Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privileges of the floor be granted to Brittany Thomas, Sneha Pandya, and Serena Baserman for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to Senator Sanders' motion to instruct.

When America invented the semiconductor 40 years ago, we produced nearly half of the world's semiconductors. Today, we produce less than 10 percent.

Look what happened: Plants shut down across Ohio. Whirlpool, Ford, GM--forced to idle plants because of the ``spread out all over the world'' supply chain.

We passed the CHIPS Act 2 years ago. I thank Senator Cantwell who-- what she has done to stop this, encourage more production of these chips at home.

This bill will fund--this legislation will fund the bill Congress already passed. It is not a bailout. It is critical to my State--10,000 good jobs, 5,000 building trades--union building trades jobs paying prevailing wage for the next 10 years. It is an incentive program.

The EU, China, Taiwan, South Korea all provide incentives to make these chips domestically. None of them require stock warrants.

Everybody in this body knows my position in opposition to the financial services industry to stock buybacks. You can count on that.

I yield my final 30 seconds to Senator Wicker.

Madam President, I rise to oppose Senator Toomey's motion to instruct against motions that undermine investments in American manufacturing and production.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this motion to instruct. It supports a broad exclusion process for 301 tariffs for goods from China. These tariffs are in place because of Chinese unfair trade practices that target our industrial base and jobs in Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey.

The AFL-CIO opposes this motion. The USTR opposes it. The bipartisan, pro-industry Alliance for American Manufacturing opposes it. They know any exclusions need to be part of a broader strategic approach that we all support to trade policy with China. Creating an overly broad exclusion process that ties our hands would take away leverage we need to pressure China to change its behavior--behavior the steel industry in my State and other industries all over the country know too well.

China cheats. We know this. It subsidizes its steel industry. It props up state-owned enterprises. It steals intellectual property. It pollutes the Earth and exploits our workers. It is costing my State and all over the country jobs year after year. We can't let China's cheating undermine the investments we are making in this bill.

I ask for opposition to the Toomey motion.

Vote on Motion

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

Mr. President, I ask consent to speak for up to 2 minutes on the nomination.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in advancing the nomination of Elizabeth de Leon Bhargava to be Assistant Secretary for Administration of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ms. Bhargava would oversee offices responsible for recruitment and staffing, procurement, and providing administrative support for HUD employees. She will ensure the Department takes steps to retain the best talent and grow HUD's workforce to meet current and future needs.

Yesterday, I came to Washington on the commercial United flight with Secretary Fudge. She is working hard every day to serve her former constituents. I live in her old congressional district. And to serve this country, she needs qualified employees confirmed like Ms. Bhargava.

For more than 4 years, Ms. Bhargava served as New York State Deputy Secretary for Labor and Workforce, directly responsible for workforce policy and operations affecting more than 9 million New Yorkers. She recognizes that the program continuity depends on strong leadership at the top and meeting the Department's urgent staffing needs.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the nomination of Ms. Bhargava to HUD.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I appreciate being recognized.

I want to start with a short little story. A month after--well, maybe 2 weeks after--President Biden took office, I was invited as the new chair of a major Senate Committee, the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. I think the Presiding Officer was there that day, too. We met in the Oval Office with the President of the United States.

We sat in a semicircle, and I saw that the painting behind President Biden was of Franklin Roosevelt. He was surrounded by busts of Harry Truman, Rosa Parks, Dr. King, Cesar Chavez, and Robert Kennedy. He asked us to go around the room and tell what interests us, what kind of things we should be doing.

When it was my turn, I talked about the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, and I talked about the child tax credit, which, after we passed it, it was a $3,000 tax cut to 92 percent of the families in my State and a similar percent in the Presiding Officer's State of Michigan. Families with children received a $3,000 tax cut, the biggest in American history.

I spoke about housing, and then I said, at the end of my little minute and a half: Mr. President, thank you for talking about unions.

He kind of smiled and said: Of course.

When the meeting was over, after 45 minutes or so, the President walked toward me and said: Why wouldn't I mention unions?

I said: Mr. President, I have been in this office a number of times over the last 25 years, and I have never heard a President talk about the unions the way you do.

That was the beginning. We then passed the recovery act and have done so much more with the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

He has always put the emphasis on workers, putting workers at the center

of our economic policy and workers at the center of our country and at the center of our economy.

Let me illustrate. In the last 2 weeks--I know that Senator Hassan, who is about to preside today, when she went back to New Hampshire during these 2 weeks, she was talking to families and workers, and Senator Peters, who is presiding, from Michigan, did the same--what struck me is that we had four sort of Cabinet-level people from the Biden administration who came to Ohio during these couple of weeks. I was with three of them. With one of them, we couldn't work out schedules.

The head of the EPA was in Ohio. Do you know what he talked about? He talked about how we replace--Ohio, unfortunately, is No. 2 in the country in the number of contaminated pipes connecting main water lines going into people's homes, contaminated with lead. We are, because of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, going to replace those 600,000 pipes. We are going to replace them with U.S., Made-in-America iron and steel and other components, because in infrastructure, we passed the strongest--and Senator Hassan was part of this and others. We passed the strongest ``Buy America'' provisions ever in American history. If you are going to spend American tax dollars, you are going to hire American workers to do that.

Administrator Regan of the EPA talked about what that means. It means thousands of jobs for pipefitters and other union trades people. It also means clean water going into moderate- and low-income families' homes in Appalachia and East Cleveland and everywhere in between. And that means healthier children.

Then the Secretary of the Department of Labor came. The Department of Labor Secretary with President Biden's predecessor was essentially a corporate lawyer. I would use the word--this might sound disrespectful, and I apologize ahead of time--a hack. Fundamentally, he was a guy who spent his career making, I assume, millions of dollars a year working for a prestigious law firm, busting unions, and always siding with employers and with big corporations against workers. That was the predecessor.

The Secretary of Labor under President Biden came out of Boston. He was a former laborer. He was a former union laborer. Make that contrast. Then I spent part of the time in Lakewood, a Cleveland suburb--in the city of Cleveland and in Lakewood--and then Fremont, OH, with the new Chair of the Export-Import Bank, talking about jobs, talking about workers, talking about getting help competing with the Chinese, with the Export-Import Bank, always with an emphasis on wages.

We know what has happened the last 50 years. I went to high school and walked the halls of Mansfield Senior High School and Johnny Appleseed Junior High School with the sons and daughters of machinists who worked at Ohio Brass, of electrical workers who worked at Westinghouse, of autoworkers who worked at GM, of rubber workers who worked at Mansfield Tire, and with the sons and daughters of laborers and operating engineers, millwrights, carpenters, pipefitters, painters, and electricians--all making middle-class union wages that really built a decent economy for tens of thousands of families in my community.

I know what that meant, and then we saw corporate leaders: First they shut down production in places like Mansfield, my hometown, or Springfield or Toledo. They moved to Alabama or Tennessee or Arkansas-- low wages, few unions, weak unemployment compensation, sort of inadequate unemployment workers' compensation programs for injured and unemployed workers.

But those wages weren't low enough. So these same corporate leaders went on a scavenger hunt to Mexico and China--all over the world--to try to find the cheapest labor possible.

And do you know what? Far too many Presidents and far too many people in this body helped them do that. That is why this President is so important and why this Senate is so important--that we can fight back.

We are seeing now that the whole idea of this administration is to begin to bring these jobs back home and treat these workers with respect and begin, again, to rebuild the middle class.

The last Cabinet Secretary to come in who I spent a full day with was in Chillicothe, OH, in southern Ohio. It is a small community hurt by globalization. There is a VA hospital. It is one of the oldest VA hospitals in the country. And these workers--there was a Commission started by President Trump that is slating the closure of the Chillicothe VA.

Today, Presiding Officer Senator Hassan and I were in the Veterans' Committee asking about workers--with Senator Tester presiding and Senator Boozman, a good bipartisan team on Veterans' Affairs--what do we do to make sure these workers are whole, that we train workers, that they are not burning out by all the tension and the pressure and the anxiety they face now?

In sitting with Secretary Denis McDonough, the new Secretary of the VA, the Biden Secretary of the VA, it was a pleasure watching him interact with these workers, interacting with Jessica Fee, who is the union president, at Chillicothe, the American Federation of Government Employees. President Kelley, the international president, was there. Ms. Simon, his assistant, was there, listening to these workers, listening to what do we do to train enough LPNs, licensed practical nurses? What do we do to train enough nurses? What do we do to train enough physical therapists? And how do we keep this hospital open? Because so many veterans care so deeply about this hospital.

So the last 2 weeks what motivates me in this job is my job really, in so many ways, is how do you speak for those who don't have a voice? How do you fight for those--it is always whom you fight for and what you fight against. I am not interested in opposing Senator McConnell because he blocks a whole bunch of stuff that we care about. I am not interested in opposing him; I am interested in fighting against some of the things he does.

But I am interested in fighting for these workers at the VA. I am interested in fighting for these pipefitters who are going to lay these clean pipes without lead contamination, making these children in Appalachian Ohio, in East Cleveland, in East Columbus, OH--making them more whole. I am interested in helping these workers who DOL finally sides with instead of siding with corporate interest.

During these 2 weeks, I went to a Starbucks in Columbus, and these workers are trying to organize a union. They know that carrying a union card--carrying a union card means better wages; it means better benefits; it means more control over your work schedule. Of course, Starbucks is fighting the union, but finally we have a government that is helping these small businesses export more. And we have a government that is going to finally side with veterans and side with workers at VA hospitals.

The last 2 weeks is--and for me it has been a celebration, as Studs Terkel said in an introduction of a book called, ``Christ in Concrete,'' a book written in the late 1930s about an immigrant worker. It came out the same week as ``Grapes of Wrath,'' and, interestingly, it was chosen over ``Grapes of Wrath'' for the Book-of-the-Month Club, even though ``Grapes of Wrath'' had a little bit more staying power.

But Studs Terkel talked in his introduction about celebrating the uncelebrated, and that is really what we should be doing here. You celebrate those workers. It is not the corporations; it is not the President; it is not the big shots; it is really the workers who power this economy, the workers who make the VA work, the workers who will lay those pipes, the workers who are the small business people succeeding and competing with China in countries around the world, the workers at the VA.

That is what the last 2 weeks for me was about. It is why the honor of having this job and fighting for these workers gets me up every day.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for generations, manufacturing was the lifeblood of communities across Ohio and throughout the country. It was heavily unionized. The jobs paid well. It is not a coincidence that those two things go together. We know carrying a union card means better wages, better hope in retirement benefits, and more control over the workers' schedule.

These jobs allowed generations of Americans to build a middle-class life. But beginning in the seventies and eighties, we stopped making things in this country. Look at places like my hometown of Mansfield, OH. I went to Johnny Appleseed Junior High School, Mansfield Senior High School. I walked the halls with sons and daughters of autoworkers from GM and machinists of Ohio Brass and electrical workers from Westinghouse and rubber workers from Mansfield Tire and hundreds and hundreds of the sons and daughters of people in the building trades-- laborers and pipe fitters and carpenters and millwrights and painters and one trade after another. Companies like Westinghouse and Tappan Stove all closed down one after another. Go to any town in Ohio and throughout the industrial Midwest and people can name a similar list.

We know what happened: Corporations in Ohio shut down production in Mansfield, my hometown, or Lorain, where I was today, or Youngstown or Cincinnati or Toledo, in search of cheaper labor, in search of right- to-work States, and in search of weaker workers' compensation or unemployment benefit laws. They moved to Alabama. They moved to Tennessee. They moved to Arkansas.

And then, that wasn't quite good enough. Then those same corporations lobbied Congress for trade agreements and tax treatments. So they then moved on to Mexico, and that labor wasn't quite cheap enough, and they moved on to China.

Ohio has paid the price for years in the form of lost jobs and lost opportunities. Now--and I know what the Presiding Officer has seen in the State of Maine. You understand this. The whole country pays the price--higher prices, supply chain delays, losing entire high-tech industries to competitors like China.

Look where we've ended up. In Ohio, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Today, 99 percent of LED bulbs are made in China.

America invented the semiconductor. Forty years ago, the U.S. produced half of the world's semiconductors. Today it is 10 percent-- about 75 percent made in East Asia. Look what happened. During the pandemic, companies across Ohio and the rest of the country shut down production lines not because there wasn't demand, they shut down production lines and laid off workers because they couldn't get enough semiconductors.

Whether you are Ford in Lima, Whirlpool in Clyde, Kenworth in Chillicothe, OH, or Navistar in Springfield, you need these chips.

It is why the Senate must fund the bipartisan CHIPS Act. We agreed to authorize this program. Now it is time to move and to fund it.

At the end of January, Senator Portman and I flew to Columbus to join Intel to announce the largest ever domestic investment in semiconductor manufacturing. It will create 10,000 good-paying jobs. Union tradespeople--5,000 union tradespeople--for 10 years will build this facility. Think of the magnitude of that. As we were flying in on the plane, I remember sitting with the Secretary of Commerce and Senator Portman and my friend Don Graves, from Cleveland--the No. 2 guy at Commerce.

I looked out, and I said:

Today, in Ohio, we are finally burying the term ``Rust

Belt.''

It is possible because we are on the verge of passing this historic investment. The EU, China, Taiwan, and South Korea are all for providing incentives to make these chips domestically. None of them-- none of them--require stock warrants as this motion would have us do. That is why I oppose this motion. Other countries are mimicking what we are doing. The EU, if Congress doesn't move quickly on the CHIPS Act, is already trying to attract that business there.

In the history of the United States, the only time we have ever required equity warrants from private companies is during times of war or in moments of financial and global crisis. It is not a bailout; it is an incentive. This motion to instruct conferees is well-intentioned, but it won't work. It will make the U.S. program less competitive. It is likely to cause these companies to make these chips overseas where they can get the same incentives without those strings.

I understand Senator Sanders' goal. It is a goal I share. I just spoke with the Presiding Officer, and neither of us has a particularly favorable attitude toward what we have seen with stock buybacks and the damage that they have done to our economy and what it has meant in the undermining of companies' investments in their workers and in new product lines. I have had--I don't know--6, 8, 10, 12 calls with the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jay Powell, asking him--pleading with him--about restricting some of the stock buybacks at some of the largest American banks, especially during the pandemic.

As I said, I understand Senator Sanders' goal. We have got to make sure that the jobs that are created are good-paying ones where workers can build careers. That is why, in the CHIPS Act, we require the chips funding go to the construction or to the modernization of U.S. facilities to support American jobs, require chip applicants to make commitments to workers and community investments, and require chips projects be sustainable without additional Federal funding. These are initial Federal investments that generate long-term, well-paying jobs.

In both the Senate and House competition bills, we also require chips recipients to pay the prevailing wage to employees or contractors. That is why the United Auto Workers supports this position. They support chip funding. It is why the building trades support chips funding and oppose this Sanders' motion.

I can tell you, from experience, if we drive these semiconductor jobs away, the alternative is not a replacement with other similarly high- quality jobs. Ohio has had that promise too often. Drive around Ohio, and you will see the alternative to low-wage, anti-union, big-box stores where workers have little control over their schedules and little power to build a better life.

It is also important to remember that this investment isn't just for semiconductors. It will affect smaller supply companies and their supply chains. It will affect all of the downstream industries that rely on these chips for all kinds of productions: appliances, auto, energy deployment. Our clean energy, independent future is going to rely on American-made semiconductor chips.

Mr. President, I want to talk on one other motion that will be made in the next 48 hours, on this floor, to the CHIPS Act.

We need to make more in this country. We shouldn't be taking other actions that discourage domestic production.

I urge my colleagues to oppose a motion to instruct that supports a broad exclusion process for 301 tariffs for goods from China. Those tariffs are in place because of China's unfair trade practices targeting our industrial base and Ohio jobs. The AFL-CIO opposes it. The U.S. Trade Rep's office opposes it, and she was confirmed here in a unanimous vote. The Alliance for American Manufacturing opposes it. They know that any removal of these tariffs needs to be part of a broader, strategic approach to trade policy with China.

We can't let China undermine the investments that American manufacturers make in workers and communities here in the United States. If we do this bill right, it will mean we will finally make more in America. We will begin bringing back the supply chains to our country. It will help us bury the term ``Rust Belt'' once and for all.

When you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work. That is what the CHIPS Act is about. It is about workers. It is about good-paying jobs. It is about increasing the unionization of workers in this country. It will lift all boats.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I also rise today to remember and honor the distinguished service of James Jackson.

For decades, James devoted his time and talent to helping Congress understand complex international trade and economic policy issues. I am thankful to have been a beneficiary of James hard work. During the 115th Congress' when Senator Crapo and I served as chair and ranking member of the Senate committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the Committee undertook a substantial effort to consider, and ultimately enact, legislation that reformed the process for screening foreign investment in the United States. As Senator Crapo noted, we relied on James' thoughtful analysis and expertise throughout the consideration of that important legislation. James briefed staff. evaluated proposed legislative language. and provided comprehensive. detailed analysis and reports during consideration of the bill. After it became law, the committee continued to rely on James to evaluate the executive branch's implementation of it.

I join Senator Crapo in offering my sincere condolences to James' friends and family and his colleagues at CRS. They are in our thoughts during this difficult time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 3; 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 upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Frost nomination, postcloture; further, that all postcloture time on the Frost nomination be considered expired at 11:45 a.m.; that the Senate recess following the cloture vote on the Bhargava nomination, until 2:15 p.m., to allow for the weekly caucus meetings; further, that if cloture is invoked on the Bhargava nomination, all time be considered expired at 2:30 p.m.; finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during Tuesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

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

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War general and 18th President of the United States, who was born in Point Pleasant, OH, 200 years ago this week.

In honor of the bicentennial of Grant's birthday, which took place yesterday on April 27, 2022, I joined Senator Blunt of Missouri to introduce a concurrent resolution in the Senate. This resolution honors Grant for his efforts and leadership in defending the union of the United States of America, recognizes his military victories, and affirms him as one of the most influential military commanders in our Nation's history. I spoke about President Grant's accomplishments briefly on the floor yesterday, but want to take this opportunity to elaborate on my remarks.

Ulysses S. Grant was a proud Ohioan, born in Point Pleasant, OH, to Jesse Grant and Hannah Simpson Grant on April 27, 1822. I know a number of celebrations were held in Ohio to honor the 200th anniversary. Grant's family soon moved to Georgetown, OH, in Brown County. Grant spent the remainder of his youth in the house his parents built in Georgetown. Both his birthplace and boyhood home are preserved as historic sites that draw visitors to Ohio communities today. In 1839, Grant left Ohio to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 1843.

Grant was instrumental to the Union victory in the Civil War, leading Union forces to critical early victories in the

West at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. After President Lincoln appointed him Lieutenant-General of the Army in 1864, he commanded all Union armies until the conclusion of the war. At Appomattox, Grant prescribed terms of surrender intended to set the stage for postwar reconciliation.

Grant's legacy extends beyond his role in the Civil War. Grant was elected the 18th President of the United States in 1868 and was decisively elected to a second term in 1872, the only two-term President between Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson. As President, he oversaw the orderly readmittance of States following the Civil War, completing the restoration of the Union by 1871.

An ardent supporter of Reconstruction, President Grant championed the ratification of the 15th Amendment to prohibit discrimination in voting rights on the basis of ``race, color, or previous condition of servitude.'' In 1870, he oversaw the creation of the Department of Justice, essential to the prosecution of the Ku Klux Klan and enforcement of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the ``Reconstruction Amendments.''

Grant was an advocate for civil rights, endorsing and then signing the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to outlaw racial segregation in public accommodations, schools, transportation, and juries, nearly a century before such protections would be effectively enforced.

And although President Theodore Roosevelt is most often associated with our National Parks, it was President Grant who designated Yellowstone as the first National Park in 1872.

After his presidency, Grant traveled the world and wrote his memoirs. ``The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant'' became a bestseller and garnered lasting critical acclaim, praised by Mark Twain for its ``clarity of statement, directness, simplicity, unpretentiousness, manifest truthfulness, fairness and justice toward friend and foe alike, soldierly candor and frankness, and soldierly avoidance of flowery speech.''

As I said yesterday on the Senate floor, history has not always been kind to Grant. But as we commemorate his 200th birthday, his legacy is being reevaluated and his far-reaching impact more fully appreciated. Frederick Douglass eulogized Grant as ``a man too broad for prejudice, too humane to despise the humblest, too great to be small at any point.'' I urge my colleagues to join Senator Blunt and I in honoring one of Ohio's finest, Ulysses S. Grant, for these remarkable qualities, for his role in preserving the Union of the United States as a general in the Civil War, and for his defense of Reconstruction and Civil Rights as President.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent--I appreciate Senator Cotton joining me on the floor and his work with Senator McConnell on this.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 660, 661, 663, 739, 740, 741, 742, 804, 805, and 859; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

I thank Senator Cotton for working together on this. These nominations are very important to our States. I heard Senator McConnell earlier talking about crime on the streets, and getting these people in place is really important. It has been 473 days since the 6 million people in the Northern District of Ohio last had a permanent U.S. attorney.

The pandemic is causing an alarming rise in violent crime, especially gun crimes. The Northern District is no exception. The U.S. Attorney's Office has experienced its highest caseload in 30 years by filing a record 846 indictments in 2021. Even before the pandemic, the district had a staggering caseload. Last year, there were 170 homicides in the city I live in, the city of Cleveland--another 30-year record--not to mention the surge in carjackings. Filling this important law enforcement position to keep our community safe is essential.

I hear from police officers in desperate need of help. They need more resources, whether it is bulletproof vests to support local law enforcement, operations training to engage with those they serve, or getting U.S. marshals and U.S. attorneys on the job. Today, with Senator Cotton, we are able to do that.

We have an extremely qualified nominee ready and eager to serve. Marisa Darden is a seasoned prosecutor with extensive experience as the lead attorney in both criminal and civil cases. No one has any objections to her. Nobody has any doubt about her accomplishments and capacity to excel in this job. She was assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District and was recognized for her work on several complex legal cases. She received the National High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Award for Outstanding Opioid Investigative Effort. She received the Award for Outstanding Investigative Effort--a different one--in 2019. She has significant management experience and a record of strong leadership.

Federal Judge Benita Pearson said:

You can be assured Ms. Darden will fiercely enforce the law

while treating all--attorneys, staff, the accused, and the

community--with respect and appropriate sensitivity.

Former Acting U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman, a Republican--the last confirmed U.S. attorney in the Northern District--described her as an attorney ``of outstanding ability and unquestioned integrity.''

First Assistant Federal Public Defender Jacqueline Johnson wrote her first recommendation for a U.S. attorney in 38 years of practice-- imagine that. She said that she ``possesses the intellect, vision, temperament, and judgment needed to lead [this] office.''

DEA Special Agent in Charge Keith Martin echoed those comments, saying that ``she is one of the best he has encountered.''

It is because of these qualifications that Senator Portman has joined me in supporting Ms. Darden's nomination.

Her confirmation would be historic, making her the first African- American woman to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.

Today, we come together to get qualified and talented law enforcement professionals on the job. I thank Senator Cotton for his cooperation on this, and I thank the Presiding Officer, Senator Baldwin, for her work.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank both her and Senator Cotton for their service to our country.