Floor Statements

Madam President, we have heard more about Cuba in the last week than probably the 10 years that I have been here combined.

And yesterday we heard from the White House. The White House was having some sort of a meeting and conference call and came out and said that they are going to be looking at remittances and increasing and making it easier to get money to relatives in Cuba.

That is not surprising. The people in charge of Cuba policy at the White House, at the National Security Council, and at the State Department--the people in charge of Cuba policy have long been advocates for dialogue with the regime and an economic opening to the regime. They have been for getting rid of the embargo and that sort of thing.

I think it is important, given the fact that I recognize that most people in this country and in the Senate don't follow this issue on a regular basis, that we address that. Because the fundamental question being put to us is--so the people of Cuba are suffering. The people of Cuba are going through a difficult economic time. I would argue that they have done so for 62 years--why don't we get rid of the embargo? It would make life easier for them.

And I want to address it. I want to address it especially to those who are not as familiar with this issue.

First of all, let me begin by saying there are no American ships blockading Cuba, surrounding the island of Cuba. In fact, Cuba, frankly, does not have an embargo in the way people think.

Cuba trades with the whole world. For example, Cuba, every year, exports $1.2 billion, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is a lot for an island of 11 million people. OK?

They export $461 million to China; $127 million to Spain; $65 million to the Netherlands; $64 million to Germany. This is not a country that is isolated. They trade with every country in the world.

They import $5.3 billion a year. With Spain alone, they export--they import, I am sorry, $1 billion from Spain; another $790 million from China; $327 million from Italy; $285 million from Canada and from Russia.

So they import 5--over $5 billion. They export over $1.2 billion. Cuba is not isolated. They trade with every country--this regime trades with virtually every country on the planet.

You know who else they trade with? The United States of America. Cuba trades with the United States of America. They import almost $280 million a year; almost as much as they do with Canada and Russia. And no one accuses Canada and Russia of having a blockade on Cuba.

Sixty-six percent of the chicken that is eaten in Cuba, which is the staple protein in Cuba, comes from the United States. Half their soybeans come from the United States.

There is only one blockade in Cuba, and it is the blockade that this regime has imposed upon its people

Now, yesterday, the President announced--or the White House announced they are going to stand up some remittances group to try to figure out: So how do we make it easier for relatives to send money to their relatives on the island of Cuba?

Well, that work group is going to not have a long time to meet. They are not going to have to meet for very long because U.S. law allows that now. It is not illegal to send money to your relatives in Cuba.

The only thing that is prohibited is you can't send the money--you can't send the money through this bank that the Cuban military set up in Panama. That is the only thing that is prohibited.

And to the extent money can't reach the people of Cuba, it is because they refuse to allow anyone other than that bank to do these remittances.

And, by the way, they have prohibited depositing dollars. Here is how it works for them: You send your relative $100. They take 10 percent of it. Then they take the dollars--they don't let them deposit it. They pocket the dollars, and they give them this worthless Cuban currency. So they have the dollars so they can buy things for themselves and on the global market.

So the blockade, to the extent that there is something that is preventing remittances directly to the Cuban people, it is not U.S. policy; it is regime policy. They are the ones who need a work group.

How about this argument that there is a blockade on travel? If only more American tourists could go to Cuba.

By the way, Cuba is already filled with Canadian tourists and Italian tourists who enjoy 5-star accommodations. And I will be frank, many of them go there--these sick, disgusting men who go there to hook up with a 16- or 17-year-old girl.

But that said, they talk about travel to Cuba. Well, let me tell you something. Travel is allowed now. An American can go to Cuba. You just can't stay at a military-owned hotel or eat at a military-owned restaurant or shop at a military-owned store. You can stay at the private homes of people who rent them out on Airbnb. You can do that. You can eat at a restaurant that is owned by a private person. You can shop at stores that are owned by private people.

The reason why they have nowhere to stay, nowhere to eat, and nowhere to shop is not U.S. policy. It is that the Cuban regime won't allow privately owned hotels, privately owned shops, privately owned stores. They won't allow it--privately owned restaurants. They are the ones who have a blockade on travel, not the United States.

What about medicine? That is another thing they have put out there. This is so cruel. We don't allow medicine in.

Do you know what the Cuban regime announced last week? This is what they announced on their national television: We are going to lift the ban on the importation of medicine.

What? You mean there was a Cuban ban, a regime ban on importing medicine? Yes, there was. They are the ones who weren't allowing medicine in. And to the extent they were allowing it in, they were putting a tariff on it. So there is no blockade on medicine. We sell them medicine.

And you can donate medicine, unlimited amounts, under U.S. law. If there is a blockade on medicine, it is the regime's blockade.

The other one I hear is the internet. I support the internet. Why don't we allow--I had somebody say this to me yesterday: Why don't we allow American companies to go and provide internet, then they would have internet? It is the embargo.

And these people don't know what they are talking about. They literally are just parroting stupid, ridiculous talking points, because the law in the U.S. on trade with Cuba specifically exempts telecoms. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, every American telecom could go into Cuba tomorrow and offer phone and internet service.

You know why they can't? Not our law. It is the Cuban regime because they want to control that.

And you see a pattern here. Blockade on travel, blockade on private ownership of business, blockade on bringing in medicine, blockade on bringing in money. Why?

Because the Cuban regime wants to control people. They don't want an individual Cuban to have a paycheck that they earn for themselves. They want what little you have to come from them because if you don't do what they tell you, they can take it from you. That is what they want.

They don't want you to have internet companies offered by AT&T and Sprint

and Verizon or anybody else because they want to be able to shut it off when you are saying things they don't like and things against them.

Same with medicine. They use all of these things as a tool. It is hard to fathom because we live here, but they use all of it as a tool. You want medicine? Are you posting stuff on the internet? Are you saying things against the regime? Are you speaking out? Are you not participating in these acts of repudiation that we force people to do? Because if you don't, you are not going to get your medicine.

And they certainly don't want the cash flowing around. They don't want independent ownership. They don't want the people of Cuba to have liberty. This is all about control, all about control.

And, by the way, in the law that codified the embargo, it has a clause that automatically triggers the end of the embargo. And you want to know what this tough standard is that is in the law? Free the political prisoners, free press, free and fair elections, multiparty elections. If the regime does those three things, the embargo ends automatically, automatically.

There is no embargo on Cuba. There is an embargo on Cuban regime, an embargo on companies they own, because what they wanted to do is they wanted to take the Obama opening, funnel all that money through their companies--people say there are Spanish companies that own hotels. They don't own the hotels in Cuba. The regime owns the hotels.

These hotel chains that open in Cuba on the beaches, they don't even pay their employees. They pay the Cuban Government. The Cuban Government pays the employees. Control.

So the bottom line is this: Anybody who stands up and says there is an embargo, there is a blockade by the United States, and it is cruel and it is causing all these problems is one of two things: They don't know what they are talking about and they are just parroting some talking point or they are liars. Those are the only two options.

This is not about an embargo. The people of Cuba did not take to the streets, did not have their heads cracked open, did not have their kids arrested and put in jail. Mothers, tomorrow, plan to march in Cuba because they don't know where their children are; arrested. They don't know where their kids are.

They broke into homes. They grabbed 16-year-old boys, they gave them a bat. They said: You are going halfway across the country to beat people up in the street.

They didn't stand up against all those things because of an embargo or because they wanted remittances. They stood up because they wanted liberty, libertad. That is what they wanted. That is what they are telling us.

Why don't we listen to them? They have told us what they want. They want libertad. They want liberty. And if there are any people on this Earth that should understand that, it should be Americans.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the world and the country yesterday watched these images out of Cuba. It is really unprecedented. In 62 years of communist tyranny on the island of Cuba, we have never seen and there has never been what now is up to 40 cities in which people took to the streets--organically, unorganized, grassroots--to ask for the end of that tyranny. And I think it is important for a lot of people that are new to the issue to sort of understand what that means and what it is all about.

I think the first lesson we need to take away from it is that Marxism, socialism doesn't work. The way socialism, the way Marxism has always worked--the way it has always empowered itself--is it goes to a people and it immediately divides them. It says: There is the suppressor class, and then there is this victim class. And these evil oppressors--capitalists, in the case of socialism or traditional Marxism--they oppress the victims. And what you have to do is you have to give us the power in government to take care of these oppressors and to go after these oppressors, and if you give us that power, we will deliver you security and we will protect you from the oppressors. They ask for security in exchange for freedom. That is always the price that socialism asks for--security.

And what you wind up with is a country of people that hate each other, and they are angry at each other. A significant portion of the people in the country have to leave, have to flee, go to jail, because they are the oppressor class. Their lives are destroyed. Their family lives are destroyed.

But the socialism can't deliver the security. And when it can't deliver the security, you don't get your freedom back. And, in fact, when you start to complain about that, that is when the repression comes.

Well, that is what happened in Cuba. Socialism and Marxism has done to Cuba what it has done everywhere in the world that it has been tried. It has failed. It has failed. They gave up their freedom. Or they were told: Give up your freedom in exchange for a world-class healthcare system.

It is not a world-class healthcare system. In fact, it is a healthcare system that does not even have the ability to deal with COVID at its very basic level.

They said: Give up your freedom for economic security.

What economic security? People are hungry, homes are crumbling, and there is no economy. There is no real economy in Cuba.

Give up your freedom and you will have an education--free education for everybody.

That education--No. 1, you are a doctor, but you can drive a taxicab in Cuba and make more money. Or, No. 2, you get sent, forced to go, overseas and work basically on slave wages, no pay--barely any pay at all. It is basically human trafficking, as our own Department of State found when it looked at the Cuban doctors' program and how it has been abused.

So what has happened in Cuba is that socialism has failed. It has to repress people who complain about it. You don't get your freedom back.

And like socialists always do, they have to find someone to blame. And whom do they blame? No. 1, they blame anybody in the country who doesn't agree with them. You are immediately a counterrevolutionary. You are immediately a pawn of the imperialists. And, then, of course, they always blame the United States.

The problem in Cuba for the regime is that the people aren't falling for those lies anymore. They are not. The embargo, that is the first thing they blame: It is the embargo. The embargo is causing all of this.

Why aren't fishermen and farmers in Cuba allowed to fish or grow things and sell it to people? It is not the embargo that keeps them from doing that. It is the regime

Why can't Cubans own a small business? Why can't a Cuban do in Cuba what they can do in Miami, what they can do in Washington, and what they do in countries all over the world, and they can't do it in Cuba? They can't open a small business. That is not the embargo that keeps them from doing it. In fact, U.S. law allows us to trade and to do commerce with small businesses that are independently owned by Cubans. Do you know why Cubans can't own small businesses? It is not the embargo. It is not the United States. It is the regime that doesn't allow it.

People have seen these lies. How can they afford to build luxury, four-star, world-class hotels for tourists, but they cannot afford to deal with the crumbling homes that Cubans are living in, with roofs literally falling in over their heads and with water leaking into operating rooms at hospitals?

Look at what they do with the money. Oh, it is because you don't allow more money to be sent. When an American or a Cuban American sends money to their family members in Cuba--in the past, through Western Union--the regime takes 10 percent off the top, and then they take those dollars you sent and they force the Cubans to convert it into worthless Cuban currency. They keep the dollars. And, then, guess what: If you want to buy anything, you have to buy it from a government store, and guess what the

government store sells things for? Dollars. That is not the embargo. That is the Cuban regime that does that.

And who is it that is putting people in jail, gets your head cracked open, and gets your door kicked out in the middle of the night? There are 80 people missing today. At least 80 people disappeared overnight. The families don't know where they are. That is not the embargo that is jailing people. That is the regime.

And that is what I tell people. You can open up all you want. We can pass a bill here that says: Open to Cuba--100 percent open. You can do whatever you want--full, free trade. You can do whatever you want. At the end of the day, the Cuban regime will control that opening. It is not just what we want to do. It is what they want to do.

Do you want to do tourism? We tried that in 2015 with the Obama changes, and do you know what they did? They said: Thank you. We love the fact that you are coming here as tourists.

Guess what. All the tourist sites are owned by a holding company named GAESA, controlled by the Cuban military. So everything comes through their hands.

You want to send them food? That is great. Guess who gets it: ALIMPORT, which is a government, military-owned agriculture company. You can't sell it to a small grocery store in Cuba or even a food wholesaler. It goes to the Cuban Government.

You want to send money? They take it. Do you know why? Because socialism is about control, and all of these things--tourism, food, money, medicine--it is all about control.

You want humanitarian aid? Let's get the Red Cross. Any of these vetted NGOs in the world should be allowed to go into Cuba. They won't allow it--A, because it is embarrassing to them. They have a world class healthcare system. Why do they need humanitarian aid? But, B, because they want to control it.

Send them vaccines, but if you put them in their hands--the government, the regime--guess who gets the vaccine: the people who behave; first, the regime elites and then the people who behave. If you are not behaving and if you are not going along with what they want you to do, you won't get a vaccine.

They will use any opening as a tool and as a weapon against their people because that is what socialism does. That is what these Marxists do in Cuba. They will use anything as a weapon against the people of Cuba.

What can we do is what people want to know. No. 1, I hope that we will all be clear about whose side we are on. You don't have to even agree with anything I have said. What you should agree with is that people everywhere in the world, including 90 miles from our shore, should be allowed to go into the street, peacefully march, call for an end of dictatorship, and not have their heads cracked open.

By the way, no one in Cuba has guns, except the military. So why are these repressive forces walking around with these rifles and people are getting shot? They are shooting people that literally are unarmed.

They should be able to do that, and it should be clear. We should be clear in our language. We don't just condemn this tyranny. We condemn this communist, this Marxist, this socialist tyranny. Call it for what it is.

No. 2, we should make clear that nothing is going to change. There is not going to be any sanctions changed as a result of this. On the contrary, I hope the Biden administration will now announce that they have finished their review of Cuba policy, and everything that is in place is staying in place

To the extent we change policy, No. 3, I hope we make it a top priority to allow the people of Cuba to have free, unfettered, and open internet access. And the technology exists to do that with a satellite- based system. We should put the best minds to work on getting that done because if the Cuban people have free and unfettered access to the internet--the first thing the regime shut down yesterday was the internet--they can communicate with each other, and they can receive information and communicate with the world. Ninety miles from our shore, you should be allowed to do that.

No. 4, for all of those who believe and have faith in the international community--and I still hold hope that one day it will work again--where is Spain? Where is the EU? Where are all these countries that for years have given cover and protection to the Cuban regime and condemned America? They should speak out clearly that what is happening there is wrong and that repression is wrong. We should rally that. We should use our position of strength and power in the world and our influence in diplomatic circles to make that happen.

And, No. 5, I hope the President will be very clear with the regime in Cuba that we will not tolerate them encouraging a mass migration event--because I am warning you, this is what they do. They have done it twice already. They step back and they say: Look, if you don't lift sanctions, if you don't go back to the Obama-era policies, and if you don't get rid of the embargo, it is inevitable that you are going to have 50,000 people take to the ocean and head toward the United States.

They have used that against us twice. They did it in 1994, and they did it in 1980 with the Mariel boat lift. President Biden needs to be clear, whether it is through private channels or saying it publicly--be abundantly clear that we will treat the encouragement of mass migration toward the United States as a hostile action and act accordingly. That cannot--cannot--be tolerated.

I want to close with this. I recognize that most of the Members of this Chamber, most of the people here in Washington, and, frankly, most of the people in the country do not pay attention to Cuba on a daily basis. I get it. I really do. But if you are not following the issue of Cuba, you can be forgiven for not knowing that what we are seeing, what we saw yesterday, what we are seeing today, what happened recently-- none of this--was started by politicians. It wasn't started by me. It wasn't started by anybody in Miami or in Florida. It wasn't started by any think tank in Washington. It wasn't even started by political activists inside of Cuba.

Do you know who started what is happening in Cuba? Artists, poets, songwriters, writers, actors, musicians. They are the ones who started it--the San Isidro Movement--because they came after them.

And there is a song. A lot of people don't realize it. There was a song that came out earlier this year--a song that, by the way, if you play in Cuba, you will go to jail. The song's name is ``Patria y Vida.'' Now, the slogan of the Cuban regime is ``Patria o Muerte,'' meaning ``Fatherland or Death.'' This song played on that, and it says, ``Patria y Vida,'' which means ``Fatherland and Life,'' instead of ``Fatherland or Death.'' And the song is extraordinarily powerful because it was written by people and sung by people who have lived this reality and are living this reality. It so powerful. As I said, you will go to jail in Cuba if you play it.

What the song basically says in its lyrics is: Why can't people think in different ways and not be treated as enemies? Why is life so good for party insiders and their families but there is no food for average Cubans? There seems to be no embargo for the Cuban regime and their family members. Why can you build luxury hotels while our homes are crumbling? Why do Cubans have to suffer the indignities--the indignities--the simple things like not being able to bathe with soap, not being able to use deodorant, not having toothpaste--why do they have to deal with these indignities? And who--the song also asks--who told the regime that Cuba belongs to them and only them? Shouldn't it belong to all 13 million Cubans?

The chorus I will read first in English, and then I will translate it in Spanish, because it actually plays on ``dominoes.'' Dominoes is a very popular game played by Cubans. It is played by everybody, but Cubans, in particular. It is a big game there.

The chorus reads:

(English translation of statement made in Spanish is as follows:)

And how it translates is that it basically says:

It's over. Your 59--

Meaning 1959, the year that Castro took over--

But I have double twos.

And everyone knows that in the dominoes game, if, at the end of a chain,

both dominoes, no one has any dominoes to put down, the game gets locked, and you count numbers and count dots to see who won.

So it says:

It's over. Your 59, but I have double twos. It's over.

Sixty years with a domino game locked up for us.

Now, I know this is a very colloquial Cuban way of expressing it, but this is incredibly powerful. The people in Cuba understood what that means, and that means that all this ideology, all this stuff they talk about, and all these lies of the regime that worked out really well for them, people don't believe it anymore, and they are not afraid anymore. Meanwhile, their lives are ruined. Young people in Cuba, artists in Cuba who realize that the only country on this planet were Cubans are not successful is Cuba, and they are tired of it, and we should stand with them.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the following article printed in the Record.

The material follows:

[From the Daily Coach, June 30, 2021]

Remembering a Florida Sideline Legend

Some major names have stalked the sidelines of South

Florida's high school basketball gyms over the years,

including Frank Martin, Anthony Grant and Shakey Rodriguez.

But few have done it with the sustained success of Dillard

Women's Coach Marcia Pinder.

She served 44 seasons on the bench, winning 996 career

games while guiding the Lady Panthers to 10 state titles,

according to the Miami Herald.

Pinder died last week. She was 70.

Beyond any of her in-game schemes or pre-game speeches,

Pinder was a trusted confidant to hundreds of teenaged girls

over the better part of five decades.

``She was a mentor, an advocate, a second mom to many of

her players,'' Florida Rep. Omari Hardy wrote on Facebook.

``She taught generations of young women how to excel on and

off the court, and it was in that lasting, personal impact

that she took the greatest pride.''

Pinder was named Florida Dairy Farmers Girls' Basketball

Coach of the Year five times over a six-year span beginning

in 2010 and received the prestigious Morgan Wootten Award for

Lifetime Achievement from the Naismith Basketball Hall of

Fame in 2017, according to the Herald.

She was inducted into the National High School Athletic

Association Coaches Hall of Fame in 2014.

Few high school coaches have won as many games as Pinder,

but based on the number of poignant tributes that flooded

social media following her death, it would seem safe to say

that not many have touched as many lives.

``The epitome of mentorship, love, discipline and

leadership,'' tweeted Ole Miss Women's Coach Yolett McCuin.

``She was more than just a Coach!'' Auburn Women's Coach

Johnnie Harris tweeted. ``She impacted the lives of many

people in many ways! She will always have a special place in

my heart!

Pinder's legacy serves as yet another pivotal reminder to

us as leaders that as much as we agonize over Xs and Os, our

bottom line, promotions or firings, what we'll be remembered

for most is the way we uplift our players and employees.

``My biggest thrill,'' Pinder told the Herald in 2014,

``comes from the girls getting into college and pursuing

their degrees. When you constantly see these players get to

college, it makes you feel good. You don't think about that

last loss or last win. Some of them have turned out to be

teachers and doctors. That is my Hall of Fame, right there.''

May Coach Marcia Pinder rest in peace.

Most Americans remember that horrifying day 5 years ago. I certainly do. I remember it was a morning, and I started getting text messages that something horrifying had happened in our home State. As we turned on the news, we could see that it already had been the deadliest attack on American soil since September 11 of 2001.

And the full horror of that day, of that night, came into focus, as I remember jumping in my truck and driving 3 hours to be on the scene. And it would be a few more days, or a few more hours, before we learned that it was an attack that was inspired by an ideology of hatred by an individual inspired by--who had pledged allegiance to a foreign terrorist organization, and in that context appeared there on that evening. It was an evening of tragedy.

It was, as Senator Scott mentioned, Latin night at the Pulse nightclub. This was a well-known nightclub in the LGBTQ community in Central Florida. And one would think no one should ever be--the last thing someone is worried about when they go out for a night with their friends is that they are going to be attacked by a radical jihadist terrorist in the United States.

We had seen similar attacks in London and France. And the realization that that could happen in Florida, just down the street from a small business furniture store whose owners I had gotten to know shook everyone, shook me.

Like most terrorist attacks, it sought not only to bring death but division and fear, to terrorize; and, clearly, there is a tremendous amount of pain that 5 years later is still there.

But from it, what also occurred was that it brought Floridians together, particularly those in Central Florida--first, hand in hand to grieve and then to preserve the memory of those whose lives were lost. The outpouring of love and support came not only from Florida but from Americans from all across the United States who shared in our grief and drew inspiration from the State's resilience.

Five years later, the process of mourning continues. The process of remembrance continues, but so, too, is Orlando as united as it was 5 years ago. It is a reminder to us that even with

all the challenges and threats we face, the threat of a radical, hateful ideology that can inspire people living here to take such horrifying actions, is something we should remain vigilant about.

And I want to thank my colleague Senator Scott for allowing me to partner with him on this resolution to remember not just that tragic day and to support the national Pulse Memorial but also to extend our continued condolences to those who suffered so greatly on that evening and to remind a nation of how we must remain vigilant against those who seek to terrorize

Madam President, I recognize Zachary Daniel Zampella, who, after 12 years of serving the people of Florida in the U.S. Senate, has moved on to new opportunities. I thank him for his years of hard work with my office.

Zach began his time with my office as a caseworker specializing in military and veterans administration issues before becoming my regional director for Southwest Florida in 2012. He returned to my Orlando office in 2015, serving as deputy director of constituent services.

During his time with my office, Zach mentored several of my staffers, played a key role in my Constituent Services Department and disaster relief efforts, and drafted office correspondence. He also assisted veterans with their issues pertaining to the Department of Veteran Affairs and worked with other various Federal, State, and local government agencies.

In 2017, he assisted residents affected by Hurricane Irma, working our Recovery Assistance Center events held in the hardest hit cities across Florida. In 2018 and 2019, he made several trips to the panhandle region after Hurricane Michael's devastation. He walked door- to-door to assist constituents and provided valuable assistance in the region.

Zach grew up in Orlando, FL, graduating with his bachelor's degree in history and master's degree in business administration from Southeastern University in Lakeland, FL. After graduation, he interned for Senator Mel Martinez, later joining his staff in 2008. He also worked for Senator George LeMieux before joining my staff in 2011.

Zach's work for my constituents for my office made a real difference over the years. I am grateful for his dedicated service to the people of Florida and extend my best wishes to Zach on his future endeavors.

Madam President, I call up the Rubio amendment 1802 to the Cantwell amendment 1527.

Madam President, I ask that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, I want to take a moment to speak on my amendment, and I won't take very long.

First of all, really, my comments are geared toward somebody who might be watching or will maybe watch a video of this later because usually there aren't a lot of mysteries here on the floor of Senate. And when these amendments come up, everybody kind of knows the way it is going to go. And this amendment that I am about to put forward here is probably not going to pass. I am pretty certain it won't or we wouldn't have gotten a vote on it. That is just the way it is.

But that is OK because--it is not OK, but it is OK in the sense that I still want to take this opportunity to talk about this and have a vote on it.

Let me just say this: If you go back 2, 3 years, I believe not the first but one of the first people here who talked about the need to do what much of this bill does was me. I have been talking now for 2 or 3 years about the need for the American Government to step forward and partner with the private sector. I have been talking about the need for industrial policy.

You can't compete with a nation-state if the nation-state is not involved in the competition. And that is what we are involved in--a nation-state competition. And it does involve a massive amount of Chinese investment in research and development.

And we have to step up to the plate. The days of believing that on some of these items the private market on its own will solve it, it is not possible at this scale and scope.

I point to Operation Warp Speed. Would the private market have eventually given us a vaccine? It would have. But we needed it now. We stepped forward. We provided the money. The private sector responded. And today we are standing around here with no masks on, and much of the country is getting back to normal because we have vaccines.

You could criticize a lot of things about what America did in the beginning of the pandemic, but we have done vaccines better than anyone in the world, and that would not have been possible without industrial policy, which is the partnership of government and business to solve an urgent crisis of a national concern.

Well, when it comes to research, development, technology, that is perhaps the single greatest requirement before us today in terms of the future. The 21st century is going to be defined by this definition between China--this competition between China and the United States. And it is a competition we simply cannot win unless we step forward and match it.

But another part of the Chinese approach to this is not simply to invest but to steal. As many of you know, I have been on the Intelligence Committee now for 10 years. I was acting chairman of it for a number of months and now the vice chairman in a committee that I think--maybe I am prejudiced in this view, but I think it is the best functioning committee here. I am sure some would disagree. But I think we do a lot of good work.

And it comes on topic--and I spend a lot of time reading all of the intelligence every single day. Let me just describe my experiences over the last few years. It is a horror show.

The Chinese are stealing our intellectual property. And it is not just, oh, they reverse engineered someone's software; they steal the money the taxpayers are investing in basic research and development.

We have a graph here. I have it up. The print is too small to see on camera, but I will describe it to you. Here is how they operate, use our universities. They prioritize--they steal priority technologies, leverage international openness of U.S. markets, universities, and institutes. They play scientists, researchers in universities, U.S. National Labs, for access to emerging and foundational research and access to dual-use export control technologies.

It goes on to say, Chinese state-owned enterprises' front and shell companies partner with universities for access to IP, research data, technology, penetrate U.S. company supply chains. This is their strategy.

Now, we were about to put $200 billion of American taxpayer money in more of that, in more of those activities. And you don't think that they are going to do all of that against us? They are. And so it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we have in place safeguards so they cannot keep doing this to us.

What is the point of putting up $200 billion of American public taxpayer money on pursuing all of this research if we are going to allow the Chinese to steal it? Nobody here wants them to steal it.

And I know there have been improvements done in terms of upping the security. What I want you to understand is that this is not a minor security threat. This is the No. 1 priority of Chinese intelligence. This is their No. 1 priority. This is what all of their agencies and all of their government is geared toward doing. And we are going to put all this money in there and hope that the safeguards we put in place are going to work.

I hope they do. But what if they don't? What if a year from now we find out, or you are going to read in an article 2 years from now, whatever, that says: The Chinese have stolen a quarter--25, 30 percent of the IP developed by the money that has been put forward in the bill that was passed? Then we are all going to feel pretty stupid around here.

That is the only thing I am aiming at. All I am asking in this amendment is that, at least in the initial stages of this program, that the Director of National Intelligence, the DNI, the DNI's office, and the FBI have an opportunity to review these grants to ensure that they do not have embedded, in the place we are giving the money to, a scientist, a researcher at one of these National Labs or that there isn't some shell company involved.

Now, I know the argument. I have heard the argument against it from those who want to do the research. This is going to slow it down. It is.

TSA slows down our ability to get on airplanes. Who wants to get rid of TSA? Cyber security slows down our ability to access our networks. But we need more of it, not less. Yes, security becomes burdensome. It slows things down. But I would rather do it slow or slower and own it than faster and have them steal it. And that is what this amendment does.

I don't know what the opposition to it is other than I understand that there are a lot who just want to get their hands on this money, and they want to get going very quickly. That is what they want to do, and that is great. That is what researchers want to do. They want to move fast. We need them to move fast. But our job is different. Our job is to see the problem holistically and understand, let's move as fast as we can without allowing the Chinese to steal it

So, look, I am asking everyone to vote against this motion to table because, frankly, I think we expose ourselves to a vulnerability. We are placing the faith that this existing system we have, and whatever new one we are starting up, is going to be able to withstand the force of the intelligence agencies of an entire nation-state and their No. 1 objective, and that is how can we get our hands on whatever these $200 billion are helping to innovate.

Mr. President, a year ago Saturday, the previous administration, the Trump administration, launched something called Operation Warp Speed. At that time, it was a $10 billion program by the government, and it was designed to incentivize pharmaceutical companies to invest in developing, researching, and producing effective treatments and a vaccine for a disease that was ravaging and continues to ravage the world today.

Less than 4 months later, a new antibody treatment was beginning to save American lives and improving the outcomes of patients with COVID- 19 here in America. And less than 7 months after that Operation Warp Speed program began, Americans began receiving the first dose of two different and highly effective vaccines.

Why did the government have to step in? Why did the government have to provide the money? Wouldn't the market have solved this? There was certainly a demand. There was certainly a need for it. In fact, I would argue that people probably would have paid whatever it took to get their hands on a vaccine and on new treatments given the level of desperation that existed in May of last year here and around the world.

Yes, the market would have eventually developed the antivirals, would have developed the antibody treatments, and would have developed the vaccine. The market would have eventually done it without the government stepping in, in this dramatic way. But it wouldn't have done it in the timing that we needed it. We needed it right away. Our economy was shut down. Children were not going to school. Workers had no jobs. Small businesses were being wiped out. Hospitals were being overrun, and people were dying. We were facing a global crisis and a national emergency. It was a moment that required urgent attention and the fastest results possible. So for the common good of our country, our government partnered with the private sector to reach a targeted end, one that served the interest of our country and our people. In short, we pursued ``industrial policy'' and almost 1 year to the very day, it was announced that life in America is, slowly but steadily, returning to normal.

I first spoke about the need for a 21st century American industrial policy well over a year before the pandemic hit. Let me tell you that for much of my adult life, much of the time I even paid attention to policy, ``industrial policy'' was generally sort of a dirty phrase for me. Politically, I was raised capitalist orthodox. It is an economic faith grounded in the belief of less taxes and less government and more freedom.

I still believe in less taxes and less government and more freedom, and my faith in capitalism has only grown because, unlike socialism, the market always produces the most efficient outcome and, usually, generally, invariably, the result of that is prosperity and opportunity. The free market--capitalism--has eradicated more poverty than all the socialist programs in the world combined.

But the market is agnostic. It doesn't take into account the impact that an efficient outcome, a market outcome, would have on its people. Thus the market does not take into account its national interests. It is agnostic.

We in public policy cannot be agnostic. The job of those of us who serve in the American Government is to make decisions that are in the best interests of America and the people that we serve. I believe that, generally and invariably, that usually means supporting a vibrant system of free enterprise in which private businesses invest and innovate and produce, and government makes it easier for them to do that and gets out of the way.

But what do we do, what should we do, when the market reaches the most efficient outcome and the most efficient outcome is one that is bad for America, bad for Americans, or doesn't meet a crisis at hand fast enough? What is our role when we face such a crisis, when we must address one that has to be addressed faster than the market's ability to do it?

This is not a hypothetical question. It describes what we faced in May of last year, when Operation Warp Speed was announced, and it describes many of the important challenges we face today.

Over the last 20 years--maybe 25 years--the market sent American factories and jobs to other countries. This was the most efficient decision to make because workers in other countries cost less, and so it lowered labor costs and increased profits. It was the market's decision. It was the efficient decision, but it destroyed the jobs of Americans. It shattered families. It gutted once-vibrant communities.

Major American corporations headquartered here in the United States-- multinationals--have allowed China to steal trade secrets and cheat on trade because, for them, gaining access to even a small sliver of the growing Chinese market of over a billion people led to profits. This, indeed, did create short-term profits and extravagant wealth for some, but in the process it began transforming America from a country that invents and makes things into one that increasingly just finances and buys them.

It is, indeed, more efficient to make the active ingredients in many of our medicines in China. It is cheaper to do it. So, today, we find ourselves depending on China to produce the active ingredients in everything from acetaminophen, which is generic for Tylenol, all the way to blood thinners and everything in between.

It was cheaper to buy rare-earth minerals from China--it still is-- than to produce and mine our own. Today, we depend on them for almost 90 percent of these valuable metals that are needed not just for advanced electronics but for our own major weapons systems. We made the decision to allow Chinese companies free rein to own and to buy and to make money in America, almost without restrictions, because we are capitalists

They, on the other hand, restrict and ban our businesses from doing work in China because they are nationalists. None of this is an accident. China has a plan. It has a plan to overtake America as the world's leading economic, technological, geopolitical, diplomatic, and military power. I don't say this to you based on some supersecret intelligence document or an educated guess. They put it on paper. They have written this out for everyone to see in 2015. The Chinese Communist Party laid out a plan with a title called ``Made in China 2025.''

It basically is a plan to invest in and overtake us in 10 of the industries that will define the 21st century economy--biomedicine, advanced technology, air and space, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, telecommunications, 5G, rail systems, ship building. They intend to lead the world in all of these areas, and they are executing on a plan to carry that out, and we have been complacent and distracted.

So while China channels every element of their national power, every element that you can imagine--while they channel all of it--to dominate these key industries and to do it at our expense, we assume that our position in the world will continue on its own without having to do anything to maintain it.

While China is pursuing economic and technological dominance, we find ourselves here busy canceling people, demanding the use of the right pronoun to describe people, or claiming that requiring a photo ID to vote is the return of a Jim Crow era.

We have placed ourselves on the road of decline and humiliation, headed toward a world in which a totalitarian regime--one guilty right now, as we speak, of committing genocide against Uighur Muslims-- becomes the leading power on the planet and relegating our country, America, into the status of a once great nation in decline.

We do not need to abandon capitalism and embrace socialism to take on this challenge. I believe socialism would only accelerate the damage our decisions are doing to our country. We need capitalism, but it must be a capitalism geared toward promoting the national interest and the common good, where the private market drives our economic decisions. And in those instances where the market outcome is bad for our country, in those instances in which the market's most efficient outcome is one that is bad for our people, for our national security, for our national interests, bad for America--in those instances--what we need is targeted industrial policy to further the common good and to protect our people, our country, and our future. We need an industrial policy targeted not to every industry or to the one who hires the right lobbyist. No, we need an industrial policy like Operation Warp Speed, targeted to urgent national needs; policies like my Medical Manufacturing, Economic Development, and Sustainability Act, which would help bring back our ability to make medicines in this country again, including in places like Puerto Rico that need the economic growth and jobs; like the CHIPS Act we passed last year to make sure we never have to depend on China or any other country, for that matter, for semiconductors.

In 2019, well before the pandemic, I proposed modernizing the Small Business Administration and aligning its programs to the national interest, like my American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, which would incentivize private investment in small American manufacturers through the SBA.

And even as we make these sorts of targeted industrial policy decisions, we need to make sure that we are protecting them from being stolen from us. One of the changes we need to make in the China bill that is now before the Senate is we need to have stronger protections against the research that we are funding from being stolen.

First, more of this money should be invested through agencies like DARPA, as an example, which has very good safeguards in place.

Second, we should prohibit any entity from receiving the funds called for in this bill if they receive China-based financial or in-kind support, or if they otherwise failed to disclose foreign funding in the past 10 years.

Third, we should require certification that a potential recipient of the funding has sufficient protections in place to guard against IP theft and other threats from foreign governments before they were giving them the money. It would be something if we appropriate all this money for industrial policy, we invest it, and then we see it stolen.

Fourth, we should prohibit Federal employees and contractors from participating in any foreign government talent recruitment program, and we should require Federal contractors to disclose any commercial ties they might have to the Communist Party in China.

And, fifth, we should establish a system of outbound investment screening. Even if we are successful in preventing adversarial actors from acquiring Federal research dollars or intellectual property developed by it, there is nothing to stop nationless corporations from simply buying the IP and using it to develop capacities to benefit China and hurt our interests.

This is an important moment, I think, one that will define the remainder of the century. When the book about the 21st century is written, it will have a few chapters about a lot of different things. But that book is going to be about the relationship between China and the United States and what happened, and what happened is in very many ways being decided right now.

We must ensure that our public policies are aligned to the urgent challenges of our time. Our job here is to promote the common good and to defend the national interest. By and large, that is a free enterprise, capitalist economy that will produce the innovation, the investments, and all of the things necessary to make that possible.

Yet, in those instances in which a national need is urgent, in which the outcome that the market has delivered is harming our country and its long-term future, we have an obligation to act on the common good. We should not allow orthodoxy or policies that made a lot of sense in the 1980s--a very different world from today--to stand in the way of the sorts of targeted government-private partnerships needed: the kinds of partnerships that gave us a vaccine that is bringing us back to normal; the kind of partnership that will allow us to tackle the challenges we face now so that the 21st century will ultimately be an American century and so that our leadership in these key industries that will define the century is neither endangered nor lost.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, in December of 2019, as a new virus was emerging on the opposite side of the world, I spoke at the National Defense University, and the title of the speech I gave was called ``American Industrial Policy and the Rise of China.''

The reaction of many people to that at the time was skepticism--from Wall Street investors who, frankly, saw no problem with the status quo on China; from these think-tank experts who mocked my claim at the time that our country relied too much on China economically in our supply chain; and from tech giants in Silicon Valley obsessed with access to the Chinese marketplace.

But the problem I pointed to at that time in that speech, almost 2 years ago--a year and a half ago--was that for over a quarter century, our economic policies have been mostly about one thing: how American investors and companies can make money by doing business with China. In that vein, it didn't matter if making money meant allowing China to steal our intellectual property, it didn't matter if making money meant stable American jobs kept disappearing, and it didn't matter if making money meant investing in Chinese companies developing technologies to help defeat our country in a future war.

Finally, Americans are waking up to what a mistake that was. It was a bipartisan consensus that was flawed.

The 21st century will be defined by the relationship between China and the United States. Frankly, I believe that this is our last chance to make sure that it is a balanced relationship.

What we do not have time for are China bills or a China bill that is a collection of half-measures and studies. Instead, an actually meaningful China bill is what we need. I believe most Members here want it, and I believe we can get to it in a bipartisan way. But, to do so, I think it has to have six things. If you want a meaningful bill on China, it must touch on six things.

The first is like I said in December of 2019: We need to identify industries which are critical for our future, and we must spur investment in these key industries. We have to remember that we are not in a strategic competition with foreign Chinese companies. We are in a strategic competition with the world's largest and second wealthiest nation-state.

There is no way to compete with China by relying only, solely on private investment, not while the Chinese Communist Party subsidizes and cheats to boost its favorite companies. From industrial corporate giants to small businesses that make up our supply chain, the private sector is the most important area of this competition. We can encourage them to step up, just like we did for semiconductors with the CHIPS Act.

Frankly, the way we developed the vaccine with Operation Warp Speed is an example of a targeted industrial policy in which government partners with the private sector to solve a big problem. You can say what you want about America's response to COVID, but we have done vaccines better than anyone else in the world--not even close--and it is due to that partnership.

But an essential part of our strategy has to be, as a result, to build a strong foundation through targeted and sustained Federal funding for American research and development. The bipartisan Endless Frontier Act is a nod in that direction. Right now, that bill makes the National Science Foundation the lead Agency in directing $100 billion in government investment. The problem is that is the same Agency that, time and again, has had the research we fund stolen by professors and graduate students who are on the payroll for China.

DARPA and other advanced research Agencies within government have a much better record of protecting research and, I believe, would be a far better choice to administer these investments, instead.

The second thing a real China bill must do is communicate that while we do not seek an armed confrontation with China, we will confront any military aggression, we will maintain our defense commitments with our allies, and we will win any conflict China starts.

We must never do anything that leads Beijing to doubt our commitment to Taiwan, and we must never accept the Chinese Communist Party's illegitimate claims on the world's most important shipping lanes in the South and East China Seas. The Strategic Competition Act we recently passed out of the Foreign Relations Committee is largely silent on this topic, but Chairman Menendez has pledged to work with me to include my South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act in any final bill that we take up here on the floor.

The third thing a real China bill must do is fix broken international and domestic trade laws. The World Trade Organization is failing miserably, and it must be reformed. And China's flagrant intellectual property theft, industrial espionage, and massive subsidies to Chinese companies can no longer be ignored and they must be addressed. My Fair Trade with China Enforcement Act would help protect critical industries in America from Chinese influence and possession and recover the lost value of secrets and technologies that they have stolen.

The fourth area of focus of any real China bill must be making sure China doesn't control our medicines and/or our medical technology and patient data. Last year, panic over masks and ventilators was a wake-up call for our medical dependence on Beijing.

From blood thinners to acetaminophen, which is the ingredient in Tylenol, we have allowed China to dominate the pharmaceutical manufacturing market. It is dangerous leverage over America and Americans. We should be able to make medicines here. This will not only make us safer; it will create well-paying, stable jobs for American workers. My Medical Manufacturing, Economic Development, and Sustainability Act would do exactly that and should be included in any real China bill.

As I said in September of 2019, we must immediately enact stricter guidelines to make sure that public funding never contributes to Chinese genomics efforts and beats them in that R&D race. If we allow China to dominate genetic data and that field of medicine, Americans will one day find themselves begging Chinese companies, and even the Chinese Communist Party, for access to future lifesaving treatments.

The fifth area a real China bill must address is our capital markets. Our

stock market is the most open, liquid, and profitable in the world, and it is being used by the Chinese Communist Party to fund its military and to fund their companies. Any meaningful China bill must cut off the tap and prohibit American money from being invested in communist China's military companies.

We need to start requiring more transparency from Wall Street when it comes to investing in China and Chinese Government-controlled companies. My American Financial Markets Integrity and Security Act needs to be part of the solution

How can we claim to be dealing with Chinese manipulation of our capital markets if we don't ban Chinese companies exploiting our own stock market to hurt us? Beijing long ago figured out how to get rich and powerful Americans to use their influence in American politics.

Allowing Wall Street and Big Finance to enrich themselves by hurting Americans may make a lot of money in the short term for those individuals, but it is hurting America in the long run. It is national economic suicide.

The sixth area any real China bill must address is genocide. Today, in China, nationless corporations, cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party, force Uighur Muslims to make clothing and shoes and even solar panels. Sadly, without knowing it, you may have very well purchased a product made partially or entirely by slave labor in Xinjiang.

These companies partnering with China are complicit in these crimes. The Chinese Communist Party's reduced labor costs mean increased profits for these corporations. While they lecture us about social justice in America, these companies are making billions off of slavery in China.

My bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has almost half the Senate as cosponsors. We must take it up and pass it out of the Foreign Relations Committee as soon as possible.

Last year, we saw companies like Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbying against this bill. Well, soon we are going to find out what holds more power in our country: corporations making billions off genocide and slavery or our basic sense of right and wrong.

The good news is that, today, we have finally awoken to the reality of how wrong the old consensus on China was. But we woke up almost too late. We don't have time for half-measures. We must address the dangerous growing imbalance between America and China comprehensively, decisively, and swiftly, or we will live to see a future in which the world's most powerful nation is a totalitarian, genocidal, communist dictatorship and our country is relegated to the role of a once-great nation in decline.

No part of our lives will go unaffected in a world like that. We can see the shadows of it even today. American movies today are free to portray their own country here, the United States, as racist, as bigoted, anything they want, but they automatically self-censor their own movies to make sure they meet China's standards so they can show those films there.

American corporations threaten States whose democratically elected leaders pass laws they object to. They have every right in our democracy to object, but they will fire American employees and ban messages that risk getting their corporation kicked out of the Chinese market.

And American teenagers are already turning over valuable personal data to the Chinese Government on an hourly basis in exchange for the ability to watch what I will admit are clever videos on TikTok.

Yet, this is nothing compared to the world that awaits if we do not take action, and on this the lessons of history could not be clearer.

Athens emerged from the second Persian war a great power, but their greatness made them decadent and complacent. They thought nothing would ever change, that they could ignore important problems, that they could focus on the trivial. So when conflict finally came, initially they used their superior navy to attack Sparta and retreat behind the safety of the city's walls.

That worked for a little while. Then a plague decimated the city, and more enemies of theirs sensed their weakness and joined the fight against them. Then Athens fell.

Like Rome and Britain later, the end of Athens' golden age came as it always does for a great power. It doesn't come from the outside in; it always comes from the inside out.

Now, from across the centuries, the lessons of history cry out for our attention. Our politics are broken. We fight over the trivial because we think the past is irrelevant, because we think our place in the world will never change, and because we think the future will always belong to us automatically. We hide behind our own version of the walls, two vast oceans, believing, ultimately, we are safe from everything outside.

We should not repeat the errors of the great powers of the past. My friends, we don't have time for studies and strategy statements. We need big changes and decisive action. We need to prove that our democracy can work again, that our system of government can function, and that it can solve big problems in big ways.

If we succeed, I truly believe a new American century lies ahead. If we fail, it is a century of humiliation that awaits us.

I yield the floor

Mr. President, I recognize Jim Cameron, who served Volusia County and its residents, as the senior vice president of government relations at the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce. After 38 years of service, I thank Jim for his years of work and wish him well as he retires.

In its 101-year history, Jim holds the longest tenure at the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce. As Vice president of government relations, he understood local, State, and Federal economic issues facing Volusia County. Throughout his tenure, Jim's professional relationships with some of Florida's most influential political and business leaders bettered his community.

In 1985, Jim's was working to receive approval from the State legislature to utilize hotel bed tax revenues towards financing a county-run convention center. After a span of 5 years, Volusia County opened the Ocean Center Convention Center in Daytona Beach Center due in part to his efforts. This is just one of many career highlights that Jim is proud of.

Jim's more recent community accomplishments include advocating for SunRail's extension in Volusia County, helping the Hard Rock Hotel establish a resort in Daytona Beach, and working with Space Florida to recruit aerospace manufacturing to Volusia County. Simultaneously, he was also instrumental in important State legislative matters and advocating for pro-job policies.

Jim is fond of the professional relationships he has formed throughout his career, with many evolving into close friendships. His personalized approach to government relations is best seen on his guarantee to pay $1,000 if he does not return your call within eight business hours.

Jim grew up in Montgomery, AL, graduating with a double major in history and political science from the University of Alabama. After graduation, he was appointed to the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce in Anniston, AL, to oversee industrial and public affairs. He later moved to Daytona Beach, where he began working at the Daytona Regional Chamber in 1983.

I am grateful for Jim's decades of faithful and dedicated service to our State and for his work with my office. I extend my best wishes to Jim, his wife Rita, and to his family on a well-earned retirement.

Mr. President, this amendment No. 1471 is our amendment, and it would modernize the formula by which this money is distributed.

This formula is 34 years old. It privileges a handful of States over the vast majority--I think the number is 15 over the other 35. And it is not just me saying it; the EPA issued a report that stated that the current formula does not meet the wastewater needs of all of the States and recommended that it be updated regularly. Notably, from the EPA's report, it says that the EPA does not know how the current allotment formula was developed. It says:

The weighting and factors that were used to establish the

formula for the original allotment are not known.

My home State of Florida is one of many that are disadvantaged under the current formula, and the result has been obvious over the years.

I think most of my colleagues would agree that distributing funds-- let alone $14.4 billion--to States without rhyme or reason is not beneficial and isn't fair.

It is not just States, by the way. This amendment, if passed, would secure more equitable allotments to Native American Tribes and territories.

Unfortunately, I made--in our drafting of this amendment, there was a small technical error in which, instead of stating that it should be 0.025 in the distribution for Native American Tribes, it says .0025.

So I ask unanimous consent to further modify amendment No. 1471 with the changes that are at the desk so that the right number is on there.

Mr. President, in my remaining time--

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. President, I just want to state that we are not changing the formula. There is an extra zero, and it is literally a typo, the kind of typo people make every single day in the Senate. Instead of saying ``.025,'' it says ``.0025.'' Everyone knows what it was intended to do. That is the way we talked about it. That has been objected to. The Senate is now a place where you cannot amend a typo by unanimous consent. That is unbelievable. It is unreal. I, frankly, find it unacceptable.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1405 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, the very reason we even have to do an extension is that the new administration has unfairly and unnecessarily restricted eligible businesses and nonprofits from applying. It has created confusion.

People haven't been able to get in by the deadlines, and unless we put in more guardrails, there is little assurance that this is not going to continue. In particular, the one thing that would undermine this popular, bipartisan program is if people came to the conclusion that it was being used arbitrarily to give priority to politically favored groups.

So all this amendment does is prohibit the Small Business Administration from setting up any new set-asides beyond those that this Congress, on a bipartisan basis, already created last year when we passed this at the end of 2020.

What were those priorities? Smaller businesses, businesses in low- income areas, community financial institutions. All it says is, if you want to change those priorities, Congress has to do it, not the Small Business Administration.

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

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1026 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes of debate equally divided.

Mr. President, I think we can all agree we have kids in America who need to be in school who haven't been in school over a year now, in some cases.

The science is clear that you can open up schools safely. Now, I know different districts have different challenges about opening up. This bill provides money for everybody to open up. We don't want to change that. We want to help every district.

Under my amendment, every district in the country would get money, but the more days of the week you are open, the more money you are going to get, which makes all the sense in the world. If you are going to open 4 days a week, you shouldn't have as much money as a district that is going to open 5 days a week.

The purpose of the money that is being provided is so that schools can fund the cost of opening safely. All this amendment tries to do is create an incentive for these districts to open up more days because we do have unions--to be fair, not all, but we do have teachers unions in this country that are saying they are not going back until next year, even if they are vaccinated, even if all the measures are put in place.

We have a crisis in this country. We have seen now a surge in mental health problems, with young people showing up at hospitals, and across the country, it is a terrible situation, not to mention the year of lost learning. This amendment incentivizes us to get our kids back in school.

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

This is important to the intelligence community. I ask that no one be a fly in the ointment here.

Mr. President, just minutes after the attack of January 6 began, I said it was not only unpatriotic, it was un-American. I do not need to be convinced that what happened on that day was the disgraceful work of a treasonous criminal mob. But seeing images of that attack stirred up anger in me, anger that our Nation was embarrassed in the eyes of the world by our own citizen; anger that Capitol Police officers that my family and I know personally had to deal with these low-lives; anger that janitorial and food service staff I have gotten to know--many who came to America to get away from countries with political violence--had to clean up the mess left behind by these cretins.

But, if we have learned anything this week, it should be how dangerous it is to allow anger to influence actions.

The lead House Manager argued today that this trial isn't about Donald

Trump, that it was about our country, and that those who refuse to vote to convict are condoning the actions of a violent mob and failing to defend the honor of our Capitol and the people who work here. This is a ridiculous and insulting argument.

Impeachment is not a way of sending a message or taking symbolic action. Impeachment exists for one principal reason: to remove from office an officeholder guilty of wrongdoing. And claiming that anyone who doesn't vote to convict someone no longer in office is the equivalent of supporting a criminal mob is nothing but hyperpartisan politicians masquerading as highminded prosecutors trying to smear their political opponents.

The Senate does not have the constitutional power to convict a former official, and even if we did, we should be very reluctant to use it. In the 244-year history of our Republic, we have never convicted and disqualified a former official in an impeachment trial. Doing so now would create a new precedent, and it would weaponize impeachment in a way we will come to regret.

The day will come when a future Congress, one with a new majority in the House filled with new Members elected on the promise of holding accountable leaders of the opposite part, will give in to these passions and impeach a former official. The Senate will then find itself conducting a trial of that former official, a trial justified by the precedent we are asked to set here today, and a Senate tempted to convict by the tantalizing opportunity to disqualify that official from future public office.

My fear of creating dangerous precedents is not new. Two years ago, I was accused by some in my party of being a traitor because I opposed using an emergency declaration to fund a border wall that I supported. I warned then that a future Democratic President would do the same thing to fund a Green New Deal. And now, just 2 years later, leading Democrats are calling for that very thing.

The lead manager admitted today that, for the Democrats and their enablers working in the legacy media, the purpose of this trial was not to hold the former President accountable. The real purpose of this trial was to tar and feather not just the rioters, but anyone who supported the former President and any Senator who refuses to vote to convict.

I voted to acquit former President Trump because I will not allow my anger over the criminal attack of January 6 nor the political intimidation from the left to lead me into supporting a dangerous constitutional precedent.

The election is over. A new President is in the White House, and a new Congress has been sworn in. Let history and, if necessary, the courts judge the events of the past. We should be focused on the serious challenges of the present and preparing our country to confront the serious tests it will face in the future.

Mr. President, I send a question to the desk.

I thank my colleague from Florida.

I recall so vividly that day on February 14, 2018. It started like it does most days with people across the country. They take their children to school, drop them off, and, in this case, maybe some of them drove themselves.

And within hours, the lives of 17 families had been changed forever. It was a horrible tragedy: 17 students and faculty members who lost their lives; another 17 that were wounded in the attack. And it shocked the country.

It was shocking because they went to do what so many people do on a regular basis in a place where you never think that something like that could happen.

And as my colleague pointed out, there is no resolution in the Senate or words that we can say that will restore the lives that were lost, erase the pain still felt by those victims, the families, the friends, those who loved them.

But even as we continue to grieve, we must also work to prevent something like this from happening anywhere at any time.

I was proud that in the early days after this tragedy, within just a few weeks, together, working across the aisle, we passed the STOP School Violence Act, which provided Federal grant money for school safety. And that has been ongoing now for 3 years.

We passed the Fix NICS Act, which helped patch some of the holes that existed in our background check system.

Since that day, I have had the honor of getting to know and working with the parents of many of those who lost their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

And I will say that their grace in the face of the most traumatic loss that any parent, any sibling, any cousin, any grandparent, anyone can imagine--working with them has been humbling in the face of the grace that they have shown. The commitment to ensuring that no one else has to go through what they did is inspiring.

There are so many I can point to who have made a difference in their own way. They have all sort of focused on different aspects of what we should be doing, and I just want to take a moment today to recognize one individual, Max Schachter.

I know many of you have gotten to know him here. This man works tirelessly. He lost his son Alex on that day.

But his commitment has actually produced significant progress, thanks to his leadership, and I must say his leadership--and I spoke to him again last Friday, and he continues to work on these issues.

And thanks to that, last year, the Federal Government created a Federal clearinghouse on school safety best practices--a place that any district, any school can go to and something that is constantly being updated, that puts an essential location for best practices and offers access to an array of resources for schools across our Nation that are looking to protect their students.

And this is important because in the aftermath of this, everyone was trying to figure out, well, what should we do? And there was no central place where you could go to and find that out.

And recently, as my colleague from Florida has pointed out, I, along with my colleague from Florida and Senator Ron Johnson, we reintroduced the Luke and Alex School Safety Act, named after--partially after his son Alex, which would make this clearinghouse permanent. It was put in place

by the Agency, but this would make it permanent.

And I just think of parents like Max, who have poured so much of their own lives into this work and continue to do so, and he is always churning out new ideas.

We spoke this last Friday about data that is now available, that a lot of people don't even know is there; data that shows you which schools are having suspensions, which schools are having fights, which schools are having arrests and violence as a way of finding anomalies in the data. I mean, he is constantly--and Max has become a subject matter expert through this tragedy, but he is constantly looking for improvements that can be not just done in Florida but across the country, and he is tireless all across the country.

There is something else we took that was successful in Florida, and today we have reintroduced, along with Senator Reed and Senator King and my colleague from Florida--that is reintroducing the Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act, to encourage the passing of these laws that allow you to identify someone who is a danger to themselves or others, to go to a court, provide them due process, and potentially prevent a suicide or a senseless act like what we saw on that day 3 years ago.

And this bill would not mandate it, but it would dedicate the Department of Justice funds to incentivize more States to adopt similar measures. It will encourage the rest of the country to follow the lead in Florida and to save lives. We know it has prevented suicides and we know it has prevented potential attacks in Florida and in States where it has been implemented. And we can't force more States to do it, but we can try to incentivize them.

So it is my hope and my prayer that as we continue to work together that we can achieve this and other things so that no family, no community, no State, no one will have to go through what the incredible families of Parkland endured on that day and the 3 years that followed.

Today, as we remember the lives that were lost, let us pledge to honor them by continuing to move forward toward safer and more secure schools and communities in our work here.

I yield the floor.