Floor Statements

Mr. President, before she leaves the floor, let me thank Senator Klobuchar for her outstanding remarks. She and Senator Van Hollen have really made the case that we want a tax bill that gives everybody in America the chance to get ahead, not just the people at the top, and I want to commend her for it.

Mr. President, around the country this morning, Americans turned on the news, and they saw panic. Americans are wincing this morning as they look at their retirement accounts. Their savings are down. The cost of their morning coffee and eggs are up. The markets are looking bloody, and people are afraid for their jobs and their own personal finances. Not so for the ultrawealthy. They may not like what they are seeing, but they don't have anything to worry about because they have got an ace in the hole: their Republican allies here in the Senate.

While Donald Trump torches what used to be the world's strongest economy, Republicans scramble to pass a bailout for billionaires and big corporations. While typical families panic, the billionaires can go shopping for luxuries--for real estate, for yachts--safe in the knowledge that Senate Republicans have their backs.

That is what this debate is all about. Donald Trump is taking the United States back to economic policy that predates the light bulb. He is slapping random taxes on imports from all over the world--tariffs that are effectively huge tax increases on products American families and businesses use every day.

Donald J. Hoover says he is not going to back down, and that is terrible news for everybody who counts on a steady paycheck to be able to get by. Everything from cars and machinery right down to T-shirts and your morning cup of coffee--it is all going to cost a whole lot more because of what Donald Trump is doing. Small businesses are going to get clobbered. Parents are going to need to take out second mortgages just to take their kids back-to-school shopping. They are facing an increase in the cost of living by thousands of dollars each year. Big businesses are panicking too. They are worried about the prospect of a full trade war.

The only thing preventing an even larger panic and collapse is the faint hope that somebody--somebody--may be able to convince Trump to back down. Personally, I wouldn't wager on it. That is the economic carnage Trump is creating around the country.

Here on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans are charging forward with a bailout for billionaires and corporations that, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, could cost $7 trillion.

People following along at home are going to hear a lot of sweet- sounding promises from Republicans about what they are trying to accomplish. They claim their tax bill is just all unicorns and rainbows. They will say everybody is going to benefit from a tax cut and typical families will get the help they need. They will promise rising wages and a booming economy. It is just not true.

The reality is, unless you are way out at the upper end of the income scale,

any benefit you get from this Republican bill is going to get blown out of the water as the Trump tariffs continue to hike inflation. If you are somebody who punches a timeclock or keeps an eye on the bills every month to make sure you can get by, there is no good news for you in what the Republicans are trying to accomplish.

So they move ahead with their $7 trillion tax agenda, but there is no way to cover that cost without taking a wrecking ball to the Medicaid Program, and that is their plan. It will be devastating for tens of millions of Americans, with seniors and kids bearing the brunt.

I remember this from my days as director of the Gray Panthers, but I can tell you, Medicaid pays for two out of three nursing home beds in the Nation. If Republicans move forward with their nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, countless families will have to make impossible choices between keeping an aging parent or grandparent in a nursing home they can barely afford or bringing them home to try to care for them on their own.

Medicaid covers nearly 38 million kids in America. That includes half of all American kids with special healthcare needs. These cuts to Medicaid will set those kids back for the rest of their lives. Millions of parents will be left wondering how they will pay for the home-based care their children rely on to go to school every morning.

And let's be clear. These cuts may be partisan in Congress, but their consequences will transcend party lines. Medicaid cuts are going to hit red and rural parts of America the hardest. Hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers in rural communities all over the country right now are barely hanging on. They depend on Medicaid. If these Republican cuts go through, rural America will become even more of a healthcare desert.

So I, Mr. President, and colleagues will be offering an amendment to block these Republican Medicaid cuts and the damage they are going to do to millions of vulnerable Americans.

It is not only Medicaid that Republicans target. Countless other lifelines that seniors and families rely on are on the chopping block: Meals on Wheels, which helps seniors get a hot meal; Head Start, which helps kids get set up for success in the future with early learning and development; food assistance that is going to help millions of families stay out of hunger. Donald Trump even wants to gut the technology- neutral clean energy tax credits I authored, which would increase costs for consumers, wipe out potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs, and devastate energy security.

This is the hardship Republicans inflict on America and particularly on people who struggle to get by, and this is how Donald Trump is going to protect his ultrawealthy political donors from chaos. It is a one- two punch. Not only are typical American families facing economic ruin as Trump hikes tariffs and increases the cost of living, not only are they panicking as the market crashes and their retirement savings shrink, but now they have Republicans here in this Senate coming after their pocketbooks, their healthcare, and the food on their dinner table.

As I began, it is clear Donald Trump is completely out of touch. He and his advisers don't give a whit about the harm they are causing to typical Americans. And you don't have to take it from me; Donald Trump literally says it himself. Talking about auto manufacturers, he says:

I couldn't care less if they raise prices.

After yesterday's market crash, Donald Trump was asked about the tariffs and said:

I think it's going very well.

Let me repeat that. Yesterday, after the crash, Donald Trump was asked about the tariffs that this morning are hitting so many working people, and Donald Trump said:

I think it's going very well.

The Secretary of the Treasury is on his own all-is-well media tour. Recently, he said:

Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American

dream.

I don't know about this billionaire's interpretation, but I will tell you what is not part of the American dream: getting charged 10 bucks for a cup of black coffee because the Trump administration is too incompetent to figure out a smart approach to tariffs.

A few days ago, with concerns bubbling up over what tariffs would do, the Secretary of the Treasury said:

The reason stocks are a safe and great investment is

because you're looking over the long term.

The long-term spin is as dismissive as it gets. Try telling that to a 65-year-old who scrimped and saved and was planning on retiring this month, only to see their 401(k) deflate like an old balloon.

Nothing can illustrate how out of touch these guys are more clearly than what Trump said this week during his rambling press conference announcing his tariffs. Listen to this. Talking about shopping for food, Donald Trump actually said:

An old fashioned term that we use--groceries. I used it on

the campaign. It's such an old fashioned term, but a

beautiful term. Groceries. It says a bag with different

things in it.

So in closing, Mr. President, it is obvious that Donald Trump has not got the first clue of how the vast majority of Americans live or the hardships they face in the months and years ahead as he wrecks the economy. What is he doing now? He is hobnobbing down in Florida at his private country club resort, where the Saudi Government is helping financially with a splashy golf tournament.

All the Trump administration is focused on--and this is what he is apparently dealing with at his golf tournament--along with Republicans here in Congress, is passing this bailout for billionaires and corporations while everybody else fears for what tomorrow will bring.

As the debate goes forward, Democrats are going to offer a whole host of amendments to put what I believe is a morally bankrupt bargain on full display for the American people. It is going to be a long debate, but it is an important one.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, once again, Senator Sullivan is out here saying that he is for protecting vulnerable people, but by not defining the vulnerable, the Sullivan amendment is code for States to cut benefits or kick people off their coverage altogether.

To me, the Sullivan amendment basically says that if somebody thinks you are not poor enough, you are not sick enough, or you are not disabled enough, we are not going to be there for you.

Here is the difference between now and 2017: We learned during the pandemic how important expanded Medicaid is to vulnerable people, and this language that my colleague from Alaska is offering doesn't protect vulnerable people.

So I urge my colleagues strongly to oppose it.

I yield.

Vote on Amendment No. 2035

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 1989 and ask that it be reported by number.

Colleagues, this amendment offered by Senator Hawley and myself says that $880 billion in Medicaid cuts have no place in this resolution.

Right now, those cuts can be found on page 46, lines 3 through 7, and we ought to get rid of them.

The Modern Medicaid Alliance, which includes AARP, the Federation of American Hospitals, and dozens of provider health plan and patient advocacy groups agree with Senator Hawley and me and support us in this effort.

Protecting Americans' healthcare ought to go beyond party lines. Protecting families who count on Medicaid ought to go beyond party lines. Protecting seniors who count on Medicaid for nursing home care ought to go beyond party lines. Protecting kids with disabilities who count on Medicaid ought to go beyond party lines. And protecting working Americans who are walking an economic tightrope--all of that, colleagues, should go beyond party lines.

In that spirit, I hope the Senate will join Senator Hawley and me on a bipartisan basis to finally take Medicaid off the chopping block.

I urge my colleagues to vote aye.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, ahead of the Senate's final vote on the nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz to head up the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, I want to take a couple minutes to describe what is at stake with this vote.

Dr. Oz is the second Trump nominee to pass through the Senate Finance Committee with a record of dodging Medicare and Social Security taxes. That means, if confirmed, the person running the Medicare Program thinks it is acceptable to not pay the taxes he owes into the programs he is running.

Let me repeat that: If confirmed, the person running the Medicare Program thinks it is acceptable to not pay the taxes he owes into the program he is running.

Now, in addition, during the consideration of this nominee, I pressed Dr. Oz on whether he believes nursing homes ought to be staffed with a registered nurse 24/7. Once again, Dr. Oz refused to answer my question. He claimed it was a complicated question.

Not really, I told him. An AI chatbot paid for by private equity isn't going to take your mom to the bathroom or bring your grandpa his meals every day. I don't think it is at all complicated whether there ought to be a nurse on staff at every single nursing home.

Dr. Oz is certainly very able on television, but he seems to have no understanding that technology is no replacement for real nurses and real medical staff. That attitude is going to have a real impact as Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress pursue nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts to achieve their billionaire tax breaks, which House Republicans have already passed.

Several weeks ago, Senate Republicans confirmed one of Trump's most unqualified and dangerous nominees to date, RFK Jr., who will be heading up America's healthcare at HHS. He was confirmed as well.

Now our country is facing the biggest measles outbreak in decades, while the Trump administration touts the benefits of cod liver oil and convinces parents not to vaccinate their kids.

The country has heard tragic tales of families following RFK Jr.'s advice on unproven alternative treatments for measles that end up sending kids to hospitals.

Just this week, he abruptly fired more than 10,000 public health workers, many of whom reportedly helped seniors navigate insurance claims when they were denied care or provided oversight over nursing homes.

Everything this administration is doing is an effort to make you and your family less safe.

Dr. Oz, unfortunately, has been out there peddling, over the years, unproven cures and treatments and encouraging people to ignore proven facts and science.

The dangers of promoting unqualified wellness grifters to be in charge of healthcare in our country is not just a talking point. These are real and deadly matters.

This week, Donald Trump and Senate Republicans are gearing up to pass their massive tax giveaway to billionaires and corporations. They are paying for it by gutting Medicaid and cutting off the services that millions of Americans rely on. Food stamps, Meals on Wheels, and Head Start are all on the chopping block, just so billionaires can go out and buy things like more yachts. These cuts to Medicaid are going to be devastating for kids and people with disabilities. It can destroy care in nursing homes as we know it. It will rip basic care away from seniors and kids.

Dr. Oz will be responsible for executing the destruction brought down on the Medicaid Program by the cuts Republicans are preparing to make.

And there would be premium hikes--let me mention that: premium hikes-- for everybody else who gets their insurance through the marketplace when Republicans take away the tax credits that lower their premiums.

During his confirmation hearing, I gave Dr. Oz the opportunity to go on the record and reassure the American people he wouldn't go along with the Republican scheme to rip away healthcare. He refused. So, I also asked Dr. Oz: If he was confirmed, would he travel to Malheur County in my home State? It is an overwhelmingly rural and red county and also has the most recipients of Medicaid in any county in Oregon.

Dr. Oz agreed to come to Malheur County and explain Trump's catastrophic cuts, face-to-face, with Oregonians. I am going to hold him to that. He is going to have to answer to the people of Oregon and Malheur County about these inhumane policies.

Republicans are full steam ahead with their plans to gut Americans' healthcare and put for-profit insurance companies and private equity firms in charge of America's health.

So here is the real question with respect to this vote that will be coming up: What is at stake on the Mehmet Oz vote?

What is at stake is whether your aging parents can be safe in their nursing home. What is at stake is whether your kids can go see a doctor. What is at stake is the very health and well-being of your family.

By supporting the Oz nomination, Republicans are sending a very clear message that they are a lot more afraid of Donald Trump than having to answer to their own constituents.

Every Member of this body that votes to confirm Dr. Oz is going to own the consequences of this decision, those consequences that I spelled out. I urge the Senate to oppose this nomination when we vote later.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the beloved classic film, ``The Goonies.'' With enduring and relatable themes of adventure, acceptance, and friendship, ``The Goonies'' has become one of the alltime great American underdog stories. ``The Goonies'' has withstood the test of time and firmly established its place in American culture. A large part of what makes this film unique and impactful is its iconic setting along the stunning Oregon coastline. Indeed, so significant is the film's location that thousands of fans from around the globe gather each year in Astoria, OR, for a multiday celebration to commemorate the magic that is ``The Goonies.''

One of the reasons for the enduring success of ``The Goonies'' is the lessons it has imparted on generations of viewers who come away inspired to stand up to bullies, accept people who are different from them, and ``never say die'' when it comes to fighting for their communities and the things they believe in. As I travel to my townhalls all over Oregon and hear the deep concerns that so many Oregonians feel about the state of our country and the world, I hope we can all take an important lesson or two from ``The Goonies.''

Fans from around the world will flock to Astoria this summer for ``The Goonies'' 40th anniversary celebration. All of them will be able to participate

in treasure hunts, costume contests, and many other Goonies-adjacent events. In addition to Astoria, the 40th anniversary festivities will also include a visit to Ecola State Park, home to some of Oregon's foremost coastal views and the site of some legendary Goonies adventures. Visitors to Astoria this summer will also be welcomed to the Oregon Film Museum, which eagle-eyed fans may recognize as the former Clatsop County jail, which played host to the Goonies iconic jailbreak scene.

Just as the original Goonies fans and stars have grown and matured since the film's release in 1985, so has Oregon's film industry. With its magnificent and diverse natural beauty, Oregon has become a much sought after location for film production. As the backdrop for major television shows and box office hits alike, film production in Oregon brings with it good-paying jobs and tourism that in turn support local businesses and economic development across the State. Certainly all film producers in Oregon and across the country should aspire to achieve the remarkable success of ``The Goonies.''

Whether we are learning important life lessons from the stalwart friendships in ``The Goonies'' or taking note of how Oregon has grown a film industry no one could have imagined 40 years ago, what is important is that we all recognize the power in our differences--and to ``never say die!''

Mr. President, I rise to support my colleague Senator Kaine's joint resolution to terminate the Trump order placing blanket tariffs on products Americans buy from Canada.

I am going to start by saying, as the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I am always struck by how much doubletalk there is about trade. So let's be clear as we start this part of the discussion.

Tariffs are taxes on things we buy from other countries. The bottom line is, those taxes make it more expensive for Americans to buy those products. No other country pays the tariffs. Let me repeat that. No other country pays the tariffs. The consumer pays the tariff. So if somebody tells you they can do tariffs and do it without raising prices--I am sorry, but anybody who says that with a straight face is basically taking advantage of you.

Every credible economist, every automaker, every business on the record has said that Trump's trade taxes are going to make things more expensive for Americans.

Ronald Reagan's favorite economist, Art Laffer, just released a study showing auto tariffs are going to raise car prices by $4,700. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the full Trump tariff scheme is going to cost an average family thousands of dollars a year.

It is one thing if tariffs are imposed with a good strategy, like decreasing sales in the United States by raising prices to punish countries that cheat on trade and changing their behavior so that U.S. workers get a fair shake.

I have consistently supported targeted tariffs in the past as a tool to fight back against trade cheating, especially by China. When China was stealing America's trade secrets, subsidizing cheap solar panels, and then dumping them here to drive U.S. manufacturers out of business, we were shouting from the rooftops for more tariffs on Chinese goods.

But Canada is not China. Canada is America's closest ally, not a rival. Making everything Americans buy from Canada more expensive for some bogus reason is, in the words of the Wall Street Journal ``the dumbest trade war in history.''

There are 8 million American jobs that depend on trade with Canada. Canada is the biggest export market for 32 States. It provides raw materials and potash that so often farmers need to grow their crops. U.S. farmers can't replace 90 percent of potash that comes from Canada, definitely not overnight. The only choice is higher prices--again, higher prices paid for by Americans.

So the stuff we buy from Canada gets more expensive. And on top of that, in response, Canada has already slapped tariffs on a whole host of crops, ag products, dairy, alcohol, manufactured goods. The list goes on and on.

Canadian grocery stores pulled U.S. products off the shelves. Our small businesses and farmers are losing sales as we speak because of the weird obsession in the Trump administration with attacking our northern neighbor.

Plunging our economy into a recession because of the Trump desire to annex Canada is just bizarre--bizarre even by Washington, DC, standards.

Congress has delegated far too much of its authority to the executive branch, and it is far past time for the Congress to take it back. In 1962 and 1974, Congress passed laws handing the President major portions of our constitutional power over tariffs. It is time to reverse that trend. Those dates I mentioned were before my time, but I want everybody to know, on our watch, I think this has got to be a bipartisan concern. We have got to take these powers back, because if Republicans say it is not their fault that Trump is destroying our economy, why not do something like this to restore the power of Congress to set tariffs?

I am going to close by addressing the bogus claim of the Trump administration that tariffs are actually intended to stop fentanyl trafficking from Canada. Let me be clear. Our immigration system needs reform, and the fentanyl crisis is a serious issue.

Oregon is no stranger to the devastating effects it has wreaked on our economy communities. The reality is, there is no crisis at the northern border. Less than 0.1 percent of fentanyl entering the United States comes from Canada. Fentanyl seizures at the northern border are down over 97 percent from July 2024.

I think almost everybody understands that Canada is not the issue here. Instead of coming up with real solutions to get fentanyl off the streets and out of our communities, Donald Trump has decided he would rather make threats and tariff our closest allies.

My colleague from Alabama is on the floor, and we are going to have a little bit of a discussion. We just talked about how we are going to handle it. But I want to be clear. If Donald Trump and the Republicans wanted to address fentanyl in an effective way, they would pass my bill to limit the millions of low-value packages that come into the United States from China and elsewhere. Getting a handle on these so-called ``de minimis'' imports will help our border agents detect the illicit imports of things like fentanyl and pill presses before they reach communities in the United States.

So with that, Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 1185 and the Senate

proceed to its immediate consideration, the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I listened very carefully to my colleague from Alabama, and I don't believe my colleague used the word ``fentanyl,'' and that is what we are concerned about in the Pacific Northwest. We are concerned that fentanyl has hit our country and our region like a wrecking ball.

So maybe when this all gets sorted out, he will support my bill to crack down on fentanyl everywhere through reforms of this de minimis issue. And I would just say, for purposes of our discussion now, I understand--and we all await the announcement, I gather, sometime late this afternoon--the Trump administration only is going to address de minimis shipments from China and nowhere else.

We have to make this comprehensive. My colleague serving as the Presiding Officer knows what it is like in the West with fentanyl hitting us so hard. If you just do it with China, Chinese companies are going to circumvent the rules and transship through other countries.

That is why I felt so strongly about a comprehensive solution to get at this fentanyl, this poison, that has hit us so hard, because if you just go to one country, what you are going to have is something called merchandise laundering. We saw it when we did an investigation in the committee.

A Chinese company ships its product through an intermediary in Vietnam or another third country. The intermediary then slaps a ``Made in Vietnam'' sticker on the Chinese product and falsely labels the product, and they can easily evade the Chinese product restrictions. And with millions of shipments coming in from China, there is no way for Customs and Border Protection to police Chinese products transshipped through third companies.

This is not a new gimmick. Chinese companies have been circumventing tariffs all this time with products like steel and solar panels. I have been bird-dogging this issue since I passed the Enforce and Protect Act nearly a decade ago.

My de minimis bill that I hope to get bipartisan support for would stop the flood of low-value packages from all countries on a global scale. That is the only way to deal with this problem--not create, as my colleague from Alabama would do, a gigantic game of Whack-A-Mole.

So I hope we will be back on this floor doing something comprehensive to fight the scourge of fentanyl, and I proposed it with legislation.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, first of all, I want it understood that we take a backseat to nobody--nobody--when it comes to fighting this fraud. That is why I negotiated a bipartisan package in the last Congress dealing with a host of issues relating to addressing fraud and making improvements to unemployment insurance. I negotiated that bill with our ranking member, now the chairman of the Finance Committee.

I am a little struck by what is going on here because my colleague, my friend from Oklahoma, was a cosponsor of that proposal. In other words, we did what the American people say they want, which is to have people find common ground on commonsense matters like fighting fraud.

Our bipartisan proposal went after pandemic-era fraud by extending the statute of limits on prosecution. It would help to prevent fraud in the future. It would help States improve their unemployment insurance programs to get benefits out on time in the event of a big economic crash shall like we saw in 2020. It would make better use of data to prevent abuse. It would protect people who got overpayments entirely due to somebody else's mistake, who may not even know it to this day.

I will tell you, I think it is odd at best but certainly disappointing that our Republican colleagues have decided to walk away from a really good bipartisan agreement. The proposal they brought to the floor is much smaller, is much narrower. In fact, instead of looking forward, it is looking backward--no improvements to unemployment insurance, no fraud prevention looking at the future. In fact, the bill before the Senate actually cuts $5 million of crucial fraud-prevention funding that Democrats secured after the pandemic.

So you ask yourself, why are Republicans attempting to make this cut? The nonpartisan experts at the Congressional Budget Office, looked at this narrow proposal my colleagues have brought forward, and they said if Congress were to pass this bill, Republicans would spend more money--more money--trying to track down fraud than they would actually recover from the fraudsters.

Government efficiency is something we are all interested in. You had me at hello on the concept of working on those kinds of issues in a bipartisan way. But here is a Republican anti-fraud proposal that loses taxpayer dollars overall, and to pay for it, they cut future fraud prevention. That just strikes me as defying common sense.

Another issue with this approach I want to highlight is that the bill now before the Senate fails to provide any protection for workers who got overpaid through no fault of their own. Colleagues may remember that when the pandemic UI program was created, it was in the midst of the COVID crisis--highest unemployment since the Great Depression, tens of millions of Americans out of work, entire sectors of our economy essentially mothballed.

Congress scrambled to create an unemployment insurance program for Americans who weren't eligible for traditional unemployment insurance. Without it, a whole lot of people would have gone hungry and lost their homes.

In the rush to get urgently needed relief to those out of work, some States made mistakes, provided a number of workers more in unemployment than they were entitled to. These workers didn't defraud anybody. A lot of those people who received overpayments had no idea they had gotten more money than they should have.

The issue is that some States are running their unemployment insurance programs with decrepit, old systems that can barely keep up, and they made mistakes.

Now 5 years down the line, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to claw back these payments--even from people who did nothing wrong. In fact, some of these people to this day aren't even aware they were overpaid. They certainly aren't fraudsters.

States made mistakes in the heat of an economic crisis, and Congress shouldn't be punishing individual workers who had no idea in the first place what was going on.

Final issue with the proposal: The Trump administration has made a mockery of fraud prevention by illegally firing the Department of Labor inspector general.

The inspector general's office successfully oversaw unemployment fraud investigations throughout the pandemic. In my view, firing the inspector general is a big setback in the fight against fraud in the unemployment insurance program.

The Trump administration has also given DOGE unfettered access to unemployment insurance claims data. The bill before the Senate would allow DOGE to falsely accuse innocent workers of fraud years after unemployment insurance helped them keep food on the table during the pandemic. That is not being tough on fraud. That is making innocent people victims.

Democrats are all in--all in--on bringing criminals who defrauded the UI system to justice and building a more reliable, durable unemployment insurance system for the future. That is why, colleagues, we negotiated a really strong, bipartisan antifraud package. For the life of me, I don't understand walking away from that package now, especially in favor of a narrower proposal that would lose taxpayer dollars and sacrifice the effort to fight fraud.

Therefore, I would ask the Senator to modify the request so that the Wyden substitute amendment, which is at the desk and is a text of the Wyden-Crapo Unemployment Insurance Integrity and Accessibility Act, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Reserving the right to object, let me make sure we are clear with my friend because we do a lot of work together, and I am looking forward to continuing it.

I don't see much to object to this afternoon. We both want to be all in on the fight against fraud. Those were the first words out of my mouth: Let's go all in on fighting this horrendous fraud. That is why we worked so long in a bipartisan way, because you are not the only Republican from the committee who worked with me and it is a large bill and it deals with a big problem. And, for the life of me, I can't figure out why we aren't dealing with the big problem and not creating innocent victims--more of them.

At this point, I guess there is gridlock today, but I want to extend the olive branch again, which I have been doing from day one. I want a big bill that goes after big-time fraud in a very aggressive way. I am still baffled by why we are not out here with a whole lot of Republicans who are cosponsors of my bill, with the Senator from Idaho as the chair, and saying: This is the way we ought to be governing.

But I object.

I hope we are back.

Mr. President, just very briefly, my colleague says nothing is going to happen in the House to fight fraud. I have got to tell you that I don't see any fraud caucus out there in either the Senate or the House. There are no rallies for people who are committing outrageous fraud. I think we ought to move. We ought to move here.

We have done the hard work. We have done the heavy lifting. My colleague from Oklahoma knows what it is like when he is trying to put together a bipartisan bill. We have done that work. I think we ought to move here and then talk to our colleagues in the House. Why don't you now pick up on the hard work we have done and we will get serious about fraud.

So we are going to continue this conversation. I always wanted to work with my colleague from Oklahoma on these kinds of issues, and we are going to stay at it until we deal with big-time fraud in a big-time way, in the U.S. Senate, in a bipartisan way.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator from New Jersey yield for a question?

I thank my colleague.

I have been listening to this, a Herculean presentation, for hours and hours. Your remarks reflect the urgency of our times, Senator Booker, and I thank you for it.

Let me frame the question this way: I hold open-to-all townhall meetings in every county in my State each year. I have had more than 1,100 of them. And since Donald Trump took office, what we have seen in these townhall meetings is fear and terror, and, I might add, record turnouts.

I was in a small town in central Oregon recently, Sisters. We had almost 1,400 people there. And what people asked about and you have touched on this morning, is, of course, Medicaid and Social Security because these are programs involving healthcare and retirement that are really the connective tissue between the government and our people.

These programs make it possible for people to pay for essentials. They are not going to fancy places. They are buying groceries. They are paying rent. They are buying medicine.

We had one separate townhall meeting, I say to my colleague, just with Federal employees whose goal is to get out in the woods and help prevent fire in Oregon. I organized this meeting. They, too, are terrified. They have dedicated their lives to trying to help.

We serve the American people. And I am telling you, I have seen service in action over the last few hours with your reflecting the urgency of our times. Our salaries are paid for by taxpayers, and I am particularly troubled by the fact that we are getting all these reports that many Senators are saying: I am not going to do townhall meetings.

They are on the other side of the aisle. As I said, I have had 1,100 of them, 10 of them so far this year. It seems to me, that is refusing to answer to constituents.

You have been here all night, and you are setting a very clear example about what it means to push back against authoritarianism.

So just like I have townhall meetings, my question to my friend from New Jersey is, What are you hearing from home? It is a pretty straightforward question, but it sure as heck is what the times are all about because people are saying: What are you doing back there? What is important to you?

I talk about town meetings. I had a tele-townhall, I say to my friend, during the speech that was being made on the floor of the House. I had 30,000 people participating. That is a lot for my small State. So I know what I am doing, and I think the American people would like to hear a bit about what my colleague is hearing from his State and why it is so important that he is out here mopping his brow today trying to stay on his feet, making the case for the urgency of our time. What are you hearing?

Mr. President, 4 years ago, I kicked off an investigation of Big Pharma's tax practices, the dodges and tricks these hugely profitable, multinational companies use to winnow down their tax bills. This was not very long after Trump's first tax breaks for corporations went into effect. My Democratic colleagues on the Finance Committee and I wanted to know exactly how sweet a deal Trump gave the biggest drug companies and what changes needed to be made to ensure these corporations paid a fair share.

So far, in the course of my investigation, I have released information on the tax practices of five major drug companies: AbbVie, Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Merck. The questions that I asked these companies were not very complicated. Essentially, what I asked came down to questions like: How big were your sales? Where did you make them? Where did you report your profits? Where did you stick your intellectual property? Did you actually pay taxes?

Last year, I expanded my investigation with an inquiry to the company Pfizer. Pfizer initially resisted, but my staff and I were not going to let up. Finally, the company provided some answers to our questions.

We are going to get into those issues now, and I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record a memorandum outlining records of my investigation relating to Pfizer's tax-avoidance schemes, which will also be available immediately on the Finance Committee's website.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the report printed into the Record now.

There being no objections, the material was ordered to be printed in

Mr. President, I am going to take a few minutes to walk through these findings and discuss why they are so important. I am very pleased to be joined by several of my colleagues who are also outraged about this tax-dodging.

Here is the upshot. My investigation has found that Pfizer carried out what could be the largest tax-dodging scheme in the history of Big Pharma.

The United States is the largest market for Pfizer's products. In 2019, the company sold $20 billion worth of drugs to American patients. If you are following along on this discussion, you might be hoping to hear that Pfizer paid a reasonable rate of tax on those profits. I have got bad news for you and the American people.

In that same year, Pfizer reported zero--not one red cent--in taxable U.S. profits. Through various tricks and games, Pfizer was able to shift 100 percent of its U.S. profits to foreign tax havens. This means that Pfizer dodged billions of dollars in Federal income tax on its U.S. drug sales. There is every reason to believe it continues to do so.

Thanks to the tax law Trump and Republicans passed in 2017, Pfizer doesn't need to keep the money stashed overseas. Pfizer can take this cash and pocket it with tax-dodging schemes and turn it into stock buybacks, dividends, executive compensation--the list goes on.

There is an additional matter that is so disturbing. The company appears to be keeping some of its tax schemes hidden from view with what has been described to me as a confidential arrangement with the Governments of Puerto Rico and Singapore. It is enough to leave you slack-jawed.

So this is a Senate investigation that will have a direct impact on tax legislation, and Pfizer is hiding relevant tax information behind nondisclosure agreements.

So colleagues, this is the sixth Big Pharma company where my investigation has found a staggering level of tax dodging. And these rip-offs don't happen by osmosis; they happen because Republicans have allowed them to happen. With the tax law they passed back in 2017, Republicans delivered to Big Pharma a tax break of more than 40 percent. From 2014 to 2016, the industry paid 19.6 percent, on average. In 2019 and 2020, it paid 11.6 percent.

Now, reasonable people watching at home might be thinking about how Republicans always claim to be worried about deficits and debt. Surely those Republicans would dial back what they did in 2017 and ask these huge, profitable corporations to pay a little bit more to ease our fiscal challenges. If you think that is the case--wrong.

So I want to bring my colleagues into this discussion momentarily, and I will close by looking at the big picture as Congress moves forward with this debate on taxes, health, child hunger, and more.

Republicans are in control of the Congress and the White House, and they have locked Democrats out of the discussion. Somewhere here on Capitol Hill, there is a group of Republicans meeting right now, behind closed doors, quietly planning the outline of their gigantic bill. Nobody in that room is talking about how to protect people who work for a living or how to get more fairness in the economy. The discussion they are having comes down to how big the handouts are going to be for billionaires and multinational corporations, how many tens of millions of Americans they are going to kick off Medicaid to pay for it, how many millions of kids are going to go hungry, how many hundreds of thousands of workers are going to lose their jobs.

Republicans are doubling down on a broken system. And if you want to see that system in action, read our report, because you couldn't find a better example than Big Pharma's tax dodging. These are huge corporations that rake in enormous profits in U.S. sales because they charge astronomical prices in America, and then their stables of lawyers and accountants get to work on a whole bunch of fancy financial wizardry, taking advantage of loopholes and rip-offs planted by Republican lawmakers.

Suddenly, the record profits get shipped overseas. Often, the factories get shipped overseas, the jobs get shipped overseas, and the companies aren't paying anything close to a fair share of taxes. Typical Americans who pay taxes out of every paycheck get ripped off.

Republicans are not going to fix this broken, unfair system. In fact, they are gearing up to give tax-dodging corporations like these and their billionaire shareholders even bigger handouts. It is a scam. It is a rip-off on a national scale. The American people see it for what it is.

Senate Democrats are going to keep calling it out, because this must not stand.

So I am very appreciative that my colleagues are joining me here on the floor. We have a very important member of the Senate Finance Committee to start, Senator Whitehouse, and I want to send this over to him.

Well said, Senator Whitehouse.

And I want to get my colleagues into this. Next in order of appearance is Senator Van Hollen.

Once again, I want everybody to understand that the four of us are going to continue to go after this colossal tax avoidance until it gets fixed, because the American people are getting ripped off.

Senator Van Hollen.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague. Once again, you can hear his expertise in the Ways and Means Committee and the body on these issues, and I thank him for his leadership.

A new member of the Finance Committee, Senator Welch, is here and he will have some remarks and then I will wrap up.

Senator Welch.

Senator Welch, thank you for your leadership. It is great to have you on this committee.

Mr. President, to wrap up, our investigation has found that Pfizer has carried out what could be the largest tax-dodging scheme in the history of Big Pharma. This Big Pharma rip-off is exactly what Republican Senators should be rooting out in their upcoming tax bill.

Instead, it looks like Senate Republicans may lock this outrage in permanently. All Americans who believe in tax fairness should join us in fighting any extension of this tax boondoggle.

I yield the floor.

The Senator from Mississippi.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes after 5.

Mr. President and colleagues, the Senate will soon take a vote on the nomination of Michael Faulkender to serve as Deputy Treasury Secretary. I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination.

I am going to take just a few minutes to explain why he got zero support from Democrats in the Finance Committee, and I am going to start with the big picture.

For the last 2 months, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have let loose a pack of cronies who, in my view, are looting the United States of America. They are violating laws, they are blocking accountability, and they are breaking key programs in ways that are going to hurt a lot of Americans.

All the while, there has been a parade of Trump nominees marching through the Senate, and one after the other they pretend that they know nothing about what I just said. They all swear up and down that they follow the law. Under their watch, everything will be on the level.

The reality is, in nearly every case, it is just not true.

Just yesterday, in the Finance Committee, the nominee to head up Social Security told me that he was not involved in any discussions regarding DOGE personnel at Social Security. I asked him directly. That was his response, and his response was a lie.

The committee had received whistleblower testimony from a senior official who worked at Social Security and has recently left. The whistleblower said this nominee had personally intervened to get key DOGE officials installed at Social Security.

This is happening again and again. Trump nominees show up in the Senate, and they always say: I am a choir boy.

But they are directly involved in the ransacking of the country, and Americans are outraged from coast to coast.

Dr. Faulkender is another example. He has been in the building at Treasury since January 21, working in an unofficial capacity. So he knows what is going on there. He knows that DOGE personnel showed up at Treasury with the intent of violating our constitutional authority over Federal funding. Yet, when he was asked about DOGE's activity at Treasury and at the IRS, he, too, had nothing to say--just a bunch of dodging and ducking.

I asked him, as well, directly whether the President has the authority to impound funds, which is a constitutional breach.

His answer was:

I do not know the legal authority of the President when it

comes to impoundment.

However, during a television interview last year, he actually said he supported impoundment and talked about how the President should use it to trample over congressional appropriations and our article I authority.

If confirmed, he will be the No. 2 official at the Department that oversees the IRS, but he had nothing to say about the fact that the administration is intent on violating taxpayer privacy laws and weaponizing the IRS against American taxpayers.

But it wasn't all bobbing and weaving during the hearing. In fact, the most telling moment was when Dr. Faulkender decided to give an awfully revealing answer to a question he probably could have avoided.

Here is what happened.

Everybody understands that the Treasury Department's big job under Donald Trump is giving huge handouts to billionaires and corporations. They plan to pay for it, in part, by slashing Medicaid and kicking tens of millions of Americans off their healthcare.

Senator Warnock, our colleague, asked Dr. Faulkender a pretty simple question.

He asked:

Do you think that it's a good idea to take families off of

Medicaid?

The funny thing is nobody would have blamed him for saying that the Treasury doesn't have jurisdiction over Medicaid so he wouldn't have to take a position, but that is not what he said.

Dr. Faulkender went out of his way to defend the Republican plan to slash Medicaid and kick tens of millions of Americans off their healthcare. He answered with the same traditional Republican spin--that it was all about ``self-sufficiency and getting off of government dependency.''

We are talking about a program that covers nearly 40 million kids, half of all kids with special needs, and two-thirds of all nursing home beds in America. Without Medicaid, rural America would become even more of a healthcare desert.

Dr. Faulkender's nonsense about self-sufficiency is basically what I call trickle-down economics for healthcare. It is a talking point that papers over an agenda that benefits the very affluent at the expense of everybody else.

So, colleagues, this is another case of a nominee dodging nearly all the tough questions and misrepresenting his role in what is going on in the Trump administration. The most forthcoming answer we got during his nomination indicated that he is totally on board with the agenda that is going to put people's lives in danger by kicking tens of millions of Americans off their health insurance so that those at the very top, like Elon Musk, can afford bigger yachts and probably some kind of island.

Dr. Faulkender has been at Treasury since January 21. He is already tied up with DOGE. He has already made himself a part of the harm that the Trump administration, through DOGE, is inflicting on the American people. That is why he got zero support from Democrats in committee.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination when the Senate votes on it in a little bit.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Wyden, Senator Sanders, and Senator Scott be recognized for up to 25 minutes, and that following their remarks, the majority leader be recognized.

Mr. President, I come to the floor with my colleague from Vermont Senator Sanders to pass a set of critical improvements to America's healthcare system. This legislation is overwhelmingly bipartisan, fully paid for, and targeted at two objectives every Senator ought to support: improving healthcare for Americans and cracking down on the middlemen who take advantage of the system.

Mr. President, 597 days ago, the Senate Finance Committee passed the most comprehensive legislation in history to address the pharmacy benefit managers' predatory business practices, and it was passed by a vote of 26 to 1. And 493 days ago, the Senate Finance Committee passed another piece of healthcare legislation that improves

mental healthcare for Americans with Medicaid, expands and strengthens telehealth, and more PBM policies, by a vote, again, of 26 to 0. Since that time, negotiations about how to sign these policies into law have been fatally intertwined with the dysfunctional debate over congressional appropriations, as the public can see on full display this week.

These policies are too important to leave behind due to an unrelated disagreement. Community pharmacists are counting on this legislation. Doctors who don't want to see a pay cut are counting on this legislation. Seniors and working families who want better care at a lower cost are counting on this legislation. So the time to act is now.

In December, Democrats and Republicans struck a deal on this bill. I have the press release on my website to prove it. It was introduced in the House and set for passage. But along came Elon Musk and his now familiar wrecking ball. With one tweet, he killed the entire package for reasons that had nothing to do with the bill before the Senate today.

Musk even had the gall to tweet, ``What is a `pharmacy benefit manager'?'' less than 2 weeks after he single-handedly killed the bill.

While this unelected billionaire rifles through Americans' private information and earned benefits, claiming to be looking for waste, fraud, and abuse, he doesn't even know about the middlemen who skim billions off the Federal Government.

Since Musk's tweeting adventure, 237 independent pharmacies have closed their doors. That is nearly three small businesses closing every day. Our bill includes critical protections that stop the giant PBMs from bullying even more local pharmacies into the abyss. Every day matters. That is why it is critical to act now.

Now, I would like to yield to the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Sanders, so he can explain the important pieces of this bill that are in his committee's jurisdiction that also need to pass as soon as possible.

Mr. President, very briefly, I want to thank my colleague. We have been working, as we have indicated, for months and months, because Americans, with respect to healthcare, feel like they are getting hit by a wrecking ball here in terms of the costs and inability to get quality care.

So with that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 891 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the Wyden substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

The Senator from Florida.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I join my colleagues today to talk about the importance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in defending typical Americans against scams and multinational banks. This Agency's entire purpose is standing up for regular people as a watchdog against the powerful and the corrupt.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are attempting to close the CFPB, and they are demonstrating their priorities. They have systematically kneecapped every part of the government that can stand in the way of their spree of looting the government to make themselves and their wealthy friends even wealthier. This unlawful freeze threatens Oregonians' economic opportunity and our country's economic stability.

Donald Trump pledged to the American people to level the playing field and lower prices. His actions and the actions of many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do the opposite.

Just yesterday, my office heard from veterans who served our country and now go to college in Oregon. These are brave young people who are not wealthy. They shared details about how veterans routinely face predatory, for-profit, fake colleges that just want to target their post-9/11 GI benefits. If not for the work of the CFPB, many young veterans would have been robbed of tens of thousands of dollars each in earned benefits.

My constituents shared that they are really worried about what is going to happen in terms of our student veterans if Donald Trump and Elon Musk succeed in shuttering the CFPB. Either Donald Trump and Elon Musk didn't know that the CFPB has an entire office dedicated to protecting veterans and servicemembers from bad actors. Or possibly, they just didn't care.

Since the Bureau's start just 13 years ago, it has returned over $21 billion to

consumers, and through its oversight, it has prevented billions more in losses.

In a choice between fraudsters and scamsters and those who serve our Nation in uniform, Donald Trump and Elon Musk protected the fraudsters and the scamsters by illegally sending CFPB staff home and freezing the Agency's work.

Now my Republican colleagues are attempting to repeal the CFPB rule that protects consumers from frauds and scams on payment apps like Venmo. Under this rule, the CFPB would be allowed to look at the books of payment apps to ensure they are following the law.

This rule doesn't impose new requirements on these services like Venmo. This type of supervision is important to stop illegal activity before it is too late. In the case of payment apps, this supervision is crucial to combat frauds and scams.

Frauds and scams on payment apps are only getting more common, so why are my colleagues pushing to overturn the rule now? Republicans are trying to roll back the rule. I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Elon Musk wants to start a payments app. That is a lot harder to do when you have to follow any pesky laws or rules. And anybody who has used the site formerly known as Twitter recently knows that Elon Musk doesn't seem to care about the proliferation of fraud or scams.

Trump, Musk, and my colleagues across the aisle seem to be working to destroy the CFPB because it enforces consumer protection and data privacy laws, which I have been working to strengthen.

Elon Musk has already trampled into Americans' sensitive data at the IRS. It should be clear to all of us by now that Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the rest of this billionaire crowd seem to have no regard for the law or for the Constitution.

Those who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and a fairer economy really ought to be concerned about what I have just described this economic sabotage. And anybody who plays by the rules has a right as well to feel betrayed by Trump and Musk's contempt for the rule of law.

I am glad to be here with my colleagues to blow the whistle on Trump and the Republicans' dangerous and chaotic agenda and to work with Senator Warren, who has led the effort on this issue for so many years.

I will vote to oppose this resolution. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, my colleague from New Hampshire is being way too logical for some of what passes as trade debate here. And it is my hope that her excellent proposal will be back on this Senate floor sometime soon for unanimous consent to pass a very important bill protecting Americans from tax hikes on imported goods.

This is, as she has stated, a straightforward proposition. All it does is clarify that the President's emergency powers can't be used to put tariffs on the things Americans buy from other countries.

Now, Donald Trump calls himself a ``tariff man''--his quote, not mine. It is the only answer he seems to have to any problem under the sun. Instead of taking time to think through actual solutions, he is willing to use any authority he can find to slap tariffs on our trading partners.

Just today, he announced he was slapping 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which are two of our three largest trading partners and closest allies.

That alone is going to raise costs for Americans on gas, on cars, on fruits and vegetables, and many other products. It is also going to cost America jobs because Canada and Mexico have announced plans to retaliate against our exports.

That is the opposite of what Donald Trump pledged to the American people.

It is disturbing that Donald Trump is going rogue and using emergency powers to pursue his tariffs. The American people voted for lower--not higher--prices. Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that he would lower costs on day one of his Presidency. But just a month in, all Trump has managed to do is gut the agencies in charge of protecting consumers and going after predatory corporations, and he's landed us in trade wars that are going to drive up the cost of goods people use every day.

Whether it is to punish a country that he doesn't like or to settle scores with foreign leaders, the only answer Donald Trump has ever had is tariffs. And as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, I have heard him play that card again and again, no matter how many times we have said: Look, tariffs should be one of the tools in the trade toolbox, but it shouldn't be the universal answer to everything.

Trump's approach is going to drive up prices and costs for American families, businesses, and farmers in the process.

He does it, in my view, because he and his billionaire friends aren't going to feel the impacts, and they don't care about the millions of Americans who will.

These higher costs essentially add up to a Trump Tax on everything from food to clothes and cars. And to those who voted for Donald Trump because they wanted lower prices and a fairer economy--it sure seems to me that these policies are a betrayal. The Shaheen bill that we are trying to pass today would rein in some of Donald Trump's worst impulses and clarify that the laws on the books were never meant to be a blank check for the President to abuse tariffs by using them as a punishment against any country that hurts his feelings.

A number of our Republican colleagues have supported the Shaheen proposal in the past because putting a check on the President's power to land us in trade wars should not be, as my colleague has said, partisan or controversial. It is Shaheen common sense. I want to thank her for an excellent bill, and for her leadership that I have watched from my vantage point on the Finance Committee.

And when we can get this bill back on the floor for unanimous consent, I hope it will be met with a resounding bipartisan showing of support, and I look forward to working with her until that day comes to be.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Jamieson Greer to serve as U.S. Trade Representative. If confirmed, he would be the top official on one of the President's signature issues: trade and tariffs.

Donald Trump was elected President largely on the promise of lowering prices for American families and remaking the global economy to America's benefit. Six weeks into his Presidency, what he has shown is a willingness to impose staggering costs on our families, workers, and businesses in order to settle scores on issues that have nothing to do with trade or the economy. He gets headlines; his wealthy friends get tax breaks; and American families get stuck with higher prices and bigger bills.

I oppose this nomination. I certainly have nothing against Mr. Greer personally. I just believe, in this position, he will be a rubberstamp for the Trump tax, the knee-jerk decision to slap tariffs on nearly everything Americans buy, and make high prices even higher. Mr. Greer has embraced the Trump chaos strategy, which is a slap in the face to farmers, manufacturers, and communities across the country. They are sounding the alarm about how the Trump program is already costing them sales overseas and jobs here at home. Our country needs a U.S. Trade Representative who will be the point person on trade for this administration, and I just don't have the confidence in Mr. Greer for that job.

Let me start with the first key point. The Trump administration's across-the-board tariffs are going to cost Americans big time--up to $2,600 a year, according to one estimate. That could devastate American jobs. One appraisal is that they could destroy 344,000 American jobs.

Donald Trump has already ordered tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. The China tariffs went into effect last month. Now, he is promising that 25 percent tariffs on everything Americans buy from Mexico and Canada will go into effect next week. Get ready for gas prices to go up, power prices to spike, auto supply chains to be thrown out of whack, and fresh fruits and vegetables to get more expensive.

And there is more. Donald Trump has promised new tariffs on steel and aluminum, which go into everything from soda cans to cars. Yesterday, he proposed tariffs on copper, which is used in everything from housing to medical devices and cars. They largely come from Chile and Canada. And he is pushing something called reciprocal tariffs on . . . maybe . . . everything.

The only thing we can be sure about with Trump's tariffs is that they are going to hit working Americans the hardest. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their billionaire friends are barely going to notice the price hikes.

If you ask people at a Fred Meyer's store in Gresham, OR, or who are buying groceries in Charlotte or in Kalamazoo, they don't need an economist to know that Donald Trump isn't helping prices. Less than a third of Americans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing on inflation, according to a poll released this week. Consumer sentiment-- a particularly important measure--fell by 10 percent this month. More and more Americans are rightly worried that tariffs are going to drive more inflation.

If this trade war continues, there is no doubt many U.S. workers, farmers, and ranchers are going to lose their jobs when our trading partners retaliate and slap tariffs on ``Made in the USA'' products. That is what happened the last time Donald Trump was in office. American producers of everything from rice to bourbon to motorcycles got hammered. They sold less overseas, made less money, and workers ended up paying the price.

There is a right way to approach tariffs that punishes bad actors like China and targets the products that will change other countries' behaviors while minimizing the cost to American families. Donald Trump is doing the opposite. He is maximizing price spikes for regular Americans, with no plan or strategy.

One other point with respect to trade chaos: Mr. Greer has endorsed this, and it is already hurting farmers and small businesses. Now, I had four townhall meetings in my State recently and talked with lots of small businesses and farmers.

I am hearing one message over and over again: They are already losing sales and losing markets to Donald Trump's bluster. Last year, our State exported $34 billion in blueberries, hazelnuts, and other goods overseas--almost an alltime high. Now, instead of building on that success, our producers and innovators prepare for the worst.

This story comes up again and again. The Washington Post quoted an Iowa farmer who has seen prices of seed, fertilizers, and equipment increase while prices for soybeans are flat. ``Our goal is to make Iowa and U.S. soybean farms profitable,'' said this Iowa farmer, ``and to do that, we need these international markets. We need to keep growing demand.''

The State economist in Georgia said this month that the greatest threat to that State's economy--and I will repeat that--the greatest threat to the economy is Trump's trade threats. Tariffs mean higher prices for consumers while trade wars mean other countries buy less of what Georgia makes, including aerospace components, pulp and paper, and auto parts.

Pittsburgh-based aluminum manufacturer Alcoa said Trump's tariffs will cost 100,000 jobs in the United States and won't lead to more production here. ``This is bad for the aluminum industry in the [United States]. It's bad for American workers''--not according to some Member of the Senate, but that is what the Alcoa CEO said. There are similar reports of communities fearing the worst in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and all across America.

One final reason I oppose the Greer nomination: It is not clear to me that he will be the final voice in the room with Donald Trump on trade. There are an awful lot of trade cooks in that kitchen. Peter Navarro, Treasury Secretary Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Lutnick all have claimed responsibility for trade. It reminds me of an old saying that gets attributed to John Madden:

If you've got two quarterbacks, you have none.

Well, if you have four chief trade officials, you have none.

Unfortunately, Mr. Greer did little in his confirmation process to build confidence that the buck stops with him on trade. He said it is not a trade matter when Donald Trump uses tariffs to settle scores about the border, immigration, and diplomatic issues. So Mr. Greer said these decisions aren't something he would expect to be involved with if confirmed. If the U.S. Trade Representative isn't going to be in the room when tariff decisions are at

stake, it is not clear to me what influence over critical trade decisions Mr. Greer will have in the Trump administration.

Americans need a trade policy that puts workers and families first and a chief trade official who has the authority to deliver actual results for our workers and families. Unfortunately, neither of those is on offer today. That is why I oppose this nomination.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank Senator Kaine for his extraordinary leadership on this.

I think America is at a crucial time on energy policy, and Senator Kaine cuts right to the heart of the debate. Donald Trump wants more tax cuts for the ultrawealthy, and he is willing to pay for those tax cuts by raising your energy bill.

Here is how the flawed idea goes down. Clean energy today is plentiful. Clean energy today is cheap. Clean energy today is generating thousands of good-paying jobs. I was involved deeply in writing the Inflation Reduction Act. I developed this law that created the clean energy tax credit package, and it is making progress in communities across the country.

What Donald Trump is talking about doing--and Senator Kaine has spelled this out--is defying the reality of the marketplace.

For example, we are constantly seeing people in the fossil fuel business saying that this isn't time for ``drill, baby, drill.'' They have been very blunt about saying that doesn't make sense from a marketplace standpoint.

What we want to do as it relates to clean energy is to build on the progress we have made--making sure clean energy is part of an ``all of the above'' program that is technologically neutral and competing in a marketplace with choices.

Under the Kaine legislation, we can have that reality and not the flawed idea that we would somehow benefit from having more tax cuts for the ultrawealthy and somehow that will take care of people's energy situation. It won't. If you go with tax breaks for the ultrawealthy and this program that is based on ``drill, baby, drill,'' it is going to create rising energy costs for working families across the land.

I urge my colleagues to support the Kaine proposal.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.