Floor Statements

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Schmitt).

Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Schmitt) would have voted ``nay.''

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, as a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and a resident of a State whose literal lifeblood is agriculture, the farm bills that Congress takes up every few years are one of my top priorities.

I have had the chance to help craft four, now, farm bills during my time in Congress, and my No. 1 goal is always to ensure that each bill accurately reflects the needs and priorities of the men and women on the ground, the ones who are doing the hard work of feeding our country.

As I travel around my State of South Dakota, I always take special note of my conversations with agriculture producers, and many of the bills that I introduce for inclusion in the farm bill are based on these conversations.

The current farm bill will expire later this year. With deadlines approaching and updates needed to a number of farm programs, Congress needs to focus on advancing the next farm bill.

This is all the more important given the headwinds farmers and ranchers are currently facing. With net farm income projected to decline by 25 percent this year and with input costs projected to hit a record high, it is especially important that we make sure farmers and ranchers have the support they need to carry on with their vital work.

Last month, the House Agriculture Committee marked up its draft of the next farm bill, and the bill passed the committee with the support of not just Republicans but several Democrats as well. Yesterday morning, Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member John Boozman released his farm bill framework to build off the House's work and hopefully move this process forward in the Senate.

Progress in the Senate has been hamstrung by Senate Democrats' insistence on prioritizing things like climate over the needs of farmers and ranchers. I am hoping that the recent efforts by the House, along with Senator Boozman's framework, will move deliberations along and refocus our efforts on farmers and ranchers instead of Democrats' climate obsessions.

In preparation for this next farm bill, I introduced a number of pieces of legislation that I hope to get included in

the final bill. These bills are based on the conversations I have had with farmers and ranchers as I travel throughout South Dakota as well as events I have held to hear from ag producers about their priorities for the farm bill.

I am very pleased that the framework Senator Boozman has put out contains measures from a number of the bills I introduced. That includes elements of my Conservation Reserve Program Improvement Act-- legislation I introduced to make the Conservation Reserve Program a more effective option for producers--as well as my CRP Flexibility Act, which would provide additional drought flexibilities for CRP contract holders.

It also includes my Crop Insurance for Future Farmers Act, which I introduced with Senator Klobuchar to help make crop insurance more affordable for young farmers, as well as measures from my Expediting Forest Restoration and Recovery Act and my Rural Internet Improvement Act.

It includes a section modeled off my bipartisan Strengthening Local Processing Act to increase the processing options available to livestock producers and expand small meatpackers' capacity.

Importantly, this framework would make improvements to the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage Programs, which are essential elements of the farm safety net.

I am tremendously grateful to Senator Boozman for his work on this framework and his efforts to move the farm bill process forward.

I hope that my Democratic colleagues will approach pursuing a bipartisan agreement on this legislation with a new seriousness. As I said earlier, their focus on nonfarm priorities has slowed progress on this farm bill. I hope the House's recent work and Senator Boozman's efforts will encourage them to focus on what should be in the substance of any farm bill--namely, the farm.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Iowa (Ms. Ernst), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

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

Well, Mr. President, it is about time for Democrats' weekly exercise in election-year politics.

Later today, we will take up another bill intended to provide a talking point for Democrat candidates, and the Democrat leader hopes to put Republicans in a tight spot. But if he thinks to see Republicans quaking in their boots over being asked to take these votes, he should think again, because we welcome the chance to talk about the Democrat agenda.

Take this afternoon's exercise. Under the guise of protecting access to contraception--something that is not under threat--the Democrat leader is bringing up legislation that would not only funnel money to Democrats' allies at Planned Parenthood but would wipe out--wipe out-- conscience protections for healthcare providers. The bill specifically targets the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was bipartisan legislation passed in 1993--back, I might add, when Democrats actually believed in protecting our First Amendment freedoms.

And this is not the first time Democrats have attempted to carve out sweeping exceptions to this once widely supported legislation. Apparently, Americans are free to live out their deeply held moral and religious beliefs when they don't conflict with Democrats' policy positions.

It is deeply disturbing that the Democrat leader has gone from sponsoring--sponsoring--the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to attempting to decide when and how Americans can exercise one of their fundamental First Amendment rights. If the Democrat leader thinks that Republicans are intimidated to cast a vote against legislation that would seriously imperil Americans' ability to live according to their consciences, well, as I said, he should think again.

I suspect there are few Americans who don't recognize the Democrat leader's politicking for exactly what it is, just as I suspect there are few Americans who bought Democrats' border legislation ploy 2 weeks ago.

The Democrat leader apparently thought that he could erase Americans' memories of 3-plus years of chaos at the southern border under President Biden by bringing up a vote on a border bill that he knew would not be able to pass the Senate, but I think he will find that Americans' memories are more retentive than that.

Three years of national security crisis were not wiped out by a show vote intended to provide electoral cover for Democrats, just as they won't be wiped out by President Biden's latest election-year ploy--an Executive order to implement border restrictions the likes of which he should have implemented years ago. If anything, any improvements at the border stemming from the President's latest measure will only serve to highlight the President's failure to address this crisis earlier and the needless danger to which he has subjected Americans.

I mentioned that the Democrat leader knew his border show vote would fail, just as he knows his Planned Parenthood subsidy, anti-religious freedom legislation will fail this afternoon. That, of course, points to the fundamental unseriousness of what the Democrat leader is doing.

If the Democrat leader had any real interest in legislating on these issues, he would be working with Republicans to bring up legislation that actually has a chance of receiving the support from both Democrats and Republicans.

Senator Joni Ernst, for example, has legislation to promote access to contraception, but that is not the legislation Senator Schumer is bringing up because these votes have nothing to do with legislating and everything to do with boosting Democrats' electoral chances--he hopes-- in this fall's elections.

I suspect the exercises in election politics will continue. Look for this to be the summer of show votes here in the U.S. Senate.

As I said, Republicans are ready for it. We are happy to talk about the Democrat agenda, whether that is the President's disastrous border policies--or lack thereof--or Democrats' never-ending inflation crisis, or another attempt by the Democrat leader to force through legislation to legalize abortion up until the moment of birth.

All the show votes in the world won't erase Democrats' record, as Democrats may discover, to their cost.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from Alabama (Mrs. Britt), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty), the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Johnson), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from Alabama (Mrs. Britt), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from Alabama (Mrs. Britt), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Romney), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan), and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Vance).

Mr. President, a couple of weeks ago at a White House press briefing, the President's Press Secretary was asked why the President isn't doing anything on the border, given the fact that he has the authority to act unilaterally. And the White House Press Secretary responded:

But why should he have to do it unilaterally?

Why should he have to do it unilaterally? It was, perhaps, a typical response from a White House that would like to portray itself as the victim of the border crisis rather than the cause, a White House that would prefer Congress take action on the border rather than run the risk of taking action itself and annoying some Democratic voters. But it was an outrageous statement, nonetheless.

Why should he have to do it unilaterally? Well, for starters, because President Biden is the President and thus bears a special responsibility for our national security and because, as President, he has the authority to take a number of measures to help secure our Nation's border. For a President not to do anything in the face of the kind of crisis we are dealing with is unconscionable. But most of all, President Biden should be taking action because he is responsible for this border crisis.

Why should he have to take action unilaterally? Because he created this border crisis unilaterally. On the day he took office, the President began dismantling the border security policies of his predecessor, and illegal immigration began surging in response. It has

never stopped. The President has presided over not 1, not 2, but 3 successive years of recordbreaking illegal immigration. With more than a million and a half illegal crossings so far this year, it is entirely possible he could end up presiding over a fourth.

Those recordbreaking immigration numbers I mentioned don't even convey the full magnitude of the problem. In addition to the staggering 7.8 million-plus illegal border encounters recorded under President Biden, we have also seen huge numbers of ``got-aways,'' and those are individuals that the Border Patrol saw but was unable to apprehend. Of course we have no idea how many unknown ``got-aways'' there have been, and that is a serious national security problem.

When turning yourself in to the Border Patrol with a claim for asylum is likely to result in years of essentially legal permanent residence or, as we discovered this weekend, de facto amnesty, it is especially concerning that we have hundreds of thousands of individuals choosing not to turn themselves in and escaping into the interior of the country. Some of them may simply be in search of a better life, but it is highly likely that others may have more malign intentions.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens, in a March interview with CBS News, said the number of known ``got-aways'' is keeping him up at night. This is his quote:

That is a national security threat. Border security is a

big piece of national security. And if we don't know who is

coming into our country and we don't know what their intent

is, that is a threat. And they're exploiting a vulnerability

that's on our border right now.

That same month, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

We are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that

emanate from the border.

Let me repeat that. From the FBI Director: ``We are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border.''

He also noted, alarmingly:

There is a particular network that has--where some of the

overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties

that we're very concerned about.

There is a particular network that has--where some of the

overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties

that we're very concerned about.

As I said, it would be unconscionable for any President to stand by and watch a crisis like the one we are facing at our southern border without taking action. The fact that President Biden has allowed this national security crisis to rage for 3-plus years unchecked is a betrayal of his responsibilities as President.

While protecting our national security may not have motivated this President, protecting his election prospects apparently does. With polls showing immigration as a top issue, Democrats have been rushing to give the impression that they are serious about border security. Now we are hearing that President Biden may be announcing measures to secure the border, possibly as soon as today. I will believe it when I see it, especially given this weekend's report that the Biden administration has been offering mass amnesty to hundreds of thousands of individuals whose asylum cases have been closed without a decision.

It does sound like the President will be announcing something, and I hope it will involve some real reforms. But it is disturbing that it is taking the fear of losing an election to motivate the President to take action on a national security crisis that has raged for more than 3 years, and it raises serious questions about how long the President's interest in border security will last. If he wins another term, will he still care about the border, or does it take an election to keep him motivated about his national security responsibilities?

At any rate, if concern for our national security won't do it, let's hope that his fear of defeat in November will indeed motivate the President to actually get the situation at our southern border under control. Given his record so far, though, I am not holding my breath.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun).