Floor Statements

Madam President, this weekend will mark 6 years since 49 of our fellow Americans were killed in one of the deadliest attacks in our Nation's history.

It was a tragic, despicable terrorist attack on the Hispanic and gay communities in Orlando. Each person killed was a son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father, husband or wife. They were part of our families and communities. The assault on Pulse was an act of pure evil that was and remains the worst terror attack on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001. And it was inspired by the same ideology of hate. But ultimately, that hateful ideology failed to tear apart our community.

June 12, 2016, is a day that I will never forget. The senseless, tragic loss of life will never dull with time, nor will the memory of how our communities came together in the days and weeks that followed. Pulse was a well-known nightclub in central Florida. It was part of the fabric of the local community, and that awful day struck a terrible blow. But the community awoke from the tragedy stronger and more united than it was before.

The terrorist would have been horrified to see the First Baptist Church in Orlando--another pillar of the local community--opening its doors to the LGBT community, welcoming them and their families, and holding services there. The terrorist would have hated to see Floridians from all across the State bringing food and water to support victims, families, and first responders. There were unending lines to donate blood. There were memorial services around the State. There was a sense that there was something greater than any one person worth sacrificing for; there was a sense of community, fellowship, and solidarity. This is the America I know and love, and it is our country at its best.

Sunday will be a day for reflection, for remembering those who lost their lives to an evil, hateful ideology. It will also be a day to acknowledge the tremendous impact their families and the survivors have had, not only on their community and State, but on our Nation.

And while the fight against evil and hate continues, we can and should take inspiration from their strength.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. President, I recognize and honor the life of Gus Machado, a long-time businessman and entrepreneur in Hialeah, FL, for his contributions to the south Florida community.

Mr. Machado was born in Cuba and moved to the United States at the age of 15, where he founded a vehicle export business. When the U.S. and Cuba broke ties in 1960 as part of the Cold War, Mr. Machado remained in his new home of Miami and built three more businesses that sold General Motors vehicles to inhabitants of Puerto Rico. During the 1980s, he began selling Buicks and Fords as well, and he eventually became the No. 1 Ford dealer in Miami-Dade County.

Mr. Machado's entrepreneurial legacy continues to employ and support the people of south Florida to this day. Moreover, he will be remembered for his charitable contributions, especially to St. Thomas University in Miami--where College of Business students study in the proudly named Gus Machado Building--as well as the American Cancer Society.

Mr. Machado's story is an inspiring example of the American Dream and a testament to the contributions of Cuban immigrants to South Florida. I admire his hard work and his commitment to his community and know that Mr. Machado's efforts will bear fruit for years to come. I send my deepest sympathies and condolences to the entire Machado family.

Mr. President, if there had been a recorded rollcall vote on the motion to instruct from Senator Menendez that moves that the managers on the part of the Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed to contain provisions in section 73003 of the Senate amendment related to the establishment of an inspector general for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, I would have voted nay.

If there had been a recorded rollcall vote on the motion to instruct from Senator Lujan that moves that the managers on the part of the Senate at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4521 be instructed to insist on provisions supporting the work of the Department of Energy, user facilities of the Department of Energy, and National Laboratories, including work in microelectronics and across the key technology focus areas, supporting the Department of Energy and its national laboratories, I would have voted nay.

Madam President, I call up my motion to instruct conferees, which is at the desk.

Madam President, this will not take long.

I don't think anybody at this point is unaware that China steals the things that we in America innovate: our research, our ingenuity, our products, our secrets. They steal it. So we are about to spend tens of billions of dollars on research, and if we are going to do that, I think we should take steps to make sure that the tens of billions aren't also stolen.

It doesn't make a lot of sense--and most people would agree--to spend all of this public money on research without enough protections to keep the Chinese from stealing it. So what this motion to instruct would do is it would ensure that the government undertakes a counterintelligence review to certify that the entities that are getting this public money--either through direct funding or through intellectual property developed as a result--have national security protections against the theft of American research and resources.

What this would ensure is that there are protections in place to strengthen the bill's research funding accounting requirements in section 2307 and to ensure review of the funding for university technology centers.

If this bill is to truly be the America COMPETES Act, we need to make sure that America's funding and grants and other taxpayer resources are not going to be stolen by our adversaries to beat us using our own money.

I ask my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to instruct.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, for too long, Americans' taxpayer dollars have been used as a backdoor way to help promote abortion as a family planning service. President Trump put a stop to this. Back in 2019, he barred the Federal Government from providing these funds, the funds through the title X Family Planning Program, from going to entities that refer or provide abortions, organizations such as the big business that is known as Planned Parenthood.

Now, understand, it didn't reduce title X funding. It didn't cut one penny of it. Instead, it directed it to organizations that do not perform and do not promote the taking of innocent life.

Last year, unfortunately, the Biden administration, as was to be expected, pulled the plug on this vital protection, and now we see taxpayer money flowing once again to these abortion providers and to their referrers. This has to stop, and that is why I have worked with Representative Tony Gonzales in the House to introduce the Congressional Review Act of title X to ensure that not one more taxpayer dollar is used to fund the abortion industry.

By reversing this administration's ruling, abortion clinics will once again be excluded from receiving this taxpayer money, and it would put more money toward improving and saving lives instead of ending them.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 355, S.J. Res 41.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I honor Mary Cecile Barreto on the celebration of her 100th birthday.

Mary Cecile Barreto was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada on April 19, 1922. Seeking new opportunities, she and her parents moved to Miami, FL, in 1925. She attended Gesu Catholic School, joined several school clubs, was crowned Miss Gesu, and met Roger Barreto, her high school sweetheart whom she married after graduation.

Cecile worked as a secretary at the Pan American Airlines Seaplane Terminal in Miami before giving birth to seven sons and four daughters. Her children were raised with both her Canadian roots, as well as her husband's Hispanic upbringing. French and Spanish were regularly spoken throughout their home.

Cecile made time for each of her children and made them feel special. She is a kind listener who is always there for them, no matter how busy their days are. Under her guidance, her children grew up to become a Miami Beach Police chief, real estate agents, Super Bowl host committee chairs, and a Miami-Dade Rescue deputy chief.

In her free time, Cecile participates in the Miami Herald's write-in competitions, answering numerous topics and writing jingles. She has won many prizes for her answers to the competitions and even donated a trip to Washington, DC, to her sister for her honeymoon.

During the holidays, it is not uncommon for 40 or more people to gather in her home to celebrate. Cecile invited not only family and friends, but also those who may not have a place to be or anyone to spend time with.

Cecile has lived a full life and has made countless differences for her community over the past 100 years. My wife Jeanette and I offer our best wishes to Cecile and hope the coming year will bring her much happiness and good health. May God bless her and her family during this time of celebration.

Madam President, let me cut right to the chase here before I get into a statement.

As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of S. 623, a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rubio substitute at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, as the day goes on, I look forward to others who will be coming to the floor here in a moment. You will see it is an eclectic collection of Members of the U.S. Senate in favor of what we have just done here in the Senate, and that is to pass a bill to make daylight saving time permanent.

Just this past weekend, we all went through that biannual ritual of changing the clock back and forth and the disruption that comes with it. And one has to ask themselves after a while: Why do we keep doing it? Why are we doing this?

This really began back in 1918 as a practice that was supposed to save energy, and since then we have adjusted it.

Today, daylight saving time, which started out as 6 months, was extended to 8 months in 2005, clearly showing you what people's preference was. So we are doing this back-and-forth of clock-changing for about 16 weeks of standard time a year.

Now, I think the majority of the American people's preference is just to stop the back-and-forth changing. But beyond that, I think their preference is, certainly, at least based on today's vote and what we have heard, is to make daylight saving time permanent.

I will just tell you a couple of the reasons why I think that is important. There is some strong science behind it that is now showing and making people aware of the harm that clock-switching has. We see an increase in heart attacks and car accidents and pedestrian accidents in the week that follow the changes.

The benefits of daylight saving time have also been accounted for in the research; for example, reduced crime, as there is light later in the day. We have seen decreases in child obesity, a decrease in seasonal depression that many feel during standard time, and then the practical one and the one that I have witnessed with my own eyes.

In many parts of this country--understand, we are a country where we desperately want our kids to be outside, to be playing, to be doing sports, not just to be sitting in front of a TV or a computer terminal or playing video games all day. And it gets really tough in many parts of the country to be able to do that because what ends up happening is, especially for these 16 weeks a year, if you don't have a park or an outdoor facility with lights, you are basically shut down around 5 p.m., in some places as early as 4, 4:30 p.m. And these lights in parks and things like that are expensive, and then a lot of communities are resistant to them, right?

I have seen it with my own eyes. I have watched sporting events be called--youth sporting events--in the middle or near the end of the game before it has actually concluded because there is not enough light.

So I just think that is one of the practical reasons why, if you look at the way we live in this country, you want to have the ability to spend more time in the evenings outdoors, not just to enjoy the outdoors but to make sporting and outdoor activities available for people at a time when, frankly, we are losing an hour, an hour and a half in some parts of the country because of daylight.

So I am hoping that after today, this will go over to the House, and they will act quickly on it.

I know this is not the most important issue confronting America, but it is one of those issues where there is a lot of agreement, and I think a lot of people wonder why it took so long to get here.

So my hope is that after we are done here today, that the House will take it up; that the House will pass it; and that the President will sign it.

I just want to lay out one caveat. This bill and the amendment does delay its implementation, and the reason why--and I asked. Believe me, I asked: Why are we delaying this? And I think it is important. We are delaying it until November of 2023 because airlines, the rails, transportation methods, others have already built out schedules based on the existing timeline of this. And so they have asked for a few additional months here--from industries like broadcasters and airlines--to make that adjustment.

But the good news is that if we can get this passed, we don't have to keep doing this stupidity anymore. And why we would enshrine this in our laws and keep it for so long is beyond me, but hopefully this is the year that this gets done.

And pardon the pun, but this is an idea whose time has come.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, on vote No. 72, the motion to invoke cloture on Maria Pagan to be a Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, it was my intent to vote yea.

Mr. President, a few days ago or a few weeks--about 2 weeks ago, I was surprised to read in an article that, as part of the American Rescue Plan, there was this $30-million program that would be sending drug paraphernalia to people suffering from addiction in this country.

And so I said something about it, and the administration came out and said that is not true. We are not going to use it for that. We are not going to be sending out crack pipes or meth pipes to anybody. In fact, they even wrote a letter to a fellow Senator here in that regard.

So then I said, well, since--let's just make sure. Right? Like, let's just file a bill language that just makes it clear that we are not going to be sending drug paraphernalia like a pipe or things that work with a pipe, that taxpayers aren't going to be paying for that.

And lo and behold, I was surprised by the response. And now, when you read more carefully the letter that they wrote to Senator Blackburn, you see exactly what the problem is here.

They don't plan on sending crack pipes or meth pipes to anybody. What they plan on sending is what they call a mouthpiece. And a mouthpiece isn't what you think. It is not like some flat thing that you put in your mouth. No, the mouthpiece is basically the cylindrical tube-- straw-looking thing--that you attach to the crack pipe. So the pipe will have to be shared by the addicts, but they are each going to have their own little tube that they can attach to smoke it.

Well, I just don't think the Federal Government should be paying for that to send that to people. I think, frankly, this is insane. I think most people would agree, and I think most people would be surprised.

And the things you discover when you actually file these things and work on it--because we came up with language. We said: OK. Here is the bill, and here is what we want to do. And they came back and said: We will not agree to it if it includes that device that attaches to it.

So, apparently, they don't want to send out crack pipes, but they do want to send out the tubes that attach to the crack pipes so that those who are addicted to crack or any of these other drugs--illicit drugs that you can smoke can be consumed safely somehow, as if there is any safe way to smoke meth or crack, which there isn't.

And so what I have come here to do today is very simple: I want this bill to pass. I don't know why anyone could possibly object to it unless you believe that you should be sending out cylindrical tubing which attaches to a crack pipe to smoke and that can be removed to allow multiple people to use the same pipe.

And that is the loophole that they want. That is what they want me to change this bill to allow them to send out. And I think that is nuts, guys. I don't know how else to describe it. There is no, like, fancy word for it. It is crazy. This is insane. This is the kind of insanity that people read about and say: This can't be true. It is true. It is actually worse than I thought.

And so that is why I am hoping we can pass this today. Apparently, there will be an objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 3632 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the Rubio substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, couple things. To be clear, I am not slowing down the continuing resolution. This is my bill. It has got nothing to do with the continuing resolution.

The reason why we are not voting on the continuing resolution is because there is a bunch of people missing; there are not enough people here yet to vote for it. That is why it is being slowed down. So I took this opportunity to offer my bill.

And I would just say, my observation would be that Vladimir Putin is probably--if he is even paying attention--I don't know what time it is. He probably has his hands full with his plans to invade and conquer parts of Ukraine--I think he would be wondering why would I be scared of a country who is going to send out cylindrical tubing to people addicted to crack and meth, because I think he probably thinks it is crazy too, as crazy as he is.

So, again, my bill goes--I get it. They are not going to send out pipes. That doesn't make me feel better because they are going to send out--with the money of the American taxpayer, they are going to send out cylindrical tubing which is attached to a crack pipe and can be removed so each and every one of the people using that pipe--multiple people can use the pipe but use a different cylindrical tube to attach to it. And I just don't think the American people should be paying for that, and that is what HHS has basically admitted they want to do with this money. And I didn't think this was going to be controversial, but apparently it is because there has been an objection, so here we are.

Madam President, it is hard to forget the 14th of February in the year 2018, when I was actually here in the U.S. Senate when news reports began to emerge that there had been a shooting at a school in South Florida, where I live.

I was at the time--or I am still now, but at the time, all four of my kids were in school in South Florida, and as a parent, the first thing that flashes in your mind is, Where? Which schools was it?

Fortunately, we were blessed by God's grace that it was not any of the schools that my children were in, but, sadly, there were other Floridians on that day who were impacted in ways that I think will clearly forever change their lives, but I think it has also impacted the Nation.

It is now well known what happened on that terrible day, a day of complete horror that shocked the Nation, and today, we stop and remember those who lost their lives on that day and those whose bravery saved lives on that day.

We have learned much since that day about the things that went wrong with law enforcement, with the FBI, with local authorities, and with the school district, and that work continues. The monster who committed this act is now facing the justice of the Florida court system and will soon be sentenced.

But I wanted to spend the brief time we have to talk about it here today focusing on what has happened since that day and, in particular, the extraordinary work of some of the parents of those children who lost their lives on that tragic day, because they have turned their pain into activism in ways that have had concrete and meaningful impact.

One in particular is Max Schachter and his family, who, as they dove into this, realized that there was no place where school districts could go and learn about the best practices for how to safeguard a school or any facility, for that matter. Everyone was off doing their own thing, being pitched contracts and ideas by different companies that said: We can add this, and we can give you that. But there didn't seem to be a single place where you could go and learn the best practices to ensure the safety of our students.

That began to change because of his work. He lost a son, Alex, on that day, but from that pain, he has become a national leader on the issue of a Federal clearinghouse, which now exists.

The previous administration, the Trump administration, took executive action on it. Today, there exists a

clearinghouse that I hope we can put into statute through the Luke and Alex School Safety Act to make it permanent. It has become a resource where schools across the country are now able to, on an ongoing, real- time basis, see whether what they have in place is the highest standard and the most effective. Every time there are improvements, it is updated. It has had a meaningful impact. There are schools across this country that had vulnerabilities they didn't recognize. Those vulnerabilities aren't just about physical hardening of buildings and so forth; it is about identifying and getting ahead of these problems.

Sadly, what we learned from many of these tragedies is that, well before that day, there are clear signs that something is about to happen.

I think one of the things that most struck me is that multiple families told me that as soon as the news came out that this had happened, everyone knew who it was. Without even having heard the name, everyone knew who did it because the signs had been there and they had been missed.

The ability of school districts to now recognize that and get ahead of it is just one of the many innovations that are now in place because of the work of Max and his family in honor of their son Alex and of all those who suffered greatly on that day.

So I think it is important not just to obviously remember the extraordinary pain and horrific events of that moment but also to remember how these brave American families have since that day taken their pain and turned it into action and that today, across this country, many of our schools are better positioned to prevent this from ever happening to anyone else because of what they have done with this tragedy.

I wanted to take this moment today to commemorate and recognize their hard work and the work they and other families are doing not simply to raise awareness but to spur real, concrete action that makes a meaningful difference.

I now want to turn it over to my colleague from Florida, who was Governor on that terrible day and dealt with this all firsthand.

Mr. President, last week, the Vice President of the United States told us that a riot that happened here in the U.S. Capitol last year was the equivalent of the day in which Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor and the United States was pulled into a world war that took the lives of over 3 percent of the world's population.

And yesterday, we were treated to the President telling us that election laws that are being passed by various States across the country over the last year are basically the same, the equivalent, of the segregation that existed in this country in the 1950s and 1960s and before.

Now, look, if your daily routine is to wake up in the morning and turn on MSNBC as you ride your Peloton and then you go on Twitter as you are drinking your caramel macchiato and then you are reading the New York Times as you are eating your avocado toast, I imagine all this makes perfect sense to you. After all, for these people, they believe this ridiculous narrative that every Republican--every Republican--is an insurrectionist, probably a racist, wants to overthrow the U.S. Government, and wants to destroy democracy.

The good news is that the overwhelming majority of Americans happen to live back here on planet Earth. And what they are worried about, to the extent they even pay attention to any of this stuff that has been said over the last 2 weeks--what they are really worried about is the fact that everything costs more; you go to the grocery store and the shelves are empty; they have a small business and they hire someone on Monday who just disappears on Thursday and never comes back; you have got, every day, thousands of people illegally entering the United States across an open border; and, by the way, we have a surge in violent crime and lawlessness across the country. That is probably what they are worried about--in fact, I know it is--on a daily basis.

But to the extent they have paid attention to any of this, let me tell you something. First of all, I think almost everyone would tell you that what happened on January 6 here was a terrible thing; it should never have happened; and it should never happen again.

But I don't care how many candlelight vigils and musical performances you have from the cast of ``Hamilton,'' you are not going to convince, at least most normal and sane people, that our government last year was almost overthrown by a guy wearing a Viking hat and Speedos. OK?

And I don't care, you know, how many of these speeches the President gives in which he shouts out this hyperbole and all this melodrama, you are not going to convince people that having a State pass a law that says, for example, that you have to produce an identification is the same as segregation.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that that is what most people in this country are worried about--inflation and all these other things--that is not what we are working on here. That is not what we will spend this week on. That is not what the priority of this administration has been. That is not what the President is giving speeches about. You may care about inflation back home. They care about the fact--their crisis is that there are some laws in this country, for example, some States in this country, that do not automatically force everyone to register to vote. They just automatically register them. Well, that is the crisis.

They don't care that store shelves are empty. In fact, they have denied that the store shelves are actually empty.

For them, the real problem is that States have laws, for example, that don't allow these roving gangs of activists to bully people into turning over their ballot so they can show up at 6:59 p.m. on election day and just dump it on an elections official.

And by the way, they don't seem overly concerned that there are Americans that will be fired or not allowed into a restaurant unless they can produce their papers, their vaccine card.

The real problem is how dare you ask them to produce a voter ID--a photo ID in order to vote. That is their real problem.

So how can this be? I mean, how can there be such an enormous disconnect between what real people in the real world care about and are talking about on a daily basis and what we are going to spend our time talking about here and these speeches that have been given over the last week?

It isn't about the Capitol riot. Everyone agrees the Capitol riot was terrible and shouldn't have happened--I think most everyone does. But these are some of the same people who downplayed over 700 riots, thousands of cases of looting that happened in America in the summer of 2020.

It most certainly isn't about election laws that have been passed in the last year. They have been pushing these same bills with different titles and different names--they have been pushing all of this for the better part of a decade.

And it certainly isn't about voting rights. It is easier than it has ever been in the history of the United States to register to vote and to vote. And the proof is that in 2020, we had the highest turnout in over 100-and-something years. This isn't about any of that.

If you are paying attention, let me tell you what this is about. This is about power. It is about power. This is about changing the rules of the Senate so they have the power to ram through--to ram through--an election law. And this is about ramming through an election law to make sure that they never lose power, to make it easier to win elections for them and, therefore, have power for perpetuity.

You want to talk about defending democracy? Let's talk about the Americans, real people, who are afraid to donate to a political campaign, to put a bumper sticker on their car, to tell people who they voted for. They are afraid because they don't want to get canceled; they don't want to get boycotted; they don't want to get harassed--so they are afraid. They don't want to get smeared.

Do you want to talk about totalitarianism? Let's talk about the fact that the Attorney General of the United States has said let's go after some of these parents complaining at school boards and treat them as domestic terrorists.

And, listen, if you want to talk about segregation, then let's talk about a system of education that is both separate and unequal, divided between the people who can afford to spend $50,000 or $60,000 a year to send their kids to a fancy school where they get SAT tutoring and they get all kinds of advantages and the thousands--no, millions--of American parents who are Hispanic and African American and others who have no choice whatsoever as to where their kids go to school. They have no voice. They have to send their kid to the school the government tells them.

These people don't care about any of this because it is about power. It is not just the power to change election laws. We have seen it. It is about the power to tell you what you are allowed to say. It is about the power to tell you where you are allowed to go. It is about the power to tell you what you are allowed to do. It is about the power to intimidate, to destroy, to smear, to call a racist, a bigot, a hater anyone who dares get in your way, anyone who dares disagree with you. It is about the power to do that.

Well, let me tell you something. I was raised by and have lived my entire life alongside people who lost their country, the country of their birth, to power-hungry people just like that.

I warn you, do not stand by and allow it to happen to this one.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on the vote to confirm Marcela Escobari, I wish to be recorded as a no vote. Had there been a rollcall vote, I would have voted no.

Mr. President, on the vote to confirm Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon, I wish to be recorded as voting no vote. Had there been a rollcall vote, I would have voted no.

Mr. President, we have come down to the floor multiple times in the last few weeks trying to push the passage of our bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

For those who are not familiar with it at this point, it basically says that you can't import products into the United States that are made by slave labor in Xinjiang or entities that are associated with the government of that region. If you are a company that is manufacturing in that area, you need to prove that slaves didn't make it; the presumption is on you.

It is already illegal, by the way, to bring goods made with slave labor. It has been that way since the thirties. Yet it still happens, and we know it is happening at an alarming, horrific rate, with the genocide that we now witness being carried out by the Chinese Government in the Xinjiang region.

This bill, which we hope, here in a few moments, passes today, will head to the President and will become law, and it will help tremendously in stopping that from happening.

Many companies have already taken steps to clean up their supply chains, and, frankly, they should have no concerns about this law. Yet for those that have not done that, they will no longer be able to continue to make Americans--every one of us, frankly--unwitting accomplices in the atrocities and genocide that are being committed by the Chinese Communist Party.

As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 6256, which was received from the House; 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 have no objection to the modification.