Floor Statements

Mr. President, yesterday, our colleagues Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Shelby announced a bipartisan agreement on emergency funding for several pressing security matters.

The Appropriations Committee set out to address three key priorities:

First, reimbursing the costs incurred by the Capitol Police, the National Guard, and other law enforcement for their assistance during and after the January 6 attack on the Capitol; and providing for necessary repairs and security updates to the Capitol Complex.

Second, addressing a shortfall from the efforts to keep Congress a safe and functional workplace during the pandemic this past year and a half. This is everything from PPE to overtime pay for staff.

And, third, some urgent support for our Afghan partners who have assisted in the fight against terrorism and now seek to flee the deteriorating situation brought about by the administration's literally disastrous decision to abandon that country.

We owe a real debt to the men and women of the Capitol Police, DC Metro Police, National Guard, and other agencies who helped secure and protect our workplace. We are grateful to support staff, from the Architect of the Capitol's team to the Attending Physician's office, to the Sergeant at Arms, who have worked day and night keeping us functioning safely throughout the pandemic.

And we intend to keep our Nation's promises to brave Afghans who have taken great risks to help Americans and our partners fight the terrorists.

So I applaud the bipartisan work of our colleagues. I am sure neither side finds the compromise perfect, but I believe that both sides should and will agree it is absolutely necessary.

Mr. President, now on a different matter, the massive, massive taxing-and-spending spree that Democrats want to ram through this summer has problems that go even beyond inflation, rising costs, and massive tax hikes.

The problem is not just Democrats' jaw-dropping $3.5 trillion pricetag. It is also the long list of bad liberal policies that this reckless taxing-and-spending spree is supposed to purchase.

I spoke yesterday about just a few of those bad ideas. They are talking about amnesty for illegal immigrants, socialist price-fixing that would leave us with fewer new prescription drugs, fewer new treatments, and fewer new cures.

They want to permanently change the child tax credit into welfare with no--no--work requirements; smuggle in big chunks of the Green New Deal.

And in case all of this were not enough, some Senate Democrats want to use this taxing-and-spending spree to grab control over all 50 States' election laws. I thought we just had that debate a couple of weeks ago.

Remember, for several years now, our Democratic friends have claimed that every successive election proved they needed to grab partisan control over our democracy. In 2016, 2018, and 2020, win or lose--win or lose--when foreign

interference occurred and when it did not occur, every possible result has been claimed as proof that Washington Democrats should rip up our democracy's rule book and write a new one that benefits them.

The latest phony justification has been the false notion that a few States' mainstream voting laws equal some kind of assault on democracy as we know it. Of course, that is absolutely utter nonsense. Americans want it to be easy to vote and hard to cheat. Voter ID protections are hugely popular. Basic voter roll maintenance is common sense.

The new law in Georgia, for example, provides for more flexible early voting and absentee voting than many blue States, including New York. But the facts weren't about to stop the Democrats' big lie. The absurd comparison to Jim Crow segregation and all kinds of other horrors have continued apace.

To provide a little more context about this fake hysteria, we can also look internationally. As one columnist recently observed in the Washington Post, the balance struck by the State of Georgia amounts to ``one of the most expansive voting access laws in the world. Most other countries do not allow no-excuse absentee voting, and dropboxes are also virtually unknown elsewhere,'' other democracies around the world. ``If Georgia's elections are undemocratic, then almost all of our democratic allies are also undemocratic.''

If liberal activists and woke corporations believed their own rhetoric, they wouldn't stop at boycotting and threatening the State of Georgia. They couldn't possibly. They would be busy trying to divest from most of our NATO allies and essentially the rest of the entire developed world.

Some European countries allow mail-in voting, but most do not. We constantly hear from our socialist friends how we should be emulating Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Well, none of them allow in- country postal voting--not a one. Bring on the boycotts, I guess.

And you don't even want to hear about early voting. Goodness gracious. But France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the UK, Ireland--not a day of in-person early voting in any of those countries, none of them. That is according to an international NGO that studies democracy.

So, remember, the Texas and Georgia laws codify a whole lot of early voting, mail-in voting, and lots of election-day voting.

And this is supposed to be the death of democracy? Some outrage on a global and historic scale?

Give me a break. What nonsense.

Even going by Texas's new proposals, there will be voting by mail in Paris, TX, but not in Paris, France. There would be almost 2 weeks of in-person early voting in New Berlin, TX, but zero days in Berlin, Germany. I am sure Democrats will be yelling at the Fortune 500 to boycott Europe any day now--any day now.

Of course, the reality is that these moving goalposts are absolutely fake. The frantic outrage is phony. It is all meant to justify a political power grab that Democrats have had written and waiting since years before any of these new State laws, which are supposedly prompting it--yet another awful plank that my colleagues across the aisle want to hide in the reckless taxing-and-spending spree they hope to ram through Congress.

Mr. President, now on one final matter, last week, some of our colleagues expressed disapproval of U.S. strikes against al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia. I find their views difficult to understand.

Al-Shabaab poses a significant threat to U.S. interests. But you don't have to take my word for it. Late in 2019, the leader of al- Shabaab, an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group based in Somalia, said:

Our biggest target today is the Americans . . . The only

reason we have exerted all this effort and undertaken all

this preparation today is to attack the American troops.

In the assessment of the commander of U.S. Africa Command, U.S. General Stephen Townsend, that is coming from ``the largest, wealthiest, and most violent Al Qaeda-associated group in the world'' and ``the primary African violent extremist organization threat to American interests.''

This is not a new threat. Al-Shabaab was designated a foreign terrorist organization back in 2008. Its leaders declared allegiance to al-Qaida in 2012, a year before their attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya that killed 67 people. The Obama administration designated the group as an al-Qaida-associated force in 2016. That made it subject to the 2001 AUMF.

At the time, it was a difficult but telling acknowledgement that the al-Qaida terrorist threat was growing. The raid that killed Bin Laden had clearly not ended the threat his terrorists posed to our country.

As a result of its declared and demonstrated allegiance to al-Qaida, al-Shabaab is clearly subject to the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, no question. President Obama knew it. General Townsend knows it. Al-Shabaab themselves tell us they want Americans dead. What more, what more do the skeptics need?

If our colleagues do not want the U.S. military to conduct strikes against the al-Qaida terrorists responsible for killing Americans and threatening our interests, I would be interested to hear how they propose we defend against these threats.

So, by the way, with the administration's rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are well-founded concerns that al-Qaida may be roaring back in that country.

So which al-Qaida affiliate should we stop pressuring--al-Shabaab, AQAP, ISIS? Should we stop hunting for al-Zawahiri, the leader of al- Qaida?

Administrations of both parties have identified and supported local partners who share an interest in combating terrorists. By and large, this approach has succeeded in keeping pressure on the terrorists while keeping more Americans out of harm's way.

But despite the best efforts of local partners to keep the terrorists at bay and the best efforts of U.S. diplomats to broker peace, some terrorists do require direct action by the U.S. military to be stopped. These hard-core extremists pose a serious threat to American national security. They seek to attack our interests all around the world, including our homeland, if we let them.

The threat they pose will not recede if we lose focus. In fact, the exact opposite is the case. So I hope the Commander in Chief will exercise the authorities the Congress has provided him and the tools Congress has funded to keep America safe against the terrorists who continue to target our homeland and our interests abroad.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

The minority leader is recognized

Mr. President, the Senate is stunned and grieving this morning. Our dear friend and former colleague Senator Mike Enzi passed away last night following a serious bike accident this past weekend.

Mike was 77 years old and only about 7 months into retirement. Our friend was blessed with a great American life, and he lived it well. Mike was hugely accomplished but at the same time humble. He was powerful; he was influential but earnest and deeply kind. He was ambitious, but on behalf of the people of Wyoming, not personal gain or glory.

Mike's quarter-century career in the U.S. Senate capped a storied career in public service. He was elected mayor of Gillette, WY, at just 30 years old. He was a young husband, running a family business, but he saw an opportunity to put his shoulder to help his neighbors.

Well, to be more precise, our former colleague and Mike's predecessor, Al Simpson, gave him a not-so-subtle nudge. It was more like conscription. Gillette needed help, and this up-and-comer was exactly what the booming town needed at that time.

Diana agreed to let Mike throw his hat in the ring, and the rest is history. The mayor's office eventually gave way to the Wyoming House, then the State senate, and then this Senate.

Here, Mike built a two-part reputation that might have struck people as contradictory. On the one hand, Mike was a principled, hard-nosed conservative. He chaired the HELP Committee and the Budget Committee with a small businessman's painstaking financial eye. In fact, when he first unpacked his office, Mike was the Senate's only trained accountant. He was central to getting generational tax reform off the starting blocks. He was a policy leader in our conference. But at the same time, this principled westerner was also universally known as one of the kindest, most thoughtful, most respectful Senators on either side of the aisle.

Mike's famous 80-20 rule helped him find bipartisan common ground on a long list of significant issues. I know he was particularly proud of his focus on the global fight against AIDS.

On the HELP Committee, Mike cut important deals with his counterpart and ideological opposite, Ted Kennedy. Neither Senator walked away from his principles; they just wanted to find where those principles actually fit together.

Mike's policy wins were many. But at the end of the day, Mike knew what everyone else around here knew: His greatest accomplishment was winning Diana's hand and building their family together.

Their marriage, their partnership, was a Senate institution unto itself. The Enzis' kindness overflowed into legendary parties and generous gifts for the entire Senate community, especially the behind- the scenes all-stars who do not get thanked nearly enough.

So Mike Enzi departed the Senate having changed policy and law for the better because of his mind. And now he has departed this life having changed his friends and his colleagues for the better because of his heart.

Today, the entire Senate stands in solidarity with Diana at this tragic time, which has come entirely too soon. Our prayers are with her, their three children, and their grandchildren and the entire family.

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

Madam President, this weekend, we received the bad news that our friend and former colleague, Mike Enzi, was involved in a serious accident while riding his bicycle.

Mike's colleagues on both sides of the aisle were sorry enough to see him depart the Chamber and begin his well-earned next chapter just a few months ago. Mike and Diana were a fantastic Senate couple in every respect, from major legislative accomplishments to the generosity and kindness they showed to everyone from Senate staff to the pages. So I know Members on both sides of the aisle are very much thinking of Mike at this time. We pray for his health and for the entire Enzi family

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

Madam President, with COVID-19 cases ticking up all across the country, with some bureaucrats and elected officials actually talking about reimposing various measures on the American people, the Biden administration continues to let illegal immigrants pour across our southern border, and reportedly, they are considering loosening our border security even more.

Remember when the Biden campaign's rhetoric and then the Biden administration's early actions led to a rush on the border. They tried to wave it off as a seasonal, springtime surge, but, of course, that wasn't true. The numbers just keep climbing.

Customs and Border Protection had more encounters on the southern border in June than they had in May, nearly 190,000 encounters last month alone--the highest number in 21 years. Law enforcement is coming across huge groups of hundreds of individuals. With almost 3 months still remaining in fiscal year 2021, CPB has already encountered more illegal immigrants than it did in the entirety--the entirety--of fiscal 2019, which was, of course, before COVID. We have exceeded that total with almost 3 months to go.

The Biden administration claims they are addressing the crisis by simply speeding up the rate at which they get migrants out of custody, out of border facilities, as if simply reducing the head count was the goal. Of course, that is no solution at all if the individuals are simply being released into the interior of our country.

Ordinarily, legal immigration is part of the heart of the United States of America, and it always has been, but it simply is not a universal human right for everybody in the Western Hemisphere who would like a better job or to break our rules and turn up at the border. No country, none--no country in the world--could govern itself that way.

In fact, this ongoing crisis is supremely unfair and uncompassionate to the men, women, and children whom it continues to entice into the scorching desert Sun. Border Patrol agents are having to double as humanitarian workers and EMTs. They rescue people who get lost, who are at risk of drowning, who have been simply abandoned by smugglers or traffickers.

Amidst all this, in the thick of this crisis, the Biden administration has spent weeks flirting with ending its title 42 authority, declaring the COVID emergency to be finished and over at our southern border and letting even more people stream across. COVID is already on the rise again, the border is already in crisis, and the President and his team want to end the emergency safeguards at our border? Reimpose COVID precautions on the American people but end the COVID emergency for illegal immigrants? How does that make any sense?

Meanwhile, our Democratic friends here on Capitol Hill say they want to push a massive amnesty plan into the reckless taxing-and-spending spree they want to pass later this year on a party-line vote. As if damaging inflation, soaring costs, lower real wages, and more debt were not punishment enough for the American people, Democrats also want to stuff a massive amnesty plan into their tax-and-spend spree. It is like they have systematically identified the worst idea for American families on every single issue and set about rolling them into one huge, reckless proposal.

Madam President, now on a completely different matter, last year, on a broad and a bipartisan basis, Congress passed sanctions that were designed to block Russia from completing its Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. The Biden administration recently waived those sanctions to allow the pipeline to move forward. Now it appears the administration has cut a deal with Germany that will allow the pipeline to become operational.

The initial press reporting about this deal does not inspire confidence that this administration is taking the Russian threat as seriously as it should, nor does it indicate that we are standing with our Ukrainian partners, who are struggling to defend themselves against Moscow's aggression. The administration appears to have ignored the broader implications of the Nord Stream 2 project and Russia's approach to Europe writ large

Green energy initiatives or promises of diplomatic meetings will not address the real risks Moscow poses--not even close. Just a couple of years ago, Washington Democrats were absolutely melting down over their belief that the prior administration was being too soft on Russia and leaving Ukraine in the lurch. Where is the outrage today?

For several years there, my colleagues across the aisle sounded like big-time Russia hawks, so I hope they will now join Republicans in pressing the administration to explain this curious decision, to explain how President Biden intends to impose meaningful costs on Moscow for all its misdeeds at the same time they have America greasing the skids--greasing the skids--for this Putin pipeline.

Madam President, now on one final matter, next week, President Biden is set to meet with Prime Minister of Iraq Mustafa al- Kadhimi. The meeting comes at an important moment for our shared efforts toward peace and security in Iraq and the entire region.

ISIS has been significantly weakened in Iraq and Syria after years of shared efforts, but the terrorist organization remains a grave threat. And ISIS is far from the only threat Iraqis and the Iraqi Government are facing. For years, Iran has systematically sought to undermine Iraq's sovereignty. Iran's well-armed proxy of militias report to Tehran, not Baghdad, but they operate inside Iraq.

These groups have conducted campaigns of intimidation and assassination against peaceful protesters and independent journalists in Iraq, the same brutal methods they employ in Syria, Lebanon, and in Iran itself. These Iranian-backed militias are also threatening our own American interests in Iraq. Iran wants to pick fights with a superpower while making the nation of Iraq bear the risk.

The fact is, the United States is in Iraq at the invitation of their government. We are there to support the

Iraqis and to help the Iraqis kill terrorists and defend their sovereignty. Our presence in Iraq also helps our operations in Syria against ISIS and al-Qaida.

Again, it is pretty obvious the terrorist threat is not over. Remember, the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan may not simply be felt in that country; a Taliban victory and resurgence of al-Qaida could embolden jihadists all over the world, just as the rise of ISIS did in the wake of President Obama's withdrawal from Iraq.

As we watch Afghanistan descend into chaos and ISIS continue to lash out in Iraq and Syria, now is not the time for either the United States or Iraq to pretend that our shared mission is over. As I have warned again and again, terrorists don't observe our political timetables. They don't pack up just because we lose faith or lose focus.

So let's hope this administration is already learning from their mistakes in Afghanistan. When the Iraqi Prime Minister visits next week, the White House should provide strong assurances that the United States will stand strong with our friends and continue to support our partners who are standing up to terror and to extremism.

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

Mr. President, today, the Democratic leader appears to be intent on calling a vote he knows will fail. For several weeks now, Republican and Democratic Senators have been working together, trying to assemble a bipartisan package for our Nation's infrastructure.

It is an important and a complex subject. They are talking about big projects and big sums of money. They are still talking, still working, still negotiating in good faith across the aisle. But these discussions have yet to conclude. There is no outcome yet, no bipartisan agreement, no text, nothing for the Congressional Budget Office to evaluate, and, certainly, nothing on which to vote, not yet.

So, obviously, if the Democratic leader tries to force a cloture vote on a bill that does not exist, it will fail.

Around here, we typically write the bills before we vote on them. That is the custom. Of course, here in the Senate, a failed cloture vote does not mean no forever.

In the middle of the early COVID crisis, back in March of 2020, with Americans under stay-home orders and financial markets plummeting, Senate Democrats withheld cloture on the CARES Act multiple times so they could continue haggling behind the scenes.

Now, this was during a real emergency. Every day, every hour, was crucial. But Senate Democrats blocked cloture multiple times until various details were fine-tuned to their liking.

Here is what the Democratic leader said while his side tanked those cloture votes last March--March of 2020:

The Majority Leader was well aware of how this vote would

go before it happened, but he chose to move forward with it

anyway, even though negotiations are continuing. So who is

playing games?

That was the Democratic leader in March of 2020, in the middle of a national emergency.

That, of course, was a fast-moving global crisis, with bipartisan text already in hand. There was a bill. Yet Senate Democrats insisted on taking their time in the middle of this national 100-year pandemic. Now, we are talking about long-term infrastructure investments that will play out over many years, but he wants to vote before any agreement even exists.

So this stunt is set to fail. The Democratic leader will be free to change his vote and move to reconsider whenever a bipartisan product actually exists.

Mr. President, now, on another matter, President Biden campaigned on a pledge not to raise income taxes on the vast majority of Americans. But the latest reckless taxing-and-spending spree that Democrats are cooking up would crush our country with a historic set of sweeping tax hikes.

Here is one of the targets in their crosshairs: Family farms.

It appears our colleagues' plan will eliminate tax rules that allow family property to be passed down to the next generation without facing a new devastating tax burden.

Without the fix in question--the so-called stepped-up basis for capital gains taxes--scores of family businesses across America will feel a massive squeeze.

In States like mine, family farms drive the rural economy. But as I have heard from many of my State's family farmers, it is operations like theirs that are especially--especially--at risk.

One Kentucky farmer said his family has worked the same land in Muhlenberg County for 150 years. He had hoped--hoped--to one day pass his property along to his children, just like it was passed along to him. But after generations spent improving and investing in the same farm, he is worried it could all be gone in the blink of an eye.

Another Kentuckian described how her family, like many farmers, is asset rich but cash poor. If the stepped-up basis is eliminated, her family could lose the home, barns, machinery, and fields that have been their life's work.

The Farm Bureau in my State warned that what Washington Democrats are trying to do would penalize farmers for wanting--for wanting--to continue a tradition, which we all depend upon. If the stepped-up basis is eliminated, generations of accumulated work would be ripped-- literally ripped from the hands of America's farming families.

Family farming in the Commonwealth isn't just a way of life; it is considered a birthright. But if Democrats foist this bill for their reckless taxing-and-spending spree on rural America, a lot of this heritage could be literally ripped out of families' hands and put on the auction block.

And who will gobble it up then? Who will buy this land?

One recent report suggested that one of the biggest bidders for American family farmland these days is actually the Chinese.

Later today, Ranking Member Boozman and some of our colleagues on the Agriculture Committee will be coming to the floor to sound the alarm about the ways that Democrats' reckless tax-and-spend spree could threaten farm families and rural America.

Deaths should not be a taxable event. The family farms that help feed us deserve our support, not sabotage from Washington