Floor Statements

Madam President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions filed today, July 11, be waived.

I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Blumenthal), the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Ossoff), the Senator from New York (Mr. Schumer), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

I ask unanimous consent that the injunction of secrecy be removed from the following treaty transmitted to the Senate on July 11, 2022, by the President of the United States:

Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 on the

Accession of the Republic of Finland and the Kingdom of

Sweden (Treaty Document No. 117-3).

I further ask that the treaty be considered as having been read the first time; that it be referred, with accompanying papers, to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be printed; and that the President's message be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., Tuesday, July 12, and that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and morning business be closed; that upon conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Vazirani nomination, postcloture; further, that all postcloture time be considered expired at 11:30 a.m.; further, that the Senate recess following the cloture vote on the Dettelbach nomination until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings; and that if cloture is invoked on the Dettelbach nomination, all postcloture time be expired at 2:30 p.m.; finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during Tuesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Portman.

Madam President, if you look at the marketing plan of Big Tobacco in America over the last half-century, it is very obvious: Tobacco companies sell an addictive product. There is a chemical included in the tobacco--nicotine--which is highly addictive. To be successful, they have to convince people to take up smoking, even though it is dangerous to their health and is a product that is difficult to quit. How do they achieve that goal? They prey on children, and they always have. Kids start smoking at an early age, and if the tobacco companies have their way, it leads to an addiction for a lifetime--a compromise on a person's health and even their death.

Over the years, I have done battle with Big Tobacco. The first, I guess, exchange was over banning smoking on airplanes. It seems so long ago, but we were successful, and we really changed the national conversation on tobacco. More and more people became sensitive to the fact that tobacco companies were, in fact, exploiting our children, addicting them to their product, and steps were taken at every level-- local, State, and Federal--to stop that from happening, and it worked. The number of children in America who are addicted to tobacco-related products began to decline precipitously.

Big Tobacco was in a panic. They were losing their market share. Kids weren't taking up tobacco smoking the way they had in the past, and so they devised and invented new products. The most obvious one, I want to address this morning: e-cigarettes, vaping.

The nicotine inside these vaping devices is the same nicotine as in the tobacco cigarette, and it is just as addictive. Where have these companies directed their marketing? To children. Once again, to children.

We believe that 2 million or more children in America are currently using vaping products and e-cigarettes. Many of them believe that they are harmless, that they cause no damage to you from a health viewpoint. These children are wrong.

The Agency that is responsible for regulating this product--vaping products, e-cigarettes--is the Food and Drug Administration. They have written a sad and sorry record when it comes to regulation of this deadly product.

Over the years, we have begged them, pleaded with them, argued with them over why they didn't show more leadership in banning this product from the shelves across America because so many children were becoming addicted. It reached the point where a Federal court--after years of delay by the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ordered the Food and Drug Administration to finally begin regulating these addictive, kid-friendly vaping products, giving a deadline of September 9, 2021, to finalize review of e- cigarette applications.

You see, the law requires the company to prove that the product is not dangerous to the public health before it can be marketed. The FDA really dropped its guard and allowed them to sell the product without that proof, and it took a Federal court setting a deadline to get the FDA back into the business of regulating this deadly product that was addicting millions of children across America.

I have had my ups and downs with the Food and Drug Administration over this issue. I think they could have been much more aggressive. They could have protected more children. But, unfortunately, they did not. During the entire Trump administration, we backpedaled, came up with excuses, did nothing, and so vaping products became more prolific across America, and more children became addicted.

Now we have a new head of the FDA, Dr. Califf. We had our back-and- forth exchanges over this issue, and I made it very clear to him that there was no possible explanation or justification for not regulating this product when the lives and health of so many children were at stake. As I said, we had our good days and bad days in that exchange.

I am happy to report that the Food and Drug Administration has announced this morning a dramatic, historic step forward to protect the children across America from e-cigarette and vaping products. They are finally--finally, the FDA is starting actions to remove from the shelves products produced by the JUUL company--J-U-U-L, JUUL company-- that, in fact, endanger our children. This is long overdue.

You won't be surprised to learn that Big Tobacco has a major investment in these companies. They believe this is the future, their new product that they can addict children with--the nicotine--and hook them, perhaps for life, on their products.

The Food and Drug Administration has taken a bold step today. It is going to be a battle royal in court--you can just bet on it--but finally they have stood up and said they are ready and prepared for the battle. I want to join them in that effort.

I also want to say that taking these products off the shelves across America will invite the possibility of contraband or black market sales. We are calling on all those entities which could supply those black market products, including internet sources, to stand up for children across America and join the FDA in stopping the sale of these products.

We estimated that if the Food and Drug Administration did not take action to do this today, did not initiate this effort to stop the sale of this product, we know more children would be addicted. As many as 750,000 to a million children have started since the FDA defied a court deadline in September. That just gives you an idea of the reach of this product and how serious it is.

If you don't know the story behind e-cigarettes and vaping, ask a high school student in America. If that doesn't work, ask their parents when they discover that their kids are addicted to these products. They are innocuous-looking little delivery systems that look like they belong in a computer, while they end up damaging the health of children and people across the United States.

When I spoke to Dr. Califf this morning and he told me about this historic announcement by the Food and Drug Administration, he made it clear that tobacco and smoking and nicotine products were a major threat to the health of children across this country and to Americans. Tobacco regulation, as he noted, is a major step forward in reducing the number of cancer deaths in America and heart disease. It is still a problem. It is still a challenge. And Big Tobacco and their new Big Vaping allies are determined to once again get their hooks in our kids at an early age.

I am heartened by this decision by the Food and Drug Administration. They are in for a legal battle, for sure, but it is worth the effort.

In the end, make sure that you come down on the side of children when we are talking about tobacco and nicotine. It is an issue that I have been involved in for years. I see the Senator from Oregon on the floor, and I know that he was involved in the House of Representatives and in the Senate in the same battle. But our efforts against vaping and e- cigarettes are going to mean that children have a healthier life and better future.

I commend the Food and Drug Administration for this decision removing JUUL products from the shelves of America, and I hope we can do more.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that we begin the vote scheduled for 11 a.m. this morning.

Madam President, today, the Senate is considering bipartisan legislation to help protect our kids and our communities from the scourge of gun violence.

This is a critical issue. And it is one we have spent a lot of time on in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair.

We have held nine hearings in our committee in the 117th Congress to discuss ways to address our Nation's gun violence epidemic.

Four of those hearings were held in the Constitution Subcommittee, which is chaired by Senator Blumenthal, and I want to commend him for the subcommittee's focus on important issues like red flag laws, ghost guns, safe storage, and gun violence by domestic abusers.

And we have held five hearings in the full Judiciary Committee, where we have heard testimony from witnesses on how to reduce violence.

I am pleased that the bipartisan bill before us includes a number of measures that witnesses before the Judiciary Committee urged the Senate to adopt.

Last December, the Judiciary Committee held a field hearing in Chicago to discuss the firearms trafficking that floods the city with illicit guns.

We heard testimony from David Brown, superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, who pointed out that 93 percent of murders in Chicago last year were committed by guns.

Superintendent Brown testified that we need strong Federal laws to crack down on gun trafficking and straw purchases, which fuel Chicago's gun violence. And the bill before us today provides those laws.

Straw purchases are not minor offenses. They have devastating consequences. Superintendent Brown talked about Chicago Police Officer Ella French, who was murdered last year with a straw purchased gun. I will never forget the outpouring of grief I saw in the city after we lost Officer French.

The bill before us would crack down on straw purchases that put guns in the hands of criminals and prohibited people. The Senate first voted on this issue in 2013 and fell short, so this step is long overdue.

We also held a hearing in March of last year where we heard testimony from Dr. Selwyn Rogers. He is a trauma surgeon and public health expert from the University of Chicago Medicine.

His emergency room is on the frontlines of the gun violence epidemic, stitching up bullet wounds to save lives. He called upon Congress to do more to help prevent gunshot victims from showing up in his hospital in the first place.

He described the way that trauma and witnessing violence harms the brain and development of a child, making it difficult to regulate emotions, form healthy relationships, and resolve conflicts.

Dr. Rogers implored us to address these emotional scars of trauma that fuel the cycle of violence. And so did Dr. Moira Szilagyi, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who testified before our committee last week.

The bill we are considering today does just that. It provides billions of dollars in grants for school- and community-based mental health programs.

It includes more than $28 million for a bipartisan program that I passed into law in 2018 with Senator Capito, Republican of West Virginia. This program would expand trauma-informed care for students by training more school personnel and bringing in more mental health professionals from the community.

The bill also provides $40 million to a program I have supported for years, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which is providing specialized

care to thousands of children in Chicago.

And it will help expand mental health treatment for students by enhancing the ability for schools to use Medicaid coverage for this care.

Helping children cope with traumatic experiences is a vital strategy to prevent and break the cycle of violence. The investments provided in this bill will make a dramatic difference in this effort.

At another of our hearings, which focused on the problem of armed carjackings, we heard testimony from Vaughn Bryant of the organization Metropolitan Family Services in Chicago.

He testified about the importance of community violence intervention, or CVI, programs to help steer those who are at risk of committing gun violence onto a better path.

These CVI programs have shown real promise in Chicago, as another of our hearing witnesses, Roseanna Ander of the University of Chicago, testified. But the programs do not have adequate funding to meet the need.

The bill before us would provide $250 million over 5 years in Department of Justice grants for CVI programs. That is double the current annual funding for these programs, and it will make a big difference.

We also heard compelling testimony last week at our hearing about the impact of gun violence on children. It is a grim reality that gunfire is now the leading cause of death of American children and teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Every day, on average, we lose 12 kids in America to gun homicides, suicides, and accidents. In the year 2020 alone, we lost 4,368 American babies, children, and teens in firearm deaths--an increase of nearly 30 percent over the previous year.

At our hearing, we heard testimony from law enforcement and pediatrician witnesses about how the Senate needs to act to protect our kids. And we also heard moving testimony from 19-year-old Ernest Willingham, who grew up on the West Side of Chicago as the youngest of 11 kids in his family.

He has an incredible story. He is the first in his family to attend college and the first male in his family to graduate high school. He is currently in college in Boston and is well on his way to a career in the healthcare field. Ernest has been surrounded by gun violence his whole life. His father has been shot. His brother has been shot twice. His cousin has been shot. And a few years ago, his best friend was killed by a stray bullet. Ernest talked about the anguish of seeing loved ones around him get shot. And he described his constant fear that he, himself, would be shot too.

At the hearing Ernest called for gun law reforms, but he also talked about the importance of mental health. He urged us to make sure that communities that are hard hit by gun violence have the counselors and mental health professionals they need to help kids who are traumatized by gun violence.

Ernest, help is on the way. This bill makes dramatic investments-- billions of dollars--in mental health treatment and care in schools and in communities.

I was so impressed by this young man's testimony at our hearing and the way he has benefited from ``a village'' of supporters--family, friends, teachers, and mentors--to build the resilience to rise above trauma in his life to pursue his dreams in the medical field.

For the sake of the kids we have lost to the gun violence, and for the sake of kids like Ernest who shouldn't have to grow up surrounded by this violence, we need to act. The bill before us, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, is a compromise. It doesn't accomplish everything I want when it comes to gun violence, and it has provisions I would like to change or could do without.

It won't end gun violence in America. But it takes important steps toward making our Nation safer. It is a meaningful bipartisan package, negotiated in good faith by Senators from across the political spectrum.

I want to commend those Senators for their hard work, especially Senators Murphy, Cornyn, Sinema, and Tillis.

We have heard so much in the Senate Judiciary Committee about the need to do something to reduce gun violence and about commonsense reforms and investments that would help. It heartens me that a number of those reforms and investments are included in this package, particularly when it comes to cracking down on straw purchases, treating trauma, supporting community violence intervention programs, and investing in mental health and counseling in schools and communities.

This bill doesn't have everything I want. But it is a good, meaningful bipartisan compromise, and I will support it. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, today marks the 50th anniversary of the Pell Grant Program, a program that has been the bedrock of our Nation's investment in higher education.

This bipartisan program has provided direct financial aid to low- income students since 1972, and there currently are 7 million students receiving a Pell grant. In my home State of Illinois, more than 208,000 Pell grants totaling nearly $860 million were awarded in the 2020-2021 academic year. These Federal dollars help provide students and families access to higher education, well-paying jobs, and economic mobility.

But Pell grants have failed to keep up with the times. When it was created, the Pell grant covered more than 75 percent of the average cost of attendance at a 4-year public college. Today, Pell grants cover less than 30 percent of these expenses. This means that students are forced to take on student loans, exacerbating the student loan debt crisis. Fourty-five million Americans owe $1.7 trillion in student loan debt, which is second only to mortgages as the largest category of consumer debt.

Doubling the Pell grant would be an investment in our Nation's future and would help ensure students can access higher education. At the same time, the for-profit college industry--an industry with a track record of preying on low-income students--must continue to be held accountable so students and taxpayers are not being ripped off. The for-profit college industry enrolls only 8 percent of all postsecondary students in America, but accounts for 30 percent of all Federal student loan defaults. Too often, students and taxpayers are left holding the bag.

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pell grants, I urge my colleagues to support low-income students by increasing these grants to cover a greater amount of college expenses and ensuring the most vulnerable students are protected from fraudulent for-profit colleges.

Mr. President, on June 12, a bipartisan group of 20 Senators announced an agreement on legislation to protect our children and communities from the epidemic of gun violence. In the days since then, this bipartisan group, led by Senators Murphy, Cornyn, Sinema, Tillis, and others, have worked to move this agreement forward.

We took a test vote last night--our first Senate floor vote on the package. It was a strong bipartisan rollcall. Let's be clear: This bill is a compromise. In a 50/50 Senate, we expect nothing less.

It doesn't accomplish everything I want. It certainly doesn't accomplish everything which the Republican colleagues who voted for it want either, but the reforms and investments made in this bill represent an important step toward making our Nation safer.

It won't end gun violence, but it will help to reduce the number of shootings and killings which number 100 Americans each day, and it will end, perhaps, guns as the leading cause of death among our children.

Let me highlight a few important provisions: $250 million in grants for community violence intervention programs which have shown great promise in communities in my State. This

would double the current annual Justice Department funding for these programs. The bill makes dramatic investments in mental health infrastructure, providing billions of dollars in school and community mental health grants and behavioral health clinics. It gives an additional $28 million to fund the trauma support in school program at HHS. This is a program that Senator Capito--Republican of West Virginia--and I created in 2018 to help break the cycle of trauma and violence.

The bill also provides three-quarters of $1 billion in Byrne/JAG grants to help States administer crisis intervention programs like the extreme risk protection order laws in Illinois and 18 other States.

The bill takes significant steps toward closing the boyfriend loophole: keeping guns out of the hands of dating partners who have been convicted of domestic violence offenses.

It creates a new Federal offense for the crimes of straw purchasing and gun trafficking. This will crack down on the illicit flow of guns into cities like Chicago.

Again, this bill is a compromise. There are provisions I would rather change and some I would rather do without; but, overall, it marks the most significant gun violence reduction legislation in nearly three decades. I commend the bipartisan effort that led us to this point, and we should pass this bill without delay.

I want to call particular attention to two sections of this bill that I mentioned.

One is to stop straw purchases. Straw purchases are when a person with a clean criminal record or with no criminal record goes to buy a gun for the sole purpose of giving it to another individual who has a criminal record and couldn't legally purchase a gun himself. That happens. It happened last year in Chicago. There was a straw purchase of a gun, and the gun was handed to a felon who turned around and used it to kill a Chicago policewoman named Ella French.

Ella French was 29 years old. She was a remarkable young woman. She had a great future ahead of her. She was, unfortunately, shot--gunned down--with a straw purchase gun. The same gun was used against her partner in his police vehicle. He lost his sight in one eye. He survived. But that just shows you that these straw purchase guns are being used by people against police and innocent people on a regular basis.

Straw purchasing--buying a gun with a clean record to hand over to someone who has a felony conviction--should be treated as a serious violent crime. This bill does that.

The second thing that we desperately need is to deal with counseling. Now, I know there is a traditional political argument where Republicans say: Guns are not the problem--it is mental health or other issues--and Democrats say: It is guns, and if you don't include guns in the package, you are not going to get the job done.

In my view, it includes both. You have to believe if half of the gun deaths in America each day are suicides, that the people who are the victims of those suicides needed, at least at some point in their lives, mental counseling. This bill provides counseling, and I hope it comes in the nick of time for people to turn their lives around and to restore hope in their futures so that they don't resort to the desperate decision toward suicide. Mental counseling, for them, is important.

Secondly, of course, we read about the mass shooters in theaters and in supermarkets and in schools, and we realize that they, too, should have been counseled at some point in the hopes that you could try to divert them from this vicious path that they are about to follow. That is an important issue.

The third group is one that I am more familiar with. They are those people who are involved in gun violence in our cities like Chicago and St. Louis and in so many other cities. These are young people who have diverted their lives away from what we consider to be normal because of a traumatic experience.

Now, trauma is more than physical trauma. It can involve types of posttraumatic stress that really lead to fight-or-flight syndromes and an involvement in gangs and the use of guns without having the feeling of guilt toward anyone you hurt.

These people need help. If we can reach them at an early age in schools, we might be able to turn their lives around. If we don't try, unfortunately, the violence will only continue on our streets. This bill that we are considering--this community safety bill that we are considering--provides resources to school districts to counsel young people.

I think it is long overdue and is desperately needed, not just for those who have been through serious trauma in their lives, but for those facing other mental challenges. Our kids who have gone back to school after COVID may need a helping hand and someone they can counsel with. This bill starts providing those valuable resources. I believe it will make an important difference in the future of our country.

Inflation

On another topic, Mr. President, ``inflation'' is the word on everyone's mind. We see proof of it plastered on gas stations throughout the country and in the aisles of our grocery stores. Too many families are struggling to pay bills. Just last week, the Federal Reserve launched its most forceful broadside against inflation, the largest increase in interest rates in nearly 30 years.

As lawmakers, we owe the American people an honest, sober assessment of how we can start to bring down prices and help alleviate stress at the checkout lane; but, sadly, the inflation conversation has been twisted with dishonesty and deflection by some political critics.

Instead of passing legislation to help reduce the cost of essential goods and services like prescription drugs and childcare, many are pointing the finger of blame at the Biden administration as if he invented inflation or isn't doing his best to end it. Despite the fact that it was former President Trump who urged the Federal Reserve to keep the money printer running at the start of the pandemic and that the Republicans oppose a bill that would prevent big oil companies from price gouging, we see arguments that are made totally on a political level.

The bad-faith arguments we have heard from across the aisle ignore the essential truth: Inflation is not just an American problem; it is a global problem. It is happening in advanced economies like in the UK and France. That is largely due to disruptions in the supply chain.

The phrase ``supply chain'' didn't mean much to America a few months ago, but now, we know it is an important part of our challenge. This began 2 years ago with the pandemic, and it has been aggravated by Vladimir Putin's barbaric invasion of Ukraine. It has caused the cost of everything from food to energy to spike.

In the words of one conservative commentator at the Wall Street Journal:

War in Ukraine Fans the Flames of Global Inflation.

Immigration

Mr. President, it is crucial to recognize the United States can't solve these global drivers of inflation on our own, but there is one driver of inflation that is within our control: labor shortages. We have twice as many jobs that need to be filled in this country as unemployed people to fill them.

What can we do?

The chart tells you part of the story. This chart indicates that, under the policies of the previous administration and due to the COVID- 19 pandemic, as well as lengthy backlogs, America has experienced a marked decline in immigration that has had a direct and detrimental impact on working families.

According to EconoFact:

[N]et migration to the United States . . . has

significantly declined over the last five years due to

policies of the Trump administration, processing backlogs,

the pandemic, and other factors. This slowdown has

implications for the number of workers available and for

fiscal sustainability.

By the end of 2021, there were 2 million fewer working-age immigrants in America than there would have been if the pre-2020 migration trends had continued.

Now, perhaps your first instinct is, Well, that is a good thing; that means more jobs for American workers.

But the reality is not that at all. This decline in immigration is hurting working Americans and is contributing to inflation. There are a number of industries in America that rely on foreign-born labor to provide affordable goods and services to our country--industries like construction, agriculture, transportation, to name just a few.

Consider the healthcare industry. Nursing homes depend on a reliable supply of immigrant workers to provide care to the elderly and disabled, but since 2019, nursing homes have lost more than 15 percent of their workforce. Today, nearly every nursing home in the country--99 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal--is experiencing staffing shortages. As a result, many of them have had to limit the number of new clients they accept.

In the words of one leader in the industry:

We're just looking for people to fill the roles that we

need. And time and again, we find it is the immigrant

population that tends to respond to us.

So it is our grandparents who end up paying the price for the shortage of working-age immigrants, and they are not alone.

If you are in the market for a new home, you may have noticed prices are prohibitively high, and these skyrocketing costs aren't just hurting potential home buyers; they are hurting renters as well. The cost of rent is actually outpacing inflation in America.

One obvious way to bring housing costs back down to earth is by expanding the supply of homes in America. There are plenty of homebuilders who are willing to help fill the void, but they have got a problem: not enough workers.

Down in Dallas, TX, one homebuilder named Joshua Correa has been forced to delay home construction projects for months because he can't hire field crews.

In his own words:

Immigration is very important for our workforce in the

United States . . . We're feeling [the shortage of workers] .

. . and if we're feeling it at the end of the day as builders

and developers, the consumer pays the price.

From building new homes to providing healthcare in our homes, we rely on immigrants to fill critical roles; and in the absence of immigrant workers, we as customers end up paying higher prices.

If we want to solve America's worker shortage, we need to drastically increase the number of immigrants we welcome into this country. Don't just take it from me. The CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of America has called for doubling the number of legal immigrants into this country.

In her words:

If we can alleviate the worker shortage, it might be the

fastest thing [we can] do to impact inflation.

And that is just a short-term benefit for fixing America's broken immigration system. In the long term, comprehensive immigration reform would drive America's economic growth for years to come.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, undocumented immigrants already pay nearly $12 billion in State and local taxes annually, but many of them are not on the books. By providing them with a path to legal status, we can double the amount of Federal tax revenue our Nation collects from this group. That is money that will fund the construction of roads and bridges and which will make Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments. That is especially important when you consider the growing number of senior citizens in America who rely on these programs. By the end of this decade, more than a fifth of our population will be over the age of 65. These Americans need a reliable, working-age tax base to support them.

A path to legal status for undocumented immigrants also would boost our Nation's GDP by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Passing immigration reform will also help keep America on the cutting edge of innovation. Despite our former President's destructive immigration policies, America is still one of the top destinations in the world for innovators and entrepreneurs. In fact, more than half of our Nation's billion-dollar startups were founded by an immigrant. Let me repeat that. More than half of our Nation's billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Every day that we fail to enact immigration reform, we are allowing a generation of potential innovators and skilled workers to fall through the cracks.

I want to briefly share the story of one amazing person who almost fell through the cracks. His name is Dr. Alfredo Quinones, but he is more commonly known as Dr. Q. Today, Dr. Q--listen to this--is the chair of neurologic surgery at the Mayo Clinic.

Decades ago, when he first arrived in the United States as a teenager, he was an undocumented farmworker. He earned little more than $3 an hour picking crops in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Eventually, he began working as a welder for a railroad. One day, he suffered a bad injury after falling into an empty petroleum tank. When he woke up in the hospital, Dr. Q decided to pursue his passion.

He enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley and wrote his honor's thesis on neuroscience. That caught the attention of admissions officers at Harvard Medical School, where he was accepted as a student. He studied hard and discovered his calling: neurosurgery. Today, he removes about 250 brain tumors every year. Outside of the OR, Dr. Q devotes countless hours to pioneering research. He has a very modest goal--curing cancer--and is exploring novel methods, like using human fat cells to fight brain cancer.

How many other Dr. Qs are out there, hiding in the shadows of our immigration system? Isn't it time we found out?

In the meantime, I would like to pose a simpler question to my Republican colleagues: If you are genuinely interested in addressing inflation, will you help us move forward on this issue before the election?

Your willingness to work on immigration reform will reveal the answer. It is one of the most consequential steps we can take to combat inflation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, last week, Senator Portman of Ohio and I hosted a group of visiting members of Parliament from Ukraine. We were joined by colleagues from both sides of the aisle in a continued demonstration of bipartisan support for that beleaguered country.

One of the Ukrainian Parliamentarians included a key negotiator with the Russians, David Arakhamia. He was clear in his assessment: The Russians won't negotiate seriously unless confronted with strength. I agree. We must not let Russia regroup and retrench in the eastern part of Ukraine.

We are now in the fourth month of this horrific war, launched without provocation by Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin to fortify his fragile ego and his warped nostalgia for Soviet horror stories. We all recall the initial assessments that Ukraine and its democratically elected government would fall within days of the Russian military assault. The Russians, for months, poised on the border of Ukraine a mighty force--armored military, virtually everything imaginable. Well, guess what. It not only didn't happen, but the Russian military was turned back decisively in their effort to take Kyiv.

In the war-torn months since, the government of Ukraine has become a symbol of freedom, of strength, determination, and defiance around the world. In fact, key leaders from Europe visited Kyiv last week and pledged their support for Ukraine's membership in the European Union.

President Biden has played a key role in rallying NATO allies and providing equipment and support that have allowed the Ukrainians to heroically defend their nation. He has committed more than $6.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, with $5.6 billion provided since the beginning of the war alone.

This kind of security aid typically takes months to process and deliver, but weapons are being delivered to Ukraine at unprecedented speed, some in as little as 48 hours. Technical assistance, training, and humanitarian aid continue in parallel.

In fact, under President Biden's leadership, the NATO alliance has never been more unified or formidable, including with two new aspiring members, Finland and Sweden, hoping to join soon--a step I strongly support. Imagine, Vladimir Putin started this vicious war against Ukraine to weaken NATO. He strengthened that organization, and now two pivotal nations in Europe have asked to join NATO for the first time-- an indication to Putin that NATO's days are ahead, not behind, it.

Despite these historic successes, we must continue to adjust our support for what is likely to be a protracted fight. The Ukrainian military needs long-range artillery and other key military equipment to withstand and repel the Russian onslaught.

I am joining Senators Portman, Blumenthal, and Grassley in a letter to Secretary of Defense Austin this week urging more long-range rocket artillery for Ukraine, which the administration is reportedly reviewing at this very moment.

The urgent needs go beyond weapons. Ukraine's economy and food exports--exports that feed some of the world's poorest nations--cannot be held hostage to Vladimir Putin's cruelty. For the record, more than 20 million tons of Ukrainian grain exports are stopped because of a Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports, and it is estimated that barely half of Ukraine's harvest can be exported this year.

Secretary of State Blinken rightly has accused Russia of using food as a weapon of war, and there are credible reports that Russia has stolen Ukrainian grain--imagine this--only to simply resell it on the world market.

One has to ask, when you consider this barbaric act, following other barbaric acts: Does Vladimir Putin really believe he is going to restore the moral authority of Russia by his actions? Is this really the kind of behavior, incidentally, that China wants to be associated with?

So our task and that of our allies must include not only a sustained and updated supply of critical weaponry but also help to reopen and secure Ukrainian ports and find alternative land routes for this year's harvest.

We must support efforts announced by Attorney General Garland today in his visit to Ukraine to help identify, apprehend, and prosecute those involved in war crimes. Here in the Senate, we can help that effort by passing the bipartisan Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act. I have introduced this bill with Senator Grassley to ensure that perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine and elsewhere cannot find sanctuary in the United States of America.

I also urge my colleagues not to delay approval of Finland and Sweden into NATO and to never again entertain the weakening of this critical Western alliance.

Let me also take a moment to comment on threats made over the weekend to one of our NATO allies, a nation which still has a recent stark memory of Soviet horror. I refer to Lithuania. Lithuania is one of the Baltic States that led the effort for independence from the Soviet Union.

Who can forget the Baltic Way, a human chain of 2 million people who joined hands across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania 33 years ago to call for independence from the Soviet Union? Just a few years later, in July 1991, the Russian Government recognized the Baltic nations' independence during the historic end of Soviet tyranny in Eastern Europe, recognizing that the Russian people were ready to give Baltic States a future.

Since then, Lithuania has flourished as a vocal and vibrant member of the European Union and NATO. This small nation of nearly 3 million people has never forgotten its own struggle for freedom. Lithuania was an early ally of Ukraine's in its fight with Russia, going back to 2014. It has stood firm against its neighboring dictator in Belarus, the Putin puppet Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and against Chinese economic bullying for increasing its trade relationship with Taiwan.

Over the weekend, Russia actually threatened Lithuania, which was preventing goods sanctioned by the EU from being transported through its territory to the Russian territory of Kaliningrad. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis, who is accustomed to Russian threats, said:

It's not Lithuania doing anything. It's European sanctions

that started working from 17 June.

Feigned Russian outrage over Lithuania's actions limiting the movement of these goods already sanctioned while Russia is bombing entire peaceful civilian areas to rubble in Ukraine shows the depth of Putin's madness.

President Biden and NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg have been very clear that the organization's commitment to the common defense is ironclad; it will protect every inch of member territory. Vladimir Putin should think carefully about the NATO commitment and the horrific cost he has already imposed on the Russian and Ukrainian people before making any further threats and continuing his war crimes in Ukraine.

Mr. President, it has been my good fortune to have visited Lithuania many times. My mother was born there. I have a special affection for that land and its people. I was there in the darkest of Soviet times in 1978. I am glad I went. As sad and depressing as it was, it was important for me to see that moment in history.

To see Lithuania today is to see a brandnew democracy, thriving in its belief and values of individual people and the determination to continue with a free economy and an open democracy. They have come and rallied to the side of many around them who are being terrorized by Lukashenka in Belarus and by Putin in Ukraine. And Lithuania speaks up. This small nation of fewer than 3 million people is a nation which is determined to stand for principle and values.

I want to make certain they understand that there are those of us here in the U.S. Congress who will never forget the battle they waged to become independent of the Soviet Union and their determination to stay in that position.

I was proud to be one of the voices in the chorus calling for the Baltic States to be part of the NATO alliance. They saw it as their day of liberation from fear, from the Soviet Union--then Russia, now Putin. We have to make sure

we keep those words sacred so that the NATO alliance is an alliance that can be counted on by all of the members.

I am heartened by the fact that Finland and Sweden are joining in this effort now, want to be part of the future of NATO. Extending that NATO border with Russia 600 to 800 miles is an affirmation of the foolishness of Putin. He actually thought, at the end of the day, by invading Ukraine, NATO would be weaker. Now it will be stronger than ever and, frankly, right up against his own country and the Finnish borders if they are allowed to join us in the NATO alliance, which I dearly hope for.

In the meantime, to my friends and all of the folks I have worked with in Lithuania, we are so proud of your continued determination to stand up for what is right. Continue doing that. That is the spirit of the Baltics, it is the spirit of Lithuania, and it is the spirit of the NATO alliance.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I recently read an article published by a woman who is very credible on the issue of energy, which I would like to share after the statements recently made by the Republican leader.

The question is whether or not our production of crude oil during President Biden's Presidency was higher or lower than the Trump administration. I quote Heather Cox Richardson:

To encourage production, Biden's officials have issued more

permits on federal lands than were issued in the Trump

administration's first three years, at a pace that approaches

[that of] George W. Bush's administration. Only 10% of all

U.S. drilling takes place on federal land, but the Bureau of

Land

Management confirms that more than 9,000 drilling permits on

public land are currently approved. Not all would be

productive if they were developed, and none of them could

start producing immediately, but this undercuts the argument

that gas prices are high because the Biden administration has

choked off permits.

She goes on to say:

What appears to be driving U.S. gas prices is the pressure

investors are putting on oil companies, whose officers answer

to their investors. Limited production creates higher prices

that are driving record profits. In a March 2022 survey of

141 U.S. oil producers asking them why they were holding back

production, 59 percent said they were under investor

pressure. Only 6 percent blamed ``government regulations''

for their lack of increased production.

Oil companies are seeing huge profits and are using the money for stock buybacks to raise stock prices. BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, Eni, and Equinor will give between $38 and $41 billion to shareholders through buyback programs this year.

That is a little different picture than was just painted by the Republican leader.

There is some culpability here when it comes to the oil companies, and blaming President Biden is ignoring the fact that he has, on Federal lands, which, as written, account for a percentage of our production in this country, expanded permits beyond the levels offered by the previous administration. This is certainly a more complex issue than was suggested by the Senator from Kentucky.

Gun Legislation

Mr. President, on another topic, I would say that we have learned a lot from COVID-19. We have learned that this particular pandemic targeted, more than ever, those among us who were up in years, the seniors. They were the most vulnerable to the attack of COVID-19, and many folks in their senior years were threatened by and some succumbed to this terrible pandemic. We knew that it was a problem for senior citizens and still do.

Yesterday, we had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee that called to mind the real question before us: What if this pandemic had targeted our children and babies? What if we knew that the next pandemic was going to make them particularly vulnerable? Well, I will tell you, I believe this country--rightly so--would rally behind an effort to do everything we could to protect our children from this looming, potential, cause of death.

Mine is only a hypothetical when it comes to pandemics, but it is not a hypothetical when it comes to the No. 1 cause of death among children and teenagers in America. The CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just announced within the last 2 weeks that the No. 1 cause of death is not a pandemic but guns, firearms, gun violence, and gun deaths.

Yesterday, we held a hearing in the Judiciary Committee on the leading cause of death for children in America--guns. In 2020--the most recent year's statistics that are available--more than 4,300 American babies, children, and teens died from gunfire. During the hearing, we heard from a chorus of witnesses: healthcare witnesses, law enforcement, community violence prevention. They agreed on one basic thing: that gun violence is traumatizing an entire generation of American youth. Lawmakers in Congress have a responsibility to stem this tide of violence.

One of the witnesses was a young college student from Northeastern University in Boston. He actually grew up on the West Side of Chicago. His name is Ernest Willingham. He isn't 20 years old yet, but his testimony sounded like the testimony of a person who was wise in years. He has already experienced one gun-related tragedy after another.

Mr. Willingham told the members of our committee:

I have seen my brother, my father, my cousin and my best

friend become victims of gun violence. . . . This is

something that young people should never have to prepare

themselves for, yet it remains the lived experience of so

many children and youth around our nation.

He continued:

We are better than this as a country, and we can solve this

crisis.

Then he made reference to one basic fact. He said:

Most kids who grew up with me spent more time attending

funerals than weddings.

That is a sobering statement, and it puts into perspective not only the threat of gun violence and the toll that it has taken but also the trauma that is visited on so many who are affected by this gun violence. We think instantly of the families of the victims, but trauma goes far beyond that; it extends to families of witnesses and to so many others whose lives are affected.

Two weeks ago, in Chicago, Lurie Children's Hospital convened a group of young people from gun-infested neighborhoods. They agreed to meet with me on a private, off-the-record basis. We closed the door, and I looked at their 20 or 30 faces and said:

Tell me what I need to know as a U.S. Senator about what it

means to grow up in your neighborhood.

I can tell you that there was an outpouring of statements from every one of them, talking about how guns have become such a sad and tragic part of their lives and how many of them had either been shot or had lost a family member or a loved one or a friend to gun violence. And they talked about the basics.

One young man said:

Senator, we need home training.

I said:

What do you mean by ``home training''?

He said:

We need parents to tell us what is right and wrong, to tell

us what to do. There are no rules. The only rules I find are

the rules of the gang's on the street. I know what their

rules are, but I don't know what the rules are in terms of my

own life.

I think back on my childhood. Rules? Oh, I had plenty of rules, and most kids do: Clean your plate. Clean your room. Do your homework. Take out the trash. Walk the dog.

The rules were coming at me all the time. Then I went and attended Catholic grade schools, and, believe me, they had even more rules to play by.

The statements by many of these young people were that their lives were adrift in the earliest stages. Some of it reflects parents who are facing poverty, who are struggling to make ends meet. Some are working two jobs just to get enough money to keep food on the table. They can't be at home and nurturing and guiding these young people as much as they should because they are struggling from paycheck to paycheck. That is a reality of poverty in these neighborhoods.

Some families aren't that ``lucky''--and I use that in quotes. Some are dysfunctional. They have one parent who is a drug addict and another parent who is inclined toward violence or alcohol, and the child suffers as a result of it.

The point I am getting to is this: That hearing yesterday on gun violence highlighted the reality of what life is like for too many kids in places around America, and it highlighted the importance of doing something.

We had a doctor there who was the chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She said that she sent out an email, in preparation for her testimony, to a number of pediatricians and said:

Can you share with me any personal experiences with kids

who are victims of gun violence?

She received 300 replies, which we put in the record of the Senate Judiciary Committee's. They were sobering statements by doctors of what they faced with kids who had either been victims of gun violence or who had witnessed it and were trauma victims as a result. That was the reality.

Ernest Willingham, whom I mentioned earlier, talked about what it meant to have this as an integral part of his life while growing up. He was one of the lucky ones. He was able to break free from this terrible experience and really start down the path toward a college education.

We had the chief of police from Phoenix, AZ, Chief Williams, who came in. She is a 23-year veteran of the police force and is the chief in a major city. She talked about guns and kids and what they face in her city, where she just recently had a number of her policemen who were injured in the line of duty.

She spoke to that and said:

Last night, there was a shooting, and luckily they survived

or I wouldn't be here today.

That is the reality of guns in America.

We focused with her on the guns like AR-15s that are showing up at these

shootouts and massacres. The AR-15 is a ``semiautomatic'' weapon, which means it fires ammunition every time you pull the trigger, but it can be converted into an automatic weapon, whereby you can hold the trigger, and it just sprays ammunition at people who are victims.

How many of these exist in the United States today, these AR-15 assault weapons that we are seeing in so many of these massacres and shootings? We are not sure. It is somewhere between 10 and 20 million-- 10 and 20 million.

I asked the pediatrician what kind of damage is done by these guns, and she told us: It is devastating.

Some of the stories that are coming back from these mass shootings now are horrific. I just even hesitate to repeat them, but they have been reported widely in the news--the damage that is done to these poor little bodies in the classrooms when these weapons are turned on them.

Now, there is no earthly purpose for such a weapon other than their use in the military--it isn't used for sport; it isn't used for hunting; it can't be used for self-defense very effectively--but so many, millions, are being sold across America.

From my point of view, we should be dealing with that issue directly, as well as high-capacity magazines that allow these to happen, but, unfortunately, we can't at this moment. We don't have the political will to do it in the U.S. Senate--50-50 divided. We do have the will to take up the framework, which is being worked on at this very moment. It isn't what I want to see, and it isn't what many of us want to see, but it is a step forward.

I commend the Senators--the Democrat Chris Murphy and the Republican John Cornyn--for assembling a group of some 20 Senators, Democrats and Republicans, who are working on this legislation. It is critically important that they are successful. I know they are having drafting challenges--that is common around here--but we have plenty of talented people, and if the Members, in good will, sit down, they can work out their differences. I urge them to do so.

Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell publicly support this undertaking. It is one of the rare bipartisan events in the U.S. Senate, and it is on the critical issue of gun safety. I hope that by next week, we can consider this on the floor.

Nomination of Steven M. Dettelbach

Mr. President, there is another matter that will come before us as soon as today, and it was a matter that was raised in the Judiciary Committee this morning.

Today, we can start by discharging from the committee a proven, battle-tested leader to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His name is Steve Dettelbach. The Presiding Officer knows him well as he served as a member of his staff as a detailee. He has an exceptional record.

You see, it has been 7 years since there has been a Senate-confirmed Director at ATF, and at a moment when guns are killing our kids at a devastating rate, this office cannot remain vacant any longer--7 years.

How many times have you heard the statement: ``We don't need any gun laws. We just need to enforce the laws that are already on the books''? Well, one of the Agencies that have major jurisdiction is Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

It is no coincidence since it has been 7 years since there has been a person in charge of that Agency. You need someone to guide the Agency to enforce the laws to keep our streets safe. That is very basic.

Well, we made a gesture toward that this morning in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Today, we voted for discharge. The Senate will take a critical step toward confirming Mr. Dettelbach. He is the kind of leader our Nation needs to get a handle on the crisis of gun violence. Later today, we will have a vote on the floor here. I hope we can get bipartisan support for Mr. Dettelbach.

Members of law enforcement, mayors across America, and former Federal prosecutors all agree that it is time that this man, Steve Dettelbach, become the Director of the ATF. More than 140 former Justice Department officials, including multiple Trump administration appointees, have stepped forward to voice their support for Mr. Dettelbach's nomination. The Judiciary Committee has also received letters of support from multiple former Directors and Acting Directors of the ATF.

It is no surprise. As a career prosecutor, Mr. Dettelbach

has devoted decades of his life to working alongside law

enforcement, including ATF agents, to combat gang violence,

gun crimes, and hate crimes. In every role he has held, Mr.

Dettelbach has been squarely focused on protecting the lives

of law enforcement officers and the families they serve.

In his own words:

Politics can play no role in law enforcement.

He has earned the trust of an amazing list of law enforcement organizations. Listen to the groups that support his taking on this job: The National Sheriffs' Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major County Sheriffs of America, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, Women in Federal Law Enforcement, the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, and many, many more.

When a mass shooter tears apart a community like Buffalo, NY, or Uvalde, TX, ATF agents are among the first Federal officers to respond. Let us not wait a minute longer in providing these heroic agents the leader they deserve. Yes, let's enforce the laws that are on the books. Let's put together the leadership of the ATF to make certain that is done.

I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for Steve Dettelbach's confirmation on the floor of the Senate today. It is timely, it is important, and it is long overdue.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, this work period, the Senate will continue to confirm highly qualified, diverse nominees to the Federal judiciary.

First on the list is Judge Ana Isabel de Alba, who has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

A San Joaquin Valley native, Judge de Alba has served as a Superior Court Judge for Fresno County, CA, since 2018. She has presided over thousands of hearings and more than seven bench trials before the court's Criminal Misdemeanor Division, the Juvenile Justice Division, and the Environmental Quality Act Panel.

Prior to her judicial service, Judge de Alba practiced for 11 years at a Fresno-area law firm, where she became partner in just 5 years and specialized in business, employment, construction, and personal injury law. In addition to her expansive litigation practice before California State courts, Judge de Alba handled many administrative law trials before a State agency as well as a Federal jury trial.

Judge de Alba earned her B.A. with highest honors and her J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

The American Bar Association has unanimously rated Judge de Alba as ``Qualified'' to serve on the Eastern District of California, and she also has received the strong support of her home State Senators, Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Padilla.

With her record of fair-minded judicial service and years of litigation experience, Judge de Alba will serve her home district well as a Federal district court judge.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the need for the Senate to act to protect Federal judges.

In the past few years, the growing use of political violence has endangered elected officials, police officers, flight attendants, school board members, election workers, and judges. We all must condemn all violence and threats of violence against public officials in the strongest possible terms, regardless of whether it comes from the right or the left.

Last week, news broke that an armed man was arrested near the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. This man made it clear to law enforcement that he desired to kill Justice Kavanaugh. Importantly, court documents showed that the gunman outside Justice Kavanaugh's home said he found the address online.

This week, the House approved a bill that unanimously passed the Senate

last month and would give the Supreme Court Police greater discretion to protect the Justices' families. I am glad that this important legislation is headed to President Biden's desk.

But it has been over 6 months since the Judiciary Committee unanimously reported the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act. This bill was first introduced by Senators Menendez and Booker in response to a tragic incident in which a disgruntled litigant found the home address of Judge Esther Salas on the internet, went to her house, and shot and killed her son.

The bill is directly responsive to the threats that Federal judges face, including the threat to Justice Kavanaugh. It would allow judges to safeguard their personal information from being posted on the internet and would empower the judiciary to monitor online threats. We have tried to pass this bill in the past, and it has been blocked by at least one Republican Senator. The bill's sponsors have negotiated changes to address these concerns, and I am hopeful that Republican objection will be lifted today.

The threat to Justice Kavanaugh and the tragic death of Daniel Anderl underscore the need to pass this bipartisan bill quickly and get it signed into law so we can protect all Federal judges and their families.