Floor Statements

Mr. President, after more than 2 years of bloodshed, 20 living hostages and the remains of at least 7 deceased hostages were recently returned to their families in Israel by Hamas. Videos of the tearful reunions circulating on social media showed the immense joy and relief felt by the families, who have been suffering through the unthinkable and wondering if they will ever see their loved ones again.

Behind all this extraordinary story is the leadership of President Trump in negotiating an end to this war that has lasted 2 years. President Trump has rightly gained praise from some of the most unexpected critics, like Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, and minority leader Chuck Schumer. All of these people are correctly acknowledging what supporters of President Trump have known for a long time: He is truly a master of the art of the deal. I can't think of a single President who, through a combination of carrots and sticks, could have accomplished something like this before, but President Trump has, and he deserves the credit.

But, of course, for this conflict to be truly over, each and every one of the conditions laid out in President Trump's 20-point peace deal must be implemented by both sides, and that is where the trouble really begins.

We cannot allow a terrorist organization like Hamas to pull the wool over our eyes or to act like this is any normal sort of negotiation between two parties acting in good faith. Hamas must keep up its end of the bargain on this and other terms for the deal to actually work.

We have already seen how Hamas has violated the peace agreement, as they have not yet returned the remaining bodies of 20 additional hostages who are presumed dead, including 2 American citizens, so that their families can properly grieve and bury their loved ones.

Yesterday, Hamas, despite this peace deal, violently sought to reassert its control over Gaza from rival Palestinian groups. This included Hamas dragging several men from their families and executing them in broad daylight.

Hamas has been rightfully described as a death cult. Their blatant disregard for human life is the reason the Palestinian people have undergone so much suffering over the last 2 years in Gaza. I know some would like to blame Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces and Prime Minister Netanyahu, but the reason for the humanitarian disaster that has been Gaza for the last 2 years is because of Hamas. If they hadn't executed 1,200 or so Israeli citizens on October 7, 2 years ago, none of this would have occurred.

Of course, establishing an agreement that depends on the good will of Hamas is going to be an enormous challenge, and it can't be a matter of faith that they will act as any negotiating partner in good faith would be presumed to act.

Over the last 24 hours, the importance of establishing a multinational security force in Gaza to replace Hamas has become increasingly clear. Hamas cannot remain in control if we are to have peace. But the return of the 20 living hostages is no small feat, and it is something to be celebrated.

If President Trump is successful in ultimately bringing a lasting peace to the region, it will be one of the most significant diplomatic and foreign policy accomplishments in memory.

Government Funding

Mr. President, on another matter, it has now been 15 days since Senate Democrats have shut down the Federal Government. They did that by blocking a short-term spending provision that would have taken us up until November 21--in other words, roughly 9 weeks from the beginning of the continuing resolution.

Republicans have given Democrats multiple opportunities to end this mess by holding a number of votes on the House-passed continuing resolution.

As majority leader Senator Thune has pointed out numerous times, we are not asking for any major policy changes. All we are asking is to keep the lights on and to keep Federal Government employees paid during this period of time while we work out longer term appropriations bills by the November 21 deadline. But every single time we have given Democrats the opportunity to do the right thing, only three of them have voted to reopen the government.

You know, talking to my constituents back home, it is hard to explain what is going on here. They understand the stupidity of a government shutdown. Experience has shown that the same problems that cause a shutdown in the first place are there staring you in the face when the government is reopened, so it accomplishes nothing except maybe as performance art. If you think about it, that is really what this is.

Our Democratic colleagues are afraid to act in a reasonable and logical manner and keep the government open while we negotiate longer term appropriations bills and take up the issue of healthcare subsidies that expire at the end of this calendar year. In a normal world, that is what we would be doing now, but we can't do any of that during a government shutdown.

Federal employees are now beginning to miss their paychecks, which will have consequences that reverberate throughout the country. One in six Americans lives paycheck to paycheck. So it may not be a big deal to wealthy Senators on the Democratic side who don't have to worry about paying the bills paycheck to paycheck, but it does matter to many, many Americans because it means they may not be able to pay their rent or they may not be able to buy groceries for their family or pay their utility bills because they are not receiving a paycheck.

Some people may be thinking, well, it is only government employees that are going to be affected, and everybody knows the Federal Government is big and bloated and could stand a diet.

But it is not simply the case that these government employees will be the only ones affected. There are going to be a number of downstream effects of this Democrat-induced shutdown that have consequences for everybody.

First of all, I have to tell you, it is embarrassing. It is embarrassing that the greatest country in the world and the people who are elected to represent 330 million Americans can't get their act together and can't figure this out. It is beyond dumb. It makes no sense at all except as a matter of self-serving political gesturing and the sort of performance art that I mentioned a moment ago--trying to demonstrate to your political base: Yeah, we are fighting.

Well, this isn't fighting. Fighting is keeping the government open, having debates, having votes, trying to persuade people to your point of view. That is what political fighting is. It is not taking your ball and going home.

One issue affecting the whole country, Federal workers and private sector employees alike, is the way this shutdown is disturbing airplane flights. My flight coming back from Austin this past week was delayed by such a disruption. It wasn't that big a deal to me, obviously, but I am sure I am not the only once who has experienced this. More important than the fact that Senators are experiencing it, our constituents--the people we represent, the people we owe our jobs to--they are the ones that are suffering inconvenience.

Transportation security agents and air traffic controllers are among the Federal workers deemed essential during a government shutdown, which means they have to work, but they are not being paid. That is a pretty difficult situation for many of these folks to be in. As I said, some of them can't afford childcare, to buy groceries, to pay the rent, to pay utilities. This is the true hardship for many of these Americans. This has resulted in many

of these essential employees calling in sick in order to pick up shift work to make ends meet. Additionally, those who are showing up are having to work under increased stress, longer hours, and shortstaffed working environments.

On top of this, they are carrying the burden of not knowing when they are ever going to get paid. Now, we know that under the law, these employees will eventually be reimbursed for their missed salary, but that doesn't do a lot to put food on the table right now or pay the rent or to pay utility bills now.

As the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association put it, ``It's completely unfair that an air traffic controller''--the one who makes sure our airline flights are safe--``is the one that holds the burden of `see how long you can hang in there in order to allow this political process to [work] out.'''

The president of a local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees at Dallas-Fort Worth said regarding the shutdown:

There's a lot of uncertainty,[a] lot of questions coming

from the field. They don't know how long this is gonna last.

I don't know how long it is going to last, either, but the problem is that it only gets worse the longer the shutdown goes on.

Just in terms of airline flights, we have seen hundreds canceled since the shutdown began, and thousands more have been delayed, which means more and more Americans' daily routines are being upended as a result of this irrational and truly stupid government shutdown.

Three airports in Texas are seeing some of the worst delays. Last Tuesday, both the George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby Airport in Houston were at risk of ground stops because of staffing shortages. Love Field in Dallas was also experiencing delays.

But this isn't just affecting the State of Texas; airports around the country are experiencing delays in order to avoid dangerous potential air flights and ground activity associated with shortstaffing. The Federal Aviation Administration is also reporting staffing problems in Boston, Nashville, Chicago, and Philadelphia, as well as Burbank, CA; Newark, NJ; and Denver, CO. Some analysts have speculated that the disruptions could continue to cause problems during the upcoming travel holiday--Thanksgiving and into Christmas.

For many of us here in the Senate, it has become an unwelcome tradition each year to have our Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations with our families upset in order to perform our responsibilities. That doesn't just affect Members of the Senate and the House but also the able staff that make our work possible.

Of course, what this tradition is, is really a sign of dysfunction. It is embarrassing. It should be embarrassing. If we did our jobs properly and passed our appropriations bills on time, we would not have to impose the burdens of all this on other people--our constituents and our staff.

It is really not rational that the Senate Democrats should impose this burden on the entire country in order to try to appease the more radical elements of their political base, which is really what this is all about. They are afraid to agree to something reasonable and rational and short term because they know that they are likely to be criticized by their political base, the more radical elements in the Democratic base.

Well, don't take my word for it. Minority Leader Schumer has made it clear that he is willing to impose almost any cost on ordinary Americans in order to try to appease his radical progressive base. In one of the more telling quotes, he admitted to Punchbowl News, last week, that this was all about politics, when he said:

Every day gets better for us.

Really? Well, by ``us,'' he doesn't mean the American people. He must mean people like him who are afraid to say no to the radical base in order to perform the most basic functions of government. Plus the fact that it is not true--is every day really getting better? Or is it more and more embarrassing? Is it having more and more of a ripple effect on people who are innocent of any wrongdoing? They just happen to be affected.

I think if the Democratic leader were to ask the Transportation Security Administration workers who are working overtime without pay or the air traffic controllers who are wondering when, if ever, they will receive their next paycheck, who are also working without pay, or the mothers and fathers of the Federal employees who are wondering if they are able to enjoy the holidays with their children and their extended families because of travel disruption, or maybe just because financially they won't be able to make ends meet--but the truth is that Senate Democrats care less about the Federal workers and the rest of the country than they do about appeasing their radical base.

Senator Schumer has made it clear that it was his plan, all along, to make the American people pay the price in order to achieve his political goals when he said:

We've thought about this long in advance.

So this wasn't an accident. This wasn't sort of a surprising occurrence. This was planned, all along, by Senator Schumer, the Democratic leader, which makes it all that much more egregious.

Well, I sincerely hope, for the sake of Texans and Americans all across the country, that Senate Democrats will have a change of heart. I hope that, someday soon, maybe today, Senate Democrats will set aside the demands of their radical base and simply vote to put an end to this ridiculous government shutdown that serves no one's interest except perhaps their own narrow political interest.

We need to pass that short-term continuing resolution that will only take us to November 21, and then, I imagine, we are going to have this discussion all over again, which is just further evidence of the dysfunction here in the Senate and in the Congress these days--mainly, because our Senate Democrats and House Democrats are so opposed to President Trump and his policies, and they feel like they need to be shown to fight and to push back against President Trump.

But they are not hurting President Trump. He is doing just fine. He is making incredible peace deals in the Middle East and, hopefully, in other places around the world, like Ukraine. What they are doing is hurting their own constituents, and they are causing people to doubt whether their government can actually function the way it is supposed to.

So I hope, given the opportunity to vote here shortly on another short-term continuing resolution, the stopgap spending bill that will only take us to November 21, that we get five more Democrats joining the three who have already voted to reopen the government so that we can put an end to this foolishness, because every day does not get better for the American people, even if it gets better politically to save Senator Schumer's skin.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would call up amendment No. 3274 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, this amendment would make sure there is no gap between the deployment of the B-1 bomber currently housed in Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota and Dyess Air Force Base in Texas. No gap--we don't retire this workhorse prematurely until the development and deployment of the B-21 bomber.

This not only has the largest payload of any U.S. aircraft, it is also the U.S. Air Force's testbed bomber for hypersonic weapons, making it a supersonic standoff missile truck ready for future conflict.

I would ask all of my colleagues to support it, and we would be happy to have a voice vote.

Madam President, I call up the Cornyn and Cortez Masto amendment No. 3926 and ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, I would ask unanimous consent that Senator Warren and I be allowed to speak with 2 minutes divided between us, a minute each.

If this amendment sounds familiar, it is. It passed the 118th Congress by a vote of 91 to 6. Simply stated, this is a transparency bill that will give us some insight into the amount of money being invested in the People's Republic of China and the extent to which those investment dollars are directly flowing into the arsenal of our greatest strategic adversary: the People's Republic of China.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission noted that the United States is the most important foreign source of investment to semiconductors, quantum computing, and AI in China.

Because of China's military fusion strategy, these investments are directly bolstering the People's Liberation Army. Voting for this amendment will provide transparency to us as policymakers to know where the money is going and how it is being used in China--hopefully, the way that we can protect ourselves and protect our interests in the Indo-Pacific.

Madam President, we would be happy to have a voice vote.

Madam President, it has been 6 days since Senate Democrats have shut down the Federal Government. They have done this by blocking a clean continuing resolution, as it is called around here, a stopgap spending bill that would take us to November 21 to provide enough time to try to work out appropriations bills for full-year funding, which are highly preferable to simply operating on autopilot, as a continuing resolution would do.

This has already passed the House of Representatives, so all we need to do to reopen the government is to have five Democrats--five Democrats--join three other Democrats and Republicans to vote to reopen the government--not forever but for the next 9 weeks or so.

Let's not forget that it was partisan antics on their part that brought us to where we are today. We have now voted not just once but four times on the House-passed, clean government funding bill. While three Democrats have seen the light, as I said earlier, and have joined Republicans in voting for a clean continuing resolution, they have routinely done this in the past. When President Biden was in office and when Chuck Schumer was the majority leader, we voted for, I think, 13 separate continuing resolutions, but so far, they have refused to do so out of pure spite and partisanship.

Government shutdowns have, unfortunately, become far too common in Washington, but I think it is important to take a minute to consider the impact--the real-world impact--on our constituents back home.

Since Texas is obviously one of the largest States in the country, it will suffer an outsized impact.

The Lone Star State is home to about 130,000 Federal civilian employees. This number includes 33,000 who work with the Veterans Health Administration. These are the folks who serve our veterans, whom we are dutybound and obligated--morally obligated--to support. But 33,000 of them will be negatively impacted by this shutdown. They already have been.

Almost 18,000 of this total number work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These are the folks who stop illegal drugs from entering into the

country and make sure that illegal aliens don't make their way into the country, as we have seen during the last 4 years.

Close to 6,000 Texans work for the Transportation Security Administration, the folks you encounter at airports and various different ports that help manage the flow of travelers going to and from security screenings before they board flights.

Finally, the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Texas has 3,000 employees but is expected to furlough about 70 percent of them due to the lapse in Federal funding.

What happens to these Federal employees during a government shutdown? Well, the most dramatic thing that happens to them is they don't get paid. Even those who are deemed essential and who have to work, they work without pay, just as those who are furloughed go without pay.

Before I came to the floor, I looked up a statistic, and I think it sounds about right, but 6 of out of 10 Americans live paycheck to paycheck. While it may be OK for Members of Congress--particularly wealthy Members of Congress, who don't have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck--to miss a paycheck is catastrophic to many, many Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, who don't have adequate savings to help them weather a government shutdown.

While each of these categories receives backpay once the government is reopened, they cannot receive a paycheck during the shutdown. This is extraordinarily unfair to these government employees, who, through no fault of their own, are being denied the pay that they have earned.

This will have a particularly serious impact on our military and Department of Homeland Security personnel, many of whom have been designated as ``excepted''--or we used to say that some were essential employees. But they have to stay on the job, in other words. But they don't get paid either.

Texas has 15 Active-Duty military installations, where personnel are required to continue reporting to duty throughout this shutdown. These Active-Duty personnel will not be paid, again, until a final funding deal is reached. And right now, we don't know how long this is going to go on.

I know most of us come to the floor and express our gratitude--our profound gratitude--to our men and women in uniform, and their families, who serve our country and keep us safe, but this strikes me as a very bad way to say thank you to them by saying: Yes, you have to continue to work, but, no, you are not going to be paid.

Senate Democrats, apparently, have made that calculation. This is how they thank them, by cutting off their pay, denying them their livelihood, and holding them hostage over petty, partisan demands.

In addition to Active-Duty military personnel, I mentioned Customs and Border Protection. All of them are expected to continue reporting for duty, day in and day out, during a government shutdown.

To our Border Patrol agents, who bore the brunt of Biden's open border policies, working hundreds of hours in some of the harshest of conditions, and who have processed millions of illegal aliens flooding into the United States, courtesy of President Biden, now we are telling them--or at least Senate Democrats are telling them: You are not going to get paid. This is how they have chosen to reward these patriotic men and women who keep our borders secure, shutting down the government and denying them their paychecks.

And why do Senate Democrats think this is so important? Well, they have told us what their demands are, what the ransom is that they are demanding. They want us to wipe out a $50 billion rural hospital stabilization fund that was part of the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Many of us represent rural States that have large rural areas, and access to healthcare is a big, big problem. We have tried to address that problem by providing a significant fund--this rural hospital stabilization fund--to help address those concerns. But Democrats want to take that away.

We also said in the One Big Beautiful Bill that no money can go to provide healthcare for illegal aliens. Access to free government services is one of the magnets that draw people to come to our country in the first place. This is one of the so-called pull factors that the Border Patrol talks about. And we said no more--no more free healthcare for illegal aliens, which is a magnet for people to enter the country the wrong way, not the right way. Democrats want to restore that free healthcare to illegal aliens as part of their demands for reopening the government.

This is simply unconscionable, but it is also profoundly dumb. Shutting down the government solves nothing. We have seen this movie before. And what happens, when you reopen the government, is the same problems, the same issues that caused you to shut down the government are there staring you in the face. So these shutdowns solve nothing.

I don't know how Senate Democrats can continue voting against a clean government funding bill, like they themselves have previously supported on a routine basis, knowing that the men and women who keep them and us safe are working for free, without a paycheck, for no other reason than that Senate Democrats refuse to give up on their partisan pipe dreams.

FEMA employees--the Federal Emergency Management Agency--who are first responders in the case of a natural disaster, are also expected to continue to be working without pay, during hurricane season, no less.

In addition, law enforcement and emergency personnel in a government shutdown affect all Americans, one way or another. It affects travel. It affects access to public lands.

TSA workers and air traffic controllers have to keep working. These are the people who make sure our airlines operate safely and on time. But they have to work without pay.

The hiring and training of any new air traffic controllers, which we know is a real problem and an important issue, all of that will stop during the time the Federal Government is shut down--no new hiring of new personnel to help make our air traffic safe.

All of this is because Senate Democrats can't work in a bipartisan manner to keep the government open, even for a few weeks.

The government shutdown also impacts our national parks and Federal lands. Texas boasts 3.2 million acres of federally operated public lands, including Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and Padre Island National Seashore. National parks face a partial shutdown, meaning that some areas, such as open-air sites, will remain open to the public. But buildings that require staffing, like museums, will have to close.

My constituents--roughly 32 million Americans--like all Americans, have to pay the price because of this completely unnecessary government shutdown and the outrageous demands Democrats are making to reopen. All of this lies squarely at their feet.

I was reflecting over the weekend, after the last time we voted to reopen the government and the Democrats voted no, how this must reflect on the United States in the eyes of the world. I think most countries and most people around the world look at the United States as sort of that city on the hill, the place where they would like to live or at least visit because we have the largest, most successfully functioning democracy in the world, with high standards of living, the opportunity for people to work hard, provide for their family, start a business, and achieve their dreams. It is profoundly embarrassing--I think it should be embarrassing--to all Members of Congress that we simply cannot get our act together enough to fund the government for the next few weeks while these negotiations over long-term appropriations bills are occurring.

This kind of dysfunction is completely unworthy of what has been known--what used to be known--as the world's greatest deliberative body.

The unfortunate reality is it doesn't have to be this way. Many of our Democratic friends, from time to time, talked about various things being a threat to democracy. Well, being unable to pass a bill to fund the government to keep the lights on and keep government employees paid, that strikes me as a threat to our democracy.

Senate Democrats long preached the virtues of bipartisanship, especially when it comes to avoiding government shutdowns. And in the past, they have wagged their finger. We have seen it all on social media and on cable TV. They

have said shutdowns are ``idiocy.'' That is what the Democratic leader said on TV, years ago, when the shoe was on the other foot. He said it is ``idiocy.'' I agree with him. It was idiocy then, and it is idiocy now.

The American people may not understand the ins and outs of what goes on here, but what they can smell from a mile away is hypocrisy. And that is all this is, sheer hypocrisy.

All our colleagues need to do, when we vote here shortly, is to vote for a clean continuing resolution. All of this can be reversed, and we can get back to working together to try to solve some of the issues that I know they care about as well.

We all care about access to healthcare. That is one of the items that we have to address, certainly, before the end of the year, with the expiration of certain subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. We are happy to have that conversation, and we will have that conversation, but not while the government is shut down.

The good news is--well, let me back up and say the bad news is the government is shut down. The good news is that could end today, this afternoon.

Democrats have an opportunity to vote with Republicans to pass a clean continuing resolution, as they have done many times in the past.

So I hope we can all join arms and say: Let's put an end to this nonsense and pass this legislation on what will now be the fifth opportunity.

The American people are counting on us, and we shouldn't let them down.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, here we go again. Three days ago, Democrats voted against a stopgap spending bill that would keep the government open for the benefit of 320 million American citizens. But because they voted against it, we are now in a government shutdown-- something that should be a profound embarrassment to them, as it is to the rest of us who believe we were sent here to govern, not

to shut down the government and deny our own constituents access to the services that government necessarily provides in some cases.

If you listen to the media--not all of the media, but some of the media, particularly the sympathetic, leftwing media--you might think otherwise. But make no mistake about it. The blame for this government shutdown lies squarely on the Senate Democrats' shoulders.

Three Democrats voted to reopen the government the last time we voted, and other Democrats--we need five more--will have a chance to vote here in just a few minutes to reopen the government and to stop this charade.

But the facts of the matter are pretty straightforward. The reason we are in a government shutdown is because Senate Democrats refuse to vote for what is known around here as a clean continuing resolution, a clean

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

Mr. President, for a long time, the United States has benefited from free and competitive global markets.

For too long, we have relied on conventional wisdom that engaging with China--in particular, the Chinese Communist Party--by bringing them into the global marketplace would be mutually beneficial. But it has become increasingly obvious and as plain as the nose on our face now that China's primary interest in that so-called free market is to use it to undermine our interests and to further their own.

I am grateful to President Trump for ringing the alarm bells on China and for helping us reframe the way we look at the People's Republic of China.

We need to be clear-eyed about exactly what is going on. China is not interested in a level playing field where both parties benefit from a bit of friendly competition. The People's Republic of China is treating competition in the global markets as a zero-sum game where they win and the West loses.

Nowhere has this become more apparent than in the case of critical minerals and rare earth elements. I doubt many of us have given a lot of thought, at least in the years past, about the role of rare earth elements and critical minerals, but now we have become educated way too late about the importance of these two elements.

There are two ways that a competitive market economy can be undermined. One is excessive government regulation making it harder for more competitors to enter a market. This makes it more difficult for newer, smaller entrepreneurs to get off the ground. But another way for a competitive market to be threatened is when one seller has a monopoly on a particular good or service.

When a single provider of a service or good gets so big that they are the only game in town, then they get to set the terms. A monopoly can ask whatever price they demand because there is no one competing with them for a cheaper or better version.

This is precisely what China is doing with respect to mining and processing rare earth and other critical minerals, but the People's Republic of China takes it one step further: They are actively sabotaging their competitors, including the United States.

For a long time, up until the 1980s, the United States dominated the industry for rare earth elements, but then

China decided to begin rapidly subsidizing their own rare earth industry.

China benefits from some unfortunate advantages in this competition. They have lower labor costs because they are less concerned than we are in the United States about ensuring that workers are paid fairly and kept safe. We know China has lower environmental standards than we do here in the United States, which further makes it more difficult for the United States to compete against them. The third and most critical advantage that China has over the United States in this field is that their government recognized the importance of these critical minerals a long time ago and was willing to put generous government subsidies in place to launch their industry, while somehow we were lulled into complacency and failed to realize our dependence on China and their processing of critical minerals and rare earth elements.

Now, people may be asking: Why do we care about critical minerals and rare earth elements? Well the truth is, these elements are essential to producing magnets and other components of our vehicles, our robotics, our aerospace, and our defense systems. We can't build our weapons systems to defend our Nation and to deter aggressors without access to these processed rare earth elements and critical minerals. That is how important it is.

But China has been successfully sidelining the United States and other global competitors, becoming effectively the only game in town-- or I should say in the world--when it comes to mining and processing these minerals.

Whether we realize it or not, there is hardly an aspect of our daily life that would not be affected were China to cut off our access to these processed rare earth elements and critical minerals--from our iPhones to the cars we drive and even our washing machines.

Because China recognized how important these minerals are, their government was willing to take extraordinary measures to make sure they control the supply chain for these critical minerals in the future.

What are these extraordinary measures they have taken? Well, over the last 20 years, China has invested $57 billion through state-backed financial institutions in the form of loans to Belt-and-Road participant countries in order to gain leverage over the global supply chain for these critical minerals.

More than 75 percent of these investments are structured through joint ventures and special-purpose vehicles in such a way that Chinese entities have ownership stakes, allowing them to influence the extraction and processing of these critical mineral projects.

More forebodingly, last December, China took steps to ban exports of technologies used in mining and processing rare earth elements in order to exert further control over the supply chain and enhance its leverage when dealing with the United States in various binational negotiations.

In April of this year, China placed export controls on seven rare earth elements, requiring any company that wishes to export them to acquire a special license, and if they didn't, obviously, it would be illegal. While the terms and conditions of the licensing process are still being spelled out in more detail, this may become the tool to incentivize various countries to act in Chinese interests to protect their own access to these minerals. In other words, it is not just the United States that depends on these rare earth elements and critical minerals; it is virtually every other part of the global community.

When China sees likely competitors, it floods the market with excess supply of these minerals, lowering the market price and thereby sidelining any potential competitors.

Now, just to be clear, rare earth elements and critical minerals can be mined in many places across the globe. Where China has gotten the monopoly or virtual monopoly is 90 percent of them are processed in China. So you may mine rare earth elements or critical minerals in Chile or in the United States or Australia or somewhere else, but 90 percent of them must be processed in China because there are not other competitors for the reasons I have mentioned.

Because China would stop at nothing to manipulate the market, prices have dropped dramatically when they flood the market with processed minerals. Since 2023, for example, cobalt prices decreased 59.5 percent, from $82,000 per ton to $33,000 per ton--again, because China has been manipulating the market to discourage any competition. Nickel prices decreased by 73.1 percent, from $48,000 per ton to $13,000 per ton. Lithium prices decreased 86.8 percent, from $68,000 to less than $10,000.

Consequently, several plants that were designed to open up in the United States to compete with China had to close because of their inability to maintain profitability in this economic environment. The United States' only cobalt mine opened in 2023 and was forced to close less than a year later, while nickel plants in Australia and New Caledonia shut down in the same timeframe.

While these competitors have closed their doors, Chinese firms have continued to hold on to their state-sponsored monopoly. China has been taking these steps for decades right beneath our nose to develop this near monopoly that they currently hold on mining and processing of critical elements.

As the United States, we should have seen this coming, and we could have done something about it, but we didn't. Joe Biden could have spent the last 4 years in the White House tackling this issue head on, but here we are with virtually nothing to show for the Biden administration's so-called efforts. So we are playing catch-up with the Chinese Communist Party, which is not a good place to be.

If another pandemic were to happen, disrupting global supply chains, or if we were to find ourselves in a hot war with China or even difficult trade negotiations with China, which we will, and they decide to cut off trade with the United States, there would be drastic consequences to our economy, to our military preparedness, and to our ability to deter an aggressive Chinese Communist Party.

Americans would not be able to purchase the electronics that power our lives day in and day out. Our Department of Defense--or Department of War, as it is now called--would be hamstrung in its ability to obtain critical components for the weapons systems that are used to deter aggression by our adversaries. Elderly or chronically ill Americans would be unable to obtain the pharmaceutical remedies they rely on to simply stay alive.

Well, fortunately, while we are late to the game, things are moving now in a better direction under unified Republican control. In March of this year, for example, President Trump issued an Executive order directing the Departments of the Interior, Defense--or now, as it is called, War--Agriculture, and Energy to work together to accelerate domestic investment and production of critical minerals.

Congress also did some things in the One Big Beautiful Bill to help. That legislation included an allocation of $2 billion to the Secretary of War to increase U.S. critical minerals stockpiled through the National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund, and an additional $5 billion was provided for investments in critical minerals through the Industrial Base Fund.

Furthermore, this law tightened our definition of a ``foreign entity of concern,'' which will help ensure that Chinese critical mineral companies are not availing themselves of U.S. tax credits in order to invest in their own critical mineral efforts.

There are ongoing discussions to ensure that the Defense authorization bill we are currently on includes provisions such as the reauthorization of the Development Finance Corporation that our colleagues Senators Risch and Shaheen have sponsored this year. We need to make sure they are successful in those efforts.

The Development Finance Corporation works to incentivize private capital markets to invest in our most critical supply chains.

I have introduced something called the Critical Minerals Security Act, which directs the Department of the Interior and Department of State to further identify vulnerabilities in U.S. supply chains for critical minerals.

Now, I believe these are important steps, but we have a bigger problem in America. We simply have a hard time building things anymore. A lot of that

has to do with overregulation, problems with gaining the appropriate permits, and the litigation environment, which means that any sort of critical infrastructure is probably going to be delayed years, maybe decades, from endless lawsuits.

That is a larger, more threatening situation, and I am only talking about a small part of it here today.

The steps we have taken so far are unfortunately too little, too late, in my view, but they are at least a step in the right direction. They are not enough, by themselves, to ensure that we have safe and secure supply chains for both mining and processing of critical minerals to meet our Nation's needs.

Once again, Deng Xiaoping, who said, ``Hide your motives and bide your time,'' has successfully snookered the United States and our other allies around the world so that we are now almost entirely dependent on Chinese processing of critical minerals.

So there is not a day to wait. We need to make sure that we catch up and we catch up quickly. It is going to take a lot of work for the United States to claw our way back to where we need to be, but I am confident that we can, if we rise to meet the occasion.

So I would urge all of my colleagues to listen to and respond to this alarm bell that I am trying to ring here on the Senate floor today and take seriously the urgency of securing our supply chains and securing American processing facilities for critical minerals.

We simply do not have a choice. Otherwise, we will continue to be held hostage by an adversary that does not wish us well. They don't want friendly competition. They want dominance, and they also want to take Taiwan in the coming years.

If we can't build things because we can't deter them by building the weapons necessary to do that, if we can't sustain our economy by continuing to manufacture technology that allows us to compete with China in the coming years, we will have failed in our fundamental responsibility as Members of Congress. If America is to have a safe, secure, and prosperous future, we have to compete and we have to win the critical minerals race with the People's Republic of China.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that the previously scheduled recess begin immediately.

Mr. President, I would like to ask unanimous consent that the following Commerce Committee detailees be granted floor privileges for the remainder of Congress: Thomas Hastings, Joseph St. Peter, Tyler Stutin, Dean Legidakes, and Leticia Vega.

Madam President, I want to begin my remarks this afternoon by reflecting on the tragic shooting at the Dallas ICE Facility that happened this last week. One detainee was killed and two others were injured by a 29-year-old shooter who was later found dead on the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

This is not the first attack of its kind against the immigration enforcement officials in Texas. In fact, this is the fourth in as many months--four attacks against law enforcement officials in the last 4 months.

On July 4 in Alvarado, TX, assailants opened fire outside an ICE detention facility, wounding an Alvarado Police Department officer in the neck. Ten people were subsequently arrested and charged with attempted murder while six other subjects have been charged with related offenses.

Three days later, July 7, a man shot at a Border Patrol employee in McAllen as he tried to park his car. He then fired at the Border Patrol annex, attempting to break in, before finally being killed in a firefight with Border Patrol agents.

In addition to these attacks on law enforcement, we know our country is still reeling from the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, whose life was taken from him simply for expressing his views and engaging in political dialogue on college campuses.

We are beginning to see in our country a level of political violence that is not and should not ever be considered normal.

But this is a warning signal about the direction we are heading in as a nation, and it is one we cannot afford to ignore. Many of us are asking ourselves, how did we get here? Well, the answer, it seems--or at least part of the answer--is simple and straightforward. It begins with the demonization of free speech and the vilification of those who are doing nothing more and nothing less than their duty, which is to enforce the laws on the books. Frequently, these are laws passed by Congress on a bipartisan basis and signed into law by the President. These law enforcement officials are simply enforcing the laws that we have written. The radical base of the Democratic Party seems to be at war with the men and women who actually enforce our laws, and with the same breath, they seem to, from time to time, celebrate mob violence. We all remember the so-called peaceful protests of 2020 that resulted in massive economic losses and harms to businesses, not to mention that many law enforcement officers were injured or even died as a result of mob violence.

Embarrassingly, it was a Texas Member of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who recently said on national television:

When I see ICE, I see slave patrols.

Not to be outdone, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described ICE as a ``rogue agency that should not exist.''

Then there is former Member of Congress Colin Allred, who called ICE ``un-American'' and ``harmful to our public safety.''

These attacks against the men and women who enforce our laws are simply unconscionable, and they have undeniably contributed to getting us in the dangerous place we find ourselves in today.

If these individuals and other Democrats truly cared about public safety, they would stand with Republicans. We would stand united as Americans in supporting our men and women in blue and green, and they would denounce the unprecedented rise in attacks against these law enforcement officers immediately. Instead, Democrats seem to endorse a complete inversion of how a just and ordered society functions.

Unfortunately, this is going to require some of our Democratic colleagues to swim against the tide of opinion among their radical base and show some leadership. But they have to decide as a party to move away from the dangerous and radical demands of their leftwing base.

Unfortunately, the Democratic leader in this Chamber, the Senator from New York, is showing anything but that kind of leadership right now. He has demonstrated a complete unwillingness to tone down the rhetoric of his party or to make actually even good-faith gestures toward good governance. In fact, this very week, he has demonstrated just how far he is willing to go to undermine basic governance in order to appease his radical base. He would rather shut down the government than work across the aisle for the benefit of the American people.

Senate Democrats have so far refused to even vote on a simple stopgap measure that will give us a little more time--about 9 weeks--to negotiate full-year government funding. If they do not relent in this partisan posturing, the result will be forever known as the Schumer shutdown.

You don't have to take it from me on what a government shutdown would mean for the American people; all we have to do is to read back to them the very words Senate Democrats have said in the past.

In September of last year, when the shoe was on the other foot, Senator Schumer said:

If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans

who suffer most.

He also said:

A government shutdown means seniors who rely on Social

Security could be thrown into chaos.

Is this even the same individual that is taking the position that is heading us toward a shutdown in the coming days?

Last September, he went so far as to even say:

Keeping the government open will mean no poison pills or

reckless partisan posturing.

This is what he said just last year about a government shutdown. Where is that man today? Today, I will tell you, he is engaging in reckless, partisan posturing while Republicans are proposing a responsible alternative.

Again, this is not a vote on a permanent policy but, rather, a stopgap measure to get us to a place where we need to be when it comes to the appropriations process.

But he is willing to impose the very costs that he warned about on the American people and our seniors in order to score political points with his progressive, radical base. The hypocrisy is obvious, and it is staggering.

It is a time for reckoning for our friends in the Democratic Party. They seem to not really know what they stand for these days except opposition to each and every thing that the majority party or the President wants, even when it is in their self-interest to do so. They need to look at themselves in the mirror and decide what and who they stand for. Are they going to be the party of violence and lawlessness and a degradation in public safety? Are they going to continue to what has been called frighteningly an assassination culture? Will they continue down this mad path of taking the lives of those they disagree with and siding with the criminals over law enforcement personnel that are simply enforcing laws they themselves have helped write? Will they continue on prioritizing their ideology ahead of responsible governance?

I often wonder how our friends on the other side of the aisle would react if they had to live--if they had to live--in crime-ridden neighborhoods overtaken by gangs and drug dealers and they had to wait 20 or 30 minutes before any police officer responded to their calls for help after an assault or a robbery. How would they feel? Well, I am quite sure, I am confident that they would change their tune. Just like current residents in blue cities who had to suffer under the weight of failed Democratic soft-on-crime policing policies, they would gladly welcome additional police protection and efforts to clean up and stabilize their neighborhoods.

Sadly, most Democrats--at least so far here in Washington, DC--have appeared to be completely tone-deaf and rarely hear the true voices of the people whose lives they assume they represent, people living in these inner cities.

Well, regardless of what Democrats decide to stand for, Republicans will continue to be the party that respects free and open discussion of ideas. We will continue to support our law enforcement officers, men and women who risk their lives day in and day out so that Texans and all Americans can sleep soundly in their beds. We will continue to be the party that opposes reckless partisan tactics that put ideology ahead of the needs of the American people.

Republicans have made it clear under President Trump that we will enforce the rule of law. That is nonnegotiable. So it is no surprise that the American people overwhelmingly voted for Republican leadership last November.

If Democrats continue to head down this path of violence and division, they should not be surprised if they continue to experience the same outcome at the ballot box in the upcoming midterms as they did last November in the general election.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to complete my remarks before the scheduled recess.

Mr. President, it seems these days--and this is not a great development, but it seems these days as if Democrats love to hate anything that Republicans--and particularly President Trump--suggest or propose or do, especially when it comes to ways to try to shrink the size of our government and rightsize bloated Federal programs.

They have spent a lot of time and energy catastrophizing about all the supposed dangers of the One Big Beautiful Bill--one of the most important achievements of this administration and Congress so far. The truth about the One Big Beautiful Bill is that it prevented the largest tax hike in American history and puts more money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans.

Now, you would think that alone would be a good reason to support the One Big Beautiful Bill, but there is more.

The main way they have opposed that bill is by mischaracterizing it and outright misrepresenting what is contained in it. One of the accusations made is that it will take away healthcare coverage from people who need it.

Democratic Leader Senator Schumer said of the bill:

There is nothing beautiful about stripping away people's

healthcare, forcing kids to go hungry, denying communities

the resources they need, and increasing poverty.

Minority whip Senator Durbin claimed that we are going to be taking coverage away from 16 million families.

Now, if true, these accusations would be serious, but they are not true. In the more than 2 months since the One Big Beautiful Bill became law, the Congressional Budget Office has shed some light on this matter and I think done a tremendous job of truth-telling, and it is important to delve deeper into what they have said about this so the American people can know what the truth is.

CBO estimates that 10 million people will lose coverage due to the One Big Beautiful Bill. Now, again, that estimate without context seems pretty serious, but we have to ask, who are these 10 million people? Are they elderly grandmothers? Are they disabled citizens? Are they children? people who have no access to other resources? In fact, they are not. And I have no doubt that my colleagues will argue that they are in the coming months. In the coming months, ahead of the midterm elections, we will hear more about that, which is one reason why I wanted to come in and present the facts.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, 3.7 million of this 10 million--3.7 million of this 10 million--already had access through another form of federally subsidized healthcare. That is more than a third of that 10 million.

When we take this examination of the facts a step further, we see that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 5.3 million Americans out of that 10 million are individuals who choose not to work, which is one of the new requirements of the One Big Beautiful Bill.

These programs are supposed to go to the deserving and the needy, not to people who like to sit on the couch and play video games or otherwise not contribute to their own welfare. Work requirements for able-bodied adults were an important provision that I championed in this bill, and I am glad we

got it done as part of this legislation. So able-bodied adults who willingly refuse to work shouldn't expect a handout from the Federal Government or the taxpayers who do work. It is only right that those who are able to work do so or at least demonstrate they are actively looking for a job or participating in some sort of job training or volunteer services.

Those are other alternatives to work: looking for a job or volunteering or training for work. Seems like a reasonable requirement to me.

There is just no reason for taxpayers to continue to pick up the tab for able-bodied Americans who choose not to enter the labor force.

And the truth is, we need them in the workforce. We need more people in the workforce, which is one of the issues I hear people talk about as I travel my State and around the country. We need the workforce to be able to keep our economy going and to provide for those who need help.

So able-bodied adults who are choosing not to comply with these work requirements make up more than half of those 10 million who will lose coverage, but they can change that. They can simply choose to work or study or go to school or volunteer, and they would get those benefits. But if you consciously choose not to, it makes sense to me that taxpayers should not be required to subsidize that.

Next, the CBO also estimates that 2\1/2\ million of the 10 million are not actually eligible for the program to begin with. That is a quarter of that 10 million aren't even eligible.

If we want to make sure that our safety net programs work and are stable, we have to ensure the benefits are actually going to people whom Congress has made eligible for these programs in the first place.

As the Presiding Officer knows, one of the biggest issues confronting our country is that we are $37 trillion in debt, and we can't just keep printing money and spending money and bankrupting our country and threatening the welfare of future generations. We have a present-day responsibility to address that, and we know that the status quo was not sustainable.

Assuring those who do not actually qualify are not taking benefits away from those who do is only common sense. It is the least we can do.

But that is not all. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 1.4 million of those who would lose coverage are actually not citizens in the first place, which is another category of ineligible individuals. So Congress has never authorized federally subsidized health coverage for noncitizens.

I don't think the American people who voted overwhelmingly for President Trump last November did so because they want to see taxpayers subsidize illegal aliens' healthcare.

In addition to the categories I just mentioned, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the remaining loss of coverage will be the result of reducing waste, fraud, and abuse within these programs-- again, something that is not particularly controversial, and I can't think of a single Texan I have talked to who was supportive of spending more of their hard-earned money for fraudulent or wasteful programs. In fact, the opposite is the case.

So at the end of the day, when we look at the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office that keeps the official scorecard for the U.S. Government, the story it tells is far different from the tale that our Democratic colleagues are trying to tell the American people.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is not taking healthcare coverage away from grandmas who are on a fixed income or single mothers. Rather, the reforms to the Medicaid Program in the One Big Beautiful Bill will ensure that the money that is spent goes to people who are eligible and who need it the most. That is the truth about the One Big Beautiful Bill.

So as much as my Democratic colleagues love to hate it, at the end of the day, this single legislative achievement of President Trump's second term of office delivers necessary reforms that will make life better for the American people.

Republicans will continue to never mind the naysayers and keep telling our constituents the truth about the One Big Beautiful Bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, since he was sworn into office on January 20 of this year, President Trump has done more for the cause of peace in Eastern Europe than the Biden administration did in the 3 previous years. This was evident last month when President Trump met with President Putin in Alaska to discuss peace in Ukraine.

President Trump is performing an important service to the West by attempting to negotiate a brokered peace. His goal is as simple as it is profound: true and lasting peace.

It is an understatement to say a lot is at stake--ending the continued suffering and loss of life, halting Putin's land grab, and restoring Ukraine's economy and territorial integrity.

While Putin has suggested that peace would ultimately equate with victory for Russia, I suggest that this war has resulted in nothing less than a strategic loss for Russia and the Russian people.

There seems to be a prevailing narrative that Putin is winning and Ukraine is losing and that the purpose of ending this war is simply to mitigate further damage to Ukraine while appeasing the aggressor, Russia. But if we consider all that has happened in the last 2\1/2\ years, a much different picture becomes apparent.

Not only has Russia failed to achieve its operational objectives, it has also suffered significant strategic setbacks that will impact that country for years to come.

In February of 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine with the goal of marching to Kyiv and reestablishing Ukraine as part of Russia, restoring that part of the Soviet Union, so to speak. Putin, at first, very nearly succeeded. The Russian army came within miles of Kyiv. But then what happened? Well, to the surprise of many, including Putin, Ukraine mounted an intense resistance, and with support from its allies and partners, it turned the tide of war and reversed Russia's gains, retaking much of that territory and at times even pushing into Russian territory.

Now, current estimates are that Russia holds approximately 20 percent of prewar Ukraine territory, but this is a far cry from Putin's prewar aspirations. Not only did the Ukrainians succeed in preventing a complete Russian victory, with support from the West, they have also dealt strategic blows to Russia, the effects of which will reverberate for decades.

Let's consider Russia's standing as a significant military force and their ability to project power before the war as compared to today. Part of Putin's plan to invade Ukraine was to demonstrate their military might. However, more than 2 years in, we see how Ukraine has significantly degraded Russia's ability to project both power at sea and in the air.

Before the war, Russia would have a significant military presence on the Black Sea and freedom of movement into the Mediterranean. But through daring and ingenuity and despite having no standing navy, Ukraine severely degraded the Russian Navy, sinking more than 26 ships, or about a third of its Black Sea Fleet, and forcing retreat to harbors closer to home and limiting their ability to influence the war.

All of this happened while the Russian fleet was already suffering from aging ships in need of repair, while Russian shipbuilding has not been able to keep up with repairing and replacing these old and damaged vessels.

More significantly, Ukraine's successful attacks on the Russian strategic bomber fleet this past June, which they carried out via Operation Spider's Web, neutralized approximately 40 Russian bombers across 5 military bases--in all, about a third of Russia's strategic bomber force.

More recently, Ukraine has successfully targeted Russian energy assets, which is the main source of revenue that it uses to fuel the war.

Now let's consider Russia's security posture in relation to Europe. In invading Ukraine, Putin sought to counter what he characterized as NATO expansionism. Yet his actions ultimately triggered the accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO--two countries which had opted to remain outside the security alliance for decades. Consequently, not only will NATO enjoy the unique arctic military capabilities that those countries possess, it will also benefit from extending the NATO border more than 800 miles with Russia, further stretching an already depleted Russian military.

Beyond pushing NATO to expand, Putin's war in Ukraine laid bare the realities of our security relationship with NATO and highlighted what President Trump has been saying for years--that the European allies need to contribute more to their collective security. This effort seems to be paying dividends, as we most recently saw NATO member states in the 2025 Hague Summit committing to increase their security-related spending to 5 percent of their GDP within the next decade.

We can also see how the war in Ukraine has undermined Russian global influence and stature. We see this in places like Armenia, where Russian influence has been waning since 2022, most recently culminating in the withdrawal of a large portion of their security forces and Armenia's potential full withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Additionally, whereas Russia used to be the mediator of a longstanding dispute between Armenia and its neighbor Azerbaijan, America has been able to exploit their absence most recently by President Trump's skillfully negotiated peace agreements between those long-warring nations. This agreement will cultivate political and economic relationships, increase opportunity for American investment in the energy-rich Caucasus, and facilitate regional economic integration through the establishment of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, all at the expense of Vladimir Putin.

We also see what has happened to Russia's influence in the Middle East and especially Syria. In April, Germany reported that it had expelled 40 Russian intelligence officers. Similarly, France has expelled 41 likely Russian spies. Nearly half of Russia's intelligence officers, about 400 by some

estimates, have been expelled from Europe since 2022. According to some officials, this may have reduced Russia's ability to collect intelligence against our allies in Europe by about half. This would seem to indicate, of course, a significant setback in their operations in Europe and one which would require time and resources and European good will to reestablish.

I doubt that Russia will have any of those things in the near term. But perhaps the most significant cost of this war has been the human cost. Russia has suffered immense casualties, surpassing 1 million so far. But it has become apparent that Putin doesn't care how many Russians he needs to sacrifice to his aspirations to reconstitute the Russian Empire or influence in Europe.

Ukrainian casualties have been significant, too--at least 400,000 since 2022, while upward of 20,000 Ukrainian children have simply been abducted by Russia and remain missing.

But the human cost of this war is far beyond the mere casualty count. Russia suffered from a brain drain as high-achieving Russians have fled the country in order to avoid serving in the military. The year following the invasion, Russia had nearly 1 million young workers leave the country. Those fleeing the country are highly concentrated among the young and educated. Eighty percent have a college education and 86 percent are under the age of 45. According to one account, Russia's loss of highly skilled workers may be its most significant economic damage.

Lastly, Russia has suffered severe damage to its economy as Western countries have imposed sanctions and limited their access to global markets. We have seen many European nations make efforts to wean themselves off of Russian oil and gas in order to diversify their own supplies and avoid subsidizing the Russian war effort. I am proud of the fact that the State of Texas has helped fill much of that gap. And I am hopeful that ongoing trade negotiations with India and the EU will further curtail Russia's ability to fund its war machine with the sale of fossil fuels.

Russia's shift through a wartime economy will have lasting negative consequences for a long time into the future. It has been spending as much as 40 percent of its annual expenditures on defense or offense, as is obvious here; something we know from experience is unsustainable in the long term and obviously of little benefit to the Russian people.

So all things considered, Russia has suffered a significant strategic loss by their invasion of Ukraine. Apart from failing to conquer Ukraine, they incurred enormous losses to their ability to project power and to collect human intelligence abroad. They spurred their NATO neighbors to take their security more seriously and strengthen the alliance of which Putin has been so fearful. They have been unable to support their traditional allies in the Caucasus and the Middle East, opening up opportunities for American alliances and investment. And they suffered tremendous human and financial cost that will endure for years beyond any forthcoming peace.

As we continue to support President Trump's peace efforts in this conflict, let's keep in mind that Russia has not and is not winning this war when viewed from the larger context. Putin and his country have suffered enormous losses in many different areas. But it is clear that Putin's motivation is not driven by a sober cost-benefit analysis but rather by delusions of grandeur and reestablishment of the Russian Empire.

This past April, in his annual state of the nation address, Putin said the demise of the Soviet Union ``was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.''

Putin is not a pragmatist. He is not moved by cost-benefit. He is not moved by the loss of a million Russian casualties. The best way to bring Putin to the negotiating table with a sincere desire to end this war is by making clear that he has not and cannot win this war.

We and our allies need to continue to impose greater costs in the form of additional punishing sanctions, especially on their oil production, which largely finances, as I said, the Russian war machine. Putin is not going to change his stripes and his ambitions remain unchecked. The surest way of ending the war and securing the lasting peace will be a united West showing Putin that he cannot win.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to begin by thanking our colleagues--particularly from Oklahoma and Alabama--for leading the working group that was appointed by the majority leader to try to solve this problem. In their typical deliberative, careful, and thoughtful fashion, they could have come up with a lot of ideas that would, I think, perhaps overreach, but rather than do that, they have come up with a solution that Democrats themselves have proposed, which strikes me as the epitome of fairness.

But there are three main points I want to make before I sort of summarize where I think we are.

First of all, as my colleagues have eloquently noted, we have exhausted virtually every other alternative to this vote to overrule the Parliamentarian and establish a new precedent, which is an alternative to a formal rule change which takes 67 votes. But we know our colleagues will never vote for that, leaving us no alternative but to invoke what is sometimes called the nuclear option.

But as our colleague from Missouri just pointed out, this is really not so much a nuclear option as a restoration option. This is restoring the Senate to the way it used to work--not just before President Trump was reelected but for the last couple of hundred years, where we had an orderly process to consider a President's nominees, a committee process to vet them, and then a debate and a vote on the Senate floor, so that the mandate of the voters in the Presidential election could be carried out by the President.

So we have tried virtually everything else, but I am going to give them one last chance here in a minute, but then as I have been thinking about it: What have we been doing as we have spent hour upon hour, day upon day, week upon week trying to move through all of these various Senate-confirmed nominees, with no help--not just no help but with active obstruction--from our Democratic colleagues?

I think about all of the other things that we could be working on-- even together--bipartisan solutions to our Nation's biggest problems and challenges. Economists call that opportunity cost. In other words, when you are mired down in this mindless obstruction and blocking any nominee just because they happen to be nominated by President Trump, you are missing the opportunity to do other important things. I know all of my colleagues--all 100 of us--came here to, hopefully, do important things, and that has been the source of great consternation and disappointment, I know, to many of us.

But then I think about the people who have been nominated by President Trump. I have had them tell me this is an honor of a lifetime--people who have enjoyed tremendous success in business or in their professional lives to then give all that up in order to serve their country. These are patriots, and it is profoundly unfair to them, to their families, and to the American people to continue to block these nominees and leave them, basically, hanging in the wind. I have talked to many of them myself, these nominees, with their asking: Senator, when can I expect a vote on the Senate floor?

I say: Well, I don't know.

Many of them have said: Well, I have had to quit my job or sell my business. I have had to go through a rigorous vetting process for ethics and legal conflicts of interest and I am waiting and my family is waiting, not knowing whether we will be going to, maybe, an Embassy somewhere around the world or serving in some other important position here in Washington, DC, in the Trump administration. So this is profoundly unfair to them.

And we wonder whether we are having a hard time getting good people to want to serve in government. Well, thankfully, there are still people who are willing to do it, despite the way they get treated when they are nominated. Thank goodness there are still good people who want to serve. Our Nation depends on it.

But just to summarize, more than 140 of President Trump's nominees are waiting to be voted on as we speak. I don't know how you argue the converse of what I feel to be the case, which is the President won the election on November 5, and he is entitled to his team. He is at least entitled to an up-or-down vote on the nominations, and the American people are the ones who actually gave him that mandate. This is a kick in the teeth, a punch in the gut to those voters who voted for President Trump in this last election, expecting that he would bring change to Washington, DC, but he can't accomplish that mandate without his team.

As we have heard, Senate Democrats are now engaged in an unprecedented level of obstruction, preventing these nominees from being confirmed and burning up all the floor time when we are in session on waiting around to vote on these nominees, most of whom in the past would have been confirmed by a voice vote or some sort of an expedited process--by consent even--but not with Donald J. Trump as President. Democrats have taken a completely different approach in obstructing each and every one of his nominees.

Most of these individuals are uncontroversial. I remember the other day, we were voting on the general counsel for advocacy for the Small Business Administration, and I asked myself: What is that? And, yes, maybe--just maybe--we should limit the number of Senate-confirmed positions. I think that might be a good exercise to go through and see: Are there people who currently require Senate confirmation for whom it really isn't necessary because they only serve for a short period of time under the leadership of, maybe, a member of the President's Cabinet who is Senate-confirmed?

Under George Herbert Walker Bush and President Clinton, 98 percent of those nominees were confirmed by unanimous consent. Under George W. Bush and President Obama, 90 percent were confirmed by unanimous consent, which is no debate, no argument--just a unanimous consent request, without objection, so ordered.

During President Trump's first term in office, only 65 percent were. So you can see the slide from 98 to 90 to 65. What we have also learned is what goes around comes around. With President Biden, his number was 57 percent, but that is a far cry from what we have seen in President Trump's second term, with zero--zero--of these noncontroversial nominees, patriots. They want nothing but to serve their country, but they are being denied that opportunity out of blind, partisan obstruction--mindless obstruction. The only way it can be explained, the Senator from Missouri mentioned, is with Trump derangement syndrome, and this is it in all of its ugly manifestations. There is no other explanation.

Now, changing the Senate rules is not something we do lightly because

we know what goes around comes around, but the truth is, Republicans are more than willing to live with the change in the rules when Democrats are in the majority, when there is a Democrat President, which someday there may well be. So we are acting on behalf of all Senators, of all Presidents, of all nominees, and the entire American people when we say something has to change, and we are going to change it this week. I know all of us would prefer to deal with this in some way other than overruling the Parliamentarian and invoking the so- called nuclear option, but we have exhausted all of the other possibilities, with one exception, perhaps.

In a moment, I am going to propose a unanimous consent request on a resolution that would allow the majority leader to call up at least 10 nominees advanced out of the same committee to be considered for a vote en bloc, or all together. This is something very similar to that which the chairman of the Rules Committee, Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota, and Angus King, an Independent from Maine, had proposed in 2023. If Democrats were really interested in solving the problem, if they were really interested in restoring the Senate to its previous reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body, they wouldn't object; they would agree. It is their idea, but what remains to be seen is whether Senate Democrats will agree to their own proposal.

If Senate Democrats will consent to this proposal which I will propound momentarily, which will allow the en bloc consideration of nominees, then we can avoid a rule change, but if they block this resolution, they will show their true colors. They will show that this is not about deliberation; that this is not about what is in the best interests of the American people; that this is not about genuine oversight--but that this is naked, partisan obstruction. It will then be clear to all of us across the country that Democrat objections to changing the rules have nothing--nothing--to do with preserving the institutional integrity of the Senate and more to do with their crusade against President Trump and the American people who elected him last November 5.

We will see if Senate Democrats would prefer to continue their historic obstruction or whether they would consent to let us carry out the essential function of this Chamber to provide a vote. That is all we are asking for is a vote on the nominations.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 379 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, of course, I am disappointed that our colleague from California is objecting on behalf of the Democrats in the Chamber, but I just want to summarize what I think I heard him say. First, Democrats are prepared to hold all these nominees hostage pending some sort of agreement.

Well, you heard the Senator from Alabama, the Senator from Missouri, and the Senator from Oklahoma all talk about the endless discussions with

individual members of the Senate Democrats, many of whom are sympathetic to the problem but were powerless to change it because the leadership--the minority leader, the Senator from New York--who controls that caucus would not hear of any sort of negotiation.

We are all accustomed to negotiating around here. We do it on a daily basis. But we have tried, in good faith, every possible permutation, short of this action that we are taking today. But I have to ask, is it in good faith to say: Let's wait until 2029 to change the rules? What is President Trump supposed to do over the next 3 years? Govern with one arm tied behind his back, without the team that he has selected to help him govern the country?

He won the election on last November 5. He got a mandate. People are sick and tired of the status quo here in Washington, DC. They want to see change. They want to see things shaken up. But now Democrats are saying: You have got to wait until 2029. That is obviously unacceptable.

And then, finally, I would just point out we could have offered a number of different solutions to this problem, some that, perhaps, would advantage Republicans and disadvantage Democrats, but we haven't done that. We said: Let's take the Democratic proposal from 2023 and offer that. Surely, they would think that is reasonable since they themselves have proposed it in the first instance.

But what we have just heard is that Democrats won't even agree to that--their own proposal, their own idea. So, to me, it is abundantly clear that we have exhausted all the opportunities for negotiation. We have vetted a number of different alternatives, but it is this all- consuming, mindless partisan objection to President Trump and his policies that are blinding our Democratic colleagues from doing what they know is right, which is having a way, with debate and with votes, to give the American people a President who has a team to carry through the policies that they voted for on November 5.

So, Mr. President, I am disappointed but not surprised, but I think we have done everything we can. This obstruction has to end, and it will end very soon.

Mr. President, I know all of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, are anxious to be able to go back home and talk to their constituents, perhaps have a long-delayed medical procedure or doctor visit, or simply take a family vacation during the traditional August recess.

My Republican colleagues and I are, likewise, eager to go back home and talk about the benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill. I was in Amarillo, TX, in the Texas panhandle on Friday, and just in having a back-and-forth Q&A with the folks who were there, it is evident to me that there is so much in the bill that it takes a while to really explain the benefits.

We know we avoided a tax increase that would have totaled trillions of dollars, roughly benefiting $3,000 per Texas family.

But there were other benefits that helped our agriculture community, things that, ordinarily, we would have put in a farm bill but made sure we strengthened the safety net for the folks who produce our food and fiber. And then there are other provisions, like the no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, or overtime.

So there is so much in the bill that is hard to communicate, which means we need to get back home and talk about that and why it is a grand slam home run for our constituents.

But having said that, I don't believe that the Senate should leave town without ensuring that President Trump has his nominees and his team in place. We still have somewhere on the order of 140 backlogged nominees by this President that have been obstructed by the Democrats. We find ourselves really in an unprecedented situation where Democrats, rather than picking and choosing the nominees they choose to object to, have simply chosen to object to all of them, forcing us to burn a lot of valuable floor time that we could be using for other more constructive purposes and delaying President Trump who, after all, won the election last November, the team that he is entitled to help him govern and carry out his policies.

It is absolutely unprecedented, the sort of stonewalling that we are up against. Our Democratic colleagues, after all, are the ones who are holding up this process. I know some people listening may say: Well, isn't this sort of partisan grid lock normal?

The answer is no. We certainly have our fights here and that is OK, that is all well and good. But the reason why Republicans are complaining and the President is complaining about Democratic obstruction is that there is no precedent for objecting to nominees by a President by allowing either a voice vote, which is a nonrollcall vote, or unanimous consent when they are noncontroversial nominees.

This chart to my left indicates that civilian nominees, as opposed to military nominations--which the Senate also confirms--but nonmilitary nominees confirmed by voice vote or on an expedited basis or unanimous consent during a first term.

You see George Herbert Walker Bush. So 98 percent of his nominees to Senate-confirmed positions were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent. Again, Clinton, similar numbers, 98 percent. Then you get to George W. Bush and Barack Obama. That number dropped from 98 percent to 90 percent. That is still a pretty good record of expediting these nominees, making sure that the President, whether that President be a Democrat or Republican, have their team on board, which is what the American people voted for when they were elected. Then you see when President Trump came along, the rules of the road were changed where only 65 percent of his first-term nominees were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent on an expedited basis. It literally took years for President Trump to get all his nominees on board because of the foot- dragging by our Democratic colleagues back in his first term. Then you see what goes around comes around. Biden's nominees, roughly 57 percent of them, handled on an expedited basis. But what we have seen this term, after this most recent election, is without any precedent, as you can see here.

Basically, what our Democratic colleagues are saying is we will agree to no confirmation votes on Trump nominees during his second term. This is part of what, I guess, you would call the resistance and the polarization of our politics and the fact that our Democrats are not the Democrats of old. These are radicalized people who cannot agree to anything, even when it really is not something that is controversial.

Again, it is fine to disagree about things that we do disagree on. We see the world in a different way or we think we have different and better ideas about what would serve the interest of the American people. But to mindlessly object to President Trump's nominees and deny the American people the benefit of their vote in the last election is simply unfair. It is unfair to the American people whose interests are being harmed by denying these people from being in place and doing their job. It is unfair to President Trump, who is being denied the team that he is entitled to help him carry out his policies. And, finally, it is unfair to the nominees themselves, many of whom have quit their jobs, sold their business, and are simply waiting month after month after month to be able to be confirmed. These are people who are, by and large, not political partisans. They are people who are interested in serving their country in some capacity or another.

Many of these nominees--I think, roughly, 30 of them--are Senate- confirmed nominees to serve as an ambassador in our embassies around the world.

I don't have to remind all of us that the world has become a much more dangerous place, and the idea that the United States would not have Senate-confirmed Ambassadors in these Embassies around the world is simply shooting ourselves in the foot. China and Russia and our other adversaries certainly have their Ambassadors working in each of those countries to further their interests, but the idea that the United States would be absent because Senate Democrats simply refuse to confirm these Ambassadors is really beyond the pale. It hurts not only the United States and our foreign policy and our diplomatic efforts, but it also, again, causes harm to the individuals who volunteered to give up their lives and their livelihoods to serve our country, just to be left hanging without any real hope of getting confirmed on a timely basis.

We are not talking about lifetime-tenured judges. Those, obviously, are sort of a different category. We aren't even talking about the President's Cabinet, which is a handful of his most key and most important advisers. What we are talking about, really, are rank-and- file people who are confirmed by a vote of the Senate.

I personally believe that we should change the law and not require Senate confirmation for many of these positions. It is a formality, really, to have to vote on some of these nominees. For example, there is the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration--I am not sure exactly why the Senate should be voting to confirm at all somebody who has been nominated to that position--or the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey or the general counsel for the Veterans' Administration. But regardless of whether or not they should be confirmed by the Senate, they currently are required to be confirmed, and the Democrats simply are mindlessly obstructing the confirmation of these noncontroversial, really apolitical nominees.

We also have people like the Federal Transit Administrator and the Director of the Amtrak Board of Directors--both waiting for confirmation.

The level of partisan gamesmanship that we are currently seeing is really something we have never seen before. This is not healthy for the country, and it is not healthy for this institution.

Again, what we have tended to see is that what goes around comes around. So the temptation will be, if President Trump can't get his team confirmed, when the next Democrat gets elected President of the United States, what will be the natural reaction to that President's nominees? Well, it is going to be to try to do to him what they did to President Trump. I don't think that is good for the country.

We need to break this logjam, and we need to do it now. I believe, if we can't

reach some sort of negotiated outcome that is satisfactory to President Trump, then we need to either stay here or change the Senate rules. I believe that the status quo is unacceptable and that something has to give.

The Senate Democrats are the ones who brought us to where we are today. They are the ones responsible for the blame. But more importantly than that, the American people deserve the services of these individuals who have been nominated for these various Senate- confirmed positions. President Trump is entitled to his team, and this mindless obstruction has to come to an end now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is July 30--my older daughter's birthday--but we are approaching a season that Senators and our staffs alike look forward to each year with some anticipation, which is going back home, talking to our constituents--more importantly, listening to our constituents, hearing what is on their minds, and determining how we might do our jobs better.

I sometimes, tongue in cheek, refer to Washington, DC, as a forward operating base in hostile territory, but the truth is, many of the most important battles that are fought in our country are fought out here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. But, as we look ahead to next month, it is worth taking stock of where we have come in the first half of the 119th Congress, in the first 6 months of President Trump's tenure as President of the United States--certainly, in his second term, obviously--which has been an amazing record of accomplishment if you look back at it.

We have confirmed President Trump's Cabinet at a record pace--no thanks to our Democratic colleagues who have reflexively or, you might even say, mindlessly opposed each and every nominee of this President, with maybe one exception. That would be the Secretary of State, Senator Rubio.

In the process of obstructing all of these nominees and forcing us to burn valuable floor time by not agreeing to any voice votes or to the expedited consideration of noncontroversial nominees, they have forced us to burn valuable floor time, during which we might have taken up other important bipartisan matters. Nevertheless, we have done important things--unfortunately, alone on this side of the aisle, without any support from our friends across the aisle--like extending the Trump tax cuts from 2017 and making them permanent, addressing the looming debt ceiling to prevent a national default. We have secured many other important wins for border security and law enforcement through the One Big Beautiful Bill.

We also passed our first rescissions package, codifying many of the most important spending reforms identified by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

While these accomplishments are not insignificant, we are just getting started.

As I mentioned, our Democratic colleagues here in the Senate have reflexively and mindlessly opposed President Trump's nominees, but we have confirmed 107 of them while 147 lower level but critical nominees are still waiting to be confirmed by the Senate--147. These include many Ambassadors to key allies around the world that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has voted out of committee. They are waiting for their day on the Senate floor.

To date, Senate Democrats have allowed voice votes or given unanimous consent on exactly zero--zero--of President Trump's civilian nominees. This is the only time in recorded history that the minority party has refused to do so on any nominees at this point in a Presidency, and it is shameful. It is inexcusable. They are not hurting Republicans; they are not hurting President Trump. They are hurting the American people because these are people who will serve in critical positions that require Senate confirmation not only here in the United States and the administration but around the world in representing the United States at Embassies all across the planet.

Senate Democrats' partisan obstruction is making our country less safe; it is making American foreign policy less effective; and it is ceding the field to our adversaries, who have no problem putting their representatives in these countries which currently lack American Ambassadors.

I, for one, believe that if our Democratic colleagues do not relent on this needless and mindless obstruction, Senate Republicans will have to consider what additional steps we need to take in order to expedite this process.

There is precedent for this. Back in 2017, when Neil Gorsuch was nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court, our Democratic colleagues refused to grant cloture or closing off debate by giving 60 votes for that purpose. It forced Republicans to change the Senate rules to lower that threshold from 60 down to 51, which had always been the longstanding tradition. Even in spite of the possibility of requiring 60 votes, it simply had not been required previously.

And when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada was majority leader, the Democrats changed the threshold for cloture on all other Federal judges from 60 to 51. So in 2017, in order to break that logjam on Supreme Court nominees, Republicans returned the favor.

I believe that some similar process by which we set a new precedent on the President's nominees may be necessary before we leave this Chamber, before we leave the Senate and Washington, DC, this month.

The President must have his team in place. Again, our Democratic colleagues seem unwilling to accept the fact that President Trump actually won the election, receiving a mandate from the American people. Why else would they obstruct all of his nominees and force us to burn valuable floor time by not agreeing to any sort of expedited process, force us to burn all this valuable floor time just to confirm 107 nominees and leave 147 waiting?

It is not fair to the American people because these people are supposed to serve in important positions of responsibility on their behalf. It is not fair to President Trump, who has been denied his team. But it is also not fair to the people who agree to serve in these important Senate-confirmed positions, many of whom have had to sell their businesses, go through a rigorous ethics and legal background scrub, and are simply waiting, day after day after day, will they or won't they, will they or won't they vote to confirm me to this position, which, for many of them--maybe all of them--is an honor of a lifetime.

So we owe it to the American people. We owe it to President Trump. We owe it to these nominees who have volunteered to serve their country to vote on these nominees without further delay.

There is more work to do. In addition to confirming President Trump's nominees, another task that awaits the Senate upon our return is the National Defense Authorization Act. This is the necessary authorization that Congress passes each year to support our men and women in the military, to make sure that we remain the preeminent military strength in the world, and, as President Trump has said time and time again, to make sure that our main national security policy is peace through strength.

We don't want to fight any unnecessary wars, but the best way to avoid

fighting wars is through deterrence, and that comes with peace through strength.

The Defense authorization bill is the main legislative vehicle for ensuring that our military has the resources they need to achieve the missions of today and to rise to the challenges of tomorrow.

We are, I believe, living in the most dangerous world since World War II, and we must take seriously our obligation to authorize additional resources and support the men and women and the families who serve in the U.S. military.

We passed the Defense Authorization Act for 63 consecutive years, and 2025 cannot be the year that we break that streak.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Wicker, has done an excellent job on a bipartisan basis. His committee has already completed the markup of the Defense authorization bill and filed it for consideration on the Senate floor.

Last year, in contrast, under the Senator from New York, the Democratic leader Senator Schumer, we did not see the Defense Authorization Act come to the floor until more than 2 months after the September 30 deadline. But I am optimistic now, with new leadership and with Republicans at the helm, we will pass the Defense authorization bill on a timely basis.

Finally, in addition to confirming the President's nominees and ensuring our military readiness, Congress needs to fund the government. The end of the fiscal year is the end of September, but our Senate Democratic colleagues are already threatening not to work with us on funding the government--which perhaps is the most basic responsibility of Congress--threatening a harmful and unnecessary government shutdown. But it is clear, with their reluctance to work with us to make sure that that doesn't occur, that the risk of that happening is squarely on their shoulders.

Their stated excuse is that they don't agree with some of the things that the Trump administration has been doing. I will remind our colleagues across the aisle that the American people are ultimately the ones who will have to pay the price if they continue to persist in delay tactics that lead to a government shutdown.

It is simply mind-boggling to me that our Democratic colleagues would choose to impose a punitive shutdown on the American people as some sort of partisan payback for Republican efforts to put our country on a more sustainable fiscal path.

Yes, we are trying to look for efficiency. We are trying to avoid waste, fraud, and abuse due to the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency and other leaders in the Trump administration, but the fact remains that our country is more than $36 trillion in debt. The only way to ensure that our social safety net programs remain viable for generations to come and that we continue to be the preeminent military power in the world and maintain that deterrence that I spoke of a moment ago, the only way we can do that is by responsibly funding the government, and that has to happen between now and September 30.

As the Senate winds down this week, and with a recess approaching, I will remind our Democratic colleagues that our work is cut out for us upon our return, and we have important work to do yet before we leave, particularly with regard to this backlog of 147 nominees.

We have had a productive and successful Senate, notwithstanding Democratic obstruction. But I look forward to doing even more, not only in the remaining time before we leave for the recess but when we return from that recess.

After all, we should not get bogged down by partisan battles that cause us to neglect our larger responsibility. We are here to represent the 350 million people who call this country home, and it falls to us, on their behalf, to do the job that they sent us here to do and not to engage in this mindless partisanship and increase the dysfunction and inefficiency of that government.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, it won't surprise anybody that the State of Texas has long been the leading State in the cattle industry, supplying the Nation with steaks, hamburgers, and other protein products that grace many of our dinner tables every night.

Texas ranks first in the Nation in cattle production, coming in at 12 million head a year, representing nearly 15 percent of the total production in the United States and generating more than $1 billion in revenue.

Unfortunately, this essential food supply and corresponding food price are under threat from the outbreak of a particularly pernicious parasite called the New World screwworm. The New World screwworm lays its eggs in the wombs of warmblooded animals, particularly livestock. The larvae then burrow into the opening, creating infections that, left untreated, can cause animals to die within a week.

With no known vaccinations to prevent infections, outbreaks in cattle herds require labor-intensive daily inspections of livestock to make sure they have not been infested.

Since 2023, there have been outbreaks of this deadly insect in Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Costa Rica, a country that ended up declaring the New World screwworm a national emergency in 2024.

Last November, the fly made its way back to Mexico. This, of course, has raised concerns among Texas cattle ranchers that it may soon come across the border and lead to an outbreak in our State.

Earlier this month, the threat became even more acute as a case of New World screwworm was reported less than 400 miles south of the United States-Mexico border.

An outbreak of the New World screwworm in the State of Texas is estimated to cost U.S. livestock producers approximately $1 billion and cost the general economy $3.7 billion due to lost production of meat and milk, as well as livestock death, veterinary costs, labor costs, and more.

This would be absolutely devastating to places like Texas but also to the entire country. Knowing I was coming to the floor to speak about this, I asked my staff to look at what other States might be implicated, and it is virtually every State in the Nation, including the great State of Alabama that produces an estimated 1.2 million head of cattle on an annual basis.

Thankfully, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has snapped into action. Secretary Rollins is currently working with our international partners on an ambitious plan to slow the spread of this terrible parasite.

In May, Secretary Rollins closed U.S. ports to Mexican cattle, bison, and horses to prevent an additional spread. And while these ports were initially scheduled to begin reopening as early as this month, additional cases have delayed that timeline.

But, of course, halting our imports will increase costs for all consumers; and while it is an important part of stopping this parasite, it is not a permanent solution.

For that, we can look to history as our guide. The last time North America faced a similar outbreak of the screwworm was back in the 1960s.

During that contagion, we were able to eradicate these deadly infestations, countering the spread by producing sterile male flies. The sterile male flies mate with the female flies who can only mate once during their lifetime; so, by releasing large numbers of these sterile male flies, the population growth of this parasite can be stopped in its tracks.

This approach worked in the 1960s, and I am hopeful that it will work again in this decade.

As we speak, there is only one sterile fly plant in North America, located in Panama. This plant is operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and by COPEG, or the Panama-U.S. Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of Screwworm Infestation in Livestock, which was established in 1998.

As the New World screwworm continues traveling north, we need another plan to prevent population spread. A sterile fly plant will cost as much as $300 million according to some estimates, and that is certainly not just pocket change. But it pales in comparison with the cost of not doing anything to eradicate this terrible threat.

The economic impact of the devastation that continued spread would cause my State is estimated to be as high as $10 billion, and this would not be limited to Texas, as I said. It would include other cattle-producing States, including Kansas, Nebraska, California, and New Mexico, who, along with Texas, are the primary cattle-producing regions in the country.

Recently, the U.S. and Mexican Governments have partnered to invest in renovating the existing fruit fly-producing facility in Mexico, aiming to further the long-term goal of eradication.

In addition, USDA is building a sterile fly dispersal facility in Hidalgo, TX, in the Rio Grande Valley.

To build on top of these efforts, I will be offering an amendment during the appropriations process on the floor to ensure that the United States is prepared to combat the threat of this parasite.

I am grateful to Secretary Rollins for her leadership. As a Texan, perhaps she understands this threat better than most, and I am confident in her strong and decisive leadership toward eradicating this parasite and that it will reap rewards.

But it is not going to happen by itself. We are going to have to, unfortunately, not only authorize the production of this sterile fly capability--which we have done in the One Big Beautiful Bill--we are actually going

to have to appropriate money to help get this started.

I look forward to continuing to work with her and all of my colleagues to ensure that Texas cattle ranchers and our country's food supply are kept safe from this pesky parasite.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, in the United States, we justly pride ourselves on being a nation of laws. This is one of the things that makes our country different from the rest of the world. Economists have written about the fact that, while there are many entrepreneurial or innovation societies and economies, it is the rule of law, the predictability, the enforcement of contracts, and the fundamental guarantees of rights that make us successful where other countries fail.

Unfortunately, we have seen the undermining of the rule of law, in the last 4 years, by President Biden's refusal to simply enforce our immigration laws. And my prediction is we will be paying the price not just in weeks and months but in years and decades for what has come to be known as the ``Biden border disaster.''

President Biden's policies betrayed the American people because of the lack of leadership in the face of a historic crisis--here, again, of his own making--at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Yesterday, I chaired a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary hearing entitled ``Biden's Border Betrayal: Criminal Aliens in America.'' At that hearing, we examined some of the false narratives that the mainstream media have peddled about President Trump's enforcement of our immigration laws.

We were honored to be joined by two Angel moms whose children were murdered by criminal aliens who never should have been in the United States in the first place.

Marie Vega joined us. Marie is the mother of Javier Vega, Jr., who went by the name ``Harvey.'' Harvey was a Border Patrol agent who was murdered by illegal aliens nearly 11 years ago. I am grateful to her for sharing her story, as painful as I know it must have been for her, and talking about the trauma that she, her grandchildren, and her entire family have experienced over her son's murder.

Our second guest was Tammy Nobles. Tammy was the mother of Kayla Hamilton, who was murdered by an illegal alien who was also a member of the MS-13 gang--one of the most violent gangs in the world. Kayla's murderer entered our country as an unaccompanied minor and was later released into the custody of an unvetted sponsor.

Mrs. Nobles' passion for ensuring this horrific tragedy won't happen again to more families was evident throughout the hearing. I am grateful to her, again, for sharing what had to be a very painful experience but one she did in honor of her daughter's memory.

Our third guest was Victor Avila, a former ICE Homeland Security Investigations agent who, along with his partner, was shot in the line of duty by Los Zetas. Los Zetas is a cartel operating in Mexico and in the United States occasionally.

Victor was seriously wounded that day, and his partner was killed. I have known Victor a long time, and he is a steadfast advocate of the rule of law and understands what is required if we are going to keep Americans safe.

These families and victims would never have had to suffer such devastating loss were it not for the criminal aliens who never should have been here in the United States in the first place.

It was a curious matter to me that our Democratic colleagues claim to be the party of compassion when it comes to immigration, but they would rather society and the media and Congress turn a blind eye to these victims of criminals who entered the country as a result of open border policies. That is not compassion. Some of the individuals ICE-- Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is what the initials stand for, of course--some of the individuals ICE has apprehended recently include murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and sex traffickers.

Our fourth guest was Sheriff Roy Boyd of Goliad, TX, a small, South Texas county. He described the horrifying details of human trafficking and criminal activities carried out by the transnational criminal organizations--this is organized crime--the cartels he has witnessed in recent years. He said during his testimony:

The border has always been a location for criminal

activity, however, I never witnessed such an increase in

blatantly open criminal activity as I did between 2021 and

2024.

It is truly shocking to think about the sheer number of illegal criminal aliens who are currently roaming free in the United States.

Now, you would think, listening to some of my Democratic colleagues, that ICE is arresting gardeners, cooks, housekeepers--people who are basically just trying to earn a living. But the truth is, there are 291,000--291,000--criminal aliens in the United States who are under final orders of removal. That means they have exhausted all potential legal remedies to be able to stay here, and they have been found not qualified to stay, and they have been ordered removed, but they simply ignored that order by a court.

For this fiscal year alone, 213,000 criminal aliens with final orders of removal have criminal convictions, while another 78,000 have pending criminal charges against them. Even more disturbing is the fact that 282,000 of these criminal aliens are still roaming free, not being held in ICE custody.

I know Tom Homan, who is the border czar who is heading up these efforts, is working to chip away at this list of criminal aliens who are still present in the United States who are under final orders of deportation. But, again, to listen to the news or listen to some of the political rhetoric, you would think, again, that Tom Homan and ICE are detaining gardeners and cooks and housekeepers, when 282,000 of these criminal aliens with final orders of deportation are still roaming free.

Most aliens with final orders of removal have been in the immigration system for almost a decade. They have been litigating their claims in immigration courts, some for almost a decade, and many, if not all, were given the opportunity to have their day in court. Many of them just neglected to show up. They were given a notice to appear in an immigration court and if they had a bona fide claim to asylum, to present that to an immigration judge. But many of these individuals simply did not show up, forfeiting any right they had to claim they could legally stay in the United States. But all of this doesn't stop our colleagues from across the aisle from claiming that illegal aliens detained by ICE are not being given ``due process.''

We are blessed to live in America, no doubt, and I think sometimes we take for granted all the privileges we are afforded and all the rights we have as citizens. So it is worth asking the question: What sort of process are these illegal aliens actually due?

While the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights apply to all individuals in the United

States, illegal aliens are not entitled to the same range of due process as U.S. citizens, especially when they neglect or refuse to show up in the first place when the notice to appear has been given, but they simply reject it.

The idea that someone could break our laws, enter our country illegally, and then be entitled to all the rights and privileges of an American citizen is awfully far-fetched, and it is not the law. Let me be clear about what the law actually says: Aliens who already have final orders of deportation, who are being detained for the purpose of removal, have already had their due process.

I would encourage my colleagues on the left to reflect on this before continuing to use the buzzwords ``due process'' to mislead the American people as they discuss cases that appear sympathetic but where the process these aliens were entitled to has simply been exhausted, and they lost or they refused to show up in the first place.

The American people know what Democrats fail to admit: Deterrence-- deterrence--is a critical part of immigration enforcement and preventing the flow of aliens into the United States in the first place. In other words, if you know that it is likely that if you pay a coyote or a human smuggler $10,000 to smuggle you into the United States but you are unlikely to be able to stay, then you are probably not going to make the decision to make that dangerous trip in the hands of a criminal organization to come to the United States. That is part of what we talk about when we are discussing deterrence--the likelihood you would be unsuccessful, so you don't try in the first place.

I have been impressed by the way the State of Florida has stepped up to the plate by helping the administration open a detention facility known in the press as Alligator Alcatraz--well, whatever is necessary to provide detention facilities for people who have no legal right to remain in the United States because they have exhausted all of their legal remedies.

We have just provided significant additional resources in the One Big Beautiful Bill to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to build those detention facilities like the one in Florida, as needed, in order to detain people before they are repatriated or removed from the United States.

I am hopeful other States will step up in a similar way, and I am strongly supportive of creating those necessary detention facilities in places like Texas.

The American people voted overwhelmingly on November 5 for a President who promised to enforce our immigration laws, so it is only right that our States would work together with the Federal Government to facilitate the enforcement of those laws, that the American people voted for. I know they are thankful to President Trump for keeping his promises, and I look forward to continuing to work with him and Governor Abbott to ensure that this work continues in my home State of Texas. Together, we are making our communities safer.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I know I am not the only one who feels like time flies, but it is hard for me to imagine that it has only been 6 months since President Trump was sworn into office--6 months.

When you look at what we have been able to accomplish together--the Republican majority in the House and the Senate and President Trump--it has been nothing short of amazing.

We passed President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill and avoided a multitrillion-dollar tax increase on the American people, we codified DOGE cuts through the rescissions package just last week, and we have continued to confirm President Trump's qualified nominees to the executive branch.

These confirmation votes, of course, will continue apace, but as we are turning to the latter half of this first year in his second term of office, it is also time to focus on other work we need to do, like paying the bills, which is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of the Congress, and authorizing legislation to keep our country strong--passing legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act.

I have talked many times about my dad, who was a B-17 pilot in the Army Air Corps, World War II. He was a very young man when he flew 26 bombing missions over Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, he flew one too many because he was shot down and captured as a POW on his 26th. He was a POW--a prisoner of war--for about the last 4 months of World War II.

But I know my dad, whom Tom Brokaw called part of the ``greatest generation''--the people who fought and won a world war in World War II--they believed and they hoped and they prayed that would be one of the last real threats of world war ever in our lifetime, but we are now living in what I consider to be the most dangerous time since World War