Floor Statements

Mr. President, less than 2 months ago, at his inauguration, President Biden spoke about his deep commitment to bringing Americans together.

Today, the Senate will consider the first major bill of his Presidency, an intensely partisan piece of legislation. Why is the bill before us today so partisan? It is not because Republicans were unwilling to cooperate with Democrats on COVID legislation. In fact--in fact--Republicans made it very clear that we were willing to work with Democrats.

No, the bill before us today is so heavily partisan because Democrats didn't want to work with Republicans. Democrats saw an opportunity to use the COVID crisis to advance a whole host of liberal priorities, and they were afraid that allowing Republicans to participate in the process would mean that some of their pet projects would be excluded or that they would have to pare back some of their more profligate spending.

So Democrats decided to use reconciliation to ensure that Republicans wouldn't be able to interfere with their Democratic legislation. And let's be very clear about the nature of that legislation. Democrats would like to present this as a COVID bill. It is not. Yes, there are a handful of true COVID priorities in this legislation, such as more money for vaccines and coronavirus treatment, something that I think everybody here on both sides of the aisle supports. But the bulk of this bill is either non-COVID-related or ostensibly COVID-related but, actually, either unnecessary or excessive.

On the non-COVID front, there is the $86 billion bailout for multiemployer pension plans, the billions for climate change and other environmental policy issues, a new taxpayer-funded leave program for government employees with no requirement that it be used for COVID-19, and I could go on.

The version of the bill that came over from the House contained such non-COVID-related measures as $100 million for an underground rail project in the House Speaker's home State and $1.5 million for a bridge in the Democratic leader's home State, plus a massive increase in the Federal minimum wage that would cost an estimated 1.4 million jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and potentially-- potentially--devastate small businesses already reeling from the effects of the coronavirus.

Then there are the ostensibly COVID-related measures, such as $350 billion for States. So what is the big problem there? Well, States don't need anywhere near that much money to weather the rest of the pandemic. The vast majority of States are not in crisis, and rescuing those States that are not in crisis would not take anywhere close to $350 billion. Democrats are going to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on an unnecessary giveaway to States, and on top of that, that giveaway is heavily, heavily weighted in favor of blue States. That is right. The distribution formula is designed to heavily favor Democratic States.

Well, then there is the money for schools. Now, Republicans have been very willing to give schools money to help them reopen. In fact, last year, when Republicans were in the majority--which, by the way, during that time we passed five COVID-19 relief bills, all with bipartisan cooperation and support, at the 60-vote level that we use here in the Senate for most legislation that we take up under regular order--but we put a lot of money into giving schools money to help them reopen. In fact, Republicans voted for $68 billion for K-12 schools.

At this point, that money is sufficient. Schools have spent just $5 billion of the $68 billion that we have already provided. Let me repeat that. So far, schools have spent just $5 billion, or less than 10 percent, of the $68 billion that has already been given to them.

Yet the Democrats' bill would appropriate an additional $129 billion for schools, 95 percent of which would be spent after this year--the year of the crisis, the year of the emergency, the year of the pandemic. You would think that, if this was a crisis, the funding would be made available to be used this year, but it is not. It is spent in the years 2022 to 2028.

Do Democrats really expect Americans to believe that school dollars that won't be spent until 2027 or 2028 are urgently needed coronavirus response dollars? This is the pattern with this bill, though.

We just passed a large coronavirus relief bill in December, the fifth coronavirus relief bill that Congress has passed, and a lot of the money from that bill hasn't been spent yet. In fact, a lot of money from earlier coronavirus bills has not been spent. Yet Democrats are throwing massive additional amounts of money at various recipients with no idea--no clear idea--of whether or not that money will be needed or, in some cases, when we know very well that that money isn't needed

Republicans will be introducing amendments to the Democrats' bill. I am introducing an amendment to undo the Biden administration's freeze on the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which has provided support for farmers and ranchers who have been hit hard by the pandemic.

I hope some of my less extreme Democratic colleagues will join Republicans to advance some of our amendments, such as Senator Graham's amendment to change the distribution formula for States to the formula used in the bipartisan CARES Act, which passed unanimously here in the Senate, so that both red and blue States would get a fair shot at funding, or amendments to remove those provisions that are in no way related to COVID relief.

Unfortunately, Democratic leaders have made it very clear that they are not willing to entertain Republican ideas. So I don't have a lot of confidence that Republican amendments, even if adopted, will end up in the final bill.

It is deeply disappointing that pretty much the first thing Democrats did this Congress was to take a bipartisan process--the coronavirus relief--and make it partisan. All five--all five--of the coronavirus bills that Congress has passed to date--last year, when Republicans were in the majority--were bipartisan. This bill could have been bipartisan, too, but Democrats decided that Republicans and the Americans that they represent should not have a voice in this legislation.

Is this what the rest of the Biden Presidency is going to look like? I sure hope not, because it is going to be really hard--really hard--to come up with solutions that are durable and that represent the middle of the country--those people whose voices are not heard in the legislation that we will be taking up today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, less than 2 months ago, President Biden emphasized a theme of unity at his inauguration.

``Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this,'' he said. ``Bringing America together. Uniting our people. And uniting our nation.''

Admirable words, but so far they haven't been met with much action. On the first big legislative test of his Presidency, coronavirus legislation, President Biden and Democrats in Congress have pursued a resolutely partisan course.

They have not only failed to invite Republican input in any meaningful way, they deliberately excluded it by passing their coronavirus package using budget reconciliation.

This allows them to pass the bill in the Senate by a simple majority vote, instead of requiring the concurrence of 60 Senators to move to a vote on the bill, which is typically how legislation is passed here in the Senate, including the five coronavirus bills that we passed last year, when the Republicans had the majority here in the Senate.

Now, Democrats' decision to use reconciliation might be understandable if Republicans had declared our opposition to any further coronavirus legislation, but, of course, that is not the case.

Republicans made it clear that we were willing to work with Democrats on additional coronavirus legislation. In fact, 10 Republican Senators put together a plan and met with President Biden for 2 hours to discuss a bipartisan agreement. But while the President listened to them graciously, Democrats and the President quickly made it clear that they intended to move forward without Republican input.

Two days after Republicans met with President Biden, the House passed its partisan budget resolution to pave the way for reconciliation here in the Senate. Two days later, the Senate followed suit.

Clearly, there were no plans to let negotiations with Republicans slow down the partisan juggernaut. In fact, Democrats have been pretty determined to make sure Republicans don't have a voice in this legislation at all.

During markups of the COVID relief package in House committees, Republicans offered a number of amendments: 245 amendments, to be exact. Out of those 245 amendments, Democrats accepted exactly one for the final bill--one.

Among the amendments House Democrats rejected were commonsense proposals to tie school funding to the reopening of schools. There was an amendment to unfreeze funding for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program for farmers and ranchers. There were amendments to target funding to overlooked rural communities and an amendment to protect healthcare providers from frivolous lawsuits.

The one thing that can be said for the House is at least it gave Members in the House a chance to review the bill in committee. Here in the Senate, Democrats' COVID package will come to the floor without any committee consideration. Senators are just supposed to accept whatever the House sent over or whatever changes the Senate Democratic leader makes, minus those items that are excluded from a reconciliation package by Senate budget rules.

Democrats' partisan course on COVID legislation is particularly disappointing because up until now, COVID relief has been a bipartisan process.

That is right. To date, Congress has passed five COVID relief bills, and every single one of those bills was overwhelmingly bipartisan.

The Republican-led Senate took up and passed COVID relief legislation by margins of 96 to 1, 90 to 8, 96 to 0, 92 to 6, and one even went by voice vote here in the Senate.

Back then, of course, Democrats thought that the minority party should have a voice in the process. In fact, the Democratic leader filibustered the original CARES Act, our largest COVID bill to date, multiple times until he got a version that he was satisfied with.

Now that the Democrats are in the majority, however, they have decided minority representation can be dispensed with. It is Democrats' way or the highway on COVID legislation. Republicans and the Americans that they represent will not be allowed to contribute.

I guess it is not surprising. After all, if the Democrats had pursued a bipartisan process, they would probably have had to eliminate some of the non-COVID-related provisions in this legislation, like the $86 billion bailout of multiemployer pension plans, hardly a coronavirus emergency.

They might have been forced to trim their slush fund for States and ensure that the distribution formula wasn't weighted heavily in favor of blue States.

The Senator from Illinois was just down here talking about the importance of helping out the States. Well, under the formula that they have designed for this relief package, the dollars skew heavily, surprisingly, to States like New York, where the Democratic leader is from, or California, where the House Speaker is from, or Illinois, where the Senate Democratic whip is from.

It seems like a lot of States around the country sort of got left out when it came to how to distribute what is going to be a huge amount of money that is going to go out to State and local governments if the Democrats have their way with this bill. They might have had to reject the measure to give labor unions and Planned Parenthood access to loans designed to help small businesses--again, hardly something that we ought to be doing in a coronavirus relief bill that is designed to make sure that small businesses stay viable, but it does satisfy a lot of Democrat special interest groups.

They might have had to tie funding for schools to school reopening-- seems like a fair consideration. There was an amendment offered during the budget resolution when it was being considered on the floor of the Senate that would have required schools where every teacher had the vaccination to reopen in order to qualify for Federal assistance under this legislation, but there is nothing about that in this bill. There is nothing that, of all the money, the $128 billion that will go out to schools--by the way, we put $68 billion out there already, much of which hasn't been spent. But with all this money that would go out to schools, there is no stipulation anywhere in this legislation that would attempt to tie funding for schools to their reopening so that we can get our kids back to school and learning again in that environment.

In fact, it would be arguable, I think, that the schools, if the teachers can get vaccinated--and that was the very language of the amendment that was offered in the budget resolution by Republicans. It was defeated here in the Senate on a 50-50 vote. All Republicans voted for it, all Democrats against it. But again, all it simply said was that if you are going to get Federal funding under this bill and all of the teachers in your school are vaccinated against the coronavirus, then you have to reopen. If you don't reopen after all the teachers have been vaccinated, then you don't get funding under this bill. That seems like a fairly straightforward request, given the fact that so many schools across this country and so many of our kids continue to have to learn virtually at a time when we need to have them in the classroom. This is obviously something that wasn't included in this legislation.

I would argue that all the changes that I have just mentioned would have made the bill better, but they might not have made the Democrat allies as happy. This whole process could have been different. We could be here today with another bipartisan COVID bill that would speed up vaccination and help our country through the rest of the pandemic. In fact, as I said, there were lots of Republicans who were interested in negotiating, sitting down with Democrats to do just that.

The Democrat whip, the Senator from Illinois, was down here saying: Wouldn't it be great if this could be bipartisan like the other bills we have

done earlier that were bipartisan? I would simply point out the obvious, and that is that all of the bills that were done last year when Republicans had the majority here in the Senate were bipartisan because we did them under regular order. We did them under the 60-vote threshold that is required to move legislation through the Senate.

What the Democrat leadership has opted to do is to use a rarely used legislative vehicle here--budget reconciliation--to do a bunch of things that they could do simply with 51 votes, and it was pretty clear to me that they had no intention ever of including Republican ideas or involving Republicans in developing this legislation or, ultimately, having Republican support for at the end. In fact, that was probably made most clear by a statement made by the Chief of Staff to President Biden in the White House when he described this as ``the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation,'' suggesting, of course, that this is filled with all kinds of liberal priorities, most of which have very little to do with the coronavirus.

In fact, if you look at where the funding goes in this, the $1.9 trillion, less than 10 percent--less than 10 percent--deals with funding for public healthcare; in other words, funding for vaccines, either for production or distribution; funding for providers; funding more mental health; funding for anything related to healthcare. If you look at the $1.9 trillion, it is less than 10 percent. Less than 10 percent of it is actually directed at addressing the actual healthcare crisis that we are facing as a nation.

I would simply say that it is pretty clear to me that if Democrats had wanted to, they could have had--easily could have had--a bipartisan bill. There are 10 Republicans I know of today who would have voted for a bill that would include funding for vaccines, that would include funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, that would include funding for unemployment checks, that actually would have included funding for direct checks to go out, which I know is a very popular thing. But that consultation never occurred. That desire to get input never happened-- that offer to allow the committees of jurisdiction to even have a voice or any input into this.

Frankly, if I am a Democrat here in the Senate, I would be outraged that my committees were bypassed completely. There was no consideration at any committee--any committee--here in the Senate about what the contents of this legislation should be or what the substance of it should look like in the end. It was literally ramrodded, coming from the House of Representatives, taken up by the Democratic leadership with no input from the committees--Republicans, for sure, but also Democrats, of all people, who you think would want to be heard. I mean, they got these chairmanships of these committees for a reason. They finally got the majority, and they have committee gavels and all that, and here we are, talking about $1.9 trillion in spending, and the committee chairs, the committees themselves had no action when it comes to shaping or in any way producing this legislation.

So to suggest, as the Democrat whip, Senator Durbin, did earlier, that he really hopes that this will be bipartisan, I just--it is hard to take that even seriously, given how this is proceeding and how the Democrats opted to do this relative to how the other five coronavirus relief bills were passed last year under the Republican majority.

We are looking instead at a partisan bill that directs billions of taxpayer dollars to projects and policies that have nothing to do with overcoming COVID. And just as one observation--again, I made this point on the floor yesterday. But one thing that we need to remember here is that we are talking about real money here, and we are talking about it all being borrowed money. This is all money that goes on the debt. Every dollar that we are going to provide of the $1.9 trillion that is proposed in this Democrat bill is a borrowed dollar. These are all dollars that go on the debt, the debt which has grown dramatically in this last year, in some cases because we had to move aggressively, as we did last year at this time in March with a bill that would get immediate assistance out there to people who desperately needed it. We were fighting at that time a major emergency, a major crisis. Well, here we are, a year later. We have a very different perspective on the world today than we did 12 months ago. But that $1.9 trillion, when added to the other coronavirus relief bills, ends up being about $6 trillion--$6 trillion. That amount of money is absolutely hard to comprehend and hard to fathom. And we are talking about compounding the $4 trillion or so already out there with another $2 trillion with this bill, and as I pointed out yesterday, at some point--at some point--the chickens come home to roost. You cannot continue down this path without consequence on the economy.

Now, the argument in support of this legislation made by Democrats is that we need to do more; we have got to get this out there; we have got to stimulate the economy. My fear in a lot of respects right now is that the economy could be overstimulated. The Congressional Budget Office said just recently that without any additional assistance, the economy is going to grow in 2021 at 3.7 percent, and we are flooding the zone with so much money that the money supply numbers have been exploding.

The 2020 money supply was up--the M2 as they measure it--was up 26 percent. Year over year, from 2000 to 2019, it averaged about 6 percent. This year it is going to be up another 12 percent. There is a lot of money out there in the economy. What does that mean long-term for our economy and for the individual workers in our economy? Well, first off, it means that as there are more and more dollars chasing fewer goods, you are going to get inflation. That is inevitable. When you get inflation, typically what happens is interest rates follow because those who are buying that debt, if it is being lost to inflation, want to make sure that they are getting a return on their investments, so interest rates start to go up.

When interest rates go up, the amount of money we borrow becomes even more expensive because we have to pay interest. We have to finance that debt. So the amount of interest--the amount of Federal tax dollars that we will be using to pay for interest on the debt will explode and will swamp--it will swamp, literally--the amount of tax revenue coming into this country. We know that because the debt is so large already, and we know that because interest rates have been low for a long time, which has lulled everybody into a sense of complacency that this is not going to have any impact, that there is no downside. We can just keep borrowing because interest rates are low.

Well, if you keep putting as much money out there as we are--another $2 trillion out into the economy--I would argue that you are not only going to unleash inflation, which has a dramatic consequence for our fiscal situation as a country, but it also has a dramatic consequence for the personal financial situation of the American family because when inflation takes off, everything that people have to buy, from food to gasoline to clothing--all those things go up. Inflation pushes the prices of things higher, which means they are more expensiv to the average family in this country.

Then the other effect, long-term, is when inflation starts to go up, as I said, interest rates start to follow. We are already starting to see some evidence of that. When interest rates go up, not only does the Federal Government fiscal picture get much, much worse because the amount of tax dollars that we have to spend to finance our debt grows dramatically, but the American consumer is also faced with higher interest rates. So mortgage payments go up if somebody is trying to finance a home. Interest rates on cars, automobiles, will go up. Interest rates on student loans go up. That also has a direct impact on the pocketbooks of people in this country.

Mr. President, I am going to conclude, but I think it is really important to point out--and I know that my State is not indicative of every State around the country. There are States that have legitimate, different financial situations. But in South Dakota right now, we have 3-percent unemployment. We have a growing economy. We have a State that has already benefited significantly from earlier coronavirus relief legislation to the point where there are dollars that they

are still trying to figure out how to use from the previous installations of Federal spending that we have put out there. It just seems to me that we ought to, given the potential adverse consequence of higher interest rates, higher inflation, higher debt and spending, think about that what we are doing here should be very targeted. It should be very specific.

We know now--we have a lot more insight into where the needs are in the economy than we did at this point last year, in March, when we did the first CARES package. We are at a time now when it is very clear where those needs are, and we could come up with a much more targeted bill. Those 10 Republicans that I have mentioned have come up with a bill that is in the $600 billion to $700 billion range, which addresses the healthcare issues, addresses the unemployment insurance issues, addresses the PPP program. It deals with direct checks, as I mentioned. It has got funding for education. I think some funding is in there for State and local governments, which, frankly, as I said, I am not for. I would rather see us take those dollars, if we are going to put them somewhere, put them toward something that is more targeted, at least a formula that makes more sense.

But let me just say that in my view it is really important right now that we be circumspect. We are talking about borrowed money. This is now--this is the house of dollars. This is not--this isn't just magic money that appears out of nowhere. Every single dollar that we are using is borrowed, will be added to the debt, will be a liability for somebody to have to pay back--for our kids and our grandkids. And if the potential economic impacts that I mentioned actually occur and interest rates start to tick up, it is going to be a lot more expensive money to finance in the future, and I think that is a very real consideration. It is something we ought to be thinking long and hard about, not just because of the fiscal situation that the country faces right now but because of the financial situation every American family, as they sit around the kitchen table and talk about these pocketbook issues, will be looking at. If we see higher inflation, if we see higher interest rates, it is going to affect their jobs; it is going to affect their cost of living; and it is going to make it that much harder for them to make ends meet.

Less than 2 months after the President committed himself to unity at his inauguration, the first major bill of his Presidency will be a resolutely partisan piece of legislation. I hope--I hope--that this is not a sign of things to come.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, Democrats continue to push forward with their partisan COVID legislation. The House of Representatives passed the Democrats' $1.9 trillion partisan wish list on Saturday, and the Senate is expected to take it up later this week.

Just weeks after the President expressed his commitment to unity at his inauguration, he and his party are forcing through exclusively partisan legislation despite Republicans' clear willingness to negotiate. When it comes to Democrats' COVID bill, President Biden keeps asking, ``What would you have me cut?''--as if there is no way anyone could dispute the necessity of anything in this legislation.

Well, as I said last week, I have some suggestions because this bill is rife with unnecessary and problematic provisions. Democrats are presenting this as a COVID relief bill, but a lot of this bill has little to do with responding to the pandemic. In fact, less than 10 percent of the bill is directly related to combating the COVID health crisis.

If President Biden would like to know what to cut, let me suggest starting with the bill's $350 billion slush fund for States. Now, there is no question that COVID has placed additional pressure on States, which is why Republicans supported targeted funding for States in previous COVID legislation. But at this point, the vast majority of States are not in crisis.

A number of States actually saw higher tax revenues in 2020. The majority of States, including my home State of South Dakota, have the resources they need to weather the rest of the pandemic. Even if the Federal Government bailed out those States that are still struggling-- some, at least partially, because of their own mismanagement--$350 billion far exceeds the amount that would be needed. Democrats are simply providing a large and unnecessary giveaway to States with the distribution formula heavily weighted in favor of blue States.

Then there is the bill's funding for schools. Now, Republicans are committed to getting schools reopened so our kids can get back to the in-person learning that they need. It is why we voted for $68 billion in COVID funding for K-12 schools last year. But right now, schools don't need additional funding. So far K-12 schools have spent just $5 billion of the $68 billion that we provided them. Yet the Democrats' bill would provide nearly $129 billion in additional funding. And despite all that additional and unnecessary money, nothing--nothing--in the bill would require schools to actually reopen. Schools could collect this money while still depriving students of the benefits of in-person learning.

And another thing, Democrats are billing this legislation as a COVID relief bill and suggesting that it is providing urgently needed funding. Yet 95 percent of the funding for schools--95 percent--would be spent after this year. That is right. Just 5 percent of this ``emergency funding'' would be spent in 2021. The rest would be spent between 2022 and 2028. Are we really supposed to believe that money that would be spent in 2028--years after the pandemic is likely to be over--is somehow urgently needed COVID relief funding?

Well, I could go on for a while here with suggestions for what to cut in this bill. I am pretty sure that $100 million for a Silicon Valley underground rail project doesn't have a lot to do with getting our country out of the COVID crisis. Or how about the $1.5 million for a bridge in the Democratic leader's home State?

And then there is the $86 billion bailout for multiemployer pension plans, billions--billions--for environmental policies, and a provision to ensure that Planned Parenthood and labor unions can apply for Paycheck Protection Program loans designed to help small businesses--I am not sure how far that will go toward helping our economy,

but it will certainly help build the coffers of some of Democrats' political allies.

If Democrats were really just focused on COVID relief, this would be a much smaller and targeted bill, but Democrats' ambitions were much larger than just addressing the COVID crisis. As a Democrat political operative famously said, ``never allow a good crisis to go to waste.''

Well, Democrats have taken that advice and are using the COVID crisis as cover for a whole list of partisan priorities with potentially very negative consequences. The Democrats' COVID bill runs a very real risk of overstimulating the economy, as evidenced by the large increase we have seen in money supply which could, among other things, drive up prices on the goods that Americans use every day--in other words, inflation. Even some liberal economists have sounded the alarm over the size of the Democrats' coronavirus legislation.

And then, of course, there is the danger posed by driving up our debt. We had to borrow a lot of money last year to meet the demands of the coronavirus crisis, and while it was money we needed to borrow, we need to be very aware of the fact that we added a substantial-- substantial--amount to our already very large national debt. We need to be very careful about any additional borrowing and ensure that we are only borrowing what is absolutely necessary.

I think it goes without saying that the more that we borrow, the more debt we have to retire. If something negative happened on interest rates and interest rates normalized--went back to a more normal setting--the interest itself on that amount of debt would literally dwarf anything else we do in our budget, including defending the country.

And that, I believe, is a very, very real threat, because if you look at what is happening right now with the economy and with all the money that we have flooded out there so far and another $2 trillion, if the Democrats have their way in this particular proposal, and all that money out there starts pushing up those costs and we start seeing inflation in the economy, it doesn't take very long for interest rates to go with it. In fact, they already are. If those interest rates start pushing up very quickly on the amount of debt that we are piling up, financing that debt--the amount of interest, the cost of interest on that debt--would be absolutely overwhelming and devastating to this country.

So we need to be very, very careful about any additional borrowing and ensure that we are only borrowing what is absolutely necessary. That means making sure that anything we do in terms of additional pandemic relief is targeted and fiscally responsible, and that does not include money for a bridge in New York or a taxpayer bailout for mismanaged States.

It is deeply disappointing that Democrats chose to turn their backs on bipartisanship. Republicans were ready to work with Democrats on additional targeted relief.

As I have pointed out before, the pandemic has been an issue on which, at least up until now, there has been very much bipartisan support. Last year, when Republicans were in the majority, we did five--five--coronavirus bills, all bipartisan, all done at the 60-vote threshold that governs most legislation that moves through the Senate in a cooperative way.

In this case, the Democrats are plowing forward, pushing this legislation in a very partisan way, and I think that is unfortunate given our history on this issue of bipartisanship and the importance of making sure that we are doing the right things on behalf of the American people to help them get through this pandemic.

Choosing to pursue a partisan process allows Democrats to stuff the bill with unnecessary spending and political payoffs, but that is not the way to help our country or our economy recover.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, on Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Tom Vilsack as the Secretary of Agriculture. It is a role he is familiar with, having previously served as Agriculture Secretary under President Obama. I voted in support of his nomination because I believe he understands the issues facing farmers and ranchers and is sincere in his desire to work with Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to support our Nation's agriculture producers.

Agriculture is the lifeblood of my home State of South Dakota, and fighting for farmers and ranchers is one of my top priorities here in the Senate. I am very pleased to, once again, serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee in this Congress, which gives me an important platform to advocate for South Dakota farmers and ranchers and farmers and ranchers across the country.

One huge priority for me over the past year has been making sure agriculture producers have the support they need to weather this pandemic. During debate on the CARES Act--our largest coronavirus relief bill to date--I fought to make sure we included relief for farmers and ranchers, and I followed up by advocating for cattle producers with the Department of Agriculture to make sure they would receive funds.

I also worked to ensure that additional relief for farmers and ranchers was included in the COVID legislation that we passed in December. The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program that the USDA established to distribute funding, included in the CARES Act, has distributed billions in direct support to agriculture producers, which has been key in helping them weather this pandemic.

Now that Secretary Vilsack has been confirmed, I urge him to lift the Biden administration's freeze on part of this important program and distribute the additional funding from the December relief package as soon as possible. I also urge the Department of Agriculture to use its authority to provide assistance to agriculture processors like the biofuels industry.

During my meeting with Secretary Vilsack prior to his confirmation, we spent time discussing my Soil Health and Income Protection Program, which became law as part of the 2018 farm bill. That program, the SHIPP program, allows farmers to take their lowest performing croplands out of production for 3 to 5 years. This benefits the environment by increasing soil health and water quality, and it benefits farmers by providing them with a rental payment for the acres they have temporarily removed from production.

I will continue to urge Secretary Vilsack to expand farmers' access to SHIPP by holding another signup this year. I will also continue to urge him to address another priority I brought up in our meeting, and that is the November 1 haying and grazing date for cover crops on prevented plant acres, which is too late in the year for farmers in more northern States like South Dakota.

As I said, one of my top priorities has been making sure farmers and ranchers have the support they need during the pandemic. When it became clear that farmers and ranchers were largely missing out on the Paycheck Protection Program that Congress had set up to help small businesses weather the pandemic, Senator Baldwin and I introduced legislation to allow more farmers and ranchers to access the program by allowing them to use their gross incomes rather than their net incomes to determine their loan awards. Our Paycheck Protection for Producers Act became law as part of the coronavirus relief bill that Congress passed in December.

Senator Baldwin and I have continued to engage with the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration to ensure that the Paycheck Protection Program is working properly for farmers and ranchers. For example, we recently led a bipartisan letter urging a broader implementation of our Paycheck Protection for Producers Act to ensure that farmers and ranchers who are organized as partnerships or limited liability companies are allowed to apply for Paycheck Protection Program loans by using this more favorable gross income formula, as was intended.

These issues are front of mind for ag producers in my State, and, last week, I had the opportunity to discuss many of them in person with representatives of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association, which represents and advocates for corn farmers in South Dakota. Another thing we spent a lot of time talking about was biofuels. In addition to helping to feed our Nation, corn and soybean farmers provide essential feedstocks for biofuels, like ethanol and biodiesel, which provide an important source of cleaner energy. I have long been an advocate for biofuels for their clean energy potential and the benefits they offer to the agriculture industry.

When I met with Secretary Vilsack, he committed to working with me to promote ethanol as a form of clean energy--a commitment he echoed at his confirmation hearing.

I recently introduced two bipartisan pieces of legislation to support the increased use of biofuels and emphasize their clean energy potential. The Adopt GREET Act, which I introduced with Senator Klobuchar, would require the Environmental Protection Agency to update its greenhouse gas modeling for ethanol and biodiesel by using the U.S. Department of Energy's GREET model. A recent Harvard study found that ethanol is 46 percent cleaner than gasoline, with some technologies reducing life-cycle emissions by as much as 61 percent. These findings underscore how biofuels can reduce emissions in the near term using our Nation's existing vehicles. Currently, however, the EPA's modeling does not fully recognize the tremendous emissions-reducing potential of ethanol and other biofuels. The Adopt GREET Act would fix this problem and pave the way for increased biofuel use both here and abroad.

I also introduced a bill to advance long-stalled biofuel registrations with the EPA. Regulatory inaction has stifled the advancement of promising technologies, like ethanol derived from corn kernel fiber, even though some of these fuels are already being safely used in States like California. My bill would speed up the approval process for these innovative biofuels. This would allow biofuel producers to capitalize on the research and facility investments they have made and improve their operating margins while further lowering

emissions and helping our Nation's corn and soybean producers by reinforcing this essential market.

The pandemic has highlighted vulnerabilities in our Nation's food supply chain, especially when it comes to meat processing capacity. Too much of our Nation's processing capacity is concentrated in a handful of facilities, leaving our meat supply vulnerable if a problem like a coronavirus outbreak occurs at one of these plants.

I recently introduced the Strengthening Local Processing Act with Senator Merkley. Our legislation would help expand national meat processing capacity by providing new resources for smaller, more local meat processing operations. Spreading out and expanding our Nation's meat processing capacity over more plants will make our Nation's meat supply less vulnerable to interruption in situations like the coronavirus pandemic or natural disasters and provide livestock producers with more marketing options.

I am proud to represent South Dakota's farmers and ranchers here in Congress, and I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that all of our Nation's farmers and ranchers have the support they need to weather the rest of this pandemic and to continue feeding our Nation and the world.

I yield the floor.