Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise and want to thank my colleague from Washington State who has been leading on these issues for years and years and my friend from Illinois. And what I am going to do just briefly, my colleagues have been so eloquent, is talk about why Senator Duckworth's legislation is so important at this crucial time. It is absolutely essential that we pass the Duckworth bill.

And as far as I am concerned, I am prepared to stay on this floor--I mentioned this to my colleague--for as long as it takes. We are just going to stay at it until we get this done. And the reason I feel so strongly about this is, several decades ago, as a young Member of the Congress--the other body, the House, with a full head of hair and rugged good looks--I wrote a law called the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act. It was supported by the profession. It was supported by patient groups.

And I never imagined, after we passed that law, that people would be out here on the floor of the U.S. Senate trying to unravel the progress that has been made. And when we passed it, it was all about some simple ideas, particularly clarity for the families trying to navigate the system. It was largely information.

It was a new technology then, decades ago. It is not now. Now it is proven. Families rejoice being able to use it.

And never did I imagine that we would have an effort on the floor of the U.S. Senate trying to turn back the clock, trying to unravel the progress that has been made. That is what Senator Murray and Senator Duckworth are taking on: a rearguard action to turn back the clock and unravel the progress that has been made for so many families.

And, unfortunately, this is kind of where we have been for a while, trying to unravel the progress with respect to contraceptives, trying to unravel the progress with mifepristone. We will have more to talk about all of this.

But the court ruling out of Alabama earlier this year would have effectively turned back the progress, made IVF impossible. And since then, we have seen the far right, as my colleagues have said, trying to build on the effort to take away our freedom.

And none of this seemed to me, Senator Duckworth, imaginable several decades ago when people were rejoicing because they knew how to navigate the system and get information, figure out what providers were right for them, and it worked so well, as it does today.

And your bill is absolutely essential business for the Senate. I would just

say to my colleagues here: Do not vote to unravel all of this progress that families rejoice in. Support the Duckworth legislation.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I share our colleague's view that the southern border is serious business. I strongly favor smart, effective policies to deal with it.

The reason I can't support what he has proposed is that defunding infrastructure does not make sense, and that has long been the position of the Senate.

The money that is being discussed here has been supported unanimously over three particular initiatives here in the Congress. The authors of this, and I would say this specifically, have been Senator Cornyn, a member of the leadership on the other side of the aisle, and our colleague from California, Senator Padilla.

Let me repeat that. We have gone through this three times with strong bipartisan support from Republican leadership--our colleague from Texas, Senator Cornyn--and Senator Padilla from California. The reason why is that we have said we can come up with smart policies on the border and also maintain our infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the funding that my colleague is talking about would harm the effort to ensure we build the roads and the bridges and that we deal with lead pipes in schools. That is what we are talking about. That is why the States and the localities have been such strong supporters of this.

My colleague serves on the Finance Committee. There are a number of areas where we have worked together. I will note that this week in the Finance Committee, a number of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have talked about how they want to generate more growth--a smart idea. Put me down as interested and wanting to work in a bipartisan way.

Well, the reality is, you can't generate big-league economic growth with little-league infrastructure, and that, unfortunately, is what is going on here. Where we agree that we ought to be tackling a very serious issue--the southern border--we disagree on the method of funding that effort.

I think defunding infrastructure is the end result of what my colleague is talking about, and it turns upside down the bipartisan coalition that has allowed us to use that money at the State and local levels with Republican leadership and our friend from California.

So that is why I have to object. Therefore, I do object this evening.

Madam President, just very briefly, having participated in these debates--this specific discussion now, on several occasions-- again, my friend and I just have a difference of opinion. Senator Cornyn and Senator Padilla have repeatedly talked about this being for the roads and bridges and dealing with lead pipes in schools. That is so central to the brighter future we all--Democrats and Republicans-- want for our country.

So as we wrap up, I want it understood that I share my colleague's view about how serious the southern border is. What we differ on is how we are going to pay for it. And defunding infrastructure--which Senator Cornyn and Senator Padilla set out to do, and I think in a very smart way--is not the way to go.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, the Senate will take a vote shortly on a resolution from Senator Schmitt dealing with infrastructure funding.

The discussion of the resolution has been pretty quiet because, on its face, it looks like it is an issue dealing with a lot of budgetary lingo and ``Washingtonese.'' Obligated funds and expenditure deadlines are what people hear about. But the reality is this proposal is anti- infrastructure. It could put stop-work orders on thousands of infrastructure projects across the country. Some of them have shovels in the ground as we speak.

(Mr. OSSOFF assumed the Chair.)

My concern is, Mr. President, we pass this, and we would be going virtually from a period where folks in Georgia and elsewhere had hard hats to where they are facing layoffs.

Here is the background: In 2021, Congress passed emergency funding for State and local governments. At the time, there was a big concern that their budgets would get clobbered by the pandemic, which had hammered our economy and put millions out of work. But State and local budgets fared better than expected.

So later on, Senators were looking, on a bipartisan basis, for smart ways to rebuild our infrastructure--roads and bridges and highways, water and sewer, and also broadband projects. There was bipartisan agreement that Congress ought to allow that leftover State and local funding to be repurposed for these important infrastructure projects. So both sides of this Chamber--the Republican side, the Democratic side--passed legislation multiple times, even by unanimous consent, that provided what the States and localities wanted, which is more flexibility.

We hear our colleagues on the other side talk a lot about wanting to cut redtape to get the Federal Government

out of the way and empower the States, the laboratories of democracy. Here is a case where my colleagues on the other side got exactly what they wanted: more flexibility for the States to use taxpayer funds on infrastructure.

Have a highway that needs widening--a bridge that has passed its useful life, a water system with lead pipes that need replacing? Congress voted on a bipartisan basis to make that easier. It is a real head-scratcher why Republicans would now want to make this difficult.

Some have accused the Treasury Department of playing around with the expiration of the program. That hasn't happened at all. It is the same program with the same timeline and the same rules that Democrats and Republicans agreed on as recently as a few short months ago.

I mentioned at the outset that this resolution puts a stop-work order on thousands of projects nationwide. The numbers just really stun you when you walk through them.

On the Finance Committee, we asked the Treasury Department what the impact could be in specific States. Here is an example: In the Presiding Officer's State of Georgia, 17 projects, totaling $1.4 billion could be terminated; Michigan, 160 projects; Ohio, 342 projects; Arizona, 50 projects; Montana, 404 projects; and West Virginia, 73 projects.

Nationwide, there could be thousands of projects closed, tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs lost, higher costs for families and businesses that had to wait far too long for Congress to get serious about infrastructure.

I will just tell my colleagues, as we gear up for a vote, this one is one of the most unusual votes that I have seen recently, a true head- scratcher. Bipartisanship, we all know, is a heavy lift. But the progress we have made on this issue, in my view, is actually a bipartisan highlight of the last several years.

I have talked to my colleagues a lot about how we find some common ground. Here, we have, from day one, Senator Cornyn--my colleague on the Finance Committee--and Senator Padilla working from the outset to add additional flexibility for the pool of funds that would be available. So a Republican U.S. Senator and a Democratic U.S. Senator put together a proposal--now get this, colleagues--that passed by unanimous consent three times.

So if the Senate were to walk back this bipartisan effort--originally led by a Senator from California, a Democrat, and a Senator from Texas, a Republican--the bottom line would be, Mr. President, that, starting almost immediately, those hard hats that I mentioned in States like yours and others could be coming off, and they would be looking at ways to keep a roof over their head and to pay for food for their families and healthcare.

I will close by saying this. I just don't see a good reason for the U.S. Senate to backtrack on solid, bipartisan progress and have this Chamber act in a way that leaves more of our Nation's infrastructure in a state of disrepair.

I urge my colleagues to preserve the bipartisan work that has been done on this issue--that got strong, strong votes three times. Preserve the work that has been done on this issue for infrastructure. Oppose the resolution.

I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.

Mr. President, I am going to be very brief, but I want Senators to know that this is about standing up for schools that need to replace lead pipes. That is the kind of effort that Senator Cornyn, Senator Padilla, myself, and others said was essential for this country.

My colleague from my Missouri--I look forward to getting to know him more; he is new to the Senate--sets this up that somehow this is unnecessary and basically just fueling more redtape. Quite the opposite. If colleagues go home this weekend during the recess, they will see people in their States having good paying jobs for a good day's work repairing bridges, dealing with lead pipes. And that is, colleague, why, on three separate occasions, the Senate Democrats and Republicans came together.

My colleague--I don't ever want to be critical of someone's intention--has made it out that this will just be getting rid of some redtape and bureaucracy. I want Senators, who are going to vote in a little bit, to understand that this is not about that. This is about what it is really like in our communities where so many people are still hurting.

What I have in my mirror are priorities like schools needing to replace lead pipes. That is what we had in mind when we started this effort Senator Cornyn on the other side, myself, Senator Padilla. I hope that the Senate won't vote here at 6 o'clock to essentially pull this effort up from the roots and throw it aside, because a lot of people will get hurt. Senators are going to hear about it pretty soon because these are projects that are underway today; they are underway now.

Democrats and Republicans felt they would make a difference for our communities, and we shouldn't tear up that effort in the name of this resolution that tries to suggest that this is mostly about cutting redtape, which is not the case. It is about cutting jobs in our communities, and we are going to lose a lot of opportunities for some smart investments for the future.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, there can be no doubt that this country is experiencing a youth mental health crisis. I also agree with the Surgeon General and other experts that social media plays a part in that crisis. However, I recognize social media is also an important forum for expression, learning, and communications that can serve as a lifeline for young people, especially those from marginalized or vulnerable communities.

Therefore, I cannot agree with an absolute ban of minors under 13 from social media. With meaningful tools to enable parental consent, strong privacy rules, and reasonable regulations against manipulative or harmful designs, I believe young minors can safely access social media. This is where the Senate should focus its time.

I also worry about the bill's new inclusion of the Eyes on the Board Act of 2024. This bill could make it hard for teachers to incorporate social media applications into their teaching or preparation. It would also limit the ability of young people who depend on school-issued laptops and mobile internet connections from accessing educational videos and other informational content on social media when not in school. This raises serious equity concerns and would worsen the country's digital divide.

For these reasons, I will object to any unanimous consent agreement to take up or pass the Kids Off Social Media Act of 2024.

Mr. President, I rise today to give notice of my intent to object to any unanimous consent agreement regarding Executive Calendar No. 630, the promotion of Col. David M. Church to be Brigadier General in the U.S. Army.

While serving as the senior intelligence officer at the National Guard Bureau, Colonel Church was involved in retaliation against an Army officer who had turned information over to the Department of Defense Inspector General.

The Continental Congress, on July 30, 1778, unanimously enacted the first whistleblower legislation, stating: ``It is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge.''

Unfortunately, to this day, there are still people in government who retaliate against those brave individuals who are the fail-safe for our government. Such people have no place in public service.

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

Mr. President, I rise this morning to discuss what happened at the end of the debate in the House of Representatives on section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Particularly, I am going to be talking about the sweeping new authorities that were slipped into the legislation at that time by the chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Then I intend to respond to each of the major arguments that have been given over the last couple of days in an attempt to justify these expanded authorities in that provision that was added at the last moment and why they do not hold water.

The chair of the House Intelligence Committee called this amendment-- expanding all of these authorities--he called it merely technical. I want to explain why it is not just technical and how it passed the House with virtually no debate.

As the Presiding Officer and I have talked about, this has never been considered--repeat, never been considered--here in the U.S. Senate, but Members of the Senate are now being told the same thing that came up in the House: Nothing to see here. It is technical. And it is all classified. So stop asking questions.

Now, I have spoken to a number of colleagues here, and I have urged them to just read the plain language of the provision. When they do so, they will see for themselves that this is actually a very substantial and dangerous expansion of warrantless surveillance authorities.

Under the provision, there would be virtually no limits to who can be forced into spying for the government. Any company that installs, maintains, or repairs Wi-Fi or other communications systems in any American business or home, for example, can be dragged into this. So can any other company that provides a service that gives its employees access to any communications equipment, which would include a server, a wire, a cable box, a Wi-Fi router, a phone, or a computer.

There are lots of examples here. Every office building in America has data cables running through it. Tens of thousands of commercial establishments offer Wi-Fi to their customers. Under this provision, landlords, the companies that maintain the cables and Wi-Fi, and any number of companies whose employees have access to any of that equipment can all be forced to cooperate with the government's surveillance.

Now, my view is there have been some pretty farfetched and misleading efforts to justify what the House of Representatives did at the last minute. So I am going to address each of the major arguments that I have heard in support of the House's dangerous expansion of surveillance authorities.

First, supporters of this provision just wave away the actual language of the provision and simply insist that no terrible thing is going to happen. But nobody has ever tried to explain why the plain language of this provision wouldn't authorize the government to force a huge number of ordinary Americans and American companies to spy for the government.

Second, the administration says it is going after a narrower set of companies, but, by the way, we are not going to hear anything about it because it is all secret. That is not how laws, especially surveillance authorities, ought to be written. I am a member of the Intelligence Committee, and I am familiar with these issues.

The sky is not falling. If the government has a narrower intent, Congress can take the time to consider whether legislation is needed to actually address it. But jamming through a last-minute provision that dramatically expands surveillance authorities in a way that would affect so many Americans is just not right. I think it is irresponsible, and I think we ought to think through the implications. And anybody who thinks the government won't eventually use its authorities to the greatest extent possible, maybe they have been asleep for the last 20 years, but it is certainly a fact.

Third, supporters of this provision spend a lot of time pointing to the exceptions, but the handful of narrow exceptions makes my point. It proves my point. If you are not on that short list, in effect, it is an admission that you can be forced to spy for the government. And the exceptions are clearly designed so as not to restrain the vast new authorities in any meaningful way. They are not even designed to work.

For example, the exceptions do not include commercial landlords or any company that installs, maintains, or repairs Wi-Fi or communications cables. So even if the government can't force a coffee shop to comply, it can force its landlord or the company that maintains the coffee shop's Wi-Fi to comply.

Fourth, supporters of the provision have said over and over again that section 702 only targets foreigners overseas. This is a red herring. The provision does not change the targeting rules, but it dramatically changes who can be forced to actually help the government. And you don't have to change the targeting rules to threaten Americans' privacy. If the government thinks that its foreign targets are communicating with people in the United States, they can go right to the source: the Wi-Fi, the phone lines, the servers

that transmit or store those communications. In my view, that is a stunning example of the government's ability to collect Americans' communications, with no changes in the targeting authority.

Finally, this brings me to a letter sent yesterday by the Department of Justice, which the chairman of the Intelligence Committee placed in the Record. I urge my colleagues to read that carefully. It goes on and on about how the bill doesn't change the fact that only foreigners overseas can be targeted.

The surest sign that you are losing an argument is when you try to change the subject, and that is what supporters of this provision and the Department of Justice are doing. The Department of Justice letter does not deny that the provision authorizes the government to force a broad set of Americans and American companies to assist with warrantless surveillance under section 702. In fact, the Department of Justice basically concedes that fact by promising that it will only apply the new authorities to certain companies on a secret list.

The Department of Justice is in the ``don't worry anybody'' department. They are basically saying: We won't ever use these sweeping authorities you are handing to us.

That commitment, in my view, is worth nothing. It is not even binding on this administration, and it certainly wouldn't be binding on future administrations. These FISA authorities, like all FISA authorities, are going to get used to their maximum extent. You can bet on it. The same Members of Congress who are touting this supposed act of restraint from the administration are going to be the first to demand that the government do more with these authorities.

Now, secret promises are not law. That is just an obvious fact. Giving the government vast new power on the premise that intelligence Agencies are not going to use it is just out of sync with history.

One other point about the Department of Justice letter: The Department of Justice has promised to tell Congress what is going on every 6 months. Not only is that inadequate; it would be a violation of the government's statutory obligation to keep the Congress fully and currently informed of intelligence activities. If they only update Congress every 6 months on something like this, they are basically thumbing their nose at the whole idea of congressional oversight.

This provision is fundamentally damaging to democracy. Americans should not be forced to spy for the government without a warrant. Ordinary businesses, big and small, should not be made extensions of government surveillance in a way that is going to put their relationship with their customers at risk. We have actually heard from a variety of companies that are concerned about just that: their customers being concerned about their privacy being invaded as a result of this and companies being hurt.

Americans shouldn't have to worry about whether the companies that service their workplaces, establishments they frequent, or even their homes are secretly spying for the government.

My view is this is a breathtaking change that was added at the last minute by the House of Representatives, expanding surveillance authorities. Until a week ago, there was a debate about reforms of section 702, and I would say, having been involved in a number of these debates, it is appropriate to have views of differing opinion on what reforms are necessary. But at least everybody was talking about the abuses of section 702 and how to fix them.

Now, all of a sudden, the Senate is being asked to dramatically expand the authorities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in a way that is almost guaranteed--almost guaranteed--to result in abuses. And my own view is that it is shocking that with no publication, no hearings, no processing of a piece of legislation, and a single week to think about it, the Senate is being asked to give the government sweeping new authorities that could fundamentally change the relationship in this country between Americans and their government.

If the Senate passes this legislation today, my own view is the Senators are going to regret it. And when the eventual wave of abuses is exposed, nobody is going to be able to say now--given the fact we are airing specific responses to what the government said in an attempt to justify it, nobody is now going to be able to say they didn't see it coming. There are a number of us on both sides of the aisle who are pursuing an amendment to strike this dangerous provision. I am pushing very hard to remove this provision. It ought to just be struck--it is called section 25 in the House bill--and we are pushing very hard to see that is accomplished.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I call up my amendment No. 1820 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, this bipartisan amendment strikes a dangerous provision that was slipped in at the last moment in the House of Representatives and has never been considered or examined here in the Senate. The provision dramatically expands warrantless surveillance by authorizing the government, for countless typical Americans and American companies, to secretly assist in their surveillance. If there is one thing we know, expansive surveillance authorities will always be used and abused.

Let's do the right thing and vote aye to strike the horribly drafted, sweeping new surveillance authorities that we will surely regret.

Mr. President, this matter that came from the House of Representatives has not been narrowly drafted. It is not technical. The reason you know that is they keep coming up with exceptions. The rule is so broad, and then they keep adding all these exceptions. This is a deeply flawed proposal that comes from the House.

I urge my colleagues to vote yea on this.

Vote on Amendment No. 1820

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to this FISA bill. And, to begin, there is a central question before the U.S. Senate, and that is: Who should be forced to help their government spy?

The legislation coming from the other body gives the government unchecked authority to order Americans to spy on behalf of their government. This was slipped in, Mr. President, in the last minutes in the House of Representatives' bill, and this is the first time this language has ever been considered here in the U.S. Senate.

Under current law--section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--the government can order the phone companies and email and internet service providers to hand over communications. This bill expands that existing power dramatically. It says: The government can force cooperation from ``any other service provider who has access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.''

Now, the language I just read to the Senate means that, if you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy. That means anybody with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a WiFi router, a phone, or a computer.

So think for a moment about the millions of Americans who work in buildings and offices in which communications are stored or passed through. After all, every office building in America has data cables running through it.

These people are not just the engineers who install, maintain, and repair our communications infrastructure. There are countless others who could be forced to help the government spy, including those who clean offices and guard buildings. If this provision is enacted, the government could deputize

any of these people against their will and force them, in effect, to become what amounts to an agent for Big Brother--for example, by forcing an employee to insert a USB thumb drive into a server at an office they clean or guard at night.

This can all happen without any oversight whatsoever. The FISA Court won't know about it. The Congress won't know about it. Americans who are handed these directives will be forbidden from talking about it. Unless they can afford high-priced lawyers with security clearances who know their way around the FISA Court, they will have no recourse at all.

Now, importantly, Mr. President--and you and I have talked about this--supporters of this provision will say that this doesn't change the fact that section 702 only targets foreigners overseas. But if the government thinks that those targets are communicating with people in the United States, they can go right to the source: the WiFi, the phone lines, the servers, the transmitters that store those communications.

If the government has an interest in those foreign targets, well, the Americans whose communications get collected are just plain out of luck.

Supporters of this provision will also say this was necessary because of a FISA Court opinion. I disagree. That opinion didn't gut section 702. This provision is not necessary, and there certainly is no justification for this vast expansion of surveillance authorities.

Supporters also claim that the provision has a narrow purpose and that the government doesn't intend to start tapping into everybody's phone line or WiFi, but that is not how this provision is written. It is not reflected in the actual legislation.

And I would say, respectfully, that anybody who votes to give the government vast powers under the premise that intelligence Agencies won't actually use them is being pretty darn naive.

Supporters also point to a handful of exceptions that were tacked onto this provision, excluding things like hotels and coffee shops. Anybody who reads the text will see that these provisions clearly are not designed to work. Even the coffee shop exception is meaningless because it wouldn't cover a company that maintains the coffee shop's WiFi. And the fact that there are a couple of random exceptions further proves my point.

This provision is going to force a huge range of companies and individuals to spy for their government.

Supporters have even argued that the bill had to be broadly written because what the government actually wants to do is secret. That is some ``Alice in Wonderland'' logic.

First, the American people deserve to know when the government can spy on them and when it can't. If you clearly can't explain to American voters why you need new powers, then you shouldn't have them.

And the distinguished Presiding officer of the Senate from Vermont, he has asked questions about this as well.

Second, it doesn't matter what the government might be secretly intending to do with these authorities at the moment. There is a statutory authority that will be in place for years, during which time the government may very well decide to dramatically expand its surveillance activities.

Now, some of my colleagues say they aren't worried about President Biden abusing these authorities. Well, last time I looked, the law applies to Presidents, regardless of their political power--excuse me-- regardless of their position. In that case, how about President Trump? Imagine these authorities in his hands. If you are worried about having a President who lives to target vulnerable Americans, to pit Americans against each other, to find every conceivable way to punish perceived enemies, you ought to find this bill terrifying.

The bill expands 702 authorities in other ways. For example, it includes a dramatic increase in the use of 702 in vetting travelers to the United States. It requires that the Attorney General enable searches on all travelers, tens of millions of people who come to the United States annually. This is a dragnet search of every work colleague, neighbor, and classmate who is here on a visa; every grandparent visiting for a wedding or a funeral.

So what I have done in the last 10 or 12 minutes is point out that these are just some of the ways in which this bill expands warrantless surveillance authorities. On top of all of that, it fails to reform section 702 in any meaningful way.

I will start with the warrantless searches of Americans' communications swept up in section 702 collection. These searches have gone after American protesters, political campaign donors, even people who simply reported crimes to the FBI. The abuses have been extensive and well documented.

Now, supporters of this bill are going to argue: Well, the FBI has taken care of things. They have cleaned up their act.

But even after the FBI made changes to its internal policies, abuses continued, including searches for a U.S. Senator, State senator, and a State judge who had complained to the FBI about police abuses.

But the broader concern is that, without checks and balances, there is nothing preventing a rapid increase of abuses after reauthorization.

Supporters of this bill will say that it codified the FBI's internal changes. But what I would say is: Without real checks and balances written into the law, what good are these changes?

Reformers have put forward extremely modest, commonsense solutions. Warrants would not be required for all U.S. person searches. Reform proposals allow the government to see whether an American is communicating with foreign agents. A warrant is required only when the government wants to read the content of these communications--a situation that arises less than 2 percent of the time. Our provision also allows for emergency searches and has exceptions for imminent threats of death or injury, preexisting law enforcement or FISA warrants, consent, and access to malware in cyber attacks.

This modest reform should be debated and voted on in the Senate.

There are other commonsense reforms to section 702 that also are not in this bill. For example, it doesn't protect Americans against reverse targeting, and it doesn't prohibit the collection of domestic communications.

Finally, the bill should have been an opportunity to pass meaningful protections for Americans' privacy from abusive government subpoenas targeted at the most vulnerable groups in our society, including women, religious and racial minorities, and LGBTQ people.

Mr. President, 15 States have now banned abortion, with more on the way. When States enforce bans on reproductive health access, they will use everything from location data generated by connected cars and the smartphone in the patient's pocket to the Google search that the patient used to find the reproductive health facility or online telemedicine service. All of that can be obtained without a court order.

Congress needs to safeguard Americans' privacy, not give the President new surveillance powers. Congress has the time to draft comprehensive privacy and cybersecurity legislation, including a 702 reauthorization. My own view is that Chairman Durbin's SAFE Act and my bipartisan, bicameral Government Surveillance Reform Act are both bills that have support across the aisle, across the Capitol, and they are ready for consideration.

I am going to close with this: This Chamber has the time to do the right thing. Senators do not need to rubberstamp a disastrous surveillance bill just because the Senate is, once again, considering it at the last possible moment. Once again--you can set your clock by it--the Senate considers FISA at the last possible moment.

The FISA Court recently renewed the court's annual 702 certifications, which authorize surveillance until April 2025. Let me repeat that. The FISA Court recently renewed the court's annual 702 certifications, which authorize surveillance until April 2025. That means there is no need for Congress to offer up a rush job. But under no circumstances should the U.S. Senate be cowed by those who say Senators have no choice except to sign off on whatever piece of paper the executive branch requests.

Reformers on both sides of the aisle here in the Senate have been ready and willing since last fall to have this debate; yet the status quo crowd wouldn't pick up the phone until the last possible minute to ensure that this body

wouldn't have time for anything but a last-second vote on what I believe is a dangerous bill. The only way this body is going to have a real debate about reforming government surveillance is by rejecting the House bill and standing up for the Senate's independence and Americans' constitutional rights.

As I have said on this floor before--and I think I will do it-- throughout my time in public service, Ben Franklin got it right: Americans don't have to sacrifice liberty for security. The reality is, security and liberty aren't to be mutually exclusive. We can have both. The Congress has a duty to deliver a FISA law that does both, and I urge my colleagues to pursue exactly that.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I reserve my right to object.

I have heard this discussion about parents. My wife and I are older parents, the youngest child being a charming 11-year-old redhead. As I say, she is 11. So we are all in for protecting kids from these monsters, and there is no disputing that that is what we are talking about.

I say to Senator Graham, we have talked about a lot of issues over the years--no disagreement about these people being monsters. CSAM is a toxic plague on the internet, perpetrated by people who, in my view, are evil to their core. These are real victims, and they need support. The criminals have got to be hunted down and locked up.

I want to be clear. As I have said in the Senate before, I don't take a back seat to anybody when it comes to helping kids and punishing predators. In a minute, I will talk about my approach, which I think is going to be effective. It might not sound effective, but it is going to be effective, and it has been endorsed by the National District Attorneys Association, made up of district attorneys across the land.

Now, the specific reason I oppose EARN IT is that it will weaken the single strongest technology that protects children and families online, something known as strong encryption. It is going to make it easier to punish sites that use encryption to secure private conversations and personal devices. This bill is designed to pressure communications and technology companies to scan users' messages. I, for one, don't find that a particularly comforting idea.

The sponsors of the bill have argued--and Senator Graham is right; we have been talking about this a while--that their bills don't harm encryption. Yet the bills allow courts to punish companies that offer strong encryption. In fact, while it includes some vague language about protecting encryption, it explicitly allows encryption to be used as evidence for various forms of liability. Prosecutors are going to be quick to argue that deploying encryption was evidence of a company's negligence in preventing the distribution of CSAM, for example.

The bill is also designed to encourage the scanning of content on users' phones or computers before information is sent over the internet, which has the same consequences as breaking encryption. That is why 100 groups, civil society groups, including the American Library Association--people whom I think all of us have worked for--and the Human Rights Campaign and Restore the Fourth--all of them oppose this bill because of its impact on essential security.

Weakening encryption is the single biggest gift you could give to these predators and these god-awful people who want to stalk and spy on kids. Sexual predators are going to have a far easier time stealing photographs of kids, tracking their phones, and spying on their private messages once encryption is breached.

It is very ironic that a bill that is supposed to make kids safer would have the effect of threatening the privacy and security of all law-abiding Americans.

My alternative--and I want to be clear about this because I think Senator Graham has been sincere about saying that this is a horrible problem involving kids. We have a disagreement on the remedy. That is what is at issue. What I want us to do is to focus our energy on giving law enforcement officials the tools they need to find and prosecute these monstrous criminals who are responsible for exploiting kids and spreading vile, abusive materials online. That can help prevent kids from becoming victims in the first place.

So I have introduced a bill to do this, the Invest in Child Safety Act, to direct $5 billion to do three specific things to deal with this very urgent problem.

What I have proposed in the Invest in Child Safety Act--I am very pleased to be able to say it has been endorsed by the National District Attorneys Association--is, one, give law enforcement agencies the tools and personnel they need to catch the predators who are creating and spreading CSAM; two, fund community-based programs to prevent at-risk kids from becoming victims in the first place; and three, invest in programs to support survivors of abuse.

Any legislation that doesn't include these pieces, I would just say particularly to Senator Graham because he and I have talked about this many times over the years and just have a difference of opinion, any legislation that doesn't include the three pieces I mentioned, I don't think is up to the task of protecting these kids that we all feel so strongly about.

Therefore, I object.

Reserving the right to object.

Madam President, again, I have made my point that I don't disagree in the least with Senator Graham on the seriousness of the problem. Unfortunately, this bill suffers from exactly the same matters that I objected to earlier.

So I am not going to repeat myself and put everybody through that. But here are the main points to make sure they are heard on CSAM, as I did with respect to EARN IT.

CSAM is a horrifying plague on the internet. Senator Graham and I do not disagree on that point at all. Again, weakening encryption, though, is not going to help victims or make kids safer. And that is what this bill does.

The Leadership Conference for Civil Rights opposes this bill and the earlier bill because they threaten secure private communications that are essential for communities of color and every single family in the country.

I would only say, in terms of wrapping this up--and Senator Graham and I have talked about this--my door is open in terms of talking about approaches that will work. I believe that focusing our energy on giving law enforcement, finally, the tools to lock these horrible criminals behind bars for exploiting kids is something that we ought to get on with. And we ought to invest in programs that support survivors.

The Invest in Child Safety Act that I have written, with the support of the National District Attorneys Association, is endorsed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and leading child welfare groups.

That is what this bill does. It finally offers a measure of real protection for these kids who we have been talking about over the last hour or so who deserve it. Their families deserve it. The legislation that I have proposed, endorsed by influential voices like the National District Attorneys Association, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, with respect to CSAM, are the way to go. Again, anything less--and I don't criticize anybody's motives--just doesn't solve the problem. For that reason, I object to this bill as well.

Mr. President, in a few minutes, the Senate will vote on the confirmation of Marjorie A. Rollinson to serve as Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service, and I want to make a few key points about her.

First, she has exactly the right experience to do the job. She has decades of tax and management experience in both the private sector and the public sector. She spent several years at the IRS Office of Chief Counsel. She has also been the Technical Deputy Associate Chief Counsel and the Associate Chief Counsel--both times on international tax issues--so she has real expertise on these issues. That is a big reason she got bipartisan support in the Finance Committee.

And this is a crucial time for the Agency in terms of implementing and enforcing tax laws, and I will just give colleagues a couple of quick examples that I know Members feel strongly about, and I would like to start with energy.

One of the big implementation jobs in the works--something that I have been very involved in and I know Members on both sides have--deals with a key part of the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically the area of incentives for energy production. This was the centerpiece of the Finance Committee's Clean Energy for America Act, a bill that I first introduced in 2015.

What motivated that legislation--and I see a number of my Finance Committee colleagues here--is we said that, for the future, to tackle climate in the right way, we had to set aside the old system of picking winners and losers and just propping up the old, carbon-intensive technologies and, in effect, go to a new system--a brandnew system--of technological neutrality--in effect, giving all the energy sources in America the opportunity to compete and compete in a way where there are no mandates--in effect, private sector style competition--with one goal: reducing carbon emissions.

The Senate Finance Committee--and there are several members on the floor right now--understands this. Our committee had never done anything like this in 100 years--to create this kind of market incentive, a market incentive to actually reduce carbon emissions.

Now, the administration has been working through, right now, a number of challenging rules. Technology neutrality is the next big one for them. It is essential to get this guidance out there so that taxpayers and clean energy producers can take full advantage of the law and, particularly, be part of this new system, this new approach, that we call technological neutrality. It will give every Member of this body-- and I see additional members of the Finance Committee coming in--an opportunity to be part of this very new world in energy, and Ms. Rollinson will play a chief role as IRS Chief Counsel once she is confirmed.

If she is confirmed, she is going to play another important role in terms of tax enforcement. Every member of the Finance Committee feels strongly about making sure audits are dealt with in a responsible way. We want to do it by the book so it is not just low-income families who get audited. Everybody who is skirting the law should be subject to equal treatment under the law, and we ought to crack down on the sophisticated, wealthy tax cheats who pay for the best tax lawyers and accountants. It is a matter of basic fairness with respect to audits, and Ms. Rollinson will handle that in the right fashion.

I will close by saying I think Ms. Rollinson is an excellent pick for the job. This is a crucial time for this position. They are going to be implementing a very new energy world, a world based on technological neutrality and marketplace competition, and they are going to have the responsibility of ensuring the enforcement of tax law in a fair way, particularly as it relates to audits. That is why she got bipartisan support in the Finance Committee. It is why she deserves bipartisan support today.

I urge my colleagues now to approve the Rollinson nomination.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I want to say to my colleague from Illinois that I am so proud to be a supporter of your legislation that is going to provide the necessary protections for women in America to become mothers.

I think I mentioned this to my colleague at lunch a couple of days ago. Thirty years ago, Madame President, I wrote the Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act into law, and I would just say to my colleague, back then, we never thought--never thought--we would have to be standing today on the floor of the United States Senate debating this, as we are today. But we are here because a few days ago, Alabama's far-right Supreme Court handed down a first-of-its-kind ruling effectively making IVF impossible in Alabama.

We are seeing heartbreaking headlines about couples in that State being forced to rethink their plans to start a family through the IVF process that was just in effect 30 years ago. Some of these families have already spent tens of thousands of dollars and have undergone extensive medical treatment. Alabama's largest hospital system, the University of Alabama, has already paused its IVF services out of fear of prosecution.

The decision to conceive a child through IVF is rarely ever a parent's first choice. It is physically and emotionally painful, taxing and tedious, and it is expensive. But for countless couples dreaming of just one thing--just one thing--the chance to start a family, the legislation that my colleagues have been working on is absolutely essential.

The IVF journey, as we started talking about years ago, for so many parents is grueling, filled with countless doctor's appointments, agonizing waits for test results, and too often--too often-- disappointment. The process is very delicate. Embryos can expire at any time during the process entirely by accident.

Under Alabama's new ruling, a doctor or a woman undergoing treatment could be charged with wrongful death if an embryo expires during the IVF transfer or implementation process. That means women who are already undergoing this incredibly painful process could also be handed a wrongful death lawsuit on top of everything else. That, in my view, Madame President and colleagues, is nothing short of criminalizing people who try to become parents.

Unfortunately, while this ruling is a shocking one, it is not all that surprising if you have been paying attention to the ongoing war that the far right is waging on women and families in America. For years, Republicans laughed off the concerns about the vulnerability of abortion protections under Roe. Then they gutted it at the first opportunity.

Since the Dobbs decision, these same Republicans have tried again to convince the American people that there is no threat of a national abortion law and no threat to any other facet of reproductive freedom, like contraception--in short, no domino effect. Instead, the repeal of Roe has laid the groundwork for an onslaught of court rulings just like this one in Alabama, which explicitly references the Dobbs case. The gaslighting would be laughable if it weren't so terrifying. We have all become familiar with the adage: When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

At every opportunity, Republicans have moved mountains in order to restrict the constitutional rights and freedoms of women, making it impossible for them to live their lives free from government intrusion. It is pretty clear to me they are not going to rest until there is a politician in every bedroom and exam room in America.

In the wake of last week's ruling, I saw a lot of my Republican colleagues attempt to distance themselves from the decision, claiming that they unequivocally support IVF, but that is what they put in motion when they overturned Roe v. Wade. In fact, a year ago, Senate Democrats tried to pass Senator Duckworth's bill. Senate Republicans blocked it. So now it is clear. If colleagues really do support IVF, as so many were spending the whole weekend claiming, then they are in luck. They are in luck because Senator Duckworth is going to give them an opportunity to prove it by going on the record this evening and supporting this legislation.

As I say to my friend from Illinois, I was thinking of you when coming over here today because back 30 years ago, nobody ever thought we would have to be out here just trying to get started in making sure families had information. But what you are doing is so incredibly important, Senator Duckworth, because with your legislation, in America, we will have the necessary protections for women to become mothers using IVF.

I urge my colleagues to strongly support the Duckworth legislation.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, anybody who follows the Finance Committee knows that I very much enjoy working with our colleague from North Carolina. We have worked together on a variety of issues here. However, we have got a big disagreement, and I hope we can work it out.

More than 90 percent of North Carolina's Members of Congress voted in favor of our bipartisan bill to improve the lives of 16 million kids and assist scores of small businesses trying to better compete with China. This carefully crafted bipartisan bill will significantly also increase the supply of affordable housing, which is badly needed from one end of our Nation to another. If the Senate approves the request of our colleague from North Carolina, it would essentially kick out one of the legs of this carefully crafted bipartisan tax agreement. The entire bill topples.

Here is a little background.

After 4 months of negotiations, including many meetings over several months and in working with our colleague from Idaho, Senator Crapo; our colleague from Massachusetts, Congressman Neal; Chairman Smith, of the Ways and Means Committee, and I agreed on a bill that brings together Republican and Democratic priorities. Republicans wanted a set of tax cuts for business. Democrats were willing to accept those because many of those tax cuts will help small businesses and help our country compete with China by promoting research and development. So Democrats said we will work with the Republicans on those proposals in exchange for an equal investment in kids and families. We fought for the largest expansion of the child tax credit we could get. Our bill immediately helps 16 million kids from low-income families.

The laws on the books--I think the Presiding Officer and I talked about this when she came to the Senate to join us. The laws on the books today discriminate--they discriminate--against so many of our large families of modest means. This bipartisan bill changes that. They will get to claim the child tax credit for each of the kids just like middle- and high-income families get to do.

The analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows what a transformational change this would be for so many families of modest means. For example, a parent of two young kids who works as a home health aide or a food server could see their child tax credit nearly double. They could get close to an additional $2,000 to help those families--to help them pay for diapers, baby food, and schools supplies--you name it. For families with three or more kids, the benefits are even greater, and in both cases, they will do even better next year.

These are families who walk the economic tightrope every day. They need the help. They are going to keep working hard regardless because raising a child in America is expensive for everybody--working class, middle class, even those who are more fortunate.

Our bill also includes other bipartisan priorities. I particularly want to thank colleagues on both sides. Senator Maria Cantwell, my colleague from the Pacific Northwest; our colleague from Indiana, Senator Todd Young; and a number of Senators came together to support the low-income housing tax credit, which will help to build more than 200,000 affordable housing units across the country. All of these priorities are paid for by sunsetting a pandemic-era tax program called the employee retention tax credit.

The program, which technically expired in 2021, has become overrun with fraud. I think my colleague remembers because we were there together, and all of us were kind of slack-jawed. We had the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Werfel, whom Senator Tillis and I both enjoy working with--a straight shooter.

I said: I got a tip from a whistleblower. What is the story on this employee retention tax credit? I hear that 95 percent of the current claims are fraudulent. Let me repeat that: 95 percent of the current claims are fraudulent.

He looked at his shoes and said: Yes, that is the case, Senators.

So that is what we are looking at for our pay-for.

The Joint Committee on Taxation are the people--you know, I know they are not exactly a household word, but they are the official nonpartisan experts. As my friend from North Carolina and I know, we kind of use them as the gospel before everybody starts running around and twisting the politics. The Joint Committee on Taxation tells us that cutting off the ERTC claims pays for nearly the entire tax bill that Chairman Smith and I introduced. So it makes a lot of sense to cut off an out-of-date program that is overrun with fraud and redirect those dollars to low- income families and priorities like research and development and small business.

Now, I know that my colleague from North Carolina is raising objections to this as being an offset, and he certainly has a right to do that. But I want to take a minute to kind of walk through the implications.

First, my colleague's request from the Senate right now would shut down these employee retention claims, but it doesn't include the rest of the bill that Chairman Smith and I introduced. So there would be no help for low-income kids and families, no boost for R&D, no boost for small business.

I know my colleague thinks that this is some kind of gimmick, and he would like to wait and pass the business pieces of the tax package without any offset. Now, I am not sure--because he and I have not really talked about it--but there is this old saw that corporate tax cuts pay for themselves--essentially, that the tax breaks favored by

Republicans never need to be offset, regardless of the proof they will add to the deficit, and that is wrong. That was shown in 2017 when Republicans added trillions of dollars to the deficit to pass the Trump tax law, which overwhelmingly benefited large corporations and the wealthy. The pricetag on that deficit buster was growing even higher with the increase in interest rates.

So my colleague, as I indicated, hasn't had to get involved in those kinds of issues in the past, but I just think that, if we are unwinding deficit finance tax laws, we ought to go back a little further and repeal the deficit-financed handouts to corporations and the wealthy that Donald Trump and the Republicans passed in 2017.

The fact is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, from Missouri, who I think would call himself a strong conservative--he and I negotiated a bipartisan proposal. Nearly the entire bill is paid for, and it came after months and months and months of discussions with Democrats and Republicans. If the Joint Committee on Taxation tells the Finance Committee that that is an offset--the one we have that works-- that, to me, is always the end of the debate.

So I would just hope that we not do something--and I know my colleague well enough at this point that this is not his intent, but this is essentially a poison pill to a bipartisan effort on the child tax credit, research and development, and low-income housing, and we shouldn't do it this way.

I will just say publicly what I said to my colleague from North Carolina: I am very interested in working with him and with the ranking member, Senator Crapo, because we have always done it that way. We have always found common ground. My goodness, there is a lot to work with here. It got 357 votes in the other body. I have been here long enough to know you can't get 357 votes to go order a Dr Pepper. That is a big, big effort at bipartisanship.

So I close by way of saying that I am going to object here in a minute officially so that is clear, but I want to again extend an olive branch to my colleague from North Carolina and to the ranking member, Senator Crapo. Let's do something good for low-income kids, particularly the big families, the small businesses, research and development. Let's get that low-income housing tax credit that Senator Cantwell and Senator Young and a whole group of us on the Finance Committee have been for. Let's get going on that so we can work on it together and get it up in short order after we come back.

So, with that, I object.

Madam President, just very briefly, my sense is that, after we are done voting on the piece of legislation that is in front of us, we will have, I would say to my friend from North Carolina, a crucial period where we can come together and start looking at ways to find common ground and get this passed.

The reality is it has been weeks now since the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and I brought forward our proposal--the one that got 357 votes. I have been saying to folks on the Republican side of the aisle: My door is open. Tell me what you want in terms of a couple of these provisions I have heard mentioned, but we haven't heard anything.

So I want, as chairman of the Finance Committee, to again extend an olive branch to say: The door is open. Have you got ideas on pay-fors that both sides can go along with that we can get passed in the other body? Have you got issues--I mean, we have had a discussion about the work requirement, for example, and I have looked at all of these experts and this fellow from the tax organization, Grover Norquist, who is certainly one of the more conservative people in this town, who says this doesn't discourage work. But he doesn't have an election certificate, and Republicans do. So we are going to all sit down and work this through, but we have to get it done quickly because people are filing their returns now. We want those small businesses and we want those families to get a fair shake.

So to all Senators who are listening to this: My door is open. Let's move quickly after we get through this bill and be ready to go when we get back and move this legislation to do something significant, which, by the way, also has an added benefit because it will set the table in a responsible way for the bigger tax debate come 2025.

I thank my colleague.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I very much share the stated goals of the STOP CSAM Act. Child sexual abuse material is a toxic plague on the internet. There are real victims who need real support and criminals who must be hunted down and locked up.

I take a back seat to no one when it comes to helping kids and punishing predators. However, this bill would weaken the single strongest technology that now protects children and families--that's strong encryption. It will make it easier to punish sites that use encryption to secure private conversations and personal devices. While STOP CSAM's sponsors have argued that the bill does not target encryption, the bill explicitly allows courts to punish companies that offer strong encryption. It also would encourage scanning of content on user's phones or computers before information is sent over the internet, which has the same consequences as breaking encryption.

Weakening encryption is probably the single biggest gift that you can give to the predators and the monsters who want to stalk and spy on kids. Sexual predators will have a far easier time stealing and extorting photographs of children, tracking their phones, and spying on their private messages once encryption is breached.

Doing so threatens the privacy and security of every single law- abiding American.

I also think it is surprising that the Senator is asking to pass this bill at the very same time its sponsor is reportedly circulating an updated version of the bill with a number of changes. Although that new version of the legislation has not been made public, it certainly would be a mistake to pass legislation that apparently is still in the process of being revised.

Mr. President, what this is all about is talking about doing something effective or actually taking effective action. I have proposed doing just that. We ought to focus on giving law enforcement officials the tools they need to find and prosecute criminals responsible for exploiting kids and spreading these vile materials online. That way, we can help keep kids from becoming victims in the first place.

Let me also say that we can do this if Members support my bipartisan Invest in Child Safety Act. The bill directs $5 billion in mandatory funding to do three things which would ensure that we have an effective response for families and parents: one, give law enforcement agencies the tools and personnel they need to catch the predators who are creating and spreading CSAM; two, fund community-based programs to prevent at-risk kids from becoming victims in the first place; three, invest in programs to support survivors of abuse.

Any legislation that doesn't include these pieces is missing the point; therefore, I object.

Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent to briefly respond to what my colleague has just repeated.

And then I would ask unanimous consent for 5 minutes to speak in favor of a very talented jurist in Oregon, who will be voted on shortly.

Mr. President, first, with respect to my response to our colleague from Missouri, let me be clear on a point that technologists are clear on. This bill would weaken the strongest technology that protects children and families online: strong encryption. And this bill explicitly allows courts to punish companies that offer strong encryption. That is right at the center of my objection.

Mr. President, I am going to move now to my brief remarks with respect to our judge from Oregon. I come to the floor today to reiterate my strong support for Judge Amy Baggio's nomination to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

Judge Baggio has a proven track record as both a jurist and a litigator. She spent a decade as a public defender; and in her career on the bench, she has presided over hundreds of civil and criminal matters and handled 42 trials, half of which were jury trials.

And I note, because Members have been asking with respect to her values in terms of prosecuting and dealing with cases and her attitude towards criminals, in one case the judge sentenced a man to many more years for first-degree sexual abuse than anyone had thought was even being discussed, certainly longer than was sought by defense counsel. So it is a testament to Judge Baggio's fairness and professionalism that during her career as a judge, she has never once had a party file a request for a different judge.

In addition to being fair, she has consistently demonstrated an ability to make thoughtful decisions that protect communities and their values.

I urge my colleagues--and I gather that we will be going to the vote now--to support a very dedicated public servant--and I emphasize that-- a public servant who has got a real track record as a public defender and in her career on the bench.

I urge my colleagues to support Judge Amy Baggio.