Floor Statements

Mr. President, you know how we always refer to each other as ``my friend'' from whatever State it is. Honestly, frequently, that is not true.

But Elaine and I were actual friends of Dick and Dianne. Elaine served on a corporate board with Dick for a number of years. When they were in town together, we would frequently have dinner together.

Elaine and I got married shortly after the 1992 election, and I remembered that Dianne gave us a small depiction of the Capitol. I looked at it this morning because it is still on the wall and remembered our dear colleague as a truly remarkable individual.

As the majority leader has pointed out, she was an incredibly effective person at every line, at level, and she was at all of those levels on the way to the Senate.

Those of us who were fortunate to call Dianne our colleague can say we served alongside the longest serving female Senator in American history.

Dianne was a trailblazer in her beloved home State of California, and our entire Nation is better for her dogged advocacy and diligent service.

Over the past three decades, the senior Senator from California was also the steady hand leading sensitive and consequential work as head of the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Her name became synonymous with advocacy for women and with issues from water infrastructure to counterdrug efforts.

Of course, as the first woman to lead her hometown board of supervisors and then govern as mayor, she was making history and making a difference long before she came to the Senate.

And as much as this institution and the American people will remember Dianne's devoted public service, as I indicated earlier, Elaine and I will also remember and cherish the friendship of 30 years we were fortunate to share with Dianne and Dick.

So, today, I know the entire Senate family is gathering around Senator Feinstein's loyal staff. Our thoughts and prayers are with Dianne's daughter Katherine, her granddaughter Eileen, the entire Feinstein family, and with all who mourn our dear colleague and friend.

Madam President, Congress has until tomorrow night to pass a straight-forward short-term funding extension and avoid a government shutdown.

All this week, and every time we have found ourselves in this situation before, I have offered my colleagues the same warning: Shutting down the government doesn't help anybody politically; it doesn't make any meaningful progress on policy; and it heaps unnecessary hardships on the American people as well as the brave men and women who keep us safe.

Right now, I am encouraged that many of my colleagues who share our concerns are working hard on amendments to strengthen the pending legislation and avert the disastrous effects of a shutdown.

Congress has an opportunity right now to pay our servicemembers, border security personnel, and other essential workers; to keep important government functions running; and to keep the lights on so the important discussions we are having right now about dealing with Democrats' border crisis, delivering disaster relief, supporting Ukraine, and reining in reckless spending can continue. And I would urge our colleagues to take that opportunity.

University of Louisville

Madam President, now, on an entirely different matter, today, I join my alma mater, the University of Louisville, in celebrating the inauguration of its new president, Dr. Kim Schatzel.

As many alum will tell you, UofL is a special place. For me, it was the first place in Kentucky where I felt completely at home. And it is somewhere I continue to find fulfillment in my personal and public life.

As a young man, it is where I met the first professor who challenged me to think for myself, where I tested my talents in my first art class, and where I was lucky enough to take part in UofL's congressional internship program. And that turned out a lot better than my artistic pursuits.

These days, UofL continues to be an important part of my life, whether I am tailgating football games with friends, advocating on behalf of the university in Washington, or observing the success of the McConnell Center scholars.

As President Schatzel steps into her new role, I hope she will find the immense opportunity and access afforded to myself and every UofL student, staff, faculty, and alum who walks this campus.

Throughout its 225-year history, UofL has hosted a long list of visionary leaders who shaped its success, and today I am proud to welcome President Schatzel to though those ranks. Her wealth of experience in both academics and business make her a valuable addition to the UofL family.

Before joining the University of Louisville, she led a successful career in corporate America. In just two decades, she rose from foreman on a Ford Pinto assembly line to heading up a multinational manufacturing enterprise.

She would eventually pivot to an equally impressive career in academia, taking her marketing genius to higher education. As President of Towson University, she bolstered graduation rates and broke records in capital investment on campus.

These are high priorities for our university as well, and I look forward to partnering with her to bring similar success to the UofL and broader communities.

The city of Louisville, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and the entire Nation rely on the University of Louisville for its research and innovations in medicine, engineering, agriculture, the arts, and so much more.

Leading a major metropolitan university like UofL is a big job, but I think I speak for the entire Louisville community when I say: President Schatzel, keep up the great work. From one Cardinal to another, I wish her the best of luck and congratulations this momentous day.

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

Mr. President, well, Congress has 3 days left to pass straightforward, short-term funding legislation to prevent the Federal Government from shutting down. That is 3 more days to provide essential resources at the current rate of operations before critical government functions come to a screeching halt.

Let's be absolutely clear about what is at stake. Shutting down the government is not like pressing ``pause.'' It is not an interlude that lets us pick up where we left off. It is an actively harmful proposition. Instead of producing any meaningful policy outcomes, it would actually take the important progress being made on a number of key issues and drag it backward.

Back in 2019, our colleagues on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee found that over the previous 5 years, government shutdowns had cost the taxpayer nearly $4 billion--$4 billion. The American people covered at least $3.7 billion in backpay for Federal workers. Some went to servicemembers, law enforcement officers, and other frontline personnel who actually stayed on duty. But some went to cover the equivalent of nearly 57,000 years of work that Federal employees hadn't even been allowed to complete. And that is not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars in extra administrative costs.

America cannot afford for Congress to take government shutdowns lightly. That is especially true of the crisis at our Nation's southern border.

The Biden administration's utter failure to secure the border has been recordbreaking in the worst possible ways. Functionally open borders have led to alltime high migration and stretched border security resources literally to a breaking point.

Meanwhile, flows of deadly drugs have made every State actually a border State. In fact, the Border Patrol reported recently that in the past year, agents have seized enough fentanyl alone to kill the entire population of the United States.

Time and again, government shutdowns have made the essential work of the Border Patrol and ICE even harder.

Many of our colleagues have pointed out how border security personnel, like the Armed Forces, would work through a shutdown without pay, but the full consequences go beyond financial hardship. As our colleagues' 2019 report found, past shutdowns have delayed important maintenance and repair

work that ``endangered the lives of law enforcement officers and created significant border security vulnerabilities.'' They have forced officials to cancel tens of thousands of immigration hearings, and they have taken the Department of Homeland Security's employee E-Verify system completely offline.

Shutting down the government is a choice, and it is a choice that would make the crisis at the southern border even worse.

I am encouraged that many of our colleagues who share my concerns are working to ensure that the short-term funding measure we pass this week gives the men and women of Border Patrol and ICE critical resources while we continue our work to clean up Washington Democrats' mess.

Biden Administration

Mr. President, on an entirely different matter, this week, the Senate will have the opportunity to push back one more time on a pair of shortsighted Biden administrative policies with major consequences for small businesses and landowners across America.

Earlier this year, thanks to the leadership of our colleagues, the junior Senator for Kansas and the junior Senator for Oklahoma, the Senate passed two resolutions disapproving of President Biden's decision to up-list two creatures--the lesser prairie-chicken and the northern long-eared bat--as endangered species.

As is so often the case under the Endangered Species Act, this move by Washington bureaucrats would encroach on private property rights and block infrastructure and economic development in the name of preserving habitat. As many as 37 States would be affected by the designation of the northern long-eared bat as ``endangered,'' and nearly $14 billion in agricultural production would be affected by the designation of the lesser prairie-chicken.

Now, in reality, aerial estimates show that numbers of lesser prairie-chickens have grown from less than 17,000 in 2013 to over 26,000 in 2022, and the President's own experts admit that the declining population of northern long-eared bats is mostly explained by disease, not humans. Of course, that hasn't stopped the Biden administration from pushing ahead with a plan to infringe on property rights, impede urgent infrastructure, and put even more of America's energy abundance literally out of reach.

So I would like to thank Senator Marshall and Senator Mullin for their leadership on this resolution, and I would like to urge each of our colleagues to join me in voting to override the President's veto.

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

Mr. President, yesterday, the Senate took the first step toward avoiding a harmful and unnecessary government shutdown. The business before us now is to pass standard, short-term funding legislation to keep basic and essential government functions operating while work continues on full-year appropriations.

We are talking about making sure that the servicemembers who will continue to stand watch around the world and the Border Patrol and ICE agents who will continue to contend with the Biden administration's border crisis here at home and the VA medical providers who will continue to care for America's heroes don't have to go without their paychecks.

The choice facing Congress is pretty straightforward. We can take the standard approach and fund the government for 6 weeks at the current rate of operations, or we can shut the government down in exchange for zero meaningful progress on policy.

So let's be clear. There are a number of important discussions on additional funding priorities that are still unresolved. Many colleagues are eager to make real progress in bringing the Democrats' reckless spending to heel; to force the administration to start taking its southern border crisis seriously; to provide greater relief for victims of wildfires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters; and to deliver continued assistance to Ukraine's defense against Russia. And on all of those counts, I am one of them.

We would like to address all of those issues, but these important discussions cannot progress if Congress simply fails to complete our work on standard, short-term funding and the basic functions of government end up being taken hostage. So a vote against a standard, short-term funding measure is a vote against paying over a billion dollars in salary for Border Patrol and ICE agents working to track down lethal fentanyl and tame our open borders. Letting FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund dry up is not a productive way to advocate for victims of disasters. Letting small businesses' loan applications collect dust is not a productive way to help working Americans contend with Washington Democrats' historic inflation.

Shutting down the government isn't an effective way to make a point. Keeping it open is the only way to make a difference on the most important issues we are facing.

Economic Recovery

Mr. President, on another matter, the American people are absolutely sick--sick and tired--of living under Bidenomics. According to one recent survey, nearly 70 percent of Americans think the economy is actually getting worse. And support for President Biden's handling of the economy is at the lowest level of his Presidency.

It might have something to do with the fact that since President Biden took office, soaring inflation has turned rising wages into net pay cuts for American workers. Real wages are down 2.3 percent since 2021. Household incomes fell in 17 States last year. And for all but the wealthiest 20 percent of households, American families' savings have actually shrunk.

A food truck owner in Atlanta told reporters recently that he is paying--listen to this--25 percent more for ingredients, while the lines for his sandwiches are dwindling as customers cut back on their spending. Here is what he said:

I've had to raise some of my prices just to kind of keep up

to make it. . . . And gas prices, when you drive a food

truck, you only get eight miles a gallon. So the cost of [my]

fuel really hurts.

Here is what the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last week:

People hate inflation, hate it.

The Chairman of the Fed is absolutely right. Working families are tired of wondering how to make ends meet every month. They are tired of being told that Bidenomics is working for them.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, at midnight on Saturday, current appropriations will run out, and the Federal Government will shut down. Over the years, I have been pretty clear in my view that government shutdowns are bad news, whichever way you look at them. They don't work as political bargaining chips. They create unnecessary hardships for millions of Americans--for example, the nearly 46,000 servicemembers and 22,000 civilian workers in my home State of Kentucky who earn Federal Government paychecks--and they hardly ever produce meaningful policy outcomes at the end of the day.

A government shutdown would be an unnecessary disruption of the important work on the Senate's agenda. So I would urge each of my colleagues to work this week to avoid one.

For the past several months, Senator Collins, Senator Murray, and our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee have worked diligently to help the Senate fulfill our commitment to funding the government through regular order. As that important work

continues, colleagues in both Chambers are rightly concerned about a number of distinct priorities.

They are focused on taking further action to rein in reckless spending as we continue to rebuild our national defense. They are concerned about addressing the consequences of the Biden administration's failure to secure our southern border. They are eager to provide relief to communities recovering from natural disasters, from Hawaii to Florida. And bipartisan majorities recognize the ongoing need to counter Russia and China and continue to provide lethal aid to Ukraine. In the coming weeks, I hope the administration will work with Congress to address these pressing needs.

But in order for work on appropriations to continue uninterrupted, Congress needs to extend government funding by the end of this week. The sooner Congress keeps the lights on, the sooner these important conversations can resume.

The clearest path forward is a standard, short-term continuing resolution. Our work this week needs to produce the resources and flexibility to maintain essential government functions at their current rates of operation while progress on full-year appropriations continues.

Just to reiterate, delaying action on short-term government funding doesn't advance the ball on any meaningful policy priorities. Shutting the government down over a domestic budget dispute doesn't strengthen anyone's political position; it just puts important progress on ice, and it leaves millions of Americans on edge.

So I expect that the Appropriations Committee will finalize a short- term funding extension in the very near future for the Senate to review. I would encourage each of our colleagues to join me in supporting the standard, responsible step forward.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to complete my remarks, followed by Senator Ernst for 3 minutes, prior to the scheduled rollcall votes.

Mr. President, this morning, I was proud to welcome President Zelenskyy to the Capitol. I was glad our colleagues had an opportunity to hear from him firsthand and ask questions about the state of Ukraine's counteroffensive.

At the risk of repeating myself, American support for Ukraine is not charity. It is an investment in our own direct interests, not least because degrading Russia's military power helps to deter our primary strategic adversary, China.

As I have discussed this week, competition with China is a global proposition. But increasingly, the Biden administration's approach to the PRC reflects a faulty assessment of the challenge this competition presents.

A few week ago, the Secretary of Commerce visited Beijing to tend the soft power of American businesses in China. Unfortunately, the PRC had already targeted Secretary Raimondo with hard power, successfully stealing her official email in a cyber attack just weeks earlier.

To the extent that economic relations with China are deteriorating, it is because on President Xi's watch, Americans and other foreign businesses are facing a state that increasingly expropriates companies, steals intellectual property, welds workers inside of apartment buildings, and forces business leaders to attend communist indoctrination sessions.

So the Biden administration is uninterested in negotiating trade deals with our allies and partners. But it seems desperate to double down on trade with Communist China.

PRC officials publicly mocked Secretary Raimondo's efforts as ``doomed to fail'' and vowed that ``China will never let down individual vigilance because of a few `beautiful words' from the U.S.''

This is hardly the only time the Biden administration has tilted at windmills, literally and figuratively. Remember special climate envoy John Kerry's own recent trip to Beijing. He sought common ground on green energy goals with a nation that publicly pledged not to stop increasing carbon

emissions for the better part of a decade.

Unsurprisingly, our former colleague failed to secure a meeting with President Xi or his foreign minister. Perhaps, as I have discussed before, the CCP had already made that latter official disappear.

China is America's single greatest strategic adversary. The PRC is not inclined to do America or the West any favors. And political relations with Beijing have declined not because of insufficient economic ties but because of China's concerted efforts to intimidate its neighbors, spy on our communications, steal our technology, and undermine global free markets.

The sooner the Biden Administration accepts that reality, the sooner the United States can engage more deeply with allies and partners who share our interests in preserving the peace.

Russia's escalation against Ukraine has taught allies in Europe a valuable lesson about the dangers of economic overreliance. Views are changing across Europe as our allies take a new look at the nature of the dictatorship in Beijing and its friendship without limits with Moscow. The German foreign minister, for example, has publicly warned against replacing dependence on Russian gas with new economic dependence on the PRC.

Asian allies have long been concerned with the PRC's growing assertiveness. They understand that Russia is a Pacific nation with significant air and naval presence in the Far East.

Americans who focus single-mindedly on the Indo-Pacific would do well to consider Russia's own military power in that region. Just last month, the Russian and Chinese navies conducted a joint patrol off the coast of Alaska, the largest such operation in anyone's memory.

These revisionist powers are not going to go away. They will not be classified by economic envoys. Strategic competition will continue to test global interests and reach.

It is time to work more closely with friends and allies. It is time to invest more seriously in hard power and industrial capacity. It is time for the Biden administration to prioritize actions over words.

Mr. President, now on another matter, the Biden administration announced yesterday that it is seeking new recruits in its war on affordable and reliable American energy to fill the ranks of a new program called American Climate Corps.

While the administration works overtime to freeze sensible development like energy pipelines, its latest initiative would, essentially, set up a taxpayer-funded pipeline for turning climate activists into climate bureaucrats.

Now, President Biden's nostalgia for FDR's New Deal is already well- documented. So setting aside the absurdity of Washington Democrats' fixation with the Green New Deal, it would be hard to imagine an economic moment less well-suited to a new Depression-era work program.

This isn't the early 1930s, when the American people were up against high unemployment and low inflation. In fact, what the Democrats' runaway spending has dumped on working families today is just the opposite. For 2 years now, we have historic inflation and a record labor shortage.

This is such a profoundly tone-deaf idea it couldn't even earn the support of the President's own party here in the Senate during votes on Democrats' so-called Inflation Reduction Act last year. Not a single one of our colleagues joined Senator Sanders in voting for his amendment to create a climate work project on the taxpayers' dime.

Apparently, that hasn't deterred President Biden or the leftwing activists behind the wheel of his administration's energy policies.

As working families struggle to afford gas, electricity, and groceries, the advice from wealthy blue State liberals is, apparently, to shell out for an expensive electric car and foot the bill for the so-called Climate Corps.

There is no Hoover Dam or Lincoln Tunnel on the other side of this nonsense spending, just Potemkin jobs and a new make-work program when there is plenty of work to go around.

Activists are calling it climate justice. But it doesn't sound like justice to the working families trying to get by President Biden's watch.

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

Mr. President, next week, America's world-leading medical innovation sector will face their first deadline in the Biden administration's push for prescription drug socialism.

Under Washington Democrats' so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the companies behind certain major treatments for seniors, for everything from arthritis to diabetes, to cancer, will have to choose, by the end of next week, whether to enter into a so-called ``negotiation program'' run by Federal bureaucrats, pay an excessive fine, or take their drugs off the market.

Well, the devil is in the details. Unsurprisingly, Democrats intend for this ``negotiation'' to be anything but. It turns out, the IRA empowers the Biden administration to reject any counteroffer during the process and, thus, arbitrarily set the maximum price to whatever number the bureaucrats choose.

Now, the Biden administration claims that this policy will save consumers money and lead to cheaper treatments, but this couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, this so-called ``negotiation'' with unelected bureaucrats will ensure that fewer lifesaving treatments make it to the markets in the first place.

I was very proud to have worked alongside then-Vice President Biden on his Cancer Moonshot Initiative and the 21st Century Cures Act back in 2016. Unfortunately, by one estimate, the Biden administration's own price-fixing scheme would destroy nearly nine times as much funding for cancer research as that legislation, back in 2016, provided by eliminating incentives for drug companies to invest in R&D. Already, several companies announced last year that they were discontinuing research into treatments for cancer and other diseases due to concerns about the impact of Washington Democrats' regulations.

The Biden administration wants to dry up the world's most prolific pipeline of lifesaving cures. The American people deserve better than prescription drug socialism.

Ukraine

Mr. President, now, on another matter, yesterday, President Biden told the world we would support Ukraine's fight ``as long as it takes.'' Unfortunately, for all of his lofty rhetoric about Ukraine, the President's actual approach to Russia's escalation--his passive, indecisive leadership--has risked prolonging the war and jeopardizing public support for our efforts. In some cases, his open fretting about escalation and ``World War Three'' has contributed to the hesitation of allies like Germany.

Like most Republicans, I have been clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression since long before Putin's so-called ``little green men'' seized Ukrainian territory back in 2014, long before the last Democratic President mocked realism about Russia to score points in a political debate. And I have urged the administrations of both parties to take steps to help Ukraine deter Russian aggression before it escalated--like the previous administration's decision to send the lethal weapons that President Obama had found too provocative.

When President Biden took office, he focused on lowering tensions with Moscow with giveaways like the 5-year extension of the New START Treaty, rather than shipping lethal weapons to Ukraine to help shore up their defenses. As Vladimir Putin massed forces on Ukraine's border over the

winter of 2021, I urged the President to move quickly to provide critical military capabilities like Stingers and Javelins and to build the logistical infrastructure needed to support Ukraine should Russia escalate. Ah, but President Biden delayed. He dithered for months before approving shipments of advanced air defense systems or medium- range rocket systems like HIMARS. And he anguished for over a year about authorizing F-16s and Abrams tanks.

Eventually, under duress from both parties in Congress, the Biden administration provided each of these capabilities, but the President's hesitation kept our allies, who follow American decisions very closely, from unlocking similar capabilities of their own sooner.

At every step of the way, President Biden's decisions on support for Ukraine have been slow, his actions have been tentative, and his caution has been debilitating. Unfortunately, the President's public messaging has been similarly insufficient. He has an obligation to speak to all Americans, but most of his messaging about lofty and abstract principles seems tailored to Washington think tanks.

President Biden and his administration need to explain to the Nation in practical terms that our Nation has a fundamental interest in Ukrainian victory and European security, that our support for Ukraine isn't distracting from competition with China but contributing materially to it, that Europe has turned a corner on collective defense and burden sharing and is actually contributing more to Ukraine than the United States, that U.S. assistance is subject to rigorous oversight and accountability protections, that most of the security assistance is actually being invested in America's own--our own-- defense industrial base, and that pulling the plug would be far more ruinous than our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

I sometimes get the sense that I speak more about Ukraine matters than the President does. Well, I hope his administration will use this evening's classified Senate briefing to begin making his case more forcefully.

I am encouraged by reports that the United States may finally provide ATACMS, a capability that could have made an impact on the battlefield sooner. And I hope we will learn why this decision, like those preceding it, has taken so long.

Tomorrow, I will join colleagues in welcoming President Zelenskyy to the Capitol, and I will continue to make the case myself for sustained support of the Ukrainian cause--not out of charity but out of primary focus on America's interests. But until President Biden takes on his responsibility to actually lead the case publicly here at home, his administration's timid leadership will continue to speak volumes, both at home and abroad.

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

Mr. President, in the past 2 months, the Chinese Government has reminded the world just how an authoritarian communist state operates.

In July, President Xi announced he had replaced the PRC's Foreign Minister after the official hadn't been seen in public in a month. Then, the senior official responsible for the PLA strategic missile force, who hadn't been seen for even longer, was replaced. And then the Chinese Defense Minister went missing for weeks before Beijing announced he had been fired and detained for investigation. The purge of senior leaders, growing economic volatility, bellicose foreign policy--these are concerning developments in a country with a reputation for repression at home and belligerence abroad.

China's neighbors and global powers alike are increasingly skeptical of official economic and budget numbers from a dictatorship that suppresses free speech, mocks the rule of law, and simply disappears its senior leaders--and rightly so.

One thing has long been certain: The PRC is arming itself at an alarming rate. Recent estimates suggest China spends close to $700 billion per year on defense. That is concerning for a number of reasons. First, a much larger percentage of China's defense budget than ours goes to modernization and capabilities. Further, since Chinese geostrategic ambitions--for now at least--are focused primarily on challenging the status quo in its immediate region, the PRC doesn't face the resource constraints that the United

States does due to our global interests and power projection requirements.

Beijing's decades-long modernization campaign has paid dividends for the PRC. Just last week, the Wall Street Journal detailed the significant progress China has made in testing and fielding hypersonic weapons and how such efforts have outpaced those of our own country. America also lags in shipbuilding. The infrastructure constraints that keep us from building more ships, testing more hypersonic vehicles, and training more pilots are well known. But the cold truth is that China, which has a shipbuilding capacity more than 200 times that of the United States, is set to reach 400 ships in 2 years, while the U.S. Navy is aiming for 350 ships--listen to this--by 2045.

This is precisely why Senate Republicans, led by Senator Shelby and Senator Wicker, pushed for an amendment to the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework to create a Defense Infrastructure Fund and expand our capacity for testing, training, and production. Unfortunately, the Democratic leader did not allow this amendment to receive a vote.

For what it is worth, I appreciate the Pentagon's recent efforts to catch up. For example, the Deputy Secretary of Defense recently announced an initiative to dramatically accelerate production of autonomous systems to help level the playing field with the PLA. Her remarks were titled ``The Urgency to Innovate.'' But closing the gap with China and outcompeting our biggest strategic adversary will require more than innovation theater or speeches about revolutions in military affairs. Real progress will require real investments in long- range strike capabilities, real expansion of our defense production capacity, and real defense technology cooperation with our closest allies that increasingly share our concerns about the PLA.

The conflict in Ukraine has finally motivated efforts in America, Europe, and Asia to invest in our defense industrial bases, but if we truly take competition with the PRC seriously, there is a lot more that needs to be done. AUKUS, our technology-sharing partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, is a step in the right direction. In fact, it will hopefully serve as a model for expanding defense cooperation with other allies. But these efforts cannot come at the expense of properly funding America's own requirements for crucial systems like attack submarines.

The Department's interest in autonomous systems, hypersonic weapons, and long-range fire is welcome, but the Pentagon needs to move at the speed of relevance to field these capabilities as soon as possible, and the Biden administration needs to stop sending Congress defense budget requests that cut funding after inflation and start prioritizing serious investments in the weapons that we actually need.

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

Madam President, today, five American hostages are on their way home from unjust detention in Iran. Unfortunately, the deal that secured their release may very well be the latest example of President Biden rewarding and incentivizing Tehran's bad behavior. For the past 2\1/2\ years, the administration's weakness and desperation have emboldened--emboldened--a massive state sponsor of terror and would-be nuclear arm aggressor.

Take the $6 billion the United States has reportedly just released to the Iranian regime. Administration officials have insisted that this money is subject to strict oversight and may only be used for humanitarian purposes.

Iran's President, on the other hand, understands that money is fungible. He said:

Humanitarian means whatever the Iranian people needs . . .

and the needs of the Iranian people will be decided and

determined by the Iranian government.

Well, we know quite well that the Iranian people's needs and the Iranian regime's priorities rarely overlap. For example, protesters continue to take to the streets across Iran to denounce the regime 1 year after the so-called morality police killed a young woman for not wearing her head scarf correctly. Brave Iranians are taking greater and greater risks to speak up for freedom from the brutality of a corrupt, theocratic regime.

Meanwhile, as the regime meets these protests at home with force, its focus abroad remains on exporting repression, terror, and economic interference throughout the region and beyond.

Tehran continues to accelerate its enrichment of weapons-grade uranium and stonewall international inspectors seeking the truth about Iran's weaponization work. Just last week, the regime barred several U.N. inspectors from conducting scheduled oversight across the country.

The regime is racing to ramp up production of the weaponized drones it uses against Arab and Israeli civilians to supply Russian violence in Ukraine.

Iran-backed militia continue to threaten U.S. servicemembers in Iraq and Syria. Tehran continues to funnel resources to terrorist proxies-- like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza--that attack Israel. And the regime has even plotted to kill U.S. officials and dissidents here on American soil.

And last week, the IRGC seized two more tanker ships in the Arabian Gulf and detained their civilian crews, part of a longer campaign to threaten freedom of navigation and the entire global economy. This growing threat has led the U.S. military to deploy 3,000 additional marines to the Red Sea and prepare to put U.S. personnel on commercial vessels to try to deter Iranian aggression.

By every measure, Iran poses a greater threat to its neighbors and to the United States than it did 2\1/2\ years ago. The Biden administration's record of appeasement and squandered leverage has left Americans less secure.

The urgent question now is when the President will decide to change course because, so far, his administration's obsession with reviving a flawed nuclear deal actually suggests otherwise.

Border Security

Madam President, on another matter, on the Biden administration's watch, America's southern border has

descended into humanitarian disaster. And across the country, Democrats' open border policies have turned every State into a border State.

The fentanyl trafficked across the southern border has become the leading cause of death among Americans 18 to 45. Of the 2,135 overdose deaths in my home State last year, fentanyl was the most prevalent drug involved. And nationwide, synthetic opioids contributed to about 75,000 of the nearly 110,000 overdose deaths.

The painful ripple effects of Washington Democrats' failure to address the border crisis extend even further. In major cities all across the country, the flow of illegal migrants is testing the patience of even the most liberal mayors.

The number of arrivals in New York City is now close to 10,000 a month, and Mayor Adams has said that the city's response will cost $12 billion over the next 3 years if the flow continues at the same rate. Being a sanctuary city is starting to come at a price.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has continued to sit on resources that were already paid for during the previous administration. The Army Corps of Engineers is paying $160,000 per month to store more than 20,000 unused border wall panels that have already been paid for by the taxpayers.

But instead of finally starting to enforce our immigration laws, the Biden administration apparently wants to respond by gutting the Agency tasked with doing so, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The junior Senator from Tennessee, Senator Hagerty, wrote recently about how the administration's supplemental funding proposal included a provision to redirect ICE funding toward paying for community-based residential facilities, airplane tickets, and hotel rooms.

As our colleague put it:

This would effectively convert ICE from a law enforcement

agency into a U.S. travel agency for illegal aliens.

So Washington Democrats' neglect has shattered American border security. Now, they want to make life even harder for men and women working harder to clean up this mess. The American people need security, not another attack on law enforcement.

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

Mr. President, America's example and the threats posed by Russia and China are leading major allies and partners in Europe and Asia to step up their commitments to collective security and dramatically increase investments in their own defense.

It is worth pointing out once again that the United States is not--I repeat ``not''--shouldering the burden for European free riders. In fact, when it comes to security assistance to Ukraine as a share of GDP, 14 of our European allies are actually giving more.

Lithuania--a small nation by any measure--has sent tens of thousands of rifles, handguns, and grenade launchers and millions of rounds of ammunition. Denmark and Estonia have sent their entire inventory of certain critical artillery. Larger allies, like the United Kingdom and France, are making remarkable contributions themselves, including longer range systems than the United States has provided. Even Germany, despite slow and sometimes agonizing decision making, has provided historic support to Ukraine and is the continent's largest provider of security assistance to Ukraine. Europe has more than doubled American economic and humanitarian assistance, not to

mention the massive cost of hosting millions of Ukrainian refugees.

But, like America, our allies are not in the business of philanthropy. As far away as Tokyo and Seoul, leaders are making a sober calculation about their interests. Our friends are making historic new investments in growing their arsenals and modernizing their militaries.

More than half of our NATO allies are now on track to hit the alliance's 2 percent spending target by the end of next year. Sweden, not yet a full-fledged NATO member, is increasing its defense spending next year by nearly 30 percent to invest in modern capabilities and meet its 2 percent of the GDP target. Lithuania, which spent less than 1 percent of its GDP on defense back in 2014, is set to spend over 2.5 percent next year.

To bolster their security, many of our allies are buying American. Since Russia's escalation began last February, our allies and partners across the globe have purchased over $120 billion in advanced, American-made weapons systems.

Germany, Switzerland, Finland, and the Czech Republic have all moved quickly to sign contracts to purchase F-35s. Indonesia has signed up for nearly $14 billion in F-15 fighter aircraft made in St. Louis, MO. Bulgaria--an economy roughly the size of the State of Maine--has spent $1.5 billion on Stryker combat vehicles that are produced in Lima, OH, and Anniston, AL. Poland has ordered $12 billion worth of Apache helicopters produced in Mesa, AZ, and is planning to buy 486 HIMARS launchers. They will have the biggest HIMARS inventory in the world.

Here is the most important part: When our friends and allies ``Buy American,'' they are buying into a closer security relationship with the United States. They are building more interoperable militaries to strengthen deterrence. They are also lowering costs for the American taxpayer as we rebuild our own capabilities. They are sharing the burden of collective defense.

These investments are not a coincidence; they are a demonstration of the confidence our allies have in American leadership. But make no mistake, that confidence is perishable. As we saw with the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, America can lose trust far more quickly than we can earn it.

If we pull the plug on our commitment to stand with Europe, our largest trading partner, I can guarantee it will shred our credibility as a security partner worldwide. It will make it harder to convince our allies to stand together against Chinese aggression--the single biggest threat to our own security and prosperity.

Tribute to Mike Duncan

Mr. President, today, I join folks in my home State in thanking Mike Duncan for his decades-long service to the Kentucky Republican Party as he steps down as our national committeeman.

In Washington, it is rare to find an individual equally skilled at navigating the worlds of business and politics, but my good friend Mike is just that rare hybrid. Despite his success in standing up a chain of community banks, Mike chose to commit his considerable talents to public service. He would serve terms as Governor of the U.S. Postal Service, chairman of the Republican National Committee, and chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, on top of a number of impressive positions under five Republican Presidents. In my home State, Mike has served as a national committeeman for the Kentucky GOP since 1992, advising the Republican leaders at the local, State, and national levels his entire career.

Early on, Mike had a gift for giving that he shared generously with the people of my home State. When Mike and his wife Joanne first moved to East Kentucky, they committed to spending at least 1 day a week doing something to benefit their community.

Since then, Mike has devoted decades to student mentorship, training young people in Appalachia, and sponsoring their continued education. His lifetime of civic service has been recognized by a number of prestigious organizations.

Somehow, between raising a family and serving his country, Mike found time to develop a close circle of friends, which I am grateful to be a part of. Mike has been a trusted source of counsel, and I am thankful to always have him in my corner.

So as Mike steps away from his national role, I am grateful he will continue to be a leader in our State party and in his own community.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you for your decades of friendship and your service to our country. Elaine and I wish you and Joanne all the best.

Mr. President, as I outlined yesterday, the Senate's pending business on appropriations is tremendously important to America's farmers, to our veterans, and to the future of our airports, roads, bridges, and ports. My home State of Kentucky is certainly no exception.

The Commonwealth is home to a host of important and overdue infrastructure projects. As a transportation and logistics hub, my home State boasts an impressive network of roads, ports, railroads, and waterways that keep our economy and the American people literally on the move. Overhauling this infrastructure strengthens the essential link folks in Kentucky have to the rest of the Nation while making those transit resources faster, more efficient, and more reliable for everyone.

I am also proud of Kentucky's diverse agriculture industry, made up of over 75,000 farms, an overwhelming majority of which are family- owned and family-operated. Kentucky's rural communities understand the importance of efforts like expanding rural broadband deployment and protecting livestock from diseases that can financially devastate small family farms.

Certainly, our work in the coming days will also impact Kentucky's Army installations and National Guard facilities. Investments in military construction ensure our brave men and women in uniform have access to the world-class training facilities they need to defend our country. Maintaining Kentucky's premier fighting forces is critical to deterring aggression from our adversaries and protecting American strength.

So, as the Senate continues to make progress on regular order appropriations, I am pleased to see Kentucky take center stage in solving some of the real issues that face our people.

National Security

Mr. President, America's defense industrial base is in the middle of a historic transformation. This is something Republicans have been working toward literally for years. It is good news for America's national security. In fact, it is essential for our strategic

competition with communist China; and, today, I would like to talk a bit more about what exactly is making this urgent progress possible.

Over the past year and a half, the lethal U.S. aid helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty and degrade Russia's military has consisted, in large part, of aging weapons stocks that were sitting in our own arsenal--in many cases, literally collecting dust.

The security assistance money appropriated ``for Ukraine'' isn't just buying weapons for Ukraine; it is also replenishing and modernizing America's own arsenal, and the vast majority of it is going to American defense manufacturers. This includes funding to expand production lines of munitions needed by the U.S. military as well as vulnerable allies in both Asia and Europe that want and need American weapons. That is tens of billions of dollars directly supporting tens of thousands of jobs in at least 38 States so far. Support for Ukraine is driving historic investments in the communities that we all represent.

Take the 155-mm artillery round. Replenishing America's stockpile of this critical munition has meant sending $3.6 million to producers in Nevada, $48 million to Florida and Illinois, $65 million to Ohio, $141 million to Arizona, $174 million to Tennessee, $181 million to Virginia, $355 million to Pennsylvania, and $519 million to Texas. That is nearly $2 billion worth of direct investment in American industry, American jobs, and American strength.

And, contrary to critics who say Ukraine is a distraction from China, this investment isn't flowing in spite of our support for Ukraine but actually because of it.

A West Virginia facility that supports 1,600 jobs has significantly increased production of motors and warheads for guided multiple-launch rocket systems, for which there is increased global demand; and a St. Charles, MO, facility that employs 1,300 workers--so-called Ukraine money--has funded a vastly expanded production line to build fresh stocks of extended-range, JDAM precision-guided munitions.

These are actually transformational investments, and they wouldn't have happened without the supplemental funding that we approved last year. We are not just talking about buying new stocks but about expanding production capacity to meet U.S. and allied demand. This is a critical piece of our race to compete with China.

In fact, that same Missouri munitions production line is also set to fulfill orders from some of America's closest allies and partners in Asia. That is right. Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines are arming themselves with American munitions to deter China.

And the same is true for other critical munitions. Thanks to Ukraine funding, we are on a path to double the production of critical weapons like Stingers and Javelins, along with innovative new weapons like the ground-launched, small-diameter bomb, which will be produced in Arkansas and New York. This expanded production capacity will benefit America as well as partner militaries from European to Asia.

I will have more to say in the coming days about the historic investments our allies are making here in the United States as a direct result of American leadership, but, for now, I am tremendously proud of our own work to invest in American industry, American workers, and American strength.

Inflation

Now, Mr. President, on one final matter, I spoke yesterday about the Biden administration's war on American energy and how working families are feeling it at the gas pump, but energy prices are not the only reason it has been so hard to balance household budgets on Washington Democrats' watch.

Just this morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that inflation increased by 0.6 percent this month, putting year-over-year inflation at 3.7 percent. That is well above the Federal Reserve's 2- percent target, and it puts cumulative inflation since President Biden took office at over 17 percent.

But as the American people continue to struggle against rising costs, the President appears to be taking a victory tour, touting Bidenomics as one of his crowning achievements. Over the Labor Day weekend, President Biden told voters that Bidenomics ``is working.'' The American people are not fooled by this. They can feel the pinch in their wallets, and they know that Washington Democrats' runaway spending is the reason for it.

As one woman told reporters recently, ``I don't think [President Biden] has the everyday people's best interests in mind. . . . Everything has gone up--electricity, groceries, fuel. . . . It's not fair to the American people.''

Well, she is not alone. According to one recent survey, a large majority of Americans disapproves of the President's handling of the U.S. economy. Families are paying 20 percent more at the grocery store. Credit card debt has surpassed $1 trillion for the first time ever, and overall real wages are down 2.3 percent since 2021.

The numbers do not lie. Even Biden's Secretary of Commerce has said that inflation is ``still a challenge'' and ``something that people still see on a daily basis when they go to the grocery store or pay their mortgage.''

Bidenomics may be working, but it is working against working Americans.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate will begin consideration of the first package of full-year appropriations for the coming fiscal year. This is an important milestone and a downpayment on our goal of funding the Federal Government through regular order.

Our progress on this front has been due in large part to the leadership of Senator Collins and Senator Murray of the Appropriations Committee. For months--months--our colleagues have worked diligently to build consensus and process as many bills as possible with deadlines looming large.

The legislation before us this week is designed to address a trio of important commitments--to America's farmers, to our veterans, and to investing in transportation infrastructure.

Seven percent of American adults are veterans of the Armed Forces. Ten percent of American jobs are supported by agriculture. And our entire economy hinges on safe and efficient airports, roads, bridges, and ports. So it is difficult to overstate the importance of this legislation, but it is especially important that we get it right. To that end, I hope and expect that all Senators will receive ample opportunity to offer amendments for consideration.

Ultimately, our work will need to earn the support of a divided Congress and earn the President's signature. So I am grateful to our colleagues' commitment to regular order appropriations, and I look forward to supporting a sensible step forward in the coming days.