Floor Statements

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 3781 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support my amendment ensuring that the Department of Homeland Security continues to have the legal authority to expel illegal immigrants who may have COVID-19 under title 42 of the U.S. Code to protect Americans from the spread of this deadly pandemic.

There is a crisis at our border caused by this administration's policies, and the fact is that our open borders and unlimited illegal immigration coming into this country are contributing to the spread of COVID-19 and to the dangerous Delta variant. For example, McAllen, TX, one city in the Rio Grande Valley, has a population of 141,000 people. But this year alone, the Biden administration has released more than 7,000 illegal aliens who have been positive for COVID-19. In fact, this week alone, 1,315 illegal aliens were released positive with COVID-19.

This is a serious public health crisis. Title 42 gives the administration the authority to protect public health against this pandemic.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 3681 and ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support this amendment to create a point of order against any legislation that would fund or subsidize the import of electric vehicles with supply lines that run through Xinjiang.

Right now, the Chinese Communist Party is committing genocide against millions of Uighurs in Xinjiang. They are being tortured, murdered, and forced into slave labor. The CCP has exploited that slave labor to ensure that much of the world's EVs are made in Xinjiang and have parts produced in Xinjiang.

Our Nation is in perilous risk of becoming complicit in these atrocities as part of the massive rush to import EVs. This amendment would prohibit our bringing in EVs that are made with slave labor. We cannot and should not fund slave labor in communist China.

Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this bill would constitute a Federal Government takeover of elections. It would constitute a massive power grab by Democrats. It would disenfranchise millions of Americans. It would do precisely the opposite of its nominal title, ``For the People.'' It is, instead, for the politicians because it entrenches politicians and ensures that the people cannot vote them out of office.

It would strike down virtually every reasonable voter integrity law in the country, including voter ID laws supported by the overwhelming majority of this country; including prohibitions on ballot harvesting-- again, widely supported by people in this country. It would mandate that felons be allowed to vote, and it would automatically register millions of illegal aliens to vote. It would profoundly undermine democracy in this country, and for that reason, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the text of the Constitution explicitly assigns power to engage in redistricting to elected State legislatures in the States. There is a reason for that. That ensures that redistricting is controlled by the people.

We have an unfortunate pattern in today's Congress, which is today's Democrats no longer believe in democracy. Their bill, S. 1--what many call the Corrupt Politicians Act--is designed to prevent the voters from voting Democrats out of office.

This bill, the bill to remove the State legislatures from their constitutionally appointed responsibility of being in charge of redistricting, would instead assign that to commissions and ultimately to the Federal courts, to unelected Federal judges.

Now, redistricting and gerrymandering can lead to ugly consequences. This is not new. The Founders were well aware of the ugly consequences of gerrymandering. Indeed, the very word ``gerrymander'' comes from Elbridge Gerry, one of the Founders whose district was so contorted, it looked like a salamander. That is where the district came from.

The Founders knew that if you give redistricting to elected politicians, they will act based on political concerns. The reason the Founders did so is, even with those down sides, it keeps the process accountable to the people. If you instead hand it over to unelected commissions or to unelected Federal judges, the people are disenfranchised. That is a serious mistake.

I would note, over a decade ago, I defended the constitutionality and the constitutional assignment of that responsibility to the State legislatures before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Texas redistricting case, and we won a landmark 5-to-4 victory where the Supreme Court upheld the clear constitutional authorization of legislatures to engage in redistricting even if they engaged in political concerns because the check on that is not unelected judges second-guessing the people; rather, the check on that is democracy and the people engaging in their own check and balance.

Accordingly, I object.

Mr. President.

Reserving the right to object, you know, I would note there is a long history of government trying to force the disclosure of the identity of political contributions, and much of that history is sordid.

Indeed, in a landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court, racist southern Democratic politicians tried to force the NAACP to hand over their donor list, and they wanted to do so for reasons that were not difficult to discern, because they intended to persecute those who dare contribute to the NAACP.

And the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, concluded that the Constitution protects against that forced disclosure. But I will say, the majority leader said just a few minutes ago that surely there must be some area of common ground, and indeed there is on this issue.

I think all of us, if we were speaking in a moment of candor, if we were not engaged in our typical partisan battle on the floor, would acknowledge the current system is stupid. The current system makes no sense. Super-PACs make no sense. Why is that? Because in all of our elections--every one of us has run for election--there are super-PACs, which are independent groups. It is illegal for us, as candidates, to speak with those independent groups. And in every one of our races--I see the Senator from Arizona. He is going have a hotly contested race. It wouldn't surprise me to see $100 million or more spent in his race, perhaps on both sides. Much of that will be spent in super-PACs.

It is illegal for us, as candidates, to communicate with those super- PACs. So we are left with the bizarre situation where there is millions or sometimes tens of millions of dollars being spent on behalf of us; millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars, spent attacking us; and we can't communicate with them. We hope it has some bearing or relevance to what we believe.

Every Congress, since I have been here, I have introduced legislation to end this. This is legislation called the SuperPAC Elimination Act. This act does two very simple things. No. 1, it allows unlimited individual contributions to Federal campaigns, not from unions, not from corporations but from real human beings, from people--unlimited contributions.

I would note this is the way the State of Texas handles State elections.

No. 2, my legislation, the SuperPAC Elimination Act, requires immediate 24-hour disclosure. So if an individual

writes a check to a campaign, that gets disclosed immediately, and you can debate about whether that contribution was corrosive or not.

This legislation would not prohibit super-PACs, but, as a practical matter, super-PACs would fade from relevance because every candidate would much prefer money given to their campaign, where you can spend on your own message. It would make far more sense to have an open, transparent system.

Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of a bill at the desk that would protect freedom of speech in America's electoral process and ensure transparency in campaign finance. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that a motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the able.

I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the Senator from New Jersey and, indeed, all of the Senators in this Chamber know precisely why these nominees have not moved forward, and the reason is because the Biden administration is currently engaged in open defiance of the U.S. Congress and is doing so in a way that is working serious and material harm to the United States national security.

Over a year ago, December of 2019, this Senate and, indeed, the full Congress passed legislation imposing strong sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The Nord Stream 2 Pipeline is a pipeline between Russia and Germany designed to carry natural gas. It is a deep sea pipeline.

Vladimir Putin desperately wants this pipeline completed. If the pipeline is completed, it will give billions of dollars to Putin to use for malign efforts in Europe and throughout the world.

This Congress is overwhelmingly convinced that completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is terrible policy. It is bad for the United States; it is bad for Europe; and it is good for Russia and Putin. Accordingly, the Congress passed overwhelmingly bipartisan sanctions legislation that I authored, along with Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, and that legislation proved tremendously successful.

How successful was it? When the President signed it into law, if my memory serves correctly, at 7 p.m. on a Thursday, construction on the pipeline halted at 6:45 p.m. on that Thursday. Fifteen minutes before the sanctions went into law, they ceased building the pipeline. And for a year the pipeline lay dormant. It lay as a hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean.

We had succeeded together. This body had won a bipartisan national security victory for the United States.

Then, in November of last year, Joe Biden was elected. When Joe Biden was elected, President Biden and his foreign policy team immediately began signaling weakness on Nord Stream 2 to Putin, and that signal was heard. Putin commenced preparatory efforts to begin building the pipeline again within days of the Presidential election in November. And Russia began building the pipeline again in January, just days after Joe Biden was sworn in.

Existing laws that this body has passed, not once but twice, mandate sanctions to stop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. Unfortunately, the Biden administration decided to waive those sanctions. Waiving those sanctions, I believe, will prove to be a generational geopolitical mistake. If we continue on the current pace set out by President Biden, Putin will complete the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline.

If that happens, for decades, Putin and the next dictator in Russia and the next dictator in Russia will get billions of dollars every year from this pipeline. They will use it for military aggression. They will use it for spying on America. They will use it for attacking their enemies.

Not only that, Europe will be captive to Russian natural gas. It will be subject to energy blackmail. We don't have to hypothesize this because Putin has demonstrated his willingness to use energy blackmail on Europe going forward. This undermines the interests of Europe. It undermines the interests of America. And by the way, it also hurts jobs in the United States of America.

I have made clear to every State Department official, to every State Department nominee, that I would place holds on these nominees unless and until the Biden administration follows the law and stops this pipeline, imposes the sanctions.

As the Senator from New Jersey knows well--he and I worked together closely on these sanctions legislation that the Biden administration is refusing to follow--I have been negotiating with the Biden administration in good faith for a month, months, laying out a path to move these nominees forward. But unfortunately, to date, President Biden has insisted on giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Joe Biden benefiting Russia, hurting America, and hurting our national security interests.

That being said, there is a path where I would readily lift these holds, and it is a path I am in a moment going to propound a unanimous consent resolution--a unanimous consent request to take up and pass legislation that I have introduced that would impose the sanctions that are already required by law that the Biden administration refuses to follow. This legislation is legislation that both of the Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee have voted for substantially similar legislation in the past.

If this legislation passes the Senate, if it passes the House and is signed by the President, the day it is signed by the President, I will lift these holds. But given that the President and the White House have indicated they intend to defy the law, I am not going to lift the holds unless and until they relent in their effort to give this gift to Vladimir Putin

Unanimous Consent Request

Mr. President, accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of a bill at the desk that would require the imposition of sanctions with respect to Nord Stream 2. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Reserving the right to object, I will respond briefly to the Senator from New Jersey.

The talking point from the Biden administration as to why they have given this gift to Vladimir Putin is they say the pipeline is almost completed; that it is over 90 percent complete. The problem with that argument is it is demonstrably false because it was equally true in December of 2019. In December of 2019, the pipeline was over 90 percent complete. And, indeed, at that time, there was a massive Russian disinformation campaign throughout Europe, where the Russian Government was putting out: These sanctions will never pass, and if they pass, they will never work.

Why? Because the pipeline is over 90 percent complete. Well, a pipeline that is 90 percent complete is a pipeline that is zero percent complete. Until it is 100 percent complete, it transmits zero natural gas. The pipeline doesn't work until you finish it, and that Russian disinformation we discovered the day the sanction legislation was signed was exactly that, was utterly false, nonsense.

Why? Because the day it was signed they stopped construction, and they stopped it for a year. And Putin only began construction after Joe Biden was elected, after he was sworn into office, and after his team indicated weakness, that they wouldn't enforce the sanctions against Russia.

So their talking point that it was 90 percent complete, that was true a year ago. And we knew we could stop it then. We can stop it now. The only reason Putin is building this pipeline is because the Biden administration is unwilling to stand up to Russia. Accordingly, I object.

Reserving the right to object, I would note, as the Senator from New Jersey knows well, that I pressed President Trump vigorously on this topic, engaged aggressively with the Trump administration, with the Treasury Department, with the State Department, with the National Security Council, and we prevailed in those battles. The Trump administration issued a series of sanctions, and they worked. They stopped the pipelines.

So I have demonstrated a perfect willingness to stand up to a President of my own party on this issue, and we succeeded in stopping the pipeline. Now, when there is a Democratic President, we have yet to see Democratic Members of this body willing to stand up as vigorously to their own party's President, who is actively and eagerly facilitating the building of this pipeline.

I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because it is a generational geopolitical mistake to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin to strengthen Russia and to undermine national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because it is a massive strategic error, one that weakens our allies, that endangers our allies, and makes Russia more dangerous, more aggressive, more willing to attack and undermine U.S. national security, and because Joe Biden and the Biden administration are defying U.S. law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from Congress, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because the Biden administration should not be giving a massive multibillion-dollar gift to Putin, strengthening Russia, and weakening America and U.S. national security interests, I object.

Reserving the right to object, because I think it is a generational mistake, one that will harm U.S. nationality security interests, will endanger U.S. service men and women, will weaken America, will weaken our allies, and will strengthen our enemies and our adversaries, because I believe that Joe Biden giving a massive multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin to make him stronger and more aggressive is enormously harmful to America, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden should not be giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, strengthening Russia, and undermining U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden

has made the decision to give a massive multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, because that weakness toward Russia empowers our enemies, endangers our service men and women, weakens our national security, and destroys jobs here at home, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden should not be defying U.S. law, disregarding the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of both Houses of Congress, because Joe Biden should not be giving a massive multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin that constitutes unilateral surrender to Russia in a way that strengthens Russia, weakens America, and endangers our Nation, undermining U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I appreciate my friend from New Jersey's attempt to abbreviate this, and I am endeavoring to be concise but nonetheless lay out the factual predicate, because it was a mistake for Joe Biden to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, to disregard U.S. law, to weaken U.S. national security interests and to strengthen Russia at our expense, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden is giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, in defiance of U.S. law, in contravention of the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress, which hurts America, strengthens Russia, and endangers the people of this Nation, I object.

Mr. President, reserving my right to object, because Joe Biden is giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, which weakens America's, strengthens Russia, and endangers our national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because it is a generational geopolitical mistake for Joe Biden to give a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin, because that mistake weakens America, strengthens Russia, and endangers our national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object--and I would note something to my friend from New Jersey, as the Senator from New Jersey knows--with respect to the previous nominee, I do not have a hold on the previous nominee. I have lifted my hold pursuant to discussions and negotiations. The same is true with respect to former Senator Ken Salazar, who has been nominated to be Ambassador to Mexico. My understanding is he is going to be confirmed momentarily. I don't have a hold, and I don't believe there are any other holds or blocks to his confirmation. So that will occur momentarily.

And, indeed, there have been several other nominees at the State Department where I have lifted the holds in negotiations, including at the request of the Senator from New Jersey. I have worked with my colleagues, but at the same time used the leverage that we have as Senators to try to pressure the Biden administration to follow the law and to defend U.S. national security interests.

With regard to this particular unanimous consent request, because Joe Biden is giving Vladimir Putin a multibillion-gift, which is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America and it undermines U.S. national security interests, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because it is a generational geopolitical mistake for Joe Biden to give Vladimir Putin a multibillion-dollar gift that will continue for decades into the future, because that mistake strengthens Russia at the expense of America and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Reserving the right to object. The Senator of Texas spoke of revisionist history. Perhaps it was fitting that he did so because we proceeded to hear quite a bit of revisionist history.

The unfortunate reality is the Democratic Party in this Chamber has been reluctant to stand up to Russia and reluctant to stand up to the Soviet Union before that, for decades. The Democratic Party consistently has embraced weakness on Russia and the Soviet Union.

I am old enough to remember President Barack Obama in debate with Republican nominee Mitt Romney when Mitt Romney said we need to stand up to Russia. And President Obama stood up and said: Mitt, the 1980s called and they want their foreign policy back because the Democratic Party position was weakness to Russia.

I am old enough to remember President Obama leaning over to Medvedev caught on a hot mic saying: Tell Vladimir--that would be Putin--I'll have more flexibility after the election.

It was only when Donald Trump was elected that the Democratic Party suddenly discovered Russia is a menace. I welcome that. I welcome that sudden discovery. I think Russia was a menace before and after.

But for too many Senate Democrats, it is purely political. Russia, Russia, Russia was a stick to beat up on Donald Trump and the substance of it didn't matter

So the Senator from Connecticut said: Well, gosh, Donald Trump--he thinks--was terrible on Russia.

Here is a simple fact. Under President Trump, we stopped the pipeline the day this sanctions legislation was signed into law.

Under President Biden, Putin began building the pipeline again. Those are facts. You want to talk about who is weak on Russia? Those are simple facts, and those facts are dangerous.

Because Joe Biden giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin was a generational geopolitical mistake because it strengthens Russia and it weakens America because it endangers U.S. national security interests, I object.

Reserving the right to object. Just a few moments ago, the Senator from Connecticut said something bad is going to happen. Let me tell you, he is right. Something bad is going to happen, and there is a reason for it.

The Biden foreign policy, in just 7 months, has been the most disastrous foreign policy we have seen of any administration since Jimmy Carter. To every enemy of America, they have projected weakness.

On Russia, Joe Biden has given Vladimir Putin what he wanted most: A multibillion-dollar pipeline to let him extort Europe.

On China, the Biden administration has been projecting weakness over and over and over again, including kowtowing to China and reversing the State Department policy on Taiwan, prohibiting Taiwan from displaying their flag or wearing military uniforms on U.S. Government property; kowtowing to the Communist Party of China.

On Iran, the Biden administration said their top foreign policy objective is sending billions of dollars to the Ayatollah Khomeini, even as he is the leading state-sponsor of terrorism to the world and chants, ``Death to America.''

And on Hamas, the Biden administration has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority, much of which has found its way to Hamas and has been materialized in rockets raining down on Israel.

So is something bad going to happen?

Yes, because when you show weakness to our enemies, it encourages our enemies and they get more and more aggressive.

Where I differ with the Senator from Connecticut is I don't think the way to avoid something bad is to keep showing weakness and give Putin what he wants. The way to stand up to our enemies is to demonstrate strength, not weakness. I believe in peace through strength. I think appeasement invites conflict.

Because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America, and because it undermines U.S. national security interests, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I would note one of the efforts that the State Department has endeavored to do to try to force these nominations through is planning a whole series of articles in papers, which they somehow believe would pressure me. The most abusing of which was an article, I believe, in POLITICO, if I remember correctly, that began ominously: The mansions in Europe where our ambassadors reside are sadly empty due to this one Senator's objections.

I will confess, my heart is not broken that some rich Democratic donor is not wining and dining people in a grand ambassadorial mansion. I am sure that is an enormous crisis in Georgetown.

What I think is a crisis is making Putin stronger and Russia stronger and weakening Europe, weakening our allies, and weakening America.

And because Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Putin weakened America, strengthened Russia, and undermined our U.S. national security, I object.

Reserving the right to object. I would note there is irony in the Senator from Connecticut expressing deep concern about China just an hour or 2 after this Chamber voted on an amendment I introduced that said we should not be importing electric vehicles that were made in China using slave labor in concentration camps. The Senator from Connecticut and every single Democratic Senator, save one, voted to reject that amendment.

The consequence is that the Biden administration is preparing to import millions of dollars of electric vehicles that were built--or parts of them were built--using slave labor in concentration camps in China.

You want to talk about what is encouraging and empowering the Chinese Communist regime?

It is the willingness of the Democratic Party to overlook their murder, torture in concentration camps because of their commitment to the Green New Deal.

Because Joe Biden giving a multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin strengthens Russia at the expense of America and it undermines U.S. national security interests, I object.

Reserving the right to object. Because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift of this pipeline in defiance of U.S. law and contravention of the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake that strengthens Russia at the expense of America and undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America, and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America, and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America, and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America, and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, because Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar gift to Vladimir Putin is a generational geopolitical mistake, because it strengthens Russia at the expense of America, and it undermines U.S. national security, I object.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, you know, the Senator from Connecticut is correct in that, if a Senator were to halt a large number of nominations for an idiosyncratic concern, for a concern unique to that Senator that was not widely shared, that could constitute an abuse of power, and I am going to suggest some aspects of this situation that make it quite different and that, in a subsequent administration, if there were a comparable situation, would make these same levers appropriate

No. 1, the Biden administration is defying three separate Federal laws: two different Nord Stream 2 sanctions, both of which I authored, along with Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, both of which passed the Senate and the House and were signed into law, both of which enjoyed massive, near-unanimous bipartisan support. In addition to that is CAATSA--strong Russia sanctions that are mandatory, that are designed to force a President to sanction Russia even if they are reluctant to do so like Joe Biden is.

Right now, the administration is defying the law, and so the message that I have conveyed to the administration repeatedly is, follow the law. I am not asking for a change in the law; I am saying follow the law. That is No. 1, if you have an administration that is openly defying the law, but No. 2, that is openly defying an overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress.

This is not a narrow partisan issue. And I would note, after Joe Biden waived the sanctions on Nord Stream 2, in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I introduced an amendment to reverse his decision. Every single Senator but one on that committee voted in favor of my amendment. The Senator from Connecticut voted in favor of my amendment. The Senator from New Jersey voted in favor of my amendment.

The Biden administration is telling all of Congress, essentially: Jump in a lake. We don't care that every Democrat and virtually every Republican has a dramatically different assessment of this situation than they do.

Third is the national security magnitude of this issue. This was a major national security victory.

When I met with the Biden administration, with each of their successive national security officials, I said: Look, I understand the instinct of any new administration to say, ``Whatever the old guys did must be wrong.'' I get that the Biden guys want to say,

``Whatever Trump did must be wrong.'' And by the way, the Trump guys, by and large, said, ``Whatever Obama did must be wrong.'' That is not a new thing. Whenever you have a change in an administration, that tends to be a default position. But what I urged them to do is, just because that is your knee-jerk instinct, this was a massive bipartisan victory for America, a national security victory that we won that Joe Biden is on the verge of throwing away.

The Secretary of State sat in my office and promised to fight to sanction Nord Stream 2. The Deputy Secretary of State sat in my office and promised to fight to sanction Nord Stream 2. The Under Secretary of State sat in my office and promised to fight to sanction Nord Stream 2. They did, in fact, fight to sanction Nord Stream 2, but unfortunately they were overruled by the White House, which made a political decision to give in to Putin.

In those circumstances, when you are defying explicit U.S. law, when you are defying the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress, and when you are endangering U.S. national security and, indeed, turning a victory into a loss, I think it is appropriate to use the tools we have in front of us.

That being said, I have engaged in active negotiation with the Biden administration. In the past week, I have had conversations on this topic with the Secretary of the Treasury, with the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, with the National Security Advisor. I have had conversations with multiple Democratic Senators about a path forward.

But I will tell you what the path forward is not going to be. It is not going to be, let's roll over, give Putin his pipeline, and accept a massive national security loss for America. If that is where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want to go, they can go there, but they are not going to go there with my acquiescence, and I am going to use every tool I have as a Senator, elected by the people of Texas, to prevent that outcome.

Accordingly, because Joe Biden's decision to defy U.S. law; to defy the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of Congress; to surrender to Vladimir Putin; to give him his No. 1 priority--a multibillion-dollar pipeline that will provide billions of dollars of rewards for Russia for decades to come--because that decision is a generational geopolitical mistake on the order of magnitude of Jimmy Carter giving away the Panama Canal--that even 50 years later, the consequences of that geopolitical mistake still reverberate--50 years from now, Russian dictators will benefit from Joe Biden's weakness on Russia.

Because that strengthens Russia, because it empowers Russia to attack our enemies, to extort our enemies, to engage in economic blackmail against our enemies--our allies, rather--because our allies are begging us not to do this--I have met with senior officials of the Ukraine. The Ukrainians are begging us not to do this, and the Biden White House is threatening Ukraine: Keep your mouth shut because we have a political objective here.

Because that strengthens Russia at the expense of the United States, at the expense of Europe, at the expense of our allies, because it destroys jobs in America, and because it endangers U.S. national security, I emphatically object.

Thank you. I want to thank the good efforts of the Senators who have led the work in finding a compromise in this regard, particularly Senator Toomey and Senator Lummis, who have worked very, very hard on this issue.

You know, Bismarck said many years ago that there are two things you don't want to see being made--sausage and legislation. And when it comes to particularly ugly legislation, this component--the regulation of cryptocurrency--may take the prize for the ugliest we have seen.

Moments from now, I expect that we are going to see objections to this compromise amendment that was negotiated. If we do in fact see objections and if the underlying language in this bill goes into effect, it will have devastating effects.

There is a new and exciting industry, in the United States, of cryptocurrency, whether Bitcoin or otherwise, that is generating jobs, entrepreneurs who are creating new values, new hedges against inflation, new opportunities, and it is fast moving. It is dynamic.

And this infrastructure bill--a bill being sold to the American people as ``let's build some roads and bridges''--has one little portion in there designed to obliterate cryptocurrency.

Now, I fully understand that there are some bureaucrats at the Treasury Department that have never seen anything they don't want to regulate the life out of. But if the underlying language in this so- called infrastructure bill becomes law, we will be destroying billions of dollars' worth of industry in the United States. We will be destroying jobs in the United States--many of those jobs are in my home State of Texas--and we will be sending them overseas.

Listen. It isn't complicated. Cryptocurrency isn't tied to any particular piece of dirt. So the grand efforts of the U.S. Senate will be to say: We don't want those jobs in America. We don't want those resources in America. Go somewhere else.

The ugly truth, which Bismarck understood and which is particularly true on cryptocurrency, is that there aren't five Senators in this body with any real understanding of how cryptocurrency operates. We have had no hearings on this. The Senate has had no hearings on this. The House, as far as I know, has had no hearings on this. And yet this body is prepared to obliterate an industry willy-nilly or, for that matter, the compromise--and, listen, the compromise that was put forward would be a meaningful improvement, would do much, much less damage, but even the compromise would essentially kick the can down the road and allow bureaucrats at Treasury to do massive damage. And the bureaucrats at Treasury don't understand this any better than does the U.S. Senate.

The right outcome, I think, is an amendment I introduced--strike the whole damn thing. If we want to legislate on this, actually do our jobs, be a deliberative body, hold hearings, listen to witnesses, understand the consequences, know what we are doing. That would be the reasonable, rational thing to do. Don't just put out a rule of massive taxes and regulations with no understanding of the consequences and jobs and real people who would be hurt.

For whatever reason, the Senate doesn't seem to want to behave reasonably or rationally, and I think the consequences are going to be longstanding of this foolish legislation.

I think Senator Toomey and Senator Lummis have worked hard on a compromise to brunt the worst aspects of this legislation, and so I hope the proposal they have put forward--or are about to put forward-- is adopted. But if it is not, I am going to predict that every one of the 100 Senators here is going to come to regret that this body took a part in destroying jobs and a budding industry that will provide billions of dollars of new opportunity. And if the Senate keeps on this course, we are going to send it instead overseas to our competitors. That would be a tragic mistake.

Thank you.

Mr. President, unfortunately, we just saw the Senator from Vermont object to a compromise solution negotiated by Senator Toomey and Senator Lummis that would have mitigated some of the harm from the devastating new regulations on cryptocurrency in this so-called infrastructure bill. Because the Senator from Vermont raised that objection, the status quo right now is that these new regulations are going into effect, and billions of dollars of value are going to be destroyed.

Right now, today, about 106 million people are using cryptocurrencies around the world according to at least one recent report. The average annual income in the United States for a blockchain developer is $136,000. That represents a steady career of good income for someone to own a home, to raise a family, to live a good and comfortable life. Texas is helping lead the way. Texas has taken the lead this past year as a major hub for cryptocurrency businesses and is even being hailed as the ``cryptocurrency capital.'' But all of this is under threat.

Regulatory uncertainty is the No. 1 barrier to blockchain adoption according to 48 percent of respondents in a recent report, and they are right to be worried. The current bill widens the definition of ``broker,'' those who would have to collect information on cryptocurrency consumers and report this information to the IRS. It would force every single participant in the cryptocurrency structure to operate as a financial institution, which would mean they would have to provide consumer information to the IRS even if they don't have access to that information. This overly broad definition of the word ``broker'' will block rapid innovation in cryptocurrency, and it will endanger the privacy of millions of Americans in cryptocurrency.

This is wrong, so I applaud my colleagues for trying to find an incremental approach. Unfortunately, because the Senator from Vermont objected, that incremental approach hasn't been adopted.

So let's exercise a brief shining moment of common sense, and let's recognize that if we gathered all 100 Senators in this Chamber and asked them to stand up and articulate two sentences defining what in the hell a cryptocurrency is, that you would not get greater than 5 who could answer that question.

Given that reality, the barest exercise of prudence would say we shouldn't regulate something we don't yet understand. We should actually take the time to try to understand it. We should hold some hearings. We should consider the consequences. We shouldn't destroy people's lives and livelihoods from complete ignorance.

My amendment is very simple. It doesn't add anything to this bill; it just strikes these provisions. It says: Look, let's not do this until we know what we are talking about. Let's be cautious. Let's be reasonable. Let's not be the No. 1 economic developer for the Communist Party of China by sending cryptocurrencies overseas to our competitors because we have made it impossible for them to succeed here.

Accordingly, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding adoption of substitute amendment No. 2137, that the Cruz Amendment No. 2466 be agreed to

Reserving the right to modify my request, I would share with the Senator from Alabama that I have the deepest respect for the leadership of the Senator from Alabama, that I understand the Senator from Alabama

has a profound commitment for the fighting men and women of our military, as do I; that the Senator from Alabama's commitment to invest in our military and military infrastructure is laudable, and I fully support that commitment. Indeed, I would commit to the Senator from Alabama that I am more than ready and eager to partner with him to press through in this body, through any avenue that is available, investing sufficient funds in our military, in our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines, and in the weaponry they need to defend this Nation.

But, sadly, we know in this context that our Democratic colleagues are going to object to funding for the military. They have decided that is not within their priorities. Even as they are spending trillions of dollars on everything else, defending this Nation is not a priority for the Democratic Members of this conference. So, if your amendment is added to my amendment, the effect will be what we just saw a moment ago, which is a Democratic Senator standing up and objecting and claiming the reason for objecting is they don't want to fund the military anymore.

I believe it is in the interest in this body to have a clean vote on, do we destroy cryptocurrencies, yes or no, without any other issues, because as much as I would like to join the Senator from Alabama in investing more in the military--and I am committed to working with him in doing so--I also don't believe we should be destroying jobs and millions of dollars of value in this country. Accordingly, I do not so modify my request

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the mammoth $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill before the Senate.

On Sunday night, we finally got to see the 2,700-page infrastructure bill that we will be voting on sometime tomorrow or Saturday. And what we saw is that Democrats want to give billions of dollars to unelected bureaucrats in the Biden administration to spend however they please.

This bill spends $21.5 billion to create a new office at the Department of Energy called the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which would give President Biden's Secretary of Energy the power to use taxpayer dollars to invest in whatever green energy initiative she likes. Reminiscent of Solyndra, we can have the same bankruptcies at taxpayer expense.

This bill spends $24 billion in taxpayer dollars to preserve the water in the San Francisco Bay, and the Long Island Sound would receive $106 million in taxpayer dollars.

As the New York Times reported, ``Climate resiliency programs would receive their largest burst of government spending ever'' from this bill.

And the Wall Street Journal rightly called it ``a major down payment on President Biden's Green New Deal.'' That is exactly what this bill is.

Furthermore, this bill institutes a new tax on 42 chemicals that will raise prices for everyday consumers. Texans will bear the brunt of these high prices because 40 percent of the manufacturing plants that this new tax will hit are in Texas alone.

But this tax will also hurt Louisiana and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio and other manufacturing States.

Indeed, this provision will also likely make many of the raw materials used in infrastructure projects more expensive.

I filed an amendment that would strike this harmful provision. Not only will manufacturing plants in Texas be hurt by this new tax, but for some of these plants, the new taxes will exceed profit margins, leading to plant closings and more and more manufacturing moving to China.

In effect, the loss of these plants would result in lower tax revenue to the Federal Government, not more. Imports would rise, U.S. exports would fall, and production in the United States would fall as well.

Ironically, this infrastructure bill also tries to grow more critical minerals manufacturing and personal protective equipment, or PPE, manufacturing in America. But it places a brandnew tax on both of these things.

PPE is made with many of the 42 chemicals this infrastructure bill now wants to tax, and four of these chemicals are on the Biden administration's own critical minerals list.

The old saying was: If it moves, tax it, and if it stops moving, subsidize it. Well, this bill taxes the things that we are trying to get moving in the first place.

This bill is also a liberal spending wish list. The fact of the matter is, this bill spends too much money, and it is not paid for. We are told that this bill would, in part, be paid for with $205 billion in repurposed COVID relief funds. But when the bill text was released, magically, those funds weren't there. It became apparent, instead, that only about $50 billion in COVID funds was being used to help pay for this bill.

Some have claimed that the bill is paid for, but, by any measure, the pay-fors are quite simply gimmicks. This is a bait-and-switch, and the bill is not paid for like we were promised.

At a time when we spent trillions of dollars already to combat a deadly pandemic, at a time when we are seeing rising inflation across the country, we can't responsibly be spending yet another trillion dollars. This bill is part of a much broader problem we are having with reckless Federal spending.

Furthermore, suppose this so-called bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill were being offered in exchange for the Democrats' massive $3.5 trillion reckless tax-and-spend bill. In that case, I could understand the logic of doing the smaller bill instead of the massive bill. But it is not being offered in exchange.

The Democrats have made it clear that they are going to pass this infrastructure bill, take every penny of the spending, and then turn around and try to ram through their massive $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill right on top of this, which means we are looking at about $5 trillion of spending in just those two bills.

That means trillions of dollars in new taxes. If you pay taxes, they are going up. It means corporate taxes are going up; it means individual taxes are going up; it means small business taxes are going up; it means capital gains taxes are going up; it means the death tax is going up--all while our debt is going through the roof and inflation is rising across the country.

Republicans shouldn't play a part in this. We should instead say enough is enough.

Look, the American people want good roads and good bridges. I want good roads and good bridges. But what this bill does is reminds me of the old swindler who says over and over again: I am going to sell you a bridge; I am going to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge--because the proponents of this bill are selling the same bridge over and over and over again. They go on TV, and they say: Bridges are popular. Roads are popular. You want roads and bridges; therefore, we have to do this.

So let's see what the actual spending looks like to understand the shell game that is being played.

This bill has about $100 billion for roads and bridges. Do you know what? If the Democrats want to pass just that--$100 billion for roads and bridges--I bet you could we get 90 Senators to agree with that. We could be done and go home this evening.

And let me remind my fellow Senators: $100 billion is a lot of money. We aren't talking about $5 at a soda machine in the hall. We aren't talking about $100. We are talking about $100 billion, which, in history, is massive spending. But compare that to the $1.2 trillion in this bill. It is not Monopoly money. It is not make-believe money. It is taxpayer dollars, and it is money we are borrowing from China and debt that we are putting on our kids and grandkids.

The roads and bridges part of this bill, in the context of the larger spending free-for-all in Washington, is about one-eighty-sixth the explosive spending going on. Let's compare that to the overall spending going on in this bill and the total spending, so that it is not in a silo or a vacuum; it is all together.

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill today is roughly 12 times the new spending on roads and bridges. So they are selling the roads and bridges, but the bill is 12 times bigger. But that ain't it. A few months ago, the Democrats rammed through a massive, so-called COVID relief bill. Only 9 percent of the bill actually went to healthcare spending for COVID.

That was $1.9 trillion. So that was roughly 19 times larger than what is being spent on roads and bridges. Mind you, we keep being told: Roads and bridges are good.

That bill was 19 times that.

And then the massive $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill that is coming right after this that the Democrats intend to ram through--that is 35 times the spending on roads and bridges. And when you add up the spending from December 2020 to now, with the Biden budget request, with the Democrats' tax-and-spend reconciliation proposal,

with this infrastructure bill, with the so-called COVID relief bill, and with the emergency spending in December, you hit a whopping $9.5 trillion. That is 86 times the newest spending on roads and bridges.

You know, that is hard to wrap your mind around. These numbers all seem abstract--millions, billions, trillions. It is hard to know what you are talking about. So let's see if we can make it a little more real.

To understand the comparative size, let's take a look at the average American home, right here. The average American home is about 20 feet tall. Compare that to a giant sequoia tree, which is about 240 feet tall, 10 times as much. That is a lot.

But compare that to Big Ben, 380 feet tall. Compare that to Trump Tower in New York City at 700 feet tall. Compare that to One Shell Plaza, where I used to work, in Houston, TX. Or compare that to the Sears Tower, now called the Willis Tower. I don't know why. I like Sears. Compare that to the Sears Tower at 1,400 feet tall.

The Sears Tower is 70 times as tall as the average American house. The Democrats' reckless spending is more than 70 times what is being spent on roads and bridges.

So when you see politicians going on TV saying: Isn't it going to be great to have a new freeway? Isn't it going to be great to repair a bridge?--yes, we should do that--they are selling this. That is what they are selling--this tiny, little bit. But understand that what they are ramming through is this. They are ramming through trillions of dollars.

To give you a sense of what $9.5 trillion means, if the Democrats get their way, Congress will be spending $28,563 for every single American. So I ask you at home: Have you got 28 grand sitting around? The Democrats think you do, and they want to spend it.

I have said more than once: Dear God, please let nobody tell the Democrats what comes after a trillion.

These numbers are real. To put that in perspective, indexed for inflation, the U.S. Government spent $4.1 trillion to win World War II--$4.1 trillion to win World War II--the greatest generation, scaling the cliffs of Normandy, beating the Nazis. The Democrats, in 7 months, are spending more than double what we spent to win World War II.

This is reckless, and it is unprecedented. As Admiral Ackbar said in Star Wars, ``It's a trap.'' This is a trap. This is a trap.

Now, listen, for Democrats, it is what they campaign on. If you are a Democrat, you want to raise taxes and raise spending. You want more debt from China. That is what Democrats do. But for Republicans--come on, guys--we are like Charlie Brown, with Chuck Schumer being Lucy and the football. And you have Republicans happily running going: Oh, he is going to keep the football; he is going to keep the football.

And, every time, Lucy pulls the football back, and we go up in the air and land on our rear. It would be nice for Republicans not to fall for it again.

The Senate minority leader is fond of saying there is no learning in the second kick from a mule. Well, there are a whole lot of Republicans that seem eager to get kicked a second time from a mule. The spending that we are looking at--I want to repeat again--is more than double what the United States spent to win World War II, in 7 months.

If you care about your kids, if you care about your grandkids, that is irresponsible. And let me tell you something it is causing. It is causing inflation across this country. You know, families at home--in Texas, in Virginia, across the country--families go to the grocery store, and they buy food for that week. They buy milk. They buy cereal. They buy fruit. They are noticing the cost of groceries going up and up and up. You get to the cash register, and, gosh, that costs a lot more than it cost a month ago, and it costs a lot more than it cost 3 months ago, and it costs a lot more than it cost a year ago.

Then when you go out and fill up your car with gas, you notice the cost has gone way, way up. And then maybe you go with your daughter to Home Depot to buy some lumber. And you look at the prices of the lumber, and you think: Is this a typo? How did these prices go so high?

And then maybe you go to buy a new house, and you see the prices of a new house--the average new house--going up $20,000 to $30,000.

In the last decade or so, we have been living in a little bit of a holiday from history. Inflation has not been a major factor for many people. Particularly many young people don't know what inflation is. Mr. President, you and I are both old enough to remember the 1970s. We remember the Jimmy Carter Presidency. We remember double-digit inflation. We remember 20 percent home-mortgage rates.

Inflation is a cruel tax. It is a tax on the middle class. It is a tax on working men and women. It is a tax on anyone with a fixed income. And it is a tax, in particular, on seniors. Millions of seniors across this country, on Social Security, struggling to make ends meet, their income isn't going up. But thanks to the Democrats' reckless spending and endless printing of money, their expenses are going up each and every month.

This is wrong. This is harmful. The inflation bomb we are facing is hurting Americans.

In a perfect world, I would ask my Democratic colleagues to reconsider. How about we spend just what we spent on World War II, not twice as much. In a perfect world, that might seem like a reasonable proposition. Actually, in a perfect world, anyone would say you are out of your mind to spend what you spent on World War II.

But I am not naive enough to think that Democrats are suddenly going to see the light. I hope, though, at least some Republicans will. If you vote for this monstrosity, it will open the door to trillions more. That is harmful for our country.

And if you are being told it is all about roads and bridges, just remember the one little house we saw. Roads and bridges are one-eighty- sixth of the total spending that is being rammed through. These trillions are 86 times more. We can't afford it. It is irresponsible, and I urge every Senator to say: Enough is enough. Stop the madness.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Georgia, Senator Warnock, for leading this amendment with me.

The amendment is simple and straightforward: designating future Interstate 14 across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The amendment does not have any cost associated with it; rather, it is a first step in the process of upgrading this system of roads to add freight capacity and connect strategic military installations across our States.

In Texas, our part of I-14 will be expanded to the west so that it will serve San Angelo, Goodfellow Air Force Base, Midland-Odessa, and the Permian Basin. It will connect with I-20 at Midland-Odessa, which runs westward to connect with I-10 and leads to El Paso and Fort Bliss. This will complete the linkage between six military facilities across three States, which is critical for economic development and national security.

I would like to add that this amendment has the support of the departments of transportation in Texas, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, in Alabama, and in Georgia, as well as untold numbers of local leaders and coalitions of businesses and local governments.

So, again, I want to thank my colleague Senator Warnock for leading this bipartisan amendment with me.

Mr. President, a voice vote would be fine if it would be fine procedurally.

Mr. President, in 1887, Lord Acton wrote a series of letters to Bishop Creighton, letters that would echo down across the centuries. Lord Acton wrote:

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and

King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that

they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the

other way against holders of power, increasing as the power

increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the

want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and

absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost

[exclusively] bad men, even when they exercise influence and

not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or

the certainty of corruption by authority.

Mr. President, those words were true in 1887, and they are true today. If you want to understand how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, look no further than the other Chamber in the U.S. Capitol.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is drunk on power. The orders that Speaker Pelosi is issuing are abusive and unprecedented. Speaker Pelosi has decreed to Members of the House of Representatives, elected by the people, that: If you dare walk onto the floor of the House of Representatives without a mask, I, Speaker Pelosi, shall fine you.

Who the hell is she to be fining Members of the House?

But you know what? She is not done with that. She is not done with disrespecting our Constitution, disrespecting our democratic system that elects leaders. She goes further, to the good men and women who work here in the U.S. Capitol. We are surrounded by men and women who have chosen to come and work for the public good, and here is what Speaker Pelosi has decreed: If you dare walk in the hallway without a mask, I, Speaker Pelosi, will arrest you. I will put you in jail. I will fine you.

That is an absolute and complete abuse of power. She has no authority to disrespect the men and women who work here, to threaten you with physical harm, to threaten you with imprisonment.

And why does she do so?

She does so for one reason: political theater.

We are coming through a very difficult year and a half. Our Nation and the world has endured a pandemic. We have collectively taken extraordinary steps to defeat this pandemic, and we are coming out on the other side. We saw our Nation, we saw the private sector come together with remarkable inventiveness and produce vaccines in record times, and we have seen hundreds of millions of people getting those vaccines. We are in the process of beating this pandemic.

Not too long ago, the CDC recognized what was obvious then and is obvious now: vaccines work. And if you are vaccinated, you don't need to wear a mask.

The CDC issued that ruling, and I remember that day well. I had been vaccinated a couple of months before then, and after allowing the time for the vaccine to become effective, I decided I was going to stop wearing a mask. Why is that? Because vaccines work, because I believe in science. So I stopped wearing a mask. And there were a handful of Senators on the Senate floor who had been vaccinated, who stopped wearing masks.

Then the CDC, like the Oracle of Delphi, issued its proclamation. Hold on to your seats now. The CDC said that vaccines work, that if you are vaccinated, you don't need a mask. It was truly miraculous in this Chamber watching what occurred, as within days, every Senator in the Chamber began removing their masks, one after the other, after the other--not just Republicans; Democrats too. We all had our masks off.

Mr. President, I ask you, the day before the oracle of Fauci spoke, did vaccines not work? Did science not operate? No. It was obvious then and it was obvious on the day that the oracle of the CDC spoke that vaccines work, which is why every Democrat took their mask off.

But fast-forward to this week. The CDC issues the new proclamation. Apparently, according to the CDC, vaccines don't work anymore. That science thing? Inoperative. We have more important things to worry about, like politics.

As an aside, has there ever been an institution in American public life that has more discredited itself more rapidly than the CDC? A year and a half ago, the CDC was one of the most respected medical and scientific organizations on the face of the planet. Today, the CDC has willingly allowed itself to be politicized, to behave as an arm of the DNC, and their credibility is in tatters. It is a joke.

We have seen the emails from Dr. Fauci where he said in the midst of the pandemic: Masks don't work. They are not effective. People shouldn't use them.

Then we saw him say: Oh, no, no, no; masks work. But I lied to the American people when I said they didn't

work because I didn't want them to wear masks because I wanted first responders to get them.

Now, pause for a second and think, what the heck is a scientific leader doing lying to the American people supposedly for our own good? The willingness to twist facts to meet political expediency has been stunning.

The CDC's ruling this week is not accompanied by any data. They did not roll out studies. They did not roll out facts. They did not say suddenly vaccines aren't working. Instead, they just said: Trust us. We have double-super-secret studies that we are not going to tell you based on double-secret-super data that we are not going to show you, but trust us because we behave like political hacks and obey us anyway.

By the way, the CDC plays an interesting little game. The CDC says: These are recommendations. These are just recommendations.

Then their faithful little foot soldiers, the Democratic officeholders, come in and make those recommendations mandates. And there is no one more willing to do so than Speaker Pelosi. And then, by the way, the local government Democrats who mandate ``you must obey the CDC,'' they throw their hands up and say: Hey, we are just following the CDC. And the CDC says: Hey, we are just making recommendations. And no one is accountable for anything.

This makes no sense.

One of the things the CDC rolled out this week is an edict that in schools, everybody must be masked--child, adult. It doesn't matter if you are vaccinated; it doesn't matter; you must wear a mask. Why? Who knows? It is not based on science, not based on medicine.

This virus has been unusual. We have seen that in certain populations, COVID-19 can be profoundly deadly. If you are very elderly, if you have serious comorbidities, this virus can and has been deadly. But we have also seen among children that the odds of children getting seriously ill from COVID-19 are extremely low. We have seen that children have not proven to be a meaningful vector in the spread of this disease. The science doesn't support special rules for schools, but do you know what does? Politics. Because the teachers union bosses came to the CDC and said: We want this rule in place. And the partisan enforcers at the CDC said: Ma'am, yes, ma'am, we will issue the order demanded by the union bosses.

Mr. President, give me any plausible argument that that is science, that that is medicine, that that is anything but rank politics. If a Democratic politician wants to say ``We are going to obey the union bosses,'' fine; that is their prerogative to do so. They can be held accountable by the voters. But the CDC is supposed to be following science. This is an abuse of power.

Let me point out my view. I think we should not have government mandates concerning COVID-19. There should be no vaccine mandates. Joe Biden wants to mandate Federal employees must get the vaccine. Who the heck is the Federal Government to tell people they must stick a needle in their arm and inject themselves with a vaccine? We should have no vaccine mandates. We should have no mask mandates. We should have no vaccine passports.

Let me be clear. I am someone who believes in vaccines. I have been vaccinated. Heidi has been vaccinated. My parents have been vaccinated. Heidi's parents have been vaccinated. But I also believe in individual choice. I believe in freedom. I believe in responsibility. It is your choice if you want to get vaccinated. It is not some drunk-on-power Democrat in Washington's choice to force you to do it.

Doesn't anyone in the Democratic Party believe in medical autonomy? Doesn't anyone in the Democratic Party believe in medical privacy, or are you so willing to exert power that it doesn't matter what the people say?

You know, one of the great ironies of the CDC's order: It will decrease the rate of vaccination in the United States. The CDC is telling America: Hey, this vaccine stuff doesn't work very well because, you know, if you get a vaccine, it doesn't matter; you have to put the same mask on, and you have to behave exactly the same. When the CDC rightly said ``If you are vaccinated, take your mask off,'' it encouraged people to get vaccinated. Hey, I want to take my mask off. Hey, I want to live my life. I want to go back to doing things that I like to do

Let me point out one particularly ridiculous argument. This week, one of the commentators on one of the news networks said--I am paraphrasing here, but I am paraphrasing pretty closely--that anyone who isn't vaccinated is arrogant and rude and inconsiderate.

I want to point out how imbecilic that argument is. So let's go back to this thing called science, which actually works. So here is the science: If you have been vaccinated, the odds of your getting COVID-19 are exceptionally low. Depending on which vaccine you got, the percentages vary but let's say on the order of 3 to 5 percent. Even if you do get COVID-19, the odds of your getting a serious case of COVID- 19, a case of COVID-19 resulting in hospitalization or death, are extremely low. This vaccine has been very, very successful.

If you understand that basic fact, then the next fact follows from it. If someone is unvaccinated and has COVID, they are little to no threat to someone who is vaccinated. If you have gotten your vaccine, you ought to be fine. The odds are very low that you are in jeopardy.

Now, could someone who is unvaccinated give COVID to someone else who is unvaccinated? Absolutely. That is why we are encouraging people to get vaccinated. But, you know what, the person who is unvaccinated--it is their damn choice. We don't have to be a nanny state, making decisions for everybody else.

I have to tell you, in my family, my dad didn't want to get vaccinated. My father, like the Presiding Officer right now, is a pastor. My dad is 82.

When I got vaccinated, I called him and said: Dad, I want you to get vaccinated.

He said: No, I don't want to. I don't trust it. It is new. I don't know. I don't want to.

I spent about a month trying to convince my dad to get vaccinated. My father can be pretty stubborn. I know that is hard to believe. For those of you who know my dad, you know exactly that is the case.

But, ultimately, I told my dad--I said: Look, you have been largely staying home during this pandemic. You want to get out. You want to be preaching in churches again. You want to be traveling. You want to be with people. Get the vaccine, and you will have the freedom to go do that.

You know what. He did, and he did. He is now back in the pulpit. He is back preaching. He has freedom again. That was his choice.

Why don't Democrats believe in individual choice anymore? Why do Democrats believe they can abuse power?

And let me be clear. Nancy Pelosi is telling someone who is an employee of the House: If you are vaccinated and you don't wear your mask--she will arrest you and throw you in jail.

How dare she? That is an abuse of power. And I will tell you, the American people are watching this political theater play out in Washington, and they understand what is coming next. They understand the same CDC that said, even though there is no science to back it up, even though there is no data to back it up, because the teachers union bosses want masks for everyone in schools, we will decree it. They understand the risk of what is coming next is that authoritarian status Democrats will order more shutdowns. We will order businesses shut down. We will order schools shut down. We will order churches shut down.

As we look at the past year and a half, few things are clearer than that the shutdowns were a catastrophic mistake. The politicians who ordered the shutdowns committed a catastrophic mistake. They destroyed millions of small businesses--restaurants, bars, stores gone out of business.

You look at great cities like New York City that became practically a wasteland. You look at something like Broadway. You think of all the actors and actresses, all of the writers and musicians, all of the sound and lighting engineers, all the carpenters, everyone who worked on Broadway--with a dictatorial flick of a pen, their jobs were destroyed. The American people are watching Democrats and recognize they are ready to do that again.

For people who go to church, we have seen Democratic officeholders discriminate against churches and say: Worshipping God in church is a public

health menace. We have all seen the hypocrisy of the so-called experts who say: If you go outside and march and chant ``Black lives matter,'' zero risk of COVID transmission. Perfectly safe. If you go to church and sing ``Hallelujah,'' oh my God, everyone is going to die. People understand the hypocrisy of that.

This virus isn't political. I recognize perhaps you could tongue-in- cheek make an argument that since it originated in Wuhan, China, maybe it is a Communist. But the last I checked, viruses don't have political views. Do you know who does have political views? Politicians who are interested in their own power and want to convey a narrative regardless of the facts.

What Speaker Pelosi is doing is wrong. What the CDC is doing-- corrupting science with politics--is wrong. And it is time for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House to stand on the side of the American people, to stand on the side of freedom, and to say: It is your choice to go to work, to go to school, to go to church, to live your life free of Lord Acton's abuse of absolute power.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss facts and fiction. Recently, FOX News reporter Peter Doocy asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about a Biden administration official's claim that Republicans have defunded the police by not voting to pass Biden's wasteful $1.9 trillion stimulus bill. Ms. Psaki doubled down on the idea that it is Republicans and not Democrats who want to defund the police.

When a White House Press Secretary gives a press briefing, you expect some spin. You expect some verbal bobbing and weaving if the topic is unflattering to the administration. But when Jen Psaki tried to blame Republicans for defunding the police, it wasn't spin. It was horse manure. It was gaslighting.

For over a year, Democrats and leftwing activists have been calling over and over and over again to defund the police. And many Democrat- led city councils and Democrat mayors have done so, cutting and even slashing police budgets. As a result of those reckless policies, we are seeing a deeply concerning wave of violent crime in American cities across the country.

The chief White House spokesperson blaming Republicans for defunding the police is like an arsonist showing up at the fire and blaming the firemen. It is like the Chinese Communist Party blaming America for the Wuhan virus. It is like OJ saying he is going to help find the real killer. It is absurd. It is ridiculous. And Democrats know it.

Let's look at the facts. Democrats have called explicitly to defund the police for over a year and have been successful in doing it. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, last summer pledged to cut the NYPD budget by $1 billion, and then he did so. New York City passed a budget that did indeed cut $1 billion from the police department.

Just a couple of months ago, de Blasio was forced to backtrack. He realized what a terrible decision it had been because now he is working to reverse it.

AOC, the darling of the extreme leftwing, has said: ``Defunding [the] police means defunding [the] police'' and ``The fight to defund [the police] continues.'' There is not a lot of ambiguity in what AOC is saying.

And she is not alone. How about Representative Rashida Tlaib. She has called for ``no more policing.'' Stop and think about that for a minute. This is an elected Democratic Member of Congress whose policy objective is no more policing. Those are her own words.

How about Representative Ilhan Omar. She has said: ``You can't really reform a department that is rotten to the root.'' An elected Democratic Member of Congress describing police departments as ``rotten to the root.'' Again, those are her words.

And then there is Representative Ayanna Pressley, who has introduced legislation to defund police officers in public schools. And she has said that defunding the police is about ``true reparations.'' Well, maybe this is just a few fringe Democrats in the House of Representatives. Maybe it is not a broader policy of the Democratic Party.

What about Joe Biden? Uncle Joe can't possibly support defunding the police, right? Well, if you thought so, you would be wrong because Joe Biden nominated two of the leading advocates of abolishing the police-- Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke--to senior positions at the U.S. Department of Justice. One of them is the No. 3 official at the Department of Justice. The other is the head of civil rights at the Department of Justice. Both had written, as recently as last year, explicit calls for defunding the police, and they got rewarded with helping run the Department of Justice.

But surely, you might say, even if Joe Biden gave in to the activists and nominated these folks, there are Democrats in this Chamber who would say defunding the police is too much; let's not go that far. Well, if you would say that, you would be wrong because both of those nominees, two of the leading advocates for defunding the police, were confirmed when every single Democrat in this Chamber voted to confirm them--100 percent.

The next time you see a Democrat describing themselves as moderate, reasonable, not one of those crazies saying things like ``defund the police,'' maybe you should ask them why they voted to confirm two of the leading advocates for defunding the police to senior positions at the Department of Justice.

Democrat-led city councils all over the country are following the same game plan, and they have voted over and over and over again to defund the police. Last year, the Los Angeles City Council cut the police budget by $150 million. Portland cut $15 million from its police budget. Minneapolis cut $8 million from its police budget. Seattle cut its police budget by 18 percent.

Now, what do these city have in common? They are run by Democrats. It is Democratic politicians who are slashing police budgets. And what have the results been? Well, sadly, these Democratic-led cities are reaping what they sowed. Crime rates are skyrocketing. The New York Times--hardly a rightwing outfit--the New York Times has reported that homicides in Los Angeles increased 36 percent, that homicides have increased in Portland more than 82 percent, and that homicides in Minneapolis increased nearly 72 percent last year. By all appearances, these homicide spikes will continue throughout this year.

Just a few weeks ago, Democrats demonstrated that they couldn't learn from the tragic failure of other cities that had slashed the police and seen homicides skyrocket. What did they do in Oakland, CA? The city council voted to cut over $18 million from the police department, and Oakland has already seen a 90-percent increase in homicides over last year.

The New York Times has also reported data showing that in 2020, homicide rates increased more than 30 percent in big cities. So far, they are increasing again this year.

According to the Guardian, some preliminary data showed that there were 4,000 more murders in 2020 than there were in 2019--4,000 men, women, and children who would be living, breathing, living their lives, raising their kids, contributing to the diverse tapestry of our Nation if it were not for the radicals slashing police budgets because of extreme ideological commitments and unleashing these crimewaves.

Now, Democrats know that the politics and the policy of defunding the police aren't working for them, which is why they are desperately trying to backtrack and blame and gaslight Republicans. Yeah, yeah, it is the Republicans who are doing this. Sure, sure, that is the ticket.

Not only did some Democrats blame calls to defund the police for close races that they lost in November and for the razor-thin Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, they also know it isn't popular with the American people. A recent USA TODAY poll found that only 18 percent of Americans support defunding the police, and a large majority of African Americans don't support defunding the police. The same is true for Democratic voters. A large majority of Democratic voters don't support defunding the police. But in defiance of the interests of their constituents, Democrats continue to go down that road. The facts are that Democrats have repeatedly called to defund the police, and they have done so--this isn't a theory--they have done so in many cities.

Crime is rising, and radical Democratic policies have had deadly consequences. Not only have homicides risen, but there were more law enforcement officer fatalities in 2020 than there had been in 46 years. In 2020, 264 law enforcement officers tragically died in the line of duty, some from COVID-19 as a result of being first responders and others from getting shot while on duty.

After Jen Psaki blamed Republicans for defunding the police, Peter Doocy asked her to name the Republicans who said they were voting against the American Rescue Plan--the massive leftwing spending plan-- that had nothing to do with the police. It was shoveling a lot of money to liberal special interests. It was giving money to State and local governments. So the White House argument was, well, some of the money to State and local governments could theoretically have gone to police, so therefore, if you don't vote for the massive trillions of dollars in spending,

you really want to defund the police. Well, unsurprisingly, Psaki couldn't name a single Republican who said they wanted to defund the police or who gave defunding the police as a reason for not voting for Biden's $1.9 trillion, pork-filled spending bill.

The fact of the matter is, Republicans are proud to support the police, to stand with the men and women of blue, while Democrats are demonizing and vilifying the brave men and women of law enforcement.

I want to say thank you to every law enforcement officer in this country, on the Federal level and on the State and local level. Thank you for answering the call each day, putting on the uniform, wearing the badge, and risking your life to keep us safe.

This morning, all across this country, law enforcement officers woke up, they kissed their husband or wife goodbye, they kissed their kids goodbye, and they went out to defend our communities, and they did so not knowing if they would come home that night. We are proud to stand with the men and women of our police departments.

When it comes to facts and fiction, it is a cynical and calculated lie from the Biden White House that it is anybody other than Democrats who are leading the foolhardy charge to abolish and defund the police. It is dangerous, crime rates are skyrocketing, and it is an exceptionally bad idea.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to discuss the protests we have seen erupt in Cuba over the past several days.

On Sunday, shouts of ``libertad!''--freedom!--were heard in dozens of cities and towns all over Cuba as people took to the streets to protest the communist government that has had a stranglehold on that nation for 62 years.

This socialist regime has tortured, killed, silenced, denied freedom, and driven into exile generations of Cubans, forcing many, including my family, to flee or to be murdered. It has cut off Cuba from the rest of the world. It has destroyed its economy so that, today, Cubans stand in long lines for food, for medicine, for basic supplies. They endure energy blackouts, and government officials can shut off their censored internet service on a whim--as they did on Sunday when the regime panicked about the protests.

This battle for freedom is personal to me. When Fulgencio Batista staged a coup in Cuba and became a brutal dictator in the 1950s, my father fought against his regime. My dad was imprisoned and tortured. His captors broke his nose and bashed in his front teeth so they were dangling from his mouth. My father fled Cuba--the country he had fought for and had been brutalized for trying to save--and in 1957, my father came to the United States. He went to Texas with $100 sewn into his underwear. He had nothing. He attended the University of Texas on a student visa and got a job washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour.

In the summer of 1959, soon after Castro had taken over Cuba, my father returned to visit his family, and he was horrified by what he saw. It quickly became evident that Castro was even worse than Batista had been. My father's sister, my tia Sonia, was still there, and she became part of the counterrevolution against Castro. Like her brother, my tia Sonia was thrown in prison, and she was tortured by Castro's goons

In growing up, my cousin Bibi and I used to sit at the feet of my dad and my tia Sonia and hear stories about their fight for freedom, hear their stories about the battling in Cuba just like the heroic protesters on the streets are doing today. The freedom of America was the dream that allowed them to endure the brutality of Cuba. America was and is a beacon of hope for all of those who, like them, have endured oppression, and that is why we saw so many protesters in Cuba who were flying American flags on Sunday--because the American flag is a symbol of hope in Havana, in Hong Kong, and all across the globe.

America must respond. Over the past few days, the world has seen that the American people stand squarely with the men and women of Cuba in their noble fight for liberty.

Worryingly, however, the Biden administration has stopped short of strong, clear support for the brave protesters who are marching in the street, and it has been reluctant to issue clear and unequivocal condemnation for the communist dictatorship that oppresses those people. In statement after statement, as protesters have swept into the streets--literally risking their lives to stand for freedom-- administration officials have issued lukewarm and guarded statements.

After being shamed into finally taking stronger positions, President Biden finally put out a statement, saying that the protesters were exercising their right to peaceful assembly, but even that is wrong. In Cuba, they have no right to peaceful assembly because the Cuban dictatorship is out there arresting the protesters right now. It is out there beating the protesters right now. It is out there imprisoning the protesters right now. They are speaking with great courage, and the communist dictatorship is doing everything it can to silence what they are saying.

The Biden administration has also said the protests are about COVID- 19 vaccines. That, unfortunately, doesn't even pass the laugh test. Just this week, the White House Press Secretary said the protests were about misadministration in Cuba, mismanagement. Well, the last I checked, the protesters in the streets weren't chanting: ``Manage better!'' They were chanting: ``Libertad!''--freedom! They were chanting: ``Down with the dictatorship!''

America has a unique role in the world--a role to provide leadership, a role to speak the truth--and at times of inflection, at times when people are risking their lives for freedom, the leadership of America matters.

Here is what President Biden needs to say to the Cuban people: To the Cuban people, we stand with you. To the Cuban people, you are right that you have a right to liberty; you have a right to speech; you have a right to worship; you have a right to live your lives and raise your children and be free of oppression and torture and murder.

President Biden needs to go on to say: The communist dictatorship that oppresses you is evil--period, full stop.

In my Senate office, I have a large painting of President Ronald Reagan when he was standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Above the gate, in the style of the graffiti that was on the Berlin Wall, are the words: ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.'' American leadership matters, and it is heard in the darkest recesses.

Some years ago, I sat down with Natan Sharansky, the famed Soviet dissident. He and I sat down together in Jerusalem, and he told me, when he was in a gulag in the Soviet Union, that prisoners would pass notes from cell to cell: Did you hear what Reagan said? ``Evil empire,'' ``ash heap of history,'' ``tear down this wall.''

Presidential silence is heard in Cuba, and Presidential clarity is heard in Cuba.

I want to close by reading a text that I got this week from my mom. My mom and our family are in communication with family friends still in Cuba.

Here is what a close friend of the family said: Things are much more serious than what is reported on TV. This friend of the family described that she has no food, which is the same for almost everyone. Yesterday, she had a bowl of thin soup--nothing more. She was asking for help for the first time. There is no way to get money to Cuba. Banks are closed. Five protesters were killed in Santiago. Radio stations are being taken over by protesters. The internet is shut down so there is no further contact available. Matanzas, where my father was born, is a hotspot for COVID, and it sounds as though desperate times are generating desperate measures.

To the people of Cuba, I want you to know your message is being heard; your bravery is being seen; and it is worth it. This is potentially an inflection point, and America should stand up and speak boldly on the side of freedom.

There is a reason those protesters carry our flags. There is a reason they look to America as a beacon of hope and freedom across the globe.

To the people of Cuba, we stand with you. You have a right to be free, and your courage is inspiring. We are inspired by you. As to the evil thugs who are on the street, brutalizing you, they, too, will end up in the ash heap of history. The oppression in Cuba will fall, and we will, once again, see ``una cuba libre''--a free Cuba--thanks to the courage and heroism of the Cubans in the street.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if you have flown in the past year, you have heard the announcement at the beginning of every flight that says Federal law requires that passengers wear a mask. Well, the last I checked, we have a constitutional system, and Congress makes laws. Something is not required by Federal law unless Congress passes such a law and the President signs it. That is the only way something becomes a federal law in this country.

We are coming through a pandemic, and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Over 150 million people in the United States are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Any American adult who wants to be vaccinated against COVID-19 can get vaccinated at this point, and the science should drive our decisions on how to open up. That is why today I introduced a resolution to encourage the CDC to review and update its guidance on wearing masks in confined spaces to clarify that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer need to wear a mask on public transportation in the United States, including at airports, on commercial flights, and on buses and rail systems, and for the Transportation Security Administration to update its travel guidance to track with the latest science. I was joined in this effort by Senators Collins, Lummis, Wicker, Moran and Blackburn, and I appreciate their support.

The CDC has been quite clear that masks are not needed for people who are fully vaccinated. Science matters, and vaccines work. The mandate to wear masks on planes and on other modes of transportation--when they are no longer required in many businesses and restaurants for vaccinated people--is hurting the aviation industry.

If the objective is to encourage people to be vaccinated, one way to do that is for there to be a real difference in what you can do after being vaccinated. Repealing this requirement to wear masks on airplanes, at airports, and on public transportation would increase demand, increase travel, and would tie the policy to science. It is a commonsense step to take, and I hope more of my Senate colleagues will join us in encouraging the CDC to follow the science.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to celebrate a win for the country. Today, the United States rightfully failed to advance the ``Corrupt Politicians Act,'' meaning that this bill will not come to the Senate floor for a final vote. This is a huge win for the citizens of the United States. This is a huge win for democracy, and it is a huge win for the integrity of our elections.

The ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' is the most dangerous legislation we considered in the Senate in the 9 years I served in this body. It is an attempt by Senate Democrats at a brazen power grab. It is an attempt by Democrats to federalize elections and to ensure that Democrats won't lose control for the next 100 years.

This bill isn't about protecting the right to vote. It is precisely the opposite. It is about taking away the right to vote from the citizens and giving it instead to the corrupt politicians in Washington who want to stay in power.

The ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' would strike down virtually every commonsense voter integrity law adopted by States across the country. Thirty-six States have adopted voter ID laws, a reasonable and commonsense step to protect the integrity of elections that over 70 percent of Americans support and over 60 percent of African Americans support. In fact, recent polling now shows support for voter ID at over 80 percent, thanks, no doubt, to the relentless assault to voter ID mounted by Senate Democrats. The ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' would repeal the vast majority of these voter ID laws.

Likewise, 31 States prohibit ballot harvesting, the corrupt practice of paying political operatives to collect other people's ballots. What would the ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' do? It would strike down all of those laws in 31 States and would mandate ballot harvesting nationwide. It would mean that paid political operatives from the Democratic National Committee could go to nursing homes and collect votes--some of those votes, no doubt, from individuals who may be no longer competent to make a decision. The reason 31 States have acted to ban ballot harvesting is it invites voter fraud. An unscrupulous operative can fill out the ballot for a senior citizen who no longer has the capacity to make a decision, and if that senior citizen has the temerity to vote in a way the operative doesn't like, there is nothing to prevent the operative from throwing that ballot in the mail and simply not sending it in, only sending in the ballots that happen to comply with their own political preference. If you care even one whit about election integrity, striking down every prohibition on ballot harvesting is precisely the wrong step to take.

The ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' would also automatically register to vote anyone who comes in contact with the government. So if you get a welfare check, you get an unemployment check, you get a driver's license, you go to a State college or State university, you are automatically registered to vote. What is the problem with that? The problem with that, as the authors of the bill know, is that would register millions of illegal aliens to vote. Millions of illegal aliens come into contact with the government, and automatic registration is designed to register millions of illegal aliens.

How do we know this? We know this, among other things, because the bill explicitly immunizes the State officials who would be registering illegal aliens to vote. It grants a safe harbor and says, when you illegally register illegal aliens, you will have no liability. If you care about the integrity of elections, registering millions of illegal aliens to dilute and steal the votes of legal American citizens is exactly the opposite way to go.

Not only that, many States have reasonable restrictions on felons and on criminals voting. What does the ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' do? It strikes all of those down and instead mandates that all felons should be allowed to vote--murderers, rapists, child molesters all allowed to vote because Democrats have made the cynical calculation that if millions of illegal aliens are allowed to vote and millions of criminals and felons are allowed to vote, that those individuals are likely to vote Democrat and Democrats want to stay in power.

The bill also prevents States from correcting voter rolls and from removing people who passed away. You can't go in when someone's dead and say, you know, dead people shouldn't be voting. No, this bill mandates: Leave the dead people on the rolls--another step designed to invite fraud.

Moreover, the ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' is welfare for politicians. This bill is designed to give hundreds of millions of dollars every year to corrupt incumbent politicians to keep them in power. It matches, for contributions under $200, 6 to 1 Federal funds so that the Members of this body would receive, collectively, over a billion dollars in Federal funds to stay in power. That is great if you are a corrupt politician who wants to prevent a challenger from ever defeating you. And if you want to prevent the voters from making a different choice, then you flood

them with Federal funds to make it so you can't beat corrupt incumbents, but that is not what you do if you want to protect the right to vote.

This bill is brazen. It is so brazen that the joke really is admitted in one provision of the bill. The Federal Election Commission was created in the wake of Watergate, designed to protect integrity in our elections. It was, from the beginning, designed to be bipartisan--three Republicans, three Democrats--because Congress recognized that a partisan Federal Election Commission would be deeply injurious to our democracy, that to have a Federal Election Commission with any integrity, it needed to be bipartisan, which means you needed a bipartisan majority to act in order to ensure that neither party weaponizes the Federal election laws.

What does the ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' do? It turns the Federal Election Commission into a partisan body, shifts it from three Republicans and three Democrats to three Democrats and two Republicans. It turns it into an arm of the Democratic Senate Committee, in effect. Nothing in this bill is as cynical as that provision. We are in a 50-50 Senate. We have close elections in this race.

The Presiding Officer is a sophisticated political player. I want you to ask for a second, in a close election, in the weeks before the election, if the Senate majority leader had the ability to launch investigations from the Federal Election Commission, to bring prosecutions from the Federal Election Commission to sue the political opponents of the majority, how much would that invite abuse?

I understand right now Democrats are in power of both Houses of Congress and the White House. Power can be intoxicating. But I do want to point out it wasn't that long ago that the Presiding Officer and I were both in this body--4 years ago--when there was a Republican President and a Republican House and a Republican Senate. You didn't see the Republican majority try anything as brazen as the ``Corrupt Politicians Act.'' You didn't see a Republican majority trying to rig the game, trying to change the rules so that Republicans could never be defeated in the next election. You didn't see the Republican majority trying to turn the Federal Election Commission into a partisan weapon.

I ask you, what level of comfort would you have as an elected Democrat if Mitch McConnell had control of the Federal Election Commission, if it were Republican partisan agents? I think you would be entirely justified in being concerned that it would be used as a political weapon to hurt you. Your last election was a relatively close election. Imagine 2 weeks before the election if a Republican Federal Election Commission had mounted a sweeping investigation in the massive campaign finance violations by the incumbent Senator who happened to be of the party that was out of power. You would rightly feel that it was grotesquely unfair; yet that is what every Senate Democrat just voted to create.

You know, the most pernicious aspect of this bill has been the racial demagoguery that it has invited. We have heard the Senate majority leader invoke, in booming terms, specters from our sorry history of racial discrimination in the past. The Senate majority leader has used the phrase ``Jim Crow 2.0'' repeatedly--as has the President of the United States, as has the Vice President of the United States-- deliberately inflaming racial tensions, suggesting that laws, commonsense voter integrity laws in States like Georgia and Texas, things like requiring voter ID or requiring signature verification on absentee ballots, are somehow a modern manifestation of Jim Crow. That is a grotesque lie.

The majority leader knows that. The President of the United States knows that. The Vice President of the United States knows--they know they are lying. But, ironically, they inadvertently said something that is accurate about this piece of legislation. Jim Crow legislation was grotesque and ugly. It was legislation that was drafted, without exception, by Democratic politicians. Jim Crow was written by Democratic politicians, and its purpose, when the Jim Crow laws were written, were to prevent the voters from ever voting out of office Democratic politicians. It is one of the ugliest chapters of our Nation's history. And thankfully, we repudiated Jim Crow.

Well, the majority leader used the phrase ``Jim Crow 2.0,'' and inadvertently, he is right, but not about what he is describing. He is right about the ``Corrupt Politicians Act.'' The ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' follows the exact same pattern that Jim Crow did. It is partisan legislation, written by elected Democrats, designed to keep elected Democrats in office and to steal the right to vote from the citizenry to decide on somebody else. Democracy is too important for that.

And the kind of cynical racial demagoguery that we have seen around this bill, while ignoring the substance of it--and I will point out the media has been eager to ignore the substance of it. The media says: Should we protect the right to vote? Yes, we should protect the right to vote.

This bill takes away your right to vote. This bill is designed to prevent the voters from choosing to throw the bums out--the most fundamental right of any voter to throw the bums out, whether they are one side or the other side. We the people have sovereignty, and this bill, the ``Corrupt Politicians Act'' was designed to take that power from the people and give it to the politicians in Washington.

So today was a victory. It was a victory for the American people. It was a victory for democracy. It was a victory for the Constitution. And it was a victory for the rule of law.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise today to recognize the 156th anniversary of Juneteenth. On Saturday, we mark 156 years since June 19, 1865, when MG Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, TX, that the Civil War was over and that enslaved people were now free.

In his announcement, General Granger said:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a

proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all

slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of

personal rights and rights of property.

In commemoration of this momentous day, June 19 became known as Juneteenth. In the years following the Civil War and in the early 20th century, Juneteenth has been celebrated as a holiday of independence.

While Juneteenth has been celebrated in States across the country, it carries a special significance in Texas, where Juneteenth celebrations began. In 1872, four men in Houston, my hometown, purchased the land for Emancipation Park, the oldest park in Texas, as the site for Juneteenth celebrations. In 1980, the State of Texas became the first State to make Juneteenth a State holiday. Today, 47 States recognize Juneteenth.

I am proud to cosponsor the Senate resolution designating June 19, 2021, as Juneteenth Independence Day to honor the historical significance this day has in the United States.

Juneteenth is an important day. It is a somber reminder of the original sin of slavery that our Nation inherited from colonial powers. Still, it is also a celebration of the fact that our country strives each and every day to make good on its promise to protect the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all men and all women, who are created equal. Our country was founded on that revolutionary idea, that revolutionary belief that all men are created equal, and that means no matter where we come from or what we started with, any one of us can live freely and achieve great things.

The story of America and the story of Juneteenth is a story of freedom, and while we have had many troubled chapters along the way, I, for one, agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that the arc of history is long and that it bends towards justice, and we have made significant progress on that arc.

On Saturday, as we commemorate the long-overdue announcement of emancipation made in Texas 156 years ago, let us together remember the God-given freedoms we all cherish as Americans.

Madam President, on Sunday, June 20, Joe Biden will have been President for exactly 5 months. In these 5 months, we have seen crisis after crisis after crisis. We have experienced a gas crisis, where we had gas lines and skyrocketing energy prices. We are on the verge of an inflation crisis, where everywhere we look, prices are rising on food, on housing, and on lumber. We have already had a war in the Middle East, and we have a border crisis that has been raging so intensely that we are on pace to see 2 million illegal immigrants come through our unsecured border this year.

Just last month, 180,034 illegal immigrants crossed the border. To put that in perspective, that number is a 674-percent increase over the number of illegal immigrants that crossed the border last May--a 674- percent increase--and that number is a 21-year high. The reason for this is simple: The crisis that has unfolded is the direct result of political decisions made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

No. 1, the first week in office, President Biden immediately halted construction of the border wall.

No. 2, that same week, President Biden reinstated the failed catch and release policy.

No. 3, most inexplicably, the Biden administration ended the ``Remain in Mexico'' international agreement, a historic agreement negotiated by President Trump with the Government of Mexico whereby the Government of Mexico agreed that those who crossed illegally into Mexico would remain in Mexico while their asylum proceedings were pending in the United States.

That agreement was a tremendous success. It produced last year the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. Let me repeat that. Just 6 months ago, our country had achieved the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris come into office, they rip to pieces the international agreement that produced that success, and today we have the highest rate of illegal immigration in 20 years.

Meanwhile, as the crisis rages, Joe Biden is nowhere to be found, and Kamala Harris is nowhere to be found. In 5 months in office, Joe Biden couldn't be bothered to go down to the border and see the humanitarian disaster his policies have created. Kamala Harris, who was designated ``in charge of the border,'' seems determined to go anywhere she can but the border.

In the 84 days since she has been tasked with handling the border crisis, do you know how many press conferences she has given? Not even one--not a single press conference in 84 days.

She can't be honest about what is causing the crisis so she hides from questions. The one time she sought questions was with NBC's Lester Holt, where he asked her about going to the border. She responded with that now characteristic and, quite honestly, creepy laugh, where she said: ``We've been to the border.'' I am not sure who the royal ``we'' was, but that ``we'' doesn't include Joe Biden, who hasn't been to the border as President. That ``we'' doesn't include Kamala Harris, who hasn't been to the border as Vice President.

And Lester Holt--to NBC's credit, Lester Holt actually asked a followup question, and it was a very simple question: ``You haven't been to the border?'' To which she responded, oddly: ``Well, I haven't been to Europe either.''

(Mr. VAN HOLLEN assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, we are not facing a humanitarian crisis, a border crisis, a public crisis, a national security crisis in Europe. We are facing it at our southern border. We are facing it in my home State of Texas. And the Vice President, it seems, cannot be bothered to go and see firsthand the failures that President Biden's policies are causing.

I also want to touch on one issue that greatly affects border communities, and that is our land ports of entry.

While Joe Biden has repeatedly encouraged this crisis of illegal immigration, he is at the same time preventing lawful border crossing.

Border communities are suffering immensely right now because important land ports of entry in El Paso, in Del Rio, in Eagle Pass, in Laredo, in Rio Grande City, in McAllen, in Pharr, in Brownsville remain closed to everyone except those deemed ``essential'' traffic.

Basically, Mexicans who have a visa to enter the United States legally cannot do so through these land ports of entry unless they are going to school, working, or somehow considered essential. Nonessential travel from the United States--into the United States from Mexico for shopping, for visiting family and friends, for casual visits are not allowed by the Biden administration.

Instead, the Biden administration has decided to keep our land ports of entries closed for nonessential travel until at least June 21, ostensibly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This

decision makes no sense, when Americans have access now to effective vaccines and the Biden administration is just fine with allowing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to stream across the border and be released in our communities.

Despite testing positive at a COVID positivity rate of 10 percent, the Biden administration has no problem with that, and they perpetuate the policies that continue that disaster. And yet, at the same time, they shut down trade and legal tourism through our land ports of entry.

For a long time, I have summed up my immigration views very simply in four words: ``legal, good; illegal, bad.'' I think the overwhelming majority of Americans agree with that proposition. And yet, as we look at the first 5 months of the Biden-Harris administration, it seems for President Biden and Vice President Harris, their immigration policy is legal, bad; illegal, good. That makes no sense. It is exactly backward.

We should open up our land ports of entry to legal tourism, which would greatly benefit the border communities, especially in my home State of Texas.

And we need to end this heartless, inhumane policy that is resulting in tens of thousands of children being trafficked in by human traffickers, which is resulting in thousands of children being physically abused and sexually abused, being thrown into the Biden cages, packed in larger and larger numbers.

Ignoring this problem won't go away. Behaving like an ostrich, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris cannot plunge their heads into the sand and hope the disaster at the border will magically disappear. They don't want to go to the border because they know the TV cameras will follow them to the border, and their only hope is people don't notice the lives that are being destroyed, the crime that is coming in, the vandalism that is coming in, the public health threat that we are seeing.

This is not compassionate. It is not humane. This chaos is wrong, and it is time to end.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, in a moment I will propound a unanimous consent request. Before I do, I want to make some brief remarks.

Right now, gas stations all over the eastern seaboard are suffering from a week-long gas shortage that has left thousands of stations completely out of gas. What we have seen is reminiscent of the 1970s, when Americans had to sit in long lines to fill their cars with gas.

Why are we experiencing this crisis? Because Russian hackers attacked the Colonial Pipeline, which had to shut down operations on May 7.

What is the reward Russia gets for attacking our infrastructure? Well, on the topic of Russia, just yesterday, President Biden doubled down on what is becoming a consistent ``soft on Russia'' position from the Biden administration, making the decision to disregard bipartisan legislation that passed through this body seeking to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that Putin is desperately trying to complete between Russia and Germany.

That pipeline had been shut down. We had succeeded in a bipartisan victory, stopping that pipeline, but, sadly, Putin resumed building the pipeline shortly after Joe Biden was elected. Yesterday, President Biden made the decision to refuse to enforce the bipartisan sanctions on the company building the pipeline for Putin.

If that wasn't enough, it is clear the Biden administration does know how to shut down pipelines--the Keystone Pipeline. His first day in office, Joe Biden signed an Executive order shutting down the Keystone Pipeline, destroying 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 union jobs--all destroyed by the Biden-Harris administration. For whatever reason, the Biden-Harris administration seems to have a philosophy that American pipelines and American jobs are bad, but Russian pipelines and Russian jobs are apparently good. And Russian hackers should get rewarded with Putin getting billions of dollars because Joe Biden refuses to stand up to Putin.

On the impact here at home of the Russian hacking, Colonial Pipeline transports 100 million gallons of fuel all over the east coast every day. It is responsible for transporting 45 percent of the fuel on the east coast, running from Texas to New Jersey.

The Colonial Pipeline is a critical piece of infrastructure, and when it shut down, it gravely disrupted the daily lives of millions of Americans--fuel for cars, for aviation fuel, for heating homes, all completely shut down. I am standing here today because one thing this crisis has shown us is that we need to diversify how we transport energy in this country so that if our critical infrastructure is attacked again--and we know it is going to be attacked again--that we have other reliable ways to transport energy.

One way to strengthen redundancy and to strengthen our ability to make it through another attack is to allow liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to be transported by rail.

Last year, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration finalized a rule allowing the safe transportation of LNG by rail. What this rule does is enable natural gas that is used for transportation, that is used for generating electricity, for heating homes, for manufacturing, to be transported by railroad, which helps Americans in hard-to-reach areas access the fuel that they need. It also takes pressure off of other critical infrastructure to meet our energy needs.

Yet, now that Joe Biden is President and he has empowered officials in his administration who have a repeated and demonstrated hostility to American pipelines and American jobs and American energy independence, this rule is in jeopardy. When the Secretary of Transportation was before the Senate for confirmation, I repeatedly asked the Secretary to commit to maintaining the existing rule of allowing the safe transport of LNG by rail, and, repeatedly, the Secretary refused to make that commitment. The foolishness of that position is now evident

to everyone as we have gas lines and skyrocketing gas prices on the east coast and throughout the country.

Therefore, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of S. 1012 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, as the Senator from Massachusetts knows, there is an existing rule that went through the ordinary process in finalizing the rule--the ordinary notice and comment process--that has been promulgated by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The Senator from Massachusetts also knows the reality that accidents by rail are very rare. While we surely don't want to see any accidents occur or have disruptions in transporting LNG by rail, what we have seen by the cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline is that nothing is certain. There are risks to everything, but by taking precautions and diversifying our transportation methods for fuel, we make our energy industry more resilient to attacks and accidents when they, predictably, do happen in the future.

Furthermore, LNG is already transported by vessels and tanker trucks and has been for decades. Obviously, accidents can happen at sea or with tanker trucks, but that doesn't stop us from transporting LNG in those ways. Accidents on railroads are rare, and if we can transport LNG by sea and in tanker trucks on the road, we should also be able to transport it by rail, where it is safer and more efficient and more effective.

Lastly, to cope with the shutdown, the Department of Transportation granted waivers for hours-of-service requirements to truckdrivers and Jones Act waivers for vessels to continue to transport fuel to try to alleviate the shortage. That just underscores the need for LNG by rail as well.

Unfortunately, as Americans are standing in gas lines, the answer they are being given by Washington Democrats is, the challenges you are facing don't matter to the Democrats. What we have seen from this objection is that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support higher gas prices--much higher gas prices that you will have to pay at the pumps. They understand that much higher gas prices fall disproportionately on low-income Americans and that they fall disproportionately on African Americans and Hispanics. The Biden-Harris Democrats are willing to jack up your gas prices, to make you wait in line, and to say, essentially, ``tough luck.'' They have no answers, but they are going to block getting energy for your home, for your vehicle, for your life, for your family.

As we stand here today with a crisis at our southern border, as we stand here today with a gas crisis and gas lines, as we stand here today with an inflation crisis on the verge of erupting, and as we stand here today with war in the Middle East, sadly, we are seeing a reprise of the 1970s--the same failed policies producing the same disastrous results--except, in the rerun, Joe Biden is Jimmy Carter 2.0 and Kamala Harris is Walter Mondale. The country, sadly, is paying the price for the extreme and failed policies, and we are just 4 months into it.

I yield the floor