carolina; and I have searched high and low for common ground.

Now, there are some people who would say, What is the use? Why try? We know this is an issue that divides much of the country, depending on where you live, and maybe even divides people living in the same household. But I think we have found some areas where there is space for compromise. And we have also found that there are some redlines and no middle ground. We have talked; we have debated; we have disagreed; and, finally, we have reached an agreement among the four of us. But, obviously, this is not something that will become law or fail to become law because of a small group of Senators.

The truth is we had a larger group of 20 Senators--10 Republicans and 10 Democrats--come forward and sign on to an agreed set of principles, and I believe as Senators see the text that supports those principles, they will see we have tried our best to be true as to what we said those agreed principles should be.

So soon, very soon--not soon enough for me--but very soon, we will see the text of bipartisan legislation that will help keep our children and our communities safer.

We know there is no such thing as a perfect piece of legislation. We are imperfect human beings. But we have to try, and I believe this bill is a step in the right direction.

One of the pillars of this legislation is support for community-based mental health care. Following the violent attacks, we have all heard about missed signs, and the fact is the New York Times recently profiled the type of young man: typically alienated, isolated, not receiving any sort of support or medical or psychiatric care, certainly not complying with their doctors' orders when it comes to taking their medication that allows them to manage their mental illness challenges.

We know that this profile is one that Salvador Ramos fit, the shooter in Uvalde. He was a deeply troubled young man. He was isolated. He was bullied in school. He cut himself because he said he liked the way it made him look. It made him look tough. He had a history of fighting, of assaulting fellow students, of threatening sexual assault of young women, and torturing and killing animals. It is a familiar profile.

This man, this young man, I think was crying out for help. But he got no help, notwithstanding the best efforts of people around him. He shot his own grandmother before he went to Robb Elementary School because she wanted

him to go back to the classroom after being out of the classroom for 2 years because of COVID mitigation practices.

So our goal with this legislation is to try to help people in crisis get treatment before they reach a point like Salvador Ramos.

Now, I want to be clear: Not everybody who is suffering a mental health crisis is a threat to themselves and others. Matter of fact, the opposite is true. Many people suffer in silence with their parents, their families, their siblings, trying to help them to no avail. But there is a small subset of people like Salvador Ramos who are a danger to themselves and others if they don't get the kind of help they need.

So the provision of the bill which represents the single largest investment in community-based mental health treatment in American history is drawn from bipartisan legislation introduced by Senator Stabenow and Senator Blunt. I think there are eight demonstration projects around the country. We want to make this kind of access to community-based mental health care available all across the country, and our bill will help to do that.

It expands high-quality mental health and addiction services nationwide through the expansion of certified community behavioral health clinics.

Many of these providers already operate in communities across the country, but our legislation expands the networks of clinics to deliver even stronger and more fulsome support to our communities.

We also include provisions to expand support of care in our schools because it is at school that many of our young people will be identified as needing support.

Teachers actually spend more time than parents, typically, with our school-aged children; and the supported services that will be part of this bill will help identify students that need that help so that intervention can come as early as possible.

As the Presiding Officer probably knows, 60 percent of gun deaths in America are suicides--suicides. We not only want to try our best to do things that will hopefully stop the Salvador Ramoses in the future from hurting other people, we want to try to help them and keep them from hurting themselves as well.

So I believe this huge investment in America's mental health delivery system is an investment in safer and healthier communities.

Another pillar of the legislation is school safety. The Uvalde shooter was able to enter Robb Elementary School through a door that was not locked when it should have been. That is an obvious vulnerability. Schools need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, which means evaluating physical security measures, reviewing current protocol, adopting best practices, which are broadly available through publications and studies by the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies. And they also need to be able to add or expand the number of school resource officers as appropriate.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: No parent should have to send their child to school fearful for their child's safety, and no child should have to go to school and be afraid for their safety.

All of our students and teachers and the administrators and others in our schools deserve to feel safe, and parents deserve peace of mind, and that is what I hope these additional resources will provide.

Now, the final range portion of this bill beyond mental health and school safety involves a range of provisions to prevent these sort of violent attacks from occurring in the future.

Again, I believe that law-abiding citizens are not the problem. I don't believe law-abiding citizens are a threat to public health, and this bill honors that commitment.

So unless a person is convicted of a crime or is adjudicated mentally ill, their ability to purchase a firearm will not be impacted by this legislation.

Now, some have suggested provisions that I believe would infringe on Second Amendment rights and really not get to the root of the problem.

For example, there is no particular ban on a type of gun or no mandatory waiting periods, no background checks of intrafamily or friend-to-friend transfer, none of these are included in the legislation. And some of our colleagues clearly would like to see that. But, again, that is because law-abiding gun owners are not the problem.

What we are trying to do is prevent dangerous individuals from unleashing violence on their communities. And one way of achieving that goal is through more robust crisis intervention programs.

Now, that is a broad term that describes a range of initiatives that aim to reduce violence, protect the public, and connect individuals in crisis with the help they need.

It could include something called assisted outpatient treatment, which allows courts to order people with mental health challenges to receive outpatient treatment to ensure they receive the care they needed, and the court will hold them accountable to make sure they make the doctors' appointments and take the medications they need in order to remain productive.

But beyond AOTs--or assisted outpatient treatment--there are very effective regimes like mental health courts, like I saw in Dallas, TX, not that long ago.

Now, one of the things that encourages compliance is the fact that you have a judge, somebody wearing a black robe, saying: You will do this. And if that is what it takes, that is fine with me. But there are also drug courts, veterans' courts, and the like which aim to treat the root cause, not the symptom. And across the country, there are hundreds of mental health and veterans' treatment courts and thousands of drug court programs that have delivered incredible results.

I have been clear at the outset that I am interested in providing law enforcement-related grants to all 50 States to put forward a range of crisis intervention programs that the State deems best to help reduce suicide and violence.

Now, some of our colleagues wanted to focus this money solely on the 19 States that have passed some form of red flag law, and, frankly, that is a choice that is up to the State. But we are not introducing a national red flag law, but we are providing the availability of law enforcement-related grants to crisis intervention programs, whether you adopted a red flag program or not. Perhaps you have chosen something different. Well, this grant program will get every State funding that implements programs that they themselves have adopted to stop individuals in crisis from reaching the point of violence or self-harm.

If any State wants to pass a law, obviously, under our Constitution, they have plenary authority to pass whatever crisis intervention laws they choose to do so. But one of the things that we have agreed upon is they have to have robust due process protections because we are talking about a constitutional right.

So if the new law does not include due process protections, it will not be eligible for these grants, no matter what form that crisis intervention program takes.

Our bill also provides increased protection for domestic violence victims. It shouldn't matter whether a person is married to their abuser, if the abuser is convicted of domestic violence, and many people have what I would call nontraditional relationships, whether they are living together, they have a child together, or whether they just have a long-term romantic or intimate relationship. Eighty-six percent of gun-owning households support that sort of protection for domestic violence victims, where, too often, a gun is involved.

Again, this doesn't limit law-abiding gun owners' rights unless somebody is convicted of domestic abuse under their State laws. Their gun rights will not be impacted.

Again, this portion of the bill includes critical due process protections which, as we all know, is part of our Constitution. You shall not be deprived of your rights without due process of law.

One new feature that we proposed is that those who are convicted of nonspousal misdemeanor domestic abuse--not felony but misdemeanor domestic violence--will have an opportunity after 5 years to have their Second Amendment rights restored, but they have to have a clean record. And this is an incentive, in fact, I think, for people

who have made a mistake and have committed domestic violence and received a misdemeanor conviction to straighten up their act and to not repeat it.

Our bill also strengthens the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS, to ensure it is more fulsome and accurate.

In Uvalde, this young man, Salvador Ramos, turned 18. He went in and passed a background check. It is like he was born yesterday because there was no way for the National Instant Criminal Background checks system to look back on any mental health adjudications or criminal convictions, which would have barred him from purchasing a firearm had it occurred as an adult.

If a 17-year-old is convicted of a violent crime or adjudicated as mentally incompetent, that information should show up in the background check system if he tries to purchase a firearm when he turns 18.

Eighty-seven percent of gun-owning households in America support making juvenile records available in the background check system, and this legislation will make that possible.

Now, the States will control what information they are willing to share, but our legislation provides an incentive for States to upload the records that reflect on the suitability of an individual to purchase a firearm, allow them to upload juvenile records into the National Instant Criminal Background System to ensure that firearms are not falling into the hands of those under 21 who would be prohibited from purchasing that gun if they were an adult when it happened.

So I know this bill is not going to please everyone. Some think it goes too far; others think it doesn't go far enough, and I get it. But the nature of compromise and the nature of actually wanting to get a result requires that everybody try to find common ground where we can, and that is particularly hard in a 50-50 U.S. Senate.

But I believe the same people who are telling us to do something are sending us a clear message to do what we can to keep our children and communities safe. I am confident this legislation moves us in a positive direction.

I want to thank all of our colleagues who have worked so hard in this process that has gotten us this far. My understanding is that the text will be released essentially at any moment, although the principles upon which that text is written have been public for quite a while now.

This legislation is the product of good-faith, bipartisan negotiations. It includes bills and ideas offered by colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and it makes changes that are supported by vast majorities of Americans. And I think, most importantly, it has the real potential to become a law and to create real changes in communities across this country--safer, healthier communities; stronger, more secure schools; saving lives. That is what we are all about.

So I am eager to discuss more details with our colleagues as they review the text in the coming days, and I hope we can continue to show the same sort of good faith and the openness to other ideas that have brought us to this point as we debate and we vote on this bipartisan legislation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on Sunday, a bipartisan group of Senators announced principles for addressing the concerns over shootings like occurred in Uvalde, TX, 3 weeks ago, and other places as well.

And I would say we have been making good progress, but we have run into a couple of bumps in the road that have slowed things down a little bit.

One of them is over crisis intervention programs, something we agree is very important. I believe that we ought to put every State in the position of seeking and receiving funds for crisis intervention programs that they have in place already, even if they don't have a red flag law.

``Red flag'' has been what has been discussed and discussed many times, but 19 States have red flag laws, but that means 31 States have other crisis intervention initiatives that are designed to address the same problem, which is people who are a danger to themselves and others because of their mental health. It includes things like assisted outpatient treatment programs, drug courts, mental health courts, and veterans courts.

The other issue that we are wrestling with relates to the domestic violence provision and the way nontraditional relationships are handled. We need to define this in a very crystal clear way. It can't be overly broad or open to interpretation. It needs to be something that can actually be applied because we are talking about very serious consequences here.

Of course, with both of these provisions, we must include rigorous due process protections. That is a redline for folks on my side of the aisle.

I know Senator Schumer, the majority leader, wants to put this bill on the floor next week, but unless we can resolve these differences over these two provisions and do it soon, hopefully today, then we won't have time to prepare the text so Senators can read the bill for themselves, which we would expect them to do. And so that is going to require some continued work and good faith negotiations on all sides.

The details of these provisions are critical for support from my colleagues on this side of the aisle, and I hope that our colleagues across the aisle will understand, if we continue down this path without resolution, that we are jeopardizing the timetable that the majority leader has set out for us, or we are jeopardizing the likelihood we can get to 60 votes for anything, and we know how hard this is.

I am eager to wrap up our negotiations, but we are not going to cut corners or capitulate for the sole purpose of passing something. I am not willing to compromise on some of my basic principles or throw the Constitution out the window so we can have something we can hold up and say: Look what we did.

There is a bipartisan appetite to get this done--that is good--and I am optimistic about how far we have come, but we are not there yet, and we need to continue and do so quickly to reach an agreement on language so we can then write the text and have the vote.

From the outset, I said I wanted to identify targeted reforms that could have prevented the recent tragedies in Uvalde and elsewhere. That includes stronger mental health resources, which could have helped Salvador Ramos before he became so sick that he killed innocent children, and he

committed suicide, essentially, in the process. That includes school safety measures, which could have prevented the shooter from actually getting inside Robb Elementary School. It includes reforms to prevent violence by criminals and other dangerous individuals.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is one of the most effective tools we have to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and people who suffer from severe mental illness, but it is not a perfect system. It is only as good as the information contained in the system.

For example, in 2017, in the shooting in Sutherland Springs--a little town outside of San Antonio, TX, my hometown--what happened there highlighted the gaping hole in the background check system. Despite the fact that the shooter had a long and disturbing history of violence that should have prohibited him from purchasing a gun, he was able to do so because the Air Force in this instance had not uploaded his felony convictions, his domestic violence conviction, or his mental health commitment.

In response to Sutherland Springs, Senator Murphy and I introduced the Fix NICS Act to ensure that all Federal Agencies accurately and correctly upload the required conviction records on a timely basis.

Yes, this is the same Senator Chris Murphy whom I am working with now to try to achieve success here. We have done it before, and I believe we can do it again. Our bill was signed into law in March of 2018, and in the first 3 years, 11\1/2\ million more records were uploaded into the three national databases that the FBI checks. The number of records in one of those databases increased by more than 30 percent alone. So I think I can say with assurance that what we did together in 2018 has saved lives because if it kept a gun out of the hands of somebody who is already prohibited from getting a gun under current law, we will have saved a life--maybe even the life of the shooter. Sixty percent of the gun deaths in America are suicides. But I know we have saved at least those lives and I think many others as well.

But, as the Uvalde shooting demonstrated, there is another hole in the background check system, and that is juvenile records.

Salvador Ramos showed up at the age of 18 and had a clean record as far as the background check system was concerned because it couldn't look back at his troubled history, struggling with mental health and law enforcement problems. So he showed up as if he had been born the day before, and nothing else previously mattered because it wasn't in the background check system.

If there are disqualifying criminal or mental health records, that information should show up in the NICS system. In other words, if there are things in your life that would disqualify you if you were an adult but that happened before you turned 18, I think that is the information we need and would want to have for purposes of determining who should be able to purchase or possess a firearm. So that wall that prevents the lookback into pre-18-year-old records is obviously a problem.

Four years ago, the Uvalde Police Department received information about two male juveniles, 13 and 14 years old, who were plotting a school shooting for their senior year. That was 4 years ago, and they were plotting a school shooting when they graduated in--you guessed it--2022. Now, there is no way for us to know for sure whether one of those individuals was Salvador Ramos because those juvenile records are not available to us. But I am here to say that if it is not Salvador Ramos, then we have even a bigger problem. If there are two additional, young, 13- and 14-year-old boys out there saying they are going to shoot up the school when they become seniors, we have even a bigger problem.

One of the provisions we are discussing would encourage the States to upload similar relevant juvenile records into the NICS. This is standard practice in some but not all States, and it is easy to see why it is important.

If an 18-year-old is convicted of aggravated assault--a felony--the record will show up in his background check and prohibit him from purchasing a gun, but if a 17-year-old is convicted of the same crime, the record will not necessarily be uploaded into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. If he tries to purchase a gun at 18, the background check is likely to come back clean--again, because the system is only as good as the information in it.

Let me give you another example. An individual can be adjudicated mentally ill on his 17th birthday and actually be civilly committed for multiple months in a mental institution, but that same person could likely purchase a gun at the age of 18 without anything showing up on his record. Existing law prohibits that purchase, but not all the States are sending that information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Those are examples of why it is so important to be able to get that lookback in the pre-18-year-old history for mental health or criminal justice encounters.

This is not actually an expansion of the background check system because it doesn't add any new restrictions to gun ownership, but it would permit the background check system to actually have access to relevant and material information. It is a commonsense step to ensure that the data in the NICS system is accurate.

That is easy enough to say, but we need to ensure this idea would work in practice, and that is exactly what we are examining now.

No. 1, we need to ensure this provision would protect due process of law. That is a constitutional right that is fundamental. Under current law, anyone who receives a denial has the right to appeal that decision or challenge the accuracy of the record. Of course, those same protections should exist for juvenile records as well.

Secondly, we need to establish an interim plan while these records are being uploaded into the background check system, a process that will take some time.

Now, my colleagues across the aisle suggested a mandatory waiting period for all purchasers under the age of 21, but we didn't agree to that. There is no reason why somebody who passes a background check with all relevant information in the database should be denied the ability to purchase a gun. In fact, we are talking again about a constitutional right. So no mandatory waiting period. But we are looking at extending the investigatory period for juvenile records that are unclear or ambiguous. Let me explain what I am talking about.

Under current law, a person who wants to purchase a gun from their local retailer must complete a background check. We talked about that. In nearly 90 percent of the cases, the background check is resolved almost immediately because these are computerized records. The average processing time is, in fact, less than 2 minutes. In those cases, the seller receives an immediate answer--either the sale can proceed or it cannot.

In the remaining roughly 10 percent of background checks, the system doesn't return a green light or a red light. In short, this happens when there are question marks or other things that need to be inquired about. This could be caused by a number of factors. If the buyer has a common name, the system could pull records on the wrong individual with the same name. It could also be caused by incomplete criminal history records. For example, if somebody was convicted of assault but the record doesn't say whether it was a felony or misdemeanor or in some cases whether the assault was a domestic violence incident, that would have consequences in terms of their ability to purchase a firearm. So further review, further investigation sometimes is necessary to see whether the light should be green or the light should be red.

Under the current law, the FBI has up to 3 business days to complete a background check and give the seller a clean answer on whether the sale can proceed. That is current law, up to 3 days. In many cases, this review that we are talking about adding for persons between 18 and 21--this review can clarify that the sale can proceed, and that is a great thing. That is how we safeguard Second Amendment rights for law- abiding gun owners.

We discussed the idea of extending that investigatory period when there is a question mark surrounding juvenile records. Again, this is the exception to

the rule, where more information is required because the answer that you get is ambiguous or unclear.

Under this enhanced review, an 18-year-old with a clean record would be able to expeditiously purchase a firearm. The extended investigation period would only apply to those rare cases and, again, only for those 18 to 20 for whom the system does not return a clear answer--yes or no, green or red--but, rather, a yellow light.

We believe this is a commonsense and straightforward way to improve the existing background check system without adding new restrictions.

As I said, negotiations are ongoing, but time is of the essence because we need to get to an agreement so we can get text to our colleagues so that the majority leader can bring this bill up on the floor next week after giving everyone a chance to read it and understand it and have their questions answered.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to complete my remarks before the Senate adjourns for the lunch hour.

Mr. President, I want to report that we are making serious progress in our bipartisan effort to respond to the shooting in Uvalde, TX, and other places around the country. Over the last few weeks, I have been working, in particular, with Senator Murphy, Senator Sinema, and Senator Tillis on mental health and school safety reforms, and we have narrowed the scope of our discussions to provisions that we believe can earn broad bipartisan support in the Senate, and a number of our colleagues on both sides have joined the discussion.

Over the weekend, we announced an agreement on principles for bipartisan legislation, 20 Senators--10 Republicans and 10 Democrats. This included a range of targeted reforms to keep our children and our communities safe, from mental health resources to funding to harden schools and make them more safe. No parent should have to send their child to school wondering whether they are going to be safe at school, and certainly no student should be afraid to go to school for fear of their safety.

We also included a number of targeted measures to prevent violence by people committing crimes and other dangerous individuals. I am proud of the work we have done so far, but, of course, we are not at the finish line. We are still at the beginning when it comes to drafting appropriate text.

Our agreement is based on principles alone. And translating this proposal into legislative language is no easy task, as Members of the Senate understand. Here is an example of the many details that need to be ironed out: One of the big pieces of this bill relates to State crisis intervention programs and initiatives.

The idea here is pretty simple: Support programs that reduce violence, protect the public, and help individuals in crisis get the help they need. But there are a number of different ways this provision could be drafted, and I am committed to ensuring that we get it done right.

But I want to be clear because there has been a lot of misinformation, misunderstanding on this point. None of what we are proposing would create a national red flag law--no national red flag law. Some have mischaracterized this provision as an incentive for States to pass a red flag law, but that is something I am aiming to avoid. I trust the States to make their own decisions, and 16 States have decided to pass red flag laws. But that is fewer than half of the States with red flag laws on the books. Congress should not only send Federal funding to those States but also other States that are doing things to deal with people in crisis. And as the agreement, in principle, said, what we are focused on is crisis intervention.

But there are a number of different ways that this could be approached. And I am fighting for this proposal to include a grant program that gives every State, regardless of whether it has a red flag law or not, funding to administer programs that they do have that will reduce violence, increase public safety, and make sure that individuals in crisis get the help that they need.

There should be no requirement for States that do not currently have a red flag law to pass one. The existence or lack of a red flag law should not impact on any States' ability to receive funds for crisis intervention. And if a State does want to use this money to implement a red flag law, they should not be able to do so unless their red flag law contains a full set of due process and Bill of Rights protections in the Constitution.

So how can States without red flag laws use this money? Well, there are a range of evidence-based programs that support our shared goal, which is, in fact, to keep communities safe and to save lives. One great example is the assisted outpatient treatment programs. These are sometimes just called AOTs. These programs allow courts to order people with serious mental illness to receive outpatient treatment as a condition of living in the community. AOTs can be life changing for people who struggle to maintain consistent mental health treatment.

Programs vary from State to State but typically include medication, along with a variety of other services including counseling. AOTs rely on evidence-based treatment plans to help individuals live healthier, safer lives, and they have a successful track record. Assisted outpatient treatment programs are effective in reducing arrests and incarceration, violent mental crises, and hospital stays and homelessness. I think this is another way that States without red flag laws might be able to use the funding that we would provide under the provisions of this bill. At least that is what I am hoping we ultimately will land on.

I think it would be kind of strange if we passed a national law that said only 16 States were going to be eligible for this money and you would only be eligible for it if you passed a red flag law.

I think that would almost be like trying to commandeer the States' legislature and government and force them to accept something they decided not to do but because maybe they tried to do something a little bit differently, like assisted outpatient treatment, mental health courts, which have been very successful in my State and veterans courts, in particular, to focus on our veterans community who has particular challenges.

While I am talking about assisted outpatient treatment, 47 States actually have those laws, and I would like the money that would be available under this fund for crisis intervention to be able to be used for that. Again, I don't support any prescriptive mandates or national mandates at all, including a national red flag. Each State should be able to make their own choices and use its share of funding in the best way it sees fit to protect the constitutional rights of somebody who is in mental health crisis or to provide other resources, like assisted outpatient treatment or mental health court adjudications or veterans courts hearings, in order to help them address their challenges.

The great thing about the design of our country is that we have a national government, but we have sovereign States. Louis Brandeis once called them the laboratories of democracy. And, actually, it makes plenty of sense to me that we learned from the experience of the States that have passed red flag laws and States that have passed other types of ways to address people requiring crisis intervention. This provides the ability to innovate and to try new ideas and to come up with best practices that the Federal Government simply cannot do when you are considering legislating for a country of 330 million people.

So I personally do not support an overly prescriptive grant program that favors only a few States over all 50 States. And, of course, I won't support any grant program that violates the Constitution or the requirement of due process of law when it comes to a constitutional right like the Second Amendment.

So I do believe there are a range of options to improve public safety, and the States should have the funding and flexibility to invest in programs that they think best delivers the result--to save lives, to help people in crisis. And that is really what we are trying to do with this legislation.

So the details are still being worked out. And we are drafting legislative text, and, of course, that is sometimes hard. Sometimes, I found that people use the same word, and they mean something different by it, or they come to it with a sort of context that maybe isn't apparent from a conversation about principles. And that is why going from the principles that 20 of us have agreed on into legislative text that we can then vote on and pass is a challenge.

We know that on a sensitive topic like this, a single word or the placement of a comma can make the difference between protecting and infringing on rights. So I am laser-focused on drafting text that reflects the commonsense, targeted proposal that we have agreed to in principle. Again, we are working through the details, and I hope we will have legislative text later this week. But I am not willing to rush it for the sake of speed.

I spoke with Senator Schumer, the majority leader, this morning, and he said he would like to have this bill ready to vote on next week. And I am certainly with him in terms of that aspirational goal. That means we are going to have to complete our work on the text by the end of this week so Senator Schumer will have that legislation available to take up next week.

I yield the floor.