Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it is good to see you sitting up there.

As a recent former Governor--I say that as a former Governor myself-- I won't ask you what you are hearing in West Virginia, but I have to tell you, I rise to the floor today amongst a huge amount of confusion.

Two days ago, the Trump administration, without warning to any States, to any Governors, without warning to Congress, late at night, put out an order freezing all Federal spending for 90 days.

Earlier today, less than 48 hours later, that order was formally rescinded. But hold it. The good news--entirely good news--lasted about 30 minutes, 45 minutes, because 45 minutes later, the Press Secretary in the White House says: No, the freeze will actually stay in place and be rigorously enforced.

So--I don't know--as a Governor, which one do you follow? Because, as the Presiding Officer knows, an awful lot of our State programs are actually Federal dollars passing through our capitals into these programs. So I ask, which one is it?

Unfortunately, I am not the only one asking the question, and I have an awful lot of stressed Virginians to prove it.

In Virginia, as in West Virginia or any other State, Federal funding supports countless programs that serve kids, seniors, community infrastructure, and a whole lot more. Yesterday alone, my office was literally flooded with outreach from organizations and local governments.

I heard from firefighters from Southwest Virginia. They are worried they won't be able to replace their tanker truck with Federal funding that was supposed to be coming pretty soon.

I heard from an affordable housing organization in Northern Virginia that if they go 90 days without Federal dollars, they might have to shut down their organization. People would have to find different jobs. That organization--you can't turn on or off the flow of these resources.

I heard from law enforcement in the Shenandoah Valley and from the greater Richmond area that a lot of these localities depend on Federal dollars to pay police officers. If they don't have those funds for the next 90 days, this will take cops off the street.

I heard from a number--not just one but a number--of domestic violence shelters across the Commonwealth that without this funding, because they don't have huge reserves, they will have to leave women and children without housing support.

Listen to this one. We have a little town called West Point, VA. It was an old mill town. They have a very good Head Start Program. Head Start gets funded by the Federal Government. Their Head Start funding runs out on Friday, January 31. They had been told--they can't get any answer--that their next round of funding was in process and there would be no break in the action. What do the Head Start moms and dads who have kids in that program in West Point, VA, do starting next Monday?

Senator Kaine and I probably had 8 to 10 Head Start Programs here. As a matter of fact, there is a gag order put in place right now so that people can't talk about these things inside the administration, and the Head Start directors were trying to call their contact, kind of their resource person, and they got no response.

So whether you care about meals for low-income seniors, whether you care about Head Start for vulnerable kids, whether you care about teens who need that mental health support oftentimes coming from Federal dollars, that all is up in the air at this point. What do we tell these folks?

Many of these folks voted for President Trump because they thought he was going to bring grocery prices down.

Like the Presiding Officer, I have not only been a Governor, but I was a business guy. I can claim still that I was in business longer than in politics. This is not the way you run an operation. The truth is, this is unbelievable. I was so proud when I was Governor of Virginia. We got named the best managed State. This is management malpractice 101.

The most important enterprise in the world is the American Government, not only in terms of safety and security but in terms of how we treat our people.

The truth is, rescinded or not, these chaotic antics have real consequences. I know of an organization in Virginia that had to call an emergency board meeting yesterday to see if they should go out of business. I have heard from folks who are worried that they will have to lay off their employees. Without this Federal funding, they are just not going to be able to make payroll. One Virginian wrote to me and said that ``the mental and physical damage is already immense.'' It is not right to play with people's lives in such a grossly irresponsible way.

I have been doing this for a while. I have never heard of some kind of arbitrary freeze on all Federal spending. It was bad enough what happened when they put a freeze on Federal assistance to folks around the world.

I commend Secretary Rubio. One of the reasons why I was proud to support him was that he has actually tried to back off from that order, making sure that humanitarian aid is not going to disappear.

The story has been out. I have been very interested in the conflict in Sudan. There is a ship in Port Sudan right now with American medicine on it. The aid group was going to take that out--the medicine--to save people's lives. That medicine will go to rot if those funds are not flowing.

It is bad enough, this issue of how we are treating Americans who depend on these Federal funds--these are real programs with real people--you take that and layer on the other whammy. In Virginia, we have a disproportionate number of Federal workers. You have quite a few in West Virginia I know as well due to great former West Virginia Senators. Suddenly, in an, again, unprecedented and I believe potentially illegal move, every Federal employee is offered this chance to quit and get paid for 6 months, until September 30, if you quit.

Now, nothing like this has ever been done before. Maybe this is the way you do business in the tech world, and I used to be in the tech world, but if you manage a good company, you don't go out and basically say to all your workers: Quit.

Of course, the problem is--and I urge my Federal workers to think about this--unfortunately, this President has a record of not only sticking it to Federal workers, but he has a record of sticking it to all the business contractors he did business with by not paying the bills.

So I worry because not only is there very much a legal question of whether the President can offer this buyout offer to all these Federal workers, but I can assure you, there is nothing in the budget--there is nothing in the budget--that we still haven't negotiated for the balance of this fiscal year that has got this X-billion-dollar number next to it that is going to pay for all of these buyouts.

We know where this comes from. It comes from the fellow that is being put up to be head of the OMB, Russell Vought, who wrote Project 2025, the very project that President Trump as a candidate said: Don't worry. I didn't read it. I don't know anything about it.

In that document, it goes on at length about how the goal of Project 2025 and Mr. Vought, who wants to be head of OMB, which kind of controls the management and budget of the Federal Government, was that he wanted to traumatize Federal workers. He wanted them not to go to work. He wanted to classify them as villains--his words, not mine.

I can tell you this: For a whole lot of Federal workers, they have already hit that goal. They are traumatized. And I worry like heck.

You say: Gosh, I don't know what I should do. Maybe I will take the offer.

But before you sign that and send it back--what may be an illegal offer that is not funded, that chances are you are not going to get paid--think a little bit about it. If this becomes another kind of passing fad where there is not any enforcement and not a payment, if you sign that and send it back, chances are you have made an indication that you

are going to be the first person that gets RIFed, maybe without that 6- month severance.

I also have to wonder. You know, we are a couple thousand air traffic controllers short right now. If air traffic controllers--who, by the way, take about a year to get trained--if 5,000 of them say ``You know what, I am going to take that offer,'' what happens to air traffic safety? We don't have a fallback. We don't have a reserve of air traffic controllers to make sure that when you climb on an airplane, it is safe. Yet we have made that offer, to my understanding, to all the air traffic controllers in America: Sign here. We are going to pay you. You don't have to work for the next 6 months.

Again, how many Americans are going to be happy with the fact that we are paying folks without them working for 6 months?

What happens as well--are we going to really say to all the folks who do bird flu research and are trying to seek it out--we have a lot of poultry and turkeys and chickens both in the Shenandoah Valley and on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. One of the things people are experiencing most now is the rising cost of eggs. If suddenly all the folks who are working on bird flu quit, maybe people won't buy eggs, but I actually think it will drive up the already high cost of eggs two, three times. I thought President Trump was hired to try to bring down grocery prices.

What happens as well with the folks who are the food inspectors-- salmonella? Are you going to really feel all right about going to the grocery store and buying something if a whole lot of folks have taken this buyout offer? This is not the way to run an operation.

I think about earlier today. I asked a question of Mr. Kennedy, who wants to be head of HHS. He had told me in his earlier comments in my office that he wanted to get rid of 2,200 people in HHS. I asked him: What is your plan? Who are those 2,200?

No answer.

I know he has got strong feelings about NIH, where, candidly, we have the best researchers in the world that have taken years for us to recruit. If suddenly, based on President Trump's offer, all these NIH researchers quit because they can make two, three, four, five times as much in the private sector, but all that basic research is done at NIH, who are we going to fill those back in with? Not with as qualified people.

The list goes on and on and on.

Again, I would say this is management malpractice 101. You want to change your workforce. You want to make them more effective, more efficient. You don't try to traumatize them. But that is what has happened so far.

To Americans across the country and to my fellow Virginians, if there are ways to find more efficiency, if there are ways to logically-- business-minded--think through the efficiency of our Federal Departments and maybe save some money and maybe cut back staff in a rational way, sign me up. But don't sign me up for something that looks like it is a flimflam con job where people are being potentially suckered into sending an email back when there is no assurance that that email or that whole offer is legal in the first place. There is no money in the till. And if you go back to the case of the current President, look at his record from when he was in the private sector. Did anybody get paid 100 cents on the dollar?

So I know other Senators are going to be coming up. But I just think that, in many ways, President Trump got hired because they thought we could bring down consumer prices; they thought we could bring down grocery prices. None of this is bringing down grocery prices. None of this is bringing down consumer prices.

None of this, I think, is going to make our Federal Government more efficient or effective or, in the long term, save money. If our most talented people quit, it is going to cost more to rehire them. Anybody knows that who has been in the private sector. And we are not going to get people with the same experience.

What it feels like, and I know what I have been thinking, is one of the things that was the most troubling about the first Trump administration was this sense of chaos that people kind of got exhausted with. My goodness gracious, this is day 10--day 10--of the Trump administration. We have chaos on steroids.

What I would hope is that my Republican colleagues in Virginia, in the legislature, in statewide elected office, and I would hope my Republican colleagues in the Senate and in the House would say: Hey, better efficiency, count me in. Across-the-board freezes of programs without regard to the people's lives that are going to be changed or affected, that doesn't make sense.

State budgets--all the State legislatures are in right now doing their budgets. How do you plan with those Federal dollars that are maybe going to be suspended for 90 days or then maybe arbitrarily suspended forever? How do you plan that?

And to the Federal workforce: I tell you, the idea of what potentially is illegal--a nonfunded buyout offer with no guarantee and, if anything, the opposite being true--I would urge people to think long and hard and not take this offer, not set you up for being fired, riffed, or eliminated.

And I would appeal again: There is a better way to do all of this. And I say this as somebody who has now voted for five of President Trump's nominees for Cabinet positions. I have gotten a lot of grief from that already. From somebody who was a chief executive, I feel like a Governor or the President ought to get most of their choices but for people that I think fall outside the norm and don't have the credibility or judgment, and I will make those decisions.

I have a very important hearing tomorrow, as the former chairman of the Intelligence Committee and now the vice chairman, on Tulsi Gabbard.

But I want to reach out and work with this administration. Let's get back to lowering costs. Let's get back to driving grocery prices down. Let's not put people in fear not just for their jobs but for their lives, if you are that victim of domestic abuse, if you are that kid who needs Head Start, if you are that senior that is dependent upon Meals on Wheels.

Those programs don't last for 90 days. And if they suddenly shut down and we decide after 90 days, ``Oh, we want to start them again,'' the cost is going to be double or triple.

There is a better way to do this. So I appeal to my Republican friends. Maybe we need a gang on this to try to think about this in a more bipartisan way. But in the meantime, I implore the administration: Get your act together. Don't put out two separate statements totally contradicting each other on the same day about your intentions--two totally opposite. It just makes chaos and the stress go up, and, ultimately, later in this week, the services disappear.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, as I come to the floor today, as we all know, this is a time of incredible international instability. If you turn on the news, you are confronted with tragic images of conflict and displacement in Gaza and the West Bank; broader violence and upheaval in the Middle East, Syria, Lebanon; and the ongoing violence in Ukraine with Russia's illegal invasion.

Now, each of these crises deserve our attention. What many of us may not know is that if you look all across the world, in terms of in what conflict are there more people impacted daily--with hunger, humanitarian, or literally acts of war--where are there more deaths than Gaza, Ukraine, and the Middle East combined--that is the ongoing war in Sudan.

This is a conflict between two warring parties--no good guys here-- fueled by external actors, in which violence has caused tens of millions to flee their homes, and it has left more than half of Sudan's population of 50 million literally on the brink of starvation.

The International Rescue Committee recently affirmed that this is ``the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.'' Think about that-- bigger than Darfur 20 years ago, bigger than--some of us will remember ``We Are the World'' and the horrible tragedy of starvation in Ethiopia. This is the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.

Yet, for the most part, the Sudanese people feel forgotten by the world.

I rise today because this conflict must not be ignored and because America must lead--not back away--in times like these, when suffering and terror are at their peak.

At the heart of this crisis is the ongoing violence between the Sudanese Armed Forces, called SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, RSF, fighting for control over this country. It is estimated that the fighting and resulting food crisis have killed upwards of more than 100,000 Sudanese and left literally millions on the verge of starvation.

Both SAF and RSF have inflicted horrible tragedies and atrocities on the people of Sudan. The State Department has accused members of both SAF and RSF of war crimes, while members of the RSF and allied militias stand accused of additional crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

A recent United Nations report documents ``large-scale human rights and international humanitarian law violations'' by both sides and also, particular to RSF, horrific alleged sexual crimes, including ``widespread sexual and gender-based violence, rape, sexual slavery, abduction, and recruitment and use of children in hostilities.''

These atrocities, over nearly 2 years of conflict, have left the Sudanese population of more than 50 million in total--over 25 million of those in desperate need of food assistance. Health and sanitation conditions have contributed to spiraling outbreaks of cholera, malaria, dengue fever, and other diseases.

Our Ambassador to the United Nations said in recent months that this conflict and resulting conditions place millions of Sudanese ``on the verge of a generational famine.'' Due to these conditions, more than 14 million Sudanese have been forced to flee their homes, with large numbers actually seeking refuge in neighboring countries, which, again, risks broader destabilization.

I think one of the newest countries in the world--very poor--is South Sudan. If you are fleeing to South Sudan, Chad, or Ethiopia because Sudan is in such challenging states, that could lead to destabilization across all of east Africa.

And as much as we cite these statistics, the real truth is we don't really know because this civil war has, for the most part, completely excluded all outside media.

From what I have learned over the last year--and there are other Members of this body who have spoken on this issue--one thing is clear to me: This is a catastrophe. First and foremost, the Sudanese need humanitarian aid; and aid workers, humanitarian actors, and local Sudanese volunteers need safe access to respond. But despite public promises to the contrary, both SAF and the RSF have consistently erected physical and bureaucratic barriers to deny, delay, and otherwise hinder humanitarian aid from reaching those displaced civilians, even, at times, targeting and literally killing aid workers.

As we mark the human tragedies of this conflict, we must also recognize the conflict's political tragedy. The outbreak of this violence a couple of years ago came just after the historic pro- democracy protests that swept parts of Sudan in 2019, when literally hundreds of civic, professional, and political organizations came to call for an end and actually got rid of then-President Omar al-Bashir's government. That government had lasted since 1989--for 30 years--and it had, again, a historic record of depriving citizens and trampling on human rights.

So what happened was these groups came together and ousted Bashir with the promise of a democracy. Yet both sides, after a year or so of some back and forth, instead started this warring civil war that, rather than bring democratic reform, has again brought unprecedented levels of violence, brutality, and depravation.

Now, the Biden administration has helped. They are currently the largest donor of humanitarian aid and just today--just today--added $200 million more to that humanitarian aid. The Biden administration-- again, through the Special Envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello--a former Congressman from Virginia, I might add--has leveraged sanctions to pressure actors fueling the conflict, and that has resulted in increased humanitarian access into the country and has particularly provided critical assistance to local responders, including the Sudanese Emergency Response Rooms, which are led by community members in Sudan who, oftentimes at risk of their own lives, have been truly incredible on the ground. They actually were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet, despite this aid, the violence continues to escalate, not deescalate; and starvation, disease, and death are increasing, not decreasing. So we can't just look at the current conditions and say anything other than the following: that we and, frankly, the world have come up short on this conflict. The vacuum created by the lack of a coordinated international response has been filled by a considerable degree of outside influence, with foreign governments and foreign entities, frankly, backing proxies on both sides.

Russia, always willing to spread mischief, is actually fueling parts of warring factions on both sides. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt--in many ways our allies--they have supported humanitarian aid; but at the same time, they have almost created a proxy battle with UAE supporting the RSF and, oftentimes, Saudi Arabia and Egypt supporting SAF, which really needs to be called out.

Foreign business entities are profiting--literally billions and billions of dollars--from this conflict.

This week, I sent a letter to President Biden, along with Senator Risch and other bipartisan colleagues, urging the administration to take additional steps to ensure that humanitarian aid continues to flow and that the actual external parties who are fueling the conflict be held accountable, including, in particular, the administration to sanction business entities profiting from the illegal and illicit smuggling of Sudanese gold.

Many of us remember the conflicts in central Africa years ago with blood diamonds. In many ways in size and scale, the profiting coming from mining, extraction, and then smuggling of Sudanese gold dwarfs those other activities. The truth is, Sudan is one of Africa's largest gold producers and has a gold industry worth, literally, billions of dollars. And while both SAF and RSF control some of the mines, the RSF controls the vast majority. And over the past decade, its leadership has, frankly, funded a lot of itself by taking that gold and illegally smuggling it to then raise money for arms, for propaganda, and to fund their efforts.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has identified gold operations as ``a vital source of revenue . . . for the RSF,'' and as has been documented by the United Nations, these revenues go directly into fueling this conflict.

And while the true scale of this whole illicit gold network is obscured, the truth is, most of this gold is ending up in companies in the UAE. Reports have further linked not only this gold going to the UAE, but also, the notorious Russia Wagner group has been skimming off part of this and using these funds to support conflict from Wagner group not only in other proxy wars in Africa but also back to help Russia in Ukraine.

Finally, the Treasury Department has taken steps in recent months to designate certain commercial entities in the UAE for sanctions, but more can and must be done to disrupt these revenue streams. We must stop all of the revenue that is going to funding, again, the conflict where more people are displaced and die every day than in Gaza and Ukraine combined.

Through tools like the Global Magnitsky Act and Executive orders already in the books, the administration can and must hold to account not only the warring parties, but also these external actors who are aiding and abetting this conflict. And we must stop these foreign entities, some who are our allies, from arming these warring parties.

As I mentioned before, there are detailed and well-reported allegations from news organizations and from our intelligence community about foreign weapons and other support into the hands of both RSF and SAF. Media reports point to alleged involvement, as I mentioned, from many countries--Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt--into arms in this region.

And while there are decades-old arms embargoes that impact the Darfur region of Sudan, this new conflict is at a new scale and takes in wide swaths of the country that weren't in conflict in Darfur.

It is time for the United States, alongside its allies and partners, to urge the U.N. Security Council to expand the existing Darfur embargo across all of Sudan. We must make clear to all countries around the world that any foreign government or entity that is providing support for either side of this civil war, that allows it to continue to drag on--to have this massive, worst humanitarian crisis ever--those entities must be held accountable.

And beyond foreign actors ending support to warring parties, it is incumbent on all of these countries--all of these countries--many of which we have very close relationships with, to work towards a ceasefire and a civilian government in Sudan. There is also more that can actually be done here at home.

Last spring, my colleague Senator Kaine and I called on the Biden administration to issue a new temporary protective status--what we call TPS--for certain Sudanese individuals living in the United States who are unable to return to their country due to this conflict. I was pleased, in August of last year, that the administration took that step, allowing those individuals not to go back to this worst conflict in the world.

The problem is, that designation runs out next spring. And I call on the administration to extend that designation before they leave office.

One of the things that we are proud of in Virginia is that we are home to a large Sudanese diaspora. I am lucky enough to have part of that Sudanese diaspora--I am proud to have--work on my staff, one of my rising legislative assistant stars. I have heard from those members of that community on a regular basis that we have to do more.

In fact, the Sudanese people didn't ask for this war. They threw out a dictator of 30 years and said we ought to bring in a democracy. The rest of the world focused a little bit of attention, but, when it got messy, they turned away.

We need a government in Sudan that reflects the struggle that the young people and civil society groups brought in 2019 and not have that promise sniffed out.

We find ourselves about a month away from a new administration in Washington. I have worked and pledge to work with the incoming Trump administration where I can. I make the appeal right now. But Sudan should be one of those areas. We have to make sure that we show American leadership in this crisis.

The truth is, if we could actually resolve this major conflict in Africa, where we show that we care about Africans killing Africans-- supported by outside forces that we call our allies in certain ways--we can do remarkable things in terms of restoring America's image as a protector of democracy and the aspirations of people all over the world.

We have to also make sure that all of the international partners continue to work to bring humanitarian assistance and put their pressure, as well, on the funders and suppliers of the arms that go into this conflict.

There are more things the administration can do. The unfortunate truth is this probably won't be resolved by January 20. One of the things that was in the NDAA, that I know the President will sign, will be a more permanent status for the Special Envoy for Sudan. It is my hope that the Trump administration will choose someone of similar caliber to Tom Perriello to continue this critically important role.

Again, I want to thank friends like the incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, who partnered with this. This is a bipartisan issue. We can't let it lie fallow any longer. We can't forget, when we turn on these images and we see Gaza, Ukraine, Lebanon and Syria, that there is something actually worse happening in Africa that we could help bring a conclusion to. I know we can do more. I pray we will do more.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, this explanation reflects the status of negotiations and disposition of issues reached between the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025.

The explanation shall have the same effect with respect to the implementation of this Act as if it were a joint explanatory statement of a conference committee.

I ask unanimous consent that the explanatory statement for the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of Senator Kaine's request for unanimous consent for the Senate to pass the Saving the Civil Service Act. It is a critical bill that I hope all my colleagues would agree needs to be enshrined into law.

One of the great strengths of our democracy is that we have an independent, merit-based civil service. Back in the 19th century, we saw what happens when you had a Federal workforce that was made up of a system of spoils and political patronage. So the Congress, back in 1883, said: We ought to put in place an independent civil service.

That has been the law of the land for the last 150 years. Virtually every other industrial nation in the world has modeled their independent workforce after the American model.

We have 2 million Federal employees across the country. Virginia has 147,000. There are close to that many in Maryland and in the District, but they are all over. Senator Hirono mentioned earlier Hawaii has some of the highest concentration.

Senator Kaine's bill, which we are all proud to be cosponsoring, would simply say: Let's not break that system.

The idea--and the incoming President has said he wants this--to make and get rid of a merit-based civil service is, in my mind, beyond comprehension. Do you really want that nurse at the VA hospital, that the first criteria we are looking for is who did she vote for as opposed to whether she knows nursing; or that air traffic controller that says: Well, I may have been politically active for an unpopular candidate, so I am going to get fired? Or, more likely, one of the things that we have seen that has been a strength of our system: The independent economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Presidents of each party get mad when their numbers come out each month because those numbers are independently verified. Do you want to fire all those folks and put in political loyalists?

The rest of the world would run from that, and it would, frankly, undermine the reserved nature of the U.S. dollar as the currency of the backbone of the world, if we are cooking the books on our economic numbers.

There are a host of other examples that we could go almost category by category. I can tell you, the vast majority of Federal workers whom I interact with, most of them could actually have done better in the private sector. They do this work because of that sense of public service.

And if you get rid of a merit-based system and do it all for political patronage, who is going to actually join that kind of government on a going-forward basis?

This would undermine our economy, undermine our security, and obviously undermine the ability of the American people to get a fair administration of government services.

With that, I am going to yield to my good friend, the Senator from Maryland Senator Van Hollen.

Mr. President, I actually rise to the floor to follow, I think, one of the Democratic leaders, my dear friend from Illinois, to probably make pretty similar comments about some of our retiring Members. And, you know, the work we do in this body sometimes is frustrating. Sometimes, it is inefficient. It is critically important.

But one of the things that makes it worthwhile is the relationships and friendships that we develop with colleagues all across the political spectrum, from both sides of the aisle. And I am sure I am going to echo some of the comments that have already been made by the senior Senator from Illinois. So let me talk about some of these comments. I want to highlight their accomplishments one by one.

So let's take a quick trip across the country and start in Big Sky Country, in Montana, where my friend Jon Tester oftentimes started his day as early as 2:45 a.m., just to make sure he would be able to get back to DC in time for votes.

Now, on many dark, freezing Montana mornings, he took an hours-long drive and then a plane and then another plane to get to the Senate to fight for Montanans and veterans across the country. Most times, it took 11 to 12 hours. And as the Presiding Officer knows, that was only the case when it wasn't snowing.

But week in and week out, he did it, and he fought hard for Montanans in the Senate. And then reversed that same long commute at the end of the week to make it back to the farm with his wife Sharla.

And amongst all of it, I am not sure if there is anyone else in this body who still is operating as a citizen legislator and literally having another full-time job trying to farm his ranch in Montana.

I have been guilty, as I said the other day on the floor, of sometimes complaining about this job. I have to always take a deep breath and realize I am a guy who lives 20 minutes away and was lucky enough to come into the job with some financial resources--not totally dissimilar from the Presiding Officer.

When I think, though, about sacrifice, when I think of people who are here for all the right reasons--no matter how hard it is, no matter how long it takes--I think, first and foremost of my friend Jon Tester.

When I think of public servants--and I have had people ask me this, not dozens of times but hundreds of times: Whom do you most respect? How do you put up with this? All of the vagaries in this job--I always tell them the story about Jon Tester. He has done it. He is a man who has done it all to serve the people around him--a former band teacher; long before it was cool, an organic farmer; and an incredibly effective Senator. Jon has lived a life of service and devotion to the country, all while having fewer fingers than many of us.

He helped us negotiate the infrastructure law. He single-handedly led the passage of the PACT Act, one of the most significant expansions of benefits to veterans ever. He did it all without complaint, without asking for much attention, and with enough time to travel home 12 hours at the end of the week, as I said, to be with family and continuing to produce food that feeds America.

Jon is the consummate public servant. He is a phenomenal farmer and friend. And he will be deeply missed here in the Senate.

I can't think of anyone--as we think about the political activities these days, we often talk about, you know, who is authentic or not, the most outrageous criticism of Jon Tester never included any sense that he wasn't a real Montanan, that he wasn't authentic. And he never strayed from what brought him here in the first place.

Mr. President, now, let's move slightly down from Montana to Utah, where the Senate is again losing an incredibly principled leader in Mitt Romney. In his 6 years in the Senate, when Mitt Romney gave his farewell speech, again, he acknowledged he is still just a freshman Senator.

Mitt led with an unshakable, tireless adherence to his values. It is not too hard to stand up for what you know is right if you agree with the rest of your team. But if you are bucking your party--and I have done that more than once--it requires tremendous bravery and sometimes enduring a deeply loneliness and isolation.

Even when it was hard, even when it was lonely, even when he endured harsh critique, Mitt never backed down from his principles--and I say this with deep admiration, even for the times when I disagreed with him. And there were many.

We worked closely together on all of the bipartisan ``gangs''--the effort to bring about the final COVID package under then-President Trump, the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS bill, the notion of the Electoral Count Act. Time and again, Mitt was right there fighting for his values, but also realizing you have got to get to ``yes'' if you are actually going to make things happen.

The infrastructure bill, in particular, is an incredible achievement that is going to bring millions of homes in Utah to the broadband they deserve, the kind of road, rail, and other services that are essential. And during every step of these negotiations, as I said before, Mitt never wavered from his strong conservative beliefs.

He can read a balance sheet. He is part of a very small minority--I will include the Presiding Officer, probably less than double digits in this Senate--who can read a balance sheet. I count myself as one of those. He knows when numbers don't add up. And he will fight to make it right.

Our Nation is stronger because of his smart, principled leadership. And, again, while I understand that he and Ann have got other things to do going forward, he will still be involved in our community. We are going to miss him here in the Senate.

Mr. President, I am going to go a little bit further south, to Mitt's southern neighbor, Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Senator Sinema is also departing the Senate after a storied 6 years.

Kyrsten also worked together on all of these bipartisan efforts, particularly the infrastructure bill, where she and her friend Rob Portman were the leaders of our group and on so many other notable compromises--yes, compromises--over time in Washington. Kyrsten was a former social worker, an incredibly fast runner, and a tireless independent advocate for Arizonans. Senator Sinema always made a splash and often, at the end of the day, won her battles.

But for all the ink spilled on Kyrsten, what I think a lot of people failed to see is her incredible ability to talk and build relationships with everyone. There have been so many times--not just on the big bills, candidly not just at the behest of Democratic leadership, but candidly on the behest of some of our Republican friends, to say this Senator is being particularly challenging on this bill or on this issue. I think there was probably no one who got sent into those kind of negotiations or ``Can you work to get this Senator or that Senator to release their hold?''

She has worked with folks all across the political spectrum. And when talks broke down, as they often do in these negotiations, she had an incredible ability to keep reaching out and engaging with everyone and anyone. I will deeply miss her ability to reach across the aisle and get things done for Arizonans.

Mr. President, now, while we are on the topic of reaching across the aisle, I would be remiss if I didn't speak on the incredible career of my great friend Joe Manchin and maybe the only person I can say that I had a direct role in personally bringing to the Senate.

Joe and Gayle and Lisa and I have been friends since we were Governors together. And I remember how when Senator Byrd had passed, to fill the vacancy and he thought about running, I encouraged him, like, come on up, Joe; we can get things done. And I knew, because of his incredible position of putting points on the board for West Virginians and his ability to stick to his guns, that he would get things done.

And much like Mitt, Joe is also a tireless defender of what he believes in. Folks like to speculate how he would vote or what he would do. But I never thought it was all that hard to figure out what Joe Manchin was going to vote for or where he was going to come down. All you had to do was listen to what he said. And if he thought it was in the best interest of the folks in West Virginia, he would be for it, no matter how much grief he took. It was always as simple as that.

You know, it was a bit of a common refrain in this town for a while, the joke was Joe was one of the most powerful people in America. You know, it worked as a joke because it actually had a lot of truth to it. Bill after bill, Joe got a lot done on the infrastructure law and all these bipartisan deals. I remember his relentless fight for making sure that America would stand up and keep the promise made by Harry Truman to our miners in terms of their pensions. I was very proud of being one of his wingmen on that.

But what he is going to be, I think, at the end of the day, remembered for--and boy, did he get a lot of grief on this as well--was passing one of the most seismic energy laws in our country's history. Getting that bill done is not only about our energy in our country, but he literally helped move the rest of the world toward a cleaner, carbon-free environment.

Yes, he believes that there is going to be a transition. Yes, he believes you can't get rid of some of our existing sources. But without the IRA, the fundamental movement that is already going to generate a trillion dollars of activity wouldn't have happened, the Inflation Reduction Act. And, boy, he paid a price for this, in making sure that America becomes energy independent and moves to be more carbon-free and at the same time also finally put in place an ability to start negotiating drug prices. That law would not be law without Joe Manchin.

I believe it is a transformative, once-in-a-century piece of legislation. It is saving money for seniors in West Virginia and for seniors across the country, and it all was due to Joe Manchin. I could go bill after bill. And Lord knows, there have been times I have disagreed with him.

And I hope, Joe Manchin, after all this, you will realize that, coming here to this Senate, you did make things happen; you got things done. And our country and West Virginia are better for it.

Mr. President, I will be brief, but I just want to add a word.

A lot of us in this body sometimes complain about this job, whether it is the schedule or whether it is the lack of resources, the amount of time. And what has always struck me about Jon Tester--I mean, a lot of us in this business, we wonder about authenticity. So there isn't any Senator, either side of the aisle, who is more authentic and more true to who he has been and will be and will always be than Jon Tester.

The fact that we have also--to echo what Cory said, I have not invaded Dylan's house, but I have invaded Jon and Sharla's house a number of times. And whenever I would think about the challenges of this job, bitch and moan, I always came back--and I talked to other Senators on this; I have talked to many folks around the country. When I think about somebody who defines public service in the 21st century, there is one person that comes to mind--somebody who was a teacher, a musician, a farmer; somebody who had to get up at 3 o'clock in the morning to drive a couple hours to get on not one plane but two, to shlep back here for sometimes a week of nothing votes and then climb back on that flight to go back and still maintain that farm--I can't say that, as a guy who lives 20 minutes away. I can't say that in terms of somebody who doesn't have the kind of personal financial resources but never raised a word of complaint through his years of service.

So echoing what others said and will continue to say, any time I doubt my commitment or any of our commitments, I ask you all: Think who defines public service. I think that person is Jon Tester.

I yield the floor.

(Applause.)

Mr. President, I want to make sure we give a little bit of the Democratic response.

I had the opportunity to get to know Joe and Gayle--Lisa and I did-- when he was a Governor. And Joe gave this incredibly moving, important speech today. He left out one small part, because when he was making the decision to leave--Gayle, as you know, he has described it many times as the best job ever--he called me. And I said: Joe, come here, and we can do a whole lot of things.

And I say to my Republican colleagues, he was that independent streak from his first caucus meeting. We had our caucus lunch. You know, he did not adhere to the ``freshman should be seen but not speak.'' So he got up, early on in the lunch, and was already complaining about the job. He sat down, and, I swear to goodness--and, Gayle, we have talked about this--at the end of the lunch, he got up for a second time because he wanted to remind us that when he was Governor of the great State of West Virginia, he

had two airplanes, a helicopter, and control of the whole National Guard, and now he is reduced to a junior Senator.

Over the years, he has reminded me often of that call. As people talked, he sometimes would complain about the process or what was happening this week or that week on the floor. And as has been echoed by everyone else, one of the things that Joe always stood for and has always been about is this notion that we ought to reason together. We have been in more groups or gangs--or whatever description you want to have of a bipartisan association--whenever that has happened, in his 14 years in the Senate, he has been involved in every one of them.

And the list of accomplishments that you laid out and your colleagues--our friends from the Republican side--laid out, that is a remarkable body of work, and it is a tribute not only to your staff and your family. It is also a tribute to the great people of West Virginia. And, quite honestly, this country is better because of your bipartisan work in the U.S. Senate.

And I join with all who love you and your family. We know you are not going far. We look forward to many times of bringing us together in the future.

And I think, at some point, you owe it to the body to acknowledge that you are actually glad you made that change to come to this body. West Virginia is better for it. The country is better for it. And I know it has been a challenge at times for the family, but, at the end of the day, I know they are incredibly proud of the great work you have done.

I yield the floor.

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

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my friends from North Carolina, Senator Budd and Senator Tillis.

Let me acknowledge in front of you that you guys got hit the hardest, but we got hit as well in southwest Virginia, and we have got communities that without this relief are going to die.

I want to echo what both of my colleagues have said in that this RELIEF Act is bipartisan. It is what we do as a matter of course when an entity like the SBA runs out of money. Since October 15, 34,000 businesses across the country have applied for SBA relief. Many of them have gotten approved, but they get a response that says: We will give you money when Congress does its job. This is done as a matter of course, and, frankly, the SBA screwed up a little bit on not getting better numbers before we broke before the election.

Let me take one moment and tell you about a community in particular in southwest Virginia.

Damascus, VA, was an old town. Basically, its economy had disappeared. It came back because there is something called the Creeper Trail, with biking and hiking. I bike this trail.

And, Senator Tillis, parts of that trail are gone now. We have 34 road trestles, and 18 of them are damaged or gone. We have got part of our road that gets to the top of the mountain that is gone as well. I went to Damascus, and I went to 10 jurisdictions in southwest Virginia, but in this little town, every business and home was affected. One guy had three businesses--two restaurants and a bed and breakfast. He paid out of his pocket to try to keep his workers on, even though it will be months before anything happens, even if the money were there.

We owe it to the folks in Damascus, across southwest Virginia, in North Carolina, and across all of the jurisdictions in our country that have been hard hit to do our job. Just like the folks in western North Carolina, the folks in southwest Virginia are proud, and they have an enormous amount of self-help. But this kind of assistance, whether it is FEMA dollars or SBA loans, is not charity; it is their right as Americans. It is what we pay our taxes for. Instead, thousands of Virginians who have asked for that right to apply for this loan have gotten a note, saying: We can't send you the money until Congress does its job.

We have a chance today for unanimous consent to take this bipartisan piece of legislation, to pass it through, and get those businesses the funds they deserve.

I thank my colleague.

I yield back to the senior Senator from North Carolina.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I just want to say, I am prepared to object as well.

And is it not the case, even when it comes to SBA--frankly, if SBA had gotten their act together a little earlier and had a better accounting so we knew how much we needed to refill the pot, we might not have been here.

But this is--if we want to change the law about how the SBA operates and disaster relief, that is a fair debate, and I will take on anyone in this Chamber. In the meantime, whether it is in your community or mine, people are sitting there with a piece of paper that says: You will get your loan, you have been approved, once Congress does its job.

Would not your bill, my bill, our bipartisan bill, if it had been able to go through today, wouldn't those folks in North Carolina, Virginia, and across our country who have been hit be one step closer-- those small businesses--to getting the SBA loans that they have earned, deserved, and should be funded?

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of my staff, Payton Thomas, during the pendency of the 118th Congress.