Floor Statements

Madam President, this week America celebrates National Police Week. It is a time for us to stop and pay tribute to those who died in the line of duty defending our communities and to thank those who continue to serve our communities.

Law enforcement is a calling answered by a select few. These men and women have chosen a difficult and often dangerous life dedicated to keeping our communities safe, defending our civil liberties, and protecting our neighborhoods. These jobs, obviously, require tremendous courage and sacrifice, not just from the officers themselves but their families too, and I am grateful to those who selflessly serve our communities every day.

Under normal circumstances, the events of this week bring tens of thousands of uniformed officers to Washington, DC, from across the country. Through laying wreaths, candlelight vigils, and church services, they ordinarily gather in remembrance of their fallen brothers and sisters in person. In previous years, I have had the pleasure of welcoming a number of Texas officers and their families who have traveled to Washington, DC, for this National Police Week observation, but as in so many other ways, this year is not like previous ones.

Over the last year, our country has faced unprecedented heartbreak and turmoil, which have made a career in law enforcement even more challenging. First came the pandemic. While millions of Americans hunkered down in their homes to slow the spread of the virus, law enforcement personnel continued to lace up their boots and go to work every day.

With the spread of COVID-19 and the lack of proper personal protective equipment in the early stages of the pandemic, even simple interactions with members of the community carried risks.

At the same time, the stresses of the pandemic led to a surge of drug overdose deaths and an increase in family violence. And across the country, we saw a dramatic increase in the number of homicides.

When a deadly winter storm hit Texas in February, police officers took on even more responsibility. They worked around the clock to help folks without power or water, often while worrying about the safety of their own families.

For all the ways the last year has taught us to appreciate the unique role that law enforcement officers play in

our communities, it has also put these men and women at the center of a tough, but necessary, national conversation about racial justice.

The killing of George Floyd shone a spotlight on issues in our justice system that absolutely must be rooted out and led to a national conversation about the need to do so.

There is no question we need to take action to improve transparency and accountability within our police forces.

We need to strengthen the relationship between police and the communities they serve. I believe everybody can agree on those points.

But as a country, we need to remember that the actions of a few do not define the masses, the rest of us. The vast majority of police officers are honorable, dedicated public servants who go above and beyond the call of duty to keep us safe and are committed to improving accountability and trust in police. There is a saying that nobody hates a bad cop worse than a good cop. Last summer, police officers in Dallas hosted a rally to show their support for the efforts to stop police brutality and racial injustice. We need to remember that, except for these occasional outliers, we are all on the same team, fighting for a justice system that keeps our communities safe and treats every person with dignity and respect.

For some, this movement has led to radical calls to defund or even abolish the police--two very dangerous ideas. Over the last year, we have seen an increase in violent crime in our country. Last year, major cities experienced a 33-percent increase in homicides--33 percent. The early data shows that things aren't getting any better this year. In fact, in too many places, things are getting worse.

This simply isn't the time, if there ever were a time, to strip local police departments of funding; rather, it is time to provide them with the resources and the policies they need to safely and justly protect our communities. I know we are having a lot of discussions across the aisle on the most effective way to do that, and I hope that this year, unlike last year, we will be able to make progress.

A job in law enforcement, as I suggested, is never easy. These men and women put on the uniform and leave their families, never knowing what the day ahead may entail. In the back of their minds, they have a question--whether this is the last time they will ever see their loved ones. Stopping a violent crime, helping a neighbor in crisis--you never know what a police encounter could bring.

Four months ago, Capitol Police officers certainly didn't anticipate what their jobs would require on January 6. This building was stormed by a violent mob who tried to threaten the very foundations of our democracy.

That day, as we know, this building was filled with Members of Congress, our staff, journalists, and countless men and women whom we count on to keep Congress running every day. Fortunately, that also includes the brave men and women of the Capitol Police Force. While protecting the people inside this building, Capitol Police officers were assaulted, threatened, and subjected to the violence of the mob for hours on end.

In the wake of this tragedy, the Capitol Police lost two of their colleagues, Officer Brian Sicknick and Officer Howard Liebengood. Last month, Capitol Police Officer Billy Evans was killed while protecting this institution.

I am grateful for the sacrifices law enforcement officers make every single day. This week, we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice. One of the most emblematic remembrances of that sacrifice is the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, which sits along the National Mall here in Washington, DC. It is a beautiful tribute to the Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty and features marble walls filled with more than 21,000 names. Each of these names represents a hero, and, sadly, this year we added the names of 55 Texans who were killed in the line of duty last year.

These officers gave their all in service to our communities and to our country. Of course, there is nothing we can do to adequately thank these heroes and their families for their sacrifice, but we can take action to protect their brothers and sisters in blue.

In recent years, we have seen brutal, inexcusable attacks on police officers around the country, including one in Dallas that completely rocked our entire State. In 2016, a man killed five officers and injured nine others. It was a sobering reminder of the dangers these officers face every day and a call for us to take action to do more to support them.

Yesterday, I reintroduced the Back the Blue Act to make clear our support for the public servants who dedicated their lives to protecting our communities. This legislation sends a strong message to more than 800,000 law enforcement officers in our country that they are supported and that violence against them will not be tolerated.

The Back the Blue Act adds stiff, mandatory penalties, and it makes it a Federal crime to kill or attempt to kill a law enforcement officer, a Federal judge, or a federally funded public safety officer. It also makes it a Federal crime to assault a law enforcement officer. These men and women put themselves in harm's way every day, and we must make it clear that violence against them will never be tolerated.

Right now, there is a serious need to improve the relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve, and this legislation will help there too. It will allow grant funds to be used for efforts to help foster more trust between police and the communities they protect.

In light of the national conversation over the past year regarding the need to improve these relationships, this could not be more important. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation and show law enforcement across the country that we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

I was also pleased this morning when a bill that I am leading with my colleague Senator Coons called the Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila Federal Officer and Employee Protection Act passed out of the Judiciary Committee. That bill came in response to an appellate court decision that reversed the convictions of cartel members who murdered a Federal agent and attempted to murder another one while those agents were fighting the cartels in Mexico. An appeals court held that the United States did not have jurisdiction to try the cartel members for the murder and attempted murder. This bill closes that loophole and states unequivocally that we can and will try and convict those who murder our law enforcement officers, even those serving outside the United States.

I am grateful for the law enforcement officers who courageously and honorably serve our communities every day. This week, we honor them and the generations of officers who came before them. In particular, we pay tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, more than 4 million Texans, including half of the children in my State, depend on the stability of the State's Medicaid Program to provide healthcare for themselves and their families. Everything from emergency room visits to mental health care, Medicaid funding

is vital to the health of our most vulnerable friends and neighbors. The same is true in virtually every State across the country.

Unfortunately, a recent move by the Biden administration has put the healthcare of these vulnerable citizens in jeopardy. A few weeks ago, the Biden administration rescinded approval of Texas's 1115 waiver extension. I know that is an obscure reference to most folks, but, basically, here is the long and short of it. The previous administration reached an agreement with the State that will enable billions of dollars to flow to Texans in need. Now, for some reason, the Biden administration is trying to stop it.

The real question is, Why? Why would the Biden administration try to jeopardize the healthcare for 4 million Texans, while the President has consistently talked about ensuring every American has access to quality healthcare. Just 2 weeks ago in his joint session to Congress, he said:

Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege in America.

So why would the administration take an unprecedented action to reduce access to healthcare for some of the most vulnerable people in my State?

Well, the official answer from CMS is to correct an administrative error. But two Federal health officials did an unusual thing in Washington, DC, albeit anonymously. They told the truth. They told the Washington Post that this was done to ``push State officials toward accepting the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion.'' It is pretty bold to admit that this was not about an administrative error at all but about forcing Medicaid expansion onto the State of Texas.

Many people will recall that this was a portion of the Affordable Care Act which was held unconstitutional in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts. Chief Justice Roberts said that the Federal Government cannot put a gun to the head of the State and force it to accept the Medicaid expansion since it is a joint program between the Federal Government and the State. Now the administration is engaged in a game of political chicken, with 4 million Texans on the line, and the only ones who are getting hurt are the low-income and uninsured Texans whose healthcare relies on this safety net.

This move by the administration would have been damaging during normal times, but it is even more damaging after this unprecedented year for our healthcare providers. In fact, it is downright reckless. Hospitals and providers in Texas have been pushed to the brink during the pandemic. On top of the additional expenses associated with COVID- 19, they have faced serious financial shortfalls from the pause on nonessential medical procedures as well as the hesitancy of patients to seek care because they have been worried about contracting the virus.

Now, more than ever, hospitals and healthcare providers need reliable funding to plan ahead for their financial stability and uncompensated healthcare costs. If this funding stream goes away or is disrupted, it will directly threaten the healthcare for uninsured Texans and harm the livelihoods of healthcare providers as a whole.

In rural areas and those that are already underserved, the consequences of this move could not be more dangerous. Let's say the Biden administration refuses to change course and Texas loses billions of dollars in Medicaid funding. If uninsured patients in small towns go only to local hospitals for emergency care, they will receive that emergency care because that is another Federal law, called EMTALA. But without the Federal funding to offset those costs, how would these hospitals make ends meet? If these patients aren't paying out of their pockets and the Federal Government is not helping to cover the costs, what will happen?

It is pretty simple, actually. Without funding, the rural hospital will close.

So those same uninsured patients will start visiting the second closest hospital. In my State--it is a big State--that is, maybe, 30 minutes down the road. Maybe it is more than an hour away. Once again, without Federal funding to help cover the costs of treating rising numbers of uninsured patients, what will happen?

Well, that hospital will close too. We will descend into a death spiral of hospitals and healthcare providers that close their doors because they can no longer afford to provide healthcare. The hardest hit patients won't be those with private health insurance; they will be those low-income and uninsured patients, especially in rural and underserved areas.

So the consequences of this irresponsible move by the Biden administration could not be more serious, and they will be felt far and wide because this funding is vital to our healthcare system as a whole.

It is not hyperbole to say that these are going to have life-and- death consequences. While patients in Texas may be the first to get caught in the game of political chicken, they will not be the last. There are only four States that don't have approved or pending 1115 waivers. Four--only four--don't have approved or pending 1115 waivers. Every other State could find itself in the same situation as my State in the coming months.

Florida was granted a waiver around the same time as Texas. What will happen to vulnerable Floridians? Tennessee is already facing legal challenges to its waiver. Will its providers be in jeopardy too? North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, Idaho--the list of States that could be impacted by this life-or-death game of chicken goes on and on. The most vulnerable patients in States across the country could lose access to healthcare because of the Biden administration's irresponsible and reckless actions. Something must be done.

To state the obvious, the nominee to lead the CMS, Ms. Brooks-LaSure, did not rescind the Texas Medicaid waiver approval. In fact, she has not been confirmed as yet, but before her nomination can advance, Members of the Senate deserve a commitment from the administration that it won't try to force the hand of States by putting the healthcare of millions on the line.

If we don't step up now and push back against this reckless move, what State will be next? How far will the administration go--in the words of Chief Justice Roberts--to put a gun to the heads of the States, forcing them to dance to Washington's tune?

I have asked the administration to work with Texas to ensure that millions of impacted individuals won't lose access to healthcare, but, so far, there has been zero progress. The administration has been unwilling to provide any assurance that an agreement with Texas could be reached before the end of this fiscal year--something that would have dire consequences for our providers, especially those in mental and behavioral health.

As a reminder, the CMS said the only issue with the Texas waiver was an administrative error. Now it won't even commit to providing reliable care for these patients. This unprecedented action by the CMS threatens the security of the Texas Medicaid Program. It disrespects the continuity of this agreement, and it erodes the partnership between the State and the Federal Government.

I think it also violates the constitutional authority of the States. The Federal Government is one of delegated powers, with the rest retained by the States and we the people. That was the basis upon which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the compulsory Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Yet now the administration seeks to do through the backdoor what it could not do through the front door. This sets a dangerous precedent of the administration's undoing of agreements, negotiated in good faith between the States and the Federal Government, for purely political reasons, and it could have cascading consequences across the country.

I appreciate Ms. Brooks-LaSure's experience in working with States to develop these waivers as well as her willingness to talk to me about this issue, but she doesn't have any authority to force the Biden administration to undo its terrible and reckless mistake, at least not yet. Until Texas can receive a waiver and an assurance that this action will be rectified and the rug will not be pulled out from under our poorest patients, I cannot support this nomination.

I urge my colleagues to stand up for the healthcare of their most vulnerable populations and push the administration to find an alternate path forward.

If they are willing to do this to my State, they will do it to your State and every other State in the country.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, listening to my friend, the Democratic whip, reminds me that there is one type of business that my Democratic friends always support, and that is the lawsuit business. As he pointed out, about half of the States have taken steps to protect their citizens from frivolous litigation and other litigation that would arise out of their good-faith following of the guidelines laid down by the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control. That is what we proposed here in the Senate.

And my friend's, the Senator from Illinois's view did prevail because I found out that there is one--the most powerful lobby here in Washington, DC, is the trial bar, and, unfortunately, it is not just big corporations. I am sure big companies can take care of themselves. They have got lawyers; they have got compliance officers; and they have got people who can help them figure out how to deal with the pandemic. It is the mom-and-pop businesses, the music venues, the houses of worship, the schools, and the universities--those were the ones that were reluctant to reopen, even complying with the CDC guidelines, because they were afraid of being sued into oblivion.

So my colleague's views did prevail here in the Senate, unfortunately, but, thankfully, States like mine--Texas is currently in legislative session taking appropriate steps to avoid this sort of frivolous litigation, which will be like a wet blanket on our economic recovery and on job creation. Again, this is not a get-out-of-jail free card. These are citizens--American citizens--trying to do the best they can under very difficult circumstances who have, in good faith, complied with the Centers for Disease Control guidelines.

I would like to rewind just a little bit to 2019, before the pandemic hit, and recall that the American people were reaping the benefits of one of the strongest economies in American history. The driving force behind that economic boom, I think, was, in significant part, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which we passed in 2017, which sought to help American families and the economy thrive by keeping more of what they earned and turning over less to the Federal Government. In my opinion, there is no question that it was one of the biggest contributors to our booming economy.

Our national unemployment rate had reached a 50-year low, and we saw record unemployment rates for Hispanics, African Americans, and Asian Americans. Unemployment among women fell to the lowest rate since the early 1950s. That was prepandemic.

The benefits did not stop there, though. Wages were on the rise. The poverty rate hit an alltime low, and millions of new jobs were being added to our economy. Families were bringing home more of their hard- earned paychecks, and median household income reached a record high.

But then the pandemic hit, as we know, and things took a very sharp turn downward. Businesses closed their doors; workers lost their jobs; and the unemployment rate skyrocketed from 3.5 percent to nearly 15 percent in April.

Fortunately, this dark economic picture is gradually brightening. Thanks to the investment we have made in therapeutics and vaccines in a historically short period of time, thanks to the ingenuity and perseverance of workers and business owners, combined with the assistance that Congress has given them and, like I said, advancements in modern science, we have made steady progress.

The unemployment rate has steadily declined over the last year, reaching 6 percent in March, but the new data from April is a cause for concern. The unemployment rate increased by a tenth of a percentage point. It didn't go down. It went up. It is a bump that wouldn't have raised any red flags before the pandemic. But this single data point is not the only indication of how our economy is faring. Last month, only 266,000 new jobs were added to the economy. That is a quarter--25 percent--of what economists had predicted. Now, again, 266,000 new jobs would not have been a bad jobs report before the pandemic because we were literally at nearly full employment, but we aren't currently in a build mode. We are currently digging our way out of a hole, a recession, to be specific.

We are still missing 8 million jobs that existed prior to the pandemic. I don't think anyone expected all those jobs to come back overnight, but we did expect to be faring far better than this. As I said, the economists said this is a quarter of what they anticipated.

Well, this is the first full month of data since our Democratic colleagues passed their $2 trillion so-called rescue plan on top of the trillions of dollars that we spent in 2020. If things continue to go the rate we are on now, we are in for an extremely long recovery. In other words, sometimes policies that emanate from Washington actually make the recovery harder, not easier.

Unfortunately, the administration is doing more to slow down the recovery than they are to solve it. Last year, Republicans and Democrats worked together to provide unprecedented assistance to workers and their families hit by this economic downturn. Bolstered unemployment benefits were intended to provide laid-off workers with the money they needed to support their families until they could return to work, and over the last year, many of those workers have, fortunately, gotten back on the job.

These benefits were a lifeline for millions of families and, today, there are still workers unable to find a new job. But there are, unfortunately, also people abusing the system, the generosity of the American people, the American taxpayer. The partisan relief bill our Democratic colleagues pushed through earlier this year extended supplemental unemployment benefits through September of this year, far beyond the amount of time anyone would have expected that those benefits, the supplemental benefits to the State unemployment benefits, would be needed.

Even as vaccinations were on the rise, our Democratic colleagues insisted on extending these benefits through September, and many of us predicted the outcome. Last spring, workers couldn't find jobs. Now, businesses can't find workers.

Between bolstered unemployment benefits and a steady stream of stimulus checks, many people who lost their jobs can't be convinced to return to the workforce. One restaurant owner in Texas said he had had plenty of applicants; people just won't show up for the interviews. One day, when he had scheduled eight interviews for potential employment, only one applicant showed up. The next day, the same thing happened-- five scheduled interviews; one person showed up. He said: It makes you wonder, are they just filling these applications out to collect unemployment? Because, of course, most unemployment benefits require you to apply for work and accept it if it is offered. But apparently here, whatever the incentives are, they are simply persuading some people to fill out applications but then not to seriously pursue work.

In a year's time, we have gone from the strongest economy in a generation to the government paying people to stay home. This reminds me of the discussion we had a couple of years ago when the Green New Deal was launched. An overview of the bill was listed on the website of one of its authors and said that the government would foot the bill for any person who is ``unable or unwilling to work.'' ``Unable or unwilling to work,'' that the

government would foot the bill--that was the proposal initially when the Green New Deal was rolled out. ``Unwilling to work.'' Don't like the job? Don't want to get out of bed in the morning? Don't worry; hard-working Americans who are getting up and going to work every day will foot the bill so you can stay home. I am sure it comes as no surprise that this received a great deal of criticism and even ridicule 2 years ago.

Unfortunately for the taxpayers who actually do get up every morning and go to work, we are seeing this play out in real time. Folks who lost their jobs and who are now able but unwilling to return to work can continue to reap the bolstered unemployment benefits that our Democratic colleagues provided for them through September.

Another restaurant owner in Texas said that between the stimulus checks and the enhanced unemployment benefits, it is tough to find people who want to work at all. He said:

I believe our biggest competition in the job market is the

government.

This isn't an isolated problem. In Texas, the average unemployment benefits equal more than $36,000 a year. In Washington State, you can receive $39,000 a year in unemployment benefits. In Massachusetts, it is $41,000 a year.

A few Governors have said their States will stop offering the bolstered benefits because it is a disincentive for workers to get back on the job. If you are able to stay home and bring in as much money or maybe even more than you were earning while you were actually working, what is the incentive to go back?

This poor job report isn't a surprise to anyone who has spoken to employers, as I have, who have said repeatedly that no one wants to return to work when they can get paid to stay home.

Another factor that has likely contributed to the slow recovery is the slow reopening of schools. Despite the fact that in many States, teachers are among the first individuals to get vaccinated, the return to classrooms has been incredibly slow. Less than half the school districts throughout the country are operating fully in person.

The nearly $2 trillion that our Democratic colleagues rammed through Congress in March did little to get us back on track. It sent more than $120 billion more to K-12 schools that were already flush with cash but attached no requirement that the money be used to actually get children back in the classroom, where we know they will learn best.

If at least one parent has to be home with their children for even part of the week, that makes it incredibly difficult for them to return to work. For single parents, it is virtually impossible.

If we are ever going to get our economy back on track, we need to get our children safely back in school. We need to get people who are able but who are currently unwilling to work to get back on the job. And we need to supply the businesses that managed to survive this past year with a reliable workforce.

Right now, the biggest hurdle to our economic recovery is the government itself. That needs to change. If you asked the President or a number of our Democratic colleagues in the Senate, they would say the solution is easy--the American Jobs Plan. Let's spend more money.

This proposal is part social safety net, part infrastructure, and part taxpayer-funded spending spree. It is really designed to transform America into Europe--a social safety net economy.

It spends more than $2.5 trillion on things like electric vehicle chargers and home healthcare, which we are happy to debate in any other context, but what we really need is a jobs plan to get America back to work, not another Trojan horse like we saw passed earlier this year and is currently being advertised, for example, under the guise of being an infrastructure bill.

In order to finance this plan, along with the President's American Families Plan, our Democratic colleagues want to enact the largest tax hike in a generation. So contrary to what we did in 2017 by lowering the tax burden and giving people more of what they earned--and we have seen those tremendous economic results as a consequence--our Democratic colleagues want to, while we are still at 6 percent unemployment, raise taxes, which will further retard the economic recovery.

So to recap, the plan for economic recovery is to make it more expensive for businesses to operate and nearly impossible for them to find workers. No wonder the economy isn't rebounding like we had hoped. That is what happened to the million jobs that were projected to be in the latest jobs report, but it was unfortunately a disappointing 25 percent of those million jobs.

So instead of building on the successes of 2017 and the prepandemic economy, the administration wants to double down on the old, tired belief that America can tax and spend and regulate itself to prosperity. We don't need dramatic tax increases for sweeping social safety programs to get our economy back on track. We need to replicate the same factors that led to our banner prepandemic recovery. We need to get our children safely back in the classroom so their parents can return to the workforce. We need to stop paying workers to sit on the sidelines, and we need to give the job creators the ability to drive our economy forward.

Democrats don't have an ``American Something Plan'' for every problem. Sometimes all the government has to do is get out of the way

I yield the floor.

Madam President, this has been a tough year since COVID- 19 became a global pandemic. There are many lessons to be learned from this pandemic. One of them that jumps out at me as being abundantly obvious is the real-world consequences of vulnerable supply chains.

We almost began to believe, because cheap consumer goods could be made in China or someplace overseas, that that was the optimal arrangement. And certainly consumers in America have benefited from low prices when it comes to a number of things that are not made in this country. But some of the things that we depend upon, whether it is for public health or to keep our economy going or for our national security, are dependent on vulnerable supply chains.

Perhaps the easiest one for everybody to identify with was the shortage of personal protective equipment. I remember when I called my Governor in Texas, he said: Two things you can get us--more PPE and more testing.

Well, we produce so much testing capability now you don't hear much about that. But it was true that our hospitals needed masks, gloves, gowns, and ventilators to keep our frontline healthcare workers safe as well as other patients. At one point the situation became so dire, when it came to personal protective equipment, that first responders asked the public to help boost their supplies. They welcomed donations of N- 95 masks from folks who had extra boxes in their garage or gloves from hair salons that had closed their doors. We didn't reach that point because of the lack of preparation by those hospitals or healthcare workers but because of our reliance on other countries to produce that essential medical gear.

China, it will surprise no one, is a major supplier of PPE. And since much of their stock was sent to hot spots in the earliest days of the pandemic, including in Wuhan, we were left to rely on the relatively small number of domestic manufacturers here in the United States.

But I am here today not to talk about PPE but another supply chain breakdown with far-reaching consequences, and this time it is semiconductors. While semiconductors are something that perhaps most people are not intimately familiar with--but let me put it this way: Anything that has an on-off switch involves a semiconductor.

They are the underlying technology in our most used products, things like cell phones, computers, cars, televisions, dishwashers. That is right, just about anything with an on-off switch. These are small integrated circuits that keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller, which means you can put them on a device like this; whereas, in the past, you may recall, Madam President, I remember the first cell phones that came out looked like a brick, but because semiconductors got so much more sophisticated and so much more powerful, you can put hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them on a device like this. These chips are necessary not just for consumer products but for other things as well, like the cell towers that keep us connected and the advanced weapon systems that support our national security. Even ventilators at hospitals require semiconductors.

In short, we need semiconductors for our most prevalent and critical products, but the vast majority of chips are no longer made in the United States. Taiwan dominates semiconductor manufacturing, and one company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, virtually controls the market. Last month, TSMC accounted for more than half of the total foundry revenues. Foundries are the manufacturing facilities that make semiconductors. Companies in Taiwan control 63 percent of the global market.

Well, you don't have to look very far to see what a supply chain breakdown might look like because currently we are getting a taste of what it is like to not have access to the semiconductors that the U.S. economy needs. Right now, the demand for chips far exceeds supply. There is a global shortage of semiconductors that is creating serious impacts in nearly every industry, from consumer electronics to national security.

Texas is home to companies across a whole range of affected industries, and last week, I was able to sit down with leaders from a few of those companies in Dallas to learn more about the impact of this shortage.

We heard from a Hewlett Packard executive about the difficulties this has created in consumer electronic manufacturing covering a whole gamut of products.

An executive from Raytheon, a national defense company, talked about how a steady supply of chips is important to our national security. These tiny technologies, these tiny circuits help support American warfighters around the globe.

We know now that the auto industry is among the hardest hit, and I heard from leaders last week from General Motors and Toyota about how their companies are coping. Chris Nielsen from Toyota said that when he first started with the company, you could count the number of chips on a given vehicle on two hands. That is certainly not the case today. Think about all the high-tech features in cars these days--navigation devices, Bluetooth, automatic braking, backup cameras, and a variety of sensors. All of those depend on semiconductors, and that is on top of standard features like power steering, electric windows, air- conditioning, and windshield wipers. This adds up to dozens and dozens of chips for the various components of a single vehicle, and that supply is getting harder and harder to come by.

At the beginning of the pandemic, automaker suppliers predicted a drop in car sales and canceled existing chip orders. Semiconductor manufacturers replaced the auto chip capacity with other in-demand things like personal computers for kids learning at home or more ventilators to use with COVID-19 patients. But Americans kept buying cars at the prepandemic level.

Unfortunately, the shortage of semiconductor manufacturing capacity and the long lead time for chip making has meant a shortage of chips that will likely last through the summer for the auto industry, and it has forced many auto makers to slash production because they simply don't have enough chips, and they are laying workers off. Some have shifted production to focus on the most in-demand models, while others removed some of the tech bells and whistles.

But the impact goes far beyond the options available on a car lot. For every production or assembly line that is cut, there are hard- working men and women who lose their jobs, as I said. As a reminder, this industry reaches across virtually every business and every national security company in America--automotive, consumer electronics; everything from the F-35, our fifth-generation stealth fighter, down to your cell phone, agriculture. Some of them even power children's toys.

Well, there is a clear problem with this vulnerable supply chain, and the question is, How do we fix it? How do we solve it? When we faced supply chain shortages at the start of the pandemic, companies of all types began to shift their manufacturing to help alleviate some of the strain. Distilleries

in Texas and across the country began making hand sanitizer, and everyone, from big clothing manufacturers to entrepreneurial kids, produced cloth face masks. But with semiconductors, it is not that simple. In order to build a single chip, you need a very expensive, highly advanced piece of equipment. You also need skilled workers, and you need a lot of lead time. It can take months to create a single chip.

Building a new foundry, which is a manufacturing facility, is a huge and expensive undertaking. A single foundry can cost upwards of $10 to $20 billion. Yes, that is with a ``b.'' It is $10 to $20 billion for a single foundry.

During our conversations last week in Dallas, a Qorvo executive talked about how the process of building a new chip fab isn't just expensive, it takes a lot of time. It can take years to receive all of the necessary equipment.

Time is of the essence, and fortunately a solution is not as daunting as it could seem. In part because of the dependency of this vulnerable supply chain, particularly with Taiwan, Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I introduced the CHIPS for America Act to help bolster our domestic semiconductor manufacturing. When we first introduced this bill, the chip shortage wasn't nearly as pervasive as it is now, but the writing has been on the wall for years.

As our reliance on semiconductors has steadily increased, the U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing has decreased. Since 2000, the United States has dropped from producing roughly a quarter of the world's semiconductors to only 12 percent. And I am sure it comes as no surprise that as our manufacturing capacity has gone down, China's has gone up. In the same period of time, China has gone from manufacturing zero chips to 16 percent of the world's supply, and it plans to invest another $1.4 trillion in semiconductor technologies.

Yes, America has lost ground to our global competitors, and unless we take action, it is estimated that by 2030, 83 percent of global semiconductor manufacturing will be in Asia. This presents a huge risk to both our national security and our global competitiveness, and we need to take action now to reverse the tide.

That is what the CHIPS for America Act will do. The premise of this legislation is straightforward: create a Federal incentive program to encourage chip manufacturing in the United States of America. Rather than relying on foreign manufacturers or competing against other countries for the small supply of chips, let's bolster the supply of American-made semiconductors. This way, we can secure some of our most vulnerable supply chains. We can create thousands of well-paying American jobs and boost our global competitiveness by supplying made- in-America chips to our friends and allies around the world.

In the 1980s, President Reagan and Congress led the defense budget buildup to counter military-based, geostrategic threats that contributed to the end of the Cold War. This legislation fills a similar purpose by securing our critical supply chain from the ever- evolving economic and national security challenges ahead.

Other governments have made similar investments in semiconductor manufacturing--not only China but South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Germany, among others, including a more than $100 billion pledge to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the European Union. It is time for the United States not to just follow suit but to lead.

The CHIPS for America Act has received broad bipartisan support both in the House and the Senate, and it became law in January. That is the authorization part, but now we have the important job of backing these programs with funding

Back in February, I spoke to President Biden about the importance of getting this done, and I am glad to say that there is bipartisan, bicameral support, and the administration has made this a priority as well.

Last month, I sent a letter to President Biden urging him to prioritize funding for these initiatives, and more than 70 colleagues, Republicans and Democrats from the House and the Senate, cosigned the letter. If we are looking for something important to do that has broad bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate and is supported by the Biden administration, this is it.

Bolstering domestic semiconductors is good for our economy, our national security, and our global competitiveness. This current shortage is a reminder of how critical it is to take action today so a lean supply of semiconductors does not become the new normal. We have a big opportunity ahead of us, and success is our only option.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, last night, the American people heard from President Biden in his first address to a joint session of Congress. The American people heard him speak about many of the same themes he touched on in his inauguration: unifying the country, healing the soul of our Nation, healing the divisions that divide us. It sounds great, but those who have paid attention to the President's actions know that his rhetoric and his actions don't line up.

The only legislative achievement so far for President Biden has been an eye-popping $1.9 trillion piece of spending that was branded as COVID-19 relief. It was so controversial that our Democratic colleagues didn't bother to use the standard legislative procedure. Instead, they used the budget reconciliation process so they could make it a law without a single Republican vote--hardly coming together and unifying the country.

As expected, President Biden had the audacity to brand this legislation as the reason why we have made such progress in fighting COVID-19. He touted the fact that America has provided more than 220 million COVID vaccinations during his first 100 days in office. But he didn't mention the fact that less than 1 percent of the funding in his signature legislation actually supported vaccinations--less than 1 percent. Less than 10 percent was directly related to COVID-19 at all.

If there were any doubts that this liberal spending binge was about to end, President Biden cleared that up last night too. He talked about his more than $2.6 trillion American Jobs Plan, which relies on a very generous interpretation of the word ``infrastructure,'' or should I say Orwellian. He discussed the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which includes everything from universal preschool to free community college, to mandatory paid leave policies and tax provisions.

You know, you have to love politicians when they talk about giving away free stuff. The folks back home know better. Somebody has to pay for it. As my friend Senator Tim Scott said in the Republican response last night, these policies could put Washington even more in the middle of Americans' lives, from cradle to college.

These three proposals total more than $6 trillion--an amount so large, it is hard for any of us to wrap our head around it. That is on top of the money that was spent last year in a bipartisan effort to defeat COVID-19. The proposals equate to a spending rate of $60 billion a day during the President's first 100 days in office.

Six trillion dollars is one-quarter of our gross domestic product. If you convert our country's World War II spending into today's dollars, the three Biden spending proposals are even more expensive than what it cost us to arm and defeat Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.

But I want to be clear. These aren't wartime expenses. These aren't even necessary expenses, in many cases. These proposals have absolutely nothing to do with our current fight against COVID-19. Two hundred billion dollars to build or retrofit ``sustainable'' places to live; $225 billion for paid family leave; $178 billion on electric vehicle chargers--more socialism for rich people; $400 billion for home-based care. This money adds up pretty quickly.

I am not saying our country should cut off all of our spending altogether. There are necessary expenses and investments that need to be made. But this is not the time for a spending binge. We need to make smart financial decisions that will serve the next generation, not drive them further and further into debt.

The biggest question here, though, as with any type of government spending, is, How are you going to pay for it? For the Biden administration, the answer is simple: higher taxes. In fact, the President has proposed the largest tax hikes in more than half a century

Now, economics 101 would teach you that tax increases aren't a clear and easy way to boost revenue, especially when your economy is already on a fragile footing. President Obama observed as much when we were recovering from the great recession of 2008, that raising taxes during a recovery from a recession is a bad idea. Raising trillions of dollars in new taxes will not set us up for a strong recovery; it will simply throw even more wrenches into our sluggish economic engine.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the American economy was on a roll. The economy was booming. Unemployment was at a 50-year low. Companies were coming back on shore, moving their headquarters to the United States, in part because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act set the stage for this recovery.

Instead of building upon what we did in 2017, the administration now wants to repeal those tax provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and double down on the old, tired talking points that America can simply tax and spend and regulate itself into prosperity.

Massive tax hikes are not the way to stabilize a shaky recovery, and I worry how much damage these increases will do if our Democratic colleagues insist on doing more partisan, party-line legislating.

The President did nothing to ease my concern about another looming problem, and that is the crisis on our border. For months, the President and members of his administration have denied what is a clear and growing crisis on the border. I hoped he might finally acknowledge the reality of the

situation in his prime-time address and commit to working together with us to solve it, but no such luck. Instead, he talked about the need to provide a solution for DACA recipients and undertake broader immigration reform.

I want to be clear here. I agree that Congress should take action to give DACA recipients the legal certainty and stability they deserve. This is a priority for folks on both sides of the aisle, and I hope we will finally be able to get a bill on the President's desk to help these young people who have done nothing wrong. More broadly, there is no denying our immigration system is in need of reform. It is outdated and inefficient and simply doesn't meet the needs of our country today. But we are not ready for those types of conversations until we solve the immediate crisis at the border.

Last month alone, more than 172,000 migrants crossed our southern border, and 100,000 crossed in February. Nearly 19,000 of those individuals who came across last month were unaccompanied children.

We have seen migration in the past, surges, but never anything like this and never during a pandemic. There are serious risks to our law enforcement officials, our nongovernmental associations, and, of course, to the migrants themselves.

Something needs to be done now before the crisis grows even larger. If you are cooking dinner for your family and the food in the oven catches on fire, are you going to keep stirring the pot on the stove? Are you going to set the table or call your kids to come downstairs for dinner? No. You are going to put the fire out first. That is what we need to do now. Before we can even have those necessary conversations about immigration reform, we need to put the fire out and put it out now.

Once we have taken action on the border crisis, I hope we can have serious, bipartisan discussions about immigration reform and finally provide DACA recipients the certainty they deserve, but that can't happen until the crisis on the border is addressed.

Like I said, I am disappointed that the President didn't address this in his speech last evening. I was hoping he would be willing to work with a bipartisan group of Senators and Congressmen who are eager to take action.

Last week, Senator Sinema from Arizona and I introduced the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act, a straightforward and commonsense way to address this crisis. The bill already has the support of Members from both parties and in both Chambers, as well as a number of respected organizations. We would be glad to gain the support of the administration as well. But you can't solve a problem until you first acknowledge that you have a problem, and we have a problem with the crisis on the border.

This is not going to get any better. We know that much of this migration is seasonal, and so the high numbers--more than 300,000 that we have seen so far this year--are going to translate into even more numbers next month and next month and next. So the time to deal with this is now, but, like I said, until the administration acknowledges that there is a problem and that we need to work on it together, it is going to get nothing but worse.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, tomorrow evening, across the Capitol, President Biden will deliver his first State of the Union Address. As we continue to make headway in our fight against COVID-19, I expect the President to reflect on the tremendous progress we have made and encourage Americans to get vaccinated. So far so good.

But I also believe he will try to frame the nearly $2 trillion partisan bill that was rammed through Congress earlier this year as the driving force behind that progress, even though less than 10 percent of the bill was related to COVID-19.

I expect the President will call on Congress to pass his so-called infrastructure bill, which is similar to the COVID-19 relief bill in that it is a partisan bill having very little to do with the title of the bill itself. Only about 5 percent, in fact, goes toward roads and bridges, something we would all define as infrastructure.

I am hopeful that the President will finally announce a plan to address the crisis at our southern border because, so far, the administration has been largely silent. The crisis at the southern border is real; it is big; and it is growing. We are breaking all the wrong kinds of records, including the numbers of unaccompanied children, total monthly border crossings, and the capacity levels at our care facilities.

In March, we saw the highest number of border crossings on record, more than 172,000 individuals. That was a dramatic increase from the already eye-popping 100,000 in February--February, 100,000; March, 172,000; and, trust me, it is going to get nothing but worse.

Nearly 19,000 of these individuals were unaccompanied children, the highest numbers we have ever seen in a single month. Sometimes people will say: That child came to America all by himself or herself. I want to disabuse my colleagues of any notion that a child--small child-- would make that trip to the United States ``by themselves.'' These children are being turned over to criminal organizations that are paid by the head to transport them from their country of origin into the United States and, unfortunately, these human smugglers, known in my part of the country as ``coyotes,'' care nothing for the welfare of those children. It is only the money that they could produce by transporting them to the United States that they care about.

It is true we know that a spike in migration is not an entirely new phenomena and, sadly, neither is the dramatic increase in the number of children, but the current surge is unlike any we have experienced in at least the last 20 years, according to Director Mayorkas.

These eye-popping numbers are compounded by a deadly pandemic. We have never seen that before. The pandemic, of course, has made once routine tasks like transporting and caring for migrants incredibly dangerous to the men and women who are performing those duties.

In an effort to downplay the seriousness of the border crisis or to defer attention from it altogether, the administration has spent literally no time talking about it, especially when compared to the time and energy that it has dedicated to things like climate change.

In fact, the Biden administration has spent the first several weeks of the surge denying that there is anything wrong at the border. Then they came up with some creative euphemisms to describe what has happened. They called it a challenge. They called it a situation. They called it a mess. Well, as long as you didn't call it a crisis, they didn't seem too bothered by it.

A month ago, the President tapped the Vice President to lead efforts to address this crisis, which I thought was a positive sign, until I realized Vice President Harris acted as though the President had handed her a hand grenade and had pulled the pin because she couldn't get away from it fast enough, saying the next day that, well, her job is purely diplomatic in nature. She hasn't made a single trip to the border and, apparently, does not plan to do so at all.

The President has given lip service to encouraging migrants not to come, but those statements mean absolutely nothing when all of the other signals being sent by this administration are: There is a green light and a welcome mat out for migrants to come to the United States.

The situation is such that we are reaching a breaking point, and the Vice President and President could recognize that if they took the time to look and to learn from the very same people I have learned from, the experts who do these terribly difficult jobs along the border.

As you can imagine, I have spent a lot of time listening to those folks because I represent them. They are my constituents. I visited border communities and heard from the Border Patrol officers, mayors, county judges, and NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, that are doing the best they can dealing with overwhelming numbers.

I had the opportunity to actually talk to some of the migrants themselves about their journeys to our border and what brought them here. In the Rio Grande Valley, I spoke with three young mothers holding their crying infants less than a mile from the river they crossed into the United States. They had just undergone preliminary health screenings and were waiting for a bus to take them to a processing center.

And, please, our colleagues should understand these migrants are not trying to get away from the Border Patrol. They are literally walking up to the Border Patrol and turning themselves in because they realize that is the next step to their being placed into the interior of the United States and completing their journey.

Of course, as you can imagine, each of these mothers was hopeful. They made it to the United States and knew that as a family unit with young children they would be cared for by our government and then released into the interior of the United States. One of the mothers paid $3,600, she said, to get here. Another paid $6,000. This is big business for the smugglers and the criminal organizations that charge thousands of dollars to bring migrants to the U.S. border.

I think it is important to note that this is not just a Mexico- Central American phenomena. A couple of months

ago, when I was down at the Del Rio sector of the Border Patrol, the Border Patrol Chief showed us a slide with the names of 54 different countries represented by the people who were detained coming across the Del Rio sector just so far this year--54 different countries.

As I said, many of these ``customers'' are children traveling with no parents. We know the journey is not a safe or easy one. In fact, it is dangerous, and it is hard, and many children arrive in critical health, having endured days, weeks, and months on the road. And the tragic fact is, some of these children don't make it. They die en route.

I have heard horrific stories of physical and sexual abuse that occurs at the hands of the criminals, cartels, and human smugglers, and others traveling in a large caravan of immigrants. At the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, which is now serving as a shelter for migrant boys, I talked to one young man who endured a 3- month-long trek on foot from Central America to the United States. He told us he slept in the jungles along the way and that food was scarce. As you can imagine, he was happy now to be in a shelter receiving three square meals a day with a roof over his head.

These stories are not unique. Many of us have seen the heartbreaking video of a young boy abandoned by smugglers in the Rio Grande Valley, dropped from the top of the wall into the interior of the United States. And we have read the story about a young girl who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande River. And we have seen where the smugglers who care so little for the welfare of the people they are smuggling into the United States--and in one instance they threw a 6- month-old child into the river, knowing the Border Patrol would be diverted in order to save the child, which thankfully they did, while they skedaddled into the United States.

I think it is heartbreaking that these children are enduring this sort of trauma, and it is infuriating that cartels and criminal organizations are getting richer in the process.

So make no mistake, there is a crisis at the border and the policies of the Biden administration helped make it worse. Despite warnings from folks on both sides of the aisle, the administration revoked policies of the previous administration without any alternative plan in its place. Making matters worse, they entirely failed to prepare for the obvious consequences. Now the question is, What are they going to do to address it?

I believe the American people deserve to hear from President Biden his outline of a plan to address the border crisis and to manage this surge of humanity in a fair and humane way. If the President is still working on that portion of the speech, I would like to make a friendly suggestion.

There is a grassroots plan out there that was built from bottom up by the Senators and Congressmen most familiar with the crisis. It includes input from the men and women who dealt with migration surges in the past and who are working around-the-clock to manage the consequences of uncontrolled movement of migrants across the border now. It is called the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act.

Senator Sinema from Arizona, who also represents a border State, and I have introduced this legislation here in the Senate. We are proud to work with two Texans, one Republican and one Democrat, Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Tony Gonzales, a Republican in the 23rd Congressional District. He represents, I believe, the largest single section of the U.S.-Mexico border of any Member in Congress. Our bill seeks to address the most urgent problems on the border today. There is more we can and should do, but at least this would address the most urgent problems.

First, it would establish four regional processing centers to streamline the processing of migrants. Right now, the smugglers know that if they flood the zone with children, the Border Patrol are going to have to go off the frontline in order to take care of the children, leaving it wide open for smuggling narcotics and other migrants-- narcotics which, by the way, contributed to roughly 88,000 drug overdoses in America alone in the last 12 months.

Our bill would provide protections for migrant children who come into the country without a parent or any relatives.

It would help reduce the immigration court backlog and remove a major pull factor for migrants who do not have a legitimate asylum claim. But it would, more importantly, speed up the process for the most vulnerable migrants who do have a valid asylum claim.

I think these are commonsense reforms that should earn the support of Members from both parties in both Chambers in Congress, as well as a number of respected outside organizations.

We would be glad to receive the support of the administration or at least a phone call so we can begin conversations. Ignoring this crisis will not make it go away. We have spent the last couple of months demonstrating that inaction will only make it worse.

As I said, we have seen surges in the past but never like this. The busiest months are usually April, May, and June, not February and March, which indicates, by historical trends, it is going to get worse and worse and worse. If our facilities and our personnel are overwhelmed today, which they are, and we haven't yet reached the normal busy season, how much worse are things going to get? How many more children will die in the hands of these criminals on their way to the United States before we decide to take action?

As the Presiding Officer and I have discussed before, there is nobody else to solve these problems except us. On something as important as this, it seems like a logical area for Republicans and Democrats to work together to try to take at least some modest steps to address this crisis. I hope the President will work with us and be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor to this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the last few months, we have been spending a lot of time talking about the surge of migrants at our southern border and, as the Presiding Officer knows, we are having bipartisan meetings here to try to figure out how to address that and other challenges of our broken immigration system.

We know the spike in migration is not a new phenomenon, and sadly, neither is the increase in the number of unaccompanied children. But the current surge is unlike anything we have experienced in the past. We are breaking all the wrong kinds of records, including the numbers of unaccompanied children, total monthly border crossings, and capacity levels at care facilities. And, of course, all of this is happening during a pandemic which creates serious risks for our law enforcement and for those caring for these migrants and for the migrants themselves.

Unfortunately, the administration has not yet figured out how to stop this flow of illegal immigration. The President and his team are telling migrants: Don't come. But when it comes to his policies, all of his policies say: Come while you can.

They haven't figured out how to replace Trump-era policies, and so what they have done is left a void that is being exploited by everybody from the coyotes, the human smugglers, the people who smuggle in drugs into the United States, as well as the people who understandably want a better life. Maybe they are fleeing poverty or violence. We all understand why people want to come to the United States, but we also believe the safest and fairest sort of immigration policy is legal immigration into our country.

We are the most generous country in the world. We have naturalized about a million people a year. It is one of our comparative advantages compared to the rest of the world that restricts migration. Over the last few months, like many of us, I have spent a lot of time listening and learning from the folks on the ground in Texas who know the ins and outs of this topic better than anybody else.

I have visited border communities and heard from Border Patrol officers, mayors, county judges, and nongovernmental organizations that try to help these migrants once they make their way to the United States, and whose experience precedes this current surge.

I visited five of the facilities in Texas that are helping take care of the record number of migrant children in Carrizo Springs, Donna, Houston, Midland, and Dallas. I have heard about the heartbreaking circumstances under which many of these children have arrived on our doorsteps. I have seen the incredible ways that our nongovernmental organizations, like Catholic Charities, are trying to ease the burden of this crisis, even after a year of supporting their communities through a global pandemic.

The reality of this situation is that we are quickly nearing a breaking point. We lack the facilities, the personnel, the resources, and the policies needed to manage this crisis. Law enforcement in border communities are being overwhelmed by the sharp increase in migration, and unless something changes, the entire system could collapse.

The light is flashing red, and the time for action is now. That is why today I am proud to introduce the bipartisan Border Solutions Act, along with Senator Sinema, to address this crisis.

It is no accident that both of us represent border States and that both of us have heard from our communities and stakeholders on the ground about how important it is for Congress to step up and provide some way to mitigate the current crisis.

On the House side, we have two of my friends in the Texas delegation--Congressmen Henry Cuellar, from Laredo, and Tony Gonzales, who represents one of the largest border districts in the country. So we truly have a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation.

Our knowledge of this crisis doesn't just come from the news or political talking points but, as I suggested, from real conversations with the real people who are dealing with this and have dealt with previous surges. We have heard from State and local leaders, law enforcement, NGOs, as I said, and a range of property owners whose property is being overrun by the coyotes and those who are involved in this illegal immigration process. So their input has been the driving force behind the bill, which includes, I believe, commonsense measures to address this crisis.

It is not, admittedly, a comprehensive immigration bill, but we need to put the fire out first and then build on our success, once we have passed that legislation, to do the other things that I think we can probably agree on, on a consensus basis, such as we discussed with the majority leader and others last evening

The Bipartisan Border Solutions Act is not about scoring political points. It is about solving a problem, and that problem is getting bigger every day. The most immediate problem is our inability to properly process the sheer number of people crossing our border.

Our Border Patrol and Health and Human Services, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement are simply overwhelmed. In March, we saw the highest number of border crossings on record: 172,000 individuals. That was a dramatic increase from the eye-popping numbers in February, which totaled 100,000.

As I said, we have seen these surges before but never a surge like this magnitude. Now, the busiest months for people to cross the border typically are April, May, and June but not February and not March. So we know that this is only going to get worse based on our historical experience.

If our facilities and people are already overwhelmed, imagine how the strain will intensify if we do nothing. We already know that, in processing these migrants, important steps are being skipped in an effort to expedite the process.

Normally, if someone comes across the border seeking asylum, for example, they will be processed and released with a notice to appear for a future court hearing. That document includes important information like when and where their first court date is set. In many cases, right now, it just isn't happening.

Many migrants are being released in the interior of the United States with incomplete paperwork, and they are not given any notice to appear for a future immigration court date. And, you know, if they don't show up in court, a

default order of deportation will be entered even if they have a meritorious claim for asylum. So it has real consequences.

But what else can our government officials and our local communities do? Unfortunately, they do not want us to continue releasing people to the interior without a court date or information on what is needed in order to assert your claim. And as I said, without appearing in court, a migrant with a valid asylum claim won't be able to receive the relief that U.S. law provides for them.

At one point, the situation was so bad, the Biden administration considered flying migrants to less busy locations on the northern border to be processed. So there is really no question we need to improve our capacity and our process to handle these migrants more thoroughly and efficiently.

Our bipartisan bill here in the Senate and in the House will establish four regional processing centers in high-traffic areas along the border to streamline the intake of migrants. One reason that is so important, just beyond capacity issues, is that the smugglers who smuggle people into the United States for a price--part of transnational criminal organizations--they make a lot of money doing this, and they are smart. They know if they flood the zone with unaccompanied children, that the Border Patrol will go offline in order to take care of those children, which we want those children taken care of. But what the smugglers know and what the transnational criminal organizations know is once those Border Patrol come off the frontline, they are going to exploit that loophole by running drugs into the United States or more migrants.

Last year alone--or the last 12 months alone, 88,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses. And 92 percent of the heroin that comes into the United States comes from Mexico, together with a lot of methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, and you name it. So we are dealing with incredibly shrewd and crafty people who understand the border perhaps better than most of us do.

One of the worst parts of the current crisis is the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who are making the dangerous trip from Central America or Mexico without their parents. Many of us have seen the heartbreaking video of a young boy, abandoned by smugglers in the Rio Grande Valley, and he was asking for directions because he was lost. Smugglers left him behind. I don't know why. Maybe he was injured or ill or slowing them down, but these smugglers don't care about this young boy or any other human being. All they care about is the money.

And we have also read the story about a young girl who drowned trying to cross the river. And who can forget the young girls, ages 3 and 5, who literally were dropped over the border wall by human smugglers?

The truth is, migrant children endure unimaginable abuse and trauma in the hands of these criminal organizations. We need to try better, and we need to do better to provide protections to these children and ensure that they will not continue to be traumatized or abused once they cross our borders.

For example, our bill also provides that children cannot be released into the custody of a relative or sponsor who could potentially inflict even more harm upon them. No sex offender, no child abuser, and no other dangerous criminal should be given the responsibility to care for one of these children.

We also need to remove some of the pull factors that encourage migrants to make this dangerous journey to our border in the first place. Many smugglers, known colloquially as coyotes, know our immigration laws better than most Americans, and they know how to exploit them, as I said.

There is no doubt our backlogged legal system is one of the pull factors for these migrants. One of the biggest selling points for the smugglers is the immigration court backlog, which is currently 1.3 million cases. On average, it takes 2\1/2\ years to get from the border to an immigration judge.

A person or family can come here illegally and present weak or virtually nonexistent asylum claims with an almost certain guarantee that they will be able to stay in the United States for years while their claims are being adjudicated. That needs to change. Our legislation takes a number of steps to reduce the wait times and eliminate the backlog as a draw for even more illegal immigration and ensure that meritorious claims are recognized in a timely manner.

The first part of this is, we need to hire more people. We need more immigration judges. We need more asylum officials. We need litigation teams and other staff who play a role in these legal proceedings. The only way to eliminate this backlog is to work through it, and this bill allows us to hire hundreds of people to do just that.

Our legislation includes another important change to remove this backlog as a pull factor. During surge events like we are experiencing now, the cases of those arriving will be prioritized. In other words, we will put them at the front of line, not the back of the line where we will never get to them. For those with legitimate asylum claims, that should be good news. About 10 or 12 percent of the people who show up on our front doormat have legitimate asylum claims that are upheld by immigration judges, and we should provide them a timely hearing in front of a judge so they can receive the benefit of U.S. law.

But this will also serve as a deterrent for those who know their asylum claims are weak. Why pay smugglers thousands of dollars to reach the United States if your case will quickly be heard and dismissed for lack of merit resulting in your return? That is one of the pull factors that we can establish and we can improve to deter people from wasting their hard-earned money with nonexistent or weak asylum claims.

And, finally, the bill will ensure that migrants are treated fairly and humanely so we can be confident that our asylum system is working as we intended. This legislation includes a large number of other commonsense measures to alleviate staffing shortages, improve coordination between Federal, State, and local officials, expand language translation and legal orientation services for migrants, and the list goes on.

Former Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost once described this surge in migration as like holding a bucket under the faucet. It doesn't matter how many buckets you have if you can't turn off the water. In the short term, we do need a bigger bucket. That includes facilities to process these migrants and personnel to adjudicate their asylum claims. But it won't matter how big that bucket is if we don't stop the flow or at least reduce it.

We need to eliminate the pull factors that encourage migrants who do not qualify under our law for asylum from even attempting the dangerous journey to our border in the first place. That is exactly why the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act is the answer or an answer to the crisis at hand.

This bill will deter illegal immigration without interfering with legitimate claims. It will ensure that migrants' claims are processed efficiently, without skipping important steps, and it will provide critical protections for children who come here alone.

The fact that we have a bill that is bipartisan and bicameral is a testament to the commonsense reforms included in this legislation, and I have been proud to work with Senator Sinema, Congressman Cuellar, and Congressman Gonzales on this bill, and we would invite our colleagues to look at the bill and join us in cosponsoring it on a bipartisan basis.

Now, one thing I can guarantee is this is not the end-all, be-all. This is not some silver bullet that is going to solve all of our problems, but what I think it will do is help restore public confidence that we are serious about enforcing our laws, while remaining generous in providing legal claims the benefit of a hearing and validation.

We are, in fact, the most generous Nation in the world when it comes to legal immigration--naturalizing, roughly, a million people a year. But the truth is, my State and all our States, those of us on this bill currently, have borne the brunt of this crisis because of the failures of the Federal Government to deal with them.

So we have developed a list of bipartisan cosponsors, and I hope the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and

the minority leader will commit to working with us to solve this crisis in a fair and humane way.

And the last thing I will say is, we are all ears if somebody has a better idea, but so far we haven't seen anybody step up and say: I have got an answer or at least a partial answer or response that has bipartisan and bicameral support.

So I hope our colleagues will take a look at this, will work with us, and if they have got a better idea, as I said, we are all ears

Mr. President, as my friend the Republican leader likes to remind us, the Senate is not just a legislative body; we are also in the personnel business. One of the Senate's core responsibilities is to provide advice and consent for the President's nominees for a range of important jobs throughout the Federal Government. In fact, it is a constitutional duty of the Senate to perform that function.

When the President is of the opposing party, there is all but a guarantee that you will not see eye to eye with every nominee, but the process isn't just about politics or judging nominees based on whether their opinions align with your own. As I see it, we are charged with evaluating these individuals to see if they are qualified not only to carry out the duties of their position but will also do so with honor and integrity.

Take Attorney General Merrick Garland, for example. When the Senate considered his nomination, it became clear that he had both the experience and the temperament to lead the Department of Justice. Do we agree on everything? No. But he committed to do everything in his power to keep politics out of the Department of Justice, and I have no reason to doubt his credibility.

The same could be said of the President's nominee for Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, who was confirmed yesterday by the Senate. Ms. Monaco is a longtime public servant who previously served for 15 years at the Department of Justice. Throughout her career, she has earned the respect of folks on both sides of the aisle, and I believe she will bring a wealth of experience and institutional knowledge to the Department.

So my point is, I have supported the majority of President Biden's nominees thus far, and every single nominee has received bipartisan support at some level. But unfortunately, it looks like we are about ready to break that record of bipartisanship.

Today, the Senate will vote on the nomination of Vanita Gupta to serve as

Associate Attorney General, the third highest official at the Department of Justice. Unlike previous nominees who have received bipartisan support, there is not a single person on this side of the aisle who believes that Ms. Gupta is fit to serve as the third in command at the Department of Justice.

I can't predict what the final vote will be. It will be at 2:30. But I hear nobody on this side of the aisle saying she is an exemplar of the type of person who should serve in the Department of Justice.

As I said, this is not about politics; nor are those of us who are opposed to her nomination opposed because of her gender or race. To the contrary, those are irrelevant. Instead, the lack of support for Ms. Gupta is a result of her radical record far outside the mainstream and her career as a partisan activist. In fact, she has championed radical policies basically all of her professional career.

In addition, throughout the confirmation process, Ms. Gupta was asked about the long, long list of controversial, misleading, and sometimes outright false public statements that she has made in the past--her statement before the Judiciary last summer, for example, that we should effectively defund the police; her op-ed that argued we should effectively revoke qualified immunity for law enforcement in civil lawsuits; but worst of all were her prior statements on drug policy.

In 2012, Ms. Gupta wrote in an op-ed in the Huffington Post that ``States should decriminalize simple possession of all drugs.'' ``All drugs.'' This is obviously an incredibly controversial statement and way out of step with most Americans' views, for good reason. What she said is, as long as they were small amounts, she would legalize heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine, you name it.

When Ms. Gupta tried to distance herself from these previous positions that are published in black and white, here is what the Washington Post Fact Checker said:

For this tango of previously unacknowledged flip-flops,

Gupta earns an Upside-Down Pinocchio.

Now I have seen a one Pinocchio, two Pinocchio, three Pinocchio, even a four, but I have never seen an upside-down Pinocchio for a ``tango of previously unacknowledged flip-flops.'' The Fact Check examined Ms. Gupta's confusing then and now statements on police budgets, qualified immunity, and drug policy, and that is what they found.

Now, I understand and respect the fact that people's opinions can change over time. As we learn new information or have different experiences in life, we all understand that one's views can change. But there is a big difference between honestly forming a new opinion and undergoing a confirmation conversion to bury radical views on controversial subjects. After all, how could anyone support a nominee who advocated the decriminalization of all drugs, especially for the No. 3 spot at the Department of Justice? I am not sure anyone in this Chamber, Republican or Democrat, could support someone to serve in the upper echelon of the Justice Department who supported the legalization of heroin, fentanyl, and other dangerous street narcotics. That is why she attempted to whitewash it. She knew she couldn't get nominated, much less confirmed, if she didn't.

But here is what we know about drug abuse in America. This is a map of national opioid death rates in America. As you can see, they go from the dark colors, which is where the death rate is 29 to 43 per 100,000 population, to the slightly lighter range, which is 20 to 29, roughly, people per 100,000, and then the lighter ones, obviously, until you get to the lowest one, which is 3.5 to 10.9.

Every community in America has felt the pain and anguish from the opioid crisis. In 2019, there were more than 70,000 overdose deaths in America. There were 70,000 Americans who lost their lives. We are still waiting on complete figures from 2020, but preliminary data shows things are trending in the wrong direction. From June 2019 through May 2020, more than 81,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses.

Fighting the opioid epidemic is a cause every person in this Chamber can get behind because, as you can see, each of our States has been impacted. In 2016, thanks to the hard work of a bipartisan group of Senators, we passed what became known as the CARA Act--the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act--to help more Americans break this devastating cycle of drug use, drug abuse, and overdose, and we appropriated tens of billions of dollars to fight this scourge.

As I said and as you can see, no State has been spared the pain and suffering from the opioid epidemic, but we do know some have been hit harder than others. For example, one of the States, with the darkest color, with the highest rate of overdose deaths is Ohio. And we can see here what had happened in the period, roughly, from 2009 to 2019.

From 2009 to 2019, 10 years, there were more than 33,000 drug overdoses and deaths in Ohio alone--33,000 Ohioans, each with their unique value, contribution, and story. It is an absolutely heartbreaking number of deaths that should have been prevented.

Another one of those States with the worst problems with opioids was New Hampshire. In 2013, the drug overdose deaths per capita were slightly above the national average, at 15 deaths per 100,000. In New Hampshire, in 2016, just 3 years later, the death rate increased 158 percent.

First responders across New Hampshire experienced a dramatic increase in the calls they got for overdoses so they started carrying Narcan, a medication used to reverse an overdose if you get there in time before the overdosed individual dies. They carry them in their emergency gear because these overdose calls became so common.

Another one of those States hit particularly hard is West Virginia. In 2019, West Virginia had the highest overdose deaths per capita. For every 100,000 population, more than 52 were from an overdose, double the national figure. That is 21.6 per 100,000 that went up--that is the national--and the West Virginia number is double, as you can see.

Our friend Senator Capito has been a tireless advocate for West Virginia families, many of whom have felt the pain of this crisis firsthand. She recently wrote an op-ed about this nominee and the contradictory and confounding statements she has made in the past, particularly on drug policy.

Senator Capito wrote:

It's hard to imagine the level of devastation [that] we

would see if all of these drugs actually were legalized. And,

it's even harder to imagine that a nominee for a critical law

enforcement position would hold this view.

I completely agree with our friend from West Virginia. Given the ruin that the opioid epidemic has dealt in communities across the country, I can't even begin to imagine how much worse it would be had the States heeded Ms. Gupta's call to decriminalize all drugs for personal use. If fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and other highly addictive drugs were decriminalized, how many more Americans would become addicted? How many more would have died? How many more families would suffer the loss of a child? a sibling? a parent?

I am profoundly concerned by Ms. Gupta's prior statements on drug policy, as well as her radical statements on defunding the police, disarming the police in civil lawsuits by eliminating qualified immunity, abolishing the death penalty for the most heinous crimes, and so much more.

Worse, though, is her inability to be honest about her position on issues that would directly fall within her purview at the Department of Justice. The American people deserve to know that leaders at any government Department or Agency--but especially the Department of Justice--they deserve to know that these public servants are honest and will tell them the truth. As Ms. Gupta's upside-down Pinocchio indicates, no Senator can have the confidence that Ms. Gupta would be honest with them or tell them the truth.

We hold hearings. We put witnesses under oath promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God, and we don't expect people will come into those hearings and lie. We ask followup questions. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding that you would like to clear up.

Believe it or not, Ms. Gupta answered a written question under oath stating that she had never advocated for the decriminalization of all drugs, even

though in 2012, in an op-ed she published in the Huff Post, she did exactly that. But then, for some reason, she decided to lie about it under oath to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. If she would lie to us, she would lie to you. And I fail to see how, for some reason, we think she will change the way she acts or behaves or improve her standard of behavior when it comes to honesty and truthfulness. We hold these hearings and ask these questions to understand the opinions and the character and the motivation of these nominees. But based on what the Senate has learned about Vanita Gupta, I don't believe she is fit to serve as the Associate Attorney General.

The Department of Justice, perhaps more than any other Department or Agency, must be led by men and women of honesty and integrity, people like Merrick Garland and people like Lisa Monaco who received overwhelming bipartisan votes here on the Senate floor. High-ranking public officials at the Department of Justice cannot be motivated by partisanship. They must pursue no other agenda other than fair and impartial justice.

In contrast, Ms. Gupta has shown she is a partisan activist with a penchant for skirting the truth. If confirmed as Associate Attorney General, I believe she has the potential to use the powerful tools at the Department of Justice to wage partisan warfare that has been part of her professional career to this point. If we can't trust her to be honest with us, how can we expect her to fulfill her duty of candor in courtrooms, including all aspects of the legal process that depend on honest, truthful answers and communications.

If we can't depend on her to tell the truth at the Senate Judiciary Committee in the confirmation hearing, how can we depend on her to exercise her duty of candor when applying for a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, for example.

Sadly, I believe Ms. Gupta will be a clear and present danger to the American people if she is given the muscle and might of the Department of Justice, as well as the entire Federal Government of the United States of America.

I cannot support her nomination, and I would urge all of my colleagues to do likewise.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, at the appropriate time, I would ask the Senator to yield for a brief question. But I don't want to interrupt him in his train of thought.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

This is the quote from the article that Vanita Gupta wrote on November 4, 2012. It says: ``States should decriminalize simple possession of all drugs, particularly marijuana, and for small amounts of other drugs.''

And then in her sworn testimony, in response to written questions, she said: ``I have never advocated for the decriminalization of all drugs, and I do not support the decriminalization of all drugs.''

In 2012, support for the decriminalization of all drugs; in 2021, ``I have never'' supported ``the decriminalization of all drugs.''

I wonder if my colleague--I just simply can't reconcile those two statements, both given under oath to the Judiciary Committee.

Can you reconcile those statements?

Mr. President, I would ask the Senator to yield for one last question.

We can all understand how people's views change over time, but there is no way to reconcile these two statements, 2012 and 2021, which is the reason I believe that Ms. Gupta, for some reason lost to me, decided to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee two inherently conflicting statements under oath.

She could have gotten out of it the easy way and said: ``Well, I made a mistake'' or ``I forgot'' or ``My views changed over time.'' I would have accepted that. But to come back on questions for the record and to state something that is 180 degrees opposed to her views in 2012--I have not heard her, I have not heard the distinguished majority whip, I have not heard anybody be able to reconcile those two statements.

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

Mr. President, in a State as big as Texas--as the Presiding Officer knows, having lived in and around Houston for a number of years in his previous life--we rely on a strong network of roads and bridges to travel safely and efficiently.

We have I-35, which spans the entire length of Texas, from north to south, and from Laredo all way to Dallas-Fort Worth. Much of that stretch, it seems like and feels like, is constantly under some construction.

There are bridges that are part of people's daily commutes, like RM 2900 in Kingsland. After this bridge was destroyed by floodwaters a few years back, it didn't just create inconvenience in the community but also risks. It could take a firefighter an hour to get around the water.

Fortunately, the Texas Department of Transportation and construction crews didn't waste any time, and I was able to join the dedication less than a year later. You heard that right. The bridge was destroyed, and less than a year later we dedicated the opening of that bridge.

Then we have critical projects in the works, like the ``forts to ports'' corridor of I-14, which stretches from Fort Hood all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. This will connect our critical military installations to our seaports and provide a serious boost to our military readiness.

These are much more than just roads and bridges. They are vital parts of our daily lives, trade, emergency response, and, of course, national security.

And as we welcome more new Texans every day, things are nearing a breaking point. We can't punch above our weight much longer when it come to our transportation infrastructure. It is time--and I believe it is a bipartisan belief that this is the time--to invest in our Nation's infrastructure, and we know, historically, that this has not been a partisan issue.

I am pro-infrastructure, and I imagine every person in this Chamber would tell you the same thing, regardless of whether they are from a red State or blue State. We have a strong history of working together to fund the networks of roads, bridges, airports, railroads, tunnels, and the ports that the American people rely on. For example, in 2015, we passed a 5-year highway and transit funding bill called the FAST Act, with overwhelming bipartisan support. It received 83 votes here in the Senate and 359 votes in the House, as well as the signature of President Obama. This legislation provided the certainty and stability our States need to make long-term investments in critical projects, and it was the first of its kind in more than a decade.

Last Congress, we were poised to pass a similar bill. The Environment and Public Works Committee developed a truly bipartisan example of an infrastructure bill that built on the success of the FAST Act. That was led by Chairman Barrasso and Ranking Member Carper, at the time, but it was unanimous. This legislation included provisions to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges and improve road safety, protect the environment, and grow the economy. Once again, it received broad bipartisan support and passed the committee with unanimous support.

As we know, the last year has brought us untold changes and, unfortunately, put this and other legislative goals on pause while we battled COVID-19. But now is the time to pick up where we left off and get a strong infrastructure bill signed into law.

Unfortunately, the proposal by the administration is a far cry from what the country actually needs. For starters, the cost of the plan is beyond comprehension. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates said it will cost $2.65 trillion, nearly nine times the size of the last highway bill--nine times.

When talking about this proposal, one House Democrat said: ``It's gonna to be a kitchen sink.''

The founding director of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy said: Well, the administration certainly has a ``giant definition'' for what constitutes ``infrastructure.''

But even journalists are making fun of the scope of this plan, with one writing: ``Maybe the real meaning of infrastructure is what's in our hearts.''

Well, these aren't just jokes. Only about 5 percent of this proposal is directed at roads and bridges, what some have called core infrastructure. In fact, it puts more money toward electric vehicle chargers than pavement that we drive on every day.

The proposal funds a long list of programs that are a far cry from what most people consider to be infrastructure: caregiving for the elderly and disabled, community colleges, programs to improve diversity in STEM careers. All of these are significant and important issues, but they don't belong in an infrastructure bill--certainly not one that proposes to raise taxes on the American people or to create more debt.

Then there are the most absurd policies that really resemble the Green New Deal, which I note was just reoffered by Senator Markey and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez: more than $200 billion to build or retrofit more than 2 million ``affordable and sustainable'' places to live, a ``Civilian Climate Corp,'' and an unrealistic goal of 100 percent renewable-generated electricity by 2035.

My State is an all-of-the-above State when it comes to energy, but I can tell you that if all you are depending on is renewable energy, without appropriate attention to the baseload you need, you are going to end up like we did, unfortunately, just a couple of months ago, with electricity going down due to extreme weather.

I support efforts to rebuild our infrastructure, but this is not an infrastructure proposal. This is, really, much closer to the Green New Deal 2.0. It is an encore to the nearly $2 trillion wish list that our Democratic colleagues rammed through on a partisan basis earlier this year.

Any attempt to claim that Republican won't work with Democrats on an infrastructure bill is completely disingenuous because this is not a good-faith attempt at bipartisanship.

I would be happy to work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to craft an infrastructure bill that addresses our legitimate infrastructure problems, and I think every person on this side would agree with that. That would include traditional transportation, such as roads and bridges, as well as certain forms of nontraditional infrastructure, for example, broadband.

The pandemic has really highlighted the digital divide that exists across our country, and as Americans relied on the internet to work, to attend school, for telehealth, and a long list of other activities, it has become increasingly apparent that we are far from where we should be when it comes to broadband access in this country.

There is bipartisan support for a bill that addresses our most urgent infrastructure needs without tacking on unrelated partisan priorities. As far as the price tag of the bill, I am not married to a particular number. The last highway bill that became law was roughly $300 billion, and I think we all agree there is a need to pursue something bigger and bolder. But that needs to be limited to infrastructure.

The final pricetag of that bill should be the result of bipartisan negotiations between Democrats and Republicans, not in numbers handed down from the administration, unilaterally.

There is one point I want to make abundantly clear: A bipartisan infrastructure bill must exist instead of, not in addition to, our Democrat colleagues' unrelated priorities. We can't work in a bipartisan way to pass one bill only to have our Democratic colleagues then attempt to jam through on a partisan basis on reconciliation another long list of their priorities. In other words, we have to choose, and what I suggest we choose is bipartisan infrastructure legislation.

The choice before our Democratic colleagues is whether to work together or attempt to go it alone. You really can't have both.

We also need to be serious about paying for our infrastructure in a sustainable way. We have just spent trillions of dollars on coronavirus, not to mention the long list of priorities included in the most recent partisan bill.

This is not a time to continue the spending spree. Investments in our

roads and bridges are needed, but we need to figure out how they will be paid for. The massive tax hikes that the President has proposed are not a viable option. The burden will be borne by both American employers and workers.

In previous years, the vast majority of infrastructure funding came from the highway trust fund. Every State sends dollars to this fund, which finances infrastructure across the country. But the formula to distribute the funding is out of date and is facing serious deficits.

Making matters worse, Texans are getting short-changed and carrying the weight of these shortfalls, as a so-called donor State. We get 92 cents back on every dollar we send to Washington, DC.

That is not the same treatment for every State. In fact, we receive a lower rate of return than every other State. If we want to have any long-term success in maintaining our roads and bridges, we need to bring this funding formula up to speed as well.

Unfortunately, the administration's proposal fails to do that, and instead of making any repairs to the highway trust fund, it leans on damaging tax hikes to pay for this broad range of unrelated policies.

The President has, indeed, proposed the largest set of tax hikes in more than a half a century. Economics 101 would teach you that tax increases aren't a clear and easy way to boost revenue, especially when your economy is already on fragile footing.

I hope our friends on the other side of the aisle will be willing to work with us to pass a true infrastructure bill, one that will, first and foremost, improve roads, bridges, airports, and other critical projects all across the country.

Notably, we must find a responsible way to pay for this, but tax hikes are not the answer. We have always had this idea in the highway trust fund that user fees--the people that buy gasoline and use the roadways--were the ones to pay for them, not pay for them out of general revenue. And I think we need to continue down this user-fee model, as opposed to deficit spending and adding to our debt.

Again, in closing, let me just say, if our Democratic friends want to act in a bipartisan way, there are people on this side of the aisle, including me, that would be happy to sit down and start talking. But, first of all, our Democratic colleagues must agree to abandon their long wish list of unrelated partisan provisions. They can't work with us on an infrastructure bill and then follow it with a reconciliation bill that includes the kitchen sink.

A bipartisan bill to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges is possible. We have done it before, and we can do it again.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, later this afternoon, the Senate will vote on whether to discharge the nomination of Vanita Gupta, the nominee for Associate Attorney General, from the Judiciary Committee.

Ms. Gupta is a polarizing figure, as reflected by the vote in the Judiciary Committee. It was a tie vote, 11 votes to 11. So she failed to receive a majority support from the committee, and now the Senate must vote on whether or not her nomination can come to the Senate floor for consideration.

I want to be clear, though, the passionate opposition of this nominee is not about politics. I voted to confirm the vast majority of President Biden's nominees, my attitude being that he won the election and he is entitled to populate a Cabinet and other important positions with people he has confidence in. But there are limits.

The President's nominees for the top two positions for the Department of Justice did not require this extraordinary step. I voted to support Ms. Monaco's nomination, who has been nominated for Deputy Attorney General, as well as the Attorney General himself, Judge Merrick Garland. As I said, those were not controversial nominees. This nominee is a polarizing, partisan activist and should not be confirmed to this important position.

The lack of support for Ms. Gupta is not a reflection on her political affiliation, nor of her gender, nor of her race, as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee intimated. The opposition to Ms. Gupta is a direct result of her history of inflammatory public statements, radical policy positions, and a laundry list of misleading statements and flat-out lies during her sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee.

The position of Associate Attorney General is not some bureaucratic paper-pusher. This is the third ranking position at the Department of Justice, the highest law enforcement Agency in America. The American people deserve to know that the individuals leading the Department have no agenda other than to fairly and impartially administer justice, but based on everything we now know about Ms. Gupta, I do not have faith in her ability to deliver on this most basic principle.

Ms. Gupta is not a career public servant. She is a partisan culture warrior with a radical agenda. During her tenure in jobs outside of government, during which she was a registered lobbyist, Ms. Gupta was quite outspoken about her views on just about every topic you can imagine. She slandered Supreme Court nominees. She vilified organizations that she disagreed with. She even took a crack or two at a number of our Senate colleagues.

But the words I find most troubling are those that relate directly to the policies of the Department of Justice itself. As the Judiciary Committee evaluated Ms. Gupta's qualifications, she was asked about her previous writings and her public statements on a variety of topics. There is a lot to sort through.

First, following the tragic killing of George Floyd last summer, people across the country engaged in an important discussion and debate about the use of force by police officers and responsible policing strategies.

The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on this very topic, and Ms. Gupta was one of the star witnesses. At the time, she was the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. She testified before the committee there, under oath, that it is ``critical for state and local leaders to heed calls . . . to decrease police budgets and the scope, [and] role, and responsibility of police in our lives.''

Well, for obvious reasons, the phrase ``decrease police budgets'' and ``defund the police'' lead to the same conclusion that she believes police departments need less--not more--resources in order to maintain public safety.

When Ms. Gupta was asked about this at her confirmation hearing, she did not mince words. She said she does not support defunding the police. So I followed up with a written question for the record. I asked Ms. Gupta, following the hearing, to explain the distinction between ``decrease police budgets'' and ``defund the police,'' so we could understand her views. After all, the Associate Attorney General will play an important role in making grants to fund States and local police departments. But Ms. Gupta offered no explanation. She simply said, once again, she does not support defunding the police.

Now, I can understand when people change their minds. I think reasonably intelligent people, as they acquire new information, maybe reflecting on their previous points of view, change their minds, but Ms. Gupta did not offer a single bit of information for this shift between her statement last summer saying that State and local leaders must heed calls to ``decrease police budgets'' and her current position, which is that she does not support defunding the police.

Then there were her statements on qualified immunity. This is an important issue for Congress to discuss and debate because it is qualified immunity that protects law enforcement officers, given the nature of the discretionary decisions they need to make in emergency circumstances. Again, there are people on both sides of that argument.

But in June 2020, less than a year ago, Ms. Gupta argued in a Washington Post opinion piece that it is time to revisit qualified immunity. Well, you can imagine I asked her about that at the hearing. And, again, she said, unequivocally, she does not support eliminating qualified immunity. But, once again, we received no explanation for her changed position.

And while her statements are intentionally, I believe, unclear at best, her words about previously held beliefs on drug policy represent an irreconcilable conflict. Back in 2012, Ms. Gupta authored an opinion piece on November 4, 2012, in the HuffPost. In that article, she argued that the States should decriminalize possession of all drugs--all drugs, not just marijuana, all drugs, presumably, to include prescription opioids, heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, you name it-- all drugs.

Well, I don't have to remind Members of this Senate that more than 80,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses this last year alone, and much of it would include the sorts of drugs that, back in 2012, Ms. Gupta said should be legalized--or at least decriminalized, to be fair--decriminalized, although the distinction between that may be lost on some.

Well, I am sure that this will surprise no one that this is a controversial view. Congress has spent billions upon billions of dollars to fight the opioid epidemic in this country. We passed the Cures Act, the CARES Act, to try

to get at this epidemic of opioid addiction and abuse. But Ms. Gupta, circa 2012, said that these drugs--all drugs--should be decriminalized for personal use.

Well, I followed up with a question because, during the hearing, Ms. Gupta talked about how her views had evolved since 2012. Again, as we all have different experiences over time, we learn new information, perhaps reflect on our previously held views, I understand how people's views can change. But then she wasn't satisfied with that answer.

So I followed up with a written question. I asked Ms. Gupta if she ever made this statement that is printed in black and white in the HuffPost, dated circa 2012. She said: ``I have never''--never-- ``advocated for the decriminalization of all drugs.'' She said: ``States should decriminalize simple possession of all drugs.'' Compare that with ``I have never advocated for the decriminalization of all drugs.'' Those are irreconcilable positions

And the fact is, if you believe Ms. Gupta circa 2012, it is simply a lie. It is a lie under oath, potentially perjury. I mean, why do we swear witnesses in if some of them will take the burden of their oath so lightly and they would lie with impunity? I mean, what is the purpose?

She didn't just lie to me. She lied to Chairman Durbin. She lied to Senator Whitehouse. She lied to every member of the Judiciary Committee. And, unfortunately, she is lying to the Senate. She has been given many opportunities to reconcile these radically conflicting statements. These are diametrically opposed positions. If she had a good answer, if she cared enough, if she respected Members of the Senate enough, she would have provided us an answer rather than just an outright lie.

Here is a fact check from the Washington Post, that great ultra or uber-conservative publication. As you can see, they gave her a unique Pinocchio award. I have never seen a Pinocchio award like this. Ordinarily, they would say, well, you get one, two, or three, or four Pinocchios based on whether or not we find this to be a misrepresentation of the facts or a lie.

But here, they said: ``For this tango of previously unacknowledged flip-flops, Gupta [deserves] an Upside-Down Pinocchio''--``Upside-Down Pinocchio.'' They went on to say Vanita Gupta's shifting views on defunding the police, decriminalizing drugs deserve this Upside-Down Pinocchio, March 10, 2021.

If you published an op-ed saying the sky is purple and now you say the sky is blue, don't tell us you never thought the sky was purple. Have a little more respect for your obligation for one of the highest positions in the Department of Justice not to lie to the Judiciary Committee or the Senate. Have the courage to tell us the truth and stop trying to deceive the Senate in order to be confirmed.

As I said earlier, Ms. Gupta was a registered lobbyist and spent a good part of her career pushing a very specific agenda and a range of radical policies to go along with it. In the process, she disparaged individuals, organizations, and political parties who dared to oppose her beliefs.

She wrote about the growing number of conservatives on the Federal bench and said: ``Republicans have planted the seeds of this takeover for decades--and now, they are leaping into action.'' I wonder if she realized she might one day be in a position of advocating on the Department of Justice before the very same judges that she has disparaged.

She tweeted that Justice Kavanaugh ``lied'' to the Judiciary Committee and ``showed himself to be a partisan.'' And she is going to represent the American people in the highest Court in the land, populated by Justices she has called a liar? Well, she has called a number of other Federal judges--she has described a number of them with similar disdain.

Now, I find it hard to believe that these views, which are not from decades-old law school writings or that you can write off to immaturity or perhaps satire--like we heard yesterday from Ms. Clarke, who has been nominated to the civil rights division--these are recent public statements which this nominee no longer claims to hold.

Like I said, if confirmed, she will supervise litigation in front of the many Federal judges she has disparaged, and she will be in an extraordinarily powerful position to bend the Department of Justice to her political whims.

Ms. Gupta is the daughter of a gentleman who heads up a chemical company that produces all sorts of chemicals for a variety of legitimate purposes. It looks like, from her financial disclosure statement, he has been very successful and so has Ms. Gupta, in family trusts worth tens of millions of dollars, much of it including the stock of Avantor, the company that her father heads.

I realize Ms. Gupta is not personally responsible, as a shareholder in this company, but it is clear, I believe, from an investigative journalism story by Bloomberg dated September 2020 that Avantor was selling acetic anhydride, an essential ingredient in converting poppies to heroin, for at least the last decade.

She owns tens of millions of dollars' worth of that stock.

I have asked the Attorney General and the Securities and Exchange Commission to look into Avantor's conduct because, if, in fact, an American chemical manufacturer has been selling acetic anhydride in the country where they know that it will be available to the criminal cartels and drug runners--and they should know that 92 percent of the heroin made in Mexico, using acetic anhydride, manufactured by Avantor and its subsidiary in Mexico--that is a serious, serious problem. So I have asked the Attorney General and the Department of Justice to look into it.

Asked about this, asked about Avantor's activities, Ms. Gupta said: ``I'm aware of the allegations.''

I do not have faith, nor should the Senate have faith, nor should the American people have faith that Ms. Gupta will act fairly and impartially if confirmed to this position. If she was willing to lie to the American people during her confirmation hearings before the Judiciary Committee, imagine how she might treat others with disdain, people who hold opposing views in our society, using the great weight and power of the Department of Justice perhaps to further some of her partisan, political, ideological agenda.

Can we really expect someone with this track record, this history, to live up to the highest ideals of the Justice Department? And, for example, we all know lawyers are taught that, if you have exculpatory information about a criminal defendant, you have a duty to disclose that to the other side. If you are the prosecutor, you have a duty to disclose it to the defendant so it can be cross-examined and used in the course of a jury trial.

Do we really expect someone who appears willing to lie with such disregard for the truth to disclose exculpatory material that a person sued by the Department of Justice would have a right to, or would she just try to sit on it?

Can we really expect her to hire people around her based on merit as opposed to some political litmus test? Can we really expect her to disclose material information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or encourage folks under her supervision to be meticulous and forthright with the court when seeking warrants? I don't think so.

Given the incredible power of the Department of Justice and all the tools available to it, Ms. Gupta's radical beliefs and agenda--that she believes in sincerely, apparently--these would be more than words on a screen. Her views would be terribly dangerous to the American people. Based on her track record, I have no confidence in her ability to act with fairness, candor, or integrity.

As a member of the bar, as a lawyer, you have a higher duty, than even a regular citizen, of candor. The model disciplinary rules that apply to lawyers, members of the bar, like Ms. Gupta, who is a member of the New York bar as well as the Supreme Court bar--they are subject to discipline from grievance committees in those jurisdictions.

We know that they have real teeth because former President Clinton, as you may recall, lied under oath as a lawyer and was disbarred by the Arkansas Bar Association and also had to give up his membership in the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.

If the Senate is going to make a habit of allowing witnesses to come in

and lie under oath in such a brazen way, why do we even go through this Kabuki theater? Why do we require them to take an oath in the first place if you can lie with impunity? What is the point of going to these hearings if the witnesses are not going to be truthful and answer our questions honestly?

As I say, I have grave concerns about this nominee's ability to separate her well-documented personal beliefs from her role as a high- ranking official at the Department of Justice.

So it will come as no surprise that I will oppose discharging Ms. Gupta's nomination from the committee. I think she should have to come back to the committee, as we have requested of Chairman Durbin, to explain these inconsistencies, if she has a good answer. So far, Chairman Durbin has declined to provide her and us that opportunity.

But if we want to maintain any sense of legitimacy and respect for the confirmation process, we need to hold people accountable who come here and lie under oath. And for that and many other reasons, I will oppose the motion to discharge this nomination.

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

Mr. President, the new power dynamic in Washington has brought about a frenzy of proposed institutional changes by our friends across the aisle.

The American people elected a Democratic President, that is true; they reduced the Democratic majority in the House; and elected a 50-50 Senate. In all of Congress, there are seven more Democrats than Republicans. That is all--7 out of 535 Members.

Despite these tight margins, our friends on the other side have tried to characterize this new power dynamic as a mandate, and they have floated a tsunami of rule changes to go along with it. First came the push to eliminate the filibuster.

Just a few years ago, the idea of such a radical change terrified our Democratic colleagues. We certainly didn't do it when we were in a position to do it, notwithstanding the encouragement of President Trump.

When Republicans held control of the Senate, the House, and the White House, as our Democratic colleagues do now, our friends on the other side of the aisle feared the filibuster would come tumbling down. They were so concerned, in fact, that 33 of our colleagues signed on to a letter insisting that the filibuster be preserved. Leader McConnell agreed. He never wavered to pressure from anyone, even the President, to eliminate the filibuster. He has been around this Chamber and this Senate a long time, and he knows that what goes around comes around.

As the leader correctly noted, Democrats didn't just spend the last 4 years supporting the filibuster, they took every advantage of the opportunity for

the minority to stop legislation they disagreed with. They spent 4 years using it.

Our Democratic colleagues employed the filibuster to kill quite a number of Republican bills on pandemic relief, government funding, pro- life legislation, police reform, and the list goes on and on.

Despite the fact our friends on the other side of the aisle consistently praised and utilized the filibuster in recent years, now, after the election of 2020, they seem to have reversed course. Since the political tides have changed, so, too, have the views of many Senate Democrats.

In recent months, one of our colleagues referred to the filibuster as making a mockery of American democracy.

I happen to remember at John Lewis's funeral--the great civil rights icon--even former President Obama called it a ``relic of Jim Crow,'' arguably giving permission to Democrats to call the filibuster a racist obstacle to making progress in the country.

Another Senator said that the filibuster had deep roots in racism, even though last summer Democrats used this tool to block an anti- lynching bill.

The entire debate has ballooned beyond reason, and the past few months have been a game of ``will they or won't they'' when it comes to eliminating the filibuster.

You know, the filibuster has very sound origins. It forces us to do what I think the American people would want us to do anyway, and that is to work together. It forces us to do that. And building consensus is hard, as we all know.

Well, we now have confirmation that our Democratic colleagues do not have the votes. Last week, Senator Manchin of West Virginia took to the pages of the Washington Post and said he will not support eliminating or weakening the filibuster. He has been here long enough to know that what you can do in the majority will have consequences when you are in the minority, as you eventually will be if you are here long enough.

I was appreciative of what Senator Manchin said in those pages. I am sure it wasn't easy. I am sure there is a lot of pressure on him to be expedient, to jam things through on a partisan basis, and I appreciate his willingness to stand up.

I agree with the Senator from Arizona, who said: We don't have a rule problem. We have a people problem. We have a behavior problem.

We need to restore bipartisan cooperation. There is no chance that will happen if everything in the Senate is jammed through along party lines.

The filibuster is designed to protect our country from the continual change of who is in the majority and who is in the minority and to provide the American people a chance to plan their lives. If anything that can be done in one election can be undone in the next election, that is an invitation to chaos.

Unfortunately, the list of proposed institutional changes doesn't end with the filibuster. Over the last few years, our friends on the other side of the aisle have also set their sights on the Supreme Court.

We all remember the day a sitting Member of this body threatened two Supreme Court Justices by name. As the Justices were debating a case, the current majority leader said, on the steps of the Supreme Court:

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

Well, I think he realized the error in making that statement because he then followed up with--well, this isn't the point where he realized the error because he doubled down on it. He said:

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

awful decisions.

Well, we know this wasn't an isolated incident. It is true that the majority leader tried to walk back his words later after he realized how intemperate and inappropriate they were when directed at two sitting members of the U.S. Supreme Court.

We don't have to remember too far in the past to know how the words we speak here in Congress and as public officials--the impact they can have on other people's minds and perceptions, especially those who are not particularly stable in the first place.

Well, several of our Democratic colleagues filed an amicus brief in which they threatened the Supreme Court with retribution unless they got the outcome that they wanted.

Thank goodness our Founders designed the Federal Government with three separate but equal branches. Through this system of checks and balances, they sought to prevent any one branch of government from forcing its will on the other two. Standing up on the steps of the Supreme Court and issuing threats to the Justices that they must do what you want or else is certainly not consistent with the Founders' vision.

Let me be clear. An independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our Constitution and our constitutional Republic--an independent judiciary. In the words of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, ``We should celebrate our strong and independent judiciary as a source of national unity and stability.'' But now, even this hallowed institution is being attacked by our Democratic colleagues unless they get the result they want. They are trying to intimidate the members of the Supreme Court.

Then there is the most recent discussion--threat, really--about packing the Supreme Court with additional members. The push to pack the Supreme Court has been a mainstay of the far left for years, but it has now made its way into the Biden administration.

Previously, throughout his campaign, President Biden refused to weigh in on this topic. He knew how explosive this was, this threat to pack the Court, to make it a political body, to eliminate its role as an independent judiciary. Well, he refused to weigh in on it during the campaign, and I have no doubt this was an important strategic decision. He realized how offensive that would be to the voters he hoped would vote for him in 2020. A poll last fall found that less than one-third of Americans support increasing the number of Justices on the Supreme Court.

The President previously said he is ``not a fan of court packing.'' In fact, he called it a ``bonehead idea.'' He referred to President Roosevelt's proposal to pack the Court as a ``terrible, terrible mistake.'' But now President Biden has appeared to have embraced this ``bonehead idea'' and this ``terrible, terrible mistake'' that he condemned previously.

The first step was last week when he created a Commission to examine adding members to the Supreme Court of the United States above the current nine. This decision and announcement came despite the fact that Justices on both sides appointed by Presidents on both sides of the aisle have affirmed the integrity of the Supreme Court with just nine members.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was an icon for the liberals on the Court and many people in America, said: ``Nine seems to be a good number.''

Just last week, Justice Breyer said that the Court's authority depends on ``a trust that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics.'' He said that these types of changes would erode the trust that the American people must have in the highest Court in the land.

The American people simply won't have faith in an independent judiciary if one side is adding names to the roster so that they can game the outcome. They need to get involved in the legislative process if they want to make policy, not try to make politics through the judiciary, through the Supreme Court.

So I would urge President Biden to heed his own words that he delivered with such conviction during his time on the Judiciary Committee when he said that President Roosevelt's decision ``put in question for an entire decade the independence of the most significant body . . . in this country.''

Well, unfortunately, the power grab doesn't stop there. The single biggest legislative goal of our friends on the other side of the aisle is an attempted takeover of State election laws. That is in spite of the fact that article I of the Constitution explicitly gives the States the power to regulate the ``times, places, and manner of holding elections.'' Yet this massive bill creates a one-size-fits-all mandate that every State must follow. It preempts State law, but I doubt it would ultimately be held up as constitutional because of the explicit guarantee that the States will regulate the time, manner, and place of holding elections.

But there are also other changes that our Democratic colleagues-- where they

seek to reap the benefit of a politicized Supreme Court and Federal Agencies.

In this instance, the Federal Election Commission has six members, three from each party--intentionally designed to be a tie vote if they vote along party lines, to protect the Commission from partisan politics.

We have learned that a fair and balanced Commission, which has been the standard for many years, isn't the gold standard for Democrats when they are in control of Congress and the White House. The election takeover bill introduced by our Democratic colleagues would remove one of the seats held by a Republican member of the Commission and turn the FEC into a partisan body. No more equal representation. No more consensus building. Why bother with that if you can steamroll an agenda with no opposition?

Then there is the taxpayer funding of political campaigns. Instead of candidates working to gain the support, the vote, the activism and contributions from their preferred candidate, our Democratic colleagues want the taxpayer to pay for those campaigns. And it is not even a dollar-for-dollar match. The American taxpayer would pay $6 dollars for every $1 dollar that was donated to a candidate. That means if someone donates 200 bucks to their preferred candidate, the Federal Government would match that with up to $1,200. Those are taxpayer dollars. That is money coming out of your pocket whether you support that candidate's policies or not.

On top of that, there are campaign vouchers proposed which would provide eligible voters with a $25 voucher to donate to the campaign of their choosing. I would rather this funding support the people and organizations that really need it: crime victims, unaccompanied children on our border, domestic violence, shelters. There are far more urgent needs for this money than our Democratic colleagues' campaign account.

Of course, this effort comes at a time when the House Democrats are already trying to overturn the results of an Iowa congressional election in order to boost their own numbers.

This confluence of institutional changes isn't about repairing a broken system; it is revolutionary. It is a revolution. You can't win every case before the Supreme Court? Well, just add some more liberal Justices. You can't build support for legislation? Well, eliminate the filibuster and the need to build consensus and to work together on a bipartisan basis. You can't win an election? Overturn the results and secure government funding or taxpayer funding for your candidates. And to cement these changes for a generation, better throw in a complete partisan takeover of our election laws.

Our Democratic friends are taking the saying ``If you can't win the game, change the rules'' to a whole new level. This has been branded by propaganda, really, as a way to fix the system. Well, the system is not broken, and to the extent it needs reforms, it can be reformed at the State level, where the Constitution provides the authority for the States to run their elections.

Well, I think it is important for the American people to understand exactly what is going on here. You can't understand what is going on here by just reading social media or watching cable news shows that reinforce your own bias. Unfortunately, our news these days seems to be like ships passing in the night, and people pick the channel that reaffirms their previous bias and doesn't challenge people with ideas that perhaps they are not familiar with or don't agree with, which is the way we ought to be dealing with each other. It is OK to disagree, but we ought to engage each other in a civil and respectful manner and to work those out in the crucible of our democracy known as the Congress.

I yield the floor.