Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, since Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has been shocked by two things: He has been shocked by the courage and the resilience and skill of the Ukrainian army and the resistance by the Ukrainian people.

He has also been shocked by the way President Biden has unified the world and put together this broad, effective coalition. Think about this: Countries like Germany and Sweden and Finland, even Switzerland, have never been involved in these kinds of international operations. They are all on board, all working with us on weapons and on humanitarian assistance and on sanctions.

The President's team has done an extraordinary job in mustering the strength of this allied coalition to impose a broad range of powerful, punishing sanctions. We have cut off huge portions of their banking, finance, and business sectors from the Western financial world. We have shut down access to their monetary reserves--what Putin considered his war chest. We have sanctioned their central bank, their large commercial banks, and their sovereign wealth funds.

We have cut off their ability to finance their debt. We have blocked key sanctioned banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system. We are shutting down their borrowing privileges at international institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

We have gone after Putin personally and the oligarchs who prop up his regime. We have gone after their intelligence entities and defense firms and others supporting them and supporting the war effort.

We have sanctioned disinformation agents, freezing their assets, cutting off their ability to propagandize Putin's lies.

Together with our allies, we have begun to go after their lucrative energy sector. We shut down the Nord

Stream 2 gas pipeline. We imposed a broad ban on Russian oil and gas and coal coming to the United States. We have cut off all new American investments into their oil and gas sector, and our big oil and gas firms have withdrawn in droves.

We have cut off the sophisticated technology Russia's refining industry needs and other technologies that have powered their industrial efforts.

In all this, we make it clear: Russia cannot invade its neighbors, cannot kill civilians, cannot expect to benefit from being part of the international economic order.

And again, this has been the leadership of President Biden and the State Department and the Defense Department and the Commerce Department and others and strong leadership that has pulled everybody together. The fact that we have put together this coalition so quickly, again, with countries that really haven't, since World War II, participated in anything like this--again, Sweden and Finland; Germany for the first time; Switzerland, which has been a neutral country since way before even you were born, Mr. President. So this has been a long time that these countries that were neutral are coming to the fore and making a difference for us.

Putin's mistake will set back a generation or more. It will sever its main economic, political, and diplomatic ties with the West and countries around the world which want to have nothing to do with Putin and his regime.

In Brussels tomorrow, the President is set to announce a major new wave of powerful sanctions, including against hundreds of members of the Russian Parliament, the duma, and other elites who have enthusiastically supported this brutal war.

He will intensify American efforts, along with our allies, to impose further sanctions on any defense or intelligence or other Russian firms that have in any way supported this invasion, either directly or indirectly. Our goal is to reach everybody that has been part of Putin's machine, of Putin's war crimes.

Every day, large teams at Treasury and the Department of Justice work with our allies to find and freeze and seize the assets of the oligarchs and other Russians who have supported Putin's war machine-- their yachts, their mansions, their overseas bank accounts. There will be no place to hide. All of that is vital. We can always do more.

Russia should not have free and unlimited access to America's economy or to the global economy. The President has committed already--and one of the reasons we are here today--to end permanent normal trade relations with Russia so that they aren't permanent.

We need to do our part to give the President the immediate legal authority he needs to work with our allies on this to shut off access to favorable tariff treatment for Russia's goods here and around the world.

We should not delay this another day.

The bill passed the House with a nearly unanimous bipartisan vote. We need to finalize this in the Senate so we can ratchet up the pressure further and cut off Russia's ability to finance any of its unprovoked invasion of another member country of the World Trade Organization.

Even before this war, we knew that Russia, along with China, cheats on the rules of trade. They subsidize their industries, and they pollute the environment to gain an unfair advantage in the global market. My State, Ohio, knows all too well about being forced to compete with countries that cheat.

If we don't remove this now, Russia will continue to use its status to position their industries in the global market, hurting American companies in the process.

It is not a partisan issue. I introduced a bicameral, bipartisan bill with Senator Cassidy of Louisiana to remove Russia's permanent normal trade relation status. We did that almost a month ago. There is bipartisan support to do this quickly.

I have worked with my colleague Senator Crapo from Idaho on many Russian sanction efforts over the years. I know we share the same goals.

I am hopeful there is a path forward in getting this done today. He is arguing that an oil ban should be included in this, even though the President already issued an Executive order on this that is already in effect.

I hope we can work out our differences quickly so we can send a clear, strong, unified message to Russia and to the world: Countries that invade another sovereign nation will not ever have free and unrestricted access to our economy. They will not be able to finance that invasion by continuing to cheat the rules on trade.

It is time to come together to end permanent normal trade relations with Russia.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, for generations, manufacturing was the lifeblood of communities across Ohio and throughout the country. It was heavily unionized, and the jobs paid well. It is not a coincidence that those two things go together. These jobs allowed generations of Americans to build a middle-class life.

I walked the halls at Mansfield Senior High School and Johnny Appleseed Junior High School with the sons and daughters of steelworkers and ironworkers and carpenters and machinists and auto workers and electricians. Workers, the parents of kids in my school-- those workers--innovated on the shop floor. They propelled our economy to new heights. They allowed us to lead the world in developing new industries.

But Ohioans know all too well what happened next. Beginning in the 1970s and the 1980s, we stopped making things in our country.

Look at places like my hometown in Mansfield, OH. It is an industrial city of about 50,000 people, halfway between Cleveland and Columbus. Companies like Westinghouse, Tappan Stove, Ohio Brass, and General Motors closed down, one after another, after another.

Go to any town in Ohio, and people can name a similar list. They will measure, oftentimes, their local history in lost plants and lost jobs.

All over America, companies were moving production elsewhere in the name of efficiency. ``Efficiency'' was business speak for lower wages. Corporate America always wanted cheaper labor wherever they could find it.

First, they went to anti-union, anti-worker, low-wage States, often in the South. Then, when those wages weren't low enough, they moved overseas, first to Mexico and then to China.

When those companies moved out, they weren't replaced by new investment. The market fundamentalists would talk about creative destruction, but it wasn't followed by any construction, creative or otherwise.

That corporate greed was aided by decades of underinvestment, by bad trade policies, which these corporations lobbied this body for-- successfully, unfortunately--in NAFTA, PNTR with China, and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Then it was also followed by even worse tax policy, which these special interests also lobbied this institution for.

It all drove production overseas. It left us relying on other countries, too often our economic competitors. It exposed us to supply shocks. It gutted--ultimately gutted--the middle class in Mansfield, OH, and communities all over this country.

Ohioans and workers in historic industrial towns felt it first. Now, the whole country feels it in the form of higher prices and empty shelves and months-long waits for products people need.

We need to make more things in America. It is not going to happen on its own, not when the economy of the last four decades was built on corporations hopping the globe in search of workers to exploit, not when countries like China prop up state-owned enterprises and steal our ideas and monetize them and use them to compete and often cheat against American businesses and American workers.

We need a concerted, coordinated effort to invest in our greatest assets: American workers and American innovation. That is what we do with this competition and jobs bill. We need to negotiate a final bill and pass this now. Ohioans needed this a year ago, a decade ago, a generation ago.

Look at what is happening even today in Bucyrus, OH.

There are few innovations more quintessentially American than the light bulb. Every elementary schooler learns that Thomas Edison, from Milan, OH, invented the light bulb at his lab in Menlo Park, NJ, and Ohio became the center of the light bulb industry.

But we have seen plants close across Ohio in Ravenna and Warren. We are told these plants are old and dated. They made the old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. Instead, now, they told us, Americans would make new, next-generation-type technology like LED bulbs. That is not exactly what happened--promises, promises.

We learned that two Ohio factories that were part of the LED light bulb supply chain in Ohio, in Bucyrus and in Logan, OH, were closing their operations.

Get this. They promised LED bulbs would be made in the United States. Today, 99--99, actually more than 99; 99 point something--percent of LED light bulb production is in China.

Think about that: 99 percent of this quintessential American invention is made in China.

When you move the entire production overseas, you move the shop floor innovation right along with it. Think about that. Much of our innovation comes because workers on the shop floor think about--as they are doing their work, they think about--better ways to produce this, and they think about making a better product. But corporate America, of course, underestimated the ingenuity of American workers or they just didn't care. So when plants moved overseas, the innovation of shops or innovation in America simply stopped.

Look at the semiconductor shortage. American research and development created the chips, and American companies did most of the manufacturing. Yet, over time, production, often fueled by incentives from foreign countries and sellout by politicians lobbied by corporate interests, moved those jobs overseas.

During the pandemic, companies across Ohio and the rest of the country shut down production lines and laid off workers because they couldn't get enough semiconductors. Whether you are the Ford Motor Company in Lima, OH; Whirlpool in Clyde, OH; Kenworth in Chillicothe, OH; Navistar in Springfield, OH, you needed those chips. In the semiconductor industry, we see the problem; we see the solution.

In the end of January, Senator Portman and I flew to Columbus to join Intel to announce the largest ever investment in semiconductor manufacturing. It will create 10,000 good-paying jobs. Union tradespeople--5,000 over the next 10 years--will build this entire facility. It is possible because we are on the verge of passing a historic investment in American innovation and manufacturing.

The Senate called it the Innovation and Competition Act. The House calls it the COMPETES Act. Call it for what it is: It is the ``Make It in America Act.''

The bill includes the CHIPS Act to make investments like Intel in Ohio possible and to position us to lead the world again in this industry. It expands advanced manufacturing hubs and will create more of these hubs around the country, and it is a real coordinated strategy to invest in R&D.

We know our competitors like China spend billions propping up state- owned enterprises and investing in research and development. China has gotten pretty good at taking our ideas, monetizing them, and using them to compete against American businesses while paying their workers less and giving them fewer worker protection rights.

That is why, in the Banking and Housing Committee, we worked to make sure the bill includes powerful new sanctions for Chinese actors who steal trade secrets. It is why Senator Portman and I are working to include our Leveling the Playing Field Act 2.0--to give American businesses updated and effective tools to fight back. We know that when we have a level playing field and when we harness the ingenuity of American workers, we can outcompete anyone.

It is time to make things in America again. Ohio has buried the term ``Rust Belt.'' It is time for our whole country to bury the term ``Rust Belt.'' It is long past time to pass a final ``Make It in America'' bill and send it to the President's desk.

Madam President, over the course of just 3 days, the world lost three talented, tenacious journalists to Vladimir Putin's war crimes and brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Brent Renaud was a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker who was working to tell the stories of Putin's war when he was fatally shot in the Kyiv suburb of Irpin on Sunday.

Then, on Monday, two more journalists with FOX News lost their lives when their vehicle came under fire just outside of Kyiv. A cameraman and veteran war reporter, Pierre Zakrzewski, was killed. He had been reporting in Ukraine since February.

We also lost Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra ``Sasha'' Kuvshynova, who was serving as a consultant for FOX's team in Ukraine. She was just 24 years old.

Their colleague, correspondent Benjamin Hall, was also injured, and he remains in the hospital.

Journalists know they face danger when they report from war zones. They put themselves in harm's way to tell the world the true stories that we need to hear.

Today, the Presiding Officer from Minnesota joined me and dozens and dozens of others to see the video, the pictures, and the photos of the war in Ukraine, which were shown to us by President Zelenskyy. Those pictures--many of them--were taken by very courageous journalists who risked their own lives. They bring us the unvarnished truth, unfiltered by government propaganda, at the times when we need it most. They are committed to basic ideals of truth, accuracy, and transparency--so committed that they put their lives on the line to make sure the world knows what is happening. Their commitment to these ideals only makes their deaths that much more tragic.

Today, three families and so many colleagues are grieving for these three journalists, grieving losses that cannot be replaced. They shouldn't have to.

This war was started by a man with no regard for the freedom of the press or basic human rights; a man who is a former KGB agent and has open contempt and hostility toward real reporters, toward real journalism, toward free speech; a man who presides over a regime wherein journalists are killed with impunity.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 28 journalists have been killed in Russia since Putin came to power 20 years ago, and 10 are currently in prison simply for telling the truth, for doing their jobs. According to Reporters Without Borders, Russia ranks 150 out of 199 countries for press freedom. They are actually behind Afghanistan and South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Last October, the United States and 18 other countries issued a statement, warning of ``the Russian government's intensifying harassment of independent journalists and media outlets in Russia.''

In 2020, the Russian Government began labeling many outside journalists as ``media foreign agents''--a term reminiscent of the worst of the Cold War.

It is not just foreign journalists; Putin's government has applied the ``media foreign agent'' label to independent Russian outlets in the country or to those operating near the country's border--Russian reporters themselves. It goes against all of our values. It is the kind of authoritarianism that the Ukrainian people bravely fight every day now. They don't want their country to turn into a place where reporters fear for their lives, where journalists can't tell the public the truth. Journalists' entire job is to ask questions, to challenge powerful interests, to--shall we say--afflict the comfortable.

Reporters put their safety and--as we saw with these three brave journalists in Ukraine--their lives on the line, whether it is covering floods and hurricanes in the United States or traveling the globe to bring us the stories of war zones.

We depend on reporters in my State and around the world to bring us the stories that impact our day-to-day lives and tell the stories that might not otherwise be told. They are too often under attack overseas increasingly. We recently had a President of the United States who attacked journalists in almost every stop.

As we all stand with the people of Ukraine, let's recommit ourselves to fighting just as hard as they are for our values, for freedom of the press, for free speech. These three journalists made the ultimate sacrifice to show the world the heroism of the Ukrainian people. We pray that they are the last who have to do that.

We recognize that President Putin has been shocked by two things: shocked by the heroism of the Ukrainian people--those fighting back, those brave journalists, those freedom fighters, those mothers and fathers and children who have so courageously stood up against Russia; he is also shocked by the way President Biden so effectively has put together an international coalition, not just for the countries you would expect, but Germany, and Finland, and Sweden, and Switzerland-- countries that have rarely chosen sides and stepped up the way that all of our countries have.

And while doing this, we send our sympathy and our gratitude to the families of Brent Renaud, to Pierre Zakrzewski, to Oleksandra Kuvshynova. They died doing the vital heroic work they love. We have a better understanding of this invasion, of the war crimes being committed, of how it is affecting people's lives. We have a better understanding because of journalists like them, and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the following letter in the Congressional Record.

Mr. President, last month, the world lost one of its great champions for public health, Dr. Paul Farmer.

Few people did as much to save lives around the world as Paul. He was a giant. He changed how the world thinks about international aid and about public health. Millions of people, from Haiti to Peru, to Russia, to Rwanda, are living longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives because of Paul Farmer and because of the movement he launched.

Paul moved to Haiti immediately after graduating from college. He had a special relationship with that country for the rest of his life. It is where he met his wife Didi Bertrand--a school principal and preacher's daughter in Cange. Even during Harvard Medical School, Paul would fly back and forth to Haiti, setting up his own clinic and an expanding network of community health facilities.

In 1987, he and my friend Jim Yong Kim and their two colleagues, Ophelia Dahl and Todd McCormack, founded Partners in Health. They founded Partners in Health on Paul's radical idea, and it is a radical idea in so many ways; that all human beings, regardless of who they are and where they live, deserve equal dignity and equal healthcare.

In 2003, the very good writer Tracy Kidder wrote a book about Paul and his

life: ``Mountains Beyond Mountains.'' After Paul's death, Tracy wrote a tribute to him and titled it ``He Wanted to Make the Whole World His Patient,'' and he really did.

I met Paul on a trip to Haiti with my friend Joanne Carter, the executive director of RESULTS, which is a grassroots organization dedicated to ending the cause of poverty around the world. It was in April 2003. Partners in Health was working in Haiti, and the hospital and clinic Paul started in Cange had grown to a broad network around the country. Paul and his colleagues were working with community health workers to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis and to scale up AIDS treatment in the most impoverished place, by far, in the Western Hemisphere at a time when there was almost no antiviral treatment available in poor countries.

People claim that treating patients and getting antivirals out in countries like Haiti was just impossible. Paul proved them wrong. Partners in Health invited several hundred U.S. policymakers, journalists, and Members of Congress, over time, to Haiti to see firsthand how they were expanding access to lifesaving treatment. At the time, there was still a popular sentiment, even among health workers, that we couldn't do this; that it was impossible to get these antiviral treatments out on any kind of large scale in low-income countries. It was a transformational moment. Paul opened the world's eyes to what was possible.

We could and had to treat patients everywhere. The barrier wasn't that it couldn't be done; it was that no one had made it a priority. No one in rich countries like ours or in even middle-income countries wanted to or really had tried to make this a priority.

I remember we met a young man in a wheelchair in a hospital unit. I was with Paul. He was caring for this young man. He had tuberculosis of the spine. It is called Pott's disease. It is when tuberculosis bacteria migrates into the spinal column and causes paralysis. He was getting treatment that no one would have thought possible before Paul. We met HIV/AIDS patients and saw how antiviral treatments were transforming their lives. People called it the Lazarus effect. In a relatively short amount of time, this treatment revived them and brought them back from the brink.

Late at night, we sat around together, at Paul's little house in Cange, and talked about what would come next and what we needed to do to rouse the world to action. It was an exciting time. A global fund had just been created. Paul's ideas were gaining traction. Paul Farmer brought such a moral clarity to all of these conversations. Whether it was talking to policymakers or to public health experts or to community leaders or to his patients--his impoverished patients often--he began every discussion with the same fundamental principle: Everyone has the right to quality healthcare.

Rather than have a technical conversation, he would look at all of these health experts and leaders when they would say, ``Unfortunately, there are just not enough resources to treat everyone, so we have to make choices,'' and Paul would say, ``When we make these choices, we are always talking about somebody else's children.'' He didn't say it in an accusatory way; he wasn't judgmental; and he didn't look down on anybody. It was simply how he thought about it and how he wanted everyone to think about it.

The other thing that always struck me and that was so astonishing about Paul is that he cared so much about each individual person. He had uncommon and maybe even unparalleled empathy. He had an absolute commitment to his patients' care. He was a big thinker in change policy, but he was a practitioner up close who took care of fellow human beings. He had an absolute commitment to his patients' care literally right up until the moment of his death. He was talking about patients he was treating in Rwanda, and he was giving advice right up until the day he died.

Tracy Kidder reported that Paul had been up late the night before, seeing patients. Mr. Kidder said, in his experience with Paul, that being up late and seeing patients was the equivalent of a night on the town.

Over the past few weeks since we lost Paul, a remembrance of that empathy has poured out from people around the world--from former students and colleagues, patients, world leaders, public health luminaries. Everyone has a story about Paul Farmer's dedication to humankind and to his patients individually. They agree that Paul really did change the world. His legacy will certainly inspire many of us in this body. More importantly, it will inspire people around the world.

When I think of Paul Farmer, I think of one of my favorite passages in the Gospel, Matthew 25. We are all familiar with it--Christians, certainly--but nonbelievers, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims, I think know this passage from Jesus.

Jesus said: When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink. When I was in prison, you visited me. What you did to the least of these you did to me.

I thought, you know, that doesn't quite sound right, ``What you did to the least of these,'' because I cannot believe that Muhammad or Buddha or Jesus or Maimonides or Moses would think that Mark Kelly is worth more or less than another human being. All of us in God's eyes are equal.

So I came across a friend of ours who lives down the street--a pastor--and she gave to me a Bible called the ``Justice and Poverty Bible.''

It say this in Matthew 25: When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink. When I was in prison, you visited me. What you did to those who seemed less important you did for me--not what you did for the least of these but what you did for those who seemed less important.

That was how Paul Farmer lived his life. He understood that no human being was worth less than anyone else; that everyone is deserving of compassionate healthcare; and that everyone is deserving, as Rumi said, of generosity and helping others: Be like a river in compassion and grace. Be like the Sun. That is the way Paul looked at the world.

Our thoughts are with his family and his patients around the world. Let's recommit ourselves to following the example of Dr. Paul Farmer.

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

Mr. President, every day, Americans get up, go to work, and do their jobs. It is time that all of us in the Senate do ours.

We have five outstanding nominees for the Federal Reserve. They are ready. They are ready to get to work fighting inflation. And that fight is all the more important now as Americans brace for possible impacts at the gas pump and throughout our economy from Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin has made it clear he doesn't care whom he hurts in his maniacal quest for power. He has no problem attacking innocent Ukrainians defending their country and wanting to continue their freedoms and their democracy. He has no regard for hard-working families in the United States and Europe and across the world who can't afford higher energy prices.

Our Senate colleagues of both parties, led in part by the Presiding Officer today, Senator Murphy, have so far shown a united front against Putin. We are united in the need for punishing sanctions against Putin and his cronies. But along with these sanctions, it is our job to do all we can to make sure Putin's invasion does not hurt hard-working Americans.

Let's be clear. This body, this administration, this Fed will do all it can to combat inflation. When it comes to spikes in energy prices because of Putin's warmongering, our resolve is strong. Our commitment to democracy is certain.

This is not the moment for political stunts. As we deal with the first land

war in Europe since World War II, as we confront inflation, as we work to continue our economic growth--in fact, in the past year, for the first time in two decades, America's economic growth is stronger than China's economic growth. Our rate of growth exceeds China's. As we emerge from this global pandemic, everyone understands we need a full Federal Reserve Board--the first one in nearly a decade. It has been since 2013 before we have had all seven members of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is in some sense the supreme court of our economy, as one Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joe Stiglitz, said.

Americans don't want more political theatrics; they want solutions to take on Putin, to protect our national security, and to bring down costs. There is no more reason for delay.

These nominees have met with every Senator, five nominees. These nominees have met with every Senator who asked for a meeting. These nominees met with staffs of Senators who asked. They offered to meet with many of my colleagues who refused to meet with them and in a couple of cases, met with them and were pretty combative, but that is OK. These nominees did everything we asked of them, and then my colleagues boycotted the vote--something I have never seen happen, not just since I have been chair of Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; I have never seen it since I have been in the Senate, where one party boycotted a vote and stopped that vote from actually happening as a result.

These nominees answered every question posed to them at the hearing. They answered every question submitted for the record. In one nominee's case, she answered almost 200 questions in a 48-hour period, before the deadline. Then more questions came in after the deadline, and she still answered them. All of these nominees have cooperated with both parties in making sure that we can move forward.

If we are going to continue to grow our economy, we need all seven Fed Governors in place. We need these professionals working, debating, and making decisions about monetary policy and interest rates and jobs and tackling inflation. We need these professionals to do the Fed's critical work on something we hadn't really thought much about before-- helping prevent cyber attacks in our financial system.

Let me single out one of these five nominees because she has great expertise in an issue the American public is more and more concerned about. We know and we have heard discussions in the media about Putin potentially having interest in cyber attacks against our country, against Europe, against us. Sarah Bloom Raskin--this is the moment for her in her record and expertise. She helped lead efforts in both government and the private sector.

Before she was nominated for the Federal Reserve to be Vice Chair of Supervision, a key position to weigh risks--risks of cyber attacks, risks of climate change, risks brought about by many, many banks not having the capital that they have held that they should--she served as cochair of the G7 Cyber Expert Group. She is a former Fed Governor. She was No. 2 at Treasury. She was a banking commissioner in Maryland. She has elevated this issue of cyber attacks and cyber attack risks on corporate boards. She played a pivotal role in helping craft the Obama administration's efforts to combat cyber threats in the financial industry.

She is the leader we need at this critical moment on all of these issues, especially cyber. Let's get her on the job. Let's get all of these nominees on the job.

Dr. Lisa Cook and Dr. Philip Jefferson--they understand workers and communities that make our economy work.

Dr. Cook was born in a small town in Georgia, graduated from Spelman, went to Oxford to study as a Truman scholar, and has a Ph.D. from Berkeley.

Dr. Philip Jefferson grew up in the shadow of RFK Stadium--grew up with not a lot of material assets--and worked as a young man at the Federal Reserve before he went back to school and got his Ph.D. He is now dean of a prestigious school in the Carolinas.

As I said, they understand workers. They understand communities.

Chair Powell and Governor Brainard--the two nominees who have already been serving on the Fed--led the Fed's extraordinary effort to support our economy throughout the pandemic.

We need a full Federal Reserve Board. We need a united front to make our economy stronger, to take on inflation, to take on Putin. I implore my Republican colleagues: Just show up. Vote no if you want to vote against these five nominees. That is certainly your right. But we don't come to the Senate where they hand us a paper and say: Check a box-- ``yes,'' ``no,'' or ``I don't think I will show up and do my job.'' No. You vote yes or you vote no.

I just implore my colleagues on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee to show up to cast their votes, and we will then move forward. We need them to make our economy stronger and to take on inflation.

The world is looking at us now. We are still the leader of the free world. To play these political games while in the midst of this awful attack, this potentially growing land war in Europe, to play games on the committee and withhold your votes and not show up to work--let's show the world what a functioning democratic government looks like. Let's get this done for the people whom we serve.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, the Presiding Officer from Maryland was in committee with me today and heard the President's Council of Economic Advisers talk about the economy, acknowledging that they spend every day worrying about inflation, what we do to combat inflation, everything from--we see the huge, excess profits in the shipping industry, among drug companies, food service companies--especially the meatpackers but also supermarket chains and oil companies. A big part of inflation we need to combat is because these companies understand they can raise prices because they don't have much competition. We see executive compensation continue to rise, sometimes to stratospheric levels. Who bears the burden? The burden is on middle-class and lower income families in places like Baltimore and Cleveland and places like western Maryland and southeast Ohio. And we know what we need to do.

We also know from our work in this committee that the Federal Reserve's job is to make sure that--they are the principal group in Washington, in the government, to combat inflation, the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has three vacancies and has two other nominees who are Acting Federal Reserve Governors, and we need to confirm them.

Five nominations came in front of our committee last Tuesday--5 nominations--and because of peculiar Senate rules, we couldn't act because all 12 Republicans boycotted the committee. They boycotted the committee because one of the nominees from the Presiding Officer's home State, Sarah Bloom Raskin, even though she answered 189 questions-- questions in the committee and then 189 written questions; majority from Republicans--she answered them all in 48 hours. She shouldn't have gotten even more questions. She has met with every Senator of either party, on the committee or off the committee, who wanted to meet with her. She has done everything that they ask of her. Yet they don't like her answers. They don't like that she believes the government has to deal with climate change. They don't like that she is going to stand up to Wall Street. So instead of just going to the committee and doing their job, voting against her, they boycotted the committee so we couldn't vote on the nomination.

So five jobs, five Governors of the Federal Reserve just sit in limbo because Republicans aren't doing their jobs. You come here, and you vote yes or you vote no. You don't vote ``I am not going to show up because I don't like this. I am going to boycott this meeting.''

It simply says that Republicans have been AWOL in the fight against inflation because we need these Fed Governors in place. We need them fighting against inflation. And for Republicans to just say ``Sorry; we are not going to go'' is simply bailing out and not doing their job. They are being AWOL in combating inflation. It is wrong for our country and wrong for our economy.

We in the majority put workers at the center of our economy, workers at the center of our economic policy. We will continue to. Republicans need to show up and--just show up and do their jobs. Vote no if you want, but show up and do your jobs.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment for our country and for our economy. Everyone understands we need a full Federal Reserve Board. Once we move the President's nominees and get them confirmed and get them sworn in, it will be the first time in nearly a decade that the Federal Reserve has had a full complement of seven Fed Governors. That is especially important with the upcoming meeting of the Federal Reserve in March because the Fed's job is to tackle inflation and bring prices down for American families.

It is a pretty simple equation. The President nominates. I mean, it didn't happen in the last few years, but the President nominates. We have hearings. We ask some questions. We send them followup questions. The nominees answer these questions. That is how this place works. That is a good thing about this place.

Then we call the vote in committee, and we vote yes or no. The job is vote yes or vote no and hope your side prevails.

And that is what Americans think we should do. Every day Americans get up, go to work, and do their jobs. But Senate Republicans didn't do theirs yesterday.

We had our markup, a meeting to confirm five--just five--nominees for the Federal Reserve. The Chair of the Federal Reserve, appointed originally by President Trump, has been renominated by President Biden. His nomination we were voting on; the Vice Chair, Lael Brainard, who has been on the Fed some time; and then three new Fed slots that have been vacant for some time: Sarah Bloom Raskin, who would be Vice Chair of Supervision, a very important job at the Fed; and the other two, also important jobs, Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson. All five of these nominations we wanted to vote on yesterday.

Three weeks ago, Senator Toomey, the leading Republican on the committee, he and I agreed it would be yesterday; that the vote would be yesterday and we would meet at 2:15 and vote them up or down. And everybody--all 14 of us get a vote.

Well, under Senate rules, if one party doesn't want to play ball, they don't

show up, and we can't do business. So all 12 Democrats showed up. We wanted to vote. We actually took an informal vote, which passed 12 to 0, for essentially all six of them. There was one ``no'' on one of them. But Republicans didn't show up.

So, as I said, Americans every day get up, go to work, and do their jobs. They expect us to get up every day, go to work, and do our jobs. But Republicans are AWOL in the fight against inflation. If we are going to get serious about inflation, we need a Federal Reserve in place. We need all seven Fed Governors in place, ready to work, ready to debate and make decisions about monetary policy, about interest rates, about jobs, about attacking inflation.

Americans--in Boulder or Denver or Cleveland or Columbus, Americans don't want more political theatrics. They want solutions to bring down their costs. And Republicans, they have been great at coming to the floor and speaking against inflation. They have got their political stunts. But when it really came time to show up and do their job, they just simply didn't show up yesterday to do their jobs. All 12 Democrats were there ready to go. All 12 of us wanted to move forward on these 5 nominations for the Federal Reserve, and under Senate rules we simply couldn't act officially to get this done.

So I know that the ranking member--I understand he doesn't want to do this for whatever reasons. He doesn't like her position on climate change. He doesn't like it that she is going to--the one he is complaining most about, he doesn't like it that she is going to stand up to Wall Street and not roll over for Wall Street every time Wall Street, you know, rattles the Fed's chains. He knows that, and he probably doesn't like that, but he is hanging his hat on some issue that really makes very little sense.

Sarah Bloom Raskin, the person whom he is most complaining about, over a weekend, had 48 hours to answer more than 180 questions from Senator Toomey and his colleagues. She answered them all in 48 hours. Then, even outside of the Senate rules, more questions were sent to her. She answered those questions.

So it is really about the fact that far too many people here pay far too much attention to the oil company lobby, but that is really neither here nor there. Everyday Americans, as I say, get up, go to work, do their jobs. Senate Republicans must do theirs.

Pure and simple, Republicans are AWOL in the fight against inflation. We are not going to stop fighting for these nominees. The American people want us to vote. Some people vote yes, some no. I am fine with that. But the American people want us to do our jobs.

When you come here, there aren't three boxes: vote yes, vote no, or check a box that says: I don't want to come to work today; I am not going to vote.

No, they want us to vote. So we will keep fighting for these nominees.

I implore at least 1 Republican of the 12 on the committee to come to our next markup, our next vote, our next executive session so we can vote on these nominees. I want the Federal Reserve, for the first time in a decade, to all be there pulling in the same direction, fighting inflation for our country.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Fast-track? Fast-track? Senator Cortez Masto said it has been a year since they have had a U.S. attorney confirmed, sitting in Nevada. In Ohio now, it has been--let me count the days--404 days since 6 million people in the Northern District of Ohio last had a permanent U.S. attorney leading the office. Senator Cotton, with his demagoguery, comes down here and talks about fast-track? I don't know what speed they move in Arkansas, but I would not consider what we are trying to do as fast-track.

They have been vetted. Senator Portman supports this nominee. Let me talk about that.

We know the pandemic has caused an alarming rise in violent crime, especially gun crimes. The Northern District of Ohio, which includes Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Youngstown, Mansfield, Warren--cities in basically the northern half of the State. The U.S. attorney has the highest caseload in the last 30 years, filing a record 846 indictments in 2021 alone without a full-time, confirmed U.S. attorney.

Even before the pandemic, the district had a staggering caseload after reaching a record low in 2016, with only 363 new cases through, Senator Cotton, I might add, the Obama administration. The number of new cases began to climb in 2017, at the beginning of the Trump administration, if you want to play those games, Senator Cotton. The number of new cases rose to 706 in 2018. This as kept climbing since. Last year, there were 170 homicides in the city of Cleveland, where my wife and I live--another 30-year record--not to mention a surge in carjackings.

We need to fill key law enforcement positions in Ohio and, as Senator Cortez Masto said, as Senator Durbin said, in their States--and Senator Rosen and Senator Duckworth. We need to fill these key law enforcement positions.

I hear from Ohio police officers that they are in desperate need of help, while we, through--Senator Cotton and others accuse Democrats of undermining police or whatever term they use--a term that none of us use--when we have supported local governments with more dollars so they can hire more police while you oppose those same positions, as we know. So we are working with local police to get them that help, whether it is confirming U.S. marshals, whether it is confirming U.S. attorneys.

Thankfully, we have an extremely qualified nominee in Ohio who is ready and eager to serve. The only thing standing in our way is the U.S. Senate. Apparently, the only thing standing in the Senate's way is Senator Cotton, although I am sure somebody else would be willing to take his place.

Marissa Darden is a seasoned prosecutor with extensive experience, a lead attorney in both civil and criminal cases. As an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District, she was recognized for her work on several cases involving highly complex legal issues. She received the National High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Award for outstanding opioid investigation effort in 2016 and for outstanding investigative effort in 2019.

Listen to what some people have said. Federal District Court Judge Benita Pearson: You can be assured that 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, nominated by President Trump and supported by Senator Portman and me both--U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman was the last confirmed U.S. attorney in the Northern District. He described her as an attorney of outstanding ability and unquestioned integrity. He said that she is a leader who has a proven track record of delivering results inside and outside the courtroom.

First Assistant Federal Public Defender Jacqueline Johnson told us that this was her first recommendation for U.S. attorney in 38 years of practicing in the Northern District. She said she based her recommendation on her belief that Ms. Darden possesses the intellect, vision, temperament, and judgment needed to lead the U.S. Attorney's Office during this perilous season.

DEA Special Agent in Charge Keith Martin. With 26 years of experience, she is one of the best he has ever encountered, he said. He explained that she was phenomenal in her interaction with law enforcement, cooperative, and stands on her principles. He can't imagine a better choice.

These qualifications--I repeat that Senator Portman also supports Ms. Darden's nomination. Her confirmation would also be historic, making her the first African-American woman to ever serve as U.S. attorney in Ohio.

Unfortunately, Senator Cotton blocks this nomination in addition to these eight other law enforcement nominees. By his own admission, his objections to these nominees have nothing to do with their qualifications.

I support his desire to get answers from DOJ. He should get them. But the solution for his disagreement with DOJ is not with the 6 million Ohio citizens who pay a price or the millions of citizens in Illinois or in Nevada who pay a price, or Minnesota or anywhere.

The last thing I will say, last week I spoke with police officers, one of the many kind of roundtable zooms I do around the State with police officers from around the State. One officer conveyed his colleagues' frustration with politics today. He told me that officers in his department have begun leaving letters on their lockers that say, if

they are killed in the line of duty, they want no elected officials invited to their funerals.

He said, the notes don't say no Democrats, no Republicans; they say no elected officials. A whole bunch of them. The reason for that is the gamesmanship we see right now, that we are not willing to confirm U.S. attorneys, U.S. marshals, in many cases, Federal district judges, just because somebody's been offended by the lack of a letter or something somebody at the Justice Department said to them.

The fact is we need to do this. It will help our States, it will help our country combat crime.

Let's heed this officer's warning and come together to get qualified and talented law enforcement officials and professionals on the job.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I have 7 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:

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

Mr. President, something happened today in Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee that I have never seen before in the U.S. Senate.

Three weeks ago, Senator Toomey--the ranking member, the senior Republican on the committee from Pennsylvania--Senator Toomey and I agreed that there would be a committee vote today for six nominees: Sandra Thompson, who would be head of the FHFA; Lael Brainard, Vice Chair at the Federal Reserve; Jay Powell, the Chair--sitting Chair, who has been nominated, to confirm him as the Chair; and then three new members of the Federal Reserve, Sarah Bloom Raskin, who would be Vice Chair of Supervision; also Philip Jefferson; and Lisa Cook.

This would be the--I think the best qualified, most diverse in terms of gender and race, but also most diverse Federal Reserve in terms of knowledge and perspective because one of the most poignant, I think, legitimate, criticisms of the Fed is how sort of the Federal Reserve has always kind of looked like me, except they think like Wall Street.

And this is the first time where I have seen a Federal Reserve with the breadth of knowledge. There is a--the President wants to appoint a gentleman who grew up right near RFK Stadium in a poor part of Washington, who now is a dean at a southern school; another, a woman from a small town in Georgia, who is now at Michigan State; a former bank regulator and Federal Reserve Governor and also was No. 2 at Treasury; in addition to the two Federal Reserve members, Lael Brainard would be elevated to Vice Chair and Jay Powell.

That is just all background to show, Mr. President, the diversity and the breadth and the depth of these five members. And they would bring a perspective on our economy that matters to your voters in Connecticut and mine in Ohio; that they don't have this lean towards Wall Street. They don't have this sort of singular view of the Federal Reserve. They understand that the Federal Reserve should look at the economy through the eyes of workers.

We have a chance right now to appoint a Federal Reserve Board--the seven members of the Board--that really will put workers at the center of our economy. We really haven't had that. We have a President who does that now, I think we have a Senate that increasingly does that, and that will mean that we will pay--the Federal Reserve will pay attention to wages, the Federal Reserve will fight inflation. That is their job. They will do a number of things that will matter to our economy.

Now, this would be the first time that there would be a full complement of seven governors on the Federal Reserve. It is a seven- member board. President Trump never filled all seven of those jobs. President Obama, at the end of his term, tried to and didn't quite get there. So this would be the first time in a decade.

And what makes that important is that their job--they are tasked with fighting inflation.

We know part of the reason for inflation is the excess profits in the oil industry, the excess profits among the meat packers, the excess profits among the shippers and companies that are really taking advantage of shortages and taking advantage of the pandemic. We know that drives inflation. And we also know that some of our best tools are the Federal Reserve to fight inflation.

So what I said earlier, I have never seen something happen like happened today.

Three weeks ago, Senator Toomey and I, as I said, agreed to have this vote for these five nominees to the Fed and also the nominee for the Federal Housing Finance Agency and do those all together today. We agreed three weeks ago.

Senator Toomey didn't like the answers from Sarah Bloom Raskin. He said: I don't like the way she answered.

And how this works--for people that aren't in the Senate and do this every day--how this works is, after a hearing,

Senators on a committee can simply write questions. It is called QFR-- questions for the record--that they didn't get to ask in their 5-minute slots in committee.

Well, Republicans, led by Senator Toomey, sent almost 200 questions to Sarah Bloom Raskin. It is clear Republicans don't want her. She has been too strong standing up to Wall Street, too strong speaking out about climate in the role that the Federal Reserve has in assessing risk based on climate in loan--in lending decisions of the Fed. She is not allocating credit or telling banks whom to lend to, she is just saying we should assess risk.

For instance, you don't--it is not really very good policy to loan-- to write a loan for somebody in a flood plain when they have had hurricane damage year after year after year after year and to loan a lot of money for a business. I mean, things like that that the Federal Reserve needs to assess--the banks need to assess the Fed needs.

So what happened today is Senator Toomey, because he didn't like Sarah Bloom Raskin's answers--as I said, he sent almost 200 letters. She answered 200 letters from Senator Toomey and his colleagues in 48 hours, and then another Senator--another Republican Senator sent her several more letters, and she answered those--several more questions, and she answered those when she didn't have to. So she lived up to her side of the agreement and then some.

And so Senator Toomey didn't like her answers, so he pulled away every Republican member from our committee. So when we met today at 2:15, as planned for 3 weeks, as noticed by the committee officially about a week ago, no Republican showed up.

And maybe that wouldn't matter, except the Senate rules are you have to have one Republican at least show up. You need 13 members of the committee to conduct business. So we had 12 Democrats sitting in the room, and the other side of the room was empty; and we couldn't take action.

So what that means is we now have Jay Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve--nominated to be Chair of the Federal Reserve, sitting, waiting; we have Lael Brainard, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, nominated, sitting and waiting; we have three people who aren't even on the board of the Federal Reserve yet--Sarah Bloom Raskin and Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson--who are just in abeyance. And maybe it doesn't matter about the three of them. They are public servants; they chose to do this. What does matter is the Federal Reserve Board only has four people on it now, and I don't know when we are going to fill it because Ranking Member Toomey and the other 11 Republicans on the board have decided that they don't want to show up and do their job.

I mean, when we come to the Senate--I think the Senator--the Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from Connecticut, knows this--you aren't given a little sheet that says here is what you do here. You vote yes--check the box yes, no, or I don't think I am going to work today. I think I am going to boycott a vote. That is not what you do. You vote yes or no. They have full rights to vote no and oppose these nominees--I assume they will oppose some of them--but they really don't have the right to just decide: I am going to take my ball and go home; that I am not going to work today; that we are going to boycott this vote.

So we all took an informal vote. All 12 of us voted--well, 11 of us voted for all 6, 1 of us voted for 5 of 6--and would have confirmed them overwhelmingly if Republicans had shown up and split their votes or whatever they would have done.

You know, it is just too bad. It breaks my heart. That is not how we have ever done things in the Banking, Housing Committee. I don't argue our committee is always bipartisan; it is not. But I do argue that most of the--pretty much all of us pretty much all the time, show up and cast votes and do our jobs.

I see there are new pages here on both sides of the aisle. This is the beginning, I think, of their second week. And, you know, I am sure they have learned from their textbooks, their college books. I am sure they watch us here and they think: Well, you know, I don't really like that Senator much or--he's kind of a nice guy, but he votes whatever. But they also know we take positions. You vote yes; you vote no.

And the last thing, and then I will yield the floor, is I have heard so many Republican Members talk about inflation day after day after day, and it is a problem we have to address. It is a problem we absolutely have to address. And they, of course, blame President Biden for everything, and that is OK. I expected that.

But they talk about inflation, but then at a time when we actually could address the problems with inflation, one of the most important tools in the Federal Government to address inflation is the Federal Reserve. And the Federal Reserve--seven members of the Federal Reserve sit with the 12 Fed presidents from around the country and they make decisions on monetary policy and they debate and discuss with a wide perspective of voices and a wide array of voices.

That is just not going to happen until they decide let's vote on these five members of the Federal Reserve.

So I wanted to inform my colleagues of that. Twelve of us showed up today, and 12 members didn't. They didn't have a really good reason except they don't like the answers that one of the Fed nominees gave, and that is simply not a good reason to refuse to do your job.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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