Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) and the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, every parent in America remembers the first day they sent their child off to school. For many parents, this is a day filled with tears of joy as they send their child off into the world alone for the first time. For others, it is a day of worry and fear. Parents wonder if their child will be able to find their classrooms or if they will make friends. Some even worry if their child's school could be the scene of the senseless violence that occurs all too often in this country. But for the parents of a child with severe allergies, there is another serious fear: the threat of anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis causes blood pressure to plummet, airways to constrict and close, and the heart to beat erratically and stop. It can turn deadly, quickly. Even a trace amount of an allergen can be enough to trigger anaphylaxis.

Only one drug can halt and reverse the progression of anaphylaxis: epinephrine. But as miraculous as the drug is, it can't help if it is not on hand when the unthinkable happens. That is why, in 2013, I introduced the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act to make schools safer for children with food allergies. At the time, schools often did not stock epinephrine, or ``EpiPens,'' as it is often called. This left children with food allergies vulnerable at school, especially those who may not have known they are allergic. Sometimes, children forget their EpiPens at home; others don't have EpiPens to begin with.

My 2013 bill encouraged more schools to keep epinephrine on hand by providing them with federal grants. It received bipartisan support, and it was signed into law by President Obama. Over the last 10 years, it has saved lives, and it has given parents and students alike greater peace of mind that their school will be prepared to respond to a life- threatening emergency. But, I have thought since then: What more can we do to prevent allergic reactions from occurring in the first place?

I hear from parents across my State of Illinois who are concerned about sending their children with food allergies to school. Tamara Hubbard from Lake Zurich, IL, is one of those parents. She is the mother of a teenage son who has food allergies. Ms. Hubbard also happens to be a therapist whose practice includes working with children who have food allergies and their families. She wrote to me and told me that: ``It takes a daily dose of blind faith mixed with hope'' to send a child with food allergies to school. For a child with a peanut or sesame allergy, she said, going to school can be a lot like entering the lion's den. These and other common food allergens are often contained in school meals and in the snacks and lunches of other children. You have to be careful.

Ms. Hubbard said that the families she counsels are often left wondering, ``Does our school staff understand allergen labeling? Are they aware of cross-contamination best practices and how to make safe ingredient substitutions for lunches?'' And what if they are not aware? That last one is a hard question to contemplate because we know the worst can--and does--happen.

Last May, Tom Shaw, a father in Papillon, NE, just outside of Omaha, dropped his 14-year-old son, Jagger, off at school, gave him a hug and told him to have a good day--just as he had done every school day. But this was not a normal day. You see, like 1 in 50 American children, Jagger was allergic to peanuts. But at snack time, he was given a granola bar that had peanuts in it. Almost immediately, Jagger's heart started racing, and his throat began to swell. He went to the school nurse's office, where he was injected with an EpiPen. But his condition continued to worsen quickly. By the time Jagger was rushed to the hospital, his heart had stopped beating. He had to be resuscitated and put on a ventilator. He suffered serious damage to his heart and brain. Two days after eating that granola bar, Jagger died. Last month, a 10- year-old girl in Amarillo, TX, Emerson Kate Cole, also died after she went into anaphylaxis at school.

Nearly 1 million children nationwide have had an allergic reaction at school. And 25 percent of these reactions occur among children who have undiagnosed food allergies. We can and must do more to prevent children with allergies, diagnosed and undiagnosed, from experiencing potentially deadly reactions to food allergens in schools. That is why, 2 weeks ago, Senator Duckworth and I introduced the Protecting Children with Food Allergies Act. Our bill would require cafeteria workers and other school nutrition workers to receive training in how to identify, prevent, and respond to food-related allergic reactions. That is it. It is a simple fix that would make our schools safer for children with food allergies so that they can focus on learning, not on whether or not they might have an allergic reaction at lunchtime. These cooks, servers, and other cafeteria workers already undergo other sorts of trainings, such as to prevent the spread of foodborne pathogens. We think they also should know the basics on food allergy safety, too. The Protecting Children with Food Allergies Act would move us in that direction.

We hope our colleagues will join us and support this bill with a strong bipartisan vote, just as we did in 2013.

Our kids are depending on us. Let's pass this bill and send it to the President's desk as soon as possible. When it comes to food allergies and potentially deadly anaphylaxis, every minute counts.

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

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

I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, by all accounts, America has made a remarkable recovery in the last 2 years. When President Biden entered office, we faced the worst public health crisis in the history of our country, the most daunting economic challenge since the Great Depression, and a global upheaval that disrupted every aspect of our lives.

Two years later, America is coming back. Thanks to the work of our Democratic majority, the cost of living is finally coming down. But we are not out of the woods yet.

If you travel in my State of Illinois, which I have been doing over the last several weeks--especially in Central and Southern Illinois-- you will notice the same sign hanging in one business after another: ``Help Wanted.'' You can't help but notice in my hometown of Springfield, there is a franchise of Chicken Fingers that is going to be opening soon. There is a sign outside the soon-to-be completed building that says $15 an hour, please call us to work in fast food.

While businesses are reopening their doors and demand for goods and services is rebounding, America is still struggling with a shortage of workers. I hear it everywhere, particularly in the healthcare sector, where the shortage of nurses and medical professionals really creates a hardship in the center city, as well as in urban areas, small towns, and large cities alike. This shortage of medical professionals is a national emergency, which I will address at another time.

In addition to that, we have to ask ourselves, what is the reason for the shortage? Make no mistake, the decision of the Trump administration to cut down legal immigration to the United States is one of the reasons. We usually have about 1 million immigrants a year, legal immigrants, come to work. During the Trump years, a total of 4 years, it was 1 million. So they cut the number by three-fourths. We wonder why we are still looking for workers.

Let's be very honest about it. Whether in the city of Chicago, Springfield, or downstate Illinois, these immigrant workers are willing to take jobs many Americans will not take. They work harder at them and really do their best to help their families get started in this country. That is the story of America, and it is a story that needs to be repeated because immigration labor at this point is critical not just in the cities but in the agricultural areas, as the Presiding Officer from New Mexico knows well. We need workers, and we need good ones, and immigrants can be part of that workforce.

At the same time, there is a fundamental problem in our economy that we need to be addressing honestly. The work-life balance is out of whack. Today, fewer and fewer Americans are willing to work long hours for survival wages, especially when they have urgent, personal family responsibilities at home, like caring for an infirm parent or a newborn.

Last month, I received a letter from one of my constituents in Illinois. It speaks to the problems facing parents and caregivers, as well as many others.

She wrote:

My husband and I both have good jobs. . . . We have three

children. [The cost of childcare accounts for] over a quarter

of our monthly take home [pay]. All of our other bills

combined don't even equal that. I can only imagine the burden

on other families. . . . No wonder unemployment is so high.

How are people able to afford or even find childcare[?]

This constituent asks if Congress has any plans to revive the enhanced child tax credit that we included in the American Rescue Plan. I wish I could tell her yes, but sadly the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives does not even mention this as a priority in the future. Daycare and childcare and caregivers are a critical part of family life for so many Americans. Yet, the Republicans, at least in the House of Representatives, are ignoring the reality.

Beyond the child tax credit, her letter makes one thing clear: Our safety net has too many holes in America, and if a parent working a full-time job can still fall through that, then clearly we have work to do.

I think about that constituent's story as we approach the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act this Sunday. Back in 1993, this law passed Congress with broad bipartisan support. In the decade since, more than 315 million workers have relied on that to take care of themselves and their family members. It is hard to imagine, but in the days before the Family and Medical Leave Act, America had zero Federal job protections for workers with a new baby or a sick family member at home.

This law was a massive victory for working families, but today, it is just not enough. The Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for workers. How does that help pay for the diapers, the formula, medications? Well, it just doesn't. Worse yet, many full- time workers are excluded from the law's basic job protections. In Illinois alone, nearly 60

percent of working adults don't qualify for unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act--6 out of 10 workers.

Here is the bottom line: If you want to get America back to work, you need to back them up. The Family and Medical Leave Act is a promising foundation, but it just isn't enough. We need to modernize the American safety net for a new generation of workers.

Think about this: Over the next decade, adults over the age of 65 are projected to outnumber children in America for the first time in our history. That is going to make life even more challenging for the 53 million Americans who are today already serving as caregivers for a family member or partner. This is particularly challenging for young Americans. One in four family caregivers is a millennial who, on average, spends 21 hours a week caring for a loved one at home. That is more than half of a full workweek, and they don't see a dollar for it.

These Americans, many of whom are also balancing a full-time job with full-time responsibilities as a caregiver, really need our help. They deserve it--at least a living wage to start with. Our Federal minimum wage is a starvation wage. There is not a single part of the country where $7.25 an hour is enough--not even close. Let's raise it.

While we are at it, let's also revive that enhanced child tax credit that reduced child poverty in America by one-third. Think about that. Kids living in poverty--the total was reduced by one-third just from the child tax credit. That is breathing room for a lot of parents to make ends meet.

If we really want to help Americans get back to work, we should start by building on the success of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

(The remarks of Mr. Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 242 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. Durbin. I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) is necessarily absent.

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

Madam President, today I am reintroducing the Caring for All Families Act. It will expand protections of the Family and Medical Leave Act and ensure that a broader range of caregiving relationships are covered.

In 2020, the Department of Labor found that one in six people taking leave to act as caregiver was not protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act's definition of ``family.'' It really begs the question: How many of these people decided to drop out of the workforce altogether? How many of them were fired because they missed a shift because their child woke up with a fever or because an elderly relative was rushed to the ER? No one should ever have to choose between caring for a loved one or losing their job.

The Caring for All Families Act will help protect these workers by adding domestic partners, in-laws, grandparents, and other significant relationships to the FMLA's definition of ``family.''

Importantly, this legislation will just be a starting point. While it would expand job protections to millions of workers, it would not resolve one crucial flaw in our safety net. America is the only industrialized Nation in the world that does not have guaranteed paid family leave. I am going to repeat that. America is the only industrialized Nation in the world that does not guarantee paid family leave. That is shameful.

For the millions of working Americans who have or will be caregivers at some point in their lives, what are they supposed to do? Take on debt? Work even more hours? No. We cannot settle

for a system that abandons working families when they need it the most. The American people deserve a safety net that prevents them from drowning, a safety net that provides the peace of mind they need to reenter the workforce, and offers them the assurance that their government has their back.

So let's start. Let's pass the Caring for All Families Act and then get to work to ensure access to paid leave for all American workers.

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

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 text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Madam President, today I am reintroducing the Caring for All Families Act. It will expand protections of the Family and Medical Leave Act and ensure that a broader range of caregiving relationships are covered.

In 2020, the Department of Labor found that one in six people taking leave to act as caregiver was not protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act's definition of ``family.'' It really begs the question: How many of these people decided to drop out of the workforce altogether? How many of them were fired because they missed a shift because their child woke up with a fever or because an elderly relative was rushed to the ER? No one should ever have to choose between caring for a loved one or losing their job.

The Caring for All Families Act will help protect these workers by adding domestic partners, in-laws, grandparents, and other significant relationships to the FMLA's definition of ``family.''

Importantly, this legislation will just be a starting point. While it would expand job protections to millions of workers, it would not resolve one crucial flaw in our safety net. America is the only industrialized Nation in the world that does not have guaranteed paid family leave. I am going to repeat that. America is the only industrialized Nation in the world that does not guarantee paid family leave. That is shameful.

For the millions of working Americans who have or will be caregivers at some point in their lives, what are they supposed to do? Take on debt? Work even more hours? No. We cannot settle

for a system that abandons working families when they need it the most. The American people deserve a safety net that prevents them from drowning, a safety net that provides the peace of mind they need to reenter the workforce, and offers them the assurance that their government has their back.

So let's start. Let's pass the Caring for All Families Act and then get to work to ensure access to paid leave for all American workers.

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

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 text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, before he leaves, let me commend my colleague from Louisiana. His role as a substitute teacher is one I greatly admire.

I thank you for sharing that with us today. I am sure it gives you great insight into education--greater than some--and I am going to accept your challenge and try to find a way to be a substitute teacher myself along the way, if they will have me. But thank you for that statement.

It has been almost 100 years since the Great Depression. It was a terrible time in American history. Businesses failed right and left. Families lost all of their savings. There were runs on banks, businesses failing. It was a horrible moment.

Luckily for us, the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt appeared in 1933, when he was sworn in as President of the United States, and we made some significant basic changes. One of them we still benefit from today: Federal deposit insurance.

If you go to a recognized legal bank in America, a regulated bank, under our Federal guidelines, there is an insurance policy that says that even if this bank goes bust, we are going to be there to protect much of your savings, maybe all of them, depending on how much you have invested in that bank.

We were tested during the savings and loan crisis a few decades ago, and we kept our promise. We paid people back when the savings institutions they were invested in failed.

But there are areas where you can invest your own personal savings where there is no insurance policy. You are on your own. The stock market is one of them.

By and large, when you buy stock, if you don't make money on it, that is your personal loss. But even when it comes to the stock market, the companies that are in that stock market doing business in America are largely subject to regulation. So we know, at least, that the books they are presenting have to be legal and be accurate in their disclosures. It is just the basics of government regulation.

However, there are some areas where you can bet your money or invest your money where there is no protection and no regulation. I want to speak to one of those areas at this moment. This area has been called the ``new money,'' ``digital cash,'' and some have called it ``the way of the future.'' I have another name for it: reckless, predatory, foolish, and dangerous. I am referring, of course, to cryptocurrency, the latest scam to rip off millions of hard-working Americans to the tune of billions of dollars.

In under a decade, this industry has skyrocketed in popularity, raked in big bucks for its leading speculators, before exploding into dust for all the world to see.

Let me tell you about crypto's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year--2022. Let's start with the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. In 2022, the currency cratered, losing more than 60 percent of its value in 1 year.

To put it in perspective, if you bought one Bitcoin at the start of 2022 and held on to it today, you would be down $25,000. Think of all the Americans who could have held on to that cash for family needs or to cover a downpayment on their first home. Their money is gone. There is no insurance. It is just an investment that disappeared.

They are not alone. The disaster began last May with a financial meltdown known as ``crypto winter.'' If you are one of the millions of consumers--millions--who were convinced by those well-respected financial advisers--Matt Damon, Larry David, and LeBron James--to buy into crypto, you don't need me to tell you what happened next.

In a matter of months, more than $2 trillion vanished from this industry. One crypto firm after another folded. Even a so-called ``stablecoin,'' which claims to offer great stability, went bust.

Then, in the fall, came the mighty collapse of the exchange FTX. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, spent years cultivating the reputation of a selfless wunderkind and entrepreneur. He claimed crypto and the FTX platform would democratize finance, that he was giving a leg up to the little guy, finally, and sticking it to the barons of traditional finance.

It was all a lie. While Sam Bankman-Fried was burning millions of dollars branding himself as some noble disruptor, the reality is he was stealing his own users' money to fund his own risky bets.

Here is the worst part. For Americans who were scammed into investing in FTX, there is little hope of retrieving any of their money.

Earlier this week, Annie Lowrey wrote a piece in The Atlantic, sharing the story of one FTX user whose money was stolen. His name was Greg Sanders. Greg has actually been a crypto investor for quite a while, a pretty vigilant investor too. He even protected his assets with a technique he calls ``cold storage.''

So Greg knew about the risk with trading crypto. He knew those assets were loosely regulated, if regulated at all, and he knew about the volatility of the market. But Greg never expected that the company he trusted to safeguard his money would end up stealing it. He lost nearly $10,000 when FTX collapsed, and, like millions of others, he hasn't gotten any money back.

Here is what he said about his experience: ``FTX was legitimized in the public eye . . . I saw the Tom Brady commercials,'' Greg said. ``I saw the Major League Baseball umpires'' with FTX's name on their uniforms. ``Its name was on the Miami Heat arena. There was so much legitimatization from the public, and it lent credence to the idea that this was a safe place,'' to put your money.

Thankfully, Greg says he will be OK. He has a good-paying job and enough money saved to pay his bills.

But stop for a second and think about Americans who are not that lucky.

More than half of our Nation's families cannot afford a $1,000 emergency, and those same families, who struggle to make ends meet, have been targeted by the crypto ad campaigns Greg mentioned.

In fact, leaders of the crypto industry have explicitly marketed their products to unbanked and underbanked Americans, those who do not have access to traditional financial services.

Now, this is a problem that disproportionately affects Black and Brown Americans, who have historically been outside the financial system. So along comes crypto and its leading fabulists, like Sam Bankman-Fried. These grifters cloak themselves in the language of inclusion and accessibility, promising that crypto is open to everybody and operates ``without discrimination.''

Well, in a way, they are right. When the crypto industry melted down, everybody got hurt, especially all of the Black and Brown Americans, who were more likely than White Americans to invest in crypto. It seems the cynical ad campaigns worked.

So as a new year begins, where do we stand with crypto? The industry is hoping the dust will settle, that things will quiet down. Maybe it will even blow over, and everybody will forget the damage of 2022.

Guess again. Our Federal regulators are coming to life, and they are bringing down the hammer on crypto.

I want to commend Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. He is doing his part to protect the integrity of our capital markets and to hold bad actors accountable. In the past month alone, the SEC has filed charges against two major crypto companies for burning their investors.

And there are other cops on the beat too. On Friday, the Federal Reserve rejected an application from a crypto company called Custodia for a deposit account at the central bank and denied its request to become a member of the Federal Reserve System. In denying the application, the Federal Board wrote that Custodia ``proposed to engage in novel and untested crypto activities . . . on open, public and/or decentralized networks.''

As we have learned, that would be a recipe for disaster. So I am glad both the Fed and the SEC, among others, are working to insulate our broader financial system and protect investors from the instability of crypto.

But, now, it is time for wiser minds in finance to come to their senses, and it starts with Fidelity. To think the crypto industry has entranced one of the largest 401(k) providers in the world is shocking. Yet that is exactly what happened.

This past summer, Fidelity announced it would allow retirement plan sponsors to offer plan participants exposure to Bitcoin.

Remember, Bitcoin alone lost more than 60 percent of its value last year. Now imagine if your 401(k) lived or died by the value of Bitcoin. That is unacceptable for 40 million Americans who invest with Fidelity, and I am one of them. Many of them are relying on those investments to retire in dignity.

So that is why last year I sent a letter, along with Senators Warren and Smith, to Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson. We respectfully asked her to reconsider this ill-advised decision on crypto.

We received a response in which Fidelity said: ``respectfully disagree[d] with the assertion that bitcoin cannot meet the higher standards applicable to retirement accounts.''

So after the collapse of FTX, I thought: Let's send another letter to Fidelity and see if they have a change of heart.

We figured that at least diversifying from crypto would be a no- brainer at that point. Apparently not, because we still haven't received a response.

Hard-working Americans who entrust Fidelity with their retirement savings expect more. They deserve better than Ponzi schemes and endless volatility. The financial future and stability of millions of their customers--and many others--is on the line. It is time to do the right thing and be honest about cryptocurrency. There should be more transparency, accountability, and enough regulation so that we know they are telling the truth.

And let me close with one point. I was at a hearing with the Agriculture Committee where we were discussing the issue from a different perspective, whether Bitcoin and similar objects were commodities, subject to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an Agency I know well from the financial industry in Chicago.

I left that hearing after some critical remarks about cryptocurrency, and a reporter stopped me in the hall, and she said to me: How much money have you received in political contributions from FTX?

I said: None.

She said: You are wrong. Look again.

I looked. It was over $7,000--money that I did not solicit but banked not knowing what was behind that money. We have given that money to charity, as you might expect.

But they have more friends in high places than they have really good arguments for their product.

I think that we have got to be thoughtful and mindful as politicians that this industry has a lot of money riding on this bet, and we have got to be careful that we don't become so beholden to them that we lose our clear-eyed look at an entity that has hurt so many people already and is likely to do more in the future.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Wyden) is necessarily absent.

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