Floor Statements

Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about the partisan reconciliation legislation that is before us tonight. It is named the Inflation Reduction Act, but that is misnamed because, unfortunately, it does not reduce inflation; it actually makes things worse.

When you are at the gas pump or at the grocery store or buying something anywhere today, you are feeling the sticker shock. Yet this legislation is going to make it even worse. It adds $700 billion more in spending and over $300 billion more in new taxes at the worst possible time, increasing costs to consumers and actually making inflation worse.

The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model that a lot of us have used over the years to look at various legislation predicts that it will actually increase inflation over the next 2 years.

While over time it says that may even out, it won't decrease inflation as the name suggests and the bill sponsors claim. Why? Well, primarily because when you put $300 billion-plus of new taxes in the economy, it actually hurts workers and it hurts consumers.

Yes, they are saying it is going to go to companies, but what happens then? Companies pass it along. And at a time when we have the worst inflation in over 40 years, that is bad for the economy.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that we have to rely on here in Congress--not a partisan group but nonpartisan--says this bill will hurt Americans in nearly every tax bracket. They say that more than half of the burden of the over $300 billion in new taxes is going to fall on folks making less than $400,000 a year.

Well, that directly contradicts promises made not to increase taxes on Americans at that level.

While I am glad the blow to manufacturers has been somewhat softened in the last 24 hours, with the latest version of the bill, what the Democrats did was essentially exchange one bad tax--the book tax on manufacturers--for another bad tax, a tax that will tax stock buybacks, that is going to hurt particularly Americans who are trying to save for retirement.

Let me start with the book tax. This is a proposed tax that is very different from the existing corporate income tax which is based on income that business report to the IRS when they file their taxes. That IRS income, by the way, is defined by the U.S. Congress. Here in the Senate, we debate that all the time: Is it good to have a particular tax incentive or another tax incentive, that is not in the book tax? The book tax, instead, looks at a company's financial statement. And that is what this new bill does.

In fact, it comes up with a whole other definition of tax and, therefore, another tax system called the adjusted financial statement income. This is broader than the IRS income. It is not fair. It is way too complicated, and it is going to hurt employees and consumers.

Taxable income owed the IRS is meant to raise revenue, and, again, it includes these incentives or disincentives for certain activity like being able to immediately deduct the cost of new equipment, if you are a manufacturer. We want to encourage that, particularly in periods of high inflation, so we allow them to do that.

The financial statement income is not determined by us. It is not determined by elected representatives at all. In fact, Congress does not have anything to do with it. It is actually determined by something called the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which is a private nonprofit recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as the accounting standard setting for private companies.

That may work fine for determining accounting standards, but this change effectively puts these people in control of what the corporate tax base is, even though they are not elected to anything. That doesn't make sense. Let's not set up a whole new tax system for some companies. Let's learn from the past.

Back in 1986, when we passed a big tax reform bill, they put a book tax in place, and it was repealed less than 3 years later. Why? Because it was viewed as unfair, way too complicated, and, actually, they thought that you shouldn't have these nonelected officials deciding what the taxes ought to be.

They said it was bad for the economy, too, because companies were managing to the book tax rather than the IRS tax. So let's learn from the past. Why would we want to do that again, set up a whole other tax system, tax the American economy, tax consumers, tax workers, and do so through something that in 1986, we looked at and decided this is not working?

So Democrats will say tonight, Well, this new complicated tax system is just going to affect big companies.

That is true. But you know what, big companies employ a lot of people, and a lot of people are going to be hurt. They also sell to a lot of consumers, all of us who will be hurt. Last year, there were over 200 companies listed on the Fortune 500 as meeting the criteria that is set out in this legislation. They employ over 18 million Americans. It is those employees and those who are customers who are going to bear the brunt of these tax increases as it is passed down to them in the form of lower wages, lower benefits, and higher prices for goods and services.

The Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan group, just last year said they expected 25 percent of these corporate taxes to fall on workers; again, this means lower wages. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that employees and workers bear more like 70 percent of the burden of income taxes, so there is a long list of analyses in- between.

Let's say between 25 percent and 70 percent of these taxes are going to fall on workers in the form of lower pay and lower benefits at a time when wages are not keeping up with inflation that is getting higher and higher.

And, by the way, it is not just wages I am talking about; families will now face even higher prices as the cost of corporate taxes get passed along to them. In a study last year performed by the business schools at the University of Chicago and Northwestern, they found that 31 percent of corporate taxes fall on consumers through higher retail prices. Aren't prices high enough?

Dems have just added another new tax in the past 24 hours. Democrats now say we are going to have this complicated tax called an excise tax on stock buybacks. Again, this is instead of some of the tax they had in the other new tax that they put forward called the book tax.

Now, Democrats tonight will talk about how taxing buybacks is good because it somehow hurts Wall Street fat cats. Here is the truth: It increases the price of stocks to allow buybacks, and by taking away that incentive by putting a tax on it, there will be less of it. So the reality is this is a tax on working families, including those trying to save for retirement when they are already dealing with the struggling portfolios due to the recent economic contraction and the record inflation we are experiencing.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans own stock, and 60 million investors invest in an IRA or a 401(k). We want people to save for retirement; it is a good thing. We want them to have healthy retirement. So when Democrats say they worry about stock prices going up, I have to ask: Are they worried about people having a healthy retirement account?

Again, when companies buy back stock, it generally causes that stock to go up, which means it makes Americans' retirement accounts that much larger. Why is that a problem? The Tax Foundation says retirement accounts own 37 percent of all corporate stock. That is about $8\1/2\ trillion in retirement funds, $8\1/2\ trillion of retirement funds own corporate stock. Americans lost about $2 trillion in their IRAs during the COVID crisis. Let's not encourage them to lose anymore.

Some will say, this is just 1 percent. Well, we know that once a tax is initiated, it tends to increase. This is the camel's nose under the tent. The first income tax in 1913, by the way, was 1 percent and just on top earners. I think a lot of middle-income earners right now would be happy to have a tax rate that low.

This type of proposal will impact families and their retirement, and for that reason, we should not even go down this path. Democrats will also tax employee stock ownership programs, or ESOPS, in this package. I think some of my colleagues might be surprised to hear that. ESOPS are plans to give employees ownership of their own companies, with tax incentives for the dividends to go to their retirement savings. They are really popular.

ESOPS work; they are great. They enjoy wide bipartisan support here in the Congress. Employees have this ownership stake, and because of that, those companies tend to do better. Employees are happier. They are more profitable. They are more productive. The companies benefit from it. I don't understand why Democrats want to punish this ownership structure. Doing so will, once again, discourage investment and hard work, and it could not come at a worse time.

That is why I want to introduce an amendment tonight that will exempt ESOPS from the minimum book tax. This is a commonsense amendment-- nothing complicated about it. It will encourage savings and investment; it is good for the country; and I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who support ESOPS to support the amendment.

I also plan to offer an amendment that will increase funding for Customs and Border Patrol by $500 million that will be used for new technology to detect fentanyl and other dangerous drugs that are, unfortunately, flooding across our southern border.

Over 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, the worst year on record. Unfortunately, more and more people are dying of overdoses, and they are dying from this synthetic opioid called fentanyl. About two-thirds of those overdose deaths were due to fentanyl.

At a time when deadly fentanyl is flooding across the border, only 2 percent of cars and only 16 percent of commercial vehicles are being screened. Now, these drugs come across the ports of entry where only 2 percent of cars and 16 percent of trucks are being screened.

They also come between the ports of entry, but at a minimum, we should be able to do screening of these vehicles and trucks. It is a gaping hole in our border security, and it has got to be fixed.

This amendment will simply assure that the new funds in this bill for the Department of Homeland Security bureaucracy, for an office called Readiness, $500 million will be assigned to a higher priority, to have Customs and Border Protection be able to detect and stop deadly fentanyl that is being smuggled into this country at record levels.

So this money would stay at the Department of Homeland Security. It will instead be used for a more urgent priority. Let's be serious about our national security and this drug crisis we face, and let's give the Border Patrol what they need to counter the drug cartels and the traffickers.

Tonight, I also plan to offer an amendment to ensure the new postal electric vehicles are actually made in the United States of America. In this bill, there is a $3 billion appropriation to the Postal Service. We just went through postal reform, as some of you know, we provided them additional funding that they needed. This is an additional $3 billion appropriation to buy electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. However, there is no requirement that these vehicles be made in America, with U.S. batteries and other components.

In other words, the bill uses taxpayer funds to buy electric vehicles that can be made with Chinese batteries and Chinese critical minerals. We know that this is counter to everything we are trying to do around here. We just passed legislation to make us more competitive with China. Again, we just passed legislation to provide the Postal Service with funds for new vehicles, including electric vehicles. The Postmaster General just made a decision to go from 10 percent electric to 20 percent to 50 percent. That is already happening. But in that case, there are requirements; in this case, there are not.

We know that Democrats believe that when we are expanding electric vehicles, that we ought to ensure that these vehicles are being made in America. How do we know that? Because in another part of the bill, which is the expansion of the electric vehicle tax credit, Democrats included new requirements that the tax credit award EVs made in the United States with American components.

My amendment would simply apply these identical requirements to these new electric postal delivery vehicles. Both involve taxpayer subsidies. What is good for the American driver should be good for the Postal Service.

My hope is this misnamed ``Inflation Reduction Act'' can be stopped before it makes things worse, but at least I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to look at these commonsense amendments and accept some of these amendments. Some, I have laid out, and some others, I have talked about tonight to improve a flawed bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this is a really easy one. Let's trade bureaucracy and more funding in this bill for bureaucracy at the Department of Homeland Security for desperately needed technology along the southern border to stop deadly fentanyl from coming into our communities.

Tragically, over 100,000 Americans were killed last year, which is a record, from drug overdoses. Two-thirds of those overdoses were from these synthetic opioids, like fentanyl.

We know that the vast majority of that fentanyl originates with drug cartels in Mexico now, and there is a surge of these deadly drugs coming across our southern border.

This amendment increases funding for Customs and Border Protection by $500 million for badly needed technology to detect fentanyl and other drugs. If you can believe it, right now, only 2 percent of cars--2 percent--and 14, 15, 16 percent, maybe, of commercial vehicles are being screened. Both GAO and the Department of Homeland Security IG have done reports saying we badly need this technology, and it is available. We need the funding.

The funding is more than offset by reducing huge funding increases in this bill for this Office of Chief Readiness at the Department of Homeland Security. So this money stays at DHS.

Let's make it a higher priority to stop and detect these deadly poisons coming into our communities.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Ohio, Senator Brown, and I thank him for working with us on this bipartisan legislation that impacts thousands of retirees in our home State of Ohio.

In the summer of 2009, as the Federal Government took General Motors into bankruptcy, the Obama administration terminated the pension plans covering thousands of Delphi workers. While union employees were protected, these 20,000 salaried retirees, ranging from shop floor supervisors and salespeople to engineers, office managers, were left out. They had spent many years working at Delphi, a major employer and economic engine in Dayton, OH, in Youngstown, OH, and in Sandusky, OH.

These people had followed the rules. They had earned their pensions the American way, through hard work and dedication and contribution. But instead of honoring the promises that had been made to these salaried, middle income employees after 30, 40 years of service, the administration terminated their pensions. People who had worked hard their entire lives and played by the rules saw benefits cut by as much as 70 percent. It is just not fair and no fault of their own, and it has devastated some of them, particularly those who have healthcare issues in their later years, who have not been able to lead the standard of living that they assumed they would, based on the pensions they had.

So it is about fairness, and it is very simple. It ensures that these Delphi retirees receive the retirement benefits they were promised. It would reinstate their pension plan and restore their benefits that were unnecessarily and unfairly reduced.

Some of my colleagues may characterize this as a bailout, but I respectfully must correct the record. The Delphi pension was over 80 percent funded when the Federal Government terminated the pensions in 2009 and took over these assets. By the way, it would have been fully funded by the next year based on all the data we now have showing what happened with market conditions. So it was 80 percent funded when the government stepped in and said that it was massively underfunded, and a year later it would have been fully funded.

Despite this, the government, again, treated the pensions as though they were underfunded and slashed the benefits. It is simply about keeping our promises to these workers.

There were 20,000 participants. Some say: Well, that is not a lot of people. Well, to them, it is really important, and it is really important to Ohio. About a quarter of those 20,000 live in our home State of Ohio.

That is why I am proud to stand with them, my colleagues from Ohio, and with others here in this body and over in the House to ensure that fairness is what they get at the end of the day.

This should not be controversial legislation, in my view. I am pleased to say that it has bipartisan support. We just saw 36 Republicans support this on the House side. I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to also support these workers, to make them whole with this legislation so that we can make good on the Federal Government's promise to them.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am on the floor today with Senator Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire to join in a colloquy regarding what is happening in Ukraine. This is the 20th time in so many weeks that I have come to the floor to talk about the illegal, unprovoked, and brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Today, I look forward to being with my colleague Senator Shaheen, a member of the Ukraine Caucus and someone with whom I have traveled to Ukraine and also to the border of Ukraine and Poland to meet with the refugees.

Senator Shaheen is going to talk, I think, a little about how we got to where we are and what we do going forward. I was also recently made aware of the fact that we are going to take up the NATO ratification vote today. And this is to have the United States approve the addition of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance. This is great for the alliance. It is great for the United States. And I believe it is also-- otherwise, they wouldn't be interested--very good for the people of Finland and Sweden.

They add a lot to the NATO alliance. They are militarily and economically in a position to be valuable contributors. They also, in the case of Finland, share the largest land border with Russia of any country. They have understandable concerns with what they see happening in Ukraine.

I just believe it is very much in our national security interests and the interests of people I represent to have, in addition, even further strengthening of the NATO alliance through the addition of these two partners.

Vladimir Putin thought he was going to split NATO apart when he began his invasion of Ukraine, I believe. And today, he is finding just the opposite has happened. NATO has come together in ways we have never seen. And we now have, again, the addition of two very strong members of NATO who are longtime allies of the United States and will add significantly to the NATO alliance.

With regard to Ukraine, let's start with a little history. Ukrainians have faced adversity from Russia for hundreds of years. This is not new to them. Russia's oppression of Ukraine is not a 21st century issue. For 300 years, under the brutal rule of the Russian czars, Ukrainians were subjected to repeated efforts to stamp out their language, their culture, and their identity.

In January of 1918, Ukrainians got their first taste of national freedom. While Russia was dealing with the chaos of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ukraine declared its independence from the Russian Empire. Unfortunately, this freedom was short-lived. Just a few years later, the Bolsheviks conquered Ukraine and subsumed it into the Soviet Union.

As an unwilling member of the Soviet Empire, Ukrainians suffered horrific atrocities at the hands of their Soviet overlords. In 1932 and again in 1933, the Stalinist regime confiscated grain harvests across Ukraine and imposed a premeditated manmade famine against the people of Ukraine. This horrific atrocity is known as the Holodomor. Millions of men, women, and children were starved to death in a deliberate effort to break the Ukrainian nation's resistance to communist occupation. Stalin even ordered the borders of the country to be sealed to prevent anyone from escaping this manmade starvation and to prevent the delivery of any international food aid.

In 2018, Senator Durbin and I introduced a resolution to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor and to recognize the Commission on the Ukraine Famine's findings that the Holodomor was a genocide--no question.

I am grateful to Senator Shaheen, Senator Tillis, and others who are in the Chamber today for cosponsoring that resolution. It passed in October of 2018 unanimously here in the U.S. Senate.

The Holodomor failed to extinguish the Ukrainian people's identity, as hard as they tried, but it was not the end of the Soviet oppression. In the 1970s, the Soviet leadership imposed a crackdown on Ukrainian intellectuals and those with any sort of leanings toward independence or toward the West. The prisons and gulags became filled with Ukrainian political prisoners as the Soviet Union once again tried to assault Ukrainian identity.

But then, in 1991, after years of oppression, Ukraine finally broke away from its Russian rulers for good. Ukraine declared its independence on August 24 that year, and in December, the declaration was confirmed by a referendum in which over 90 percent of

the Ukrainian people voted in favor of independence.

This chart shows the amazing response of the people of Ukraine to that. Ninety-five percent of the people in the Kyiv area, as you can see, supported independence.

By the way, Russians often say that Crimea really was not part of Ukraine. Well, more than half of the people in Crimea were for independence as well. But Russia's crimes against the people of Ukraine continue to this day.

Last week, a video was circulated online of a Russian soldier torturing and mutilating a Ukrainian prisoner. Unfortunately, it is not an isolated incident. After this, the Ukrainian soldier was shot dead and dragged with a rope into a shallow grave by his Russian captors.

We have all seen the pictures from Bucha--people assassinated, people with their hands tied behind their back. Elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian missile attack struck a prison in Donetsk that was housing Ukrainian prisoners of war. This chart shows that prison and the fact that it was attacked by missiles.

Many of these soldiers were involved in the heroic defense of the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol. They held out for weeks against Russian assaults on the plant. At least 40 Ukrainian POWs, maybe more, were killed in this assault. These are POWs. These were soldiers who were lawful prisoners of war, supposedly protected by the Geneva Convention. Russia's murder of these POWs is a war crime. And Russia must be held accountable for this and all its countless crimes in Ukraine.

But following its usual playbook, Russia is spreading massive amounts of disinformation regarding this incident and so many others. They claim that the Ukrainian forces killed these prisoners as a way to discourage other soldiers from surrendering.

This, of course, is nonsense. Among other things, Ukraine needs the manpower. Why would they kill their own soldiers instead of getting them back in a prisoner swap that everybody assumed was going to happen? It makes little sense, but it has never stopped Russia from propagating lies to deflect blame from its own crimes. And, unsurprisingly, the Red Cross still has not been granted access to the site by Russia, which clearly needs more time to cover up the evidence of its involvement before they allow any kind of inspection. Let the Red Cross in.

Those responsible for these atrocities must be held to account. This is one reason why Senator Shaheen and I last week cosponsored a resolution to recognize what is happening in Ukraine as genocide.

Across the country, Ukrainian women and children have been subjected to indiscriminate Russian missile strikes and airstrikes. It has killed thousands of innocents; not combatants, noncombatants--children.

A few weeks ago, I spoke about little Liza, a 4-year-old girl with autism who was killed by a Russian missile strike in Vinnytsia. When Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska was in town a couple of weeks ago, she spoke about a 3-year-old boy who just learned how to use a prosthetic. Imagine that, an innocent 3-year-old boy who has been forced to learn how to use a prosthetic limb because of a Russian airstrike on civilian targets.

These stories are hard to hear and hard to tell, but the world must know about them. This is the reality that all Ukrainians are facing. Unsurprisingly, the people of Ukraine are responding to these atrocities. A possible Ukrainian counteroffensive may be unfolding in the south, in the direction of Kherson. We have heard about this in the popular media.

Kherson is here. It is near the Black Sea Port of Odesa. This southern part of Ukraine is incredibly important for Ukraine's economy, and Russia knows that.

Remember, Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city to fall to the Russian forces after Russia's full-scale invasion began in February of this year. But now, Ukrainian soldiers are conducting missile strikes against Russian military infrastructure in the area to weaken Russia's defenses. They are also conducting limited ground attacks and liberating parts of this territory that Russia has illegally taken. You can see that in light blue.

The significance of recapturing Kherson cannot be overestimated. It would undo one of Russia's earliest successes in the war. It is also important that Ukraine regain control of much of its Black Sea coast as possible. This is the Ukrainian economy's primary connection to the rest of the world. Russia, of course, has sought to capture this coastline in order to economically strangle Ukraine.

We talked last week about what they are doing in Odesa. They finally decided they were going to let ships come out of Odesa, and they made an agreement that they would not continue to bomb Odesa and certainly not bomb any port facilities. Within 12 hours, they bombed port facilities in Odesa. That is how much the Russian commitment meant. But a ship finally has sailed from Odesa, and we hope many more will go.

If Ukraine is successful in its efforts here in the south, it will undermine President Putin and his attempts to make a Russian victory in Ukraine, something that the Russians say is inevitable.

While Ukraine is making progress in the south, Russia is laying the groundwork to try to annex occupied land, particularly in the east, in this area near Donetsk.

Occupation means that the Russians themselves are distributing Russian passports, paying salaries in Russian rubles, and expediting Russian citizens for Ukrainian citizens. There are reports that Russia will stage a sham referendum in this area to try to legitimize their illegal annexation.

Senior Kremlin officials have warned Russia will never leave areas of Kherson, in the south here, where Russian forces have been occupying the territory. Before the invasion, these cities were home to more than 2.5 million Ukrainians in this area--2.5 million Ukrainians.

One prominent Kremlin propagandist said:

Ukraine as it was cannot continue to exist.

This person continued.

There will not be the Ukraine that we have known for many

years. It won't be Ukraine any longer.

Clearly, that is the Russian intent. Vladimir Putin has said his ambition is even more. It is to fully restore the borders of the old Soviet Union. We must make sure he knows that Ukraine in 2022 is not Ukraine of 1921, which the Russian Bolsheviks conquered and forced into the Soviet empire.

We know how to help Ukraine to keep this from happening. It is to provide them what they need to defend themselves. We have recently provided Ukraine with what we call High Mobility Artillery Systems, or HIMARS. Many of us have been advocating for that. We are glad to see that there are some HIMARS now in the theater. These have been critical to the recent Ukrainian military successes.

So this Congress has made a difference. We provided funding. We have gotten some equipment into the area that the Ukrainians need to be able to defend themselves and to have some sort of a level playing field with Russia's much bigger Army.

Officials have said that with the help of these HIMARS, Ukraine has taken out Russian high-value targets and destroyed them and saved countless Ukrainian lives. These include ammunition depots and targets from long distances. HIMARS have also conducted many of these strikes in southern Ukraine, I talked about earlier, to make progress here in the Kherson area.

Russians have similar long-range artillery that previously allowed them to fire on Ukrainian forces with impunity. They could sit back and fire and level cities and kill civilians and kill Ukrainian military personnel. But they couldn't be reached by the Ukrainians. Now the Ukrainians have taken themselves out of that danger zone because these HIMARS can balance the playing field and have that longer range and the accuracy they need.

I think there are about 15 in theater now. There are also a few from Germany and a few from the UK. But they need more. They said they need 40 to 50 and the munitions to be able to make them effective. That is something that we should be focused on. We should be focused on providing them, again, what they need to actually win this conflict.

I believe we also have to continue to provide the Ukrainians with other weapons as well, including the Army Tactical Missile System, or the ATACMS. This missile, which can be

launched from the same HIMARS launchers that we have already been giving to Ukraine, has a longer range of 300 kilometers.

In a war like this one that is increasingly becoming an artillery duel, range is a decisive factor. These missiles would allow Ukraine to turn the tables on the Russians, whereas Ukraine used to be outranged by the Russian artillery. With the ATACMS missiles, we would be able to help Ukraine be able to strike important Russian targets with impunity themselves.

This is important because Ukraine is now using these weapons in this counteroffensive in Kherson. The Institute for the Study of War--a think tank here in Washington, DC--has said recently this offensive to take out Russia is in the works, and Ukrainians are using HIMARS to strike targets effectively 50 miles away. It is helping. We made a difference.

Former security adviser to the Ukrainian Government Alexander Khara told Newsweek the state of Russian morale in the south means a counteroffensive ``has an excellent chance of success.''

He continued.

The Russians suffer from poor morale, logistical troubles,

and the horror of HIMARS.

So the evidence is clear as to why we should continue to send them weapons they need to be able to not just survive but to win this conflict.

By the way, we have hundreds of HIMARS in our stocks that are currently not with Active units. So we have the ability to help more.

This war has now crossed over the 5-month mark. Since before the invasion began, I have come to this floor a number of times to talk about what needs to be done, as has Senator Shaheen, as have others. I have mentioned the fact that we sent billions in military aid and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and that it is working. Particularly, as we see with some of these new weapons, it is making a difference.

It will help these brave warriors and their most vulnerable noncombatants--the kids and the children--be able to survive and be able, in the case of the military, to be able to start making progress to push out the Russian invaders.

Democrats and Republicans alike have sounded the alarm with bipartisan pushes and legislation to help Ukraine. We have urged--with success, by the way--that the United States cut off our own Russian oil and gas. We are now urging the Europeans to do the same.

We have talked about the need for more weapons, for more sanctions, to remove all of Russia's banks' access to the global financial system--or the SWIFT system--to suspend our tax treaty with Moscow, to explore options to remove other tax benefits, and to remove access to the U.S. market.

All of this is necessary, on the military side, the humanitarian side, the economic side, and the sanctions side in order to have a victory. I fear sometimes with regard to the military assistance that we have been doing too little, too late.

We can't continue to do too little, too late. This is a struggle. It is a struggle between freedom and democracy and the right of self- determination on the one hand and on the other hand, Russian aggression unprovoked, a brutal conquest, authoritarianism, and tyranny.

President Putin's ambitions lie well beyond Ukraine. We must continue to show him the West continues to stand united. We need to show Ukraine the world stands with them. This is why it is so important that Sweden and Finland have chosen to join NATO, and we must support them in that.

All this, by the way, transcends the political spectrum, and I have certainly seen that. Senator Shaheen and I have shown that in our work to aid Ukraine. It is not a political issue. It is not a Republican or Democrat issue. We are stepping up in support of our democratic ally together.

As the fight rages on, the perseverance and self-determination of Ukrainians seem to grow even stronger. We have seen their resilience in the face of daily bombardments. We have seen their resilience in the face of Russia's broken promises when, counter to their commitments, Russia has attacked ports, as I said, and humanitarian corridors.

The Ukrainian people are fighting for their homeland, for their families, for their freedom. It is impressive and inspiring to see what they are doing.

The Senate is going to break for an August recess here in the next few days. Even though we won't be on the floor every week to continue to fight for the Ukrainian people, we will do so with our work back home, with getting more people engaged and involved in America to help on the humanitarian side. We will continue to promote the fact that the U.S. national security interest is served by helping freedom and democracy.

I want to note something President Zelenskyy said recently in an address to the people of Ukraine. He said:

Strategically, Russia has no chance of winning this war.

And it is necessary to hold on, so that even at the tactical

levels, the terror state feels its defeat. No matter what

happens and no matter what the occupiers' plans are, we must

do our job, protect our state and take care of each other.

Let's help Ukraine finish this mission, protect their state, their democracy, and take care of each other. Let's give Ukraine the tools it needs to be able to do that. After these months of fighting and giving aid, the West must not falter during Ukraine's dire time of need. We must be there through victory for the Ukrainian people--victory for self-determination, victory for freedom.

I yield to my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen, my partner in this effort.

Madam President, I yield back my time.

Madam President, I come to the floor this evening to talk about the Democrats' latest reconciliation proposal. This is the tax-and-spend legislation you have probably heard about. It is called the Inflation Reduction Act, but don't be fooled by the name. It doesn't actually decrease the inflationary pressure we all feel at the gas pump, at the grocery store, clothes shopping. It actually makes it worse.

Sadly, we have been down this road before. Early last year, the Democrats passed a massive $1.9 trillion package that was supposedly focused on COVID, but most of it had nothing to with COVID but provided a lot of stimulus. It was the largest spending package ever in the history of Congress, and, at the time it passed, a lot of us said: Wow, the economy coming out of that first stage of COVID is already picking up steam.

In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was telling us that, by midyear last year, we would be back to where we were prepandemic--pretty strong economic growth--and yet the Democrats were insisting on another $1.9 trillion, almost $2 trillion, of spending.

Remember, we had just passed a $900 billion spending bill to help with COVID, which was bipartisan, by the way. I was part of putting that together. And so when it came to this new one, we said: Whoa, don't do this. It is going to overheat the economy, overstimulate the economy--particularly because inflation is about demand mismatching supply.

And this is exactly what was happening. You had demand growing and supply constricted, partly because of COVID, partly because of policy decisions that were being made.

So we warned that this much stimulus in the economy was going to lead to inflation, and very sadly, we were right.

By the way, it wasn't just Republicans who said that. Some prominent Democrat officials said that, including some who had been senior economic advisers in the Obama administration, in the Clinton administration, including Larry Summers, who was quite prescient when he said: Gosh, we shouldn't do this because this is going to heat up the economy and cause a lot of inflation.

Democrats didn't pay any attention to those concerns then. They went ahead and passed that legislation. Remember, today, we are looking at inflation that is the highest it has been in 40 years, and here we are today about to do some of the same exact things: more spending, more taxes.

It is $700 billion more in spending and about $326 billion in taxes-- new taxes on the economy.

It will not reduce inflation. In fact, the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts it will actually increase inflation over the next 2 years and that, over time, it will be about even. But it won't decrease inflation. In fact, over the first couple of years, they say it will increase it.

And the burden of the $326 billion in the tax increases is not just going to companies. It never does. It gets passed along. In this case, it falls, of course, to workers and to consumers. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that we have to rely on up here--it is a nonpartisan group that gives us the analyses of these tax bills--it will hurt Americans in nearly every income bracket.

In fact, they say more than half of the $300 million in new taxes will fall on folks making less than $400,000 a year. Why? Because, again, you are taxing a company, but the company passes that along to its workers and to its customers. And they are saying that more than half of that burden will fall on taxpayers who make less than $400,000 a year.

Why do I say that? Because that is the cutoff that President Biden has always put in place, saying that no tax increases will affect anybody who makes less than 400,000 bucks a year. This one does. Again, it is based on the Joint Committee on Taxation.

As part of these tax hikes, manufacturing is hit particularly hard. The Joint Committee says that about 50 percent of the impact of this tax increase is going to be on manufacturing businesses.

Now, this is interesting to me because we just passed a big bill. Some call it the CHIPS bill. Some call it the China bill. Some call it the Competition bill. But it was a bill to focus on what? Making our American companies more competitive, particularly our manufacturing companies. And we are spending a lot of money--hundreds of billions of dollars--to do that. And here we are turning around and saying: No. Do you know what? We are actually going to increase taxes on these manufacturing businesses.

This proposed tax is very different from the existing corporate income tax, which is based on income that these businesses actually report to the Internal Revenue Service when they file their taxes. That income has been defined by Congress over the years. It doesn't use that as the measure of income. Instead, it looks at a company's financial statements and comes up with a new definition of income called the adjusted financial statement income.

This type of financial reporting is far broader because these statements were designed for very different reasons. Taxable income that the IRS is in charge of, as opposed to financial income, is meant to raise revenue and provides in our Tax Code all kinds of tax preferences, incentives, disincentives for certain activity--like being able to deduct the cost of new equipment. That is something we want to encourage. So we allow companies to do that. Like being able to take a tax credit, let's say, for energy efficiency--we want to encourage companies to do that. So that is in the tax part as opposed to the book income part.

The financial statement income is not determined by elected representatives. In other words, Congress doesn't determine how you calculate that tax. The financial statement income is actually determined by something called the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which is a private nonprofit recognized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as the accounting standard setter for public companies.

Now, that works fine for determining accounting standards, but this change effectively puts these people in control of what the corporate tax base is, even though they are not elected Representatives. They are not even working for the government. They are a nonprofit.

Because corporate income taxes and this book minimum tax are calculated using these very different types of information, the 15- percent minimum tax, which is a book-tax minimum tax, can actually end up being larger for companies than the 21-percent income tax--again, because it calculates it differently.

It is an example of Congress avoiding its responsibility, frankly. If we think that we should charge companies more taxation, let's look at the Tax Code and let's get rid of some of these tax preferences that people think don't work. Let's change the Tax Code. Let's not come up with another way to calculate what the tax ought to be--determined, again, by accounting standards that are done by this nonprofit group called the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

Instead of examining the Tax Code we created and the deductions and credits that exist, it simply hands the reins over to this board. Most accountants and tax experts recognize this is

really a dangerous path. This is why, when it was proposed last year, 264 accounting academics wrote to Congress to warn us not to do it. They warned of the dangers of politicizing this accounting board, how that would lower the quality of financial accounting. They warned that this would change company decision making to make companies less efficient because companies are now going to manage toward the financial statement, not toward the income tax.

They also warned that it would add needless and significant complexity to the Tax Code. Well, of course, you are going to calculate, now, income on two bases, with very, very different measurement and factors considered.

To their credit, actually, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, who actually stand to benefit from complexity, separately also wrote us just recently a letter saying: Please don't do this. This is the CPA organization in the whole country--again, people who would benefit from complexity--but they are saying this is just bad policy. Why would you determine a company's taxation based on the book income? That is not what that is for.

We should listen to these warnings, and we should also learn from history. We tried this type of tax in the form of the 1986 tax reform. We actually tried this as a country. And do you know what? It lasted 2 or 3 years, and then it was repealed. Why? Because it didn't work. The exact warnings that we just talked about ended up being true. The Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Tax Policy told the House Ways and Means Committee when it was repealed that the book tax they had then was ``having a detrimental effect on the quality of financial reporting.''

The complexity was complained about and the fact that this was not fair and was not an appropriate way to measure a company's income.

Now, more than 30 years later, Democrats seem to have forgotten history and are about to repeat the same mistake. The line you are likely to hear from some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle is that this tax is just designed to make big companies pay their fair share of taxes because it only applies to companies who have more than a billion dollars in net income. Well, that is fine. But guess who pays this tax. It is not corporations that bear the brunt of it.

In reality, taxes on corporate income, such as this new book minimum tax, falls on workers and it falls on consumers. And there are lots of workers and consumers who are connected with these companies.

Last year, there were over 200 companies listed in the Fortune 500 as having a billion dollars in profits or more, and, by the way, they employed more than 18 million Americans. You are talking about 18 million people out there who will be affected by this, and these big companies also have a lot of consumers well beyond those 18 million. So it is the millions of people who are employees and who are customers in these businesses who bear the brunt of these tax increases as they are passed down to them in the form of lower wages, lower benefits, and higher prices for goods and services--exactly the wrong thing in this inflationary spiral we are living in now where everything costs more. Why would we want to add additional costs by saying we are going to tax these companies that are going to pass it along to their workers and to the consumers with higher prices?

It doesn't matter whether you are taxing income or income on financial statements; the corporate income tax falls on these workers. Don't take my word for it. Again, the Joint Committee on Taxation just last year said that they expect about 25 percent of corporate taxes to fall on workers. This means lower wages, again, as this recession looms and as inflation hits the highest levels since 1981, 40-plus years.

By the way, we just went through our second quarter of negative economic growth. Traditionally, that means a recession. That is how we define one. The administration refuses to call it a recession.

I will just tell you, for people who live in my home State of Ohio-- particularly people on fixed income, lower and middle-income workers-- they are feeling it. For them, it is a recession.

In addition to the Joint Committee saying that the corporate taxes fall on workers, the Congressional Budget Office--again, a nonpartisan group up here in Congress--has said that employees and workers bear more like 70 percent--70 percent--of the burden of corporate income taxes.

There is a long list of analyses in between. In 2017, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, reviewed many of the available economic studies around the world that have been done and found that the best studies fall within this range of about 30 to 70 percent.

Let me say that again. Overwhelmingly, economic studies support the idea that workers bear between 30 and 70 percent of the corporate tax hikes.

So going after workers' wages is one heck of a strategy to bring down inflation. People are already hurting because wages are here and inflation is here. So wages haven't kept up with inflation. This will make it worse.

Germany, by the way, did an analysis of corporate taxes recently and found that the burden fell hardest on low-skilled, young, and female employees, not the highest earners.

The most important of these tax law changes is limiting what is called bonus depreciation. That is something that you would get as a company if you are in the regular income tax system but not under this new book tax calculation.

What is bonus depreciation? Well, it allows companies to deduct the costs of investments, of new equipment in the year they are made. Under the book tax, they spread that deduction over the lifetime of the investment. In both cases, they are deducting the cost of it, but whether they can do it immediately under bonus depreciation or whether they have to do it over the course of many years matters a lot for investment decisions.

Being able to deduct the cost of these investments immediately provides a big incentive for people to invest, and that is what has happened. This is not a loophole. I have heard this word: It is a loophole; we are just closing loopholes.

This is not a loophole. This is a deliberate tax policy that we have put in place to help encourage companies to invest more in equipment and plan and therefore help the workers, therefore make America more competitive, and, actually, over time, it increases the tax revenue that comes in to our coffers.

It is really important to encourage investment and economic growth but particularly important for manufacturers. That is why the Joint Committee on Taxation found that half of the burden of this new tax will fall on manufacturers because bonus depreciation is so important to them. This isn't unique to us. Every single developed country in the world offers a policy like bonus depreciation. Why? Because it works, because if they don't and other countries do, they can't compete.

The United Kingdom is far more generous than ours, for example, for purchase of equipment. Across the assets that use this sort of what is called cost recovery, we are actually well below the average in the OECD, which is the group of about 40 highly developed countries like ours. We rank 21st now out of 38 for these types of incentives. This will make us even less competitive, meaning it is going to be better for manufacturers to invest in other countries that have better incentives rather than here in the USA. We want them to invest here. Again, we just passed legislation to provide more incentives to invest here, and now we are doing just the opposite through this book tax increase.

Bonus depreciations traditionally had bipartisan support, and this sudden shift to call this bonus depreciation a loophole is a misrepresentation of what bonus depreciation does, why we have it, and how important it is for our manufacturers to compete. We expanded bonus depreciation in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And then in 2018, the next year, and 2019, the next year after that, we had two of the best years ever for manufacturing investment, growing by 4.5 percent and then 5.7 percent, respectively. A lot of that growth was going on, prior to that time, overseas, particularly in China. And we brought investment back to the United States. This is why, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the manufacturing industry is so hit hard by this.

According to the National Association of Manufacturers, in 2023, this tax increase would shrink GDP--that is our economic growth--by about $68 billion, would result in 218,000 fewer jobs, and it would have a labor decrease of about $17 billion. This is the National Association of Manufacturers telling us this week: Please don't do this. This is going to result in a job loss to over 200,000 jobs. We want to have more manufacturing jobs, not less.

The workers hit hardest are those who work in manufacturing because this tax hike on physical assets will disproportionately hit manufacturing jobs. My home State of Ohio has a lot of manufacturing jobs. We are a big manufacturer. We are proud of that. We have a lot of factories. We like to make things. So it will particularly hit States like mine.

But, remember, it is not just wages we are talking about. No. Workers get hit at both ends. They get hit as workers--wages and benefits--but also as consumers when they get paid and when they try to spend their money. Families facing record inflation today are facing higher prices as cost of corporate taxes get passed down to the consumer. Again, I am not going on gut feeling; although, it makes sense, doesn't it? If you tax an entity, it gets passed along in terms of the cost of the goods. I am talking about what economists are saying is going to happen when we increase taxes on American businesses.

In a key study last year performed by economists at the business schools of the University of Chicago and Northwestern, they found that about 31 percent of corporate taxes fall on consumers through higher retail prices, and they warn that policymakers have been underestimating significantly how much of these taxes fall on consumers, on the people that buy these products that these companies make.

Democrats are ignoring this evidence, pushing ahead with partisan legislation, without any Republican support, that will make inflation worse; that will hurt workers; that will raise prices.

Again, it doesn't stop there.

I can talk about how corporate taxes discourage investment, both domestic and foreign, in the United States, according to economists from the World Bank and from Harvard. I can talk about how, contrary everything the Democrats claim, corporate taxes make income inequality actually worse, increasing the income of the top earners and lowering the income of the low- and middle-income workers. This is based on a 2020 study by an economist at the University of Michigan.

I can talk about the opposite side of the equation, how lowering taxes for businesses of all sizes, as we did in 2017, supports economic growth. Going into the pandemic, we had 19 straight months of wage gains of 3 percent or more. Most of that wage gain was going to lower- and middle-income workers. We had the lowest poverty rate in the history of the country. We had good things going on because you had this economic growth. You had companies paying higher wages.

In the years between the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the coronavirus pandemic, again, we not only saw just an end to these corporate inversions with companies going overseas, we saw jobs and investment coming back to the United States, and we kept inflation very low. That is a far cry from the estimate that was out last week from the National Association of Manufacturers, which, again, predicts that this book tax will result in a $68 billion hit to our economy with over 200,000 fewer jobs.

Prior to the pandemic, pro-growth policies led to a really strong economy with steady growth, low inflation, and real wage increases of 3 percent or higher. Instead of spending and tax hikes that are only going to add to this inflation, let's have a true Inflation Reduction Act that lowers costs to consumers by increasing supply to regulatory relief and other pro-growth policies that were working so well before the pandemic. Let's do what we know we have to do to get inflation down.

It is a mismatch between demand and supply. We can, through positive pro-growth policies, increase that supply and get inflation down and ensure that American families have a better shot at their American dream. Instead, here we go again with the Inflation Reduction Act that will actually be the ``Inflation Increase Act.''

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Bishop Timothy J. Clarke on 40 years of servant leadership to the congregation at First Church of God in Columbus, OH, as well as to the broader Columbus community and the State of Ohio.

Bishop Clarke came to Columbus in 1982 after serving as associate minister at First Church of God in his hometown of Far Rockaway, NY, and as pastor at York Avenue Church of God in Warren, OH. He has grown First Church of God into one of the largest ministries in Ohio and is known across Ohio and the Nation for his spiritual leadership and ability to help bring people together to address many of the challenges facing our communities.

Bishop Clarke is also the founder and chief prelate of the Berean Fellowship, an international assembly that partners and mentors pastors of small to mid-size churches and those who are new to the ministry.

I have had the pleasure of working with Bishop Clarke for a dozen years. I have benefited from his spiritual guidance and worked with him on efforts to battle addiction and human trafficking. He has also provided valuable counsel on our efforts to reduce recidivism and help people exiting our criminal justice system get jobs and get their lives back on track.

My wife Jane and I have had the privilege of joining Bishop Clarke and First Lady Clytemnestra Clarke at First Church of God, where we always leave inspired and rejuvenated from his powerful and practical Sunday sermons.

I thank Bishop Clarke for his friendship and counsel, congratulate him on reaching this impressive 40-year milestone, and wish him and First Church of God the best in the years to come.

Mr. President, I am coming to the floor today to offer a very straightforward, commonsense amendment that is noncontroversial, that has met all of the requirements set out by the Democratic leadership--by the majority leader--by the chair of the conference, and by the ranking member of the conference to be accepted. This is language that must accompany the research dollars that are part of the CHIPS+ legislation that we are considering right now.

When you add it all up, when you add up CHIPS and the CHIPS+ language, which includes research dollars to NSF, NIH, Department of Energy, and so on, we are talking about $200 billion of taxpayer money.

As part of this process, when we passed the underlying bill, USICA, here

in the U.S. Senate, we included language that said: You know what, we ought to protect that language. We ought to protect that research.

It is like we are buying a really expensive new car, and if we don't protect it, it means we are not buying the insurance that goes with it. The insurance is needed for a very simple reason: We know that for the past two decades, that U.S. taxpayer-paid research--just like the research that we are about to both appropriate and authorize in this legislation--has been subject to being taken by our adversaries, particularly China. So that is why we need to protect it.

We worked painstakingly over the last 4 years on a bipartisan basis to come up with this legislation. Again, it has been fully vetted.

There was discussion a moment ago about the four corners. What does that mean? That means that the chair and ranking members of the committees of jurisdiction--the four corners--are asked to approve anything that goes into this legislation.

Well, everything I am going to talk about today is approved by the four corners.

By the way, everything that is in the underlying legislation--some of the plus in the CHIPS+ Act--has not gone through the four corners process. This has.

To my colleagues who say: Well, if we put this amendment in, how about these other amendments? Look, I have five or six things in the USICA bill I would love to have be part of this final agreement. I have wonderful trade legislation that should be part of this. It is not. That is with Senator Brown, by the way. I have wonderful legislation that deals with worker retraining that is absolutely related to competitiveness. That is with Senator Kaine. It should absolutely be part of this final agreement. It is not. I get that. There are a lot of things that had to be left out when this conference did not succeed, even though I, like others, worked very hard to get that conference to come to agreement--not just in my areas. I am the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee. We cleared all of ours but also worked with other committees and other Members, Republican and Democrat alike.

But I said from the start that we have to have this research security language in place if we are going to put out billions of dollars of new taxpayer dollars in terms of research; otherwise, it is irresponsible.

So the amendment I am offering today is a skinnied-down version of what passed in USICA already. It is a skinnied-down version of what I was proposing because some people thought there were some concerns in the House--actually among Republicans, interestingly--about some of these aspects, so we have just taken those out. We have made this totally noncontroversial. Four corners. Fits like a glove with what we are talking about, which is the new research dollars. That is what this is all about.

It should not be surprising that there is a lot of bipartisan support for this. There has been from the start. Why? Because everybody knows this is a grave threat to our national security if we do not protect American research.

The Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, recently warned:

The greatest long-term threat to our nation's information

and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is

the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from

China. It's a threat to our economic security--and by

extension, to our national security.

He characterized China as the largest threat to ``our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security.'' He noted that the FBI now has over 2,000 open cases focused on China, with a new case being opened approximately every 12 hours. This is reality. This is what is happening right now.

After our bipartisan investigation, we had a hearing. The FBI showed up, and we said: Do you know what? We have learned in our investigation the shocking news that for two decades China has been systematically targeting the best American researchers and the best American research to be able to take that research, leapfrog us, and it has helped to create an ascended China--the rise of their military and their economic progress--by taking our research, taxpayer-paid.

The FBI, testifying, said: Do you know what? You are right. We have kind of been asleep at the switch, and we are going to change that. And they have, and that is why you have seen many, many arrests being made. But they said to us: We need some legislation. We need a cause of action that actually fits what is going on here because there is not one now. We have to come up with other ways, like mail fraud or other-- tax evasion or other ways to bring people to justice. That is what this legislation does.

We also heard from the State Department, and this was career people at the State Department, including now in the Biden State Department. They desperately want new authority to be able to avoid people coming into our country to steal our technology. They desperately want it, and that is part of this legislation today.

We found out that China uses these so-called talent recruitment programs--the most prominent one, you have heard of, probably; it is the Thousand Talents Plan--to target science and technology sectors just like the ones we are funding. They target academics, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and finance experts. The plans provide monetary benefits and other incentives to lure experts into providing proprietary information or research to China, in violation of our laws and conflict of interest rules.

Again, the cases go on and on.

China, in turn, exploits American research, intellectual property, and open collaboration for their own benefit--again, often U.S. taxpayer-funded.

In just one of many, many cases, a chemist was sentenced recently by a Federal judge in Tennessee after being convicted of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, possession of stolen trade secrets, economic espionage, and wire fraud. The chemist received millions of dollars in Chinese Government grants, including a Thousand Talents Plan award, to steal American innovation to fund the rise of China's economy.

This is just one of the researchers we have been able to stop. Think of how many have slipped through the cracks since we have not yet implemented the grant and visa reforms included in this amendment I am offering today.

In fact, the Department of Health and Human Services' IG recently released a report that found that more than two-thirds of the National Institutes of Health's grant recipients failed to meet the Federal requirements regarding foreign financial interests, including instances of U.S. taxpayer-funded researchers failing to disclose ties to the Chinese Government. That is NIH. We are funding NIH through this--some of this money is going to go to the NIH. Yet we are not providing the protection to keep this from happening.

The skinnied-down version of the amendment today goes directly to the root of the problem. It is the minimum we have to do.

First, the amendment makes it punishable by law to knowingly fail to disclose foreign funding on Federal grant applications.

Researchers should not be able to lie to grant-making Agencies about the money they receive from our adversaries. Pretty simple. Who could be against that?

Second, it allows the State Department to deny visas to foreign researchers coming to the United States to exploit the openness of our research enterprise.

Currently, the State Department can deny a visa to a foreign researcher they know is coming here to steal export-controlled technology, but what if that technology someone is coming to steal is not export-controlled? How about artificial intelligence? How about quantum computing? Well, if you can believe it, in that case, the State Department's hands are tied even though they know it is happening.

This amendment gives the Biden State Department the authority they have sought from Congress to deny visas to those seeking to come to the United States expressly to steal our emerging technology. Sometimes they are members of the Chinese Communist Party. Sometimes they are members of the Chinese military. Yet they cannot stop them.

As we know, there are more provisions in the full Safeguarding American Innovation Act, but again, after talking to my colleagues, I agreed to

scale back the amendment. Doing so will ensure our research is protected and guarantee its passage in the House.

These provisions reached four corners agreement in the conference, as I said, and include additional changes beyond that made at the request of everybody who had any objection, including the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. We solved their issues.

This skinny version of the Securing American Innovation Act is a significant concession, and I urge my colleagues to respect the fact that we spent years going through this and, more recently, hours to deal with everybody's issues to meet them more than halfway.

I will remind many of my colleagues in this Chamber, they voted to begin consideration of the CHIPS package last week because they believed this language was in the bipartisan proposal. I know that because Democrats and Republicans alike have come up to me and said that. I thought your language was in there, they said. Why wouldn't we want to protect this research, they said.

One reason they think it is in there is because all Republican offices, at least, were told that it was in there. In fact, the email sent right after the vote late on Tuesday afternoon reiterated that these provisions were included. So the whip that we sent out--the whip information on what was in this legislation included the Safeguarding American Innovation Act. That is how we got the necessary Republican votes.

Now, I support the underlying bill, and I have restrained myself and shown respect for the process by helping to get us to the point we are today. But my understanding was that people would work with me to ensure that we were able, if it was four corners, to be sure that, again, this insurance on this new car that we are buying would be there.

It fits like a glove. This is where the legislation must be included. If not, we find ourselves irresponsibly spending taxpayer dollars that are not protected. So we are going to invest about 200 to 250 billion hard-working American-taxpayer dollars in research and innovation.

Again, I support the underlying bill, but we have got to protect that intellectual property, that taxpayer-funded research, from being stolen by our competitors and used against us. Without these protections, I believe this legislative package, with significant levels of Federal funding, is a giveaway to some of our adversaries, including Beijing. It is not like there is any secret out there. China has made no secret of its goal to supplant the United States as the global economic leader and to do it by getting the best research and the best researchers.

Today, we released a report on how China has also targeted the U.S. Federal Reserve in addition to our science and innovation. Our economic policies are in China's crosshairs now, and this body cannot stand idly by and allow it to continue. We must act, and that means including, at a minimum, this skinny version of the Safeguarding American Innovation Act's provisions. Failure to do so will harm our national security and our economic strength in the face of an ascendant China.

To my colleagues, please do not block this very simple request. We have done everything right. We have gone through the process of a bipartisan investigation, of bipartisan hearings, bipartisan legislation, and four corners agreements--working with everybody to address their concerns--and this is where this legislation must be.

Again, I have four or five other very important bills in USICA that I am not asking for today because they don't fit perfectly with this new research money; but this does, and it has to be there. So I ask unanimous consent. That is all I need. With unanimous consent, the Senate can do anything, to include what everybody says they want, what everybody says is important.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to call up my amendment No. 5158. I ask further that there be 30 minutes of debate, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, and finally, upon the use or yielding back of that time, that the Senate vote on the adoption of my amendment with no intervening action or debate.

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

Madam President, I come to the Senate floor once again this evening to talk about the brutal and illegal, unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Russia and what we can do--what more we can do here in this Chamber and this Congress to be able to help the people of Ukraine.

This is the updated map that tells the story of what is going on on the battlefield. You can see this light-blue color here indicates that the Ukraine forces are on the move and making progress. But in the meantime, Russia, back in 2014, took Crimea, part of the Donbas. Now they have taken more of that territory.

So the fighting we will talk about tonight that is most fierce is taking place here in the east and now increasingly here in the south. This is where the battlefield is, but that is not the only place where things are happening.

Remember, this is a country--Ukraine--that just wants to live in peace with its neighbors. It has no interest in war. And this is Russia's assault on that country, starting in 2014 and now in this larger assault. But it is not just here on this battlefield. Russia is actually sending missiles into the heart of Ukraine.

You see this town here, Vinnytsia. This is where, recently, a missile exploded, killing civilians, children. Last week, I talked about Liza, the young girl who was killed in that bombing. Everyplace in Ukraine is subject to this kind of bombing. We have heard from Kharkiv. We have seen it in Kyiv and other towns all throughout Ukraine.

Another part of this brutal assault on Ukraine has to do with blocking the ports. Here is Odesa. This is the largest port. But there are several ports along here that have been blocked by the Russians. The Russian Navy is not allowing exports from Ukraine to be sent to the rest of the world. This, of course, is hurting Ukraine's economy, which is the whole idea. But it is also preventing the export of millions of tons of grain, which is creating a global food crisis, threatening the lives of millions of people around the world, particularly in Africa where they rely heavily on Ukrainian grains coming out of these ports.

After weeks of discussions--really, the last couple of months-- finally, on Friday, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the United Nations agreed to facilitate the export of Ukrainian grain. According to the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who has been working on this for months, this provides a ``glimmer of hope'' in alleviating the global food security crisis.

One part of the agreement that was reached in Turkey was that Russia would not attack facilities in these Ukrainian cities. Specifically, the agreement prohibited ``any attacks against merchant vehicles and other civilian vessels and port facilities engaged in'' the export of Ukrainian agricultural products. So there is an agreement to allow the grain to go but also a specific agreement not to attack merchant vessels, civilian vessels, port facilities that were involved in export.

The ink was quite literally barely dry when Russia violated the terms of that agreement. Within 24 hours, the Russians fired four missiles at Ukraine's largest port, Odesa, which, again, is critical to exporting the grain from Ukraine. By striking the port infrastructure, they violated the agreement right after signing it.

Here is the port. You can see the damage that was caused. There were actually four missiles fired from warships into Odesa. Two of them were intercepted by anti-aircraft weaponry--thank God--but two destroyed part of Odesa's port infrastructure, therefore violating the agreement.

I guess we all learned that Russia can't be trusted, so we shouldn't be surprised. But violating its international obligations less than 24 hours after agreeing to them may be a new low.

Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States, put it well this weekend when she said:

We will do everything in order to perform and fulfill our

part of the deal. When Russia is violating it, they are

clearly showing who they are and that they need to be

stopped.

She went further and said:

Everything Russia is doing in Ukraine is a violation of

pretty much every international law. Attacking a sovereign

country . . . is a war crime.

She is right. Ambassador Bridget Brink, our Ambassador to Ukraine, also criticized Russia for this brazen attack. She said:

The Kremlin continues to weaponize food. Russia must be

held accountable.

I talked before on this floor about this specific Russian attack on the grain bins in Odesa and other port cities, where they literally have targeted food that is supposed to go to starving people.

President Putin apparently believes that this global food and energy security crisis--the two crises--are to his advantage. He is seeking to pressure energy dependent Europeans and pressure countries which rely on Ukrainian grain to join him in forcing Ukraine to surrender.

Fortunately, it is not working. Countries in the region, in fact, are rallying around Ukraine more than ever. Why? Because they know they could be next.

Vladimir Putin has said his ambition is to fully restore the borders of the old Soviet Union or the Russian Empire. And in recent years, he has learned the lesson that the West may not stand in his way.

A few global leaders, as an example, stood up to President Putin when he invaded Georgia, a country that continues to be, in part, occupied by the Russians. That was 2008. And not enough stood up to him in Ukraine in 2014 when, as we saw in this previous map, Russia brazenly invaded and took over Crimea and parts of the Donbas.

When it comes to 2022, it has been different so far. And we should commend all those countries that have stood up and stood with us. We now have a chance to actually stop this assault, to stop what Russia has been doing, and to teach them a different lesson, to protect Ukraine and other countries in the region that Russia may have set its sights on.

The free world has rallied. Freedom-loving countries--almost 50--from around the world have come to Ukraine's aid. Specifically, over 42 of them have provided military assistance; others have provided humanitarian aid by way of food and nutrition and economic health.

The weapons that have been provided have made it easier for Ukraine to defend itself, to take out some of the

Russian artillery that was sitting back and firing on the Ukrainian positions with immunity because it was so far back the Ukrainian artillery couldn't reach it. The new weapons have been helpful in dealing with that.

The U.S. has provided Ukraine with a specific weapon to help in that regard called the High Mobility Artillery Systems, or HIMARS, and they have been critical to the Ukrainian military as they hold off the Russian invaders and allow the Ukrainian military to be on the offensive in some of these areas.

A step in the right direction came last week. I commend the administration for sending Ukraine four more HIMARS systems. They now have 12 in operation and four more units on the way to the front lines. That is good, but they need more. What the analysts suggest is they need 40 or 50 just to be able to push the Russians back.

Officials in Ukraine have made the need for these systems clear, by the way, for a long time--since early March. I have echoed that need since that time. Why? Because I was hearing it directly from the Ukrainians, from their military experts.

So it took us a while, but it turns out the Ukrainians were right; these systems are effective. GEN Mark Milley, who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that the HIMARS strikes are ``steadily degrading the Russian ability to supply their troops, command and control their forces, and carry out their illegal war of aggression.'' That is from General Milley.

The Ukrainians are an effective force when they are armed with the right weapons. Officials have said that with the help of HIMARS, Ukraine has taken out Russian command posts, ammunition depots, air defense sites, radar and communications nodes, and long-range artillery positions. These are all ``high value'' targets, and destroying them has saved Ukrainian lives and saved some of the shelling of Ukrainian cities.

There also seems to be some progress in sending Ukraine other tools to help them fight, particularly in the air. The U.S. Air Force top general hinted last week that Ukraine may get fourth-generation fighter jets from the United States or from other allies, and he left open the option to train Ukrainians on how to use them. These fourth-generation fighter jets could include U.S. F-16s, the Gripen from Sweden, the Rafale from France, and the Eurofighter from the European Union.

Some of Russia's most devastating strikes, of course, have come from the air, either from aircraft or from missile strikes. Earlier in the war, you remember, there were many who talked about creating a no-fly zone in Ukraine. That never happened.

NATO was not willing to move forward with the no-fly zone. But by providing Ukraine with advanced aircraft, we could empower Ukrainian fighter pilots to impose their own no-fly zone over critical areas of the country.

Two weeks ago, I sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and to General Milley urging them to expedite more military assistance to Ukraine, including ``fourth-generation fighter aircraft and necessary flight training.'' The reason we included that in our bipartisan letter is because we had heard from Ukrainian fighter pilots who came over here several weeks ago and met with us.

I am the cofounder and cochair of the Ukrainian Caucus. We put together a meeting. It was very powerful to hear their words. But they said they know how to fly these planes. And with regard to the details, they could learn them quickly. And it would make a huge difference.

It has made a huge difference with what they have, which are aging Soviet aircrafts, MiGs, and not enough of them. But we have got to move quickly if we do this because we have to keep Russia from gaining more ground. And we have to save more lives.

Training Ukrainian pilots on modern Western aircraft will take some time; and, as we have seen, even a day delay can mean the difference between life and death. So let's get started.

There is also the battle being waged on energy, and that is, in a sense, just as important as what is happening on the battle front. Why? Because Russia gets its funds from energy proceeds. That is what is funding the war machine. And they continue to leverage Europe's dependency on their oil and gas as a political and economic weapon.

This is plainly seen as President Putin continues to play games with Europe's gas supply. Europe depends on Russia for, now, about 20 percent of its natural gas imports. That is down from around 40 percent last year--so a significant reduction, reducing by half their dependency.

But with regard to that 20 percent, President Putin is tightening his grip and retaining his leverage on Europe by decreasing supplies, by driving prices upward, and by lining his war chest even further. By the way, his attempts to divide NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, have not worked. Over Russian objections, NATO will soon be expanding rather than dividing or contracting.

Instead of splintering last Tuesday, I was proud to vote in committee to advance the ratification of Finland and Sweden's NATO applications.

As Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said recently ``adding these nations into the fold will only strengthen us.'' I agree.

Finland, by the way, has the European Union's longest border with Russia. It has a very capable air force and other parts of its military. In response to Russia's aggression, they have increased their defense spending by 70 percent, and Sweden is targeting military spending at the NATO commitment level of 2 percent GDP as soon as possible and already possesses an innovative and effective defense industry.

In fact, the Swedish weapons that are in the market today are some of the most advanced in the world. Adding Finland and Sweden to NATO will strengthen the alliance's security in the north, particularly the Arctic region and the Baltic Sea.

I just learned a little while ago that we are going to vote on their applications to join NATO here on the Senate floor this week or next week. That is great news. I hope my colleagues will join me in a prompt and strong showing of support, and I think they will.

This is going to be one of the things that brings this Congress together, because this is in all of our interest--in NATO's interest, in America's interest, and certainly in Ukraine's interest.

It is a clear demonstration to Ukraine that NATO's open-door policy is alive and well and that the alliance will continue to welcome applicant countries that meet the criteria for membership. I believe NATO should begin that process with Ukraine, allowing them to enter the next step of NATO membership by earning what is called the Membership Action Plan, the MAP process. This plan provides a formal roadmap for NATO membership that is long overdue, in my view.

We need to show Ukraine the world stands with them. And NATO is a defensive alliance. NATO is about protecting countries in the region.

Last week, Congress had the privilege to hear from someone who knows how critically important it is that we stand with Ukraine right now. We heard from Olena Zelenska, President Zelenskyy's wife. She gave a very powerful speech to the Congress about the horrors of the war and about the desperate need for more advanced weapons from the United States and allies.

She painted a vivid picture of life in Ukraine right now. Her moving words about her own family and about the effects this traumatizing war has etched in the memory of Ukraine's children I thought was particularly poignant.

She said Ukraine needs weapons to wage a war, ``not [to be used to wage a war] on somebody else's land, but to protect one's home and the right to wake up alive in that home.''

``To protect one's home and the right to wake up alive in that home.'' That is what this is about.

In a TV interview during her visit here, Ms. Zelenska talked about the trauma children have faced and said that she hopes their childhood can be given back to them at some point. She said:

Before the war, my [nine-year-old] son used to go to folk

dance ensemble. He played piano. He learned English. He of

course attended sports club.

Now, she said:

The only thing he wants to do is martial arts and [learn]

how to use a rifle.

It is a 9-year-old boy.

At the Polish border and at the Moldovan border, I have had the opportunity to visit with refugees as they have come across from Ukraine. It is

all women and children, grandmothers, mothers, aunts--the men staying behind to fight.

This war is taking away these kids' childhoods and replacing them with war-torn memories. Those children who fled Ukraine in the early stages of the war are now growing up, making friends, and going to schools in foreign countries. Seven or 8 million Ukrainians left Ukraine. They are far from home, and they want to go home.

And those who stayed in Ukraine are in constant fear that the next Russian missile may hit their home, their town, their city. Many will never have the opportunity to get their childhood back.

First lady Olena Zelenska has even started her own initiative to address the serious mental health impacts of Russia's war against her country. Although underreported in most media outlets, Russia has forcibly deported millions of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian- controlled territory in the Donbas, including hundreds of thousands of children.

Once outside of Ukrainian territory, these children are taught to be Russian, not Ukrainian, in a deliberate attempt by Russia to wipe out the national and cultural identity of Ukrainians.

Combined with Russia's consistent denial of the existence of Ukraine's nationhood and identity, these actions must be acknowledged for what they are: genocide. And it is important that the United States and the rest of the world recognize these acts as such.

That is one reason why the world must call out Russia for what is happening in Ukraine. Last Thursday, five Senate colleagues and I joined Senator Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which I served, in introducing a bipartisan resolution condemning Russia's actions in Ukraine as genocide.

I know ``genocide'' is a really powerful word. It has a long history, and it has serious implications. Many people are understandably hesitant to use it. But the facts in Russia's atrocities are clearly genocide.

Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as any of several acts ``committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.''

Two of the acts in the definition are ``killing members of the group'' and ``causing bodily or mental harm to members of the group.'' Only one of those criteria is necessary for genocide. Russia all too clearly fits all of these parts of the definition of genocide.

Its forces have killed and wounded innocent civilians all across Ukraine. Last week, I spoke about little Liza who was killed in Vinnytsia. This is the aftermath of the bombing in Vinnytsia. I have also heard about the ``target practice'' that Russian soldiers have bragged about that they did in Severodonetsk, shooting at innocent civilians like it was some kind of a game.

And we cannot forget the horrors of Bucha, where Russian forces massacred over 1,300 innocent civilians, some with hands tied behind their backs. This included 31 children. And the mental toll of this war has, of course, also been extreme.

Our Senate resolution also includes a clause about my resolution from 2018 commemorating the 85th anniversary of Holodomor, the Soviet Union's famine genocide against Ukraine from 1932 to 1933. Unfortunately, Russia has a history of committing genocide against the people of Ukraine, and that continues to this day.

The world needs to let the Russian commanders and the Kremlin officials know we see the war crimes being committed, and they are being recorded. Perhaps that would have some sort of effect on what actions they take.

The trickle-down effects of this war are heart-wrenching. We have all seen the images, the videos on social media of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. But not only that, it is what this war has created: the countless children who are now orphans.

I have talked about this in the past, but according to Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland:

Russia makes orphans, and then steals those orphans, up to

1,000 Ukrainian kids being stolen and taken and given to

Russian families to potentially never be found by their

families.

That is very concerning. Let me say that again. She is saying that Russia takes these orphans and steals them and gives them to Russian families to potentially never be found by their Ukrainian families.

So there are all these young boys and young girls who watch their fathers and their brothers and their uncles and, sometimes, their moms go to war. Many of them never come back home.

There are young boys like Ms. Zelenska's, a 9-year-old, who now wants to be a soldier. And there are the children who will never be with their family in Ukraine again.

That is where we are today. A merciless authoritarian who needs to flex his power against a nation that just wants to live peacefully-- nothing more than to live in peace with their neighbors.

This is a struggle between freedom and democracy and self- determination on the one hand and aggression and conquest and tyranny, authoritarianism on the other.

Our choice is clear. At this critical juncture, let's continue to work with our allies to provide Ukraine with what they need to protect that homeland, to defend that democracy. We need to help Ukraine, and we need to do more, and we need to do it now. We need to move quickly. We need to live up to these important words from Ukraine's First Lady last week. When she was here in the Congress talking to us, she said ``While Russia kills, America saves.''

Let's continue to save. Let's continue to save lives every day, and let's save our democratic ally Ukraine--a proud nation that is simply fighting for its survival.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today to correct the record, really. Some of my colleagues in the Chamber voted yesterday to begin consideration of this chips package that we have talked about a lot because they believed it included legislation called Safeguarding American Innovation Act, or SAIA, the bipartisan, Senate- passed, White-House supported, essential legislation to protect taxpayer-funded research and intellectual property from being taken, stolen, by China and other adversaries and then used against us.

It is understandable people thought that because the SAIA research security provisions were in the broader USICA bill that passed the Senate last year. In fact, as the coauthors of USICA know, it was the reason I was one of the then-original Republican cosponsors of USICA and only because of that. At that time, we needed Republican cosponsors. And it is understandable because, this week, all Republican offices were emailed a list of items by the lead Republican on this bill which included chips-plus legislation, including SAIA.

So Republicans, when they voted yesterday, thought SAIA was part of it. Even today, Democrats and Republicans alike have come up to me and said they thought SAIA was in this bill.

By the way, they want it in this bill, but it is not. It was stripped out of this USICA. I filed an amendment to get it back into this package because it is so crucial to the goal of the overall effort, which is, of course, to improve our country's competitiveness, especially with regard to China. To do that, we must not only invest in more American research and innovation, which I support, but we have to protect that taxpayer-funded research and intellectual property from being stolen by our adversaries and used against us.

Given the current realities, without such protections, I believe this chips-plus bill, with significantly increased levels of Federal funding for research, may well become a giveaway to Beijing.

China's made no secret of its goal to supplant the United States as the global economic leader, and China has been willing to use every tool at its disposal to be able to do that. As FBI Director Christopher Wray has warned:

The greatest long-term threat to our nation's information

and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is

the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from

China.

Director Wray has characterized China as the largest threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security, noting that the FBI has opened 2,000 cases focused on China stealing our research, with one case being opened approximately every 12 hours.

A number of us, in a totally bipartisan process, have been working on protecting research for the past 4 years. In 2019, an investigative report of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security, which I chaired with Senator Carper as the ranking member, documented, after a yearlong investigation, how China uses talent recruitment programs--like the Thousand Talents Plan--to target the science and technology sectors. Talent recruitment plans recruit high-quality overseas talent--primarily from the United States--including academics, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, even finance experts. The plans provide monetary benefits and other incentives to lure experts into providing proprietary information or research to China. This is in violation of our laws and conflict of interest rules. China, in turn, exploits American research, intellectual property, and open collaboration--often U.S. taxpayer- funded--for its own economic and military gain at our expense.

Really, when you think about it, the rise in China's military and economy over the past couple decades is, in part, being fueled by American taxpayer-paid research, where they have essentially leapfrogged us and commercialized it more quickly than us and used it against us.

In just one of many examples, recently, a researcher in Kansas hid his full-time employment with a Chinese research university to obtain Federal grant funding for six different Department of Energy and National Science Foundation contracts.

Remember, the funding in this bill primarily goes to the National Science Foundation. In fact, the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general recently released a report that found that two-thirds of the NIH grant recipients--another place a lot of research is done, NIH--failed to meet Federal requirements regarding foreign financial interests including instances of U.S.-funded researchers failing to disclose ties with the Chinese Government.

In fact, since our investigation and hearing, there have been at least 23 different researchers that have been arrested by Federal authorities for research theft. In testimony before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, John Brown, then-assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division said:

The Communist government of China has proven that it will

use any means necessary to advance its interests at the

expense of others, including the United States, and pursue

its long-term goal of being the world's superpower by 2049. .

. . The Chinese government knows that economic strength and

scientific innovation are the keys to global influence and

military power. So Beijing aims to acquire our . . .

expertise, to erode our competitive advantage and supplant

the United States as a global superpower.

Then-commander, U.S. Cyber Command, General Keith Alexander described intellectual property theft and cyber espionage in general as ``the greatest transfer of wealth in history.''

The sentiment was underscored by former national security adviser, retired LTG H.R. McMaster. When asked about China's growing and intertwined military and economic threat at a March 2021 Armed Services Committee hearing, Lieutenant General McMaster stressed the need for the United States to defend itself saying:

It's gut-wrenching to see how much has been stolen right

from under our noses. And much of that research [is] funded

by Congress. . . . I think the financial dimension of this is

something worth a great deal of scrutiny. We are, in large

measure, underwriting our own demise.

That is why Senator Carper and I introduced the Safeguarding American Innovation Act and insisted it be included in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs title of USICA. And, again, it was, and it passed. And it is part of the research funding--additional research funding to have these protections around it. It would be necessary even if there was not additional research funding, but now we are spending tens of billions of dollars of more taxpayer money and not providing this security.

Based on feedback from the law enforcement and research community, the legislation goes directly to the root of the problem. It makes it punishable by law to knowingly fail to disclose foreign funding on Federal grant applications.

The FBI wants that badly. It requires the executive branch to streamline and coordinate grant-making between the Federal Agencies so there is continuity, accountability, and coordination. It allows the State Department to deny visas to foreign researchers coming to the United States to exploit the openness of our research enterprise and requires research institutions and universities to do more, including telling the State Department whether a foreign researcher will have access to export-controlled technologies.

The State Department wants this badly. The career people at the State Department helped us write these provisions. They need this authority. They don't have it now.

So a vital component of any competitiveness bill must be this commonsense, noncontroversial, extensively negotiated, bipartisan bill. It is a matter of our national security. I have described the extraordinary theft of taxpayer-paid research under current funding levels. Again, it is unthinkable that we would add tens of billions of more taxpayer dollars to sensitive research, as we propose, in the CHIPS-plus package and not protect that research from China and other adversaries.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment to ensure that it is part again--as it has been in the past; we all voted for it--of the underlying package.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come to the floor of the Senate today because we are poised to begin consideration of a really important piece of legislation. It is a plan to make America more competitive with China and a plan to bring good jobs back to America. I am talking about the bipartisan CHIPS Act, which includes reshoring semiconductor manufacturing to America and giving American workers and American companies the tools they need to compete and win.

Let me give some background on why this legislation is so badly needed. U.S. dominance in what is called semiconductor manufacturing has dwindled for decades, and it is an economic and a national security concern. The U.S. has always led the world in chip design. We

came up with this technology, but our share of the global chip manufacturing capacity over the past 30 years has gone from about 37 percent down to less than 12 percent today.

As a result, we rely more and more on foreign countries for these essential chips; and in the past few years, the supply chain has not been reliable. You know that if you tried to buy a car recently--maybe even a washing machine--that you had to wait forever. Why? Because of the lack of semiconductors. These chips are just not available.

We have all come to learn in recent years that semiconductors are the building blocks of everything--automobiles, cell phones, computers, household appliances, medical equipment, but also military systems and weaponry like the F-35. And in a more digital economy, by the way, that demand for these semiconductors, these chips, will only continue to grow.

Last year, this lack of semiconductors caused an estimated loss of $240 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product. So a $250-billion hit to our economy, according to the Department of Commerce, last year just because of these supply chain issues with semiconductors.

This is more complicated by the key role that our adversaries play in the production of these semiconductors and the fact that we rely on some very vulnerable nations for critical components of the supply chain. Neon gas, which is critical for the laser imprinting of the chips, comes largely from Ukraine. Taiwan is the No. 1 semiconductor fabricator in the world. By the way, 90 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan; none are made here in America anymore--90 percent. Of course, Taiwan's proximity to China and the constant threat of invasion by China adds to the urgency of diversifying the semiconductor supply chain.

By incentivizing companies to make these critical components here in America, we can make our supply chains more resilient; we can protect our national security; and we can boost economies all across the country. That is why the CHIPS Act is so important and why we have been working in a bipartisan fashion in Congress through legislation like this and the broader USICA legislation.

This legislation would work to improve our Nation's competitiveness, generally, in technology, foreign relations and national security, domestic manufacturing, education, trade, and other matters. The CHIPS Act specifically would bring $52 billion in Federal investments for domestic semiconductor research, design, and manufacturing.

This broader bill, the so-called USICA bill, last June passed this Senate with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. We had hoped that the House would simply pass the Senate approved bill because it was already bipartisan. It had been worked out with Democrats and Republicans here in the Senate. Nineteen Republicans supported it; all 50 Democrat Senators supported it; the White House supported it.

Instead, the House sat on it. It took them almost a year--11 months-- to pass their bill. But when they passed it, it was filled with all sorts of unrelated items that no Republican could support. That is why this has gone so slowly.

So earlier this summer, we began conferencing the House- and the Senate-passed bills, trying to find that common ground between the two bills. We made some progress, but both Chambers have yet to agree on a final product.

Meanwhile, there is an urgency to get this done because it is critical to the decisions that employers are making right now to create and bring semiconductor manufacturing factories and jobs to America or to some other country.

In January, Intel announced its plan to build a $20 billion site consisting of two semiconductor fabs in the United States and in my home State of Ohio. This is the largest investment in Ohio's history, by far. It comes with a grand total of, again, $20 billion, two fabs; and we hope that is just a start.

Intel has said time and time again that if the CHIPS Act funding is enacted, this will move forward and move forward quickly. They have also said that if the CHIPS Act moves forward, it could be extended-- the $20 billion--to an up to $100-billion investment in Ohio. Remember, the $20 billion is hardly historic. That is because it would continue to build fabs--not just 2, but up to 10. This 3,000-acre site in Ohio could be home to up to eight additional fabs and make central Ohio the silicon heartland. This would be great for my State, great for our region, and great for our country.

This initial investment, by the way, would create about 10,000 good- paying jobs--3,000 on-site eventually, all good-paying, high-paying jobs, good benefits; but also 7,000 good-paying construction jobs in putting it together, tens of thousands of additional electrical, engineering, supplier, restaurant, housing, healthcare, and entertainment jobs to support the region as it expands thanks to this investment. The suppliers alone will be tens of thousands of new jobs.

Ohio has already projected that this investment will add $2.8 billion to the State's GDP, and that is just a start. Investments, like what is in front of us in Ohio, by the way--as well as similar efforts in Arizona where the Presiding Officer is from, Texas where my colleague Senator Cornyn is from who is here on the floor with us today--are all perfect demonstrations of what this investment in semiconductors incentives can mean to American workers and American companies.

China has committed a lot more than we are talking about as have, by the way, a lot of other countries. This is not a free market situation. One of my colleagues today asked me about, Shouldn't we just let the market decide? Well, if the market decides and China is offering $150 billion--which they are, over the next 10 years--when Europe has its own equivalent legislation to ours and is offering tens of billions of euros, or when South Korea or when Japan or when Taiwan are offering these huge incentives, it is very difficult to see us being able to bring these chips back to America--where costs are a little higher--and be able to be competitive. And we need that to happen for our domestic economy, but also our national security.

If we fail to act, we are going to miss a key opportunity here to boost our competitive edge as a nation because these fabs will go elsewhere.

I would also like to see us include some of the other key pieces of the broader Senate passed USICA bill that was passed on a bipartisan basis--again, 19 of us supported that here on the Republican side. That includes critical new investments in research but also key protections to be sure that that research is not stolen by foreign governments, such as China.

We have got to remember that the overall goal of this effort is to improve our country's competitiveness, especially with regard to China. To do that, we must not only invest in research and innovation, which I strongly support, but we must protect that taxpayer-funded research and intellectual property from being taken by our competitors like China and used against us. I believe, given current realities, without such protections, any bill with significant increased levels of Federal funding for research would be a huge giveaway to Beijing. Why do I say that? Because I have worked on this issue for the past 4 years. We have investigated it; we have held hearings; we have passed legislation.

Recently, FBI Director Wray said it well:

The biggest threat we face as a country from a

counterintelligence perspective is from the People's Republic

of China and, especially, the Chinese Communist Party. They

are targeting our innovation, our trade secrets, our

intellectual property on a scale that is unprecedented in

history.

That is the Director of the FBI.

Senator Carper on the other side of the aisle and I introduced what is called the Safeguarding American Innovation Act and insisted that it be included in the USICA legislation in order for us to support it. That was my condition for supporting the broader USICA bill. This came after we did a yearlong study with the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that found, shockingly, how China had used what are called talent programs for two decades--two decades--to target the most promising taxpayer paid research and researchers and to take that technology, that intellectual property, back to China.

We found that the American taxpayers had been unwittingly funding

the rise of China's military and economy over the past two decades, while the Federal Government had done very little to nothing to stop it. In fact, when the FBI testified at our hearing, they acknowledged that. They said, We haven't been focused on this in the past couple of decades like we should have been; we are going to now.

And they started to. They started to make arrests--and you probably heard about some of these--arresting scientists all over the country, who are abusing our lax attitude toward protecting research by taking research back to China and using it, often, against us.

This legislation goes directly to the root of the problem. It makes it punishable by law to knowingly fail to disclose foreign funding on Federal grant applications. That is not a law now. The FBI has asked us for that law. It requires the executive branch to streamline and coordinate grant-making between the Federal agencies so there is continuity, accountability, and coordination. That does not happen now. It is too wide open. It is not coordinated.

It allows the State Department to deny visas to foreign researchers who are coming to the United States to exploit the openness of our research enterprise, and it requires research institutions and universities to do much more, including telling the State Department whether a foreign researcher will have access to export-controlled technologies.

We have worked on this legislation, again, for the past few years. We have made lots of compromises and concessions with people who had potential concerns about it. We have come up with legislation that is bipartisan and makes sense. It has already passed, again, with an overwhelming margin here in the U.S. Senate. I want to be sure, before we spend billions of dollars more in Federal research, which is being proposed, including to the National Science Foundation, that that research can be protected. Who could be against that? Who could be for China being able to have better access to this information? Nobody.

Again, a vital component of any competitiveness bill is this commonsense, extensively negotiated bipartisan bill, which is already included in the Homeland Security title of USICA.

I can't express enough the importance of passing this legislation, and it should be done on a bipartisan basis because it has been done before. It just makes sense.

The broader USICA bill and the chips bill are both important. To pass the chips legislation is critical right now; it is urgent. And then what we can pass in terms of USICA is also important. Again, if we are putting more money into research, which is being proposed and which I support, it has to be protected. That is pretty simple and common sense. There is no perfect bill, but this bill will help keep America's economy competitive. It will help keep American jobs here and grow new jobs, good-paying jobs with good benefits. We should pass this legislation, get it through the House, and take it to the President's desk for signature. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting its passage.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come to the floor today to once again talk about Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine. Before I do, though, I want to pause for a minute and honor the lives lost in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine, knocked down by Russian and Russian-backed separatists. This week marks the eighth anniversary of that tragedy. All 238 passengers and 15 crew were killed.

This eighth anniversary is a reminder that Russia's war of aggression

on Ukraine didn't just start this spring. Eight years ago, the people of Ukraine made a courageous choice. They said that they were going to stand up to a corrupt Russian-backed regime. And when they did that, Russia responded by invading their country, taking Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula but also territory here in what is called the Donbas. So this is not new. For almost 9 years, the people of Ukraine have been fighting this war with Russia. More recently, of course, the invasion was even more devastating.

So I join Bridget Brink, who is our new U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, who said:

[We] honor the memories of those killed eight years ago--

even as missiles continue to fall on Mykolaiv, Dnipro, and

other Ukrainian cities, killing civilians and demonstrating

the Kremlin's disregard for international law and human

life.''

She is right. Ambassador Brink said it right. The civilian toll in this war is devastating. Ukraine's Prosecutor General recently said that since late February of this year, 353 children have died in this war and more than 1,000 have been wounded.

The Associated Press painted a vivid picture of this with a story about the killing of a 4-year-old girl named Liza, Liza Dmytrieva. Liza had Down syndrome and was on her way to see a speech therapist last Thursday when her mother and she were attacked by Russian missiles. She was in a town called Vinnytsia. At least 24 people were killed that day, including Liza and two boys who were 7 and 8 years old. Almost 200 were wounded. Liza's mother is still in intensive care.

It is important to know that when the war started, Liza's family fled Kyiv but stayed in Ukraine, fleeing to this town, Vinnytsia, about 167 miles southwest of Kyiv.

They thought they could be safe there. It is well behind enemy lines. It is well behind the frontlines of the battle. Yet this is the reality of President Putin's war on Ukraine. It is targeting civilians. But it won't just stop in Ukraine.

This is why Finland and Sweden, in a move that just a few years ago would have seemed impossible, left a history of neutrality behind and joined NATO. Their application is currently in place. They see President Putin's brutal war, and they know that they could be next.

Last week, I mentioned on the floor that as recently as 2016, President Putin said ``The borders of Russia never end.'' It bears repeating because he and other Kremlin leaders seem intent on restoring the Russian empire, even if it means rolling over other free and independent countries.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee took a momentous step today by voting to ratify the NATO applications for these two allies of the United States: Sweden and Finland. I was proud to vote to ratify and speak in committee about why this expansion is so good for our national security to have these two countries with strong militaries and strong economies join our NATO alliance. I hope that the leadership of the Senate will put this legislation on the floor as soon as possible so that we can show the world that we are enthusiastically supporting the joining of these two countries to the NATO alliance.

We need to continue to demonstrate global solidarity in this war. President Putin, of course, had hoped to divide NATO and divide Europe and divide the West, but he underestimated what would happen. He underestimated the foresight and wisdom of the people of Sweden and Finland, just as he underestimated the courage and resiliency of the people of Ukraine.

On the energy front, a significant development that isn't getting nearly enough attention happened last week. Back in June, Russia cut gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 60 percent because of ``maintenance problems.'' They claimed they needed gas turbines that had gone to Canada to be repaired to be able to continue the flow of the pipeline. Those turbines were prohibited from being returned to Russia because of the sanctions that are in place with regard to Russian energy infrastructure.

Of course, what President Putin's government claims to be true is often not. The reality is Russia was punishing Europe and trying to poke holes in the Western sanctions regime. Unfortunately, the Russians succeeded. What happened next was discouraging. Canada gave in to Russia's demands last week and returned the gas turbines, and then the State Department applauded this move saying that somehow, it was standing up to Russia's energy blackmail.

I understand the administration's desire to preserve allied unity in the face of Russian aggression. That is important, especially in our effort to stand up against Russia over the long term. But if we are unified behind a bad policy, then that unity doesn't do us much good.

We saw this with Nord Stream 2, remember, when the Biden administration sided with Germany to remove sanctions on the pipeline, even though that decision undermined the security of our allies, including Ukraine. And I think it sent the wrong message, the wrong message to Russia, and it is one reason that they felt empowered to invade Ukraine more recently.

Now we are seeing the same thing here. In the name of preserving unity with certain allies, we are giving in to Russia's demands. As I said, unity with our allies is important, I get that. But instead of settling for weak policy, we should be pushing our allies to adopt stronger policies against Russia, including with regard to energy.

Unfortunately, Russia knows that by manufacturing a ``maintenance problem'' with their pipelines, our allies tend to back down on our sanctions. I wonder when will the next ``maintenance problem'' appear.

President Zelenskyy has called the return of these gas turbines to Russia ``absolutely unacceptable.'' But the Biden administration characterizes it as a counter to Russia's attempt to weaponize energy. This just isn't the case.

It is worth noting that another crisis is looming as a result of this war and is the direct result of Russia's blockade of Ukraine's ports, especially the port at Odesa. Here is the Odesa Port. There are other ports along this area into the Black Sea that are absolutely essential for Ukraine's exports, and yet Russia is blocking them.

Here, I cannot overstate the importance of this issue as Ukraine supplies so much of the world's food. And without ports to export, that food is not making it to the people who need it badly, and it is causing food shortages around the world. Let me be clear: Food should never be used as a weapon of war. But that is exactly what President Putin is doing.

The effects are far-reaching. According to the World Food Programme, increases in the cost of food and fuel since March have caused 47 million people to experience food insecurity, and of those, some 50 million are living close to famine. And that number grows every single day.

To be specific, according to the Wall Street Journal:

In Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Yemen, and Afghanistan,

nearly 900,000 people already face starvation and death. That

is more than 10-fold [the] increase from 2019--and, by some

estimates, could result in more people dying from hunger in

2022 and 2023 than in any year since the 1960s and [the]

China's disastrous Great Leap Forward agricultural policies.

Wow. The World Food Programme provides aid for these countries, but there are shortages because of Russia's war of choice, and the cost of that aid has risen tremendously. They report that their costs have jumped 46 percent compared with 2019. That is about 50 percent over the last few years. And any organization, let alone one that provides humanitarian aid, would have immense problems keeping up. There are increases in everyday items, like vegetable oils and special nutritional pastes given to children who are in famine or malnourished.

While these problems persist, it is the most vulnerable among us who truly feel the cost of malnourishment. It is the kids and the children who are most at risk from the effects of hunger. Their bodies, from the lack of nutrients from food, are too weak to fight off diseases such as measles or cholera. Even those who survive these terrible illnesses will often face long-term health problems that could impact them forever.

So we are not only facing a brutal invasion of Ukraine. We have talked about that. War crimes are being committed there every day. But there is also a humanitarian crisis that is taking its toll around the world, as we speak, as a result of this war on

Ukraine and the blockade of these ports. This is a battle on so many fronts, and we have to face the realities of this head-on.

In a war that was thought to be over within weeks, the fighting has continued well beyond that and may continue for much longer. It has already gone on longer than most people expected. And while Ukrainians continue to show their fortitude and strength, the world feels the effects of this through the global fallout.

Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska will speak to Congress tomorrow about the damaging effects of this war, just as her husband, President Zelenskyy, addressed these Chambers in March. I look forward to hearing what she has to say. She has been a passionate advocate for the rights of innocent Ukrainian citizens who have been killed and wounded by these Russian attacks. She has even started her own initiative to address the mental health impacts of Russia's terrible war and the trauma that the people of Ukraine have experienced.

That is the kind of leadership Ukraine needs. Frankly, it is the kind of leadership the world needs. She and her husband should be commended for their bravery in the face of tyranny and their steadfastness through the destruction that Vladimir Putin has caused her beloved homeland.

In Ukraine, the stakes remain high. The casualties, both civilian and professional soldiers alike, go into the thousands--thousands. The damage to Ukraine's infrastructure--their beautiful cities, ports, schools, hospitals, daycares, and apartment buildings--goes into the billions.

This is a photograph of an apartment building that was recently bombed in the eastern part of Ukraine, killing, of course, innocent civilians. According to the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine will need at least $165 billion for postwar reconstruction. Per their latest update, almost half of these losses are attributable to housing losses like this one, civilian targets of Russia's unrelenting bombing campaign. Neighborhoods, residential areas, homes, and apartments have been hit by these Russian airstrikes.

These are acts of terror. I am a cosponsor of Senator Graham's resolution to urge the Biden administration to name Russia a state sponsor of terror. I urge leadership to bring this to a vote. We voted it out of committee already. It is on the floor. Let's take it up.

So what happens next? We know that making any territorial concessions to Russia would only embolden President Putin and other future would-be conquerors. The lesson they would learn is that, with enough patience, they can wear down the West and get what they want. We must not let that happen, and the people of Ukraine and the brave President certainly know this. We must do more quickly to arm Ukraine and help them to be able to protect themselves and to be able to win this war.

It is clear that President Putin underestimated the courage, the effectiveness, and the resiliency of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian military, and now President Putin knows what the Ukrainians are capable of. And, by the way, the Russian forces also understand this.

On Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian troops to hit Ukraine's High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS. He asked them to do so because of the success the Ukrainians have had with just eight of these HIMARS units. These are systems from the United States. Many of us have pushed very hard to get these to Ukraine. They went too late. Many lives were lost and cities were flattened because they did not have them early on.

These rocket systems are absolutely essential because, before that, the Russians could sit back and indiscriminately bomb Ukrainian cities and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians and the Ukrainian artillery could not reach them. These HIMARS systems have a longer range and are more accurate, and they have been quite effective.

Only eight systems are there now, also three from the UK and a few from Germany. They need a lot more. But just this week, because of these systems, Ukrainian forces killed a Russian commander after a HIMARS hit a Russian control and command center here in the south of Ukraine. Last week, HIMARS took out a Russian ammunition warehouse in the same region. They have now taken out a couple dozen of these ammo depots, especially here in the south and here in the east.

That is incredibly important because, by reducing the Russian ammunition stores, it will be much more likely that the Russians will realize that this war is damaging them, their equipment, their soldiers, and be more willing to come to the bargaining table.

If this is what the Ukrainians can do with just eight HIMARS, imagine what they could do with what they have been asking for and what they really need, which is around 40 or 50 of these units. These weapons are crucial to the brave Ukrainian fighters as Ukraine continues its effort to defend itself from these Russian airstrikes and missile strikes.

Finally, Ukrainian forces have missiles with adequate range to reach these Russian missiles, to reach these ammo depots, to reach these command posts. Russia will still have the advantage, of course, of more missiles, more men, and more rockets, and their attacks are relentless.

President Zelenskyy highlighted this when he said on Monday that Russia has fired thousands of cruise missiles and rockets during this war--thousands. These often come in the middle of the night and hit residential areas and city infrastructure in places like Nikopol, a city that is located here, right near Kherson. Rockets have also hit apartment complexes, as we saw, and shopping malls.

Here is a shopping mall that Russians attacked a few weeks ago. This is a shopping mall, much as you would see in the United States of America. It was full of people who were out shopping on a summer day, maybe buying clothes, maybe buying some food. Over 20 shoppers were killed at this shopping center, and over 56 people were wounded.

This shopping center, by the way, was in the central part of Ukraine. If you look at the map, this is not anywhere near the war zone, more up in this area, in the middle part of Ukraine. So bombings of shopping centers, apartments, schools, hospitals--it is really hard to imagine, but it is happening.

We can help Ukraine fight back. Again, the best way is provide them with more weapons like the HIMARS that they need. We have hundreds in our stocks, by the way. It is more critical than ever that the United States and our allies support Ukraine to try to turn the tide. Only that will get Russia to the bargaining table.

Meanwhile, we must continue to expose the brutality. Much of the media attention has gone away while lives continue to be lost and cities continue to be bombarded. We need to keep letting people know about these atrocities.

That is why I am here on the floor of the Senate for the 18th consecutive week to talk about what is happening to the people of Ukraine, what has happened in the past week, and why they deserve and need our help.

Ukrainians are fighting because they know what it is like to live under the thumb of authoritarianism. They have been subject to that through their history, and, more recently, they broke away from that and toward democracy in 1991 and again in 2014.

It is important to note that Ukraine is not asking us to fight this war for them. They just want us to help them, along with our allies, to be able to have the tools they need to protect themselves. They are asking us for increased lethal military assistance to help defend themselves, and they are asking all of us to abide by the commitments that we have made.

In 1994, after the Berlin Wall came down, Ukraine signed what is called the Budapest Memorandum. It was a treaty where Ukraine agreed to give up all of its nuclear weapons--and they had a lot of them--in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom--guarantees that we would all respect the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine and refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine. That was in 1994--so much for Russia's commitment.

I have seen the spirit and perseverance of Ukrainians firsthand when I have visited the country. I have been

there seven, eight, nine times. I was there right after the Revolution of Dignity, as it is called, in 2014, when Ukrainians decided to turn away from a Russian-backed and corrupt government and stand with us and Europe to pursue a hopeful future of freedom and democracy.

Now, it is time for us and our allies to stand with them. The world must know that freedom-loving countries around the globe have Ukraine's back and we will be there until the bitter end. President Putin must know that we will not back down as he orders the ruthless slaughter of more innocents.

At the beginning of my speech, I talked about this 4-year-old girl. Liza's death occurred because of these rocket attacks. At her funeral, Orthodox priest Vitalii Holoskevych said this: ``We know that evil cannot win.''

``We know that evil cannot win.'' And maybe that is the bottom line here today. This is a struggle between freedom and democracy and the right of self-determination on the one hand and evil on the other hand--the evil of conquest, the evil of authoritarianism, the evil of tyranny. Now is not the time to be tentative or equivocal. At this critical juncture, we need to work with our allies to provide Ukraine what they need to defeat evil, to protect their homeland, and to defend democracy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am on the floor today to talk about border security--a humanitarian, a national security, a community safety issue with direct connection to the drug epidemic we see in communities all around the country, including my home State of Ohio.

I am also here to talk about legislation I introduced today with Senator Jim Risch to address this crisis. So we are in the middle right now of what is the biggest border crisis in the history of our country if you measure it by the number of people who are coming to the border unlawfully and, as the Biden administration says, people who are encountering the Border Patrol.

The Biden administration claims that they have the border under control and that they are--and I am quoting--doing a good job. This chart, though, tells a really different story. It shows that as of May, which is the last month that we have records for, we had the highest number of border encounters on record. The second highest, by the way, was the month before: April. So you see this goes back to 2019. There was a surge here--144,000. Here, we have the inauguration of President Biden, and then we have had big increases--again, to the point that over the last couple of months, we have had record numbers of people who have come unlawfully to the border and been stopped by, apprehended by, the Border Patrol.

This includes 239,000 total encounters at the border in the month of May--165,000 of which were single, adult migrants. This does not include those who were not encountered--in other words, those who slipped past the Border Patrol. We haven't been able to find a precise number for these individuals.

The Border Patrol calls this group of people got-aways. But using a conservative estimate from the Border Patrol of 300,000 people who they think got away in the last fiscal year, you would then put the total number of unlawful entries at approximately 286,000 people in 1 month. If you annualize that, that would be 3.4 million people a year. Think about those numbers: almost 3\1/2\ million people a year coming to our border and attempting to gain entry unlawfully.

Today, not all of those who are apprehended are allowed to come into the United States, and that is because under so-called title 42, roughly half of those individuals who are being apprehended, who are being encountered, are turned back. If they live in Mexico, they are sent back across the border. If they live in a country--say Ecuador or Guatemala--they are sent back, flown back to their country of origin. But these are people who are being turned away because of title 42.

So what is title 42? It is a public health authority. It is an attempt by our government to limit migration in order to prevent the spread of communicable diseases--in this case, COVID-19. It allows the Customs and Border Protection officers and agents to tell unlawful migrants: You can't come to the United States for these public health reasons. It only applies, by the way, now to single adults; but, as I said earlier, that is the single biggest group. It comprises about 48 to 52 percent--about half--of the people who are coming up to the border.

So even with the use of title 42, which is acting to discourage people from coming to our border, we are experiencing these record levels. We are also experiencing these record levels in these hot summer months. Normally, when you get into the summertime where it gets really hot--look here at May, June, July, August--the number of people coming to the border goes down, not up. It is over 100 degrees in the desert and at the Rio Grande, at almost all of these border crossings along the U.S.-Mexican border. Yet we have more, not less.

There is anecdotal information that this is because people are realizing that the administration wants to end title 42. They have proposed to do that. That is now in the court system. But the cartels are spreading the message, which is: Now is the time to come because, before, you were turned away by title 42. Now, like everybody else, you can come into the United States and stay. And we will talk in a moment about what that means.

But I think that is probably true. Probably title 42 has something to do with it. But I think, also, it has to do with the fact that more and more people are realizing that if they do come to the border and don't get stopped by title 42, they will have a chance to come into the United States and live in the United States with their families, perhaps; if not, maybe bring in their families later. And everybody wants to come to America. We are a great country.

We have our challenges, as we talk about on the floor here all the time. But, still, we are a country with so many opportunities for people, and folks want to come. And I don't blame them. I don't blame them. But we want them to come legally.

And we currently have the most generous legal immigration system of any country in the world. About 900,000 people a year--almost a million people a year--come legally to the United States, most as legal immigrants, some as refugees. And so we encourage that, and we should.

In fact, I think we should bring more people in legally, particularly to fill

some of the jobs that we need filled, the STEM disciplines we talk about a lot. We need people with the kind of training and background to help our economy grow. But we need people at every level of training. But we want them to come legally and through an orderly process that is more humane, that doesn't have all the issues--which we will talk about tonight--the humanitarian issues at the southern border.

In terms of title 42, we all hope that this public health emergency isn't necessary going forward because COVID-19 ends. But in the meantime, this border crisis means, to me, that we have to keep title 42 in place until we make some changes in policy. Otherwise, it will be not just a crisis. It will be totally overwhelming.

As the Border Patrol says to me, they will lose operational control of the border. Some would argue that has already happened because so many people are coming over at record numbers. Often, the Border Patrol is distracted by one group of migrants, and another group comes in. And I saw this when I was at the border in El Paso. And anybody who has been down at the border has seen this.

They are already in tough shape. But imagine if 48 percent of the people here who are now being turned away by title 42 are not going to be turned away and the number of other people who will come knowing that that avenue is now open to them. This will be overwhelming.

It is very difficult right now, with the laws and the way the laws are being implemented, to keep that from happening. That is why we need a change in policy. It doesn't have to happen here in Congress. I think we should change the laws and introduce legislation today to do that. But the administration itself could make these changes.

By the way, in the last administration, as you can see, the number of people coming across the border unlawfully and the number of encounters was very low. But the same was true in the Obama administration. After they had a surge of unaccompanied minors, they made changes in the law, and they reduced the number of people who were coming unlawfully to the border as well. It can be done, but there has to be the will do it.

I am the ranking Republican on the Senate committee that has oversight responsibility for the Department of Homeland Security. The Presiding Officer is also on that committee. This Department of Homeland Security is preparing, they tell us, for a huge increase in migrants after title 42 has ended. So although they want to end it, they also know that if they do end it, there is going to be a huge surge because they are actually preparing for that.

The way they are doing it is interesting. It is not so much keeping people from coming into the United States as expediting their flow into the United States. Among other things, instead of processing people at the border, their recommendation is go ahead and put people on buses or other forms of transportation and then do the processing later, perhaps on the buses or where they are going in the United States. So it is a way to move people through the process rather than come up with a way to discourage people from coming across the border illegally.

DHS has planned, and then will facilitate, travel throughout the country rather than figuring out how to keep people from coming in the first place by telling them: Come legally, but please don't come to our border illegally.

By the way, I think most Americans are very supportive of legal immigration. It is an important part of who we are. With very few exceptions of Native Americans, we all came from someplace else. All of us have proud stories of our immigrant forebearers--our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents. And it has enriched our country. It is part of the fabric of our Nation. It is what makes us special. But that is legal immigration. And it is not what we are talking about here.

Who bears the brunt of this crisis? Well, at the outset, of course, it is the Border Patrol. We have got to provide them with the personnel and resources they need to complete their mission, as difficult as it is.

When you go and meet with these people, the men and women of the Border Patrol, you come away just so proud of what they try to do every day. They are a combination of, you know, border agents trying to enforce the law, social workers trying to help people with their problems, healthcare workers trying to help when people get hurt. Unfortunately, as we have seen, a lot of people are getting hurt in this process. That journey north is a dangerous journey.

And with the cartels so involved and right there at the border, what happens in the desert, what happens on these trains, what happens in these trucks--we just saw this horrible incident of these migrants who were jammed into a semitruck, and more of them died, I think, than any other accident of that kind, incident of that kind, in our history. But this is inhumane, and this is part of what happens when you have these cartels involved in this process.

We also have got to provide the Border Patrol with the ability to help control things at the border by finishing the border fence and putting the technology with the fence that was always intended.

By the way, the technology tends not to be very partisan around here. Democrats and Republicans alike, I believe, mostly think we ought to have cameras. We ought to have sensors. We ought to know what is going on at the border. But when the order came down the first day of the Biden administration to stop the wall and to end what the Trump administration had started with Congress's approval and funding, they also said, Stop the technology.

So in the El Paso sector, as an example, the wall is about 80, 90 percent completed. Unfortunately, there are gaps in the wall where you literally have to have Border Patrol there 24 hours a day or people just come through it, which makes their job really hard. What they want to do is at least have the wall there to slow people down. And the technology there enables them to then go and deal with situations as they occur. But only 20 percent of the technology had been completed. So you have more wall than you have technology. And the wall is not that useful, frankly, without the technology, in my view. I think the technology is the key. But that is what is happening.

And, by the way, to the taxpayers listening tonight, which is pretty much all of us, we paid for that wall. We actually paid for the fencing to be put up. Congress appropriated the money. And then the administration stopped it. So you literally see the steel beams and the pieces of concrete for the wall lying on the ground. And as one Border Patrol agent told me when I was in one of the sectors--most recently I was in the Nogales sector where there is a huge gap--he said, this is really bad for morale. And our Border Patrol agents look at this stuff, and they say: We have already paid for this. Can't we just finish the wall and put these fences up, the gates up, to keep these openings from attracting the cartels and the drug smugglers and the people smugglers? But that is where we are. So that is one thing our legislation does, is to correct that problem and help stop this crisis.

It also says that title 42--we talked about earlier--won't be lifted until the COVID-19 emergency is over. Again, I think it ought to be lifted when we have policies in place that make sense. But a lot more is needed. The bill also mandates that the program the Biden administration ended, which said that as you come to ask for asylum, you should wait at the border--it is called the migrant protocols.

There was just an agreement with the President of Mexico and President Biden a couple of days ago about more funding for the border area--and that is good--to provide more humane living conditions. But this was working to tell people, if you want to come for asylum, go ahead and apply. And while you are waiting for asylum, you can remain in Mexico. And if you get asylum, you come across. If you don't, you go home. What happened is, a lot of people just went home.

The asylum process, which we will get into in a minute, is kind of a complicated issue. But in other ways, it is pretty simple, and it is the main reason for this, which is that people know if they come to the border and they claim asylum, which most people do, they have an immediate, what is called, credible fear interview. Sometimes, it is over the telephone now,

partly because of COVID. And that is a very low bar. And so people say what their issue is back home where they feel persecuted, and then they come in. And once they are told to come in, then they are told: OK, you can go to wherever you are going in America--let's say Cincinnati, my hometown, or Columbus or Chicago or Denver, wherever it is--and you need to check in with the ICE office--that is the immigration office in the interior of the United States--within 90 days.

Some people do check in. Some people don't check in. But the point is, there is now a wait of somewhere between 6 to 8 years before your case is heard on asylum--6 to 8 years. Why? Because there are 1.5 million--someone told me today 1.6 million; let's say 1.5 million people, that is high enough--waiting in line. That is what the backlog is.

It just makes no sense to anybody, including, by the way, the Secretary of Homeland Security, whom I have talked to about this. And these long waits mean that you are there embedded in a community in America getting to know your community. You are joining your church. You are sending your kids to school. You are having children. You are part of the community. And then you are told after 6 to 8 years, by the way, your asylum application is being denied because you are an economic refugee, not an asylee. In other words, you haven't demonstrated a fear of persecution. You have come to this country, understandably, because there is great opportunity here. Again, we should be encouraging these people to come legally like so many other immigrants have over the years.

Only about 15 to 20 percent of those people who apply for asylum today are getting asylum. So think about it. If you are part of the 80 to 85 percent who are not going to get asylum, there is sometimes not much of an incentive to enter into this process and go through the hearings and so on.

The consequence if you don't go through the hearings is that you are then subject to removal. However, we are just not removing people today. So this past year, the latest numbers we have are that 59,000 people were deported, or removed, from America. About 66 percent of those people had a criminal background. But, remember, this is out of a couple hundred thousand people going through the process. So there is a very small chance that you will ever be removed or deported. Even though you went through the process, you were denied asylum. You stay in the United States. And, you know, the next administration could change that. This administration could change that. But right now, this asylum process, which was created to give lawful presence to people who were unable to be in their home country because of persecution, is not being used properly. It is being exploited by people who know that because of our system and our huge backlog, if they say that they are part of a group that is being persecuted they can come in. And even when they are denied asylum, they can stay. That is the way it is working.

What we have found is that folks who come here are almost entirely focused more on the economic side. There was a survey conducted by the Migration Policy Institute recently, which, by the way, is a pro- migrant institution. It found that 90 percent of the Central Americans making the journey to our southern border are coming for what? For work. They are coming for work because they come from poor countries. They don't have a lot of opportunity in their country. I don't blame them. If I was a father living in Honduras and couldn't find a job or I was a subsistence farmer just barely making it and I had a few kids and I wanted them to have a better life, I would come, too.

But that is not what immigration is all about. It is a system where you come legally, yes. But if you come illegally, you have got to be told you have to go back and apply like everybody else. Otherwise, America would be overwhelmed. And it is being overwhelmed and will be even more overwhelmed if title 42 is taken away. There are hundreds of millions of people--maybe billions of people--around the world who would love to come to this country. We take for granted our opportunities, our freedoms; but others don't.

So we have to have a system. We have to have some sort of a border. And, really, that is the question that is before us today in this body: Are we going to have a system that makes sense or one where, again, you have a million and a half people who are waiting to have their hearing. When they have their hearing on asylum and they are denied, they still aren't removed; so they can stay. And, again, meanwhile, they have family and kids and connections to the community. It is really not fair to them. A much better system would be to say, OK, apply for asylum in your country, or if you don't feel comfortable there, apply from a third country. Then you will know, yes or no, before you come up to the border, don't make that dangerous journey north. Don't put yourself in the clutches of these coyotes, these human smugglers, these traffickers, who are heartless. What they are doing is they are going down to Central America or Latin America or really all over the world. People are coming from hundreds of countries now. And they are saying, you know, give me money. Give me 10,000 bucks, and I will get you to the border, and you can just walk across.

People are signing up--sometimes with their life savings. And sometimes as, again, we talked about earlier, there are assaults along the way. There are all kinds of horrible stories of how women, particularly, are mistreated on the way up. It is a dangerous and inhumane process.

At the end of the day, our system is pulling these people to the border. The administration is now implementing a new asylum rule recently to try to deal with this problem because they realize it is just not working. However, the new system that they are putting in place isn't working either, and there is a reason for that. Their theory is we should adjudicate the cases at the border. I agree with that. I would rather adjudicate them outside the border in the country of origin or a third country, but have the adjudication be right at the border; make the decision right there, yes or no. Let people know.

The problem is what they are doing right now is they are putting asylum officers at the border, making a decision, adjudicating as people come across. And if it is a no, people are not being sent home. But rather, people are being told if it is a no, you can appeal it to the regular system, so get back in line with the 1.5 million people.

What we are learning is that, of course, people are smart. They are talking to the asylum officer. They are getting a yes or no. If they are getting a yes, that is great; they are getting in. That is a small percentage. If they are getting a no, they say, That is fine, I am going to appeal it to the regular system.

It really isn't an answer to the problem. If you want an answer to the problem, what you would have is processing centers along the border. It would be expensive because there are so many people coming over now, so many people applying for asylum. But have a process where, quickly, you can adjudicate these cases. In the meantime, you would not have people be released into the interior but have them stay there to find out what the outcome of the case is.

This pull system is bad for everybody except the smugglers. They are the ones who profit. They are the ones who are going to folks in places like Honduras or Ecuador or, again, far-flung places--places in Eastern Europe, places in Asia--and telling people, Give me a bunch of money, and I will get you into the United States.

We recently had this tragedy I mentioned in San Antonio. Fifty-three migrants were left for dead in the Texas heat in the back of a tractor- trailer. They were just abandoned by their smuggler. They left them locked inside of this tractor-trailer. It is not the first time this has happened. But as I said earlier, 53 is probably the worst smuggling tragedy in our history.

I went to Latin America last year. I met with the Presidents of Mexico and Guatemala, Ecuador, and Colombia. It was interesting. They all said the same thing. You would be surprised to hear what they said. People think they must enjoy this process because so many of their citizens are going to America, they can then send money back to their family and it must be good for everybody. It is not.

They are losing some of the best and brightest in their country, and these

people are going through, again, this arduous process to get to the border, and the inhumanity of that troubles these Presidents. They all told me basically the same thing, which is: Why don't you guys fix your laws and stop this pull factor?

We talk about the push factor in poor countries. I mentioned Honduras earlier. That is certainly true. By the way, we spent over the last 5 years about $3.6 billion of American taxpayer money to help in the economics of the so-called Northern Triangle in the Central American countries.

I am for spending money in these countries to try to help with their economy, but with the corruption, with all the issues they have, it is very difficult to imagine those countries in a short period of time having any kind of economic opportunity that equals what we have right here in this country, so there is going to continue to be that push. We should try to alleviate it. It will continue to happen.

But the pull, this policy we have is just pulling people north. What they said to me, these Presidents of these countries, was: You have a legal immigration system where people know they can just get into your country. Why don't you change that? Why don't you change that?

Again, it is not just people from Mexico and Central America. It is people from all over the world.

By the way, for some of these people, the Border Patrol is increasingly concerned because they come from countries where a lot of people want to do us harm. So, increasingly, we are seeing people coming to our country who are, as an example, on the terror watch list.

Back in 2017, 2 people; 6 people in 2018; none in 2019; 2020, there were 3; 15 in 2021. This fiscal year, 2022, there are already 50 individuals on the terror watch list. Why? They know if they come to the U.S. border, they can get across. I am sure this number is higher-- that is what we know--because, again, a lot of people are so-called got aways. Let's say 20 percent.

Who are these people? Well, some of them are probably pretty smart individuals who know how to get away from Border Patrol, do the distraction and sneak in. That worries me and it worries me because we are allowing people to come into our country who we would not otherwise allow.

We have seen this increase of people coming into the country who are on the terror watch list, but we have also seen, again, a lot of people coming in who we just don't know anything about because they don't count them at the Border Patrol. We have seen more caravans and we see more migrants are on the way. Why? I think it is because of this general pull factor. The fact is people know, if they come here, they know they are going to be able to get in.

I think it is also because of title 42 because the smugglers are using that--cartels are spreading the word: Title 42 is on its way out.

Read about it in the front page of your paper because that is where it is because this administration wants to end it, so they are saying now you can go to the border and you will be let in under the policies like the asylum policy and the single adults--48 percent of whom roughly have been turned away. Forty-eight percent of the total by title 42 would no longer be turned away. I think that is why we are seeing this. It is giving the coyotes, traffickers, and smugglers opportunity to make lots of money.

By the way, that is hurting all these countries, too. If you talk to the Presidents of these countries, including President Obrador of Mexico, what he will tell you is the cartels are taking over more and more of his country because they are making more and more money because of this--and, significantly, because of the drug issue we are going to talk about in a second. We know that the cartels are involved in human trafficking. We know they are involved in drug smuggling. We know they are involved in smuggling people.

I was with the Border Patrol in El Paso last year. We were out at night. We saw a group of migrants coming, and the Border Patrol was going to that location to stop them and question them. Meanwhile, we heard on the radio the drug smugglers had come across. They could see it. They knew it. They could tell by the backpacks they were wearing, I guess, and clothes they were wearing--dark clothes, young men--that they were smuggling. But they couldn't do anything about it because Border Patrol were processing the migrants who had come in.

So I am watching the migrants coming in--actually talking to some of them and Border Patrol--and meanwhile, on the radio, they are saying, You have to go to this other sector, this other area to stop these drug smugglers. We can't; we are distracted. The processing takes some time.

The other big issue, in addition to the unlawful entry into the United States--smuggling, all the inhumanity that surrounds that--is this drug issue. I have spent a lot of time working on this issue on the prevention side--helping on treatment and recovery options and doing more on prevention. We were making some progress until, unfortunately, we were hit with this pandemic. And during that time and since, drug use has gone up again. But we were making progress, in part, because we were helping on the demand side of the equation.

But also on the supply side, we were keeping some of these drugs out of the country. We did it primarily through stopping the deadliest of all, which is the fentanyl--which is a synthetic opioid--from coming in through the U.S. mail system. We passed a law called the STOP Act. It kept China from poisoning our communities by sending this stuff through the mail system, which was happening. That was the primary way it was coming in.

What has happened? During the pandemic--kind of coincidental with the pandemic--we had more people isolated, more people losing their jobs, more people turning to drugs. You had Mexico begin to take the central role in terms of fentanyl. A lot of it is precursors from China, so China sends the precursors to Mexico, but Mexico is now making the fentanyl--often into pills--Xanax or Adderall or Percocet.

If you buy any drugs on the street, know that those drugs could kill you. Don't be fooled. There are so many counterfeit drugs out there now. That is one of the preferred ways that the Mexican cartels are bringing these drugs in.

Again, fentanyl is, of course, the deadliest of the drugs. About two thirds of the overdose deaths in America are currently because of fentanyl. We now have a record level of overdose deaths every year in America, over 100,000 last year. There is no reason to believe that it will be less than that this year based on early data we have, sadly. In my home State of Ohio, it is the No. 1 killer by far.

Look at what has happened with the seizures of fentanyl. This is the fentanyl that has been seized. Here are projections for the rest of this year if they continue as they are--obviously, record levels. When you have this huge surge of fentanyl coming in, what happens is you have a lower cost in the drug--supply and demand, right? So there is a huge supply, and the demand for these drugs continues.

On the streets of Columbus or Cleveland or Cincinnati or Dayton or your town, wherever it is, it is likely that this cheap but really deadly fentanyl is something that people are being exposed to. Some people are falling prey to it, again, often thinking they are taking another drug.

There are a couple of students at Ohio State University who overdosed and died just before I gave a talk there at graduation earlier this spring. They were taking what they thought were study drugs, apparently: Adderall. A third student lived, but was in critical condition. This is the deadliest of drugs.

In 2021, we seized double the fentanyl from the previous year, four times from the year before that. Again, so far this year, we are on track to match the most fentanyl seized ever. In May--just 1 month, in May--there was enough fentanyl seized at the border to kill 200 million Americans, more than half of our population in 1 month. People say: Well, gosh, why are you so worried about the border? Let people come across--open border--whatever.

Here is the consequence.

Again, it is hurting Mexico, too, and it is hurting lots of other countries. But in terms of Mexico, this gives the cartels enormous power and money. And, yes, ultimately, I think the most important thing to do is to reduce demand. I do.

Again, we are making progress now. We had about a 20-percent reduction in 2018. We need to get back to that. This Congress took the lead on much of this.

But we also have to deal with the supply side and stop this enormous surge of drugs that is coming over and poisoning our communities. That is part of what is happening on the border. A few months ago, I was in Nogales, south of Tucson, to ride with the Border Patrol and go to the port of entry there. They are doing a very good job with what they have, but they need better equipment.

This is one thing Congress can do. They need help. They need more resources. They need better technology. They need to be able to scan cars and trucks that are coming in, particularly for these drugs that we talked about. A relatively small package of fentanyl this size can kill 1,000 people. A few specks could kill you. It is easy to hide it in a car or a truck.

We now know that less than 2 percent of passenger vehicles and less than 20 percent of commercial vehicles coming into the United States are scanned for these illegal drugs like fentanyl. This is just unacceptable. Congress has appropriated more funding for this. That is good. Let's get it moving. We should be scanning all vehicles, in my view. A smuggler with multiple pounds of fentanyl concealed in a hidden compartment might be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. They know they have a good chance of getting across without a search. They take the risk.

It is not just a gap in our security; it is a gaping hole. And, again, it leads to this flood of cheap fentanyl and other dangerous drugs. The southern border has faced the worst unlawful crisis that we have ever had, going back to the first chart. This tells the story, in red.

The men and women of the Customs and Border Protection whom I have met over the years are doing the best they can. They are doing their best at the ports of entry. They are doing their best as Border Patrol between the ports of entry, but they need help. That is what legislation does. It provides them with the help they need to be able to respond to this crisis.

We welcome legal immigration. We always should. They enrich our country. And we are a nation of immigrants, and we are proud of that. But we are also a nation of laws, and we are also a nation that cares about the inhumanity of the current system and the flood of cheap, deadly drugs coming through our border.

I urge the Biden administration to change course, to fix this broken system, to follow the law, including the law on detaining people, to reform the asylum process so it stops acting like a pull factor and is used for what it is intended for, to truly help those who are seeking asylum for the right reasons, to stop these policies that send a green light to the smugglers, to the cartels, to the drug traffickers, and that is causing so much human suffering along our southern border.

I urge the administration to act. In the meantime, again, we are introducing legislation. I urge my colleagues to help us with that. There is no reason that we can't work in a bipartisan way to deal with what everybody has to acknowledge is a huge crisis at our southern border.

I yield the floor.

First, I want to thank my colleague and cofounder and cochair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus for his comments today.

What you just heard was that the White House has sent the application for membership to NATO for Finland and Sweden to the U.S. Senate. It now goes to our committee, the Committee on Foreign Relations, and then, I hope, to the floor soon. I suspect there will be an overwhelming vote because everybody in this Chamber understands the importance not just of NATO expansion but of these two countries in particular.

I thank my colleague for offering those words today, and my hope is we can move very quickly on that.

Before we talk about Ukraine, this has been a time over the last couple of weeks since we were last here in session of a lot of change and volatility around the world.

I want to begin by expressing my shock and sorrow over the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. I know I speak for all Americans when I express my deepest condolences to the people of Japan for this tragic loss.

Prime Minister Abe was a dear friend to the United States and a leader in building new coalitions in the Indo-Pacific to support democracies in the region and counter the nuclear threat from North Korea and China's various malign influences.

When I visited Japan a few months ago with a bipartisan group of Senate colleagues, I saw firsthand the changes

that he brought to Japan that are now beginning to bear fruit: a stronger and more effective national security posture for Japan; a more confident Japan in the region; better trade and security ties, including the quad dialogue with Japan, Australia, the United States and India; and the Indo-Pacific economic framework.

His imprint on Japan and the very special alliance we have with Japan will be long lasting and beneficial to both of our countries.

I also come to the floor today, as was noted, to talk about Ukraine. Russia's brutal assault continues. We must do more here, not just in the United States but around the world, to help Ukraine stand up to this brutality.

This marks the 17th consecutive week in session that I have been on the floor to discuss the unprovoked illegal and deadly assault on the people of Ukraine.

This invasion started 138 days ago, and it is more critical than ever that the United States and our allies support the efforts of Ukraine to defend itself against this assault.

Let me just recap briefly the situation on the ground. A lot has happened since we talked a couple of weeks ago. First, here in the north, you can see the light blue, which is the Ukrainian advances. The Ukrainians have been successful in pushing back against the Russian offensive and taking back some of the territory around the city of Kharkiv. This is a critical area, obviously.

Kharkiv is the sister city of my hometown, Cincinnati, OH. I was involved in that sister city arrangement 40 years ago, and it is a beautiful city. It has been almost flattened by the unending and barbaric attacks from Russia.

In the outskirts of Kharkiv, again, Ukrainian forces are not just holding the line but also making gradual advances, same as through here, in Kherson. You can see there is, again, the light blue here that indicates where the Ukrainians have made progress here in the south.

In the south and in Kharkiv, there has been progress made. This is very important in the south here because, as you know, Russia's goal is to try to shut off the entire Black Sea from Ukraine being able to access and, therefore, to continue to be one of the great exporters of the world. They have blocked any passage here of the ships that could be sending wheat and other grains to the rest of the world, including to Africa, where they are very dependent on Ukrainian wheat to keep people from starving, and yet the Russians are blocking these. But these cities are still in the control of Ukraine, and it is essential that continue, that Russia not create a landlocked Ukraine, which would, over the long term, be incredibly detrimental to the economy of Ukraine. It is vital that they do well there.

I will say, though, that here in the east, it is a different situation. Here is Donetsk and Luhansk, the Donbas region. Here is where Russia has made incremental progress in the last couple of weeks, using, again, bombs and missiles that are flattening cities, killing civilians.

This city of Severodonetsk, you have heard about--it is about right here--has fallen to the Russian forces after a months-long battle in the last couple of weeks.

Its twin city, Lysychansk, which is also in this region, has also fallen, completing Russia's brutal conquest of what is called the Luhansk region. So Donetsk is still partly in Russian control--partly not. Luhansk is now in Russian control.

But it is important to remember this: Russia paid dearly for every inch of Luhansk--by the way, much of which they flattened. They literally destroyed before occupying it. They lost troops, and they lost military equipment.

But, significantly, because taking this area required massive amounts of resources from Russia, it drew attention away from the north-- Kharkiv, as we saw, and down here in Kherson.

So it enabled these brave Ukrainian forces in these other places to make progress, not just to hold out against the overwhelming Russian onslaught but to make progress. The Russians have now announced they are in an ``operational pause,'' meaning they are claiming they are going to stop their large-scale offenses until their soldiers have rested.

But as in the past, they can't be trusted. And, in fact, small-scale offensive missile strikes and rocket attacks continue all along this front line.

We also must not downplay even what these sporadic strikes can do. Consider the tragedy that occurred about 2 weeks ago at a shopping mall in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk. This is in central Ukraine, the area we just talked about.

As more than 1,000 innocent Ukrainian civilians shopped with their friends and families at this shopping mall, a Russian strategic bomber launched a large Kh-22 missile. Now, this is a long-range, nuclear- capable missile that was initially designed to destroy aircraft carriers--aircraft carriers--and they shot it into the middle of a shopping mall--turned it into a burning inferno. You can see here in this photograph.

As a result of the explosion and the fire, 20 people were killed immediately, and more than 50 were wounded. Dozens more were declared missing. We are still getting the final numbers from this horrific tragedy, but it occurred during the summit of the so-called G7. That is the group of developed countries, larger economies--Japan, United States, and a few European countries--who were meeting to talk about the issue of Russia and Ukraine, among other things. The G7 rightfully condemned this atrocity as ``an abominable attack,'' an attack on civilians in a shopping mall.

Just yesterday evening in Chasiv, Chasiv Yar, which is a residential town in eastern Ukraine, a Russian rocket attack struck an apartment complex and killed at least 15 people. More than 20 people are believed to be trapped in the rubble as emergency workers continue to work today to be able to free those who were trapped, to try to rescue innocent civilians who are under attack. Again, this is an apartment complex. People are trapped inside it, even as we talk.

These barbaric, cowardly, long-range missile attacks on civilian targets have to be condemned by all of us, but they have to be stopped in two ways. One is by providing Ukrainians what they need in terms of anti-aircraft, anti-missile technology, but also by giving the Ukrainians the ability to use these longer-range missiles themselves.

Right now, the Russians can sit back with impunity and launch these attacks. I join the people of Ukraine in mourning for the loss of these innocent civilians at the hands of Russia's cruelty. The terror, by the way, that is caused by these attacks is not an accident. It is part of the Russian war plan, to cause terror. Striking civilian targets is certainly one thing they are doing. Continuing to blockade those Black Sea ports I talked about is another one, increasing the economic cost of this war on the Ukrainian people.

This is one reason why, by the way, a couple of weeks ago just before we left for the recess, we had a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a resolution to name Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. That passed on a bipartisan basis, and my hope is that it comes here to the floor of the U.S. Senate, so we can all go on record, again, condemning what is going on over there and making it clear that Russia has become a pariah country, that this is not normal behavior, even in the tragedy of war.

Striking civilian targets deliberately is, unfortunately, continuing day in and day out.

In response to these brutal acts, the bravery and effectiveness of the Ukrainian defenders has been impressive but not surprising. Think about it. They are defending their families. They are also defending freedom, defending their homeland. The stakes of this war are high, and the fate of a sovereign country hangs in the balance. But I will say today, it is not just about Ukraine, as important as that is. It is bigger than that because, if President Putin is successful in taking more of Ukraine than he already controls--let's see the map again.

If he does, in fact, expand beyond what he has already done, taking Crimea, taking this area of Luhansk and

Donetsk, taking the southern part of Ukraine, he is not going to stop there. I don't think anybody believes that or is so naive to believe that.

In 2016, he stated, ``The borders of Russia never end.'' This was after he attacked Ukraine the first time. That was in 2016.

In a speech claiming victory in May of this year, President Putin painted Ukrainians as Nazis. Remember, the President of Ukraine is Jewish. His family went through the ordeal of the Holocaust.

But he was painting Ukrainians somehow as Nazis, saying that the invasion of Ukraine was inevitable and that he was forced into this conflict by NATO. NATO is not an offensive association; it is strictly defensive.

The disinformation and lies also come from those around him. Vladimir Medinsky, one of President Putin's senior advisers, lamented that Russia's territory was greatly diminished from the time when Moscow controlled more than 14 currently independent nations, including Finland and Poland. This territorial retreat ``is not forever,'' he said.

Europeans are waking up to this one-time unimaginable threat. According to a European Council on Foreign Relations opinion poll conducted 2 months ago, a possible Russian invasion of their nation is seen as one of the top three threats now by 53 percent of Swedes, 54 percent of Romanians, and 40 percent of Germans. I was just in Romania a few weeks ago and got to hear from Romanians directly about this concern.

I also went to Moldova, where there is even more of a concern because there is a Russian-occupied area called Transnistria right along their country. So what can be done to stop and reverse the Russian gains here in the east? The most important issue to me is to help these brave Ukrainians be able to defend themselves by giving them the weapons to level the playing field with Russia so they are not constantly outgunned.

I have heard this from President Zelenskyy. We have all heard it from Russian forces that they are making some progress in the east because they have these weapons, these missiles, and the Ukrainians do not.

We also heard about this from members of the European Parliament who came here to visit us about 3 weeks ago, came to the Ukraine Caucus. We talked about the caucus earlier. We also heard from some fighter pilots who came about 2-and-a-half weeks ago and met with our Ukrainian Caucus. What they need are the weapons to be able to respond.

Their words have been explicit and direct: Russian artillery outguns theirs in terms of range, in terms of accuracy. They can sit back and fire on the Ukrainians' military and civilian targets, and the Ukrainians cannot respond. They cannot reach them. Ukraine needs advanced Western rocket artillery systems to even those odds.

Thankfully, the United States and several of our allies have these exact systems. The UK has some systems. Germany has some systems. Over the past month, the United States has provided Ukraine with several of what are called HIMARS or high mobility artillery rocket systems.

We have got hundreds of these in our inventory, by the way, and many of which are not with active units, in other words, they would be available. These are superior to Russian artillery in almost every way: mobility, reload time, accuracy, and most importantly, range. And yet, during Ukraine's hour of need, we continue to move too slowly.

In the initial tranche of HIMARS, say about 6 weeks ago, only four of these units were announced. They are now in service, as we understand it, and they are working. Four more were announced a few weeks ago, and another four were announced this past Friday. Reports are these are still in transit. They are not yet being used to protect these Ukrainian civilians who are being bombed.

They need more, and they need them now. Several have come from Germany and from the UK; but they need more, and they need them now.

How many do they need? It depends who you talk to, but the Ukrainian military officials who have spoken out on this, who are the experts, say they need at least 48 of these systems to be able to begin to turn the tables in the east. The United States is now committed to 12; only 4 are definitely in place. We need to move faster.

Apparently, there was a lot of discussion within the Agencies, within the White House, about whether to do this or not; that is what took longer for these HIMARS to be approved. My view is we have had the dialogue. These systems are no more escalatory than Javelins were or other weapons. These are defensive weapons. These are the ability for Ukraine to defend itself, and I hope we can continue to provide them and move more quickly. They are working. They are proving their worth.

Let me show you a photograph of what HIMARS can do to Russian logistics. These are images of Russian ammunition dumps exploding after reportedly being struck by missiles from a HIMARS system. Previously, Ukraine could not reach these munition dumps, but now with HIMARS, they can. Striking these ammo dumps can have a devastating impact on Russian forces.

These are depots of weapons that are behind the Russian lines but in the country of Ukraine. And, finally, they can access them. Striking them is going to have a devastating impact. According to Serhii Kuzan, the chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center in Kyiv, Ukraine has used HIMARS rockets to now destroy 20 warehouses of Russian artillery ammunition.

As I said earlier, Russian soldiers are currently in an ``operational pause'' to recover and resupply before future offenses, so they say, but they cannot resupply without ammunition.

So destroying these hubs will set Russia's timetables back and buy Ukraine more time to prepare and to receive more Western military equipment like the HIMARS.

These pictures are exactly the proof we need to show that what we are sending is now making a difference. Imagine what they could do if they had enough to be able to truly push back.

These HIMARS systems arrived in Ukraine too late to avoid some of the damage that we have been talking about today and, certainly, some of these cities, like Severodonetsk we talked about that has now fallen to the Russians or Lysychansk, which has fallen to the Russians.

They arrived too late for the thousands of brave Ukrainians who were killed and wounded defending those cities. If we don't act quickly, then future HIMARS rockets will arrive too late to save more Ukrainian citizens, more Ukrainian soldiers, more Ukrainian innocents. Time is of the essence, and I urge the administration not to delay.

Again, I am pleased they are getting those weapons in. I wish it had been sooner. And we now have to encourage more and faster.

When people, understandably, ask about our support for Ukraine, our taxpayer-funded aid to the tune of billions of dollars, they deserve to know that their hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely.

In my view, that means spending it on weapons like HIMARS that are actually making a difference on the battlefield. I believe the aid that we and our allies are providing is a wise investment that will pay dividends over time, but let's provide them the right aid.

Ukrainians are defending their country with bravery and skill, exceeding all expectations, and they are ensuring that their country is not being handed over to President Putin. We have to assure them that the United States and their allies are doing all we can to help them save their country.

We know that making any territorial concessions to Russia would only embolden President Putin and other future would-be conquerors. The lesson that they would learn is that with enough patience they can wear down the West and get what we want.

So I was pleased to see 2 weeks ago, when the leaders of the so- called G7 countries--again, U.S., Japan, European countries--stated:

We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian,

military, and diplomatic support and stand with Ukraine for

as long as it takes.

We saw how territorial concessions in the late 1930s only increased Nazi Germany's appetite, and this is clearly no different.

Russia's goals are not limited to just the Donbas or southern Ukraine. President Zelenskyy clearly understands this. He said to CNN recently:

Ukrainians are not ready to give away their land, to accept

that these territories belong to Russia. This is our land.

I could not agree more. In fact, it goes beyond Ukraine. President Putin will conquer as much of the former Soviet empire as we let him. We must stop him here in Ukraine.

With regard to sanctions, the EU is still using Russian oil and gas, sending roughly $870 million a day to help fund the Russian war machine.

We have the capacity here in the United States to help our partners and shore up our domestic energy production--not only important for Americans to get the cost of gas down with more supply, but also critical for our allies.

We are seeing some small progress, but much more needs to be done to reduce this reliance on Russian energy. By the end of this year, we expect coal and oil to be phased out. The United States must do its part and increase our energy production, while at the same time be a leader in developing new energy technologies that can help reduce emissions and increase national as well as global security.

This is not either or. It should be all of the above. We should be producing what we need right now to ensure that Europe can stop its dependency on Russia and sending this almost a billion dollars a day to fund the war machine, but at the same time we should be producing energy from all sources, including green energy, including nuclear energy.

And like sanctions and military aid, when the United States leads, the world tends to follow. But most importantly, our allies and enemies watch us.

This is true with regard to a revived NATO right now. In fact, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as we talked about earlier, both Sweden and Finland have applied to join NATO, shrugging off long histories of neutrality.

In Brussels, NATO Ambassadors, on July 5, signed the accession protocols that put them a step closer. Now, all 30 NATO nations will review their applications for ratification. Canada, Estonia, Denmark, Norway, and Germany have already ratified Finland and Sweden's applications. Let's join them. Let's do it this week. Let's do it through an expedited procedure and just get it done. I look forward to voting in favor of those applications in committee and on the floor.

We cannot forget that Russia has claimed this war started because Ukraine wanted to join NATO. Of course, they did. They reaffirmed that in 2014 when they threw off a corrupt Russia-backed government. They are looking westward to Europe, to us, to freedom, to democracy. They want to join NATO and the European Union and form ever-closer bonds with the transatlantic community.

I have long believed that NATO deserved a NATO membership action plan to provide a clear path to eventual NATO membership, and they have made significant progress in doing this. This brutal invasion is just Russia's latest attempt to throw that progress off course. We must not be deterred.

Now, as we enter the fifth month of this war--I have come down here every week to talk about it--we have seen the resilience and the fortitude of the Ukrainians. Even as their brothers and husbands go to fight for the homeland, the women of Ukraine are incredibly brave as well, and I have seen them at the border with Poland; I have seen them at the border with Moldova; and I have seen them as they come to the United States and talk about what is going on in their country. They know this is the fight, during our generation, where democracy is on the line. How this war develops will have far-reaching impact on the entire globe.

In Ohio, I see this all the time. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Cleveland for what was called ``Amplify the Voice: A Benefit Concert for Ukraine.'' We had 1,000 people come to this beautiful Severance Hall, which is the music center for the Cleveland Orchestra, and one of the premier orchestras in the world, by the way. They made the center available to the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus to perform to, again, an audience of people who were Ukrainian Americans but also from every nationality, particularly the nationalities communities, as we call them in Cleveland, which would be people from Eastern and Central Europe who understand the importance of this fight. So Lithuanians were there; Poles were there; Romanians were there; Hungarians were there-- people from all over the region.

The concert raised funds for the United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio's Fund to Aid Ukraine. They are doing great work.

It is amazing how many people who spoke who are doing something to help with regard to Ukraine--medical supplies, armored vests, helping with regard to emergency supplies just so people can have enough food to get by when they are subject to some of these bombings we have seen today.

We also heard a beautiful concert. Ukrainians of all stripes certainly understand what is going on and why this is so important and have for a long time because they know what it is like to live under the thumb of authoritarianism. They broke away from it many times during their history and again more recently in 1991 and again in 2014.

I was in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, where Ukrainians decided for themselves that they wanted to turn away from Russian domination and turn to us.

I believe we can help them win this time. I am confident of it. That is why I have introduced a bipartisan resolution with Senators Manchin, Murkowski, and Hassan to recognize the U.S. commitment to help rebuild Ukraine. According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, more than 7 million civilians have fled their homeland, and there has been about $600 billion worth of damage to Ukraine's infrastructure.

By the way, those refugees, those civilians whom I have met--they all want to go home. And in a sense, it is not perfect to call them refugees because they are really just Ukrainians who are temporarily forced to leave their country, but they all want to go home and rebuild Ukraine.

It is not just a human toll we see captured in images and videos, but people's homes and livelihoods have vanished overnight. So they are going to need help. The countries of the free world are with us, and we have to be sure that they step up, including some countries that were less comfortable providing military assistance that are providing more monetary assistance--some of those countries are really going to need to step up in terms of helping to get Ukraine back on its feet.

Now is not the time for us to back away. We have to be able to win this militarily and then begin the rebuilding. It is not a time for us to be tentative or equivocal. At this critical juncture, let's lead our allies to provide what Ukraine needs to protect their homeland and to defend democracy.

I yield the floor.