Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I stand before you to express my gratitude and admiration for the exceptional students who joined our team as spring interns in 2024.

These talented young women and men brought a unique blend of enthusiasm, dedication, and a passion for making a difference to my offices in Washington, DC, office and across the State of Nebraska. Our interns have consistently shown a motivation to learn and a strong commitment to our State. Their presence has not only enriched our workspace, but also inspired my team and me. As the torchbearers of the next generation, their spirit and determination fill us with anticipation for what the future holds.

As they leave our office, I want to take a moment to extend my sincerest thanks to: Reese Clarke, Nathan Muilenburg, and Jack Smith, who served in my Washington, DC, office; Paxton Robertson, who served in my Kearney office; Abbie Russman, who served in my Omaha office; and William Funke, who served in my Lincoln office.

Your dedication and contributions have truly made our team stronger. I hope you will carry the lessons learned here into your bright futures. Congratulations, and best of luck.

Madam President, I am joining my colleagues today in resisting the EV mandate and commend them for attempting to defund this EV mandate.

This mandate would require two-thirds of all new vehicles being sold in the United States in 2032 to be electric vehicles. It is going to be incredibly harmful to our American families, especially low-income families.

The cost to consumers is going to be great. The average low-income family spends about $12,000 on a used vehicle to be able to get around. Frankly, for many families, especially families in States like mine of Nebraska, this is the pathway out of poverty: getting that vehicle, spending that $12,000, being able to get to a job, being able to increase your income. That is how American families get to work in States like mine. We are going to be robbing those families of that opportunity with this EV mandate, harming those low-income families.

It is also going to be harmful for families in rural areas. In States like Nebraska, people drive long distances in rural areas to get to work. Right now, for example, you see that 99 of our 147 cities don't have a charger. If you are in some of our cities like Bloomfield or Alliance or Valentine, you are 45 minutes from the nearest charging station. That is not practical.

Oh, and by the way, guess what. It gets cold in Nebraska. When the temperature drops below 20 degrees, you lose 40 percent of your charge on an EV. So not only will you not be able to find a charging station, you won't have very much charge to be able to get there.

It is harmful for agriculture because you are not going to be able just to pull over on the side of the road if you have got a truck that is hauling cattle and stopped in 95-degree heat for 2 or 3 hours.

This EV mandate makes no sense. It does not work for vast stretch of this country.

Again, I think EVs are cool. They have fast acceleration, and they work in urban areas, like perhaps here on the east coast. But in States like mine, they are impractical.

My esteemed colleague from West Virginia was talking about how the Biden administration has not thought this through. I sit on the Environment and Public Works Committee. I have had the chance to question officials who support this, and let me tell you, they have no plan for the power generation. They have no plan for the transmission. And by the way, just so the American public knows, they are assuming that every EV is charged with 100 percent renewable energy. Folks, that is a lie. That does not exist anywhere in this country where you can find a State that 100 percent of their energy comes from renewable energy.

The highest State for it is South Dakota at 50 percent. States on the East Coast are generally single digits as far as the percent of their electricity generated from renewable energy. So they are also selling you a lie. It is not true.

So for those reasons, I also urge my colleagues to support this Congressional Review Act.

I want to compliment the senior Senators from Idaho and from West Virginia for bringing this attempt to defund this EV mandate. Now that this EV mandate has been published in the Federal Register, the Senator from Alaska and I will be bringing another CRA to stop the implementation of this rule as well.

I yield the floor.

Thank you very much to the Senator from Utah for organizing this.

My, my, my. What have our majority leader and the Democrats in the Senate wrought?

They have overturned 227 years of precedence that my colleagues have talked about: 21 previous impeachments, all scheduled for trial; 17 came to trial, and the ones that did not was because the person who was to be impeached was either expelled or dismissed prior to the trial.

To my colleague from Texas's point about the media being complicit, one of the headlines in Politico that I was told about said the trial lasted only 3 hours.

There was no trial. There was no trial.

The majority leader decided that he could determine it was unconstitutional and get every single one of his Democrats, along partisan lines, to vote for it. He said it was unconstitutional, did not rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Let me briefly examine that.

Article I sent over to us by the House. I am just going to read the title: ``Willful and Systematic Refusal to Comply With the Law.'' That is article I.

Let me tell you about complying with the law. Prior to this administration, the Trump administration had brought illegal crossings down to a 45-year low. What we have seen since then is an explosion of illegal crossings: over 1.7 in the first year of the Biden administration, nearly 2.4 in the second, and nearly 2.5 in the third. Now, if you count all the people who tried to cross the border illegally or who crossed the border, including the ``got-aways,'' it is 9.4 million people--larger than the population of New York City--and 300,000 in just December alone. That is larger than our capital city in Nebraska, Lincoln. The evidence is right there that we are not doing a good job at the southern border.

And why would that be? Well, because Alejandro Mayorkas is complicit in not following the law.

In a memorandum Mayorkas sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in 2021, he said:

The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen--

Notice he doesn't even say ``illegal alien,'' which is what it says in the law. He says:

The fact [that] an individual is a removable noncitizen

therefore should not alone be the basis [for] an enforcement

action against them.

He is basically saying that just because you broke the law doesn't mean we have to enforce the law. That right there should tell you he is willfully disregarding the law. Absolutely.

How about the case of parole where the law says that it is only supposed to be used on a case-by-case basis in situations where the person has an extreme humanitarian need or it is in the best interest of our country? Under the Obama and the Trump administrations, it was used an average of 5,600 times--paroled 5,600 foreigners in this country between the Obama and Trump administrations on an annual basis. Last year alone, Mayorkas paroled into this country 1.2 million--whole classes of people--a clear abuse of the law.

Folks, when you see instances where the Secretary for Homeland Security is not following the law, doesn't that raise the question: Shouldn't we have a trial? Shouldn't we examine whether or not he actually should be convicted of this?

And yet, as my colleagues have pointed out, not a single Democrat--a partisan line--said: No, that is not willful disregard of the law.

Let's move on to article II. Article II--again, I am just going to read the title of this--sent over, says ``Breach of Public Trust.'' Breach of public trust.

Well, what does that mean? How about misleading Congress, wouldn't that be a breach of public trust?

On April 28, 2022, Mayorkas testified repeatedly in front of the House Judiciary Committee that DHS possessed the operational control of the southwest border in accordance with the statutory definition. But I just told you how the number of people crossing the border had exploded. My colleague from Texas did a great job talking about the human suffering this created.

If we had been allowed to have a trial, we would have heard from Border Patrol agents who would have come up and testified personally that the border was not secure.

I have been down to that border as well four times. I have seen the people coming across. That border is not secure. In the last trip down there, there were mostly Hondurans, but there was a couple from Moldova on the Russian border who had paid to get across our border because the whole world knows it is open.

This is absolutely what we are talking about; that this is why we have to hear the evidence to go and determine whether or not there is guilt or innocence. And the Democrats have denied it, and it is to the detriment of our Constitution and to our country that we are not being allowed to have a trial, to examine the evidence, and to determine whether or not Alejandro Mayorkas is guilty and whether or not he should be impeached.

I think the few things that I have laid out here this afternoon go exactly to we should examine the questions, and the Democrats chose not to even ask the questions before they dismissed this entirely.

Thank you to my colleague from Utah for giving me the opportunity to be able to address these issues.

Madam President, the fundamental purpose of our Federal Government is to protect Americans, to keep Americans safe. What we have seen happen on our southern border has put Americans at risk. It is a national security crisis, a drug trafficking crisis--child trafficking, sex trafficking. It is putting Americans at risk. And the people responsible for this open border policy are Joe Biden and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas.

Since the Biden administration has been in power, we have seen a flood of drugs coming across our border. The cartels are making billions. Fentanyl and other illegal drugs are the leading killer of young Americans in this country. If you are in the age of between 18 and 45, the most likely cause of your death is drug overdose, and the majority of that is fentanyl--70,000 young people a year dying because of fentanyl.

When I was Governor, we saw the amount of drugs coming into my State under Joe Biden go up dramatically. We saw twice as much methamphetamine, three times as much fentanyl, ten times as much cocaine.

We have seen the number of people on the Terrorist Watchlist skyrocket as well. Under the Trump administration, a total of 11 people on the FBI Terrorist Watchlist were caught trying to cross the border during 4 years of President Trump. In the last fiscal year, 169 people on the FBI Terrorist Watchlist were trying to cross the border illegally.

In all, since the Biden administration has been in place, 9.2 million people have either tried to get into this country illegally or have succeeded in getting into this country illegally, and Secretary Mayorkas has willfully refused to support our immigration laws at the direction of this administration. He is culpable in what is going on at our southern border.

If you ask Americans, ``Who do you think is responsible?'' 57 percent say there has been a willful unenforcement of our laws. Our laws are not being enforced. That includes 61 percent of Independents and a third of Democrats.

And if you wonder who is responsible for this, you need to look no further than a memorandum--a guideline--that was issued in 2021 from Secretary Mayorkas. According to news accounts, Secretary Mayorkas issued a memorandum to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials saying:

The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore

should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action

against them.

Think about that. What he is saying is that, just because somebody broke the law, it doesn't mean you have to enforce the law against them--in fact, that you shouldn't enforce the law against them. That is not what the law is about. This is absolutely stunning.

When you are in the private sector and somebody is not doing their job, you hold them accountable. We need to hold accountable the people who have opened our southern border.

Madam President, 57 percent believe that there has been a willful disregard. And not only do those people in our country believe that, but the U.S. House of Representatives has passed an impeachment resolution condemning Secretary Mayorkas, for ``willful and systematic refusal to comply with [current U.S. immigration] law'' and for ``breach of public trust.''

Impeachment is serious, and these allegations are serious. We in the U.S. Senate need to treat them with that level of seriousness.

We have seen an open border policy from this administration. Secretary

Mayorkas is responsible for carrying out the policy. It is now our duty, as a U.S. Senate, to have the trial to determine guilt or innocence. This is a constitutional responsibility. However, it appears that our leader and the Democrats are determined to table this, to set it aside in a manner that is unprecedented. It has never happened that the U.S. Senate has refused to take up the charges.

Folks, we don't need to be breaking more norms in the U.S. Senate. We are abdicating our constitutional responsibility if we do not hold this trial.

The people responsible need to be held accountable. We need to hear the evidence. So why don't the Democrats want to hold this trial? Well, perhaps because they are afraid of the American public hearing again how bad the situation at the southern border is, the 9.2 million people coming in here. Or perhaps they don't want to know how this administration and Secretary Mayorkas is abusing the parole function.

Parole is a function that allows the executive branch to bring in foreigners. It is supposed to be done, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Act, on a case-by-case basis, only in instances of extreme humanitarian need or in the best interest of the country. Under the Obama and Trump administrations, it happened about 5,600 times a year--5,600 times a year. Last year alone, this Biden administration paroled into the country 1.2 million people. We are doing whole classes of people. It is a clear abuse of power.

This administration is also abusing the asylum system, and Secretary Mayorkas is overseeing the Department of Homeland Security with both this new policy in parole and what is going on in asylum.

And think about this: Say you are somebody who comes across that border, and you were granted parole to get to this country, like Jose Ibarra, the Venezuelan accused of killing Laken Riley, and you get into this country. What is the first thing you are doing? You are contacting folks back home to tell them what happened to you.

This creates more incentive for people to come here illegally. It is part of why we have this problem. We need to explore topics like this.

Or perhaps the Democrats know how bad this is and don't want to defend the catastrophe that is going on at the southern border. They don't want to have to defend this administration's policy, what Secretary Mayorkas has been doing with regard to parole. Maybe they think it is bad, too, and don't want to have to defend it.

But whatever the reason, if our leader does not have a trial, it will be the first time this has happened. It will be unprecedented, and we will be breaking, again, another norm for the U.S. Senate.

Impeachment is serious. These charges are serious. The American people deserve an answer. We need to have a trial. I call on my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to insist upon a trial and uphold our constitutional authority. Let's have a trial so that we can hear and determine the guilt and innocence. That is what the American people deserve.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns from my office be granted floor privileges until April 11, 2024: Reese Clarke, Nathan Muilenburg, and Jack Smith.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with the senior Senator from Maine.

Mr. President, UNRWA is a completely irredeemable organization. Since October 7, we have seen how much Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Palestinians. In fact, some have called UNRWA a front organization for Hamas.

UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 attacks. Some participated in the attacks directly. Some helped with logistics. One hostage alleges that her captor was an UNRWA teacher. Another UNRWA staffer was actually a commander who participated in an attack on a kibbutz that left 97 people dead and took 26 hostages.

Regrettably, this does not come as a surprise. Because of previous U.N. investigations into UNRWA, we knew this was true before the October 7 attacks. We knew that UNRWA was using schools to store weapons and launch attacks on Israel. We knew that their textbooks preached hate toward Jews and Israel and glorified martyrdom.

I introduced this amendment because funding an organization like UNRWA that is so deeply embedded in Hamas is wrong. Our U.S. taxpayer dollars should not be going to fund an organization that is essentially a front for Hamas. This Chamber's ultimate goal should be to permanently defund UNRWA--defund it the way the Trump administration did.

I spoke with the Senator from Maine, and she and I have agreed that we will continue to fight to ensure that future appropriations to deny UNRWA access--she assured me that she will continue to fight against future appropriations, to deny UNRWA access to U.S. taxpayer dollars. This underlying bill does that for 1 year, and that is a start.

Mr. President, I am grateful for the senior Senator from Maine's commitment to defunding UNRWA and grateful as well for her pointing out that there are other ways to provide aid to Gaza.

I would also like to point out that when the Trump administration denied UNRWA funding a few years ago, the world did not come to an end. So I do believe, as the senior Senator from Maine pointed out, there are alternatives.

With her commitment, which I appreciate, for that reason, I will no longer seek a vote on my amendment.

Mr. President, on October 7, Hamas--a terrorist organization--committed a horrible atrocity on the people of Israel. Over 1,100 people were killed, hundreds taken hostage.

We must support Israel to destroy this terrorist organization called Hamas. We must get our five American hostages back, and all the hostages must be released. We need to have an ironclad friendship with Israel to get this done.

This seems obvious to most Americans. However, on the floor of this very institution, the majority leader got up and called for new elections in Israel; and Israel's Prime Minister, he said, was the obstacle to peace.

It is absolutely outrageous the majority leader would make that speech from this floor while we have five American hostages being held by a terrorist group. He was pandering to the fringe anti-Israel, pro- Hamas wing of his party. It is despicable. It is terrible that he would undermine an ally of ours who shares our values, who has a democratically elected government, and undermine them in their hour of need when they are fighting against a terrorist organization.

This is good versus evil. The atrocities Hamas committed were barbarous, uncivilized. And yet the majority leader took their side.

Americans know Hamas must surrender--Hamas must surrender and release the hostages--and that we need to support Israel until Hamas is destroyed.

So what was the majority leader doing? Well, was he really concerned about the elections in Israel, or was he concerned about our elections? Pandering to the pro-Hamas terrorist wing of his party, somehow trying to distance himself from Israel--it is unbelievable.

Now, President Joe Biden, on October 7, talked the talk. He said we would stand with Israel no matter what. But the President called the majority leader's speech a good speech. He has been backing away from our ally Israel.

There are even reports that he is considering conditioning some of the aid to meeting Hamas's conditions. This is outrageous. What do you think Hamas does when they see the President of the United States start to step back from our ally?

If they were going to negotiate a cease-fire and somehow release hostages, you know that this is actually the opposite of what they are going to do now. They know if the President is weakening, the longer they hold out, the better their position is. It is the opposite of what we should be doing.

Hamas is a terrorist organization and understands one and one thing only, and that is strength. We need a President who is going to project that strength--project the strength and support our ally Israel. That is what would bring our hostages home. That is what would bring all the hostages home.

Let Israel do the work of civilized nations and destroy this terrorist organization. That is what needs to happen.

Everyone in America knows it is not the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who is the obstacle to peace; it is Hamas who is the obstacle to peace.

Hamas started this. October 6 there was a cease-fire. They broke it on October 7. Hamas is responsible for every death on October 7 and every death since then. They are the obstacle to peace.

I am proud to stand with my colleagues and remind the majority leader that Hamas is a terrorist organization that is the obstacle to peace, not our friend and ally Israel.

I will point out to him what Americans know: that this is a terrorist organization that needs to be destroyed. We must stand with Israel. I am proud to say I stand with Israel. The majority leader and the President must reverse course and stand with Israel as well.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to join my colleagues in talking about the catastrophe at our southern border, what has happened under this Biden administration, how it was created by Joe Biden because of his policies. This self-inflicted wound has been created by Joe Biden and his policies.

Let's step back a little bit to see: How did we get here? How did we get to this situation where we have a flood of illegal immigrants coming across our southern border?

As my colleague from Wisconsin just described, under the Trump administration, President Trump brought the crossings of illegal immigrants to a 45-year low, less than 1,000 encounters per day. He did that with the same tools that President Biden has available to him today. But instead of taking the same policies that President Trump used to control that border, President Biden was in a rush to undo those policies. He promised a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants that are in this country. He promised to stop ``locking people up.'' He said: For those who come seeking asylum, we should immediately have a passage to absorb them and keep them safe until they can be heard.

And he said those who cross the border illegally ``should not be the focus of deportation.'' Well, certainly on that last point, President Biden has been accurate. If you look at the September numbers, there were about 270,000 contacts along our southern border and only about 10 percent of those folks were deported. He is certainly living up to his promise.

In his first 100 days of office, President Biden issued 94 Executive orders on immigration. He stopped the construction of the border wall. He halted deportations. He suspended the ``Remain in Mexico'' provisions.

He repealed Trump's interior enforcement Executive order that prioritized immigration enforcement. President Trump's order encouraged States and local jurisdictions to enforce Federal immigration laws. Part of it was to revive the Secure Communities Program, which ordered the Department of Homeland Security to consider stripping Federal funding from so-called sanctuary cities and encourage additional criminal prosecutions for illegal entry into the United States.

Under the Biden administration, Joe Biden has abused the process of parole. I want to be clear what we are talking about when we are talking about parole. We are not talking about parole as in, I have been in prison and now I have done enough of my time and have shown good behavior in prison, so that I get paroled and released into the public with supervision from our criminal justice system.

No, that is not what we are talking about here. Parole is a function that the executive branch can use to be able to allow people to come into this country. The way the law is written, it is supposed to be on a case-by-case basis; that it is only to be used in cases of extreme humanitarian need or in the best interest of our country. And if we look back over the Obama and Trump administration, on average, about 5,600 people were paroled into this country.

So these are people who are not U.S. citizens. These people were paroled into our country in a given year. That was a just--again, it was being used on a case-by-case basis by the previous two administrations. Under this President, he has absolutely abused parole. This is a lawless administration. President Biden has paroled, last year, into this country, 1.2 million illegal immigrants--1.2 million. To put that in perspective, that is about two-thirds the population of my home State--two-thirds the population of Nebraska.

Again, let's take a step back and compare that 1.2 million people in the last year versus an average of 5,600. This is absolute abuse of executive power, of taking a law that was to be on a case-by-case basis and applying it to whole classes of people to allow people to come in here. President Biden is handing out this parole like it is Halloween candy.

I mentioned the September statics were that about 10 percent of the people had been deported. It turns out about 85 percent of the people who will knock on our door are getting into our country. That is creating the incentive for people to come here. It is not hard to understand. If you were not allowed in the country in the previous administration, now this administration is saying: If you come across that border illegally, I am very likely to parole you into this country.

As soon as you cross that border, you are picked up by Customs and Border Patrol, you get processed and released. The first thing you are doing then is calling or texting your family members at home saying: I was able to get into the United States. I didn't have to follow the regular process, which takes years for people who follow the process legally. I didn't have to do that; I could just walk across the border and be able to get into this country.

Why are we surprised--or, rather, we shouldn't be surprised that there are millions of people who are making that dangerous trek to get here.

Of course, again, as described by my colleague from Wisconsin, it is a dangerous trek. This open border policy has facilitated human trafficking, sex trafficking, women being sexually assaulted, children being trafficked.

One of the things the Biden administration has done has stopped the DNA testing of children coming across the border, and that just facilitates the cartels in trafficking those children.

The scenario is, if you come across the border with a child, you are a family, and so the administration won't detain you. Guess what. The cartels know this. They take advantage of that. So they take these unaccompanied children, put them with an adult, and send them across the border.

On my last trip to the border--I have been there four times, and we will talk about that a little bit more--on our last trip to the border, we talked to the Customs and Border Protection people. They told us that sometimes 30 or up to 50 percent of the kids who came across that border were not the kid of the parent or the adult who was with them. The child did not belong to that adult. DNA testing at least would help us be able to verify whether that child actually indeed was the kid of the adult who claimed to be the parent.

When I was down on the border, I saw this for myself firsthand. There was a

man there who claimed this little girl who was with him was his daughter. We questioned this man, and he said: Yeah, this is my daughter.

I am a father myself. I have two girls. This girl was terrified. As a dad, you can kind of tell, right? You know when a little girl is with her father, and it was clear that there was not that kind of relationship, that this girl was afraid. She was terrified.

After more questioning, the man said: Well, I am actually not her father; I am her uncle.

Because of Biden's policies, the Border Patrol could do nothing. They did not have the ability to do the DNA testing to see if that child was indeed this man's daughter. So what does that open it up to? They come in, they get processed, they get released, and that child gets sent back to Mexico and gets used with another adult to come back across the border.

This is the type of humanitarian crisis that President Biden has created. He is absolutely responsible for every case of sex trafficking and child trafficking that is going on along this border because of his open border policies. He is responsible. He made the decisions to undo the policies that had reduced the trafficking and the illegal immigrants coming across our border. It is absolutely terrible.

So let's talk a little about that. What has happened under this administration? Since Joe Biden has been President, there have been nearly 6.6 million encounters at our southern border. When he undid those policies, he sent a message to people not just south of our southern border, not just in Central America, not just in South America, but to the entire world: Our borders are open.

In fact, my colleague from Wisconsin has just talked about the open border crowd. It is a very real thing. There are people in this city who want open borders, and with this President, they are getting it.

When the people of the world heard that, they started flooding to come here.

As was previously mentioned, President Trump brought those encounters down to under 1,000 a day. Now we see 5,000, 10,000. In December, we saw days of 11,000, 12,000. In December total, there were over 300,000 encounters at our southern border. Again, let me put that in perspective. That is larger than the capital city of Nebraska. Madam President, 300,000 encounters is more than the population of Lincoln, NE, my State's capital. That is how many people are coming across.

I mentioned people from all around the world. The night I was on the border last, this group of illegal immigrants crossed the border. They were apprehended by Customs and Border Protection. We had folks from El Salvador primarily, but there was a couple from Moldova. Think about that--Moldova, Eastern Europe. They had traveled through half a dozen different countries to get to the point where they crossed our border.

When I was in the Rio Grande Valley on a previous trip, they said that the number of people crossing from China had been up 400 percent. We are also talking about people from Syria, Iran. These are countries that have terrorists who are committed to killing our people.

In years past, we would have single-digit numbers of people on the Terrorist Watchlist who crossed our southern border--six, seven, eight, nine. Last year, under this administration, 169 people just at the southern border crossed who were on the Terrorist Watchlist.

So how many people have crossed in the intervening years? Total encounters by Customs and Border Protection in fiscal year 2021 was 1,734,686; in fiscal year 2022, 2,378,944; and in fiscal year 2023, 2,475,669. That is roughly almost 6.6 million encounters by Customs and Border Patrol. But what that does not count is the approximately 1.8 million ``got-aways.'' What do I mean by ``got-away''? These are the people who crossed the border and who, for whatever reason, Customs and Border Protection could not get to, to apprehend.

So what happens is, often people come across the border, and they surrender themselves right away, such as I saw on my last trip. A family came across or individuals, a couple from Moldova with their little baby came across the border, and they surrendered right away. But there are people who are evading apprehension.

By the way, the cartels understand the system, and they try to game it. Customs and Border Protection has told me what they will do is they will understand we have limited resources, flood a certain number--like a large number of illegal immigrants across one part of the border, and then in another part of the border, they push through their high-value people or cargo.

We have been talking about people coming across the border, but it also includes drugs, and that is why now every State is a border State. Because of this humanitarian and national security crisis, we see people coming across the border who are impacting our communities. We see illegal drugs coming across the border that are impacting our communities, and it impacts not just States like Texas or Arizona but my home State of Nebraska.

In the last 2 years I was Governor, we saw a dramatic increase in the amount of drugs, specifically fentanyl. And I want to take a step back here for a moment because as we talk about the drugs coming across the border, there are two big ones that are impacting my State: fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Fentanyl is the leading killer of Americans age 18 to 45. The leading killer of Americans age 18 to 45, our young people, is fentanyl. That fentanyl is manufactured in precursors or it starts as precursors in China, gets shipped to Mexico, where then illegal labs that the cartels run turn it into fentanyl, and then it gets pushed across the border.

When I was Governor, just to share with you how much has changed under the Biden administration in his rush to undo the policies that had brought these crossings to historical lows. In 2019, law enforcement in Nebraska confiscated 46 pills that were laced with fentanyl--46. By 2021, that number had jumped to 151,000--in just 2 years going from 46 to 151,000 pills laced with fentanyl. That is another example of Joe Biden's failed policies. He is directly responsible for this huge increase in fentanyl coming into our country because of his open border policies.

These policies have real-world impacts on people. I mentioned how many people have died because of fentanyl, the leading killer of our young people. But every one of those cases is not just a statistic; it is a person--a person like Taryn Lee Griffith.

Taryn Lee Griffith was a young mom in Lincoln, NE. She had two kids. She went out one night and took a pill she thought was Percocet. Turns out it was laced with fentanyl--a lethal dose--and she died that night, leaving her two little children to have to learn about their mom from pictures and stories from relatives. That family paid the price for Joe Biden's open border policies. It is killing our people. And that is why my colleagues and I said: Let's see what we can do to stop this.

Actually, as Governor, I did the same thing. I said: This is impacting us in the State of Nebraska. How can we stem this tide of people coming into our country, this tide of drugs coming into our country?

So as Governor, I sent my State patrol--25 of our troopers--down to assist the Texas Department of Public Safety in doing law enforcement. They weren't doing border patrol but were doing law enforcement to help out the overwhelmed and overworked law enforcement at our southern border.

When they came back, they told the stories of how, again, these folks crossed the border. They are being victimized by the cartels, and when they get across, most of them are surrendering themselves to our law enforcement because they know they will be safe with our law enforcement. They don't want to be left up to the mercies of the cartels. They know they will be safe with our law enforcement.

Our troopers told the stories of providing that safety to these people who came across the border.

That is also part of the human impact this open border policy is having.

And we continue to see the effects of it in my State today. In January, News Channel Nebraska reported on a man from Mexico who was sentenced to prison in Bellevue, NE, after being convicted of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Talked about fentanyl, but methamphetamine is an

even bigger problem in the State of Nebraska.

This 43-year-old man was in the country illegally. He was arrested in a motel room with $15,000 in cash, and 11.5 pounds of methamphetamine, and he had previously been deported for drug charges.

This was a problem that became apparent to me early on when I was Governor--and not just me, many of my colleagues as well. And so what we did was 26 of us got together, and we sent President Biden a letter saying: President Biden, your policies are impacting our States.

Now, remember, this is early on in the administration of President Biden. This was his first year. We are like, your policies are impacting our States. Will you please meet with us to talk about the impacts in our States and what potential solutions would be?

And President Biden absolutely refused to meet with us. He absolutely refused.

So we went down to the border, and we talked about the solutions that had worked in the previous administration. We had a 10-point plan that would address the border issues that we have, and we listed those out, and we knew they would work. You know why we knew they would work? Because they had worked in the Trump administration.

Those 10 points included: Continue the title 42 health restrictions. About 18 to 20 percent of the people who were crossing the border at that time--this is September 2021 that we sent that letter. We heard nothing back from the President. We went down to the border in October of 2021.

And about 20 percent, 18 to 20 percent of the folks crossing the border tested positive for COVID. One report estimated about 40,000 illegal immigrants were sent to our cities with COVID-19. And you wonder why big cities had problems controlling that.

We said: Reinstate that. Second, we said: Fully reinstate the migrant protection protocols. This was established, again, in the prior administration that basically said: If you are seeking asylum in our country, you have to stay in Mexico. And now this is a big deal because when somebody comes here illegally, they know, hey, I am going to have to wait years to get into the country just to have my court date, that is a disincentive to come here.

When they know they can just come here, maybe get a court date that is 4 years down the road, maybe 10 years down the road, that is a good deal for them. They will come here, get released right away, and say, hey, I have got a court date that is years down the road. And then, guess what, not many of those folks actually show up at their court date when it comes up. So they, basically, get to this country without going through the regular process that so many legal immigrants do to come to our country.

We said: Finish securing the border; finish building the wall. President Biden stopped the construction of the wall. Now, the wall by itself is not going to solve the whole problem. But when we talk to Customs and Border Patrol folks they say, Walls do work. They help. They help limit where you can come across and that helps them do their job.

End catch-and-release. Again, if you know that you can come into this country and get released back into our country, what is your downside? You come; you get processed; you get released; your court date may be years away.

So we said, part of how we address that also--this is point No. 5--is clear the judicial backlog; devote more resources to processing the asylum claim; get more judges in there so we don't have this long backlog.

Again, if the incentive is to come here and you know you are going to get released, people are going to come. If people come here and they get processed and they are told: You don't qualify for asylum, and they get sent back, that word will get out, and people will stop coming here.

That is part of the problem. We create these incentives for people to come here. The backlog is part of them. We needed to address it.

And, by the way, again, I have been down to the border. When I talk to people coming across, by and large, what they are saying is that they just want a better job. I am certainly sympathetic, but a better job is not a reason for asylum in this country. Asylum is for people who fear for their life in their own country--and not just in their neighborhood. You have to fear that their Federal Government is trying to harm them. There is no place safe in their country. That is a reason for asylum. That is not the vast, vast majority of people coming across the border. They are just looking for a better job.

And then, No. 6 on our 10-point list the governors put forward was: Resume the deportation of all the criminals. The Biden administration should enforce all of our deportation laws. As I mentioned, again, in September, only about 10 percent of the people were being deported.

No. 7, devote more to Federal resources. Again, this is where my colleague from Wisconsin said he would find allies in Republicans in the U.S. Senate to get more resources for Federal officials to go after the criminals at our southern border. We need to get after them. Stop this trafficking--stop the sex trafficking; stop the drug trafficking; stop the child trafficking.

One of the other policies the previous administration was to work with the northern triangle countries--Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador--and then Mexico to address the issues there for people who were fleeing those countries and work with them to keep the folks in their countries and address their issues and not let them cross through to Mexico to get to our southern border.

Again, the Biden administration got rid of that as soon as they came into office, got out of that agreement.

No. 9, of course, send a message to everybody trying to come here that there is not a free ride. If you were coming to this country and you were forced to remain in Mexico for, say, 3, 4 years before your court date, you weren't likely to come and do that. Send that message.

But this administration did just the opposite. They sent the message that our border is open. Come here, you will get in.

And, of course, No. 10 is: We need more help for Customs and Border Patrol. We need more officers. We need more equipment. We need more technology.

When I was down there, they said the cartels actually have better drones than we do. We saw aerostats, which are basically these balloons that go up with cameras on them to help monitor the border. They said they are very effective; they just don't have enough of them.

There are things we can do to be able to address. So that is what we did as Governors to address this crisis.

And then I come to the U.S. Senate. And what I want to do is continue to work to keep people safe, like we did in Nebraska. And so we have had this long negotiation on a border bill.

Now, again, to be clear, President Biden has access to the same laws that President Trump did. But my colleagues and I wanted to do more to secure our border. For example, end this abuse of parole. We wanted to stop this flow of people coming into our country. But the bill that we got did not get the job done. It didn't address parole in a meaningful way that was going to stop the people coming across the border.

It set the level of an emergency at 5,000 encounters a day. Folks, that is not an emergency; that is a catastrophe. Remember, Trump brought it to less than 100--or less than 1,000. That is the emergency level, not 5,000. And we weren't doing enough to detain people.

And by the way, here is the other kicker: Our leader scheduled the vote on the border bill before we even had a cost estimate from CBO. So we are supposed to vote on a bill that we don't know how much it is going to cost? How crazy is that?

Lots of people understand that there is a cost-benefit tradeoff, that you just don't pay an unreasonable amount of money for something if it does not have the value. We don't even know what these policies were going to cost, yet we were asked to vote on them. And that is why I voted no on that bill.

Now, one of my colleagues from South Carolina came to me and said: Hey, I have been in contact with the Border Patrol Council, Brandon Judd, president there. He sent me a letter.

I want to read this letter from Brandon Judd into the record:

Dear Senators Graham and Cornyn: I am responding to your

questions regarding how

to improve the border security provisions in the emergency

national security supplemental. Simply put, defining an

emergency at the border as 1,000 encounters a day would be a

substantial improvement. It is apparent that 5,000 encounters

in a day is a catastrophe, and 1,000 encounters a day is a

true emergency.

This is [in] line with what former Secretary of Homeland

Security for President Obama, Jeh Johnson, said [when he

said] that one day of 1,000 encounters was a very bad day and

``overwhelms the system.'' If you could lower the number to

1,000 encounters on average over a 7 day period and require

that the President shut down the border at that level of

encounters, that would be a substantial improvement to the

legislation.

As to the question of how to end catch and release,

detaining single adults and families rather than referring

them to non-custodial removal proceedings--

And, again, non-custodial removal proceedings, ``non-custodial,'' that is just letting people go--

and enrolling them in Alternatives to Detention--

Again, letting them go--

would be a giant step forward towards that goal.

Don't do that.

The system of non-custodial proceedings created by the

provisions in the supplemental would not effectively curb the

catch and release policies of the Biden administration for

single adults or aliens in a family unit. Therefore, changing

the bill to provide for detention of families as well as

single adults would be a tremendous improvement in stopping

catch and release.

Finally, the idea of putting a cap on parole would be a

game-changer on ending parole abuse. As you indicated, under

the Trump administration and the Obama administration, grants

of parole by Customs and Border Protection at the southern

border averaged around less than 6,000 a year. Under

President Biden, grants of parole across the Department of

Homeland Security has skyrocketed to over 800,000 a year. A

cap on parole of 10,000 grants a year would be a check on

their ability to abuse this authority.

In summary, redefining emergency from 5,000 to 1,000,

requiring actual detention instead of Alternatives to

Detention, and a 10,000 a year cap on parole would make this

bill exponentially better. Thank you for your questions and

interest. Sincerely, Brandon Judd.

I see my colleague from Ohio is here, so I want to be respectful of his time because I know he is anxious to also speak upon this issue. But as I wrap up here, what I am hearing from my constituents is that they understand this is a catastrophe at our southern border. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, as we describe. It is a national security catastrophe. They want a secure border.

They also understand that under the Trump administration, that we had this. This wasn't a problem. This has become the No. 1 issue in my State. People know what is going on. As I said, every State is a border State. And they want us to take action.

This bill does not get the job done. This bill does not make meaningful reforms. And that is why I voted no on the border bill.

We must continue to look for solutions in the U.S. Senate. But at the end of the day, the responsibility for this catastrophe lies squarely on the shoulders of our President, Joe Biden. He is responsible for every case of human trafficking, sex trafficking, child trafficking, drug trafficking that comes across our border, every single one because of his open border policies. He is responsible for these deaths.

We didn't even talk about the thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the border who have died crossing the border. He is responsible for those too.

My colleagues and I have introduced a number of pieces of legislation to address this. Because I want to allow my colleague from Ohio to have the opportunity to be able to talk about this, I won't go into them, but the one that I introduced was called: The Ensure Uniform Border Inspection Practices Act to make sure we were doing the right things across the entire border, but there were a number of other pieces of legislation introduced by my colleagues that would have addressed the drug trafficking, the asylum abuse, upholding the laws at our border, the sanctuary cities that are also draws, all of these things could be addressed.

This administration could do it. I call this administration to stop these open border policies. Use the powers at your disposal to secure our border.

That is what the American people want. President Biden, secure our border. The American people demand it.

You have the tools. I call on you to use them.

With that, I yield back.

Madam President, I rise here today in support of our closest and longest standing ally in the Middle East, Israel, and also to prevent American taxpayer dollars from supporting terrorism.

On October 7, Hamas broke the cease-fire with a horrific and barbaric attack on Israel. Hamas terrorists crossed the border. They killed unarmed citizens, raped and mutilated women, burned children, beheaded soldiers, and kidnapped innocent civilians as well. That horrific attack demonstrates the barbarity of this terrorist organization.

For those who call on a cease-fire for Israel to somehow sponsor this, I call on you to call on Hamas to surrender. Hamas must surrender. Israel cannot tolerate an organization on its border that is dedicated to destruction of its state. Hamas has said time and time again they will continue to attack Israel in this barbaric way. Hamas must be destroyed and the United States must support Israel. Israel will be doing the world a favor when Hamas is destroyed.

On that day, 1,200 Israelis were killed. It included 33 Americans. Hundreds of people were kidnapped, many of whom have not been returned. I have been posting about the hostages since this terrible event has happened. These folks are mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, children. These folks are real people, and they must be returned. That is why it is so important that Hamas surrender, return the hostages, and the State of Israel must continue to defend itself until that happens.

Now, we ought not support terrorism, especially not a brutal terroristic organization by the name of Hamas. We shouldn't undermine our foreign policy to support the State of Israel. And yet that is exactly what we are doing at this moment.

There is an organization called the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East, also called UNRWA. Last Friday, there was a report that a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 attack, six directly in the attack killing Israelis. A couple were responsible for logistics, procuring weapons. More were involved in kidnappings. Still more were traced to the sites where Israelis had been killed.

The Wall Street Journal reports that perhaps 10 percent of UNRWA employees, some 1,200 people, may have links to Hamas or even the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which considers Hamas too moderate. Think of how crazy that is.

UNRWA has been described as, essentially, a branch of Hamas. But, by the way, this is not a news flash that this

happened. The UN has said they are going to launch an investigation into this. But guess what. We know through previous investigations that this was the pattern of UNRWA.

The Trump administration knew this, and so they cut off funding for UNRWA. They knew that UNRWA previously had been supporting Hamas, had its employees also be agents of Hamas, that its textbooks glorified martyrdom, terrorism, and preached anti-Semitism. Its teachers talked about killing Jews. Its schools had stored weapons for Hamas.

UNRWA sites and facilities have been used to launch attacks on Israel. This was not new news. And yet, inexplicably, the Biden administration, as soon as they came into office, resumed our funding, our taxpayer dollars to UNRWA. Madam President, 730 million U.S. taxpayer dollars given to UNRWA.

And we have since found out now that one of the UNRWA teachers, an Arabic language teacher, was a Hamas commander who participated on an attack on a kibbutz that killed 97 people and in which 26 people were kidnapped.

We should not fund Hamas, and we should not fund Hamas through UNRWA. We need to cut off the funds to UNRWA. The Trump administration saw it. And the State Department saying they are going to temporarily pause their funding to UNRWA is simply not good enough.

The junior Senator from South Carolina and me have proposed the Stop Support For Hamas. This would end U.S. taxpayer funding to UNRWA and stop their support of Hamas.

This bill must pass, or we have other ways to do it. We can put it into any supplemental that we pass that is going to provide aid to Gaza. We are currently considering such a bill right now.

Before we provide another taxpayer dollar, we must pass this legislation so that UNRWA cannot continue to support terrorists like Hamas. We must stand with our ally Israel. They not only have the right to defend themselves, but it will be important for world peace to see Hamas destroyed.

Hamas is a brutal terroristic organization. It has no place in the world. We need to provide Israel the tools they need to be able to defend themselves and destroy this terrorist organization. And we should not act counter to that by providing UNRWA money.

We must permanently ban our funding to UNRWA so that our taxpayer dollars are not supporting the terrorist organization Hamas.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, yesterday marked the 1-year anniversary of my joining the U.S. Senate. I wanted to take the opportunity to join this body because I believe America's best days lie ahead of us and that we needn't look any further than in States like mine to find the solutions to our Nation's problems.

I often say that Nebraska is what America is supposed to be. When I was Governor of the State of Nebraska, we spent 8 years delivering on excellence and making government work for the people. We proved that government can work together and put taxpayers first. And we did it while respecting individual freedoms and limiting our spending, running government well, and keeping people safe.

Those are the things I am working on in the U.S. Senate. This year, my team and I got to work for the people of Nebraska by fighting against the Biden administration's overspending and overregulation. It is driving inflation, and it is costing Americans money. Since Joe Biden has been sworn in as President, inflation broadly is up by 17.2 percent. Groceries are up 20 percent. Rent is up 19 percent. Electricity is up 24 percent. Gas is up 34 percent. And your average American home is spending $11,434 more today to have the same standard of living as they did when Joe Biden was sworn in as President. Americans are hurt by Joe Biden's policies.

We made government work better in Nebraska, and I pledge to do the same thing here in DC. My proven solutions for Nebraska work here in DC, and they are small steps to make things better here in Washington and to put taxpayers first.

My SNAP Next Step Act, which I introduced here, will help our families on SNAP get better jobs and get out of welfare.

We have introduced bills to provide tax relief to our veterans and to our seniors, and we are fighting to allow consumers choice. For example, with my Flex Fuel Fairness Act, it would push back against the Biden administration's EV mandate and provide consumers choice with biofuels that we know will save them money at the pump, help clean up our environment, and help make us less energy dependent.

I am also going to keep fighting to help keep Americans safe. Joe Biden's failed border policies have made every State a border State.

Over the weekend, News Channel Nebraska reported on a man from Mexico who was sentenced to prison in Bellevue, NE, after being convicted of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

This 43-year-old man was in the country illegally. He was arrested in a motel room with nearly $15,000 in cash, and 11\1/2\ pounds of methamphetamine. It turned out he had been previously deported for drug charges. And if drug trafficking doesn't scare you, the national security threat should.

In years past, we would have single-digit numbers of people crossing our southern border on the Terrorist Watchlist. Last year, 169 crossed our southern border on the Terrorist Watchlist. Over 8.8 million encounters along our southern border since Joe Biden has become President.

That number of encounters with individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist that used to be in single digits pales in comparison with the number of people coming here illegally. And that is why I am working with my colleagues to pass legislation that would attack Biden's failed border policies head-on. We are working to fix our broken asylum system, to build a wall, and to go after the drug cartels.

We are fighting to reform the parole system the administration is abusing. If you look back on the average number of people who were paroled in this country during the Obama and Trump administrations, it was about 5,600 people a year. Last year, Joe Biden paroled into this country 1.2 million people trying to come here illegally. Folks, that is about two-thirds of the population of the State of Nebraska.

We have also got to stop the human trafficking that is going on at the southern border. Children are being recycled. They are being brought across the border by adults who know it is easier to get in if they have a child with them. Yet the Biden administration stopped the DNA testing that would prove that these children belong to the parents, and Customs and Border Protection personnel tell me that sometimes 30 to 50 percent of the kids they used to test did not belong to those adults. And inexplicably, the Biden administration has stopped that, putting these kids at risk.

And President Biden's appeasement-first foreign policy has left us weakened and in a dangerous world.

Our disastrous pullout from Afghanistan emboldened dangerous dictators like Putin in Russia, Xi in China, and Khomeini in Iran. Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, and yet this administration has given them over $50 billion in sanctions.

As a result, Houthi rebels sponsored by Iran, funded by Iran, are shooting at our ships in the Red Sea, including our U.S. Navy. Hamas, also backed by Iran, has attacked one of our greatest allies: Israel. Biden's weakness encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine, and the Chinese Communist Party has increased their aggression toward Taiwan. All of this must stop. This world is less safe because of Joe Biden's policy.

I will continue to push back on Washington's overregulation and overspending to introduce measures to make government work well and to keep people safe. I think we have to ask ourselves: Are we better off today versus 3 years ago? And the answer is no.

I will continue to push back on this Biden administration and the way they have driven inflation to bring our proven Nebraska solutions to Washington, DC, and to fight to keep Americans safe both here and abroad.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, over the last week, my home State of Nebraska has been hit by bitter winter storms. We have had subzero temperatures, snow, and high winds that have closed many roads across the State of Nebraska.

As always, in times like these, Nebraskans step up to help. I want to thank all of our first responders, whether they were snowplow drivers, law enforcement, firefighters, EMTs, other emergency personnel--all the folks who demonstrated their grit and service this last week to be able to help people out. And I especially want to thank Nebraska State Patrol for the over 1,400 drivers they assisted during this crippling winter weather.

Hospitals saw a number of frostbite injuries. Our farmers and ranchers continued to work to ensure our food supply here at home.

I want to thank my Federal delegation as well and will work with them to provide any support that is needed. I appreciate that Governor Jim Pillen declared a state of emergency and will also assist with any Federal assistance that may be needed for this emergency. As we recover from these storms, I stand ready to work with my colleagues.

It is also an opportunity for us to be able to think about how government can do better. Many times a storm like this will create situations where we need to tease out what we should do better for the next time. However, in this case, one of the lessons has become clear right away.

As we all know, the EPA has a mandate that they want all new cars and trucks sold by the year 2032--I shouldn't say all; two-thirds of all cars and trucks sold by the year 2032--to be electric vehicles. This weekend we saw why this is just a dumb idea. These EV mandates are burdensome and do not work in places like the upper Midwest, where we can see these bitter cold temperatures. We saw that EVs don't work well when the temperature drops so precipitously. It turns out they are just not reliable when the weather turns this cold.

FOX 32 in Chicago has a story which I am going to quote from here. They reported that ``public charging stations have turned into car graveyards over the past couple of days.''

The story goes on to describe ``dozens of [EV] owners trying desperately to power up their cars at the . . . supercharging station in Oak Brook. It was a scene mirrored with long lines and abandoned cars at scores of other charging stations around the Chicago area.''

Also in the story there was a driver who referred to all these stalled electric vehicles as ``dead robots.''

``Car graveyards'' and ``dead robots''--is that the future we want? I don't think so.

And this happened in Chicago, where there are a lot of EV charging stations. What about my home State of Nebraska, where we don't have as many?

President Biden's own Department of Energy map shows no EV chargers on a 244-mile stretch of highway from Broken Bow to Scotts Bluff. There is not a charging station within 65 miles of Mullen, NE. Many rural communities are more than an hour's drive away from a charging station in towns like Hyannis, Cody, Merriman, Kilgore, and Thedford.

Nebraska is the ``Beef State.'' I can guarantee you that electric trucks are not practical when you are hauling livestock. One cannot afford just to pull over and start charging for 2 hours or even longer when the temperature is below zero--cattle cannot tolerate it.

And the thing about not being able to charge at all--imagine EV ambulances that break down trying to get to a rural hospital or EV buses breaking down trying to connect people to their jobs.

These are very real considerations in States like mine. Nebraskans tell me over and over again: The east coast Washington bureaucrats have no idea what their policies will do in the Midwest of the United States.

Guess what. They are right because, as it turns out, EVs don't work in cold weather.

These bureaucrats on the east coast have no idea of the implications of what their policies are to people in the Midwest. These major winter storms are a reminder that, right now, EV's don't have the performance or the reliance or the range in cold weather to be able to work in the Midwest.

Imposing an EV mandate on Midwestern States like Nebraska is foolish, unworkable, and it is wrong. I urge President Biden to reconsider this terrible policy. Until he does, I will continue to fight here in the U.S. Senate with every tool at my disposal.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, one of the Federal Government's primary responsibilities--mentioned in the preamble of the Constitution no less--is to keep America safe.

Right now, the world is a very dangerous place. Russia has launched an unprovoked war on Ukraine. Hamas, a terrorist organization backed by Iran, has attacked one of our strongest allies, Israel. There have been 127 attacks on American servicemembers in Iraq and Syria. Houthi rebels are attacking shipping and our U.S. Navy in the Red Sea. The Chinese Communist Party has its eyes set on Taiwan and are violating our sovereignty with things like spy balloons and other forms of espionage.

The responsibility for keeping America safe ultimately lies with the President of the United States. But he has a team of critical advisers who are essential to ensuring that Americans are defended. One of those advisers is the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The Secretary links the chain of command between the President and the uniformed military. The law is very clear: If the Secretary of Defense cannot do their job, there are protocols in place to ensure the chain of command remains intact. The law also requires proper notifications be made.

Last week, Secretary Austin went to intensive care in a hospital after complications from surgery. We wish him well in his recovery. Yet, for 3 days, the Defense Department failed to notify the President, the National Security Council, even the Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks that the Secretary of Defense was in the hospital and unable to perform his duties.

So let me get this right. The Secretary of Defense is in the hospital, the Deputy Secretary was on vacation in Puerto Rico, and nobody thinks to tell the President? Are you kidding me?

The Pentagon's explanation that the chief of staff was unable to do routine notifications because she was sick does not hold water. America's national security cannot be put on hold for a sick day. During Austin's secret hospitalization, the U.S. military launched a drone strike on Baghdad, returned fire against Houthi rebels, and was considering other military action in the Middle East. Given the potential implications of these actions, it goes without saying that we needed our Secretary of Defense at the helm.

Now, I am glad the Secretary's condition is improving. I know all of us want to wish him a speedy recovery from the infection and in his fight against prostate cancer. But the fact the Department did not inform Congress or the President, in contradiction to the law, is unacceptable and put Americans at risk. This shocking lack of transparency was more than just bad judgment; it was utter incompetence. But this is quickly becoming a feature, not a bug, of the Biden administration and how they run government.

This administration failed to give the American people the facts about the Chinese spy balloon. This administration failed to give the American people the facts about the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. And Biden's border policies have created a catastrophe at our southern border.

Now, we have a Secretary of Defense who went off the grid for 3 days without the President or his team even knowing, all this at a time when our adversaries are threatening American lives both at home and abroad. Americans need to be able to trust that their leaders are in charge.

Right now, we have more questions than we have answers. Why was the law not followed, and who made that decision? Was there actually a period of time when nobody was in charge of the Defense Department?

There must be consequences for this stunning incompetence. Americans deserve answers. Congress deserves answers.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have been hearing from a lot of families back home who are frustrated with the economy.

The numbers say it all. Americans are paying the price for failed Bidenomics. Since Joe Biden became President, prices have increased by 17.38 percent. Necessities continue to cost hard-working American families hundreds of extra dollars every month. Gasoline is up 42.18 percent. Groceries are up 20.28 percent. Energy prices are up nearly 35 percent. Electricity is up 23.5 percent. Rent is up 18.5 percent.

A CBS News poll recently showed that 76 percent of Americans say their income is not keeping up with Joe Biden's inflation, 92 percent of adults have felt the need to reduce their spending, and 76 percent plan to cut back on nonessential items.

Another report stated that the average American family is spending $11,400 more each year to pay for the same standard of living they had when Joe Biden took office. That is several months of pay for an everyday household.

As anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows, they will tell you that people on low and fixed incomes are the ones that are going to be the hardest hit. This inflation is a tax on every American's standard of living.

President Biden said that ``Bidenomics is just another way [to say] `the American Dream,' '' and yet the numbers show the American Dream is now more out of reach than at any time in recent history. Maybe that is why President Biden has stopped saying ``Bidenomics.''

Before Biden, the average monthly payment for a new home was $1,787. Today, that number is almost double, $3,322. That makes a new home unaffordable for many Americans.

This inflation is caused by President Biden's failed policies and reckless spending. Americans are forced to pay more now because of inflation and pay more later to address the rising cost of our national debt.

President Biden has adopted the term ``Bidenomics'' as a way to make Americans believe that they are better off. Well, it didn't work.

He has falsely claimed to have cut the national debt by $1.7 trillion when, in fact, the debt has increased by $6 trillion. He has falsely claimed that prices went down for holiday meals when, in fact, every single item that he mentioned has increased since he took office.

Once again, the numbers say it all.

An astounding 76 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. The President's war on domestic energy production has caused the price of energy to skyrocket. A wave of burdensome regulations has cost Americans thousands of dollars per household and limited their freedom. An avalanche of green energy spending has added trillions of dollars to the debt without building a single EV charger.

While Americans have tightened their belts in response to rising costs, our Federal Government has done the opposite. Federal spending is up 40 percent in the last 4 years.

The result of these failed policies? The national debt is approaching $34 trillion. That comes out to about $257,000 per American household. That is like having a second mortgage on a house for Nebraska families.

And that CBS News poll I talked about earlier also showed that 62 percent of Americans rate the condition of the U.S. economy as bad, with inflation being the most important reason for the problems facing our country.

And what do Americans rate as the No. 1 reason for this inflation? Joe Biden's big government spending, with 56 percent of Americans saying so.

Our constituents deserve better than to have their pocketbooks pummeled by Joe Biden's failed policies. Americans know that bringing the costs of living down and getting our country back on track means that Washington must reverse course. We need to reject the bloated omnibus bills and spend less, plain and simple. We need to stop the political regulations and tax increases that are stifling innovation and growth in our country. We need to unleash American energy production and lower energy prices. And we need to secure the border.

In the coming weeks, this body will have the opportunity to do all of these things. I stand here ready to work with anyone to get these important priorities accomplished for the people of Nebraska. I will work every day, all day,

to get it done, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I stand before you to express my gratitude and admiration for the exceptional students who joined our team as fall interns in 2023. These talented young women and men brought a unique blend of enthusiasm, dedication, and a passion for making a difference to my offices in Washington, DC, office and across the State of Nebraska.

Our interns have consistently shown a motivation to learn and a strong commitment to our State. Their presence has not only enriched our workspace, but also inspired my team and me. As the torchbearers of the next generation, their spirit and determination fill us with anticipation for what the future holds.

As they leave our office, I want to take a moment to extend my sincerest thanks to: Sarah Gregory, Johnathan Smith, Stephen Trainer, and Kayla Fink, who served in my Washington, DC, office; Abbie Russman, and Ava Verzani, who served in my Omaha office; and Reagan Connelly, who served in my Lincoln office.

Your dedication and contributions have truly made our team stronger. I hope you will carry the lessons learned here into your bright futures. Congratulations and best of luck.

Madam President, I am going to say something that I don't think ought to be controversial--that Hamas should receive no U.S. taxpayer dollars. But apparently some people think that is controversial.

On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel and to killing Jews, broke the cease-fire and attacked Israel.

Now, this was not a military attack; these were terrorists who came across the border to kill civilians. They killed 1,200 Israelis and 33 Americans.

Last week, along with my Senate colleagues, I watched an uncensored video

taken from Hamas body cameras, cell phones, on surveillance television, intercepts of radio and telephone conversations. It was horrific. This atrocity was perpetrated by barbaric savages. We witnessed them shoot unarmed civilians. We saw the evidence of young girls raped. We saw the dead bodies of children, some burned beyond recognition. We watched as a Hamas terrorist decapitated an Israeli soldier. It was truly horrifying.

Hamas started the war. They are responsible for every person who died on that day and every person who has died in Gaza since. They are a terrorist organization dedicated to destroying Israel. In fact, we heard some of the phone conversations from Hamas terrorists who called back their parents, bragging about how many Jews they had killed. It is absolutely horrific.

We must stand with Israel until Hamas is destroyed utterly. Humanity will have been done a favor by the State of Israel when Hamas is destroyed. We also must examine the Biden policies that are supporting Hamas. I know--yes, I said that. It is crazy, but it is true. The Biden administration has already given $730 million and wants to add another $260 million to it.

You see, there is this organization called the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and it has long been documented that they have been infiltrated by Hamas.

This organization, also known as UNRWA, has hired Hamas agents. Their teachers have been preaching about killing Jews. Their textbooks glorify martyrdom. They demonize Israelis and sow anti-Semitism. UNRWA schools have stored weapons facilities for Hamas. There is a U.N. report that shows UNRWA schools have launched attacks against Israel. On October 7, UNRWA employees applauded the attack, including 14 UNRWA teachers. Now we have a report that an UNRWA teacher held one of the hostages in that teacher's attic, barely feeding the hostage.

This is an organization that has been described as essentially a branch of Hamas. The Trump administration knew this, and so they cut off funds, with President Trump saying the organization UNRWA was irredeemable. Inexplicably, the Biden administration resumed funding and wants to continue resumed funding.

We must not let our tax dollars go to support Hamas, and that is why I have introduced the Stop Support for Hamas Act.

This act would make sure no economic development dollars go to Gaza or to the West Bank until Israel verifies that Hamas has been dismantled. It would ensure that the Palestinian Authority is not hiring Hamas or their affiliates. It would strengthen the Taylor Force Act to make sure the Palestinian Authority does away with this horrific pay-to-slay policy, and it would ensure that any other NGO that is working would not hire Hamas or Hamas affiliates.

What we saw on October 7 was inhumane; it was barbaric; it was horrifying; it was an atrocity--an atrocity committed by Hamas. We must stand with Israel until Hamas is utterly destroyed.

We must ensure that no more funding from American taxpayers goes to Hamas through UNRWA as 118 of the terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7 were educated in UNRWA schools. These schools are part of the problem, and the Trump administration knew it. I ask all of my colleagues to support my bill that will end this terrible policy.