Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be up to 4 minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to the votes on the remaining amendments today.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 30 and ask that it be reported by number.

This amendment is very simple. It is less than 150 words long. So I ask that you take some time to consider it.

What it does is ask the administration to check in with our allies in the Middle East--Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE--and let them know what we are doing with this amendment.

I agree in principle that we ought not let these things hang out there for 20 years, but I am concerned about the timing because, in my trip to the Middle East last month, what I heard from our allies is that it looks like we are withdrawing from the Middle East. And what that does is it emboldens Iran, it emboldens China, and it encourages our allies in the Middle East to start looking to hedge their bets from America and start, maybe, bringing in the Chinese as part of their security arrangements. And I think that is bad for our country, and, certainly, I think we can all agree we do not want China to be leading a world order here; that the United States is the best for providing peace and prosperity.

What this amendment does is just ask the administration to check in with our allies, issue a report back to Congress, and, in 30 days after Congress, then the AUMF would expire. So I just ask that everybody please consider that.

With that I yield back.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, my colleagues and I are here today to raise the alarm once again about the ongoing crisis at our southern border. This is an issue that is incredibly important to my constituents, and it should be a priority here in the U.S. Senate.

As I said when I visited the border as a Governor and then again last month as a Senator, every State is a border State. It is not just me saying that; it is my colleagues, both as Governors and as U.S. Senators, saying that. That is because the States across the country, including my own State of Nebraska, are dealing with the consequences of this administration failing to secure our border.

This crisis is a threat to all Americans for many reasons. Americans are being killed today because of what is going on at the border. The leading cause of death of Americans age 18 to 45 in 2020 and 2021 was fentanyl overdose. A majority of those drugs are coming to this country from overseas.

Taryn Lee Griffith was a 24-year-old single mom who died in Nebraska. She died of a fentanyl overdose. She was out with friends and took a pill she thought was Percocet. It was laced with fentanyl, and that is what killed her. Taryn's youngest daughter was only 6 months old when this happened. Now her two daughters are going to have to learn about their mom from pictures and from stories from family.

I think we can all agree that fentanyl is a scourge on this country. From 2014 to 2019, fentanyl mostly entered this country from overseas, being shipped internationally from the People's Republic of China. Now it is being shipped from the PRC to Mexico. There, it is manufactured in illegal labs and smuggled across our border.

The Chinese Communist Party and the Mexican drug cartels are taking advantage of the fact that we have a weak border to surge a flow of illegal drugs--especially fentanyl--across our U.S. border. They have the blood of the Americans who have died on their hands because of this, and we must hold them accountable.

With border agents and local law enforcement overwhelmed by the surge of illegal immigration, it is easier than ever for these cartels to be able to bring fentanyl into the United States.

Because of this failed administration's policy, State law enforcement has been forced to step up. In my last 2 years as Governor when I was in Nebraska, we saw what happened compared to 2020. The State patrol confiscated 2 times as much methamphetamine, 3 times as much fentanyl, and 10 times as much cocaine. Last year alone, the DEA's Omaha Division seized 4.7 million doses of fentanyl.

This administration's abandonment of its responsibility is an outrage. It is endangering American lives each and every day. Yet the President has not shown he is serious about tackling this problem. His budget requested $535 million for border security technology. Yet he wants to spend seven times that much--a whopping $3.9 billion--on the Department of Homeland Security's climate resilience program. These are misplaced priorities. I want to take care of the environment. We all do. I want us to be more resilient. But Americans are dying right now because of fentanyl coming across our border.

Now, the President may not be serious about securing our border, but my colleagues and I are. When I was Governor, I worked with my fellow Governors to propose real solutions to this administration, and I am eager to work with my colleagues here in the U.S. Senate to do the same.

If addressing this crisis isn't our job in the U.S. Senate, I don't know what is. Americans and Nebraskans are on the line. We need to give the Border Patrol what they need to fully enforce our laws and stop this influx of deadly drugs. Our constituents are counting on us. We need to take action. I urge all my colleagues to work with our conference to pass serious solutions to tackle this problem.

With that, I yield the floor.

(Mr. WARNOCK assumed the Chair.)

Madam President, we are here today to discuss the resolution disapproving the DC Council's efforts to water down the city's Criminal Code.

Now, some might be wondering why the Congress has a say in the DC Criminal Code. The reason goes back to the founding documents of our country. DC's very existence is in our Constitution, which calls for a district not exceeding 10 square miles to be the seat for the Government of the United States so that, while DC is a place where people live and work, it belongs to the entire Nation.

Citizens from all across this country come here--students, for example--to learn about American history. In fact, I was meeting with some students just earlier today. Citizens come here to interact with their elected officials. We are here today because the DC City Council is trying to make this District--this constitutionally mandated seat of government--a less safe place to be able to live, work, and conduct business.

In the rewriting of DC's Criminal Code, DC is trying to make things such as first-degree murder, carjackings, robberies, burglaries, home invasions--it is trying to reduce the penalties for all of those crimes at a time when the crime rate in DC is rising. For the first time in a couple of decades, DC has seen 2 years of 200 or more homicides. Over the last 5 years, carjackings have increased every single year. In fact, in the first 67 days of this year, reported carjackings have been at 100. Crime, year over year, in DC is up 22 percent, and the DC police chief has said, when they arrest a homicide suspect, that suspect, on average, has been arrested 11 times previously.

Now, there are smart ways to think about criminal justice reform, and that is what we did in Nebraska back in 2015, but reducing the penalties and being soft on crime is not that approach. Rather than reduce the penalties for violent crimes, the city of DC should look at what Omaha, NE--my home city--has done and how they have used community engagement with the police force to reduce homicides. In fact, they have reduced homicides in each of the last 2 years. This is common sense.

We need to stand with law enforcement and respect their work to put criminals behind bars. We need to stand with the law-abiding victims and give them the justice they deserve, and we need to make sure that government is fulfilling its obligation to keep people safe.

That is exactly what we have done in Nebraska. We have rejected the woke politics of these soft-on-crime policies that reduce penalties. In Nebraska, we back the blue. We stand with law enforcement officers as they work to identify, investigate, and arrest criminals. As a seat of government, DC's rising crime is a threat to all Americans and to Nebraskans, which is why the House and the Senate have an obligation to act.

I am grateful to my esteemed colleague from the great State of Tennessee for introducing this resolution and for his leadership on this issue.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this as well.

I yield the floor.