Floor Statements

Madam President, on behalf of Vermont first responders and Vermonters who need Medicaid, I vote no.

Mr. President, everything my colleague, the senior Senator from New Hampshire, said about New Hampshire and about how people are really struggling to pay their bills, the cost of rent, the cost of housing, home heating fuel in the winter, which has been brutal, groceries--that is totally the same situation for families in Vermont, and it is around the country. I can't add, really, to the recitation of the practical consequences that this has on businesses and on Vermont families beyond what Senator Shaheen said.

But it really mystifies Vermonters. People come up to me, and they say, ``Peter, seriously, this is going to increase our grocery prices. This is going to mean lumber is more expensive. This is going to mean home heating fuel''--and we rely on Canadian gas probably more than you do--but also home heating fuel. ``This is going to raise our prices.'' And that 150 bucks to 200 bucks you are talking about--that is real money.

They just are mystified that we would, through the President, increase their monthly bills. And for what reason?

You know, I want to talk a little bit about that. New Hampshire and Vermont--we mostly get along, but we are rivals in hockey and other things. But we both have incredibly close relationships with Canada. They are our friends. We have a library in Derby, VT, that is half in Vermont and half in Canada, and our kids are going back and forth to play hockey. That is just on a very personal level, the affection that we have for Canada and they have for us. They come down and ski on our mountains. They come down and visit, and we go up there.

There is an element of ``Peter, what is going on? National security is the reason you are doing this? Is there a threat from Canada to our national security? We know there isn't.''

So this is an arbitrary decision that is made by the President, in my view, abusing authority that Congress gave him to use tariffs if there is, in fact, a national security threat, which all of us in a commonsense way would think might be something from a military threat or it might be from the coercive economic policies we face from China. There is a legitimate case there for national security. But Canada has been in the trenches with us in every war we have had. They have been by our side. They are our friends.

You know, that is another thing people say: Peter, you don't treat your friends this way. You just don't do that.

So I had a concern about what the impact was on Vermont, and instead of me speculating about it, what we did is invited some Vermonters who had businesses and some Vermont families to come and tell us what is going to happen if we have these tariffs. Let me tell you some of what they said.

We met in Saint Albans, which is a few miles from the Canadian border. I asked these businesses: Just tell us what happens.

First of all, there was nobody from these businesses who said that the cost of this tariff would not be passed on to the consumer, all right? Common sense. It is like somehow, if there is a 25-percent increase in cost, the business can just eat it, when we know, especially our small businesses, they are operating on the margin. They are doing every single thing they can to make their product competitive and affordable for the people they are serving. These are really, really good people who are totally committed to the communities they are in. Every one of them said that whatever the cost of the tariff is, that is going to be passed on to the consumer--not that they like to do that, but they have to pay their own bills. It is just reality.

The second thing they talked about was the uncertainty that occurs for businesses. One business was talking about how, when these tariffs go in--by the way, we have some history with this from the last Trump administration. There was supposedly a tariff, but if you knew the back entrance into the White House and could make a connection with somebody who had influence, you could get an exemption. So you get this terrible situation--which is not going to be available, by the way, for our Vermont fuel dealers or our Vermont homebuilders. If you knew somebody, you somehow got out of the tariff. And there was no guidance about how these tariffs would have been rolled out, so there was an enormous opportunity for special treatment to be given.

But even then, there is the complexity of this. For instance, one manufacturer was talking about if you got a certain kind of aluminum, it was subject to the tariff, but if you got an ever so slightly different definition of aluminum, you wouldn't be subject to the tariff. So you have a whole production process that has been using aluminum A that would be subject to a tariff, and if you go to aluminum B--if you can find it--it won't be subject to a tariff. If you got a square panel, it would be subject; if it was rectangular, it wouldn't. I mean, this is truly bizarre because there is no common sense in this at all.

So I keep asking the question: Why? Why are we doing this? Why are we inflicting this complexity on our businesses? Why are we inflicting this cost on our consumers and on our businesses? And there is no justification for it at all.

So let me go through some of the stories:

Garret Hirchak at Manufacturing Solutions--they do precision machining.

They are a manufacturer. That is what we want. And there are no margins on it. They work with sheet metal and cardboard. He said these tariffs create a whole burden to determine what is tariffed--the type or shape of aluminum--and he is bracing to respond to whatever chaos comes next.

This company has been in business for 29 years, and it employs 275 people. That is a big deal in our State of Vermont--a big deal. Why mess with him? Why?

Rock Gaulin at H2O Innovation--they make--we have better maple syrup than New Hampshire, I am sorry to say, and definitely better than Canada. They make the equipment that is used in maple syrup production, and this is going to increase their costs and threaten jobs.

And it really does threaten jobs, OK. And then, if you lose a market, by the way, then it is hard to get it back. So this company that might face this huge increase in the cost of aluminum to manufacture its product could lose market share and not be able to claw their way back.

Mike Tetreault from Poulin Grain: Poulin Grain is a great Franklin County, family-run--actually Northeast Kingdom, too--family-run grain dealer. They have been around for generations. And they have kept--they are a huge contribution to keeping our dairy farms going. They import organic grain, a huge market in Vermont. Their products are heavy to transport--think of corn and canola and oats--so they need to buy nearby, and they buy from Canada. And importantly, it is 30 to 40 percent of what they buy. And these tariffs could cost them about $10 million.

And it is just like the fuel dealers. They have got a contract, but they honor their customers. They can't eat $10 million. It just can't be done.

So the Poulin family is really worried about the costs rising for farmers, who are on the thinnest of thin margins. And nobody works harder than our dairy farmers. That is hard work. But it is so important to us in the State of Vermont, that we give them every chance to succeed when they are facing tough odds every day.

And why in the world would an act of the President of the United States add to the burden these dairy farmers already face when they are trying to hang on? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Mike also said something that is really important: The unknown and uncertainty is very difficult.

There seems to be a point of view in the Trump administration--the President, I will be candid--that he thinks chaos is a good negotiating tool. I will leave it to others to decide their view on that, but if the chaos creates this uncertainty for the Poulin Grain Company, for the dairy farmers in Franklin County, for a family that is hoping they can build a house and they thought they had a price, for a family that is struggling to pay for groceries at the end of the month, that uncertainty is really an infliction of distress. It is unfair.

And to create uncertainty in everyday people who are trying to live in their community, do a good job for the people that they serve; families that are trying to make their contribution in the community and keep the well-being of their family together, and they are on a tight margin--it is cruel to inflict unnecessary uncertainty.

The people from Vermont, the people from New Hampshire--and I think this is true around the country--they are OK with facing hard and grim circumstances, and they will grit their way through it. And they will take care of their kids, and they will take care of their community. They will be generous.

But--you know what--when the hardship that is something they have to deal with is a hardship that has been arbitrarily inflicted upon them by authorities or powers in Washington--in this case, the President-- and, in my view, totally improper invocation of so-called national security with our biggest ally, Canada, then they start to wonder. That makes the burden even more and more difficult.

So another person was there, Sarah Mearhoff, who was a representative of the General Contractors of Vermont. And they do all the building. They have been incredible with the infrastructure challenges we have had after Tropical Storm Irene--that was a while ago--and then the floods that we had in July of 2023 and then again in July of 2024.

The cost of raw materials is already very expensive. And she quoted one of her members--Kevin Moyer from Vermont Frames--saying:

Tariffs have always been bad for everyone. As a business

owner who buys a lot of timber from Canada, I'm very worried

about the impact of tariffs on my company. I cannot absorb

those costs, and will have to push them through to my clients

in the form of price increases, which will make my company

less competitive versus other construction techniques like

conventional framing.

So I keep asking myself: Why are we doing this to folks who are so essential to the well-being of the communities that we represent?

And, by the way, you have got two border State Senators here. And we have a lot in common, but everything we have said applies to similar businesses in every single State in the country. So this is not a Republican or Democrat deal. These tariffs are going to cost our families--our families that the Presiding Officer represents, that the senior Senator from New Hampshire represents, and that I represent--it is going to cost them more money. And for what? What are we getting in return?

So I, too, am very relieved, actually, on behalf of the people of Vermont and the people in New Hampshire and the people of this country, that there has been a temporary pause in these tariffs, but the uncertainty goes on. There will be no more justification 30 days from now to impose these tariff taxes on Vermonters and on New Hampshirites than there is today. And today, there is no justification. In 30 days, there will be no justification.

And I would call on the President to get real in accepting the consequences to everyday families, to small businesses. These aren't billionaires. These are really hard-working people in Vermont and in New Hampshire, and they just, rightly, don't understand this.

So, yes, it is good the tariffs have been suspended. It is really bad that they were ever threatened to be imposed. They will never do any good when there is a bogus reason--so-called national security--and a real abuse of that authority by the President, to invoke that with respect to our closest ally and neighbor in the trenches with our soldiers in every war we have been in.

So I just urge President Trump to do the right thing here. He can be tough. He can pursue his policies. But the first principle that every one of us in public office should respect is that we do no harm to the people we represent by the policies we advocate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the past 2 weeks, political operatives in the administration of President Trump and Elon Musk have shown the American people and the world that they plan to destroy as much of the professional workforce in the executive Agencies as they can get away with.

Whether it is illegal--and it is--or unconstitutional--and it is--is of no concern. Inspectors general and career civil servants who have served the American people for decades--some for their entire professional lives--are being summarily removed without any due process at all--due process they are legally entitled to.

They are being replaced with Musk-approved partisans who have little, if any, government experience or little, if any, substantive knowledge. They do have a qualification, and that is total loyalty to the President.

On top of Mr. Musk's list of Agencies to eliminate in the United States is the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, as we know it. That has been the subject of a ferocious attack by Mr. Musk.

That Agency is one that not many Americans know about but which fulfills a vital mission. It has a relatively small budget--less than 1 percent of the total Federal budget--and it has a large responsibility to support humanitarian, economic development, and governance programs in more than 100 countries.

Whatever ``savings'' Elon Musk might obtain from cutting USAID would have no appreciable impact in

offsetting Mr. Trump's huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. It wouldn't even amount to a rounding error. And the manner in which this has been done I find extremely disturbing.

Mr. Musk--and, by the way, for all his brilliance, he has no government experience himself--he called USAID a ``criminal organization.'' Dozens of USAID's dedicated senior officials, including the Office of the General Counsel, were purged. That has not happened before. That has not happened before in this country. And over the weekend, Musk called USAID ``evil'' and a ``viper's nest of radical- left marxists who hate America.''

Others in the administration have accused USAID personnel of insubordination and acting against American interests without producing any evidence to back that up, reminiscent of the McCarthy era: Make the accusation, destroy the reputation, and move on. That is a serious question, and we should--each of us--be asking the implications of this language.

I find Mr. Musk's accusations appalling. I know they are factually baseless, and, frankly, I find them despicable. It is also curious because, in 2022, his company Starlink received millions of dollars from USAID for Starlink's operation in Ukraine, not to mention the incredible amount of taxpayer subsidies that helped Tesla become the major company that it is. Mr. Musk--he is a billionaire, as we know-- has no reluctance to take taxpayer funds from USAID. None. He took money from USAID. It was a good organization when the money was coming to him to help us in Ukraine, but now he is calling it a criminal organization.

And I doubt that he knows what 99 percent of USAID employees do or the positive impact they have on the lives of people around the world and on U.S. national security--the obligation all of us have as Members of the U.S. Senate. I wonder if he has ever met or has ever spoken to anyone who works at any of the 60 overseas missions or seen with his own eyes what USAID does in countries like Indonesia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Mozambique, Ghana, or Guatemala, just to name a few, where the lives of countless people really do benefit from USAID.

And being billionaires, President Trump and Elon Musk may not be aware that fully 1 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day. They may not be aware that the lives of hundreds of millions of people, especially children, are threatened by diseases that can be prevented or cured with drugs that cost only a few pennies.

Or maybe Mr. Musk is not aware that the life of every American is threatened by the spread of infectious diseases. We saw that with COVID, and there is other diseases out there where what we do elsewhere protects the health and safety of people right here at home.

Or maybe Mr. Musk isn't concerned that the Earth's tropical forests and endangered species are being decimated by illegal miners, loggers, and wildlife traffickers, who are often in collusion with local police and transnational criminal organizations, to feed, by the way, China's insatiable demand for minerals, timber, and wildlife--consequences to the environment be damned. USAID works with local governments and organizations to protect forests in South and Central America, central Africa, and in Indonesia, and to train wildlife rangers to combat poaching and trafficking.

It may make absolutely no difference to Mr. Musk, as it clearly doesn't to President Trump, that the rising acidity of the oceans and plastic pollution are destroying what remains of the world's coral reefs and marine species at the bottom of the food chain, due to the burning of fossil fuels. And USAID works to protect marine ecosystems and support reduction of fossil fuels, carbon emissions, and reduced plastic waste.

Government corruption, repression, and impunity may not be a priority in other countries for President Trump and Elon Musk to take on, even though they are major causes of the poverty in the world, political instability and violence, narcotics trafficking and migration in our own hemisphere. So what happens in these countries makes a difference in what happens here, especially with respect to immigration.

And these are just a few of the many complex global problems that USAID personnel work to address every day--every single day--partnering with foreign governments and thousands of nongovernmental organizations. Those are real people; they are doing real work, even though they aren't CEOs. They are doing their best to address poverty, environmental degradation, corruption in governance.

It is affecting nongovernmental organizations, contractors, and institutions of higher education in Vermont, this attack on USAID. These are Vermont organizations that have a long history of implementing USAID humanitarian and development programs. I will mention a few. World Learning, Tetra Tech/ARD, Resonance, and the Vermont Afghan Alliance are examples; they are being decimated as a result of this order.

Suddenly, out of the blue, without even an hour's notice, these organizations and others were forced to shut down programs and lay off staff with no idea of what comes next. Many of their employees are working overseas where they are stranded without even the ability to have funds to pay for flights home. That is how sudden it was. And unlike Mr. Musk, they don't have their own private jets.

This sends a message to the people of those countries that the United States can't be relied on; it is pretty cruel to create that uncertainty, that confusion, and then that desperation.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, like any Federal Agency, is not perfect, and any time there is talk of reform coming from your side of the aisle or ours, I am all ears, because anything we can do to make what we have work better, we all have an obligation to do our part.

But USAID was established by an act of Congress more than 25 years ago, and constitutionally, no President and no unelected billionaire can unlawfully shut a congressionally authorized Agency down. There is no authority to do that, and we shouldn't stand by and essentially abdicate our article I authority and cede the capacity to a President to pick and choose among Agencies, legally authorized by the Congress, as to whether he will destroy it or continue it.

You know, some folks have said that shutting down USAID is part of the President's plan to reduce the national debt; it isn't. You know, I think the President cares a lot less about the national debt--it went up by more than $7 trillion to pay for tax cuts, and eliminating the USAID would make no dent in that at all.

Some have said that we need to better align USAID's programs with the policies of the State Department. That is something that is worth discussing, and I would have some confidence in Secretary Rubio taking a serious look at how that can be done.

But that is already being done, by and large. Diplomacy is the job of the State Department. It is not the same as development, which is what the USAID does. And you don't shut an Agency down, freeze billions of dollars in authorized programs, silence or remove entirely the senior staff, and lock thousands of employees out of their offices. I mean, this is unbelievable. They locked the door, so people show up for work and they can't get in. And you do that without any notice before having any discussion. This is the difference between disruption, that can be good, and destruction, which is terrible.

And I believe that it is our job as Senators to speak up in defense of the civil service, the foreign service, their families, USAID's autonomy, and the foreign assistance programs that Republicans and Democrats have strongly supported for generations, programs that have been the building blocks of U.S. security partnerships and alliances around the world that we depend on to prevent conflict, respond to humanitarian disasters, and by the way, create markets for U.S. exports and counter the malign influence of our adversaries.

As my colleague, the senior Senator from South Carolina, has said year after year when speaking about USAID:

Soft power is a critical component of defending America and

our values.

He has been a consistent defender of USAID's workforce and budget, as have many other Republican Members of Congress, leaders of the U.S. business community, and senior military officers who understand that diplomacy

and development are as important to preventing conflict as the threat of military force and a strong military, which we support.

It wasn't long ago that Secretary Rubio--then our colleague Senator Rubio--praised USAID's work in global health, in aiding victims of natural disasters, in supporting Venezuelans who were persecuted by that dreadful Maduro. Until Elon Musk decided that it is ``time for [USAID] to die''--really said that, ``time for [USAID] to die''--USAID previously had always received bipartisan support.

This is no time for the Congress of the United States, the U.S. Senate, to stand by passively while an Agency that plays a unique, indispensable role in protecting the interests and the influence, the security and the reputation of the United States around the world is decapitated and dismantled. Those responsible for this self-inflicted disaster have no respect for the law, no respect for the will of Congress, and no respect for the thousands of truly patriotic public servants who have devoted their lives to defending the interests of the United States and presenting a positive face of America in some of the world's most dangerous places.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I believe that the Attorney General may, in fact, be the most important position in a President's Cabinet, and if it is not the most important, it certainly is the most difficult.

Whoever is our Attorney General is a person that serves all of us. They have two clients. They have the President who appointed her or him and they have the Constitution.

Let me be clear that I have no objections to any President, including President Trump, appointing someone that the President is close to. President Kennedy appointed his brother. I do have a problem with any President seeing the job of Attorney General to be the person who runs ``my Justice Department,'' and that is how President Trump has characterized it--``my Justice Department.''

So we have this dilemma with respect to coming to a conclusion on the use of the responsibility that the Senate as an institution has for the advice and consent of a Cabinet member.

I start from the orientation that a President should be able to pick his team and that we should take up nominations and move on them, vote on them expeditiously. My orientation is that the President is entitled to the benefit of the doubt but not to a blank check.

What is also difficult for me with respect to this appointment is that, in my view, Pam Bondi is accomplished and competent and qualified. I have great respect for her work as a county prosecutor in Florida, and I have great respect for her work as attorney general in the State of Florida. I have great respect for the fact that, as a woman, she made that decision to run for attorney general and had to overcome pretty significant odds in order to win that position.

I also remember, Mr. Ranking Member, that she had great testimony from people whom she worked with, and I think both you and I have a great deal of respect for folks who have a leadership position and treat their subordinates with great respect and have their affection and confidence, and that came through in the testimony of people who have worked with Ms. Bondi.

My grave concern is really about President Trump and what he is clearly demanding of the person, whoever it is--and now it is Ms. Bondi--what the President is demanding, and that clearly is a loyalty oath to him as opposed to a demand for straightforward, candid advice, including, if the President is asking something to be done, like the prosecution of a political adversary, that the answer, Mr. President, has to be no. That is what the President is demanding. We can argue on both sides about whether that is the case, but the evidence is overwhelming.

The question that I have asked a number of nominees, including Mr. Patel and including Ms. Bondi, is, Who won the 2020 election? It is pretty clear that the President's team, in preparing folks for that inevitable question, came up with an acceptable answer. The acceptable answer is that President Biden was the President; President Biden was certified. No one could just say the straightforward: President Biden won.

In the closest election in our history, Bush v. Gore, after the Supreme Court made its decision, not only did Al Gore accept the outcome, but Democrats did, Americans did. That was pre-January 6 when we all relied on the guardrail in the Constitution that there would be a commitment to a peaceful transfer of power and that there would be renunciation of violence as a means of persuasion in the outcome of an election.

January 6 did change that. There was an attack on the Capitol. Many of us were here. That was inspired by President Trump. He invited people to come: ``It will be wild.''

It was provoked because the President used the enormous authority he had and the enormous credibility he had with people who supported him to begin peddling the ``Stop the Steal'' narrative; the election was stolen.

President Trump has never, ever given up on that. As far as he is concerned, he says to every person and every audience: That election is stolen.

People who were going to work in his administration, in a vetting process, had to answer that question in the way that was acceptable to then-duly elected President Trump. That is not acceptable to me. It is not acceptable.

President Biden won. President Trump won this last election. I didn't vote for him, but I can say it. I can acknowledge it and do the best I can as a member of the minority party.

But we now have a President who is now allowing a person to have a dual loyalty to him, yes, and to the Constitution, to make it clear for that person who is nominated for a law enforcement position, that they accept his narrative of what happened in 2020. It is really dangerous, in my view, for our country.

The President has gone on, much to my regret, intensifying that concern that many of us have as to whether there will be an adherence to the rule of law.

In an extraordinary first 2 weeks, the President has gone on--it is my opinion, but a lot of courts support it--a rampage of illegality. It is a serious threat to our country.

Let me start with the impoundment--you know, basic civics. The article I branch--that is the U.S. Senate and U.S. House--has authority over appropriations and spending. The executive can propose, and we can consider, an appropriations request. The President can reject an appropriations bill that Congress passes with a veto. But what the President can't do is pick and choose where he feels like spending or just disregarding the appropriations passed by the Congress of the United States. And he is doing that.

The impoundment is patently illegal, not even close. And what is clear to me is the President doesn't care if the impoundment causes enough havoc that affected agencies will either be destroyed or severely damaged.

Let me give a couple of examples. When that impoundment notice went out, Wells River Community Health Center in Vermont--it provides healthcare to really poor Vermonters, and they do an incredible job. They have a cash balance that allows them to stay in business from 0 to 5 days. That is it. The impoundment notice comes in, literally, they show up to work, and it says: You shut down. You can't open up tomorrow.

Those folks running that organization don't have the money to pay the salaries of anyone: the doctors, the receptionists, the medical providers.

We see what is happening at USAID: ``We are shutting you down.'' The doors are locked. People show up for work; they can't get in. That is illegal and unconstitutional, as I see it.

The administration, the President, has made a clear decision that he doesn't care. He is not going to worry about the niceties. Things that restrained Republican and Democratic Presidents before; namely, adherence to the law and recognition of their responsibility to preserve a tool that has been a safeguard for our democracy through both Republican and Democratic administrations, those rules don't apply to him.

Then we have seen that he has delegated authority to a nonelected billionaire--Mr. Musk--and told him, basically, to go wild with the Federal Government; do what you want; go where you want. And in one of the most astonishing things, they sent over--Musk sent over five kids. One of them is 19; he can't drink in Vermont--and four early-20-year- old folks. They marched in and the Treasury Secretary, basically, of the United States--the successor to Alexander Hamilton--a man I respect, by the way, Mr. Bessent, and the person who ran the payment system, and said: ``We are in charge.'' That is basically what they did.

Then they got access to the computers, which means they have your Social Security Number and mine. They have information about our taxes. Every individual in this country, their privacy has now been put in jeopardy.

Just think if this were the private sector. Let's say you are Jamie Dimon, and you run a major financial institution, J.P. Morgan, and five kids show up at your bank. They say: Hey, Mr. Musk sent us. Give us access to the computers.

And they have access to all the individual information, company information, of the folks who work with J.P. Morgan. That is what happened.

It is not really apparent to all the American people what is happening. It is the folks who are directly impacted by this, the folks at USAID who don't have a job, the folks at Wells River Clinic who are operating on the tightest of margins who have suffered and don't know whether they will be able to keep the lights on. It is the woman, the mom, who had, finally, after months and months of trying, a dental appointment through Medicaid--they had it canceled arbitrarily and abruptly. Those individuals are feeling it, and this is going to ripple out to more and more Americans seeing what is happening.

We need an Attorney General who will share my shock at a President acting in such a lawless way.

The fact is, frankly, I don't think President Trump ever in the world would place a value on having an Attorney General who is willing to tell him: Mr. President, no, you can't get appointed unless you pass the test. And the test was on full display both with Mr. Patel and Ms. Bondi in their inability to answer the basic question: Who won the 2020 election?

My concern is not that they ``get the answer right.'' My concern is that they

get that their profound responsibility is, first and foremost, to the Constitution and the rule of law.

The President is not looking for anyone other than someone who is going to give him the fealty that he demands when these questions arise.

What we are seeing with the President in these first 2 weeks of his term is that there is no restraint. The rule of law is for suckers. He is going to break things, and whatever damage is done is not his problem.

The problem is, there are a lot of really innocent good Americans who are being affected by this: doctors and nurses, moms whose children get Medicaid help, lawyers who dedicated their career to civil rights or environmental protection.

There is a cruelty with the way in which the President has acted. It is almost a casual cruelty that just doesn't matter. So I am looking for some confidence that the checks and balances that are required, that we can build up.

Frankly, there is a major question that we face as a U.S. Senator and each of us as an individual Senator. I believe, at least to exercise our judgment--we won't agree, necessarily, and we may come to a different judgment about how best we can do what I think each of us is required to do, and that is to protect the institutional responsibility of the U.S. Senate to be an independent, separate branch of government and to adhere to the importance of the separation of powers, and that this institution has a fundamental responsibility to the American people to be a check and balance.

There are 100 of us here, and we may have 100 different opinions as to when it is that we should say no, but my hope is that every single one of us will accept that it is our responsibility to make that judgment and not just passively submit to whatever action the President is sending our way.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on January 14, 2025, Norwich, VT, lost a beloved member of one of the town's oldest farming families.

David Pierce grew up on a small dairy farm on a hill with a view down the valley, less than a mile from Dan & Whit's General Store in the center of town. His father, known by all as ``Bub,'' was the farmer. His mother Janet cared for David and his sister Deb and took in other children when their parents were out of town, as well as tending to her big vegetable garden. She later became long-time town clerk of Norwich.

David attended the local Norwich elementary school through eighth grade when he went across the river to Hanover High in Hanover, NH. From an early age, David spent weekends and summers mowing and baling hay and helping with the many chores that come with raising and milking cows. Early spring was spent with his father in the maple sugar house. After high school, he attended the University of Vermont, where he studied physics and did graduate work at nearby Dartmouth College and the University of Massachusetts. He went on to teach physics and astronomy at Tabor Academy in Marion, MA, for 47 years, while still spending summers helping with the mowing and hay baling back in Norwich. He was a familiar sight driving the John Deere tractor in local

fields and through town, wearing his shiny metal hardhat.

Soft spoken and not one to promote himself, always genuinely interested in others, the depth and breadth of David's academic accomplishments and community service were truly remarkable. His impact on his students was life changing. The remembrance of David by Tony Jaccaci, head of Tabor Academy, reminds us of what a lasting, positive difference one passionate, dedicated, and exceptionally kind person can make to an institution, a community, and to future generations.

I want to convey my condolences to David's extended family, and I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Jaccaci's remembrance of David be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, like all of us, I was enormously relieved by the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza, the gradual release of hostages, and a surge in humanitarian aid for the 2 million desperate Palestinians who are trapped inside Gaza.

Despite the daunting challenges ahead and the many factors that could derail negotiations to implement stage 2 of the agreement, I am cautiously hopeful that this could be the beginning of the end of a war that has traumatized millions of Palestinians and Israelis for more than 16 months.

There will come a time for the accounting of the conduct of the war, which has caused such appalling loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives, including tens of thousands of children, of health workers, aid workers, and journalists, and massive destruction of property, including practically every hospital and every school and university in Gaza. These things must not be forgotten, and that means investigating and holding people accountable under the laws of war.

But today I want to speak briefly on an issue that is key to the lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis that we seek, and that is the creation of a viable, secure, independent, and demilitarized Palestinian state.

The war in Gaza was triggered, of course, by the merciless slaughter on October 7, 2023, of 1,200 innocent Israelis, Americans, and others and the abduction of some 250 hostages, many of whom have died. But, as we all know, the Middle East conflict began many decades earlier and some would say centuries ago. Ethnic hatred and religious intolerance passed down from one generation to the next have fueled seemingly endless violence perpetrated by extremists on both sides, and it has created a chronic state of insecurity for Israelis and insecurity, humiliation, poverty, and hopelessness for Palestinians.

In the West Bank, Israel's ever-expanding settlement construction, in violation of U.N. resolutions and contrary to U.S. policy, has created a patchwork of separate and unequal enclaves and illegal outposts, provoking frequent acts of deadly violence by Israeli settlers and also by Palestinian extremists.

Gaza, with the overt support of the Netanyahu government, became an open-air prison for 2 million impoverished Palestinians dependent on international aid and under the ruthless control of Hamas.

Throughout this period, the wealthy Arab states have called for a Palestinian state, but they have expended minimal political capital or resources in furtherance of that goal--a lot of talk, very little action.

Successive Palestinian leaders have squandered opportunities to make necessary political and economic reforms, while Mr. Netanyahu has worked to create conditions on the ground that would actually make a Palestinian state impossible.

Despite this grim reality--and it is a grim reality--the attention focused on the remarkable life of President Jimmy Carter after his death on December 29 reminded us that even in the most difficult circumstances, peace is possible between longstanding enemies. It happened. But that possibility depends on the quality of the leadership.

If there were ever a time when the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, their Arab neighbors, and the United States should put the interests of regional peace and economic cooperation and development-- including an independent Palestinian state--over personal and political ambition, it is now. It is now.

Gaza is in ruins. Hamas and Hezbollah, still a threat, pose less of a threat than at any time in recent history, and the horrific Assad regime is gone. Iran is also weaker. Most Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians want peace. But given the absence of visionary and courageous leaders in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the possibility that a path to a Palestinian state will emerge really does depend on the Trump administration using its diplomatic influence far more forcefully and effectively than previous U.S. administrations, including the first Trump administration, were willing to do. We have got to act.

And it will require the same of Congress, which in the past has restricted itself to enacting tighter and tighter sanctions on the Palestinians, causing increasing desperation and resentment for innocent Palestinians, while at the same time, opposing any incentives on Israel to stop settlement construction and settler violence.

There are those who believe that because of Israel's construction of settlements, walls, fences, separate highways, factories, and farms in the West Bank, that the West Bank and Gaza can never be reconfigured into a viable Palestinian State. And having seen a current map of the West Bank, I can certainly understand that.

But others reject the very idea of a Palestinian State as incompatible with Israel's security, without proposing any alternative that would preserve Israel as a democracy in which all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion, have equal rights. Given Hamas's horrific attack on October 7, I can also easily understand that.

Then, on January 25, President Trump called for the ``cleaning out'' of Gaza, suggesting that a million and a half Palestinians should be resettled in Jordan and Egypt. And, you know, seriously, there are just so many things wrong and unrealistic with that reprehensible and unworkable idea, that it barely deserves a response beyond the predictable and immediate repudiation by all those who would be impacted. It is not serious.

But to me, as elusive as it may seem, there really is no solution that offers lasting peace and continued U.S. support other than two independent states: Israel and Palestine, side by side.

The Palestinian State will only be possible if both sides are pressured to make the difficult compromises both sides have so far refused to make. And only the United States and our heretofore reluctant Arab allies can exert the kind of pressure that is necessary to bring people to an agreement.

There have been far too many missed opportunities and disappointments since the Oslo and Camp David Accords, and far too much needless death and destruction resulting from the unchecked ambitions of leaders motivated by their worst instincts.

And history will judge us, whether we seize this moment to finally chart a different course--a course that does enable Israelis and Palestinians to finally accept that there is no turning back the clock, that both are here to stay, and that as many Palestinian and Israeli neighbors have shown throughout the years of conflict and loss, they have far more in common than their differences.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues.

You know, President Trump likes to think that chaos is a useful tool. He can create disarray and disruption, and things will end up all right. There is another word that more aptly describes what he did: ``cruel,'' deeply cruel.

You know, on Sunday night in Vermont, it is really a special night. You have got the work of the week behind you. The errands of the weekend are done. If you are fortunate and have a family, you have dinner; you are watching the football game; you are gathering yourself for the week ahead.

The week ahead for people is different. It is a mom who has a dentist appointment that she finally got after 8 months on Medicaid. It is a dump truck driver who is looking forward to getting back and seeing his friends at work and getting that construction project in town completed. It is a Medicaid doctor who, as tired as he was from the week before, is excited about the week he faces or she faces. It is the Meals on Wheels recipients--folks who have had a quiet weekend who are lonely and are anticipating the delivery of that meal, not only for physical nourishment but for the emotional comfort that comes with having that contact with the person who is delivering that meal.

These are the everyday things that people do. They are living their lives, where they do work; they make appointments for their kids; they see them to childcare; they help their neighbors. Out of the blue--with no discussion--an announcement goes out. It is illegal. It is sent out by a person who hasn't even been empowered to act.

It says to that mom who is going to the Medicaid appointment: It is off.

It says to that person who was going to get a Meals on Wheels delivery: It is not coming.

It says to that construction worker: That project you are so proud of that you are working on in that you are making a contribution to your community, don't show up for work.

It comes out of nowhere--with no explanation, with no discussion. It is cruel taking away the expectations that people depend on to live the hard lives that a lot of people have.

By the way, I talk about people who have a fair amount of stability in their lives. There are women who are getting beaten, and they have refuge because they can call a hotline, and they can go to a shelter-- closed. It is some kids who are homeless and have a shelter that they can go to because of the incredible effort of people in our communities--in your community and in mine--who care about that, when it is invisible to so many others. So the jeopardy of those people-- taking away their security in the name of showing how chaos works to accomplish your goals--that is cruel. That is cruel.

You know, it is also cruel because of the folks who volunteer at some of these places. You are depriving them of the opportunity that makes so much of a difference in their lives when they see their lives being fulfilled by being able to help others.

I got a ride from an Uber driver, and I was talking to him. He told me that he was retired. He is retired like a lot of people where they have a job or two, and his was driving. But the other thing he did was he delivered Meals on Wheels, and he told me about his mother-in-law who, until she was 91, delivered Meals on Wheels, oftentimes to people 30 years younger. The joy he had in doing that is what made life so vivid and worthwhile for him to live. It is the joy of helping your neighbors. The President's order took that away from him--no meals to deliver. That is cruel.

It is also totally illegal and totally unconstitutional, and this is the test that we face. If we are U.S. Senators and we believe that the Constitution is important, not in the abstract but in the role it has played in preserving and protecting the freedom of all Americans, and if we believe that freedom is preserved when there is a check and balance against unbridled power, then we are the ones who have to act in order to protect the well-being of this country against the illegal actions by a President who just doesn't care whether it is legal or it isn't.

He worships power, and he is creating a new culture where, if you worship community service, if you worship generosity, forgiveness, empathy, you are a sucker. That is the emotional message from this President Trump.

Our people in Vermont, our people in Utah--they want and they do better that, when they see injustice, when they see suffering, they respond to it. They don't intensify it.

So we have a decision as U.S. Senators to stand up for what this institution requires, and that is that we are a separate and coequal branch of government, and when the responsibilities are being subverted by an overreach by the Executive, we resist, and we resist because it is absolutely vital to the well-being of this country that our democracy prevail with three branches of government and checks and balances.

But it is really fundamentally important to the well-being of the people we represent--in their opportunity to live with stability, in the ability to help their neighbors, to have confidence that promises made are promises kept, that we defend the good work, the good will, and the integrity of the people of Vermont, of the people of Utah, and of all of our 50 States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are here discussing the nomination of the next potential Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

Of course that job, as we all know, is probably the second most difficult job in the country. He presides over the welfare of 3.4 million people in Active service and Active Reserve all around the world. He presides over a budget of $850 billion. The person who has that position has to be a preeminent strategic thinker: How do we modernize our Navy? How do we recruit in the modern world? How do we maintain force preparedness? How do we cement strategic alliances? It is a job that you can't just show up and start doing; there has to be behind it a lifetime experience that gives you some capacity to be able to do all of these things and respond to the emergencies that inevitably arise when you get that phone call at 3 in the morning.

There has been a lot of discussion by my colleagues about the lack of experience of Mr. Hegseth. I share that concern. There has been a lot of discussion about his views on women in the military, and our distinguished Senator Tammy Duckworth is the most preeminent example of the capacity of women to serve effectively and bravely.

Mr. Hegseth has repudiated his well-founded, longstanding view that he is against women in the military. Frankly, it sounds to me like a nomination-eve consideration.

Speaking, of course, to the Presiding Officer, I really respect the military service he has provided to our country.

But the big concern I have about Mr. Hegseth, in addition to the character issues, the experience issues, and the drinking issues--and by the way, I am puzzled as to his assertion that if he gets the job, he will stop drinking. Why wait?

But here is the concern I have: Unlike the Presiding Officer, I did not serve in the military. My draft lottery number was high--this was during Vietnam--and I wasn't drafted. Many of my college classmates were. They served in Vietnam. Some of them came home injured, and some did not come home. I think about them every day and how it is that they served. Some were badly injured, and some died.

When I think about the situation most Americans are in, most of us didn't serve, but all of us who didn't serve are so indebted to those who did.

My high school classmates were like the young people I see now who are volunteering to go into the military.

So we as Americans have a profound obligation to honor the service of those who volunteer to respond to the call of the Commander in Chief, who says: You are going to be deployed. They don't know where. They are not involved in the discussion of whether. They are not involved in the discussion of when. They show up.

Our democracy so profoundly depends on the idealism of young people who are willing to subject themselves to the decisions of the Commander in Chief, and I believe that every one of us here who is involved in the decisions about authorizing the use of military force has an absolutely profound obligation to do that with care because the folks who are going to do the work and be in harm's way are going to be there because we sent them there.

It is why I have been so insistent, as have many of us here, that we have to have a good VA, that we have to have medical care for our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines.

But what we need, too, is a Secretary of Defense who honors that idealism of these young Americans who decide to enlist. That idealism is borne in a sense of common commitment, a sense of wanting to do something for the common good, and it is also to live by the code of military conduct.

There is great honor in our services. Those men and women whom I so admire know they may have to use lethal force to defend our values, to defend our country, to protect their fellow soldiers, but they know there are limits, and they use it when they must but never more than that.

By the way, that is asking a lot of our soldiers, to be restrained when they are in a combat zone and can be killed themselves.

So what distresses me so much about Mr. Hegseth is how he used his very powerful forum on FOX TV, in my view, to dishonor the soldiers who acted with restraint and valor and integrity by taking up the cause of some of our soldiers--there are not many of them, but they do exist-- who kill people, who use violence not in furtherance of our defense but for their own reasons.

I am speaking about Mr. Lorance. Clint Lorance was a soldier. He was sent, in 2012, as a new commander without combat experience to lead a platoon of young soldiers who were deployed to Afghanistan with the mission of defeating the local Taliban and winning over the area's population--an incredibly hard task. But one day, for reasons Mr. Lorance--then Soldier Lorance--knew, he threatened to kill a farmer and his son, a 3- or 4-year-old boy. A day later, he ordered his men to shoot within inches of unarmed villagers--that was including near children.

He said: It is funny watching the villagers dance.

Mr. Lorance's men, who were honorable, brave, willing to be in harm's way, and willing to act like warriors but were not ever willing to kill indiscriminately, balked at his orders. And you know how hard that is to do if you are a soldier when you are given an order even if you know it is the wrong order. Then they were told to make false reports about taking fire from the village to justify this conduct, but they refused to do it.

The next day, Lorance ordered fire on unarmed Afghans who were over 100 yards from the platoon. They were killed. They filed a false report claiming the bodies couldn't be reached.

The people I honor are the people under his command who refused to take those orders. The people I honor are soldiers whose bravery extends not just to putting their own physical well-being in harm's way but who maintain that commitment to the ideals of the military code of conduct that give us the standing and legitimacy that are so important to our well-being.

So my problem is this: I want a Secretary of Defense who is as good as the soldiers he leads. Mr. Hegseth, in my view, fails to meet that standard.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in the United States, we believe in the peaceful transfer of power. In the United States, we believe that the people--not elected politicians--decide who is their President.

And both of those principles have served our democracy very well through thick and thin, through strife and turmoil, for the past 248 years.

Both of those principles were challenged on January 6, 2021. A mob that was incited by then-President Trump attacked the Capitol for the explicit purpose of using violence to overturn the peaceful transfer of power.

They were trying to intimidate elected politicians to substitute their judgment, their preferred candidate for President, instead of acknowledging the will of the people that they represented.

But our democracy endured. That is the very good news. And in testament to that, we just witnessed a renewal of America's commitment to the peaceful transfer of power with the inauguration of Donald Trump as our 47th President.

However, I speak today, sadly, about one of the first actions of President Trump, and that, of course, is pardoning 1,600 people and commuting sentences of 14 very dangerous criminals who were involved in that violent attack on January 6.

Speaking for myself, I condemn that action by President Trump. I was there that day. Many of us were. I was in the Gallery of the House of Representatives. It is a day I won't forget, but America will never forget. It has had a deep impact on our country, the citizens, the folks who work here, and that honorable tradition of the peaceful transfer of power.

You know, I was very amazed and proud to see officers--men and women--who withstood this assault. More than 150 officers from the U.S. Capitol Police and the DC Metropolitan Police Department were injured that day. Five officers died in the aftermath, and there was severe damage to the Senate Chamber, the House Chamber, the office buildings, and the Capitol Rotunda, where we just had another inauguration only a few days ago.

Blood, feces, glass, and other debris from the mob's attack was everywhere at a cost of close to $3 million.

So how is it that one of the first acts of our President, who wants to be a unifier, was to pardon those people who acted with such violence, such anger, and such contempt?

President Trump has tried to erase this attack and rewrite the history of what happened on January 6, calling the insurrectionists, including those who fought with the police, patriots and hostages. They were neither.

Should the President of the United States pardon a person who was sentenced to 57 months in Federal prison for stealing a police riot shield from an officer and then using it to assault officers?

Should a person who is affiliated with the neo-Nazi group and who was serving a sentence for breaking the law in Charlottesville in 2017 and who quoted Hitler before assaulting law enforcement in the U.S. Capitol, should that person be pardoned? I say no.

Should a President pardon a person who led an organization who orchestrated this riot after being convicted by a jury of impartial citizens and being convicted of seditious conspiracy? I say no.

Should a President pardon a person who was sentenced to more than 6 years for beating the police with a metal whip, assaulting them with bear spray--something that can cause lasting eye damage--should that person be pardoned? I say no.

Should a person who, at his own trial, said he didn't think he was subject to the laws governing the United States and who, before storming the Capitol, bragged that what the British did to DC will be nothing compared to what he does? Should that person be pardoned? I say no.

Should a person who said many of us should be hanged, should that person be pardoned? I say no.

I am very proud of the men and women of our law enforcement community, U.S. Capitol Police and DC Metropolitan Police Department who stood their positions and defended the Capitol and defended the peaceful transfer of power. And I have in mind someone who was standing over me in the Capitol when I was in the Gallery and the mob was trying to break down the doors, breaking the glass of the House Chamber, and this officer was a young man who commuted to work from about an hour away. He had two young children. He had his gun out, and I looked in his face, and I could see the last thing in the world he wanted to do was have to use that weapon. But I saw that he was going to do his job and whatever was required to protect the people who were in that Gallery.

And I just thought to myself, How is it that the people who are attacking could have such disregard for the reality of this person's life and how much it would change his life if he actually had to use that firearm?

And I am proud, too, of Officer Brian Sicknick, who lost his life; Officer Howard Liebengood; Officer Jeffrey Smith; Officer Gunther Hashida; Officer Kyle DeFreytag, all of whom died in the aftermath of January 6th.

These presidential pardons are disrespectful. They are also dangerous. They are disrespectful to the men and women who served, who suffered the violence, and are living with the consequences. And they are dangerous to the men and women of law enforcement who serve us every day. The pardons validate the violence of the mob and dishonor the service of those who protect us.

These unconscionable and appalling actions of January 6 should be repudiated by every Member of Congress. And whatever differences we have, it is vital that those differences be resolved at the ballot box and that the will of the people always be respected.

No citizen, however passionate they may be about their political beliefs, no matter how disappointed they may be at the outcome of an election, is justified in attacking the men and women of the Capitol Police. Their actions should be condemned by each of us and by our President. Those actions should not be condoned with pardons.

I yield the floor.

(Mr. MORENO assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, in his last week in office, President Biden removed Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, a designation imposed by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the final days of the first Trump administration. That designation has caused, directly and indirectly, great hardship for the Cuban people who are currently experiencing the worst poverty in a generation. At the same time, the designation, and the other sanctions imposed by the United States, have achieved none of the intended goals. Cuba remains a one-party state where political dissent is not tolerated.

President Biden rightly determined there is no evidence that Cuba sponsors international terrorism. That has been true for many years, and his decision was long overdue. But the reaction of those who have supported the terrorism designation was predictable. When asked if Cuba is a sponsor of terrorism, now-Secretary of State Rubio answered, ``Without question.''

If the facts and the law supported that claim, I would agree. But the State Sponsor of Terrorism designation has become a transparently political determination, not one based on the facts or the law.

Under the law, countries determined by the Secretary of State to have ``repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism'' are designated as state sponsors. There is no ambiguity. The law explicitly refers to ``international terrorism.'' But even those who claim Cuba belongs on the list of state sponsors have failed to produce any evidence that it supports acts of international terrorism. Instead, they cite Cuba's harboring of American fugitives from justice, none of whom were charged or convicted of international terrorism. They cite Cuba's support for the Maduro government in Venezuela, which has not been designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. And they cite the role that Cuba has played, like Norway, as a facilitator of negotiations between the FARC and, more recently, the ELN and the Colombian Government, which has called for Cuba to be removed from the list.

There is plenty to dislike about the Cuban Government. It represses dissidents and mismanages its economy. It consistently blames the U.S. for its own failures. But there is plenty of blame to go around, and our policy of sanctions, isolation, and hostility has unquestionably contributed to the daily hardships suffered by the Cuban people.

It is therefore very disappointing that President Trump, in an executive order on his first day in office, redesignated Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. He was once again pressured to do so, as he was during his first term, by the same vocal minority who believe that by making the lives of the Cuban people as miserable as possible they will topple the government.

By doing so President Trump has made a mockery of the list of states that do sponsor international terrorism, like Iran and North Korea. It is not a list of pariah countries. It is not a list of countries whose governments violate human rights. Under the law, it is not even a list of countries that support domestic terrorism. Cuba does not belong on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, and by relisting Cuba, the President has ignored the law.

Mr. President, 4 months ago I made a statement about the murder of Honduran indigenous environmental defender and anti- corruption activist Juan Lopez, on September 14, 2024, who at that time was the latest victim of an ongoing epidemic of vigilante violence in that country.

As I mentioned then, my office, like others in Congress, had received reports of recurring threats, attacks, arbitrary arrests, and assassinations of members of the Guapinol, Tocoa, and other communities in the Bajo Aguan region of Honduras. The crimes were intended to silence those who opposed the Los Pinares open-pit iron oxide mine and the Ecotek Thermoelectric Project in an indigenous reserve which threaten their livelihoods and the region's environment, and who challenged the companies and corrupt officials who profit from those projects.

Mr. Lopez, a winner of the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award in 2019, had been a victim of wrongful imprisonment, false prosecution, and had spoken out against corrupt officials in Tocoa.

His assassination was the latest in a pattern of similar killings that have not resulted in justice. Of the six other assassinations of members of the Guapinol water defenders, no one has been prosecuted or punished, nor for the murders of scores of other social activists, journalists, and human rights defenders in Honduras.

Last September, I urged the following steps to be taken immediately: Convene an international commission of experts to support the Honduran prosecutor's investigation, to ensure the investigation is credible, thorough, and impartial; Provide protection for human rights defenders at risk in the Bajo Aguan region; and investigate the abuses and corruption denounced by Juan Lopez and the pattern of violence against the Guapinol defenders.

In the months since Mr. Lopez was killed, the Honduran Government has said that it detained three people who were responsible. That is encouraging. But government officials believe that the person who ordered the killing is still at large. Also, according to press reports, Honduran prosecutors formally accused company leaders and local government officials connected to the mine of illegally exploiting resources, abusing authority, and ``environmental crimes'' for mining in the indigenous reserve. Yet people living in the area say the mining hasn't stopped.

After the assassination in May 2016 of Berta Caceres, another Honduran indigenous leader who led protests against the construction of a hydroelectric dam and won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, international pressure pushed the Honduran Government to arrest and prosecute one of the top officials of the construction company. But he is challenging his conviction, and it is widely believed that there may be others who were responsible and have not been charged.

Before and after her election in 2021, Honduran President Xiomara Castro pledged to combat corruption and impunity, including partnering with the United Nations to establish an international commission for this purpose. Her term ends in November 2025, when a new President will be elected in Honduras, yet there has been minimal progress toward establishing the promised commission. Corruption and impunity remain deeply entrenched in the Honduran public and private sectors.

Not only do those of us who care about justice in Honduras want to see all those responsible for the murders of Berta Caceres, Juan Lopez, and the other land and water defenders prosecuted and punished, we also want to be able to support a new Honduran commission against corruption and impunity. That would be a crucial, tangible way for President Castro to demonstrate that she not only replaced Juan Orlando Hernandez, her predecessor who was sentenced to 45 years in a U.S. prison for cocaine and weapons trafficking, but she also dismantled the criminal enterprise that enriched him, his brother, and their cronies. Otherwise, the Honduran people will continue to suffer from the spiraling poverty and violence and bear the costs and consequences of the complicity of yet another corrupt government in undermining the rule of law.

As I said last September, the people of the Bajo Aguan should not have to live in fear that powerful companies and corrupt officials will steal their land, pollute their rivers, and murder courageous leaders like Juan Lopez and Berta Caceres for peacefully defending the natural resources that are rightfully theirs.

Madam President, the situation for working families in Vermont is really, really hard. They show up and work. They get a paycheck. And, at the end of the month, when they try to pay their bills, there is not enough there.

The situation for families is enormously insecure when it comes to housing. We find Vermonters who are working at ski areas can't live within an hour of the ski lift that they are attending. We find that folks in factories who want to live in the community they grew up in can't afford a house. They are competing, oftentimes, with cash buyers, usually from out of State, and it is folks who are in the economy who have the assets and have ridden the rising stock market--and good for them.

But we need a tax system that is good for working families. People want to work. They want to pay their bills. They don't want to have the constant anxiety of whether they are going to miss a mortgage payment or they are going to miss a rent payment.

To have a discussion about a tax policy that essentially funnels money to folks who have done extremely well raises a fairness question, which my colleagues have talked to, but it also raises a very practical question about how do you grow an economy. You can only grow an economy if folks who are working and committed to the communities they are in can pay their bills, can earn what they need in order to pay the grocery bill and to pay rent and healthcare. That is why the starting point of tax reform should be addressing family needs that, by the way, are employer needs.

The childcare tax credit really worked. It meant that families were able to afford things, and we saw the results with a 50-percent reduction in childhood poverty. What we also see is that when we can put money into education so families can be secure about a safe place and a good place for their kids to go to school, that will work.

So our starting point should be: How does this help the paycheck for the working family? And that is pretty simple: the earned-income tax credit, the child tax credit, low-income housing credits to build the housing that we need. That is where we have to start.

Funneling money to folks who are doing really well and who have a massive amount of discretionary income and where, for corporations, the capital that they need to invest is there--there is not a capital shortage. We need to focus on families, not on the well-to-do and the corporations that got a reduction in taxes that was far more than they even requested.

The second point I want to make is about the process that is being used to pass the tax bill or to consider it. It is the reconciliation process. By definition, what that means is it will be a Republican-only bill. There will be no discussion among Democrats, where we have some point of views that, by the way, are really beneficial to folks in my State, whether they voted for Harris or they voted for Trump. A lot of working families need that childcare tax credit.

The reconciliation process means that the political tradeoffs have to all be in the direction of the most extreme wing of the House Republican Party. So that process is going to handcuff us right at the beginning.

The third point that many of my colleagues have made is that tax cuts do not pay for themselves. You know, dream on. Folks like to say that. It is as though it is magical. They don't pay for themselves. This tax cut will add about $4 trillion to the deficit.

What is next? Then we say: Hey, we have got to cut spending. What spending do we have to cut? Healthcare, the ACA premium support.

To the Senator from Massachusetts that would mean--and for a family in Vermont--a lot of them will pay 300, 400, 500 bucks more each month. That is on top of the high grocery bill.

So the pressure, then, if we have this explosion in the deficit, is to cut spending, and it usually means that veterans are on the block. It means that the low-income folks are on the block. It means that healthcare for working families is on the block.

So let's have a tax system that is fair and also promotes growth and invests in the folks who want to work to make this economy strong, who want to build strong communities and take care of their families.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, all of Vermont celebrates the University of Vermont Men's Soccer Team on winning the NCAA Men's Soccer National Championship.

The UVM Men's Soccer Team affectionately known as the ``Cardiac Catamounts,'' pulled off a historic comeback on Monday, December 16 to win 2-1 against Marshall University after a 95th minute golden goal, earning their first title in program history and becoming the first team in the America East Conference to win a national championship.

It was a game for the record books, literally Marcell Papp's perfectly timed goal gave the Catamounts a golden opportunity in overtime, and Maximilian Kissel's winning goal--his 11th of the season--will be remembered for all time.

The entire squad--Niklas Herceg, Lou Liedtka, Nathan Simeon, Mike Bleeker, Cole Richardson, Adrian Schulze Solano, Connor Thompson, Andrew Millar, Niels Hartman, Maximilian Kissel, Nick Lockermann, Yaniv Bazini, Nash Barlow, David Ismail, Ethan Czaporowski, Gianluca Armellino, Ioanis Vassiliou, Marcell Papp, Toby Grant, Karl Daly, Sydney Wathuta, TJ Liquori, Pieter Bultman, Ryan Zellefrow, Zach Barrett, Jeremy Tsang, Max Murray, and Mitchell Ringman--played an important part in this season's success.

To the casual observer, the Catamounts may have been the tournament's underdogs or a Cinderella story. But to the team and the Vermonters rooting for them back home, this championship win was not a fluke or a lucky break. It was inevitable.

In the 2024 season, the Catamounts scored 22 goals in the 76th minute or later, with the championship equalizing goal being no exception. Late game victories were a habit for the Catamounts this tournament, beating San Diego University in overtime during the third-round match and tying the University of Denver in the dying minutes of the semifinal match to push the game into penalty kicks, where a save from Catamounts goalkeeper Niklas Herceg secured the Catamounts a ticket to the finals.

The Cardiac Catamounts is only the third unseeded program to win a championship since the National Collegiate Athletic Association expanded the tournament to 16 seeded teams in 2003.

The Cats have shown heart, persistence, and never lost their cool all season, Vermont Values through and through. With this championship, the Catamounts put UVM athletics on display and made all of us proud to cheer for Vermont.

I congratulate the University of Vermont Men's Soccer Team for their well-deserved championship win and for representing the values of Vermont.

And a special congratulations to the Catamounts' Head Coach Rob Dow and his wife Loren Bowley Dow, who welcomed their second child Russel only weeks ago.

This is a team of champions, not underdogs. They have made Vermont very proud.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the concern everyone in this Chamber has about the jeopardy of disaster assistance to the communities that so desperately need it. We had an agreement. We had an agreement that was reached between House Republicans and Democrats--a bipartisan agreement--here in the Senate. And it was to provide desperately needed disaster relief to citizens who were in the eye of storms in Vermont, in North Carolina, in Iowa, in Texas--$100 million.

And what that meant in Vermont was that communities that had put money out to fix culverts, to repair bridges, to realign roads, and who were expecting the money from FEMA in this disaster assistance suddenly are on hold. Will they get it? We don't know at this moment.

Farms, where farmers had lost their crops in July of 2023--and we had another flood in July of 2024--and where couples who were running these farms and making existential decisions about whether they could keep farming--and we need them; we need them to be able to keep farming; we need it for Vermont; and we need it to show respect for our farmers-- are awaiting an answer as to whether this disaster relief will come through.

This is going to have a huge impact on Vermont. Our property taxpayers who suffer from enormously high property taxes will be pounded if that relief doesn't get back to those communities where they fronted money for that culvert repair, the bridge repair, and road repair; and our small businesses that have been hammered as well and are awaiting an answer on whether they can get relief from the assistance in that program; and homeowners who have been told that they can get money for a buyout because their home was destroyed in a flood--and what a horrible thing for folks to have to go through. A lot of that happened in July of 2023. But then to have to go through the constant uncertainty and bureaucratic delays that have been so rampant in FEMA, and we had this moment where $100 billion was going to be available to help in Vermont and other States where this relief was necessary. And it is not right that after we have this agreement, negotiated on a bipartisan basis, it is pulled out from underneath us.

And, by the way, one of the great experiences I have had in the U.S. Senate was working with colleagues--my Republican colleagues like Thom Tillis and like Ted Budd, from North Carolina--whose citizens suffered an enormous loss from what happened in Hurricane Helene. It wiped out bookstores in Asheville, restaurants in Asheville needing help. And it was so gratifying to me to see that all of us, whether we represented folks in a red State or a blue State, whether the constituents who were in need voted for Trump or Harris, it just didn't matter. Our obligation was to help them. And that is a basic responsibility that this Congress has when our citizens, through no fault of their own, suffer enormous economic loss as a result of a natural weather event.

We had this agreement. What happened? Literally, we had this agreement. Speaker Johnson signed off on it. Leadership here signed off on it. Mr. Musk sent out a tweet. He didn't like it, and he blew the entire thing up. And how is it that one person can have so much power to destroy something that the American people really need? A $277 million contribution to a campaign gets you a seat at the table--maybe the head seat at the table. And that, flatout, is wrong. The American people--those folks who suffered in Asheville, NC, in Lyndonville, VT-- they are entitled to immediate action.

So we don't know what the next few hours are going to be, but what I know is that I will not abandon Vermonters. I will not abandon Americans who are counting on this disaster relief. I am going to hang in there to make certain that I do every single thing I can to help the Vermonters and the North Carolinians and the folks in Iowa and Texas and Louisiana who have been in the path of these terrible storms.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time on the motion to proceed to H.R. 82 be considered expired following the remarks of Senator Lee for up to 30 minutes; further, that following the motion to proceed vote, the Senate proceed to executive session; and further, that the cloture motions with respect to the Cheeks and Murillo nominations ripen at 11 a.m. on Friday, December 20.