Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island for recognizing me but also for giving me a chance to talk about my opposition to S.J. Res. 187.

As he explained, this resolution would rescind Trump's EPA's extension of its start date for PFAS reporting under section 8 of TSCA. Yet, the CRA only does one thing about the rule, and that is as to the date that the reporting window opens. It would force the window to open months before the EPA's reporting system is even ready to receive submissions.

The EPA moved this date for a straightforward reason, which is that the infrastructure that is needed to support this reporting program is still being built. Companies will file this data through the EPA's electronic system, the Central Data Exchange. Across two administrations--that is the previous administration and this one--the EPA has moved this reporting window three separate times for this very reason, which is that the electronic platform that companies must use is just not complete. Both the Biden and the Trump EPAs have explained in detail the technical challenges associated with this reporting program: this rule's requiring of a collection of more than a decade of historic PFAS information from thousands of entities across a broad range of uses.

This CRA cannot make the EPA build the system faster, and it won't address contamination or pollution in the interim. The only real effect it will have is to force an unworkable deadline rather than to stand up a PFAS reporting system that works for the long term, and that is what we all want.

Consider what passing this would really mean. It would set a Federal reporting deadline that would be physically impossible to meet, putting both regulated entities and the EPA in a very difficult position. There is no finished system to file through, and there is no time left to assemble all of those years of data. It would do this while exposing small businesses and manufacturers to potential enforcement for failing to comply with the reporting requirement that the EPA itself has concluded cannot be met.

I have seen the impact of PFAS contamination firsthand in my home State of West Virginia. I think Senator Whitehouse and I agree that this is an issue--an important issue--that we need to address. I have led efforts to try to clean up legacy contamination in order to protect communities that did not cause this pollution, like our water utilities and our farmers, and to ensure that polluters bear the responsibility for the PFAS cleanup.

I have helped secure funding to address PFAS contamination in the communities that need it the most, and I have chaired hearing after hearing on PFAS cleanup, disposal, and liability. So I think my record is very clear on this.

So addressing PFAS should not be a partisan issue. Both parties, both Chambers, both of us, and two consecutive administrations have recognized: PFAS is a serious public health challenge that requires practical solutions.

But this does not make PFAS reporting more effective; it does not make the reporting system come online any faster; and it does not provide communities with better data.

So I would urge a no vote from my colleagues.

And with that, I yield back to Senator Whitehouse.

Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to S.J. Res. 188, the CRA introduced by my colleague from Rhode Island Senator Whitehouse to overturn the Trump EPA's repeal of the Biden MATS rule. This rule would reinstate the 2024 MATS rule that was part of the Biden administration's power sector strategy specifically designed to shut down coal-fired powerplants.

During the Biden administration, we witnessed a regulatory attack that targeted affordable and reliable sources of energy that extreme environmentalists just do not like. The result was predictable and one that many of us warned about: The Biden administration created a grid reliability crisis and increased power prices.

We are now in a critical moment for American energy. We must ensure the energy required to onshore American manufacturing, win the AI race, and keep our lights on and our homes warm while addressing energy costs for families and businesses. We should be expanding our energy production and electric generation, not shutting it down. The Biden-era MATS rule and

this CRA that would resuscitate that rule are intended to close coal- fired powerplants.

In 2020, the EPA found that the existing MATS standards are protective of public health. Let me say that again. In 2020, the EPA found that the existing--pre to the Biden rule--MATS standards are protective of public health, with an ample margin of safety, and that revisions are not necessary. This finding was reaffirmed with, by, and for the Biden administration.

According to the EPA, by 2021, mercury emissions from coal-fired powerplants were down 90 percent compared to pre-2012 levels. Despite these facts, the Biden EPA proceeded to finalize a rulemaking that had $860 million in compliance costs, which is twice as much as the claimed benefits.

The Trump administration has rightfully repealed these unnecessary and stringent standards.

This CRA would return to the failed policies of shutting down American energy, increasing consumer costs and putting American energy workers out of business. So I urge my colleagues to vote no on this

Mr. President, I first would like to say to my friend Senator Britt from Alabama that her introduction of our colleague Senator Mullin was terrific. I would say high fives to everything that you have said about our friend Markwayne, and I know that he will lead that organization in a stellar way. I look forward to his leadership.

Mr. President, I rise to join my ranking member on the subcommittee that we share leadership on. I do thank Senator Paul, but I rise in opposition to his amendment. As she has stated, this amendment would eliminate HHS funding provided in the bill--which the Trump administration actually requested in their budget--that will allow the Agency to drastically improve sponsor vetting for unaccompanied children, ensuring that they are no longer released to human traffickers.

The Biden administration spent 4 years creating this problem, and while the Trump administration is making good progress in remediating the damage, this funding is necessary to continue the work of improving the safety and security of unaccompanied children. Thus, this funding will help to reimburse States, like Texas and Florida, for the cost of statutorily required assistance to certain legal refugees and to support victims of trafficking and victims of torture.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

Mr. President, this week--this is no news flash here--a major winter storm brought snow, sleet, frozen rain, and bitter, bitter cold temperatures to most of the middle and eastern parts of the country. I rise today to really highlight dispatchable baseload power-- coal, natural gas, and nuclear--the role those items played in keeping the 200 million Americans impacted by this winter storm safe and warm.

Common sense tells us that in the peak heat of summer or the depth of a winter cold, we are going to consume more electricity. Americans expect, very reasonably, that our country's energy policies will result in affordable and reliable electricity so that they can keep their homes cool in the summer and warm in the winter. If we know that demand for electricity is at its peak during times of extreme heat or extreme cold, such as we are experiencing--I think it was 6 degrees this morning--then it would make sense that our energy policy would prioritize those generation sources that are available to meet the demand when electricity is needed the most.

So which sources of energy showed up this week? Not surprisingly, fossil fuels and nuclear power provided the bulk of electricity during this week's storm and the intense cold that has followed.

PJM Interconnection is the electric grid operator in all or parts of 13 States--including my State of West Virginia--that were impacted by this winter storm. In a filing with the Department of Energy, PJM projected that its highest ever--highest ever--winter peak electricity demand would take place on Tuesday morning of this week. At 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, fossil energy sources, including coal, natural gas, and oil, provided two-thirds of PJM's power, and another 23.6 percent of that was nuclear power. So that means that at a time of record winter electricity demand, 90 percent of the load was shouldered by baseload energy sources.

Electricity is just part of the story because natural gas is also used for residential heating in many of the same areas, providing energy beyond what is reflected in electricity generation sources.

This chart here really shows--it is from the Energy Policy Research Foundation, and it shows PJM electricity generation by source for the past week. It illustrates just what I have said--that fossil fuels and nuclear carried the load across PJM throughout this week's winter storm and its aftermath.

The solid-blue here represents nuclear. It stayed solid--like you would a baseload energy resource.

Similarly, the red shows the reliable supply of electricity from coal plants. You see it fluctuates a little bit, but it is still very steady and very meaningful.

The green shows electricity produced from natural gas--the largest single source in the PJM region. There is the green.

At the very top, what you see here is you see the relatively small amount of electricity produced from wind, solar, and hydroelectric sources.

What is notable is not just that the renewable sources generate smaller amounts of electricity, but see how sporadic they are. This is through a whole week here of the last storm we just had. So you can see from the chart that solar energy, which is yellow, basically disappears at night, of course. Then on Saturday, we had all that cloud cover, and again--or Sunday, cloud cover, too, from the snow. No generation. Wind power produced more on Friday--wind is the blue--but then it basically disappears on Saturday because the wind wasn't blowing.

So I highlight this chart not because I want to pick winners and losers among our energy sources. To the contrary, I believe all types of energy, all of this, including renewables, should be part of our energy mixture. But our country must have enough dispatchable baseload energy--that is from green on down--the type of reliable power that fossil fuels and nuclear provide, if we are going to stay warm in situations such as this during the depths of the winter.

The Biden administration, like the Obama administration before this, did everything possible to shut down our coal fleet. The Biden EPA had an entire strategy for pursuing multiple regulations, and I will just name a few of them: Clean Power Plan 2.0, ELG rules for powerplants, coal ash regulations, unachievable particulate matter rules, ozone rules, and the MATS rule--all to make it impossible to keep a coal plant open.

As the Wall Street Journal editorialized on Monday, coal is an especially valuable part of our grid during periods of peak winter demand because months of fuel can be stockpiled onsite at a plant--you see this all over West Virginia because we have not just the resource but the power generation from it--and can be used to supply more electricity when natural gas is also needed for residential heating.

On the oil and gas side, the Biden administration imposed a natural gas tax designed to make energy more expensive for consumers. The administration canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline and, working with their allies in State governments, stood in the way of pipelines that could move abundant natural gas produced in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to gas-starved areas in our Northeast and in our Southeast.

I was very proud of the bipartisan work that we did in passing the ADVANCE Act to make nuclear licensing more efficient, but even that overwhelmingly bipartisan bill took years longer to pass because of a handful of Democrat opponents.

So I am glad that we had sufficient dispatchable power to make it through the winter storm this week, but I am not convinced that we would have if we had continued the Biden administration's radical opposition to the energy sources that people rely on to keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

I appreciate President Trump, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and others across the administration for their commonsense approach to regulation that allows us to keep producing and utilizing the energy resources that we need, especially during periods of peak demand.

Going forward, I will continue working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to lock in commonsense permitting reform so that projects of all types, including sources of dispatchable baseload electricity, can be permitted through a fair and efficient process.

Government Funding

Mr. President, I am going to switch gears here to another hat that I wear, and I want to talk about another topic--and that is the progress we have made in restoring a functioning appropriations process--and the critical importance of the work before us. But first, I would like to thank our Appropriations leaders Chair Collins and Vice Chair Murray, as well as Leader Thune. I applaud them for their steadfast commitment to returning to regular order, and I am glad to see that our work has brought these bills to the Senate floor.

In particular, I am proud of the work we accomplished in a bipartisan fashion on my Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill. It is a big bill. I would like to thank all of my fellow committee members for their input. We received 12,000 total member requests for this bill.

As Senator Baldwin and I begin our fourth year this year of working on this subcommittee together, I am pleased that we are once again able to bring forward a bipartisan bill that reflects targeted investments, disciplined decision making, and a shared commitment to meeting the needs of the American people.

The Labor-H bill allocates limited taxpayer resources to key bipartisan priorities, and it does so at a lower level than we did in fiscal year 2025. In fact, it decreases the base discretionary cost of the bill by $3.2 billion compared to fiscal year 2025.

To achieve this, the bill reduces or eliminates funding for more than 40 programs and activities and realigns spending to reflect Republican values and priorities, while continuing to deliver on areas where agreements exist across the aisle.

The bill includes a number of Member priorities, such as greater investments in America's biomedical research, childcare, mental and rural health, workforce development, and continued efforts to combat the opioid epidemic.

As we work to rightsize the Federal Government, the bill also includes targeted decreases in administrative funding while ensuring that our Agencies have appropriate staffing levels to carry out their statutory responsibilities.

We also preserve longstanding, consensus-driven policy provisions and reject the inclusion of any new controversial riders. That stability is really important, not only for our Agencies but for our families, our workers, and communities counting on the programs that we authorize.

A major priority in this bill is our sustained commitment to the National Institutes of Health. We provide funding for NIH to support lifesaving biomedical research, which touches us all, and research that makes Americans healthier. It strengthens our economy and pushes the boundaries of what is possible in medicine.

This investment includes targeted increases for research in critical areas such as Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's, women's health, maternal health, rare diseases, and cancer.

We also increase support for NIH's IDeA Program, which expands research capacity in 23 States, including my home State of West Virginia, and continues to be important for institutions like West Virginia University and Marshall University.

The bill strengthens our efforts to combat substance abuse--an issue that still continues to affect many families and communities across the country and my State most deeply. So we are supporting prevention, treatment, research, and recovery programs. If you look at the latest statistics, we are actually bringing the statistics down, but they are still way too high. We bolster support for rural healthcare programs. Rural America is tough to get healthcare affordable and accessible in some ways, but we are trying to increase access to care for more than 60 million Americans who live in rural areas.

Critically, we maintain important conservative policy riders, like the Hyde and Weldon amendments, ensuring the bill reflects longstanding bipartisan consensus.

The Labor-HHS bill focuses on our children from early childhood through postsecondary education, ensuring that they are prepared for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. This includes critical infrastructures to help American workers upskill and to advance in their careers. We include funding for apprenticeship grants to support the Trump administration's goal of creating 1 million active apprenticeships.

The bill is important to our country. But make no mistake, it is really important to my State of West Virginia, for our universities, our hospitals, dozens of nonprofits and workforce programs, treatments for our coal miners and those suffering from opioid addiction. All of these things help my fellow West Virginians. And I know this because I hear directly from them about it every single day. My driving force in

crafting this bill was to help meet those needs for my fellow Virginians, and I am proud to say this bill does just that.

Mr. President, as encouraging as this progress sounds, our work is not done. The American people expect Congress to fulfill its most basic responsibility: funding the government responsibly and on time. Every delay undermines confidence in our institution and forces our Agencies into wasteful, short-term planning cycles.

Completing this work is not about a partisan victory. It is about good government. It is about keeping our commitments. It is about demonstrating that Congress can function and can work together to deliver real results. That is why we must come together to pass this package. It ensures that the priorities that we carefully crafted, debated, and agreed to on a bipartisan and bicameral manner can actually be carried out.

So, once again, I want to thank Chair Collins for her leadership throughout this process. I encourage all my colleagues to vote positively on the entire package. We saw earlier, it didn't pass. But we still have negotiations moving so we can responsibly fund the government. This is what the American people sent us here to do.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have six requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Madam President, I rise today with a very heavy heart, one shared by all West Virginians and by so many across our country, including the Presiding Officer. This past Wednesday, two members of the West Virginia National Guard were targeted and shot in the line of duty right here in Washington, DC.

In the days since this horrific attack, our entire State has been praying, grieving, and rallying around these heroes, their loved ones, and their families.

Today, I want to speak about these two brave, fine guardsmen: U.S. Army SPC Sarah Beckstrom, who passed away on Thanksgiving day, and U.S. Air Force SSgt Andrew Wolfe, who remains in critical condition, still fighting for his life.

This was a deliberate and senseless act of violence--an attack not only on two individuals but on the very values and the country that they took an oath to protect. These young soldiers put on the uniform to protect all of us, and on Wednesday, they were ambushed and attacked because they were U.S. servicemembers, because of that sense of duty that led them to serve their country.

SPC Sarah Beckstrom was just 20 years old. So think about it. I am looking at the young people here. Just think about that--20 years old. She had her whole life ahead of her.

We are so proud to claim her as one of our own. Sarah was a West Virginia girl. She served with honor, distinction, and a deep sense of responsibility--qualities that her family, her fellow soldiers, and her community have all recognized.

Those who served alongside of her talk about her leadership and her very bright spirit, and you can see that in her smile from her photographs.

They talk about somebody who showed up every single day. They describe her as a peacemaker, and that is what she was doing on the streets of DC. She was being a peacemaker; and that is exactly what she was. Her loss is immeasurable.

On a holiday that means to bring many families together and create joyous moments, her loved ones instead

faced the unthinkable. My prayers and deepest condolences are with them.

Sarah's service, her sacrifice, and her example will not be forgotten by her Guard family, by the State--by her own family, by the State of West Virginia, which we so proudly shared, or by this Nation.

U.S. Air Force SSgt Andrew Wolfe remains in the hospital, and we are all praying hard, hard for him, his family, and his fellow guardsmen. Andrew volunteered to serve and to take on missions that protect our country and our communities while he was still in high school. Andrew is 24 years old.

I spoke with his mother Melody this morning, and my biggest takeaway is that Andrew is a fighter.

My other takeaway in talking with Melody is that she and the entire family, including Andrew, are very devout. They believe in the power of prayer. They believe in the power of the God Almighty to weave his way and his will, and they have gathered much strength from that.

There are so many people in his community and in our State and really across the country and around the world who are praying for him.

His family has shown extraordinary strength during these painful days, and I want them to know this, as I told her this morning: Andrew is not alone. West Virginia stands behind him; the National Guard stands behind him; and this country stands behind Andrew. Powerful and plentiful prayers are offered to Andrew and to his family.

I also want to take a moment to recognize the West Virginia National Guard. This attack has shaken them deeply, as you can imagine. Guard leadership, including Major General Seward, the Adjutant General of the West Virginia National Guard, has been steadfast, compassionate, and focused on the families and the servicemembers.

Whenever tragedy hits our State, whether it is a flood, fire, storms, or public health emergencies or overseas deployments, the Guard is always there--always there.

Today, as they bear tremendous grief for themselves, they continue to support the families of Sarah and Andrew with the same dedication that they bring to every mission. West Virginia is so proud of our servicemembers. We always have been. And this moment, while it is painful, reminds us again just how much they sacrifice and just how much we depend on them every day.

Let me be perfectly clear: This was an unprovoked and targeted attack on two American servicemembers. It was a horrific act of violence. When our men and women take an oath of office to defend our country, they know they may be called to fight, but I imagine they never really fathomed that they would be attacked right here on our own soil. It is just unthinkable.

This is a moment for unity, for resolve, and for honoring the men and women who serve our country so bravely. It is a moment to stand against violence of any kind, especially violence directed at those who protect us.

Tomorrow, I intend to introduce a resolution in this Chamber to formally honor Specialist Beckstrom and Staff Sergeant Wolfe. This resolution will reflect what every West Virginian already knows--that Sarah and Andrew represent the very best of our State, the very best of the National Guard, and the very best of America.

The resolution also lets their families and loved ones know that the U.S. Senate will stand with them, support them during this terrible time, painful time, and for them to know that they are not alone.

Madam President, West Virginians are tough; we are resilient; but we are deeply--deeply--connected to our communities and to our values. When we lose one of our own, we all feel it.

Today, we mourn SPC Sarah Beckstrom, and we pray--pray hard--for SSgt Andrew Wolfe. We extend our love and support to their families and reaffirm our gratitude for every member of the West Virginia National Guard who continues to serve with courage and honor.

Madam President, I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

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

Mr. President, later today, the Senate will vote on a motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 76, the CRA introduced by my colleague from California Senator Schiff to repeal the Trump EPA's interim final rule that extends the compliance deadlines for the Biden administration's stringent attack on oil and natural gas facilities.

Over the past 4 years, we witnessed an onslaught of regulation like nothing we have ever seen before--an attack that specifically targeted affordable and reliable sources of energy like oil and natural gas, among others. The purpose of these overbearing and in some cases outright illegal rules was clear: It was an attempt to shut down conventional energy in our country from sources the Democrats just don't like.

Through this barrage of overregulation, the Biden administration created record-high gas prices and a grid reliability crisis that our Nation must now address.

We must recognize that we are really in a critical moment for American energy. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has found that over the next 10 years, due to a rise in energy consumption and the policy-driven retirement of our existing power generation, our country may face major electric reliability concerns. The Biden administration compounded these issues through regulations that sought to force a transition to unreliable, intermittent energy resources.

We must take action now to ensure that future electricity demand is met, and we can do this by continuing to produce natural gas.

Fracking and shale gas have revolutionized American energy, leading to lower prices, job growth, and increased energy security.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the rapid expansion of natural gas in the United States has decreased-- decreased--the power sector's carbon dioxide emissions by over 35 percent in the last 20 years. Additionally, upstream oil and gas production reduced its methane emissions by more than 40 percent over the last 10 years.

Natural gas is an affordable, reliable, and clean source of energy, vital to reducing our emissions. We should be expanding production of this resource, not restricting it. Unfortunately, restriction is the purpose of this CRA.

This rule put in place by the Trump administration extends compliance deadlines for crude oil and natural gas facilities because the Biden EPA set standards that are simply unachievable.

In a time of energy uncertainty, my Democratic colleagues should be in total support of expanding the use of natural gas. Instead, they are forcing a vote to increase our energy prices.

The CRA is an attempt to take us back to Biden-era energy policy, and I urge my colleagues to swiftly reject this motion to proceed.

Nomination of Ho Nieh

Mr. President, I rise today in support of Ho Nieh's confirmation to be a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Our Nation is poised to unleash a nuclear power revival, and a strong NRC, guided by exceptional leadership, is central to enabling the use of nuclear energy.

Fully realizing nuclear energy's potential will improve electric reliability, which I spoke about in my former remarks, strengthen American energy and national security, and drive economic growth.

In 1974, Congress established the NRC to serve as our Nation's independent nuclear safety regulator. In the years since, our nuclear energy sector has matured, technology has advanced, and safety has been prioritized, as always.

There is now an opportunity to take the experience and know-how to build a new nuclear future. Doing so mandates a nuclear safety regulator that is ready to meet the moment and to do so by leading with its best attributes. Those attributes are embodied in the NRC's principles of good regulation: independence, openness, efficiency, clarity, and reliability. Each of these principles is a necessary pillar for the NRC's work, especially as the NRC implements the consequential task that it currently faces.

Last year, in passing my bill, the ADVANCE Act, Congress spoke with an overwhelming bipartisan voice that we must urgently modernize our regulations to prioritize what matters most. President Trump reinforced that message in May when he issued an Executive order tasking the Commission with a major reexamination of the NRC's nuclear safety rules. The ADVANCE Act and President Trump's Executive order both empower the Commission to deliver on a vision of deploying more nuclear power and doing so quickly and safely.

As the Commission acts on these directives, it must do so in a way that does not undermine regulatory certainty and works with all stakeholders to make sure the NRC's efforts are enduring.

I am confident that Ho Nieh will carry the principles of good regulation forward as the Commission implements our Nation's nuclear energy policy.

Mr. Nieh has served in a broad range of positions at the NRC and at international nuclear organizations.

As the leader of the most consequential office of the NRC--that office is called the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation--he laid out a vision of the NRC's role to make sure that the safe use of nuclear energy is possible. This set the tone for what the Commission established earlier this year when they

revised their mission statement, as directed by the ADVANCE Act.

Following his departure from the NRC, Mr. Nieh gained firsthand experience in understanding the role of regulatory compliance as a senior executive for a large nuclear facility. He also served on loan to the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations--the industry's own nuclear safety watchdog that seeks to promote excellence in nuclear performance.

I support Ho Nieh's nomination to serve as a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission because of his outstanding technical expertise, his real-world knowledge of regulatory compliance, his strong leadership and experience, and his commitment to executing the recently updated NRC mission statement.

I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for his confirmation to the

I ask unanimous consent that we begin the scheduled rollcall vote immediately.

Madam President, while we are getting set up here, I want to thank my fellow Senator from Louisiana, who just spoke about an issue, the health savings accounts and the flexible spending accounts.

Do you know what always gets me about the pushback on something like this, when people are going to be able to make their own decisions and have the money go to them rather than an insurance company? For some reason, the other side always underestimates the real intellect and the real thoughtful decision making that go on in families every single day, no matter what your socioeconomic status is or how much money you make. They always underestimate the voter, and they underestimate the ability of a family to make a decision about their own healthcare when they do that.

So I congratulate him for his thoughtfulness always and, really, common sense and, really, the simplicity of what he is really saying.

If anybody has been outside today--and I know many of you are here working, unfortunately--it is an absolutely gorgeous day, a great day for football, with beautiful sun, not too hot, not too cold--a gorgeous day.

But for a lot of people, it is not a good day. A lot of people around this country are wondering when they are going to get back to work, when they are going to get paid, how they are going to feed their families--is their trip going to be canceled? All of this has been put onto the American people.

And here we are again, day 39 of the Schumer shutdown. And what is there to show for it? Well, nothing, except a lot of pain on a beautiful day.

The chart here, which I am going to put up here myself, is something that I think really hasn't been talked about enough, but it is really something we need to focus on because it shows the fairness of what is going on today.

Thirteen times during the Biden-era Presidency, we passed this exact same bill, extending the government. Some of this, the ``VV,'' is by voice votes. I voted for every single one of these, and so did many of my colleagues, 13 times.

So I think you have to look at the contrast--we have well exceeded this 14 times and probably will again--where we are getting total obstruction from the other side.

Families are anxious about their paychecks. Federal workers are not sure when they are going to go back. Capitol Police, folks here, many of the folks in and around the DC area, and many West Virginians, because we have a lot of Federal employees, don't know where their next paycheck is coming from.

I am really concerned about our SNAP recipients, about whether they will be able to put food on the table.

We have travelers stranded in airports all over the country, and our air traffic controllers, many of them, are pushed to the brink. They are not getting paid. They have got a lot of anxiety about that because they have so many obligations. Like many families, they can't meet the obligations.

Veterans are facing delays as well.

Do you know what? The American people do not deserve this. They deserve a beautiful day in the fall, watching their favorite football team--if that is what they want to do--watching their grandchildren play soccer, and not have all of this put on top of them.

So instead of ending the shutdown, the Democrats have come forward with their so-called offer, which is a 1-year extension of the ObamaCare act subsidies.

Let me make clear, as my colleagues have: This offer is just absurd. We have been doing this for 39 days. The government has been closed for 39 days, and yet this offer is supposed to be the bridge to the end? To me, that is just incredible.

The plan is to give a $26 billion handout to the insurance companies.

Here is my second chart, which shows the revenues per day--per day-- of insurance companies that provide health insurance benefits through the exchange. I mean, it is not millions; it is hundreds of millions. Yet the Democrats want to hand over another $26 billion.

So who does it benefit? It benefits the wealthy. There are no fraud protections. It does nothing--absolutely nothing--to lower the cost of healthcare. Dr. Cassidy made a compelling argument about that, just previously.

So while Americans are feeling the consequences of this shutdown, our colleagues' answer is to shovel $26 billion to the insurance companies. That is not compassion. That is fiscal insanity.

I had a conversation with one of my Democrat colleagues last night. They said: Well, you know, the insurance companies are saying that it is too late now for them to redo their insurance estimations because of what is going on or to make any adjustments--say, if you want to bring the income down or you want to do no zero-cost plans, it is too late.

I am sitting there thinking, maybe that was the plan all along: Let's close the government for 39 days because now it is too late to make any adjustments. Thirty-nine days ago, with the government open, we could have been negotiating all of this.

Our leader has sat there in the well every single day and offered to negotiate. The President has offered to negotiate. Many of us have, including me. Dr. Marshall here--Senator Marshall--has a plan that he has had in front of all of us. Yet we are now 39 days in.

So, maybe, that is the plan. Maybe that is the plan: Let's hold out for 39 days so the insurance companies can get their $39 billion.

Let's not forget where these subsidies are from. They are out of the COVID era, from the healthcare that they created and proudly called ObamaCare, which none of us voted for.

These bonuses were never meant to be permanent--never--or they could have attempted to make them permanent themselves. So they set them to expire this year. The irony that they want to have them expire next year, right before an election, is not lost, I don't believe, on any of us.

So instead of doing their job and simply reopening the government-- this is not a hard exercise here. This is: Open the government.

They want to make these temporary giveaways permanent. They want to double down on the failures of ObamaCare. We are not even talking about the cost of healthcare, hardly. That whole argument is getting lost in this--a system that they have admitted on this floor has not been working, and it is irrational.

So these so-called premium subsidies, they don't lower the cost of healthcare. They simply shift the cost onto the taxpayer.

Under the proposal, wealthy families--people making hundreds of thousands of dollars--would now qualify for taxpayer-funded healthcare.

How many times have I sat on this floor and heard the argument from the other side that all we hear about are millionaires and billionaires, eliminating taxes for them, when they themselves are putting $26 billion into the hands of very wealthy companies but, also, individuals are able to take advantage of these.

How is that fair to a coal miner in Logan County or a nurse in Mon County or a teacher in Wheeling? It just plain is not. These West Virginians work hard every day. They pay their taxes. They expect government to live within its means--well, not to say, they expect government to be open; isn't that kind of a given here, government to be open?--and not to hand out big bonuses to big insurers or the wealthy.

Meanwhile, because of this shutdown, real people are paying the price. In my State of West Virginia, not just thousands of families and of people, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their SNAP benefits, which they rely on every month.

When I think about that, what do I think about? I think about the young mother who is maybe a single mother with two kids who is working hard every day but can't get insurance through her employer. She is working hard every day. She has got to be frantic, so concerned about how she is going to care for her kids. That is just an excruciating thought for any mother to have to have. Our seniors have the same thoughts.

But these benefits are a risk because the Democrats won't do something simple like open the government.

Our Federal employees, our park rangers, our mine safety inspectors-- my mine safety inspectors--I have got a lot of coal mines. Mine safety inspectors are very thin right now, not doing a lot of their work. People who keep our communities safe, they are forced to wait, to wonder, and to worry. And it is a worry.

We are leading up to Thanksgiving. People make plans in advance. They don't buy their ticket the day before they fly. They make plans in advance.

In our family, our kids are married. So one year we get Thanksgiving, and one year we get Christmas. So we are making a plan a year in advance for when we are all going to get together and be able to share fun times with our families. But now we have got long lines. We have got canceled flights and growing frustration.

All this chaos and uncertainty are so avoidable. I mean, 39 days is shameful.

Senate Republicans have made clear that we are ready to negotiate. I have mentioned that. The leader, many of us here, including myself, the President himself--we are ready to debate. We are ready to get into this. But we are not going to negotiate until the government is open. That is such a reasonable proposition, and they will not take yes for an answer.

I thought it ironic that the Democrat leader used Senator Thune's words. Senator Thune, every time he talks, he says: Take yes for an answer.

And he tried to turn it on him. I am turning it back to him: You guys take yes for an answer and see where we are.

I have talked a lot about the financial cost that this shutdown has brought forth on the American people. But there is a not-so-hidden cost here, one that is harder to measure, and that is the uncertainty and the anxiety that this is bringing to families and businesses across the country, not to even mention what the international thought must be: What is wrong with these people that they won't open the government? This has got to be what the international community is thinking every day.

The worry about when your next paycheck will come--when will you be able to go back to work? When will things get back to normal? When can I sit in the stands at my home football game and actually not have all these burdens on my mind?

These costs can't quite be measured, but they are very, very real. So I have

a hard time believing that my colleagues on the other side have truly grasped this impact.

I don't know who they are talking to, but we are getting phone calls, having personal conversations all day long, talking about the cost of this shutdown. If they did grasp it, they wouldn't have dragged this out for 39 days.

I have heard the news reports that some of them are feeling emboldened because of an election on Tuesday. So, really? We are going to hold that young mother who has those two kids--we are going to hold her hostage on whether she can feed her family because we have a political advantage? That is just a shameful thought, in my opinion, but, apparently, by their own words, it is real.

Do you know what? There is no political advantage to a shutdown. I have been through so many of them. I have voted many times to reopen the government. There is no political advantage to having our government shut.

I am also a member of the Appropriations Committee. I have to say, after many years of stagnancy, we have passed bills out of the committee, including my bill to fund the Departments of Health, Education, and Labor. It is historically a very challenging bill to pass, but we passed it out of committee with bipartisan support. It is waiting here to be brought up to the floor.

We passed three bipartisan bills through the full Senate, and, hopefully, we will be able to vote on those shortly. Leader Thune has fulfilled a commitment to bring these bills to the floor, with more to come, because--do you know what?--that is what legislating is all about. That is what legislators do.

So one of the great frustrations to me in this whole process is that the Members who supported these bills in committee and on the Senate floor now won't allow us to move forward on these bills.

So, today, I urge my Democratic colleagues: Stop with the gimmicks. Stop with the political advantage and the political theater. Stop holding the government and the American people hostage to a partisan wish list.

West Virginians don't want political games. They want their government opened. They want their benefits secure. They want their leaders focused on results.

Let's reopen the government. Let's restore certainty and sanity. And then let's do the hard work of reforming our healthcare system in a way that lowers costs and empowers patients and families.

We could have been doing this for 39 days, by the way, but we can't until the government reopens. That is what leadership looks like. That is what government looks like--and governing--and that is what the American people deserve.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as I was sitting and listening, I feel like I am living in an alternative universe here sometimes. I am sure the American people feel this way.

Are people being hurt today? You are doggone right they are. They are being hurt because Senator Schumer and his following will not, quite simply, reopen the government so we can begin negotiations on some of the issues that are a part of this disagreement.

I am a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. One of my most important responsibilities is to make sure that the government stays open and working for the people that we represent. That is why I am so deeply disappointed to be standing here today in the midst of a totally avoidable government shutdown, all because the Senate Democrats refused to join us, as Republicans, in supporting a commonsense, short-term, nonpartisan continuing resolution.

We have seen Leader Thune pick it up in his hands. It is very simple. Let's just keep the government open until November 21, discuss key issues, finish the appropriations process, and move on.

Let me be clear on what that short-term continuing resolution was designed to do. It is not a gimmick. It is not a gimmick. It is the same legislation that the Senate Democrat leader brought before this body 13 times and had it passed. It is not a partisan maneuver. It is a straightforward measure to keep critical services in operation, while giving Congress the time that we need to finish our work on appropriations through regular order, the way that we used to do it. Some of our Democratic colleagues have agreed with us in the last several votes.

So the bottom line: We don't have to be where we are, and we really shouldn't be here because this position is untenable. We have a path forward. It is so easy. It is so easy.

When people are watching this, they are hearing us try to blame one person or the other. The easy thing is to turn around and vote to reopen up the government, and we can begin to have other conversations. We have a path forward. It requires the Democrats to come to their senses, quite frankly, and vote for this reasonable measure.

The Senate has already passed three appropriations bills, which is three more than we passed under their leadership last year. And we have five more that have received heavy bipartisan support in committee and are ready for a full Senate vote. That would be CJS, Defense, Interior, Labor, which I chair, and T-HUD, which is the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development bill.

That is progress. That is responsibility. That is what we are here for. That is us doing our job. But in order to complete the process, we need time. The continuing resolution is that bridge of time to keep the government open while we finish our work.

So, unfortunately, the Democrats have chosen a different path. They have chosen to shut down the government. That is where we are today. The government is shut down. They made a political calculation all based on politics, appeasing their far-left base instead of doing the right thing for the American people.

Unfortunately, hard-working families all across this country who rely on critical government services are the ones who are suffering. Government shutdowns have real consequences. In West Virginia, our businesses and our Federal workers face uncertainty about their pay. Families who rely on essential benefits are put in limbo. It is scary for people. Some people with children with disabilities or folks that rely on services daily are concerned about where this is going to lead. Small businesses are waiting on Federal permits or loans. They are going to have to wait longer.

And so many others are told, yet again, as we see, that the politics of Washington come before the people.

My State of West Virginia has the third largest number of Federal employees, and we are situated quite close to the District of Columbia.

So, to all of those public servants who are bearing the brunt of this nonsense, please know how much I value your contribution every day and that I will work tirelessly to get you back to work, to get you back to that certainty that you need.

You know, this shutdown is just so avoidable, and it is so unacceptable. But do you know what? As Republicans, we are not giving up because we never do. As Leader Thune has indicated, we will continue bringing forward opportunities for the Democrats to join us in reopening the government. We will keep voting to do the right thing and giving them a chance to do the same.

The American people expect Congress to be responsible stewards of their tax dollars. I know that is what my constituents in my home State of West Virginia want me to do. They expect us to keep the government functioning. I

can't even believe I am having to say this because it is just such a given: They want the government open while we debate our differences. That is what we are supposed to be doing. We are supposed to be debating, not shutting down the government, and that is what the Republican CR would have allowed us to do.

So I urge my colleagues across the aisle to quit playing the political games, to end the shutdown, and join us in funding the government. Let's finish our work on the appropriations process, and let's return to the regular order process that we had begun at the beginning of the summer because it brings transparency, accountability, and bipartisanship back to the appropriations process. We have it in committee. We need to have it on this floor. That is what West Virginians deserve. That is what the American people deserve. It is what they expect, quite frankly. That is what they expect every day.

These young people on the floor are getting to hear a debate. I am sure it is one that they will remember, and I am sure they are thinking to themselves: It is a simple thing. Reopen the government. Reopen the government. Why was it closed in the first place? For a political stunt that is not working. They are boxed in.

Let's just say: OK. Let's open. Let's begin our discussions, and let's solve the problems that we have in front of us.

With that, I yield the floor.

Five minutes.

Madam President, I would like to thank the gentleman from Indiana for really framing the debate for his home State of Indiana.

I rise today in opposition as well to S.J. Res. 60, a CRA that is introduced by my colleague from Rhode Island Senator Whitehouse to overturn this technical correction to the State of Indiana's emissions. The interim technical correction is necessary due to the Supreme Court's stay of the good neighbor rule.

I urge my colleagues to vote no and return the Senate floor to our business of confirming President Trump's nominees in the face of historic obstruction.

Allow me to explain just a little bit--and both of them have explained this. In 2021, the EPA issued a Federal implementation plan covering Indiana. In doing so, they relied on the announced retirement of four electric-generating units projected to happen in 2023. In 2022, those powerplants announced they would no longer close, which EPA counted for in their good neighbor rule, so the Supreme Court subsequently stayed that rule, meaning that Indiana was forced into their now-outdated 2021 emissions budget.

The Trump administration's EPA finalized this interim rule that this CRA would repeal to adjust Indiana's emissions budget to reflect what it would have looked like in 2021 had those plants not announced retirement.

I will say that every single day, every one of our offices is deluged with people coming in, saying: We need more power in this country. If we are going to win the race in AI, if we are going to win the next race in innovation, we have to have more power.

So this is an example, I think, of the Trump EPA working to make changes that ensure legal durability and reflect practical energy and environmental needs for specific States that the Biden administration had neglected.

It is surprising to me that anybody would want to spend time on this minor interim rule specific to one State that will not have a material impact on air quality or attainment of the 2008 ozone standard, which is the purpose of the rule. However, as we have seen time and time again, they are relentless in their efforts to weaponize our environmental statutes to shut down powerplants and manufacturing that provide good-paying jobs in States like Indiana and in the rest of the Rust Belt. This straightforward action only received five comments-- five. I have got them right here. Yes, a majority of the comments that the EPA received were in support of this rule, and the two others were anonymous comments.

Where was the outrage against this rule and then when the EPA was accepting comments?

Just to frame how many comments you got, when I did my Congressional Review Act of the Obama clean powerplant, I got 4.3 million comments; with the Biden clean powerplant 2.0, 1.3 million comments; with the Biden WOTUS rule, 115,000; with the California waiver, 53,000.

This is all the people in this country who care about what we are doing right now. It is just attempting to waste floor time in the U.S. Senate, trying to reverse a technical correction in an underhanded effort to close powerplants that provide affordable electricity and jobs for American workers and help us progress in this race for superiority in the race to AI. We need more energy, not less; and the CRA is a deliberate attempt to shut down powerplants in Indiana that are not popular. They are coal-fired power plants--love it--when grid reliability experts are warning of a shortage of baseline power.

I am fully against this CRA, and I hope that my colleagues will join me in that.

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

Mr. President, shortly, I will ask unanimous consent to vote on the nominations of Jess Kramer to be the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency and Mr. Sean McMaster to be the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, but first I must speak on the historic delay and obstruction that my Democrat colleagues have put toward President Trump's nominees.

So far this Congress, Democrats have not let one single civilian nominee pass by unanimous consent or voice vote. By this point in the Biden Presidency, 76 civilian nominees had been confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent.

This is truly an unprecedented moment in this Chamber's history. For years, we have operated under courtesy and precedent to swiftly move forward a portion of the President's nominees who have bipartisan support. For example, 90 percent of President Obama and President George W. Bush's civilian nominees were passed by voice vote or unanimous consent. Even in President Trump's first administration and the Biden administration, more than half of their civilian nominees were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent.

Now, though, we have blanket obstruction regardless of the qualifications or bipartisan support some nominees have. As a result, President Trump's second-term civilian nominees have been subject to 120 cloture votes.

Well, somebody watching from West Virginia might not know what that means. That means obstruction, time delay, and inability to get nominees through.

That is 29 percent more than the total of all of the cloture votes for nominees in the first 200 days of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations combined.

These hurdles have led to these nominees averaging 94 days between nomination and confirmation in the first 200 days of President Trump's second term. That is 24 days longer than President Biden's nominees, 40 days longer than the nominees in President Trump's first term, and 53 days longer than President Obama's first-term nominees.

Regardless of the reason for obstruction that our Democrat colleagues have, refusing to place well-qualified nominees in Agencies where they can be responsive to all in Congress and help administer programs with congressional oversight and accountability is shortsighted and counterproductive.

So I would like to take a moment and speak about two well-qualified nominees I mentioned that have passed out of my Environment and Public Works Committee with bipartisan support but have been waiting for months literally for consideration on the Senate floor because of dilatory tactics.

First is Jess Kramer. She is the nominee for the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency. Jess has 13 years of experience advocating for clean water at both the State and Federal levels, as well as in the private sector and is exceptionally qualified to lead EPA's Office of Water.

Jess was voted out of the EPW Committee with a bipartisan vote of 15 to 4 in April. That was 148 days ago.

She has built a career crafting practical, bipartisan solutions to improve water policy and ensure that communities have access to safe and reliable drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.

During Jess's time working for me on my EPW Committee staff, she played a role in shaping the water provisions in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, securing historic investments to modernize drinking water and wastewater systems, remove lead service lines, and to address emerging contaminants.

Beyond her experience on Capitol Hill, she has served in both State and Federal roles as well as in the private sector, advocating on behalf of water systems to ensure continued infrastructure investments and smart, achievable regulations.

She understands that environmental protection and economic growth can go hand in hand, and she knows how to ensure regulations are clear, fair, and based on science.

Jess is exactly the serious civil servant all Senators and the American people should want in place now.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 89, Jessica Kramer to be an Assistant Administrator of the EPA; that the Senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I thank the ranking member. I don't thank him for his objection, but I thank him for weighing in here today.

I do think somebody as talented as Ms. Kramer would make the EPA run not just more smoothly, but also, she is such a professional. But I don't think we are disputing the qualifications of the nominee.

I would next like to turn to Sean McMaster, the nominee for the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration within the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mr. McMaster was, again, voted out of the EPW Committee in a bipartisan manner--the vote was 12 to 7--in June.

He has more than 10 years of government service working in the U.S. House of Representatives and at Federal Agencies, including the U.S. Department of Transportation.

For the last 5 years, Mr. McMaster has worked for two private sector transportation companies, first serving as a national practice consultant and vice president at HNTB and most recently as the vice president for commercial aviation and transportation at the Boeing Company.

Mr. McMaster's professional background in both the public and private sectors relating to transportation policy and implementation makes him especially well-suited to lead the Federal Highway Administration.

The Environment and Public Works Committee is now hard at work developing the next surface transportation bill. This is a major undertaking. We have received hundreds of requests from Senators on both sides of the aisle regarding this legislation.

My goal as chair is to mark up a bipartisan reauthorization bill in the EPW Committee later this year as a step toward having the bill signed into law by next September. The previous bill will lapse at the end of September 2026.

Our committee works closely with the Federal Highway Administration in the reauthorization process.

FHWA provides valuable technical assistance in making sure that the policy provisions that we all come up with achieve the congressional objectives but also are within the parameters of the Department.

Having a Senate-confirmed FWHA Administrator is important to facilitate that cooperation between the committee and the administration.

This will help address implementation issues during the bill development process. And I believe that our bipartisan reauthorization process would benefit greatly from Sean McMaster's confirmation.

So with that, I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 177, Sean McMaster to be Administrator of the Federal Highways Administration; that the Senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that the President be immediately informed of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I just would like to address briefly something Senator Whitehouse has said, by tossing all the blame to the fact that we have no unanimous consent and no voice vote candidates under President Trump when the control of that is squarely within the Democrat leader Senator Schumer of New York.

We know--if you look at the chart that has been made, we know the numbers that were done under the Biden administration, under Trump one, under Obama, under Bush, under Clinton, when you get down to the end of the chart, dip, big zero for President Trump. So with that, I think we are in a place that we need to make adjustments here. That is what we are looking at.

But I agree with Senator Whitehouse, and these are critical appointments, as many of them are. I am glad that Mr. Telle was able to make it through at the very end. He has already had a visit to West Virginia, and he is going to do a great job.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am really pleased to be here on the last week--or around the last week--that we are going to be here before we return in September. I am particularly happy to be here with the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee to talk about an issue that I think we both care about. So I am going to start off and then yield to Senator Whitehouse.

As we both know, for too long, critical projects central to American energy development, infrastructure improvement, and economic development have been trapped in a cycle of redundant reviews, shifting goalposts, endless redtape, and regulatory uncertainty.

Businesses large and small, looking to build things in our country again, really need the certainty that is necessary for long-term investments. And projects needed to deploy new energy technologies and efforts to restore the environment have been caught in the same regulatory swamp as well. This has been loaded on for years. Years of changes in guidance have created a complex web of ever expanding, duplicative, and contradictory requirements, while Congress has not stepped in to provide the clarifications that our country needs. All this has led to lost jobs, missed economic opportunities, and higher prices across America, underpinning the importance of comprehensive reform to our environmental review and permitting processes.

I can tell you, I get asked about this consistently, every day, and more than a few times a day. So let me talk a little bit about my home State of West Virginia. I have seen firsthand how projects that our communities rely on face needless delays and how costs are then shifted to our families, who pay more for energy, housing, transportation, and basic goods as a result.

These types of delays nearly stopped what will become one of the most environmentally friendly steel production facilities in the world, which will employ over 1,000 people in Mason County.

Top highway projects like Corridor H that would improve both safety, mobility, and create economic development have encountered multiple permitting delays and uncertainty under a litany of environmental statutes.

And even West Virginia waterline extensions, broadband deployment, and bridge replacements have all faced delays from the Federal permitting process.

If you spend time in my State and visit our communities and travel across our mountains, it is obvious how important these projects are to our State of West Virginia. They impact everything from how we heat our homes to how we connect our schools with internet and maintain the roads and bridges that our residents travel on every single day. Point blank, these delays are holding our State and every State back from reaching our full potential, robbing our people of investments and economic development that would improve the quality of their lives.

So I believe it is time for Congress to act. Clearly, I am no stranger to the ever elusive topic of permitting reform. Throughout my time in the Senate, I have introduced multiple bills on the subject and have been involved in the regulations on this topic. And while we were able to include some reforms in the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act, it is very clear that much more needs to be done.

The fact of the matter is, each one of us in this Chamber has a critical need in our State that could be addressed by improving our permitting and environmental processes, like building more housing--we always hear about a housing shortage--or bringing energy projects online--we hear about the expansion of nuclear that are going to be held into the permitting process--or improving the conditions of surface transportation infrastructure, just to name a few.

No matter what our constituents need, we all know that permitting reform is needed to deliver projects more quickly and more efficiently.

In my role as the chair of the EPW Committee, where we have jurisdiction over the laws that set the framework for our environmental review and permitting processes, I could not be more earnest in my desire to lead this effort with our ranking member. And our committee's involvement on this issue remains apparent by the delivery not just of this speech, as we are doing together, but as we continue to work together with the goal of crafting bipartisan legislation.

Together, we started bipartisan conversations in our committee in February when we held a hearing to gain the perspectives of leaders who are directly involved with navigating these processes to ensure that we would gather a complete look at all of the issues. We kept the hearing record open for over a month to give all stakeholders the opportunity to share their experience with the existing environmental review and permitting processes and identify challenges and recommend possible solutions to this Congress.

From this record, we garnered 107 submissions representing 146 individual organizations and an additional 854 individual requests on how to improve the Federal environmental review and permitting process. These responses have helped the EPW Committee identify the challenges that persist across the wide variety of projects and to identify consensus on potential solutions to address these challenges.

While we have talked about the issue of permitting for a number of years in Congress, it is important that we currently find ourselves, I think, in like thought all across the spectrum. Each branch of the Federal Government--from executive to Congress and the judiciary--are united in our dissatisfaction with the current permitting and environmental review processes.

The Trump administration has taken numerous actions to cut redtape and to put the United States in its best possible position to grow our economy and create jobs. The Supreme Court delivered a unanimous decision in the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition case in May that validated what many of my colleagues and I have long been saying, and that is that the responsibilities of Federal Agencies under the NEPA policy act have evolved beyond what Congress intended, creating roadblocks instead of considering the environment in Federal decision- making.

Right now, we have the momentum, I believe, needed to deliver meaningful and lasting reforms to the environmental review and permitting process, and I believe this is an unprecedented opportunity and something we can truly accomplish. I do believe--and Senator Whitehouse and I know this well--that there are areas of strong disagreement in this area between the two of us, and what we are going to try to do is to find those areas of like thinking that moves the process along. No matter how difficult it might be, this is the only way we get a permanent solution so that we don't see the swings of the environmental process that we have seen over the last few years.

So, to start, durable and implementable reforms need to be successful. They have to be bipartisan. Legislation that the Senate crafts must take into account all types of projects, not just politically favored projects, no matter who is favoring them, or projects that will support the infrastructure needs of some Americans but not others.

We must provide clarity and transparency in these processes and be thoughtful in the way we craft the legislation. We need to address every stage of these processes to find efficiencies, while balancing public health, the environment, and the needs of our economy. And our legislation must establish guardrails that cease the endless amounts of Agency delays and litigation that stunt the development of our projects. I have seen investments in my State collapse under the weight of legal challenges, denying benefits to those that need it the most.

I want to stress that modernizing these processes does not mean cutting corners or weakening our environmental and public health protections, and this is exceedingly important to all of us and to the process. It means focusing the government on meeting the needs of the American people, ensuring

the quality of our environment for generations to come, and making the processes more efficient, predictable, and transparent so that they are not stuck in a bureaucratic purgatory of endless litigation.

So the reality is this: Hard-working Americans want a government that works for them, not one that keeps them waiting for the benefits that many of these projects promise to their communities. And what happens when you wait? If the project still goes forward, it gets more and more and more expensive with time.

I was encouraged to see bipartisan efforts from our colleagues in the House of Representatives, as last week Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman and Representative Jared Golden announced a proposal to address many of the concerns I just laid out.

So as negotiations continue in the Senate, we must remember that it will take a collaboration of both Chambers and the administration to get impactful legislation across the finish line. The opportunity is here. This is right in front of us. And I can guarantee you that I will be at the forefront of these efforts to make sure that these reforms can become a reality.

So I encourage my colleagues to heed the importance of this moment. Many of our colleagues are talking about this and have great expertise in this area, and we need your help.

With that, I yield the floor and am here to listen to my friend Senator Whitehouse.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the mandatory quorum call with respect to the Gaiser nomination.