Floor Statements

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Will the Senator yield for a question about how long he plans to speak, just for the convenience of others?

I appreciate that very much. Thank you.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to support my colleague and friend Senator Cortez Masto in her efforts to bring this legislation not only to the floor but to passage.

This has been a long, long trail of broken promises and false assertions. It began with the broken promises and false assertions of judicial nominees who came before the Judiciary Committee to assure us that the protections of Roe v. Wade were a precedent and that they would respect precedent. Of course, that all evaporated.

We then heard the argument that this was ``States' rights.'' My friend from Utah may not like the phrase, but it is one that his side has used over and over and over again. Call it States' rights or call it federalism, the notion was that all we were doing was opening this up to States.

But you heard right here on the Senate floor that the notion that every pregnancy is subject to the control of the government from the moment of conception. That does not allow for a differentiation between one State and another.

And now that the States' rights assertion has been proven false, now that it is clear that there are many Members not only of Congress but of State legislatures who want a nationwide ban on women's ability to make these reproductive choices, it becomes clearer and clearer why this particular bill is so important. It is only a matter of time until we see those bills being voted on in legislatures, trying to criminalize a citizen of one State if they go to another State to get this kind of care or trying to create a nationwide abortion ban.

However you call it, it will intrude on the ability of women to go and seek this care. And what we are seeing already is women with troubled pregnancies, for whom there is an indicated treatment, unable to get the treatment that medical science knows is the right treatment, whether it is twins, one of whom isn't viable, or a woman's ability to have further pregnancies if this one is not terminated, or the ability of a woman to simply be treated for sepsis, for instance, before it turns to life-threatening and not have to wait and look at the watch and let her get sicker and sicker, knowing that the end is the same, in any event, but putting her life and health at risk in order to allow the will of a bunch of State legislators to turn up in the examination room or the treatment room with her and her family and her doctor. For all of these reasons--because the proponents of a nationwide abortion ban, because the proponents of undoing Roe v. Wade, have simply been incredible for too long--we simply have to assume the worst.

And this bill is an important and sensible way to make sure that if the Presiding Officer's State or my State want to allow that freedom for women, that women can come there and get the care that they need-- very often, in a troubled pregnancy, for their own or their future children's or the siblings' well-being. So for all those reasons, I wish we had the chance to vote on this and look forward to future chances.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, P.L. 118-5, which Congress passed earlier this month, resolved a manufactured default crisis and avoided an economic catastrophe. In addition, the bipartisan bill provided a congressional budget for 2024.

Specifically, the legislation instructs the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget to file enforceable budgetary levels in the Senate consistent with current law. Today, I submit the required filing.

Section 121 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 requires the chairman to file a spending allocation for the Committee on Appropriations for 2024; spending allocations for other committees for 2024, 2024 through 2028, and 2024 through 2033; an aggregate spending level for 2024; aggregate revenue levels for 2024, 2024 through 2028, and 2024 through 2033; and aggregate levels of Social Security revenues and outlays for 2024, 2024 through 2028, and 2024 through 2033. Section 121 also requires the chairman to include a list of accounts eligible for advance appropriations.

The amounts included in this filing are consistent with the Congressional Budget Office's May 2023 baseline, adjusted for the passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, including the discretionary spending limits established by that act. Because the legislation does not include budget enforcement for fiscal year 2023, it will not be possible to submit reports required by section 308(b) of the Congressional Budget Act until fiscal year 2024.

In addition, section 121 allows the deficit-neutral reserve fund in section 3003 of S. Con. Res. 14--117th Congress--to be updated by 2 fiscal years. Pursuant to that authority, that reserve fund shall be considered updated and available for use for legislation which does not increase the deficit for the time period of fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2033.

For purposes of enforcing the Senate's pay-as-you-go rule, which is found in section 4106 of the fiscal year 2018 congressional budget resolution, I am resetting the Senate's scorecard to zero for all fiscal years.

Section 111 of the act requires my counterpart, the chairman of the House Committee on the Budget, to file similar enforceable budgetary levels in the House of Representatives consistent with the discretionary limits in the act. That filing will help both Houses uphold the bipartisan agreement.

I ask unanimous consent that the accompanying tables be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, every year, I come to the Senate floor around the anniversary of June 9 of 1772 to educate our pages--and anyone else listening--about an event that took place that night in Rhode Island as the United States moved towards its revolutionary conflict with Great Britain.

And the lead-up to this was that Rhode Island was a shipping and a trading State; and Newport, in particular, was an extremely wealthy and active trading community. And the British government very much wanted to tax all of that trading, and the Rhode Islanders very much wanted not to be taxed.

And so there was considerable back-and-forth between the colonists in Rhode Island and what was then the mother country. And when the obstreperousness of the Rhode Islanders reached a certain point, a new ship and a new captain were detailed to Rhode Island to do a better job of collecting taxes from the shipping traffic.

The captain was named Dudingston--Lieutenant Dudingston--of her majesty's royal Navy. And he came in with a rather very poor attitude about Rhode Island and behaved quite badly. He seized ships without much provocation. He would grab them and send them off to be sold for salvage. He would steal cargoes out of ships.

He made himself extremely unpopular to a point that the chief justice of Rhode Island said: Excuse me, you don't get to do this. Under Rhode Island law, under our colonial charter, if you want to operate Rhode Island waters, you actually have to declare yourself and show your commission to our Governor.

And the rather undiplomatic response of Lieutenant Dudingston was, if anybody tries to interfere with my operations, I will hang them.

So things were not all that great between Lieutenant Dudingston and Rhode Island. And his ship, which is this one, was called the Gaspee, as in the Gaspe Peninsula up in Canada. She was an armed revenue cutter of fairly good size. And it was her job to basically pull over ships, search their cargoes, seize their cargoes, demand taxes, if necessary, seize the vessel.

One of his early seizures was a boat called the Fortune, which was owned by Nathanael Greene, who had not been particularly active in revolutionary matters until he had his fortune seized by Lieutenant Dudingston. And after that, he became quite active in revolutionary matters to the point of becoming, essentially, the adjutant for George Washington and then being sent by George Washington down to run the southern campaign of the revolution where the commanding British general in the Revolutionary War said: That damn Greene is more dangerous than Washington, because he was so successful running the southern campaign, much of it provoked by this Lieutenant Dudingston and his seizure of Greene's boat, the Fortune.

On this occasion, June 9, 1772, a boat called the Hannah, captained by Benjamin Lindsey, was sailing up Narragansett Bay to deliver cargo to Providence. And the Gaspee approached and signaled the Hannah to heave to, to be boarded and searched. And the Hannah refused. Captain Lindsey kept sailing.

So the Gaspee gave chase, and the two boats sailed, one after the other, with occasional gunfire from the decks of the Gaspee north towards Providence.

Before you get to Providence, there is a point that sticks out. And where the river flows in, there is a sand berm that sticks out into the bay. And Captain Lindsey, who knew the waters of Narragansett Bay very well, sailed over this sandy shallows off of what was called Namquit Point and kept going on his merry way up to Providence.

The Gaspee was a bigger vessel. It drew more water, and it ran into the sand berm in a falling tide. It was stuck. It was trapped. It was helpless.

The Hannah kept going up. Captain Lindsey went up to Providence. When he got to the Port of Providence, he

rounded up John Brown, who later became heavily involved in setting up Brown University, and another Rhode Island worthy named Abraham Whipple, who continued to have an interesting naval career.

Brown and Whipple and others went to Sabin's Tavern, and people beat drums in the street to get attention. People gathered, and a crowd assembled. After suitable refreshment, they filled in a number of long boats--five or six long boats. And that night, in the dark, with muffled oars, they rowed back down to the stranded Gaspee.

There they challenged Lieutenant Dudingston to surrender his vessel, and, when he refused, they rowed to the vessel and, from multiple sides, boarded it.

During the altercation, Lieutenant Dudingston was shot. I am pleased to report that he was not killed. He recovered from his wounds, retired, ultimately, from naval service, and went back to Scotland and raised many children. But the injury that he received, I believe, was actually the first blood spilled in what became the Revolutionary conflict between the Colonies and Great Britain.

So after they had seized the vessel, the Rhode Islanders bound up the crew and rowed them ashore. There is a pub right up the street, right now, from where they were rowed ashore, with a little monument you can see that recognizes the evening that they rode ashore, June 9, 1772. Then they went back out to the stranded Gaspee and set her afire.

Now, the Gaspee had cannons, and cannons use powder, and powder is kept in a magazine. So when the fire got to the powder magazine, this happened. The Gaspee was blown to smithereens, and that was the end of her predatory behavior in Rhode Island Sound and Narragansett Bay.

Now, by way of point of contrast, up in Massachusetts, more than a year later, a number of Massachusetts colonists went onboard a British ship, and they pushed tea bags off of the boat and into Boston Harbor, which, I am sure, was a very brave and wonderful thing to do. But from Rhode Island's perspective, we outsmarted the British, we got the boat stuck, we seized the boat, we captured the entire crew, and then we blew it up, more than a year before the tea bag incident in Boston Harbor. I think we are entitled to some credit for that.

But Massachusetts produced Adamses who became Presidents. They produced Harvard, which wrote histories. And the story of the Boston Tea Party is now known to--do you guys know the story? Yes, every page head nods. They know the Boston Tea Party story.

I don't know what Rhode Island has to do to get out of the shadow of the Boston Tea Party, but we blew the damn boat up and I think that is pretty good.

The final of the story is that King George was furious about this. He took this as an enormous insult to his kingdom, to his crown, and to himself. And so he decreed that all of the insurgents who had rowed down in those boats were to be caught and were to be hanged. And a bounty was put for information leading to the identification of the Rhode Islanders who participated in the Gaspee raid.

I will say with some pride that no credible testimony ever emerged. The trials never took place. The nooses hung empty. And Rhode Island-- against all of that pressure and with the allure of these bribes and bounties from the King--refused to give up their secrets. So it is a very strong story in many regards.

And we now have created a brandnew license plate. It is not out on cars yet, I don't believe. This one says ``SAMPLE.'' But there is the Rhode Island license plate with the ``Gaspee Days 1772'' logo and the exploding Gaspee on it. I can't wait to get one and to drive it up to Massachusetts and park it near Boston Harbor and have some tea.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, with all due respect to my colleague, I strongly urge a ``no'' vote.

This amendment would create catastrophic damage throughout the Federal economy, with spending cuts as much as 37 percent by 2028, putting Federal programs like Medicare, Medicaid, border security, and transportation into extremely difficult circumstances. This is not the America that Americans expect, and we should not allow this vote to pass.

Vote on Amendment No. 107

Madam President, it is a very happy coincidence for me that I get to follow my friend Senator Schatz on this topic to oppose the solar tariff Congressional Review Act effort that has been mounted on the floor because I could not agree more with him that this particular episode playing out here on the floor of the Senate today is part of a larger scheme.

We begin with the fact that across the United States, the solar industry employs a quarter of a million workers. It is a big deal. These are well-paying jobs in an industry that saves families money on their electric bills and decreases our carbon footprint--decreases our carbon footprint. So, of course, fossil fuel forces oppose it, and that is what we are stuck with now.

This fossil fuel attack, through this CRA, if successful, would lead to more than a billion dollars in retroactive duties on American solar companies. It would cost us 30,000 jobs. It would cost us $4.2 billion in domestic investment. It would lead to the cancellation of 4 gigawatts of solar projects. And it would create an increase of 42 million metric tons of CO2. So, of course, the fossil fuel industry is against all of that. It is for the duties. It is against the jobs. It is against the investment. It is against the solar projects. And it couldn't care less about CO2.

The problem that we have here is that we are in a race against time to solve the climate problem before it gets out of hand.

In this town and in this building, one of the most dangerous things that we face is groupthink. The current groupthink is that climate change is a manageable problem; it won't get out of control. I don't believe that to be true. I think climate change is extremely dangerous--dangerous to our economy, dangerous to our ecosystems, and dangerous to our well-being.

We are having hearings in the Budget Committee that showcase some of those dangers--the danger of a coastal property values crash that is going to be worse than the 2008 mortgage meltdown; the danger of a similar property values crash in the West, where wildfire risk will have the same effect on properties; the danger of an insurance meltdown because nature won't let insurance companies predict things any longer safely, so they can't ensure them any longer because they can't predict, and you have a retraction of the insurance market and all of what that means.

Last of all, we have got a huge carbon bubble that we have been repeatedly warned is going to pop. And when it does, U.S. fossil fuel assets will be stranded, their value will go to near zero, and there will be an enormous global economic dislocation.

These are ideas that have been put forward by huge insurance company executives, by Freddie Mac, by people who study the risk in wildfire areas, by the major sovereign banks of the world. Serious grownups are warning of these risks.

Up against those serious grownups, we have the creepy front groups of the fossil fuel industry denial machine continuing to put poison and nonsense into our ecosystem, into our mental and political ecosystem. That has to stop.

Groupthink is dangerous enough. More dangerous, there is a subgroup in the House and in the Senate that has stopped thinking entirely and is just taking marching orders from the fossil fuel industry. The conflict of interest could not be more apparent. It is obvious and plain on its face. Yet the money is there. The political dark money pours in, so they line up and follow them right off the cliff like lemmings. That is even more dangerous than groupthink.

Last, this is not the only game that is being played by our fossil fuel industry folks. One of the other things that we are going to have to continue to work on, and what the SEC is working on right now, is what is called ESG requirements put out by corporations. ESG is environment, social, and governance. What this is, is corporate America deciding that it is really important to its stockholders to make sure they are good citizens and that the likeliest measures of bad citizenship will be bad environmental practice, bad social practice, and bad governance. And so they intend to clean that up. There are experts who have looked at ``e'' and ``s'' and ``g'' to figure out what the best ways are for corporate America to avoid those risks.

Well, all these warnings about what is happening with fossil fuel and with climate change that scientists have known about forever, they are now so real and so immediate that they are within the zone where a fiduciary--a corporation with an obligation to its shareholders, a bank with an obligation to its customers--has to take the climate danger into account.

If you are writing 30-year mortgages, you have got to look out 30 years; and within 30 years, climate looks like it is going to be a nightmare. So this risk is now real. It is on the fiduciary horizon.

The fossil fuel industry can't stand it, so they are trying to break the rules of the market. They are trying to undo ESG. They want the government to intervene in what corporations are doing to protect their shareholders and tell them the truth about market risk consistent with their fiduciary obligations. They want to break every step in that chain to protect their continued ability to pollute.

So watch this ESG nonsense. The anti-ESG, so-called woke corporatism, is a fake. It is a Broadway theatrical production, minus being on Broadway and being in a theater. But it has actors paid for by the fossil fuel industry. It has script writers who are telling them what to say. It has directors and producers who are driving the show behind the scenes. It is an operation. It is a fake. It is a piece of political theater, and we have to be willing to push back against that, because you can't take these kind of chances with the climate risks that we are now facing.

By the way, this objection to ESG, it is never about the ``g.'' It is never about the ``s.'' It is always about the ``e,'' the environmental piece. And within the environmental piece, it is always about carbon emissions. That is a telltale as to who is behind the anti-ESG political operation that is ongoing in America right now.

I hope we have a strong vote to knock this down.

I am delighted that President Biden is going to veto this. This would be self-harm if we were to allow this to happen to our country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am glad today to stand with my colleague to support S.J. Res. 4, affirming the validity of the Equal Rights Amendment.

We have heard from Senator Cardin and Senator Murkowski why it is so important for Congress to pass this resolution and enshrine protections against sex-based discrimination in our Constitution.

The ERA would bolster efforts to ensure equality in the fields of workforce and pay, pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment and violence, reproductive autonomy, and protections for LGBTQ individuals.

Although we have indeed made strides in each of these areas, we know how fragile these gains can be without the durability of a constitutional amendment.

Take, for example, the current Supreme Court's approach to the Constitution. As the Dobbs decision makes clear, a majority of the current Court believes that the meaning of equality under the equal protection clause was frozen in 1868 when the 14th Amendment was ratified.

Well, in the hundred years after 1868, the Supreme Court has adopted and permitted all sorts of State laws that excluded women from jury service, that excluded women from admission to the bar as lawyers, that excluded women even from employment as bartenders, and allowed all of those laws under the 14th Amendment. This business now of the Supreme Court, looking back at history and tradition, is a backward look to bad history and regrettable tradition.

So with the Supreme Court, it is particularly important that we not rely on its interpretation of the 14th Amendment alone to guarantee equal rights. Congress needs to stand up and act, and we have the power to do so.

Congress has broad authority over the amendment process. If Congress has the power to impose a time limit, Congress has the power to extend or remove that time limit.

I join my colleagues to urge swift passage of this resolution. As one witness at the Senate Judiciary Committee on the ERA eloquently put it, gender equality is not a zero-sum game, and ``we are all uplifted when everyone's rights are protected.''

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am back now for the 288th time with my trusty, battered ``Time to Wake Up'' poster to call attention to the climate crisis.

Over the 10-plus years that I have been doing these speeches, I have shown how climate change affects our ecosystems, industries, economy, public health, kids, workers, our elderly. I have even conducted a science experiment right here on the Senate floor, to the dismay of the Senate staff.

One near constant in these speeches has been the oily, often covert hand of the fossil fuel industry lurking behind the opposition to climate action through its campaign of climate denial, delay, and obstruction.

From the late 1980s, when Congress first became aware of climate change, through the period after the 2010 Citizens United decision when special interests could anonymously pour unlimited money into elections, the fossil fuel industry has blocked every serious climate bill in Congress until the Inflation Reduction Act.

Key to this obstruction was the strategic insight that they only needed to capture one political party to strangle legislative action. So the fossil fuel industry captured the Republican Party and has prevented climate action for over three decades, except when we were able to use the extraordinary process of reconciliation. That was just last year.

Democrats had control of the House and Senate and passed the Inflation Reduction Act via budget reconciliation. Congress finally acted on climate.

There is lots more that Congress still needs to do on climate, but the IRA was a big, meaningful bill that powered up tax incentives for clean energy and put a price on oil and gas methane emissions.

In the 10-plus years I have been documenting the fossil fuel industry's hold over the Republican Party, I have provided lots of concrete examples, from election spending to phony front groups by the flotilla, to polluter lackeys installed at the Trump EPA. But nothing tops the debt limit proposal Speaker McCarthy released last week, the ``Default on America Act,'' which the House just passed.

MAGA House Republicans like to claim to care about debt and deficits--except, of course, in 2017, when they passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations that added trillions to the debt and except when the debt increased by more than $7 trillion under President Trump.

They are a fountain of fiscal hypocrisy. So no surprise that the McCarthy package has little to do with reducing debt and deficits and everything to do with providing goodies to big Republican donors, in particular the fossil fuel industry.

Before I get into all the oily, corrupt deals for big polluters, a few words about the rest of the proposal. McCarthy calling this monstrosity the Limit, Save, Grow Act would make George Orwell blush. In reality, McCarthy's plan would result in unlimited carbon pollution,

massive losses to the Federal Government and American

families and businesses, and very likely crashes in whole

sectors of the economy--some limit, save, and growth.

First, it would rescind the extra funding we provided to the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats. This would add $120 billion to the deficit. For them, ``limit, save, and grow'' means limit IRS enforcement, save their big donors money paying their taxes, and grow their own campaign contributions.

Federal programs would face indiscriminate cuts of up to 33 percent across research, science, housing, addiction treatment, national parks, transportation, law enforcement, border security, drug enforcement, and criminal prosecutions. If you want to defund the police, Speaker McCarthy is your new poster boy.

The public hates all that stuff, so why pursue stuff that the public hates? Why threaten to set off the U.S. default handgrenade to get this done? Who wins? Creepy billionaires who hate the Federal Government and fund Kevin McCarthy--chief among them, the fossil fuel industry.

For his big fossil fuel industry donors, McCarthy delivers four huge giveaways. First, they take away the clean energy tax credits we passed in the IRA. Second, they let fossil fuel interests leak polluting methane emissions with no pollution fee. Third, they prop up dying fossil fuel infrastructure with so-called permitting reform targeted to help only fossil fuel. And fourth, they make it harder to protect against water and air pollution.

This oily wish list is not about debt or deficits, and it is not about growing the economy as it risks serious economic downturns. It is about taking care of the industry whose dark money funds their party.

Look at the clean energy tax credits which McCarthy claims are wasteful spending. It now appears that those tax credits will incentivize more investment than expected. So what is McCarthy's argument? There will be too much investment? Seriously?

Already, in less than a year, the IRA's clean energy tax credits have encouraged over 100 projects that will create north of 100,000 jobs. With time, the IRA could easily create over a million jobs--high-paying manufacturing jobs, the kind we should want. Many projects are in districts in the South and Midwest represented by Republicans.

Indeed, many House Republicans have cheered the very IRA-catalyzed projects they are now trying to torpedo. Seriously. Back home, they celebrate the jobs for their constituents. Here in DC, they vote to eliminate the very tax credits that created them--all to serve fossil fuel polluters.

Here are some of my favorite House Republican quotes celebrating IRA- catalyzed investments in Republican home districts.

This is the largest investment in the State of Georgia's

history--

One said--

one that will diversify and expand our economy while

providing strong job opportunities for Georgians today and

for generations to come.

And then a ``no'' vote against the IRA.

I'm thrilled that Honda has once again committed to Ohio

and our workers with today's announcement of a $3.5 billion

investment in EV production and a new battery plant within

Ohio's 15th Congressional District. I look forward to working

Honda and LG Energy Solution to bring 2,200 new jobs to the

Buckeye State.

And then voted to wipe out the program.

I am thrilled to welcome ENTEK to Terre Haute and to the

Hoosier state. As the only American company to own and

produce ``wet-process'' lithium-ion battery separator

materials, ENTEK is going to help to pave the way for

electric vehicle production in Indiana and reduce American

manufacturers' reliance on imported products. Their operation

in Terre Haute will create hundreds of new jobs.

And then voted to strip out the tax credits behind them.

I am honored to stand with other state and federal leaders

during this groundbreaking event as the first solar energy

microgrid-powered industrial site project was unveiled in

Jackson County. I know this important project will . . .

stimulate economic growth that will create new jobs in West

Virginia.

And then voted against the tax credits.

Where are the common themes here? Well, clean energy investments grow the economy and create jobs. These investments will help America compete against imports from overseas.

Usually, Republicans can't stop talking about how we need to reduce our dependence on Chinese imports and build up our own manufacturing industry--until their fossil fuel overlords tell them otherwise. Then they vote against the credits that encourage domestic manufacturing of the clean energy technologies that will dominate the economy of tomorrow.

What a terrible bet. Republicans can't beat China with the energy and technologies of the last century. No amount of fossil fuel-funded obstruction here at home is going to stop the clean energy revolution happening in the rest of the world.

In Europe last year, more than 12 percent of cars sold were fully electric, up from less than 2 percent just back in 2019. Europe is investing massively in wind and solar and green hydrogen, particularly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrated just how dangerous dependence on fossil fuels can be.

In China last year, 22 percent of cars sold were fully electric, towards the goal of 40 percent of all cars sold fully electric in 2030. China is, by far, the largest installer of wind and solar power, with ambitions to dominate the clean energy technologies of tomorrow.

In most places, renewable energy is now the cheapest form of energy-- far cheaper than fossil fuel. So the rest of the world is going all-in on wind, solar, batteries, green hydrogen, and other clean technologies for their low-cost energy. And that savings doesn't even count the trillions of dollars of value from avoiding the costs and harms of fossil fuel pollution.

The future is clean tech. And there are fortunes to be made. Many of these clean energy technologies were developed right here by our scientists and engineers at our companies and national labs. But the fossil fuel industry wants America to lose our technological leadership and all the business opportunities that flow from it.

Remember limit, save, grow? If you want that for real: limit pollution, save clean energy jobs, and grow the economy. The fossil fuel industry behind this is the most subsidized industry on the planet. It lives off public money and political influence. It gets to pollute for free.

Just today in the Budget Committee, we heard testimony that fossil fuel combustion, by warming the planet and polluting the air, costs America over $800 billion per year in health costs. The International Monetary Fund puts the effective subsidy in the U.S. for fossil fuels at almost $700 billion per year.

If fossil fuel-funded Republicans want to talk about picking winners and losers, bring it on. Their fossil fuel donors enjoy the biggest subsidy in world history.

If fossil-fuel-funded Republicans want to talk about free markets, bring it on. Market economics 101 teaches that the cost of your pollution should be in the price of your product. But fossil-fuel- funded Republicans protect free polluting for fossil fuel.

It is not just costs that fossil fuels impose on the rest of us. It is risks--economic risks associated with climate change. Central bankers, economists, insurance CEOs, financial experts, and other witnesses--serious grownups whose judgments are fiduciary--have come to the Budget Committee to warn of systemic risks to the economy, including a collapse in coastal property values and a carbon bubble resulting from stranded fossil fuel assets.

Now, ``systemic risks'' sounds pretty mild. It is not. It is when catastrophe spreads from one troubled sector across the entire economy, much as the 2008 meltdown in the mortgage market spread across the country to become the financial crisis and Great Recession, which, by the way, resulted in an additional $5 trillion in government debt. Disaster avoidance is debt reduction.

The stakes are huge. The consulting firm Deloitte estimates that the global cost of doing nothing on climate is around $180 trillion in economic damage--$180 trillion. But they go on to say that if we act responsibly and limit warming to 1.7 degrees Celsius, we can save ourselves from that and actually grow the global economy by $40 trillion. So you want limit, save, and grow? In this case, if you do it right by limiting pollution and saving clean energy jobs and growing the economy, the swing is $220 trillion between a bad climate outcome and a responsible climate outcome.

But the corrupt fossil fuel industry says ``jump,'' and Kevin McCarthy and MAGA Republicans say ``how high?''

Here is a ``how high": They eliminate the fee on wasteful methane emissions that I worked to include in the IRA. The methane pollution fee will raise $6 billion against the deficit and save even more from avoided climate and air pollution damage. But the rotten House plan was never about cutting debt and deficits, always about delivering for the fossil fuel overlords. So out goes the methane program.

Methane traps 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, at least in the short run, and it creates air pollution that sickens people across the country. This is a satellite image of a methane plume. You can actually detect methane plumes from space now, which is why charging a fee for polluting makes so much sense, because you can find the polluter quite easily. This one is being released from an oil well. Now, the operator of this oil well could capture this methane and sell it. It is natural gas. But, instead, oil companies like this just release it. Pure waste. Pure pollution.

Putting a price on methane emissions will dramatically reduce this pollution and raise budget balancing revenues. But McCarthy doesn't care; the industry funds his caucus. So out goes the budget-balancing, pollution-preventing methane fee.

Next in the fossil fuel-funded parade of horribles is a permitting reform stuffed with giveaways to--you guessed it--the fossil fuel industry. What the hell does permitting reform have to do with the debt limit, you might ask? Well, good question. Does building in more fossil fuel even make sense? The world is moving off fossil fuels. Peak oil will occur, and demand will begin to decline. Once demand begins to decline, the oil cartel will collapse in a rush for the exits, causing serious economic turbulence as fossil fuel assets are stranded, particularly in high production cost countries like the United States of America.

This is the global production cost curve for oil. As you can see, Persian Gulf oil is far cheaper to produce than U.S. oil. Here we are.

So when there is a rush for the exits, and instead of cheating the world with cartel pricing, they go to cost-plus pricing, and we are out of business in the U.S. fossil fuel industry, and American fossil fuel infrastructure becomes hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of useless, stranded assets. But fossil fuel says ``jump,'' and House Republicans say ``how high?''

Last in this fossil fuel wish list is a provision to make it next to impossible for EPA to promulgate regulations limiting air and water pollution. Again, deregulating polluters has nothing to do with the debt limit, but the fossil fuel industry wants it. So it is in.

In just the last few months, we have seen what Republican deregulation means for American families and businesses. We saw it in East Palestine, OH, when a train derailment resulted in a major spill of toxic chemicals. We saw it in Northern California when Silicon Valley Bank went belly-up. Both of these events could have been prevented with better regulations. Both harmed American families and businesses.

Protecting Americans from air and water pollution with good regulations always pays because the costs associated with air and water pollution are enormous. But fossil fuel does a lot of air and water pollution. So here is another fact giveaway to the fossil fuel industry.

If you ever needed proof that the Republican Party is the wholly owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry, McCarthy's debt limit package is that proof. Amazingly, almost 280 pages out of a 320-page bill are devoted to fossil fuel industry giveaways.

Here are 320 pages; 280 of these pages are blue. The remaining 40 are white. So this is a visual image of how much of the ``Default on America'' bill is devoted to making nice for the fossil fuel industry versus everything else.

It is like a bunch of delivery boys for the fossil fuel industry over there. This bill isn't about debt and deficits. It is not about limiting or saving or growing. It is about serving fossil fuel--the source of the money that keeps them in power. Period.

Oil and gas extraction represents only about 5 percent of our GDP. Farming, manufacturing, food and beverage, insurance, finance, restaurants, retail, housing, healthcare--all representing a larger share of GDP. Clean energy actually now accounts for more employment than the fossil fuel industry. But for subsidies, nothing compares to fossil fuel. So for political influence, to protect those massive subsidies, nothing compares to fossil fuel.

There is actually a bug--an insect--that infiltrates another bug and takes over the other bug's nervous system. And from inside the other bug, it drives

it around. It is kind of a creepy, natural development. It happens in the insect world. And it looks like it happened on the other side of the building, because what the fossil fuel industry has done is to take over the Republican Party and now just drive it around.

So fossil fuel money makes the McCarthy package serve its Big Oil master. It is a deeply sad and dangerous state of affairs when one of America's two main political parties abandons all pretense of responsible governance just to service its prime political benefactor. That is what Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans are doing. That is this bill.

They threaten default, propose terrible cuts, deny climate warnings, and are willing to kneecap the American economy, all in service to the fossil fuel industry and its dark money.

It is time to fix our democracy so that it functions honestly and this nonsense stops. It is time to wake up.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the President of the Senate be authorized to appoint a committee on the part of the Senate to join with a like committee on the part of the House of Representatives to escort His Excellency Yoon Suk Yeol, President of the Republic of Korea, into the House Chamber for the joint meeting on Thursday, April 27, 2023.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following resolutions, introduced earlier today: S. Res. 176, S. Res. 177, and S. Res. 178.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 12 noon on Thursday, April 27; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; that following the conclusion of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 3, S.J. Res. 4; that the cloture motions filed during yesterday's session ripen at 12:30 p.m.

For the information of the Senate, there will be two rollcall votes starting at approximately 12:30 p.m.

Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, I am here for now the 21st in my series of speeches about the scheme to capture and control our Supreme Court, a scheme to which rightwing special interests have devoted hundreds of millions of dark money dollars. The ingredients in this noxious cocktail are creepy rightwing billionaires, phony front groups, amenable justices, large sums of money, and secrecy.

This month, we have gotten a whole new look at how these ingredients mix.

According to extraordinary reporting by ProPublica, for more than 20 years, Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted luxury trips, virtually every year, from billionaire Harlan Crow without disclosing them. Here is how ProPublica described it:

[Thomas] has vacationed on Crow's superyacht around the

globe. He flies on Crow's Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has

gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive

California all-male retreat, and to

Crow's sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically

spends about a week every summer at Crow's private resort in

the Adirondacks.

One of those trips has been valued at more than $500,000.

We have heard from civil servants who have to report a gift of $5. This Justice received a gift of a trip that they valued at $500,000. It was a trip to Indonesia on Crow's private jet, followed by, and I quote here, ``nine days of island-hopping . . . on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants, and a private chef.'' And that is just one excursion. No telling how many others there were.

None of this was disclosed. The supposed rationale was that it was all ``personal hospitality.'' So let's set aside for one second the question of whether this actually was personal hospitality. Let's presume that there was personal hospitality here somewhere. What that overlooks is the problem of the personal hospitality exemption, which covers exemption from disclosure of ``food, lodging, or entertainment received as personal hospitality of an individual.'' Food, lodging, or entertainment--not transportation, not travel, not trips on Harlan Crow's private jet.

ProPublica was able to identify multiple trips that Thomas took on Crow's jet, and each one of those trips seems to be a slam dunk violation of this provision--not food, not lodging, not entertainment. Transportation.

It does not stop there. Additional reporting by ProPublica revealed more of Crow's undisclosed generosity. In 2014, Crow purchased from Thomas and his relatives three properties in Georgia, including the home where Thomas's mother lives. There seemed to be more collateral gifts in the form of renovations and an agreement that Thomas's mother would live there rent-free for the rest of her life.

There is much more to learn about this transaction, but back to the disclosure, here is what the law requires for property disclosures. It requires the disclosure of any purchase, sale, or exchange during the preceding calendar year which exceeds $1,000 in real property, other than property used solely as a personal residence of the reporting individual. If it is not your home, if it is any other real property, and if it is worth more than $1,000, the law requires that it be reported. Thomas disclosed none of this on the annual disclosure forms required by law.

This law applies across the government. This isn't something special for the Supreme Court. But transparency is especially important for judges, who must recuse themselves from cases if there is even an appearance of impropriety.

Purchasing Thomas's property and offering him free international vacations weren't the only favors bestowed by the billionaire. In 2011, the New York Times reported on him having ``done many favors for the justice and his wife,'' including using his company to finance what the Times called ``the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration'' of a property where Justice Thomas's mother used to work; donating $175,000 to a Savannah library project dedicated to Justice Thomas; giving Justice Thomas a $19,000 Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass; and ``providing $500,000 for Ginni Thomas [his spouse] to start a Tea Party-related group.''

Well, could any of that raise an appearance of impropriety or was it purely ``personal,'' nothing to do with the Court? Well, let's have a look at a picture that shows us a little illumination of that.

This is a painting that Harlan Crow commissioned during one of Thomas's visits to Crow's private, lakeside, Adirondack retreat. On the right here is Crow himself. Next to him is Justice Thomas.

Crow sits on the board of two conservative organizations that file briefs before the Supreme Court. Crow is also a donor to the Federalist Society, from which Trump's infamous Supreme Court list emerged. By the way, dark money surged into the Federalist Society during that period. Crow is also a political donor to Republican politicians.

Investigation would show whether all this amounted to enough business before the Court to create a conflict of interest, but the Supreme Court won't permit any investigation of its members.

Here on the left is the infamous Leonard Leo, the man behind that Trump Supreme Court list, whose three new Justices created the far- right supermajority that Justice Thomas now enjoys. Leo's front group, the Judicial Crisis Network, bought the campaign ads for the three Justices, paid for with dark money.

Here is a graphic I have used before showing Leonard Leo's flotilla of front groups that he uses. He has more. This is just one assortment of his front groups.

Here is the Judicial Crisis Network, which took checks as big as $17 million from anonymous donors and used that money to spend on ads for the confirmation of the three new Justices.

Leo is the one who helped the rightwing billionaires knock out Harriet Miers. Do you remember when she was a nominee for the Supreme Court by a Republican President? Knocked her out to make room for none other than Sam Alito to get onto the Court.

The campaign Leo oversaw by the billionaires to capture the Court has been tallied at more than $580 million--$580 million--much of it dark money. And he recently received from another creepy rightwing billionaire a $1.6 billion slush fund into yet another 501(c)(4) front group.

So it is deeply misleading to claim that Justice Thomas never vacationed with people who had business before the Court. Leonard Leo's business is the Court. The creepy billionaire's campaign was to capture the Court. Leo was the billionaire's contractor for construction of the Court that dark money built.

Personal hospitality. After Thomas gets on the Court, a major Republican donor befriends him, with half a million dollars for his spouse's activist group, a renovated home for his mother, and lavish undisclosed vacations, at which Thomas was sometimes accompanied by rightwing activists at the center of the scheme to capture the Court. And we are supposed to believe this is all legit? I don't think so.

Guess who else doesn't think so. Justice Thomas, who knew this smelled enough that he broke the disclosure law repeatedly to keep it secret.

Guess who else doesn't think so. Ask other Federal judges. They can't get away with this personal hospitality nonsense. They know that this is wrong and that it is embarrassing to the judiciary. That is why the Judicial Conference just cracked down on the personal hospitality shenanigans of their supreme court colleagues.

Thomas is feeling enough heat that he even released a public statement. ``Early in my tenure at the Court,'' he said, ``I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality . . . was not reportable'' and that he has ``always sought to comply with disclosure guidelines.''

Wow, where to begin. First, who ``advised'' Thomas that this ``personal hospitality . . . was not reportable''? Whoever it was, they were wrong. I have spoken before about this personal hospitality issue. The reporting exemption for personal hospitality covers ordinary gifts of ``food, lodging, and entertainment'' from friends and family. There is not an exemption for transportation, for all that flying around the world in private jets. It just isn't there.

We don't know who advised him, but I can pretty surely tell you who didn't advise him; that is, the formal committees of the Judicial Conference that advise on ethics and financial disclosure issues. They have committees for this. That would be the obvious place to go for real advice. Yet all indications are that he did not. I suspect that Thomas knew they would not like the facts that he would have to disclose if he were to ask them in candor to offer an opinion on his situation. He also, I suspect, knew that he would not like the answer he would get. So he just didn't file.

The recent definition of ``personal hospitality'' that the Judicial Conference announced in response to 2 years of urging from me was intended to clarify what was already prohibited--a clarification that every other branch had already issued. And the reporting law never exempted private jet travel.

Thomas actually knew this because he had reported flying on Crow's private jet before, back in 1997. What changed?

Federal law is crystal clear on the need to report real estate transactions worth over $1,000. The law is so clear that CNN reported yesterday that Thomas will amend his disclosure report to include that sale.

According to what CNN called ``a source close to Thomas,'' Thomas ``has always filled out his forms with the help of his aides,'' and he didn't think he needed to report the sale because he didn't make any money off it. Well, that excuse might be believable if the statutory language weren't so clear--crystal clear--and if Thomas weren't what one commentator has called a ``repeat offender'' at disclosure.

In 2011, Thomas had to amend 13 years' worth of financial disclosure reports to add his wife's income from the Heritage Foundation, a dark money, conservative outfit which also files amicus briefs at the Supreme Court. He said it was a ``misunderstanding.''

Here is what he misunderstood: Financial Disclosure Report form; B, spouse's noninvestment income. ``If you were married during any portion of the reporting year, complete this section.'' Income: None or date and source. That is not complicated. Those instructions are simple. And, like his private jet travel, Justice Thomas had reported his wife's income before, back in 1996. What changed?

Congressman Hank Johnson and I sent a bicameral letter to Chief Justice Roberts urging him to get his courthouse in order and set up a means to investigate these and other serious allegations of misconduct. We also sent a letter to the Judicial Conference calling for the Conference to refer Justice Thomas to the Attorney General for failure to report his real estate transaction with Crow.

Here is how that works under the ethics law:

The head of each Agency, or the Judicial Conference, shall

refer to the Attorney General the name of any individual

which such official or committee has reasonable cause to

believe has willfully failed to file a report or has

willfully falsified or willfully failed to file information

required to be reported.

The Attorney General [in turn] may bring a Civil Action

against any individual . . . who knowingly or willfully fails

to file or report any information that such individual is

required to report.

That is not complicated.

And the Supreme Court is completely alone here in this peculiar approach to these issues. Wherever else you go in government, you will find an ethics code, and you will find a process for investigating and enforcing the ethics rules.

Congress has Ethics Committees. The executive branch has an ethics office and inspectors general. Federal courts have their own ethics process. Only the Supreme Court has none of that. No designated place to submit complaints. No investigative mechanism to review complaints. No impartial panel to decide complaints. No transparency.

All of that needs to change if we are to rebuild confidence in our highest Court.

Without investigation, it is impossible to determine if Justice Thomas violated still another Federal law by participating in cases implicating his wife's political activities. We need investigation to find out whether he broke that law.

Without investigation, there is no way to evaluate the ethics of the 20-year, $30 million private judicial lobbying campaign run by rightwing political activists who wined and dined Justices Thomas, Alito, and Scalia--the three Justices who, as the New York Times described it, ``proved amenable.'' Amenable.

Without any prospect of investigation, there is little reason for a Justice to comply with the ethics standards. When there is no ref, there is ultimately no rules. The rule that clearly pertains is that it is not OK to judge one's own case. That rule is so obvious, I hardly need to state it, and that rule is so old it is in Latin: ``Nemo judex in sua causa.'' No one should be judged in their own case. We know that Justice Thomas is familiar with this rule because he cited it in an opinion he wrote just a few years ago when he noted that ``At common law, a fair tribunal meant that `no man shall be a judge in his own case.' ''

This good old rule, grounded in history and tradition, the present Supreme Court constantly and flagrantly flouts. That must stop. The Justices have lost the benefit of the doubt--240 years the Court went without needing this, but this Roberts Court has squandered the public's confidence with its behavior, and now there must be rules and process.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, along with my subcommittee, will hold a hearing to consider these issues. I hope our colleagues will take it seriously. Congressman Hank Johnson and I have introduced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, which would solve a lot of this mess--this big, tragic, unnecessary, self-inflicted mess.

Let me conclude where I began, with that noxious cocktail of creepy rightwing billionaires, phony front groups, amenable Justices, large sums of money, and secrecy. It is a toxic brew. The ethics failures at the Court are just one part of that stinking cocktail. We have Justices picked in some backroom at the Federalist Society by creepy billionaires to put on a list for Donald Trump. We have Justices who came through a confirmation process so tainted with influence that the FBI was breaking its own procedures in background investigations and Senators were pulling screeching 180s on confirming Supreme Court Justices in an election year. Flotillas of front group amici--amici curiae--who won't tell who orchestrates and funds them appear in Court to tell those Justices what to do. And the Justices, with astonishing statistical reliability, do as they are told.

To get the results they want, the Justices smash through precedent, violate so-called conservative judicial principles, make up false facts, and change the applicable legal standards. All of this mess--all of it--is the product of that toxic brew of creepy rightwing billionaires, phony front groups, amenable Justices, large sums of money, and secrecy.

For now, let's at least fix the ethics mess and bring the Supreme Court into alignment with the rest of the Federal courts. The highest Court should not have the lowest standards.

To be continued.

I yield the floor.

If I may interrupt the distinguished Senator from Alaska for 1 minute to do some closing business and then leave her the floor.

On behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions introduced earlier today: S. Res. 160, 161, and 162.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

I further ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, April 19; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; that following the conclusion of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 28, S. 870; further, at 11:30 a.m., the Senate vote on the Paul and Hagerty amendments as provided under the previous order; that following the disposition of the Hagerty amendment, Senator Tuberville or his designee be recognized to make a motion to proceed to Calendar No. 35, S.J. Res. 10; that the time until 4:15 p.m. be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees and with the final 15 minutes equally divided in the same form; that the Senate recess from 3 p.m. until 4 p.m. to allow for the all-Senators briefing, with the time counting equally to both sides.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senator Murkowski, to whom I express gratitude for her courtesy.