Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the GAO opinion letter dated December 16, 2025.

Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Sullivan from Alaska for helping to get us all to the floor here today. I would like to thank Chairman Lee for his leadership getting us here, Ranking Member Heinrich, and Senators King and Hoeven and Padilla. Thank you to Senator Hoeven for his kind words.

We are working together to try to make progress, and I want to thank my team for working well with his on this as well.

I am not going to go on for a long time today, but I do want to talk about the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, which just passed the floor of the Senate, and the bipartisan effort to get this bill done and get it to the President's desk.

Over six decades ago, President John Kennedy came to Pueblo, CO, and famously promised to build the Arkansas Valley Conduit. It is the last component of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, a Federal water diversion and storage project that Congress approved in 1962.

Once completed, the Arkansas Valley Conduit will deliver clean water to over 50,000 people in 39 rural communities across southeastern Colorado. That is why for over a decade, across Republican and Democratic administrations, I have worked to secure over $500 million to ensure that the Federal Government keeps its word and that we finish the conduit.

Unfortunately, due to recent increases in pipe and labor costs, the total cost of the conduit has nearly doubled. This has created a huge challenge for local communities, many of whom currently rely on contaminated groundwater for their water supply.

Our bill, based on the great work of the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District, takes this affordability crisis head-on, cutting local costs by lowering the interest rate and providing more flexible repayment terms. This is a commonsense solution to ensure that southeast Colorado can afford safe and reliable drinking water.

This legislation costs the American taxpayer nothing, but it would pay dividends for 50,000 people in southeastern Colorado, and it would fulfill a decades--many decades--old promise on which they have relied.

I am glad the House and Senate have acted unanimously to pass this legislation, and I look forward to the President now signing this bill into law.

I want to say again to my colleague from Maine how much I appreciate his willingness to be able to, in the spirit of bipartisan compromise, withdraw his objection to this package as well, and I look forward to working with him to pass the bills he has said are so critical not just to Maine but to this Nation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

The precedent of September 11, 2025, that established a majority threshold vote for cloture on an executive resolution that provided for the en bloc consideration of nominations excluded nominations at level 1 of the Executive Schedule under 5 U.S.C. 5312 or article III judges. Is that correct, Mr. President?

I am sorry to say, this slate of nominations in S. Res. 520 includes Calendar No. 476, Sara Bailey, of Texas, to be Director of National Drug Control Policy. That position is among those listed in 5 U.S.C. 5312. Therefore, the threshold for cloture on this vote would be three-fifths of those duly chosen and sworn. Is that correct, Mr. President?

I object.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to come to address my colleagues today in the Senate.

During the course of this shutdown--what has now become the longest shutdown in American history--there are a lot of people around the country wondering about what has been at stake in this debate and in this argument. And I think, with every day that has gone by, it has become clearer and clearer what is at stake.

I have heard my Republican colleagues, including the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, come to the floor to say, over and over again, that not a single Republican in this Chamber, not a single Republican in the United States Congress, voted for the Affordable Care Act when we passed it in 2010.

And for them, that is a badge of honor. That is a badge of honor that they recall from the last extensive debate we had around here about healthcare.

I deeply regret the fact that they are so proud of not having voted for the Affordable Care Act. It is true that there was not a single Republican in the Congress that voted for that bill.

And that bill was far from perfect--I will admit that. Even at the time, I was leading the fight for a public option to be included as part of the Affordable Care Act because I thought it would be a very important part of constraining costs for the American people in our healthcare system. I will say more about that in a minute.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter dated February 16, 2010, to then-Leader Harry Reid about the public health insurance option be printed in the Record.

In the end, it was not included. In the end, we couldn't overcome the objections of the special interests who wanted to deny the American people that choice. But it was an important case to be made, and we made that case.

But I voted in the end for the Affordable Care Act even though the public option was left out of it because it did some really important things for the healthcare system in America. Most of those had to do with making sure that the insurance companies couldn't throw you off your insurance just because you got sick; that cancer and other conditions could no longer be a preexisting condition; that you could still get healthcare even if you had the misfortune, as I have had, of having cancer; that there would be no lifetime cap that would prevent you from being able to provide healthcare or mental health care for your children or for your family just because things had gotten expensive over a period of time.

These were really critical decisions that were made as part of that bill--in addition to the expansion of Medicaid across the country--to be able to ensure that more working people had the chance to be able to afford healthcare, which brings to mind one of the really unusual--sort of the unusual context in which we have had healthcare debates in America, which is that we are the only rich country in the world, we are the only industrialized country among all industrialized countries where healthcare is not a right of citizenship for everyone who lives in that country.

Notwithstanding the fact that we have less access to healthcare than any other industrialized country in the world, it costs twice as much in the United States. It costs twice as much for the Federal Government. It costs twice as much for our society. Most important, it costs twice as much for the people that we represent in our various States, including in the State of Colorado.

People in Colorado, as we meet here, are struggling with the cost of housing, the cost of food, the cost of President Trump's uncertain and unpredictable tariff policy. But they are also continuing to struggle with the cost of healthcare because we are spending twice what any other industrialized country is spending to get a worse result.

I know the President knows this. The President of the Senate knows this because he is a doctor. I have heard him talk about the condition of our healthcare system.

Today in the United States, our life expectancy is 6 years shorter than it is in any of those industrialized countries. What greater indictment could there be of this system? In the 1970s, we had the same life expectancy as the rest of these countries. In fact, we were in the middle. In the years since, we have fallen further and further and further behind as we have spent more and more and more money because the system we have is so shot through with benefits for special interests, among other things, and a complete lack of transparency, which is a fancy way of saying that literally nobody has any idea what anything costs in our healthcare system.

I know the Presiding Officer agrees with that. You can't tell what anything costs when you show up to fill a prescription, when you are in the emergency room. We worked together on the surprise billing issue, which is an important part of this. If you are a senior that is trying to get your prescriptions filled, you go from one pharmacy to the next to the next.

I will never forget as long as I serve in public office and probably for my lifetime the conversation I had with senior citizens in Pueblo where they basically were telling me that their entire retirement was spent fighting to get prescriptions filled that their doctors had prescribed them. Seniors in other industrialized countries don't spend their retirements doing that. Only in the richest country in the world do seniors have to do that, and that is because a lack of transparency, a lack of clarity is built into our healthcare system from top to bottom.

But we took some important steps in the Affordable Care Act. I wish it had included a public option. It didn't. I think that the rate of rise of our healthcare inflation would have been a lot less. By the way, that is what the people that have looked at that bill and scored that bill over the years have said. We have been fighting for it now for a decade and a half. They said that it would actually save the government money because it would lower healthcare costs; it would introduce some competition into our insurance market.

I will say this to the Presiding Officer. He will probably be amused by it. This is the one place where I really am a Bolshevik. I believe in universal healthcare for all Americans. I think we should provide that to people in this country as a right. There is no reason not to do it in the richest country in the world, especially if we can save half of the cost of healthcare that we are providing now.

Families all over my State, all over Colorado, are fighting to get their kid the mental health care they need, are fighting to get their parents the prescriptions they have been prescribed, are fighting to hold on to their own health insurance, because that also has become less and less affordable over the years. That is a fight that no one else in the industrialized world has to have.

I think it is important to point out that most of the people I am talking about--almost all of the people I am talking about are working for a living in this country and still can't afford healthcare, still can't afford the peace of mind that they know that if their kid breaks their leg on a hike or breaks their leg skiing or needs to have the benefit of a mental health counselor, that that is something our safety net provides. Healthcare should be a right. It is a right. And whether you get it or not shouldn't be determined by how wealthy you are or where you live.

I think, given the rhetoric I hear out here sometimes about makers and takers and all that other stuff, it is important to point out that almost all the people I am talking about are working or taking care of children or are retired.

We should have a universal healthcare system in this country, but in the meantime, we shouldn't be making matters worse, which is why this debate is so crazy.

When we passed the Affordable Care Act without a single vote from the Republican Party in the House or the Senate, they said that they were going to make President Obama a one-term President. They said that I was going to lose my Senate seat. In fact, I was asked on national television whether I would lose my Senate seat as a result of my vote on the healthcare bill, and I said: If that is the cost of being here for that period of time, it is worth it. I am happy to lose based on that vote.

They ran ad after ad after ad during that campaign attacking me for being the 60th vote for the Affordable Care Act. And because I survived and a couple other Senators barely survived, we were able to preserve that bill, and 30 million people who would have lost their health insurance in America didn't lose their health insurance.

Then the efforts in the House began to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They voted, I think--I lost count--I think it was 70 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the House of Representatives--at least 70 times. They never were able to do it. And the longer it was there, the more people came to see the benefits of the insurance protection, came to see the benefits of the expansion in Medicaid, came to see the benefits of at least having a little bit of comfort that they couldn't just throw you off your insurance because they felt like it.

Now we have found ourselves in a debate related to the tax credits that so many Americans rely on to make insurance just a little bit more affordable. I wouldn't say affordable. I would say a little bit more affordable. I would say barely affordable but somewhat more affordable.

At a moment when grocery prices are what they are, at a moment when rent is what it is, at a moment when we are dealing with the incredible uncertainty these tariffs are causing, it would seem the least we could do is not make matters worse. The least we could do is extend the tax credit so it is a little bit easier for people to buy insurance for themselves and for their families. But just like with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, when not a single Republican supported it; just like when they voted 70 times in the House of Representatives--70 times--to repeal the Affordable Care Act, during this period, this episode, this shutdown, the longest in American history, the Republicans have voted 15 times to take away those benefits from the American people that they are relying on just to make insurance a little bit affordable.

We have taken the position that we shouldn't make matters worse, and that is why I voted again against the budget that has been proposed by President Trump and the Republicans, because they refuse to extend the tax credits. They refuse to make things just a little bit better for the American people.

I can't say I am surprised by the position. Who could be surprised after a vote on the Affordable Care Act where nobody joined it; all those years of voting to repeal it; wanting to make President Obama, they said, a one-term President; and now the vote day after day after day to not provide the American people the benefit of those tax credits.

Before this debate closes, I just want to say again that the current system is in dire need of help.

The American people are hanging on by their fingertips when it comes to the cost and availability of healthcare. There is no rich country in the world that doesn't have a universal system of healthcare. There is no rich country in the world that doesn't routinely supply access to doctors and primary care, access to mental health care for families and for kids, prescription drugs that don't cost an arm and a leg. It is not a pain point for those people in the different phases of their lives, much less a pain point every single day, which it is for the people that I represent in Colorado.

Apparently, President Trump is going to get his way, and those tax credits are not going to be extended by the majority here. And the cost of health insurance in Colorado is going to increase by 200 percent for some people, 300 percent for some people, 400 percent for people that are living in rural areas in my State. That is thousands and thousands of dollars to a typical family that just doesn't have that kind of money.

I just want to remind everybody in this Chamber that when this debate is done, we still have a very important project that we need to be engaged in with the American people, and that is to be able to provide a healthcare system like other wealthy and industrialized countries have provided--where people can count on their healthcare; where they know it is not going to cost them an arm and a leg; where they know, in the course of their lifetime, there are other things they can worry about, like the cost of their rent and the cost of food. But the one thing we are going to do is take care of this problem, just as countries all over the world have taken care of it for their citizens.

I wish I could say that the politics around healthcare have gotten better over the years that I have been here. They really haven't. But I think that the debate that we have had in this moment is going to serve to clarify who is fighting to try to make the system better for the American people and who is not.

I guarantee you this, as long as we have President Trump in the White House and a majority of Republicans in this Chamber, we will never have political leadership that is fighting for universal healthcare, that is fighting for a public option that can be available to every single family in America.

By the way, that is my proposal. It relies on everybody in America to make the best choice for their family. It is not something that would be imposed from here. It would be the chance for every family to say: You know what? I will stay with the private insurance I have or, actually, I would rather be on a system that is run by Medicare, where I know I am going to have access to mental health care and healthcare for my family in a predictable way.

I can see my colleague from Massachusetts. I will close by saying that my heart especially aches for young people across this country, the people the age of my own daughters.

I had a young woman ask me the other day, a recent graduate of Western State in Gunnison, CO--she said: I am coming off my parents' insurance after I am 26.

You will remember that we put that in the healthcare bill. Before that, there was no opportunity for people to stay on their parents' insurance. We did it. We said you get to stay on until you are 26.

She said: Senator, what am I supposed to do, take two or three jobs to pay for my health insurance when I have to come off my parents' insurance?

I said: That is exactly the right question. That is a question that 26-, 27-, and 28-year-olds are not having to ask in any other industrialized country in the world. Only in the United States of America are we running a system where young people in their twenties have to decide between health insurance and their rent, or health insurance and food, or health insurance and the ability to put some money away to save for a house.

We should change that.

I believe strongly that if we ever get to the point where we are expanding Medicare in this country, we should do it for the younger kids that are in their twenties first because they have done absolutely nothing to design the system that they are inheriting.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, I want to recognize the leadership of Manuel Heart, who retires tomorrow after 15 years as chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and 27 years on Tribal Council.

For time immemorial, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe has called the vast landscape of the Southwest home--the mountains, canyons, and rivers that have sustained the Weenuche people for countless generations.

Chairman Heart carried this legacy of stewardship throughout his career. As a young council member, he began a lifetime of service rooted in a deep love for his people and a reverence for their ancestral homeland. Over the decades, he grew into a statesman whose leadership reached far beyond Towaoc, inspiring both Tribal and non- Tribal leaders alike all across this Nation.

As chairman, he helped establish Bears Ears and Camp Hale National Monuments, elevated Tribal voices in the Colorado River Basin, and advocated for the protection of the Dolores River.

After generations of the unjust loss of their ancestral homelands, Chairman Heart led the efforts to secure full Federal trust status for the Tribe's Pinecrest Ranch, reclaiming a piece--a piece--of what was taken.

It has been a privilege to work alongside him, meeting in Towaoc and across the ancestral homeland of the Ute people, rafting the Colorado River to discuss water and climate policy, visiting cultural sites in the Dolores River Basin, and gathering along the Continental Divide to discuss how Camp Hale should tell the Ute story.

He regularly visited my office in Washington, DC. In 2021, I was proud to stand together at the White House to celebrate the restoration of the Bears Ears National Monument. When we introduced the Tribal Access to Clean Water Act, the chairman testified before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to remind Congress of the Federal Government's responsibility to ensure all of Indian Country has access to clean, reliable drinking water.

Chairman Heart also understood that the strength of a sovereign Tribal nation lies in the preservation and vitality of culture and language for future generations. He led the effort to create the Kwiyagat Community Academy, dedicated to teaching Ute history, language, and culture. Visiting the school with him was a profound reminder of his vision and dedication to his people and their cultural heritage.

Chairman Heart never let the United States forget its promises to Tribal nations and made sure that my office always included the voices of sovereign Tribes when we made decisions. He taught me what true government-to-government respect means. I remain deeply grateful for his friendship, his wisdom, and his example--for his brotherhood. His legacy reminds us that true leadership is measured not only in achievements but in the strength and hope it instills in generations to come.

Colorado and the United States owe Chairman Heart a profound gratitude for his decades of service. We also thank Marie, his wife, and their entire family.

Working with him has been one of the greatest honors of my life and of my time in the Senate, and I wish him well in his retirement as he enjoys well-deserved time with his loved ones.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague from Minnesota, the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, for being here tonight and for helping to organize all of this tonight, to have this important discussion.

I think, this evening, as we are standing here, this will mark the longest shutdown in American history, and that is not something that anybody in this Chamber should be proud about. I have had the opportunity, since I have been here, to watch--year after year after year after year--as these shutdowns have gotten longer and longer.

This Chamber does not belong to the Senators that are here. It belongs to the American people. But sometimes the fight is a really important one, and we are in the fight tonight for healthcare for the American people.

One of the first shutdowns I ever was here to see and be around for was one where they were trying to defund the Affordable Care Act; they were trying to take healthcare away from the American people.

This is exactly the opposite of that. The situation we are in tonight is one where, as we meet tonight, people are having to fill out their paperwork for their new insurance premiums, and those premiums are offset by part of the Affordable Care Act that creates tax credits for working people to be able to buy insurance, to make it a little bit more affordable.

Insurance gets more expensive every single year. And we should do something about that, but we are not even having a debate about that today. All we are doing is having a debate about whether or not President Trump and his colleagues across the aisle here in the Senate want to take away those subsidies from the American people.

In my State of Colorado, the result of that is going to be that people's health insurance prices are going to double, at least. In some places, they might triple. In some places, they might go up 400 percent is what the Governor's office is saying to us.

I do feel like somehow, at the end of the day here, President Trump is going to try to find a way to make sure that those prices don't go up the way they otherwise would on the American people and try to find a way to claim credit for it. I don't care about any credit. I just think the American people need to know that their insurance is not going to skyrocket. But you never know from one day to the next. One day he is worried about the prices on Americans; the next day he couldn't care less. And that is the thing we are here to talk about tonight.

Everywhere I go in Colorado, families tell me the same thing: that prices are too high; no matter how much money they try to save during the week, they can't keep up with the cost of groceries; they can't feed their families. Many of these Coloradoans--600,000--rely on a program called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which is our country's largest and most effective program to feed hungry people and families. Every day, families rely on this program to stretch their food budgets a little further. It allows them to buy things like fruits and vegetables at the farmers market and the grocery store, pick up milk at the corner store, and for their kids to have a snack when they come home from school.

Now the Trump administration is refusing to use the money Congress has appropriated, that Congress passed from here, to fund this vital help for families. And this comes after President Trump and Senate Republicans made the largest cuts in SNAP in the history of the program, all so they could offset their tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America.

I have heard from people all over Colorado how mystified they are by that bill but also the fact that they have no idea how they are going to make ends meet by the end of the week: older adults in Pueblo County, where nearly 45,000 residents depend on SNAP who are now facing health deterioration and malnutrition without the food they need; grandmothers, like one in Arvada who can't feed her three young grandchildren; doctors who know that their patients are not going to be able to remain healthy if they can't feed their families.

All over Colorado--all over Colorado--county governments like Chaffee, Pitkin, Routt, and Summit are responding to the emergency that President Trump has created by giving grocery store gift cards to families who have lost their SNAP benefits. But that is never going to be enough to offset the damage.

Before I came to the Senate, I served as the superintendent of the Denver Public Schools. And I am sorry to say this, but in that job I have seen firsthand what hunger does to a child, what it means for learning, how it undermines not just their future but the Nation's future. We can't build a strong economy or a strong democracy on empty stomachs. Instead of helping families, instead of complying with what the courts have told them they have a constitutional obligation to do, this administration is making choices that raise costs and harm families.

These cuts to food and nutrition are the latest moves that this administration has undertaken to make people's lives harder in this country, not easier. They have made it harder for people this week, not easier, to afford groceries in America. President Trump's tariffs, as everybody in this Chamber knows, are driving up grocery prices and costs and the costs to keep our farms running. And as I said at the very outset, they are refusing to extend healthcare tax credits, the result of which could double or triple the cost of healthcare for millions of families all across America.

What a record of disgrace.

Last week, two different courts said what President Trump is doing with

SNAP is illegal. They told him to make the payments to families. But today he said he would ignore the court orders and refuse to fund the program. Later, the White House Press Secretary had to walk that back, saying that now they intend to ``fully comply'' with that court order. I hope that is true. I hope that is true.

President Trump has not just the power but the legal obligation to fund these benefits and to fund SNAP this month. I urge my colleagues in this Chamber to stand up for the families who depend on this critical program and demand that President Trump do the right thing and reduce the costs for working people all over this country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the leadership of Manuel Heart, who recently retired after serving 15 years as Chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and 27 years on Tribal Council.

Chairman Heart led the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, a sovereign Nation of the Weenuche band of Utes, with reservation land in Southwest Colorado, as well as New Mexico and Utah, with humility, perseverance, and a deep love for his people. Over several decades, Chairman Heart grew from a young council member to a respected statesman in Towaoc and across the Southwest, setting an example for Tribal and non-Tribal leaders alike. He balanced cultural perseverance with forward economic and social progress for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and dedicated his service to fighting for a better future for all of its members.

As Chairman, he strengthened the Tribe's sovereignty and advanced its voice in State and national policy. He helped establish Bears Ears and Camp Hale National Monuments, raised the voice of tribes in the Colorado River Basin, and advocated for the protection of the Dolores River Basin. He also led the effort to secure full Federal trust status for the Tribe's Pinecrest Ranch in Gunnison County, an area he knows well from countless seasons running the Tribe's cattle below the Uncompahgre Mountains.

It was an honor to work with Chairman Heart over the years. We met many times on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation and across the ancestral homeland of the Ute Tribes in Colorado and Utah. Throughout our time in office together, we have had the pleasure of rafting the Colorado River to discuss water policy and climate change, visiting cultural sites in the Dolores River Basin, and gathering along the Continental Divide to discuss how the Camp Hale National Monument should tell the story of the Ute people and their long ties to that land. He was a regular visitor to my office in Washington, DC, and in 2021, we visited the White House together to celebrate the restoration of the Bears Ears National Monument.

In Towaoc, Chairman Heart led with conviction and compassion. He guided the Tribe through the COVID pandemic, protecting the Tribe's elders and most vulnerable members. He has also sought solutions to on- reservation gun violence and substance abuse issues and advocated for better access to healthcare and law enforcement. He brought that same vision and steadfast leadership to complex water negotiations, where he advocated for the Tribe's right to access and benefit from their full water rights, which are essential to the Ute Mountain Farm and Ranch.

When we wrote the Tribal Access to Clean Water Act, the Chairman testified before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on the Federal Government's obligations to provide the Tribe--and all of Indian Country--their sovereign right to access clean, reliable drinking water.

Chairman Heart also understood that the sovereignty of a Tribal nation also lies in the preservation and vitality of culture and language through future generations. He led the effort to create the Kwiyagat Community Academy, the first charter school on a reservation in Colorado, focused on instilling Ute history, language, and culture in children from kindergarten through 5th grade. The academy embodies the exemplary values and leadership style Chairman Heart carried throughout his tenure: prioritizing the health and well-being of the Tribe while looking to the future. It was an honor to visit the school with him and hear the students speak in Ute and share pride in their heritage.

Chairman Heart never let the United States forget its promises to Tribal nations. He ensured that national conversations about water, education, economic development, healthcare, and justice include the voices of sovereign Tribes. He taught me what true government-to- government respect means. I remain deeply grateful for his friendship, his wisdom, and his example.

Colorado and the United States owe Chairman Heart profound gratitude for his decades of service and leadership. We also thank his wife Marie and his entire family for their support of his leadership. His heart of service for his people has inspired me, and working with him remains one of the greatest honors of my time in the Senate. I wish him well in his retirement as he enjoys well-deserved time with his entire family, including his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the career of Dr. Martin Keller as he prepares to depart Colorado's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL, at the end of October.

Dr. Keller has devoted his career to the growth and success of our National Laboratories, his work culminating in nearly a decade spent as the Laboratory Director at NREL. Under his leadership, NREL built the Research and Innovation Laboratory, planned and began construction of the Energy Materials and Processing at Scale, EMAPS, facility; launched the Department of Energy's Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems, ARIES; and extended NREL's footprint beyond Colorado to its new Alaska Campus in Fairbanks.

Beyond new facilities and capabilities, Dr. Keller has developed an engaged, talented, and highly accomplished NREL workforce, earning him widespread acclaim from his peers. He was named one of the Denver Business Journal's ``Most Admired CEOs'' in 2022 and recognized as Laboratory Director of the Year in 2024 by the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer.

While Dr. Keller's return to his native Germany is a loss for both NREL and Colorado, the Helmholtz Association, a preeminent national research institution, is lucky to have him as its new president. His skillful, kind, and thoughtful service to NREL and American energy research will be felt for generations. I wish him the very best in this next chapter.

Mr. President, I rise to recognize the life and career of H. Edward Quick. Ed was a proud Kansan who served our Nation so well that in the 1970s and `80s, he was often referred to as ``Missouri's third senator.'' Throughout his life and his work, Ed demonstrated a deep, unabashed love of our democratic process. He was the embodiment of humility, generosity, and hard work. Ed passed away in August after a life well-lived and in the company of his loving family. I offer this remembrance so that the official Record of our body may reflect his many contributions to the public good and to the best traditions of the Senate.

Ed's Senate tenure spanned 11 Congresses--the 91st through 101st--and five administrations. He helped Tom Eagleton win his first Senatorial campaign and followed him to DC in 1969, leaving behind a near-finished PhD to join the Eagleton Senate staff.

In his new job, Ed reported to my father Doug Bennet, who served as Senator Eagleton's first chief of staff, a role then known as administrative assistant. Ed generously credited my father as a mentor and as an example that served him well when he held that same position for Senator Eagleton in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Ed was a resolute Democrat and intensely loyal to Senator Eagleton, but he was also respected and trusted across the aisle. Jack Danforth was Missouri's Republican Senator during most of Ed's tenure, and both he and his staff felt comfortable seeking Ed's counsel. Perhaps it is indicative of how closely the two offices worked together that, during Ed's tenure, Senators Eagleton and Danforth started a bipartisan summer softball team called the ``Missouri Compromise.''

Ed was an insightful student of politics and a gifted practitioner of the art of the possible. He had a keen sense of the political winds and a feel for finding the common ground that drove agreements and produced results. He honed his skills relentlessly. Senate coworkers soon grew accustomed to seeing Ed loping through the halls of Dirksen in the early morning hours, a 6-inch stack of Missouri newspapers under his arm. When Tom Eagleton walked into Ed's office and asked, ``What's going on in Dunklin County?'', Ed knew. He then would reduce that pile of newsprint to clippings he sent by mail to his network of contacts across Washington and Missouri.

When Senator Eagleton retired in 1987, Ed joined the staff of Arkansas Senator David Pryor, where he worked with chief of staff Don Harrell to expand Senator Pryor's committee chairmanships and responsibilities as Senate Democratic Caucus chair. In 1990, Ed was nominated by President Bush, with Senator Pryor's support, to serve as a Commissioner of the U.S. Postal Rate Commission. To no one's surprise, the Senate unanimously approved his appointment to the Commission, where Ed served until his retirement in 2005.

Upon retiring, Ed returned to his Kansas roots: the city of Lawrence and the University of Kansas, where he maintained a full calendar of classes, community service, and charitable work. He continued to be a voracious reader of newspapers, and his wide network of friends, family, and former colleagues would regularly find the resulting clips in their inboxes.

This institution and this country owe much to Ed Quick and public servants like him, who freely give their time, friendship, and loyalty to causes greater than themselves. We extend our deepest condolences to the entire Quick family and to all those who knew and loved Bob, as we did.

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

Mr. President, last Wednesday, the uniquely American tragedy of gun violence struck Colorado yet again. At Evergreen High School in Jefferson County, a 16-year-old shot and injured two students and an administrator. Tonight, these three victims are still recovering, and their classmates and teachers and families are still reeling. Every elementary and middle school in the State is wondering whether they might be next.

It has been 26 years since the Columbine tragedy; 26 years since 2 gunmen murdered 13 students and a teacher and left many others physically and mentally wounded for life. Since that day, Jefferson County, CO, has done what no community should ever have to do: They have built some of the strongest systems in the Nation to prepare for and respond to mass shootings at their schools.

At Evergreen, teachers acted so quickly that when the shooter tried door after door, looking for students and teachers, he couldn't reach a single classroom. Law enforcement arrived on the scene in under 2 minutes and located the shooter in fewer than 5. Every single one of us should be grateful to every teacher, administrator, first responder, and student who acted with courage at Evergreen High School. Their bravery saved countless lives, and they now stand as a national example of how to respond to one of these terrible situations.

Mr. President, it should never have to be this way. I remember Columbine as if it were yesterday. I was in the Houston Airport coming home from a work trip when I saw our Colorado high school flashing on the screens of every single television set in the terminal. It filled me, as it did all Americans, with horror. How could something like this happen in America?

My wife Susan was 6 months pregnant with our oldest daughter Caroline, and all I could think about was getting home to my family. But Caroline and her two sisters, Halina and Anne, like millions of other American kids, have grown up in the shadow of Columbine. They have borne witness to an endless onslaught of mass shootings. Each tragedy is piled on top of the last one during their young lives.

In the summer of 2012, a gunman walked into a crowded theater in Aurora, CO, and killed 12 innocent people and wounded 58 more. We lost sons and daughters and friends and neighbors, all full of life and full of aspiration, loved by family and loved by friends.

A few months later, Sandy Hook shook the entire Nation to its knees. Twenty first graders--twenty first graders--and six teachers were killed in mere moments.

We hoped then that Congress would finally act. I can remember that balcony in the Chamber being filled with parents and children of people who had been massacred in their elementary school, hoping against all hope that this body would do something to respond; that Congress would finally pass background checks--something that 90 percent of the American people support. As everybody knows, to our everlasting shame, we didn't. We failed to act.

And somewhere along the Nation, we became numb to these tragedies. I will never forget in 2017, after a gunman slaughtered 58 people in Las Vegas who were across the street from his hotel, I sat through 5 or 6 meetings the next day before anybody mentioned that 58 people had been killed in that mass shooting. Ultimately, 60 lives were stolen as we carried on with business as usual here in Washington. We have become numb.

But, Mr. President, for the sake of our children, we cannot be numb. We need to understand that our children never can become numb. They won't become numb. They can't move on because this is their one chance to be an elementary school student; this is their one chance to be a middle school student; this is their one chance to be a high school student. When they witness, even at a distance, even from another town or another State, children being destroyed or wounded by something like the Aurora movie theater shooting or like Columbine or like the Evergreen shooting, the fear that enters their young lives is whether they might be next. That is what they carry to school day after day after day throughout their young lives.

The result of that and the result of our inaction is that America's children carry a burden unlike any generation before them or any other country in the industrialized world. They are the generation of school metal detectors, active shooter drills, and bulletproof backpacks. They live with the constant terror that they could be next.

Colorado's children have grown up in the shadow of Columbine, and 25 years later, we are still losing this fight. And they have the right to be terrified. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for America's kids. Think about that, Mr. President. Think about that. Gun violence is the leading cause of death of America's kids. Twenty-five years ago when Columbine happened, it was car accidents. Now it is gun violence.

When I heard that statistic, I assumed that most of those gun deaths must be accidents, but only 5 percent were--only 5 percent were. The rest were homicides and suicides and mass shootings. In other words, the leading cause of death in America, in the richest country in the world, in the greatest country in the world, is violent shootings of our own children. There is no other country in the industrialized world where that is even close.

The indifference in this body is staggering. The claim that this is somehow the price of freedom is staggering or that this is what the Constitution of the United States requires for us, to fully embrace the rights enunciated by the Founders of this country. That is incomprehensible--the price of freedom.

What about the freedom of our children, the right of our children to be able to go to school with the freedom that they are not going to be gunned down, the freedom of the knowledge to know that their classmates are not going to be gunned down or that they could go there and be next on the list? What about that freedom? That seems as fundamental as any other freedom that is articulated in the Constitution of the United States, which, after all, guarantees us our rights as citizens in this Nation, including our children.

We may have become numb, Mr. President, but our children never will because they are as evergreen as Evergreen High School. This is the first time and the last time that they will be elementary school students and middle school students and high school students. I think we need to find a way to channel their raw emotion, their confusion, their anger, their fear, and their terror and summon the will to overcome our failures--this generation's failures.

My home State of Colorado has tried to do that, and we have made progress. After the massacre at Columbine, we closed the gun show loophole, which 90 percent of the American people support. After the tragedy in Aurora, we strengthened background checks in my State. In the wake of the shooting at Club Q, we raised the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21. This year, Governor Polis signed three commonsense gun violence prevention laws restricting the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, requiring retailers to keep ammunition locked, and setting age limits for gun shows.

Colorado is making progress, but States can't do it alone. We can't do it alone in Colorado--a Western State that has a majority of unaffiliated voters in our purple State; that takes pride in our hunters and our anglers and our ranchers. If we can find the will to act, so can the U.S. Congress, and for the sake of our children, we must.

With deep, deep regret, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 497, the confirmation of Sean Cairncross to be National Cyber Director. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 498, the confirmation of Adam Telle to be Assistant Secretary of the Army. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 499, the confirmation of Marcus Molinaro to be Federal Transit Administrator. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay.

Mr. President, I rise today to remember the life of John Stulp, Jr., a son of Colorado's Eastern Plains, Colorado's first and only water czar, and the former commissioner of agriculture for our State.

In his 45 extraordinary years of public service, John was appointed by five Governors--of both parties--to two cabinet positions and six State boards and commissions.

Governor Bill Ritter, who appointed John as commissioner of agriculture, said:

If we had an award for the most universally loved cabinet

member, it would be John Stulp.

I agree.

After graduating from Colorado State University with a degree in veterinary science, John returned to Prowers County with his beloved wife Jane. Together, they ran Stulp Land and Livestock for 50 years, growing dryland wheat and raising cattle, while continuing to practice veterinary medicine.

I was honored to spend time with him and learn from John, including a visit to the Stulp farm in 2013.

Over the years, the Stulp family farm has welcomed Members of Congress, State legislators, commissioners, and school groups with open arms and warm hospitality. John always had something cold to drink when you were there.

He was a farmer first, and of farming he said:

You don't farm because you want to; you do it because you

have to. It's in your blood.

John was elected county commissioner in deep-red Prowers County as a Democrat, which testifies precisely to the kind of leader he was-- steady, willing to work toward compromise, and always putting the needs of Southeastern Colorado first.

We could use his example around here.

As a water czar under then-Governor Hickenlooper, he had the enormous task of creating a water plan for the next 50 years. Skeptical at first, John's quiet and thoughtful approach brought rural and urban users to the table and helped forge compromise over some of the toughest issues that we face in the West and in Colorado.

He knew that rural Colorado was counting on him, I would suspect, all of his life, but he was also thinking beyond himself and beyond his own backyard--about the next generation of Coloradans: his 5 kids and now 14 grandkids and about what they would inherit.

John leaves an incredible legacy in Colorado, not just with regard to the work he did to ensure that rural Colorado was represented in the capital of Denver or in the expertise and counsel he gave to countless leaders but, I would say, most importantly to him, in his family.

I send, on behalf of the people of Colorado, my condolences to the entire Stulp family--to John's children, to his grandchildren, to his wife Jane.

Colorado will feel his loss, and his leadership will be deeply missed. I think his example will testify to the standard every one of us should strive for of leadership in our States and in our communities and as members of our families.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, as the Senate debates H.R. 4, I would like to state for the record two motions I have to address some issues with the Rescissions Act of 2025 that I believe the Senate must consider:

The following are motions to recommit in the jurisdiction

of the Committee on Appropriations:

Mr. Bennet moves to recommit the bill H.R. 4 to the

Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report the

same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on

which the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would strike provisions that prevent Americans in rural

communities from having access to Wireless Emergency Alerts

or presidential emergency alerts.

Mr. Bennet moves to recommit the bill H.R. 4 to the

Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report the

same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on

which the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would strike provisions that prevent American children

from having access to civics education or the opportunity to

learn about our democratic system of government.

This legislation would cut $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports over 1,500 public radio and television stations across the country, including over 50 in Colorado. Colorado outlets stand to lose over $7.6 million in funding-- with a disproportionate effect for rural and Tribal communities across the State. News organizations like Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountains PBS, and smaller stations like KRZA in Alamosa and KVNF in Paonia are at risk. Not only does CPB funding provide needed resources for local outlets--the lifeblood of our democracy, responsible for ensuring informed debate and holding power to account--but these funds also support a wide array of free, easily accessible educational programming and resources for our children. Moreover, rescinding these funds would jeopardize key elements of our Nation's emergency alert architecture, including the Wireless Emergency Alert System and the Public Radio Satellite System. This proposal's principal outcome will be the further erosion of our local media, the impoverishment of our children's educational opportunities, and the dismantling of our country's critical emergency infrastructure that saves countless lives every year. I urge my colleagues to support these motions and reject the legislation before us today.

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

I ask the reading of the motion be dispensed with.

Mr. President, the legislation we are debating today would modestly increase the size of the child tax credit while leaving out more than 17 million children from the full credit.

America's poorest children, whose families are struggling to make ends meet, receive nothing from this bill. Everywhere I go in Colorado, I meet parents who are working hard--often two and three jobs--just to keep their family's heads above water, like Americans all across this country.

They are wrestling with the legacy of 50 years of trickle-down economics that have benefited the wealthiest Americans while leaving working and middle-class families behind, which this bill does again.

Today, the United States boasts one of the highest childhood poverty rates in the industrialized world. This is a moral disgrace, but we know how to end childhood poverty in this country.

In 2021, we expanded the child tax credit and cut childhood poverty nearly in half and cut hunger by a quarter.

Mr. President, we should refuse to pass a bill that adds millions to our debt in order to cut taxes for the wealthiest while doing nothing for our kids. I urge my colleagues to support this motion.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, as the Senate debates H.R. 1, I would like to state for the record several motions I have to address a range of issues with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) that I believe the Senate must address.

The following are motions to commit in the jurisdiction of

the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry:

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate with

instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3 days,

not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session,

with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would ensure that the Secretary of Agriculture

continues to pay States 50 percent of the administrative

costs incurred in operating the supplemental nutrition

assistance program established under the Food and Nutrition

Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.) in order to prevent

overburdening States with those costs.

The proposal currently in the bill would force states to shoulder 75 percent of administrative costs, on top of a proposal that would shift the responsibility for a portion of benefit expenditures onto States. But in States like Colorado, where the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights strictly limits state spending and revenue growth, taking on additional costs of a major Federal program like SNAP, whether through benefit expenditures or increased administrative costs, would be incredibly difficult without cutting other essential services. And Colorado is not alone. Every State faces its own budget constraints, and this kind of cost shift would destabilize the program and put food access at risk when State budgets fall short. SNAP reduces poverty, strengthens rural economies, and generates $1.50 in local economic activity for every Federal dollar invested. It is one of the most effective investments we can make to keep families fed and local economies afloat. That is why we should not be making it harder for States to afford to administer the program. We should be focused on strengthening SNAP's delivery and responsiveness, not destabilizing it.

Senator Adam Schiff also supports this motion.

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate with

instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3 days,

not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session,

with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would rescind voluntary conservation funding provided

by the Inflation Reduction Act and reinvest the full amount

of those rescinded funds into the Environmental Quality

Incentives Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, the

Regional Conservation Partnership Program, and the

Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.

Senators Cory Booker, Adam Schiff, and Peter Welch also

support this motion.

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate with

instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3 days,

not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session,

with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would ensure that all rescinded voluntary conservation

funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act is fully

reinvested in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program

(EQIP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the

Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), and the

Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP).

These programs play a central role in the Department of Agriculture's conservation support. Not only do these programs help farmers and ranchers protect our natural resources, but they are also incredibly popular and consistently oversubscribed. The programs are not just about conservation either. They help producers stay afloat by giving practical ways to manage climate risks while keeping their operations running and providing financial stability. In Colorado, farmers and ranchers are already doing the hard work of conserving water, improving soil health, and protecting the land. These programs support their leadership with voluntary, locally driven solutions. But too often, producers ready to do more are turned away because funding runs out. That is why we made historic investments in conservation through the Inflation Reduction Act. The motion I am submitting today would ensure that every dollar that is rescinded from those investments is returned to these trusted and proven programs. Farmers and ranchers are already stepping up to protect the land and water we all depend on. The least we can do is follow through on the commitments we made to them.

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate with

instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3 days,

not counting any day on which the Senate is not in session,

with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would establish an emergency relief grant program for

migrant and seasonal farmworkers affected by federally

declared natural disasters.

The following are motions to commit in the jurisdiction of

the Committee on Finance:

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same

back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which

the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee;

(2) would strike any provision that forces more paperwork

on Medicaid enrollees every 6 months; and

(3) would ensure big corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay

a fair share in taxes.

My motion to commit would cut bureaucratic redtape in the reconciliation bill under consideration today, and I thank Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden for his support of my motion as well. Among the many egregious Medicaid policies in this bill is a requirement that Medicaid expansion adults must prove their eligibility every 6 months--twice as often as they do today. Like the other Medicaid cuts, this is being disguised as cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. But we know that is not what is going to happen. We know that qualified people are going to get inappropriately dropped off Medicaid for administrative reasons. Putting aside whether we think people deserve health insurance regardless of where they live or how much money they make, which incidentally I do, this policy will lead to more people being uninsured, more uncompensated care for hospitals and health clinics, and worse health outcomes. This seems in contradiction to the administration's supposed commitment to Making

America Healthy Again, which is why I oppose this provision, along with all of the Medicaid cuts in this bill. My motion to commit will strike this unnecessary and harmful requirement, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Finance of the Senate with instructions to report the same

back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on which

the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would increase the amount and availability of the Child

Tax Credit to match levels of the expanded Child Tax Credit,

adjusted for inflation, by ensuring big corporations and the

ultra-wealthy pay a fair share.

Senators Raphael Warnock, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez

Masto, Richard Durbin, and Ron Wyden also support this

motion.

The following are motions to commit in the jurisdiction of

the Committee on Judiciary:

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Judiciary of the Senate with instructions to report the

same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on

which the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would ensure the definition of `affected area' in

downwind states includes the States of Arizona, Colorado,

Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah,

Wyoming and the territory of Guam due to the catastrophic

amounts of radiation exposure in these areas after U.S.

testing above ground nuclear weapons during World War II and

the Cold War.

Senators John Hickenlooper, Ben Ray Lujan, Ruben Gallego,

Jacky Rosen, Catherine Cortez Masto, Martin Heinrich, and

Mark Kelly also support this motion.

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Judiciary of the Senate with instructions to report the

same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on

which the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would--

(A) establish child-appropriate procedures in immigration

court;

(B) expand access to legal representation for unaccompanied

children;

(C) create dedicated children's dockets within immigration

courts; and

(D) protect the due process rights and safety of children

in federal custody.

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Judiciary of the Senate with instructions to report the

same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day on

which the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would--

(A) streamline the work authorization process for asylum

seekers and DACA recipients;

(B) reduce USCIS application backlogs through staffing and

modernization;

(C) ensure timely adjudication of employment-related

benefits; and

(D) strengthen legal pathways to support economic growth

and reduce strain on cities like Denver.

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on the Judiciary of the Senate with instructions to report

the same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting any day

on which the Senate is not in session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would--

A. create a path to legal status for long-time agricultural

workers; and

B. modernize the H-2A visa program to stabilize the farm

workforce and protect U.S. food security.

The following is a motion to commit in the jurisdiction of

the Committee on Foreign Relations:

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Foreign Relations of the Senate with instructions to

report the same back to the Senate in 3 days, not counting

any day on which the Senate is not in session, with changes

that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would--

(A) support international efforts to disrupt firearms

trafficking networks;

(B) enhance firearm tracing capabilities and cooperation

with Mexico and Central America;

(C) prevent U.S. weapons from fueling regional violence and

forced migration.

The following is a motion to commit in the jurisdiction of

the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:

Mr. Bennet moves to commit the bill H.R. 1 to the Committee

on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate

with instructions to report the same back to the Senate in 3

days, not counting any day on which the Senate is not in

session, with changes that--

(1) are within the jurisdiction of such committee; and

(2) would increase funding for fentanyl interdiction

technology and border screening.