Floor Statements

Mr. President.

Reserving the right to object. Mr. President, this continues a discussion we have been having for days and indeed weeks and indeed months. Joe Biden is being flagrantly

lawless, in that he is refusing to impose mandatory congressional sanctions passed by Congress in the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, also known as CAATSA.

CAATSA was designed for precisely the purpose of taking away the President's discretion to impose sanctions on Russia in cases where Congress deemed it necessary to mandate them.

CAATSA passed Congress overwhelmingly. The vote was 98 to 2. Indeed, in September 2020, my colleague Senator Wyden wrote a letter that was joined by 10 other Democrats about Russian malign activities.

Senator Wyden's letter stated: ``Congress has mandated a broad range of sanctions tools, and it is long past time for the administration to send a direct message to President Putin.''

The letter continues, specifically citing the ``sanctions mandated provided for in'' CAATSA.

President Biden is legally obligated to Nord Stream 2 AG, the company responsible for the planning, the construction, and the eventual operation of Putin's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.

Nord Stream 2 AG has committed acts that require the imposition of these mandated sanctions under CAATSA Section 228. Section 228 mandates sanctions on any company that conducts any ``significant transactions,'' including ``deceptive transactions,'' for Russian companies that are already sanctioned.

In May, the Biden State Department sent Congress a certification confirming that Nord Stream 2 AG had engaged in those actions. It is clear that Nord Stream 2 AG falls under the mandatory sanctions of CAATSA. Nobody, not even the Biden administration, denies that the Biden State Department sent that certification confirming those actions. Nevertheless, President Biden and, in particular, the Department of Treasury is refusing to implement the law.

I have spoken directly with Secretary Yellen. I have spoken directly with the Deputy Secretary of Treasury. The law is clear and unequivocal. And because of the political agenda of the Biden White House, because of President Biden's desire to surrender to Vladimir Putin and to give him a multibillion-dollar pipeline, weakening America, weakening Europe, and giving vast resources to Putin to hold Europe subject to energy blackmail, Treasury is refusing to follow the law.

Nevertheless, I have been willing to offer a compromise. I have placed holds on nominees to the State Department and some of the nominees to the Treasury Department. And I have offered a compromise to lift the holds on this nominee and other nominees to the Treasury Department, and also to lift the holds on career nominees to State if either the Biden administration follows the law in CAATSA and impose sanctions. That is option A. That would be the best option.

Or option B, if they decide because, for whatever political reason, they believe surrendering to Putin is a good idea notwithstanding America's national security interest, there is a second option that I have offered to lift those holds, which is they could impose the sanctions under CAATSA and then immediately delist Nord Stream 2 AG. That would prevent the sanctions from going into effect, but it would also trigger an automatic vote here in this Congress to override that decision.

I have made that offer, along with Senator Toomey, in writing months ago. It is a reasonable compromise, and yet the Biden administration won't take it. They won't take it because they are terrified, if and when Congress votes on that override, that an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress in the Senate and the House will vote to override Joe Biden's indefensible decision to surrender to Vladimir Putin.

Nonetheless, in the spirit of reasonableness, I am happy to offer the Senator from Oregon the same deal or a similar deal, at least, right here and right now.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I recognize that my friend from Oregon has been busy with affairs on the Finance Committee and so has not been involved in the now 2 years of debate over Nord Stream 2 on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But, unfortunately, that has resulted in the Senator from Oregon being given talking points--perhaps from the administration, perhaps from colleagues--that are simply factually incorrect. I am sure that is inadvertent.

The Senator from Oregon just said that there is no way to stop this pipeline, and that the Trump administration failed to impose sanctions to stop

the pipeline. Both of those statements are factually wrong.

I was the author of two separate pieces of legislation that passed into law concerning Nord Stream 2. Both were bipartisan legislation. Both, I authored with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, in the Senate. Both passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from both Houses of Congress.

The first bill passed in December of 2019. Nord Stream 2 at the time was more than 90 percent complete, and the argument then that was being pushed by Russian disinformation and that, sadly, has been echoed by the Biden administration and was just echoed by the Senator from Oregon--the argument from Russian disinformation was, the pipeline can't be stopped; it is too late.

We know that was Russian disinformation because it was conclusively disproved. Putin stopped building the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline the very day that the Cruz-Shaheen bipartisan sanctions were signed into law-- not the next day, not the next week. That day, we stopped the pipeline in its tracks.

But, Mr. President, it was not only stopped for 1 day; it was stopped for more than a year. For December of 2019, for January, February, March--every month in 2020, the pipeline lay dormant. It was a piece of metal at the bottom of the ocean. So the claim that we cannot stop this pipeline is flat-out false because we did.

By the way, when the Senator from Oregon said the Trump administration couldn't stop this pipeline, that, again, is just incorrect. When the President signed the legislation, the pipeline was stopped that day. It remained stopped for over a year.

When did Putin return to building this pipeline? The date is important. Putin returned to building the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline on January 24, 2021, 4 days after Joe Biden was sworn into office. And he did so because Joe Biden and his team had already conveyed weakness that they would not enforce U.S. sanctions law and that they would roll over and give Putin and Russia a generational geopolitical gift. The only reason Putin began building again is because the Biden White House defied U.S. law to surrender to Putin.

Now, Joe Biden is entitled to believe that is a good policy idea. What he is not entitled to do is ignore U.S. law. And the Senator from Oregon suggests this nominee has nothing to do with that. Well, it is the Department of the Treasury that is ignoring the CAATSA law, that is refusing to follow the policy.

Sadly, this moment marks a new threshold in that debate. Up until this point, it has only been the Biden White House that has been surrendering to Russia. Sadly, now we have a Democratic Member of the Senate objecting to legislation to stop the Biden White House from surrendering to Russia. That is a move in the wrong direction.

That being said, my offer of reasonable compromise remains if we can come together as we have repeatedly, Republicans and Democrats, to force the President to obey the law and to stop surrendering to Russia in a way that hurts America, hurts Europe.

By the way, the European Parliament--my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle like to consider themselves lovers of our friends in Europe. The European Parliament voted on Nord Stream 2. The vote was roughly 500 to 50 against Nord Stream 2 because it makes our European allies subject to energy blackmail by Putin and his successor dictators.

This is bad for America, bad for Europe, bad for peace, bad for the environment, but good for Vladimir Putin and for Russia. Joe Biden is mistaken to be committing this surrender, and my friend from Oregon errs in joining Joe Biden in that surrender to Russia.

I hope the Senator from Oregon reconsiders. I hope Congress comes together again. But as long as that does not happen, I object.

Mr. President, I don't have objection to the article being included in the Record, but I would note that, once again, the Senator from Oregon is limited by the fact that he has not participated in the debate on this in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the last 2 years, because what he stated in his first remarks was that there was no way to stop the pipeline initially and the Trump administration failed to do so. That was factually incorrect.

We stopped the pipeline the day President Trump signed the bipartisan Cruz-Shaheen sanctions into law. That was December of 2019, and the pipeline was stopped for over a year. As I mentioned, on January 24 of 2020, 4 days after Joe Biden was sworn into office, Putin began-- returned to building the pipeline because Biden had already telegraphed his surrender to Russia.

Now, what my friend from Oregon just said is--he repeated news coverage that the pipeline is now, today, complete. That is, in fact, correct, that because Biden surrendered on this point, Putin went all in and finished the pipeline. But this is where being part of the Foreign Relations Committee discussion matters, because even though the pipeline is now physically complete, it does not mean it is operative. After the pipeline is physically complete, there are months of certifications required and multiple authorities.

The legislation that Congress passed as a bipartisan matter also imposes sanctions on any entity, any company that certifies the pipeline. Indeed, the position of the Biden State Department has been that even when the pipeline is complete, we can stop it from ever going online by stopping certification.

So the legislation that I just asked for consent would do exactly that--it would stop certification, and it would leave it as a hunk of metal rather than an operating pipeline enriching Putin at the expense of Europe and America. So we still have time to stop this.

One final observation. This morning, I spent a couple of hours in a classified briefing on this topic, on Nord Stream 2. A question that I posed to the Biden State Department--I said: What exactly did Joe Biden, did the administration get in exchange for surrendering to Russia in a way that will impact this country and Europe for decades to come?

The answer, I will say, was altogether unsatisfactory. The only thing the Biden White House got was good will from Angela Merkel, whose party was just defeated resoundingly this past weekend in the election. So Angela Merkel is on her way out. We got good will from someone who will very soon no longer be the leader of Germany.

Instead, the German people voted in--elevated the Greens, who were vocally opposed to the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. So the new government in Germany is not going to appreciate Biden surrendering to Putin in a way that hurts the environment and hurts Germany. But we have alienated the Ukrainians; we have alienated the Poles; we have alienated Eastern Europe. The European Union voted 500 to 50, roughly, against Nord Stream 2. We got nothing, and we hurt U.S. jobs.

This is foolhardy, and I am hopeful that the Senate will exercise our historical role over foreign policy and prevent a President and an administration from making this mistake.

I would note, Secretary of State Blinken and the State Department argued vociferously in the interagency process to sanction Nord Stream 2 AG, and it was the political operatives at the Biden White House who overrode the State Department. They should not have done so, and today the Department of the Treasury should follow the law and impose sanctions under CAATSA or delist them and trigger a vote in this Congress.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to conclude my remarks before the scheduled rollcall vote.

Mr. President, I rise today to continue the discussion that we have been having about the harms of Nord Stream 2.

I will discuss in this speech one of the administration's legal responsibilities, in particular to impose sanctions in a way that they are now defying those legal responsibilities.

I do want to note that every day brings new evidence of the incoherence of President Biden's sellout and surrender to Vladimir Putin. Since we last discussed this, elections have occurred in Germany and the government of Angela Merkel, on whose behalf the Biden administration claims to be acting, will now be replaced. So the entire surrender to Russia by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was for nothing. I will discuss that further throughout the day and throughout the week.

We have heard repeatedly from my Democratic colleagues that my actions to block some of President Biden's nominees are unprecedented. That accusation doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Senators routinely use their prerogatives, and, indeed, Democrats regularly engaged in massive obstruction over months and years of President Trump's nominations. What isn't unprecedented, however, is Joe Biden's open defiance and literal lawlessness in not imposing the sanctions mandated by multiple laws passed overwhelmingly by Congress.

Right now, I would like to talk about one of the laws that the President is violating: CAATSA--the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. Before getting into the details of Nord Stream 2, I would like to note a couple of things about CAATSA.

First, CAATSA was explicitly designed for the purpose of taking away the President's discretion whether or not to impose sanctions on Russia in cases where Congress had deemed it necessary to mandate them. And secondly, on that basis, CAATSA passed Congress with nearly unanimous support: 419 to 3 in the House, and 98 to 2 in the Senate.

As for the purpose of CAATSA, I would like to quote some of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle who were both clear and celebratory about the bill.

Senator Murphy, who has been particularly loquacious in opposition to these holes, said about CAATSA: ``It is not often that Congress takes away, from the president, discretionary powers on foreign policy.''

Worth remembering.

Senator Schumer, who has also had more than a little bit to say on these holes, said that CAATSA was necessary because of what he described as the President's ``seeming inability to deal with the many transgressions of Russia.''

Gosh, Senator Schumer was right. We now have a President unwilling and unable to deal with, as he put it, the ``many transgressions of Russia.''

What about Senator Menendez?

Senator Menendez has stood on this floor, including at 4:00 and 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning, railing about these blocks.

Well, what did he say about CAATSA?

He said that CAATSA sent ``the most powerful message in the world, that the United States--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--stand together.''

Those were really fine sentiments. I wish they held true when there was a Democratic President as much as Senator Menendez believed them when there was a Republican President.

And how about Senator Durbin?

Senator Durbin is never lacking an opinion on any topic. Here is what he said: ``We had to tell them enough is enough, and when it came to the sanctions and trusting the president, we basically said we want to make sure the president will not lift these sanctions.''

Well, do you know what? Senator Murphy was right. Senator Schumer was right. Senator Menendez was right. Senator Durbin was right. That is why Congress came together to pass CAATSA, tough legislation to prevent a President from doing what Joe Biden is doing right now: surrendering to Putin, surrendering to Russia, ignoring U.S. law, and giving Putin a multibillion-dollar gift.

And, when my Democratic colleagues didn't believe the Trump administration was implementing the full breadth of mandatory sanctions under CAATSA, they made the purpose of CAATSA even clearer.

On January 30, 2018, Senator Cardin led a letter about CAATSA to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, cosigned by 21 other Democrats-- almost half of the caucus. They said that the Trump administration's failure to impose mandatory sanctions ``do not fully reflect the clear congressional intent described in the legislation . . . We expect the administration to provide a full explanation as to why it has not imposed mandatory sanctions'' under several provisions of CAATSA.

Then, on May 18, 2018, Senator Menendez led a letter about CAATSA to several inspectors general, cosigned by two other Democrats. They said that ``[s]everal mandatory provisions of the law have not been implemented . . . despite strong evidence that actions taken by or on behalf of the Russian government are in violation of the CAATSA sanctions law.''

In fact, I would like to read more of that letter because it is so abundantly clear about the purpose of CAATSA:

In light of the apparent violations and the lack of

corresponding sanctions actions, we are concerned about

whether the sanctions implementation process within the

administration is fulfilling CAATSA's mandate and intent. In

general, with respect to mandatory measures, the President is

required to make determinations in the event he has

established that sanctions behavior has taken place, and then

either impose sanctions or exercise a waiver.

So a binary choice: One or the other. That is what of a President is required.

And do you know what? Senator Cardin and Senator Menendez, well, they might have meant it, but they didn't say it: Only Republican Presidents are required to do this.

They didn't write that in their letters because, of course, CAATSA doesn't say that. What they said is a President is required to make that choice. The law requires the President to make that choice.

Senator Cardin was right. Senator Menendez was right. And Joe Biden is telling them: Go jump in a lake.

He is telling the U.S. Congress: Go jump in a lake.

He is telling the American people: Go jump in a lake.

He is cutting a deal with Putin, and don't bring no stinkin' laws to get in his way.

That brings to us Nord Stream 2. One of the provisions that my Democratic colleagues cited in both of those letters was section 228: ``Sanctions with respect to certain transactions with foreign sanctions evaders and serious

human rights abusers in the Russian federation.''

Section 228 mandates the imposition of sanctions on any company that conducts any ``significant transactions,'' including ``deceptive transactions,'' for Russian companies that are already sanctioned.

There is no doubt--zero--that the company Nord Stream 2 AG, which is the company responsible for the planning, the construction, and the eventual operation of Putin's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, has committed acts that require the implementation and the imposition of those mandated sanctions under CAATSA 228.

Indeed, that is one of the many reasons the pipeline was halted for a year, and Putin only began building it again on January 24 of this year--4 days after Joe Biden was sworn in. Because Joe Biden has been so weak on this issue, because the pipeline exists only as a gift from Biden to Putin, this pipeline is, in a very real sense, the Biden-Putin pipeline.

We know that the Biden administration is defying the law, because the Biden administration told us so in May. The Biden administration sent a report to Congress describing how Nord Stream 2 AG had conducted deceptive transactions for sanctioned Russian companies. That is the explicit trigger in CAATSA for sanctions, and yet the Biden administration has refused to meet its obligations under CAATSA, and that leads to the reasonable compromise that I have offered.

For several months, I have had in place a hold on all State Department nominees and on several Treasury Department nominees as well. The reason for the hold has been simple--because Joe Biden is defying the law and is giving Vladimir Putin a multibillion-dollar gift that constitutes a generational geopolitical blunder that puts billions of dollars into the Russian coffers every year that Putin will use for military aggression against America and our allies. Biden's surrender to Putin weakens Europe profoundly. It makes Europe dependent on Russia even more so for energy and subject to Russia's energy blackmail. And it also, on top of that, destroys jobs here in the United States.

For months, I have had in place the blanket hold that has caused increasing cries of pain and dismay from our Democratic colleagues. Interestingly, these same Democratic colleagues all agree that what Biden is doing with the Biden-Putin pipeline is terrible. Almost to a person, the Democrats who are complaining about this have denounced Joe Biden for giving Putin this multibillion-dollar gift, but they say they want to confirm his nominees anyway.

So what I have said is: All right. Fine. If the Biden administration wants to defy the sanctions law that I drafted--the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions law, it is two different bills that I drafted with Senator Shaheen, Democrat from New Hampshire. We passed into law, overwhelming bipartisan support from both Houses of Congress. If Joe Biden wants to ignore those laws, then there is another avenue to resolve much of this dispute, which is simply to follow the law under CAATSA.

So I extended an offer to Secretary Blinken, to Secretary Yellen, to the White House that I would lift my holds on every career State nominee and on the Treasury nominees where I placed holds in exchange for one of two things: No. 1, the best outcome would be for the Biden administration to actually implement CAATSA and sanction Nord Stream 2 AG, to follow the law, to do what is mandatory.

That would be the best outcome. If they did so, I would immediately lift my holds.

But, secondly, I get that the White House politically has decided they want to surrender to Putin on this. My understanding is there is an interagency process--the State Department argued to do the right thing. The State Department argued: Impose the sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, stop this pipeline, which, by the way, is what Tony Blinken sat in my office and promised State would do. It is what just about every senior nominee to the State Department has promised they would do.

State argued to do the right thing, but according to public reports, the political operatives at the White House overruled their own State Department. They said: Never mind the national security interests of the United States. Never mind protecting America. Never mind stopping Putin and Russia. Never mind protecting Europe's energy security. Never mind protecting Europe from blackmail by Putin. We want to surrender because Angela Merkel wants us to.

I talked last week about how a friend of mine jokes that the White House political team sleeps with votive candles of Angela Merkel under their beds. There is a view in the White House that what Merkel wants, Merkel gets, even if it is bad for America, bad for Germany, bad for Europe, but good for Russia.

Of course, Merkel is on her way out now, but they still want to do this surrender. And this surrender, by the way, if it is completed, will hurt America for generations to come--10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now.

The next Russian dictator will be enriched by Joe Biden's surrender to Putin on the Biden-Putin pipeline.

The two options: First, after imposing sanctions, they could leave them in place. But, secondly, recognizing that they don't want to do it, there is a second option I gave them, which is that they could impose sanctions under CAATSA, but then they could delist Nord Stream 2

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

Mr. President, over the last several weeks, I have talked at length about the damage that President Biden and his administration are doing to the national security of the United States and to the security of our allies in Europe by giving Vladimir Putin a multibillion-dollar gift in the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.

Today, I am going to talk about the staggering diplomatic damage that the President is doing by allowing and, indeed, facilitating this project proceeding. It is well known that Nord Stream 2 is opposed across Europe as an enabler of and, indeed, an example of and a weapon of Russian expansionism and aggression.

Europeans have good reasons for their opposition. They know firsthand what the costs are. They know that completing Nord Stream 2 will leave the entire continent vulnerable to Putin's blackmail and aggression, and that NATO's ability to act will be severely constrained while billions will flow into the Kremlin's coffers.

What is sometimes underappreciated, however, even by the people who are familiar with this issue, is the all-but-complete unanimity of the opposition in Europe.

In 2018, the European Parliament voted by a vote of 403 to 105 to oppose the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The pipeline proceeded, nonetheless, until it was halted by the bipartisan sanctions passed by this Congress in December of 2019--sanctions that I authored along with Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. The pipeline was halted the very day those sanctions were signed into law.

Then, in January of 2021, after Vladimir Putin tried to murder Alexei Navalny, the European Parliament voted again to oppose Nord Stream 2, this time by a vote of 581 to 50.

So I want you to pause for a second and reflect on the fact that Joe Biden looked at that vote and said the President of the United States is with the 50--never mind the 581--in the European Parliament. The Biden administration was going to side with Russia on a 90-percent issue, where the Biden White House is on the losing side.

Throughout all this process, there were plenty of voices in Germany who were opposed, especially after this vicious attempt on Navalny's life. The Parliamentary leader of the Greens, Katrin Goering-Eckardt, said:

The blatant assassination attempt by the mafia-like

structures of the Kremlin can no longer leave us merely

concerned, it must have real consequences.

Stating, ``We need a clear answer'' that will ``make clear, Nord Stream 2 is no longer something we can complete with Russia.''

Mr. President, my request to Senate Democrats, my request to President Biden, my request to Kamala Harris is listen to the Greens. That is not a sentence I have uttered on the floor of the Senate before, nor is it one I anticipate saying frequently in the future. But the Greens in Germany are telling you this is a bad idea; yet today's Democratic Party that exalts climate change as the greatest issue in the cosmos, when it comes to kissing up and surrendering to Putin, decided to tell the Greens to go jump in the lake.

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen issued a statement that:

Germany is asking for European and NATO solidarity in

response to the despicable Navalny poisoning. They will get

it, but an honest answer from Putin is unlikely. Time has

come for Germany to halt Nord Stream 2 construction, before

it's too late.

If Senate Democrats mean what they have said for years on Nord Stream 2, then listen to the former Secretary General of NATO; listen to the Greens in Germany.

But now, bizarrely, after Joe Biden has ignored the Greens, after Joe Biden has ignored NATO, after Joe Biden has ignored our Central European allies, all

of this was done in the hopes of getting goodwill and support from Angela Merkel.

The Biden White House--the political geniuses that presided over the surrender and failure in Afghanistan, the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in a generation--their plan was, let's piss the whole rest of the world off so that we can make friends with Angela Merkel. By making friends with Angela Merkel, let's let Putin complete his pipeline.

Perversely, President Biden and Merkel issued their statement as a declaration for support of our Eastern European allies.

Boy, with support like that, who needs enemies?

I would like to read a joint statement from our Polish and Ukrainian allies in response to the laughable statement that Biden and Merkel put out. Here is what our Polish and Ukrainian allies said:

The decision to build Nord Stream 2 made in 2015 mere

months after Russia's invasion and illegal annexation of

Ukrainian territory, created security, credibility, and

political crisis in Europe.

This crisis is significantly deepened by the resignation from attempts to stop the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

By the way, as an aside, that resignation would be Joe Biden's abandoning of U.S. law sanctioning Russia.

The letter continued:

This decision has created political, military, and energy

threat for Ukraine and Central Europe, while increasing

Russia's potential to destabilize the security situation in

Europe, perpetuating divisions among NATO and European Union

member states.

Let me read that again:

This decision--

Joe Biden's political genius, surrendering to Russia--

has created political, military, and energy threat for

Ukraine and Central Europe--

That sounds bad. It is bad--

while increasing Russia's potential to destabilize the

security situation in Europe, perpetuating divisions among

NATO and European Union member states.

The letter continued:

Ukraine and Poland will work together with their allies and

partners to oppose Nord Stream 2 until solutions are

developed to address the security crisis created by Nord

Stream 2, to provide support to countries aspiring to

membership in Western democratic institutions, and to reduce

threats to peace and energy security.

Mr. President, what do our friends in Ukraine and Poland tell us?

That Joe Biden's decision has created a ``threat to peace and energy security.''

But even then, Biden-Harris officials insisted that they had worked out security arrangements; it was all perfectly taken care of. They would ensure that Russia would never, ever, ever use Nord Stream 2 for blackmail.

Mr. President, that is their promise. That is Joe Biden's promise. Fear not, they have it figured out and they have commitments that Russia will never use Nord Stream 2 for energy blackmail.

How long do you think those commitments lasted?

If you have a stopwatch, I am not sure the stopwatch could measure increments of time that small because Russia didn't even give a decent interval, didn't let the ink dry on the Biden White House press release before they immediately began doing the thing that Biden promised Russia would never do. Biden White House said: We have an agreement to make sure Russia never uses it for energy blackmail.

What did Putin say? Excuse me, we are in the middle of energy blackmail.

So we don't even have to wait a year, 2 years, 5 years. We don't have to wait a month. We don't have to wait a week. We don't have to wait a day to know if the Biden promise was true or false that Russia would never engage in energy blackmail over Nord Stream 2. Why? Because they are doing it right now, this instant, as we stand here.

Just one week ago, the Kremlin and its gas barons, the oligarchs--the corrupt mafia oligarchs that run Russia--said that if Europe wants reliable gas as we approach winter--and, gosh, did we mention it gets cold in Europe, that having gas to heat your homes and prevent your grandmother from freezing to death might be a nice thing?

Well, the Kremlin and the gas oligarchs said it is very simple: If they want to have heat, all they need to do is rush through the activation of Nord Stream 2.

They said: ``Undoubtedly, the earliest possible commission of Nord Stream 2 will help balance the natural gas crisis in Europe.''

Undoubtedly.

Russia is literally reducing the supply right now, today, exercising its blackmail in September.

The Presiding Officer lives in the Northeast United States. September is a beautiful time of year. The autumn leaves are turning. The breeze is crisp. You are not right yet shivering to turn on the heat at night. The same is true in Europe. But fast forward to November, fast forward to December, to January, to February, when the bitter cold starts setting in, when having gas or not, and having heat or not, is the difference between living and dying.

What are the Russian oligarchs saying?

They say, very simply: ``Undoubtedly, the earliest possible commissioning of Nord Stream 2 will help balance the natural gas crisis in Europe.''

And, of course, the response from Biden and from Germany has been crickets. Remember, Biden and Merkel said, if they try that--those dastardly Russians--we will stand up boldly to them, we will hold them to account.

Where is Joe Biden? No, I mean that seriously. Where is Joe Biden?

Nowhere. Maybe in the White House basement. I don't know. But he is not doing anything to stand up to the Russian energy blackmail happening right now. By the way, neither is Merkel. Their promises just weeks ago have already been demonstrated to be completely hollow and empty. The protections of their bogus deal were, on their face, a bluff; were, on their face, empty.

But how often is it in politics that such an empty promise gets revealed as a lie minutes after it is made?

In this case, Putin was only too happy to oblige. That is why we call the pipeline the Biden-Putin pipeline.

But, of course, the punch line of all of this--so the Biden administration has managed to tick off Europe, to tick off the European Union. They managed to tick off Ukraine. They managed to tick off Poland. They managed to tick off the Eastern Europeans. They have also independently managed to tick off the French so much that they pulled their Ambassador home from the United States.

But they did all of this, they said, in the deep gravelly tones of the Foggy Bottom establishment. They did all of this to build lasting relationships with Angela Merkel. And that would pay dividends. Never mind a generation of billions for Putin and Russia; never mind a generation of energy captivity for Europe; never mind thousands of high-paying jobs in America--union jobs, good union jobs--destroyed by Biden; never mind that. The benefit of making Angela Merkel is worth it.

Mr. President, you know, there is an old saying that God has a sense of humor. That was illustrated this weekend because, this weekend, there was an election in Germany. The people went to vote.

And what happened?

The German voters went to vote, and Merkel's party didn't win the election. Now the Social Democrats will be looking to form a coalition with the Greens.

Which Greens?

Oh, the very same Greens that are passionately opposed to Nord Stream 2, that cried vociferously to kill the pipeline, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris said: Go jump in a lake.

The new coalition.

By the way, just about every electoral scenario that comes out of this election will empower the Greens in Germany, and the political geniuses in the White House have just alienated and antagonized the Greens.

Biden's supine giveaway. Isn't that a good word--supine? It describes the Biden foreign policy for every enemy of America: Be flat on your belly, and give our enemies what they want. Biden's supine giveaway to Putin was all for nothing. It literally produced nothing for the United States. It alienated our friends, and it emboldened our enemies.

If you are Xi in China and you see Joe Biden rolling over and surrendering to Vladimir Putin, giving him everything he wants--giving him a pipeline that will enrich him for generations to come--what do you think

Xi is thinking? I can tell you what Xi is thinking. Xi is thinking this is a President who is weak who will surrender to me too. We saw that demonstrated just in recent days, where the Biden administration surrendered on a senior executive from Huawei in allowing her to go back to China, giving Communist China exactly what it wanted. And, once again, what does Xi take and what do the Chinese Communist leaders take from that? That this President will roll over, will surrender.

And, you know, there is a striking irony. These catastrophic decisions and failures are particularly jaw-dropping given that President Biden ran on a platform of restoring diplomacy. Do you remember the refrain ``the adults are back''? It was said with this moral superiority--that the Biden guys were going to come in, and no more of this American strength. Huh-uh. The adults know better.

Here is what Joe Biden said on February 4:

I want the world to hear today: America is back. America is

back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy.

. . . We will repair our alliances and engage with the world

once again, not to meet yesterday's challenges but today's

and tomorrow's.

Biden spoke specifically about Russia. He said:

American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing

authoritarianism, including . . . the determination of Russia

to damage and disrupt our democracy.

Biden added that ``we must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom [and] championing opportunity.''

You know, if irony had ever been alive, that speech killed irony. If irony were dead and buried, that speech made irony roll over in her grave. Literally every word of that speech, every syllable of every word down to ``and'' and ``the,'' has been proven false.

``America is back,'' Biden told us. ``Diplomacy is back.'' ``We will repair our alliances.'' Mr. President, how has that gone? Have we, in fact, repaired our alliances? With Nord Stream 2, Biden has pissed off the French, the Polish, the Ukrainians, the European Union. Has Biden repaired our alliances?

Has Biden engaged with the world once again? Well, if ``engaged with the world'' means to surrender to Putin and give him everything he wants, then I guess so.

To meet not yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's--how is giving Putin a massive natural gas pipeline meeting tomorrow's challenges unless the challenges are how to fund Russia's military? If those are the challenges he is talking about, then congratulations, Joe Biden; you actually lived up to that.

He spoke about Russia. ``American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism.'' How did Joe Biden and Kamala Harris meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism? By funding it. Every year, Putin will cash a check of a couple billion dollars, courtesy of Joseph Biden. What should we use this couple of billion dollars for? How about for advancing authoritarianism.

Biden said:

We must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most

cherished democratic values: defending freedom.

Mr. President, let me ask you something. Whose freedom did Joe Biden defend with this pipeline? He certainly didn't defend the freedom of the Ukrainians. He didn't defend the freedom of the Poles. He didn't defend the freedom of Europe. He didn't defend the freedom of France. He didn't defend even the freedom of Germany. Merkel wants this, but the voters in Germany have made clear that they don't want it. He didn't defend the freedom of the men and women of Georgia, of the Baltics--of all the former Soviet Republics whose safety and security is now jeopardized because Biden has decided to be a principal funder of the Russian military. That is not defending freedom.

He certainly didn't defend America's freedom. On his first day in office, Joe Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline. He killed 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 union jobs. John Kerry helpfully told those union members: Learn to code. You silly, dirty worker who wants to work on a pipeline, no, no, no. Sit down at a MacBook instead.

How is it that the same President who kills American jobs on an American pipeline creates Russian jobs on a Russian pipeline? I don't know what you call that, but you don't call it defending freedom. You don't call it championing opportunity.

You know, I have to say, some years ago, I traveled to Europe. I was in Ukraine. I was in Poland. I was in Estonia. When I was there, I met with the leaders there, and I asked them about Russian aggression. This was years ago. I asked them about standing up to Russian aggression. To a person, when I asked them that, the blood drained out of their face, because, for the Poles, for the Ukrainians, for the Estonians, Russian tanks in the streets is not a hypothetical. That is not a scenario they are wondering what that would be like. Those of us old enough to remember it, as they sat at the table with me, they remembered. They remembered those Russian tanks.

Vladimir Putin has said, in perhaps the most candid moment of his life, that he considers the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century to be the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The natural corollary of that is that his foreign policy objective is to recreate the Soviet Union and to subjugate the former Soviet Republics.

One of the most dangerous consequences of this pipeline, of the Biden-Putin pipeline, is that if this pipeline is allowed to go online, I fear we will see Russian tanks again on the ground in Ukraine.

Mr. President, you and I both serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If and when that happens--in 6 months, in a year, in 2 years--I am going to ask you to remember these remarks, if and when we see Russian tanks on the streets in Ukraine, because Putin is no longer afraid that Ukraine is needed to transit energy. Putin now has his own pipeline--the Biden-Putin pipeline--to circumvent Ukraine.

If we see that subjugation of our ally, if we see that subjugation of liberty, Mr. President, I hope you and I hope every Member of this body and I hope the American people remember right now that Joe Biden, in February, said: ``We must start with diplomacy rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom [and] championing opportunity.'' He has an opportunity to do so.

By the way, let me point out something. The Biden administration has a fantastic opportunity for a reset. Let's assume somebody in the administration realizes they screwed up on this pipeline. When they are losing votes in the European Parliament by a vote of 500 to 50, that ought to be a signal, particularly for people who pride themselves on their foreign policy prowess, on the adults being back. Losing a 10-to- 1 vote in the European Parliament is not indicative of diplomacy being back.

By the way, when they lose the vote in this body--in both the House and Senate--when we have addressed Nord Stream 2, every time we have done it, it has been virtually unanimous. The margins of the U.S. Congress have been bigger than 500 to 50.

So let's say somebody in the Biden White House is having second thoughts. I don't know if they are. Maybe they are so committed to their policy that facts be damned; no second thoughts on that. But let's say someone is. Then Joe Biden has been given a gift. He has been given a gift of the recent German election.

There has been only one argument that the Biden White House has put forward for surrendering to Putin on this pipeline, and that is to make the German Government happy. It is a bad argument. It is an argument the Presiding Officer has rejected, that I have rejected. Virtually every Senator in this body, Democrat and Republican, has rejected it as a bad argument that hurts America, that hurts Europe, that helps Putin.

But, for sake of argument, let's give the Biden White House the benefit of the doubt. Let's assume they really believe that. Well, this weekend gave him a gift. If the lone benefit they achieved was this will make the German Government happy, what do we know now? This makes the German Government unhappy.

As we stand here today, the ledger of cost and benefits is very simple: There is one winner on the Biden-Putin pipeline, and that is Vladimir Putin; that

is Russia; that is the Russian Army. Everybody else is a loser. So I would say to the Biden White House they have an easy gift: Reverse course.

By the way, the Biden State Department, Secretary Blinken, fought to impose these sanctions, and political operatives in the Biden White House overruled the Secretary of State.

Secretary Blinken, you have a fabulous opportunity.

The Secretary of State is unhappy that I have holds on nominees to the Department of State. The Presiding Officer is unhappy as he sends repeated tweets, expressing his dismay that I am using the leverage of a Senator to try to stop this pipeline.

Well, I have good news: The German electorate has given you an answer to this problem.

The Biden White House has an easy excuse. The German Government is changing. So their only benefit--to make the German Government happy-- has disappeared. If all they care about is making the German Government happy--if they don't care about the rest of Europe; if they don't care about Ukraine; if they don't care about the European Union; if they don't care about American jobs; if they don't care about Putin getting richer and stronger--if the only criterion is to make the German Government happy, do you know what they should do today? Sanction Nord Stream 2 AG. Follow the law. If they do that, I will lift the holds, and these nominations can proceed very, very quickly.

The German voters have given Joe Biden a gift. The only question is if anyone in the White House is paying attention, if anyone wants to accept the gift, or are they too stubborn? They have picked their course, dammit, and they are going to go down with the ship even if it hurts America forever.

There is still time to stop this pipeline. The question is, Does anyone in the White House care? I hope and pray that they do because if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris persist in their decision to completely and totally surrender to Vladimir Putin, that will harm the United States not for a year, not for 10 years, but for 30, 40, 50 years going forward.

Mr. President, the German voters have given you a gift. You should take it.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have spoken throughout these last several days about how the Nord Stream 2 pipeline--the Biden-Putin pipeline-- runs counter to everything that the Biden administration professes to stand for, and, indeed, what much of the Democratic Party has been insisting for the last half decade are the most important issues of the country.

We, of course, spent 4 years, during the Trump Presidency, listening to Democrats say, ``Russia, Russia, Russia,'' over and over and over again. It was a newfound discovery. Some of us are old enough to remember Barack Obama turning to Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential election when Mitt Romney was advocating for strength in dealing with Russia and for taking on Putin, and some of us remember Obama looking at Mitt Romney and saying:

[Mitt], the 1980s called. They want their foreign policy

back.

That was in 2012, when the Democrats thought it was passe to stand up to Russia.

Then 2016 happened, and Donald Trump was elected President. Suddenly, the Democratic Party got religion. Suddenly, Russia was bad. Now, I thought Russia was bad before. I thought Russia was bad when Trump was President. And I think Russia is bad now. I don't like dictatorial thugs like Vladimir Putin, who is a KGB thug.

But, interestingly, for our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, their outrage against Russia is situational. It applies only in the situation that a Republican is in the White House. When a Democrat is in the White House--when Joe Biden is there--suddenly, Putin is hunky-dory. Suddenly, Democrats don't have much of a problem with Joe Biden defying Federal law, ignoring Federal law, and giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Putin.

Suddenly, the Democrats have given all of these speeches on Russia, who passed CAATSA. I talked earlier about CAATSA, the legislation that imposes mandatory sanctions on Russia to stop a President who refuses to impose those sanctions. Well, Joe Biden is in defiance of CAATSA. Do you see a single Democrat standing up, saying: Mr. President, obey CAATSA? No. They are whining that the deputy assistant under secretary of whatchamacallit has not been confirmed yesterday, and, clearly, the world is going to come to an end without a deputy assistant of whatchamacallit.

If our Democratic colleagues believed their rhetoric of the last 4 years, we would see Democrats stand up with me and say, ``Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Putin is a mistake,'' but they are not.

One of the ironies, in addition to the ``Russia, Russia, Russia'' thing--and the truth of the matter--is most of the Democrats never believed Russia, Russia, Russia. If you go back to the Soviet Union, if you go back to the Reagan administration, the Democrats had spent decades as apologists for Soviet Communists, as apologists for Russian dictators. But for 4 years, I have got to say that our Democratic colleagues can give a good speech. They sure sounded genuine when they said, ``Russia, Russia, Russia.'' But if they believed those words, then they would look at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and they would say, ``Russia, Russia, Russia.''

By the way, they didn't like Donald Trump's rhetoric on Russia, and by the way, I didn't like a lot of the things President Trump said on Russia. I wish his rhetoric had been stronger, but it is worth noting that Trump had the courage to call out Germany for Nord Stream 2. Trump had the courage to impose sanctions under the bipartisan sanctions legislation we passed into law. The Cruz-Shaheen legislation passed in 2019, and the second wave of the Cruz-Shaheen bipartisan legislation passed in 2020. President Trump imposed. What did Joe Biden do? Waived it. What did Joe Biden do? Ignored the law. What did Joe Biden do? He gave a multibillion-dollar gift to Putin.

So, if any Democrat meant a word they said about Russia, we have got to see them standing here. You will note the Democratic side of the floor is largely empty.

But not only is Joe Biden's rhetoric and the Democrats' rhetoric on Russia not matched by their action, but we also know that Biden's actions don't meet the Democrats' rhetoric on climate.

Mr. President, I want to talk today about Russia. I want to talk about Vladimir Putin. I want to describe to this Chamber a bipartisan victory that together we won, and then I want to describe, tragically, how President Joe Biden is giving that victory away to Putin and Russia.

To understand this issue, we need to go back to the summer of 2019. In the summer of 2019, Russia was in the process of constructing a pipeline called the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.

Behind me is a map demonstrating where the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline runs. It is a pipeline that was to run from Russia to Germany, going underneath the Baltic Sea.

In the summer of 2019, the pipeline was nearly complete. At various periods in time, it was 70 percent complete, 80 percent complete. There was widespread consensus that if this pipeline were completed, it would have devastating consequences. In a few minutes, I will discuss those consequences in greater detail. But in an effort to stop the devastating consequences, I worked on bipartisan legislation, along with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat from New Hampshire, and we introduced bipartisan sanctions legislation designed to stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.

That legislation, when we introduced it, was almost immediately subject to a Russian disinformation campaign. In Europe, the Russians were saying to anyone who would listen that the Cruz-Shaheen sanction legislation could never pass; that there was no way Congress would come together in a bipartisan manner to stop the Nord Stream 2; that it was hopeless; that no one needed to be concerned that this legislation could pass. They also made the argument as part of their disinformation campaign that the pipeline was nearly complete so that U.S. sanctions could not stop it. There was nothing that could be done to stop it.

Well, to the surprise of nobody who follows these issues, that Russian disinformation was precisely that--it was disinformation. It was lies.

In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Shaheen and I worked with our colleagues, and our legislation was initially voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 20 to 2--overwhelming bipartisan support.

At that point, Senator Shaheen and I began working to get it passed on the floor of the Senate. While we were doing so, the Russian disinformation continued: This cannot pass.

We endeavored to have our sanctions legislation attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, which was moving in the fall and winter of 2019. To do so was not easy. To do so, we needed to get the explicit signoff of the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We needed the explicit signoff of the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. We needed the explicit signoff of the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. Then we needed the explicit signoff of Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer, the Republican and Democratic leader respectively. All eight of those Senators needed to agree with

our legislation for this to proceed on the NDAA.

And then we had to do the exact same thing in the House of Representatives and get the chairman and ranking member on Foreign Relations, on Armed Services and on Banking, and we had to get the signoff of Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy.

To get the explicit support of all 16 of those congressional leaders--8 Republicans and 8 Democrats--in any world is not easy.

And I will say on my part and Senator Shaheen's part, we invested dozens, if not hundreds, of hours in terms of talking to our colleagues to build that bipartisan consensus, and we ended up getting that overwhelming support. In many ways, that support was miraculous.

Why is that?

Well, one of the reasons why Nord Stream 2 is particularly problematic is that Russia is building Nord Stream 2 in order to cut off Ukraine. There is currently a pipeline running through Ukraine and, through Nord Stream 2, Russia has the power to starve Ukraine.

Why is it miraculous in December of 2019 that we were able to pass this legislation?

Well, if you will recall what was happening in the House of Representatives in December of 2019, the House of Representatives was in the middle of impeaching President Donald Trump for alleged high crimes and misdemeanors concerning Ukraine.

If you will recall, from the trial we held on this Senate floor, central to the allegations that were raised by Democrats against President Trump was conduct concerning Ukraine.

It remains astonishing that right in the middle of a partisan gladiatorial battle concerning Ukraine, simultaneously we were able to get Republicans and Democrats to work hand-in-hand to agree with complete consensus that we were going to come together and stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. We were going to stop what Vladimir Putin was doing.

In December of 2019, our legislation passed. The Cruz-Shaheen sanctions legislation passed. Now, I will remind you what the Russian disinformation did when we first introduced it. They said it will never pass; and they said, even if it does pass, it is too late for it to have any effect.

Well, if my memory serves me correctly, President Trump signed the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions legislation at 7 p.m. on a Thursday. At 6:45 p.m. on a Thursday, 15 minutes before our sanctions legislation was signed into law, the company that was laying the pipeline in the Baltic Sea announced it had immediately halted laying the pipeline

and it was lifting anchor and sailing away. It was an incredible bipartisan victory. The pipeline was stopped in its tracks.

What happened next was absolutely nothing. For a year, the pipeline lay dormant. The talking points from Vladimir Putin--and now, sadly, adopted by Joe Biden and his administration--is the pipeline is 90 percent complete or the pipeline is 95 percent complete. But it is not rocket science that a 90-percent complete pipeline is zero-percent complete. Until you build both ends of the pipeline, it ain't nothing but a hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean. Nothing is traveling through it until the pipeline is complete and online.

For a year, the pipeline lay dormant. Then in the year 2020, Senator Shaheen and I joined together again in a second round of bipartisan legislation, a second round of sanctions. We had stopped the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline in its tracks. For a year, Putin was stopped altogether.

And we came together for a second piece of legislation--the second version of Cruz-Shaheen--and just like the first sanctions, we passed it through both Houses of Congress and it was signed into law with overwhelming bipartisan support--nearly unanimous support of all 535 Members of Congress.

So we now had two major pieces of sanctions legislation on the books. Those sanctions had been working for a year and the pipeline was stopped.

Then in November of 2020 was the Presidential election. And in the wake of the Presidential election, Joe Biden and his transition team almost immediately began telegraphing weakness to Russia. Members of Joe Biden's foreign policy advisory team in the German newspapers expressed openness to Nord Stream 2 being built, expressed a willingness to try to circumvent the sanctions that had been working and had worked for over a year. Within days of Joe Biden and his team expressing weakness to Putin, Russia and Putin heard and they began the process of getting ready to return to building the pipeline.

(Thereupon, Ms. STABENOW assumed the Chair.)

Russia did return to building the pipeline. Do you know what day? January 24, 2021. Four days after Joe Biden was sworn into office, Putin said: We are safe. We are free. Our man Joe is in the White House.

And we know that the administration is not going to follow U.S. law anymore. And so on January 24, the Russians returned to building the pipeline.

Now, for 2 years, this body had been united, Republicans and Democrats, that we were going to stop this pipeline; but Joe Biden and his administration decided instead to waive the sanctions, decided instead to give Vladimir Putin what amounts to a multibillion-dollar gift--and not just a gift one time. If this pipeline is allowed to go online, it will put billions of dollars in Putin's pockets every year, year after year after year.

What are the consequences of Nord Stream 2?

No. 1, Russia gets richer; Russia gets stronger; Russia gets billions of dollars that it can use to build its military, to threaten its neighbors, to threaten our allies, to endanger the lives of Americans and our friends.

No. 2, Europe is hurt. Our friends and allies in Europe are made even more dependent on Russian energy.

Our former colleague in this body, Senator John McCain--may he rest in peace--had a phrase for Russia that was memorable, that I have used many times. He referred to Russia as ``a gas station with a country attached.''

That is Putin's plan. It is very simple. Putin is a petrol tyrant. He is a tyrant, he is a bully, he is a KGB thug, and all his aggression is funded by selling oil and gas.

Together, Republicans and Democrats in Congress had taken billions out of Putin's pockets; and, sadly, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris decided the world would be a better place if instead Putin had billions more not just this year or next year, but for decades to come.

When Putin is dead and buried and the next dictator is ruling over Russia, that next dictator will be reaping the benefits of this pipeline. Indeed, as a result of Joe Biden's decision, many are referring to this pipeline as the Biden-Putin pipeline for a very simple reason: It is Putin who is building it; it is Putin who is profiting by it.

And the only reason Putin is allowed to do so is because President Joe Biden has given a multibillion-dollar gift that strengthens Russia and it weakens Europe.

It makes Europe subject to energy blackmail. Putin has demonstrated a willingness and, indeed, a history of using energy blackmail, of using those who are dependent on natural gas to coerce them to do what he wants. In the dead of winter, when people are at risk of freezing to death, Putin has threatened to--and has, in fact--cut off gas to endanger the lives of innocent civilians in order to coerce governments to bend to his will.

As a result of Joe Biden's surrender to Vladimir Putin, Putin will have the continued ability to exercise economic blackmail against Europe.

But not only that. Europe has energy needs. Those energy needs could be readily satisfied by American energy. Europe has expressed a willingness and, in some instances, an eagerness to import American energy.

But Joe Biden has decided that American jobs are unimportant. On his first day in office, Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline, killing 11,000 jobs in the United States, including 8,000 union jobs--8,000 high-paying union jobs that, with a stroke of a pen, Joe Biden eliminated.

And at the exact same time that Biden is shutting down jobs and a pipeline in America, he is green lighting and giving Putin a gift of a pipeline between Russia and Germany, producing jobs in Russia, producing billions of dollars in Russia, and taking away jobs in America.

This pipeline is a disaster. As the afternoon goes on, I will elaborate on different aspects on which it is harmful and on the steps we can and should be taking to stop it.

But at this point, Senator Barrasso is here and has some thoughts he wishes to express, and so I will yield the floor to Senator Barrasso for his remarks.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his powerful remarks, and I thank each of the Senators who have worked with me, both Republicans and Democrats, in our successful effort for over a year to stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline--successful, right until Joe Biden became President.

I want to talk now about the precise dangers that are posed by the completion of Nord Stream 2. Many agree it would be a catastrophe for the security of the United States and for our European allies.

Nord Stream 2, if it goes online, would double the gas flowing from Russia to Germany while circumventing American allies that Putin targets militarily, diplomatically, and commercially. As a result, if Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will expose Ukraine and Poland to deep, long-term dangers, and it will leave them vulnerable the next time Russia targets them for aggression.

Right now, one-third of Russian gas exports to Europe travel through Ukraine. That provides Ukraine a curious kind of protection because Putin knows that he can't endanger that energy infrastructure without endangering his economic line to the world.

With Nord Stream 2, Putin and Russia are given, by Joe Biden and by Kamala Harris, effectively open season on Ukraine. And when a year from now we see Russian tanks in Ukraine, we will remember this moment that it was Joe Biden's surrender to Putin on Nord Stream 2 that enabled Russia to carry out that aggression.

If Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will enrich Putin with billions of dollars to direct toward his malign activities. And, by the way, if you don't want to take my word for it, here is what the Polish Prime Minister said about Nord Stream 2; that Nord Stream 2 ``strengthens Russia's power, helps President Putin to build a military power, [and] helps to intimidate other nations.''

In addition, if Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will solidify Russian energy dominance at the expense of European energy diversification. If Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will deepen the corruption that tragically is endemic across Russia's energy sector, and it will export more of that corruption to Europe.

But I want to talk a bit more about the crushing, overarching danger of Russia using Nord Stream 2 for blackmail and for coercion. Putin uses energy as a weapon. We have seen that pattern over and over again. He uses energy for blackmail and coercion. He turns it off or on to punish resistance to his expansionism.

This is a real, acute, and proven threat. Russia turned off the gas to Europe in the winter months of 2006 and again in 2009 because of political disputes. The Kremlin company that owns and would run Nord Stream 2, Gazprom, has repeatedly cut off gas to Ukraine during political crises. It is open blackmail, and because of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Putin will have more power to blackmail our friends in Europe.

And it is not only me; it is not only Republicans; and, indeed, it is not only Republicans and Democrats in Congress who understand the magnitude of this threat. Our European allies understand fully just how disastrous Nord Stream 2 would be.

Ukrainian President Zelensky has said that it is flatout ``wrong'' ``not to notice that'' Nord Stream 2 ``is a dangerous weapon'' not only for Europe, ``not only for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe.''

I want you to pause and reflect. President Zelensky of Ukraine said this pipeline is a dangerous weapon directed at Ukraine and the whole of Europe. Why is it being built? Because Joe Biden decided to give it as a gift to Vladimir Putin.

In a meeting with the Biden administration, the Polish Deputy Foreign Minister said:

Poland considers this project to be detrimental to the

security of not only Ukraine, not only Central Europe, but

also to the security of the whole of Europe, making the EU

dependent on Russian gas.

If we give a damn about our friends in Poland, if we give a damn about our friends in Ukraine, if we give a damn about our friends in Europe, don't allow Joe Biden to allow Vladimir Putin to point this weapon at the heart of Europe.

In a joint statement signed by representatives of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Parliaments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, here is what the Estonian Foreign Affairs Committee stated: ``Countering malign Russian aggression is in the vital national security interest of the whole of NATO, the EU and our partners in Central and Eastern Europe,'' and that ``Nord Stream 2 is a geopolitical project geared towards expanding Russia's influence on Europe, through energy dominance.''

A question for every Member of this Senate to decide: Do we care about endangering the national security, about threatening, about making our European friends subject to blackmail? Do we care about what Estonia has told us, about what Latvia has told us, about what Lithuania has told us? Do we care about the Czech Republic? Do we care about Ireland? Do we care about Poland? Do we care about Ukraine? Do we care about the United Kingdom?

Well, our actions can decide that. Unfortunately, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have decided that our European allies, their security is not of sufficient concern to them. And, instead, they have actively given this pipeline to Vladimir Putin.

My Democratic colleagues and, indeed, the vast majority of American lawmakers, also understand the precise danger of blackmail and coercion posed by Nord Stream 2.

In 2018, Senator Coons, my Democratic colleague from Delaware, said quite plainly that ``we have to work with Europe to reduce its dependence on Russian energy exports and in particular to convince it to discontinue the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany.'' Senator Coons continued: ``As long as Russia dominates the provision of energy to Europe it will continue to hold a veto over many European policies and [it] will be in a position to weaken and marginalize countries like Poland and Ukraine.''

Senator Coons was right in 2018, and what he said is right today.

Joe Biden is committing a generational political blunder, a catastrophic mistake that hurts American national security and that hurts European security.

Congress has repeatedly passed sanctions targeting Nord Stream 2, targeting Russia's corrupt energy market more broadly. Those sanctions, especially CAATSA and PEESA--and I am going to discuss in greater detail, later today, the specific sanctions legislation that is on U.S. books that Joe Biden is ignoring, that he is flouting, that he is disregarding, that he is refusing to enforce. Those sanctions impose mandatory sanctions. This body, Congress as a whole, Democrats and Republicans, past administrations--everyone has worked together not just to counter Russia but, specifically, to prevent Putin from being able to leverage energy as a geopolitical weapon.

The Biden administration, however, tells us they have a better solution, a better solution than both Houses of Congress, a better solution than following U.S. law. Instead of imposing sanctions to stop the pipeline, they tell us they have worked out a deal with Germany that they promise will prevent Putin from being able to use energy as a weapon. It is the best of both worlds, they say. They don't have to use sanctions, and they still solve the problem of Russian energy blackmail.

President Biden said: ``Chancellor Merkel and I are absolutely united in our conviction that Russia must not be allowed to use energy as a weapon to coerce or threaten its neighbors.''

Those are nice sentiments, if they weren't accompanied with Joe Biden giving a multibillion-dollar generational gift to Putin to do exactly what President Biden just said he didn't want Putin to do.

Here is how an official from the Biden State Department described the deal: ``There's a clear commitment on the part of the United States and Germany in this statement that should Russia attempt to use energy as a weapon''--and, as an aside, they have done so over and over and over and over again in the past--``should Russia attempt to use energy as a weapon . . . Germany will take action at the national level and press for effective measures at the European level, including sanctions to limit Russian export capabilities to Europe in the energy sector, and that includes gas and/or other economically relevant sectors.''

So understand what they are saying. If and when Russia does what they have done in the past over and over again, if they do--one of the reasons they want Nord Stream 2 is to exercise economic blackmail. If and when they do that, Germany is going to send a really stern letter to the European Union.

One of my favorite movies that Heidi and I have watched many times is a movie called ``Team America.'' It is a comedy. It is done by the creators of the movie ``South Park.'' It is a movie that involves puppets. I will give a warning: It is a movie with an enormous amount of profanity in it. It is also one of the most sidesplittingly funny movies ever made.

In ``Team America,'' they talk about Hans Blix and the tool of sending a stern letter to the United Nations. The movie ``Team America'' understandably ridicules that as being utterly ineffective. In the case of that movie, it was North Korea. But in the case of Putin, I assure you, Vladimir Putin has not lost 1 minute of sleep worrying about Germany's letter to the European Union.

Once Nord Stream 2 goes online, it will become a dominant source of energy for Europe. Putin knows this. Merkel knows this. Biden knows this.

Turning off Nord Stream 2, which Germany has suggested: Oh, once we are addicted to the crack, we will just turn it off when we don't want it anymore--that would be suicidal, which Putin knows, and he is counting on it.

It is as empty and hollow a threat as has ever been uttered on the international stage. And, even worse, we already know that it is a hollow threat because Putin has already, in just the last few days, crossed the line into using energy as a weapon.

So we don't have to go back to 2006. We don't have to go back to 2009. Let's go back to last week.

In just the last week, it has become clear that Putin has been turning down gas exports to Europe to coerce our allies into dropping opposition to Nord Stream 2.

The blackmail is open, and it is brazen. Russian and Gazprom officials have said: If Germany and the EU approve Nord Stream 2 coming online, then the Russians will turn exports back up.

On Friday, more than 40 Members of the European Parliament called for an investigation of the coercion, saying Gazprom was driving up prices to ``pressure'' the European Union into speeding Nord Stream 2 activation.

So I want you to pause and reflect. The Biden administration's claim to prevent Nord Stream 2 being used as a weapon for energy blackmail is, if Russia ever does it, Germany will stand up to them.

Russia is doing it right now--not in 2006--well, yes, they did in 2006. Not in 2009--well, yes, they did in 2009. Today, last week--and they are not hiding it. They are saying: We are going to cut off your energy until you approve Nord Stream 2.

How exactly is the Biden administration claiming they are going to prevent the malign use of this pipeline? They are literally surrendering to blackmail right now for no reason.

You know, sadly, the reason--over the past 9 months, I have had conversations with just about every senior Biden State Department nominee, in my office, over and over and over again, about Nord Stream 2. Almost to a person, the nominees agree: Nord Stream 2 would be terrible. It would be disastrous. It would be bad for America. It would be bad for Europe. It would be good for Russia.

They all agree with that. By the way, Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, said so vociferously in his confirmation hearing, and he said so even more vociferously sitting on the couch in my office. They all admit this.

So why, then, would Biden have committed this disastrous mistake? Sadly, I think there are two reasons. One, the Biden team entered office with an almost pathological revulsion to anything the previous administration did. If the Trump administration did it, it must be wrong and must be reversed.

Now, listen. None of us in this Chamber are naive. We understand politics. We understand that when one party takes over from the other party, they often reverse policy decisions. That is not unusual.

Obama reversed decisions of the Bush administration. Trump reversed decisions of the Obama administration. And there are a whole lot of decisions of the Trump administration that, sadly, from my perspective, Biden is reversing. As a general matter, that is why we have elections, and there are differences between the policy positions between the two parties.

But the Biden team is further than that. It is almost a pathological ``if Trump did it, it must be bad.'' Never mind that the Trump administration

did this only after the Congress came together in an extraordinary moment of bipartisan unity and passed this as mandatory legislation.

In my office, over and over again, with just about every senior Biden State Department nominee, I asked them: Please don't turn one of the biggest foreign policy victories of the last several years into one of the biggest foreign policy defeats of the last several years.

The reports came out, actually, that State tried to honor its commitment; that State--the Department of State--in the interagency process, argued for ``let's follow the law; let's impose the sanctions.'' And what public reports have suggested is that the Biden White House--the political operatives in the Biden White House-- overruled State.

So even though State knew that the right policy was ``shut down the Putin pipeline'' and the wrong policy was ``turn it into the Biden- Putin pipeline,'' the Biden White House desperately wanted to stamp their imprimatur on this, because if it was done under President Trump, they were going to reverse it.

The second reason is that the Biden foreign policy team, for whatever reason, has a deep and abiding interest in giving to Germany whatever it is they want.

Now, look, Germany is an important friend and ally. We work together closely with Germany on economic matters, on diplomatic matters. We have long and positive relationships with our friend and ally Germany. It doesn't mean we agree with everything the Germans do, any more than we agree with everything any other ally of ours does.

Indeed, I will point out, in the past week, the Biden administration precipitated the French withdrawing their Ambassador from America--an extraordinary moment, which, I will point out, at least illustrates that we have a history of having disagreements, and sometimes serious disagreements, with our friends and allies.

But one friend of mine has a phrase--he puts it--that the Biden foreign policy establishment, they sleep with votive candles of Angela Merkel under their beds; that they view Chancellor Merkel as someone who must be surrendered to, acquiesced to no matter what. Never mind that Chancellor Merkel has an extremely limited tenure in office. She is on her way out. Never mind that the next successor government in Germany may well decide that they don't even want Nord Stream 2. This Biden foreign policy team, perhaps as a farewell gift to Angela Merkel, has decided that President Biden should surrender to Putin. That makes no sense. That is dangerous. It is harmful to Europe, it is harmful to Germany, it is harmful to America, and it helps Russia.

We are going to have an extended period of time to continue to discuss these matters, but at this point, I see that Senator Shaheen is preparing to speak, so I yield the floor to Senator Shaheen.

Mr. President, I would like to discuss now how Nord Stream 2 is an unprecedented example, a contemporary example, of bipartisan unity. Democrats and Republicans both know that Nord Stream 2 is a terrible idea. It is a terrible idea for Europe, and it is a terrible idea for the United States.

Here are several examples of the bipartisan agreement we have. It has been commonplace to say that bipartisanship doesn't exist, but Nord Stream 2 refutes that.

The first wave of sanctions authored by me and by Senator Shaheen goes back to the summer of 2019. At a July 31 hearing, several Democrats spoke out against Nord Stream 2 and its support of the Cruz- Shaheen sanctions to stop it.

Here are some of the things they said. Senator Menendez said:

I think the international community must stand firm against

opening more doors and creating new opportunities for further

Kremlin aggression in Ukraine leading to the loss of life.

The Russian Federation has repeatedly used its energy

resources as a lever of power, and I believe Nord Stream 2 is

no exception. Not only will it considerably strengthen the

Kremlin's stranglehold on Europe, but it allows Moscow to

further undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and stability.

Senator Shaheen said:

We have heard in our office directly from other countries

in Eastern and Central Europe, and the Baltics, and many of

the Nordic states, and of course especially Ukraine, who

understand that this pipeline is an effort to increase

reliance on Russia among Europe. And I would argue that this

does nothing to strengthen the transatlantic alliance, the

Nord Stream 2 pipeline. In fact, it actually decreases

support for the alliance.

Here is what Senator Coons from Delaware said:

I, like many of us, have been to Ukraine, remain gravely

concerned about Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine,

and the ways in which Russia finances its aggression through

the use of its sole remaining export of any interest, which

is energy.

Senator Menendez was right. Senator Shaheen was right. Senator Coons was right. That consensus has held for over 2 years, Democrats and Republicans, even through the Biden administration's catastrophic decision to green light the pipeline and to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin.

This issue was central to a June 8 meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after Biden had defied U.S. law and given a multibillion-dollar gift to Putin.

Here is what Senator Menendez said after Biden acted:

I think many of us on a bipartisan basis were deeply

concerned about the administration's decision to waive

sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG. . . . I would have thought

that one of the most significant ways to show strength is to

ensure that the pipeline is killed.

Senator Menendez was right.

Senator Merkley even condemned the pipeline for issues he said were directly related to climate change, which is something Biden officials claim is utterly sacrosanct in this administration.

The consensus, even after the Biden administration formally announced that it had struck a deal surrendering entirely to Russia on the pipeline--nonetheless, we saw the bipartisan consensus remain.

On July 21, Senator Kaine said:

I'm not happy about it. . . . I'm not happy about it in

terms of Russian politics, and I'm not happy about it in

terms of climate change.

Senator Kaine was right.

Senator Shaheen said she was ``skeptical that [the agreement] will be sufficient when the key player at the table--Russia--refuses to play by the rules.''

Senator Shaheen was right. She was right to be skeptical that the agreement from the Biden administration, mind you, will be sufficient when the key player at the table--Russia--refuses to play by the rules.

And I would note that the consensus wasn't limited to the Senate. On the other side of the Capitol in the U.S. House of Representatives, that same sentiment was broadly echoed both during the previous administration and during the current administration.

At the beginning of my push for the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions in 2019, Democratic Representative Engel said:

Russia has weaponized its energy resources, expanding into

European markets and creating greater and greater dependency,

particularly with projects such as the Nord Stream 2.

Representative Engel was right.

Several years later, after the announcement of President Biden's complete surrender to Russia on Nord Stream 2, Representative Kaptur told a Polish newspaper that she and much of the House of Representatives were disappointed with the deal. She said:

I am very disappointed by the Biden administration's

willingness to allow Russian gas to reach the heart of Europe

via Nord Stream 2, endangering energy security. . . . We

consider this a dangerous project from a security point of

view.

Representative Kaptur was right.

Supporters of the Biden administration will say: Well, of course, everybody opposes Nord Stream 2, but there is no way to stop it.

That excuse is disingenuous. That excuse is laughable on its face. Now, why is that? Because it is the identical excuse that was central to the Russian disinformation 2 years ago. In the summer of 2019, when I first authored the bipartisan sanctions to stop Nord Stream 2, the Russian disinformation campaign in Europe was predicated on the proposition that the pipeline was 95 percent complete, and they said: Gosh, you can't stop it. There is nothing you can do to stop it.

They halted construction of the pipeline 15 minutes before our bipartisan sanctions were signed into law, and for over a year, the pipeline lay dormant as a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.

So every time the Biden administration says ``It was too far along; we couldn't stop it,'' you know what--it was just as far along in December of 2019, and we stopped it then. It was just as far along in January of 2020, and we stopped it then. We stopped it in February. We stopped it in March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. And it wasn't until January, January 24--4 days after Joe Biden took the oath of office--that Russia resumed building the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.

The only reason they couldn't stop it is because Joe Biden wanted to surrender to Putin, because the answer is, Republicans and Democrats in this Chamber had stopped it for over a year, until Joe Biden came in and turned victory into defeat; until Joe Biden came in and offered complete capitulation--and might I note, in exchange for nothing.

Let me ask you, what did the Biden administration get in exchange for a multibillion-dollar gift--and not a one-time gift; a gift every year for decades in perpetuity? What did the Biden administration get? Not a damn thing. Nothing. It was simply a complete capitulation. Surrender.

Now, defenders of the Biden administration will say: Well, maybe we could have stopped it a few months ago, before the pipeline was complete. But in between January and this month, the Russian efforts built the pipeline, and they just announced it is complete. So now we should surrender, right? There is nothing that can be done about it.

Well, that, in fact, is not true. That is a second wave of disinformation. Now, why is that true? That is not true because before the pipeline can go online, there are a series of certifications that are required. Nord Stream 2 AG, the company that is responsible for

planning, construction, and eventual operation of Nord Stream 2, needs to be granted formal permission as a gas transmitter. There are many regulatory hurdles in their way--hurdles that have not yet been cleared. The process at a minimum should take many months, and the process could be derailed at any time.

First, there has to be an inspection process. Each of Nord Stream 2's strings has to be inspected to make sure there are no leaks, and part of that requires confirming that the pipelines were installed correctly. Part of that has already begun with air. Nobody knows how it has been going.

Then, there has to be an additional technical certification. This will be extremely difficult for Nord Stream 2 AG because the bipartisan sanctions legislation that I wrote and passed with Senator Shaheen and that Congress passed imposes mandatory sanctions on anyone who certifies the pipeline for operation.

Now, pause and think about that for a second. The pipeline can't go into effect unless it is certified. U.S. law passed overwhelmingly by Democrats and Republicans in this Congress, signed into law in the U.S. Code, says anyone who certifies it faces mandatory, crushing sanctions from the United States. The company that was originally going to certify it withdrew after the sanctions became law. The only way that a different company would dare to certify is if they believed the Biden administration would look the other way, would bless their certification in outright defiance of U.S. law.

Then, apart from the technical issues, Nord Stream 2 AG still has to be certified as a gas transmission operator as a matter of regulation and law. That should take at a minimum many months and require delicate negotiations between the company and the regulators.

You know, what is striking is, everything that I am saying has been said by the Biden administration. So right now, their talking points are ``There is nothing we can do. It is a done deal. We have surrendered. We have given up. There is nothing we can do,'' but when they were in the process of surrendering, they said everything I just told you.

Until recently, even the top officials of the Biden administration acknowledged that physical completion of Nord Stream 2 didn't make its activation a fait accompli.

On June 8, Secretary of State Blinken testified that ``even when the pipeline is physically complete, for it to go into operation, it still requires insurance, it still requires various permits, and we are looking very carefully at all of that.'' Secretary Blinken said that ``it was too late to stop the joining of those pipes. Its operation is another matter.''

Secretary Blinken was wrong when he said it was too late to stop the joining of the pipes because we stopped them for over a year, until Biden surrendered to Putin, but he wasn't wrong when he said we could still stop the operation of it.

Given these requirements and this time line, the path for America is obvious: We should sanction Nord Stream 2 AG, the parent company of the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. That will automatically isolate the company, and it will signal our readiness to follow the law, to impose more sanctions, and to ensure that everyone knows that involvement with Putin's pipeline brings with it crippling, company-ending sanctions. Indeed, that is exactly why Congress has repeatedly passed legislation--bipartisan legislation--to stop this pipeline. But instead of obeying the law, President Biden decided brazenly and willfully to defy Federal law--to defy Congress's mandate.

In May, President Biden transmitted a communication to Congress that acknowledged, yes, he was obliged to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG for violating the sanctions that Congress had passed and passed overwhelmingly, but instead of imposing those mandatory sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, given the clear and unequivocal intent of Congress, the Biden administration chose instead to waive them. It was a disastrous decision. It was a decision based on weakness and capitulation to Russia. It hurt our friends and allies in Europe, and it hurt the United States of America.

It is a decision that can be reversed. Right now, the pipeline, if this pipeline goes into effect, will be the Biden-Putin pipeline. It doesn't have to be. This was designed at the outset to be the Putin pipeline, and when it was the Putin pipeline, we stopped it. Republicans stopped it. Democrats stopped it. We came together at a time of partisan division and we said together: Giving billions of dollars to Putin, to Russia, for aggressive military hostility, subjecting Europe to energy blackmail, making Europe dependent on Putin's gas, and destroying American jobs is bad all around.

Congress succeeded. It was the Putin pipeline until January 24, 2021. Joe Biden had just been sworn into office, and Putin, after a year of dormancy, began building the pipeline again because Biden had already signaled he intended to capitulate.

When we convene next week, I am going to discuss in greater detail the compromise that I have offered to the Biden administration and Senate Democrats to move forward on more of their nominees if they accept a compromise solution on Nord Stream 2. The Biden administration has had this compromise offer for 2 months, and they have done nothing with it.

But I would suggest something right now. In the course of my remarks, I have read quote after quote after quote from Senate Democrats. Senate Democrats know this pipeline is a disaster for America. Senate Democrats know that surrendering to Putin is bad for America. But Senate Democrats are scared to stand up to a Democratic President.

I can tell you, when we had a Republican President, President Trump, there were some in the Trump administration who resisted these bipartisan sanctions, and as a Republican, I was perfectly willing to stand up to a Republican administration for those who were resisting these sanctions and to press them hard.

So my request to my Democratic colleagues is, show that you actually believe what you said in 2019 and 2020 and 2021. Show that you care about U.S. national security. Let's stand together, and let's reclaim that bipartisan consensus we have had for 2 years that Nord Stream 2 is bad for America and bad for our allies.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to call attention to the humanitarian crisis that is happening right now in the State of Texas, another one happening right now in Del Rio, TX--yet another consequence of President Biden's and Vice President Harris's dangerous refusal to enforce our laws or to protect our border, a refusal that is causing people to die; that is causing young girls to be trafficked; that is causing drugs to pour into our State; and that is causing our communities to become much less safe.

Right now, thousands of Haitians are camped under a bridge in Del Rio, TX,

after illegally entering our country. Six days ago, I went down to Del Rio myself to see firsthand what was going on and why this was happening. The sheer number of people under the bridge took my breath away. People were struggling enormously, including infants, including young children, and I learned from authorities on the ground what had happened and that this was a man-made crisis. To understand what occurred, we have to go back to September 8.

On September 8 and in the weeks that preceded it, there were between 700 and 1,000 people under that bridge in Del Rio. That was about the traffic that was coming in each day illegally. Then, on September 8, the Biden administration made a political decision. There were some 900 Haitian illegal immigrants who were scheduled to board planes and be deported back to Haiti. Roughly, 85 percent of the illegal immigrants crossing at Del Rio are from Haiti originally. On September 8, the Biden administration canceled those planes. It informed those 900 Haitians that they would not be deported but that they would, instead, be allowed to stay in the United States, and what happened next is simple.

Those 900 picked up their phones, and they called their friends; they called their families; they texted their friends and families. Between the period of September 8, when the Biden administration canceled those flights back to Haiti and September 16--8 days later when I was in Del Rio--the 700 people under the bridge had become 10,503. That is what the total was the day I was there--10,503 packed in in deplorable conditions. They had already crossed into the United States. They were packed under that bridge because the Border Patrol lacked the capacity to process anything close to that number, and within a couple more days, the 10,503 had become 15,000 people.

To put that in perspective, the city of Del Rio has a population of 35,000 people. Nearly half the population of Del Rio was under that bridge. We have seen bread and water and toilet paper and basic necessities flying off store shelves in Del Rio, which wasn't expecting to have to handle such a massive influx of illegal immigrants.

The people of Del Rio are concerned; they are dismayed; they don't understand why the Federal Government refuses to enforce the law. Law enforcement is concerned and dismayed and doesn't understand why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won't enforce the law. The mayor in Del Rio is a Democrat, and he is frustrated and dismayed with the crisis the Federal Government has caused.

In the past month, I have traveled throughout South Texas, doing roundtables--sitting down with farmers and ranchers, sitting down with sheriffs and local law enforcement, sitting down with elected officials. A great many of the elected officials in South Texas are Democrats. South Texas, historically, has been a very Democratic region of the State. To a person, every elected Democrat with whom I sat down was horrified at what was happening.

More than one elected Democrat in South Texas said to me: If the National Democratic Party is the party of open borders, I can't be for that.

You know, in this body, we listen to lots of elected officials from States that don't have a border with Mexico pontificate on how enforcing the border is somehow cruel. I will tell you what is cruel: having 10,503 people underneath a bridge, in shantytown conditions, where children, where women, where men are sleeping out in the elements and where even more come.

One of the things that strikes me about that Del Rio influx is many of those individuals had already been granted asylum in Mexico. So they had come from Haiti to Mexico. They had been granted asylum--they were living legally in Mexico--but when the Biden administration canceled the flights back to Haiti and word got out of, ``Hey, come to Del Rio. It is olly olly oxen free. If you come to Del Rio, you can stay in America,'' it took 8 days for 700 people to become 10,503.

The Biden administration has also shut down five Border Patrol checkpoints in the Del Rio sector area of responsibility so they can redirect personnel just to process the mass of illegal immigrants under the bridge in Del Rio, and, of course, it is at those checkpoints that trucks carrying illegal immigrants or trucks carrying drugs into our country are caught.

So, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris pulling the personnel away from that, we know yet more illegal immigrants will stream into this country. We know yet more women will be raped and sexually assaulted by human traffickers. We know more children--more little boys and more little girls--will face physical assault and sexual assault from human traffickers. We also know that more heroin, more fentanyl--more illegal drugs--will pour into our States. And, by the way, not just the State of Texas, but every State in the Union will have more people die from illegal drugs because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refuse to enforce the law and are pulling law enforcement off of their job of protecting our communities.

On Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas went down to Del Rio. Let me say I am glad he did. Joe Biden hasn't been to Del Rio. Kamala Harris hasn't been to Del Rio. She is ostensibly the border control czar, but the czar can't be bothered to actually go to the southern border where the crisis is occurring.

Secretary Mayorkas, in Del Rio, said: ``We are very concerned that Haitians who are taking this irregular migration path are receiving false information that the border is open.''

Well, I wonder why they think the border is open. Maybe it is because the Biden administration halted the deportation flights to Haiti. Maybe it is because Joe Biden is releasing Haitians who illegally cross the border at Del Rio into the United States at a staggering scale. Maybe it is because Joe Biden halted construction of the border wall the day that he became President. Maybe it is because Joe Biden reinstated the failed catch-and-release policy or maybe it is because Joe Biden, on day 1 of the Presidency, ended the incredibly successful ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, which was an international agreement that President Trump had negotiated with the Government of Mexico that provided that when people crossed illegally into Mexico, that they would remain in Mexico while their U.S. asylum case was proceeding.

That agreement was phenomenally successful--so much so that last year, in 2020, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.

I want to point out to you that some of the Democratic Party, some in the media like to say: Well, this problem has been with us a long time. This problem is not Joe Biden's fault; it is not Kamala Harris' fault. We can't solve the crisis at our southern border.

If you hear elected Democrats saying that, if you hear the corrupt corporate media saying that, you know they are not telling you the truth.

Why is that? Because last year, 12 months ago, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. We know how to solve this crisis. The ``Remain in Mexico'' international agreement worked, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, for political reasons, decided to tear up that international agreement and declare open season on our southern border.

This year, since Joe Biden has been President, over 1.2 million illegal immigrants have come into the United States. We are on pace for more than 2 million this year, which is the highest rate in 20 years.

Do you want to see how much policy and politics matter? We went from the lowest rate in 45 years last year to the highest rate in 21 years this year. And it is all because of politics, because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had made promises to the open-border radicals in their party.

I will tell you, I have been to the border. I have been to the Biden cages. For 4 years, Democrats went on and on and on. The corrupt corporate media went on and on and on about kids in cages. You couldn't turn on the evening news without hearing ``kids in cages.''

What they didn't tell you is that Barack Obama built those cages, and, today, under Joe Biden, the cages are bigger and they are more full than they were before.

Every Democrat who stood up and lamented ``kids in cages'' and the House of Representatives--Representative Ocasio-Cortez has a famous photo of her grasping her head by the kids in cages. Well, I am going to give a simple challenge for Representative Ocasio-

Cortez and for every Democrat in this body: Go see the Biden cages with your own eyes.

I have seen them--the Donna tent facility, with over 4,000 people, with little boys and little girls on top of each other. Just a couple of weeks ago, when I was in the Rio Grande Valley, the rate of COVID positivity in the Biden cages was over 22 percent.

And all the Democrats who talked about this, if they don't go, if they don't denounce the Biden cages, then they are telling you that they are hypocrites; that they didn't believe it when they said it; that they didn't care about it when they said it; that it was all politics. It wasn't about their kids.

Why does Joe Biden refuse to go to the Rio Grande Valley? Because if he goes, the TV cameras will come with him.

Why does Kamala Harris, who is supposed to be the border czar--she is supposed to be in charge of this--why won't she go to the Rio Grande Valley? Because if she went, the TV cameras would come and would show the Biden cages.

And the Democrats are counting on the corrupt corporate media to suddenly say: Nothing to see here. Fifteen thousand Haitians under a bridge in Del Rio? Nothing to see here.

Does anyone want to know what Joe Biden's favorite ice cream flavor is? That is the news. Never mind 1.2 million illegal immigrants. Never mind when I took 19 Senators down to the border. We went out on the river and saw a man floating dead in the river who died trying to cross illegally. Never mind the South Texas farmers and ranchers, the moms who told me: I won't let my teenage kids go out on our ranch without being armed with a loaded firearm because there are so many human traffickers and narcotics traffickers that it is dangerous for them to go out on their own ranch.

Never mind the South Texas farmers and ranchers, who told me at roundtables how tired they are of going out and finding dead bodies.

Do you want to understand what is happening? You say there is no crisis? Come to Brooks County. I invite every Democrat here to Brooks County. Brooks County in South Texas, it is just north of the border. Brooks County, over and over and over again, there are dead bodies of illegal immigrants.

The traffickers who are bringing them in, they are not nice guys. They are not humanitarians. They don't give a damn. That means, if one of the illegal immigrants is a pregnant woman, is a young child, is elderly, is sick, they just abandon them. They leave them in the rough terrain in the summer heat, and, over and over again, the farmers and ranchers encounter dead bodies on their property, where the traffickers have abandoned them.

I ask you: Is that humane? Is that compassionate, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris policy that encourages, that puts people in harm's way and results in people dying?

When we were down at the border, we saw a young girl who had been gang raped by the human traffickers who had brought her to America. The rate of sexual assault is staggering, particularly among the girls and young women, so much so that a significant percentage of young women, before they take the harrowing trip with the traffickers, will implant a birth control because they know the odds of their being sexually assaulted are so great.

And I will tell you, as I was doing the roundtables, one of the things I saw also was the colored wrist bands. So the traffickers are global cartels that are criminals. They are vicious criminals. They charge anyone--a young man, a young woman, a little boy, a little girl--thousands of dollars, anywhere from 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, $8,000 to cross into the United States.

By the way, do you know there is 100-percent operational control on the border--100 percent--on the southern side? Nobody crosses the border without the cartels' permission. If you do, they will kill you. Every person who crosses the border does so after paying the cartels, because you will be killed otherwise.

But often, when they come, they will cross, and they will end up at a stash house. I have been to those stash houses. I have been out on the midnight patrols with the Border Patrol. You go into those stash houses, and there are colored wrist bands that they put on the illegal immigrants, and the colors correspond to how many thousands of dollars they paid and how many thousands of dollars more they owe.

Often, when they get here, the cartels will say: Thank you for your x thousand dollars. We want y thousand more.

Tragically, it is at those stash houses in the United States where many of the sexual assaults occur. And so these immigrants, many of whom are young children, teenage children, when they get here, the Biden administration delivers them to their final destination. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their administration are the last mile of the human trafficking network.

But for the 14-, 15-year-old boy who arrives in Atlanta, who arrives in New York, who arrives in Detroit, who arrives in Nashville--many of those 14- and 15-year-old boys owe thousands of dollars to the cartels, which means they arrive in your city--you might think Georgia is not a border State. But when teenagers are arriving in Atlanta owing thousands of dollars to the cartels, they work for the cartels, and the cartels know who their family is and where their family is, and they risk their mother or father being murdered if they don't work for the cartels to pay off the cartels.

The young women have it even worse. There are teenage girls who make the decision: I want to come to America; I want to come to the promised land.

We have been a beacon of hope to millions throughout our history. They don't realize they are stepping into Hell on Earth when the traffickers take them and then take them to a cartel facility in whatever city they end up in, where many of those teenage girls, still owing thousands of dollars to the cartels, have to work to pay off that debt by forced prostitution. Young girls forced into a life of sex slavery because the alternative is murder at the hand of the cartels. This is happening.

The fact that Joe Biden doesn't want to talk about it, the fact that Kamala Harris claims it is not happening, the fact that the corrupt corporate media ignores it, it doesn't stop the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are suffering.

Mr. President, you and I are on the Senate Judiciary Committee. We have had four hearings in the Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee on amnesty. In case the American people missed it, we get that the Democrats want amnesty for every illegal alien. That is not lost on anybody.

We haven't had a single hearing on the humanitarian crisis at the border. We haven't had a single hearing on the Biden cages.

Is it really the case that no Democrat in this Chamber cares about the children being assaulted, cares about the children catching COVID, cares about the illegal immigrants being released by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with COVID into our communities?

I get, politically, that this is an inconvenient topic to discuss. It is not the political narrative Democrats want to address. But every Democrat in this body needs to ask: Did you believe one word of the rhetoric you said during the Trump administration? Or was it all politics?

And, by the way, I saw the kids in cages, and I went to them directly when Obama was President. I saw them when Trump was President. I saw them when Biden was President. The difference last year is that we had the lowest numbers in 45 years. We were fixing the problem last year by enforcing the law.

Joe Biden has created this crisis through political divisions.

I make one final point: right now, 10 to 15,000 Haitian illegal immigrants under a bridge in Del Rio, TX. It is easy for Democrats to say: Well, that is not my problem.

It is easy for Democrats to say: I have never been to Del Rio. What do I care about those folks in South Texas.

I ask you: How would this issue be different if those illegal immigrants--if their point of entry was Martha's Vineyard? How would this issue be different if their point of entry was Silicon Valley, perhaps right outside the headquarters of Google--15,000 illegal immigrants under bridges?

The corrupt corporate media doesn't care. The Democrats, I hope, will demonstrate that they do.

And I will tell you this: The American people care. What is happening at

our southern border is wrong, and it needs to end.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the life of David Lee Espinoza, who died in defense of our Nation on August 26.

David was a marine who was helping with the evacuation of the Kabul airport when he was murdered by a suicide bomber, along with 12 other service men and women who so senselessly had their lives taken from them that day. His mother got the call that every parent of every servicemember fears when she was told at 2:30 in the morning that her son had lost his life in Afghanistan.

David was just 20 years old. David was a lifelong Texan. He was born in Laredo and raised nearby in Rio Bravo, where he was the eldest of four children.

David always wanted to be a marine. And as a child, he loved to consider different military strategies as he played with toy soldiers. David joined the Marines the summer after he graduated from LBJ High School in Laredo in 2019, and he spent time serving in Jordan before being sent to Kabul the week before he died. It has been said that other service branches wanted David to join their ranks, but David always knew he was meant to be a marine.

David was a beloved son, a brother, a friend, and a fellow marine. He was a patriot who had a passion for service, and our Nation can never repay the debt that we owe to David and to his family for giving what President Lincoln hailed as ``the last full measure of devotion.''

Yesterday, at David's funeral mass, Father Francisco Stodola said:

As tragic as this loss is, and as deep as the wounds of

sorrow have pierced the hearts of his loved ones, and

particularly his mother--because a mother would rather lose

an arm or a leg than to have to lose a child--we can console

ourselves with the fact that David died doing what he wanted

to do with the people he wanted to do it with.

We will remember David and the incredible sacrifice he gave for our country. He will also be remembered by his community. The Laredo City Council has already voted to name the road in front of LBJ High School, David's alma mater, as the ``Lance Corporal David Lee Espinoza Memorial Boulevard.''

To David's parents, Elizabeth Holguin and Victor Manuel Dominguez, and to his siblings, Angel Martin Espinoza, Victor Manuel Dominguez, Jr., and Delilah Alyssa Dominguez, I want to say that your son and your brother was a brave patriot who will never be forgotten. Heidi and I are lifting you up in prayer as you mourn the loss of your beloved David.

The 91st Psalm is sometimes called the soldier's or the warrior's psalm because it asks the Lord for protection against many foes, and it assures us that the Lord will be with us in times of trouble:

Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him;

I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call on me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honor him.

David's sacrifice was not in vain. He died as he lived, giving of himself in the service of others. David now rests from his labors, having been a good and faithful servant.

And to the families of all of those whose lives were lost in Afghanistan this year and in the 20 years that preceded it, know that your sacrifice, know that your loss was not in vain. America is better. America is safer. American lives are more secure because your sons and daughters answered the call. America is better and safer and more secure because David Espinoza answered the call. Texas and America are better for having known him, and we are in his debt.

I yield the floor.

Madam President.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I want to make a few remarks on Senator Menendez's request for unanimous consent on the nomination of Donald Lu to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and also on the nomination of Brett Holmgren to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.

The reality is that had these nominees been confirmed in August, they would have done nothing to stop the administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

President Biden bears responsibility for the catastrophe that has unfolded in Afghanistan. President Biden repeatedly ignored reasonable advice and the intelligence on what was happening on the ground in the runup to the disastrous withdrawal.

He abandoned the Bagram Airfield well before August, setting the stage for the chaos at the Kabul airport. He wasn't even listening to his staff on what needed to be done on Afghanistan.

Instead, he imposed an arbitrary deadline for political purposes, with disastrous results.

I am not going to object to consent on this individual, Mr. Lu, and on Mr. Holmgren, in a moment, that Senator Menendez will ask for, but let's be clear. The administration has tried to play a blame game to deflect blame for their absolute failure to conduct a reasonable and rational drawdown, to deflect blame for President Biden's decision to abandon Bagram to the Taliban, to deflect blame for President Biden's indefensible decision to give the Taliban a list of names of Americans and Afghans who are now very much in harm's way and in jeopardy because of the foolishness and the manifest incompetence of this administration.

None of the nominees I have holds on would have made one difference in what happened in Afghanistan. And it is difficult to believe that even my Democratic colleagues believe, political talking points notwithstanding, how, for instance, the Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs could have stopped President Biden from gift-wrapping Bagram Airfield and giving it to the Taliban.

It is also important to provide a little bit of background on why these holds are in place in the first place.

President Biden is not following the law. He is refusing to follow the law which mandates the imposition of sanctions on Nord Stream 2. Those sanctions had succeeded, had halted Nord Stream 2 in its place, and President Biden transformed an incredible foreign policy victory into an incredible foreign policy defeat.

When President Biden came into office, he willfully and brazenly disregarded the law, and he allowed Nord Stream 2 to continue on its road to completion, which was, in effect, a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin at the expense of Europe's security and at the expense of American national security.

However, there is still time to stop Nord Stream 2 if we act quickly. A pipeline that isn't 100 percent complete is effectively zero percent complete. And I am not going to stop working to halt Nord Stream 2 to stop Russia and to prevent Vladimir Putin from economically blackmailing our European allies and threatening American jobs.

These consents--and, more broadly, what the administration is engaged in--is a blame game trying to distract blame from their own actions. But it is worth noting that I have offered to lift my holds from the beginning. And, indeed, over a month ago, I extended the offer to Treasury Secretary Yellen, to the National Security Advisor in the White House, and to Senator Menendez that I would lift these holds-- lift the holds on Treasury nominees and lift the holds on State Department career nominees if the administration either imposed sanctions under CAATSA, the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or if they waived those sanctions in such a way that it would trigger Congress having an override vote.

On August 5, I extended that offer directly to Secretary Yellen. Unfortunately, the administration hasn't acted on it. They have decided that their policy of gift-wrapping a multibillion-dollar pipeline for Vladimir Putin and Russia was so important that they wanted to deny Congress even a vote on it under CAATSA.

CAATSA was passed for precisely these circumstances--for an administration that refused to follow U.S. law

and refused to comply with tough sanctions on Russia. That is what the advocates of CAATSA argued. This is a mechanism to force an administration to obey U.S. law and stand up to Russia.

Now, at the time, the Democrats believed they were speaking about the Trump administration, but the principles behind CAATSA apply equally to Joe Biden's defying the law and giving this gift to Vladimir Putin at the expense of U.S. national security interests.

This administration has had a path for months to clear these nominees. It has declined to exercise that path. That path remains before it, nonetheless, because this nominee and the next one are directly relevant to cleaning up the mess that the Biden administration has made in Afghanistan.

I do not object.

Madam President, reserving the right to object for the same reasons I just articulated--that this position, as with the previous one, is directly related to trying to clean up the mess, the disaster that the Biden administration has created in Afghanistan.

I intend not to object to this nomination.

The remaining holds remain in place, and the administration can lift the Treasury hold and the career state holds anytime they want by following the law under CAATSA and either imposing sanctions or, if they don't want to impose sanctions on Russia, triggering a vote in Congress so that this body can decide whether or not sanctions could be imposed on Russia. The administration has had that option in front of it for many weeks. It still has that option.

I do not object.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I lifted my hold on this nominee a number of weeks ago, and for that reason, I do not object.

Madam President, reserving the right to be object, as I described minutes ago, the Biden administration is in outright defiance of Federal law. An overwhelming bipartisan majority of the Senate and the House have passed tough sanctions on Russia--sanctions that work; sanctions that shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for a year. But when President Biden came into office, he chose to override Federal law and instead to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin in Russia. That decision is a generational geopolitical mistake. It harms U.S. national security interests, it benefits Russia, and it hurts Europe.

Moreover, my hold on these nominations, I have expressed to the administration in writing and orally over a month ago. They have a path to lifting the hold on the Treasury Department nominees and the career State Department nominees simply by either enforcing sanctions under CAATSA on Russia or overriding those sanctions and triggering a vote in this body where Members of this body can register our views on whether Joe Biden is correct in giving this multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin that undermines our national security.

Accordingly, I object.