Floor Statements

Madam President, I was going to give a speech first. I am now going to invert the order and do my unanimous consent request first in deference to my friend and colleague, the Senator from Rhode Island.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be discharged from further consideration of S. 2842 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, our Armed Forces have been asked to work miracles over the last 18 months. During a global pandemic, in the face of natural disasters, and facing dangerous missions, our men and women in uniform have risen to the challenge just as they have so many times throughout our history. Many of our servicemembers have contracted and then recovered from COVID. Now these heroes--the same heroes--are being placed in a corner by this administration.

President Biden's COVID vaccine requirement for the Armed Forces does not grant our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines the respect that they deserve. As the Senate debates our annual National Defense Authorization Act, it would be a huge mistake not to consider this mandate's impact on our retention and recruitment of servicemembers and, thus, on our military's readiness to secure our national security.

This mandate, tied with President Biden's more sweeping general vaccine mandate, is something that, in combination, has put millions of Americans in so many difficult, untenable, unfair positions. In most cases, these are hard-working, everyday Americans. They are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives who are just trying to put food on the table during difficult economic times. These mandates are forcing millions of our fellow citizens into second-class, unemployable status, placing countless of our neighbors on the economic and social fringes of our society, even more than what they were already experiencing with rampant inflation caused by excessive government spending to the tune of trillions of dollars.

Now, I have heard from hundreds of Utahns, in recent days, who are concerned about losing their jobs--losing their jobs not just in general, not just in the abstract, but specifically due to these mandates. Some of these individuals are heroic members of our military. These servicemembers were rightly praised for serving during a pandemic and serving in dangerous conditions, on dangerous missions, but now they are being forced out, often with limited or no retirement benefits because of the President's mandate.

Let me share with you just a few of their stories.

One soldier told me his story. He has been in the Army now for 18 years--

nearly two decades. He never received a single reprimand, whether written or otherwise. He honorably and proudly served his Nation. All along, he was planning on retiring upon reaching two decades of service. He is almost there at 18 years--just 18 months shy, in fact, of reaching that really important milestone in his career. Now, because of the vaccine mandate, he is at risk of losing his benefits and of not even receiving an honorable discharge.

Regarding his situation, he said: ``This will cause a substantial loss in pay and quality of life for myself and a large number of others I know.''

Another soldier who reached out to my office has served for 10 years in the military. He has been informed, despite his many years of successful, faithful Active-Duty service, that he will not receive an honorable discharge if he declines to comply with the vaccine requirement. Accordingly, he asked to resign from the military. Now, his commanders made clear that he would be barred from resignation. He sought a personal religious exemption. He was summarily told his exemption request would be denied.

Of his situation, he said: ``To be backed into a corner with two very bad options is both disheartening and sad, especially with what I have sacrificed and what my family has sacrificed on behalf of the military.''

Another soldier reached out to my office in a similar situation. This soldier has children who experienced complications with receiving the vaccine. This soldier also has a child with significant learning disabilities, whom he is worried about providing for.

He said:

This really could be a life-changing event for my family,

and I feel strongly enough about it that I will risk all my

benefits not to take it. I just wish I had a choice.

These stories are just barely scratching the surface of the countless thousands of servicemembers in similar positions.

The Department of Defense has begun prohibiting unvaccinated members of the National Guard from receiving Federal pay or benefits. These guardsmen risk being marked absent from training drills if they are not vaccinated. This move has the effect of pushing the unvaccinated out of the National Guard. Approximately 10,000 marines remain unvaccinated. That is around 6 percent of the Corps. Losing these capable servicemembers and showing unvaccinated Americans that they should not join our Armed Forces makes our military less capable. It threatens its ability to do what only the military can do. In total, there are reports of approximately 60,000 unvaccinated servicemembers who risk discharge under less than honorable conditions due to this mandate-- 60,000.

The Department of Defense, for its part, refuses to provide the number of servicemembers who have applied for vaccine exemptions, but there are reports that even some of the few Americans in military uniform who have received exemptions are seeing those exemptions revoked. That is chilling to say the least. Relatively few of them are getting them granted, and some of those who have had them granted are seeing them revoked. Now, these servicemembers, like millions of other Americans whose employments have also been put at risk, all deserve a better option.

That is why, today, I am asking that the Senate pass my Respecting Our Servicemembers Act. That is why I came to the Senate floor and why, a few moments ago, I asked unanimous consent that we pass it. I know not everyone is going to agree on every issue here and that we are not going to agree, perhaps, on every issue pertaining to the mandate, but I think we at least ought to be able to agree on this one. We ought not to be mistreating those upon whom our safety depends.

This bill that I brought forward to try to pass today would prohibit the Secretary of Defense from requiring COVID vaccination for our military. I am grateful to my colleagues Senators Braun and Tuberville for joining me. This is now the 18th time I have come to the Senate floor, asking that the Federal Government take a tempered, reasoned approach--an approach that is noticeably absent from that which the President has chosen to pursue.

As I have said every time I have done this, I am not anti-vaccine. I believe the development of the COVID vaccines is something of a medical miracle. I am vaccinated, my family is vaccinated, and I have encouraged everyone around me to get the vaccine. I have also acknowledged that it is not my decision, and it is certainly not a decision that should be forced on them by the Federal Government and certainly not by a single person acting within the Federal Government who shouldn't be exercising that authority unilaterally.

Whether or not vaccines should be mandated by the Federal Government is, of course, an entirely different, free-standing question. Our military servicemembers deserve the right to make this medical decision for themselves without the threat of losing the ability to care for themselves and provide for their families. They currently face being forced out of the military--out of military service and also out of the benefits that they have earned. To add insult to injury, they are also threatened with the risk of a less than honorable discharge, all for the supposed grave sin of deviating--of daring to deviate--from Presidential, medical orthodoxy.

We are better than this. This is not something we should be doing. Everyone knows it. Deep down, we know it is wrong. You know, according to a recent Axios poll, only 14 percent of the American people agree with President Biden's apparent assumption that someone should be fired as a consequence of declining to get the vaccine. That is wrong. That is why I came here today. That is why I will be back as many times and as long as it takes to end these mandates.

It is unfortunate that this legislation, which should be easy to pass, wasn't able to pass today. It is unfortunate that it drew an objection. The American people don't want this, and our national security is undermined by it. I find that most unfortunate, and I will continue to fight it.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, our Nation exists today in a time of relative peace, with limited and manageable active hostilities threatening U.S. national security.

On the horizon, the United States faces a militarily ambitious and formidable but not yet insurmountable opponent in China and in its quest for regional dominance in the Pacific.

Yet in the face of this new age of great power competition, U.S. grand strategy continues to operate with outdated goals and across all regions of the globe, lacking prioritization and desperately needing scale.

After the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the corresponding diplomatic, military, and humanitarian disaster, one would think the instinct would be to jettison decades of military-industrial groupthink.

One would think the American people, and certainly our men and women in uniform, deserve a thorough, exhaustive review of what is working and the huge swaths of what is failing in our military and defense strategy, infrastructure, and planning.

One would think that Congress would reclaim powers assigned to it by the Constitution to make serious reforms to protect the security and prosperity of the United States.

One would think we would reform our procurement process and trim the bloated, perversely incentivized military-industrial complex.

One would think we would prioritize resources toward the largest and most imminently looming threats to U.S. national security.

One would think we would burden share with our allies where our security interests align.

One would think we, here in the U.S. Senate, would take specific steps to make sure that failures like the withdrawal from Afghanistan don't happen again, whether in the Middle East or in any other emerging theater of conflict.

Unfortunately, this year's National Defense Authorization Act fails to put the interests of U.S. citizens first. This is not the introspective or retrospective bill that the American people should be able to expect and largely continues the failed--the failed--policies of many decades past. The American people and the brave men and women of our military deserve better.

We are, thank heavens, in a time of peace, with limited active hostilities. Despite that, we remain intimately entangled in the affairs of too many nations abroad. Our troops and equipment scatter every region of the globe. We spend billions of dollars supporting, supplying, and training allies who, in many cases, contribute little to their own self-defense, let alone ours.

We face an ambitious opponent in China, as it seeks military dominance in the Indo-Pacific region. There is no question that while Xi Jinping remains in power, the PLA and the PRC will not shy away from bold moves and the quest for regional hegemony. But the U.S. strategy should not presume unrestrained, offensive intervention; rather, targeted and scaled deterrence should frame the mission set across all U.S. forces postured in the region. Further, the United States should accordingly rescale resources in the war zones of yesteryear to appropriately prioritize protecting the U.S. homeland and military personnel from tomorrow's threats.

Congress is responsible for raising and supporting armies, of making war, and of ratifying treaties. This bill neglects those responsibilities.

Regarding Afghanistan, the NDAA includes funding and new authorities for the nonexistent Afghan security forces, along with reimbursements to coalition partners for supporting U.S. operations and a sense of the Senate on future U.S. counterterrorism posture postwithdrawal, with little eye toward reforming or removing outdated and overbroad authorizations for the use of military force.

Perpetuating funding and authority to support a nonexisting defense force is as much bad foreign policy as it is bad fiscal responsibility. We must do better. The American people expect and deserve for us to do better.

Additionally, this NDAA fundamentally changes the purpose and the scope of the military draft. The new purpose is greatly expanded to ``ensure a requisite number of personnel with the necessary capabilities to meet the diverse mobilization needs of the Department of Defense during a national emergency.''

Instead of being a seldom-used tool only for the most extreme cases of compelling national defense, the draft could be morphed into compulsory national service in the face of any emergency.

Even more troubling is the mandatory registration of women for the draft. Look, all are immensely grateful for the incredible contribution women make to our Armed Forces, but that participation should never be forced. This bill paves that dangerous road without due consideration given to its impact on young families and single parents.

Further, the policy provides no guarantee that women would not be sent directly to the frontlines of combat, alongside and simultaneously with able-bodied men.

While I am opposed to all of the NDAA's changes to the draft, at the very least, this body should consider a reasonable amendment, a few reasonable amendments on this front, including one of mine that would prohibit the disturbing scenario of mothers and fathers being conscripted simultaneously out of the same family, leaving their children stranded without either parent. It also provides a similar exemption for single parents.

I hope this body will consider and pass this amendment in the near future. I also hope that the body will make that unnecessary by, first, passing an amendment striking that provision altogether. We don't need to be expanding the draft, and we shouldn't be making the draft applicable to women.

This bill further reduces our military end strength by over 7,000 servicemembers. Troublingly, the biggest cuts come from the Marine Corps and the Air Force. And in the face of an aggressive China, the Navy also faces reduction in Active Forces when it arguably should be the first contender for an increase in end strength, not a cut.

As we pivot toward the Indo-Pacific, our naval and our air superiority are both vital. We need them. Our withdrawal from the Middle East should reduce the level of Active-Duty Army personnel deployed overseas, and yet the Army faced a less than 1-percent reduction in that specific category.

This bill places us on a dangerous footing regarding future mutual defense commitments. This bill would provide a vague, near- authorization for the use of military force to defend Taiwan against an invasion from China. The question of war deserves here, as always, its own debate by Congress, rather than a haphazard statement of policy that may be abused by the executive branch in order to bring us into a new conflict, into a new conflict without the people's duly elected representatives whose job it is to decide whether we go to war to make that decision under the light of day and with full debate that the American people can witness.

Like NDAAs of old, this bill appropriates more funds to procurement than anywhere else, with no reforms to the bureaucratic barriers that make procurement so costly and so inefficient.

Finally, this NDAA does not sufficiently bolster our defensive position in this hemisphere. The goals outlined by this bill are vague and equate to an abdication of Congress's responsibility to give the Defense Department instructions for a strategic approach to the Western Hemisphere.

It provides blank check authority for the Department of Defense to support programs and activities for purposes including institution- building to countercorruption and to serve humanitarian infrastructure needs. This attempt at nation-building is misguided, and it will not be helpful to us in our efforts to deter China.

Thankfully, there are a few positives in this bill for U.S. national defense and for the security of the people of Utah.

This bill continues to support the development of fifth-generation air power capabilities in the F-35 Program, continuing a critical investment in our air defense--something that is also becoming even more important.

This bill also fully funds the modernization of our ground-based nuclear

deterrent, protecting the U.S. homeland for generations to come. This important work will largely be done by the people of Utah and our dedicated servicemembers at Hill Air Force Base.

The House version of the NDAA also includes my Military Spouse Licensing Relief Act. It is important to note here that one in four military spouses currently face unemployment or are actively seeking work largely because of frequent moves due to their spouse's military orders, which keep them moving from place to place on a pretty routine basis. This provision in the House version of the bill would also allow spouses of our military servicemembers to work in their chosen profession, wherever military orders may take them in the United States, without having to navigate the complicated requirements of State occupational licensing.

My State, the State of Utah, led the way with this commonsense type of reform that makes life and achieving prosperity easier for those families who serve our Nation. It should become law. We need it. Our military families need it. Our military and the American people generally would be much better off with it.

We could have done more. This National Defense Authorization Act could be a pivot point where we reexamine our defensive stance in the world and reclaim our constitutional arrangement here at home.

This NDAA could have been a turning point in which we in Congress reasserted our authority over war-making powers. My National Security Powers Act that I have introduced with Senator Murphy and Senator Sanders would clarify and update and modernize the War Powers Resolution.

The bill would also restore congressional authority over arms exports. It would additionally require congressional approval of emergency declarations and prevent the President from misusing emergency powers.

The National Security Powers Act would rein in Presidential abuses of the war power and make our Nation safer and more aligned with the Constitution. It is bipartisan. It is exactly the type of reform that belongs in the NDAA.

We must also make reforms to our emergency war spending. Though President Biden thankfully didn't request, and Congress didn't provide, the OCO slush fund in this bill, there is much that needs to be done to restore Congress's power of the purse in the defense environment specifically.

The Cost of War Project estimates that post-9/11 war spending totals $8 trillion from 2001 to 2022. Of the $8 trillion, OCO and interest on OCO funds accounts for $3.3 trillion. That is real money, and a lot of it.

My Restraining Emergency War Spending Act would define emergency war funding and require the Department of Defense and Congress to limit spending set aside for emergencies to the purpose for which it was authorized.

We also need to return accountability to our defense alliances by requiring wealthy and capable Nations to contribute their fair share of their defense. In the NATO alliance alone, only 11 of the 13 NATO member countries meet the 2 percent defense spending requirement.

This means that 63 percent of the alliance shown here in red consists of countries that don't foot their share of the bill. They are not holding up their end of the agreement.

So my Allied Burden Sharing Report Act would help us know just how much or just how little our allies are contributing. Now, this report used to be published annually. It should be still. This NDAA would have been an ideal venue in which to legislate the return of that report.

We also must use these legislative opportunities to prepare the Department of Defense for future defense focused on the technology, the reforms, and the regions of the future.

Our defensive position regarding China and in the Indo-Pacific should focus on deterrence. Spreading our forces and our expensive equipment to the ports and the shores of allies in the region is ineffective and could prove more of a vulnerability than an advantage against Chinese strike capabilities. A deterrent posture would combine defensive strategy and operations to fend off possible attacks from a position of strength and limit risk to U.S. personnel and assets.

Further, we must prioritize recruitment and retention for the future fight. We need to provide a suitable and welcoming environment for those in uniform and for their families. We need to end the President's sweeping vaccine mandate and give our servicemembers the respect they deserve.

After a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of our Nation's longest war, this NDAA could have been--should have been--an opportunity to debate, rethink, and reform our Nation's defenses.

The National Defense Authorization Act--U.S. defense and security broadly--is one of the few items this body regularly considers that is explicitly, unambiguously within the enumerated powers of Congress. Consequently, it is something that deserves due consideration and significant debate on the floor in order for Members to be able to raise issues like those that I have described today.

Yesterday, this body attempted to close debate on this bill without consideration of a single amendment--not a single one.

While this bill does make key progress in limited areas, it does not get to the heart of many of our national defense problems. It does not restore Congress's role in our national defense. It does not provide a holistic strategy to defend the United States and the people of Utah-- or the people of any other State.

This bill and the floor process yet remain missed opportunities, and I am going to continue to fight for both necessary policy reforms and for an open process generally on the floor. Anything less, particularly in this critical area, amounts to an abdication of the duties of this body to the detriment of the citizens we serve. We can and we must do better.

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

Mr. President, this is now the 17th time I have come to the Senate Chamber specifically to speak against President Biden's vaccine mandate.

I have pledged before, and I pledge again today, to continue this fight until we beat the mandate.

Now, thankfully, progress has been made on this front. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit last week halted enforcement of President Biden's general mandate. It did so directing their rulings specifically to the OSHA portion of the mandate. This is the one that applies to all workers everywhere and any place of employment with more than 100 workers.

I, along with millions of Americans, am grateful that the U.S. court system performed its role in protecting the separation of powers and otherwise protecting the limits on government written into our laws and our Constitution.

It is also encouraging to see the government Agency charged with enforcing the general mandate; that is, OSHA, has now halted the enforcement of the mandate and is complying with the order issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

This, however, does not end President Biden's vaccine mandates. That

mandate in particular remains the subject of ongoing litigation, and there are other requirements placed on other specific groups of workers outside of the OSHA mandate and, therefore, outside the scope of the order issued by the Fifth Circuit.

Now, I have spoken previously on the situation that members of our Armed Forces face and on things that people who work in the healthcare profession face--difficult things, challenging things, things that threaten their livelihoods and cause a lot of problems for workers.

I have offered various bills to help those groups of Americans keep their jobs and make sure that they have the right to make their own medical decisions.

I am fighting against the mandate. I am not fighting against the vaccines. I support the vaccines. I am vaccinated. I have encouraged others to be vaccinated. I see the development of these vaccines as something of a modern medical miracle, one that is protecting so many millions of Americans from the harms of COVID.

But this one-size-fits-all dictate from Washington certainly isn't the answer and, under our system of government, can't be. I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who are personally at risk of losing their jobs and their livelihoods due to this mandate. Many of these Utahns have religious or health concerns about the vaccine.

President Biden promised these mandates would include exemptions for those people in those categories specifically, but in reality they are being dismissed or placed on unpaid leave or pushed into retirement with reduced benefits.

These are good people, everyday people. Many are dedicated frontline workers. Far too many are just trying to make ends meet and feed their families. It shouldn't be too much to ask to allow them to continue doing that unencumbered by their own government in their efforts to do that.

These mandates will just push people out of work and make many of them not only unemployed but unemployable outcasts in their chosen professions, professions for which they have spent years studying and learning and receiving certifications just in order to work. What a tragedy.

This wouldn't just harm those affected directly by the mandates. It absolutely would harm those directly affected by them, but the harm extends much further than those directly affected. It would affect all of us, in fact.

The American economy is currently facing a labor shortage the likes of which we haven't seen in decades. Businesses across the country are struggling to find enough workers just to keep their doors open, let alone produce and serve at full efficiency. President Biden's mandate will add to our high unemployment and our low labor force participation rates, and it will put even more pressure on inflation--inflation that is making it harder for Americans everywhere, especially the poor and middle-class Americans, people living paycheck to paycheck who find that every dollar they earn is buying less of everything, from gas to groceries, from housing to healthcare.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell recently warned that ``hiring difficulties and other constraints could continue to limit how quickly supply can adjust, raising the possibility that inflation could turn out to be higher and more persistent than we expected.''

The mandate is only worsening the problem.

Now, I believe the Biden administration recognizes the harms this mandate will cause for our workforce. It is evident in the administration's date of compliance extension to January 4 that this is the case.

Now, I have to ask an obvious question here--or one that I think should be obvious, should be intuitive. If the forced vaccination of our entire Federal workforce, including employees and contractors and subcontractors--if forcing the vaccination of every one of these workers--were truly an emergency so drastic that all workers, contractors, and subcontractors, even those working remotely in their own homes, must be vaccinated immediately, then why would they risk delaying compliance?

They can't have it both ways. If they want to say that this is an emergency; this is dire, so dire that we have to force every contractor, subcontractor, and Federal employee to get vaccinated immediately and we have to fire them if they don't--if that is truly so emergent--then why delay it to January 4? Why delay it at all?

Now, to be sure, it would be bad. And, to be sure, I am glad they have extended it. Perhaps, maybe, this means they are reconsidering this awful, horrible step, this horrible thing that they are inflicting on those who can least afford to absorb something like this. But it really does undercut the emergent nature of the situation, and it undercuts their underlying reasoning that this has to happen immediately, so immediately that we have to fire all of them if they won't submit to Presidential medical orthodoxy.

This mandate is even so drastic that it includes all workers and all contractors, including all those who work remotely, who don't even go into a workplace. And it also includes even those who have natural immunity from a previous case of COVID-19, something that some studies have indicated will provide 27 times the immunity of a vaccine.

Again, vaccines are great. I have been vaccinated. I have encouraged others to do the same. Vaccines are protecting hundreds of millions of Americans right now. But why not take into account their natural immunity, and why on earth would you fire someone who already has natural immunity or who works from home? That makes absolutely no sense.

This mandate simply goes far beyond what is reasonable. It begs all sorts of questions. Why are you doing this?

So, today, I am offering a bill to help another group--yet another group of people--a group consisting of people not protected by the Fifth Circuit's halting of the general vaccine mandate. Federal workers are still facing a vaccine requirement from the Biden administration. Almost 3 million workers in this country are employed by the Federal Government. Many of them have reached out to me and my office and are concerned about losing their jobs due to this mandate. I know I am not the only one. I know that every single Member of this body has received phone calls, letters, emails, and other pleas for help from people who don't want to lose their jobs.

This is a response to them. This is an effort to try to help them and part of my ongoing effort to reemphasize the fact that it doesn't have to be this way. My bill, the Protecting Our Federal Workforce from Forced COVID-19 Vaccination Act, would prohibit an executive Agency from requiring its employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. It is a simple solution to prevent more unemployment and to protect countless Americans from being forced out of the workforce.

This bill will help protect Americans' right to make their own medical decisions and will help protect our economy as it strains under multiple crises and as the holiday season comes around.

I encourage and sincerely implore all of my colleagues to support it.

To that end, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3243, which is at the desk. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the thoughtful remarks and the insights of my friend and distinguished colleague the Senator from Michigan. He is someone with whom I enjoy working, and one of the many things I appreciate about him is that he puts a lot of thought into everything he does. And I have always known him to be considerate, and I appreciate that about him.

I also am in agreement with the fact that in an ideal world people would be getting vaccinated more than they are. And in that world, if more people got vaccinated, I do think there would be fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths, and fewer COVID infections. And there are a lot of data sources supporting that.

I also agree that we are all tired as a country, as individuals, as families, regardless of what State we live in. We are tired of the pandemic, of the ERs being overcrowded, and things like that. These are all things we want to do away with. And I also agree with my colleague from Michigan that those things really would be alleviated if more people got vaccinated.

In my mind, the question that we are discussing here isn't about a disagreement over the objectives that we have got; it is more about how to get there, who has authority to take what action and what consequences might attach to government actions.

Notwithstanding the fact that my friend from Michigan and I both agree that the American people, to the extent they have been vaccinated, are benefiting as a whole from being vaccinated, it doesn't mean that everyone is going to agree.

It doesn't get rid of disagreements that exist, in some cases, because of our religious belief or other moral conviction--one that I don't happen to share and probably most of us in this body don't happen to share, but that some people have.

There are some people who, for religious or moral reasons, believe that they shouldn't be vaccinated. There are others who have a specific medical condition that has involved receiving medical advice from board-certified medical doctors that someone shouldn't get this particular vaccine.

I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist. I don't purport to understand these things. But I do know what I hear from Utahns, which is that a number of them have cited medical conditions of one sort or another; previous personal or family medical history that has signaled particular sensitivity to vaccines in general; or, in some cases, when people have autoimmune conditions of one sort or another or a combination of them.

In some cases, doctors are concerned about inflaming that condition, inflaming the immune system of particular patients, and on that basis advise their patients with particular, somewhat unusual medical histories not to be vaccinated.

There are others, still, who might not fit into either of these categories, but might consist of people who have already had the coronavirus and have recovered from it at some point over the last 18 months.

There are studies indicating that natural immunity is real, and that have suggested that natural immunity can convey comparable immunity to that available under the vaccine. Some of the studies have indicated that that immunity could not only be as strong as, but, in some cases, 27 times stronger than that conferred by the vaccine.

I had both. I had the coronavirus over a year ago and I still chose to be vaccinated in addition to that. My own experience with the coronavirus wasn't all that pleasant. It wasn't an experience that I care to relive. In consultation with my doctor, I concluded that it was a good thing for me to get it. I was willing to get it, especially upon learning that it might help protect me even further if I also had the vaccine in addition to having natural immunity.

But, you know, not everyone is going to reach the same conclusions. And one of the struggles that we have had as a country involves difficult questions that people face when they disagree--when they have a genuine disagreement. We have to be careful about how we use government power because the government power necessarily involves the use of force.

Most of the time, mercifully, it doesn't have to involve the direct actual use of force. It can involve the implicit or implied or future or prospective use of force. In other words, you comply with this or that law or regulation or government dictate of one sort of another, then you are fine. If you don't, you know that at some point there will be consequences.

A lot of people comply voluntarily after they received--I don't know--a notice from a law enforcement officer or agent. Or maybe they wait until someone has sued them, and then they get a court order. But they know that at some point, if they refuse to comply, the government can enforce what it is requiring.

So whenever we involve government in these kinds of decisions, we have to be able to defend the actual or threatened or potential use of force in order to justify what we are doing. And we have to ask: Is this moral? Is this an appropriate case to use violence?

Because if it is not an appropriate case to use violence for something, there is kind of a problem with putting government into the equation, because ultimately you have to rely on government to be willing to threaten violence and carry out violence; meaning to show up at somebody's house with a summons, an arrest warrant, or something like that and take them away.

All that involves force. And again, mercifully, most of the time it doesn't have to come to that. Most of the time, Americans, you know, comply with the law just because it is a good thing to comply with the law.

But we really should ask the question whether a government action is morally justified in any circumstance to such a degree that the use of violence would be warranted if it came to that.

I struggle to accept the proposition that it is OK to use violence to force someone to get a COVID-19 vaccine. As

much as I love the fact that the vaccines are available and are a real blessing--something of a modern medical miracle--I can't get comfortable with the idea of using violence to force people, who have another opinion, to comply.

It seems morally problematic and morally unjustified--for that matter, indefensible--for the government to tell someone, ``If you don't get this shot, you will get fired;'' and, in fact, to tell their employer, ``You must fire this person if this person doesn't get the vaccine, even if this person has a good-faith religious belief against it, even if this person has natural immunity or has some particular medical condition causing his or her board-certified medical doctor to advise against receiving the jab.''

That isn't moral to say to that person, ``You didn't comply with a Presidential medical edict, so you are fired;'' and to tell the employer, ``If you don't fire that person, you are going to be the subject of punitive fines that will cripple any business.''

And I literally mean any business. I don't think there is a business in America subject to these mandates that could survive the crippling, deliberately cruel fines that are levied under them--not a one.

This isn't right. It is not moral. Deep down we know it.

In fact, according to a recent poll conducted and reported by Axios-- hardly a rightwing publication--it involved a question, and the poll question was something along the lines of: Should a person who declines to be vaccinated be fired for not being vaccinated?

And 14 percent agreed that that is OK--14 percent. Only 14 out of 100 Americans said: Yeah, that makes sense, that is OK; fire this person, fire him, fire her. They don't matter.

It is compounded when you look at the tragedies imposed by the individual circumstances. The soldier; the sailor; the airman; the marine; the TSA worker; the Federal contractor; the employee of a subcontractor of a company with one Federal contract who does mostly non-Federal work; the mom, the dad working in a factory, in a school, in a floral shop--if any of those either have a Federal contract or have more than 99 employees, all of those people are having their livelihoods threatened.

It is not just a job. It is, in many cases--as is the case in the healthcare industry, for example--people who have spent a lifetime acquiring the skills and professional certifications, the degrees, the training, the education necessary in order to participate in that profession.

Many of these people, by the way, throughout the darkest hours of the pandemic, were the people working hardest to protect Americans, to make sure they had access to the healthcare they needed.

Those same people are now being told: You are not good enough. You don't deserve a job. You are going to be fired, even if you have a medical condition that precludes it.

Even if this could be morally justified, which it can't, one must ask the question asked by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit: Does Congress, does the Federal Government, have the power to order such a widespread vaccine mandate?

It doesn't.

The OSHA mandate, for example, constitutionally, it would have to be predicated on Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause, which gives us the power to regulate trade or commerce between the States, with foreign nations, and with the Indian Tribes.

Even as that provision of the Constitution has been interpreted really broadly since 1937--even under that broad interpretation, one that has seen only three acts of Congress over the last 84 years being deemed outside of Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause--when you have to almost try hard to pass legislation predicated on Commerce Clause authority that doesn't fall within it, but even under that, this doesn't pass the test.

It is not, by its nature, economic activity. In fact, it is not activity. You are punishing nonactivity.

Even under these high watermark precedents from the New Deal era establishing a very deferential standard of review for exercises of Commerce Clause authority by Congress, this doesn't even pass that. And even if it did, which it doesn't, you would still have to identify the case of the OSHA mandate a definable delegation of authority from Commerce using some intelligible principle authorizing this kind of action.

You will not find that. It is not there. I have reviewed upside down, sideways, backwards, forwards the statutory text at issue with regard to OSHA. It does not provide this authority. The moral authority is lacking. The constitutional authority is lacking. There is no power delegated by the Congress to OSHA to do this. It is not defensible.

I am glad that delays on some of these mandates have been imposed. I am glad that OSHA is at least agreeing to comply with the order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; and, at least for the duration of that litigation, enforcement will be halted.

I hope and I fully expect that the ultimate resolution of that case will be consistent with what the Fifth Circuit ruled last week. In fact, I have little doubt that it will be.

This is, in some ways, the most brazen act of Presidential overreach that we have seen in a single directive, since President Harry Truman, on April 8, 1952, issued an order seizing every steel mill in the United States for steel production related to the Korean war effort. Mercifully, the U.S. Supreme Court was able to intervene and, within a couple of months, invalidated that action.

This one is even clearer than that; but, more importantly, this one is more emotionally compelling than that.

That unconstitutional act of Presidential overreach affected a handful of steel companies. It certainly affected thousands upon thousands of workers. It didn't have the ability to affect directly or indirectly every single man, woman, and child in America. This one does.

That is one of the reasons why these moral and statutory and constitutional questions matter so much. That is why I have been coming to the floor every day, and why I will continue to do so indefinitely as long as it takes.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, yesterday, I came to the Senate floor and spoke on President Biden's vaccine mandate. I explained that I have now come to this Chamber a total of 16 times and offered 12 different bills that would counteract, limit, or, in one way or another, restrain the vaccine mandate. I also explained that, unfortunately, each of these bills has been rejected by Democrats in the Senate.

I have spoken to Utahns and folks from across country who have expressed to me their frustration at moving goalposts and changing expectations in the middle of the pandemic. President Biden's vaccine mandate, which has been halted now by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, happens to be among the latest attempts to force Americans to make health decisions under the threat not just of unemployment but also under the threat of becoming unemployable.

That is a taxing burden for anyone to bear. Anyone who has kids at home or

if they don't have kids at home, if they are just supporting themselves, these days all Americans are helping someone or something that they love, that they care about, and they ought to have the opportunity do that. They ought not have their ability to make a living threatened by virtue of a distinct religious belief or a particular medical concern or a particular desire not to receive a particular treatment.

I will reiterate here what I have said before. I have been vaccinated. My family has been vaccinated. I believe that the vaccines are helping countless Americans be protected against the dangers of the COVID-19 virus.

Just the same, there is a big difference between believing the vaccine does good and receiving the vaccine, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, saying that anyone who disagrees or who thinks that it is not right for them, for one reason or another, ought to be fired from their job and rendered unemployable as a result. That is very, very different. That is something that very few Americans would agree is right.

In fact, according to a recent Axios poll, only 14 percent of Americans believe that someone who decides not to get the vaccine should be fired as a result of that decision.

Now, in some lines of work, this sort of thing is already coming into play. For example, our military servicemembers and frontline workers who sacrificed so much to care for and protect the American people during the pandemic are already being forced out of work. I have heard from many members of our Armed Services from Utah who are being discharged under less-than-honorable conditions and under conditions that are in no way, shape, or form appropriate in light of their many, many years of faithful, honorable service to this country. They are losing their jobs--and not just their jobs but also their benefits, their dignity, their ability to serve further. You know, I have introduced and offered up a bill that would help them, but Democrats objected to that.

On November 4 of this year, a couple of weeks ago, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services--known as CMS--imposed a requirement that all healthcare workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid be vaccinated by January 4. This requirement, if it takes effect, will affect millions of Americans in tens of thousands of care centers across the Nation. And unlike the mandate imposed by OSHA, which has now mercifully been stayed, at least for the pendency of the litigation pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, this mandate--this particular mandate--gives no option for testing if someone has religious, moral, or medical objections to the vaccine.

Now, let's just think about this on an individual level. There are nurses in this country who worked faithfully and tirelessly throughout the pandemic, without regard to their own circumstances, in some cases without regard to their own health, their own sanity, putting their lives at risk at times. They have gone to work caring for others, and they have saved lives in the process. They accepted the risk, and they were rightfully heralded as heroes for doing that. They still are heroes, and they still should be heralded as heroes. But many of these same nurses caught COVID at work and have recovered. They are, in fact, heroes.

But now the Biden administration is giving them an extraordinary--and I would add extraordinarily cruel--ultimatum; one that I don't think I have ever seen in government; one that I didn't ever expect I would see in government. Those very same doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers--the same people we appropriately described as heroes--can either get a medical procedure they don't want or lose their current employment and any future realistic prospect of employment.

Let that sink in for a moment. What if this were you? What if this were your spouse or your child, someone you loved? What if this were your friend or your neighbor? The truth is, these people fit into all those categories. They are not our enemies. They are our friends, our neighbors, our family members, our loved ones. At a minimum, they are people who served valiantly throughout a pandemic, and they should not be punished; they should be thanked.

These heroes will be thanked for their service with a pink slip and a boot out the door as they become outcasts in the very profession that they have selflessly chosen and the very profession for which they have spent a lot of money and a lot of time receiving training and the very profession to which they dedicated their lives. What a tragedy. What a needless, senseless tragedy.

These are not abstract anecdotes. This isn't just hypotheticals, speculation. No, not at all. I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who risk losing their employment if these vaccine mandates take effect. They are everyday Americans. They are good Americans. They are valiant Americans. Oftentimes, they are struggling to make ends meet and to feed their families. They are our neighbors, our friends, our caretakers, our heroes. They deserve the respect that is necessarily implicit in the ability to make decisions for themselves, including these decisions for themselves.

Additionally, as a practical matter, it is extremely foolish to be pushing healthcare professionals out of their jobs at the precise moment when our healthcare system is under such incredible strain. Hospitals are understaffed as it is. I mean, a lot of places are understaffed. Hospitals are particularly understaffed even without this mandate. So requiring medical facilities to fire perfectly good doctors and nurses and technicians is only going to further strain our system and place more Americans at risk of serious harm.

So today I am offering my 13th bill in the effort to curb the vaccine mandates. My Respecting Our Frontline Workers Act would simply prohibit any Federal Agency from requiring that staff and healthcare facilities be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of that facility being able to participate in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. But this bill would provide certainty to our Nation's healthcare heroes and honor the sacrifices that they have made to help Americans in need at a time when we were, as a country, facing great need. It will keep our healthcare system strong during what is still a really difficult time. This bill is the reasonable, compassionate answer to the current situation. I encourage my colleagues to support it.

To that end, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3225, which is at the desk; I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the thoughtful remarks from my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from the State of Oregon.

The Senator from Oregon and I have spent a lot of time working on a number of issues together. He and I agree on a number of issues and have worked together to ensure the privacy of the American people and make sure that they are protected from an overreaching government, one that sometimes has intruded on them in violation of the spirit, if not also the letter, of the Fourth Amendment.

I remember when I first came to the Senate, the Senator from Oregon took me to lunch and we had a good chat. He introduced me to a lot of concepts in the Senate and has always been a good friend to me.

I feel the need to respond to some of these issues. Yes, I, too, like my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Oregon, wish that we didn't have to come to the floor to discuss these things. I wish that it weren't necessary because I wish that we weren't even talking about firing people, about people losing their jobs, becoming unemployed and possibly unemployable as a result of Federal policy that refuses to allow people to make decisions on their own.

Insofar as my friend, the Senator from Oregon, describes the policy of firing people who refuse to get the vaccine as necessary to protect the elderly, I would respectfully submit that quite the opposite is true. We are actually imperiling those who might need medical treatment the most, including the sick and the elderly.

Insofar as we destabilize our healthcare workforce--which, make no mistake, this maximum mandate does; it does that unquestionably-- remember that the CMS mandate that we are talking about, unlike the OSHA mandate, doesn't give any option to allow for testing, for example, if someone has a religious or a moral or a medical objection to the mandate.

So what this really is going to do is it is going to take a lot of people out of the healthcare workforce and sideline them.

Yes, this is going to be devastating to those individuals. You are suddenly taking away their means of providing for their needs and those of their family. It would be absolutely devastating to them, as I mentioned a minute ago.

This is also a field in which they invested a lot of time and money-- sweat, blood, and tears--to getting the education and professional certifications necessary to work in a field that has a lot of requirements attached to it, and with good reason. It is not good for anyone, least of all the elderly, to destabilize that same workforce.

Insofar as we are going to talk about what is better for the healthcare system, I just would respectfully reach the exact opposite conclusion of that proposed by my friend from Oregon. This isn't going to make things better. It is going to make things worse.

My friend from Oregon also described the approach that I am taking of protecting the individual healthcare worker's right to make an appropriate decision without government interference; described that and, as I understood it, my other efforts to try to curb the more egregious impacts of the vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden administration as somehow unnecessarily suppressing access to the vaccine.

I want to make very clear that just is not accurate. I would state that as not at all consistent with what I am doing. Not a single one of my proposals would suppress access to the vaccine.

Each time I have come to the floor and talked about these things, I have made very clear that I have been vaccinated. Every member of my family has been vaccinated. I have encouraged everyone I know to get the vaccine. The vaccine, really, is a medical miracle of sorts, and it is one that is protecting a lot of people.

Not everyone agrees with me. But the fact that they don't agree with me, the fact that they don't agree with President Biden or anyone else in government doesn't mean they should lose their job for it. But it sure as heck doesn't mean that firing them because they won't get the vaccine and then opposing the effort to force their firing would somehow amount to an act of suppressing access to the vaccine.

That is a logical syllogism that just doesn't work. In no way, shape, or form would we be suppressing access to the vaccine if we liberated the American people from an overreaching executive who is insisting that people be fired if they don't agree with the President's officially sanctioned view on vaccines.

My friend also noted that people are safer when they get vaccinated. I believe this is generally true. I don't think it is going to encourage more people to get vaccinated by telling them that they are going to get fired if they don't.

Particularly with the subject matter we are covering today, where we are talking about the CMS end of the vaccine, these are people who work in healthcare. These are people who are highly educated in it, who have professional certifications, in many cases, graduate degrees in healthcare. They can make their own informed decision as to what to do. I tend to believe that people are generally safer when they get vaccinated, but that doesn't mean that firing them is the right thing to do.

Look, finally, my friend from Oregon--and I don't use that term loosely. He and I talk regularly. He was in my office earlier today, and we were talking about an upcoming game between the University of Utah and Oregon. When he refers to frightening remarks regarding the vaccine, I am not sure what he is referring to. I hope he is not referring to remarks debating the merits, or lack thereof, of vaccine mandates. Nothing about these remarks should strike anyone as frightening.

What I think would be frightening would be if tens, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans are threatened with getting fired based on their refusal to get the vaccine. I don't think we will ever reach a point where there are that many people who decide not to get vaccinated. It is certainly not going to be hundreds of millions of people declining to be vaccinated.

But whatever the number is, it still doesn't make it right for the President of the United States to just decide arbitrarily that they either have to follow his medical advice and that of his administration or get fired; to choose between getting an undesired medical procedure, or, on the other hand, losing their opportunity to put bread on the table for their children.

It is not constitutional. It is not within Congress's power. Congress hasn't exercised that power. It certainly hasn't given that power to the President of the United States.

Regardless of all those statutory and constitutional arguments, this is a fundamentally, morally flawed proposition that says everyone has to get

this; and if you disagree, you will get fired; we will render you unemployed and unemployable. This is wrong, and it is especially wrong to do to our healthcare workers.

Let's not do this. I urge my friend and colleague from Oregon to reconsider. We can do better than that. The American people expect more. They demand better, and we need to listen to them.

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

Mr. President, last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an emergency stay on President Biden's sweeping vaccine mandate. The court granted the stay, citing ``grave statutory and constitutional issues'' with the mandate. The 22-page order is persuasive and compelling in explaining the grave effects the mandate will have on businesses and individuals alike throughout the United States.

The order also explains that the limited nature of the Federal Government under the Constitution simply doesn't allow for sweeping mandates of this nature, generally, but it certainly doesn't allow for sweeping mandates like this one without an act of Congress. You see, our powers within the Federal Government are carefully circumscribed; they are carefully constrained. The Constitution brings about a balancing, a limitation on powers that operate along two axes. The vertical constraint is called federalism, and the horizontal constraint is something we refer to as the separation of powers.

The Federal Government's powers are, as James Madison described them in Federalist No. 45, ``few and defined,'' while those reserved to the States are ``numerous and indefinite.'' Likewise, within the three branches, we have these protections in place to make sure that no one person can exercise what power the Federal Government does have exclusively; you can't accumulate too much power. So the President of the United States, under our constitutional system, isn't a King and may not rule by decree. He is not free to just do things because he thinks they are a good idea.

The judges also, refreshingly, asserted the commerce clause of the Constitution and brought up the commerce clause as the source of the claimed authority for Federal action under this circumstance, noting that, even under broad interpretations of the commerce clause that we have seen from the Federal court system since 1937, the commerce clause is not unlimited in the scope of the authority that it provides to the Federal Government, and in this case, it certainly doesn't authorize the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue a sweeping vaccine mandate on all companies with more than 99 employees nor does the commerce clause even authorize Congress to undertake such an action, which, of course, Congress has not undertaken.

We have erred dangerously, over many decades, from the true application of the Constitution's limits. In many respects, we have lost sight even of the fact that this is a government of limited powers, and now that lack of those limits--the lack of respect for those limits within those who operate the Federal Government--is placing millions of Americans at risk of not only becoming unemployed but, in many cases, unemployable. Some in Congress are, today, taking it even further in asking the President of the United States to impose a vaccine or a test mandate as a condition precedent for interstate travel.

Now, I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who are at risk of losing their jobs because of this now, thankfully, halted mandate. These are not bad people. To the contrary, they are good people. They are our neighbors and our friends. They are everyday Americans who are all too often just trying to get by to provide for their families. They are not our enemies, and it is troubling to think that the President of the United States said--on national television no less--that he is ``losing [his] patience'' with them. What does that even mean? In fact, recent polling numbers show that, if anything, it appears to be the other way around. We are losing patience with him and with his broad assertions of authority that he doesn't even have.

I have come to the Senate floor about 15 times now to oppose this vaccine mandate. I have offered a dozen bills to limit, clarify, or otherwise counteract the vaccine mandate. Each time, one or another of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle has objected to what should be uncontroversial bills. Let's review each of these that we have gone through so far.

Now, this started back on September 28 with S. 2850. This bill, S. 2850, would have provided exemptions for those with religious or moral objections to the vaccine mandate. President Biden, significantly, had promised these exemptions would be in the mandate, but for some reason--for some reason that I struggle to understand--Senate Democrats, nonetheless, objected to the passage of that bill.

So then I came back, and I offered up S. 2840, the Don't Jab Me Act, a bill that would require that the Federal Government make those who suffer from the vaccine mandate financially whole. The Democrats rejected that bill too.

Next, I offered S. 2843, the No Taxation Without Congressional Consent Act, a bill that would require congressional authorization before the fines associated with the mandate could be charged to businesses. Notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution is very clear about where taxes need to originate within our system of government, the Democrats objected to that bill as well.

So then I came back with another bill. This time it was S. 2848, the Your Health Comes First Act. This is a bill that would offer exemptions from the mandate to those who have preexisting medical or other health concerns about the vaccine. This is also another exemption that President Biden himself promised in his speech when first announcing the vaccine mandate, but it is an exemption that the Senate Democrats, apparently, didn't feel worthy of codifying with legislation, and so they objected to that one too. This one was particularly surprising because if, in fact, President Biden himself felt comfortable with those exemptions, one would think that there wouldn't be discomfort with codifying what he himself said should be the law.

So then, in response to that, I returned to this Chamber on another day, and I offered up S. 2846, the Natural Immunity is Real Act. This bill would require that the Federal vaccine mandate recognize natural immunity. Countries across the world recognize this immunity for the powerful protection that it, in fact, provides, a protection that, according to some studies, may be as much as 27 times stronger than that offered by the vaccine alone. Unfortunately, President Biden's mandate wasn't so generous on that point.

This bill, too, was rejected by the Democrats, disregarding science's showing the very real impact of natural immunity.

So I came back, and I offered up S. 2847, the Let Me Travel America Act. Now, this bill would prohibit the requirement of vaccination before citizens could travel between the States. Apparently, the Democrats want to leave that option open because they objected to that one too. Well, that one is not in the vaccine mandate. It is feared, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, that that might be on the table. Apparently, it still is because people were unwilling to codify what should be a natural conclusion for most Americans to reach, which is that our right to travel from one State to another without permission from the Federal Government ought not be interfered with and that it is fundamental that we shouldn't mess with it. That is why it was unfortunate that this one, too, drew an objection.

So I returned. I hoped that this body could give some assurance and some respect to the brave men and women of our military who are at risk of losing benefits and losing the right to serve over this vaccine mandate. So my bill that I offered that day, S. 2842, the Respecting Our Servicemembers Act, would protect servicemembers from losing their livelihoods and their benefits--that they have accrued and earned through their valiant service--as a result of the mandate. The Democrats objected to this one too. That is particularly sad. These are heroes. These are people on whom we rely to keep us safe. We ought to give them more trust than that. We ought to not put them in a position in which many of them are facing a difficult decision.

So I offered another bill. I returned to this body, and I offered a bill that should be one of the least controversial measures that we have ever considered, not just about the vaccine mandate but about anything. That bill, the Parental Consent for Vaccination Act, would have simply required that parental consent be provided before COVID-19 vaccines were given to children. The Democrats objected to that as well.

So I came back, and I offered the Transparency in COVID-19 Vaccination Act. This bill would have provided information regarding vaccine side effects to the public. It would have just made sure that the American people had access to that information. I thought information would build confidence in the vaccines. The Democrats disagreed, and they objected. Apparently, that was too much. I don't know why people wouldn't want more information. I actually think that would have built confidence in the vaccine, but, apparently, they didn't see it that way or maybe they just didn't want people to have access to the information. I don't know. I can't speak for them. I just know they objected.

So I came back for the 10th time. I offered up the Transparency in COVID-19 Research Act. This bill would have provided research and information drawn from that research--that the American taxpayers are paying for--to the public, that should be available to the public. We pay for that research. We ought to know what the findings are. The government shouldn't have anything to hide and wouldn't have anything to hide here, but the Democrats disagreed, and they objected to that one as well.

So I tried again. I came back, and I offered up S. 2851, the Transparency in COVID-19 Expenditures Act. This bill is just a good housekeeping measure. It is a commonsense measure. It is not something that should have been either liberal or conservative or thought of as Republican or Democratic. It is just a good housekeeping matter. You know, I think it is strange that it would be controversial, given the simplicity of what it would do. It would simply call for an audit regarding how our COVID-19 funds have been spent. I thought the information would be helpful to us as we make policy moving forward, and yet the Democrats objected to that one.

So I tried again. I offered a 12th bill that would simply end the mandate. The No Forced Vaccination for COVID-19 Act would clarify that Federal law does not authorize OSHA or any other Federal Agency to implement a general vaccine mandate, but the Democrats objected to that one too.

Twelve times--twelve bills. Some were simpler than others. Some should have involved no controversy whatsoever. Some just inserted good principles of lawmaking or constitutionalism generally or federalism in particular. Each one was rejected, one right after the other after the other, repeated 12 times.

Thankfully, while some in this body have floundered, judges on the Fifth Circuit fulfilled their duty to the American people and their oaths to the Constitution. That does not mean, however, that this fight is anywhere near over. It will continue in the courts, where the States and the Biden administration will each be able to make their case. But I am also going to continue this fight here. I will stand for those Utahns and those Americans who are at risk specifically because of this mandate.

It is also important for us to remember that separate and apart from what the courts might do, we have an independent obligation, having each taken an oath to uphold and protect and defend the Constitution of the United States in the fulfillment of our duties. We need to make sure that before authority is exercised--especially authority operating in such a personal manner on such a personal issue as this--that power isn't being taken from those to whom it belongs. The power in our system of government belongs to the people, and in the absence of a delegation of power to the Federal Government, that power is retained by the States respectively or by the people.

So we ought to be looking at this carefully and closely, analyzing it on our own. We can't assume that the Federal courts will save us from our own unconstitutional actions.

I have been critical of Presidents of both political parties when they have taken actions that exceed the scope of their authority as President of the United States or of actions enacted by the legislative branch under the direction of either political party that exceed the power of the Federal Government. This is an issue that is not Republican or Democratic. It is not liberal. It is not conservative. It is simply an American issue. It is a constitutional issue. We ought to be debating it, discussing these things here, and not waiting for the courts to act.

One of the profound frustrations that I have encountered over the years is that sometimes people will conflate the issue of constitutionality with litigation. They will assume that constitutional issues are those that have to be addressed in the courts and only in the courts.

Fortunately, we have the courts to adjudicate disputes and the meaning of statutes and provisions of the Constitution, but that doesn't excuse us of our responsibility to provide an independent check and balance to make sure that authority isn't being exercised where it should not. It is especially important where, as here, we are dealing with a fundamentally misguided and, I believe, immoral proposition; that is, that individual Americans, hard-working moms and dads throughout this country, ought ever to be put into a position by their government to choose between, on the one hand, receiving a medical procedure that they may not want or to which they may have religious or other moral objections or which they might have a specific health concern, for example--they ought not ever be put in a position where they have to choose between that unwanted medical procedure on the one hand and on the other hand, the ability to put bread on the table for their children. That is not right. The American people know it, and deep down, they know something is terribly wrong whenever one person can, with the stroke of the Executive pen, issue so broad, so deep, and so immoral a mandate.

I am not going to stand for this. I will be back. I will be back tomorrow. I will be back the next day. I will be back as often as it takes, as long as it takes. I am not going to stop until we win this fight.

Thank you.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, months ago, as Americans watched harrowing video footage of the Afghanistan evacuation efforts, service men and women from around the world rose to the challenge of a complex mission. As the chaos persisted, the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army was called on to support noncombatant evacuation operations--NEO--at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan. They completed their mission honorably.

One member of the 82nd Airborne Division, Sgt. Breanna J. Jessop, a chaplain assistant, assumed the role as the noncommissioned officer-- NCO--in charge of the airport chapel. Sergeant Jessop, despite tremendous obstacles of ongoing and imminent threats, conducted herself with courage, discipline, and attention to detail. Her work saved many.

Always putting the well-being of her fellow soldiers first, Sergeant Jessop used her ingenuity to ensure 4,000 U.S. military personnel and coalition forces had access to basic hygiene items at a time when resources were, at best, limited. Further, she made time to assist soldiers with religious support, help care for those who had suffered casualties, and ensure the well-being of the soldiers with whom she served.

At the height of the NEO mission, Sergeant Jessop showed outstanding leadership. She oversaw the operation of an entire orphanage that had been formed as a result of the increase in unaccompanied minors at the airport. She led the mission to assist in caring for children and offered assistance for children ranging from newborn babies to 17 years old. As a result of her untiring humanitarian efforts, over 400 displaced children were kept safe during the NEO mission.

Outside of her assigned duties and responsibilities, Sergeant Jessop, has helped pioneer the Under the Canopy Program which serves as a touchpoint forum for lower enlisted paratroopers. There, she provides vital leadership to assist with planning, preparing, and overseeing the execution of each event. Her work helps hundreds of paratroopers each month to identify issues and discuss new and ongoing initiatives.

Sgt. Breanna J. Jessop, a native of Myton, UT, truly represents the U.S. Army values and what it means to be a paratrooper and Sky Dragon soldier.

About Sergeant Jessop, Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue once said, ``There are so many different words that you could use to describe her: strength, resilience, willingness to share what others would never be willing to . . . that's the type of remarkable person and paratrooper that she is.'' I could not agree more.

Sergeant Jessop was recently recognized by the United Service Organizations as the 2021 Service Member of the Year. This award is fitting and well-deserved. Yet no award will ever fully honor the service of Sergeant Jessop. Her dedicated service to the children orphaned at Hamid Karzai International Airport and her fellow servicemembers is commendable and will be remembered and revered in the hearts of many for years to come.

Mr. President, I have introduced 12 bills against President Biden's vaccine mandate. Most of these bills should have been supremely noncontroversial. Some of the bills would have made sure that the exemptions President Biden announced were actually efficacious in the final mandate. Another bill would have made sure that the government didn't vaccinate children without the consent of their parents. Yet another would have provided transparency to the American people on exactly how their tax dollars are being used in this area.

Lamentably, each time I asked that one of these bills pass this body, one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle objected. They determined that legislation protecting religious, medical, and moral exceptions to the mandate were not helpful. They decided that the American people do not deserve to understand how their tax dollars are funding research or COVID relief. They declared that laws protecting parents' rights to make the best decisions for their kids were somehow unnecessary.

On each of these issues, the American people, of course, begged significantly to differ. Americans don't appreciate it when their government takes decisions out of their hands. As elections this week showed, parents want a voice in their children's education, and they certainly want to be respected when it comes to medical decisions involving and affecting their children as directly as this one does.

Crippling inflation and polling data on Americans' economic outlook show

that people want government to be more responsible and more transparent in how it oversees their tax dollars and how it spends them. Those on the other side of the aisle who have objected perhaps aren't getting that particular message. And how tragic that is.

I have heard from hundreds of Utahns in recent days who are at risk of losing their livelihoods under the mandate. Many of these individuals are military servicemembers and first responders. Others are key workers. Many have legitimate medical or religious reasons not to be vaccinated. But each one of them is an everyday American. These are mothers and fathers. They live in our communities. They are people we call friends and neighbors. In today's economy, all too many of them are struggling just to get by. Forcing them out of work will put an unimaginable strain on their families and on our economy at a time when they can't afford to face additional strains, certainly not one imposed by the Federal Government.

Additionally, I have heard from countless businesses that are worried about keeping their doors open should the mandate require them to fire key members of their workforce, that this just isn't tolerable. These businesses are already under tremendous strain due to the supply chain crisis and inflation and the labor shortage. They fear that they will be unable to operate should the mandate take effect. Every American-- every single American--would suffer if these key industries were to shut down.

Now, some might say these impacts are far away. Others still might claim that because the mandate has not yet taken effect, these impacts aren't real or worth worrying about today. I don't think that is true. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Now, it is true that President Biden's vaccine mandate is yet to be officially published in the Federal Register. However, it will be tomorrow. The unpublished version of the mandate can now be found, as of a few hours ago, and here is some of what it entails:

If employers have 100 or more employees, they must ensure that their workers are either fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by December 5 or that workers test negative for COVID at least once a week by January 4. If an employer has an employee who has yet to be vaccinated, President Biden is requiring the employer to pay workers for the time it takes to get vaccinated and provide sick leave for workers to recover from any side effects.

What happens if businesses don't comply? Well, President Biden has threatened them with a nearly $14,000 fine per violation, per person, per day. This is an administrative nightmare and nothing short of it.

If employees don't want to be vaccinated against COVID-19, then they must pay for the testing. American workers will be on the hook, and it is not something most Americans can afford.

Mr. President, seeing that we have a vote approaching, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Peters and I be able to speak for a period of time not to exceed an additional 5 minutes to complete our remarks.

So today I am offering a bill that would help with this situation. My No Forced Vaccination for COVID-19 Act would prevent the President of the United States or any executive branch agency from issuing a general vaccine mandate, including a mandate that requires an individual to be vaccinated or undergo periodic testing. It would end this extraordinary nightmare for millions of Americans and key businesses. It would put this sorry, mean, cruel saga to an end.

The people of Utah and the United States will rest easy if this bill passes. We would be able to focus on encouraging vaccination in reasonable, acceptable, and constitutional ways. I think this is what we all want.

Ultimately, I believe in these vaccines. I am fully vaccinated. I have encouraged everyone around me to be vaccinated. I believe these vaccines are helping to protect millions of Americans from the harms of COVID. What is not helping Americans is President Biden's mandate. We can fix that today. That is why I am encouraging my colleagues to support this bill.

To that end, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3170, which is at the desk. I ask further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, this isn't about whether we are against the virus; we are. It is not about whether we are for the vaccine; we are. It is about the fact that only 14 percent of Americans believe that it is fair, just, and proper to fire someone because they refuse to get the vaccine.

It is not appropriate for the President of the United States or this government to be ordering everyone to be fired, removing someone from their ability to put bread on the table for their children. It is immoral. It is wrong. It is without foundation and law. It is contrary to the constitutional word. This is shameful. I will be back and I won't stop until we are finished.

Mr. President, the United States is facing economic challenges that we haven't experienced in this country for decades. The supply chain crunch is leading to backlogged ports, and that, in turn, is spilling over into empty shelves. Inflation is exacting a punishing toll on American families; on their budgets, on their quality of life.

And it is not the well-off families that are being most harmed by it, no. It is those who are least prepared to endure that. It is America's poor and middle class; those who are working hard to survive from day to day, trying to reach that American dream, trying to ascend the economic ladder that the American dream has long enabled.

Now, each of these problems, in its own right, would be a really serious and vexing primary concern for most people and most businesses, even during normal economic times. But these are far from normal economic times.

In fact, when businesses are polled, their primary concern isn't about any of these things. It is the labor shortage. Businesses are struggling to find workers. The Joint Economic Committee Republicans released a report recently explaining that Americans have lost many vital connections to work. Government policies and social pressures are leading to a lower labor force participation rate than at any time in decades.

This trend is worrying not only because work helps Americans put food on the table--and it does, and it is necessary to do that--but also because work often provides a sense of accomplishment and belonging and self-worth. Work is a social good in its own right.

But businesses across the country are struggling to find workers, and that is leading to more of these same problems, leading to higher prices on things that people need to buy. All this is making everything else more complicated, more difficult for America's poor and middle class.

I have spoken to businessowners in Utah, who are closing their doors for days each week because they can't find workers. Some businesses are offering extremely generous salaries and signing bonuses for those who are willing to work. Nonetheless, they are still struggling to find employees.

Now, work is often the primary connection Americans have with peers. Work provides a sense of involvement, taxpayer responsibility, and community with others. Work is also the way we get things done. It is how we manufacture, farm, mine, and build. Work is a requisite for prosperity at any level, in any form.

Unfortunately, President Biden is making work more difficult and less enticing, increasingly less possible. Raising taxes on Americans gives them less incentive to work, and as the Penn Wharton Budget Model shows, the Democrats' trimmed-down plan would cost almost $4 trillion over 10 years and cost American taxpayers $1.5 trillion in new taxes.

Through his unconstitutional and sweeping vaccine mandate, President Biden is forcing countless American workers out of a job and preventing others from joining or rejoining the workforce. This is far from a mere abstract constitutional transgression. This is a constitutional violation that goes far beyond the text of a document that extends deeply into the lives of the American people, especially the poor and the middle class.

I have now heard from over 300 Utahans who are at risk of losing their livelihoods due to this mandate. Their stories are gut-wrenching. Their stories are tragic. Their stories remind me of how indefensible and inexcusable and immoral this vaccine mandate truly is.

These are ordinary, everyday, hard-working Americans who all too often are just trying to make ends meet, put food on the table, provide for their families, and otherwise get by.

Many of them have legitimate medical, moral, or religious objections. Many of them work for employers who have no desire to implement the mandate and who themselves are worried about their ability to keep their businesses open.

Now, I have heard from a number of Utah businesses whose management and ownership have expressed these exact same feelings, and I have heard from Utah workers who have expressed these feelings over and over and over again. Let me tell you about a few people I have heard from who have described this awful situation.

Now, one Utah business in the high-tech space has expressed concern about losing valuable employees due to the mandate. The business that I am referring to at the moment has implemented policies to encourage vaccination and recognizes, of course, the value that vaccination can bring to the workforce. Nonetheless, the businessowners are uncomfortable with making these decisions for their employees.

The business's management said: ``We feel strongly that it is not the government's right to require vaccination.''

They are absolutely right.

A growing Utah food manufacturer with 350 employees is very worried about the mandate's impact on that company's ability to keep product moving. This business plays an important role in food supply chains in Utah, throughout the Western United States, and throughout the country.

Leaders of this business said: ``This mandate is government overreach, is outside the scope and purpose of OSHA, and will have dire consequences on our company and our economy in this extremely tight labor market.''

They know that some of their workforce would quit if the mandate were enforced.

Another Utah business is similarly worried. This larger operation's leadership said: ``We are in a difficult labor situation. It is a daily struggle to be fully staffed and produce the products our customers expect. Some of our employees have stated they will quit if forced to be vaccinated. Any disruption in our labor force will be critical to our operations, and a disruption in our labor force not only means some of our customers may not receive product they expect, it may mean local, time-sensitive supply would not get processed. That disruption would be devastating.''

Now, it is important here that I not be misunderstood. I am against the mandate, but I support the vaccine. I have been vaccinated. I have encouraged others to be vaccinated. These vaccines are helping countless people avoid the harms associated with COVID-19. But this mandate is already doing serious harm to our economy and to people who want the right, the basic human right, to make their own medical decisions.

That is why I, along with my colleague, the Senator from Kansas, Dr. Marshall--Senator Marshall and I have sent a letter directly to the majority leader, Senator Schumer. We have advised him, months before the current spending period ends in December, that we will oppose any funding legislation that enables the enforcement of President Biden's employer vaccine mandate.

It is essential to remember here that Congress, the branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals, this is where the Constitution places the power of the purse. This is where the Constitution places the power to pass legislation. Congress, not the President, has the authority to decide how Federal funds are spent.

Now, we believe our funds would be misspent in this way or any endeavor that would harm Utahans and Kansans and all Americans, would worsen our difficult economic situation, or would take away fundamental medical freedoms.

This now marks the thirteenth day that I have come to the Senate floor to oppose the mandate. I am going to continue to do so for as long as it takes to beat the mandate. I encourage all of my colleagues to join me in this effort.

And when I say that, I want to be clear. I am not speaking to one side of the aisle or the other. I invite all to join me in this cause. Why? Well, because Americans overwhelmingly--regardless of whether they live in a red State or a blue State or a purple State, Americans overwhelmingly oppose this mandate.

According to a poll recently reported on in Axios--hardly a rightwing publication--revealed that 14 percent--just 14 percent--of Americans believe that the response to someone not receiving the vaccine should involve them losing their job.

Just 14 percent of Americans agree with President Biden that you should have to choose between keeping your job and getting a vaccine that might go against your religious beliefs or that might worsen a preexisting medical condition that has caused your doctor to advise you to be cautious in getting the vaccine.

These decisions are not those of the President of the United States to make. You see, he doesn't have that power. My copy of the Constitution says that the power to make law rests in this branch of government, the legislative branch, the Congress. And my copy of the Constitution says that he can't make law, which he essentially did when he purported to have and purported to plan to exercise the power unilaterally, acting alone, to require every worker at every employer that has more than 100 employees--more than 99 employees to get the vaccine or be fired.

This isn't right. Deep down, the American people know it isn't right. Deep down they know that this is not a partisan issue. This is an unabashed power grab by the President of the United States. It is not one that is of the sort that the American people will accept kindly.

I have said before, I am not sure I can think of a more egregious example of a President exercising power that is not his own in many decades.

This is, in some ways, reminiscent of President Harry Truman's decision to seize every steel mill in America in order to make sure that the output could be dedicated to the Korean war effort. The American people didn't smile upon that one. Neither did the Supreme Court of the United States, which, within weeks of President Truman's action on April 8, 1952, decided that he didn't have that authority.

Some may ask: Well, if it is so unconstitutional here, why hasn't the Supreme Court acted?

I will tell you why. Because President Biden hasn't had the basic decency to issue an order explaining a basis for his authority and providing a basis for someone to challenge the legitimacy of his authority to order every business with more than 99 employees--to force its entire workforce to get vaccinated. He hasn't had the decency to do that.

Consequently, no one can sue yet. Consequently, employers everywhere with more than 99 employees are forced to guess as to what it would look like. And in the meantime, their lawyers with good reason and their risk management departments and their human resources departments are understandably saying: We don't want to get caught flatfooted, especially because we have been threatened as employers with $70,000 per day, per person, mounting civil monetary penalties.

This would be crippling to any business.

So what are they doing?

Well, they are getting ahead of it. They are guessing as to what the most extreme version of the OSHA mandate might look like, and then they are exceeding that. And they are already in the process of threatening termination and, in some ways, in some cases, imposing it.

In many cases, they are not even having the decency to fire them. They are, instead, putting them on unpaid administrative leave. This is especially cruel because it renders them completely ineligible for unemployment.

So, Mr. President, I ask you: Is this moral? Is this just?

Setting aside for a moment the question of whether this is constitutional--and I assure you, unequivocally, it is not. But even setting aside that question, is it moral? Is it proper? Is it acceptable to do this to America's poor and middle class?

It is not.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I have now come to the Senate floor 12 times to speak against President Biden's unconstitutional and unwise vaccine mandate. I have introduced 12 bills to counter and limit the mandate. Each time I have asked for one of these bills--each of which should be uncontroversial--and tried to get the Senate to pass them, one Senator or another from across the aisle has objected.

Some of these bills have required only transparency. Other bills would have ensured that religious and medical exemptions be honored. Others still would simply require parental consent before vaccinating children.

While far from the right answer of empowering Americans with all the information to make the decision themselves on when, whether, and under what circumstances to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, these commonsense bills would make the situation better. Each one of them would make it better. Each one of them is and properly should be uncontroversial.

Now, throughout the process, I have been criticized by those on the other side of the aisle. I have been accused of attacking science and our institutions and somehow perpetuating the virus. Nothing could be further from the truth--nothing. I am for the vaccine. I have been vaccinated. Every member of my family has been vaccinated. I have encouraged others to be vaccinated all along. Nevertheless, Madam President, my support for the vaccine cannot, must not, and will never supersede my sworn oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States; nor can it supersede the rights of Americans who should, in any free society, in any fair society, be at liberty to make their own properly informed medical decisions. This right has been recognized and it has been rightly celebrated throughout American history.

Another principle deeply enshrined, embedded, built into our Constitution that has been wholly ignored in implementing this mandate and countless other infringements of the rights and freedoms of Americans is the separation of powers. Checks and balances require that all ministers, consuls, and officers of the United States be confirmed by the advice and consent of the Senate. Some of us take that responsibility very seriously.

Any commissioned officer in the military being promoted to O-4 rank or higher requires Senate confirmation. That, of course, is the equivalent of a major in the Army. In other areas of government, positions such as members of the Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting, the board of the African Development Foundation, members of the National Councils on the Arts and Humanities, members of the National Science Board, and board members of the Corporation for National and Community Service all require Senate confirmation--every one of them.

Oddly, one position that has exerted huge power over the American people, particularly in recent years, does not require Senate confirmation. The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention manages over 10,000 employees and has requested over $15 billion for the Centers' fiscal year 2022 budget.

The CDC, in recent months, has suspended property rights nationwide. It has provided capricious recommendations that local and State officials have used to strictly limit freedoms across the country. The CDC has shown through its own actions and the effects of those actions just how powerful it is. The sheer immensity of the CDC's power has been demonstrated over and over and over again on wide public, very prominent display for the American people to see and witness and experience.

We can and we should debate the authorities of the CDC here in Congress because Congress is, of course, the branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals. That is why the most dangerous powers, really, are lodged here,

is because of the fact that we stand accountable to the people at the most regular intervals. Every Member of the House stands for election every 2 years. A third of the Senate stands for reelection every 2 years. So we should debate and discuss the authorities of the CDC here in Congress for that very reason.

I look forward to that discussion, which we need to have more of, but the matter at hand today is much simpler. We must consider whether the CDC Director ought to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Now, it is absurd to think that someone so powerful can assume this office with no say whatsoever from the legislative branch. It is even more absurd to say that the Senate confirms members of an advisory board on broadcasting in Cuba to protect the interests of the American people-- those we represent and those who elected us--but that it has no business confirming someone to be the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

My bill would fix that problem. The Restoring Trust in Public Health Act would require that the CDC Director be confirmed by the Senate. This bill is cosponsored by Senators Blackburn, Tuberville, Sullivan, Braun, Tillis, and Scott of Florida. I appreciate their support for this long-past-due measure.

In order to increase trust in the vaccine and trust in government, we must return transparency and accountability to the process. This bill, in the spirit of the Constitution, would provide an important check on government power and give the people a say in the CDC.

Now, today, I had planned to ask the Senate to pass this bill by unanimous consent. However, just in the last few hours, I have learned that negotiations are now underway and a deal may well be struck in order to make this proposal or something very similar to it law. In light of that development, I will withhold my live UC request for today. But I will note here that if progress isn't made on such a deal, I will be back soon--certainly before the end of the year--to ask this body to immediately take up and pass S. 2734.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, earlier today, President Biden announced his new, revised, supposedly curtailed, social spending plan for America. It seems that the depressing economic numbers, the soaring costs of goods, mounting data that government spending is to blame, or perhaps some more moderate voices within the Democratic conference forced him to walk this latest monstrosity back.

Democrats, who won control with the slimmest of majorities, feel that they have a mandate to change more about American society and spend more money than any group of elected officials in American history.

The White House Chief of Staff tweeted today, bragging that this deal is still twice as big as the New Deal in real dollars.

Be it at $3.5 trillion or a little less, we have lost almost all sense of what money means, at least when it comes to money being spent by Washington--by public officials who congratulate themselves, each other, and, in return, are congratulated by many in the media for spending other people's money or spending money we don't have, money that ends up, effectively, being printed.

Our Founding Fathers entrusted Congress with the power of the purse because they expected Congress, which is the branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals, to be most likely to jealously guard the funds of those who sent us here.

Understanding that as every Member of the House is required to stand for election every 2 years, and one-third of the Members of this body are required to stand for election every 2 years, that ought to have an effect. It ought to have precisely the effect that we remember: that it is not our money; it is the people's money, and that when we run out of it, we can't just pretend that we have more. When you do that, it causes problems--especially for the poor and the middle class.

The Framers assumed that Congress would be the most responsible branch in managing our Nation's finances--again, because we are the branch most accountable to the people. But in this respect we failed. We failed in every sense. We failed dismally, miserably.

Americans work for months out of every single year just to pay their Federal taxes. Yet our Nation is still barreling toward $30 trillion of national debt. We are now reaching devastating debt-to-GDP ratios that we have never contemplated during peacetime in America. And Americans are feeling the pain--real Americans, everyday Americans.

Inflation is at its highest rate in decades. Everything from gas to groceries, from housing to healthcare--it is all more expensive and getting more expensive every single day. We know from sad experience that this isn't going to go away anytime soon. Prices, once they go up, tend to stick.

Meanwhile, President Biden, apparently, is not satisfied with only making things more expensive, but he is also making it harder and in some cases impossible for many Americans to work. His still-unpublished vaccine mandate is causing millions of Americans to be at risk of losing their employment or, alternatively, acquiescing to Federal medical extortion. These are everyday Americans, all too often struggling just to get by. They are not bad people. They are not people whom we should shun. No. These are mothers and fathers. Some are first responders, and others are military heroes. They are our neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens. They deserve the respect and autonomy to make this decision for themselves.

And the Constitution, when properly followed, protects Americans from precisely this type of Federal intrusion, especially this type of Federal intrusion wielded by one man, one person, in one office.

I have heard now from over 300 Utahans just in the last few weeks who are at risk of losing their livelihoods due to the President's mandate. These are just the ones I have heard from. For every one I have heard from, there are many, many others who are being affected. Their stories are moving, and they are as moving as they are tragic. And we must do something to help.

Allow me to be very clear. While I am very much against the mandate, I am for the vaccine. I have been vaccinated. My entire family has been vaccinated. I have encouraged other people to get vaccinated. These vaccines are helping to protect many, many millions of Americans against the harmful effects of COVID-19.

That does not, however, excuse the heavy-handed, nanny state approach of forcing this decision on Americans, of threatening Americans, coercing them, extorting them into doing the will of the President of the United States. This is not only an action not backed up by law or consistent with the constitutional separation of powers, but it is immoral. And it is mean to tell a mom or a dad you are not going to be able to put food on the table for your children if you don't get a medical procedure that we want you to get but that you don't want to get, for whatever reason: a religious reason, a particular medical condition that you have been warned about from your doctor, or whatever else it may be. People shouldn't have to choose between the ability to make a living and the coerced receipt of an unwanted medical procedure.

This is why I have come to the Senate floor 11 times now to fight against the mandate and why I am going to keep coming. Today, I am offering what should be an incredibly uncontroversial bill. My Transparency in COVID-19 Expenditures Act, which is cosponsored by Senators Braun, Lummis, Sullivan, and Tuberville, would simply require an audit of COVID-19 relief funding. It would allow Congress to determine what spending in this pandemic worked and what spending did not. It would help us return a little bit of financial oversight and sanity and responsibility and accountability to Congress and to our government.

This information would also allow taxpayers to see how their dollars are being spent and whether they are being spent wisely. It is that simple. And I encourage my colleagues to support the bill.

I would like now to yield time to my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 2851 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the insight from my friend, colleague, and distinguished Senator from Michigan. I appreciate his willingness to look out for making sure that there isn't duplication in government.

I also think it is important that at a time when we are spending an unprecedented amount of money, that we are on the side of redoubling efforts to audit, to oversee.

There has never been a time in American history when we have brought in more money than we have brought in in the year 2020. We brought in over $3 trillion. But there has never been a time when we have spent nearly as much money in total dollars or as far as a number of dollars relative to what we brought in.

I mean, we spent $6.6 trillion last year. This is an enormous amount of money. We are spending a comparable amount again this year--again, trillions of dollars more than we are bringing in. We are doing it ostensibly because of the COVID pandemic. And for that reason, it is good that we make sure that we know where we are spending that money, where it is going. If it can make our efforts more effective and more efficient, if this is about protecting and sustaining life, then why wouldn't we want to make sure that it is being done in the most effective, efficient way possible?

We work for the people. They deserve to know where the money is being spent.

Madam President, in politics, on television, on social media, and pretty much everywhere, it seems that people are decrying the surge of ``misinformation.'' False information and dangerous ideas exist, but the cure to factions of falsehood and the kinds of harms coming from them was something that was prescribed in the very early days of our Republic.

James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10 of the value that our large Union would always possess in defeating self-interested and dangerous ideas and philosophies and specifically factions. The answer is simple: Our free society, with free exchange of ideas, allows for a multiplicity of viewpoints, perspectives, and opinions to be heard, and then the true, correct, and useful ideas tend to rise to the top.

Madison wrote:

The increased variety of parties comprised within the

Union, increase . . . security.

At this point, I would add that the definition of ``parties'' here is best understood to encompass information, ideas, and opinions--all things that tend to unify people around one faction or another, one party or another, one group of people or another.

But, oh, how many have lost their way since then. Be it through mandates, censorship, cancel culture, or something else, it seems that this dialogue of ideas and information is being rejected by many segments of our society. What a shame that is. It is an even greater shame that, often, this is the result of government action.

Yesterday, I came to the Senate floor with one of my dozen bills to try to counteract President Biden's vaccine mandate. This bill that I offered up yesterday required only that the Secretary of Health and Human Services provide the information the Department already has on adverse COVID-19 vaccine effects to the public. We have already got this information. We just wanted them to share it with the public, with the American taxpayer--those who have been footing the bill all along. Regrettably, the senior Senator from Washington objected to the bill and described it as a waste of time and one that would somehow undermine trust.

My response to that is simple: Why would we ever want the Federal Government to hide any health information from Americans? If we want to build confidence in these vaccines, and we do--I certainly do--then the Federal Government must get out of its own way and build trust and confidence with concerned Americans by sharing information.

Allow me to be abundantly clear. I am very much against the vaccine mandate, but I am for the vaccine. I have been vaccinated. I have encouraged others, including my family, to be vaccinated, and they have done so. I believe these vaccines are miracles. They are helping many millions of Americans to avoid the harms of COVID-19. But there are many Americans who are deeply concerned with the vaccine. They are not going to be people who are simply convinced by cruelty or by extortion.

I have heard from over 300 Utahns who are at risk of losing their livelihoods due to this damaging, senseless, and immoral mandate. These are not our enemies. They are mothers and fathers. They are neighbors. They are military servicemembers. They are our friends. They deserve more respect than being fired, brushed aside, and permanently relegated to unemployable, outcast status, which is the inevitable consequence of this mandate. This is where it naturally leads.

Now, many of these people would appreciate more information from the COVID research that their taxpayer dollars are already paying for. One would expect that the amount of research should be pretty darn extensive considering that as of May 31, 2021, just a few months ago, Congress had supplemented the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with approximately $484 billion in COVID-19 funds. That is a lot of money. That is almost half a trillion dollars.

Keep in mind that a trillion dollars represents, last I checked, roughly $3,000 for every man, woman, and child in America--not every taxpayer; not every worker; but every man, woman, and child in America. This is roughly half a trillion, so we are talking somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,500 for every man, woman, and child in America.

This is their money. These are their funds. This is money that they worked really hard to produce. So it should be their information that they have access to. But, lamentably, as recent news has shown, the National Institutes of Health often feels the need to hide information about its activities from the public. So, today, I have come to the Senate floor for now the 10th time on the vaccine mandate with a solution that should be entirely noncontroversial.

My bill, the Transparency in COVID-19 Research Act, would simply require that the Secretary of Health and Human Services publish all the studies and findings that the Department has supported regarding COVID- 19. The bill provides for the privacy of researchers and study participants. The bill would better inform Americans about the COVID-19 vaccines. The American people deserve to have this information. After all, they have paid for it, and after all, they are now routinely being subjected to it whether they want it or not.

Again, this whole exercise should be about building trust and confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine. That is, after all, what we want. You are never going to get that through threat, intimidation, extortion. In any event, it is immoral action. That is not something we can justify. That is not the way to treat our friends, our neighbors, our servicemembers.

I am grateful to my colleagues, Senators Braun, Lummis, and Tuberville, who agree and have joined me as cosponsors of the bill.

Look, if we want the American people to be comfortable with the COVID-19 vaccines, we should be more than comfortable providing the research that led to their development and their approval. If we want Americans to trust their government, we should be clear that it does not hide important health and research information from them. If we want our Republic to function properly, just like James Madison hoped for, then we need to have an open dialogue with all the information. The bill would be a positive step toward each of these ends, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

So, Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent

that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 2844 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, it is disappointing that we weren't able to take this step today to restore trust and confidence with the American people in research that they have now spent half a trillion dollars conducting.

I understand the impulse to--as my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Virginia, put it--to let scientists handle science. That doesn't mean, that shouldn't mean, that must never mean that we exclude the American people from the right to access the findings of their own government--a government that has used their own taxpayer dollars to the tune of half a trillion dollars just through HHS and through trillions more on other COVID-19-related efforts. We should be able to trust the American people to access that information, and when we hide it, it erodes trust and confidence in the very vaccine that President Biden is trying to force on all Americans, even at the pain of losing their jobs.

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

Mr. President, I will be delivering remarks in a moment regarding the unanimous consent request that I am about to make. In deference and as a courtesy to my colleague from Washington, I will make the request first rather than speaking first.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, as if in legislative session, that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 2841 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. Further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, in recent years, particularly those on the other side of the aisle have called for, declared, and demanded that we rebuild what they call trust in government. While I believe that Americans must have a healthy distrust of the idea of government and any expansion of the necessarily limited powers of the Federal Government, that does not exempt government from the obligation of being trustworthy. That is why I find the position that so many of my colleagues across the aisle are taking to be so confusing: trust, but verify; trust your neighbor, count the cards.

People need information with which to analyze the faithfulness of government and to accept the facts as they deem appropriate. Now they claim that Americans must be forced, coerced, prodded, cajoled, threatened into making the government-approved medical decision. But heaven forbid if someone resists, objects due to moral or religious beliefs, or opts out of being vaccinated due to specific unique health concerns, she is derided and ignored, and--if the current Presidential administration has its way--forced out of her job.

All of this is supposed to build a safer and more trusting society?

This argument is totalitarian, and it is wrong. The United States is an open society, and the only way by which government can build trust with the American people is to earn it. The government will earn that trust only through transparency.

I have come to the Senate floor now nine times to oppose President Biden's immoral, unwise, and damaging vaccine mandate. I am committed to keep this going for as long as it takes to beat the mandate. I have introduced, now, a dozen bills to counteract, restrict, or limit the mandate. I do all this because I have heard from over 300 Utahans from one end of the State to the other, who are at risk of losing their livelihoods due to this aggressive government overreach.

Overreach of the government is staggering in here. It is an overreach the likes of which we haven't seen in this country in a long time; the likes of which we arguably haven't seen since April 8, 1952, when President Harry Truman seized every steel mill in America in order to support the Korean war effort. Fortunately, within a couple of months, the Supreme Court of the United States acted and invalidated that maneuver as unlawful, unconstitutional, which, of course, it was.

In this instance, that hasn't happened because, with respect to the OSHA mandate, the employer mandate--one saying all employers with more than 99 employees have to comply, have to fire people who aren't vaccinated--there is nothing there because the authority doesn't exist. But, in the meantime, corporate America is picking up the slack and doing the President's dirty work for him.

But it is a government overreach, and it is an overreach that is harming good people, people who are not enemies of the United States. No, they are not enemies to anyone. They are our neighbors, our fellow citizens, and our friends. Their stories are as tragic as they are moving, yet this administration seems bent on assuming that they have no voice, on giving them no voice.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against the mandate--I am against the mandate. I am not against the vaccine, not in any way. I am fully vaccinated. My entire family has been vaccinated. I have encouraged people to get vaccinated for the specific reason that I see the vaccines as miracles and miracles that are protecting many, many millions of Americans from the harms of COVID-19.

But if government is trying to encourage Americans to get vaccinated, hiding information about their concerns with the vaccine is the worst possible way to build trust. It has the exact opposite of what they claim they are trying to do. Existing concerns, make no mistake, are not just going to evaporate if they are ignored.

And the government's lack of transparency should be just as concerning to Americans who aren't worried about the vaccine as it is to those who are. Government should never be in the business of hiding information about the adverse effects and risks involved, no matter how infrequent or uncommon they might be.

And the government has--let's face it--been less than forthright with information about vaccine complications. Adverse reactions to the vaccine have been documented since the COVID-19 shot became available. The administration's message has been: Get the vaccine; it is safe, period.

If individuals pose questions about possible risks, about its interactions

with other medical treatments, or about rare reactions seen directly after its administration, they are often pushed aside, denied proper care, or deemed crazy conspiracy theorists for trying to scare the public away from the vaccine.

Sadly, this breeds distrust and it threatens the ability of those who experience rare vaccine injuries, the ability to access the proper treatment, care, and respect they deserve.

We should all be able to agree this type of governmental deception has no place in the United States. That is why today I came to the floor to offer the Transparency in COVID-19 Vaccination Act.

This bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publicly disclose all information regarding adverse effects of the COVID-19 vaccines. This sunshine would help clear the air and allow individuals and the medical community the opportunity to make informed decisions.

This clarity would also be an important step toward building trust with the American public. Americans have the best, most accurate information when they make medical decisions--at least they try to. They deserve to have the best and most accurate information when they make medical decisions. This bill would ensure that happens. That is why I came to the floor to offer it today, offer that we pass it and offer the protections.

My friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Washington, regrettably objected to it. In doing so, she argued that it is not necessary because, according to the Senator from Washington, all the information that they need is now available. In many instances, it is not. This bill would require that be made available--all of it.

The CDC does collect information on it, but the American people don't have full access to that information, and they should.

That begs the question: Why? Why would anyone want to do that?

I don't know why. To me, it doesn't make sense, especially if one wants to increase the number of people getting the vaccine as I do.

I would like to see more people getting vaccinated because I think the vaccine is something of a medical miracle and it is protecting many, many millions of Americans from the harmful effects of COVID-19. That is a good thing.

We want them to be protected. To be protected, we want them to get vaccinated. It doesn't mean government should force it on them, and it certainly doesn't mean that government should be perceived in any way as being less than forthcoming with information that it gains access to.

That is all this bill would require. It is not hard. There is nothing wrong with doing that. In fact, my colleague from Washington insists that it is already done.

If that is the case, what is wrong with putting that into law?

There isn't anything. We should do it.

I will be back on this and other topics related to the COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

All this is unfortunate. No one is happy about the fact that COVID-19 has touched our country in the way that it has. It has been painful. It is devastating. The 730,000 Americans who have died with COVID are tragedies, each and every one of them.

There is nothing about government overreach that will bring them back. There is certainly not anything about government overreach that is going to have a proper influence than the American people. There is certainly not anything about government hiding the ball when it comes to data that the American people deserve and want to have access to that is going to make people better.

We want more people to get vaccinated. Because of that, we want them to have the facts. We should do that.

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