Floor Statements

Mr. President, back in 2019, I believe April of 2019, if not the first, I must have been one of the first people to call for the company TikTok to be banned in the United States. So it has been a while now; it is not something I just came up with the other day.

But I do think that is a pretty extraordinary thing, to ban a company, and so before I think we--for someone like me, who has argued for a national ban on a company like this, to take away something from over 100-and-something million Americans, many of whom I have heard from, many of whom I know personally--before we do something like that, I think people deserve an explanation as to why is it that we would want to do that. I don't think the answer can just be ``Trust us. It is bad for America.'' I think they do deserve an answer, and I think they do deserve a clear argument as to why it is in our national interest to do this and why it is the only option we have.

First, I think it is important to understand how TikTok works. It is an ingenious app--no one argues about it--these short-form videos, and it always seems to show you what you want to see. The more you use it, the more it shows you the things you want to see.

How does it do that? Well, it does it two ways. First of all, it scoops up an extraordinary amount of data--not just data on what you are watching, all kinds of data. CNBC actually talked about it. TikTok, you know, collects your content that you viewed, content you created, shared. Beyond that, it includes your contact list. It collects your name, your age, your user name, your emails, your messages, your photos, your videos, and other personal information. In fact, in 2021, TikTok changed its privacy policies. It can now even collect biometric data, like your faceprint--you know that thing you use when the phone unlocks?--and the voiceprint of its users. It is an extraordinary amount of data.

But that is not the only thing it does--because I hear some people criticizing us and all they talk about is, well, everybody collects data. It is not just the data. What really makes TikTok so effective is that it has an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to combine all of this data and your usage, and what that does is it basically-- that algorithm, it knows you better than you know yourself. It knows the videos you are going to like before you even know you are going to like them, and it is an extraordinary power behind this. It is what they call a recommender engine. We are going to call it an algorithm. It is a predictor.

Now, people would say: Well, what is the big deal? All social media app companies do that, not just them. I mean, Netflix does it to recommend movies you might want to watch, and Spotify does it to recommend music. Clearly, Instagram and Facebook and Snap and Twitter-- all of them have an algorithm, and all of them collect data. So what is the big deal? What they are doing is no different than anything else.

Here is the difference. The difference is, of all these companies I just mentioned to you, the only one that has a parent company that is a Chinese company that owns it is ByteDance. And it is not just that there is a Chinese company; they own and they operate the heart and soul of TikTok, the recommender engine, the algorithm. That belongs to ByteDance. In order for this to work, in order for TikTok to work, ByteDance has to have access to the data of Americans. They have to.

Now, here is where people will say to you: Well, so what if it is a Chinese company? It doesn't all have to be American companies.

Actually, the CEO of TikTok was here last week, and he said: You know, ByteDance--I am trying to paraphrase it, but I wrote it--is not owned or controlled by the Chinese Government. They are a private company that is owned by outside investors that include Americans.

Well, this is disingenuous. It is not true. And let me tell you why it is not true.

First of all, there is no such thing as a private company in China-- not in the way we think of a private company. Let me explain why.

In China, No. 1, they have a law called the national intelligence law, and the national intelligence law of China requires--doesn't ask for; doesn't say: We can go to court and require you to do this. No, no. It automatically requires--the national intelligence law of China requires every single Chinese company--that includes ByteDance--to do whatever the Government of China tells them to do.

China has another law. It is called the data security law. What that law says is that every tech company in China--like ByteDance, a tech company in China--they have to hand over to the government whatever user information--whatever information they

want. They have to do it by law. That is a big difference between them and these other companies.

So the bottom line is this when it comes to those who argue that it is not a company controlled by the Chinese Government--I read the other day that China says they are going to block any forced sale of TikTok. Well, how could China block the forced sale of TikTok if they don't control TikTok? The reason they can block it is because they control-- the government, through these laws--they control the company that controls the algorithm that drives TikTok. It is controlled by ByteDance. Under Chinese law, if the Government of China tells ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to use the algorithm a certain way, they have to do it.

It doesn't matter who the shareholders--it doesn't matter if 100 percent of the shareholders of ByteDance are Americans. If they are located in China and the Chinese Government tells them: We want you to use the algorithm and the data you have access to in a certain way, they have no choice but to do it. That is not just true for ByteDance; that is true for every company in China.

So a lot of people say: OK. Well, then, the solution is this: Let's just store all the American data here in America. Let's just put it all in a server located in the United States, and that will do the trick.

No, it won't, and here is why. Even if you stored all of the data that TikTok has on Americans--over a hundred-something million users-- even if you stored all of it, ByteDance in China still has to be given access to that data. You may have it stored in America, but you have to give access to ByteDance. Do you know why? Because the algorithm that TikTok depends on doesn't work without the data. ByteDance has to have access. That is almost like putting your life savings in a safe but then giving the thief the combination. Who cares that it is in the safe? Who cares where the safe is? If the thief has the combination, they can get into the safe.

So it doesn't matter where you store the data; if ByteDance owns the algorithm, they have to have access to the data, and if they have access to the data, the Chinese Government has access to the data whenever they want.

The latest iteration is, well, what we should do is we should force TikTok to be sold. Sold to whom? TikTok is worthless--worthless-- without the algorithm. So even if TikTok, as we know the company, is bought by Americans, they still need the algorithm that ByteDance owns, and you can't buy the algorithm from ByteDance even if they wanted to sell it to you. Do you know why? Do you know why ByteDance can never sell you the algorithm, the recommender engine that powers TikTok? Because the Chinese Government in 2020 imposed a law that prohibits it. The Chinese Government specifically imposed a law in 2020 that says you cannot transfer the algorithm outside of China. So selling it is not going to make a difference because no matter who buys it, TikTok is worthless. It won't work without the algorithm. The algorithm belongs to ByteDance, ByteDance is in China, and they have to do whatever the Chinese Government tells them to do.

This is where people have said to me: Well, who cares? Who cares if the Chinese Government controls the algorithm and has access to the data?

They want me to explain how an app that features funny videos and the latest dance fad--how that is possibly a national security threat. So let me walk you through a very realistic hypothetical.

Let's suppose for a moment that China decides they are going to invade Taiwan in 2027 or 2028, and the key to a successful invasion or taking of Taiwan is to prevent the United States of America from getting involved, and the key to keeping the United States from getting involved is to convince the American people that we shouldn't get involved because they know we are a democracy. They know that public opinion matters in America.

Knowing all this, the Chinese Government goes to ByteDance, who, by law, has to do whatever they are told, and the Chinese Government says to ByteDance: We want you to align your algorithm to shape American public opinion on Taiwan.

They won't do this overnight; they will spend a couple years laying this out.

We want you to align your algorithm to make sure that people in America are seeing messages that convince them that America should not get involved, and not only that, we want you to use the data to target specific American audiences with specific messages.

For example, some Americans might see a bunch of videos that allege to show people in Taiwan--probably fake but nonetheless people in Taiwan supporting a Chinese takeover. Maybe family members--remember, they have all this data on us. Family members of military members would see videos about how thousands of Americans will die if the United States gets involved. Others might see videos of Americans--or who they think are Americans--arguing: Why do we care about Taiwan? We should be focused on our problems here at home.

When we notice that they are doing something about it--that is what people will say: Well, when that happens, then you deal with it.

Well, once you notice that they are actually doing it and we try to do something about it, do you know what comes next? Here is what comes next--what is already happening now. You are going to have a bunch of small businesses in America that depend on marketing on TikTok. And let me tell you something. I don't diminish that. It is true. I know people who have built up their businesses, and they use TikTok for marketing, and it works. It is better than the other apps for that.

But just imagine when we go to them and say: Guys, we have to shut TikTok down now because now it is real. Now they are using it against us.

Those people are going to come up and say: You are going to destroy my business.

In fact, China will probably threaten those people. China will probably make it very clear: The U.S. gets involved, we are going to knock all the Americans off of TikTok. Down goes your business.

Those people will suddenly be asking their elected official here not to get involved in Taiwan. Do you know where we find ourselves then? Paralyzed. A country that is paralyzed, that cannot act in its own national security interests because we have allowed an adversary to basically use an app that they control and the data that they control to shape public opinion in America over an extended period of time, and we can't do anything about it.

Now, here is where some people will say: Well, that is a violation of the First Amendment--free country.

I agree. You have a right to speak. I don't agree that it is a violation of the First Amendment; I agree that you have a right to speak and say anything you want in America.

This is not about the content of the video. What this is about is the existence of a company that is related to an important government interest.

What is that government interest? It is not just a substantial government interest; it is the most important government interest that we have--the national security of our country. And preventing our country from being paralyzed from acting in its national security interest is the most compelling and important government interest one can imagine.

Now, people say: Well, this is all hypothetical. There is no evidence the Chinese Government is doing any of this.

Well, let me first start by saying that every threat to our national security begins as theoretical before it becomes reality.

For example, China is building hypersonic missiles designed to sink our ships. They are not firing them at our ships today. They are not sinking our ships. They are not even threatening to sink our ships openly. Yet, somehow, everybody around here agrees that we have got to do something about the hypersonics.

But they are not doing it now. It is theoretical, right?

Russia has never launched nuclear missiles against the United States, but we spend a lot of money every year on NORAD, on monitoring our skies, on making sure that we aren't being attacked. It is a theoretical threat, but one we have taken seriously for 70 years.

Second, what is so theoretical about using propaganda during a time of war?

There is nothing theoretical about propaganda during war and conflict. In fact, propaganda has been a weapon that has been used in virtually every conflict for centuries to demoralize and to divide your adversary.

Third, this is not just theoretical. We have actually seen TikTok be used to drive messages and to undermine opponents. It was used to spread pro-Russian messages during the invasion of Ukraine. It has been used to suppress videos talking about Tiananmen Square and the genocide of Uighur Muslims in China. It is already being used to censor all kinds of--in fact, it was used. It was used to control content and limit content about our elections in this country in 2022.

It goes more. I can go further than that. ByteDance has already been used. ByteDance China has already been used to collect data on specific reporters whose stories ByteDance didn't like. So they used it to track the locations of these reporters.

Where are they? Who are they talking to? In fact, here in America-- here in America--TikTok was caught spying on American journalists who were writing stories that TikTok didn't like, and TikTok denied it: It is not true; it is a lie.

And then they had to admit it. So now, it is: Oh, we fired the people who did this.

And now they are under Justice Department investigation.

But here is the point I would say about this whole theoretical thing. If God forbid--and I say ``God forbid,'' I really do, because no one wishes for armed conflict with anyone. There is nothing good about war. If, God forbid, we are ever in a war with China, China will use cyber attacks to try to take down our electric grid. China will use space weapons to try to destroy the satellites we have in space. China will use these missiles to sink our ships and kill Americans.

China will do all these things, but somehow we think they are incapable of using a social media app with 150 to 200 million users. They would never use that against us. They will sink our ships, shoot down our satellites, shut down our grid, but they would never use an app that they control. Come on. Of course, they would.

Look, there is a lot more to say on this topic, and this is one we should debate and talk about. This is a big deal. Don't take this lightly.

But I will say this. You know, since 1991, America has been the sole superpower in the world. I would venture to guess that almost everyone who serves here did not serve in government at a time when America had a near-peer adversary, for the most part. So I think we, generally, as a nation--certainly, the government--have forgotten what it is like to live in a world in which there is another country and another government that has almost as much power as we do. But, after 30 years, that is where we are. That is where we stand right now. Whether we like it or not, we are in a near-peer competition and, in many ways, a conflict with China for global influence, for the direction of the world, with two very different views of the planet--with the Government of China, by the way, because I always hear people talk about this: We have no problem. The Chinese people are the No. 1 victims of the Chinese Communist Party on the planet. The No. 1 victims of the Chinese Communist Party are the Chinese people.

But their government--it is very simple, guys. They want to be the world's most powerful country, and they want to do it at our expense. And the consequences of that is that the world's most powerful country will be a nation that puts Uighur Muslims in death camps; that is trying to destroy Tibetan culture; that had no problem massacring their own people in Tiananmen Square; that as we speak, right now, are arming the Russians to commit these atrocities in Ukraine; that don't believe any of the things we are debating about free speech and the like.

We are in a competition, and we are in a conflict--hopefully, never an armed one, but, nonetheless, a conflict. And we have, operating in our country, an app--the fastest growing app--a social media app that has the most detailed personal data on over 100 million American users and growing, and they are turning over the power for, one day, for them to use it to divide us, to paralyze us, to confuse us, to turn us against each other.

Think of the damage that Russia did by putting bots, fake accounts, on Twitter and buying ads on Facebook. Can you imagine if Russia actually owned Facebook or Twitter--not put ads, not put bots, but actually controlled those companies--the damage they would have done to this country?

Now, imagine that with a country with an economy 50 times the size and with 100 times more capabilities, because that is what we are facing here.

It is not a game, and we should take it seriously. If there is a way to deal with this that doesn't involve a ban or something drastic, I have always been open to that. But it doesn't exist because of the way this company is structured. And we had better take it seriously or one day, 20, 30 years from now, people will look back and say: You guys should have taken it seriously--and we failed to do so, and we paid the price for it.

We should act on it as soon as possible. We should ban TikTok because it is bad for America. It harms our country, and it is a danger to our future.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I recognize the Belen Jesuit Wolverines varsity basketball team, winners of the FHSAA Class 5A State Championship Title in Boys Basketball held in Lakeland, FL, on March 4, 2023.

The Belen Jesuit Wolverines basketball team, led by Coach Gaston ``Chachi'' Rodriguez, finished their regular season with a 28-4 record. They claimed the school's first State championship in the sport. Considered underdogs with an undersized roster, Belen defeated Daytona Beach Mainland High School in the championship game with a final score of 49-30. Senior Javi Rosell's 22 points led the team, followed by sophomore Bryce Fitzgerald with 13 points, including 11 of 12 freethrows made. The championship game was tied after the first quarter, but Belen broke open with 13 steals and forced 23 turnovers from Mainland's team during the rest of the game. The Wolverines' 30 points allowed in the championship game were the fewest scored by an opponent over the past decade.

I extend my best wishes to the entire Belen Jesuit family, Principal Roca, Coach Gaston Rodriguez, players Kevin Garcia, Joshue Perez, Ryan Cuellar, Javi Rosell, Bryce Fitzgerald, Alec Arnholt, Ej Gross, Carlos Santana, Alejandro Lopez, Max Klemick, Vincent Lima, Al Madrigal, Dillon Diaz, Nicolas Portuondo, and Ignacio Falla. I look forward to hearing of their continued success in the years to come.

Madam President, I recognize the Mater Lakes Academy Bears varsity boys' basketball team, winners of the Class 4A State Final at the 2023 Boys Basketball State Tournament held in Lakeland, FL, on March 4, 2023.

The Mater Lakes Academy Bears basketball team, led by Coach Dylan Estock, finished their regular season with a 28-3 record. The team won Mater Lakes its first basketball State championship since the school opened in 2006. Ten players scored in the championship game, led by their primary trio of senior Michael Bradley, who scored 21 points; junior Christian Reid, with 20 points and seven rebounds; and sophomore Anthony Knowles, with 13 points, six rebounds, and six assists. Mater Lakes took command of the game in the second quarter, growing their lead to 23 points before defeating the Villages Charter by a final score of 77-41. Their stifling defense forced their opponent, who came into the championship game averaging 64.5 points a game, to score only 41 points.

I extend my best wishes to the entire Mater Lakes Academy family, Principal Rovirosa, Coach Dylan Estock, Assistant Coach Peterson Morency, players Michael Bradley, Khalil Volel, Gabriel Farjardo, Ian Pascall, Emerson Felicien, Rolph Blanc, Anthony Knowles, Nicholas Perez, Jet Walis, Christian Reid, Clarence Burts, and Desmond Mcintosh. I look forward to hearing of their continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, no issue dominates our attention more these days than our growing rivalry with China, and rightly so. It is a historic challenge. It is one that I think we waited way too long to recognize, and now we are scrambling to make up for that.

But I think, in all the attention that is being paid to this, it is important that we remember or at least recognize that the core, the essential issue here is not China, per se, by itself; the core issue here is a decades-old, bipartisan consensus that is entrenched in our economics and our politics--a consensus that said that economic globalization would deliver, well, freedom and peace. It was almost a religious faith in the power of the free flow of people and money and goods across borders as the answer to virtually every problem that faced the world. That is how we built our politics. That is how we built our foreign policy.

You know what, for about 50 years after World War II, it generally worked. The reason why it generally worked is because we didn't actually have a global market. If you look at the economy we were engaged in, if you look at the free trade and the like during that period of time, it was primarily a market made up of democratic allies, of countries that shared common values and common priorities for the future.

Even when the outcomes during that time were not always in our benefit, even when maybe some industry left for a country in Europe or maybe during the time that Japan challenged us in some sectors from Asia, at least the beneficiary--even though it may have harmed us in the short term, the beneficiary of that outcome was not the Soviet bloc, the Soviet Union, or some geopolitical competitor; the beneficiary was another democracy and an ally in our confrontation with communism during that period of time.

The point is, it generally worked during that time because, by and large, the interests of the global market and the interests of our country never got out of balance too far.

Then the Cold War ended, and our leaders--and I say ``our leaders'' because this was really a bipartisan thing--our leaders became intoxicated with hubris. I remember the lexicon was, it is the end of history, and the world will now be flatter, and every country is now going to naturally become a free-enterprise democracy, and economic liberalization will always result in political freedom. You flood a country with capitalism, and that country will not just get rich, but they are going to turn into us or some version of one of our democratic allies.

So, in pursuit of that historic gamble, which had no historic precedent, we entered into all kinds of trade deals and treaties and rules and regulations on an international scale, and we invited into that all kinds of countries that, by the way, were not democracies, did not share our values, and did not have the same long-term goals for the world as we do. Their long-term goals, in fact, were incompatible. Of all of the deals that were made, none has had greater impact than the decision that was made in the first year of this century: to admit China into the World Trade Organization.

They opened up our economy to the most populous nation on Earth, controlled by a communist regime. They did it not because anybody argued that it would be good for American workers. Remember, they made the argument that eventually it would be, but they weren't arguing that this was going to help us in the short term and that this would be good for our industries. The central argument behind doing this with China is that we think capitalism will change them. They are going to eat Big Macs and drink Coca Cola. They are going to literally ingest democracy, and it will transform them. They argued that capitalism was going to change China. Now we stand here 23 years later and realize that capitalism didn't change China. China changed capitalism.

They opened up their doors and said: Come on in. They attracted industries with cheap labor. They said: We have cheap labor and cheap workers, and it flooded. Millions of American jobs, important industries, and factories flooded into China, and they did it with the promise of luring American investors and American money, which poured into China--all of it with the promise that you could make a lot of money in this huge market very quickly, with huge rates of return, and, obviously, for the companies, lower labor costs and therefore more profits for them.

We lost jobs and factories closed and towns were gutted, but the leaders at that time said: Don't worry. They are only taking the bad jobs. The jobs that have left are not the good jobs. These bad jobs are going to be replaced by good jobs--better jobs. Americans are going to be able to have those jobs. Those Chinese workers who took your jobs are going to get richer now, and with that money they start to make, they are going to do two things: They are going to start buying American products and they are going to demand

democracy and freedom and they are going to change China.

Well, I don't think I am going to spend a lot of time today explaining that that did not work out. That is not how it played out. China allowed our companies in, but do you know what they did? They forced every one of these companies to partner with a Chinese company-- a small one at the time. They forced you to partner with them, and they stole your trade secrets. So they invited them in and learned how to do whatever it was you did. When they no longer needed you, they kicked you out; their company took over. In many cases, they put the company that taught them how to do it or that they stole the secrets from out of business. That is what they did. They used it to build up their own economy, their own companies.

The Chinese middle class also grew at a historic rate, but ours collapsed--an almost inverse effect. The numbers are stunning. If you look at the destruction of these American working-class jobs and the rise of the middle class in China, they happened at the same time and on almost the same scale.

China did get rich--they most certainly got rich--but they didn't use that money to buy our products. They used that money to buy the products that are made in China. They didn't become a democracy either. What was once a poor Chinese Communist Party is now a rich Chinese Communist Party that has tightened its grip on the country and has actually started going around the world to try to export their authoritarian model.

They literally go around telling countries: Democracy cannot solve problems. Our system is so much better at solving problems. We can move quicker. We don't have to have a townhall meeting before we do everything. We can have strategic 20-year plans. We can solve your problems.

For developing countries around the world, it potentially has some appeal.

The fact is that we are now confronted with the consequences of this historic and catastrophic mistake, and it is important to understand what some of these are. They will be familiar to you because we see them every day. They play out not just on the floor of the Senate, but they play out in our society and in our politics and on television.

First, we are a nation that is bitterly divided. It is easy and lazy to say: Oh, we are divided as Republicans and Democrats or as liberals and conservatives. Frankly, the biggest divisions between Americans are not even ideological per se. They seem to be attitudinal, and, largely, they seem to be along the lines of an affluent class of people who work in jobs and careers and in industries and live in places that have benefited from this rearrangement of a global economy. They do jobs that pay well and that work in a system like this. It is divided against the millions of working people who are left behind by all of these changes and who live in places that are literally hollowed out-- once vibrant communities that have been gutted.

By the way, remember when they would say, ``Don't worry. Those people will move somewhere else in the country for those new jobs''? They didn't move because people don't like to leave their communities; they don't like to leave their extended families; they don't like to leave all of the things that they have ever known that have supported them. It didn't work that way. It has left us a country that is addicted. We are addicted to cheap exports from China, and we are dependent on Chinese supply chains for everything--from food to medicine, to advanced technology. We just had a pandemic that reminded us of this.

And what does that mean, these long supply chains being dependent on a geopolitical competitor. It means we are vulnerable--vulnerable to blackmail, vulnerable to coercion.

Do you know what else it left us with? An economy that is highly concentrated and fragile. Our economy is primarily based today on two sectors. What is all the news about? Turn on the financial networks, and you will see what all of the discussion is about. They are primarily two sectors: finance, meaning people who take your money and invest it somewhere else. They don't make anything, but they invest your money. That is fine. It is a legitimate business. But it is finance and Big Tech. Those two industries that are now the pillar of our economy are controlled by just a small number of giant multinational corporations--the same ones that, by the way, outsource their jobs. These multinational corporations have more power than the government. In many cases, they have more power than the government, and they have no loyalty to our people or to our country. Their interest is not the national interest. They are multinationals. In fact, they are owned by shareholders and investment funds from all over the world.

This idea that globalizing our economy would prevent a great power competition between nations was always a delusion. I think the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan and Ukraine can tell you that this idea that free trade always and automatically leads to peace isn't true either.

None of us have ever lived in a world where America was not the most powerful Nation on Earth. I was born into and grew up in a world where two superpowers were faced off in this long, cold, and dangerous Cold War between communism and freedom, between the free world and people who lived enslaved behind an Iron Curtain.

Then I came of age--literally came of age in 1989-1991, 18 to 20 years of age--my first years in college. I came of age, and, suddenly, I watched the Berlin Wall fall, and I saw the Soviet Union collapse. Let me tell you, if you had told me 10 years earlier--or told anybody-- that the Soviet Union was going to vanish off the face of the Earth, that it would be no more, I wouldn't have believed it. It was a time that was truly historic and unprecedented.

Now, three decades later, we find ourselves once again in a rivalry with another great power, and this rivalry is far more dangerous and our rival is far more sophisticated than the Soviet Union ever was. The Soviet Union was never an industrial competitor. The Soviet Union was never a technological competitor. The Soviet Union was a geopolitical and a military competitor. As for the near-peer rival in China that we have now, they have leverage over our economy. They have influence over our society. They have an army of unpaid lobbyists here in Washington-- unpaid lobbyists because these are the companies and the individuals who are benefiting from doing business in China. They don't care if, 5 years from now, they won't even be able to work here anymore as they are making so much money off of their investments, their factories, and their engagements there now that they lobby here for free on their behalf.

By the way, this is a rival that has perfected the tactic of using our own media, our own universities, our own investment funds, and our own corporations against us. They have used it against us every day.

With all of this focus on China--look, I have talked as much about China as anybody here, going back 5, 6 years now, but this is not the story of what China has done to us. What China has done is--they saw a system that we created. They took advantage of its benefits, and they didn't live up to its obligations. Do you know why? Because China was trying to build their country. They were making decisions that were in China's national interests, not in the interest of the global economy or some fantasy about how two nations are in business, and if there are McDonald's in both countries, they will never go to war.

This is not the story of what China has done to us. This is the story of what we have done to ourselves because we have allowed this system of globalization to drive our economic policies and our politics, and it remains entrenched. Even now, people who agree that we have to do something about this will tell you: But we can't do that. We can't do that because it will hurt exports. They will put a tariff on some industry or China will kick us out.

None of this is going to matter in 5 or 6 years. They won't need the tariff on farm goods from the United States. They will own the farm. They are already buying up farmland. You won't have to worry about the investment funds not being able to make a return on an investment in 5 years. They won't need their money anymore.

So this system was a disaster, and the result of the system was not global peace and global prosperity. The result

was not a world without walls in which we were all part of one big, happy human family. The reality is that people live in nations, and nations have interests, and, by and large, for almost all of human history, nations have acted in the interests of their nations. Now we see what happens when one side does that and the other does not. The result has been the rise of China and Big Business--the two big winners. All of this is the consolidation of corporate power in the hands of a handful of companies and key industries and the rapid and historic rise of China at our expense.

China is a populous country. They were always going to be a superpower--they were always going to be one--but they did it faster because they did it at our expense. They didn't create these jobs; they moved them. They didn't create these industries; they took them.

We buy solar panels from China. Who invented solar panels? We did.

They lead the world now in battery production for these electric vehicles. We invented it. They make them; they have perfected them; and they now lead in the technology. I can go on and on.

They are building more coal-fired plants than any country on Earth. Today, China has more surplus refining capacity for oil than any nation on the planet.

This era has to end now. It is not about just taking on China; it is about changing the way we think. It is not 2000 anymore. It is not 1999 anymore. This is a different world.

In a series of speeches over the next few weeks, I am going to attempt to outline a coherent alternative moving forward in the hopes that we don't just sit around here all day and try to outdo each other about who is going to ban ``this'' and who is going to block ``that'' from going to China. This is about a lot more than just banning ``this'' and stopping ``that.'' It is about having a coherent approach to a difficult and historic challenge. Look, it is a complicated one, and complicated problems rarely, if ever, have simple solutions.

The simplest way I can describe how I think we should move forward-- and I will have to describe it, obviously, in more detail--is that we need to fundamentally realign the assumptions and the ideas behind our economic and foreign policies. We need a new system of global economics where we enter into global trade agreements not with the goal of doing what is good for the global economy but what is good for us. If a trade deal creates American jobs or strengthens a key American industry, we do that deal. If it undermines us, we don't do the deal just because it would be good for the global economy or because, in the free market lab experiment, it is the right thing to do. We don't live in a lab. We are human beings of flesh and blood. We live in the real world.

In economic theory, when a factory leaves and a job is lost, it is just a number on a spreadsheet. Realize, when a factory leaves and a job is lost, a dad loses his job or a single mom, for example, loses her ability to support her family, and a community is gutted. So we will need to enter into the world of trade agreements. We are not talking about isolationism here, but the criteria for every agreement needs to be, Is it good for our industries and workers or is it bad? It sounds pretty simplistic. I don't know how anyone could disagree that we should not enter into trade agreements that are bad for American workers and bad for key industries.

We also, by the way, need to enter into foreign policy alliances that reward our allies and strengthen those who share our values and our principles. That also, by the way, helps to create American jobs and strengthen American industry, and if it can't be here, then have it strengthen the ability of an ally to be the source of our supplies.

But I will tell you this at the outset: It will not be easy because those who have prospered and flourished under the status quo, they still have a lot of power, and they will use it to protect that status quo. But we have no choice but to change direction because our success or our failure is going to define the 21st century.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I recognize Brian D'Isernia as he retires from a distinguished 53-year career as a lawyer, fisherman, sailor, and shipbuilder at Eastern Shipbuilding Group of Panama City,

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time.

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

Madam President, I pay tribute to the life and legacy of Cuban-American businessman and icon, Felipe Valls, Sr., who unfortunately passed away. Many know Valls Sr. as the founder of world- renowned Versailles Cuban Restaurant, but many more know of the indelible mark he left on the Cuban exile community throughout south Florida. His life was a true testament to the American dream and he demonstrated a well-lived life in a nation that welcomed him and gave him the opportunity to create a culinary landmark in my home State of Florida. Felipe's legacy will live on through his beloved family and friends. Jeanette and I unite in prayer for the repose of the soul of this great Cuban-American entrepreneur.

Madam President, I recognize Dr. Osvaldo De La Pedraja on his more than 60-year career in the medical field and for celebrating his 92nd birthday on November 19, 2022.

Osvaldo graduated as a doctor of medicine from the Medical School of the University of Havana, Cuba in 1960. Three years later, he was expelled from

the Hospital Clinico Quirurgico Comandante Fajardo due to his opposition to Castro's communist regime.

In 1968, Osvaldo arrived in the United States with his family. Committed to helping those in need of medical assistance in his new country, Osvaldo completed an internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach, FL, and completed his specialty in radiology at Jackson Memorial Hospital. In 1972, Osvaldo opened his own private practice specializing in diagnostic radiology in Coral Gables, FL. For more than 50 years, it has remained in the same location and has helped countless Floridians in need of consulting doctors and seeking medical treatment.

Osvaldo is also a member of the Latin American Society of Radiology, is the president of the Physicians' Assistant Hospital and Annexes Association, and has been a volunteer doctor of La Liga Contra El Cancer for 35 years. Previously, he served as president of the Cuban Revolutionary Forum.

Osvaldo's medical work over the years has undoubtedly saved countless lives in Florida. I am grateful for his decades of service to the people of Florida and for his fight against communism in Cuba. I extend my best wishes on his 92nd birthday.

Mr. President, due to Hurricane Ian, which is a major hurricane, I am remaining in Florida. The impact of Hurricane Ian on Tampa Bay and Florida's gulf coast could be catastrophic.

Mr. President, I recognize Grady Judd as he celebrates 50 years of service with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. Grady has served as sheriff since 2004, where he is a constant and protective presence in the community.

Sheriff Grady joined the Polk County Sheriff's Office in 1972 as a dispatch officer and rose through the department's ranks. At the age of 19, he was the youngest deputy sworn in and eventually served as a sergeant, colonel, and chief of staff for his predecessor before becoming sheriff.

Devoted to helping others throughout the county, at 16, he managed to convince the Polk County Ambulance Service to hire him despite being 2 years away from the required age of 18. Grady has always sought to help others throughout his community, dedicating his time and talents to making a difference in their lives.

After becoming sheriff, Grady reworked how the department interacts with the local media. The sherriff's office seeks to provide the public with up-to-date information regarding investigations as quickly as possible, and often, Grady will issue warnings aimed at suspects that have since become well-known throughout Florida.

Grady was born in Lakeland, FL, graduating from Lakeland High School before attending Polk Community College and Rollins College, where he earned his bachelor of arts and master's degrees in criminal justice. He is an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida and Florida Southern College, offering students first-hand knowledge of law enforcement.

Grady's work and commitment has made a real difference in the lives of the people of Polk County. I am grateful for his decades of service and extend my best wishes to his wife, Marisa, his two adult children, and his 13 grandchildren on this momentous milestone.

I yield myself 11 minutes.

Mr. President, I got a chance to go home. I had some close family friends who had a loss in their family over the last few days. I wanted to go back and see them.

I get this email at 3 a.m.--I didn't see it until 5 a.m.--that my 8 a.m. flight was canceled. So I had trouble getting here this morning. I was finally able to get here in time for the vote we took just a few hours ago, but I didn't get here for the first two.

So I had a chance that morning to do two things. First, I had a chance to take my son to football practice. It is that glorious time of year when high school football is going. Then the other thing I had a chance to do is I had a chance to go to a Cuban bakery that is close to my house. I don't get to go often, but when I do go, especially on weekends, I look for one of these little corners and just sit there. And I really like to go because I get to hear people talking--people who live on planet Earth, not people who are here in politics and in the bubble that is Washington.

And you get to hear people talk. And one of the first things I heard today is about two ladies who were in line, and they were talking about how difficult it had become. You know, it is back-to-school shopping time, and even with the tax-free holiday week that we had in Florida, I could hear them talking about how much more expensive it was going to be this year to buy and how the list was longer and everything cost more--like pencils, all the stuff. I couldn't hear everything. I didn't want to entirely eavesdrop, but I could hear what they were talking about.

A few minutes later, these two guys come in. It was like: Hey, are you taking the boat out today?

No, I am not taking the boat out. I can't take my kids out. The gas is too expensive. It is crazy to fill it up. It is twice what it used to be for the boat--x, y, and z.

A few minutes later, someone else came by who was talking about the reports on the news. We have a massive migration crisis which impacts the whole country, not just the land border. But we had this weekend, I think, six or eight Border Patrol engagements in the Florida Keys, people getting on rafts and leaving and coming there--maybe two more today.

And it struck me as I am sitting there--and I have been reminded of this every time I go home, but it really struck me before I came here today that we like to talk a lot about how divided politics is in America. And it is. It is very polarized. But I think we make a huge mistake when we think it is as simple as what normal political divisions are in this country, which is between Republicans and Democrats or between the left and the right.

The polarization in American politics, the division--the sharpest division in American politics today--is between the priorities of millions and millions of people who live paycheck to paycheck, the working-class heroes of our country that we have always bragged about, have always looked up to, that we all recognize make us different than the rest of the world--between the things that matter to them and what the people that run this place--and I don't just mean the Senate but the Federal Government and politics in general--are focused on.

There is a universe of difference between the stuff we spend time voting on and talking about and arguing about in politics and in this place and what people are worried about on a daily basis. I know a lot of you think that everyone is glued to their TV and Twitter watching everything we are doing here tonight. They are not. They might know something is going on tonight--maybe--but most people are worried about their everyday life.

What they expect is that we would be here--I don't know--working on the things that matter to them. I am telling you that what the people, by the millions, registered to both political parties--people who voted for Biden, people who voted for Trump--I am telling you, what they are worried about is the fact that the streets in many cities in this country have been turned over to criminals.

We have got prosecutors funded by Soros who refuse to put people in jail. They won't do it. Entire categories of crime--they won't even prosecute them. Even in Florida, a State where we do prosecute people, if you go to a CVS or a Walgreens, everything is locked up behind that little plastic case because people just walk in and steal the stuff. It is a spirit of widespread, rampant criminality, and it is worse in other parts of the country.

One of the reasons why people are leaving these other places--these were once beautiful, glorious cities. They are unlivable. That is what people are worried about. They are worried about becoming a victim of a crime because some animals are running loose terrorizing people and prosecutors won't do anything about it--not to mention that we spent 2 years demonizing police officers around here as well. That is what they are worried about.

They are worried about the border. They really are worried about the border. I get it. Maybe now it is going to change because they are busing them to New York and here to Washington. But I get it. It is very easy, in the

Upper West Side of New York or in the West Hollywood area, to not worry that much about immigration: We shouldn't have a border. Let's be nice.

But the people whose hospitals are being overrun, whose schools are being overcrowded, whose communities are being strained are the communities that are taking this influx--7,000, 8,000 people a day. We are the only country on this planet that lets people just show up and say, ``Hey, I am here; I am staying''--the only one.

Mexico doesn't allow you to do that. You can't do that to Mexico. You can't do that to Canada. You can't do that in Europe. But you can do it here. People know it.

That is what they are worried about--a huge problem.

And they are worried about the price of everything. People focus on gas. It is funny. The President said he couldn't control gas prices until they started going down a little. You know one of the reasons why it is going down? People are driving less. They are not going on vacation. They are not taking the boat out because it is expensive.

Frankly, that is what they wanted. Do not be fooled. That is what they wanted. They were not unhappy about high gas prices. They were just upset that it happened a few months before an election. But the Democrats and the left were not unhappy about high gas prices because they don't want you to drive. They want everybody to take a bus or buy one of these $90,000 Chinese electric cars. That is what they want everybody to do. We will talk about that in a minute.

They were not happy, but it is not just that. I don't know how many people here do their own groceries, but in my house we do. I am just telling you, it is twice what it used to be. I get it. My kids are growing, and they eat twice as much, too, but it is twice what it used to be--on everything, on everything. And that is just food.

That is the other problem with inflation. People talk about inflation. The inflation that matters the most is the necessities, not the flat screen TVs, not the new car--the necessities. That is what is going up in price: housing, clothes, back-to-school supplies, food. All of that is through the roof--caused, by the way, partially by a bill, one of the first things they did in March: $1.9 trillion of Federal money--of your money, the people's money--poured right into the economy. We had a supply shortage, and we created more demand with all of that money.

Anyway, that is what people are worried about: inflation, the crime, the border, the real-life stuff. What have we spent our time focused on and fighting around here? I can tell you. First, a fake--and I mean fake, completely fake--electoral rights crisis, election rights crisis--totally fake. We spent a lot of time on that.

We spent a lot of time arguing about whether we were going to vote on a bill to make it easier to shoot police officers. We spent a lot of time around here talking about--in the Federal Government in general-- things like pregnant people, something that does not exist. In the 5,500 years of human history, every single pregnant person that has ever existed happened to be a woman, but we talk about pregnant people.

We have a military that likes to put out tweets about the proper use of pronouns. We worry a lot about those things. We have focused a lot on those things.

Do you know what China is focused on? Blowing up our aircraft carriers. Maybe we should worry more about that.

This basically is Build Back--whatever the name--Build Back Better junior, just a little bit less--a lot of money but just less money. They might as well have voted for the one they had. I don't know why the Senators who kind of gave them their vote on this didn't just agree to the other one. This is just a smaller version of that. That is what this is. But, anyway, that is what we are focused on.

So you can see, we are up here. We are going to vote late at night and into the morning, which is fine with me. I don't know if it is fine with everybody, but it is fine with me. But at least, if we are going to do that, let's be about the things that the people care about, that matter to the real people in the real world.

It is not. Instead, here is what we are going to do. Here is what we are going to do. What we are going to spend time on is a $30 billion slush fund they call green loans. That is what it is, guys. It is a slush fund. It is for all these people who have companies that are in the green energy space. Those are their buddies. They are now going to be able to tap into this loan program. They have done this once before but not a $30 billion slush fund.

We are going to spend $60 billion solving environmental racism. I don't even know what that is. I don't know if anybody knows what that is. Like when they say ``Latinx.'' I thought that was a band. I have never heard that word before in my life, and I don't know what environmental racism is.

Nine billion on tax credits to help people that already have electric cars buy another electric car. Let me tell you guys something. You may not realize this. I get it, maybe, because the bubble around here is so thick. So let me tell you the truth. A lot of people who voted for you guys, as well, are not buying an electric car this year, next year, or the year after that for a lot of reasons: No. 1, charging stations. It is the common sense of everyday people. They are not doing it anytime in the near future. Maybe this will help them 30 years from now or their grandkids 30 years from now but not today. They are not buying an electric car because, even with your little rebate, it is still too much for them.

They are lucky if they can get a new one with gas in it. They have got to buy a used car. That is another problem we have. We are going to help, though, with this $9 billion to help people buy tax credits--by the way, with a Chinese battery in it. Oh, yeah, you can't make those batteries without China--so, great for China. I imagine spending a bunch more money on solar panels that are also made in China. And, to kick it all off, thank God--this is a good one because I know a lot of people are worried about this--$1.5 billion to plant more trees-- whatever.

And then, on top of all that, they are going to hire an army of IRS agents. This is the one that I love. They are going to go after the people who aren't paying enough on their taxes.

Let me explain to you something. I don't like it. I don't necessarily think it is a good thing, but I am going to explain something to these people who don't understand this. These billionaires--who, by the way, fund all their campaigns, just got a huge break in this bill. It is very ironic that these billionaires, these corporations, these people have armies of lawyers and law firms and accountants. And I am telling you, they will fight these agents.

So who do you think these agents are going to go after? Because fighting these corporations isn't easy, and you will eventually run out of billionaires to go after. They are going to go after small businesses. They are going to go after working people--maybe people who make $250,000 a year. We think that is a lot of money. In some places it is in this country. In some places, it is a good living. But you are not rich at $250,000 in some parts of this country. You are doing all right, no doubt about it, but you are not a billionaire.

They are going to go after them. They are going to go after the people who cannot afford to hire an army of lawyers and accountants to fight off the IRS agents--thousands of IRS agents, not police officers to go after criminals; IRS agents to go after American taxpayers. That is who they are going to go after.

I promise you--and I regret to say it--that a lot of hard-working people are going to be getting letters in the mail saying: Hey, we want to talk to you about your taxes from 5 years ago, from 3 years ago, because we think you might have messed up.

And you don't have an army of lawyers. You are going to pay them whatever they say, even if you have to take out a credit line on your house, because you don't want trouble with the IRS. That is what this bill does. That is what this bill is. Everyone else is covered.

And they cynically call it the Inflation Reduction Act. And let me tell you why they call it that. This is actually very sad and outrageous. They call it that because--I am telling you, and I hate to say it, but a lot of the people behind this kind of stuff, they see hard-working, everyday Americans as a bunch of uneducated simpletons who will just fall for this. And the media

will help them. They know the media will help them--not all the media, but a lot of the reporters will help them, even though the reporters themselves keep calling this a climate bill because they are so giddy about that part of it.

But they think the people are going to just fall for it. People are not going to fall for it. I don't care how smart you think you are and how uneducated you think they are. They have got something most people involved in our government have lost or maybe never had. It is called common sense, and they have the common sense of knowing that making it easier for people to buy, with a credit, an electric car in 3 years is not going to do anything for them. They are not buying an electric car anytime in the near future.

You know what they want? They want gas prices to come down because America is producing more oil. That is what they would like. That is what they would like.

They would like you to put criminals in jail and keep them there. They would like you to secure our border, just a little bit. Don't pretend that you are doing anything about it, because they know the truth.

Guys, it is a scam. This very weekend, this very Friday--and I live in Miami. I don't read about this stuff in a magazine. I see it with my own eyes; I hear it with my own ears.

I had this couple telling me the flat-out story. Their kids were already here because their kids were born here. Years ago, when they were here visiting, their kids were born here. U.S. citizens. Their kids are already here. This couple paid $5,000 each. They were driven to the border in a van. They were turned over to an agency right on the border who turned them over to the officers. They spent a day and a half in detention. Their papers were filled out. They were turned back over to the agency. The agency asked them: Where you would like to go?

I would like to go to Miami.

They gave them a ticket to go to Miami. They even gave them a little card to buy things before they got there. And now they are living in South Florida.

And what do you think? You don't think they are going to call back home and tell people: Hey, we made it, and here is how we made it. And those are the people that can afford to buy the $5,000 each or save it. A lot of people can't. So they have to turn themselves over into the hands of these criminal, delinquent traffickers, evil persons who take advantage of these migrants. And they are coming because we are inviting them to come. This administration is inviting them to come. They are inviting them to come.

When you tell people: Don't come. But if you do, you are going to get to stay, they are going to come. And that is what is happening. We are not focused on that. They get it. People back home get it. And you are not going to convince them that any of the stuff here is any good for them.

And it is happening, frankly, because the modern Democratic Party-- listen, I live in South Florida. It is a majority Democratic county. I have had Democrat friends. I have worked with liberals my whole life. I have done a bunch bipartisan stuff. You are not bad people. But the modern Democratic Party does not care about working Americans. The only thing they care about is the agenda of a bunch of laptop liberals and Marxist misfits who threaten to burn down any city any time they don't get their way on some issues and a bunch of climate extremists. And that is what this bill reflects--at least two of those three. And that is what this bill does.

That is the only people they cater to. That is what their issues are always about. And what they do is they put on the disguise of calling it the Inflation Reduction Act. But they can't even say it with a straight face. They really can't because they know it is not true.

This bill has nothing to do with what real people in the real world are worried about every single day. And the ironies are so thick.

I think about this carried interest loophole, as they call it. We have got prominent Members of the Democratic Party in the Senate who have made a career out of calling that basically an unfair and immoral benefit for hedge fund managers and greedy billionaires. They have made a career out of it. Yet today, they will vote on a bill that stripped out taking rid of that loophole. They will vote for it. They will vote for it. That is the irony embedded in all of this.

So they will do their press conferences and speeches. They will be very impressed with themselves. The Twitter warriors are going to love it. The MSNBCs and the ``Meet the Presses'' are all going to say-- whoever, CNN, whatever--they are all going to be giddy about it. But for millions and millions of working Americans, nothing is going to change for them for the better. There isn't a single thing in this bill that helps working people lower the price of groceries or the price of gasoline or the price of housing or the price of clothes. There isn't a single thing in this bill that will keep criminals in jail. There isn't a single thing in this bill that is going to secure our border. And those happen to be the things that working people in this country care about. And the gap between the people who run this place and the people who are the backbone of this country is so massive, the disconnect so great, that the division that is driving our politics is reaching a boiling point, unfortunately.

What makes this Nation different from all the countries in the world is our working class. Every nation has rich people. Every country in the world has wealthy people. What has made us different is that here, by the millions, people like my parents--a bartender and a maid--were able to own a home and raise a family and leave them better off than themselves. And they were never rich and they were never famous, and they lived the American dream because they retired with dignity. And with their own eyes, they saw their children have the opportunity to do the things they themselves never could do. That is what makes us different. Those are the people that are hurting. Those are the people that got wiped out in 2007 and 2008 when Wall Street created a crisis and when Wall Street got bailed out. Those are the people whose kids couldn't go to school because in some parts of this country, we shut school down for a year and a half, while the people shutting down the schools, their kids were going to private schools and had private tutors. And those are the people that are getting destroyed right now by this economy. And they are being ignored and disrespected and completely, completely obliterated by a bill that does absolutely nothing for them.

And that is what your U.S. Senate will spend late into the night and early into the morning voting on. The disconnect is massive. And I can point to a lot of examples, but this has become exhibit A in that disconnect.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I don't think I need to tell anybody here that our work is at its best when it is focused on what people care about. Let me tell you what people care about. They don't care as much about buying solar panels and electric cars as they do about not having to live in a community where violent crime is rampant and you have some crazy prosecutor who refuses to put people in jail, who refuses to prosecute entire categories of crime.

People are worried about that, and rightfully so. And it is happening. We have these beautiful cities that were once world-class cities that have become unlivable all over this country because we have these lunatic prosecutors that have decided that there are entire categories of crime they will not prosecute.

That is the kind of stuff we should be working on here tonight, all night long. If you want to spend all night working on something, work on that. Don't waste time on stuff that doesn't matter to real people working every single day who are not going to be driving an electric car next year or the year after that, but they might get mugged, but they might be a victim of a violent crime.

So what this does is it sends it to the Judiciary Committee and asks them, in 3 days, come back with some ideas about how you can spend just a little bit of these billions of dollars that we are throwing away on this garbage--how we can spend a little bit of that money to put criminals in jail so Americans no longer have to live in fear in their communities.

Mr. President, do I have time remaining?

Mr. President, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. President, the only people who are capable of being pregnant are biological females; and, therefore, I think Federal pregnancy programs should be limited to biological females and that is what this would do.

Mr. President, a few minutes ago, I looked back across 5,500 years of human history. So far, every single pregnancy has been a biological female. Therefore, the only thing I am trying to do is make sure that the Federal law is clear that since every pregnancy that has ever existed has been in a biological female, that our Federal laws reflect that and pregnancy programs are available to the only people who are capable of getting pregnant--biological females. Very simple.

I would accept a unanimous consent if they want to offer it, and we can move on and not waste any time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 4394 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I regret that that is the case. I understand the argument and if I could explain a little further.

Florida is identified with the citrus industry. People have long understood it. It is a big part of our State. Here is the best way to describe this to people. About 60 years ago, the FDA created a standard for what they consider pasteurized orange juice. For orange juice to be marked with a stamp that says ``pasteurized,'' no less than 10.5 percent of the weight of the juice has to be accounted for by soluble solids, such as naturally occurring sugar. So this is just an arbitrary number.

By the way, the 10.5 percent of the weight has nothing to with the nutrition. It has nothing to with the safety. It has nothing to with the quality.

They had to come up with a number to define the difference between orange juice and something that is not orange juice, and that was the number they came up with.

So for decades, the citrus industry in Florida has been following that specification, and it hasn't been a problem. Then Florida was impacted by this thing called citrus greening, pests that came from Asia, particularly from China. What it has done is it has ravaged the trees. It ravaged the trees to the point where one of the impacts it has is that now the sugar content--you wouldn't notice it if you drink it or if you eat one, but the sugar content of the fruit that is now on the trees, because of the greening, often falls under the 10.5. Again, no one would know. It is not any less safe. It is not any less nutritious. It just falls under that number. Then, obviously, the hurricane we had in 2017 made those problems even worse when they suffered the loss of a bunch of trees.

So now, to meet this arbitrary 10.5 percent threshold, the juice processors in Florida now have to blend in oranges and orange juice that have higher sugar content, and they usually have to import it from a foreign source. Again, there is no health benefit to doing that. In fact, you could probably argue that less sugar is probably better. You wouldn't taste the difference.

You wouldn't know it. If I put two glasses of orange juice in front of you--one with the number they are asking for, which is 10 percent, and the other one with 10.5--you wouldn't notice the difference.

So they have been asking the FDA to change the standard so they don't have to import a bunch of oranges from Brazil and mix it just to be able to hit the sugar content. If they can't do it, the only thing that changes is that the final product can't be marketed as ``Florida orange juice.'' That is really the challenge we are facing.

We would love for this to go through the normal process. The problem is, by the time the FDA makes a decision on it, there may not be any growers left. Let me explain why that is a problem.

These citrus growers sit on valuable land. Every developer in the State is trying to get their hands on that land. They would love to develop it into a mall, into an industrial park. We are facing those problems everywhere. Once you turn farmland into a commercial use, industrial use, a housing development, you never get it back. I have seen farms turned into commercial development; I have never seen a commercial development be turned back into a farm.

Once we lose this land, we lose it forever. We lose it forever. So not only is it important to have it from a food security standpoint but from an environmental standpoint. Having something remain in agriculture, where the people who own it care deeply about the quality of the land and the water usage because it is key to their existence, is a better use of the land than turning it into an industrial park.

But, eventually, these agriculture owners will have to do something. Some have been in the business for generations, but at some point, they cannot grow enough food to justify continuing in business. They have people offering millions and millions of dollars to buy their land from them.

So this simple bill that I filed would provide certainty to the orange growers. By lowering the 10.5 content to 10.0--that is all it does, from 10.5 to 10.0--they will have some level of certainty that they will be able to continue in business.

I regret that there is an objection here today. I understand the desire to follow the FDA process, but I just want to be clear. No one is arguing--who knows about this--that going from 10.5 to 10.0 has any safety issue or anything of that nature. It is literally an undetectable difference, but it would make a big difference for the citrus growers of Florida.

If we are not going to do it this way, I hope we can get a hearing and get this passed. I am not sure if a couple of years from now, we are going to have a citrus industry. If we lose them or lose that land, we will never get it back.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to recognize the John F. Kennedy Space Center--KSC--for celebrating its 60th anniversary, which we observed on July 1, 2022. While the complex was not named after President Kennedy until November 29, 1963, it was on July 1 six decades ago that the launch operations center on Merritt Island, FL, was created.

Since the Apollo program in 1968, every U.S. crewed orbital spaceflight has launched from the Kennedy Space Center property, making it the unambiguous leader in American spaceflight. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration--NASA--has carried out launch operations for its Apollo, Skylab, and space shuttle programs from Launch Complex 39, managed by KSC's personnel. For the past 60 years, millions of Americans have visited the area to watch astronauts slip the face of Earth and explore the final frontier.

After the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, the Kennedy Space Center transformed from a government-focused launch base to a multi-user spaceport. Today, it provides a home to more than 90 private-sector partners and nearly 250 partnership agreements in support of different vehicles, systems, and launch providers, enabling a new era of space exploration. The Kennedy Space Center further contributes to our Nation's space program through the Exploration Ground Systems, as well as the Commercial Crew, Exploration Research and Technology, and Launch Services Programs.

As NASA prepares for the launch of Artemis I at KSC, the center remains a cornerstone of Florida's economy by employing thousands of civil servants and government contractors throughout the State's Space Coast.

I express my thanks and deepest gratitude to the many hard-working men and women at the Kennedy Space Center as they continue to advance American space exploration further into the 21st century.