Floor Statements

Mr. President, on behalf of myself and Mr. Hagerty, I ask unanimous consent that the following remarks be printed in the Congressional Record to honor Ms. Ruth Skidmore of Oak Ridge,

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns and fellows in my office be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress: Jackson Hoppe, David Park, Martin Aleman, and Srdjan Simunovic.

Madam President, last evening, I had the opportunity to get on the phone in a telephone townhall with citizens from Davidson and Shelby Counties in Tennessee, and crime was the No. 1 issue that people were talking about. And one of the points that came up several times was, Why is it that some of our colleagues across the aisle have stuck with this prepackaged, zero consequences crime narrative that they are still trying to sell to the American people?

Crime is an issue. And Tennesseans aren't buying the message. I don't think the American people are buying it because they are living with the real-world consequences of the Democrats' refusal to work to get crime under control.

Now, a few days ago, I was watching the news, and I could not believe what I was seeing. Young people were ransacking a convenience store. They were doing this in full view of the cameras, continuing to talk to one another, just going through ransacking that store.

Now, I know I would like to say that was an isolated incident, but we all know that this is not an isolated incident. What is happening is, this has become a trend in many of our cities. The numbers aren't working in our favor when we talk about this trend, whether you are talking about theft or vandalism or something much worse.

Here are some stats. Since 2019, homicide rates in our largest cities are up 50 percent. That is since 2019. Aggravated assaults are up 36 percent. Last year, 108,000 Americans died of a drug overdose; 4,000 of those were Tennesseans.

Now, we can continue to engage in a cable news proxy war or we can do something about this. We, as lawmakers, cannot control what the pundits and the activists say, but we can do something to help the millions of Americans who have become or are at risk of becoming victims of violence.

Back home in Tennessee, the sheriffs and other local officials whom I talk to as I have done my 95-county tour, visiting with every county, these sheriffs, these local officials, parents, principals--they are all telling me exactly why they are struggling to get this crimewave under control. Go talk to a police chief or a captain or go talk to a sheriff or a deputy, and they will tell you: lack of manpower, lack of funding, and the Democrats' soft-on-crime agenda.

We can help with the first two things right now without spending an additional dime of taxpayer money. That lack of manpower, that lack of funding--yes, this is something that we could take action on today if we chose to.

This month, Senator Hagerty and I filed a bill called the Restoring Law and Order Act that would establish a grant program to help State, local, and Tribal law enforcement officials do the work that obviously our President and the Democrats have chosen not to do.

First and foremost, here is what the bill would do. Our local law enforcement officers would be able to use these grants to hire more officers and to train them to deal with violent criminals. They will also be able to pull in more resources to combat interstate child trafficking between the open border and the ease with which criminals are using technology to target kids. This was something we could not afford to leave out of the Restoring Law and Order Act.

These grants would help communities prioritize tough sentencing for repeat offenders and use responsible bail practices and pretrial detention to keep dangerous offenders behind bars. If housing is a problem, they will be able to address it. If food items are a problem, then there would be a way to address that.

We are also going to make these grants available to departments that need help targeting drug crime and getting fentanyl off the streets. Sheriffs in Tennessee tell me that around 80 percent of the drugs that they are seizing--80 percent--contain fentanyl, which means there are a lot of people out there who are ingesting fentanyl and dying without ever knowing that they were taking something laced with fentanyl. This is also putting law enforcement at considerable risk. At least one Tennessee officer is lucky to be alive after accidentally coming into contact with fentanyl.

Last but not least, we are going to encourage law enforcement to make use of these grants to clear the investigatory backlog and get evidence processed as quickly as possible.

So much of our focus has been on urban areas because cities like Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Memphis are struggling when it comes to controlling homicides, carjackings, and other crimes that are really frightening to people, but rural areas of my State are also seeing unprecedented levels of crime and drug overdose. So to help these communities rise to the challenge, this bill commits no less than 25 percent of its total grant allotment to rural and depressed counties.

Now, as I said, this grant program won't spend an additional dime of taxpayer money. The big IRS payday my Democratic colleagues snuck into the so-called Inflation Reduction Act will be put to better use. Here is how you do it. Instead of using that money to hire more bureaucrats to attack small businesses and independent operators, we are going to use it to keep the communities where they work safe from violent criminals.

We also found that Joe Biden and the Democrats have left a lot of their so-called emergency COVID funding lying around, so we are going to put those funds toward hiring more officers and forensic examiners and clearing the rape kit backlogs. Tennesseans are spending $616 more per month now than they were last year just to keep themselves fed and their cars running. They can't afford to maintain a slush fund for far- left priorities when that money could be put to use actually helping clean up our streets, helping keep our communities safe, and helping to apprehend drug dealers and keep them in jail. That is where these dollars should be used.

The final element of this bill would help us get to the root causes of the rape kit backlogs. In 2021, the U.S. Government spent $251,975,000 through six separate programs to help law enforcement conduct rape and sexual assault investigations. Here is that breakdown. And yes, indeed, Mr. President, $251 million is a lot of money--you are right. More than $24 million was spent on advocacy programs; almost $34 million to train forensic examiners and their staff to collect and preserve DNA evidence, analyze it, and present it in the courtroom; $4 million to train and provide resources to medical personnel who treat victims of sexual assault; almost $90 million to get first responders and forensic testing capabilities in rural areas up on par with urban areas; and $158 million just to address the backlog.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested, and still it seems we cannot get these rape kits processed. Sometimes it takes a full year to get these results.

I want to use one grant program as a case study to demonstrate the problem that we are seeing. An audit of the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative found that between 2015 and 2021, we sent $266 million to 75 grantees in 40 States and DC to process these kits, to process and obtain this evidence. In that time, they only managed to clear a little over half of a 136,000-kit backlog.

Now, bear in mind, these kits are the kits that contain the DNA evidence of violent offenders. These are individuals who have committed violent sexual assaults. Every one of these should be processed as a rush order--but no. From 2015 to 2021, with $266 million being sent to 75 grantees in 40 different States and the District of Columbia, they managed to clear a little over half of a 136,000-case backlog. So you still have tens of thousands of kits that are gathering dust, and that is just the ones in the custody of grantees from one single program.

This represents over 50,000 violations of trust and bodily autonomy, 50,000 worst night of an innocent man or woman's life, and 50,000 times the scum of the Earth thought they committed a crime and they got away with it, but they also represent 50,000 opportunities for us to take that rapist or that violent offender and put them in jail for the rest of their life.

The Restoring Law and Order Act will give the GAO a year to conduct a study and prepare a report to explain why we haven't been able to clear the backlog. Why is it we cannot get these kits processed? They are going to look

for deficiencies in processing and also let us know where and to what extent rape kits aren't available at all.

This month, Tennesseans--especially the people of Memphis--have been stuck in a vicious cycle of grieving and asking: What more could have been done to spare the victims of two of the most notorious killers in recent memory?

We already know that at least one brutal murder could have been prevented if the crime lab had been able to reduce their processing time for rape kits. Three more may have been prevented if the people responsible for keeping criminals in jail had done their jobs and forced a repeat violent offender to serve out a full sentence. That didn't happen. Four innocent people in Memphis are dead.

The community is heartbroken, and they are grieving. Last night, on our telephone townhall, they talked a lot about this. They talked about how it has affected them and their community.

Now, the left has spent 2 years screaming at Congress to defund the police, pull law enforcement out of neighborhoods, and eliminate consequences for violent behavior, and it is just plain frightening to see so many of my colleagues continue to go along with that rhetoric.

Tennesseans agree, and I think the American people agree also. They don't want an unfair system. They don't want innocent people to be behind bars. They want a system that works. They are tired of hearing that they are the problem--at least according to the Democrats' zero- consequences narrative. That narrative has turned criminals into victims and innocent people into villains and has left true victims wondering who was there for them. There is nothing just or equitable about that.

I would ask my Democratic colleagues to abandon the echo chamber and get on the phone. Go see and visit and listen to and hear from your sheriffs and your mayors and other law enforcement officials back home. Listen to what they have to say. They need your help.

Senator Hagerty and I would love to have their help and support in passing the Restoring Law and Order Act. We need to move this legislation. We need to vote on it now before the crimewave gets even worse.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

As I have talked on this floor through the past few years, I have talked about visiting each of the 95 counties in our great State of Tennessee every year. And when I am there, I spend much of the time talking with local leaders, small business owners, families, citizens who call Tennessee home. And I have seen firsthand what the Biden agenda has done to them over these past 2 years.

The out-of-control spending that started almost immediately after Democrats took power and the inflation it caused has made life too expensive to afford for many individuals. The open border policy that did indeed start on day 1 of this administration overwhelmed Border Patrol and turned every Tennessee town, just like towns all across this country, into a border town.

The Democrats' obsession with environmental radicalism and the Green New Deal destroyed thousands of jobs, and as a bonus, this has sent gas and energy prices soaring.

They ignored our broken-down supply chains, and now economic development in rural and depressed areas has stalled out. I wish I could chalk all this up to gross incompetence, but after 2 years, I know and Tennesseans know there is a lot more to that story. Joe Biden and the Democrats know what they are doing. They know it is wrong, and they are doing it anyway.

One of the most frightening consequences of Joe Biden's reckless abuse of power is the rise in violent crime. The left's ``defund the police'' movement gained traction before Biden and his Democratic allies took power here in Washington, DC, but it was their decision to let it fester and undermine local law enforcement.

Instead of abiding by their duty to keep Americans safe, they have made heroes out of criminals and turned police officers into villains.

The results have been disastrous. Compared to mid-2019, America's largest cities have seen a 50-percent increase in homicides and a 36- percent increase in aggravated assaults.

Cities that caved to the radical left's demands to gut the police department have seen crime rates rise even higher.

The people of Memphis have had a front-row seat to this violence. I would implore my colleagues to listen to them, rather than to the anti- police activists making their phones ring, because they--they--are the ones who are paying the price for this little experiment.

Ask them how they felt as they watched a shooting spree play out live on social media. I won't use the perpetrator's name here on the floor of the Senate, but he is accused of murdering three people, wounding three others, and committing not one but two carjackings.

Ask them how they felt when they found out what happened to the wife,

mother, and teacher who never came back from her morning run. A monster with a long criminal record--again, whose name I will not use here--is charged with her brutal abduction and murder. And then ask them how they would feel about living in a world without law enforcement officers.

There are thousands of examples, unfortunately, that I could list, but the point is that the Democrats and their reckless anti-cop, anti- law enforcement agenda destroyed the concept of law and order in this country to service a narrative about how evil America is, but in the end, all they did was to empower the real evildoers.

Joe Biden and the Democrats have squandered their time in power, wasting our money and throwing cops under the bus, and now, just as they have with every other disastrous choice they have made, they are determined to, unfortunately, ignore the consequences.

The Democrats did not take power with a mandate to defund the police, but if they listened to the American people, they would have known we do have a mandate to undo the damage that caused and support ``Back the Blue'' and make our communities safe again.

Last week, Senator Hagerty and I introduced the Restoring Law and Order Act, and I am hopeful that my Democratic colleagues will see reason and help us move this through Congress and to the President's desk as soon as possible.

The bill addresses two key priorities we should all share: One, hiring more police officers with experience handling violent crime and, two, cutting down the processing time that it is taking for processing rape kits.

Sheriffs in Tennessee have confirmed for me, time and again, that manpower is, indeed, a problem. They don't have enough people to keep up with the crimewave that we are seeing. We need to change that.

We are also going to give them the resources they need to target drug crime, clean all that cartel fentanyl off the streets, and keep criminals locked up behind bars.

I want to devote the time I have left to the issue of the rape kit backlog because this is something that we have talked about for years but haven't been able to get to the bottom of, even with the help of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Simply throwing money at the problem is no longer enough. I want to use one program as an example of why we know this is the case. Between 2015 and 2021, $266 million in grants has flowed out the door to 40 States and the District of Columbia as part of the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.

These jurisdictions have identified about 136,000 unsubmitted kits and tested more than 81,000 of them. Let that number sink in. As I said, they have identified 136,000 kits. They have tested more than 81,000 of them.

This has led to 13,000 CODIS hits, 189 convictions, and 795 guilty pleas. Good results but not good enough. Those grantees still have 50,000 kits gathering dust on the shelves of their evidence lockers-- 50,000--50,000 kits, aggravated assaults, rapes, incidences reported, but they have not been processed even yet.

So what is going on here? That is a question that is truly in need of an answer, and this administration, the Democrats, all of us in this Chamber, owe it to the women in this country to help local law enforcement officers get an answer.

Why are these kits not being processed in a timely manner? As I said, we have put hundreds of millions of dollars into this. We have made certain kits are there. We have money that has been put forward to push these through the system, but they are languishing. We are not getting those results in a timely manner in order to lock up violent criminals.

The Restoring Law and Order Act will direct some funds to State and local agencies to specifically address the backlog. It also will require the GAO to study the availability of and deficiencies in processing rape kits.

Congress has let this go on long enough. When I speak to women at home in Tennessee, they are terrified about how far this has been willing to let go. This President's anti-justice agenda has destroyed trust in our system.

It is astonishing to me that in 2022, we are still having to debate the merits--the merits--of maintaining law and order, especially considering we can see the consequences of undermining it live and on camera every single night.

Turn on the local news here in DC, you will get a taste of what it looks like when local leadership turns their backs on victims and empowers criminals.

The Restoring Law and Order Act is an important bill that the Senate should pass as soon as possible, but that is just one step. If you listen to the outcry from Memphis or L.A. or New York and other cities around the country and especially on the border, it is so clear this President and the Democrats have a mandate from the American people to fight crime, to empower law enforcement, and to seek justice for victims of violence.

This means embracing a simple mantra: If you do the crime, you have to pay the time. It also means hiring and electing tough prosecutors and district attorneys and eliminating soft-on-crime policies that allow violent offenders to roam free.

If the powers that be had been a little tougher on the violent criminal who live-streamed his shooting spree, the streets of Memphis would have been a little bit safer. He only served 11 months of a previous 3-year sentence for aggravated assault. But they let him out early, and now three individuals have lost their lives. If they had really taken their time with the other criminal I mentioned just a few moments ago, who had a past record of rape and aggravated assault, they may not have let him out of prison before his 24-year sentence was up. If the crime lab had secured the resources to clear their rape kit backlog, they may have discovered the year-old kit containing his DNA and stopped his release. The monster would still be in jail; a wife and mother would still be alive; and one less family would be in mourning.

The time for politicizing this has come to an end. Tennesseans aren't worried about the midterms. They are not worried about a legislative timeline. What matters to them is restoring law and order.

I would venture to guess that this President's administration and my Democratic colleagues probably know this, and if they block this bill, if they stand between victims of violent crime and the justice they deserve, they do so with the knowledge that more people will die; more violent offenders will walk free; and more families will suffer.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on November 11, 2001--exactly 2 months after the September 11 attacks--President Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly about the universal threat of terrorism.

I want to share just a few lines from that speech:

The suffering of September the 11th was inflicted on people

of many faiths and many nations. All of the victims,

including Muslims, were killed with equal indifference and

equal satisfaction by the terrorist leaders.

Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America,

there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will

remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember

every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire

and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children.

And the people of my country will remember those who have

plotted against us. We are learning their names. We are

coming to know their faces. There is no corner of the Earth

distant or dark enough to protect them. However long it

takes, their hour of justice will come.

Every nation has a stake in this cause. As we meet, the

terrorists are planning more murder--perhaps in my country,

or perhaps in yours. They kill because they aspire to

dominate.

Now, 21 years later, I fear that President Biden and many of my Democratic colleagues have forgotten the lessons they learned from that day and in the years that have followed.

What I recall most about the weeks and months following the attacks is that everyone I talked with, no matter their politics, believed that we were facing a battle of good versus evil.

There was a real clarity of conviction that demanded we all choose a side. Would we stand with freedom or with the enemies of freedom? You can dither and dally all you want on national security policy, but there was not much dithering to be done on that point, at least not in 2001.

But now, in the mainstream media and at the highest levels of the Democratic Party, we see that clarity of conviction ceding ground to moral relativism. It infected this weekend's remembrance. It infected the debate surrounding Joe Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. And it has all but derailed any serious discussion about emerging threats, not just from terrorist organizations but from hostile regimes that the Biden administration seems determined to appease.

During this past August work period, I had the opportunity to visit two of the hot spots. Working with our counterparts in Taiwan and Israel was illuminating for many reasons. I wish every single one of my colleagues would get off their computers, get on a plane, and go talk to them about what it is like to spend every day on the frontlines in this battle against the new ``axis of evil.''

Here in the United States, we are blessed by the benefit of physical distance from the hot spots. And it is no guarantee of protection, and I believe it has lulled many of my colleagues into a false sense of security concerning the threats we face.

Our friends in Taipei and Jerusalem don't share this benefit. They spend their days watching missiles fly closer to their homes and listening to authoritarian propaganda from Beijing and Iran that threatens innocent families with extinction for the crime of simply existing.

In Israel, they are gravely concerned about the Biden administration's desire to enter into a new nuclear deal with Tehran. They worry that this will move Iran closer to a nuclear warhead. They are concerned about what would happen with the billions of dollars that would flow into Iran's coffers. What would happen with sanctions relief? How will they use this money?

Overall, their fears are dominated by the knowledge that, yes, indeed, Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. How will they use the money to finance the work of their proxies? They are particularly concerned how this will instigate growth and expansion of terrorism in Palestine.

In Taiwan, they are concerned about the growing intensity of Chinese Communist Party aggression. I have also heard grave concerns from other island nations that if China overruns Taiwan, they could be the next to fall.

But above all, they conveyed a strong desire to continue working with the United States. Yes, we are their preferred partner. They need our foreign military sales. They want to be able to defend themselves. It means they have to increase their defense capabilities.

Taiwan and Israel aren't the only hot spots that should concern us, but they both represent the first line of defense against the growing influence of the new ``axis of evil.''

The one thing I heard, over and over again when I was overseas, is that if we allow these nations to become overrun, it will start a domino effect in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East that will be difficult, if not impossible, to stop.

And as we have seen before, when we give nations like China and Iran an inch, what do they do? They take a mile.

So it is incomprehensible to me that Joe Biden and the Democrats are not doing everything--everything--in their power to stop this from happening.

Over the past few years, I have watched the President and his allies treat the threat posed by the new ``axis

of evil'' like an academic problem, rather than what it is, a true threat to our freedoms.

There is no excuse for this. They all have access to television and the internet. They know exactly who is in charge in Tehran and Beijing and what they are willing to do to expand their power.

So why have we made so little progress repatriating our supply chains and protecting our economy from the Chinese Communist Party? Why is Joe Biden trying to force the American people into another failed nuclear deal with Iran? Why are they not listening to our closest allies and partners in these regions? Why is this administration having Russia negotiate a new Iran nuclear deal?

If this country continues to treat China and Iran like difficult neighbors instead of a threat to our freedoms, eventually the balance of power will shift in their favor. Nations like Taiwan and Israel will fall. The United States could suffer another devastating attack.

Joe Biden and the Democrats have wasted time rejecting reality in favor of appeasement. They believe that they can negotiate the upper hand and settle things diplomatically. But this isn't diplomacy; this is a hostage situation. If it weren't, images of missiles flying towards civilians would have reignited the same clarity of conviction we all felt after the towers fell and the people in charge of our government would be shouting warnings from the rooftops rather than negotiating away our security behind closed doors.

I would remind my Democratic colleagues that U.N. human rights reports and strongly worded statements and all the other trappings of your current brand of diplomacy mean nothing if you are not willing to put lives and livelihoods on the line to defend them.

So it is time to decide: Will you stand with freedom or with the enemies of freedom?

I want to reiterate President Bush's assessment of the terrorists who attacked our country 21 years ago this week because it is an apt comparison to be made. ``They kill because they aspire to dominate.'' Think about that one. ``They kill because they aspire to dominate.''

What the regimes in Tehran and Beijing are doing right now to our friends in Israel and Taiwan looks different from what al-Qaida did to us on 9/11, but their goals are the same. They seek global domination, and they are growing impatient. We can either wait to see what they will do next or we can stand with our allies and partners and demonstrate our resolve to ensure that the new axis of evil fails.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the attacks of September 11, 2001, exposed the American people to a level of vulnerability we had not encountered since the Second World War. While the terrorists failed in their objective of breaking us, they were successful in forcing the rest of the world to decide if they would give in to fear and remain silent or take a stand against the violent hatred that motivated the murders of almost 3,000 innocents.

For me, the memory of 9/11 is and always will be dominated by fear for the safety of my own children. The hours that passed without hearing from them were among the loneliest of my life, and indeed, that loneliness was shared by every American who spent the next few terrible days waiting for the phone to ring. Our sense of isolation was compounded by a growing chorus of voices that blamed Americans for the bloodshed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

When Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II broke with centuries of tradition and directed the band of the Coldstream Guards to play the ``Star- Spangled Banner'' outside Buckingham Palace just 2 days after the attacks, she did much more than make a political statement. Her small act of rebellion confirmed that the special kinship between our nations will unite us forever under a common cause of freedom. While some chose cowardice in the wake of the attacks, she recognized the anguish of a friend and offered a gesture meant only to assure us that we were not, and never would be, alone.

For more than 70 years, the Queen ruled with the same grace and dignity she afforded the American people in our darkest hour. On behalf of all Tennesseans, I offer my gratitude for her long life of service, my condolences to the royal family, and my assurances to the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth that, should great need arise, there will be no need to ask for our help, for we are already standing beside you.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Claire Gute and Ashley Martin, interns in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress.

Mr. President, I think we all enjoyed being in our States during August. And during the time I was there, I wrapped up what I do each year, which is to visit with each of our 95 counties. And this is truly a listening tour for me, being able to talk with our citizens, to talk with our elected leaders. And I would leave those meetings so encouraged and think, I could not be more impressed with the things that are being done in these communities.

I would go to the next community and again would be just as impressed. Tennesseans are working hard. And this year has been a difficult year for everyone. But I want to focus on our local leaders today because they are the ones who are keeping these communities afloat. And they have done it in spite of everything that Washington, DC, and the Democrats are doing to them.

I thought it was interesting that yesterday the majority leader opened the Senate by reciting a laundry list of the Democratic Party's accomplishments. Now, he put quite a spin on this.

Back home in Tennessee, the people that I work with every single day are seeing this laundry list for what it is and how it affects them. There is hundreds of billions of dollars for the Green New Deal giveaways, and there are Big Government power grabs; there is crippling regulatory overreach; billions more have been spent on this student loan forgiveness program. Indeed, it could end up being a trillion dollars. And there are attacks on our fundamental constitutional rights.

Yes, indeed, the way Tennesseans see it is that Joe Biden and the Democrats are putting together the pieces for what they call their transformation, their great socialist experiment. But in Tennessee, local leaders are really working around the clock to keep that vision from coming to be and to keep their communities from falling apart.

And as I visited with these 95 counties, they gave to me one message that came through time and again, repeatedly. They don't like what they are seeing from this socialist agenda that is being pushed forward here in DC. Indeed, they would talk about their worries and their fears. They would talk about the impact of 9 percent inflation and $5-a-gallon gas.

Now, that may be Chuck Schumer's version of success, which he really helpfully laid out yesterday as to what he thinks are successes and achievements, and that depends entirely upon his ability to spend somebody else's money on things that the American people have repeatedly said they do not want and they do not need. That message came through every one of our 95 counties.

Now, in Tennessee, when we talk about success, you hear about something different. You hear about growth. You hear about investments that companies are making in our State. And we have earned this the hard way. And, indeed, the rest of the country is noticing. Tennessee is one of the most well-managed States. It has no State income tax. And you have got Ford Motor Company and SK Innovation that have seen the potential in our State, specifically in Haywood County. And they have invested billions of dollars.

When I was in West Tennessee last month, I visited their Blue Oval City project site where, in just a few years, they will have a brandnew manufacturing hub that will create thousands of jobs and grow the local economy by millions and millions of dollars.

The people at Lone Oaks Farms in Hardeman County are working to make

certain that there is a great workforce. And they are developing STEM education programs. When I visited them, they were hard at work planning for the new 4-H Development Center, where students will learn how to be good stewards of Tennessee's natural resources.

Across the State in Blount County, I was so happy to officially welcome Smith & Wesson to Tennessee. Now, see, they have moved their headquarters and their manufacturing facility down from their old home in Massachusetts. And they are certainly pleased with the Southern hospitality and the good business working environment that they are seeing in Tennessee.

The largest Buc-ee's in the Nation is coming to Kodak, TN. Also, over on the east end of the State, the Techstars Accelerator Program is thriving in Knoxville. Red Stag set up a new logistics hub in Sweetwater. And we have a brandnew emergency clinic in the Upper Cumberland.

This is the sort of laundry list that I would hope and wish that my Democratic colleagues would be proud of. From one end of the State to the other, Tennessee is drawing investment, no thanks to this White House, to President Biden, and the Democrats that run the House and the Senate. It is our local leaders that are doing the heavy lift, in spite of what Washington, DC, is throwing at them every day.

But with that said, these local leaders deserve the respect and support from the Democratic Party. Even a bare minimum promise to not sabotage their hard work would be welcomed by them. But across all 95 counties, the message I received, as I said, was pretty much the same: They are worried. They are very worried. They are fearful. But they are not letting themselves get caught up in what the Democrats are doing.

Yes, they know the Democrats have a socialist-style agenda that they are pushing. That is the Democrats' vision for the future. In Tennessee, our counties are not going to let the Democrats destroy their hope for a better future.

They know that since the day the Democrats took power, Joe Biden and the Democrats have done everything they could do to seize control and remake a vision for this country into their image, where the elites, the select few--the Democrats--control the power on all the levers, and they can dictate to the States how they are going to live, what they are going to accomplish, what they are going to do.

Tennesseans are suffering the consequences of these policies in the form of record-breaking inflation, obscene fuel and energy costs, rising crime and drug use, and the overall sense that they have been abandoned by the Federal Government. That is how they see it.

The overwhelming issue right now is inflation, inflation, inflation. It is the top concern in all 95 counties. It affects every county budget, and it affects small business.

In Fayette County, I got to speak to Joey Hays of Dyer Foods and some of the truly resilient workers at one of his local grocery stores. We should all be grateful for people like the workers at Dyer Foods. They didn't have it easy during the pandemic, and it hasn't gotten any easier now than it was during the pandemic because more of their paychecks are being eaten up by inflation. Interesting, isn't it? Inflation is outpacing any wage growth.

Many Tennessee counties that have managed to pull themselves out of distress status lost all traction when inflation skyrocketed. And now, guess what? They feel like they are back at square one because of decisions that had been made in Washington, DC. No fault of their own, mind you, decisions that are made here.

Dayton City Manager Tommy Solomon told me he saw the price of pipe go up 200 percent. They had to stop some of their water projects because they couldn't afford to buy the supplies. That is right. The pipe was up 200 percent.

Hamilton County Mayor Coppinger told me the worker shortage has made the inflation-driven problems even worse. They have raised salaries, and they still can't fill critical roles, especially in public health.

In Rhea, Bledsoe, McMinn, Marion, and Grundy Counties, inflation and supply chain issues are wiping out farmers. Most small farms in these counties only planted about half their normal crop due to fuel and fertilizer prices. Their businesses--these small businesses--are drying up.

Many other businesses, including large manufacturers, are being stonewalled by regulators from the EPA with no explanation as to why they are making the decisions that they make.

Do you know what? Unfortunately for small business manufacturers, there is no end in sight to what these regulators in this administration will do.

Meanwhile, while all of this is happening, the border is open by order of the White House. The drug mules are streaming in, and drug use is spiking. Every single sheriff--every one of them--that I spoke to in Southeast Tennessee, told me that fentanyl is their No. 1 issue, and I can tell you that it is an issue in other areas of the State as well.

In Grundy County, Sheriff Shrum told me about what happened to one of his deputies who accidentally came into contact with a dangerous amount of fentanyl. He started the day trying to save a life, but by the end of that day, it was his colleagues from the sheriff's department who were saving his life and giving him a dose of Narcan.

This is what our first responders and our local law enforcement are facing because Joe Biden and the Democrats and this DHS are refusing to secure the southern border. Two million plus and counting, about three quarters of a million known got-aways, but they will stand up there and tell you: Oh, the border is closed.

Law enforcement in our State does not believe that, and I don't either. This is a shame.

Crime is on the rise, but rather than supporting police officers, Joe Biden and the Democrats are obsessed with undermining, defunding, and disbanding police departments.

In Tipton County, I was truly blessed to meet Deputy Gene Molder and his family. Deputy Molder was shot in the line of duty last March while he was trying to help a group of people escape a violent hostage situation. Thank God, he is all right now, but people are outraged at the leftist rhetoric that is clearly designed to increase violence against law enforcement.

Tennesseans aren't asking for much. They don't want a Federal Government to make their decisions for them. They don't want a handout. They don't want centralized control. Honestly, they wish that they could just be left alone when it comes to Washington, DC, and what they are doling out. They want you, the Federal Government, to get out of the way so that they can fulfill their vision for the future-- prosperous, safe, secure.

This President's socialist agenda won't help them do that because prosperity, freedom, independence, liberty, equal treatment under the law, equal justice for all is not what is at the top of their to-do list. It won't help Hamilton County hire workers or the Dayton Public Works Department buy pipe. It certainly won't help farmers in Rhea County grow the food you eat, and it won't help police officers keep their communities safe and secure.

These local leaders in the great state of Tennessee know better than anyone here in Washington what they need us to do in order to help them get things done, and that message came through clear as a bell in 95 counties. What did they tell me--that message I heard all across 95 counties? Please secure the border and support law enforcement, repair and secure our supply chains, keep taxes low, and develop a business- friendly attitude, and, above all else, stop the out-of-control Federal spending.

I know this administration has made a name for itself telling people what they can and cannot do. But I will tell you that this is a power struggle that you are not going to win, at least where Tennesseans are concerned.

The Democrats have an agenda, but in Tennessee I have met with some of the most wonderful people in this country. They have a vision for what they want the future to be. They want it to be focused on hope, on opportunity for all, and I want to thank every single Tennessee leader, law enforcement officer, business owner, and citizens who gave me their time, who talked with

me and who offered their advice this past year. Their wisdom is what guides my decisions here in Washington. I only wish that my Democratic colleagues would take their words to heart as well.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as I was reading through this reckless spending spree that my Democratic colleagues are in such a rush to get this thing passed so that they can get it signed into law--I was reading it, and I thought, you know, we have been through this exercise before.

We have before us a bill that is too expensive to afford. It has been thrown together behind closed doors, in secret, perfectly branded to prey on the struggles, the fears of the American people because after all, fearful people are easier to control.

And what do we know? The Democratic Party, they are all about control and they are all about power.

Now, I remembered that this isn't the first time in the Schumer Senate that the Democratic colleagues have tried to turn a crisis into an opportunity. A little over a year ago, they pulled the exact same bait-and-switch with a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Senator Graham talked about this before. It was to bring, oh, so much prosperity. It was to solve all of your problems, help was on the way. But it was a big government blowout in the form of $350 billion in the slush fund for blue cities, a State tax cut ban, a $60 billion tax hike, subsidized government healthcare, and a union pension bailout.

Now, it is pretty clear who the Democrats were trying to rescue with that bill. And it was not hard-working American taxpayers. They got the shaft on that. And they know it.

And then, of course, we considered the infrastructure package that had almost nothing to do with infrastructure, but it served as a very useful vehicle for a lot of the Green New Deal.

Remember, Build Back Better--they couldn't get it across. They had to break it into parts. So you have seen parts of it in different bills. Part of it was in that infrastructure package.

To Tennesseans, this was a missed opportunity because they desperately need meaningful improvements to broadband infrastructure and access to high-speed internet connections. It was a missed opportunity for all Americans seeing crime and drugs that are in their communities because of that open border. And it was a missed opportunity for the Keystone XL Pipeline and for support for American energy.

Missed opportunities continue to be their thing. Just a few short days ago, we passed a CHIPS and Science bill. Sounds really good and constructive. But over the course of a few years, this ballooned from an emergency investment in semiconductors into an almost $300 billion gateway to industrial planning and, of course, more of the Green New Deal.

My Democratic colleagues took an opportunity to unravel our dangerous relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and squandered it on a tee-up to seizing more control over the manufacturing and upstream suppliers we should be empowering.

Fast forward to this month, and here we go again, sifting through a package that costs nearly a trillion dollars, yet is somehow still marketed as the Inflation Reduction Act.

And I will say to my Democratic colleagues and Senator Schumer and Senator Manchin, the American people are laughing at the name of this bill. They are laughing at this. They know better than this. They can see right through what you have done. They know what is going on. And they know that your priorities do not line up with their priorities and their concerns.

In reality, this bill provides no pathway to reduce our current inflation. It will, however, put pressure on the economy, raise taxes on just about everyone, kills jobs, stifles innovation, weaponizes the regulatory state against small businesses and private enterprise.

Now, all these things have the potential to devastate the economy and make life harder for hard-working taxpayers.

I want to focus on how Joe Biden and the Democrats are using regulators to overrule the will of the people and to seize more control over the country because this tactic has truly been a favorite of the Democrats. They expand the regulatory state. They issue mandates. They institute lockdowns. And, there is that word again: ``control.'' They are after the control.

If you need an example, look no further than the dozens of newly arrived rules and regulations that they have used to gut American energy. Radical climate activists in the environmental lobby won big when those went into effect. But everyone else lost.

If you were an energy consumer, a truckdriver, someone who was traveling, and workers who had their jobs just regulated out of existence, that is what the Democrats did for you.

Here is another. In April, the Biden Border Patrol announced that they were holding up construction on the border wall so that they could do an environmental assessment.

Now, if you recall, this is one regulatory barrier that President Trump eliminated when he took office because he understood the danger posed by our lack of border security. He was listening to the American people and the Border Patrol and people that lived there. He knew what was happening.

Well, under President Biden, the open borders advocates won. But the ranchers, the border communities, small-town law enforcement--they lost.

The Biden administration loves to use the regulatory hammer so that they can pick winners and losers that they want. They will punish you. They will punish you. It is what they are doing with the bill that we are considering tonight in the middle of the night, on the weekend, when people are at the lake, when people are out with their children, having fun, enjoying the summer. Here we are.

It is so interesting that they have married the strategy they used last March by catering to--you guessed it--blue States, unions, and climate justice warriors.

Here is just one example of one of the regulatory schemes contained in the bill that will benefit the usual Democratic allies but wreak havoc on everyone else. Right now, manufacturers that burn fossil fuels can earn a $35 tax credit for every ton of carbon dioxide they capture and store.

The bill cuts that tax credit down to $17. But there is a catch. A business can earn an $85 tax credit if they comply with labor standards that are laid out in the bill. This, of course, means that in order to survive, manufacturers and fossil fuel companies will be mandated to use union labor.

Nuclear power plants will have a similar hit. If this legislation passes, they will earn $12 more per ton in tax credits if they go to the unions instead of letting the free market determine who they hire.

Now, the problem here doesn't only have to do with unions versus right-to-work policies. The problem is that the base tax credit reductions in this bill were designed to kill companies that don't want to play along with the left's green crusade and funnel money to Chuck Schumer's political allies.

Hear me out. If, for example, you are running a utility in a right- to-work State and you want to keep taking advantage of tax credits, you are going to be in a very tight spot. When this bill becomes law, you will be stripped of your practical ability to hire right-to-work employees and mandated to use union labor instead. The kowtowing to union demands is also part of a pattern.

Just a few days ago, my Democratic colleagues killed my amendment to the PACT Act that would have given toxic-exposed veterans expedited access to community care. Now, why did they do that? To protect union employees in VA facilities, of course. We can't take a step like that; it might privatize VA, they seem to think.

Now, instead of the healthcare that they deserve, these veterans are left with nothing but false hope--access to the queue but no access to the care.

Over and over again, it never stops here in the Schumer Senate. The Democrats say one thing; they turn around and do another thing.

The bill also increases renewable tax credits but only for projects located in the so-called environmental justice communities, wherever they are. That is a very creative way for my Democratic colleagues to tell us they are using this increase to funnel money to the cities and States they deem worthy of support.

The measure is simple: You comply or you go bankrupt. Then, again, you might go bankrupt if you do comply. Doing so will increase project costs and labor costs, which will, in turn, increase costs on everything. Everyone loses except the Democrats and their political allies.

Joe Biden and the Democrats have become famous for saying one thing and doing another. They promise inflation reduction, then raise manufacturing costs. They promise economic relief but then raise your utility costs and your grocery bills. They assure the American people, time and again, that Big Government can solve your problems, and then they use Big Government to absolutely beat the living stew out of private enterprise.

My Democratic colleagues have touted this latest disastrous version of their ``Build Back Broke'' agenda as progressive. And I do hope the American people are figuring out what ``progressive'' means: tax increases, massive transfers of wealth, ideological conformity backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

If you want to be broke and grovel to the government, this bill is for you. These hundreds of billions of dollars will serve a purpose but not to reduce inflation or bring relief. Blue States, unions, radical activists will once again come out on top. Meanwhile, families working hard to make ends meet, workers, business owners, local leaders are still on the verge of losing everything. I think my Democratic colleagues know this, but they have decided that the pain and the suffering is worth it. After all, they continue to tell us we need to be transitioning. We need to be transitioning. I don't think people like what they are going to have to transition to.

When I am home in Tennessee, they certainly don't like it. I will be back Monday doing meetings across the State, and I will have to tell them that, once again, the Democrats have taken advantage of their desperation and their exhaustion with what is

going on. And, once again, the Democrats have sold them a bill of goods that ignores our current crisis, prioritizes the pet projects the Democrats have, and the American people are once again getting the shaft. I will tell them that, for the Democrats, this isn't about service; it is about control. It is about power. And to Tennesseans, this is all frightening. They think that this is a reckless, manipulative, dangerous abuse of power. There is very little, if anything at all, that is pro ``we the people'' in this bill.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask that we waive the reading.

Mr. President, right now, Chinese owners control more than 194,000 acres of farm and forestry land valued at $1.9 billion, as of the last accounting, right here in the United States. Now, much of this farmland is located in close proximity to our military institutions, and a lot of this farmland is being used so that Chinese- owned farm operations can compete with U.S. farmers.

My amendment would stop funds from this bill from ending up in the hands of agents of the Chinese Government and their businesses. This is a commonsense motion to commit.

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

I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. President, late tonight, the Senate will vote on my amendment No. 5185 to the PACT Act, and as my colleague from New York was just saying, it is time that we deal with the issues of toxic exposure. As a member of the VA Committee, this is something I have worked on for the last few years.

Tennessee has a large population of veterans, and we have talked a good bit about this issue and how they receive their care.

One of the concerns that we had discussed in committee, in our hearings--we have discussed it with our VSOs, and we have discussed this issue as we have talked with veterans who have come to us and to our meetings--is their frustration with having access to the queue but not getting access to the care. I think we have to look at this and say: Those are very different.

Now, I join our veterans in being frustrated with the fact that there is access to the queue to get on that wait list but not getting that care. So the amendment I am offering is not political. It is not controversial. It is a simple but much needed improvement to the PACT Act that will allow toxic-exposed veterans to gain access to community care to ensure they have a speedy process to care.

The amendment is critical to the success of this program, and we all want the program to be successful, but what we know is that the VA is not capable of implementing the PACT Act as it is written. They have neither the infrastructure nor the personnel to do that.

What we have learned is that the VA cannot deliver what is promised because it does not have the capacity to handle the increased cases. Secretary McDonough said as much in testimony submitted to the VA Committee in March of this year.

Right now, the claims backlog at the VA sits at 168,000 cases. The PACT Act as written will increase that backlog by more than 1 million cases.

Right now in Tennessee, this is the practical effect of this in Tennessee:

Veterans who come to me are telling me they are waiting about 100 days for a primary care appointment at the VA. For many of our veterans, that is just step 1--getting that primary care appointment so they get on the list. So after they call, they are waiting 100 days to get that first appointment, and then they get a referral to someone else, a specialist.

Now, for our veterans in Tennessee, once they get that referral, it is 39 days to get to mental health care, 44 days to get to a dental appointment, 33 days if they are trying to see a cardiologist, 28 days to see a gynecologist, and 30 days to get to someone who can help them with pain. That is the amount of wait. To me, that is unacceptable, completely unacceptable.

My colleagues on both sides of the aisle know that many, if not most, of these veterans who have toxic exposure are deteriorating rapidly. They do not have time to wait while the VA decides how they are going to implement this. They deserve access to care as quickly as they can possibly get it.

We are so close to getting these veterans the care they deserve, but if the PACT Act is going to work for veterans, we need to step up and give them access to community care. My amendment will open up that access. It will make that an option so they don't have to struggle through waiting in the queue. They can go to a physician in their community for that primary care appointment so that they can get this process started. This will help them to avoid the long wait times and the arbitrary hurdles, and it will let them seek that care in the community if they can get it faster than making that trip to the VA.

As I said, this is not controversial. There is no political scandal on it. It is a simple fix that will ensure that this promise that we are going to make in the PACT Act will be made to every single veteran who has experienced toxic exposure so that we are certain that the PACT Act does not end up as a false promise or a false hope.

These veterans have given so much. They have served honorably. It is imperative that we provide them not access to the queue but access to the care they have earned.

Thank you. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the amendment when it comes up for a vote later this evening.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment to accompany S. 3373 with amendment No. 5185.

Mr. President, I ask the reading be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this is the amendment that will allow our veterans to immediately move into community care. Our veterans need to be able to have access to the care, not just access to the queue.

The VA will have a problem getting this implemented because the current wait time to see a primary care doctor is 100 days. So let's not make them wait. Let's give them access to community care so that they have the care they have earned and they deserve.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, Joe Biden and the Democrats have ushered us into what will be remembered as one of the most cynical and dangerous periods in our Nation's history. For 18 months, they have wreaked havoc on the economy, welcomed drugs and crime into their own backyards, and enabled the rise of the new axis of evil, which is my term for Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

Last week was really a particularly bad week for the Biden-Harris administration, but it was even worse for the people watching it play out, sitting at home in their communities. Inflation hit a 41-year high, consumer confidence hit a historic low, and we confirmed that the American economy is indeed in a recession.

But rather than taking responsibility, my Democratic friends decided they would go on an all-out campaign and redefine the word ``recession,'' and they insisted that the economic ruin that they have rained down on us all is in our imaginations. The economy is in great shape, they say. It is better than ever, they say. But Tennesseans sitting at their kitchen table, trying to figure out how to make ends meet, they know different.

If ever there were a time to listen to what the American people are telling each and every one of us, it is now. Yet here we are facing now what is possibly the Democratic Party's most cynical and dangerous move to date: a trillion-plus--a trillion-plus-dollar spending spree. It is full of tax increases and policies so unpopular that its negotiators had to hide its existence from our own colleagues.

Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin have dubbed this secret plan--I guess is what it was--they have dubbed it the Inflation Reduction Act, which immediately brings to mind one simple question: How out of step can you possibly be with where the American people are? You are so out of step. And do you truly think that the American people are so stupid that they think raising taxes is going to bring a reduction in inflation?

If the situation weren't so dire for people back in Tennessee, I would assume this was some sort of joke, but it is not. The American people are drowning, and Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin have thrown them a cinder block instead of a life preserver. People cannot believe this. They absolutely cannot believe this.

This bill represents the worst elements of a radical socialist agenda that Americans have already rejected: a multihundred-billion-dollar tax hike that will kill tens of thousands of jobs, sabotage energy producers, and make it even more expensive to heat homes and fill gas tanks; a multihundred-billion-dollar payday for climate activists and the environmental lobby; innovation-killing price controls on prescription drugs; and tax breaks, but only for the wealthiest Americans.

Nothing in this bill will make life easier. Nothing in this bill will lower gas prices or reduce inflation. But it is exactly what Tennesseans were afraid would happen if Joe Biden and the Democrats took control of the Federal Government.

This week, every Member of this body has a choice to make: Will you stand with the American people, or will you make their life harder every day because of more spending, more tax increases, and more Green New Deal? Will you ease their pain, or will you make their pain worse by supporting this bloated, foolish spending spree?

I hope that my colleagues will come to their senses because this is a breaking point between Congress and the American people.

I cannot tell you how many times I heard that very statement this weekend from Tennesseans. They cannot even believe another trillion dollars in spending--another trillion. Money does not grow on trees.

If you, as an individual who has a vote on this bill, if you choose to support this bill and tax and spend this country into oblivion, that is a road that you are going to have to go down alone because the American people cannot afford to go down this road with you.

Now, the reason I have paid so much attention to this backlog is because every single week the team that works with me in Tennessee handling these issues with our VSOs--our veterans service officers--keeps track of what we hear from the veterans.

Right now in Tennessee, I have veterans telling me they are waiting almost 100 days for a primary care appointment at the VA. Now, for many vets, this is just step 1. So once they contact the VA, it is 100 days. Think about that: 100 days before they get that primary care appointment, and that is if the appointment doesn't get canceled or it has to be rescheduled. So that is an average to get to step 1--first step.

Across Tennessee, veterans are waiting yet another 39 days to get mental healthcare. Now, if they are needing dental appointments, dental surgery, or dental care, that is 44 days. If they go for that primary care appointment and they need to go see a cardiologist, that is 33 days; 28 days to see a gynecologist; 30 days to go talk to someone about chronic pain.

Look at what is happening. The VA cannot meet the load in front of them. Our veterans--our veterans who have defended our Nation's freedom--cannot get the care they need in a timely manner.

Now, we have done a lot of work over the years to help the VA help itself. We have given them support for hiring. We have given them support for retention. But, Madam President, it takes 90 days for this Agency, the VA, to hire one person--90 days. And think of the number of caseworkers they would have to hire to implement this. Throwing money at the problem isn't going to make these wait times and backlogs disappear.

It is imperative that we fix the PACT Act so it is not a false promise, so it is not false hope. If the PACT Act is going to work for our veterans, then the VA needs to embrace community care.

I proposed an amendment to the bill that would have eliminated arbitrary bureaucratic hurdles for toxic-exposed veterans who will inevitably face these long wait times. It would allow them to seek care in the community right there where they live if they could get it faster than they could from the VA.

I offered this amendment based on my conversations with Tennessee veterans who are chronically ill but cannot get in to the VA to see a doctor and get that primary care appointment so they can move on to specialty care. Many of them are deteriorating at an alarming rate, and they deserve access to care as soon as they can get it. The only way that access to care for them is going to happen is if we allow them community care. They have fought for this country. They deserve to have access to that care, but right now, they cannot get it.

Madam President, I know you more than most understand how imperative it is for veterans to have access to the care they need, that this government make good on its promise to our veterans, that we stop these long wait times, that we stop the delays, and that we allow them that access that they have earned and that they deserve.

There is a way to fix this bill. I know there are some who say: Well, we are afraid this will privatize the VA. That is their fear, and I understand that. But at some point, veterans want us to take that action to put them first--not the bureaucracy first, put the veterans first--allow the veterans to make that choice if they cannot get to the VA in a timely manner. If the VA can't get them in for an appointment, let's open this up and let the veterans out into community care so their needs can be met in a timely manner.

A promise in a piece of legislation ought not to end up as a false hope when it comes to our Nation's veterans. The best way we can fulfill our promise to toxic-exposed veterans is to give this bill the time it needs for an amendment that will allow our veterans to access the care they need without having to wait on the VA to figure out how to implement this bill.

Surely, surely, we can do this. Let's have a vote on these amendments and fix this bill before it is signed into law.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.