Floor Statements

Mr. President, this weekend, I watched, probably like you, a number of folks go on television and confidently predict that we were going to be out of the shutdown. Some said as early as Wednesday. One confidently predicted Thursday. A couple more said Friday. So when I came back on Monday, I was pretty sanguine about things.

It gives me no joy to say this, but I was wrong. I don't know. As bad as this multiple-vehicle pileup looks from the outside, you ought to see it from the inside. I know you know what I am talking about, Mr. President. The Republicans have voted 14 times to come out of the shutdown. My Democrat friends have voted 14 times to stay shut down. I think it is going to be like that for a while.

I used to have a beagle. I loved him to death. His name was Roger. He was a rascal. Roger would run off. He was a rabbit dog that we picked up as a stray. Roger would run off for 3 days and scare me to death. I was afraid he was going to die. After 3 days, he would come staggering back home, and he always had roadkill in his mouth. He would hide that roadkill under my back porch. Where we are now, in negotiating out of the shutdown, looks like something Roger used to hide under my back porch.

We are supposed to have a vote tomorrow. We don't know what we are voting on, but we have been promised we are going to have a vote. I hope we do. And I hope we are wrong, and I hope we come out of this shutdown very soon. But I am not going to lie to the

American people. I think we are going to be in it for a while.

Now, as everyone knows, folks aren't being paid while we are in a shutdown. Our air traffic controllers are not being paid. In fact, starting tomorrow, the airlines are going to be canceling flights. Our staffs are not being paid. Federal employees are not being paid. These young men and women here, our pages, are not being paid. Our military is only being partially paid.

I am confused about SNAP payments. Some say the payments are being made; some say they aren't. I don't know who is telling the truth. But I do know this: I don't think anybody wants to see anybody hungry in America.

The only people that I can ascertain who are being paid are Members of Congress. I am not being paid. I said I wasn't going to take a salary during the shutdown. Some of my colleagues are, and I am not judging anybody. My purpose is not to judge anybody. I am just saying that it is time that Congress set an example.

I have two bills I am going to offer up today. The first one is called the No Shutdown Paychecks to Politicians Act. This just says that while we are in a shutdown, Members of Congress don't get paid and they don't get backpay.

The second bill is entitled Withhold Member Pay During Shutdowns Act. That bill says that while we are in a shutdown, Members of Congress don't get paid, but they will get paid. They will get their money in arrears after we open the government back up.

I am rather fond of the Constitution, as most people are. I am well aware of the 27th amendment which says:

No law, varying the compensation for the service of the

Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an

election of Representatives shall have intervened.

What that means, of course, is you can't change the pay for a Congressman until after you have had an election.

I think my bills are constitutional for two reasons. No. 1, we are not changing the rate of compensation. We are just saying: You are in a shutdown; you are not going to get your money.

No. 2, there is precedent for this. Back in 2013, President Obama had Congress pass the No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013. President Obama's bill said: Look, Congress is about to go into a shutdown. Fine, have at it. Knock yourselves out. Go into a shutdown. But if you don't come out of that shutdown by this particular date, you are not going to get paid.

And do you know what? Members of Congress had an epiphany. They had a Damascene moment. They were born again. They got out of the shutdown in time to be paid.

I am not trying to put down anybody. I am not trying to condemn folks who have been taking their salary. I am not saying they don't earn every bit of it. But I am saying what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

I want to offer up these two bills for the Members' consideration, starting with my first bill, which would say Members of Congress can't be paid and don't get backpay even after we end the shutdown. That is called the No Shutdown Paychecks to Politicians Act.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill, that bill which I just described, which is at the desk. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I will not, Mr. President.

I would like to explain why.

I understand Senator Paul is making a good point. What he is saying is, rather than saying, as I am, that nobody else is being paid so Members of Congress shouldn't be paid--I think what Senator Paul is saying is let's pay everybody. That is what I understand him to be saying. He wants me to agree to that instead of my bill.

What Senator Paul is proposing is Senator Ron Johnson's ``no shutdown'' act that we voted on several times. I am for it. I voted for it several times.

Here is the problem I have with Senator Paul's proposal, pulling down my bill and going with Senator Johnson's bill--several reasons. No. 1, I am interested in passing something. I am not interested in just putting on a show. My bill will pass the House of Representatives, and my bill will be signed by the President.

Senator Paul's bill, I can assure you, will not pass the House of Representatives, and President Trump will not sign it. I am not saying someone is right or somebody is wrong. President Trump does not consider Senator Paul to be part of his MAGA agenda, and he will veto it. Then we are right back to square one.

So, for that reason, I can't substitute his for mine because his is going to be as dead as fried chicken here in a few days, and mine has a chance to pass.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Now, Mr. President, I need some clarification, a parliamentary inquiry, if you will: Do I understand that Senator Paul has objected to my bill; is that correct?

And his modification, if I might ask, is to substitute his bill for mine?

OK. I have said I will not substitute his bill for mine.

Mr. President, may I ask for a clarification?

I have offered a bill to say that Congress does not get paid like everybody else who is not being paid during a shutdown. There has been a little bit of a back-and-forth.

As I understand it, Senator Paul has objected to that bill; is that correct?

To my bill to say Congress isn't paid during a shutdown; is that correct?

Mr. President, I want to bring up my second bill. It is called the Withhold Member Pay During Shutdowns Act.

Remember, my first bill that Senator Paul objected to would have said Members of Congress don't get paid, just like our staffs don't get paid, just like air traffic controllers don't get paid, just like the military doesn't get paid. We don't get paid until the shutdown is lifted, and we don't get our money in arrears. In other words, we don't recoup our money once the shutdown is lifted. Perhaps Senator Paul will find my second bill to be more palatable to him and his pocketbook.

The Withhold Member Pay During Shutdowns Act would say, while we are in a shutdown and everyone else is not being paid, Congress would not be paid but that Members of Congress--including Senator Paul, including me, including all Members of Congress--would have the right to get the money back, to be paid, after they are out of the shutdown. In other words, the money would be escrowed, and they would get it once we were to come out of the shutdown.

Again, there is precedent for that, and I talked about what President Obama did back in 2013. For that reason, I am going to ask unanimous consent on that one.

I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 3057 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, a point of clarification: Has Senator Paul objected to my bill or does he want me to modify it?

Mr. President, I am not done yet. Maybe I wasn't clear. I apologize if I wasn't clear.

I support Rand's bill. It is actually Ron Johnson's bill, but I support his idea.

What I am saying is, if everybody over here isn't being paid, Members of Congress shouldn't be paid, OK? What Rand is saying--what Senator Paul is saying--is let's pay everybody, and he is absolutely right. I support that, but I am going to pass on it.

I am going to pass on it, Senator Durbin. We live in the real world, and my bill is more likely to pass the House and more likely to be signed by the President than Senator Paul's bill. I wish that weren't the case, but it is. I don't think that the House is going to pass Senator Paul's bill. I don't think it is any secret. I am not saying he is right or wrong, but President Trump does not consider Senator Paul to be part of the MAGA agenda. He said that. He has tweeted it about a skillion times.

Am I wrong, Senator Durbin?

I mean, he has tweeted it about a skillion times, and he is going to veto Senator Paul's bill because his name is on it. He is going to knock it to Uranus. He is going to knock it into a new ZIP Code.

Then what have Rand and I done? We have put on a pretty performance. I want to pass something. Now, I have tried to pass my bill preventing Members of Congress from being paid, and you can pretty it up all you want to, but Rand objected. And I am not judging him. I am not judging anybody who is taking their salary. I am not taking mine, but I am not judging anybody. But what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and you either think Members of Congress ought to be treated like everybody else or you don't. You either think that we are more important and smarter and more virtuous than the American people or you don't, and I think we ought to be treated the same.

Now, having said that, I said I agreed with what Senator Paul said. I am just worried his name on the bill is going to get knocked out of the park, so I am going to put it in my name. It is not Senator Paul's bill; it is Senator Ron Johnson's bill, and what Ron John's--we call him Ron John. I am sorry. He is Senator Ron Johnson from the wonderful State of Wisconsin.

What Senator Johnson has proposed--and I voted for it repeatedly-- says: Look, if you are deemed an essential employee right now, if you are working but you are not being paid, Senator Johnson's bill says we are going to pay you. I voted for that. It also says, if you are furloughed, if you are deemed to be nonessential, then you are not working, but you will get paid once we come out of this shutdown.

Does that make sense? That is what Senator Ron Johnson has proposed.

As I told my good friend Senator Paul, I agree with it. Senator Paul's name is on that bill, and it is going to be vetoed six ways to Sunday. I am going to try to put my name on the bill. Maybe it will get passed, and maybe it won't, but I think I have a better chance than Senator Paul. That is just my personal opinion. It is not meant to be personal.

For that reason, Mr. President, I will try it a third way. It is not my preferred way, but we have got to get out of this mess.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 191, S. 3012. As I have indicated, I think we have got a chance to pass it in the House, and I really don't think President Trump will veto it if I explain to him it is Senator Ron Johnson's bill. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, look, I get it. You know, this is why we are in a shutdown.

I just proposed a bill--this was my third choice, but it was better than nothing--to say everybody gets paid, and my good friend from Washington State objected.

I don't know what else to do. I voted 14 times to open up the government.

I can't change the election. President Trump was duly elected President of the United States--he was--in a free election, and the American people spoke. Some of my colleagues are upset about that. In fact, they hate the President so much, they have shut down government. They hate him so much that, if President Trump came out in favor of breathing to live, they would hold their breath. It is not rational.

I just don't know what else to do. All I can tell my Democratic friends is: Look, reasonable people disagree, and I get it. But you are just being too emotional. You need to go drink a big ole, cold, tall glass of ``get over it'' and realize that President Trump is the President of the United States. Don't shut the government down because of it.

Mr. President, you have been really patient. Even though the Parliamentarian tried to get you to dodge my questions, you answered them straight up, and I really appreciate it.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I am going to be uncharacteristically brief.

Tomorrow, I will be bringing two bills before the Senate. They both have to do with the shutdown and congressional pay.

The first bill is the No Shutdown Paychecks Act. The second bill is the Withhold Member Pay During Shutdowns Act.

The first bill would provide that, as long as we are shut down--and I will explain why in a moment--as long as we are shut down, no Member of Congress can be paid. And the money will not be--will not be-- reimbursed at a later date or repaid at a later date.

The second bill, to address any 27th Amendment concerns, will say: During a shutdown, Members of Congress will not receive their pay, but their pay will be escrowed, and they will receive it after the government is opened back up.

Look, we are in day 36. Like the Presiding Officer, I have heard a lot of rumors about ``we are that close to reaching an agreement.'' We have been ``that close'' for a week.

Frankly, I hope I am wrong in saying this, but I don't think we are really that close. I wish we were, and I hope we are. But I think we are going to be in this shutdown a while longer. That doesn't give me any joy to say that.

In the meantime, none of our staffs are being paid. No Federal employees are being paid. I got some numbers in this morning that Federal workers have had to borrow $365 million so far during this 36- day shutdown in order just to pay their rent.

Our military is only being paid partially. Our air traffic controllers are not being paid.

People who receive SNAP payments are only being partially paid. I don't think anybody wants to see anybody go hungry in America. And that is not a partisan statement. I think that is a bipartisan statement.

There is precedent for this.

Some may say: Well, this violates the 27th Amendment.

I don't think it does. That is why I am offering two different flavors of bills.

But in 2013, President Obama did the same thing that I am doing now. They were in a shutdown, and President Obama supported legislation that said: If you don't open up government by this certain date, then you are going to lose your paychecks.

And guess what. Members of Congress had an epiphany, and they found religion. They had a Damascene moment, and they opened up the government. And that is all this bill would do.

I am not trying to grandstand. I wasn't going to bring this bill. When I got back here Monday, I heard all the rumors, like everybody else, that we were close. And I hope we are close. But we are not close enough.

And so I am offering these bills tomorrow, and people can vote yea or they can vote nay. But what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

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 ask unanimous consent to use a prop.

Mr. President, with me today are two of my colleagues from my office, Mr. James Shea and Mr. Parker Loy, and I have got another colleague coming. My chart--my exhibit--is being printed. It is not quite here. But when it comes, I will introduce him to you, too, Mr. President.

I want to talk about LSU. You know, into life a little rain must fall sometimes, and LSU has been in the news lately, and it is not altogether positive. So I wanted to come down and talk today about the LSU that I know, not the LSU that is sometimes portrayed in the media.

Now, I didn't graduate from LSU. My mom did. My youngest brother did. He graduated from LSU and LSU med school. My middle brother George did--love George to death. He graduated from LSU in two terms: Carter's and Reagan's. It took him a while.

I taught for 15 years at LSU. I taught at the law school.

I was raised in a little town about 20 miles north of Baton Rouge. So I was raised on LSU, particularly LSU athletics. In fact, I played a little high school basketball, and, at the time, LSU basketball wasn't very popular. So they would give away tickets to high school basketball players to try to fill the stands. I tell you that because I had the opportunity to see Pete Maravich play his very first game as a freshman at LSU.

So I think I am qualified to speak about LSU.

And, look, I know what most of the world thinks when you think about LSU and other of our fine universities. You think about this. You think about athletics. I get it. I love college athletics. I watch them every weekend.

LSU certainly excels at athletics. We have--I looked it up. We have 21 sports programs at LSU. We actually have more women's sports programs than we have men's. We have 12 women's sports, and 9--yes, 12 women's sports and 9 male sports.

And I get that when a lot of people--since college athletics is so popular, I get that a lot of people, when they think of LSU, they think of Pete Maravich or they think of Billy Cannon or they think of Y. A. Tittle or they think of Joe Burrow or they think of Shaq or Odell Beckham or Seimone Augustus or Bob Pettit. I get that.

And athletics are an important part of education. When Coach Kim Mulkey, for example, at LSU, the coach of LSU women's basketball, when she takes a young person, a young women, and molds that young women into a responsible adult; when she teaches that young person how to experience victory but also defeat; when she teaches that young person how to treat those two imposters, victory and defeat, the same; when she teaches that young person responsibility; when she teaches that young person discipline and the value of hard work--that is education. So athletics is education.

But there is another part of LSU I want to talk about today, that I want to lift up, and that is LSU academics. LSU was founded in 1860. And, actually, LSU--people think of LSU in Baton Rouge. LSU in Baton Rouge is only one part of LSU. It is the main campus, and it is certainly an important part. But LSU is really another university as well. I forget the exact number, but LSU--we have campuses in Shreveport. We have campuses in Eunice. We have campuses in Alexandria. We now have a campus in New Orleans. I am probably leaving some out.

We have a medical school in Shreveport. We have a medical school in Baton Rouge.

We have about 29,000 students on our main campus, the LSU in Baton Rouge that most people have heard of. But, all told, in our LSU system, we have about 59,000 students, and I am very proud of that. The main campus is hundreds of buildings on about a thousand acres of land--over 1,200 oak trees, just beautiful. The architecture is in the Italian Renaissance style.

LSU was one of the first universities in the country to admit female students. There was a time, believe it or not, in our country when women receiving a higher education degree was something unusual. LSU admitted the first woman, its first female graduate, in 1905. That is a long time ago.

You may not know, but LSU is one of just eight universities in the United States--one of only eight--to have a law school, a medical school--we actually have two medical schools--a dental school, a veterinary school, and an MBA program.

That is the LSU I know, in addition to college athletics.

LSU is 1 of only 24 universities that is both a land-grant university and a sea-grant university and a space-grant university as well. Those are all designations of excellence in research.

That is the LSU that I know, in addition to athletics.

The LSU that I know, in addition to athletics, has a library--a main library in Baton Rouge--that is just simply extraordinary. It has over 3 million volumes. We have an incredible collection of rare books at our library. Some of them date back to the 15th century. We have more than 80,000 rare books. A lot of people don't know that about LSU.

The LSU Press--LSU publishes books. It publishes about 80 different titles every year. Through the years, LSU has published books that have won four Pulitzer prizes. John Kennedy Toole's ``A Confederacy Of Dunces'' is probably one of the best known, but it is only one of hundreds--really, even thousands.

You have probably heard of the Southern Review. That is at LSU. The Southern Review was cofounded in 1935 by Robert Penn Warren. Robert Penn Warren, of course, is a three-time Pulitzer prize winner. He published ``All the King's Men.'' It is part of the New Criticism school.

That is the LSU that I know, in addition to athletics.

If you want to talk about media, the Reveille is our student newspaper at LSU. The Princeton Review named it as 1 of the 12 best college newspapers. And it really is impressive.

That is the LSU that I know.

The LSU that I know has over 2,000--2,000--research projects going at any one time. I will just give you a couple of examples. I don't really understand them, but they are damned impressive sounding. For example, the department of mechanical and industrial engineering is building these small, underwater

robots that can survey and collect data from the seabed floor.

The department of chemical engineering is developing molecular brushes that can scrape away molecules to give these molecules new properties. I don't understand how they do it, but this research is going to be used to improve everything from contact lenses to the recycling of plastics.

And at our college of engineering's division of computer science, there is a very impressive research project going on that is researching something known as micro-signal attacks.

Projects like these are the reason that LSU is 1 of only 21 universities that has been designated as a National Security Agency center of academic excellence in cyber operations.

That is the LSU that I know. That is the LSU that I know, in addition to this LSU--both important, both important. But LSU is even more than its fine athletics.

LSU--I looked up some of the people out there who went to LSU. And, of course, again, I talked about Bob Pettit--he was a great one--Y.A. Tittle, Joe Burrow. These are athletes. We are proud of them.

But the other LSU--this LSU--is Professor Rainer Weiss. Professor Weiss is now deceased, but he won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics.

Professor Bradley Schaefer shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for his role in supernova cosmology.

Professor Thomas Kutter and his team won the 2015 Nobel Prize for their work at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory project.

The LSU I know is Lod Cook. Mr. Cook was a very successful businessman, the CEO of Atlantic Richfield, ARCO, for years.

The LSU I know is Mr. Pat Taylor, now deceased. He was an LSU graduate, built Taylor Energy. He was a champion for what we call the top scholarship program.

The LSU I know is Hubert Humphrey, who also went to our university.

The LSU I know is in the arts. Joanne Woodward is an LSU graduate. Rex Reed, film critic.

The LSU I know is Dr. Ronald Douglas, who is a distinguished professor of mathematics at Texas A&M University. We are very proud of him. He got his graduate degree at LSU.

The LSU I know is Virgil Suarez, professor of English at Florida State University--an award-winning writer who got his master of fine arts at LSU.

The LSU I know is Fonville Winans. Perhaps you haven't heard of him. Look him up. Famous photographer. I have a number of his breathtakingly beautiful photographs in my office.

The LSU I know is Bill Conti, who is an Emmy and Academy Award- winning composer.

The LSU I know is Nic Pizzolatto, who wrote the HBO series ``True Detective.''

The LSU I know is General Barrow, Gen. Robert H. Barrow, who was a general in the Marine Corps.

I could keep going for the rest of the afternoon, but I won't. I think I made my point. No matter what you read about LSU--and I know there has been a lot in the news about our athletic program and, frankly, also about our academics. I just want you to remember this, and I know I am biased. It truly is an extraordinary university. It is an extraordinary university of student athletes. That is this part of LSU. But it is an extraordinary university and collection of academics and academia as well.

I will close on this note. My first job in government was with a Governor. He was a reform Governor. He was elected to try to change Louisiana politics, and he did. And as a result, he only served one term. His name was Buddy Roemer. But Buddy used to say all the time-- and he would say it to me--he would say: Kennedy, here is what you have to understand about Louisiana. He said the key to Louisiana's future is not who the Governor is. He would say, Kennedy, the key to Louisiana's future is not who the U.S. Senator is. The key to Louisiana's future is not the unemployment rate. We talk about it, and we worry about it, but that is not the key to our future. The key to Louisiana is not the price of oil, as important as that is to an oil State. The key to Louisiana, Governor Roemer would say, is education. And education in Louisiana is Louisiana State University.

To our media, I believe in the First Amendment right. You say what you want. I value opinions. Opinions are like elbows. Everyone has one. You are entitled to share it. But I want you to think about and learn more about the LSU I know, which enjoys excellence, not only in athletics but excellence in academics.

I thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate your attention.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, in a few minutes, we are going to vote on

my resolution, pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, to overturn a rule promulgated by the Federal Government, specifically, the Department of the Interior. I can't think of a rule that better demonstrates the arrogance, the hubris of the Federal administrative State. It has to do with God's creatures. I talked about this yesterday.

This is a barred owl, spelled B-A-R-R-E-D. This is a spotted owl. They are both magnificent animals. If you ever studied them, they both have very soulful eyes. They have incredibly--you probably never had an opportunity to pet one, but they have incredibly soft feathers. They are not enemies; they are cousins.

There are 19 species of owls in the United States. These two have been around about 11,000 years. They are not enemies. They both hunt mice and lizards and snakes and insects and mosquitoes. The barred owl is slightly bigger than the spotted owl. The barred owl is a better hunter. That is just the way God made them.

Now, the Department of the Interior--this started under President Biden, but I don't want to mislead anyone. Secretary Burgum, our current Secretary of the Interior, very much opposes my CRA and supports this regulation I am trying to overturn.

What would the regulation do? Here is what it would do. The Federal Government, as I said yesterday--it was true then and is true now-- which can't even deliver the mail when the stuff has an address right on the front of it and, in particular, the Department of the Interior, under President Biden and now under President Trump--as an aside, it is very hard to piss off both the Biden administration and the Trump administration, but I have managed to do that. That is OK. I think I am right. The Department of the Interior is proposing to kill 453,000 barred owls. Kill them--mamas, daddies, babies. Why? To protect, they say, the spotted owl.

You go: Whoa, why does a spotted owl need protecting from the barred owl? They are cousins. They share the same habitat. Sometimes they have sex. It is not unknown that a barred owl will marry a spotted owl. A barred owl marries another barred owl for life, in fact, and sometimes a barred owl will marry a spotted owl.

The barred owl doesn't eat the spotted owl. The barred owl doesn't kill the spotted owl. But the barred owl is a better hunter. And the Department of the Interior says because of that, they have to kill 453,000 barred owls to help the spotted owls. That is what the Federal Government has come down to.

We now have DEI for owls. According to the Department of the Interior: Bad owl; good owl. But we are not talking about an admission to college. If you are on the wrong end of this DEI proposal, you don't just not get--the owl doesn't not get admitted to college; the owl gets killed.

I have been around a little while. I have seen a few vampire movies. This isn't the first one of these, but this is one of the worst examples I have ever seen of the arrogance and the hubris of the Federal Government.

This is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid. Let me tell you why. First of all, it is not going to work. The Federal Government is going to send out a bunch of hunters. Here is one of their hunters. That is what they will probably look like. They are going to send out a bunch of hunters at night with flashlights and shotguns. Because the owls are nocturnal, they live at night; they come out at night. They hide during the day.

Both barred owls and spotted owls live about 40 feet up in the trees. So they are going to send these cowboys out there with their little lights and they are going to point up and they are supposed to shoot the barred owl and not shoot the spotted owl.

Dream weaver. Dream weaver.

So to kill the barred owls, it is inevitable they are going to kill some spotted owls.

No. 2, I have been all through the regulation. I see no indication where using lead shot is prohibited. We changed the rules about using lead versus steel shot because we realize how dangerous lead is. So they are going to kill--if they use a lead shot, which is a lot cheaper than steel shot--yes, they will kill some barred owls, and they will also kill some spotted owls. They will also kill some eagles. They are also going to kill a bunch of hawks, and they are going to kill a bunch of other wildlife because they eat the lead and the lead kills them.

It is not going to work.

The third reason it is not going to work and what the Department of the Interior won't tell you is that the barred owl, which is native to the Eastern United States, started moving west into the jurisdiction of the spotted owl about 100 years ago. It has been steadily moving west because the old-growth forests, where the barred owl lived in the Eastern United States, in northeastern Canada, was cut to make room for people. So the barred owl started moving west, and now the barred owl is in Washington and Oregon and Northern California and British Columbia.

Once again, they don't eat each other. They don't kill each other. But the spotted owl that the Department of the Interior says it has to save was losing population well before the barred owl moved in. Do you know why that is? Because what is happening in the West is the same thing that was happening in the East. Because we gained population and people moved to the suburbs, we reduced old-growth forests, which reduces the habitat for both owls. I am not saying that we shouldn't harvest trees appropriately. I am not saying that. We have also had wildfires. That is what is damaging the spotted owl. It is not the barred owl.

The final point is that this isn't going to work in that, unlike some of the employees in the Department of the Interior, the barred owl isn't stupid. Once you start shooting the barred owl, the barred owl is just going to move on up to Canada. Then, as soon as the coast is clear, the barred owl is going to come back, OK? So you are not going to do anything to help the spotted owl.

The second reason that this regulation is bone-deep, down-to-the- marrow stupid is that it is going to be expensive. In, I think, 2024, the Department of the Interior issued a contract to kill, I think it was, 1,500 barred owls. I don't know how they could do it. I don't know how they had the authority, but they did it. That is the way the bureaucracy works. They hired hunters. They paid them $3,000 a bird-- $3,000 a bird. So, if they went out at night with their little flashlights, looking 40 feet up in the trees, and they killed a daddy barred owl, they got $3,000. If they killed a mama barred owl, they got $3,000. And if they killed a baby barred owl, they got another $3,000.

Do you know how they really hit the jackpot? It was when they would catch a mama barred owl in her nest, protecting her baby chicks. With one shotgun shell, you hit all three baby chicks. That is $9,000. That is what we are going to use taxpayer money for.

Now, the Department of the Interior wants to send out these folks to kill 453,000 barred owls at $3,000 a pop. That is $1.3 billion--not million but billion dollars--to try to protect the spotted owl, not because the spotted owl is hurting anybody, not because the barred owl is hurting anybody. The barred owl is just a better hunter, and the Department of the Interior will tell you that. The barred owl is better. They both eat the same thing. They are better at catching prey, and they think that is putting pressure on the spotted owl.

The spotted owl isn't on the endangered species list. If the spotted owl is in such bad shape, why hasn't the Department of the Interior moved to put the spotted owl on the endangered species list?

Do you know why? Because they can't, because they are not in danger.

The Department of the Interior likes to use the word ``threatened''-- ``threatened,'' ``threatened.'' Well, hell, the zebras are threatened by lions, but the Interior Department--at least not yet--isn't suggesting we go kill all the lions because they eat zebras.

I don't want to mislead anyone. This regulation was promulgated under President Biden, but Secretary Burgum, with whom I have spoken--I have great respect for him--is adamant that this is a good rule and a good regulation. In fact, he told me, as I mentioned yesterday, that by opposing his idea, I was slandering the Trump administration. I am slandering the Trump administration. No, sir, I am trying to help the Trump administration. I am trying to save the Department of the Interior and the Secretary from himself.

In a rare moment of candor, let me tell you what one employee from the Department of the Interior said to a reporter. He probably got fired for it, but this is what he said, and he was--and is--a Fish and Wildlife employee and expert.

He said:

I think all we can really do is try our best to provide a

habitat for spotted owls, and in the long run, we are just

going to have to let the two species work it out.

The final point I will make, and what aggravates me the most about this, is I know the employees at the Department of the Interior are smart and virtuous. I know they are smarter and more virtuous than me. But who appointed them God? Who appointed them Pope?

Animals migrate all the time. It happens all the time, not just mammals but all animals. They move location.

So we are going to be in the business of telling animals: Well, you can live here, but you can't live there.

We are also going to be in the business of choosing which owls can live and which owls can die.

I am going to end like I ended yesterday. This is my advice to my friends at the Department of the Interior, and I don't mean any disrespect in saying it: Life is hard. Life is very, very hard, but it is a lot harder when you are stupid. This regulation is stupid, and we will live to regret it, just like China, back when Mao, during the Great Leap Forward, issued a decree--in his arrogance and in his hubris--to kill all the sparrows in China. And they did, just like we are going to kill all the owls. Two million of the Chinese people died. That is what happens when you mess with God and Mother Nature. As a result, they had to import sparrows. We will end up, someday, if they do this, having to import barred owls. We will regret it.

I don't know, Mr. President, what I am supposed to say next to start the vote, but I am ready.

Here it is.

Motion to Proceed

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 190, S.J. Res. 69.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the rollcall vote begin immediately.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to display three charts during my remarks.

Mr. President, with me today is Mr. James Shea, one of my colleagues from my Senate office.

Mr. President, I want to talk today about the owls. There are 19 species--or kinds of owls--in the United States. Did you know that? There are 19, and I want to talk about two of them: the spotted owl and the barred owl. That is ``barred,'' B-A-R-R-E-D. Both of them are God's creatures.

I also want to talk today--and the Presiding Officer will understand what I mean in a moment--about the Federal Government's proclivity-- repeated proclivity--to do the dumbest thing possible that won't work.

Now, the Federal Government, which can't even deliver the mail when it has the address right there on the front, and, more specifically, the Department of the Interior have promulgated a rule. This rule says that unless Congress stops them, they are going to hire hunters--right here--to kill 453,000 barred owls. There are only 4 million in the United States, but the Department of the Interior wants to kill 453,000 mama barred owls, daddy barred owls, and baby barred owls because the Department of the Interior thinks--says--that the barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl.

The Department of the Interior is not saying the barred owl is eating the spotted owl. The Department of the Interior isn't saying that the barred owl is hurting the spotted owl. The Department of the Interior says it wants to kill over 10 percent of the barred owl population because the barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl, and they want to tip the scales of nature in favor of the spotted owl even though the spotted owl is not on the endangered species list.

My resolution, which will be voted on tomorrow, will stop this nonsense.

First, I want to talk a little bit more about the barred owl. In doing so, I will talk a little bit about its cousin, the spotted owl. As I said, they are both God's creatures.

This is a barred owl. It is beautiful. If you have ever seen a barred owl, it has very, very soulful eyes. Their feathers are incredibly soft. It is called barred, B-A-R-R-E-D, because of the bars that run across here, as opposed to a spotted owl.

The barred owl--10 percent of which our brainiacs at the Department of the Interior want to kill--has been around for 11,000 years. Sometimes the barred owl is called a hoot owl. That may be the term you know it by best. The barred owl is about 2 feet long. It has incredible eyes. Man, it can see. It is like superman or superwoman. It has incredible eyes and incredible hearing.

The barred owl, like the spotted owl, is nocturnal. They come out at night. They hide during the day, and they come out at night.

The barred owl is a great hunter--a great hunter. The barred owl eats mice. The barred owl eats squirrels. The

barred owl eats snakes. The barred owl eats lizards. The barred owl eats spiders. The barred owl even eats bats.

The barred owl lives--as does the spotted owl, for that matter--in old-growth forests. In fact, I have a pair of barred owls that lives in the forest behind my house. They are great. They always come in pairs, about which I will talk in a second. In fact, you can attract barred owls--many people do--by building what is called a nest box, and you can have barred owls come and live if you live near a forest. If you are not handy like me and you want to know how to build a nest box, just go to YouTube.

Barred owls marry for life, and they mate for life. When a male barred owl is courting a female barred owl--I have seen videos; it is really cool--the male barred owl courts a female by bowing. The male barred owl bows, and it opens its wings up a little bit--it doesn't want to be intimidating to the female, so not full out, but it opens its wings up a little bit--and the barred owl wobbles its head back and forth, back and forth, side to side. If the female is impressed, the female says ``I do,'' and they stay married the rest of their lives together. That is why you see them in pairs.

They have babies once a year, generally two to five babies.

These are two of the babies that the Department of the Interior wants to kill. They are going to pay the same price, by the way, to the hunter to kill the babies as they are to kill the mama. They don't care. They just want to kill them all.

When the babies are little, little bitty, when they are born, they are not covered in feathers. Little babies are covered in soft, white down. They don't start getting feathers until about 2 weeks.

The mama barred owl stays with the babies for the first few weeks. Sometimes the babies, like Senators, fall out of the nest as they start exploring around, and the mama or the daddy barred owl--unless the daddy is out hunting for food--has to get them back into the nest.

The babies learn to fly after about 10 weeks.

Now, what does this have to do with the spotted owl, which is also one of God's creatures?

The barred owl is native. It is originally from the Eastern United States and southeastern Canada. It has existed there for 11,000 years. But over the past 100 years--100 years is just the blink of an eye in time--over the past 100 years, the Northeast has gotten more and more crowded, and the old-growth forests that the barred owl lives in have been cut down, and subdivisions have been built. So the barred owl, as happens all the time in nature, has started moving west, and it is moving west, and it is moving west. Now the barred owl is entering Washington State, Oregon, Northern California, and British Columbia in Canada.

Well, that is where the spotted owl lives. The spotted owl also lives in old-growth forests but not exactly in the old-growth forests in the West as the same place as the barred owl. The spotted owl prefers an old-growth forest at a higher elevation.

The barred owl is a better hunter. It is slightly bigger than the spotted owl. The barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl.

Let me say it again because there has been a lot of confusion about this. The barred owl doesn't hunt the spotted owl. In fact, many times, a barred owl and a spotted owl will get married. I know they are cousins, but that doesn't matter as they are distant cousins. Sometimes they get married, and they interbreed. So this isn't a question of one animal killing another. The Department of the Interior is mad at the barred owl because the barred owl is a better hunter. The barred owl is just a better hunter. That is just the way it is.

You know, it is just like the Senate's Presiding Officer. The Presiding Officer is better looking than me. I accept that. That is the way God made us.

God just made the barred owl a better hunter, and the Department of the Interior is all up in arms. They say this is threatening the spotted owl. Now, the spotted owl isn't on the endangered species list, but they say: This isn't fair. The barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl, and that is causing the spotted owl's population to decrease.

So the Department of the Interior, in its infinite wisdom, has come up with DEI for owls. They have come up with quotas for owls.

The barred owl, because nature, God--whatever you believe in--made them better hunters, now has to give up its rights--has to give up its life because the spotted owl is not as good of a hunter.

As I mentioned, the spotted owl and the barred owl don't always live in the same place. Out West, the spotted owl prefers higher elevations than the barred owl. But they do--it is undeniable--they compete for food, and they both live in old-growth forests.

Let me tell you something--and the Department of the Interior doesn't like to admit this. The spotted owl population was declining even before the barred owl decided to move. Do you know why? It had nothing to do with food. It had nothing to do with the barred owl. It had to do with the same thing happening on the west coast that has happened on the east coast. Many of the old-growth forests have been cut down to make way for more people. You might have noticed we have had a few forest fires, and they have been causing the population of the spotted owl to be reduced but not to the point of endangerment. The Interior Department just says they are threatened. That is the problem for the spotted owl. It is not the barred owl.

This regulation that I am trying to overturn was promulgated under President Biden's Department of the Interior, OK? Yet the Department of the Interior--I want to make this clear--under President Trump has embraced this rule. They think that this is the greatest rule--this is the greatest idea--they have ever heard of. It tastes like pumpkin pie to them.

In fact, I got a call from Secretary Burgum, whom I love and respect. He was as mad as a mama wasp. ``Pull down that regulation.'' He accused me of slandering the Trump administration.

I am not slandering the Trump administration. This was a President Biden regulation.

Now, I was polite with the Secretary, but I told him that he was confused and that he needed to call somebody. He had the wrong person on the line. The Secretary needed to call somebody who cared what he thought, because I think he is wrong. I think he is wrong. I think he and the other members of the administration and the Department of the Interior have decided to play God, and they are wrong for at least five reasons.

No. 1, their plan--their brainiac plan--which looks like it was designed by a heroin addict with a socket wrench, won't work. It won't work.

Now, let me tell you what they are going to do. They want to hire hunters--they want to hire Elmer here--to go out at night with a flashlight and shoot the barred owls. Now, this is at night, OK? The barred owl lives about 40 feet up off the ground and in a tree. Do you know what else lives about 40 feet up off the ground and in a tree? The spotted owl. Do you think that these cowboys, who are going disco because they have a Federal contract, are going to be able to always tell the difference between a barred owl and a spotted owl? They are going to shoot them both and let God sort them out because they are being paid.

Look, I am a duck hunter. I am not a big hunter, but I like to duck hunt and dove hunt. I eat what I kill. But, a lot of times, when I am duck hunting, there are different points for different species of duck. I can't tell which duck is which. I have passed up shots before because I thought it might be a mallard, when I can't kill any more mallard. Do you think these cowboys that they are going to hire from the private sector are going out there with their little flashlights--old Elmer here, with his little red hat--in the middle of the night with a flashlight are going to tell the difference or care about the difference between a barred owl and a spotted owl? No. They are going to shoot them both.

No. 2, the other reason it won't work is that spotted owls are not stupid. Once you start shooting at them, they are going to move up into Canada. The Canadians aren't dumb enough to do something like this. They are going to move up into Canada. They are going to wait until the shooting stops, and then they are going to come back

down. So what have we accomplished? Have we done anything for the spotted owl? No.

No. 3, I have been through this reg stem to stern. I can't find out whether this regulation prohibits Elmer Fudd from going out there and using lead shots. When we hunt ducks, you can't use lead shots. You use steel shots. Do you know why? Because a lot of times other birds and other animals will eat the lead shot and they die from it.

So these cowboys are going to go out, if they are not prohibited from using lead shots. Yes, they are going to kill some barred owls and spotted owls. They are going to end up killing eagles and hawks and other wildlife using their lead shots.

The second reason this won't work--let me say it again--the barred owls aren't the problem. The problem is that we are losing old-growth forests in the West, which is the habitat of the spotted owl. And where it is naturally occurring is where more people have moved--to Washington and North Carolina and Oregon--and we have wildfires that have burned our forests.

Don't go pick on the barred owl. You can kill every barred owl there is, and it is not going to help the spotted owl if you don't maintain the appropriate habitat.

No. 4, this is going to be incredibly expensive. This comes under the theme of ``let's do the dumbest thing possible that won't work.''

Our Department of the Interior has already issued one contract. I don't know how they got the authority to do it. But back in 2004, they issued a contract to a private vendor--Elmer here--to go kill 1,500 barred owls. I guess they wanted to test it out. Do you know what they paid? It was $3,000 a bird--$3,000 for a mama barred owl, $3,000 for a daddy barred owl, and $3,000 for a baby barred owl. Give me a break. And now they are going to go out and kill 453,000, over a billion dollars--over a billion dollars. It is not their money, but it is taxpayer money--on a plan that won't even work.

Here is what one person from the Department of the Interior said, in a rare moment of candor. He might have gotten fired. But he is a Wildlife and Fisheries agent. He told the press:

I think all we can really do is try our best to provide a

habitat for spotted owls, and in the long run, we're just

going to have to let the two species work it out.

The final reason this is a bad reg--and then I am going to wrap this up. I know that the bureaucrats at the Department of the Interior--I realize this--they are smarter, and they are more virtuous than you and I. I get that. But who appointed them God? Who appointed them God?

Barred owls are expanding their habitat because the forests in the East have been cut down. That is called adaptive range expansion. And do you know what? Whether you believe in God or nature or whatever, that happens every single day in our ecosystem. It is a naturally occurring ecological phenomenon. It is a core behavioral characteristic of mammals.

All the barred owls are doing--they are not hurting anybody. They are just doing what nature teaches them to do.

We are going to change nature? We are going to control our environment to this extent? We are going to pass DEI for owls? We are going to pass quotas for owls? Spotted owls, good; barred owls bad. But the barred owls won't lose their constitutional rights. They will kill them. They are going to kill 453 of them, dead as Jimmy Hoffa. Give me a break.

This is foolish. This is reckless. This is expensive. It is unsupported by evidence. It is unnecessary, and it won't work. I cannot think--I cannot think--of a better example of the arrogance, the hubris of the Federal administrative state. If we let them go through with this, this will rank right up there with those $10,000 Department of Defense toilet seats, except part of God's creation will already be dead.

Ecosystems are like markets. They regulate themselves. Trying to change nature is like trying to have a Federal Government direct a free enterprise system. It won't work. It never has, and it never will.

I don't mean any disrespect to anybody. I don't. I am not--well, I guess I am calling somebody Elmer Fudd. I don't know who they are going to hire, but I know they hired a bunch of Elmers and gave them $3,000 a bird, and it didn't work. But this, to me, is just bone-deep, down-to- marrow stupid. I have rocks in my driveway that are smarter than this. I do.

Here is my advice to my friends at the Department of the Interior-- and full disclosure: This thing is supported by President Biden's people, and it is supported by President Trump's people. Secretary Burgum loves this thing. He loves this idea like the Devil loves sin. He has a right to his opinion, but here is my advice: Life is hard-- life is hard--but it is a lot harder when you are stupid. Don't do it. Pass my resolution, and let's stop this.

Mr. President, is this a 10-minute vote?

Mr. President, with me today is one of my colleagues from my office, Mr. Will Pietri, who has helped me immensely on this issue.

I want to talk, just for a few minutes, about digital assets. Some people refer to them as crypto or cryptocurrency.

The Senate Banking Committee is in the process, as we should be, of considering market structure legislation for digital assets, for Bitcoin, for crypto. And it is important because there is an enormous amount of confusion out there.

I remember when blockchain technology started--many of us do. Today, one in five Americans is on cryptocurrency. Its growth has been nothing short of breathtaking.

But as oftentimes happens when you have an innovation, it creates enormous confusion on the way that the subject of that innovation integrates with the Federal Government, and that is the case here. Those who are in the cryptocurrency business and in the blockchain technology business don't know whom to talk to in the Federal Government.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced, under President Biden, that it has jurisdiction over digital assets, and so did the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC. There has been a lot of litigation, and there have been a lot of court cases, and it has been enormously confusing.

And those in the crypto business, understandably, have the reaction: Look, we don't mind being regulated. We have nothing to hide. But we would like to know whom to talk to. Is it the CFTC? Is it the SEC? What do we do?

And that is why we need legislation. That is why we need market structure legislation, not because the government needs to stick its nose in everything, but because there has to be some certainty here. Clearly, there is a turf war between the CFTC and the SEC, and it is Congress's role to delineate who has jurisdiction over what.

Now, we did pass one piece of what you might call crypto legislation. We passed the GENIUS Act, as the Presiding Officer knows. That was an important piece of legislation, but it was really just a baby step. It regulates stablecoins, which is only one part of the digital assets business.

I am certainly not denigrating the act. I voted for the bill. I sat on the Banking Committee. The Congress passed the bill. It was a good bill. It was necessary. I congratulate everybody who worked so hard on it. But it is only a small portion of the digital assets market.

Now, we need to turn to the rest. The House has already acted. The House has passed a bill called the CLARITY Act, which does just what I have been talking about, providing some market structural legislation for the crypto industry, the digital assets industry.

But the Senate--this is above my pay grade. But the Senate has decided not to take up the CLARITY Act. I don't know that it has been decided definitively, because obviously if enough Senators want to, we can take up anything we want to take up. But the thinking seems to be that the Senate needs to start over and draft our own digital assets market structure bill that complements the CLARITY Act, which is already passed by the House.

The Banking Committee, chaired by a very able chairman, Tim Scott, is going to be taking up this legislation soon. It has got to be written first. It is still being written. We need to hold hearings.

This is a complicated piece of legislation. I have spent a lot of time on it, and it is one of the most complicated pieces of legislation I have ever seen.

This is just one person's opinion. As a member of Banking, I think it is going to take at least two hearings for us to be able to understand the pros and the cons of this legislation and understand the legislation itself.

We have to be sure, in this legislation, given that one in five Americans owns cryptocurrency--we have to make sure, in this legislation, that we are striking the right balance in jurisdiction between the CFTC and the SEC.

We have to make sure, in this legislation, that we are coordinating closely with another Senate committee, the Senate Agriculture Committee, because it has jurisdiction of the CFTC and will play just as important, if not a more important, role in this legislation as the Banking Committee.

We are going to have to address in this legislation some concerns of the banking community. The banking community, after we passed the GENIUS Act--remember the GENIUS Act was just about stablecoins. The Banking Committee is arguing--rather, the banking community, our banks, are arguing, very persuasively, that there were some mistakes made in the GENIUS Act, which, as I just said, regulates stablecoins.

Frankly, I don't know if that is accurate or not. That is what we need a hearing for. But I think the banks--the banking community--need to be heard on this issue. If we did make some mistakes in the GENIUS Act with respect to American banks, I want us to correct it. I am not saying we did or we didn't; I have heard both sides of the argument. But my point is that we are going to have to take up that issue as well in the hearing because the banking community would like us to amend the larger digital asset market structure legislation to accommodate their concerns about the mistakes, if any, that we made in the GENIUS Act.

We are going to have to spend a lot of time in these hearings and in drafting the legislation making sure that we are addressing things like tokenized securities. This is complicated stuff. It is a way, basically, to trade a stock using blockchain technology without owning stock. We have got to make sure that we get that right.

An issue will be raised, I am sure, about deposit insurance. Cryptocurrency is--well, it is currency in the eyes of many people. And I can see the day when the American people will ask us to address the issues: Should deposit insurance cover cryptocurrency and digital assets?

I am not suggesting to you that it should; I am not suggesting to you that it shouldn't. I am suggesting to you that, likely, will be a topic we would want to consider in one of these hearings that we need to have about this topic.

I also think it would be appropriate in a hearing on this topic before we draft or vote on legislation to talk about the Clarity Act. That is the digital market structure and legislation that I just referred to that was passed by the House.

No one is suggesting this, but I certainly would disagree if they suggested we just ignore that legislation. A lot of work went into it. I spent a lot of time reading it, and I am going to have to spend more time reading it--it is very interesting--but there is some good work there. And I want to be able to compare the Clarity Act passed by the House with the Senate's market structure legislation. So perhaps we can pick the best of each, and that would be an appropriate topic of a hearing as well.

And these issues I am addressing are illustrative; they are not exhaustive.

But we also need to address the issue of what, if any, fiduciary responsibility those who participate in the digital assets markets have. I am talking about commodity brokers, digital commodity brokers. I am talking about digital commodity dealers. Should they have a fiduciary obligation to their customers, to their clients? I am talking about the digital commodity exchanges. What should their duty to their clients be? Should it be a fiduciary obligation? Should it be something less?

These are weighty issues. These are important issues. These are not issues that you raise and solve over a weekend.

But I wanted to start talking about this bill because it is one of the most important pieces of legislation that this body will consider. It may not be the sexiest. It may not be the most interesting to some. But when one in five Americans own cryptocurrency, it is certainly important. So I will probably be talking about this issue several more times on the floor as the Senate moves forward with our digital assets market structure legislation.

I hope we will move it quickly, but I hope we will move deliberately. I hope we will take the time to hold the hearings. And, again, I think it is going to take more than one hearing to address these weighty topics and then an additional time, once we get a bill, to mark it up, as we say, to amend it and make sure that we do the job for the American people.

And with that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, well, the shutdown melodrama continues. I love the smell of melodrama in the morning. It smells like the U.S. Senate. I said the other day that this shutdown is just further proof that human evolution is a slow, slow process. With this shutdown, what you are witnessing now is just further proof about why it took human beings thousands of years to learn how to stand upright. This shutdown is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid.

Some shutdowns are based on policy. Some shutdowns are based on politics. Some shutdowns are based on a combination of both. This one is pure. It is as pure as Ivory Snow.

This shutdown is based on politics. Let me tell you what is going on. I believe in the two-party system. Why? Because two parties create competition, and competition makes all of us better. It does. The Democratic Party--the opposite of my party, the Republican Party--the Democratic Party is competing within itself right now, and there is a distinct wing of the Democratic Party that is winning that competition. If I wanted to use a pejorative suppression, I would call it the loon wing of the party, the loon wing of the Democratic Party or you might call it the Bolshevik wing of the Democratic Party.

I think a more accurate description is to call it the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. I think that is fair. I am not saying that all of my Democratic friends are socialists, but there is clearly a wing of the Democratic Party that can only be described accurately as the socialist wing of the party. And that party is in ascendance. That party is in control.

My friend Senator Schumer is the leader of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate. And he, of course, has instructed his colleagues to vote to shut down the government. And Senator Schumer has been criticized for that, and I understand. I don't agree with him. I think he made a mistake.

But I don't think Senator Schumer is the leader of this effort. I don't. I think Senator Schumer, like many of his colleagues, would like to be loved by everybody in the party, and he would like to be loved by the socialist wing of his party. And I do think that is part of what is motivating this shutdown. And that is why I say it is all about politics.

But I don't think Senator Schumer is the person in charge because Senator Schumer is not the leader of the socialist wing of his party. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is. She is running the show. It was no accident the other day when the Congresswoman let it slip. She said: If you really want to negotiate the end of this shutdown, come see me. Come see me.

And I think any fairminded person has to look right now and say that the two leading Members--the quarterback--the two leading Members of the socialist wing of the Democratic Party--the quarterback is Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, and her substitute is Senator Bernie Sanders. But I think it is the Congresswoman who is calling the shots.

I don't hate anybody. I have said that repeatedly, and I mean it. I like all of my colleagues. I look for grace wherever I can find it. When I say my prayers, I do, every single time--I ask God: Don't let me hate because it is hard sometimes. It is hard. But I do. I say: God, don't let me hate.

I certainly don't hate Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. I want to make that very clear. She has the right to her opinion. She has the right to try to have the socialists take over the Democratic Party. That is the American way. Ironically, I think what she is doing is anti-American, but she has the right as an American to do it, so I don't hate her.

But I judge her by her policy. She has her opinion, and I have mine. I have to judge her, candidly, by her policy. Here is what the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, led by Congresswoman Ocasio- Cortez, has said to the American people and to the U.S. Congress and to the Republicans in Congress: If you, Republicans, don't agree to make the Federal Government $1.5 trillion--not million dollars, not billion dollars, $1.5 trillion--bigger, we are going to shut the government down.

Of course we said no. I am not going to vote for that. My mother didn't raise a fool. As I said before, if she did, it was one of my brothers. I am never going to vote for that.

Where do I come up with this figure of $1.5 trillion? Well, the first thing the socialists and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is asking us to do is to repeal the healthcare reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill. We just passed them. We just passed them. Here it is, subtitle B, Health, in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

We didn't cut Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill. In fact, under our bill, Medicaid is going to increase 2 percent a year over the next 10 years. What we did by reforming Medicaid, which Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez wants us to reverse, we cut out the waste and the fraud.

For example, we found out that there are--no kidding, I am not just making this up--we found out that there are 2.8 million people on Medicaid who are double-dipping in America. They are either signing up for Medicaid in Louisiana and Mississippi double-dipping or signing up for Medicaid in Louisiana and they are signing up for the Affordable Care Act subsidies. That is called cheating.

Our bill would put an end to that, and it would save about $140 billion on ten years. The socialist wing of the Democratic Party and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez wants us to reverse that.

The second thing we did in our healthcare reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill is to say you have to stop lying when you apply for Medicaid. Under President Obama, we had virtually no eligibility checks. People could walk in, and the Medicaid folks would say: How much do you make a year? They could say $30,000 a year, and they would say, OK, you qualify.

Now, I trust people. I have said it before on this floor. I play cards with my friends all the time. They are friends. I cut the cards anyway. We have found--for example, just in Louisiana, we did a statistical sample of the people on Medicaid in Louisiana. Our auditors found 1,600 people on Medicaid who were making $100,000 a year or more. That is cheating. So our bill put an end to that. Congresswoman Ocasio- Cortez and the socialist wing of the Democratic Party want us to put it back. They want us to let people cheat.

What else are the socialists asking for in this $1.5 trillion? Well, they are saying: We don't want people who can work to work.

We put a provision in our bill that the Congresswoman and the socialist wing of her party want us to take out that says: Look, if you are between the ages of 19 and 64 and you are able-bodied--we are not talking about a mother with a sick child in her arms--if you are able- bodied, if you are perfectly healthy, and if you don't have any dependent kids at home, then, if you qualify based on income, we will give you Medicaid. But you have to work. You have to work 20 hours a week or go to school 20 hours a week or do community service 20 hours a week because the free enterprise system--jobs--has done more to lift people out of poverty than all the social programs put together.

That is what is called a work requirement. What is wrong with that? Those who can work should work. Our welfare programs were meant to be bridges, not parking lots. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and the socialist wing of her party want us to reverse all of that.

What else do they want us to do? Well, they are upset at us over the Affordable Care Act. Let me tell you what all this is about with the Affordable Care Act.

Under ObamaCare, if you are a low-income American, you are entitled to Medicaid. If you are a middle-income American, if you have a job, then chances are, you get insurance through your employer. Most people do. But if you are in the middle and if you make a little more money than the poverty level but you can't get insurance through your employer, we provide what is called the ObamaCare exchanges.

So when we talk about the ObamaCare subsidies, that is what we are talking about. It is about 24 million people, and it was meant for lower income people.

Up until 2019, it was all for low-income people. Then, in 2019, without any Republican votes, President Biden said: Look, we are in a pandemic. We are going to raise the limit. We are going to say that there are no income limits on ObamaCare--paid for by the taxpayer.

We have 24 million people on ObamaCare.

When they raised the limits, you could make any amount of money and still get a subsidy. That added about 1.6 million people on ObamaCare. ObamaCare was meant for people who make from roughly $30,000 a year to $130,000 a year for families of four. Now, because President Biden raised the cap, we have people making $600,000 a year, $150,000 a year, and families making $200,000 a year who are getting subsidies from the American taxpayer. Why? Because they said we needed it in the pandemic.

The pandemic is over, and that is why the Democrats, when they passed the bill, put in a provision that says that at the end of this year, those extra subsidies are going to end.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez says: No. Until you agree to let them continue, to let anybody at any income level get subsidies, we are going to shut the government down.

That is their third demand, and that is part of the $1.5 trillion.

Finally, of course, the Congresswoman is saying: We want you to give half a trillion dollars--not $500,000, not half a billion dollars but half a trillion dollars--we want you to give half a trillion dollars to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because we like what they say.

Well, we just eliminated money for all forms of media.

Now, those are the demands. Those are the demands. I will just mention one more.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez got very, very upset, as did the socialist wing of her party, when the President sent over what is called a rescission package.

Basically, President Trump said: We want you to take some stuff out of the budget that we think is a waste.

We did, and that upset the Congresswoman. She is entitled to be upset if

she wants to. But that really upset the socialist wing of the party.

So we took it out, and here is what they want us to put back in. We found that under President Biden, they were spending $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia. We took that out.

The Congresswoman says: We are going to shut down the government until you put that back in.

We found $500,000 of American taxpayer money for electric buses in Rwanda.

We found $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti. I kid you not. I am not making this up. It was in the budget under President Biden. We took it out.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and the socialist wing--the loon wing of the Democratic Party--says: We are going to shut down the government until you put it back in.

I will just read you a few more that we took out that they are demanding we put back in.

There was $6 million for media organizations for the Palestinians; $833,000 for transgender people in Nepal; $300,000 for a pride parade in Lesotho; $882,000 for social media mentorship in Serbia; $4.2 million--we took it out, and the Congresswoman and the socialist wing of their party says we have to put that back in before they will open the government--$4.2 million for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people in the Western Balkans and Uganda.

I could spend the rest of the afternoon on this. We took all of that out. It upset Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, and it upset the socialist wing of her party. Now that wing of her party and the Congresswoman are threatening all other Democrats and saying: You have to shut the government down until we get what we want.

Part of what they want is to add this kind of stuff back into the bill. That is what this fight is all about.

We were in the process of negotiating a budget with our Democratic friends. We ran out of time. The cutoff was midnight Tuesday night. That is when--the clock struck midnight, and the budget ran out.

What we had asked for and what we are still asking for is, let's continue to negotiate--``we'' meaning the Republicans and the Democrats--for 6 more weeks and to try to agree on a budget. That is all we are asking. We are not asking for any additional appropriations, any conditions, any stipulations. All we are asking for is what we call a clean CR. All we are asking for is just to further negotiate.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has done a stellar job in rising to the leadership of her party as a member of the socialist wing, and they are about to elect a socialist mayor of New York. I think Mr. Mamdani is going to win. They have said to our request--let's just continue the status quo for 6 more weeks--they said: We will give you 6 more weeks if you will give us $1.5 trillion.

That is what they are demanding, and that is why we are shut down.

Let me say it again. I don't hate anybody. This is America. I sure don't hate the Congresswoman. She is entitled to her opinion, but I am entitled to mine. She can criticize my policy positions, but I am entitled to criticize hers.

I am here to tell you, Mr. President, in front of God and country, based on her policy positions that she is demanding--based on her policy positions that she is demanding that I just outlined of $1.5 trillion of pure, unadulterated spending porn--based on that demand and based on her policy positions, the American people are looking at her and saying: This person has singlehandedly put an end to dumb blond jokes because that is the craziest thing I have ever heard.

Based on her policy positions--$1.5 trillion of this kind of spending porn--the American people are looking at the Congresswoman and saying: With respect, she must be bilingual--she must speak English and stupid.

And that is why we are not agreeing to it.

Now, I know every one of my Democratic colleagues, and I know more than half of them know better. They know what we are asking for is reasonable. I am just asking them to meet us halfway. We are not asking for any additional provisions, and they shouldn't ask for any additional provisions. Let's just open back up and continue to negotiate for 6 weeks. Don't be scared of the Congresswoman. Don't be scared of the socialist wing of your party.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m. on Monday, October 6; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 115, S. 2296; finally, that the cloture motions filed during Friday's session of the Senate ripen at 5:30 p.m.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, well, it looks like we are going to have a shutdown. What does that tell us? I will tell you what it tells me. It is simply that much more evidence that human evolution is a slow, slow process. I thought humans had advanced more as a species, but, apparently, we haven't.

What do I mean by a shutdown? Well, we can't keep government open without a budget, and tonight, at midnight, our current budget expires, unless we vote to maintain the status quo and continue the current budget as we negotiate a new one.

Many of my Democratic friends say: Well, what is the problem? The Republicans are in charge. The President is a Republican, and the Republicans have a majority in the Senate, and the Republicans have a majority in the House. What is the problem?

They know what the problem is. We can't pass a budget, we can't keep government open just with Republican votes here in the Senate. We only have 53 Republicans. We need seven Democrats to join with us. So for my Democratic colleagues to say, ``Well, the Republicans are in charge, and they don't need us,'' they know that is not accurate. And that is what is going on.

Now, we have had a few shutdowns before, and every shutdown is different. But most shutdowns are a combination of both policy and politics in varying degrees. This shutdown, in terms of policy, makes absolutely no sense--none. What we have proposed to our Democratic colleagues and the minority leader, Senator Schumer, is to make no changes to the current budget. We just want to continue the current budget and keep government open until just before Thanksgiving to give us more time to negotiate a permanent budget.

We did that many times when President Biden was President and when the Democrats had the majority. In fact, we did it 13 times. Not only have Republicans done it, but Democrats have routinely done it.

But this time the Democrats have said: No, no, no, no, no. We want more.

And you may be thinking: OK, that is reasonable. What do you want?

Well, it is not reasonable. In effect, what the Democrats are saying to us is that we are going to close government

unless you agree--you, Republicans--to make it bigger. We don't want the status quo. We want you to commit to spending $1.5 trillion more than you are spending now, and we--the Democrats are saying--are going to tell you how to spend it.

First, they want us to repeal all of the Medicaid reforms that we did in the reconciliation bill. Some call it the One Big Beautiful Bill.

The One Big Beautiful Bill would not reduce Medicaid. In fact, it would go up about 2 percent every year as a result of our bill. But it would say to people who are on Medicaid who aren't eligible for Medicaid that you are not going to get Medicaid anymore. Dual eligibles, people who sign up in Louisiana and Mississippi--that is fraud--under our bill, they would be thrown off. The Democrats want them put back on.

Under our changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill that the Democrats want us to reverse, you would have to satisfy certain income levels to be on Medicaid. The law says, if you make too much money, you can't get Medicaid because Medicaid is for the poor. In my State, we have found people, through audits, making $120,000 a year on Medicaid. So our bill, which the Democrats want us to repeal after just passing it, would say to those people that if you don't meet the income limits, you can't get Medicaid.

So that is the first demand of the Democrats: Take out all of the reforms we made to Medicaid in the reconciliation bill and throw them out the window.

No. 2, they want to extend the ObamaCare subsidies. What does that mean? Well first let me say, Obamacare was a mistake, and we know that now. When President Obama passed ObamaCare, we were told that our lives would be better; our lives have been worse. We were told it would make health insurance more accessible and more affordable; it has done neither.

On the non-Medicaid part of ObamaCare, we have got--I don't know--20, 25 million Americans who are accessing it. And for the most part, about 90 percent of them are low-income families, but the rest are making huge sums of money. Some are making $160,000 a year getting ObamaCare subsidized by taxpayers. And that is not the way it was supposed to be.

How did we get here? It is simple. During the pandemic, when people were being laid off or losing their jobs or couldn't work, President Biden ran through a bill to enlarge the subsidies. He took the cap off the amount that you need to earn in order to get ObamaCare, and those subsidies, at the end of this year, are about to run out.

Now, the Republicans have said: We will sit down with our Democratic friends and talk about how to extend them, but we want to reform the program because it is not right that people making $125,000, $150,000, $250,000, $200,000 a year are getting their health insurance subsidized by the Federal Government.

That is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid. But the Democrats-- Senator Schumer and his colleagues--have said: Nope. We will shut the government down unless you agree automatically to extend these subsidies, which were passed near the pandemic, after the pandemic is over permanently.

And that is just some of my colleagues' demands. I mean, you need-- you need an Excel spreadsheet to be able to follow their demands. Their demands to keep government open, you can stack them here; you could stand on them and paint the ceiling. And that is not much of an exaggeration.

When Senator Schumer announced these demands, that is when I knew; I knew it in a nanosecond: We are going to have a shutdown because my colleagues--my Democratic colleagues--are very smart people, and Senator Schumer is a smart person. And he knew when he announced these demands that I could tell he wasn't serious. He knew they weren't serious, and he knew neither the President nor the other Members of Congress were going to accept them.

You know what, many Democrats know they are unreasonable as well. So that is why I say the policy part of this makes absolutely no sense, and that is because this isn't about policy. This shutdown is about politics.

Now, parties change just like the human experience changes over time. Political parties change. My party has changed; so has the Democratic Party. And there is a wing of the Democratic Party--I call it the socialist wing. Some less charitable people call it the loon wing of the Democratic Party, and they are in charge right now.

And the nonloon, nonsocialist Democrats are scared to death of them. This particular wing of the Democratic Party that is in the ascendency, what do they believe? They believe--they try to outweird each other all the time.

They hate--if you listen to them, they hate Thomas Jefferson; they hate Abraham Lincoln; they hate George Washington; they hate Dr. Seuss; they hate Mr. Potato Head.

They think our kids should be able to change genders back and forth at recess--kids--and if it is their preference, should be able to undergo sex-change operations while minors paid by you, the taxpayers. They believe that.

They believe in open borders. They believe that if you support the law, which says you have to be vetted to come into our country--if you support the law, you are a racist. I think if you support the law, you are being prudent, but they believe in open borders.

My Democratic friends are able to elect a new mayor in New York City who is a member of the loon wing. He is a self-avowed socialist. He has said if the Prime Minister of Israel comes to New York City, he will have him arrested.

But this is not the majority of Democrats that believe this. I don't think that for a second. And I know many of my Democratic colleagues here don't believe that. But the loon wing, the socialist wing, the angry Gary Busey wing of the Democratic Party is in ascendency, and they have got a lot of power, an enormous amount of power.

Many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate are scared of them. The loon wing is mad at many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate. They shouldn't be, but they are. Therefore, many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate are scared of the loon wing, and they want the loon wing to love them.

The loon wing will never love them. They are better off doing the right thing, and they know what the right thing to do is. But that is why I say this is a political decision. That is why we are going to shut government down.

Now, once you shut government down, unless you are prepared to leave it shut down permanently--and maybe my Democratic colleagues are, but I don't think so. Maybe I am naive, but I still think many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate know better. Once you shut the government down, you have got to get it back open.

How are they going to get it back open? We are not going to agree to their demands--$1.5 trillion. They know we are not going to agree to it.

So how is my friend Senator Schumer going to get the government back open? You know, there is a famous movie line. I don't remember the movie. I think Denzel Washington said the line. I love Denzel Washington. He is what cool looks like. The guy is awesome. He is a total bomb. I love Denzel Washington.

But anyway, I think he said in one movie: If you pray for rain--if you pray for rain, you better be prepared to deal with the mud.

And truer words were never spoken.

So if you want a shutdown, I say to my Democratic friends, you better be prepared to deal with the mud.

How are you going to get it back open? How are you going to get it back open? I wouldn't want to be in their shoes to have to make that decision.

Let me just say a few words--every time we do a shutdown, it scares the living daylights out of the American people, especially our elderly. It breaks my heart. All of us get phone calls from folks scared to death they are not going to get their Social Security check or they are not going to be able to see their doctor. And it just breaks my heart. So I want to give them a little bit of assurance.

During the shutdown, the executive branch will be in charge, and the Trump administration is not going to do anything to hurt our elderly. I want to assure them of that. If you are receiving a Social Security check or Medicare or Medicaid or veterans disability, your checks are going to continue. We will make sure of that. The Trump administration will make sure of that. Government may be shut down,

but essential workers will still be there to make sure those checks are sent out.

If you are hungry and you don't have money to eat, we are not going to let you starve to death. The administration is going to continue payments--some people call it SNAP; I call it food stamps--and we will continue the payments for the Women, Infants, and Children's Program. Most of us refer to that as WIC.

You will still get your mail. Don't worry about that. The Postal Service will be working through the shutdown. If you depend, for healthcare, on your Veterans' Administration and VA medical centers, they are going to remain open. So I don't want you to be scared about that.

Now, you are going to notice an impact. Probably, we have got 2 million to 2\1/2\ million Federal employees--probably 750,000 aren't going to be on the job. Under the law, they have to go home. So you will notice an impact.

You will notice it in our parks. You will notice it in our museums here in Washington if you are visiting. You will notice it in many of the Federal Agencies. That is the law. They can't come to work in a shutdown--doesn't matter who initiates the shutdown.

You know, we still have a little time, midnight tonight. We are going to be taking some votes here in a few minutes, give our Democratic colleagues one last chance--one last chance--to do the right thing. And I certainly--I certainly--hope they accept it.

With that, Mr. President, I appreciate your patience.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, with me today is one of my colleagues from my Senate office, Ms. Erin Jarnagin.

I hate having to put this picture up. Let me tell you why I am putting it up. Washington, I think we can all agree, is a unique place. Some might call it unusual. Some might even argue and make an argument persuasively that normal in Washington, DC, is just a setting on the clothes dryer.

We have a deep-seated propensity in Washington, in the Federal Government, to look reality in the eye and to deny it. Sometimes that is dangerous. That is what is happening in Ukraine. We are looking reality in the eye, and we are denying it, and it is dangerous. And it is not fair to Ukraine. It is not fair to America, and it is not fair to anybody on God's green Earth that cares about freedom.

This is a picture of people in Ukraine burying their dead. And it is not pretty, but it is real. Now, for 8 months, President Trump has tried to talk to President Putin in Russia--8 months. And for 8 months, President Putin has made all kinds of promises--a lot of pretty words, a lot of play-acting--and he has done none of what he said he would do.

He has played--``he'' meaning President Putin. He has played America like a banjo--like a banjo. President Putin says he wants peace, but he doesn't, and we know that now. That is what I mean when I say we have got to just look reality in the eye and accept that.

President Putin is not going to want peace until the costs of war are greater than peace. It is just that simple. For someone who has blood under his fingernails, for someone who has Stalin's taste for death-- and I am, of course, referring to Putin--it is simply a cost-benefit analysis.

Does the benefit of continuing the war outweigh the cost? That is just a fact.

We are going to have to do something if we all want peace--and we all say we do, including the people of Ukraine. They don't want peace at any price--neither do I--but we all want peace. I know President Trump wants peace.

But in order to get peace and to get Putin to negotiate seriously, we are going to have to increase the costs and make the cost on him of prosecuting the war greater than the benefits of him being able to continue to do it.

Now, how do we do that? One option is sanctions. Putin has completely transformed Russia. Russia had--before the war, had some tendencies toward--I don't want to overstate this, but I want to be fair--toward a democracy. At least, they got to vote, and not every vote was rigged. But that has all been changed.

Putin has turned Russia into a total authoritarian state. He controls the media. If you disagree with him, you go to jail. That is why you don't see much dissent. That is why you see virtually no dissent.

If you are his enemy and he thinks you have become too problematic, he just kills you--just poisons you. Russia today is as autocratic as China, and their security--their surveillance of their people--is just about as pervasive.

So Russia has changed. Putin has converted Russia into a war economy. That means that most of the GDP--not all of it but most of it, because people have to still live--but most of the GDP in Russia, much of it, is devoted to war, manufacturing weapons, paying money to people to go fight.

It is very expensive, and Putin affords it by selling oil. In fact, 40 percent of Putin's cash flow--the only way he has been able to prosecute this war is by selling oil. And one way to get him to the table is to cut off his cash flow. The only way to cut off his cash flow is to cut off his oil sales.

One way of doing that would be sanctions. Just say to people throughout the world, if you buy Russian oil, then you are no longer going to be able to do business with the United States of America and you are no longer going to be able to use the U.S. dollar. That is what President Trump has talked about doing.

But as you know, President Trump has also said--and I certainly see his point of view--if I am going to do it on behalf of America, by God, Europe's got to do it because they are the ones most at risk. And he said: I am not going to do sanctions and pass the bill that over 80 of us have joined here in the Senate--the President said, I am not going to do sanctions until all the Europeans do sanctions and stop buying Russian oil.

I understand where he is coming from, as I said.

The problem with it is you have some European countries--one is Hungary, another is Slovakia--they tend to be more aligned with Russia than anybody else in the European Union, and they buy oil, and it is going--from Russia, and it is going to take a while to convince them to stop it. It is going to take months.

Meantime, Putin is launching 800--not 80--800 drones and 800 missiles a night at the Ukrainian people, and he is not just aiming that weaponry at the Ukrainian soldiers. He is destroying the civilian population, the infrastructure. He is killing people.

In fact, it is escalating. The President met with Putin in Alaska, as we all know, and made a bunch of promises and completely reneged. And all we have gotten from that meeting is 800 missiles and drones a night.

So if sanctions are not going to work for now, it is going to take several months for us to work that out, what can we do? Well here is what I think we ought to do--and I am introducing legislation to do this. Joining with me will be Senator Graham. It will be bipartisan legislation--Senator Graham, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Whitehouse. There will be others who will join in the legislation. And we are going to move this legislation. We are going to move it.

We are going to seize Russian assets if our legislation passes, and we are going to give those assets to Ukraine to prosecute the war. Here is what I am talking about. Just about every country in the world has assets in other countries. They don't just keep all their money in their own country.

Oftentimes, those assets are liquid assets, and many times they are called foreign exchange reserves. You have probably heard that term, ``foreign reserves.'' They are used in trade to convert from one currency to another.

When the war--when Putin attacked Ukraine, Russia had $300-plus billion--some say it is as high as $320 billion--of assets in Europe and the United States; most of them are in Europe. About 90 percent of those assets are in Belgium, in Brussels. Some are in France; the rest are in the United States.

We are talking cash here. They originally were in debt securities, but we are talking cash now. There is over $300 billion of cash that the United States and our European allies froze that belongs to Russia.

It has been sitting there, and it has been invested basically in money markets, and we have been sending the interest to Ukraine to help them fight the war. But we have left the principal, the $300 billion a month. We haven't seized it; we just froze it.

The time has come to seize it. And I understand the arguments against it. Some in Europe will argue: Well, it will break international law. I get it. Russia has already broken international law. Russia has already seized European companies. Russia seized over $400 million cash from JPMorganChase accounts they had in Russia. So Russia isn't bothered by international law. It is a violation of international law for them to have invaded Ukraine and to be massacring these people.

But I get it. We want to follow the rules even if Russia doesn't. But the time has come to look reality in the eye and no longer deny it, to admit it.

If our legislation passes, here is what we will do. We will seize that $300 billion--no longer freeze it; we will seize it. We will give it in tranches, in smaller amounts as they need it, to Ukraine. Not all $300 billion--we are still working on language but not all $300 billion at once. We will give it to Ukraine in tranches.

Ukraine can use that money to buy their own drones and to buy their own missiles. Ukraine can use that money

not to kill Russian civilians, but Ukraine can use that money to buy missiles to take out every single refinery in Russia, cut off their cash flow, take out every single oil refinery in Russia. Ukraine can use that money to buy missiles to take out every single weapons production plant in Russia--every single one--and make President Putin understand that there is going to be a cost for him prosecuting this war.

We need to do that while we are working out what I think will be equally as effective--maybe more effective--this issue of sanctions, but we need to do it now because we can't wait months and months and months until we get the sanctions issue worked out.

So if our legislation passes--we will have to get the permission of our friends in Europe, but we have talked with many of them, and I think they will agree--we will give Ukraine an influx of $300 billion-- no taxpayer money from an American will be spent on this. This will all be Russian money. We are going to level the playing field. We are going to see what Mr. Putin is made of.

Now, I want to be clear--and I hope the White House is listening to this. I want to emphasize it: We are not spending any American money. This is Mr. Putin's money.

I know some people are worried about upsetting him, but he is not like the rest of us. He is not. He purely looks at this from cost and effect. Human life doesn't matter to him. We are going to make it very, very costly--if we do this--for him to prosecute that war.

I want to end on this note: Look, the American people I know are tired of overseas wars. I am tired of them. I know how people feel. I don't want the United States of America to be the world's policeman. I don't. But do you know what? I don't want Putin to be the world's policeman either. I don't want President Xi in China to be the world's policeman either. I don't want the Ayatollah in Iran to be the world's policeman.

Let me tell you what is going on here. The Presiding Officer knows this. We see it in classified information and nonclassified-- unclassified information. And you can surmise it if you follow the news. Xi in China, Putin in Russia, and the Ayatollah in Iran are working together. Putin couldn't prosecute this war without China.

China sends infrastructure materials and technology every single day to Russia that can be used for civilian uses but also for military uses. China buys Russian oil to give them the money to run their weapons plants in Russia.

Putin and Xi and the Ayatollah are working together. The quarterback, in my opinion, is Xi; it is not Putin. And here is their goal: Their goal is to have Putin dominate Central and Eastern Europe, to have the Ayatollah dominate the Middle East, and Iran control the Middle East. Thank God for Israel. Israel has caused them to put that part of their plan on the back burner.

Their other objective is to have China dominate the Indo-Pacific, do whatever they want, and be free to roam, as they are doing as we talk today, in Sub-Saharan Africa and South America. And I am going to tell you, that is not a world that is safe for freedom. That is not a world that is safe for democracy.

This fight in Ukraine is not just about Ukraine. It is not. It is about the Indo-Pacific. It is about Finland. It is about Poland. It is about Sub-Saharan African countries. It is about South America and our hemisphere.

So I hope the Senate will pass our bill. We are going to move it. If you object to it, stand up in front of God and country and say so. But we have got to do something.

I can promise you, with $300 billion of new capital--none of which will be American taxpayer money--Ukraine can buy some missiles and get Mr. Putin's attention, and he will be inviting us to a summit, and he will be paying for lunch.

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, this is a photograph of the alien from the movie ``Alien.''

This is what you could end up looking like if you eat some of the raw frozen shrimp being sent to the United States by other countries. Now, let me tell you what I am talking about.

In late August, the FDA found that raw frozen shrimp from Indonesia was being sold in Walmart--specifically, in Walmart stores in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia--was being sold under the Walmart label called the Great Value label. If you eat it, how could you end up looking like the alien in ``Alien''? Because the shrimp was radioactive. I kid you not. It had a radioactive isotope in it called cesium-137. It will kill you. Even if it doesn't turn you into the alien if you eat this stuff, I guarantee you will grow an extra ear.

That was bad enough. Obviously, the FDA issued a recall. A few days later, it happened again. The FDA and NOAA, which I will talk about in a second, found that there were 26,460 packages of shrimp cocktail and 18,000 bags of frozen cooked shrimp being sold, once again, at Walmart and at Krogers throughout the United States containing the same radioactive isotope.

How could this happen in America? This is unconscionable. I will tell you how, because that shrimp, that shrimp from other countries, which don't abide by the same rules that we abide by in America, which, if you eat it, may turn you into an alien or, at a minimum, will cause you to grow an extra ear, is not being inspected. It is supposed to be. It is supposed to be inspected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association--we call it NOAA--as part of the Department of Commerce.

And, yes, they are inspecting some of it, about 1 percent; on a good day, 2 percent. The United Kingdom inspects 50 percent of the farmed seafood coming into its nation. Even China does a better job than the United States of America. This is unconscionable. There is no excuse for it. There is no excuse for it.

This shrimp--and I am not just picking on Indonesia; it is other countries. This shrimp is grown in conditions that you can't possibly imagine: dirty water. They shoot the shrimp full of antibiotics.

I confess, I didn't know they were shooting them full of this radioactive isotope. But the normal antibiotics that they put in these foreign shrimp are bad enough that if you eat enough of the foreign shrimp, you become resistant to certain bacteria here in America because the antibiotics don't work on it anymore because you have eaten so many shrimp that contains the antibiotics. This is unconscionable, and it should not be happening in the United States of America.

Now, I am biased. I believe in homegrown Louisiana shrimp, fresh out of the gulf, not radioactive. But I understand that some stores prefer to buy foreign shrimp because it is cheaper. Now we know why: The damn stuff is radioactive.

NOAA needs to do a better job of inspecting the shrimp that is sold from other countries that don't abide by the same standards we do to the consumers of the United States of America.

Iran

This second topic, Mr. President, I want to touch on real briefly.

We haven't heard much about Iran lately. Iran has been busy, though. Just recently, Australia expelled Iran's Ambassador, and they designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is part of Iran, as a terrorist organization. Why is that? Because people connected with Iran firebombed a Melbourne synagogue, and then, a few months later, they struck a kosher deli in Sydney, Australia. Iran is still there, and it is still spreading terrorism.

Iran has also been in the news just recently. The United Kingdom and France and Germany have announced that they are going to trigger snapback sanctions on Iran. What do I mean by that? You will recall that, in 2015, President Obama made a deal with Iran. We called it the JCPOA. And the JCPOA just said to Iran: If you will stop moving toward a nuclear weapon, we--meaning the United States of America and the other countries that are part of the United Nations--will remove the sanctions that we had placed on Iran for trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

So Iran said: Pinky promise, we will stop building a nuclear weapon. You remove the sanctions.

President Obama agreed. He was naive. We removed the sanctions. The United Nations removed the sanctions. The United Kingdom, Germany, and France removed the sanctions. And, of course, the Ayatollah and Iran continued to develop a weapon.

Just because we have destroyed--``we'' meaning the United States of America--many of Iran's facilities to make that weapon does not mean that the issue has been resolved. Iran has refused to come to the table, even still, to negotiate a settlement, a new JCPOA. And as a result--and I am very proud of them--the United Kingdom and Germany and France have said: OK. We are going to reimplement those sanctions that we agreed to take off of Iran when they signed the first nuclear deal, which Iran welched on almost immediately. And, again, I want to thank our friends in Europe. They supposedly are going to reimplement those sanctions at the end of this month, and I hope they do.

Of course, my preference would be to have Iran come to the table again before then and sit down with the United States and other members of the United Nations and resolve this issue of them having a nuclear weapon, but I don't expect that to happen.

So I know I have said it, but I want to say it again. Thank you, United Kingdom and Germany and France, for doing this, but we need to talk about the rest of the story. The sanctions, which will be on Iranian banking, on Iranian shipping, oil, and arms are only part of the story. These are U.N. sanctions. But just because the sanctions have been brought back on Iran, that doesn't mean that they will be enforced.

Now, these are United Nations sanctions on shipping and banking and oil and arms, so normally there would be a United Nations committee to enforce the sanctions. I hope there is, but I doubt it because I think that Russia and China are going to block a United Nations committee to enforce the sanctions.

What is my point? My point is that just because Europe and, of course, the United States of America have agreed to reimpose those sanctions, we have still got to enforce them. We have still got to enforce them. And the United States needs to take the lead on doing

that. Joining with the United Kingdom and with Germany and with France, we need to make sure that the world understands that these sanctions are real and that we, as part of the West, are going to enforce them.

This is important. I don't want to see this get lost in our discussion about the importance of the Ukraine situation and other issues of national security. I don't want this to get lost. What you allow is what will continue. What you allow is what will continue. And unless you have an opium habit, you know that is just a principle we all have to learn the hard way.

So I am hoping that the President and our friends in Europe will take the lead and not only snap back these sanctions but then enforce them. And unfortunately--I wish we didn't have to do it because I feel for the Iranian people. I don't feel any sympathy for the Ayatollah. We are just going to have to choke him to death.

I thank the Presiding Officer for his patience.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 3414 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, this is an amendment to the Ag Appropriations Subcommittee budget. Our chair of that subcommittee is able, he is talented, and he exercises power maturely, in my judgment.

I just think we ought to reduce spending. It is clear to me that to do that, we are going to have to do it by baby steps.

This amendment would reduce fiscal year 2026 Agriculture discretionary spending appropriations, if you will, by 2 percent--2 percent. That would take us from $27.1 billion to $26.55 billion--a reduction of $542 million. That represents 0.007 percent of the total that the Federal Government is currently spending on an annualized basis.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the Federal budget were a 24-hour day--

--this reduction represents about 7 seconds.

Mr. President, I am the reason we are voting on this bill separately. I am going to vote no, and I would like to explain why.

I am not telling any of you to vote no, I am just telling you to follow your heart but take your brain with you.

As best I can tell, every bill that has come out of the Appropriations Committee has represented an increase in spending. This bill, which is our bill, funds the legislative branch, has the largest increase in spending. I think we can do better.

That is not a reflection of the conscientious and thoughtful work done by my colleagues, both of whom just spoke. I just think we need to set an example. When we are increasing our spending 6 percent and others less, we are sending a message that we are special, and I don't think we are.

Vote on Amendment No. 3412