Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the random violence on the streets of Chicago results in Monday morning reports that break your heart: 100 people shot on the Fourth of July weekend; the following weekend, 50; the weekend after that, 70.

It never stops. These mass shootings have become part of life in many cities across America, and it is a heartbreaking reality.

There are many ways to look at it. I have tried my best to understand it and to respond from a legislative point of view, but as we kind of play the possibilities and debate the opportunities we have to change things, the killing just goes on and on.

The city of Chicago, like many cities in the United States, is awash in guns--awash in guns. Police--I believe the statistic is--have confiscated 16,000 so far this year and still counting; thousands and thousands and thousands of guns.

In the roughest parts of Chicago, you wave a couple of $20 bills and you have a handgun in a matter of minutes. And there really is no age check involved; and young kids, as much as older folks, buy these guns right and left, claiming they are for self-defense and many times just putting them into the machinery of crime and death that has become such a predictable part of life in that great city.

Chicagoans across every possible demographic this morning are shocked and grieving to learn that another Chicago police officer was killed in the early morning hours.

The slain officer was just 29 years old--29. She was assigned to the Community Safety Team, a special unit of officers from various districts who are pooled and sent to the meanest, most dangerous ``hot spots'' in the city. Her name has not been released.

She and another Chicago police officer were shot last night when they pulled over a car in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago South Side. The second officer is hospitalized as well and fighting for his life.

Two suspects have been arrested, and a third is being sought.

Gun violence and gun deaths are daily threats in many neighborhoods, neighborhoods where it is easier to find a gun than to find a job. Sadly, it is increasingly a mortal threat to the Chicago police officers who work in these neighborhoods.

Several months ago, I had an impromptu, unreported meeting with the Chicago police force and invited anyone in who wanted to sit with a Senator and try to explain what is going on. Eight of them showed up and were pretty well representative of the Chicago police department-- Black, White, Brown; male, female; Hispanic, African American; young and old--and they talked about the world they lived in and how the odds were against them on the streets of Chicago.

The bad guys just have too damn many guns, and that is a reality. They don't buy those guns in the city of Chicago, incidentally. They buy them outside of Chicago--northwest Indiana, at gun shows, with no background checks. The gangbangers just take a 15-, 20-minute trip over the Indiana-Illinois border to a gun show and load up their truck with more guns, bring them back in, and sell them on the streets of Chicago. That is a reality.

Guns come from unlikely places. Too many guns come from States like Louisiana and Mississippi, where they have gun standards that are weaker than some other places. But they also come from downstate Illinois. I am not going to try to sugarcoat that. Those are the reports.

It troubles me, too, because when I talk to the police, they say: We need Federal help.

What they would like to be able to do is try to track these guns, try to determine their sources and cut them off. The Agency that does it is the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agency.

We are trying now--desperately trying now to get the approval in the Senate for a person to head that Agency, and, no surprise, the ranks are closed against this person on the other side of the aisle.

Those who are listening closely to the gun lobby are trying their best to make sure ATF, this Federal Agency, doesn't have strong leadership, doesn't exercise all its authority under the law to make us safer. That doesn't make it any easier for the Chicago police, and they end up paying the price.

The latest fallen hero is the first Chicago police officer killed by gunfire in more than 2\1/2\ years. But nearly 40 Chicago police officers have been shot, or shot at, in the line of duty this year. That is part of the duty, the responsibility they face as they prowl the streets and alleys of the great city.

Chicagoans mourn for the police officer who lost her life. We are going to pray desperately for recovery of the wounded officer. Thoughts and prayers are not enough to end gun violence in Chicago and nearly every community in America. We all know that. We need better laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and also out of the hands of people with serious mental illness and others who shouldn't have them either.

America's families and police officers deserve our best effort to make the streets safer in Chicago and many other American cities.

Mr. President, I have been listening to criticism from the other side of the aisle about our plan to improve American families' economic security and the long-term strength in our economy.

And I have to wonder, why do Republicans never worry about deficits when they are passing trillion-dollar tax cuts that shower nearly all of the benefits on millionaires and wealthy corporations?

Why do Republicans only rediscover a concern about the debt when they are asked to support policies to help middle-class, working families, low-income

individuals--people struggling to get into the middle class?

Or when someone proposes a long-term solution to make America's economy resilient and more prosperous for everyone, they are opposed to that. That is ``big spending.''

Republican welfare for the rich has always been a bad investment. Forty years of trickle-down economics has given America the greatest income inequality since the Gilded Age in our history and the largest national debt in our history. Republicans' devotion to trickle-down tax cuts has given us a shrinking middle class, a hollowed-out industrial base, and crumbling infrastructure. It has made a small sliver of America lavishly wealthy and left the rest behind.

The Republican economic agenda has left the majority of Americans asking: How are we supposed to pay for childcare, our kids' college education, medical bills, or for the skilled nurses that mom and dad are going to need? Will we ever be able to retire?

Trickle-down economics doesn't have answers for those real-life questions, but our Republican colleagues keep doubling down on them.

I predict, without fear of contradiction, now that we have a Democratic President, someone on the Republican side of the aisle will come around again with a balanced budget constitutional amendment. It happens without fail. Republicans always turn to that whenever there is a Democratic President, even though the debt that President inherited was historic.

But when their trickle-down tax cuts add trillions to the national debt, are they really worried?

They never say a word about deficit and debt until they are in the minority.

Donald Trump proposed more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts, with most of the benefits going to wealthy corporations and individuals.

Did the Republicans complain about the national debt then? No.

Did they insist that such an expensive gift must have bipartisan support? No.

They passed their trickle-down tax cut through reconciliation without a single Democratic vote.

Donald Trump promised that his tax cut would be ``rocket fuel for the economy.''

That may be a rare Trump boast that turned out to be true, although not exactly the way he meant it. We now have a handful of billionaires who have decided to launch their own personal space programs. They are so wealthy they are racing each other into space while regular working people worry about rent, childcare, and getting on here on Earth.

The Trump tax cut gave the wealthiest Americans a fat windfall. According to Americans for Tax Fairness, the Nation's 651 billionaires saw their net worth spike by more than $1 trillion during the first 9 months of the pandemic while the rest of America worried about how to pay the bills with a smaller paycheck or no paycheck at all.

After Donald Trump signed his tax bill, surrounded by quite a few of my Republican colleagues in the Senate, he headed to a Christmas Eve dinner at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, and like Santa Claus, he announced to the wealthy members at his own private club at Mar-a-Lago: ``You all just got richer.'' That was the real effect of the Trump tax cuts--the real intent.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2018 that Trump tax cuts will add $1.9 trillion to the national debt over 11 years. Where is the Republican outcry over that? The notion of $3 trillion to help working families pay less for the essentials of life, to cut their taxes, and give them an opportunity to be in an economy creating jobs really pales in comparison to the $1.9 trillion of tax cuts to the wealthy.

Economists at the London School of Economics analyzed the effects of trickle-down tax cuts over 50 years, 1965 to 2015. They found that trickle-down tax cuts consistently benefit the wealthy but had no meaningful effect on employment or economic growth, and they led inevitably to wider economic inequality.

The authors of the study were asked why some politicians still continue to push for these tax cuts for wealthy people. They pointed to one reason: the power of wealthy individuals and corporations to set policy agendas through their lobbying and campaign contributions.

You know what is going on, the fabulously wealthy people, who are contributing to politicians and causes that support their lifestyle, but they don't want us to know.

Is that why no Republican Senator supports President Biden's Build Back Better plan to help American families and our economy, because billionaires have more lobbyists and deeper pockets than struggling kids and families?

Two renowned economists from Princeton University--Alan Blinder, former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, and Mark Watson--looked at the major economic indicators of America's economy for every President back to Franklin Roosevelt.

They found by almost any major indicator--gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices--America's economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic Presidents than Republican. On jobs, since 1933, the six Presidents who presided over the fastest job growth have all been Democrats--the four Presidents with the slowest job growth, Republicans.

Donald Trump campaigned, promising to be the ``greatest jobs President God ever created.'' There were 3 million fewer jobs when he left office than at the beginning of his term. He is the first President since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs on his watch.

The Democrats are once again cleaning up the Republican mess. With the help of the American Rescue Plan, which not a single Republican Senator or Congressman supported, America's economy has added 4 million jobs during the first 6 months of Joe Biden's Presidency. That is the fastest growth for the start of any President ever in American history.

Here is another fact from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Between 1953 and 2020, America's economy was in a recession for 23 percent of the time that the Republicans held the White House, compared to just 4 percent of the time that a Democrat sat in the Oval Office.

For the past 40 years, Republican Presidents have run up larger deficits than Democrats. Let me say that again. In the past 40 years, Republican Presidents have run up larger deficits than Democratic Presidents.

Donald Trump promised to get rid of the national debt in 8 years through trade policy. Instead, his trade policies were a costly disaster, and the national debt skyrocketed by more than $7 trillion during his tenure.

A ProPublica-Washington Post analysis found that growth in annual deficit under Donald Trump is the third-biggest increase relative to the size of the economy of any U.S. President, with his tax cuts being the major culprit.

I could go on citing facts and figures. Democrats look at human priorities like quality childcare, medical research, renewable energy, and climate resilience, investments that grow the economy and raise wages and living standards for everyone.

We should have no apologies as Democrats for the programs that we support, particularly when it comes to climate change. That is a fact of life, sadly, in America, and we see the results reported every night on the news. Whether it is fires or extraordinary weather events, they are happening with increased frequency. It seems that Republicans ignore that reality. We cannot afford as a nation to do that any longer.

History shows that our approaches work in responding to many of these challenges. Our solutions produce stronger, more sustainable economic growth that benefits everyone. Stronger economic growth allows us to pay down our debt rather than continuing to add to it with more tax cuts for the top 1 percent.

Republicans can refuse to support our plan to Build Back Better; that is their choice. But please spare us lectures about fiscal responsibility. There is nothing responsible about repeating the same trillion-dollar mistake over and over and making small businesses and working families pay for it.

I always thought the Laffer curve, which is the inspiration to the Republicans for trickle-down economics, was the most appropriately named economic device in history--it is a ``laugher''--and we see over and over again

why that is. Giving tax breaks to the wealthy might make for a happy Christmas at Mar-a-Lago but not for the rest of the country.

The real test is not whether we put votes on the board--and that is the bottom line in the Senate--but whether the center will hold, whether or not we have a strong enough center in the Senate dedicated to responsible investment and infrastructure and can overcome the forces outside.

Former President Trump has been making all these speeches about how bad it is to have an infrastructure program. Well, I would just like to remind the former President: He had no infrastructure program. Talked big. Delivered nothing. Now, we have a chance under President Biden to have one that is bipartisan in nature and truly will help this economy and this country over the long run.

In addition, I believe that we have to move further--and we certainly will with the budget resolution--in investing in America. The notion of having childcare--quality childcare--available and affordable to families is something that, unless you are a grandparent or a parent and know the reality, you may overlook and shouldn't. It is a critical factor in family welfare and good outcomes for children.

In addition, 2 extra years of education beyond the 12th grade, provided by our quality community colleges across America, is the ticket for better jobs and better training and better workers in the 21st century.

As we stand here, our major challenge, I suppose--our nemesis, foe-- is China. Some of us can remember something called ping-pong diplomacy, which occurred roughly when I came out of college. That was opening up what we called ``Red China'' then to the world and giving them an opportunity to compete and to be part of the world conversation, and it happened dramatically.

I remember visiting China several times and the first time, watching them in their Mao jackets on their bicycles, taking their kids to school. What I found in later visits was a really developed economy. The Chinese have a plan. They are mercantilists first, and they are marketing around the world successfully--successfully--because they have a plan. We don't have a plan, not until this President arrived.

President Joe Biden has started this plan by saying: First, we invest in our people and make certain that their lives are easier and successful. I support him completely in that effort. I hope many will. It should be bipartisan. If we have sympathy for the wealthiest in our country, I beg my Republican friends: Have some sympathy for the middle-income families, who are struggling every day to get by.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, since the beginning of our history, U.S. Marshals have protected our Federal judicial process and defended the integrity of our Constitution. Today, the Marshals Service oversees thousands of deputy marshals and investigators across America, who guard Federal officials and witnesses, track down fugitives, and transport Federal prisoners. They are an invaluable part of our law enforcement system.

This afternoon, the Senate has an opportunity to confirm a proven, trusted law enforcement professional to lead the U.S. Marshals Service, Ronald Davis.

In June, the Judiciary Committee approved Mr. Davis's nomination on a bipartisan basis. Three Republican members of the committee, including Ranking Member Chuck Grassley of Iowa, joined every Democrat to support his nomination as Director of the Marshals Service.

With Mr. Davis's experience in the military, the Justice Department, and as a police officer on the beat, he is an outstanding nominee. But despite his bipartisan committee vote, decades of law enforcement experience, and the support he enjoys from virtually every major law enforcement organization in America, some of my Republican colleagues are blocking him from being confirmed by unanimous consent.

Unanimous consent is the expedited process that the Senate has used to confirm every other Director of the Marshals Service for as long as this position has been subject to Senate confirmation. We have always confirmed the Marshals Service Director by unanimous consent because the position is so important and, up until now, has been considered to be above partisan politics.

I hope my Republican colleagues will reconsider their position. At a time when our Federal judges and court officials face a growing number of threats, the Marshals Service needs Mr. Davis's experience and leadership now, and the American public deserves his steady hand at the helm.

Let me briefly speak to Mr. Davis's qualifications and the support he enjoys from law enforcement.

After serving in the U.S. Air Force, Mr. Davis joined the Oakland, CA, Police Department, serving for 20 years in uniform, ultimately attaining the rank of captain. He then went on to serve as chief of the East Palo Alto Police Department, implementing crucial initiatives that curbed gang violence.

In no small part because of his work in East Palo Alto, Mr. Davis was tapped by President Obama to serve as Executive Director of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. President Obama also selected Mr. Davis to head the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, known as the COPS Office.

As the COPS Office Director, he disbursed hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money, enabling State and local police departments to retain and hire thousands of police officers. In other words, he was in charge of funding police across the United States.

As a police officer with nearly three decades of experience, and as the husband of a 31-year veteran of the police force who was the first Black woman to serve as a permanent police chief in California, Mr. Davis has a deep and abiding respect for the men and women of law enforcement.

Understanding the risks that officers face every day, he said: ``There is no greater or more noble profession than policing.''

And he has been emphatic that police officers deserve our highest praise for keeping neighborhoods safe, families secure, and dangerous criminals behind bars.

Mr. Davis also has the backs of members of law enforcement. He earned their respect and trust. Numerous law enforcement organizations are asking the Senate to move--and move quickly--to confirm his nomination as Director of the U.S. Marshals Service. Listen to this group of law enforcement professionals that has supported him: the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association; the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association; the International Association of Chiefs of Police; the National Black Police Association; the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives; the Police Executive Research Forum; the Major Cities Chiefs Association; the Major County Sheriffs of America; the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives; the National Sheriffs' Association; and, yes, the Fraternal Order of Police.

Notably, these organizations didn't just support him; they support his immediate confirmation and urge us to move quickly.

Consider this letter from the Fraternal Order of Police sent on August 3. It says: ``At this time in our history, the U.S. Marshals Service needs the leadership we're confident that Mr. Davis can provide. No doubt he understands first-hand the issues facing women and men in law enforcement, and we believe President Biden has made an excellent decision to have him lead the Marshals Service.''

I couldn't agree more. There is simply no basis for delaying this bipartisan choice out of the Senate Judiciary Committee any moment further. If my Republican colleagues really want

to stand up for law and order and funding the police, they can start by confirming a nominee who has devoted his entire career to doing just that. That nominee is Ronald Davis.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the Davis nomination, Calendar No. 174; that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I am disappointed. At this point, this is an issue involving Vanita Gupta, who was approved by the Senate and now is serving in the Department of Justice and has been for months. What this has to do with the person to lead the U.S. Marshals Service, I cannot imagine.

But I don't have to imagine the importance of filling this position quickly. It was over 10 years ago when a judge--a woman that I helped to win appointment in the Federal district court in the Northern District of Illinois--learned tragically that a disgruntled client at somebody's firm went to her home, killing her mother and her husband, in Chicago. It was a tragedy, an unspeakable tragedy.

Because of that terrible event, we turned to the U.S. Marshals Service and said: You have a special obligation to protect the men and women who serve in our judiciary. We are counting on you to make certain that they are safe at work and they are safe at home.

And it is a 24/7, 365-days-a-year responsibility that the Marshals Service has.

Sadly, that wasn't the last of the tragedies involving judges. It was just a few years ago when a judge in New Jersey lost her son. Another person, a demented person, went to her home and killed him.

So when we are talking about filling this position, it is more than whether the Attorney General has sent a timely response to a letter; it is a matter of life and death--and now, more than ever, because we are in transition and many of the marshals are in a lameduck status or moved on to other positions, and you need someone to head up the U.S. Marshals Service during this period when we do our work here in Congress to approve the new U.S. Marshals across the United States.

It is hard for me to imagine that we would risk the lives of judges, court personnel, and their families, along with many others, by leaving this critical law enforcement agency unfilled.

No one questions this man's qualifications. He is a humble man who has an amazing story, an incredible story. He is asking to serve this Nation again in a capacity, when it comes to security and safety, that is really one of the most important in our government.

I am sorry that the Senator feels this way. I wish he would reconsider and just reflect for a moment on the importance of this position.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, let me say that this issue about this corporation--I believe the Senator said it was known as Avantor-- it was a corporation which was once under the control of Vanita Gupta's father. She had no--no--active role whatsoever in the administration of this corporation. She was a shareholder as the daughter of the chairman of the board, her only connection. It was a stock portfolio. That was it. That is the reason why these suspicions and charges went nowhere. There is just no connection between Vanita Gupta and this company.

It was my understanding at the time that this company had discontinued its business in Mexico and had already done that long before her hearing. That was a matter of public record.

Secondly, when members of the Judiciary Committee on both sides of the aisle said they wanted quicker responses to the letters sent to the Department of Justice than they received under the Trump administration, I said that was a perfectly legitimate request, and I invited the members of the committee to join me in a conference call with the Attorney General to discuss it. Several did. I am not sure whether the Senator from Texas was part of it or not. But the message to the Department of Justice was, provide a timely response to all inquiries. The Attorney General gave us his personal assurance that he would do that.

I know this letter is very important to the Senator from Texas, but I think that the safety of our judges is even more important.

So let's press on if you wish for a reply to this letter as soon as possible. But today, let's do the right thing and put the person in charge who keeps safe the judges and their families all

across the United States from terrible things that have happened to them in the past.

Mr. President, I believe I made it clear that her father was the chairman of the board of the company and she was a stockholder, not in the management of the company. So whatever choices they made to sell whatever chemicals anywhere in the world was not her personal decision.

I just find it very difficult for a person who has already been appointed to the job, Vanita Gupta--and that happened months ago--for us to be holding up this critically important position over a letter that wasn't answered. I hope we can satisfy the Senator from Texas and anyone else who is objecting. It is important to put Mr. Davis on the job.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, it was in 1957 that there was a world event that changed my life and the lives of many others. I was just a kid in high school at the time. In fact, I wasn't quite in high school. But the Russians decided to launch a satellite called Sputnik, and that satellite, the size of a basketball, which emitted a tone as it flew through space, scared the world, all of us, to the point where the United States of America did something that was controversial but we felt was necessary.

We decided that the Federal Government of the United States would loan money to students like Durbin to go to college because we were afraid of the Russians, and we knew that, if they had the scientific advantage of us, it could mean we would lose a war, which no one wants that to ever happen. So we created here in Washington something called the National Defense Education Act. I am sure that was carefully chosen to remind people that what we were doing was defending the country by loaning money to people like Durbin to go to college, and I took advantage of it.

Those National Defense Education Act loans had terms that most of us from that era remember very well. You didn't pay anything on your loan balance for the first year you were out of college, and then you had 10 years to pay it off at 3 percent interest.

Of course, those of us who took out the loans for college--in my case, for law school as well--amassed this great debt and worried, when the day came for graduation, whether we would ever be able to pay it off. I remember saying to my wife: Loretta, they have just got all the National Defense Education Act loans. They put them all together, and I am afraid to tell you what has happened. We have a debt of $8,000 for college and law school.

Students today don't believe that number, but that was the number, and it scared us to death that we wouldn't be able to pay it off in 10 years. Naturally, we did, and many others did as well, and the National Defense Education Act really became the pillar of the emergence of higher education in America.

Of course, there were those who cheated the system, and stories were rampant. Whether they were all true, I am not sure. There was the story of the doctor who graduated from medical school and, before he went into his lucrative practice, filed for bankruptcy and discharged all his Federal loans, Federal student loans. I don't know if that ever happened, but it certainly was part of the urban legend around the National Defense Education Act.

So, over the years, there were efforts made to change the National Defense Education Act to avoid abuse, and one of the things that was decided was that that loan to go to school would not be dischargeable in bankruptcy.

You have to ask the basic question of how many debts are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. There are only a few: alimony, child support, criminal fines, taxes, and maybe one other. But I think a student loan is the only one of that bunch that is a consumer loan that you can't discharge in bankruptcy.

Over the years, the terms of the loans and the number of years that you were held back from filing bankruptcy changed. Ultimately, the decision was made that you could effectively never discharge student loans in bankruptcy.

We held a hearing on student loan debt in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, and I am sorry Senator Cornyn has left the floor, but he and I have introduced a bill which has a good chance, I think.

We know that student loans are the fastest growing category of household debt in America--45 million student borrowers in our country. In a little under a decade, student loan debt has ballooned from $1 trillion to $1.7 trillion. The average student borrower now carries $30,000 in debt, and many, especially those who are swindled by the for-profit colleges, owe well over $100,000.

Americans of all ages are plagued by the debt. We have heard cases of grandmothers who have said to their granddaughters, ``Well, of course, I will cosign your student loan,'' to learn that when the student, the granddaughter, defaulted, Grandma was responsible for it. For some, it is holding them back from buying a first home, starting a family, a business. For others, it means delaying retirement because of this debt.

This is not an individual misfortune. The student debt crisis is a threat to our economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has warned that student loan debt may be a drag on our economy by preventing Americans from basic, fundamental consumer purchases of cars, savings accounts for retirement--otherwise, the economic growth of our country.

So we had a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, and we examined how difficult it is for student borrowers to get financial relief. These, as I said, are one of the very few categories of debt you cannot discharge in bankruptcy. You see, if you buy a home or a car and you fall on really hard times, you can declare bankruptcy and have all those debts discharged. If you like to gamble and you are not very good at it and you end up running up great debt on your credit card and you file for bankruptcy, your gambling debts through your credit cards can be discharged. You can even buy a yacht and have that debt discharged if you haven't paid it off. But if you are a student borrower who, despite your best efforts, falls on hard times--lured into debt, perhaps, by attending a worthless for-profit college--a fresh start is not in the cards for you.

We had Diane Barta testify before the committee. She is from Richmond Hill, GA, 50 years old, a mother of two. She has over $120,000 in student loan debt, much of it taken out for a worthless degree she received from for-profit school Ashford University. I mentioned that to Senator Grassley during the hearing because Ashford University is a curious story.

A small Catholic college in Iowa was about to go out of business, and the nuns were persuaded that there was a company that wanted to buy it. So they sold the campus to this company called Ashford University. Ashford had no intention of reopening the campus. What they basically did was start an online operation, claiming the accreditation and the worthiness and the credibility of the previous college.

Well, we looked into it. In fact, it was Tom Harkin of Iowa, over 10 years ago, who investigated it and found out that Ashford was a fraud. It was just generating huge profits for their CEO and a few others, not providing anything nearly resembling higher education.

Ms. Barta was a good person who worked hard. She had two degrees-- from a community college and then from another college--before she went for a master's degree at Ashford University. That was her downfall. She talked about how she had to file for bankruptcy in 2012 after her husband lost his job as a commercial plumber. She managed to get relief for most of her debts but certainly could not get discharged from her student loans that she had taken out at Ashford University, this notorious for-profit school.

Other student borrowers had their own stories. We have all heard them.

Angela, from Florida, wrote:

I'm a single parent and was on a single income living

paycheck to paycheck. I've had the stress of these student

loans haunting me for well over a decade now. . . . I am

still being haunted.

Lisa, in Nevada, wrote that she had given up her passion, teaching--I repeat: teaching--because she needed to find a higher income job to pay off her student loans.

She wrote:

It is absolutely disheartening that when you try to better

yourself in this country you're punished and not rewarded.

One more story.

Ann, from Washington State, declared bankruptcy in 2000 because her student loan payments were so high she couldn't afford to pay her bills.

She wrote:

I never go on vacations. I never married or had children

for fear of burdening [them] with [my] debt. . . . I'm facing

retirement with [that] threat [still looming over] my future.

. . . Social Security checks will be garnished for my student

loan.

This is clearly a crisis. Fortunately, both Republican and Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee agree that we need to do something. Congress has a responsibility to solve this problem. Wouldn't it be worth a headline somewhere, on some website, that we actually solved a problem like this?

Before 1976, student loans were treated like any other type of loan in bankruptcy. If you were facing financial ruin, you could get relief. Congress got the idea that student borrowers were running to bankruptcy court right after they had taken off their gowns and mortarboards and trying to wiggle out of their financial obligations. That is more anecdote than fact, but it was prevalent. Still, Congress began passing laws that made it harder to discharge student loans.

Since 1998, student borrowers could only discharge Federal student loans by proving they suffered from something called undue hardship. Well, you would think the cases I just read to you would be undue hardship, wouldn't you, people so deeply in debt that they can't get out of it and are forced to make life choices that are terrible?

Here is the issue: It is nearly impossible to prove undue hardship and discharge your student debt. That is your only escape now. In fact, in 2017, the Wall Street Journal found only four cases--four cases--in the entire country of bankruptcy judges discharging student debt for undue hardship.

For years, I have asked the Department of Education, the collection Agency, to change the way they challenge these undue hardship cases. I am still pushing on them, but Congress needs to do its part.

Another witness who joined us on Tuesday was my State attorney general, Kwame Raoul. He has been an advocate for student borrowers for a long time. He talked about these students being deceived and defrauded by these schools, particularly the for-profit colleges and universities.

Well, we have decided to do something about it. We have introduced a bill called the FRESH START Through Bankruptcy Act. It will allow struggling borrowers to seek a bankruptcy discharge for their Federal student loans after a waiting period of 10 years. That is a long time. If you can't pay off that loan in 10 years and you believe there is no other recourse, you could file for bankruptcy and have it discharged.

Our bill also includes another provision. I want to thank Jack Reed of Rhode Island, our colleague here. He introduced the original bill with this concept. It includes important provisions to hold accountable educational institutions, particularly these notorious for-profit colleges with consistently high default rates and low repayment rates.

There are two numbers you need to remember--and that is it--to understand for-profit colleges and universities: Eight. What percentage of American high school graduates go to for-profit colleges and universities? Eight percent.

Next question: What percentage of student loan defaults in the United States are by students from for-profit colleges and universities? Thirty.

Eight percent of high school grads and thirty percent of student loan defaults. Why? Because these notorious, awful schools drag these young people into debt they can never get out from under. If they so-call finish and graduate from these schools, they find that they can't get the jobs that were promised. Their lives are virtually ruined. So we are basically saying it is time that these schools be held accountable.

At this point, the FRESH START bankruptcy will provide a meaningful timeline to student borrowers who have no other options. It is a breakthrough.

This is the first bipartisan bill the Senate has had, in my memory, to restore student borrowers' ability to discharge their loans in bankruptcy.

I want to thank Senator Cornyn, Republican of Texas. We kind of jokingly say, you know, it is one of those situations where you are on stage, announcing your bill, and you turn to one another and say: Have we both read this bill? Well, we have, and we understand it.

We are also going to consider an element that was raised during the hearing by one of our expert witnesses of defining what ``undue hardship'' is. Right now, it appears the courts couldn't recognize it in any form. There certainly are cases.

I talked about a quadriplegic veteran--disabled, unable to work--who was lured into one of these for-profit school scams and ends up in debt. Shouldn't they be able to discharge that student loan? There is no question they will be able to find some great-paying job in the future. They struggled to basically face up to their illnesses, and we hope that they have the very best future, but even then, it is tough to get out from under the debt.

I hope this is a first of many steps that we will take in the committee and other places, on a bipartisan basis, to deal with this challenge.

One other point. One way for students to avoid becoming buried in student loan debt in the first place is to be very careful, particularly of for-profit colleges and universities, and secondly, take advantage of the affordable alternative community colleges. Community colleges are an underused superpower of our economy. They help students gain the knowledge and skills they need to thrive, and they prepare workers to compete in the 21st century.

I totally support President Biden's plan to build back better and provide every high school graduate to be able to continue their studies through community college, without debt. The same goes for displaced workers who want to learn new skills to get a better job to support their futures. Americans will be able to obtain 2-year degrees or specialized certificates without taking on mountains of debt.

In the greatest country in the world, a college education shouldn't be a luxury; it should be guaranteed to everyone. That is the only way we can launch a new dream of American prosperity and truly build back better after this pandemic.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, for the information of Members, we are planning to have a vote at 5 o'clock today on the confirmation of Eunice Lee to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. I wanted Members to make their plans accordingly.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I just would like to add a word and thank the Senator from Maryland for his leadership, and the Senator from New York for supporting this, and to reflect for a moment on the comments of the objector, the Senator from Kentucky.

His exact words were: We have got to learn to live with this.

Unfortunately, people are not living with this; they are getting infected and dying. And to accept the status quo and somehow make it a partisan issue--that it is the Democratic Governors who are responsible for what is going on here--is a sad oversimplification. In fact, it is tragic.

We know what is happening. We have a new variant of this COVID-19 virus that has emerged because it is still on the loose and it is changing by the day. We think the Delta variant is dangerous, maybe dramatically more contagious than the original virus.

We know that even people who have been vaccinated can unknowingly transmit this disease, the new Delta variant, and we know that it has taken a deadly toll on 90 percent of the patients who were not vaccinated and were subjected to the illness that came about.

I just want to say, in general, I couldn't agree more with Senator Schumer and Senator Cardin that restaurants in our cities are really the lifeblood. Whether it is my hometown of Springfield, IL, or Chicago, which I am honored to represent, I will tell you that these restaurants are still struggling, and as they struggle, our cities struggle.

And people that I know really measure where we are, as an American nation, recovering by the vibrancy of these restaurant businesses, the ones that are our favorites and bring us together.

They have done their part. We should do our part to give them a helping hand. Let's get through this pandemic together. We are certainly not going to do it by saying that we have to accept the Delta variant and that whatever else follows is just the natural course of things.

We have it within our power to change that. More vaccinations and more careful use of masks and social distancing will make a difference--can make a real difference in this country. Until we come to grips with that reality, we are going to continue to face these devastating disappointments.

Again, I thank the Senator from Maryland for bringing this before us. I hope he will continue to offer it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this week the Senate will vote on Eunice Lee's nomination to serve on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. If confirmed, Ms. Lee would be the only--the only Black woman--and the only former public defender to serve on the Second Circuit. With her nomination, the Biden administration and Senate Democrats are continuing our efforts

to build a Federal judiciary that looks like America.

I would like to take a moment or two to discuss Ms. Lee's qualifications and what she will bring to the bench--a perspective that is sorely needed.

Ms. Lee has dedicated her entire legal career to public defense work, most recently as an assistant Federal public defender with the Federal Defenders of New York.

Graduating from Ohio State University and Yale Law School, Ms. Lee began her legal career clerking with the Southern District of Ohio and then with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

She then joined New York's Office of the Appellate Defender, where she spent more than 20 years advocating for indigent criminal defendants at all levels of the New York State court system. During that time, Ms. Lee taught and mentored a new generation of lawyers when she served as an adjunct assistant professor of clinical law at New York University.

She then joined the Federal Defenders of New York, where she has briefed and argued criminal appeals in the Second Circuit, the court to which she is now nominated.

In short, Ms. Lee has dedicated her entire life to upholding the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, representing defendants who cannot afford to hire a lawyer.

Now, some of my Republican colleagues have claimed, without any evidence, that, as a former Federal public defender, Ms. Lee would be biased as a judge in favor of defendants. It is curious to me that these concerns of her bias didn't seem to crop up over the decades when former prosecutors were nominated to the Federal bench, and for good reason. It is as flimsy an argument as it is offensive to the lawyers who represent defendants--a representation mandated under the Constitution.

Let's be clear: Both prosecutors and public defenders play essential roles in our justice system, and their jobs give them extensive courtroom experience, which is something we demand of all judges.

Additionally, Ms. Lee has made it clear she understands the difference between being a lawyer and a judge. As a lawyer, she is an advocate; as a judge, an arbiter. At her hearing before the Judiciary Committee, Ms. Lee explained that she ``critically recognize[s] the importance of [being] a fair decision-maker.''

What is more, 70 former prosecutors--those are the women and men sitting at the other table in the courtroom--in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the very prosecutors that she squared off with in the courtrooms, have stressed the importance of having her perspective as a public defender represented on the Second Circuit.

In a letter to the Judiciary Committee, these prosecutors wrote: ``[W]e enthusiastically support Ms. Lee not just because of her sterling credentials. We believe that after a career as a public defender serving indigent clients in criminal cases, Ms. Lee would bring a unique and under-represented perspective to the job of hearing and deciding federal appeals.''

Then they added that Ms. Lee was ``an incredibly talented lawyer and public servant, whose career representing the most vulnerable among us will bring a critical, unique perspective to the bench.''

Finally, I want to share a passage from a recent op-ed written by Clark Neily, a scholar at the Cato Institute, and Devi Rao, a counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center.

They wrote: ``Judges with a greater diversity of professional experience would improve judicial decision-making overall. A judiciary with members whose formative professional experiences span the legal profession will be best equipped to handle the diverse range of cases and issues presented to them.''

Legal experts across the ideological spectrum agree. Professional diversity on the Federal bench is beneficial to our system of justice.

With Eunice Lee's confirmation, this Senate can continue bringing balance to our Nation's courts and elevate a professional perspective severely underrepresented today. I will vote for Ms. Lee's nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Let me just add in closing, I want to thank the Members of the Senate, both political parties, for proposing nominees to the Biden White House for consideration for lifetime appointments to the Federal judiciary. They have brought those nominations to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where I chair the proceedings, and it is remarkable. The women and men who have come to us, prepared to serve, make a lifetime commitment to serve our Federal judiciary.

The diversity in that group is amazing, remarkable, and the quality is without exception. Nearly all of them have been found at least ``well qualified'' unanimously by the American Bar Association--in many cases, and certainly in others, very positive reports as well.

I want to continue bringing these women and men to the floor of the Senate. I pleaded even this morning with the majority leader, Senator Schumer, who has the toughest job in the world of trying to move all the things we want to do onto this calendar and off again. I thank him for his cooperation.

I would like to say a few words on a separate topic.

Eviction Moratorium

Mr. President, I listened carefully to the Senate Republican leader this morning, Senator McConnell. I struggle to understand one aspect of his speech. He referred to the notion of helping those who are facing eviction as some form of socialism.

What we are doing, of course, is trying to make certain that all of these people have a roof over their heads, and some of them are going through extraordinarily difficult economic challenges and extraordinarily difficult public health challenges.

The money that we are sending their way is not just for them, obviously, but also to benefit the landlords, the people who own the property that they occupy.

Now, that is not unusual for this Congress in the midst of this pandemic to step up and help small businesses like landlords who are trying to pay their mortgages during this difficult time when they have tenants who are going through economic distress. I don't think that is socialism.

It wasn't socialism when we created the PPP program in 2020 on a bipartisan basis, with recordbreaking sums of money, to give to small businesses to help them through the treacherous times of this pandemic. It was just common sense. Our economy was taking a hit, and they were too.

We wanted the day to come when we could deal with this pandemic effectively and also that they could return to their businesses. Was that socialism, that we would have that kind of an effort? I don't think so.

As a matter of fact, when it came to passing that legislation, it was bipartisan and virtually unanimous--President Trump supporting it as well as Speaker Pelosi when it all came to pass. I mean, that is an indication of bridging the vast political differences in this country when an emergency demanded it. I don't think that is socialism.

When it comes to those tenants who are struggling to get by in these difficult times, helping them and the landlords whose property they occupy is not socialism; it is what America is all about. It is, of course, an involvement of the government, and we all voted for that, but it is in a specific context of helping people.

What the President has now proposed beyond this infrastructure bill that we are facing is that we look to other aspects of family life where we can help families cut the cost of the basics that they face, whether it is childcare or sending a child to college.

I don't think it is socialistic to say we want 2 additional years of education for the graduates of high school in America so they are prepared to compete in the 21st century. That is just common sense. Socialism? I don't believe it is even close to socialism. It is really preparing them for a competitive, entrepreneurial economy and for success in life. That, to me, is a noble goal, whatever party is behind it.

When it comes to the debt ceiling of this country, I just hope we can find a way to deal with this responsibly. It has always been a political football, depending on which party was in power, but to risk the possibility of a default on America's debt at this moment in

our economic history is a dangerous, dangerous undertaking. We need to do the right thing. We have to concede the obvious.

Certainly the previous President, Trump, didn't win any accolades for fiscal conservatism. And we have to come together to recognize, whoever the President may be, the important thing is that this Nation move forward--move forward to our cures for the illnesses that we face but also to an economy that is expanded.

I yield the floor

The Ohio State----

Madam President, let me say a word of support for the Senator from Connecticut as well as the Senator from New Jersey. I couldn't agree with them more. There is no reason why this information--full disclosure of this information--has not been made known first to the families but certainly to the people of this country at this moment in history, 20 years after that terrible tragedy. It is time for the truth to be known.

I support your efforts completely, Senator Blumenthal, and I will help you in any way that I can.

remembering richard trumka

Madam President, when I grew up in East St. Louis, IL, I knew I was from a railroad family because, well, both Mom and Dad worked for the railroads. I knew we had a pretty comfortable life. I have come to learn that we weren't by any means rich, but we did well enough--two older brothers and myself. I knew that my mom and dad worked for a railroad, and eventually all of us in the family did in some capacity.

I also knew that we were a union family, and I didn't realize until much later in life a couple facts: No. 1, there were a lot of families around us who weren't that lucky. We were fortunate to be a union family. Secondly, what the union did for my family in East St. Louis, IL, it did for millions of families across America throughout our history. Those labor unions could stand up and fight for people who couldn't fight alone and have a chance to win.

I have a healthy respect for unions. I believe that, more than any other force in American history, the American labor movement, the union movement, created the middle class in America. I am living proof of that. My mom and dad had eighth grade educations. My mother was an immigrant to this country. But hard work, a good work ethic, and a strong support of a labor union gave them a chance to earn a decent living on a safe job and to raise a good family.

I reflect on that at this moment because we have lost one of the pillars of the union movement in the United States of America, Richard Trumka.

What an amazing biography. I used to think back. I had heard he was the son of immigrants, and I knew that he worked in the coal mines, but then I knew he also went to law school, and he became head of the AFL- CIO, the largest gathering of unions in our country.

If you ever met him, with his little brush mustache and the gruff way about him, you knew he was no pushover. How could you be a pushover and head of the United Mine Workers union which he was at a very early age? How could you be a pushover and be head of a national labor organization like the AFL-CIO? He did that, and he was an amazing advocate for the women and men whom he represented in the labor movement.

I can't even start to count the number of meetings that I attended with Richard Trumka. When we wanted labor's voice, we called Richard Trumka, and we knew that when that door was closed, he was going to be brutally honest with us. He would spend a few minutes thanking us, and then he would spend the rest of the meeting telling how we needed to do better: The working families of America were expecting us to stand up and fight for them. And he took no prisoners when he went through the roster and the rollcall of how people had voted and where they stood on union issues. It was an amazing performance by a man who had the credentials to deliver it, a man who was part of the labor movement from working in those coal mines, and a man who had developed the skills and talents at law school and beyond to be able to fight for those men and women.

It is stunning to think that we lost him today at age 72. That is way too young. He did such an amazing job as the son of a coal miner himself. You never had to ask ever which side Rich Trumka was on--ever.

I have got to be honest with you. There are some people who are fighting for causes in Washington, DC, because there is a paycheck at the end of the day, but there are some people who are fighting for causes who couldn't give a damn about a paycheck. They are there because they believe it. Trumka was one of those people. He was fighting for working people across the United States night and day, endlessly, 24/7. He was on the side of workers who built America's roads and bridges and of the men and women who were not in the labor movement but trying to become part of it. He fought for the men and women who kept our powerplants running and our schools, homes, offices running.

He always asked for one basic thing: respect and fairness for working men and women.

He was with me on the Dream Act. He understood, as the son of immigrants, that immigrants are a vital part of this country, and they should be for years to come.

Trumka was on the side of growing this American economy the right way, not from the top-down, not trickle-down, but from the bottom-up. He believed, growing up in Pennsylvania and the life that he led, that it was critical that we be there for families when they made the basic decisions about whether or not they were going to buy a new home, buy a new car, be able to pay for their kids to go to college. He believed, as my old friend Paul Wellstone would say, ``We all do better when we all do better.''

He was a giant who led the labor movement in America through one of the most challenging periods in our history, when his leadership was needed the most.

It is on us now--isn't it?--those of us who think about Rich and what he said to us so many times privately, publicly. The responsibility that we have is to stand up for the men and women who work in this country who don't have a voice otherwise. Our responsibility is to give those in the labor movement the respect they deserve for fighting for the right cause.

My wife Loretta and I send our condolences to Rich's wife Barb and their son and family.

I understand that he was with his grandson when he was stricken this morning. As a grandfather, I will tell you it is a happy moment when you are with your grandkids, and that is the way it should have been for Rich.

President Trumka's friends, his sisters and brothers in the labor movement, and to all the families to whom Rich Trumka devoted his life, they and we have lost a true champion.

America is better for Rich Trumka having lived and been part of fighting for those who worked to make America a great nation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in early 2011, I had one of the more unusual experiences of my Senate career. I traveled back in time, from a free and democratic Lithuania to a closed and totalitarian Belarus. The trip was less than 3 hours, but it took me back to a dark past.

You see, Belarus is the last dictatorship in Europe. But like many dictatorships, it claims to be a democracy. In December 2010, it held what was billed as a Presidential election. The victor in that rigged contest was a heavy by the name of Alexander Lukashenko. His first act, after seizing the Presidency, was to jail all of those who were bold enough to run against him.

Months later, I drove from Vilnius to Minsk to meet with the family members of those jailed candidates, who had been arrested by Belarus security services still called the KGB. Mind you, the original KGB was dissolved more than three decades ago. That tells you all you need to know about how much the Belarusian Government has evolved since the fall of the Soviet Union. My meeting with those family members was sobering, and it is an encounter I will never forget.

Fortunately, over time, we were able to see the release of all these brave Belarusians, but not because Alexander Lukashenko had a sudden change of heart. He is still the same authoritarian thug he has always been. The world was reminded of that a year ago, when another sham election was held in Belarus. True to form, Lukashenko was reelected in that rigged contest. And once again, he began jailing those who had opposed him.

When one leading candidate, social media personality Sergei Tikhanovsky, was arbitrarily jailed, his wife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya stepped in to run in his place. She likely won the ensuing election, although we will never know for certain. The stolen electoral process that unfolded scared her into fleeing for safety in neighboring Lithuania.

Last month, Ms. Tikhanovskaya traveled to Washington, DC, to seek support for the Belarussian peoples' fight for freedom from tyranny. I was proud to meet with her, along with Senators Shaheen and Sullivan. And I was glad to see President Biden met with her as well. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is a brave patriot carrying the torch of democracy for all the people of Belarus.

I thought of her, and other Belarussian patriots, as I watched the Olympics this week. In Tokyo, another brave Belarussian woman, sprinter Krystsina Tisimansouskaya, dared to publicly criticize Belarussian Olympic officials, a group from Lukashenko's ruling party. For her audacity, Lukashenko ordered the 24-year-old sprinter to return to Belarus immediately, right before she was scheduled to run in the women's 200-meter race on Monday.

If she had obliged, there is a very good chance she would be locked up in a Belarusian jail at this very moment, along with so many other political prisoners. But Krystsina Tisimansouskaya said no. At the Tokyo airport, before she could be forced onto a plane home, she sought protection from Japanese police. She also appealed to the International Olympic Committee for help. Her appeals worked. The Polish Government granted her a humanitarian visa. And Slovenia and the Czech Republic said she was welcome in their countries, too.

Ten years since my trip to Belarus, I am still moved by the courage of so many Belarusians like Ms. Tisimansouskaya, Ms. Tikhanovskaya, and the thousands upon thousands who have peacefully protested for a better future. These heroic leaders are still trapped in a dark past thanks to the same ruthless dictator who continues to cling onto power.

They are willing to risk so much for a chance at freedom. They are unafraid to stand up to despots and defend democracy. And they are an inspiration to a world that needs it. I want them to know we see them, and America stands with them in their efforts to create a better and truly democratic Belarus.

Mr. President, on a related note, Alexander Lukashenko may be the last dictator in Europe. But Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban is working hard to become the next dictator in Europe.

In his 15 years as Prime Minister, Orban has undermined Hungary's democratic institutions and the civil society groups that support them. He has dusted off the autocrat's handbook and used many of its familiar tricks, including using public funds to reward his cronies, spying on and jailing dissidents and independent journalists, and turning media organizations into his personal mouthpieces.

He spews ultranationalist bigotry dressed up as traditional values and rails against what he calls an immigrant invasion. Critics on both sides of the Atlantic cite him as a cautionary example of how democracies can die. Some European leaders have called for Hungary's expulsion from the E.U. because of Hungary's growing hostility to the bedrock values of democracy under Orban.

Despite this, every night this week, Tucker Carlson has broadcast his prime-time FOX show from Budapest, Hungary. He is not there to interview the brave supporters of Hungarian democracy who are trying to save their country from Orban and autocracy.

No, Tucker Carlson is in Hungary to praise Orban and hold up his strongman stunts as an example for America to follow. It is reported that he will also address a conference linked to Mr. Orban's anti- democratic nationalist movement.

Tucker Carlson has gone from spouting his dangerous anti-vax quackery and spreading the Big Lie at home, to travelling abroad to fawn over an autocrat and herald him as a leader worth emulating in this country.

Ronald Reagan would be horrified. We all should be.

Madam President, after many weeks of uncertainty and distress, millions of Americans can--for now--let go of the fear of losing their homes and the roofs over their head. Last night, the Biden administration announced a new 60-day Federal eviction moratorium. I certainly support that decision.

I want to thank all those who insisted that we do something, especially U.S. Congresswoman Cori Bush, of Missouri, who knows the trauma, personally, of being without a home, having been a victim of eviction in her life. Representative Bush camped out outside on the Capitol steps for 5 nights. She slept on the steps of this building so that some of the most vulnerable people in America would be able to sleep with a roof over their heads while we were made sure the law caught up with our intentions.

I also want to thank my fellow Democratic Senators, especially Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren, who pushed for a fair and just solution to avoid what would have been an entirely preventable tragedy for families who already lost so much in this pandemic.

As many as 11 million Americans have fallen behind on their rent during this pandemic because of job losses and other misfortunes.

Let me tell you about one of them. Patricia Vasquez. She lives in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. She told her story to the Chicago Sun-Times. By the time Patricia Vasquez received an email on July 23 telling her that she qualified for help from Chicago's Emergency Rental Assistance Program, the gas to her apartment had already been cut off because of an overdue $1,400 bill. She had sold some clothes and jewelry to pay the electric bill and keep the lights on, and she was 6 months behind in rent.

The Federal eviction moratorium will enable people like Patricia to avoid homelessness while they wait for emergency assistance to reach them.

Between the bipartisan CARES Act that Congress passed in December and President Biden's American Rescue Plan, Congress has provided State and local governments more than $46 billion in emergency rental assistance to help families pay their landlords. Unfortunately, many States and localities have been slower than expected in getting that money to the people who need it. So far, only $3 billion of the $46 billion has reached tenants and landlords.

To punish renters who have already lost so much for delays over which they have no control and to evict them with the Delta variant tearing the country apart would be unfair, unconscionable, and, in many cases, deleterious to public health. It would harm our efforts to bring this virus under control for good.

Fortunately, in recent weeks, many cities and States have made progress in getting the help out to the people who need it. That includes the city of Chicago and the State of Illinois.

The CDC's new eviction moratorium is only a first step. It is imperative that all State and local governments step up their efforts to get Federal relief to the families who need it and the landlords as well. This pandemic has caused enough pain. Redtape can't be allowed to deepen that pain for everyone.

Immigration

Madam President, I would like to address another issue that comes up on the floor quite regularly, usually from speeches on the other side of the aisle.

I heard one of my colleagues in the Senate on the Republican side who is a personal friend talk about it today--and he is not the only one-- and it is, of course, the issue of immigration. I have been involved in this issue for a long time.

I can recall when I was first elected to the Senate, I got a phone call from Ted Kennedy. He said: I heard you are going to be on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I said: That is right.

He said: Can I ask you to be a member of my Immigration Subcommittee?

Well, how do you say no to Ted Kennedy, to start with? I was fascinated by the invitation. I got involved in the immigration debate then and over the years.

At one point, I joined three other Democratic Senators and four Republican Senators--the so-called Gang of 8--and tried to sit down and fix this broken immigration system. We actually wrote a bill, a good bill. It passed here on the floor of the Senate with 68 votes.

Senator McCain was one of the contributors to it. Senator Flake of Arizona was also one of them--Senator Graham of South Carolina, Senator Rubio of Florida, Senator Schumer, Senator Bennet, Senator Menendez. We put our hearts and souls into that effort and put it together and brought it to the floor of the Senate and it was enacted into law.

Comprehensive immigration reform--I should say, it passed the Senate. It failed to become enacted into law because the House of Representatives, under Republican control, wouldn't bring it up for debate, let alone a vote. That was an unfortunate missed opportunity.

It just comes down to this. We have not passed a significant immigration bill in the United States of America in 35 years. Everyone but everyone concedes that our immigration system is broken. There are parts of it that are just fundamentally unfair. There are parts of it which do not serve our Nation. There are certain things we ought to all agree on, Democrats and Republicans. Let me give you three that I think are the starting points.

First, we need a safe and secure border. I want to know who is coming into America and what they are bringing. In the age of terrorism, in the age of drugs, I want to know who is coming in and what they are bringing. Yes, we need border security.

Secondly, we should never knowingly allow a dangerous person to come into this country, period. If someone is here without legal protected status and they are dangerous to us, they are gone--no ifs, ands, or buts about it

The third point is an important one as well. We cannot allow everyone in the world who wants to come into the United States to arrive tomorrow. It just won't work. We have to have an orderly process, and we ought to show some caring and humanitarian instinct in that process, too, whether it is a refugee or asylee. These are people who desperately need some safe place to be, and the United States has often opened its doors since World War II to show that kind of kindness. Our generation should do the same.

Now, there are those who come to the floor and say: Because so many people want to come into the United States, it is a mistake for us to give anybody legal status in this country because it is a green light. It is an incentive for even more to show up.

That argument, I think, is not strong, and here is why. Each year, the orderly legal process in America makes 1 million new Americans from immigrants. It happens every year. These people are following the law, every letter of it, to become legal permanent residents in America. So to say we are going to cut them off and no longer allow them to become citizens makes no sense.

Secondly, immigrants are a critical part of America. When my farmers come to me and tell me how desperately they need farmworkers, and they don't have enough immigrants to fill them, my natural reaction is, why don't you go to the Americans who live near your farms? And they say: Senator, we do. Nobody wants to do that backbreaking work of picking fruit or vegetables and all the hard labor that goes with it. We need immigrants to do it.

Two million people in our country pick our crops, 2.4 million. Did you know half of them are undocumented? That is a fact. They have come to this country and get paid to do the worst, hardest work you can imagine.

Go to a meat processing plant or a poultry processing plant--you pick it--anyplace in the United States and look at the workforce that comes out of that gate at the end of the day. The majority of them--well, I should say 40 percent across the Nation--40 percent of them are immigrants who are working in that field; tough, dangerous, hot, hard work. They do it because others

aren't lining up to do it in their place. That is part of America today. Immigrants are a critical element.

I might add one other element which is timely. Think of all the times we tune into the Olympics and look at the people who make us just beam with pride, with ``USA'' written across their chest on uniforms, who are winning these medals and competing on behalf of us, the United States, in the Olympics.

Suni Lee of Minnesota, who is she? Well, it turns out that she is a child of a Hmong family. The Hmongs, you remember from the Vietnam era, were a people who were killed because they sided with the United States, and they were caught in the crossfire of war. Many of them settled in the United States, many in the State of Minnesota.

Here is this young woman, this daughter of refugees who is making us so proud as she stands on the podium crying her eyes out with ``USA'' written on her uniform, proudly holding that gold medal. We cheer her on.

Yet when it comes to the U.S. Senate, there are no cheers from some quarters. These are immigrants. Many people look at them negatively. I am not one of those people.

There has to be a better way. There has to be a humane way for us, this Nation of immigrants, for us to be able to have a system that is fair, that really is based on the three principles I mentioned: border security, no dangerous persons, and we have got to have an orderly process to come up with.

We are going to see in the next few days, I am sure, debate on the budget resolution. It is going to be, in some part, a debate on immigration policy. I am certainly ready for it. I hope my colleagues are too. I hope that they will keep an open mind to a process of creating a new immigration policy in America that really reflects our values, that is fair to the people who seek to be part of our future, and that recognizes the great heritage which the immigrants have brought to this country. I hope those people who are on the other side who don't feel as I do will take the time to meet some of these immigrant people.

Meet my Dreamers. These young people who I first started championing 20 years ago have lived lives in the shadow of doubt for decades. They were told they were undocumented; they could be deported at any moment; and yet they soldiered on. They worked hard. They went to school. They have done remarkable things, becoming doctors and nurses and teachers and entrepreneurs and even members of our military. They are amazing. They never let me down. They are just terrific young people. I think they deserve a chance to become part of America's future.

I think they have earned it, and I think we ought to have that kind of attitude in our minds when we talk about the role of immigrants in the future of America.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, if you like Federal mandates, here is one.

Senator Lankford wants a Federal mandate to require that anyone who receives a grant from this bill has to sign up for E-Verify.

Well, what does that mean?

It means a school district in my home State that ended up getting a grant under this bill for energy-efficient improvements, renewable energy improvements at public school facilities would now be required by the Lankford amendment, the Federal mandate, to have E-Verify to check out the cafeteria workers in the school district. Is that what we really want to do?

Well, how good is E-Verify? Some States have done it voluntarily. Eight of them have done it for all or most employers. You think if you run all these employees through the E-Verify process, how good is it?

Well, I can tell you how good it is. Do you know how many illegal aliens you find when you go through E-Verify? One percent. One percent.

So he is creating a Federal mandate and regulations on districts that are just trying to get energy improvements and reduce their costs and putting in an E-Verify requirement to get those illegal aliens.

Well, it turns out that isn't the situation at all. It is a mandate that is unnecessary. I beg my colleagues to give these school districts and others no more redtape but less redtape.

Please oppose the Lankford amendment.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the unanimous consent request from the Senator of Florida.

The amendment before us would change the Standing Rules of the Senate and require additional reporting requirements regarding inflation, a change which would substantially increase the administrative burden on committees and staff and the process on the floor.

We already have significant tools at our disposal to evaluate economic indicators. We have economists at the Department of Labor, Treasury Department, Congressional Budget Office, Federal Reserve, and other Federal offices regularly consulting with Congress on issues about inflation and other economic indicators. This is totally unnecessary.

For these reasons, I oppose this resolution and the request for unanimous consent. I object.

I yield back my time.

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

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, August 20 will be the end of an era in Chicago as WLS 890 AM political reporter Bill Cameron puts his microphone down after a 51-year career on the radio. Bill is the ``Dean'' of Chicago political reporters, joining the city hall beat in 1970 and covering all the major stories in Chicago since that time. The announcement of his pending retirement brought praise for Bill's legendary career, with one colleague calling him a ``walking encyclopedia of political knowledge.''

When asked by a fellow reporter how he had survived his first 50 years in the industry, Bill said he took inspiration in advice from Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks: ``Find something you love to do and stick with it.'' Stick with it; he certainly did. Bill earned the admiration of his peers for his ability to elicit honest answers from his interview subjects. Bill always finds a way to cut to the heart of an issue and deliver insightful reports for his listeners.

Bill and I are both natives of East St. Louis, IL, though we never met until my Senate election and his Chicago beat brought us together. Bill's father Fred was a successful high school football coach, winning more than 100 games for the storied East St. Louis Flyers. Instead of following his father's footsteps into football, Bill chose broadcast journalism, earning a bachelor's degree at Indiana University. And we are all the better for it.

Bill started as a news writer for NBC 5 in Chicago in 1969 but left TV for good the next year, signing on at the former WMAQ 670 AM. He was there until the station switched to an all-sports format in 2000, making the jump to WLS. Bill's legendary career includes two Edward R. Murrow Awards, a Peabody Award, and countless other accolades. In addition to his day-to-day duties covering the city hall beat for WLS, Bill is the host of the station's weekly public affairs show, ``Connected to Chicago.''

Bill has covered numerous mayors, Governors--and even U.S. Senators-- in his career. He has been there for election nights, policy press conferences, breaking news, and jury verdicts. He has seen it all in 50-plus years of broadcasting. So what does he want to see now in retirement? Bill says it is time to go see more National Parks.

Well, Bill, I hope you enjoy all the beauty that our National Parks have to offer you in retirement. I will miss your questions at press conferences and our lively discussions about the issues of the day on ``Connected to Chicago.''

You certainly found something you loved and stuck with it, and you did it with class.

Enjoy your retirement.

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

Mr. President, I want to start by wishing our friend and colleague Senator Lindsey Graham a speedy recovery. Yesterday, Senator Graham shared that he had tested positive for COVID-19. We are all relieved to hear his symptoms are mild, and we look forward to seeing him back in the Chamber once he recovers.

I hope everyone at home follows Senator Graham's example by getting vaccinated. In Senator Graham's words, ``[W]ithout vaccination, I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now.''

The Delta variant is no joke. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are surging across America, and they are surging the most in those parts of the country where large numbers of people are unvaccinated.

Over 90 percent of the most recent infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are among people who were not vaccinated. The good news is, vaccinations are starting to trend upward. Thanks to the leadership of the President and the urging of many health professionals, as of yesterday, it has been reported that 70 percent of adults have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. That is an important milestone. Our Nation is slowly, slowly headed in the right direction, but we need to pick up the pace.

Experts say that more than 80 percent of the population needs to get vaccinated before we can start anticipating herd immunity. So please listen to my friend Senator Graham's advice and get vaccinated. It will save your life as well as the lives of those you love.

DC Metropolitan Police Department

Mr. President, on another matter, yesterday we received word that a fourth police officer who responded to the January 6 insurrection here in the Capitol has died by suicide.

Officer Gunther Hashida was a member of the DC Metropolitan Police Department, and he was a hero. I also want to note that hours after Officer Hashida's death was announced, the Metropolitan Police Department confirmed that another officer, Kyle DeFreytag, died by suicide last month.

As we all witnessed last week, many of the Capitol and Metropolitan Police officers who defended us--defended us--and the Capitol on January 6 are still grappling with the physical and emotional trauma of that day. We have to do everything we can to support them, from providing access to mental and emotional support to ensuring that everyone who bears responsibility from the January 6 insurrection is held accountable. It is my understanding that 600 people have already been charged with wrongdoing for what occurred on that day, and many more will be charged.

The supplemental funding package that the Senate passed last week was a good starting point. To deny what January 6 was about is literally adding insult to injury for those officers--brave officers--who defended us. They deserve better. They deserve justice, and we deserve the truth.

To the friends and families of Officers Hashida and DeFreytag, we are so sorry for your loss. We grieve with you. We will honor their memory.

To all of the other police officers and National Guard members who defended the Capitol on January 6, despite what you hear from some of the politicians in Congress, we thank you, and we appreciate your valor and your sacrifice.

Earlier this morning, Senators Klobuchar and Blunt introduced a bipartisan resolution to award these heroes the Congressional Gold Medal. I am proud to support that effort.

Clean Water Infrastructure

Mr. President, on one more topic, ``forever chemicals.'' It is a phrase that sounds ambiguous and ominous. Some of these pollutants-- known as PFAS chemicals--are used in cleaning supplies, stain-resistant clothing, cosmetics, polishes, waxes, and the kind of foam that firefighters use to fight fires.

And although they have their practical applications, these ``forever chemicals'' present a major problem: They don't go away. They don't break down. Once they are introduced into the environment, they stick around forever.

A growing body of research suggests that ``forever chemicals'' are linked to a whole host of human health complications: cancer, kidney disease, liver damage, birth defects. Sadly, it is estimated that most people already have trace amounts of these chemicals in their bodies. But imagine if you or your children were forced to ingest these toxic ``forever chemicals'' multiple times a day, every day. That is the dangerous reality for many American families. I am sorry to report that includes thousands of families in my home State of Illinois.

On Friday, the Chicago Sun Times published a story on the presence of these chemicals in water systems in the Chicago area, Lake Forest, Waukegan, and South Elgin. Water system managers in these areas have found enough evidence of chemicals that the Illinois EPA is calling for further testing. That additional testing is just in the preliminary stage.

As I mentioned, these contaminants are impressively imperishable, and they are being found everywhere. As an example, a few years ago, a dairy farmer in Maine discovered that one of these ``forever chemicals'' had seeped into his farmland through a fertilizer that he used. He only found out because the chemicals were showing up in

the milk of his cows. He ended up having to shut down his dairy farm that had been in the family for generations. He had to destroy his dairy herd, and he lost his savings.

If these contaminants are too dangerous for a dairy farm, too dangerous for cows, they are certainly too dangerous for our kids. We must protect our communities and families from ``forever chemicals'' immediately.

Unfortunately, eliminating this public health threat is proving challenging. For one, in Illinois, it is not clear where it came from. According to the Sun Times article, ``among the water system managers contacted by the [newspaper], none of them could identify the culprit causing the contamination.''

The Environmental Working Group has identified more than 1,700 potential sources in my State, from sewage treatment facilities to landfills. The culprit could be any one or a combination. As of now, there is no definitive answer. In other words, the analogy is, an arsonist is still running through the forest, and the only signs are the trees he leaves burning.

The other difficulty in meeting this public health threat is that it costs money. As we all learned from Flint, MI, repairing and replacing the entire city's drinking water system is no small task. Municipal officials throughout my State are still waiting on State officials to provide guidance, as well as funding, to remove these ``forever chemicals'' from their water system.

But when it comes to protecting our children's health and well-being, solutions cannot wait, and States like Illinois cannot address this threat on their own. Pending before the U.S. Senate at this moment is the bipartisan infrastructure deal. This deal is good for us, good for America, and starts to address this problem.

This historic bipartisan plan will make our Nation's largest ever investment in clean water. That investment includes $10 billion for addressing the ``forever chemical'' challenge and other emerging contaminants from drinking water and wastewater systems throughout America. That is a big deal. It is estimated that more than 200 million Americans--nearly two-thirds of this country's population--could be drinking ``forever chemicals'' in their tap water.

With the bipartisan infrastructure deal, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are coming together as we should, to help ensure every family in America has access to clean and safe drinking water. Because the infrastructure package will also invest billions of dollars to replace dangerous decaying lead service lines throughout the country, it is a game changer. It is a game changer for the city of Chicago, which I am proud to represent in my home State of Illinois.

You see, there is no acceptable level for lead consumption--none, zero. Much like ``forever chemicals,'' lead service lines that hookup the water main in the street to your home, business, school, daycare center--these lead service lines can cause lasting harm to the growing bodies and minds of our kids. And, as lawmakers, we have an obligation to correct the mistakes made by previous generations of Americans.

I understand that until about 35, 40 years ago, lead service lines were mandated in construction in Illinois--in my State--in some areas. We made a mistake. Now we know it. What are we going to do about it? This bill addresses this.

I want to thank my colleague, Senator Tammy Duckworth. When it comes to water infrastructure, she is just leading the pack in the U.S. Senate. She really cares about this, as a Senator, for sure, but equally important as a mom with two lovely little girls.

We can establish a new, healthier foundation for future generations if we pull together. That is exactly what this bill will do. Marshaling the resources of our Federal Government so that all of America's kids can grow up and lead healthy, productive lives, that is what bipartisanship is all about. And I look forward to joining my colleagues in voting in favor of this bill in the next few days.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Kaine) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I have 12 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Armed Services

The Committee on Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations.

Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on a nomination.

Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct an oversight hearing.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing nominations.

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 12 p.m., to conduct a hearing nominations.

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on the Judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Financial Institution and Consumer Protection

The Subcommittee on Financial Institution and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and

Data Security

The Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Reigths and Federal

Courts

The Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Reigths and Federal Courts of the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, August 03, 2021, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.