Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes, followed by Senator Tester for up to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall votes.

Mr. President, in November of 2023, the Biden administration released a new rule to allow for beef imports from Paraguay, a country that has historically struggled to contain outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in their cattle herds.

The United States has been blocking beef imports from Paraguay since 1997. Paraguay last reported cases of foot-and-mouth disease in 2012. The USDA's decision to resume Paraguayan imports relies on an analysis that was completed in 2018, but American inspectors have not conducted a site visit to Paraguay since 2014.

American producers work tirelessly to produce the safest, highest quality, and most affordable beef in the entire world. Our consumers should be able to confidently feed their families beef that has met the rigorous standards required within the United States. The United States has not had a case of foot-and-mouth disease since 1929. We want to keep it that way by reversing this rule until a working group has had an opportunity to evaluate the threat to food safety and animal health posed

by Paraguayan beef with an updated analysis.

In other words, what we are asking for is for the Department of Ag here to protect our food supply for consumers by making certain that they use the most updated information possible before they allow Paraguay to begin importing beef here.

Foot-and-mouth disease is something that we have literally eradicated, but if it ever gets back into the country, it can be transferred to human beings, and it can be transferred to human beings back to livestock. It is contagious. We just simply ask that they update this study before they allow this to occur.

Today, we have two votes in a row. The first vote is not on this particular issue, but the second vote is. I would ask my colleagues for an affirmative vote to delay this rule--to stop this rule and delay it--until such time as we have an appropriate and timely review.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Democratic leader, for the opportunity to speak to this particular issue today.

This is an issue that I think has caught the attention of the American people, and, most certainly, the lack of transparency on the matter, which is of real interest to a lot of the folks who have watched from the outside. It brings together, I think, a notable parallel in the withholding of information about items that are in the government's possession regarding, in this particular case, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

That same approach by government in terms of the possible withholding of information brings more questions and more attention to the issue of the assassination. We wanted to take that same approach with regard to how we could dispel myths and misinformation about UAPs--about unidentified flying objects, unidentified objects that simply have come to the attention of the American people.

Congress did pass legislation 30 years ago requiring the review and release of all records relating to that historic tragedy--the assassination of John Kennedy--which has led to the release of a great deal of information.

The UAP Disclosure Act was closely modeled on the J.F.K. records act.

I would agree, sir, and I think one of the most significant shortcomings that I think we need to disavow as well--the shortcomings of the conference committee agreement that are now being voted on--was the rejection, first of all, of a government-wide review board composed of expert citizens, Presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed, to control the process of reviewing the records and recommending to the President what records should be released immediately or postponed; and a requirement, as a transparency measure, for the government to retain any recovered UAP material or biological remains that may have been provided to private entities in the past and thereby hidden from Congress and the American people.

We are lacking oversight opportunities, and we are not fulfilling our responsibilities.

I agree with my friend and colleague.

To those who think that the citizen review board that would have been created in our UAP Disclosure Act would be unprecedented and somehow go too far, we note that the proposed review board was very closely modeled on the review board established in the J.F.K. Assassination Records Act of 1992, which has successfully guided the release of records to the American public on another very sensitive matter of high interest to the American people.

It does one more thing that we really need to recognize, and that is that there is, we believe, information and data that has been collected by more than just the Department of Defense--but by other Agencies of the Federal Government, as well--and by allowing for an outside, independent collection of these records, we can make progress in terms of dispelling myths and providing accurate information to the American people.

Mr. President, today I recognize Noah McNaughton, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all the hard work he has done on behalf of my office and the State of South Dakota. Mr. McNaughton is a graduate of Lyman High School in Presho, SD. Currently, he is attending Dakota State University, where he studies cyber leadership and intelligence. Mr. McNaughton is a dedicated and diligent individual who has been devoted to getting the most out of his internship experience. Mr. McNaughton has been a true asset to my office. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Mr. McNaughton for all of the work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Amelia Mullin, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all the hard work she has done on behalf of my office and the State of South Dakota. Ms. Mullin is a graduate of Forest Charter School in Truckee, CA. Currently, she is attending American University, where she is majoring in international studies. Ms. Mullin is a dedicated and diligent individual who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience. Ms. Mullin has been a true asset to my office. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Ms. Mullin for all of the work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 813 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, China and Russia are our near-peer adversaries, and North Korea and Iran are no friends of the United States.

In just a few minutes, we will vote on an amendment that I proposed with Senator Tester that would ban China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran from purchasing American farmland or ag businesses.

In recent years, our country has seen, firsthand, attempts by our near-peer competitors to acquire land adjacent to our military bases.

In 2020, a Chinese-linked company planned to build a wind energy farm project near Del Rio, TX, only miles away from Laughlin Air Force Base, where U.S. pilots are trained.

In 2022, a Chinese-linked company attempted to build a corn milling plant on farmland near a sensitive Air Force base outside Grand Forks, ND. Treasury later determined that they did not have the proper jurisdiction to take action in this case, which demonstrates the need for this amendment.

My amendment would require the Committee on Foreign Investment of the United States, CFIUS, to prohibit China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran from purchasing ag land and ag businesses in the United States and make modest reforms to the CFIUS process to improve our country's ability to protect our national security.

I want to thank my friend from Montana, Senator Tester, for his hard work on the amendment and our original bill, the PASS Act.

I would also like to thank our cosponsors on this amendment: Senators Daines, Kennedy, Lummis, Kramer, Hoeven, Ernst, Britt, Brown, and Cruz.

This is a commonsense provision that will make our homeland more secure.

I yield my time.

Vote on Amendment No. 813

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, today I recognize Sara Hofer, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all the hard work she has done on behalf of my office and the State of South Dakota. Ms. Hofer is a graduate of Bridgewater-Emery High School in Emery, SD. Currently, she is attending Dordt University, where she studies biology and political science. Ms. Hofer is a dedicated and diligent individual who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience. Ms. Hofer has been a true asset to my office. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Ms. Hofer for all of the work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize Tyler Rasmussen, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all the hard work he has done on behalf of my office and the State of South Dakota. Mr. Rasmussen is a graduate of Brookings High School in Brookings, SD. Currently, he is attending South Dakota State University, where he studies agricultural business and legal studies. Mr. Rasmussen is a dedicated and diligent individual who has been devoted to getting the most out of his internship experience. Mr. Rasmussen has been a true asset to my office. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Mr. Rasmussen for all of the work he has done and wish him continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, today I recognize TaylorAnn Wooley, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all the hard work she has done on behalf of my office and the State of South Dakota. Ms. Wooley is a graduate of Wright Junior Senior High School in Wright, WY. Currently, she is attending Black Hills State University, where she studies political science and international studies. Ms. Wooley is a dedicated and diligent individual who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience. Ms. Wooley has been a true asset to my office. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Ms. Wooley for all of the work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, my colleagues today have all had the same concern. That is, while we recognize the need to address the debt limit that our country is now up against, we also recognize that the defense of our country is a critical and necessary part of our responsibility as well.

The concern that many of us have with the proposal right now is that, in order to raise the debt limit, part of it has a series of conditions with regard to what happens to the dollars that it takes to actually defend our country for the next 2 years. We want to be able to raise the debt limit--we recognize that--but we also have to address the need for the defense of our country.

Why should we, as a part of the negotiation, be required to look at a reduction--a reduction--in the amount of dollars necessary for our young men and women to be able to defend our country?

Within the provisions of this bill, there is a reduction of up to 1 percent of the existing budget if we don't do an appropriations process. Yet, in order to do the appropriations process, we have to have 12 separate bills. The 12 separate bills all have to be passed. Now, the U.S. Senate is not known for necessarily doing anything on time. Yet here we come up to the end of the fiscal year in October, and we haven't seen appropriations bills on the floor yet.

What we need to be able to do, rather than to have a 1-percent reduction in defense, is to have an agreement that we will at least allow the appropriations bills to go from the Appropriations Committee to the floor of the Senate so that we can address them up or down, with the appropriate amendments on them, and have a full discussion but do it in a timely fashion.

So, No. 1, let's address the debt limit, but let's not penalize our ability to defend our country--or, perhaps, more appropriately say, let's not limit the ability of our young men and women in uniform to defend our country.

My colleagues have done a great job of explaining what happens here if we don't do our job correctly with regard to this particular bill. No. 1, if we go to a continuing resolution, our defense budget goes down; but, No. 2, under the provisions of this bill, the nondefense portions of this budget could actually go up. So there is an incentive--an unfair incentive--built into this to spend more on domestic programs and to spend less to defend our country, which is our primary responsibility.

How do we fix it at this late stage of the game?

No. 1, there are supplementals that are absolutely necessary. We have aggressive authoritarians throughout the world who are right now looking to see whether or not we are prepared to support our allies and those individuals who are on the front lines. This is specifically in Ukraine, specifically looking, as well, in the South Pacific, and looking at Taiwan and doing our best to turn Taiwan into a porcupine to make it much less of a possibility that China will invade Taiwan.

The other piece of this, along with that, is that we have to do an appropriations process where we actually get a chance to look at the Defense bill and our other appropriations bills in a timely fashion so that we do not have a continuing resolution in which the defense of our country loses ground,

making it more vulnerable or our country more vulnerable and a more challenging job for the young men and women who wear the uniform of this country.

With that, I just want to say thank you to my colleagues who have laid out some great numbers for all of us and who clearly have laid out a path forward: a commitment by leadership that the appropriations process be completed in a timely fashion and a recognition that supplemental funding will be necessary to confront aggressive authoritarians throughout the world.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, today I recognize Satouri Robins, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all the hard work she has done on behalf of my office and the state of South Dakota.

Ms. Robins is a graduate of Mission Viejo High School in Mission Viejo, CA. Currently, she is attending New York University, where she studies international relations and French. Ms. Robins is a dedicated and diligent individual who has been devoted to getting the most out of her internship experience. Ms. Robins has been a true asset to my office.

I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Ms. Robins for all of the work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. President, on April 2, we recognize the life and leadership of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, a global spiritual leader known universally as the Rebbe and head of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

The Rebbe was born in 1902 and lived through the darkest periods of history, the evils of Russian communism and the horrors of Nazi Germany. In 1941, the Rebbe and his wife Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka arrived safely on the shores of the United States. He volunteered at the Brooklyn Navy Yard using his engineering skills to assist our Nation during World War II and worked tirelessly to rebuild and guide after the Holocaust.

During those difficult years, the Rebbe established a program that arranged for rabbinical students to travel across the country to visit Jewish farmers, U.S. servicemembers, and others isolated from their families or communities. This included locations such as the 335th Army Air Force Base Unit in Sioux Falls, Ellsworth Air Force Base, and communities across South Dakota. This program still exists today, and these rabbinical students sent by the Rebbe are often the only connection many local Jews have with their faith.

Under the Rebbe's leadership, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement has become the world's largest Jewish educational organization with more than 3,500 permanent centers in all 50 States, including in my home State of South Dakota, and in 109 countries around the world. It is thanks to the Rebbe's vision that our State has its first rabbi in almost 40 years with the establishment of the Chabad Jewish Center of South Dakota.

The Rebbe extolled America's unique role as a superpower and had meaningful relationships with several of our Nation's leaders who saw him as the moral guide of so many. For the Rebbe, America was a beacon of light of historic proportions to be utilized in influencing the moral betterment of all humanity. He urged us all to become ambassadors for goodness and kindness and explained that education must not be limited to the tools needed for making a good living, but rather focus on the ethics, morals, and values that have always been the basis of any decent society.

For more than four decades, every U.S. President has declared the annual observance of Education and Sharing Day in honor of the anniversary of the Rebbe's birth, in recognition of his contributions to the betterment of education for all people. In 1995, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions toward education, morality, and acts of charity.

Education and Sharing Day represents an excellent opportunity for us to reflect on the Rebbe's vision and leadership and to embrace his teachings that starting with moral education, we each do our part to increase in goodness and kindness.

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