Floor Statements

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

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

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

Mr. President, earlier this month, 16 Democratic Senators introduced a resolution calling for President Biden to forgive $50,000 of Federal student loan debt per borrower--$50,000.

There is no question that student loan debt is a problem for many Americans. College costs have risen to unrealistically high levels, and many students or their parents take out unrealistic amounts of debt in response. But the answer to this problem is not to have the President or Congress simply step in and forgive a large chunk of student loan debt.

To start with, Democrats' plan is incredibly, fundamentally unfair. Right now, there are individuals around this country who have just paid off the last of their student loans. They have been working hard, making payments, sometimes for a couple of years, sometimes for a couple of decades, as was the case with me. What happens to these individuals if the President steps in and forgives $50,000 of student debt? Well, I will tell you what happens--nothing. These individuals who have worked hard for years to pay off their debt will see no benefit from the Democrats' blanket loan forgiveness. Meanwhile, other Americans who have made no more than a month or two of payments will see their student loans entirely disappear. That is incredibly unfair. In addition to being unfair, forgiving student loan debt does absolutely nothing to address the problems that created this debt crisis in the first place. In fact, the Democrats' solution is likely to make things worse.

What possible incentive will students have to take the responsible approach to borrowing if they think the Federal Government will step in and solve their debt problem? What incentive will colleges have to restrain tuition growth if they think they can rely on the Federal Government to subsidize their students' tuition fees through loan forgiveness?

Forgiving $50,000 in student loans would also set a terrible precedent on the sanctity of contracts. While it may at times be ill- advised, students freely enter into the agreements they make when they take out a loan. Should we really be teaching that agreements and contracts mean nothing, that people can incur debt and then not have to pay it off? And about that ``not paying it off,'' the phrase ``student loan forgiveness'' carries with it a suggestion that these debts will just disappear, that $50,000 can be wiped off each American's slate and vanish into the ether.

But, of course, we know that is not the case either. This is money students have borrowed from the Federal Government, and if the Government doesn't get that money back, the Government will be facing an unexpected debt.

Now, some people, especially some Democrats, tend to talk as if the Government draws on an unlimited pot of money, but, of course, we know that is not true. Government funds aren't anywhere close to being unlimited, and Government coffers are not filled from a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They are filled by taxpayer dollars, and, sooner or later, it will be taxpayers who foot the bill for any loan forgiveness program, including the many taxpayers who opted not to attend college or chose a debt-free way of doing so. There are a lot of Americans out there who saved up to get a degree or went part-time to avoid incurring debt. Are they really supposed to foot the bill for other Americans' student loans?

While you might think that Democrats' plan is largely targeted to low-income or disadvantaged individuals, that is not actually the case. Under the Democrats' plan, an American making $20,000 and an American making $120,000 would receive the same loan relief. In fact, since more loan dollars are held by those in higher income brackets, higher income Americans could end up benefiting the most. And that brings up another thing that we need to remember.

Yes, a number of Americans carry a significant amount of student loan debt, but some of those Americans have incurred that debt for a career that will bring significant financial rewards.

Plus, a substantial portion of student loan debt is not for undergraduate degrees but for graduate and professional degrees. Under the Democrats' student loan forgiveness proposal, taxpayers could be subsidizing not just bachelor's degrees but master's degrees and Ph.D. degrees, as well as law and medical degrees.

Instead of putting taxpayers on the hook for billions, we should be focused on exploring ways to drive down education costs and educate students on the dangers of taking on excessive debt.

We should also be highlighting affordable education options like our Nation's community and technical colleges. These colleges, like the outstanding institutions we have in South Dakota, provide students with associate's degrees, certificates, apprenticeships, opportunities to learn a trade, and more.

There are also things we could do to help students pay off loans without putting taxpayers on the hook for such massive amounts of money. In December, Congress passed a 5-year legislation that I introduced with Senator Warner to allow employers to help employees repay their loans. Our Employer Participation and Repayment Act amends the Educational Assistance Program to permit employers to make tax-free payments on their employees' student loans.

Previously, employers could make tax-free contributions to their employees' tuition if their employees were currently taking classes, but they

couldn't provide tax-free contributions to help employees with education debts that they had already incurred. Our bill allows them to make tax-free contributions to help with employees' already existing student loan debt. That is a win-win situation. It is a win for employees who get help paying off their student loans, and it is a win for employers who have a new option for attracting and retaining talented workers.

Our bill is not a silver bullet, but it will certainly help ease the pain of paying back student loans for a number of young Americans. I am pleased it was enacted into law for a 5-year period, and I hope Congress will act to make it permanent.

Another big thing we could do is make sure that graduates have access to good-paying jobs. This is key to enabling people to pay off their debt, and we should resolve to build on the economic progress that we had made prepandemic and focus on policies that will allow our economy to grow and to thrive.

High college costs and student debt are a problem, but blanket loan forgiveness is not the answer. I hope that President Biden will resist Democratic calls to put taxpayers on the hook for literally billions and billions of dollars in student loans.

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, in his inaugural address, President Biden spoke about his desire to unify.

He said this:

Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this:

bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our

nation.

Admirable words, but words have to be met with action, and, right now, we are not seeing much of an attempt to unify from the President or his party. In fact, we are seeing pretty much the opposite. The Democrats have made it very clear they are determined to pass another COVID bill on a purely partisan basis, which 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 has been overwhelmingly bipartisan.

I might add, last year, when we were in the majority, Senate Democrats made it very clear that they thought the minority should have a voice in COVID relief and that any legislation should reflect the thoughts of both parties. The Democratic leader filibustered the CARES Act--our largest COVID relief bill--multiple times until he got a version that he was satisfied with, but now that the Democrats are in the majority, apparently, they have decided that it is their way or the highway. Forget the fact that the Senate is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats are determined to ensure that the Republicans and the Americans they represent don't have a voice in this bill.

The Democrats' move to use reconciliation to force through a purely partisan COVID bill might be understandable--and I add ``might''--if the Republicans had made it clear that we opposed doing anything else on COVID, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The Republicans have made it very clear that we are willing to work with the Democrats on additional targeted relief. Just weeks ago, 10 Republican Senators put together a plan and met with President Biden for 2 hours to discuss a bipartisan agreement, but while the President certainly listened to them graciously, it quickly became clear that their efforts didn't matter. It didn't matter how willing the Republicans were to negotiate; the Democrats had no intention of reaching an agreement. They wanted to go it alone, and they were not going to let the Republicans stop them.

In a speech a few days ago, President Biden acknowledged that people have criticized his $1.9 trillion plan but asked:

What would they have me cut? What would they have me leave

out?

Well, let me offer a few ideas.

For starters, it might be a good idea to cut out the sections of the Democrats' bill that have nothing to do with combating COVID. The Democrats are calling this a COVID relief bill, but in actual fact, much of this bill has little to do with the coronavirus. In fact, less than 10 percent of the bill is directly related to combating COVID.

If President Biden wants to know what sections of the bill to cut, I might suggest starting with the bill's minimum wage hike. The Democratic bill would more than double the Federal minimum wage at a cost of an estimated 1.4 million jobs--that according to the Congressional Budget Office. That would be problematic enough at a time when we are already dealing with substantial job losses, but it is even worse when you realize that the people most likely to lose their jobs as a result of this hike would be lower income workers.

I would also suggest that the President cut his $86 billion bailout of multiemployer pension plans, which has nothing to do with emergency COVID relief.

The President could also consider cutting his $350 billion slush fund for States and localities, which would be used mostly to reward States that shut down their businesses for extended periods and, therefore, have higher unemployment rates.

It has become clear the majority of States are doing OK financially despite the pandemic. A number of States actually saw higher tax revenues in 2020, and a majority of States have the resources needed to weather the rest of this crisis. Three hundred fifty billion dollars far exceeds projected State need.

And while we are on that topic, the economic stimulus provided by President Biden's bill, in general, far exceeds the economic need and may actually harm the economy.

Even without a dollar more of stimulus spending, our economy is expected to grow at a robust 3.7 percent in 2021.

The massive amount of spending that the President is proposing to inject into the economy runs the very real risk of overheating the economy and driving up inflation, and you don't have to take my word for it. Even some liberal economists have expressed their concern over the size of the Democrats' coronavirus legislation and the damage that it could do to the economy.

Then, of course, there is the money the bill includes for schools. Now, while children in some places, like South Dakota, are in school, we need to get all kids back to in-person learning. In-person learning is important for kids' academic, social, and emotional health, and as Republicans have demonstrated, we want to ensure that schools have the resources they need to get back into the classroom safely.

Our previous coronavirus bills contained more than $100 billion for education, and I think it is safe to say that every Republican would support additional dollars, if needed, but the fact of the matter is, schools still have billions of dollars from previous coronavirus legislation that remains unspent. And the Biden bill would appropriate an additional $129 billion for schools that schools would get--they would get--whether or not they get kids back into the classroom.

On top of that, most of that money would go to schools beginning next year and stretching all the way to 2028; in other words, long after the pandemic will be over. In fact, less--if you can believe this, less than 5 percent of the education spending would occur this year.

Ultimately, the Biden bill's school funding ends up looking less like a plan to get our kids back in schools and more like caving in to the teachers' unions.

So if President Biden would like to know what to cut, I would suggest he start with some of the things I have highlighted. And I would ask--I would ask that he and the Democratic leadership abandon their plan to shove through a bloated, partisan bill, paid for with all borrowed money--every single dollar goes on the debt--and to start trying for the unity that the President has talked about.

The President could show that he really meant what he said in his inaugural address by sitting down, in a serious way, with Republicans to develop targeted relief legislation.

We are ready to come to the table. The ball is in the President's court.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul) and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul) and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. President, I would like to include in the Record the following obituary for Mel Antonen, a native South Dakotan and longtime Major League Baseball reporter for USA Today and elsewhere, who passed away on January 30, 2021. He is honored by Charles Raasch, also a native South Dakotan, of USA Today with an obituary upon his death. I extend my deepest sympathy to the Antonen family.

The material follows:

Mel Antonen, family man, friend to the world, and renowned

sports journalist, died Saturday of a rare acute auto-immune

disease and complications from COVID-19. He was a longtime

USA TODAY Sports and MASN-TV baseball reporter who covered

nearly three dozen World Series. In a half century in

journalism, he reveled and excelled in telling others'

stories.

He was 64.

Mel Richard Antonen's own story became the best of all. It

began in the tiny town of Lake Norden, South Dakota, on Aug.

25, 1956, when he was the third of four children born to Ray

and Valda Antonen.

Lake Norden is 225 miles from the nearest major league

ballpark and has never been populated with more than 550

people, but on soft summer evenings fans from counties away

congregate at Memorial Park to watch a new episode of South

Dakota's storied amateur baseball history. Its pull never

left him even as he walked, as a sports journalist, on

Boston's hallowed Fenway Park with the late Yankees Hall of

Famer Joe DiMaggio, or sat in a pre-game spring training

dugout with another Hall of Fame member, Minnesota Twins

slugger Harmon Killebrew, weeks before Killebrew died in

2011.

The Antonen family has promoted amateur baseball in Lake

Norden for decades. Mel loved to tell how his father, Ray

over the years brought to the tiny hometown a series of

barnstorming pros, including the legendary Satchel Paige and

Cy Young Award winner Jim Perry, to play at Memorial Park. On

the mornings of home games throughout his childhood and

beyond, Mel, his father and siblings would groom the field,

with the rising corn and soybean fields ritually marking the

progression of summer beyond the left-field fence.

``I love baseball because it always brings me home,''

Antonen said at his induction to South Dakota Sports Hall of

Fame in 2017. ``A baseball park in my mind is a home. It

doesn't matter if it's next to a cornfield, as it is in Lake

Norden, or if it is next to a rumbling subway, in New York.''

At USA TODAY, and later as an analyst for MASN, the network

that covers the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles,

Antonen ``was a very good storyteller who went far beyond

balls and strikes and the score of the game,'' said his

retired USA TODAY Sports editor Henry Freeman.

Dan Connolly was among the reporters in the Washington-

Baltimore area with whom Antonen was close, as they two sat

next to each other in the press box and exchanged good-

natured barbs.

``He had such an easy way about him with players and media

and staff,'' Connolly said. ``It was one of those things,

everyone liked the guy. Everyone. He had a way about him. He

could relate to anybody. He was really very smart, and being

a South Dakota boy, he was very ease to relate to. I remember

him saying that if he didn't go into baseball writers, he

wanted to be a Lutheran minister. You could tell Mel

anything, he was a pastoral listening-type guy.''

Antonen's journalism career began as a kid, when he called

in scores from Lake Norden's home games to two newspapers

that he ended up writing for: the Watertown (S.D.) Public

Opinion, which paid him as a high schooler 15 cents a copy

inch; and the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, where he got his

first job after graduation from Augustana University,

eventually covering the sports, farm and political beats.

He joined USA TODAY in 1986, where one of his earliest

assignments was covering the Tonya Harding Olympics figure-

skating scandal. Antonen became a MLB reporter and columnist,

covering history from Cal Ripken Jr.'s consecutive games

streak to the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa record-breaking home

run race and the steroid scandals that followed. The story he

often said was seared most in his memory came during the

earthquake-interrupted 1989 World Series. There, sitting in a

press box high above San Francisco's Candlestick Park, he

watched as the entire stadium undulated dangerously during

the destructive Loma Prieta quake. Antonen filed a story,

then headed out for days to cover the aftermath, focusing on

the human costs.

Hall of Famer Ripken told USA TODAY Sports' Bob Nightengale

that Antonen ``was a fixture around the game for so many

years, and it was clear that he had a passion for baseball.

He was a thorough and thoughtful reporter and left his mark

on his profession.''

Along with the World Series, Antonen covered three

Olympics, and professional bowling leagues.

``I can't imagine being anything other than a reporter, an

ink-stained wretch,'' he told his Hall of Fame audience.

Freeman, his editor at USA TODAY's pioneering sports

section, said Antonen's knowledge of baseball, reverence for

its history, and his love of stories, was evident from the

first day.

``It became clear to me right away the understanding he had

of baseball, and a lot of that was because of his father,''

said Freeman.

Freeman said one of his favorite stories involved Antonen

at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. Canadian sprinter Ben

Johnson won the 100 meters in world-record time, but failed a

drug test, was stripped of his gold medal and ordered to be

sent home. USA TODAY received a tip that Johnson had

reservations on one of several potential flights out of South

Korea, and Freeman immediately sent Antonen to the airport to

find Johnson and to do anything necessary to get an

interview.

Carrying nothing but a walkie-talkie and his reporter's

notebook, Antonen arrived at the airport and quickly

discovered that Ben Johnson was booked on a flight to

Toronto. Antonen bought a ticket, went aboard and found Ben

Johnson--who turned out to be a doctor, decades older than

the sprinter by the same name. Antonen turned failure into a

memorable human interest story about the frantic hunt through

Olympics high-security obstacles that ended with the wrong

Ben Johnson.

``It was a non-story that he made a good story of its

own,'' Freeman said. ``It also showed the lengths that Mel

would go to get a good story.''

Using persistence and personality, Antonen scored a rare

interview with the notoriously press-shy DiMaggio, late in

the legend's life, after learning that DiMaggio was in Boston

for a special event at Fenway Park. The man considered

``ungettable'' by many sports journalists talked for several

hours with Antonen, and they finished with a stroll in front

of the Green Monster. DiMaggio ``loved the history of

baseball,'' Antonen years later told the Argus-Leader.

He was a sports broadcaster for MASN's Mid-Atlantic Sports

Report, and radio analyst on Sirius-XM in the last decade of

his career, and also wrote for Sports Illustrated and other

publications. He did a radio interview on the baseball Hall

of Fame voting from his hospital bed less than a week before

his death. He especially loved talking baseball with long-

haul truckers on his late-night satellite radio show.

Antonen's mother died when he was 12. His father, himself

enshrined in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame, raised Mel

and his sisters, Kathy and Carmen, and brother, Rusty, with

the field at Memorial Park becoming a refuge.

``My life reflects the power of baseball,'' he said in that

2017 speech. ``One of my earliest memories of Lake Norden

baseball was the summer of 1969. . . . In March of that year

my mom died after a year-long battle with cancer. But it was

baseball, and Lake Norden baseball, with hot dogs and a 10-

cent glass of pop and chasing batting-practice foul balls on

a beautiful summer night, that created a diversion from

fearful images of three months prior--(of) my mom's tan

casket, crying adults, the hearse in front of Trinity

Lutheran, on an overcast subzero day, when there were piles

of snow in one of South Dakota's worst winters.''

Antonen kept reporting and writing throughout his illness

with COVID-19 and an auto-immune disease so rare that his

doctors told him he may have been the only person on Earth

with that combination.

Months after being diagnosed with both diseases, Mel scored

an interview with Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious

disease expert and big baseball fan, who talked about the

need for caution, but also hope, in a pandemic. ``You've got

to go on with your life, but that doesn't mean you have to

deprive yourself of all the pleasures'' Fauci told him.

Antonen's final column for MASN, written after the Dodgers

won the World Series in October, paid homage to the

comforting and reassuring next-year ritual of baseball. It

ended this way: ``World Series 2021 prediction: The Padres in

six over the White Sox.''

Mel Richard Antonen is survived by his son, Emmett, 14, and

his wife, Lisa Nipp, a photojournalist, whom he married in

2001, along with three siblings and their families. Lisa

embraced the many characters in Mel's baseball orbit, once

holding the phone for Mel with the crusty, late Hall-of-Fame

pitcher Bob Feller by discussing the beauty of hollyhocks.

``From Joe DiMaggio to Dusty Baker and Bryce Harper, I have

gotten to meet and interview and become friends with people

that baseball fans around the world would love to know,'' he

said in that Hall of Fame speech in South Dakota. ``But those

experiences only happened because I grew up around people

that we should all be lucky to know. The lessons learned

here, and on the prairie, have gone with me and worked

beautifully. And tonight, baseball brings me home once

again.''

Mr. President, today I would like to pay tribute to Ms. Jane Anne Boorman, a native South Dakotan and dedicated public servant, who passed away in December. Jane was deeply respected among her peers and beyond, having earned a superb reputation with her hard work and integrity. Jane was active and well-known in South Dakota Republican Party politics, and she was a thought-leader and friend, who no doubt helped inspire countless leaders and support important efforts throughout our great State. I extend my deep condolences and prayers to the Boorman family.

The following is Jane's obituary honoring the life of this great South Dakotan.

The material follows:

Jane Anne Boorman (1932 to 2020), a retired federal

employee, Congressional aide, and newspaper editor died on

December 11, 2020, at Arbor Place Retirement Home in

Rockville, Maryland. She was 88.

Jane was born in Lemmon, South Dakota to Anne Sutton

Boorman and Lloyd Bruce (LB) Boorman. She graduated from

Lemmon High School and Marquette University.

Jane's life straddled South Dakota and Washington, DC. Born

and raised on the high plains in Lemmon, South Dakota, Jane

embodied the flinty independence of its early settlers. She

was hard to know and always pushed for perfection, but once

you were in her life you had a steadfast, loyal, and loving

friend.

In Lemmon, Jane was editor and held other roles at the

Lemmon Leader--the family-owned newspaper--where she worked

until 1973. She also was named co-editor for ``Dakota

Panorama''--an history of South Dakota published by the South

Dakota Territory Centennial observance in 1961.

Jane's passion for Republican party politics started early

in her life. She was selected Outstanding Young Republican

Woman in South Dakota and represented South Dakota as the

state's Young Republican National Committee woman in 1961. In

1963 she was elected Vice Chairman of the National Young

Republican Federation.

In 1973, she moved from Lemmon to Washington, D.C. to be a

Press Secretary for then Congressman James Abdnor when he was

elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She followed

Abdnor to the U.S. Senate in 1981 as the Senator's personal

secretary. As the Washington Post noted in 1986, Jane was

``the embodiment of that Hill legend--the furiously devoted

personal secretary, a combination mother, wife and watchdog,

protecting as she sees best the beloved senator behind the

door.''

Boorman joined the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)

in 1987 as Director of Communications after President Ronald

Reagan appointed Abdnor as Administrator of the SBA. During

her 28 years at the Agency, Jane held various positions

including managing the agency's relationship with SCORE and

coordinating activities when international delegations

visited the SBA. She retired from the SBA in 2015.

In Washington, she made her home at Riverside Condominium

for 48 years and was active on the condo board, Southwest

Neighborhood Assembly, and was a long-time organist at Fort

Leslie J. McNair, and at St. Dominic Catholic Church.

Although she lived in Washington DC, Jane maintained a

strong foothold in South Dakota through memberships in the

S.D. Newspaper Association, the S.D. Historical Society, and

in championing growth for her hometown of Lemmon. She was

also a lifetime member of the Society of Professional

Journalists.

She is survived by her brother Bruce Boorman, Santee,

California, and numerous nieces and nephews. Jane was

preceded in her death by her parents and a sister, Katherine

Becker, Hartford, Wisconsin.

In remembrance of Jane Boorman's life, the family asks that

any charitable donations be made to WETA, Jane's favorite

classical music station or to Jewish Social Service Agency

(JSSA), her amazing hospice care team.

Memorial services will be held in Washington, D.C. and

Lemmon, S.D after the pandemic threat has diminished.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Paul), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Further, if present and voting, The Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran) would have voted ``yea.''; and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) would have voted ``yea.''

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

Mr. President, in his victory speech and in his inauguration address, President Biden pledged to be a President for all Americans. He said:

I pledge to be a President who seeks not to divide, but to

unify. Who doesn't see Red and Blue states, but a United

States. And who will work with all my heart to win the

confidence of the whole people.

He reiterated that sentiment at his inauguration stating:

On this January day, my whole soul is in this: Bringing

America together. Uniting our people . . . uniting our

Nation.

It is a sentiment that I honor. As I said the day after the inauguration, if President Biden can truly be a President who governs for all Americans and who respects all Americans and who works to win the confidence of the whole people, he will have done our Nation a great service.

But it is not enough to talk about unity. It has to be matched with action. Too many of the President's actions so far have been more calculated to appeal to the far-left wing of the Democratic Party than to unite Americans. In his 2 weeks in office, the President has signed off on a long list of Executive actions, many of which read like a wish list of leftist priorities.

In a nod to the far-left environmental wing of the Democrat Party, the President issued a new moratorium on oil and gas leasing on Federal lands and called a halt to the Keystone XL Pipeline, even though we are a long way from significantly reducing or eliminating our need for oil and natural gas.

Domestic oil and gas production is essential to maintaining an affordable and reliable energy supply here at home. Halting new oil and gas drilling could jeopardize the stability of other affordable energy supply and will definitely jeopardize American jobs supported by this industry.

As for the Keystone XL Pipeline, stopping this project--which I would point out is well underway--is nothing more than a symbolic gesture. America will still need reliable sources of oil, and a modern pipeline is a cleaner way to transport.

Keystone XL has been through multiple exhaustive environmental reviews, and, on top of that, its builder has committed to fully offsetting its operations with $1.7 billion in renewable energy purchases. The oil trains, trucks, and other pipelines still moving crude oil today aren't doing that. In fact, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a staunch liberal, included the pipeline in Canada's clean energy plan.

It is also worth noting, in addition to eliminating an environmentally responsible means of transporting oil, canceling the pipeline project will cost thousands of jobs, which is particularly unfortunate given the many jobs that have been lost during this pandemic. On day one of his Presidency, President Biden effectively fired 2,000 pipeline workers and told another 9,000 never to show up.

Then, of course, there is the President's order halting construction of the border wall on our southern border. The Biden administration has plans for sweeping immigration reform but does not seem to be placing much of an emphasis on border security. Instead, they have reduced the wall to a symbol of the Trump administration and chosen to satisfy immigration activists by halting construction without offering adequate alternate ways to secure our borders against the flood of illegal immigration or drug and human trafficking and other criminal activity.

Then, of course, there is the President's decision to overturn the Mexico City policy, which prevents taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions in other countries. The majority of Americans do not believe in unrestricted abortion. A new poll released last month showed a majority of Americans do not want their tax dollars going to fund abortions, yet the President has acted to ensure that American tax dollars can go to fund overseas abortions whether Americans want them to or not.

In addition, this administration has given every sign that it intends to pursue a radically pro-abortion agenda that is out of step with the views of the majority of Americans.

Last week, the New York Times published an editorial urging the President to slow down the Executive orders and to embrace policymaking. The Times correctly pointed out that permanent legislation on issues like immigration is better for the country than wild policy shifts between administrations, and the Times urged the President to focus

less on Executive orders and more on legislating.

The editorial noted the President's pledge to seek unity and that on the campaign trail he ``often touted his skill at finding compromise, and his decades as a legislator, as reasons to elect him over Mr. Trump.''

Now is the time for the President to show that he does really mean to live up to his inaugural pledge and to unify our Nation. That means not just talk, but action. It means working with lawmakers of both parties to develop legislation, not pushing exclusively Democrat measures. It means urging Democrat congressional leaders to actually negotiate with Republicans instead of trying to force through an agenda that lacks the support of half or more of the country. It means focusing less on checking off the priorities of the far left and more on actually representing the views of the majority of Americans.

The President has a chance to genuinely unify our Nation, but he will have to decide whether or not he wants to take it.

S. Con. Res. 5

Mr. President, yesterday, I came down to the floor to talk about Democrats' decision to pursue a partisan budget resolution designed to pave the way for a partisan COVID relief measure, despite the fact that Congress has produced five--five--prior COVID relief packages and appropriated trillions of dollars on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis.

Republicans put forward several ideas to improve the measure: an amendment to protect small businesses hit hard by the pandemic from sudden tax increases; an amendment to ensure that schools actually open, especially after teachers receive the vaccine; an amendment to ensure that States deal honestly and transparently with the tragic COVID deaths that had happened at certain nursing homes; an amendment to protect healthcare workers who travel to other States to help during the pandemic from getting surprise tax bills from those State as a thank-you note.

I would like to think the Democrats would support some of these amendments. My amendment to protect healthcare workers is based on legislation I advanced that has received strong bipartisan support, although it has been opposed by a handful of States, like the Democratic leader's, that aggressively tax mobile workers.

So far Democrats have not shown much of an inclination to entertain Republican ideas, no matter how much they would help address the effects of the pandemic. Democrats have indicated that they may allow a handful of amendments that enjoy some Republican support, but that doesn't change the essentially partisan character of this undertaking, which is designed to allow Democrats to pass the legislation that they want on an entirely partisan basis.

Will we see political amendments on the floor during this process? Sure, we will, from both parties.

Democrats have chosen a political maneuver instead of seeking to replicate the bipartisan success we had with COVID bills like the CARES Act. We did five--five--COVID bills while we were the majority at the 60-vote threshold, which is required for most legislation here in the Senate, but with bipartisan support. Here we are in a purely partisan legislative exercise on the floor of the U.S. Senate. So yes, Republicans will offer some political amendments, but we will also offer COVID-related amendments the Democrats should support if they truly want to deliver help to those in need.

It is deeply disappointing that Democrats are heading down this partisan path. If they really wanted to govern for all Americans, they would work with Republicans to pass yet another bipartisan COVID bill.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment No. 52 be called up, as modified, and reported by number.

Mr. President, one significant thing we could do to provide genuine relief to Americans is to address the tax situation facing remote and mobile workers, like the medical professionals who travel from other States to help during the COVID crisis who now may be facing a surprise big, fat tax bill.

Mobile workers generally have to file tax returns in multiple States, as tax rules often differ, and with COVID, many employers had their employees begin working from home, presenting a possible tax problem for workers who live in a different State than the one they work in.

This amendment would address these challenges. It would create a uniform standard for mobile workers, codify the prepandemic status quo for remote workers, and establish a special 90-day standard for healthcare workers and others who traveled to another State to help during the pandemic and to ensure that these workers don't face an unexpected tax bill.

I would ask that we adopt the amendment.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Ohio, and I would ask that this amendment be adopted by voice.

Vote on Amendment No. 52, As Modified

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I yield back time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.