Floor Statements

Mr. President, I appreciate my friend and colleague, the majority leader, for allowing me to finish my remarks this evening.

When we look at legislation like this, I hope we can pay attention to a few details--a few details--that focus on more than just our roads, bridges, wastewater projects, and other infrastructure matters.

Are they important? I hope we will ask specifically: Are they appropriately Federal? Could they be just as easily handled as some other level of government?

I hope that we will also ask: If they are appropriate for the Federal Government, are we spending appropriately there? And, are we doing it at the right time? Are we placing the dollars that we are going to spend on the right things?

I also hope that we will pay careful attention to something that my friend and my distinguished colleague from Arizona, Senator Sinema, said. She pointed out throughout this process it was difficult and time consuming. I liked how she put it. She said: It is supposed to be that way.

Our Founding Fathers set up a system in which it would necessarily be difficult and time consuming to get there. She is absolutely right. It is not supposed to be easy to pass legislation because legislation, especially like this, impacts a lot of people--a lot of people who are not here. There are only 100 of us who have the privilege of serving in this body, and we have 330 million people in this country who will be affected by it, and they will be affected by it for a long time to come.

That is why it is supposed to be difficult and time consuming. There, again, I point back to the fact that it took this committee--this committee--or this group; they are not a committee--this group of 10 or so Senators 4 painstaking months to come up with this. And it is to their credit that they were able to get it done even in that amount of time.

Again, I don't agree with the conclusion that they reached. I can't vote for this bill as it is written. But that really is remarkable that they were able to do it in that period of time.

The fact that they, as a small group, were able to do that in 4 months means that this body has no business passing this legislation in a matter of just a few days. Quite arguably, we should need more time than that, not less, to digest it. But for the sake of discussion, and for the sake of respecting what appears to be a widely held view in this body that we ought to act on this, we at least need a few weeks. We shouldn't be doing this in just a few days.

I also hope that we will keep in mind that every one of us in this body holds an election certificate, whether we participated in the drafting of this bill or not, and every one of us should have the opportunity to offer up amendments and to vote on those amendments to make improvements to the bill, whether we support it in its current form or not, whether we intend to vote for the finished package or not, every one of us deserves an opportunity to offer as many amendments as we may choose. And if we want them voted on, they should be voted on. We shouldn't be afraid of it.

Often it is through the amendment process that we discover the nooks and crannies, we discover the unintended consequences that we allow the public to have visibility and to what has been a process that most people don't have access to. So I hope that we will do that and that we will be respectful to each other's views in doing that.

Bad things happen when legislation--especially legislation spending as much money as this one does or anything close to it--is drafted in secret.

Look, there is no problem--I don't have a problem at all with the fact they have been meeting. Members have every prerogative to decide what they want to propose behind closed doors. That is how the deliberative process works that results in legislation. But once it is here, as it is now, we need to take into account the fact that this hasn't been through committee; this hasn't been aired in its current form. We have got to give it the adequate airing that it needs and that the American people deserve.

So I hope, I expect that in the coming days, what I hope will actually be the coming weeks, we will have the opportunity to review this in full, to share it with our constituents, to have it analyzed, to have it scored by the Congressional Budget Office--we have no business spending this kind of money without a CBO score--and then Members need to be able to offer amendments on it.

We live in difficult times, and we live in times where there is a lot of rancor and there is a lot of disagreement. I am glad that there has been a good feeling here tonight with people who have been able to come together.

Sometimes we can't pass legislation simply because it is bipartisan. We can't be expected to pass it just because some Democrats and some Republicans happen to agree with it. That is actually not all that uncommon.

From watching the news, sometimes you get the impression we can't stand each other and that there is such deep-rooted animus across party lines, that we can't talk to each other, we don't like each other, and that the problem with Congress is that we can't get anything done because there is partisan gridlock that stops everything.

Well, I would offer a different perspective to that. The fact that legislation like this occurs, bipartisanship; the fact that you don't get to be almost $30 trillion in debt without a whole lot of bipartisanship. Every single time we add an enormous sum to our national debt, there is bipartisanship behind it. Just because something is bipartisan doesn't mean that it is taking into account the needs of poor and middle-class Americans, who increasingly, of late, are being robbed blind by those who, for short-term political gain and praising the media, will make things more expensive for the poor and middle class, enabling a small handful of wealthy and well-connected interests to benefit from it. The fact that it is bipartisan shouldn't obscure the problems with it. I hope we will have an opportunity to address those problems and that we will give this legislation the due consideration it deserves.

Mr. President, I yield the floor

Mr. President, the word ``republic'' means public thing in Latin.

We bring our different perspectives and our different identities together respectfully to make decisions for an entire Nation. The United States is a nation with diverse, varied beliefs, different cultural origins, and different politics from the different regions and different States that we represent. It has been this way from the very beginning.

As much as some of us imagine otherwise, from the very outset of our Republic, there were immense, regional differences. Depending on which State someone represented, they might have different views.

Now, our Republic--and, for that matter, any republic ever in the history of republics--has relied on the willingness of the citizenry to be kind, for individuals who play a role in that Republic to be kind and respectful and decent to each other, even when--especially when--we disagree with each other. Our Founders knew that, and they enshrined it into our Constitution.

As much as anything, they assumed it, and it was on that set of assumptions that the norms enshrined in the Constitution became possible, because without them they would not be. Without them none of this would work.

You see, the only way a republic can possibly function now or 250 years ago or 250 years from now is that it always has to follow a somewhat similar formula. The only way it can function is when citizens and leaders are gracious to those with whom they disagree and grant the freedom necessary to allow others to make choices, even if those choices might be things that they disagree with.

We have witnessed the degradation of American political discourse for some time now. It has been a sad, tragic reality unfolding, but it is not an inexorable conclusion. It is not one from which we cannot depart. But we must make a choice to do better and to choose a better path.

We received a bulletin earlier today--a bulletin from the Capitol Police--indicating that all visitors and all House staffers and, in fact, all House Members are required to wear masks indoors or be denied entry or forced to leave the premises. And at least in the case of staff and visitors, if they fail to comply, they will be arrested-- arrested for unlawful entry. Conviction for a violation of this rule will, according to the bulletin, be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000, imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or both. The Senate, which happens to be housed in the same building as the House, is not subject to these same requirements.

But is this decision based on science or is it based on the will and whim of the Speaker of the House of Representatives? Whatever the reason, the arrest of peaceful House staffers shows the total loss of political grace in the House of Representatives.

I cannot fathom a legitimate reason to arrest a person in this building for not wearing a mask. I cannot fathom a legitimate reason for arresting anyone based on a failure to wear a mask.

Members are not treated as the legitimate representatives of their constituents, as in fact they are, under our system of government, when they are subjected to this kind of manipulation and when they are subjected to this type of oppressive order. Staff, under this type of oppressive directive, aren't treated as hard-working, dedicated Americans, which truly they are. Instead, everyone who doesn't comply is deemed the enemy of the current House of Representatives. There is no room for disagreement or dissent.

It is tragic, indeed, to see a key deliberative body where dissent and debate are supposed to be tolerated and appreciated and decided and have been not just for decades but for centuries--to see that turned into a place where disagreement and dissent are disdained and punished by arrests.

Congress works on collegiality and respect. We need to get back to those basics.

Regardless of what you might think about the coronavirus, about the vaccine, about masks, there is never a good reason to arrest someone for not wearing a mask.

This decision falls into the larger context of the Centers for Disease Control's recent flip-flop on masks and the Biden administration's worrying push toward masks and vaccination mandates.

The CDC issued updated recommendations earlier this week, stating at its outset that masks should be worn indoors in areas of ``substantial or high transmission,'' even by individuals who have been fully vaccinated.

Now, this new guidance claims that ``[e]merging evidence suggests that fully vaccinated persons who do become infected with the Delta variant are at risk for transmitting it to others.'' But one glaring thing is missing from that conclusion: evidence backing up the CDC's claims.

In fact, the CDC didn't publish any new research on the effectiveness of the COVID vaccines against the newer variants when it issued its latest edict. The CDC's website simply cites ``unpublished data'' from its own COVID-19 Response Team when it makes this new, rather significant, rather jarring, rather impactful, and rather unwise claim.

The CDC is undermining its own credibility and, thus, I believe placing public health and safety at risk by going back and forth on recommendations and failing to be upfront about whether there is any actual reliable scientific evidence to support or compel those recommendations.

In fact, even when asked questions by Members of Congress, the CDC is failing to respond. This is not hyperbole; this is not conjecture; this is based on my own personal experience. I will point to the fact that on April 24, more than 3 months ago, I sent a letter to the Centers for Disease Control asking a very simple question, a simple question that I would hope anyone here would want to be asked. I wanted to know why is it, when there are so many of our peer nations around the world that don't require masks to be worn on airplanes, for example, by children as young as 2, as we do in the United States--you know, many of our peer nations, a mask requirement may not kick in until 10 or 11 years old or, in some cases, 5 or 6 years old. But, here, the CDC has said that it has got to kick in at 2 years old. I would ask the question: Did any of these people who made this recommendation, who made that conclusion that 2-year-olds should have to travel with a mask, have they ever known an actual 2-year-old? Have they ever raised a child? Have they ever traveled on an airplane? Have they ever traveled in a car, in a bus, on a train, in the rain, anywhere with an actual child? This doesn't work.

Now, when you add that to the fact that children react to the virus differently than adults do--and that is putting it mildly--when you add that to the fact that this creates other problems for children, not just for those handling them but for the kids themselves, it makes it especially important to know why.

Now, my letter wasn't attempting to make any case. My letter was simply trying to obtain information. You see, because when the CDC makes these sweeping recommendations, and sometimes they like to make them feel easier by calling them recommendations, when, in fact, they precipitate a whole host of things that feel a whole lot more binding than recommendations. You see, because if you get on an airplane or a bus or a train or you go to a bus depot or a train station or an airport, and you have got a 2-year-old who won't wear a mask, as any red-blooded American 2-year-old will not do, you are told that you are subject to arrest and that you are violating Federal law if you do that. So it is not unreasonable to ask that they pony up with information. If they are going to make recommendations, they should explain to us what those recommendations are.

So I asked them what scientific proof is there that a 2-year-old needs to wear a mask?

Well, I sent that on April 24. I didn't hear anything on April 25 or April 26 or the 27th or the 28th, 29th, or 30th, or any of the days of the months of May or June or July, and we are almost to the end of the month of July. They didn't respond to this. I don't know why. Maybe they are really busy doing other stuff. Maybe they are really busy figuring out where they are going to flip-flop next and where they are going to issue their next edict that the American people are expected to follow, all

in the name of it being science, that we have to defer to blindly, without any evidence. But this isn't acceptable, and it doesn't inspire confidence, nor does it inspire confidence for an Agency that makes these sorts of recommendations that have a really significant impact to flip-flop and not justify its own analysis, not provide even a scintilla of scientific proof for what it did.

So let's get back to its more recent flip-flop. The fact that it has flip-flopped this week, coupled with the fact that it hasn't backed up its other claims over the last few months, is understandably troubling to many of us, especially so, when you consider the fact that in my personal experience, I have been vaccinated. I chose to get the vaccine. I respect those who have chosen not to.

Many of those I have known who have been reluctant to get the vaccine, who eventually got the vaccine, most of them, I would say, ended up getting it when they realized that certain aspects of life could be made mor predictable and more convenient if they did get the vaccine.

Many people, when they walked into a hotel lobby or a restaurant or a grocery store or at Costco or at Sam's Club, if they would see signs saying that vaccinated persons need not wear masks, they would realize there is some benefit there; that if they got the vaccine, they could walk in there and say, well, I don't have to wear the mask.

Now, obviously, we don't ever want to get to the point where somebody has to wear an arm band to prove whether they have been vaccinated or not. In fact, it would be an absolutely horrifying experiment that we should not attempt. But the fact is, that when people see that there might be some benefit, they are more likely to do it. If they see that something different will happen in their life if they get the vaccine, they are more likely to get it.

But when you are constantly moving the goalpost, you are saying: ``Here are the benefits of the vaccine. Oh, psych, just kidding. We are moving along. We are going to take those away,'' people are not going to get it. So if you want more people to get vaccinated, you darn well better have the CDC getting its act together, providing scientific evidence for what the CDC is recommending and what it is not.

So, look, I am still waiting for answers from the CDC on my April 24 letter. And I am still waiting for answers from the CDC when it comes to scientific evidence supporting their most recent flip-flop. But while we wait for those answers, and that clock is ticking--I don't know whether we need to start humming the tune to ``Jeopardy,'' but they do need to provide those answers. And while we wait for those answers, here are a few principles that I think might help guide some of our discussions:

Our government needs to trust Americans to make these decisions, some of the most personal decisions that a human being can make for themselves. We need to trust the people's representatives in Congress to make decisions regarding the law. We need to be able to trust each other, to be decent, and to be kind when we disagree.

We have to learn from our own history, from our own nature as individuals, and from the history that we have experienced as a nation. We cannot stand by while those in power simply decide on their own whim that they are going to arrest political opponents for disagreeing.

At what point did we decide that it was OK to cross that threshold? I get it. We always need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable. Sometimes that is really hard. Sometimes all of us fall a little short of that mark. But I think all of us should be able to agree that we shouldn't arrest those who disagree with us merely because they disagree with us. That is wrong. We are better than that.

This time calls for more political understanding and hardy, legitimate debate, not blind mandates and manipulation.

We have to remember that, at its heart, at its core, government is not deity. It is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Government doesn't have eyes to see you. It doesn't have arms with which to embrace you. It doesn't have a heart with which to love you. Government is force. It is the official use of coercive force.

Now, we need that. We need that to protect safety, to make sure that we don't hurt each other; that we are not harmed by others; that we don't take each other's possessions. But we have to be very careful how we operate it because otherwise force is just force. And if we start arresting everyone with whom we disagree, we are not going to be able to do the things we need to do, which is to make sure that government is there to prevent people from hurting each other and taking each other's things.

We need to be kind to our neighbors, even when--especially when--we disagree. We need to be helpful and caring to those around us, even if they vote, feel, believe, or even act very differently than we do. We must not allow for arrests and mandates to Members of Congress and their staffs without providing sufficient evidence.

And, yes, all of this stuff goes both ways. We all need to be respectful of each other's opinions. But, look, we are not talking here about activity that, by its very nature, is so harmful that it warrants the use of blunt political force in the form of an arrest.

I cannot fathom a circumstance in which it is ever appropriate to arrest another human being for not wearing a mask, COVID or no COVID. That is not arrest material.

In Congress and across the country, what we need now is a return to American graciousness. Our way of life and our precious Republic are at stake.

Thank you.

Mr. President, as we have undertaken this conversation, I can't help but reflect on the fact that we are here in a representative body. We are here in order to have an exchange of ideas. We are here to engage in political speech, not the kind of political speech that people think of when they think of the word ``politics,'' where they think of something necessarily unpleasant. You know, when people hear the word ``political'' or ``politics,'' they think of the two great roots of the word ``politics.'' You have poly, which means many; and ticks, which are blood-sucking parasites. And they assume if it is political, it is unpleasant.

But I am using the word ``political'' here in a different sense, the sense that refers to the body politic. It refers to the fact that we are doing the people's business. The exchange of information, of ideas is essential to everything we do.

Then it occurs to me that the mask discussion does carry a deeper meaning here, a deeper meaning that takes into account the fact that when we communicate--sometimes with words, sometimes without words, sometimes in print, sometimes with the spoken word, sometimes without any words at all--we are engaging in activity that is protected by the First Amendment.

Now, this is important to note in a wide swath of areas. It is important for how we worship or decline to do the same. It is important in how we express our viewpoints in our news, in our entertainment, media. In every aspect of our lives, it is important.

It is regarded as especially important in a body politic that people be able to express their feelings about government and about the role of government. It is also especially important here that people be able to speak and otherwise communicate in a way that is clear and unvarnished, unfiltered.

In fact, we go so far even as to protect Members of Congress from liability in what they would say on the floor of the Senate or the House of Representatives. We do that because we feel that a full, frank, informed discussion is important. We don't want Members being threatened with some sort of action, civil or criminal, based on things that they would utter here.

So freedom of speech is important for all citizens. It is also important to make sure that that freedom of speech is protected here.

It occurs to me that with the question of masks, the decision whether to wear a mask is not only deeply personal, but it is also, in this context, quite arguably expressive. Even before you utter a single word and regardless of whether you utter a single word, in many respects, your decision to wear a mask or not wear a mask is, itself, a form of expression. And as a form of suppression, it is protected.

In a long line of cases, the Supreme Court of the United States has identified conduct that is expressive and therefore protected by the First Amendment, notwithstanding the fact that it doesn't necessarily involve words.

When you merge that with another line of analysis under First Amendment jurisprudence, we remember the fact that it is a problem whenever government suppresses speech in one way or another. It is especially problematic when the government tries to compel speech. When the government tries to direct an individual that he or she must utter certain words in order to be compliant with the dictates of the government, that implicates the compelled speech doctrine, and the compelled speech doctrine is an especially rigid one. It is an especially rigid one with very good reason.

You don't want to force people to say stuff. That is the not government's role. That is the whole idea behind the First Amendment, is that the government needs to stay out of our headspace. It needs to stay out of where we worship; it needs to stay out of our relationship with God; it needs to stay out of printing presses; and it needs to stay out of what we say.

Sometimes what we say can consist of things that don't even involve words, something as simple as whether or not to wear a mask. In addition to all of the other public policy reasons, in addition to all the problems with having a CDC issuing these sweeping mandates and edicts without bothering to back up those edicts with scientific justification--even after months and months of receiving inquiries from Members of the U.S. Senate that they do so--separate and apart from all of those issues, I think it is important for us to look at the speech element, the expressive conduct that is inherent in whether or not you wear a mask, and whether or not by compelling people to wear a mask, you are compelling people to engage in state-sponsored speech. You are telling them that they must send a message, a message with which they may well disagree.

Now, if I am wrong on this, if this is strictly a medical issue, then it will be backed up by scientific medical evidence. That is the nature of the problem that I have with the CDC's mandate, its ever-fluctuating mandate, its mandate that, as recently as a few days ago, flip-flopped yet again. If, in fact, it were medical and scientific, it would be backed up as such, but it is not.

This is a form of compelled speech, not as we traditionally understand it because compelled speech usually involves the utterance of specific words. But we know that speech can be protected, even if it doesn't involve words, if it is a type of expressive conduct, which wearing a mask is, especially if as here. We don't have scientific evidence making it a medical issue.

So I would ask the Speaker of the House: Are you really going to arrest people for not saying what you want them to say? That is not OK. If it would never be OK for you to arrest people for not saying words that you have prescribed for them, why is it OK for you to compel them to engage in expressive conduct now amounting to speech? It is not.

Make no mistake, this isn't medical. This isn't scientific. If it were, we would have evidence of such. We don't

In light of that, separate and apart from all the other problems-- problems that inhere in our form of government, problems that inhere in the fact we do, in fact, have three distinct branches of our Federal Government, that most laws are not Federal laws to begin with. Most laws originate in the States and in the localities. Most laws are not Federal, and they should never be.

But for those things that should be Federal laws, we have got one and only one branch of government that makes laws. It is no coincidence that the very first clause of the very first section of the very first article of the Constitution provides:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a

Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a

Senate and a House of Representatives.

Article I, section 7 then goes on to outline the formula contemplated in article I, section 1. In article I, section 7, it says that you can't make a law under our form of government--at least not a Federal law--without passage in the House of Representatives and passage in the Senate and presentment to the President of the United States.

In many respects, these recommendations issued by the CDC end up carrying the force of generally applicable Federal law. That is wrong. And in many, many respects, that is on us. We have done a horrible job over the last few years--I would say over the last few decades--I would say over the last 80, 85 years, really. I won't lay the

blame entirely at the feet of either party. In fact, this has happened under the control of different parties. It has happened with Senates and Houses of Representatives and White Houses of every conceivable partisan combination. We have seen the de facto outsourcing of our lawmaking authority to unelected, unidentifiable bureaucrats; men and women who, while well-educated, well-intentioned, hard-working, and highly specialized, don't work for the people. They don't work for you. You do not have the ability to elect them or unelect them.

You don't have the authority to replace them. That is why it is so dangerous for us to give them this sweeping authority. And even where they don't technically have authority that extends very far--and in this case, it is far too far, as evidenced by the fact that anytime you get on an airplane or other mode of public transportation, you are told that, under penalty of Federal law, you must wear a mask.

But I would ask, where is the act of Congress providing that? In what year did the Congress of the United States pass through the House and through the Senate and submit to the President of the United States for signature or veto a law stating that you must wear a mask on a plane or a train or a bus or in a bus depot or in a train station or in an airport under penalty of Federal law? There is no such law. You will not find it.

Now, you will find some other stuff in which we delegated far too much authority and given broad authority to the executive branch--to people like the CDC--to issue regulations. But as a matter of proper form, whenever they exercise that power, it is not appropriate for that to take effect by itself. It is not really a law in the constitutional sense of the word unless Congress has enacted it.

We have given them far too much power anyway. That is on us. We shouldn't do that. That is why I have been calling for years for reforms to this; why I have been calling for years for reforms, including but not limited to the REINS Act, which would require for any economically significant Federal regulation, before it takes effect, it must be passed by both Houses of Congress and presented to the President for signature or veto. It is why I have introduced the Global Trade Accountability Act, which would do for trade policy what the REINS Act does for regulatory policy. It is why we need to reform so many aspects of our laws, where we, as a practical matter, made the unelected and the unaccountable the supreme lawgivers, the lawmakers, law interpreters, and law enforcers.

This is not just something that can lead to tyranny; it is the very definition of tyranny, as every signer of the U.S. Constitution understood well. It is why they went to great lengths to separate out these three branches of government.

In addition to those problems with these edicts not based on science or medicine but based on political considerations that are ever- changing--it is why they are so sweeping. It is why they are so troubling.

But they are maybe even more troubling, still, for the additional constitutional reason that, at the end of the day, to whatever degree these are not rooted in medical science and fact--which I believe they are not or at least the CDC hasn't established as much, and they really do amount to something compelling expressive conduct, the suppression of an official orthodoxy mandated by the government--we shouldn't accept this. We shouldn't accept any affirmative legal obligation placed on those we represent, to whom and for whose been we have sworn an oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, which requires us to make any law we force on the American people. We have an obligation to them, a solemn obligation to make sure they are not subject to laws made by those not of their own choosing.

It is these very features that James Madison had in mind when he authored Federalist No. 62. When he wrote, and I am paraphrasing a little bit here: It will be of little benefit to the American people that their laws may be written by men of their own choosing if those laws be so voluminous, complex, and ever-changing, if they can't reasonably understand what the law means and predict what it will say from one day to the next.

Today--this week even--we have seen the law be so unpredictable and ever-changing, that we can't expect what the law says from one day to another. But even worse, contrary to what Madison assumed would always be the case because the Constitution required it, the laws aren't even being written by men and women of our own choosing but instead by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who, despite how well-educated, well-intentioned, hard-working, and highly-specialized they may be, don't work for you, nor do they have authority under this document, to which we have all sworn an oath, to make laws.

That is our power. Shame on us if we relinquish to them the power that only we can exercise, that is, itself, nondelegable. Shame on us, further, if we allow those same people who, lacking the authority to legislate in the first instance, then transgress another affirmative constitutional command by compelling compliance with official government-mandated orthodoxy.

This cannot be. This cannot stand. I will not stand for it, and I will continue to draw attention to this issue until we have resolved the problem.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, for far too long, the Federal Government has been borrowing and then spending money that it simply doesn't have. This is something we have long understood as a problem for the future, for future generations. But now it is not just a problem for the future any more. We are already feeling the consequences right now. Americans of this generation are paying the price today.

Why is this the case? Well, politicians in Washington vote for enormous, reckless spending packages, and they do so for short-term political gain and praise. Now, we all know that does happen, and we all know that, whether it is a spending bill that is soon to come before this body or another, if it spends a lot of money, it probably will bring people a lot of praise.

But it is the people--the hard-working families in Utah and in every other State across the Nation--who are forced to pay the price, the price for the praise and the political gain of the politician who votes for that sort of thing. They are the ones who bear the brunt of inflation's consequences. It is making day-to-day life more expensive. More than anyone, it is the poor and middle class of America who are hit the hardest.

Every single day, it is getting more expensive to fill cupboards, refrigerators, and bellies. Every day, it is getting more expensive to drive to work or drive to the doctor or drive your kids to the school. Every day, it is getting harder to buy a house or buy a car or pay for the heat and the air conditioning in your home.

To give a few specific examples, gas prices are up over 50 percent from last year. This hurts people not only at the pump but with everything they buy, because everything they buy is more costly to transport and, therefore, more costly to purchase.

Chicken prices are soaring. Boneless, skinless chicken breast is trading at $2 per pound, compared to the $1.30 per pound it has averaged over the last two decades. Some diapers that in recent years have cost around $25 per package now cost around $40, and there are fewer diapers in each package.

We, in Utah, are certainly feeling the crunch. According to a recent survey, 85 percent of Utahns are worried about inflation, as well they should be.

Now, what does the Democrats' spending package amount to? A multitrillion-dollar inflation bomb. So far, we haven't seen text, and we haven't seen estimates about how much the bill will cost, exactly. We haven't even seen what Democrats in the White House would like in the bill. But recent estimates suggest that it will spend about $4 trillion, maybe more. The last thing we need for our already frightening inflation is to spend that amount of money. It is taking an already bad situation and making it far, far worse.

In fact, this is the first time we have seen a spending package of this kind--one that spends the amount that it does. I don't just mean the first time we have seen something like this in the Senate this year. I mean, when we are talking about a spending bill that is likely to cost $4 trillion, maybe more, that is more money than we in this body have ever spent. In fact, I would dare say it is more money than has ever been spent at any one time for one legislative proposal in the history not just of the United States of America but in the history of the world.

I mean, look at it this way. There is no entity in the history of the planet that has amassed more economic power than the U.S. Government-- the U.S. Government, which in recent years has been spending at a rate of about $4 trillion a year. This bill, in one bill, could well spend that in one single legislative package. This is an astounding amount of money. No one has ever spent money in such a large quantity in the history of the world.

What is more, this type of legislation has great potential--in fact, a darn near certainty--to carry out a reverse Robin Hood mission that is especially perverse, where we essentially rob the poor to give to the rich. Make no mistake. When we pass spending legislation like this, a small handful of well-connected people will get rich. They will get very rich. Why? Well, because they see it coming. They know how to play it. They know how to benefit from it, and they know how to capitalize on it. That is a very small group of people, and that is a small comfort to those who will be hurt by it. We will get to them in a minute. So that is the first category of people.

You have a second category of people who are well-to-do. Maybe they don't capitalize off of it, but they do end up paying a price. They find goods more expensive. But this small category of people, consisting of well-off people, might not actually feel the pinch because, perhaps, they have enough saved up; they have enough assets. It doesn't really, meaningfully impact their standard of living or their quality of life. But even those first two categories--those who will get rich off of a bill like this and those who won't feel much of an impact--make up a really small segment of the U.S. population, quite possibly, percentagewise, in the low single digits. But poor and middle-class Americans, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, will be most hurt, as they will be the ones to feel their paychecks--their limited paychecks--stretched thinner and thinner each and every week. You see, the U.S. economy doesn't suddenly make more goods simply because Congress decides to spend more. Quite to the contrary, it can't. We don't have the ability to create wealth. All we have the ability to do is channel existing wealth. So if we just add more dollars to an economy that already has access to a relatively finite group of goods and services in any given year, you are just going to increase the cost. That is what happens, and that is how poor and middle-class Americans get stuck with the bill. That is why poor and middle-class Americans end up being harmed in this bad bargain that is really good for a small handful of wealthy and well connected. It may be good for the moment for a small handful of politicians who will get praise and political gain for voting for it. It is really bad for poor and middle-class people, and that is wrong.

Look, at the end of the day, government is not the one hurt by massive, reckless spending packages like this one. People are. Real, breathing human beings are. The government doesn't go hungry at the end of the month. The government doesn't worry about paying rent when the kids need braces. The government isn't forced to choose between buying groceries and paying medical bills. The government doesn't forgo family reunions when it is time to tighten the belt. Taxpayers do. Families do, especially poor and middle-class families. The reckless spending must stop. This inflation bomb is exploding.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to use a prop during my remarks.

Madam President, in 1989, Tracy Stone-Manning rented a typewriter to draft and then send a letter threatening those who might choose to harvest trees. The letter stated that the trees in question had been sabotaged with hundreds of pounds of spikes. She closed the letter with:

``You bastards go in there anyway,'' meaning notwithstanding her threat, ``and a lot of people could get hurt.''

She and her cohorts thus used the threat of physical violence to achieve a political goal. This is the definition of terrorism.

In 1993, multiple associates of Ms. Stone-Manning were convicted of tree spiking by a Federal jury. Though she signed and swore that the information provided to the committee was ``to the best of [her] knowledge and belief, current, accurate, and complete,'' Ms. Stone- Manning told the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that she had never been investigated.

This was, in fact, not true. It was widely reported that in 1990, Ms. Stone-Manning was required to give hair samples, a full set of fingerprints, and writing samples. This was already a year after she had conspired with her circle of friends, members of the radical environmentalist group Earth First!. She was still not cooperating with the authorities.

Now, how do we know that she was, in fact, a target of the investigation and not simply a bystander? Well, we know that based on a letter from Michael Merkley, a retired special agent criminal investigator for the Forest Service. He writes the following:

[The witness] described how Ms. Stone-Manning typed and

mailed the letter to the Forest Service. She also recounted a

conversation she had overheard wherein Ms. Stone-Manning

along with other co-conspirators planned the tree spiking and

discussed whether to use ceramic or metal spikes in the

trees.

As a result of [the witness's] testimony, the grand jury

sent Ms. Stone-Manning a ``target letter'' which meant she

was going to be indicted on criminal charges for her active

participation in planning these crimes. She hired an attorney

who negotiated a deal with an Assistant United States

Attorney to gain immunity in exchange for her testimony

against the other defendants.

Ms. Stone-Manning did not gain immunity simply for being a good person or a model citizen. No, she traded her knowledge after withholding it for years. This is verified by her own admission in the May 21, 1993, edition of the Missoulian, reading:

Stone-Manning said she could have been charged with

conspiracy . . . were it not for the agreement she reached

with the U.S. attorney.

Furthermore, she received a target letter, meaning she knew very well that she had been under investigation.

This is a direct contradiction of a sworn statement that she made to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on which I serve, so she deliberately misled U.S. Senators. Unfortunately, Ms. Stone-Manning has been able to deceive a lot of people. Even a White House official acknowledged that this was a ``massive vetting failure.''

So what exactly did this tree spiking involve? Well, it involved spikes like these, spikes made of steel that, when placed into a tree, can cause widespread damage to those harvesting the trees, those milling the trees They have maimed many and wounded many others as a result of radical environmentalists taking this tactic to try to stop the harvesting of timber on Federal lands.

Now, regardless of how you may feel about timber-harvesting policy on Federal lands, I think all Americans of good faith and conscience can agree that it is not a good idea to use terrorism to advance your goals and that it is not a good idea to use threats of physical violence and present people with a real, foreseeable, and, in fact, foreseen and intended risk that they will be harmed or could even die as a result of the 500 pounds of these tree spikes that they placed in the trees in question.

So, yes, the White House admitted that this was a vetting failure, and a vetting failure it was. It was either a vetting failure or no one at the administration cared when Tracy Stone-Manning tweeted out only months ago an article written by her husband, an article that itself states: ``There's a rude and satisfying justice in burning down the house of someone who builds in the forest.''

When she tweeted out this story, apparently with her approval, she called it a clarion call--her words, not mine--seeming almost to celebrate their misfortune, to revel in the misery and loss of those who had just had their homes destroyed, oftentimes as a result of chronic mismanagement on Federal lands in allowing fuel to build up and remain untreated.

There are plenty of homes in forests in Utah. I presume that there are plenty of homes elsewhere--that there are plenty of homes in Arizona, in Montana, in California, in Colorado, in Nevada, in West Virginia, and elsewhere. So I would ask the question: How can we entrust the responsibility to protect the homes of those Americans who live on or near a forest from forest fire to an individual who actively advocated only months ago for their demise and who, apparently, celebrated their demise?

Lastly and, perhaps, most heinously, revelations have also come out regarding research that she conducted for her thesis. In 1992, Tracy Stone-Manning published her graduate student thesis at the University of Montana, entitled ``Into the Heart of the Beast: A Case for Environmental Advertising,'' which espoused several radical views on population and grazing.

In this thesis, she published a photo of a child with the caption-- this photo with this caption right here. It has a picture of a young child, a toddler. ``Can you find the environmental hazard in this photo?'' She then indicated that the child--this baby--was the environmental hazard.

She then elaborates:

Americans believe that overpopulation is only a problem

somewhere else in the world. But it's a problem here too. . .

. We breed more than any other industrialized nation. At the

same time, we suck up one-third of the world's energy. . . .

When we overpopulate, the earth notices it more. Stop at two.

It could be the best thing you do for the planet. . . . Do

the truly smart thing. Stop at one or two kids.

This is a fringe belief. It is a dangerous belief. Not only is it factually flawed, but it is morally repugnant. As a father of three, I am repulsed, ashamed, and saddened. As much as anything, as the resident of a State, two-thirds of which is owned by the Federal Government and 40 percent of which is under the direct management and control of the Bureau of Land Management, the entity that she has been nominated to head, I am mortified that she is going to be in charge of all of that land, because this is how she views human beings.

We should all accept the fact that human beings are assets; they are blessings. They are not liabilities. Children are beautiful gifts from Heaven above, not environmental hazards.

I have consistently voiced outrage at China's one-child policy, and we are here today, voting on a nominee who calls for a similar action-- telling parents in the most condescending tone imaginable: ``Stop at one or two kids.'' According to Ms. Stone-Manning, we are simply breeding too much.

So now we must ask ourselves: Will this body advance the nomination of a person who played a central role in endangering the lives of foresters and sawmillers, who engaged in acts of reckless and deliberately harmful environmental terrorism in using 500 pounds of tree spikes, who attempted to deceive Members of the U.S. Senate about these same violent actions, who has advocated for homes to be left to burn in the wilderness, indicating that she would celebrate when that happened, and who has called children an environmental hazard?

The Director of the Bureau of Land Management, the position that Ms. Stone-Manning has been nominated to fill, has immense discretionary power. This isn't simply a matter that is concerning for symbolic reasons. It is that, too, but far more than that. If confirmed to this position, she is going to have immense discretionary power.

Could we rest knowing that she was at the helm of the Bureau of Land Management, making decisions about grazing, wildfire response, wildfire prevention, suppression, and rehabilitation and everything else that the Bureau of Land Management is charged with? I could not. I cannot and I will not. So I urge my colleagues to reject her nomination.

I yield the floor

Madam President, for far too long, the Federal Government has simply been spending and borrowing far more money than it should. It has been borrowing and spending money that it doesn't have. Now, for individuals, for businesses, even for States and local governments, this kind of conduct is not just inadvisable, which it clearly is, but it is also impossible. I mean, sure, people can get away with it for a short period of time, but the laws of mathematics are very quickly able to catch up with them so that they can't do it.

The Federal Government is unique in this regard. There is something about the size of the U.S. economy, coupled with the status of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency--a combination of factors--that has given the Federal Government this ability that is somewhat unique, you see, because it has access to essentially what amounts to a printing press in Washington, DC, that prints out more and more money with reckless abandon, more and more money in a way that would be impossible not just for any individual, any family, any business, or any nonprofit but also that most governments in the United States and the world could never dream of. Yet this government has been able to get away with it because of these unique factors and unique features that exist here. So the Federal Government just spends more money as if the laws of mathematics did not apply.

Now, in recent history, the Federal Government has been spending something in the range of about $4 trillion a year. Tragically--this is a massive sum of money, but, tragically, that has represented about $1 trillion a year more than we bring in. So we have added to our debt at a rate of about $1 trillion a year.

This is stunning, especially when you consider the fact that we have been at the top of an economic cycle over the last few years. We have not been in a state of a recession and we were spending this money. Even with a booming economy, we weren't able to bring our outlays down to match our revenue that was coming into the Federal Government. So it has been about $4 trillion, more or less, over the last few years.

But last year, with COVID-19, we spent a total of $6.6 trillion. That includes our COVID relief packages. This is an enormous volume of new, additional borrowed money on top of the trillion dollars a year or so that we were already spending, already borrowing; that we were already deciding to spend above and beyond what our revenues would allow us to spend.

And then now the Democrats have announced a plan to spend another $3.5 trillion just this week. And on top of that, there is another trillion-dollar infrastructure package in the works. And earlier this year, there was a $1.9 trillion package that was passed. And so all of this is occurring in a year when we already have a staggering $28 trillion debt.

The reality is that the Federal Government does not itself feel the consequences of this; the people do. In other words, the Federal Government could get away with it because of this unique status that we have, the dollar being the world's reserve currency, the size of the U.S. economy. It has gotten away with it without adverse consequences that the Federal Government and its officers themselves feel directly.

It does, however, produce consequences. They are felt by the people. Now, we have known for a long time that this was presenting something of a threat to future generations; something that we knew would really come to haunt our children and our grandchildren and their children after them. We have always known this. But at the rate when we have accelerated our massive deficit spending and the degree to which we have extended it, this is no longer just a problem for the future. This, you see, is affecting us right now.

For a long time, I and others have talked about how it would affect our children and our grandchildren. And all this is still real--be a very real consequence. They will still have to face that debt. They will still have to pay it back. It will still be unpleasant, but not just in the future. They are caught up with us already.

The problem is no longer generations away. It has now reached its hand into our wallets, into our families, and into our day-to-day lives.

So what happens when too many dollars are produced out of thin air, when we just print more money? I mean, I know there is an intermediate step there. Technically, it is borrowed money. The money that we don't have isn't just printed. It is--it is borrowed as the U.S. Treasury bills are sold. And we borrow that money knowing that we are going to have to pay it back later. But it has the effect of just printing more money.

When we just print more money, those dollars, which have now multiplied, they are still chasing, more or less, the same quantity of goods. And so what that means is that the same quantity of goods with more dollars results in each of those goods being able to command a higher price--just inflation.

When you dump more money into the economy, it doesn't make things easier for people; it just raises the cost.

Now, this hurts poor and middle-class Americans especially hard. It hurts especially hard those who are living on a fixed income, on a fixed wage or a fixed salary; those who aren't wealthy and don't have a large amount of money that they can use to invest to make sure that, as price inflation occurs, maybe they can make some money off of it too. This hurts the poor and middle-class American families the most, you see, because they have still got the same amount of money to spend, but everything is more costly. This isn't fair to them.

It is causing--our own government is causing the increase in cost that hardworking families across Utah and throughout America are already feeling. Every day, as a result, it is getting harder to fill cupboards and refrigerators and bellies and gas tanks. Every day, it is getting more expensive to drive to work or to the doctor's office or to see your family and friends.

From the price of housing to cars, to food, we are seeing the general level of inflation increasing at a higher rate than we have seen in many, many years.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has produced data--the data for May that saw the biggest 12-month consumer price index increase in 13 years. This follows the April number, which was 4.2 percent higher than April of last year.

The data from May also showed that gasoline prices are up over 50 percent from last year; that used vehicles are, on average, costing 30 percent more over last year; and that food bought outside the home has seen a jump of 4 percent. Chicken prices are soaring. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are

trading at $2 a pound compared to the $1.30 a pound that it averaged over the last decade.

Some packages of diapers that cost about $25 as recently as last year now cost around $40, and there are fewer diapers inside the package, further emphasizing the nature of the problem.

By the way, these higher prices disproportionately impact the poor and middle class, who don't have the luxury of investing their income and don't have the luxury of having that added buffer.

And we in Utah are feeling the pinch. According to a recent survey, 85 percent of Utahans are worried about inflation.

So what does this mean? Well, sadly, it means hard choices are in front of us; hard choices that we are going to have to face sooner than we might wish, but we will have to face them whether we want to or not.

This means that we will have to say no to some hard things; things that--while not necessarily bad in and of themselves, things that might be good; things that others are incorrectly presenting as necessary and affordable when they are not. But we have to say no to them so that we can say yes to what is necessary.

So what is truly necessary? Well, being able to buy groceries and put food on the table; being able to pay your rent or your mortgage; being able to turn on the heat or the air-conditioning in your home; being able to buy gasoline to drive to work, to the doctor, or to take your kids to school; being able to pay for school clothes and field-trip fees, not to mention baseball uniforms and soccer cleats.

And you can forget about that trip to see that relative you haven't been able to embrace in 16 months.

These are all things that are necessary and they are all things that have one thing in common. They are all being jeopardized because of the government's reckless spending and acting outside of its proper scope.

This, you see, creates a vicious cycle. It is a cycle that is all too convenient for many in government, who are making the decisions.

And who makes the decisions ultimately? Well, that is Congress--the Senate and the House of Representatives. You see, under our constitutional system, you can't spend any money through the Treasury of the United States without Congress authorizing it, without Congress appropriating it. So we have to do all of this by law, and it ultimately comes down to us.

That dynamic I described earlier of an effective printing press that, you know--well, it is a little more complicated than that. It is effectively a case that we just print more money, compounded by the fact that, culturally, within the Congress of the United States--among Republicans and Democrats alike, among Senators and Members of the House of Representatives alike--we have grown too accustomed to a pattern, a dangerous pattern, that is good for the political class, maybe favorable in some ways for a small handful of elected politicians, but bad for everyone else.

You see, the way it works in this town, the way the news media tends to report on these things, you tend to get praised if you vote yes. There is always someone you can point to who benefits from the bill that gets passed from the money that gets spent.

Very often does anyone get anything but criticism for voting against those things, even if, even though, even when by their very nature those things tend to impoverish, albeit in increments, increments that are sometimes difficult to observe at any given moment, to purchasing power of poor and middle-class Americans.

So what this mean is, in many ways, we are trading one thing for another. We are trading the ability to be praised as an elected official, an elected politician one day in order to spend money. You get praised for that, but poor and middle-class Americans are paying the price.

For a long time we have been able to sweep this under the rug. For a long time Washington has avoided getting blamed for this because it has been incremental, it has been indirect, it has been something that is perhaps explainable in some cases through other mechanisms. Not everyone immediately connects inflation to out-of-control spending decisions by elected Senators and congressmen.

But we have ratcheted up the spending levels so much over the last year and a half. And, yes, this has been under the direction of Republicans and Democrats alike. We have turned that up so much, so quickly that people are feeling the effects more directly, more immediately, more unmistakably than ever before. And, yes, it is our fault because, yes, we have put our own political convenience ahead of the interests of poor and middle-class Americans, and that is to our shame. That is to our shame especially if we don't recognize that we are doing it and seek to correct it.

When it comes to voting on large spending packages, there is this trend of politicians voting yes and being praised, and politicians voting no and being criticized.

Look, it will be of little comfort to the poor and middle class of this country who feel the buying power of their seemingly dwindling paycheck shrink each week just so that politicians can vote yes on large spending packages for a short-term amount of praise and political gain.

At times I have been accused of being a reflexive no vote on things that some of my colleagues are willing to explain away or justify or defend wholeheartedly. But here is an important point that I would like to make: I vote no not by reflex but through reason.

I vote no when I see how the consequences will affect those I represent in real, everyday life, not just the intended consequences of legislation that might indeed have a good goal and might indeed accomplish good things, but the unintended negative consequences also.

I vote no if it will mean saying yes to what really matters, what really counts for making everyday life better for Utahans and hardworking Americans across the country.

And I vote no so that Utahans can say yes to the things that they need, because if we don't ever say no, we are hurting them. If we always say yes, we are putting them in a position of having to say no to the things that matter most to them and to their children and their families.

Look, this government's reckless spending is notorious, but it is finally catching up with us. This problem exists because the Federal Government and the politicians in Washington, DC, work hand-in-hand with our central bank to spend enormous amounts of money that we simply do not have.

This has been facilitated by so many who are so willing to call on it, even though it results in the dangerous accumulation of power and money in the hands of the few at the expense of the poor and middle class.

We are feeling the consequences of these things right here and right now. It is up to us to take action, to pump the brakes and steer our government back in a fiscally responsible, sustainable, and sane direction. The consequences will only get worse if we do not and if we do not do so very fast.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 2119 and ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, as Americans want to buy more clean and green products, the market has been finding solutions to provide those products.

The Growing Climate Solutions Act before us, however, will not. Though it seeks to aid the carbon credit market, it could ultimately serve only to quell it. Let's just take a look at how the carbon credit market currently works.

Farmers, ranchers, and private foresters develop these credits to sell by taking actions to either limit their greenhouse gas emissions or to capture greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. They work with technical assistance providers to know how to do so and then with third-party verifiers who make sure that the proper standards are met. Companies can then purchase the credits to offset their carbon emissions, and they can also sell unused credits to other companies wanting to offset their carbon emissions. It is a voluntary exchange and an example of the market working as it ought to work.

As the demand for these credits grows, more farmers, ranchers, and foresters would explore this revenue-generating market, more technical assistance providers and third-party verifiers would emerge, and potentially innovation would occur with new types of entities emerging to create and sell carbon credits beyond these initial three.

So what would the bill do? It would establish a USDA certification program for the technical assistance providers and third-party verifiers involved in creating carbon credits on grounds that it would help small farmers better understand the carbon credit market and know with whom they may work.

In other words, it would create a massive accreditation program that would potentially hamper, not foster, innovation. It would insert the Federal Government into a market that is blossoming on its own, imposing burdensome regulation and picking winners and losers in the carbon credit marketplace.

To make matters worse, it would corrupt the financial incentives of the market by allowing the USDA to cap revenues and generally regulate the sale of these credits.

Though it aims to help small farmers to participate in this market, it could easily be manipulated to demand the USDA set unusually high protocols and qualifications and then drive carbon credit purchasers solely to credit sellers working with those who fit and comply with the edicts of the Federal Government.

This will ultimately only impose obstacles for farmers, ranchers, and foresters, impede potential new participants, and, in the end, hurt the environment. That is why I am offering an alternative.

My amendment would transform this program into a transparent, informational resource for farmers, ranchers, and private foresters as they look for technical assistance providers and third-party verifiers. It would include common qualifications and common practices of these entities and a list of providers and verifiers that they could reach out to for assistance.

The Federal Government ought to get out of the way for the carbon credit market to continue innovating and thriving, not squash it. The American Energy Alliance agrees and has issued a favorable vote recommendation.

For all of these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I echo the remarks presented by my friend and colleague, the junior Senator from Florida. I agree wholeheartedly with his analysis. I think it is unfortunate that we missed this opportunity to enact meaningful change today, change that is backed up by science.

It was in January of this year that the Centers for Disease Control ordered the mandatory use of masks on planes, trains, buses, and other modes of public transit of every kind everywhere across this country. If Americans failed to comply with this mandate, they risked being fined or even criminally prosecuted.

Six months later, the coronavirus continues with the CDC refusing to recognize its own research that the mandate is no longer defensible. It is now June. The vaccine has been made available for months, COVID cases are plummeting, and the country is anxious to return to the way things once were. The CDC has even said that vaccinated Americans don't have to wear masks and can get their lives back to normal.

More than 45 percent of Americans are now fully vaccinated. States are lifting their restrictions, and in restaurants, stores, and workplaces across the country, it is no longer required, mercifully, to wear a mask. If Americans still want to wear one, they can make that decision for themselves. They are free to do so. But the CDC's requirement that vaccinated individuals--even vaccinated individuals--

must wear masks on all forms of public transit now blatantly contradicts the Agency's own policies and the Agency's own scientific research. It needlessly promotes fear and plays politics with the lives of the American people, not to mention it has imposed absurd expectations and serious consequences on children and families, especially families with children trying to travel.

You see, after the January mandate, the CDC issued a corresponding mandate that exempted only children over the age of 2, in keeping with their original mask-wearing guidance, guidance that is among the most stringent in the world and, I would add, the most unrealistic in the world, when you consider that they require it up to and including children as young as 2 years old.

So what have been some of the results of this guidance? Parents have been kicked off and banned from flights if their small children refuse to wear a mask. For parents of kids with disabilities and many parents of especially small children, compliance has been nearly impossible.

We already know that children, especially young children, are unlikely to contribute to the spread of the virus. What we do not know, however, is what scientific studies, if any at all, the CDC happens to be relying on in reaching this guidance--in reaching the conclusions underlying this guidance.

In fact, several of my colleagues and I sent a letter to the Agency with this very question more than 2 months ago, on April 22, 2021. And now, more than 2 months later, we have yet to receive an answer. It is a very simple question, and we have yet to receive any shred, any semblance, any scintilla of an answer. I find that unacceptable.

If the CDC actually believes its own research, then it should act like it. And if it believes in the vaccines, the very vaccines on which we have spent billions of taxpayer dollars, then it should act consistently and instill confidence in the American people, rather than fear.

And with the vaccine now free and widely available, Americans should be able to weigh the cost of the options before them and choose for themselves whether to receive the vaccine, whether to wear a mask, or whether to take their own precautions free of any mandates imposed by their government.

But if the Federal Government is going to have a say in whether or not there should be a mandate, it should be up to Congress, the sole branch of the Federal Government empowered to enact law and, not coincidentally, the branch elected by and held most accountable to the people at most regular intervals. It should be up to this branch of government, the legislative branch, to enact such a mandate.

To the extent that the CDC issued this mandate, it did so using authority delegated to it from Congress. We, in Congress, did not pass the mask mandate, and we do not have to defer to those bureaucrats who did.

The science--the science shows that wearing masks should not be Federal law, and we should act accordingly. We should, moreover, give Americans some reason to want to be vaccinated. When there is light at the end of the tunnel and when they can see there is some tangible, immediate benefit to them getting vaccinated, they are more likely to do it. If they can safely enter a place of mass transit without a mask, if they choose to do so, many more people will choose to get vaccinated if we give them that benefit or if we at least allow the operators of those modes of transportation to allow people to do that.

We can assert our rightful authority and promote sound science and common sense by supporting the bill introduced by my friend and colleague, Senator Scott of Florida. We need this to pass. The American people have suffered through a very, very long COVID winter. It is time for them to be able to make their own choices. That is what we do best as Americans because we believe in freedom.

We also believe that whenever the coercive power of government, especially the coercive power of the Federal Government is exercised, it must do so with the authority of Congress. We should never tacitly acquiesce to the authority of overlords within a bureaucratic Agency who are elected by no one and ultimately accountable only to themselves.

We are in charge here. We make the law. We shouldn't blindly defer to anyone, certainly not the CDC when the CDC ignores its own science.

Madam President, 100 years ago, in 1921, a young and newly married couple named Percy and Verabel Knudson saw the need for a gathering place in their community. Knowing they could make money selling ice cream and candy, they started Idle Isle Ice Cream and Candy Store.

A few years later, after raising the necessary funds, Percy and Verabel Knudson--with the help of David H. Call and his wife LaRita-- shifted their business from sweets to full-service meals, and Idle Isle Cafe was born.

Over the course of the last century, Idle Isle Cafe has endured remarkable events in history and served important people. It survived the difficulties of the Great Depression and World War II, all while serving locals and national celebrities alike, including Wallace Beery, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, and Paulette Goddard.

During the fifties, Idle Isle even served ``The Duke'' himself, Mr. John Wayne, who stopped in on a number of occasions while visiting Utah on hunting trips and movie shoots.

In those years, the cafe also served as a meeting place for members of the Brigham City unit of the Utah National Guard, who were later called to

serve their country in the Korean war. Idle Isle Cafe has endured both good times and bad over the last century. But whatever the times, it has always been a place where people from every walk of life could share a meal, enjoy friendship, and bear one another's burdens as they endured the ups and downs of life together.

As the cafe celebrates its 100-year anniversary this year, it is worth recognizing all the good that it has done for Utah and for Brigham City. Of course, bearing one another's burdens is one of the things that Utahns do best.

Travis and Jana Porter, the current owners of Idle Isle Cafe, epitomized this spirit. Everyone who befriends or works with the Porters quickly sees their love of community and their dedication to their country. Nearly everything they do, both inside of the restaurant and outside, stems from their passion for helping others and their optimistic outlook on life.

Even with their five kids and the business of running the restaurant, the couple finds intentional time each day to love and serve those who work in the cafe and all who come to visit. As a result of their service, Idle Isle Cafe endures.

We, as Utahns, are engaged in the work of enduring together. In fact, the State's economy is so robust, in large part, because neighbors care for neighbors, friends care for friends, and strangers even look out for strangers. It doesn't matter who you are. In Utah, you belong. Whether in the cafe or the community, there is a place for you at the table. Our doors are open. So, too, are our hearts. You see, Utah is one of these places where it doesn't matter how long your family has been in the State or whether you have been here for 5 minutes; to us, you are a Utahn.

The endearing spirit of Utah is not inspired by government. No, it is inspired by moms and dads, teachers, small business owners, friends, and neighbors.

Earlier this year, when neighbors in West Valley City were overwhelmed at the prospect of revamping and reclaiming their community, an opportunity presented itself. Aging homes, with peeling paint and cracked up driveways, broken fences, and neglected yards, needed to be refinished. So in typical Utah fashion, neighbors came together.

After identifying problems, reviewing resources, and communicating with community leaders, an initiative was born--Operation My Hometown. Operation My Hometown is a neighborhood improvement coalition made up of residents, city workers, and volunteers from various churches and other organizations. It runs entirely on private initiative and volunteerism, two of Utah's hallmark strengths. Their process is simple: see something in need of repair, note it and join the group to help fix it and then, of course, fix it.

Repair requests can be submitted online, and anyone can help. The projects are significant. And, quite remarkably, they are being completed. To quote one news report:

Six days a week, the church is converting its meetinghouse

in the neighborhood into a community center. Corporations are

donating cash and goods. A new park is planned. The city is

adding street lights. Funds are being raised to finance home

ownership. And volunteers are streaming in from all over the

Salt Lake Valley to work side by side with residents.

Neighborhood resident, Bonnie Shaw, stated:

I am so encouraged, so hopeful, so blessed, I can't even

believe this is happening.

Another resident, Nickolaus Orwin, shared, as follows:

We live in a strange world these days. We hear this

ideology that if you don't look like me, talk like me, act

like me and vote like me, then we must be enemies, but

throughout all of this social upheaval . . . this community

has worked together and served one another in such a

brilliant and beautiful way that it just defies the ideology

that we're different and we have to segregate ourselves out

into groups. Even in the dark days of COVID . . . this

community service was such a bright, shiny star. Through all

of that hard, we have this, this really beautiful and safe

community service that was happening.

It has been said that ``the greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.'' If that is the case, then Utah is truly a great place.

To honor this tradition of greatness, I myself am grateful to host the annual Flavors of Utah event in partnership with Operation My Hometown in West Valley City later this summer. My office has partnered with this and other great community groups to collect food from local producers and distribute it to those in need. I encourage other Utahns to join me in this effort as we together look for opportunity to thrive.

The spirit of Utah, the enduring spirit of Utah, is borne from a rich history of hard work, industry, innovation, and ingenuity--even against great hardship. Few individuals embody this spirit more than the late Obert Clark Tanner.

Born in Farmington, UT, in 1904, O.C. Tanner was the youngest of 10 children. Despite his position in the family, from a young age, Tanner felt an obligation to provide for his family. He did so by performing odd jobs around the city, including stoking furnaces. One of the people for whom Tanner stoked the furnace was a jeweler. The jeweler became a friend and a mentor to Tanner and, with time, schooled the young Tanner in the jewelry business. Tanner was a quick study. He swiftly implemented the lessons taught to him and began selling graduation pins and class rings from the back of his car.

In 1927, he officially founded the O.C. Tanner Company. Though still an undergraduate student at the University of Utah, he used what little time he had outside of his classwork to make ends meet--and make ends meet, he did. The company quickly grew and endured the difficulties that put others out of business.

Throughout the years, the enduring spirit of O.C. Tanner has been a guiding light and inspiration to many, and the company has achieved truly great heights.

In 2002, the O.C. Tanner Company crafted the medals for the Winter Olympics, which were hosted in Salt Lake City. In 2019, O.C. Tanner designed a copper spike replica of the original golden spike that was ceremonially driven at the joining of the two branches of the first transcontinental railroad.

Today, the O.C. Tanner Company maintains offices in the United States, Canada, England, Singapore, Australia, and India. The company is one of the largest manufacturers of retail and corporate awards in the United States, and it employs over 1,500 people.

Through the dark nights of hardship, O.C. Tanner has endured and even succeeded, thrived. Through the difficulties of community building, the volunteers of Operation MyHometown endure, and they are succeeding.

Through 100 years of historic highs and unforgettable lows, the Idle Isle Cafe endures and, yes, the cafe is succeeding too. As goes the saying, those who endure conquer.

Similar to O.C. Tanner, volunteers of Operation MyHometown, the Idle Isle Cafe, and all Utahns have endured the difficulties of the last year with utmost faith and fortitude, and they are emerging victorious. The enduring spirit of Utah is strong.

The 2020 pandemic, earthquakes, civic discord, confusion, and contention presented daunting challenges in the lives of all, and yet Utahns are breathing a collective sigh of relief as we embrace the shining horizon that lies yet ahead.

Since the onset of the virus over a year ago, Utahns have seen near- continual drop in unemployment. Utah's unemployment rate fell to 2.8 percent in April--less than half the national number.

Though earthquakes shook homes and businesses last year, Utah's economy has still been rated the best in the United States by several nationally recognized outlets. And while the discord, confusion, and contention seem to dominate the airwaves, Utah's citizens have banded together to bridge the partisan divides that can be so difficult to overcome.

Utah and Utahns are remarkable.

If you are seeking a place to start a business, ask those at Idle Isle Cafe. Utah is the place.

If you are seeking a place where community matters, ask those at Operation MyHometown. Utah is the place.

If you are seeking a place where opportunity is abundant, read the story of O.C. Tanner. Utah is the place.

I am very grateful for the privilege of representing the State of Utah here in the U.S. Senate. It is my hope that the successes and the enduring spirit of

Utah will continue to serve as an example for the Nation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for more than 100 years, throughout times of change, tumult, and uncertainty, there has been a constant: the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.

The UK has been one of our staunchest and most loyal allies. We have stood beside each other through two World Wars and the Cold War. In the 21st century, the United States and the United Kingdom have become even stronger friends and partners, both in the fight against global terrorism and for freedom, peace, and prosperity.

Now an opportunity lies before us to strengthen the relationship more than ever by securing a free-trade agreement between our two nations, which is the purpose of the resolution before us today. The trading relationship between our countries is already really strong. For hundreds of years, it has been a force for economic prosperity and security for us both.

In just 2019, the total trade in goods and services between our two countries totaled $273 billion, and the United Kingdom was the seventh largest trading partner of the United States in goods. Figures from that same year show that U.S. trade with the United Kingdom resulted in a $21.8 billion trade surplus.

The United States and the United Kingdom, in fact, share the single largest bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world. And now, with the UK's newfound ability to negotiate independent free-trade deals, we have the opportunity to grow that relationship even more.

A free-trade agreement would allow even more goods and services to flow even more easily between our two countries. It would allow for expanded commercial partnerships and greater investments in emerging industries. It would serve as an even greater engine of prosperity and economic liberty on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

This is a no-brainer, and it would be a tremendous asset in the midst of the economic and geopolitical challenges we face today. The pandemic and supply chain turmoil have proven that friends are invaluable in a pinch. While many global relationships have been unsteady and many governments don't know what their future trading relationships will look like, the United Kingdom has been a stalwart and secure partner with the United States.

Furthermore, it could not be a better move in the age of great power competition with China. We will not beat China by trying to be like China in imposing centralized command-and-control grips on the economy that will strangle trade and trample free enterprise. Instead, we should do what we have always done best: prioritize free, open, and fair commerce with friendly nations, as the G7 this past weekend confirmed.

At the conclusion of the summit, the group, as a whole, agreed to ``secure our future prosperity by championing freer, fairer trade within a reformed trading system.'' And the United States and the United Kingdom signed a New Atlantic Charter in which both countries committed to take actions ``enabling open and fair trade between nations.''

Securing a mutually beneficial trade agreement with one of our oldest and closest allies would be in the best interest of us all. As President Biden himself recently said: ``America's alliances are our greatest asset, and leading with diplomacy means standing shoulder-to- shoulder with our allies and key partners once again.''

On this point, I could not agree with President Biden more. Congress can seize this opportunity by supporting the resolution before us today. It is a simple, straightforward resolution declaring the sense of the Senate that the United States has and should have a close and mutually beneficial trade relationship with the United Kingdom without interruption and that the President, with the support of Congress, should lay the groundwork for a future trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Borrowing a phrase from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, after his first face-to-face meeting with President Biden at the summit this past weekend, the United States-United Kingdom relationship is ``indestructible.'' No two nations have worked more closely together. No two peoples have done more to expand and defend liberty or to achieve peace and prosperity.

Throughout history, this partnership has steadied the world through some of its greatest perils. It can continue to do so today if only we let it. The American and British peoples have the opportunity to once again join forces and emerge from the challenges we face stronger than ever for the benefit of our countries and nations across the globe. To that end, I urge each of my colleagues to support this resolution.

And I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration, and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 134. I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments and the insight provided by my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Oregon.

As to the point regarding our relative negotiating power and the wisdom of approaching this task right now, it is important to remember this resolution doesn't purport to offer the details of any such deal. It calls for a free-trade agreement. There is nothing surrendered by that. There is, however, a lot to be gained by that in signaling that we want to continue to have an open, free, and fair relationship with the United Kingdom.

As to the process concerns articulated by my friend and colleague, while he has expressed some concerns about the process, I must provide some evidence to the contrary.

Over the past year, my staff has communicated with the Senate Finance Committee staff, staff on both sides of the aisle, upward of half a dozen times. They have also pitched changes to assuage concerns about language multiple times but never received any definitive responses.

Furthermore, I have worked with colleagues on the other side of the aisle to craft almost identical draft language on United States-United Kingdom trade that was included in S. Res. 117, on the Good Friday Agreement, which passed before this body without objection. There is no reason why we can't reach a similar compromise on this legislation, and I stand ready and willing to work with my colleague from Oregon to do so

(At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

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

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a piece of legislation called the Tougher Enforcement Against Monopolists Act, or the TEAM Act. I am grateful that my good friend and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, the senior Senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley, has joined me as a cosponsor of the bill.

Now, I am aware that our House colleagues just recently introduced several bills intended to fight anti-competitive conduct by Big Tech. Those bills, in my view, don't go far enough. America is facing a panoply of competition concerns not just in Big Tech but across the entire economy. We need a holistic approach that benefits all consumers, in every industry. We need to deal with all the monopolists hurting competition.

Even worse, the House bills not only have too small of a target, but they use too big of a sledgehammer to hit it. They create a truly massive expansion of Federal regulatory power and are the first steps toward a command-and-control economy.

Responding to Big Tech with Big Government is adding insult to injury, not to mention something I doubt any conservative will be able to support. We don't need a bigger government. We need to make the one we have work better.

The TEAM Act avoids each of these mistakes. Instead of a narrow focus and Big Government approach, this bill will improve Federal antitrust enforcement for the entire economy without making government bigger.

The TEAM Act improves antitrust law in two ways. The first is putting all of our antitrust enforcers on one team. The TEAM Act unites our two Federal antitrust enforcement Agencies into one. For over a century, American antitrust enforcement has been something of a two-headed creature sometimes at odds with itself. The results have been delays to enforcement and consumer redress, uncertainty for businesses, and even conflicting antitrust enforcement policy.

Just recently, the two Agencies actually argued against each other on opposite sides of an appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This arrangement isn't working for anyone--anyone, that is, perhaps, except corporations looking for an opportunity to game the system.

I hope that the bill can also put our two parties on the same team when it comes to antitrust reform. Our present reform movement is filled with bipartisan fervor to improve the lives of our constituents by improving competition in the markets that serve them and protecting them from the monopolists that exercise so much unearned power over huge swaths of our economy. Now, we don't agree on everything, but we do agree on this. It is my sincere belief that this bill represents the best and, hopefully, most bipartisan path forward.

That brings me to the second focus of the bill: preventing antitrust harm by monopolists. I use the term ``antitrust harm'' here very deliberately. In certain corners of the antitrust policy world, it has become fashionable to talk of being pro-monopoly or anti-monopoly, which is often tied to being pro- or anti-democracy. That is also deliberate terminology, and I think it is dangerous. It is a sleight of hand meant to move the conversation away from specific conduct and whether that conduct harms competition, to do so regardless and to instead imply that all that matters in this context, in this inquiry, is size and whether you support or defend a business based on its size. That position is both unserious and economically indefensible. Even the briefest, most passing moment of reflection on this will demonstrate its absurdity.

If you are anti-monopoly, are you also anti-patent? Patents are, after all, government-granted monopolies. The entire purpose of the patent is to allow

its holder to exclude competition for a limited period of time and charge the highest price that the market will bear. But we allow this because the prospect of collecting monopoly profits acts as an incentive to innovate and invest in new ideas.

The same principle is at work in market monopolies. The prospect of obtaining a monopoly through competition on the merits incentivizes competitors to offer consumers better products and services at lower prices. This free market system built on competition and innovation is responsible for many of the great achievements of mankind and the economic flourishing of the greatest civilization the world has ever known.

But even more important is the foundational principle of our Republic that the law deals with conduct, not status. We punish people for what they do, not who they are. ``Big is bad'' abandons that fundamental American principle of law. Instead, the facile insistence on being simply ``anti-monopoly'' belies the proponents' true priorities. It means being anti-business even when it hurts consumers. It is the economic version of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The ``big is bad'' philosophy is also part of a broader effort to overturn the consumer welfare standard. This critical component of U.S. antitrust law has been widely misunderstood, often as a result of willful misrepresentation. The consumer welfare standard does not protect monopolists. It does not mean the government loses, and it is decidedly not limited to a narrow focus on prices.

Rather, the consumer welfare standard is a statement about the overarching goals of antitrust law; namely, that the purpose of antitrust is to advance the economic welfare of consumers as opposed to protecting the competitors themselves or advancing unrelated social policies.

As I note in my introduction to the new edition of ``The Antitrust Paradox,'' Judge Robert Bork himself explicitly described the consumer welfare standard as being broader than an inquiry into price, and it is one that certainly includes an inquiry into quality, innovation, and consumer choice. In other words, whatever consumers value, that is what is captured by ``consumer welfare.''

But it is much easier to argue against the consumer welfare standard by pretending that it only cares about lower prices and, therefore, is incapable of addressing consumer harm in markets with free products, such as many online services. This misrepresentation says a lot about the true goals of the so-called anti-monopoly crowd. If they really cared about the nonprice facets of competition, they wouldn't need to abandon the consumer welfare standard to promote it. But that isn't their true goal.

The real problem they have with the consumer welfare standard is the way that it constrains judges from advancing unrelated policy goals. It turns out the push to abandon the consumer welfare standard is not about stopping monopolies or helping consumers. It is simply a Trojan horse for woke social policy.

Now, a proper application of the antitrust laws does have political benefits--what Utah's State constitution refers to as ``the dispersion of economic and political power''--but those are secondary benefits. Antitrust is not primarily a political tool.

If a company acquires market power as a result of competing on the merits, then any influence that flows from that will, at least, be a result of consumer choices. Just as citizens vote at the ballot box, consumers vote at the checkout aisle. But if that market power is obtained or grown through nefarious or anti-competitive means, the resulting market power is illegitimate and a threat to the Republic, which leads to the point that, of course, many monopolies are bad. They are genuinely bad.

These are those monopolies obtained or prolonged not through competition on the merits but through anti-competitive and exclusionary conduct. This conduct obstructs rather than facilitates the natural operation of the free market, using raw market power to prevent consumers from making optimal choices and then starving them of lower prices, higher quality, and new offerings.

Competitive conduct benefits both businesses and consumers. Anti- competitive conduct only helps the monopolist.

Unfortunately, there have been attempts to defend some anti- competitive conduct. This is most often done through the use of speculative and convoluted economic models that claim to predict the future, almost always predicting that a merger or specific conduct won't actually harm competition.

We have, sadly, seen an overcorrection from the days lamented by Judge Bork when courts and enforcers ignored basic economic analysis. Now ``the age of sophists, economists, and calculators has succeeded,'' and our antitrust enforcement efforts are frequently hampered by what Judge Bork called an ``economic extravaganza.'' The result has been that some conduct and mergers that should have been condemned have instead escaped much needed scrutiny.

All of this is why the TEAM Act categorically rejects the Manichean belief that big is always bad, while still acknowledging that concentrated economic power can be just as dangerous as concentrated political power, and, in fact, one often leads to the other In this way, it embraces antitrust laws as sort of federalism for the economy, and it does so by focusing not on mere size but on antitrust harm; that is, whether something actually harms consumers by harming competition.

The bill strengthens our ability to prevent and correct antitrust harm in three ways.

The TEAM Act strengthens the antitrust laws. It includes a market share-based merger presumption, improves the HSR Act, codifies the consumer welfare standard, and makes it harder for monopolists to justify or excuse anti-competitive comment.

The TEAM Act strengthens antitrust enforcers. In addition to consolidating Federal antitrust enforcement at the Department of Justice, the bill also includes a version of the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, introduced by Senators Klobuchar and Grassley. Most significantly, the bill roughly doubles the amount of money appropriated to Federal antitrust enforcement, ensuring that our antitrust enforcers have all the resources they need to protect American consumers.

The TEAM Act strengthens anti-trust remedies. The bill repeals Illinois Brick and Hanover Shoe to ensure that consumers are able to recover damages from anticompetitive conduct. Even more significantly, the bill allows the Justice Department to recover trebled damages on behalf of consumers and imposes civil fines for knowingly violating the antitrust laws.

Now, I believe these reforms reflect the best way to strike the balance of protecting competition and consumer welfare, while limiting government intervention in the free market. In an era in which would-be monopolists want to move fast and break things, it is essential that our antitrust enforcers are empowered to move fast and break them up.

This is the prudent and the conservative approach. Better antitrust enforcement means less regulation and thus smaller government.

This is also a wiser approach than attempting to statutorily prohibit certain categories of conduct. That approach abandons one of the greatest strengths of American antitrust law: the fact-specific nature of every inquiry. Case-by-case adjudication is what allows us to maximize enforcement while minimizing false positives. The TEAM Act avoids the black-and-white pronouncements of other legislative proposals and instead updates the mechanics of how the antitrust laws are applied to address the enforcement gaps of recent decades.

As I have said before, we find ourselves at a critical moment. The threat to competition and free markets is real. Doing nothing is not an option. At the same time, we simply cannot allow the need to ``do something'' to push us into embracing bad policy that will have unintended consequences and push America closer to a government- regulated economy.

I look forward to working closely with my colleagues and with friends on both sides of the aisle and at both ends of the Capitol in order to advance the TEAM Act and help protect American consumers

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a piece of legislation called the Tougher Enforcement Against Monopolists Act, or the TEAM Act. I am grateful that my good friend and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, the senior Senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley, has joined me as a cosponsor of the bill.

Now, I am aware that our House colleagues just recently introduced several bills intended to fight anti-competitive conduct by Big Tech. Those bills, in my view, don't go far enough. America is facing a panoply of competition concerns not just in Big Tech but across the entire economy. We need a holistic approach that benefits all consumers, in every industry. We need to deal with all the monopolists hurting competition.

Even worse, the House bills not only have too small of a target, but they use too big of a sledgehammer to hit it. They create a truly massive expansion of Federal regulatory power and are the first steps toward a command-and-control economy.

Responding to Big Tech with Big Government is adding insult to injury, not to mention something I doubt any conservative will be able to support. We don't need a bigger government. We need to make the one we have work better.

The TEAM Act avoids each of these mistakes. Instead of a narrow focus and Big Government approach, this bill will improve Federal antitrust enforcement for the entire economy without making government bigger.

The TEAM Act improves antitrust law in two ways. The first is putting all of our antitrust enforcers on one team. The TEAM Act unites our two Federal antitrust enforcement Agencies into one. For over a century, American antitrust enforcement has been something of a two-headed creature sometimes at odds with itself. The results have been delays to enforcement and consumer redress, uncertainty for businesses, and even conflicting antitrust enforcement policy.

Just recently, the two Agencies actually argued against each other on opposite sides of an appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This arrangement isn't working for anyone--anyone, that is, perhaps, except corporations looking for an opportunity to game the system.

I hope that the bill can also put our two parties on the same team when it comes to antitrust reform. Our present reform movement is filled with bipartisan fervor to improve the lives of our constituents by improving competition in the markets that serve them and protecting them from the monopolists that exercise so much unearned power over huge swaths of our economy. Now, we don't agree on everything, but we do agree on this. It is my sincere belief that this bill represents the best and, hopefully, most bipartisan path forward.

That brings me to the second focus of the bill: preventing antitrust harm by monopolists. I use the term ``antitrust harm'' here very deliberately. In certain corners of the antitrust policy world, it has become fashionable to talk of being pro-monopoly or anti-monopoly, which is often tied to being pro- or anti-democracy. That is also deliberate terminology, and I think it is dangerous. It is a sleight of hand meant to move the conversation away from specific conduct and whether that conduct harms competition, to do so regardless and to instead imply that all that matters in this context, in this inquiry, is size and whether you support or defend a business based on its size. That position is both unserious and economically indefensible. Even the briefest, most passing moment of reflection on this will demonstrate its absurdity.

If you are anti-monopoly, are you also anti-patent? Patents are, after all, government-granted monopolies. The entire purpose of the patent is to allow

its holder to exclude competition for a limited period of time and charge the highest price that the market will bear. But we allow this because the prospect of collecting monopoly profits acts as an incentive to innovate and invest in new ideas.

The same principle is at work in market monopolies. The prospect of obtaining a monopoly through competition on the merits incentivizes competitors to offer consumers better products and services at lower prices. This free market system built on competition and innovation is responsible for many of the great achievements of mankind and the economic flourishing of the greatest civilization the world has ever known.

But even more important is the foundational principle of our Republic that the law deals with conduct, not status. We punish people for what they do, not who they are. ``Big is bad'' abandons that fundamental American principle of law. Instead, the facile insistence on being simply ``anti-monopoly'' belies the proponents' true priorities. It means being anti-business even when it hurts consumers. It is the economic version of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The ``big is bad'' philosophy is also part of a broader effort to overturn the consumer welfare standard. This critical component of U.S. antitrust law has been widely misunderstood, often as a result of willful misrepresentation. The consumer welfare standard does not protect monopolists. It does not mean the government loses, and it is decidedly not limited to a narrow focus on prices.

Rather, the consumer welfare standard is a statement about the overarching goals of antitrust law; namely, that the purpose of antitrust is to advance the economic welfare of consumers as opposed to protecting the competitors themselves or advancing unrelated social policies.

As I note in my introduction to the new edition of ``The Antitrust Paradox,'' Judge Robert Bork himself explicitly described the consumer welfare standard as being broader than an inquiry into price, and it is one that certainly includes an inquiry into quality, innovation, and consumer choice. In other words, whatever consumers value, that is what is captured by ``consumer welfare.''

But it is much easier to argue against the consumer welfare standard by pretending that it only cares about lower prices and, therefore, is incapable of addressing consumer harm in markets with free products, such as many online services. This misrepresentation says a lot about the true goals of the so-called anti-monopoly crowd. If they really cared about the nonprice facets of competition, they wouldn't need to abandon the consumer welfare standard to promote it. But that isn't their true goal.

The real problem they have with the consumer welfare standard is the way that it constrains judges from advancing unrelated policy goals. It turns out the push to abandon the consumer welfare standard is not about stopping monopolies or helping consumers. It is simply a Trojan horse for woke social policy.

Now, a proper application of the antitrust laws does have political benefits--what Utah's State constitution refers to as ``the dispersion of economic and political power''--but those are secondary benefits. Antitrust is not primarily a political tool.

If a company acquires market power as a result of competing on the merits, then any influence that flows from that will, at least, be a result of consumer choices. Just as citizens vote at the ballot box, consumers vote at the checkout aisle. But if that market power is obtained or grown through nefarious or anti-competitive means, the resulting market power is illegitimate and a threat to the Republic, which leads to the point that, of course, many monopolies are bad. They are genuinely bad.

These are those monopolies obtained or prolonged not through competition on the merits but through anti-competitive and exclusionary conduct. This conduct obstructs rather than facilitates the natural operation of the free market, using raw market power to prevent consumers from making optimal choices and then starving them of lower prices, higher quality, and new offerings.

Competitive conduct benefits both businesses and consumers. Anti- competitive conduct only helps the monopolist.

Unfortunately, there have been attempts to defend some anti- competitive conduct. This is most often done through the use of speculative and convoluted economic models that claim to predict the future, almost always predicting that a merger or specific conduct won't actually harm competition.

We have, sadly, seen an overcorrection from the days lamented by Judge Bork when courts and enforcers ignored basic economic analysis. Now ``the age of sophists, economists, and calculators has succeeded,'' and our antitrust enforcement efforts are frequently hampered by what Judge Bork called an ``economic extravaganza.'' The result has been that some conduct and mergers that should have been condemned have instead escaped much needed scrutiny.

All of this is why the TEAM Act categorically rejects the Manichean belief that big is always bad, while still acknowledging that concentrated economic power can be just as dangerous as concentrated political power, and, in fact, one often leads to the other In this way, it embraces antitrust laws as sort of federalism for the economy, and it does so by focusing not on mere size but on antitrust harm; that is, whether something actually harms consumers by harming competition.

The bill strengthens our ability to prevent and correct antitrust harm in three ways.

The TEAM Act strengthens the antitrust laws. It includes a market share-based merger presumption, improves the HSR Act, codifies the consumer welfare standard, and makes it harder for monopolists to justify or excuse anti-competitive comment.

The TEAM Act strengthens antitrust enforcers. In addition to consolidating Federal antitrust enforcement at the Department of Justice, the bill also includes a version of the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, introduced by Senators Klobuchar and Grassley. Most significantly, the bill roughly doubles the amount of money appropriated to Federal antitrust enforcement, ensuring that our antitrust enforcers have all the resources they need to protect American consumers.

The TEAM Act strengthens anti-trust remedies. The bill repeals Illinois Brick and Hanover Shoe to ensure that consumers are able to recover damages from anticompetitive conduct. Even more significantly, the bill allows the Justice Department to recover trebled damages on behalf of consumers and imposes civil fines for knowingly violating the antitrust laws.

Now, I believe these reforms reflect the best way to strike the balance of protecting competition and consumer welfare, while limiting government intervention in the free market. In an era in which would-be monopolists want to move fast and break things, it is essential that our antitrust enforcers are empowered to move fast and break them up.

This is the prudent and the conservative approach. Better antitrust enforcement means less regulation and thus smaller government.

This is also a wiser approach than attempting to statutorily prohibit certain categories of conduct. That approach abandons one of the greatest strengths of American antitrust law: the fact-specific nature of every inquiry. Case-by-case adjudication is what allows us to maximize enforcement while minimizing false positives. The TEAM Act avoids the black-and-white pronouncements of other legislative proposals and instead updates the mechanics of how the antitrust laws are applied to address the enforcement gaps of recent decades.

As I have said before, we find ourselves at a critical moment. The threat to competition and free markets is real. Doing nothing is not an option. At the same time, we simply cannot allow the need to ``do something'' to push us into embracing bad policy that will have unintended consequences and push America closer to a government- regulated economy.

I look forward to working closely with my colleagues and with friends on both sides of the aisle and at both ends of the Capitol in order to advance the TEAM Act and help protect American consumers

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to allow Mark Meador, a member of my staff, floor privileges for the duration of this Congress.

Mr. President, women make invaluable contributions to our families, communities, and workplaces. Thankfully, the opportunities for women in the workplace have grown tremendously over time and in recent decades, and there is no doubt that, without exception or qualification, they should always be treated equally and receive equal pay for the same work as their male counterparts.

This week, the Senate considered proceeding to a bill called the Paycheck Fairness Act--one that was directed at achieving this goal by addressing the gender pay gap. But if we truly care about supporting and empowering women in the workplace, it is important that we understand exactly what the pay gap is and what exactly it can tell us about women's experiences.

So what is the pay gap? Well, first, there is a crucial distinction that we have to make between the unadjusted pay gap and the adjusted pay gap.

When most people refer to the gender pay gap, they mean the unadjusted pay gap, or the comparison between the median man's pay and the median woman's pay, based only on sex. According to this measure, the median earnings of women are 18 percent lower than men. But the unadjusted pay gap leaves out key pieces of the puzzle. In reality, there are many other factors that influence pay for individual men and women, such as industry, occupation, experience, education, performance, and in particular, family decisions.

The adjusted pay gap does take these factors into account and turns out to be a much smaller number--a very different number--than the unadjusted pay gap. When controlling for these factors, and thus comparing men and women with the same jobs and qualifications, the pay gap falls to just 2 percent, which can arguably be explained by nondiscriminatory factors like performance that other studies have not yet addressed.

The pay gap before and after parenthood tells us something else that is key too. This measure suggests that women are paid less not simply because they are women but because of the family decisions they make typically after having children. Women are far more likely to take on more of the caretaker responsibilities within their families and thus make work-related tradeoffs that allow them to do so.

One study in Denmark found that average women's earnings are comparable to men's earnings before parenthood but drop after the birth of their first child, when hours worked and participation rates tend to fall for women.

Another study by the Harvard Business Review found that women are more likely to make decisions to limit work-related travel, choose a more flexible job, slow down career pace, make a lateral move, or leave a job in order to accommodate family responsibilities.

Ultimately, the pay gap seems to show in large part the particular choices and preferences of women in their career and family paths.

So in light of this information, what would the Paycheck Fairness Act do? This bill would allow employees to sue businesses that pay workers different wages even if the differences have nothing to do with the sex of the employee at issue. As a result, businesses would be forced to ignore the rest of the factors that influence pay, including merit, which is and should be the main determinant of earnings. It would instead enforce rigid, collective pay scales that would reduce flexibility in benefits or hours--the very thing that employees want in the workplace.

If this legislation were to become law, instead of receiving higher pay, women would likely find it harder to

get their foot in the door. Employers could be more reticent to hire women in some circumstances, especially those reentering the workforce, since they automatically would be included in future gender- or race- based class action lawsuits, and it would raise costs for businesses and hurt wages across the board.

In short, it is a federally mandated, one-size-fits-all approach to pay that would only take away choice, opportunity, and flexibility for women--the very things that Congress ought to ensure are allowed. Indeed, surveys show that workplace flexibility is incredibly valuable to women. One survey estimates that 60 percent of female jobseekers say that greater work-life balance and personal well-being are very important to them when considering a job, and 46 percent of female employees say flextime is the most important benefit a company can offer employees. Further research shows that productivity can be improved by as much as 50 percent when flexible options are available to workers.

If we are to empower women and make it easier for them to increase their earnings, we should not be getting in the way of flexible options that can help.

Thankfully, the rejection of the Paycheck Fairness Act this week proved that it is not the right approach. There is, indeed, a better path forward. The bill I am proposing, the Working Families Flexibility Act, would help provide it.

For decades, Federal labor laws have unfairly restricted private sector employees from choosing either traditional overtime pay or paid time off as compensation for overtime hours worked, while granting a special exemption for government employees. This legal disparity between private sector employees and public sector employees unfairly discriminates against working men and women in the private sector, and it is long overdue that it be addressed. There is no reason that these working moms and dads in the private sector should be prevented from receiving the flexibility that employees in the government are able to receive.

My bill would simply amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to allow private sector employers to give their employees the option to choose either traditional overtime pay or paid time off, both accrued at 1.5 times the overtime hours worked. It is a totally voluntary proposal for both employers and employees. Employers are not forced to offer it, and employees are not forced to take it.

In addition to offering safeguards to ensure that the choice to use comp time is voluntary, it retains all existing labor law protections for employees, including the 40-hour workweek and overtime accrual protections.

If we truly seek to empower women in the workplace, we ought to give them the freedom and flexibility to pursue their careers and the families they desire. The Working Families Flexibility Act would do just that, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

This is something that we ought to adopt right now. This is something that Federal law already allows for, for government employees, and we ought to end the discrimination against private sector employees.

For that reason, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 247 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. 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

Mr. President.

Mr. President, it is unfortunate that the Senate won't choose to make available to private sector workers options that are already available to government employees.

Just to reiterate here, under this legislation, employers are not required to offer it; employees are not required to take it. This just eliminates the vestigial remains of labor laws passed decades ago that denied workers and employers this option. They keep that open for government workers. That is discriminatory. It is unfair, and it ought to end.