Floor Statements

Mr. President, on the first floor of the Federal building in

Amarillo, across the street from a grassy park and a few blocks away from the local minor league baseball stadium, is a U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of Texas.

Presiding over that courtroom is a lifelong rightwing activist, a partisan, an ideologue, an anti-abortion zealot who was handpicked by Donald Trump and the Federalist Society to pretend to be impartial on the bench. Instead, what he is doing is delivering favorable rulings on the cases his fellow rightwing ideologues funnel his way.

His name is Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. He was confirmed in 2019 on a party-line vote. In a matter of days, he is going to issue a ruling on a case so absurd and so meritless that it doesn't deserve a single breath of argument in his courtroom. The case is the so-called Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine vs. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If we allow it, Kacsmaryk's ruling could deal the next devastating blow to the right to privacy in America and the right of all women across the country to control their own bodies, not just in Texas, but all 50 States--every single one.

So this afternoon, I am going to describe this dangerous new political scheme playing out in the courtroom, and I call this scheme ``courtwashing.'' I am going to talk about what the President and the Food and Drug Administration must do when this judge's ruling comes down.

The lawsuit in Texas aims to undo the Food and Drug Administration's 2000 approval of a medication called mifepristone, one of two drugs that is used in a medication abortion. The drug has a record of being very safe and effective. It is used in more than 50 percent of abortions nationwide. It has been on the market and used for this important treatment for three decades. Anyone who calls its safety into question is just ignoring the factual record.

I have a long history of working on policy relating to mifepristone. I was one of the first elected officials to advocate for its use in our country. In 1990, I chaired the first-ever congressional hearing on mifepristone before the House Small Business Committee.

But then, like today, rightwing extremists pulled out all the stops to keep the drug from being approved. They campaigned on the politics of fear, threatened lives, and just lied about the drug's safety. They even once deployed a small bomb at a conference where the chemist behind this medicine was scheduled to speak.

Their efforts worked at first. The Food and Drug Administration imposed an import alert on the drug that hindered research on its uses outside of abortion. I fought that import alert and introduced a bill to remove the restriction. The Food and Drug Administration finally approved the drug in 2000. My advocacy around this issue and this drug has never been based on some political agenda but just science and fact.

So let's look at the facts, not the fiction you hear from the plaintiffs in this case.

It is a fact that this medication is key to ensuring fundamental rights, including the right to privacy and the right to make your own reproductive choices. Medication abortions allow for women to end a pregnancy at home in a way that is safe.

It is a fact that mifepristone has fewer complications than Tylenol. A wealth of evidence demonstrates the drug's safety and effectiveness.

It is a fact that Republicans on the Supreme Court have said the issue of abortion should be returned to the States, that the country shouldn't have a one-size-fits-all policy on this issue.

So the question to ask is: How did it become possible for one single judge in Texas to be on the verge of blocking access to a drug that a duly-authorized Federal Agency has said is safe for over 20 years, and yet that judge could very soon block access to the drug nationwide?

To answer that, it is appropriate to tell a little history. Congress long ago empowered the Food and Drug Administration made up of scientists to approve or disapprove the use of new drugs--not the States and certainly not activist judges. The Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone 23 years ago. For those looking to challenge that approval, it is a little late. The statute of limitations allows challenges to food and drug procedures for 6 years.

If that wasn't clear enough, Congress cemented its approval again in 2007 as part of an amendment to the Food and Drug Act. Any drug--any drug--previously approved by the Agency was deemed to be in compliance with new rules governing the Food and Drug Administration. Mifepristone is covered by that amendment made by the legislative branch. There is no reasonable argument to the contrary.

Nevertheless, the plaintiffs in this case want Judge Kacsmaryk to reach back through time, bust through the statute of limitations and congressional intent, and toss out the FDA's legal approval.

Furthermore, the plaintiffs in the case have no standing to bring this suit. To establish standing, the plaintiff has to show actual harm or injury to demonstrate a direct impact by the actions of the defendant. The plaintiffs are extreme anti-abortion groups and their doctors.

Here is the absurd claim they are putting forward. They argue-- defying science and fact--that some unknown future patient may take mifepristone, experience a highly unlikely side effect, and then somehow find their way into one of their exam rooms for treatment.

If a standing claim that ridiculous and overly broad passes muster, than I just think it is time to rip up the legal textbooks in America and start over. That would mean that anybody could wander into Federal court and seek relief against anybody based on wild, dreamed-up scenarios, hypothesizing that somehow, someway, somebody might be injured in the future.

Legal logic be damned, the plaintiffs know that Judge Kacsmaryk is sure not going to let pesky obstacles like precedent or science or standing get in the way of the agenda that they share. That is because Donald Trump and conservative activists planted him to be on that bench in the Amarillo courtroom right now. They know he has spent his whole career fighting shoulder to shoulder with them against LGBTQ equality, abortion, and contraception.

He is there for one reason, and I call it ``courtwashing.'' In the ``courtwashing'' scheme, the judge has the role of giving the appearance of judicial legitimacy--judicial legitimacy--to the outcomes that the rightwing activists know they are going to get as soon as their cases show up on his docket.

In the few years that Judge Kacsmaryk has been on the Federal District Court, he has earned the title of the most lawless judge in America. It is tough to earn that kind of infamy in such a short time, but his rulings have justified it. He has issued constitutionally dubious and extraordinarily contentious opinions. He has defied precedent in protecting LGBTQ employees and attacked the right to contraception by restricting minors' access to it.

Now he has got a case on access to abortion medication that is directly intertwined with the rights of privacy and choice.

The plaintiffs who have no legitimate standing have handpicked him to hear this case that has no merit because they know what they are going to get with Judge Kacsmaryk.

They have gone to him for ``courtwashing.''

The plaintiffs want mifepristone outlawed in every single State in America, and with this judge, they found a way to make it happen. Because of how judges in this Federal district in Texas are assigned, the plaintiffs could use a procedural loophole and hot-wire the judicial branch. They could ensure Kacsmaryk was the only judge who would get the case--no shot of it getting assigned to anybody else.

To make this more frightening, if and when Kacsmaryk tosses out FDA approval, Americans cannot count on the appellate courts to step in and do what is right, do what is constitutional.

The appeal would land at the activist Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. This is the same court that allowed Texas bill SB 8--effectively an abortion ban--to go into effect before the Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs.

From there, any appeal would presumably head to the very same Republican majority on the Supreme Court that overturned Roe. The Roberts

Court doesn't even wince at revoking constitutional rights and upending decades of precedent on legal grounds that are flimsy.

By the way, at this point, I want to note it is a fairly recent phenomenon that a single judge even had the authority to issue a nationwide injunction. Until 1976, three-judge courts were required to enjoin Federal and State laws. Even after that, it was no longer required, it was relatively uncommon until about a decade ago to see Federal laws and policies blocked in their entirety by the ruling of one district court judge.

Now, it is true that these types of injunctions have been used against both Democratic and Republican administrations. The difference here is that the appellate courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, are aiding these polarization efforts, but only for one side.

So, some numbers. On 41 occasions, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to put on hold an adverse lower court ruling for the duration of the Government's appeal. In 28 of those cases, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration relief. In comparison, the Biden administration has sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court nine times. The Supreme Court granted it on only two occasions. And, incredibly, the Court has granted emergency relief against the Biden administration four times, something that didn't happen during the lawless days of the Trump administration.

So what does that mean for the case in Texas? Well, if and when Judge Kacsmaryk issues a ruling that he was handpicked to deliver, the ``courtwashing'' is on.

The Fifth Circuit, which has little respect for precedent, will almost certainly uphold his ruling. Then the Roberts Court will almost certainly leave the ruling in place through the long and arduous appellate process.

All the while, millions of women will suffer grave danger. The harm that will result from this decision can't be overstated. Cut off from care they need, women will die. While this wouldn't be the first time a judicial decision has caused irreparable harm, this case is particularly offensive. It will come from a lawless judge picked by the litigants with no standing to bring a case that should be barred by the statute of limitations and has absolutely no merit.

So I am here to sum it all up.

Americans and their leaders must look at circumstances like this and say, ``Enough,'' not ``We will see what Congress might do'' or ``how the appeals process is going to play out.'' What is needed now is to just say, ``Enough.''

The power of the judiciary begins and ends with its legitimacy in the eyes of the public. It doesn't have the military backing of the executive branch or Congress's powers of the purse. A judge's ruling stands because elected leaders and citizens have agreed that abiding by them is right and necessary to uphold the rule of law. It is part of our social contract, but the judiciary must uphold its end of the social contract too. It has got to follow the rule of law and earn the confidence of the American people every single day.

Recently, that confidence has eroded--no secret why. Look at the Dobbs decision in overturning Roe. Look at what is happening in Texas now. Parts of the judiciary seem to have morphed into a mob of MAGA extremists, conspiring with and willing to do the bidding of every rightwing group or former President that appears before it, no matter the cost to life and liberty.

The awful reality is, from the moment this case landed in front of Judge Kacsmaryk, it has been a rigged game, illegitimate. The case is an affront to the Constitution and to the rule of law in our country.

So here is what must happen if and when Judge Kacsmaryk issues his nationwide injunction--nationwide. As to all of this business that the States have rights, uh-uh. This has nationwide implications to halt access to mifepristone. My view is that President Biden and the Food and Drug Administration must ignore a nationwide injunction from Judge Kacsmaryk. Don't give in to the ``courtwashing.'' Protect the fundamental rights and well-being of all women in America.

The Food and Drug Administration ought to go on just as it has for the last 23 years since it first approved mifepristone. The Food and Drug Administration needs to keep this medication on the market, without interruption, regardless of what this ruling says.

Doctors and pharmacies should go about their jobs like nothing has changed.

American leaders who care about the right to privacy and the lives of women in this country must not let an illegitimate ruling in this case stand.

It is just not possible to hide from this fight any longer. Let the rightwing extremists stand up and explain why they lied--why they lied--to the people of this country when they said the Dobbs case was just going to be about returning abortion law to the States.

In the face of a ``courtwashing'' strategy, whose outcome is almost certainly predetermined, we can't possibly say we are just going to wait around and see what happens with Congress and the appeals process. Too much is at stake, and this case will not be in the hands of public servants who are staying true to their oaths of office.

Women in America need to know that they are not going to be cut off from their privacy rights and the care that they seek and that they have a legal right to obtain--not for a year, not for a month, not for a day. If that is what the ruling would do, the answer is to ignore it, at least until there is a final ruling on the underlying matter by the Supreme Court.

I do not say this lightly, and I have never said anything quite like this before. I believe in the three branches of government and respect the role of the judicial branch. I have had the honor to represent Oregon in the U.S. Congress for more than 40 years--first in the House and, for the last 27 years, in the Senate. I have raised my hand and taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I do not intend to dishonor that oath, which is why I am standing here this afternoon.

This judge is not upholding the oath he took. He is not adhering to the Constitution. He is stomping all over the privacy rights of millions of women in this country and ignoring the rule of law, and something needs to be done about it.

Let me close by saying this wouldn't be the first time a political leader or an elected official has called on others to ignore a court ruling. Abraham Lincoln did it after the Supreme Court issued the historically egregious Dred Scott ruling, which held that Black people could never be citizens of the United States. Lincoln called the decision erroneous, an abomination. He pointed to the partisan bias in the opinion in that it was based on assumed historical facts which weren't true and that it was one opinion that couldn't be considered precedent.

Sound kind of familiar?

Lincoln's directive in response to the case was that it is the constitutional duty of elected officials to resist unconstitutional decisions of the courts, even the Supreme Court, if the rulings will harm the Nation and its people.

Now, these cases are, obviously, different, with very different circumstances, and nothing--nothing--compares to the horrors of slavery. Nevertheless, these cases do have something in common. It is a question of the advancement of rights versus the deprivation of rights. The advancement of individual rights is at the core of our national character and history.

This case before Judge Kacsmaryk rejects that. It is clearly part of an effort to backtrack on a century of progress for American women and to deprive them of fundamental rights--the right to privacy, the right to control their own bodies, and, stemming from that, the right to live and work and participate in American life fully and equally.

That will be the outcome if the ``courtwashing'' strategy succeeds. If Judge Kacsmaryk can violate his oath to deliver the outcome his fellow rightwing activists are after and if the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court bless such a ruling as legitimate, we are going to see an affront to the Constitution.

As Lincoln told his fellow Americans, the Supreme Court is not the Constitution--neither is Judge Kacsmaryk. The Constitution and the rights it affords

American women are what this country must defend. I am here to say, ``Enough,'' and to defend it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the scheduled vote occur immediately.

Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I just want my colleague to know that what you just heard from Senator Brown is why, every single day, he gives public service a good name. He shows up, and he works for the people. It is thrilling to see that, as always, he recognizes that he can't do it by himself. He has got staff, and it is so appropriate to hear him and his gracious remarks about his colleague who is moving on.

Mr. President, it is great to see you.

For those who aren't familiar, those of us on the Senate Finance Committee have been so proud to work with our colleague Senator Warnock, particularly his championship of affordable medicine and affordable insulin, where he has been a leader for all of us on this side of the aisle. And had he had his way, all Americans--not just those who depend on Medicare--would already have the benefits of more affordable medicine.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the following members of my team be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress: Erika Fountain, Erin Evans, Aaron Tyler Mentzer, Eric LoPresti, Allison Crha, Nicole Brussel Faria, Eleanor DeGarmo, and Aaron Parzuchowski.

Mr. President, the Committee on Finance has adopted rules governing its procedures for the 118th Congress. Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 2, of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying rules for the Senate Committee on Finance be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, colleagues, I would strongly urge opposition to the Scott motion. The Scott motion would strip funding the IRS needs very much to go after wealthy tax cheats who are refusing to pay taxes they already owe. The most recent IRS Commissioner, a Republican appointee, estimated that the amount of taxes owed that are not collected could be as much as $1 trillion per year.

Working Americans--firefighters and nurses--who pay their taxes with every paycheck believe that the IRS must have the resources it needs to go after the sophisticated, wealthy tax cheats at the top, but powerful special interests who don't want to pay what they already owe are lying to the American people about how the additional IRS funding will be used.

I urge my colleagues to strongly oppose the Scott motion.

Mr. President, in a moment, I intend to put forward a unanimous consent request to pass my bipartisan bill with our colleague from Utah, Senator Lee, entitled the Protect Reporters from Excessive State Suppression Act, also known as the PRESS Act.

Before I make the unanimous consent request, I want to take just a few minutes to talk about why our colleague from Utah Senator Lee and I feel this legislation is so important, and I will start with the basic proposition behind the legislation.

If you don't have a free press, you don't have a democracy. My dad was a journalist. After fleeing the Nazis, he came to this country, taught himself English, worked in our Army developing propaganda that we dropped on the Nazis. He believed deeply in individual freedom and in press freedom and would always tell me: Ron, they go hand in hand.

If you want to see what happens when governments undermine and eliminate the free press, look at Russia, look at Saudi Arabia, look at Iran. Information became a tool of power, abuse, and manipulation. That is what governments do when they want to keep freedom from breaking out in their countries. And so they abuse power rather than promote education, expression, and enlightenment among the countryside and the people.

So--let's be clear--the threat of government overreach interfering with the free press in the United States is not some distant, far-off, hypothetical idea. It happened very recently. The Trump administration spied on several journalists at outlets the disgraced ex-President personally disliked and attacked, grabbing phone and email records. The extent of this abuse of power has come out in shocking revelations over the last few years.

And let me emphasize, the Trump administration was not the first to do this sort of thing. Both the Trump administration and the Obama administration went too far in prosecuting journalists just for doing their jobs.

Now, Members of the Senate talk pretty frequently about their interest in protecting journalism in America. My view is the bipartisan PRESS Act is the best opportunity we have to make progress on that goal before the Congress ends--and we all hope that that is fairly shortly.

The PRESS Act would protect the free flow of information by shielding journalists from being ordered by the courts to give up their sources. The bill includes key exceptions, such as when that information is necessary to prevent an act of terrorism against the United States or necessary to prevent the threat of imminent violence. Those exceptions were very important to Senator Lee and me.

I see our colleague here from Arkansas. He and I serve on the Select Committee on Intelligence, so we know about the importance of protecting our country against terrorism.

This legislation is very similar to legislation already on the books in several States, including my home State of Oregon and Senator Lee's home State of Utah. It is our view, though, that these protections should extend from sea to shining sea in our great country.

Now, I will close by saying this is a proposal that brings both sides together. The House passed the PRESS Act a few months ago unanimously. And I think our colleagues would agree that sometimes these days it seems you can't get every Member of the House to even agree that there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week, yet they passed our bill unanimously.

This is a can't-miss opportunity to protect the free press in America. It is good for the free flow of information. It is good for holding government accountable, and it is good for the democratic ideals on which this country was founded.

And I will just close by saying that if you read the writings of the Founding Fathers, it was almost as if they thought a free press was as important, if not more so, than government. That is how strongly they felt.

Let's pass this unanimous consent request when we make it, and let's send the PRESS Act to the President's desk today.

And I will now ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4330 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that 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 think the fact that there has been an objection here is very unfortunate. I am just going to briefly respond.

Our colleague from Arkansas has talked about the exceptions that are made in this bipartisan bill. And I would only say that the exceptions to make sure we can protect our country to deal with national security in this bill were strong enough to get the support of 435 Members of the House of Representatives.

I look at the President of the Senate, and he and I were in the other body. And sometimes, you would think you couldn't order a 7UP over there. But the fact is, it got the support of every Member of the House of Representatives--all 435--because they thought the exceptions made sense here.

Second, my colleague from Arkansas said that this was somehow giving special status--special protection--to the press in America. That is not accurate. This gives the press the kind of protection I believe the Founding Fathers would have supported because I have read their writings and saw what they had to say about the press and have already noted it.

And then our colleague seemed to make the case that this was somehow for liberal journalists--not for journalists for moderates and conservatives--for liberal journalists. The legislation extends to people in the press across the political spectrum. There are no special fast-track arrangements for people of one philosophy or another. And that was something that was especially important to me.

I mentioned in my remarks my dad, who fled the Nazis, taught himself English, and served in our Army. And he worked--particularly, after his service--writing historical nonfiction. He wrote a very important book about the Bay of Pigs where he highlighted what really happened. And what I enjoyed so much about my dad's book and what happened afterwards, the first person to call my dad, because, he said, Peter-- my dad was Peter Wyden--you are writing the truth about what happened, was the late Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, one of the most conservative Members of the other body. And he and my dad struck up a fast friendship over the phone because they were interested in the facts. And that is what journalists do: They get the facts out.

So I think it is unfortunate there has been an objection here on all of these points. These issues were considered by the other body. And 435 Members of the other body said: This is important for our country. This is important for getting the facts out to the American people-- unvarnished information, not information from the left, center, or right--unvarnished information.

I just want to close by saying we are going to be back on this floor. We are going to push this again and again and again because at a crucial time in America, where--and I mentioned this has not been relegated to one administration or another. This has been happening too often. It happens in any kind of administration, any philosophy. It is time to end it, and it is time to make sure that our free press is in a position to get the facts to the American people. We need this particular bipartisan effort, Senator Lee and I. And we will be back on this floor until we get it passed.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President.

Mr. President, let me say to our colleague from Louisiana that I very much agree with much of the statement he has given. I have been interested in these sensible policies with respect to providers since the days when I was codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers. So our colleague from Louisiana is talking about important issues.

As chair of the Finance Committee, I can say that nobody on either side wants to see financial hardship for healthcare providers or disruption to the healthcare system. This is particularly important when you have got COVID, what looks like a god-awful flu, and an RSV crisis filling up the doctors' and hospitals' waiting rooms nationwide.

What I can tell my colleague from Louisiana is that, on both sides of the aisle on the Finance Committee, Democrats and Republicans have put in some long hours--long hours--discussing solutions to these physician payment issues with our colleagues in the House on both sides and the administration.

Our discussions include other critical healthcare issues. For example, I think my colleague knows that Senator Crapo and I have been very focused on mental healthcare, making it easier for Americans to get mental healthcare when they need it.

And we are especially proud that this bipartisanship is paying off. As our colleagues may know, Senator Crapo and I got four major provisions--four--into the commonsense gun safety law--everything from helping kids on Medicaid, behavioral health--our colleague, Senator Stabenow. So we believe strongly in writing black-letter law on a bipartisan basis.

Now, the reason I am taking the time to put this into context, it is very important that our bipartisan discussions on a yearend healthcare package continue. Time is, obviously, short.

I am just coming off two red-eye flights to Oregon in the last 4 days, and I want my colleague to know, again, I appreciate much of what he has said. I didn't come to the floor to say, Senator Kennedy is horrible. Quite the contrary. I think he has good ideas here. Time is tight, and I am confident there is a bipartisan agreement around the corner.

I do say to my colleague, passing this proposal now, in my view, would make this process that we are part of, Senator Crapo and I-- talking to the administration, talking to the House, and doing all the things that my colleagues have a lot of experience on--passing this proposal now would make it harder to reach a bipartisan agreement on physician payments, mental health, a variety of other key kinds of issues. So I will just say, with the understanding, a, that my colleague has raised important points and, b, that Members on both sides are working towards a

shared goal on this issue, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, I often speak on the Senate floor about what I call the ``Oregon Way.'' It is about Oregonians of all backgrounds setting aside partisan politics and coming together to build on what makes our State such a wonderful place to live, work, raise a family, and run a business.

I don't know of anybody who exemplifies and believes in the Oregon Way more than my friend Duncan Wyse. Duncan is the head of the Oregon Business Council and the man behind the Oregon Economic Leadership Summit, which is meeting for the 20th year in just a few days. So on this 20th anniversary, it is my great pleasure to share a few thoughts about my friend Duncan and all the good he has done over the years for the State we both love.

Duncan has always been a humble guy. He has never been the kind to seek out the spotlight. He will put in all the hard work behind the scenes if it pays off for Oregon and creates new opportunities for people to get ahead. He has been incredibly successful in that.

A little bit about the origin of the Leadership Summit. It was back in the recession of the early 2000s. Oregon's economy, like a lot of the country, was down in the dumps. The tech bubble had popped. Unemployment was up. The September 11, 2001, attacks had shaken the country to its core. Between State and local officials, Members of Congress, business and community leaders, a lot of us were looking at every opportunity to get Oregon's economy growing again.

Duncan had the idea that what we needed to do was bring all those people together at one big event. Get focused. Zero in on the solutions that would be the most impactful and longest lasting for businesses and workers all across the State. He and I got in touch, and I told him, Count me in. I will be your co-founder, I will bring then-Senator Gordon Smith along, and I will do whatever I need to do to make this a success.

Nobody had tried this before. I would be blowing smoke if I said we were confident about it the entire time. At a few points early on, we probably doubted whether we would get enough people to field a competitive football game. The idea was, we were hoping for a decent crowd with at least one representative from each of Oregon's 36 counties. But in the end, that first summit brought together upward of 1,000 people from all over the State.

It was a huge success, and the summit is now in year 20 because of Duncan's commitment to the Oregon Way. It remains the premier venue for bringing Oregonians together to tackle the big economic challenges.

The summit brings together business leaders, local, State, and Federal elected officials; urban Oregon and rural Oregon; leaders in the nonprofit sector and community groups; leaders from some of the biggest and most established companies in the world, like Nike and Intel, as well as the newest startups and most treasured small businesses; people who vote Republican and people who vote Democrat.

I don't know of any other event like this one happening anywhere else in the country. Political disagreements stay at home, and the focus is on finding practical ways to tackle big challenges.

One of the top priorities at this upcoming summit is bringing more cutting-edge manufacturing to Oregon, particularly after the passage of the CHIPS Act.

About a year ago, it was Duncan's idea to create a Semiconductor Competitiveness Task Force made up of industry leaders and elected officials. The task force, which I cochaired, worked for several months to figure out how to cement Oregon's leadership on chips and take advantage of the Federal chips legislation. We released a report in August looking at all the key issues and proposing several policy updates. It is a huge opportunity in terms of creating good-paying jobs and building on one of Oregon's major economic strengths. It is something we have got to get right.

The Leadership Summit has tackled equally important issues in years past. Everything from housing to energy to transportation to education to rural economic growth. The discussions that happen when we gather every December help to bring a host of good ideas forward and give leaders from across the State a sense of common purpose. It sets the table ahead of the new legislative session.

In a few days people from across Oregon are going to gather in Portland at the 20th Economic Leadership Summit. Duncan is certainly not somebody who will seek out a whole lot of applause on that special anniversary, but he deserves enormous credit for his many years of service to Oregon. He represents the best of the Oregon Way, and many, many people in our State are better off as a result of his hard work. It is my great pleasure to call him a friend, and I look forward to continuing our work together in the years ahead.

Madam President, a little later today, the Senate is going to vote on the Respect for Marriage Act.

This vote is an affirmation that the U.S. Senate will stand up and protect the rights of all Americans to marry the person they love. Although this is about codifying rights that same-sex couples already enjoy, this is an important step in a long-running battle for equality.

During my 1996 campaign for the Senate, I ran on the proposition that there is a fundamental right to privacy in America, and I summed it up by saying ``If you don't like gay marriage, don't get one.''

So I became the first Member of the Senate to openly support marriage equality. Soon afterwards, there was a debate on a truly bad law, the Defense of Marriage Act, which I opposed for the same reasons. It was a breach of our country's fundamental right to privacy. Now the Senate has a chance to rectify that wrong and repeal it.

I am always going to go to the mat to defend the right to privacy in America. The bottom line is that protecting somebody else's rights doesn't take anything away from your own rights. Our country is indisputably stronger when everyone's rights are protected.

Some Members of this body have questioned why we need to pass this bill when marriage equality is the law of the land. The answer is pretty straightforward. The Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, showed that the Senate cannot take any modern legal precedent for granted.

With the possible exception of Brown v. Board, no precedent is safe as long as Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito are openly calling for the Court to revisit major rulings. It is not just Justice Thomas and Justice Alito making these arguments in public. These days, many Republicans have openly talked about their belief that the Court ruled incorrectly in some of the most significant cases dealing with the expansion and recognition of individual rights in America: The Obergefell ruling, marriage equality; the Griswold v. Connecticut ruling, the rights of women to use contraception; even the Loving v. Virginia ruling, the right to interracial marriage. Some Members of Congress have called all those other legal precedents into question.

These backward debates now unfold in Congress, in courts, and in statehouses. The backdrop behind them is frightening, raising levels of hatred and bile spewed at LGBTQ Americans every day of the week.

The far right is now targeting gay and trans Americans in an effort to scare everybody else into taking away their rights. There is no question that when leaders participate in ratcheting up antigay rhetoric, it spills out into the real world across the country.

The community of Colorado Springs is still mourning the lives lost in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub a few days before Thanksgiving. Five people were killed. More than a dozen others were hospitalized with gunshot wounds.

If not for the actions of a few brave individuals, including a military veteran, the death toll would have been much higher.

Passing the Respect for Marriage Act is not going to end the hateful rhetoric and violence for good, but the Senate has an opportunity and an obligation to declare with this vote that hate is wrong, that we will stand up and defend the vulnerable, that we will protect the individual rights of all Americans from a far-right Supreme Court majority determined to turn the clock back by decades.

There just is no place for hate or intolerance in our great country. So today I am proud to be able to cast a vote in a bit for individual rights, for freedom, for privacy, and for equality.

I want to thank all the Members of this body who have worked for months to bring the bill to the floor with bipartisan support, and I hope that the Senate will be able to continue this progress with colleagues on both sides in the months and years ahead.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this is at least the third time the Senate is debating Senator Marshall's proposal to terminate the national emergency declaration related to COVID-19. I am going to have just a few brief remarks on why the Senate ought to vote this down and move on to the crucial year-end priorities that actually have a chance of becoming law.

First, the Marshall resolution has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee. As the chairman of the committee, we have long focused on healthcare and, particularly, Medicare.

And my view is that the Marshall resolution is part of a larger effort to create more redtape and less flexibility in American healthcare.

Now, I have been talking to a lot of Oregonians about many issues over the last few months. And I can just say, nobody has come up to me in one of our iconic Fred Meyer stores or to a townhall meeting and said, ``Hey, Ron, we need more healthcare redtape.''

I want to be specific about what this means. The Marshall resolution will make it harder to keep waivers on the books that have helped resolve critical shortages of healthcare providers in hospitals overwhelmed with sick patients. The policies allowed under the national emergency have also helped address shortages of medical supplies needed to treat patients and protect medical workers.

Looking at the bigger picture, the Marshall resolution is part of a broader effort by Republicans to wipe out a host of important policies that have saved lives and helped our healthcare system stay afloat over the last few years.

This larger effort by Republicans, for example, could make it harder for people to get hospital quality services provided at home where they are most comfortable. There is a risk it would lead to a whole lot of vulnerable Americans losing coverage through Medicaid.

Taken together, that is a recipe for chaos in American healthcare and serious headaches for millions of patients who would have their coverage and their care upended.

Nobody is saying that emergency policies that began in the pandemic are going to stick around forever. Changes do have to be handled responsibly. And what we try to do in the Finance Committee is work in a bipartisan way.

So, colleagues, in my view, this Republican effort--and it has been what we have been debating now again and again--comes down to less flexibility and more chaos in American healthcare, and that sounds like an idea the U.S. Senate ought to avoid.

That begins with voting down the Marshall resolution. My sense is this is also exactly the wrong time to start undermining important healthcare flexibilities. Doctors and public health experts--we have all read these articles--are telling us this is going to be a painful flu season. We are hearing this across the country. Hospitalizations, colleagues, for the flu are already surging.

At the same time, there is a huge wave of RSV infections across the country. That is particularly serious for infants and toddlers. It can be a big problem for adults, too. Many pediatric hospitals are overwhelmed. The flu and RSV are hitting just as the country braces for possibly another COVID wave during the winter.

Congress ought to be looking here to support medical workers, protect our healthcare system from becoming totally overwhelmed by viruses, and save lives. The Marshall resolution and this broader Republican effort that we have been hearing about on the floor to eliminate healthcare flexibilities does the opposite.

An earlier version of this Marshall resolution passed back in the spring because some Members were absent for the vote.

Colleagues, this is going nowhere in the other body.

Now, I will close by saying there are serious healthcare issues that deserve bipartisan attention here in the Senate. For example, Democrats and Republicans on the Finance Committee, many of them have been working with Democrats in a very thoughtful way for months on improving mental healthcare in America.

We are very proud on the Finance Committee that four major provisions of our bipartisan work that we put in a year and a half on came out to be the back letter text on mental health in the gun safety legislation. So we want to work in a constructive way. You see that with mental health. Members on the Finance Committee come forward with good ideas. That is the kind of work we ought to be doing on healthcare.

My view is the Marshall resolution is a partisan step in the wrong direction. I think it is a mistake for American healthcare at this crucial moment to reduce flexibility for government to deal with the challenges. I oppose the Marshall proposal.

I yield the floor.

The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading and was read the third time.

Vote on S.J. Res. 63

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

Mr. President, I am on the floor this afternoon with a request to confirm a highly qualified nominee with bipartisan support, whose nomination has stalled for 210 days since it was approved by the Finance Committee.

My understanding is there may be an objection to a unanimous consent request that I would like to offer, and, hopefully, any Senate Republican who seeks to object will come to me. And I hope, whatever concern they have--if, in fact, it is the case--that we can work it out and this very, very qualified individual can serve as Commissioner on Children, Youth, and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services.

I am talking about Rebecca Jones Gaston. And my view is that this Agency is a hugely underappreciated part of our government. Its whole mission is to help vulnerable kids and families stay safe and get ahead in life. It is challenging work, and that means you have got to have strong leadership in place.

One of the big recent jobs for this Agency has been implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act. Our colleague, the late Orrin Hatch, and I worked on this for years because we wanted to transform the child welfare system, and that is an undertaking now underway because Chairman Hatch went to members on the other side of the aisle and reached out. And we built a coalition for this hugely consequential bill.

Before the bill, there was essentially a set of two choices, neither perfect, for kids looking at the prospects of families and foster homes. You could keep a child with a family in a situation that was not exactly ideal. You would have problems with alcohol. You would have problems with drugs. There were just problems at home. If you didn't keep the child there, you would send them off to a foster care facility. Well, there are some good foster care homes, but we know that there are some that are not exactly up to par.

What Chairman Hatch and I did, with bipartisan support in the Finance Committee, is devise a third path, and that is what Ms. Gaston would be working on at this Agency that does so much good for kids. We essentially said this third path meant that there could be support at home for the parents who were dealing with alcohol challenges or drug dependency or something of that nature. You could also have an older individual, a grandparent, come in and assist.

But the point was, we came up with a third, far healthier path. It was a landmark. Marian Wright Edelman, who has done so much work for young people, so much effort, said that it was a monumental achievement. And, in fact, it was, and that is why we want Rebecca Jones Gaston there to implement it.

And what the status quo was before that legislation was families, essentially, breaking apart. And so the bill is called Families First because it keeps families together--keep them together whenever you can come up with a strategy to make it safe for the child. It could be with mental health care for Mom and Dad. As I said, maybe a grandparent steps in to take care of the grandkids. Lots more flexibility.

Mr. President, as former Governor, you and I have talked about that flexibility in human services. That is what Chairman Hatch and I worked on, and it is how we got it passed into law.

Now, obviously, you then have to go forward to implement it. That means you have to work with State and local agencies, the administration, the Congress. Everybody wants to get this right.

Rebecca Jones Gaston is an ideal nominee to lead the effort. She has experience in Oregon. She has also been a highly successful advocate for young people as Oregon's child welfare director within the State's Department of Human Services.

She had a similar post--I hope everybody hears this who is watching it--under a Republican Governor in the State of Maryland. So this is a person who can work well with both sides.

She brings 25 years of experience in dealing with families and kids. Her qualifications for this job are undeniable. And I think it is fair to say members on the Finance Committee are looking forward to working with her.

I previously sought to pass this nomination by unanimous consent earlier in the summer. There was one Senate objection. I believe that issue has been resolved.

This nomination has waited long enough. We have a very good person, bipartisan support. There is lots of work to do.

And I would just close by way of saying, I heard one Senator might be objecting. That Senator has lifted their objection. And now I hear some kind of report that someone else is objecting. And my hope is the Senator with the objection will contact me so we can address the concern, clear the nomination before we leave, which, I think, we are all very hopeful will be the case.

At this point, I want it understood that I am going to ask unanimous consent later in this session, and I hope there will be no objection.

With that, I yield the floor.

And I have additional business here in a few minutes.

Mr. President, I have come to the floor this afternoon to speak about Mike Evans, the Finance Committee's chief counsel, who is retiring at the end of this week. This is going to bring to a close 27 years of extraordinary Senate service and almost 9 years on the Finance Committee staff.

It is not an atomic secret that I am very, very much involved in basketball with my children and still dreaming about how it didn't work out to play in the NBA. But to just paraphrase one thought with respect to the way this place works in terms of actually getting results the way Mike Evans did on the IRA--a hugely important bill, where the major pieces came from the Finance Committee, where we had extraordinary work done by the president of the Senate--if you speak in the parlance of basketball, Mike Evans will long be remembered as one of the all- stars--the NBA all-stars, so to speak--in Senate service.

He has, without any doubt, for millions of people in Oregon and across the country, caused them to have a better life because of his work in the Senate. And to just tick off a few of the reasons why I feel that way, let me just give a bit of history.

In early 2014, I had a brief tenure as chairman of the Finance Committee. And to the Senate's great fortune, Mike agreed to return to be the Senate Finance Committee's chief counsel. His experience goes back to days when he did good work for Chairman Baucus.

And the reality is, since then, you name a big legislative accomplishment in the areas of healthcare, tax policy, support for working families, Mike has been right at the heart of it. A few examples: Not long after Mike's return, the Senate passed the largest set of tax cuts for working families in many years.

There was the 2015 trade debate that was all about what I call getting trade done right: strong enforcement, serious protections for workers in the environment, more sunlight in our trade policy than ever before.

Many members had said we had never approached trade in that way. With Mike's good work, there were colleagues on our side of the aisle who said this is the first trade bill we are voting for.

Starting in 2017, there was a shift in our work as Finance Committee Democrats focused on protecting vulnerable Americans from the Trump administration's policies that singled out the vulnerable. We stopped the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act and destroy Medicaid in its tracks. We showed the American people that the Trump tax law was not a middle-class tax cut. Above all, it disproportionately favored billionaires and corporations. And we saw that all through the Trump years.

Mike was absolutely crucial developing a strong, innovative, progressive

agenda for the next time Democrats led the committee. When the pandemic hit, the committee stepped up and sprung into action. We came up with historic legislation to support workers and small businesses to prevent an economic collapse.

More recently, with the good work, particularly done by Senator Brown and Senator Bennet, Senator Casey, Senator Booker--my colleagues--the Finance Committee led the effort to pass the largest reduction in child poverty ever to come from one bill.

The President of the Senate knows we worked for a full decade--a full decade--to pass the largest clean energy bill in U.S. history, a major step in the fight against climate change.

It does not happen, it simply does not happen without the gentleman sitting next to me, Mike Evans.

Medicare is going to start delivering a big dose of price relief for prescription drugs. So seniors are going to benefit. In fact, Mike Evans always told me: Let's make sure you can get help to people soon. That means in literally a couple of days, on October 1, because of Mike's good work, we are going to start seeing penalties for price gouging by big pharmaceutical companies. They are going to have to write out checks to Medicare for the amount over inflation. Mike Evans led the fight on those issues, right at the center of our major accomplishments.

In the column of ongoing priorities, we said: Something is not right. If nurses and firefighters in Maine or Mississippi or any other State pay taxes with every paycheck, billionaires can pay what they want, when they want to. And we have been saying we want everybody to be successful. My goodness, that is what America is about. But we also want everybody to pay their fair share.

And I am really pleased that the President has been talking about a billionaire minimum income tax. We have been coming together all in the name of fairness. And Mike looks specifically at how to do that and address the parliamentary and legal concerns.

I would be on the floor until breakfast time tomorrow--and I see our friend from Mississippi has something that is important to him--and I just want to close with one last point.

You know, I think if you walked into a coffee shop in Maine or Oregon or Mississippi and you said: ``Well, let me talk to you a little bit about reconciliation,'' people would be a little baffled with you, but maybe they would say, I hope the couples can work it out, or something; and haven't thought of this reconciliation too much.

Well, we know here in the Senate reconciliation is a briar patch of tricky rules and procedures; get something wrong, and all the work you have done to come up with a good policy goes by the boards.

So you have to comply with the Byrd rule, which is something resembling English, and Mike, of course, speaks this unique tongue of the whole Byrd rule world. It means scrubbing your legislation for Byrd rule violations, writing tomes of legal memoranda. Then you have to go before the Senate Parliamentarian to make sure your bill stands up to scrutiny.

I see the Parliamentarian right there, and as she knows, we are very appreciative of her professionalism. Mike and I, I think, would be the first to say you don't win all the calls. That is kind of the way it works, but the Parliamentarian has always been professional. And somehow I think Mike Evans and the Parliamentarian, wherever they are going to be in the years ahead, they are going to be batting around the ideas of what it takes to move legislation forward in the Senate.

This is as much a compliment to Mike and the Parliamentarian as to say this is, for all its flaws, part of what you have to do to get issues addressed and do it fairly. Nobody in this country is more experienced on this floor than Mike Evans.

If you want to think about remembering Mike as I will, opposing counsels sort of weep when Mike Evans walks through the door because they know that with that full stack of binders and materials, he is ready. If I can go back to my basketball roots, when you are dealing with Mike Evans, you better come to play because he is ready every single time out.

Typically, these arguments are handled by brilliant staff before the Parliamentarian. On one occasion, I gather, a Senator kind of strutted into the room and challenged Mike to a debate. I am not sure how it ended, but Mike is pretty much undefeated against colleagues on the other side who actually have election certificates.

In all seriousness, the many hours of work he has put into these Byrd rule arguments--work that I know feels like a real slog--it is part of making life better for people, and we appreciate Mike doing it.

Last point I want to make is about Mike's character. He has a great sense of humor. He is wonderful to be around. He is kind. He is a mentor to younger staff. He is the only person I know who can pepper Shakespeare quotes and Springsteen lyrics into the same discussion of dense economic policy.

Some people get lost around here in the jargon of what happens up here. Mike is about helping the real people get ahead in life, particularly somebody who doesn't have power and clout and somebody who just deserves a fair shake. He has never lost sight of that. It is his loadstar. We are so thankful for his years of service.

Last announcement, just to wrap up. I think Mike feels, and I do, too, if you are going to step into big shoes--and these are NBA-style shoes, they are big--we are really thrilled that Tiffany Smith will be the new Finance Committee chief counsel starting next week. She is a 15-year veteran of the Finance Committee. She has been our chief tax counsel since 2016. She leads the best and most effective tax team there is. She has been in the trenches with Mike for years, and I think she is going to reflect very well on the Finance Committee and the Senate. She has a huge record of accomplishments as well. You will see those talents in action soon. She is going to hit the ground running.

I just say, as I see my friend from Mississippi here, if any colleagues on the other side of the aisle think they are going to get a break in reconciliation debates when Mike retires, they have another thing coming with Tiffany Smith. She is somebody who is going to be able to fill his shoes very well.

Mike can now get on to the season passes that apparently he wants to the Folger; he can go tour with the Boss; and he can catch all the Red Sox and Celtics games he wants. But I have said this before, staff can leave our office, but they don't get to leave our special family.

With enduring thanks to Mike Evans, enduring thanks to the good work he has done that has made lives better in this country, Mike, big thanks. Godspeed.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, Madam President.

Madam President, I just went over to our colleague from Kansas and told him that I would much rather be on the floor this afternoon working in a bipartisan way on something like this, and I hope that can be part of Senate proceedings in the future.

Here is what I think is important for the public to know about this proposal. It is that in the real world, the Marshall proposal is a prescription for less flexibility and more redtape in American healthcare. I want to be very specific.

Every Member of this body understands that America has a serious shortage of nurses and healthcare providers. Every single time we go home--I am sure this is the case for our colleague from Kansas, who is a physician. He hears from physicians and providers. Every time we are home, we hear from healthcare providers. I see the Presiding Officer of the Senate has been a very strong advocate for healthcare improvement for patients and providers. Every time we are home, we hear about the need for more healthcare providers.

Right now, there are requirements in Medicare for a lengthy process that must be completed before it is possible to hire healthcare providers to serve Medicare patients. If the Marshall proposal goes into effect as written, Health and Human Services could not waive this complicated process to take care of patients. So that would leave our country short of healthcare providers when there is an acute, even more serious need for them.

I am just going to close with this because we are all hoping to be home over the next week or so. When I am home, I always do these open- to-all townhall meetings. I go to every one of my counties every year. I have had more than 1,020 of them--open to all, ask whatever you want. I have never had a constituent at home, an Oregonian, say: Ron, what we need is more complicated processes and redtape in American healthcare. Usually, they are talking to us about waiving things.

For those reasons, Madam President, I object.

Thank you very much, Senator Brown. And I see in the Chair another strong supporter of Social Security, the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts.

And for colleagues who aren't aware, Senator Brown is our chair of the Subcommittee on Social Security in the Senate Finance Committee. This is a crucial subcommittee for all the reasons that Senator Brown just mentioned, and I am just going to make a couple of points, and if my colleague is still on the floor, maybe we can have a little bit of a colloquy.

Thank you.

What Senator Brown has illustrated again is the differences between the two parties on Social Security and Medicare, and my colleague was kind enough to go back to my past as codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers.

Ever since those days, the difference between the two parties has been that on our side of the aisle, we are very blunt when we get asked about Social Security and Medicare. As Senator Brown just said, on our side, we make it clear that Social Security and Medicare are a guarantee. They are not a voucher. They are not something that is going to be thrown to the private market. They are a guarantee.

What we hear from our colleagues on the other side is sort of a word salad, but it nearly always involves a statement about how much they want to protect Social Security, but then we hear a lot about privatization, about portability, about investment.

It is anything but what you just heard Senator Brown say; that Medicare and Social Security are not something to be privatized; they are about a guarantee.

And we should make no mistake about it, seniors, others who are eligible for the programs have earned these benefits. They have earned these benefits.

And yet, somehow, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and candidates don't get what the programs are really all about.

For example, not long ago, I saw a Republican Senate candidate out West say in a primary forum: Congress ought to ``privatize Social Security and just get the government out of it.''

``Just get the government out of it.''

Now, apparently, he is the nominee, and he is for protecting Social Security. He swears up and down he is for protecting Social Security-- huge about-face.

I heard another westerner asked on live TV about his thoughts on Social Security. And he said nothing about a guarantee. He said: We ought to look at portability issues and individual accounts and benefit cuts are on the menu.

Again, this is kind of Washington lingo, Washington code for unraveling the guarantee that is Social Security and Medicare that I learned about in those days when I was codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers.

And Americans don't want their elected representatives to cut this crucial set of programs that are earned benefits. And they certainly don't want their elected officials and candidates to talk out of both sides of their mouth.

Now, I mentioned this question of westerners and where westerners stand, but apparently this opposition to these core principles of Social Security doesn't just reside in the West. It seems to spread across the country. Senator Rick Scott has proposed ending, again, the guarantees of these bedrock programs--Social Security and Medicare--and just sunsetting them after just a few years--sunsetting them.

So as I would say to my colleague, who has worked with me on a lot of these issues, let's just unpack that for a minute. We believe that Social Security and Medicare are guaranteed. They are not subject to these annual, political kind of battles and pushed and prodded for political advantage. They are guaranteed. But yet, after quoting those in the West who want to come join us, now we have a southerner in a position of great importance who wants to sunset programs like Social

Security and Medicare after just a few years and, in effect, throw them to the winds to see what kind of politics might be put in place.

I don't believe that is acceptable. Senator Brown, the chair of our subcommittee, doesn't believe that is acceptable. Social Security is among the most foundational principles in our country's history, providing financial security through guaranteed benefits for millions of Americans. Over 70 million Americans receive Social Security and Supplemental Security Income every year.

I would be happy to and, particularly, so you can tell everybody again why you feel so strongly.

Yes. What ``sunset'' means is you would unravel the basic principles of Social Security and Medicare. We don't subject them to annual or regular political fights. We have said that people have earned those benefits, and we aren't just going to set arbitrary dates and say we are going to, in effect, move on and we will decide what happens to seniors and the disabled based on the politics of the moment.

It is a 180-degree departure from the kind of guarantee that you spelled out that I feel so strongly about. We don't say we are just going to have these arbitrary changes that could put at risk the entire program.

My colleague from Ohio is being way too logical because, you bet, what this essentially means is if you sunset it, the program and the benefits are not going to continue as they have. As you said, if people decide because of some particular kind of flurry at the moment that for some cause they don't want to continue it, the well- being and security of seniors is jeopardized.

You have stated it well. It would mean that when you sunset it, you would have to have a brand-new fight to reestablish its primacy as a guarantee. You sunset it.

Nope, no question about it, and it would put in jeopardy fundamental core principles that seniors all across the country--in Ohio and Oregon and Massachusetts--have been able to count on. When you sunset it, you say you can't count on it. You have to wait for another political battle.

And I would just say to my colleagues--showing how extreme the position is of our colleague from Florida, Senator Scott--that Senator Orrin Hatch, the late Senator Hatch who worked with us, when he was in the Senate said: We will update the Medicare guarantee to start covering chronic care. This is something the Senator from Massachusetts has worked with me on, home care for seniors. So Senator Orrin Hatch, our late colleague and my personal friend, who was not exactly a liberal, he understood what you and I are talking about: that Medicare and Social Security are a guarantee. And when we talked about chronic care, he said: We are going to update the Medicare guarantee--nothing about saying: Well, gee, maybe we will do something after we sunset it. So my colleague has said it well.

He hasn't talked about it, but I think that would certainly be one of the questions our constituents would ask about, because this issue of there being a double standard between seniors at home and their elected officials would be very real. He hasn't spelled out how he would deal with that, but there is certainly the question of elected officials, because we have these retirement benefits that have been part, again, of a program that has been established for some time. They haven't been talked about.

But I will tell you, I think the chair of the Social Security Subcommittee and myself on the Finance Committee, we are going to go out there and say: No double standard.

You can be sure of that. If something is sunsetted for working people and seniors and the disabled, we are certainly not going to let Senator Scott pretend that somehow it is business as usual for elected officials.

Mr. President, I think Senator Brown started us off very well, and he is asking questions that I think millions of Americans are going to ask. My understanding is that my colleague from Ohio, the chairman of the subcommittee, is going to be looking at a lot of these issues in his subcommittee. But certainly this last point, about politicians talking out of both sides of their mouth and saying somehow that we are going to have a program sunsetted for seniors and the disabled--Social Security, Medicare and others--but we are not going to even talk about what happens for elected officials is an example of how you shouldn't legislate. It is an example of what I believe could be a double standard.

And I will just close, unless Senator Brown wants to. In fact, I am going to let Senator Brown do it. I thought, as I listened to Senator Brown, and I put it in the context of all these years with the Gray Panthers, that everybody can understand what Senator Brown is talking about. Medicare and Social Security are a guarantee--period--inviolate, as a result of the history that we have had in this country where people worked so hard for this.

On the other side, we are talking about privatization, we are talking about portability, and we are talking about lots of new cost analyses in the private sector and individualized programs. I am for individualized programs on top of Social Security, not in place of it.

So I really appreciate your resolution, Senator Brown, and I am going to do everything I can to support it.

Mr. President, we are now several weeks on from the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The IRA is transformational legislation that will improve the lives of millions and millions of Americans: more affordable prescription drugs, cheaper energy bills, the largest investment in the climate in history, a serious commitment to cracking down on tax cheats who rip off the American people for billions of dollars every year, and ensuring that corporations pay a fair share.

I am proud to say that the vast majority of the Inflation Reduction Act came from the Finance Committee majority.

It is no exaggeration to say that the team on the committee and in my personal office collectively spent thousands and thousands of hours developing these proposals, building support for them under zero margin for error, and guaranteeing that they would pass under challenging Senate rules.

Senate Democrats spent more than a year debating what would go into this bill before it finally came together, but the staff of the Finance Committee began its work long before that. Some of the components of the IRA go back more than a decade.

So before the Senate goes out in the coming days, I wanted to come down to the floor to thank my committee and personal office staff, as well as the brilliant teams at the Joint Committee on Tax, Congressional Budget Office, and legislative counsel who made this achievement possible.

I will shout out a few specifics as I thank the staff, but understand that legislation this significant is always a collaborative effort. And furthermore, there are major priorities that did not make it into the final version of the IRA, and the staff who worked on those issues deserve credit, too.

I will start out with Tiffany Smith, who leads the best and hardest working tax policy team there is.

Bobby Andres has honcho'd the Clean Energy for America Act for 7-plus years. He tweaked and edited and improved that bill so many times, he can probably recite the text in his sleep.

Chris Arneson, Jon Goldman, and Sarah Schaefer have been instrumental in going after the tax loopholes that allow massive, profitable corporations to get away with paying little to nothing. Their work on those issues is going to continue to find its way into law.

Adam Carasso and Eric LoPresti helped to make sure the IRS has the resources it needs to go after wealthy tax cheats who skip out on paying what they owe.

And proof positive that Finance Teams support one another: Drew Crouch contributed tax policy help to the prescription drug reforms.

Rachael Kauss has put a ton of work into developing the billionaire's income tax, and although that proposal didn't make it in the final bill, there is more support than ever for making sure that those at the very top pay a fair share like everybody else.

Grace Enda assisted on the clean energy tax policies and more. Ursula Clausing supported the tax team and also made sure that our team and Senate Democrats were ready and organized for a tough floor debate. Arthur Shemitz and Melanie Jonas also supported the tax team's hard work.

One other point about the Finance Committee majority's tax team--and this applies across the board, not just to the Inflation Reduction Act. If anybody out there mistakenly believes it is easy to offset the legislation passed here in the Senate, it is only because our tax team, time and time again, makes it look effortless. The truth is, it takes a ton of hard work, but they get it done.

Patricio Gonzalez, a member of the committee's investigations team, has been digging into the tax practices of some of the biggest drug companies out there. His work went a long way to convincing key Senators that our corporate tax laws needed reform. Ryder Tobin, another member of the investigations team, contributed to that work and also helped us survive the grueling floor debate, as did Madison Moskowitz, Claire Kaliban, and Bonnie Million.

Next up: healthcare. When it comes to drug prices, Big Pharma has had a stranglehold on the U.S. Senate for a long, long time. A lot of people have gone up against Big Pharma and lost. Shawn Bishop and the Finance Committee health team took on Big Pharma and won.

Anna Kaltenboeck played a key role in our efforts on finally allowing Medicare to negotiate on behalf of seniors for a better deal on prescription drugs. She also worked with Raghav Aggarwal on crafting the Senate version of drug price negotiation, as well as key protections for seniors in Medicare Part D. That includes a $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on their medications and a

price-gouging penalty for drug companies that hike prices faster than inflation.

At a time when families in Oregon and across the country are getting hit by rising prices, Eva DuGoff worked on extending subsidies for ACA health insurance coverage. It will save people hundreds of dollars a year and a family of four up to $2,400 a year.

Peter Fise worked on capping the out-of-pocket cost of insulin for seniors at $35 per month--another huge savings for many Americans. Liz Dervan expanded Medicaid's coverage of vaccines for adults.

There is a long list of people who pitched in on the vital process of making sure the bill was compliant with the rules of the Senate known as the Byrd Rules. It includes Liz Dervan, whose legal acumen was invaluable to supporting the committee's efforts to navigate the Byrd rule, as well as major efforts by Peter Fise, Kristen Lunde, Kimberly Lattimore, Mary Ellis and Daniel Whittam from the health team. It also includes Sally Laing and Virginia Lenahan from our trade team, who contributed to the clean energy provisions.

When it comes to Byrd rules, the point man on the Finance Committee is our chief counsel, Mike Evans. For all the months of work that goes into writing legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, the whole thing can come crashing down if it doesn't comply with the Byrd rules. Nobody is more skilled or experienced than Mike at making sure legislation is Byrd-compliant from the start and protecting it in Byrd rule arguments before the Senate Parliamentarian. Opposing counsels weep when they see Mike Evans and his stacks of papers enter the room. Reconciliation under the Byrd rule is arduous work, yet Mike approaches it with humor and grace along with great skill.

Mike is a valued member of my senior leadership team, who have directed years of effort that made the IRA possible. I want to thank him, Jeff Michels, Joshua Sheinkman, Sarah Bittleman, John Dickas, and Isaiah Akin for guiding the team through setbacks and struggles to get this bill done.

The Finance Committee's communications leads on the IRA were Ashley Schapitl on tax and investigations; Taylor Harvey on healthcare; Ryan Carey, speechwriter; and Emily Zahnle-Hostetler, digital director. The IRA dealt with some incredibly complicated policy issues, and it challenged a lot of powerful special interests. But our team got the word out and stood up to withering attacks in the press and here in the Senate.

The Finance Committee works with many, many skilled and dedicated staff at the Joint Committee on Taxation on a daily basis. Suffice it to say, we would be out in the cold without Tom Barthold and the team of all-stars at JCT:

Rob Harvey

Chris Giosa

Tim Dowd

Cecily Rock

Natalie Tucker

Ross Margelefsky

Jeff Arbeit

Jared Hermann

Carol Wang

Kristine Roth

Harold Hirsch

Sanjay Misra

Clare Diefenbach

Rhonda Migdail

Andrew Lai

David Lenter

Vivek Chandrasekhar

Chia Chang

Lin Xu

James Elwell

Kelly Scanlon

Sally Kwak

Chris Overend

Kashi Way

Bert Lue

Deirdre James

Connor Dowd

Nick Bull

Melani Houser

Tanya Butler

The same goes for the highly skilled and dedicated team at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office under Director Phil Swagel. They do a difficult job to keep Congress informed of what proposed changes to our Federal programs will cost and always come through under extremely tight deadlines:

Terri Gullo

Leo Lex

Paul Masi

Chad Chirico

Lara Robillard

Asha Saavoss

Stuart Hammond

Carrie Colla

Tamara Hayford

Christopher Adams

Evan Herrnstadt

Colin Baker

Scott Laughery

and other CBO staff who analyzed drug pricing in the U.S.

over the last decade.

And finally I want to thank the talented legal team at the Senate legislative counsel's office who help committee staff write the law--on tax policies, Mark McGunagle, Jim Fransen, Allison Otto, and Vince Gaiani; on health policies, John Goetcheus, Kelly Thornburg, Ruth Ernst and Phil Lynch.

Whether you are talking about JCT, CBO or legislative counsel, the Congress grinds to a halt without their work.

Finally, I would like to commend the work of the Senate Parliamentarian and her assistants. A reconciliation bill turns up a lot of highly complex procedural questions, and the Parliamentarian has to make the calls. I was not happy with all of the decisions, but the Parliamentarians worked tirelessly, skillfully, and with an even hand. Also, I would like to thank the clerks and floor staff for their work and endurance during the vote-a-rama.

The debate the American people read about and watched on TV is just a small portion of all the work that went into the Inflation Reduction Act. It can be awfully frustrating to spend years developing legislation when Congress is this polarized. We dealt with a lot of setbacks. At certain points, we thought it was over. And there is still a lot more to get done.

But the IRA truly is an accomplishment that will improve life for the American people: more affordable medications, more affordable health insurance, cheaper energy, the biggest ever investment in the fight against climate change, major progress cracking down on tax cheats and improving tax fairness--that is progress to be proud of. I thank the Finance Committee majority staff, my personal office staff, and all the other teams who contributed to this effort.

I yield the floor.

I thank my colleague, and I know that Senator Van Hollen is here as well.

I am going to be brief. I particularly want to thank our colleague from Rhode Island because he has been relentless in terms of making this case day after day. I want to put this in very personal kind of terms because all of us who have the honor of serving in the U.S. Senate can relate to this issue.

Senator Whitehouse has added a reform to his proposal that is very personal to me and I think embodies the accountability and the transparency that Oregonians and people in Minnesota, Michigan, and Maryland are calling for. Here is how I would start it: A number of years ago, I authored legislation that millions of Americans now understand is called Stand By Your Ad. Stand By Your Ad stipulated that as an elected official or a candidate, you would have to actually put your name behind these attack ads where you go after your opponent. And, now, day after day, in these next 50-plus days, we are going to see plenty of these ads.

The law worked well, and it is still on the books today, much to the chagrin of some officials who would like to take a quick hit on their opponent--an official or a candidate--and then scamper off without any accountability.

I do want to make clear, because of the good work of the Senator from Rhode Island, that Stand By Your Ad doesn't mean as much today because we now know the premium is ongoing for these secret, incredibly negative ads on your opponent because the people paying for dark money ads aren't required to put their name behind what they are saying.

That is an extraordinarily strong hit against openness and accountability and transparency in our democracy. Oregonians and people across the country are rightfully disgusted by it. It is extraordinary the lengths that those who are orchestrating these dark money attacks will go in order to make their case when there is no accountability.

I see my seatmate from the Finance Committee. We have worked together for years to change the Medicare statute that barred Medicare from negotiating to hold down the price of medicine. Big Pharma protected this negotiating ban like it was the Holy Grail. My colleague and I would come to the committee day after day and talk about: How is this common sense? Everybody in America negotiates in order to get the best possible deal.

But we looked, particularly in this session, at the start of the debate as a classic study in dark money. Big Pharma, and groups associated with it, spent enormous sums of money attacking me personally in Washington, DC, media. There was scary music, and there were attacks about how anybody who wanted these reforms was like a leech and taking away cures from the American people.

The striking part of all of this, and why what Senator Whitehouse has had to say is so important, is that the ad wasn't even directed at me, because it was in Washington, DC. I am barely a household word in my own household, let alone in Washington, DC.

And what was the point of these extraordinarily large sums attacking me in Washington, DC? The point of it was to scare my colleagues-- Senator Stabenow, Senator Van Hollen, all of my colleagues here-- because there was so much money at the hands of these extreme groups associated with Big Pharma that wanted to undermine a commonsense reform backed by millions of Americans that Medicare should negotiate.

At one point, someone said: Oh, there is so much opposition to this effort to negotiate.

I said: Are you kidding me? The opponents of negotiating on Medicare must be in a witness protection program because we can't find anybody who thinks you shouldn't negotiate.

Yet Big Pharma was willing to spend huge sums of money--dark money-- not really to damage me politically, because my constituents live in Oregon, but to scare other Senators.

So people, of course, are going to get bludgeoned with these dark money ads every time they turn on the television, the radio, or watch a video online. I just don't think that Americans should be forced to guess or wonder what special interest is funding these ads that come from murky groups that have these radical names like the Coalition for Prosperity and Justice. We all know that they are not going to tell you who they really are.

My colleague from Maryland has been very patient. We had some glitches in the schedule, and we want to hear from our friend from Michigan as well.

I want to thank Senator Whitehouse for basically taking the ``Stand By Your Ad'' concept and kind of reconfiguring it in the DISCLOSE legislation. Senator Whitehouse's bill would require the heads of corporations, unions, or other organizations to identify when they are behind political ads, the same way Stand By Your Ad works under the original version of the law that I authored.

And remember--and I want this to be the takeaway about this issue-- Senator Whitehouse's proposal and extending ``Stand by Your Ad'' in this kind of fashion treats everybody the same. This is quintessential good government. It is not about going after somebody on the right or somebody on the left. This is about common sense. It is not a radical, leftwing proposal.

The American people ought to know who is trying to influence their votes. By the way, when we authored the original ``Stand by Your Ad'' proposal, it used to be bipartisan. And as my colleague from Rhode Island has mentioned, of late, it has been the Republicans who have been protecting dark money and protecting the basic kind of disclosure that I think our system of government has been all about.

The American people have strong differences of opinion on issues. There is no question about that. But I have had more than 1,020 open- to-all townhall meetings. What nobody disputes is that openness and accountability is what the American system is all about.

So, Senator Whitehouse, our thanks to you for spending years and years at it because you are taking us, in a significant way, back to what I think used to be common sense, used to be accountability, used to be something that transcended the kind of thing that Big Pharma was doing early on where they didn't even pretend--they didn't even pretend--it was about an individual legislator; it was about scaring off all Members of Congress.

We can do better. Senator Whitehouse's proposal moves us in that direction, and I want to thank my colleague from Maryland, who also was trying to deal with the scheduling kind of challenge, and look forward to working with him and my seatmate on the Finance Committee and Senator Whitehouse, another exemplary member of the Finance Committee.

I yield the floor.