Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I have discussed the matter which Senator Lee brings to the floor for consideration, and I thank him for accommodating me by allowing me to object at the beginning rather than at the end of his remarks. And I will say that it relates to a commemorative resolution which he wanted to offer. I came to learn as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that we have rules and standards by which we allow these commemorative resolutions to be considered.

I have given Senator Lee a copy of that policy--the committee policy--and I would like to ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to have it printed in the Record at this point.

Let me say further, he, as I understand it, is going to be trying to offer, despite my objection, a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Heritage Foundation.

The fact that I am applying the Committee Rules is no reflection on that organization whatsoever. But I do want to make it clear that under those rules, I have to object at this point.

Madam President, there is a grave threat to America's future lurking online. Big Tech giants and other online platforms are working every day to capture the minds of our children in order to pad their profits.

Toddlers, before they can walk or barely talk, have learned to reach out and touch that bright little screen. Mothers and fathers on car rides and plane trips trust that little screen will buy them quiet time. Captivated, mesmerized, even hypnotized, the screen experience continues. And unless parents are very careful, it can go from bad to worse. It starts with music and games, which many of the parents find harmless. As the child grows up and graduates to a cell phone, there is an opportunity to move to a new level of information and communication.

Let's face it, even the most caring, conscientious parent struggles to keep up with all the apps and options. And the producers of these online experiences are determined to work on the brains of these children, capture their

little customers in the process, and pad their profits.

So who is protecting our kids from internet profiteers and predators? I am sorry to say, almost no one. In fact, our laws are written to protect the predators, not the kids.

Clearly, every child can benefit from a safe online experience. They can make friends, expand their knowledge, learn skills. But social media, we all know, has a dangerous dark side. Innocent children are lured into online environments and powerful algorithms working to keep them there. Unsuspecting kids can be sexually exploited and their childhood images captured forever by predators and profit-taking abusers.

Drug pushers no longer search for playgrounds to sell deadly narcotics. Two clicks on the internet bring them their new young customers. Many children are bullied and harassed online or pressured into dangerous, deadly behavior.

Rose Bronstein is a mother from Chicago. She knows how cruel and dangerous the online world can be. Rose's son Nate was a 10th grader at a private school when he started being taunted by classmates using texts and Snapchat. The bullying of her son was vicious, and it included messages urging Nate to kill himself. Nate died by suicide at the age of 15.

We have known for years about the online dangers to children's privacy and safety. We have talked a lot about them. We have even held hearings in Congress about them. Journalists have written so many articles about the dangers, but the problem has only grown worse.

Research into exactly how social media use affects children is still in its early stage, largely because of Big Tech's failure to adequately monitor, report, and prevent violation of children's online privacy and safety. But a picture is emerging, and it is alarming.

This chart tells a story. The gold line you see here shows the amount of time teenagers spend scrolling through social media and watching online videos. According to Common Sense, a group that tracks media use by young kids and teens, kids spend an average of nearly 3 hours a day on sites like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. That is a nearly 60-percent increase in the last 6 years.

This white line shows that an increase in teens' use of social media has been accompanied by a sharp spike in teen depression. According to the CDC, between 2013 and 2021, the percentage of teens who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness shot up 42 percent-- between 2013 and 2021.

The blue line shows what happens with girls' mental health. Today, nearly one in three girls in America say they have seriously considered suicide. That is a 34-percent spike in the past decade.

We have given tech companies nearly three decades to police themselves. They have failed miserably, and our children are paying the price. Our teenagers are in a mental health crisis.

Congress must impose stronger, enforceable online protections for kids. Our children are not commodities, and we can't continue to expect parents and victims alone to stand up to Big Tech with few ways to hold tech companies accountable.

Two months ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair, held a hearing on online threats to children's safety. We heard powerful testimony from those working to increase children's privacy and safety online. They included law enforcement, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the American Psychological Association, and the child internet safety advocacy organization known as Fairplay.

We also heard from victims. The stories were frightening, frightening to every parent and every grandparent, and heartbreaking.

Charlotte--and I am using a pseudonym here--didn't attend the hearing, but she has allowed me to tell her story in the hope that it may help others who have been victimized online, as she has been, by sexual predators.

Charlotte was 16 years old when she first visited a social media site that a friend told her about. It sounded so exciting, she said, a place where she could meet people from all over the world. I won't use the name of the site, but you would recognize it immediately. It is used by tens of millions of people every single day.

Among the people Charlotte met online was a man who showered her with attention and compliments, gained her trust, and eventually enticed Charlotte into performing sex acts for him over the webcam and sending explicit videos to him.

Maybe that sounds shocking to you, but be prepared. Research shows that over one-third of teenagers today believe that it is normal to share the same sorts of images and videos that Charlotte shared online--one-third.

She was still in high school when the online harassment began. First came anonymous emails, then a phone call to her parents' house calling her vile names. Eventually, the images she shared with that man she thought was a friend would be posted on more than 100 websites across the world, often with her name and identifiable information included.

Charlotte filed her first of six police reports about the images when she reached the age of 18. Eventually, she, her mother, her boyfriend, and child safety groups would file hundreds of reports with social media providers around the world trying to get these horrible images taken down, often to no avail.

While she was in college studying to be a teacher--her lifelong dream--the images were posted again, along with her name and the name of her college. When the university found out about it, it canceled her student teaching placement and threatened to withhold her degree.

She was a teacher of special education at a middle school when one of her students saw the images again online. Charlotte told her principal. She was fired a few days later.

Again and again, it was Charlotte who was blamed, not the abusers who tormented her online. Over the years, Charlotte tried three times to take her own life. It has now been 14 years since she met that predator online, but the images continue to circulate again and again. The abuse never stops, and Charlotte says she doubts she will ever feel safe again.

This Senate can help Charlotte and countless other young people who are sexually abused online each year by passing a bill that I am introducing today. It is called the Stop CSAM Act. CSAM, C-S-A-M, stands for ``child sexual abuse material.'' Federal law still uses the old term--``pornography,'' ``child pornography''--but that is misleading because pornography implies consent, and children under the age of 18 cannot legally consent to the creation or sharing of sexually explicit images of themselves.

So these images are, by definition, evidence of a crime. Yet, under current law, it is extremely difficult to bring lawsuits against tech companies that allow child sexual abuse materials to be posted on their websites.

How can this be, you ask? Here is how. The Communications Decency Act of 1996--remember that year--contains a section, section 230, that offers near-total immunity to Big Tech. As a result, victims like Charlotte have no way to force tech companies to remove content posted on their sites--not even these child sexual abuse horrible images.

My bill, the Stop CSAM Act, is going to change that. It would protect victims and promote accountability within the tech industry. Companies that fail to remove CSAM and related imagery after being notified about them would face significant fines. They would also be required to produce annual reports detailing their efforts to keep children safe from online sex predators, and any company that promotes or facilitates online child exploitation could face new criminal and civil penalties.

When section 230 was created in 1996, Mark Zuckerberg was in the sixth grade. Facebook and social media sites didn't even exist. It is time that we rewrite the law to reflect the reality of today's world.

A bipartisan bill sponsored by Senators Graham and Blumenthal would also help to do that. It is called the EARN IT Act, and it would let CSAM victims--these child sexual abuse victims--have their day in court by amending section 230 to eliminate Big Tech's near-total immunity from liability and responsibility.

When we learned two decades ago that Big Tobacco was lying about their

efforts to hook kids on smoking, Congress took action to establish reasonable guardrails to protect public health, and the courts held Big Tobacco accountable for the damage and death it had caused.

Now, Big Tech is using the same playbook in order to profit by hooking America's kids on its dangerous products. It is time to hold them accountable just as we did with Big Tobacco.

I will close with one more story from our committee hearing. Kristin Bride is a mother from Oregon. After being bullied relentlessly by supposed friends using Snapchat and anonymous messaging apps, Kristin's 16-year-old son Carson hanged himself in his family's garage. After his death, Kristin discovered the online taunts they had been throwing at her son. She sued the anonymous messaging apps in California State court for failing to enforce even their own safety standard.

The court dismissed the lawsuit, and what did they cite? Section 230, our law from 1996.

As Kristin told our committee, ``It shouldn't take grieving parents filing lawsuits to hold the industry accountable for their dangerous and addictive product design.''

We have the bipartisan support in the Senate to protect our children and grandchildren online. It is time that we use it.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, there is a grave threat to America's future lurking online. Big Tech giants and other online platforms are working every day to capture the minds of our children in order to pad their profits.

Toddlers, before they can walk or barely talk, have learned to reach out and touch that bright little screen. Mothers and fathers on car rides and plane trips trust that little screen will buy them quiet time. Captivated, mesmerized, even hypnotized, the screen experience continues. And unless parents are very careful, it can go from bad to worse. It starts with music and games, which many of the parents find harmless. As the child grows up and graduates to a cell phone, there is an opportunity to move to a new level of information and communication.

Let's face it, even the most caring, conscientious parent struggles to keep up with all the apps and options. And the producers of these online experiences are determined to work on the brains of these children, capture their

little customers in the process, and pad their profits.

So who is protecting our kids from internet profiteers and predators? I am sorry to say, almost no one. In fact, our laws are written to protect the predators, not the kids.

Clearly, every child can benefit from a safe online experience. They can make friends, expand their knowledge, learn skills. But social media, we all know, has a dangerous dark side. Innocent children are lured into online environments and powerful algorithms working to keep them there. Unsuspecting kids can be sexually exploited and their childhood images captured forever by predators and profit-taking abusers.

Drug pushers no longer search for playgrounds to sell deadly narcotics. Two clicks on the internet bring them their new young customers. Many children are bullied and harassed online or pressured into dangerous, deadly behavior.

Rose Bronstein is a mother from Chicago. She knows how cruel and dangerous the online world can be. Rose's son Nate was a 10th grader at a private school when he started being taunted by classmates using texts and Snapchat. The bullying of her son was vicious, and it included messages urging Nate to kill himself. Nate died by suicide at the age of 15.

We have known for years about the online dangers to children's privacy and safety. We have talked a lot about them. We have even held hearings in Congress about them. Journalists have written so many articles about the dangers, but the problem has only grown worse.

Research into exactly how social media use affects children is still in its early stage, largely because of Big Tech's failure to adequately monitor, report, and prevent violation of children's online privacy and safety. But a picture is emerging, and it is alarming.

This chart tells a story. The gold line you see here shows the amount of time teenagers spend scrolling through social media and watching online videos. According to Common Sense, a group that tracks media use by young kids and teens, kids spend an average of nearly 3 hours a day on sites like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. That is a nearly 60-percent increase in the last 6 years.

This white line shows that an increase in teens' use of social media has been accompanied by a sharp spike in teen depression. According to the CDC, between 2013 and 2021, the percentage of teens who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness shot up 42 percent-- between 2013 and 2021.

The blue line shows what happens with girls' mental health. Today, nearly one in three girls in America say they have seriously considered suicide. That is a 34-percent spike in the past decade.

We have given tech companies nearly three decades to police themselves. They have failed miserably, and our children are paying the price. Our teenagers are in a mental health crisis.

Congress must impose stronger, enforceable online protections for kids. Our children are not commodities, and we can't continue to expect parents and victims alone to stand up to Big Tech with few ways to hold tech companies accountable.

Two months ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair, held a hearing on online threats to children's safety. We heard powerful testimony from those working to increase children's privacy and safety online. They included law enforcement, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the American Psychological Association, and the child internet safety advocacy organization known as Fairplay.

We also heard from victims. The stories were frightening, frightening to every parent and every grandparent, and heartbreaking.

Charlotte--and I am using a pseudonym here--didn't attend the hearing, but she has allowed me to tell her story in the hope that it may help others who have been victimized online, as she has been, by sexual predators.

Charlotte was 16 years old when she first visited a social media site that a friend told her about. It sounded so exciting, she said, a place where she could meet people from all over the world. I won't use the name of the site, but you would recognize it immediately. It is used by tens of millions of people every single day.

Among the people Charlotte met online was a man who showered her with attention and compliments, gained her trust, and eventually enticed Charlotte into performing sex acts for him over the webcam and sending explicit videos to him.

Maybe that sounds shocking to you, but be prepared. Research shows that over one-third of teenagers today believe that it is normal to share the same sorts of images and videos that Charlotte shared online--one-third.

She was still in high school when the online harassment began. First came anonymous emails, then a phone call to her parents' house calling her vile names. Eventually, the images she shared with that man she thought was a friend would be posted on more than 100 websites across the world, often with her name and identifiable information included.

Charlotte filed her first of six police reports about the images when she reached the age of 18. Eventually, she, her mother, her boyfriend, and child safety groups would file hundreds of reports with social media providers around the world trying to get these horrible images taken down, often to no avail.

While she was in college studying to be a teacher--her lifelong dream--the images were posted again, along with her name and the name of her college. When the university found out about it, it canceled her student teaching placement and threatened to withhold her degree.

She was a teacher of special education at a middle school when one of her students saw the images again online. Charlotte told her principal. She was fired a few days later.

Again and again, it was Charlotte who was blamed, not the abusers who tormented her online. Over the years, Charlotte tried three times to take her own life. It has now been 14 years since she met that predator online, but the images continue to circulate again and again. The abuse never stops, and Charlotte says she doubts she will ever feel safe again.

This Senate can help Charlotte and countless other young people who are sexually abused online each year by passing a bill that I am introducing today. It is called the Stop CSAM Act. CSAM, C-S-A-M, stands for ``child sexual abuse material.'' Federal law still uses the old term--``pornography,'' ``child pornography''--but that is misleading because pornography implies consent, and children under the age of 18 cannot legally consent to the creation or sharing of sexually explicit images of themselves.

So these images are, by definition, evidence of a crime. Yet, under current law, it is extremely difficult to bring lawsuits against tech companies that allow child sexual abuse materials to be posted on their websites.

How can this be, you ask? Here is how. The Communications Decency Act of 1996--remember that year--contains a section, section 230, that offers near-total immunity to Big Tech. As a result, victims like Charlotte have no way to force tech companies to remove content posted on their sites--not even these child sexual abuse horrible images.

My bill, the Stop CSAM Act, is going to change that. It would protect victims and promote accountability within the tech industry. Companies that fail to remove CSAM and related imagery after being notified about them would face significant fines. They would also be required to produce annual reports detailing their efforts to keep children safe from online sex predators, and any company that promotes or facilitates online child exploitation could face new criminal and civil penalties.

When section 230 was created in 1996, Mark Zuckerberg was in the sixth grade. Facebook and social media sites didn't even exist. It is time that we rewrite the law to reflect the reality of today's world.

A bipartisan bill sponsored by Senators Graham and Blumenthal would also help to do that. It is called the EARN IT Act, and it would let CSAM victims--these child sexual abuse victims--have their day in court by amending section 230 to eliminate Big Tech's near-total immunity from liability and responsibility.

When we learned two decades ago that Big Tobacco was lying about their

efforts to hook kids on smoking, Congress took action to establish reasonable guardrails to protect public health, and the courts held Big Tobacco accountable for the damage and death it had caused.

Now, Big Tech is using the same playbook in order to profit by hooking America's kids on its dangerous products. It is time to hold them accountable just as we did with Big Tobacco.

I will close with one more story from our committee hearing. Kristin Bride is a mother from Oregon. After being bullied relentlessly by supposed friends using Snapchat and anonymous messaging apps, Kristin's 16-year-old son Carson hanged himself in his family's garage. After his death, Kristin discovered the online taunts they had been throwing at her son. She sued the anonymous messaging apps in California State court for failing to enforce even their own safety standard.

The court dismissed the lawsuit, and what did they cite? Section 230, our law from 1996.

As Kristin told our committee, ``It shouldn't take grieving parents filing lawsuits to hold the industry accountable for their dangerous and addictive product design.''

We have the bipartisan support in the Senate to protect our children and grandchildren online. It is time that we use it.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak and complete my remarks before the rollcall starts.

Mr. President, the highest Court in America should not have the lowest standards when it comes to ethics, but for too long that has been the case for the U.S. Supreme Court. It definitely needs to change.

While the Senate was out of session for the Easter recess, the independent nonprofit news organization ProPublica published a series of stunning reports.

They found that a billionaire real estate developer and prominent Republican donor, Harlan Crow, has given Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas nearly 20 years of undisclosed luxury gifts and getaways: a lavish yacht vacation in Indonesia, private plane trips, visits to a deluxe mountainside resort, and more.

Then, just days ago, ProPublica found that in 2014, Crow's company bought properties owned by Thomas and his family, including the house where the Justice's mother still lives. These transactions were also hidden, undisclosed, even though Federal law clearly requires that they be reported publicly.

Let's be clear. Serving as a Federal judge, and especially a Supreme Court Justice, is one of the highest honors in the Nation that we can confer on an individual. But above all, it is a public service. Judges and Justices are entrusted by the American people to serve the public interest and administer equal justice under the law. That is why taxpayers and not billionaire donors fund judicial salaries, courthouses, and operations. Judges have a responsibility to put service to others ahead of their own personal self-interest.

But the conduct revealed in ProPublica's reporting tells a much different story. They show a Justice accepting secret, lavish luxury trips and real estate purchases from a wealthy donor with interests affected by the Court.

This is conduct we cannot tolerate, whether it is from a mayor, a city council member, or other elected official, and we certainly shouldn't tolerate it in the highest Court of the land. The Supreme Court needs to clean up its act and fast.

Throughout our history, ethics scandals at every level of government have inspired reform. Congress has repeatedly amended ethics laws governing the House and Senate to ensure that there is transparency and disclosure for the trips we take and the donations we receive. We have a Code of Official Conduct that we must follow and Ethics Committees that provide guidance and oversight for our activities. These committees can launch investigations and penalize misconduct when it occurs.

Congress has also passed numerous laws that affect the operation of the Federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. We pass appropriations bills each and every year to cover judges' paychecks and the operations of our courthouses. We have enacted financial disclosure laws like the Ethics and Government Act and recusal laws like 28 U.S.C. 455 that apply to all Federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices.

We have long known there are shortcomings in the current ethics standards for the highest Court in the land, the Supreme Court. For example, the Justices do not consider themselves bound by the Code of Conduct that every other Federal judge follows. Additionally, they do not have clear and uniform processes for making and explaining their decisions on whether to recuse themselves from a case where there is a conflict of interest or an appearance of one. And as the recent ProPublica series has revealed, some Justices simply aren't telling the American people about the gifts and travel that they are accepting.

Frankly, the excuses we have heard thus far from Justice Thomas are laughable. Claiming that a private luxury yacht in Indonesia from a major political donor was ``personal hospitality'' that didn't need to be disclosed is an absurd conclusion, and it is insulting to the American people who expect Justices to be held to the same standards as anyone else in government.

That is why reform is essential. It is critical to our justice system and to our democracy that the American people have confidence that the judges and especially the Supreme Court Justices can't be bought and that they are serving the public interest and not their own personal interests.

In the past, Congress has stepped up to strengthen court ethics. Just last June, we passed the bipartisan Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act which applies the STOCK Act's reporting and disclosure requirements to Federal judges and Justices. But the Supreme Court doesn't need to wait on Congress to clean up its act. The Justices could take action today if they wanted to, and if the Court fails to act, Congress must.

In the coming days, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the need to restore public confidence in the highest Court of our land, the Supreme Court. This won't be our first hearing on the topic. We have held a

number of important hearings over the years on the need for judicial ethics reform, including an important hearing in the last Congress on the Court Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Some on the Republican side may claim that this focus on ethics is just a reaction to decisions being handed down by the rightwing activist majority of the Supreme Court. To them I say, check the record.

I have been at this pursuit for more than 10 years. I wrote a letter, joined by Democratic colleagues, to the Chief Justice 11 years ago urging him to adopt a Code of Conduct. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing in 2011 with Justices Scalia and Breyer. During that hearing, I asked them about Supreme Court ethics, which was in the news because of troubling reports even then of gifts being made by Mr. Harlan Crow. Unfortunately, Chief Justice Roberts rejected our call to act 10 years ago; and it appears that Harlan Crow took that as a sign that he should ante up and increase his largesse. Is it any wonder that we face a crisis of public confidence in the Supreme Court?

Our Constitution established a system of checks and balances between the branches of government, and it established a system in which no person is above the law.

There are few positions in our Federal Government more elevated than Supreme Court Justices, but Justices are public servants, and they must conduct themselves in that manner. Our job in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and in the Senate, is to make certain that they do--nothing less.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), and the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) and the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate will vote to confirm Amy Solomon as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs--OJP--within the Department of Justice.

Ms. Solomon is a devoted public servant whose policy expertise and commitment to the rule of law will serve

the Justice Department and communities across America. She has spent nearly a decade working at OJP during the Obama and Biden administrations, and she has served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for OJP since 2021.

Throughout her career, Ms. Solomon has led efforts to lower recidivism, improve parole systems, and equip members of law enforcement with the tools they need to combat crime. Previously, she worked at Arnold Ventures and the Urban Institute, where she spearheaded policy research on policing, prisons, and crime-reduction programs.

A graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Ms. Solomon has distinguished herself--both inside and outside of government--as a foremost expert in creating a more efficient, evenhanded criminal justice system that protects our communities and our families.

In a testament to her qualifications and temperament, Ms. Solomon has been endorsed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Correctional Leaders Association, and several former OJP officials.

After more than 5 years without a Senate-confirmed head of OJP, Ms. Solomon's confirmation is long overdue. With her years of experience within the Agency and her deep insights into our Nation's criminal justice system, she will be ready to lead OJP from day one.

I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for her confirmation.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate will consider legislation to protect and support firefighters across the country: the Fire Grants and Safety Act.

Every day, our Nation's bravest run headfirst toward danger to extinguish fires and defend our communities. And they do it without a moment's hesitation--no matter the risks they face. We saw that last week, when a 2-day chemical fire raged at a plastics recycling plant in Richmond, IN, forcing thousands of people to evacuate. Firefighters worked around the clock, while inhaling toxic plumes, to battle the flames and protect families. This was just weeks after firefighters in East Palestine, OH, responded to a similar crisis, when a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed and exploded into a raging ball of fire.

But it is not only huge, headline-making fires that expose firefighters to dangerous pollutants; it is nearly every household fire, as well. The No. 1 line-of-duty cause of death for firefighters is occupational cancer from toxic exposure. And yet fire departments still lack critical equipment--like self-contained breathing apparatuses--that protect firefighters from toxic gases. Even when departments do have this gear on-hand, it can be dangerously outdated. In many cases, this equipment is nearing--or past--its expiration date, oftentimes by 10 years or more.

Before the recess, the Senate voted 96-0 to advance the Fire Grants and Safety Act, which would help fire departments obtain updated, lifesaving equipment. It would reauthorize two grant programs through 2030: the AFG Program and the SAFER Program.

Whether career, volunteer, or combination fire departments, AFG helps ensure that they have the resources they need to train and equip personnel. And SAFER helps with hiring and staffing to ensure 24/7 community protection. In the history of these programs, AFG has provided $8.1 billion to fire departments, and SAFER has provided $5.2 billion. We need to pass this bill before these programs expire on September 30, so our fire departments have the resources and personnel they need to keep our communities safe.

Mr. President, I welcome back my self-described, hardheaded Republican leader in the Senate.

It is good to see you, Mitch. I'm glad you are back.

I want to welcome Senator McConnell as well as Senator Fetterman, who will be here today as well.

I spoke to him by Zoom several weeks ago, and I was really heartened by his message. He had the courage to step up and ask for help when he faced depression, to seek professional and medical advice, and I could tell by his responses and the tone of his voice that that decision had already made a difference in his life for the better.

I told him at the time I was so happy to speak to him personally, that what he had done publicly to address the issue of his own personal depression and the overall issue of mental health would save lives across America. I believe people will be inspired to follow his example and seek help.

We are, fortunately, living in a time and an age and a generation where the attitude toward mental health is much different than it was many years ago.

There was a time when mental illness was considered not just an illness but a curse, and people didn't speak about it. I know I had similar examples in my own family of people who were just speaking in whispers about the issues that related to my relatives.

That is changing for the better. Our honesty and openness in dealing with mental health makes us a better nation, and people will have better lives as a result of it.

I thank my colleague Senator Fetterman for stepping up and making the right decision in his life, and I am looking forward to his return.

On another topic, Mr. President, today, a Russian puppet court sentenced opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison. For what? What did he do to merit a 25-year sentence in Russia? He had the nerve to criticize Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

This is his photograph, incidentally. He visited my office several times before he made the incredible decision to go back to Russia and to confront the Putin administration. Now he is facing a 25-year sentence.

It comes on the heels of reports that Russian authorities may be trying to slowly poison another opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, after a failed attempt on his life in 2020.

Previously, Vladimir Putin tried twice to poison Mr. Kara-Murza as well. This kind of extrajudicial, extralegal process has become all too common in Russia.

Apparently, Putin's fear of Russian patriots like Navalny and Kara- Murza, who have only advocated for an open and democratic Russia that is at peace with its neighbors, knows no ends.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alexey Navalny, and so many other Russians are courageously pursuing a better future for their country. They deserve our support and solidarity.

I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, when I took the gavel as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of my first goals and objectives was to restore the committee's oversight role.

Since the beginning of the 117th Congress, we have kept a close watch on those Agencies in the executive branch which are within our jurisdiction. We have held oversight hearings on the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to mention a few. This last Tuesday, we continued that tradition with a second oversight hearing on the Department of Homeland Security.

It is worth noting that, under the previous administration, the previous President, the Homeland Security Secretary only appeared before our committee one time in 4 years. So we were glad to welcome Secretary Mayorkas back to the hearing room and learn about the work that he is undertaking to keep America safe.

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I think Secretary Mayorkas has one of the hardest jobs in Washington. The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for defending our Nation from a wide range of threats from domestic terrorism, narcotics trafficking, the climate crisis, and even cyber attacks. But, despite this broad mandate, our discussion kept returning to one subject last Tuesday: America's broken immigration system.

It was interesting to hear the Republican Senators on my committee being critical of the job that Mr. Mayorkas is doing as head of the DHS while, at the same time, it has been over 30 years since this body, the U.S. Senate, has enacted legislation to upgrade and modernize our immigration system--30 years. Trust me. The world has changed dramatically in that period, but the Senate has refused to keep pace.

It is easy to criticize Secretary Mayorkas about our border situation, and he faces some amazing challenges. But let's face it. We share in the responsibility for this situation, and we certainly share in the burden of coming up with solutions that help.

For years, I have tried my best to pass appropriations reform. There was a bipartisan moment 10 years ago when the so-called Gang of Eight Senators--four Democrats, four Republicans, and I was included in that group--sat down and wrote a comprehensive immigration reform package. I think it was pretty good. In fact, it was so good that it passed on the floor of the U.S. Senate with over 60 votes in favor of it.

We had our fingers crossed and sent it across the Rotunda over to the Republican-controlled House, and, for 2 years, they refused to even consider it, even call it for a debate, or even offer their own amendments. They did nothing--nothing--and we are paying the price for that today.

So here is the question after this week's hearing: Are we going to keep pointing our fingers and mugging for the cameras or are we going to come together to fix our immigration system?

I am ready. I certainly hope the Members of the House are ready. But we need a bipartisan consensus to get that done.

Restoring America's Health Care Workforce and Readiness Act

On another topic, Mr. President, it is a problem I am going to discuss that affects roughly 100 million Americans. In the wealthiest Nation in the world, nearly one in three people in this Nation lives in an area with too few doctors.

You know the story in your home State of Georgia. I know it in Illinois. I have seen it. Whenever I visit a clinic or a hospital outside of Chicago, I hear the same thing: Our healthcare system is understaffed, underfunded, and underequipped to address the health needs of American families.

The greatest healthcare system in the world is suffering from serious shortages and deficiencies. The pandemic brought this to light. It may not have broken us, but it showed us where our health system is broken.

Over the past 3 years, our doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers have been pushed to the brink, and, as a result, nearly one out of every five healthcare workers has quit their jobs. Think about that: 20 percent quit their jobs.

These departures have taken a massive toll in the healthcare of America. In the years ahead, as our population ages, our needs grow, and more providers leave the profession. Those challenges will get worse unless we in Congress do something.

In the next decade, America is expected to face a shortage of more than 120,000 doctors. By 2025, we may face a deficit of nearly a half a million nurses. And that is on top of our current shortage of about 100,000 dentists that we need now and hundreds of thousands of mental healthcare professionals.

This is a ticking timebomb for every community in America, especially rural communities and communities of color that already have less access to affordable care.

So here in Congress, we need to prevent these shortages from becoming a crisis. Earlier this month, Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and I joined in introducing the Restoring America's Health Care Workforce and Readiness Act. It is a bipartisan measure to address the healthcare work shortage in America. Over the next 3 years, our bill would provide hundreds of millions of dollars to the National Health Service Corps Scholarship and Loan Repayment Program, more than doubling the current funding level.

This program is vital to pay for the education and training and recruitment of the next generation of doctors, nurses, dentists, and behavioral health specialists.

Why is this program, in particular, so important? Let me tell you, one of the biggest drivers of the American healthcare shortage is the cost of medical education. Doctors graduating from medical school with $200,000 or $300,000 in student loan debt or more can hardly consider taking posts in rural and underserved areas. They have got to pay off those loans. So because of those debts, they may not be able to do what they want to do--give care and professional treatment to some of the most needy people in America. We take our best and brightest, we educate them so well, but we heap debt on them unimaginable that makes a real difference in their career choices.

So with the National Health Service Corps and Nurse Corps, aspiring health professionals have another option. If they will serve in areas of need, we will forgive student loans--in fact, in some cases, providing scholarships for those who are in medical training.

The National Health Service Corps was created 50 years ago. More recently, we have seen the difference it can make. In the American Rescue Plan that Congress passed in 2021, I included a one-time, $1 billion funding increase for scholarships and loan repayments for the National Health Service Corps. It was the largest single-year appropriation for our healthcare force in history. At this very moment, that funding is supporting thousands--thousands--of doctors, nurses, dentists, and other professionals across America. Today, 21 million Americans receive healthcare from the National Health Service Corps personnel.

I recently received a letter from one of those who provide that kind of healthcare. Her name is Shannon. She is a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois. She is a first-generation college student from a working-class family. She tells me her life-long dream was to have a professional career in social work, but her ambitions were limited because of the cost of graduate school. She just couldn't imagine taking on that debt.

Then, in July of 2022, she found a path forward. She was accepted into the program I described. In Shannon's words, ``being accepted into this program has changed my life. . . . [It] has given me a chance at financial freedom . . . [and] professionally, this program allowed me to grow into my career.

Today, Shannon is working as a behavioral healthcare provider in Carbondale, IL, in wonderful Jackson County.

In Shannon's words, this role allows her to ``come into contact . . . with those in rural southern Illinois who are in great need of behavioral health services, such as counseling.''

It is hard to imagine a better investment in America's future than programs like the National Health Service Corps and Nurse Corps. In Shannon's case, this program enabled her to pursue her life-long passion. The community is winning. Shannon is winning. It is a win-win situation.

We need to make more stories like Shannon's possible, and we have a chance to do it with the bipartisan bill that Senator Rubio and I have.

If you go home to your State as a U.S. Senator, and you visit and ask local healthcare providers, they are going to tell you the same thing from one corner of America to the other corner: We are in desperate need of medical professionals to care for people who are underserved now.

What are we going to do about it? What is the Senate going to do about it? What will our generation do about it? Can we put together the resources now to meet these shortages and needs in the healthcare workforce? That is the challenge that we face.

The National Health Service Corps is up for reauthorization this fall. I will be working with the HELP chair, Bernie Sanders, and Ranking Member Bill Cassidy to pass our legislation.

SIREN Act

Mr. President, there is one last point I would like to make. It was several years ago that I was visited by a couple of emergency medical service personnel from Illinois, Mark and Mavis Kennedy. They are EMTs in Nauvoo, IL, a storied and historic town on the western part of downstate Illinois. They told us about trying to provide ambulance and emergency health services in a rural county, in this case Hancock County, where Nauvoo is located.

They talked about the expense of upgrading the equipment in their ambulances so that they can make sure that the person that they were trying to help gets all the necessary medical care on their way to the hospital. They dreamed up an idea. I want to credit the Kennedys of Nauvoo, as well as Andrew Jackson, the fire chief in Magnolia, and many others who said: Why don't we have a grant program specifically for our equipment in these ambulances and for the training of emergency medical personnel?

At the time, we were debating the farm bill. I think it was about 4 or 5 years ago. I went to the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Pat Roberts of rural Kansas, and said to him: Pat, I think we have got an idea here that is going to help communities not only in our States but across the Nation. He generously agreed to serve as my cosponsor on a bill that we called SIREN Act.

The SIREN Act said to these ambulance services and emergency medical responders: You can apply for assistance and help to the Federal Government, and we will try to help you buy the new equipment you need to make sure that your ambulance is right where it needs to be.

You have to understand, if you don't live in a rural area, that some of these ambulance services are really the difference between life and death. They are the first responders. In fact, they are the only responders. They come to scenes across smalltown America and provide the kind of medical services to keep people alive for those precious minutes on their way to a hospital. So the idea of giving them the best and most modern equipment makes all the difference in the world.

Well, thanks to Senator Roberts, who has since retired from the State of Kansas, we included the SIREN Act in the farm bill several years ago.

I have talked to Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, who is now the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and told her that I hope we can reauthorize this program in the next farm bill. She supports it. I am going to talk to the Republicans on the committee as well. I hope that we can do that.

What we have done has been able to make grants available: First, $5 million in fiscal year 2020, $10\1/2\ million in 2023, and we hope to go higher in the years to come.

Does it make any difference?

Just a few minutes ago, Mark and Mavis Kennedy of Nauvoo, IL, were in my office. They were in uniform, and they are very proud of the work that they do in Hancock County. Because of the assistance that we provided to them on one of their applications, they have been able to extend their emergency medical services to virtually all the towns in Hancock County. What it means for their ambulance service is, instead of 140 calls a year, they are now receiving 361--virtually a call every single day for services--and they have the equipment and the personnel well trained by the same SIREN Act to respond and save lives as they are transporting people who live in that county to nearby hospitals.

If it is someone you love in your family who is in desperate medical need, if it is your child or your grandchild or your parents, and you have that one phone call to make, you want that ambulance there as quickly as possible and the people on board as well trained as possible. The SIREN Act does that.

It is small by Federal standards. I hope it will increase in the years ahead. But it just proves that, when people are willing to sacrifice and volunteer to help in local communities and we stand by them and give them a helping hand, it is the difference between life and death.

I hope all of my colleagues will join us in this effort to reauthorize the SIREN Act as part of our commitment to increase healthcare personnel and their qualifications across the United States.

I yield the floor.