Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the U.S. Ski & Snowboard teams as they prepare for the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Milano-Cortino, Italy.

For nearly 120 years, U.S. Ski & Snowboard has provided leadership, support and direction for young athletes as they work to achieve excellence in their sports. U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes participate in 10 different Olympic sports, including alpine skiing, para snowboarding, cross county skiing, ski jumping, and many others. At a typical Winter Olympics, U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes compose more than half of Team USA. In the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes won 60 percent of Team USA's medals. These able-bodied and adaptive athletes share a commitment to excellence, team work, and fair competition.

To Coloradans, skiing and snowboarding are more than just sports; they are part of our State's rich history. During World War II, 15,000 soldiers traveled to Camp Hale--located between Leadville and Red Cliff, CO, in the high alpine terrain of the Rocky Mountains--to train to defeat the Nazis. These Americans formed the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division. Among them were the best skiers in America. The men of the 10th Mountain Division trained relentlessly in 10 feet of snow and temperatures of 50 below zero. In 1945, 10th Mountain soldiers climbed more than 1,800 feet up a Riva Ridge and scaled Mount Belvedere to surprise the Germans who believed their position in the Alps was unassailable. The 10th Mountain Division took the skills they learned in the Colorado mountains and punched a hole through the German line to clear the way for Allied victory in Europe.

After the war, veterans of the 10th Mountain Division founded Colorado's ski and outdoor recreation industries, including ski resorts like Steamboat Springs and Vail. As a result of their hard work, Steamboat Springs has produced more Winter Olympians than any other town in the United States, and Vail is now known as the birthplace of the most decorated ski racer of all time, Mikaela Shiffrin.

I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our deepest gratitude and appreciation to the U.S. Ski & Snowboard team and its able-bodied and adaptive athletes for inspiring all of us as they compete on the international stage and for their positive representation of American ideals throughout the world.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture motion with respect to the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 457, H.R. 1555, ripen at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the Republican leader, no later than Thursday, September 26, 2024.

Madam President, I rise today to recognize Larry A. Mizel, a great Coloradan, who has contributed significantly to the well-being of our servicemen and women through lifelong philanthropy. On Thursday, August 8, 2024, Mr. Mizel will receive the Navy SEAL Foundation's 2024 Fire in the Gut Award to honor his extraordinary dedication to the brave men and women who serve our country.

For decades, Mr. Mizel has played a pivotal role in supporting the Navy SEAL Foundation's mission to provide immediate and ongoing assistance to the naval special warfare community, improve the health and welfare of Navy SEAL veterans, and empower their families through hardship. Through his generous contributions, Mr. Mizel has helped ensure countless Navy SEALs and their loved ones receive the care, support, and resources they need and deserve.

Mr. Mizel's contributions to our servicemembers and veterans extend beyond his work with the Navy SEAL Foundation. Mr. Mizel has championed the Tragedy Assistance Program for

Survivors--TAPS--to provide care and resources to the loved ones of fallen servicemembers. He helped support the establishment of the Colorado Fallen Heroes Memorial honoring Coloradans killed during military conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries. He also aided the development of the Major General Maurice Rose monument honoring the most decorated battle tank commander in American history and the highest ranking Jewish soldier in World War II.

Through decades of philanthropy, Mr. Mizel has helped build stronger American communities by championing anti-poverty, healthcare, and education initiatives, enhancing public safety, and promoting tolerance. He has supported Denver's youth through his contributions to Urban Peak; assisted housing insecure Coloradans through his support of Mercy Housing Mountain Plains, and improved healthcare delivery through his work with the Denver Health Foundation. Since its founding in 2008, Mr. Mizel has led and supported the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab, which educates the public on threats of terrorism and violent extremism to enhance national safety. An avid supporter of the Jewish community in Colorado and abroad and the founder of the Mizel Museum, Mr. Mizel is dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, building bridges across backgrounds, and moving closer to a world without hate.

I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our deepest gratitude and appreciation to Larry A. Mizel for his extraordinary contributions to the Navy SEAL Foundation and our military community, his efforts to enhance public safety and promote inclusion, and his deep commitment to the well-being of American families. Mr. Mizel is a reminder of the power one individual has to shape a better and more secure future for all.

I want to thank the Presiding Officer who has been such a champion on all these texts, the Senator from Nevada, and the Senator from New Hampshire as well, for bringing together people from both sides of the aisle to work on this. And you, Mr. Chairman, for your steadfast leadership over many, many years.

And I am not going to give everybody a long history lesson here, but you want to know why our politics are so messed up, what feels like we are having these incredible, disagreeable disagreements and divisions and all of this in our politics, I believe there is one fundamental reason for it, and I think that fundamental reason is that people in America have lost a sense of having economic mobility for themselves and their families.

You know, the whole idea of the American dream was that, if you work hard enough, that your kids were going to do better than you did and that your grandkids were going to do better than they did. And that has been lost. It is not irrecoverable, but there are so many families in Colorado, in Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, that are going through the same stuff that people all over America are going through, which is they are working harder than ever before and they are bringing less home.

And more of the benefit has been going, for years and years and years, to the people at the very top. That is the result of a real philosophical approach to how to run an economy, which is called trickle-down economics or supply side economics; it was something that Ronald Reagan led here. But I have to say this: There are Democrats and Republicans who supported those tendencies for a long time, and the result of that is that, today, the bottom

half of Americans in our economy have less wealth than they did in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was President.

We are the first generation of Americans, the people in this Senate, that are actually leaving less opportunity, not more, to our kids and our grandkids. That has never happened before in American history. Half the people that are in their 30s today are earning less than their parents did.

And I heard my colleague from Rhode Island talking about housing in Rhode Island. You can say exactly the same thing in Colorado. There is not a single place in Colorado where people think they can afford housing--because they can't.

There is no workforce housing left, as you and I have discussed in the State of Colorado or the State of Oregon. And all of that is a preface to saying finally--finally--we have a bill in front of us that doesn't just cut taxes for the biggest corporations and the wealthiest people in the country, but actually cuts taxes for working people. And amazingly, as has been said, amazingly, it got 357 votes in the House. I know the chairman is fond of saying you couldn't get that kind of a majority vote for--what?

Apple pie. Or who is your favorite, you know, celebrity. And yet they were able to come together over there in the House of Representatives and pass a bill with 357 freaking votes.

So we are going to put this on the floor. There is a lot of debate going on right now about was this party for kids or that party--I assume everybody is for kids. I assume that everybody, given the opportunity to vote for a piece of legislation that has that number of votes, that does not just the important work this does for the child tax credit, but also does important work on the research and development tax credit that my colleague from New Hampshire has been such a leader on, that when we get it here, we will actually all vote for it.

And then I hope we come back next year and do the work we really need to do with the child tax credit, which is to once again show that we do not have to accept, as a permanent feature of our economy or a permanent feature of democracy, the disgraceful and immoral levels of childhood poverty we have in this country, that we know--because President Biden put it in place several years ago--that we have a tool, the child tax credit, that will actually lift half the American children out of poverty and give them a fighting chance to contribute to our democracy and to our economy.

This is one important step in that process. I urge everybody in this Chamber to vote yes this week on this bill because this will be your opportunity, before we go home, to demonstrate where we stand on behalf of the American people and their families.

Madam President, I rise today to pay tribute to COL Dennis Wille, a devoted and accomplished member of the U.S. Army, who has dedicated nearly 29 years of exceptional service to our Nation. Colonel Wille is completing over 4 years of service on the U.S. Space Command staff, where he has served in the Pentagon as both the chief of the Washington Liaison Office and the chief of legislative affairs.

Colonel Wille's career began as an armor officer in 1995, serving in armored cavalry units at Fort Carson, CO, and Fort Stewart, GA. In 2005, he transitioned into the U.S. Army's cadre of space professionals, taking on roles as a space operations staff officer at various locations, including Fort Hood, TX; Fort Leavenworth, KS; Peterson Air Force Base, CO; and Wiesbaden, Germany.

Throughout his career, Colonel Wille demonstrated remarkable leadership and dedication, participating in deployments to Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In Iraq, he served as a space operations staff officer for the Multi-National Division--Baghdad, integrating space and technical capabilities into counterinsurgency operations. His yearlong tour in Afghanistan at ISAF Joint Command focused on integrating nonmilitary applications into NATO's combat operations.

During his 2 years as the Army's senior space officer at U.S. Army Europe, Colonel Wille's expertise extended to supervising the integration of space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities into NATO and joint land operations and exercises. Notably, he also served as a military fellow at New America, a D.C.-based think tank, through the Chief of Staff of the Army's Senior Fellowship Program.

A lifelong learner, Colonel Wille earned several advanced degrees, including a master of science in space systems operations from the Naval Postgraduate School in 2006, a master of military art and science from the School for Advanced Military Studies in 2012, and an additional MMAS from the U.S. Army War College in 2016.

We extend our heartfelt appreciation to COL Dennis Wille for his exceptional service and unwavering dedication to our Nation's security. His remarkable career and leadership in space operations have significantly contributed to our defense and global security efforts. We commend him for his achievements and wish him continued success in all his future endeavors.

COL Dennis Wille's outstanding contributions and unwavering commitment have left an indelible mark on the U.S. Army and our Nation. His dedication to duty serves as an inspiration to all who follow in his footsteps. I ask my colleagues to join me in wishing him a happy retirement as we celebrate his legacy of selfless service to the Nation.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this Saturday marks a solemn anniversary in Colorado--the solemn anniversary of a moment that shattered our children's sense of safety and has forever scarred our Nation's memory.

It has been 25 years this week since the Columbine High School shooting, where 12 students and a teacher were murdered and many others were left with life-altering injuries. None of us left without the impact of that day.

Columbine changed our State forever. I think it changed the country forever. We all remember where we were the day it happened. I certainly do. We remember the lives that were lost on April 20, 1999. Twelve young Coloradans never had the chance to graduate from high school, go to college, get married, start a family.

Rachel Scott was killed when she was eating lunch outside with a friend. She was planning on going on a mission trip to Botswana and dreamed of becoming an actress. She was 17 years old.

Danny Rohrbough was 15. Every year, Danny saved the money he earned from working at his family's wheat farm in the summer to buy Christmas presents for his friends and family--just another American kid gunned down on his way to lunch, still holding the Dr. Pepper he had bought from the vending machine.

Kyle Velasquez, age 16, was a new student at Columbine. He had developmental disabilities, and he had just started attending school for a full day. He would have been on his way home from school if the shooting had happened just a week earlier than it did.

The youngest victim, Steven Curnow, was only 14 years old. He dreamt at that young age of becoming a Navy pilot.

Cassie Bernall, 17, was a new student at Columbine. After a few tough years of high school, she was finally thriving and excited for what was next.

Isaiah Shoels, 18 years old, was a senior about ready to graduate. He had overcome a heart defect to play football and wrestle in high school.

Matthew Kechter, a straight-A student and also a football player, was remembered by his parents as a wonderful role model for his younger siblings. He was just 16.

Lauren Townsend was 18 and was the captain of the volleyball team. She loved to volunteer at the local animal shelter.

John Tomlin was killed. He was 17. He was in the library at Columbine, where he was trying to comfort other students.

Kelly Fleming was 16. She was also a new student at Columbine. She loved to write poetry.

Daniel Mauser was 15 years old. He was a Boy Scout and a piano player who had just mustered the courage to join the school's debate team.

Corey DePooter, 17, was described as an all-American kid who worked hard in school and was someone his classmates loved to be around.

Those were the students who died that day. And we can't ever forget Dave Sanders and the contribution he made--a teacher, a father, and a grandfather. He was a hero that day. He saved 100 students in danger before he was killed.

Twelve kids in the prime of their lives were gunned down by killers who used the gun show loophole to purchase weapons they should never have owned.

Mr. President, the shooting at Columbine High School, as I have said over and over and over again on this floor, happened the same year that my oldest daughter, Caroline, was born. She is turning 25 this year. She and her sisters and an entire generation of American children-- maybe two generations, really--have grown up in the shadow of Columbine--really the first of these types of school shootings--and the shadow of gun violence more broadly.

Since Columbine, my State--every State--but my State has endured one tragedy after another, one horrific murder after another. In 2012, a gunman killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, CO. In 2019, a shooter injured eight students at STEM High School in Highlands Ranch. In March 2021, a shooter killed 10 people at the King Soopers in Boulder. Two months after that King Soopers shooting, a gunman killed six people at a birthday party in Colorado Springs. Just over a year ago, a shooter killed five people at Club Q, an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs that had been a refuge to so many people.

``Columbine'' really is, I think, a word that is etched into America's history and America's consciousness as

the start of this sickness. Columbine is so much more than that as well. There are kids in high school there this week. It is a place people still want to go. It is a place where people who were teaching there 25 years ago still want to teach.

But I think for a lot of America--certainly for me--there is sort of a ``before Columbine'' and there is an ``after Columbine.'' There is a moment when something like that happened for the first time in America, and we couldn't believe it. It was so out of kilter with our experience as Americans. Now we have had not just the shootings that I recorded in Colorado and that I have come to this floor to talk about over the years but so many others all across the United States of America.

Nobody has carried this burden more than our children, the generation of the people who are the pages on the floor here today in the Senate. They are a generation of metal detectors, of active-shooter drills and bulletproof backpacks. They live under constant threat of being next.

Anybody who has raised children over the last 25 years in this country knows what it looks like when there is a report of another one of these shootings, and you are sitting there on the couch with your son or your daughter, seeing them sink a little deeper into that couch or sitting up a little closer, a little more nervous, a little more worried that you are going to be next.

I wish we could say that in marking this 25th anniversary and thinking about the contributions people have made in the Columbine community, both in Colorado and across the country, to help comfort victims of similar school shootings, to provide leadership that doesn't have anything to do with the shooting that happened at Columbine except to know that they had another chance to be able to make a contribution to their society--and we are grateful for that contribution.

I wish I could stand here and say: Well, over the last 25 years, we had addressed this issue. We were paying attention to the concerns of this generation that has grown up in the shadow of Columbine.

I wish I could say that, but I can't say that. What I can report to you today, standing here, is that guns are the leading cause of death of children in America--uniquely in America. In no other country in the industrialized world--no other country in the world--is that true. And it wasn't true when Columbine happened 25 years ago. Twenty-five years ago, car accidents were the leading cause of death for children. I can come here and report to you that since then, car accidents--car deaths and car accidents--among kids over that period of time have decreased by 50 percent in this country. We cut it in half. Drunk driving deaths are down 60 percent in America since Columbine happened. Child cancer deaths in the United States of America are down a quarter since then.

Congress has passed countless laws that have made our roads and our cars safer. We have passed historic legislation to reduce drunk-driving fatalities. We have appropriated billions of dollars for cancer research. Well, that is good. That is all good.

But in the last 25 years, the number of kids that have died by guns in America has increased by 68 percent. If you take all of the people in this world who die by gun violence--at least in the industrialized world--that are age 4 and younger, 95 percent of the people that die from guns die in the United States of America, and 3 percent die somewhere else.

There is no other country, as I said, in the industrialized world where gun violence is the leading cause of death of children, only here in the United States. There is no other country in the world where kids sit there on the couch watching television, seeing another one of these events and wondering, as our children have for the last 25 years, whether they are going to be next.

You know, one of the really staggering things about that statistic, about the gun death being the leading cause of death among kids, when I first heard it, I thought to myself, that must be accidents of some kind or another. That must be people being careless with firearms, leaving them someplace, or kids being careless with firearms.

Only 5 percent of those gun deaths are accidents, and 65 percent are violent actions between a person and that child, while 30 percent have been deemed suicides. So 95 percent of them are, in effect, acts of violence of one kind or another, and 5 percent are accidents.

It is hard for me to imagine that any other ratio like that would be something where we didn't feel like we had a moral obligation to address it, a moral obligation to fix it.

I know that young people who are here today feel that we have abandoned them. I know they know this is a disgrace; that it is an indictment of our Nation; that it is an indictment of their prospects; that it is incomprehensible to them and to my daughters that we have nearly 200 times the rate of violent gun deaths as Japan has or as South Korea has and nearly 100 times the United Kingdom.

I wish I could stand here 25 years after Columbine and tell you that we have addressed this. But matters are much, much worse than they were 25 years ago, certainly from the perspective of our kids.

But we can't stop; we can't give up; we can't stop trying--because it is a disgrace; because it is an indictment; because it calls into question what it means to live in a nation that is committed to the rule of law, in a nation that is committed to the public safety and the safety of our citizens.

I see the Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy, and I, who have had many conversations about this over the years. No one has led more on this question in the Senate than Chris because of what happened in Newtown and what has happened throughout the United States. And I am grateful for that.

I am grateful for Daniel Mauser's dad Tom, who I saw again this week, having been fortunate to speak with him many times over the years. If he were alive today, Daniel, his son, would be 40 this year. And to this day--yesterday, I think it was, maybe the day before--when he comes to Congress, Tom wears the same sneakers that Daniel had on the day he was killed at Columbine.

And Tom has never, never given up. He has fought tirelessly to build safer schools, to argue for stronger gun laws, to raise awareness around gun violence protection--just like the families from Newtown who sat up in that balcony over there and saw the catastrophic failure on this floor that night; just like the kids from Parkland, who came to Congress over and over again in an effort to say: We don't want one more kid in this country to be killed this way. We don't want one more life to be cut short. We are tired of living in a country that doesn't seem to care for us. We are tired of accepting odds that no other kid in America or no other kid in the world has to accept for themselves.

Tom told me that he comes to Congress less and less these days because there are a lot of other ``me's'' out there now. There are so many other people that have had the same experience that Tom Mauser and his family have had. But I will bet if he thought there was a chance, he would be back here, and even if he thought there wasn't a chance. And he has made a huge difference in Colorado.

And I am not singling him out either. I mean, many people who have been through this in the State have raised their voices to be able to accomplish the things that we have been able to do. But I think he set such an incredible example for the rest of us, for anybody here who thinks that we should just give up.

Just 10 days after his son was murdered, he was protesting the NRA's annual convention, which was in Denver, CO, that year. And Tom has been a fixture in the State capitol in Colorado where, because of him and because of other advocates across the State, as a western State, which has a long tradition of Second Amendment rights, we have been able to enact one piece of sensible gun legislation after another--while Congress has failed, failed, failed, failed.

After the massacre at Columbine, we closed the gun show loophole. After the tragedy in Aurora, we strengthened background checks and limited the size of magazines.

In the wake of the shooting at Club Q, we raised the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21. If Colorado can pass

laws like that, there is no excuse for this place. And Colorado needs this place to pass laws like the laws we passed in Colorado.

What sense is there to have--I mean, it makes sense to have background checks in Colorado, but think about how much better it would be if we had background checks that covered the entire country.

How much sense it would be if we limited the size of magazines the way we have in Colorado, if we banned these weapons of war. I am telling you young pages who are here, I guarantee you we are going to do that someday. I guarantee you that we are going to do that someday, and among many surprises that we have as a society when we look back from there, when we look back from that future, this is going to be one where we say to ourselves, What in the world were we thinking with these weapons of war on our streets and in our classrooms in this country?

What were we thinking when there were people here saying that that was just the price of freedom?

So I think we can do this. I hope it is not going to take another 25 years. In fact, I don't think it is going to take another 25 years. And I think it is because your generation is out of patience with us on this issue. I think your generation is out of excuses or thinks we are out of excuses and lame explanations. And like so many other things, you know that there is an answer here and that the State--as I say, like Colorado can do it, we can do it. And I have met with so many people now over the years who have said: In that instant, my life changed forever; our family's life changed forever; we never thought it could happen to us; I never thought I was saying goodbye that morning for the last time.

And 25 years ago on that April day, our entire country was changed forever. But we haven't changed it for the better.

And there isn't anybody else on planet Earth who can do it except for the people who occupy these desks and the desks down the hall in the House of Representatives.

So as we pay tribute, and I hope we all will, to the 13 lives that were taken too soon at Columbine, we need to rededicate ourselves to freeing every American, and especially our children, from the threat of gun violence. And I would say to this next generation too: I hope you will take inspiration from the work of Tom Mauser and the work of the kids at Parkland and the moms who wear those red shirts demanding that this country get better and people all over this country who are acting out of the memories of their loved ones, not for the sake of their loved ones who are gone but for the idea, for the sake of the idea that it should never happen again. That is what people say.

I am always amazed when people come here to Congress when there is so much cynicism that is well-earned about this place, and yet they will come here and they will advocate on behalf of their kids, kids who have died of fatal diseases, advocating for research that we can put those diseases in the rearview mirror, and the strength it takes for somebody to come here who has lost a child under those circumstances. I always say that I am so grateful that you came. I am so grateful you came because there are a lot of people who can't come here who are in the same circumstance that you are in. Thank God you are here having this conversation.

But it is almost impossible to imagine the strength that it takes to come here and lobby this body on the subject of gun violence when you have lost a loved one in America, when you know that, as the years have gone by, matters have gotten worse. We have become the leading--where gun deaths have become the leading cause of death of children in this country as opposed to any other, and you still come.

And so I say to the young people who are here today and to the young people all over America: You can't give up. Our hope is in you and we have to deliver and we will put the scourge of gun violence behind us. I know we will.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I know my time might be short tonight because we finally have come, I guess, to an agreement about a vote, but I wanted to come tonight to the floor to talk about why I am voting against this bill.

I am going to vote against this bill because the House has sent it over here without funding in it to support Ukraine, and I think that is shameful. I think that is a complete abdication of the House's responsibility to our own national security and to democracy around the world.

It is common to come out here and criticize the U.S. Senate. I have done it many times. But I was grateful to be part of the Senate when we had about a 6-month negotiation about whether

or not to pass what was called the supplemental, which was a budget bill to, among other things, fund Ukraine. There was money in that for Ukraine. There was money in that for Taiwan. There was money in that for Israel. There was humanitarian aid in there as part of that deal as well.

There was a lot of disagreement about a lot of things, but over a 6- month period, we actually finally came to a bipartisan agreement and got 70 votes. You almost never get 70 votes for anything in this place unless it is easy.

You almost never get 70 votes for anything in this place that is hard. Yet we were able to get 70 votes. We were able to put together a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to send a message to the House that funding Ukraine was very important and that the U.S. Senate, despite our disagreements over many, many things, we are united in the idea that we have an obligation to fulfill here on behalf of our national security, on behalf of democracy, on behalf of the fight that Ukraine has led.

We had to overcome, to be sure, isolationist voices--mostly in the Republican Party--during that debate. There are people making arguments from that isolationist wing of the Republican Party that we heard before World War I, that we heard before World War II. It is not an unknown tradition in American history that people would come out and make those arguments. It is such a known tradition that the people who are advancing those arguments are calling themselves by the same name of some of the folks who were the most ardent isolationists before World War II. America Firsters is what they called themselves back then, and that is what they are calling themselves again.

You would have thought they would have learned history's lesson based on the way history shone on the last version of the American Firsters. They were trying to keep us out of World War II. When my mom was being born in 1938 in Warsaw, Poland--a Polish Jew--the country was completely run over or was about to be run over by the Nazis. But all these years later, you hear the same people, the same wing of the same party making the same arguments once again, and the arguments just don't make any sense.

One of the ones that I think is hardest to understand is this argument that we can't simultaneous support Ukraine--we, the United States of America, cannot simultaneously support Ukraine and prepare for a possible conflict with China, which I am sure nobody here would wish. I certainly don't wish for that conflict. But it is more than hypothetical; it is possible that someday we might be in conflict. But the idea that we would stop supporting Ukraine in an actual conflict against tyranny, in an actual conflict against fascism, in the hope that we would somehow be better prepared for later makes absolutely no sense.

Then when you look at the contents of the bills themselves, the bills that we passed as part of the supplemental, and you see the money that is being spent all across America, in 40 States, in 70 cities--our industrial production for our military is up 20 percent since Russia invaded Ukraine because we were not investing in our production before that happened. That was a threat to our national security. And we are doing it now all over this country, all over the United States. In big cities and little cities, in rural communities and urban communities, that is what we are doing. We are retooling our defense complex.

If I accept, if I grant the isolationist wing's view of this, what I would say is that even based on your own arguments, you should be for these bills because these bills are making the United States stronger; they are refreshing our industrial base, our military base; and they are making us more prepared not just for what is going on in Russia today but for what could go on in China.

I mean, it is utterly self-explanatory, and that is why I think it is actually an excuse for not engaging. I think it is an isolationist impulsive tendency that we have seen before. We saw it when the United States shamefully didn't get into World War II until years after we should have, and we are seeing it again here. But this is a different case than that because we are not talking about American troops; we are just talking about American support.

So we are talking about retooling our industrial base. We are talking about creating jobs here in the United States. We are talking about spending the vast majority of money that we authorized in that bill in the United States of America--not in Ukraine but here.

I suppose it would be one thing if Ukraine hadn't earned our support, but on top of everything else, they have. In the last 2 years since they were invaded--an invasion they did not ask for--they have done everything the world could have asked of them--more than the world could have asked of them.

You know, it is another point here, too, that we are not sending them our fanciest equipment either. We are sending them older equipment that is a lot better than the Soviet-age equipment they had. But it is allowing us to have the newest versions of this. We are sending older versions of that equipment to Ukraine, but they have used it magnificently. I am on the Intelligence Committee, and the intelligence community is telling us that the Ukrainian people have fought magnificently.

I have heard some of the isolationists on the other side of the aisle say: Well, we don't know where the money is being spent, and therefore we shouldn't spend any more money. I think it is safe to say that there is no enterprise in the world--I choose my words carefully--there is no enterprise in the world that has a better set of receipts than the men and women who have been fighting on the Ukrainian frontline. I challenge any of those people to show me where they said that Ukraine was going to throw Putin off half the territory he took from them, but they have; that they would be able to attack his so-called, you know, impregnable supersonic missiles, but they have. The Ukrainian people don't even have a navy, really. I don't mean any offense, but it is true. They don't really have a navy, and yet they have been able to keep Putin out of the Black Sea. That has meant that wheat has been able to be transported from Ukraine all over the world so people can eat. These fighters have the receipts. It is in the success they have had.

It is important to understand that this isn't just a fight for Ukraine, which they have fought magnificently. It is a fight for the West. It is a fight for NATO. It is a fight for democracy itself.

They didn't ask for this fight. President Zelenskyy never asked for this fight. Three years ago, he was on a television program, and then he ran for President, and he got elected because there was such concern about corruption in the country. They said: You know what, we are going to put a television guy in charge, and maybe he will do better.

Then Putin invaded his country, thinking that he was going to be able to decapitate the regime in 72 hours, thinking that Zelenskyy was going to run, thinking that they wouldn't stand up to his invasion--the first invasion since we settled all this stuff at the end of World War II with global order and commitment to the rule of law.

My mom is still alive, my mom whom I mentioned earlier. Born in 1938, she is still alive. She can't believe she has lived long enough to see another land war break out in Europe. I suppose, seen from a different way, it is an incredible testament to the institutions that have been built and the alliances that have been built that it has been so long since we have had somebody with the audacity to do what Putin has done. But thank God he ran into the Ukrainians--for all of us--because we don't have to send our people there, and NATO does not have to send their people there.

They are willing to fight and die for democracy, and they are asking us to support them--not with our people but with our military support and with a little bit of money.

As I mentioned earlier, we passed a bill with 72 votes over here to fund the effort in Ukraine, and the House of Representatives has completely ignored it. That same isolationist wing that is over here-- that is now over there in the House of Representatives is declining to fulfill our responsibilities to the rest of the world, and they have left town today without having supported Ukraine.

I want to say, by the way, as I stand here that there has been an incident in

Moscow today or outside of Moscow, and I am very sorry for the theatergoers who are there who lost their lives--further illustration of how complicated this world is.

But let me tell you something: There is nobody more cheerful about the House of Representatives' failure to pass the Senate bill than Vladimir Putin. He reads our newspapers. He reads our social media. He manipulates our social media. He knows what is at stake, and the Ukrainians know what is at stake.

This is not fanciful, the questions that are at risk here. Look what happened just in the last few weeks in Russia. Vladimir Putin got reelected by something over 95 percent of the vote in Moscow, and of course it was completely manipulated, and he went out and said: This is an endorsement for my war. This fraudulent election is an endorsement of my war.

Look what happened in Hong Kong last weekend, where the Chinese Communist Party from Beijing has completely thrown out the rule book in Hong Kong, which has a long tradition of commitment to the rule of law, free enterprise, a place where you can predictably run a business or have a newspaper, have opposition. This weekend, they sucked out the last embers that were glowing there of the right to be able to do that stuff. So now you can get a life in prison--maybe even worse than a life in prison--in Hong Kong if you defy what Beijing says, just like Alexei Navalny, the leading opposition figure in Russia, who was put in prison by Putin and now, you know, died of natural causes in his early forties because Putin killed him while--while--Members of this Congress were at Munich during the Security Conference. He knew exactly what the message was he was sending: I care so little about your opinion of this that I am going to kill Alexei Navalny while you are all there.

So I am going to come to an end because I can tell people need to move on to the next thing, but let me just say that, contrary to what I have heard in the debate around here, the Ukrainians have succeeded beyond anybody's wildest dreams.

The evidence is so clear that that is true. Even the most recent town that was defeated, which was a smoldering ruin by the time the Russians got there--Avdiivka--it took the Russians 6 months and 30,000 troops to get that village. And the alliances held otherwise, notwithstanding the fact that they are out of bullets, notwithstanding the fact that they are out of artillery. At this point, in some ways they are kind of fighting with their bare hands, which is how they started in this war.

We have a responsibility here that is not a service to Ukraine. This is a service to our national security. This is a service to our kids and to our grandkids. This is a service that is the same as the one that was provided by the people who, before World War II, were able to overcome the ``America First'' crowd back then so that America could play its unique role in the world. And this is a service to anybody on planet Earth who cares about freedom, who cares about the ability to have a real debate and a real discussion, who cares about whether there is actually a rule of law in place so might doesn't make right; so that you can open a small business in your village on a corner and know that a gang isn't going to come and steal your money; so that you know that your parents and grandparents aren't going to be locked up with the key thrown away just because they had a different point of view than the ruler of the country.

In human history, it is much more common to see a situation where might makes right than it is for people to exercise those freedoms, and the Ukrainians know that from the guys who are on the frontlines to President Zelenskyy and back. That is why they are fighting so hard for this freedom.

That is why we need to pay attention when Putin takes out his leading opposition. That is why we need to understand the implications for us when China sweeps into Hong Kong and rips away people's freedoms and people's rights in front of the entire world. That is what happens when they shut down opposition newspapers. This is something we should be able to agree on without respect to our political party.

I worry a lot about what is going to happen over the next 2 weeks, because there are people out there who are not telling the truth about what the battle has been in Ukraine. There are people out there-- amazingly, to me--who think the United States can't support Ukraine effectively and prepare for what might be coming down the pike. There are people who don't believe that our military needs to be retooled. I am really worried in this moment that crossing our fingers and hoping for the best is not a recipe for a good outcome here. That is why I believe that it was critical for us to try to force, in this debate, on this bill, the inclusion of Ukraine funding, and I have said that all the way along.

The first funding bill that came over here 6 months ago, I threatened to shut the government down over that bill because it didn't include Ukraine funding. A deal had been cut behind closed doors, between the then-Speaker of the House and others in the House, to allow a bill to come forward without Ukraine funding, and I said to my colleagues here: We have no plan to fund Ukraine.

We had no plan to fund Ukraine, and as a result of that threat, we were able to get commitments from the leaders of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party here that we keep working on it, and we keep working on it.

Several months later, we had this same kind of moment, and we were able to get the same kind of commitment, and because we all worked together on this, notwithstanding the political divisions that exists in our country, we were able to get to that 72-person vote. We were able to show Putin that we were going to stand up against him here-- against him here. And, unlike some people here, he knows exactly how things are going on the Ukrainian battlefield. He knows he has got real problems on the Ukrainian battlefield because it took 30,000 people to succeed at the last village that he was able to secure. He knows how this nation of ``MacGyvers'' has shown up time and time and time again to figure out how to take him on with their fists or with drones or with our help.

But I am sorry to say this, Mr. President. I think it is true that the battlefield that he is trying to succeed on is the battlefield of the U.S. Congress. He thinks he is going to win on this battlefield. He is trying to count on our dysfunction, our division, our petty disagreements, and the lack of understanding about what is at stake here from the historical point of view or from democracy's point of view. With the message that we want to send to our allies and to our foes around the world tonight, he is going to be able to sleep a little better because the House failed to do it.

So I am not here to say that I am going to shut the government down. There is nothing I can do at this point to bring the House of Representatives back to Washington, DC. That is not possible. There wouldn't be any benefit to doing it.

I am going to vote against this bill because it doesn't include the Ukraine funding. And I would say to my colleagues who are here, every single one of whom supported the Ukraine funding when it came through the Senate, that we have got our work cut out for us over the next 2 weeks to make sure that we persuade the people in the House of Representatives that there is no more time left; that the Ukrainians, as I said, are out of bullets, out of ammo, and out of time. And we are out of time too. The whole world is watching.

I don't know the Speaker, but I would be very surprised if he wants to go down in history as the person or the politician who lost Ukraine--who lost Ukraine--because he had to hold on to his job, or who lost Ukraine because there were people in his party who couldn't resist the celebrity benefit of going out and raising money on crazy politics that doesn't recognize the stakes for what they are.

We were able to close over that here in the Senate, and I believe that the House is going to have to do that as well. And we have got to do everything we can to make sure we reach that conclusion, because the consequence for our Nation's reputation will be as severe as anything that we have ever certainly faced in the last decades around here.

Usually, I would end by saying I am confident. What I am confident in is

that there are people of goodwill in this body who have worked together to get this done and who will continue to work together to make sure the United States of America stands up for democracy, stands up for NATO, stands up for our responsibilities to our children and grandchildren and our responsibilities to this world.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to say what a great privilege it is to be out here today with my colleagues from Wyoming and my colleague Senator Hickenlooper from Colorado to celebrate Pat O'Toole's life.

Pat O'Toole was a rancher, as you have heard, a conservationist whose family's six-generation operation, the Ladder Ranch, straddles the Colorado and Wyoming border, as my colleague from Wyoming said.

The proud son of Irish immigrants, Pat was born in Pittsburgh, but like many of us, he felt a calling to the West. He attended Colorado State University, where he met his beloved wife Sharon, who is here today.

After graduation, they were both accepted into law school, but instead they pooled their savings to buy some old ewes and take over Sharon's family ranch. For 8 years, they lived in a cabin on Ladder Ranch without electricity or running water. That might sound like a hardship to a lot of people here, but knowing the two of them, I bet it wasn't. And they were in one of the most beautiful places on this planet. In the summer, they camped while herding sheep, and bit by bit, they built their herd.

Pat was a fervent advocate for the West. He cared deeply about all the wildlife in the West, the Colorado River, and protecting American agriculture.

Pat lived a life of service. He served as president, as you have heard, of the Family Farm Alliance for nearly 20 years. He sat on the boards of the Intermountain West Joint Ventures and Solutions from the Land and was, with Senator Lummis, a member of the Wyoming House of Representatives.

When I came to the Senate in 2009, Pat was kind enough to recognize my failings and my lack of background and lack of experience in the things he cared most about, and he was kind enough to bring me up to speed on Colorado and western agriculture. I am still trying to catch up.

This is a photo I wanted to bring today. This is a photo of Pat telling me what I need to know about western agriculture on his ranch. You can tell I am listening more intently than I often do, certainly on this floor, but there was not a word you wanted to miss from Pat. There was nobody better to be the guide of people in this place so far from the ranch where he and Sharon raised their family. And we needed to listen because ranching touches every major western issue: water, immigration, Tribal rights, conservation, and even access to healthcare. Pat cared about all those things.

Those who were lucky enough to know Pat know he had a lot of big ideas and he had the drive to get those big ideas done. He was a doer. And he also had an amazing Rolodex.

Most recently, Pat brought together a broad coalition with the goal of restoring the stressed landscapes of the Routt and Medicine Bow National Forests and the contiguous Yampa and Little Snake watershed. My staff and I were honored to be included in that coalition.

I should say that was one of the amazing things about Pat. He could not have cared less what your title was or whether you were a Senator or not. His interactions with the staff were just as significant, I think, and just as meaningful for getting something done as they were with elected officials.

And I hope and believe that that coalition will work to carry on Pat's legacy of conservation and tireless work to improve watershed health.

In 2018, I had the pleasure to visit Pat's ranch, nestled in the Little Snake River Valley, and saw firsthand the conservation practices that he and Sharon have put in place to restore fish habitat and improve the resilience of the operation. There are a lot of people who could learn from what they have done.

After touring the ranch, Pat brought together people from all over the West, Republicans and Democrats--as Senator Barrasso said, it didn't matter; he never talked about what party anybody was in--to join us on their porch for a big cookout while we talked about the new generation of ranchers in the West and how we can leave our kids and our grandkids a better future.

He actually knew that while the State line between Colorado and Wyoming technically divided the ranch, that a political boundary like that was not the important boundary. What he

would tell you is that the watershed is what actually matters, and that is why it is not surprising that he brought together people--a rare occasion, really, for an elected official from Colorado to meet with people from the Wyoming Legislature who were there that day to hear what Pat had to say.

And we covered topics on that day that ranged from conservation throughout the West to how we could work together to protect our water and leave a viable future for the next generation of farmers and ranchers. There were always young people around Pat; there were that day and when he brought people to Washington as well.

And even though, as I mentioned, Pat and Sharon's house was in Wyoming, they made sure my staff and I had the farmhouse across the street on the Colorado side of the road where we could spend the night under our own stars, in our own State.

The next morning, at the end of our visit, Pat showed me around the barns and shared with me a branding iron from the Ladder Ranch, which I still have in my office in Denver; although, come to think of it, it could be of more use here in Washington, DC.

Anyone who knew Pat knew about his love for his family, and he proudly brought his children and grandchildren into every aspect of the ranch. It is an amazing testament, I think, to the way he approached that world and that business and that enterprise because each of us today is reminding people here today that he cherished the idea that their ranch raised ``cattle, sheep, horses, dogs, and children.'' I am sure not in that order. And he managed the ranch with these kids and these grandkids in mind.

I want to recognize Pat's wife Sharon, daughter Bridget, and granddaughter Siobhan, who are here in the Gallery. They are carrying on Pat's legacy and the legacy of Ladder Ranch.

When I was flying back last weekend from Ukraine, that is when I got a message that said that Pat had had a stroke and was in Grand Junction at the hospital. And I landed at the airport in Ireland--I suppose there is something in that--and was able to have a conversation with Sharon. And the first thing she wanted to tell me--she was by Pat's side in Grand Junction. The first thing she wanted to tell me was that Siobhan was coming back here to carry on Pat's legacy, to advocate as part of the Intermountain Joint Venture fly-in. Pat was on the board of that.

And they are all here today, and I want to thank them for traveling here to be here today. Our thoughts are with you and the entire Pat O'Toole family, but, really, they are for all of us in the West who have lost his presence but not his example.

Pat's life is evidence that division is not the way to make progress in our country and it is not the way to make progress in American agriculture when it comes to water. Pat showed us what it takes to make headway on some of the thorniest issues that we confront. We would do well to remember that example every day.

He demonstrated the importance of finding common ground to build, little by little, toward something greater for the next generation. At least with me, he showed infinite patience. I hope that is something that we can all carry on in his absence. He was larger than life, and we will miss him dearly.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the following nomination: Calendar No. 515, Cara L. Abercrombie to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense; that the Senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, I have four requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 496.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills en bloc: Calendar No. 313, S. 3412; Calendar No. 314, S. 3570; and Calendar No. 315, S. 3577.

I further ask that the bills be considered read a third time and passed and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, all en bloc.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, February 28; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that morning business be closed; further, that following the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the Sneed nomination; further, that the cloture motions filed during yesterday's session ripen at 11:30 a.m.; that at 2:15 p.m., if cloture has been invoked on the Sneed nomination, the Senate vote on confirmation of the nomination; and that if cloture is invoked on the Damian nomination, all time be considered expired at 5:30 p.m.; finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during Wednesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Sanders.

Mr. President, I know that the hour is--not late. I guess it is early, but the staff have been on the floor all night, and the pages are exhausted. They have been working.

I wanted just to say--and I know the Presiding Officer doesn't deserve to have to spend 5 minutes listening to me. I just want to say a word, as we get out of here, about where we are. I want to thank the Senator from Vermont for his moral leadership and for his clarity in this difficult time.

Not that long ago, we had a conversation with the President of Ukraine, President Zelenskyy. It was while we were still in the midst of COVID, and we were meeting on Zoom. He said to the U.S. Senate that the Ukrainian people were fighting so they could live their lives the way we live our lives--the way we live our lives in the United States.

More recently, in our last meeting with him, which was in person, he came here and met us in the Old Senate--or in, I guess, the Mansfield Room. He said to us that they were going to continue to fight; that if we didn't support them, they would lose but that they would never stop fighting because the Ukrainian people know what freedom is about, and they wouldn't stop. He thought that they could succeed if we continued to support them. He was very clear about that.

It wasn't clear to me that we were going to be able to fulfill our commitment. There have been moments--I have been here now 14 years or so. There have been moments when I have really wondered whether the U.S. Senate is just a relic of its former self; that our democracy is a relic of its former self; that the evidence that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin believe has piled up over the decades and, over the century, has put the United States in a place where it has no capacity to lead anymore. That is what they say at every negotiating table at which we find ourselves with them--that the 20th century was our century but that this is a different century. It is a century for totalitarianism, a century for authoritarianism, a century where might makes right.

As the Presiding Officer knows, my mom was born in Warsaw in 1938--a Polish Jew. It was the worst place on planet Earth that anybody could have been born at the worst moment when anybody could be born. I am going to spare you because we are here and we have got to move on, but they lived through the worst that humanity had to offer--my mom and my grandparents, Halina Klejman and John Klejman.

They finally came here to the United States of America, after the war was over, to rebuild their shattered lives, and they said to me that they had been happy here ever since--that was their language--with humanity's greatest treasures: democracy, freedom, and love as they described it. They hoped that, in the course of our lives, their grandchildren would be able to spread these treasures around the world.

Tonight, that is what we have done here in the U.S. Senate. Tonight, we have said that the rule of law matters; that democracy matters; that we recognize that the fight the Ukrainian people have been in for the last 2 years--a very unexpected fight with unexpected successes along the way and more predictable setbacks along the way--is an extraordinary testament to the Ukrainian people's courage, to their stamina, to their willingness to fight just to be free, just to live, as President Zelenskyy said, the life that we have lived, to die in the cause of democracy. That is what they have done over the last 2 years.

I hate to say this, but it is true. There were moments over the last 4 months or 6 months or so when it was not clear that the U.S. Senate was going to be able to overcome our divisions to support the Ukrainian people in their battle even with the knowledge that we have a particular role to play, at least in theory, as the United States of America when it comes to battles around the world between democracy and totalitarianism--an obligation we have never fulfilled perfectly but an obligation that at least, since World War II, we have had to carry uniquely among all nations.

I will say, as I come to a close, that I have had my doubts over the last 14 years about whether this place could operate again; whether we could make hard decisions on behalf of the people--our children and our grandchildren; whether it was just a relic of some bygone era. That has been particularly hard for me because I actually believe in democracy. I believe in the wisdom that is created not from, you know, what I think or what you think or what the Senator from Georgia thinks or even what the pages who are sitting on this floor think but the wisdom that comes from the collision of our disagreements and the collision of our disputes--disagreements and disputes that can only happen in a free country with the First Amendment and the ability to express oneself, with a free press.

The only places--the only human societies--where everybody agrees with each other are totalitarian societies where there is somebody in charge, telling everybody what to think, like Putin's Russia, like the situation in England when the Founders were trying to break away into a new republic.

And what I want to say to the American people tonight--or this morning--is that not that we are out of the woods and not that they can take their foot off the gas but that, today, we actually did something pretty significant here in this place, and we stood with the Ukrainian people, who have stood for democracy for these 2 years, who have given their lives just to live their lives the way we live our lives after having been invaded by a tyrant who had violated the post-World War II order.

The U.S. Senate not only supported it but did it with a vote of 70, with a vote where 20 Republicans split from President Trump's view of this world, which is a very different view than either Democratic or Republican Presidents have had since World War II. They were willing to split with that for the good of our Nation, for the good of our world. That is not an easy thing to do. It is not an easy vote for them to take, and I don't think there was one of us who would have predicted 4 months ago that we would have ended up in a place with those 20 votes.

So I want to say thank you to the people who took those votes. I want to say thank you to Senator Schumer for his leadership, for his patience. I know there are days when he feels like I am the biggest complainer around this place, but he did an amazing job in

holding this thing together over the last 4 months. I want to thank Senator McConnell for his role in making sure we ended up where we have ended up. For a moment, at least in my view, we have restored confidence in our ability to do hard things just in the nick of time, just in the nick of time.

There is so much left for us to do, and there are so many things that are beyond our control in this world that I think it really is important for us to get our act together. It is really important for us to have an education system in this country that delivers opportunity rather than reinforcing the income inequality that we have, which is a threat to our democracy. It is really important for us to find a way to work together; to create a healthcare system that doesn't make the lives of the American people a misery; to create, as the Senator from Vermont was saying, an immigration system that actually is a strength for the American people rather than a headwind for the American people; to strengthen our democracy.

All of those things are work that is left in front of us, but what we were able to do tonight, I think, tells us that we actually can meet these challenges; that we can meet this moment; that we can overcome the divisions that tear at our communities and tear at our democracy; that are a threat to our democracy and a threat to our future, a threat to our children; and that each of us can make a difference in making the world a little bit better.

There are a lot of people in this town who believe that the House of Representatives will never pass this bill. They believe that politics has already made the decision about whether or not this bill is going to be passed. I don't believe that.

I will make a prediction this morning, and my prediction is that this bill is going to pass in the House of Representatives and that this country is going to stand with Ukraine; that we are going to stand with NATO; that we are going to stand with free people all over this planet in a fight that is no less important today than it was when my mom was born in Warsaw in 1938. It is exactly the same fight with exactly the same importance.

The United States has a new role to play, I think, in a new century. This morning, we have demonstrated that the U.S. Senate is going to lead, and I am very, very grateful for that.

I yield the floor.