Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce, along with the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Casey, the Junior Senator from Delaware, Mr. Coons, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, and the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, the Delaware River Basin Conservation Reauthorization Act of 2022.

The Delaware River Basin Conservation Act became law as part of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016. This legislation, which I was proud to lead, responded to the need for Federal, State, and local governments and regional partners to come together to identify, prioritize, and implement restoration activities within the Delaware River Basin. The legislation also created a nonregulatory grant program for which appropriations have flowed through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has done an excellent job of working with the Fish and Wildlife Service to administer the Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund under the authority of this act.

In just a few short years, this program has grown tremendously. To date, the Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund has awarded more than $25 million to projects that support recreation, water quality, water management, and habitat. Grantees have matched that investment by a ratio of nearly 2 to 1--an impressive total conservation impact of over $70 million.

This program is a great example of how when the government--at all levels--works with diverse suites of nongovernment stakeholders, we can achieve meaningful results on the ground that improve the lives of people and wildlife alike.

For example, the program has funded several diverse projects in Delaware, including installing pollinator gardens at places of worship, removing a dam in White Clay Creek, improving fish passage in the Brandywine River, and restoring wetlands at our national wildlife refuges. These restoration efforts protect the species we love, clean up our drinking water, and provide a boost to local tourism.

The legislation I am introducing today would reauthorize the Delaware River Basin Conservation Act and make some minor improvements to allow even better results on the ground throughout the Delaware River Watershed. This reauthorization has clear benefits for our environment and economy--a win-win for Delaware and our region.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this important legislation this Congress. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the bill I am introducing today appear in the Record following my statement.

Mr. President, I reserve the right to object. I will say to Senator Thune while he is still on the floor, he knows I have great respect for him and his views on all kinds of issues.

All right. Then I will just wing it. When I do have the opportunity to object, I want to explain why.

Having said that, Senator Thune knows we look for opportunities to work together. This is just one of those instances where we don't see entirely eye to eye.

Mr. President, right now, the American people face two existential threats to our way of life. One is the threat really to the world order posed not so much by Russia but by Putin, the President of that country. The other is the threat of climate change.

The legislation we are discussing today assumes that we must ignore the threats of climate change in order to wean our Nation off of foreign oil from countries like Russia, but this is a false choice.

Since the Arab oil embargo of 1973, some have argued that if we simply drill more oil, we can be free of the price whiplash caused by international disruptions in the global oil market. This wasn't true during the Arab oil embargo. It wasn't true during the Iranian revolution. It wasn't true during the 1990 Gulf war or, more recently, during the Iraq war. And it is not true today. Yet the legislation before us clings to a false understanding of oil markets. We have drilled more, but the oil prices that we pay are still impacted by global events.

Instead, we need policies that help our economy smoothly transition off of oil, while at the same time give consumers more choices to fuel their cars, their trucks, and their vans. We need to give consumers real fuel choices that are domestically produced, better for the climate, and that aren't tied to global oil markets. The choices could include electricity from nuclear energy, an issue on which the Presiding Officer and I strongly agree; biofuels made by our farmers, which Senator Thune strongly agrees and has alluded to; and fuel cells running on clean hydrogen produced in many cases by our refineries. All of these options are things that we should be pursuing--that we should be pursuing--and on which there is wide consensus. In doing so, we buffer our economy against the threat of Russia and the threat of climate change.

With that, when it is appropriate for me to object, I am ready to object.

I am yielding the floor to our colleague from Missouri, Senator Hawley.

And let me say to him, I don't object lightly, and my hope is that we will--we haven't had a chance to talk about this before today, but I look forward to that conversation in the days ahead.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, our colleague from Missouri was not on the floor when I spoke earlier. I want him to have the opportunity to hear some of the concerns that I and a lot of other people in this Chamber and this country have with respect to the request that he is making.

So I reserve the right to object, and let me just take a minute or two to again state why that is.

Today, the American people face two existential threats to our way of life. No. 1 is the threat to the world order posed not by the Russian people but by Vladimir Putin, their leader. And the other is the threat of climate change to us.

We just received from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration an update 2 weeks ago about what it is going to look like in this country in the years to come.

We have already seen the sea level rise roughly a foot in the last several decades, and what we are going to see in the years to come is more of the same, only faster.

If you add up the GDP of every coastal county in this country--from the east coast, the gulf coast, the west coast, the Great Lakes--it adds up to a GDP that would be making the third largest country in the world. And what we are going to see is a great assault--a continued assault--on those coastal counties, whether it is New Jersey or whether it is Delaware, whether it is Louisiana, California--whatever.

In Louisiana, they lose to the sea every 100 minutes a piece of land the size of a football field. The Presiding Officer spent some time on a football field. And every 100 minutes--think about that--the size of land in Louisiana, the size of a football field goes back to the sea.

Our State of Delaware is the lowest lying State in the country. The seas around us are rising. My State is sinking. We have seen, gosh, five storms on the west coast bigger than my State. We have seen winds--hurricane-force winds--in Iowa destroying like half the crops. We have seen temperatures--90-degree temperatures--in the Arctic Circle, the hottest summers on record year after year after year. Something is happening here.

And with apologies to Stephen Stills, it is exactly clear. And what the problem is--it is way too much carbon in our air, and it is increasing. We need to address that. We need to address that in ways that will actually create jobs, a lot of good-paying jobs. I think we can agree on that, and that is what we ought to be doing.

So having said that, the legislation we are discussing assumes that we must ignore the threats of climate change in order to wean our Nation off of foreign oil from countries like Russia. This is a false choice. This is a false choice.

Since the Arab oil embargo of 1973, some have argued that if we simply drill for more oil, we can be free of the price whiplash caused by international disruptions in the global oil market. This was not true during the Arab oil embargo. This was not true during the Ukrainian revolution. It was not true during the 1990 Gulf war or, more recently, during the Iraq war, and it is not true today.

Yet the legislation before us today clings to false understanding of oil markets. We have drilled more, but the oil prices we pay are still impacted by global events.

Instead, we need policies that help our economy smoothly transition off of oil, providing good-paying jobs for a lot of Americans, while at the same time giving consumers more choices in the way that we fuel our vehicles--our trucks, our cars, our vans.

We need to give consumers real fuel choices that are domestically produced, better for the climate, and that are not tied to the global oil market.

The choices could include electricity from nuclear energy, something the Presiding Officer and I and others agree on. The choices could include the biofuels made by our farmers, something that Senator Thune was speaking about earlier. The choices could include fuel cells running on clean hydrogen produced by our refineries. All these options are things we should be pursuing. As it turns out, if we do--and there is a lot of bipartisan support for doing what I have just outlined--we will actually address this climate crisis that we face on this planet, and we will produce one heck of a lot of jobs for people throughout this Nation. In doing so, we buffer our economy against the threat of Russia and the very real threat of climate change.

And with that, reluctantly, I must object to the gentleman's unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce, alongside the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Boozman, and the Senator from West Virginia, Mrs. Capito, the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act.

This bill is the result of true collaboration and reflects a substantial amount of bipartisan effort to address our Nation's recycling and composting challenges. This bill aims to improve the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to gather data on our Nation's recycling systems and explore opportunities for implementing a national composting strategy.

The availability of good data is one of the major challenges facing the public and private sector as they work make investments to improve our recycling systems. Upgrading recycling infrastructure, expanding recycling services, and increasing recycling education will all benefit from the availability of better data.

Specifically, this bill will create a comprehensive database of all curbside recycling and composting programs nationwide. It will also assess the materials those programs collect and their rates of contamination. The bill will also look at barriers communities and individuals face when trying to access recycling and composting services.

In addition to that, the bill will ask the EPA to study the end market sale of recyclable and compostable materials. It also directs the EPA to develop a way to measure how otherwise recyclable materials are being lost from the circular market. The reports from both of these studies will be immeasurably helpful to stakeholders, communities, and local and State governments.

As part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress provided unprecedented levels of funding for recycling infrastructure and educational programs. The bill I am introducing today represents our next step in building on these efforts--to turn the challenges of recycling and composting into opportunities to reduce planet-warming emissions and create good-paying jobs.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this legislation this Congress. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record following my statement.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce, alongside the Senator from Arkansas, Mr. Boozman, and the Senator from West Virginia, Mrs. Capito, the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act.

This bill is the result of true collaboration and reflects a substantial amount of bipartisan effort to address our Nation's recycling and composting challenges. This bill aims to improve the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to gather data on our Nation's recycling systems and explore opportunities for implementing a national composting strategy.

The availability of good data is one of the major challenges facing the public and private sector as they work make investments to improve our recycling systems. Upgrading recycling infrastructure, expanding recycling services, and increasing recycling education will all benefit from the availability of better data.

Specifically, this bill will create a comprehensive database of all curbside recycling and composting programs nationwide. It will also assess the materials those programs collect and their rates of contamination. The bill will also look at barriers communities and individuals face when trying to access recycling and composting services.

In addition to that, the bill will ask the EPA to study the end market sale of recyclable and compostable materials. It also directs the EPA to develop a way to measure how otherwise recyclable materials are being lost from the circular market. The reports from both of these studies will be immeasurably helpful to stakeholders, communities, and local and State governments.

As part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress provided unprecedented levels of funding for recycling infrastructure and educational programs. The bill I am introducing today represents our next step in building on these efforts--to turn the challenges of recycling and composting into opportunities to reduce planet-warming emissions and create good-paying jobs.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this legislation this Congress. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record following my statement.

Mr. President, we just had a vote, and the vote--Mr. President, would you mind repeating the margin on that vote. Do you have that handy?

Fifty-four to thirty-three. In baseball, we are hoping there is going to be a settlement in the baseball dispute right now between labor and management. But, in baseball, you have some games that go extra innings, but at the end of the game, somebody wins and somebody loses. I like to say the team that wins gets a ``w.''

Well, we just had a ``w'' in favor of, in support of, the nomination of Leonard Stark to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit--not just a win for him, for his family; not just a win for Delaware, where he is from; not just a win for the colleges and universities he has gone to, the places that he has worked, that he has practiced law, served as a judge; but this is a win for our country. This is a win for our country. I am honored today to rise in support of his nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The Presiding Officer from time to time will see me on the floor passing out what we call palm cards--he has probably passed out a few of his own--to our colleagues asking them to join him--join me--in cosponsoring legislation, supporting amendments, supporting bills on the floor.

For the last day or two, I have been passing out palm cards to our Republican colleagues, asking them to support the nomination of Leonard Stark to serve on this court. As grateful as I am for all the Democrats and at least one or two Independents who voted for him, I want to also express my thanks--our thanks--to the Republicans who crossed the aisle and saw fit to support his nomination.

I am not sure how much our colleagues here in the Senate know about the U.S. Court of Appeals. I would be the first to admit that I had to do some homework on it myself. But this court is best known--may be best known for its decisions on patent law. That is right--patent law. In fact, it is the only appellate court, I am told, other than the U.S. Supreme Court that will hear and consider patent case appeals.

But despite my needing to do a little homework on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, I do know a great deal about Judge Leonard Stark. In fact, I have known him for probably half of his life--for half of his life. I have admired him for every one of those years.

He has been nominated by our President to serve in this critical role in this important court. I have had the chance to follow his nomination, along with Senator Coons of Delaware, through the Judiciary Committee process, and I am confident that Judge Stark's judicial experience and his expertise, particularly--particularly--in

the complex legal arena of patent law, make him a perfect fit--a perfect fit--for this particular judgeship.

I know a lot about Judge Stark for a couple of reasons. One, we are from Delaware. Delaware is a little State. I like to say--people ask me sometimes--we have a million people who live there. They say: Have you met everybody in the State of Delaware? Probably not every one of them, but I met Judge Stark early in his life. I was impressed by him as a young man, and that respect and really appreciation have only grown over the years.

For the last 12 years, Judge Stark has served as a judge on the Delaware Federal district court. It is a court with four judgeships. He has had one of those seats for about 12 years now. Prior to that, he had a distinguished academic and professional career in the State of Delaware.

Judge Stark is a fellow University of Delaware graduate. We are the Fighting Blue Hens at UD. Len, as he is known to his friends and his colleagues and his professors, double-majored as an undergraduate in political science and economics while simultaneously working toward his master's degree.

Let me just say that again. Judge Stark double-majored--this is before he was a judge--as an undergraduate in political science and economics while simultaneously working toward his master's degree. My sister would say we call that showing off, but he was just showing up and just excelling every step of the way.

During college, Len proved himself to be an exceptional student and person, earning a full scholarship as a Eugene du Pont Memorial distinguished scholar.

Let me just mention something that Judge Stark and I have in common from our time at the University of Delaware. We both met an individual who would change our lives--a distinguished, beloved professor of political science named Jim Soles, a legendary political science professor.

I don't know if at the Presiding Officer's alma mater the students had an opportunity to vote for outstanding professor. Dr. Soles won that honor at the University of Delaware so many times, I think they retired the honor. He was just beloved and respected by so many students and parents and faculty members.

Fortunately for Leonard Stark and fortunately for me, Jim Soles took us both under his wing and helped get us on the right path and led me to the Senate and leads Judge Stark to the Senate floor today for this vote on cloture on his nomination.

Jim Soles was a personal hero to a whole lot of us in Delaware and particularly at the University of Delaware. His mentorship involved a lifelong friendship--one that Judge Stark and I still cherish to this day.

I had been a naval flight officer in the Vietnam war, moved from California to Delaware at the end of the war, and ended up working on an MBA. My first year in Delaware, I met a guy who was running for the Democratic nomination, our only congressional seat. It was Jim Soles. I was in Delaware for like a year, and I ended up going from knowing nobody to being the treasurer of a fellow running for the U.S. House of Representatives. Our Congressman at the time was Pete du Pont, a good man, and Jim Soles ran against him. I got involved in that campaign, and later on, I would meet Judge Stark. We bonded right away because of our affection and respect for Dr. Soles.

But I think it was 12 years ago--12 years ago--Judge Stark was confirmed, I think unanimously, by this body to serve on Delaware's Federal district court, and I called him to congratulate him. Sure enough, guess who he was having dinner with. He was having dinner with Jim Soles near the campus of the University of Delaware in Newark.

Jim got to tell Judge Stark how proud he was upon his confirmation to the Delaware district court, but, sadly, not too long after that, we lost our dear friend Dr. Jim Soles.

While he will not be able to have dinner with us tonight or with Jim tonight, I want Judge Stark to know, when I call him later this afternoon or this evening, that Jim Soles is smiling down on him and that Jim would have been so proud to see his nomination once again advancing on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Mr. President, let me tell a couple of things about Judge Stark, if I could.

Not long after his graduation from the University of Delaware--again, where he did a double major as an undergraduate simultaneously while pursuing an advanced degree, a master's degree--he went off and studied at Oxford, and he authored numerous academic and scholarly publications, including a book on British politics, which he wrote in his spare time between classes at Oxford.

After Oxford, Judge Stark went on to earn his law degree at Yale Law School, where he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal.

After graduation, Judge Stark clerked for legendary Delaware Judge Walter Stapleton, who served for years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Judge Stark then began his career in public service as an assistant U.S. attorney for the State of Delaware, where from 2002 to 2007, he handled a wide variety of cases, from criminal cases to Federal cases, to civil matters and others.

Before his current position as a district judge, Judge Stark served as magistrate judge on the U.S. District Court of Delaware. It was this role that prepared him--I think quite well--to serve as a district court judge.

In 2010, President Obama nominated Judge Stark to fill the vacancy on the Delaware district court, and the Senate confirmed Judge Stark unanimously--unanimously.

In the years since then, Judge Stark has served Delaware and our Nation with integrity and with distinction. Only 4 years after serving as a district judge, in 2014, Judge Stark was appointed the position of chief judge of the Delaware district court, which position he held until June of this year.

During his 14 years on the bench in Delaware, Judge Stark has presided over--get this--over 6,000 civil and criminal cases, including over 2,400 patent cases, and 93 trials, including 63 patent trials.

Patent law is of particular importance to the Federal Circuit, and Judge Stark's experience and expertise in these matters make him uniquely qualified for this particular judgeship. In fact, the Judiciary Committee of this Senate received a letter in support of Judge Stark's nomination from the Federal Circuit Bar Association that highlighted the breadth of Judge Stark's experience. The letter states that Judge Stark--their language, not mine--is ``uniquely well-suited'' to a position on the Federal Circuit.

And the letter went on to highlight his ``integrity, [his] his professional competence, and [his] judicial temperament.''

The Judiciary Committee also received a letter of support from the American Bar Association, which once again rated Judge Stark unanimously--they rated him ``well qualified''--well qualified.

At every stage of his life, Judge Stark has performed at the highest level. That level of success and work ethic is impressive for any field. But when it happens on the Federal bench, that is for the benefit of our Constitution and the American people.

Finally, I might add, Judge Stark is known as a consensus builder who works to find principled compromises--something the Presiding Officer and I do every day or at least attempt to. In fact, of Judge Stark's approximately 2,100 written opinions--2,100 written opinions--only 2 percent of them have ever been reversed or affirmed with criticism, only 2 percent.

That is part of the reason why he was approved in January by a strong bipartisan majority in the Judiciary Committee. He has the heart of a servant and the temperament to be an outstanding judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

From his studies that took him from Newark, DE, across the pond, to Oxford, England, and back to Yale, Judge Stark has a stellar record of academic achievement. And from his service to the American people as an assistant U.S. attorney and for the last 12 years on the Delaware District Court, Judge Stark earned the respect and the admiration of the legal community in Delaware and across our Nation.

I want to close with this. As the Presiding Officer knows, I was privileged to serve as Governor of Delaware for 8 years, just before I came here to serve

in the U.S. Senate. And I never imagined when I was running for the position of Governor how important the Governor's role in Delaware is in terms of nominating judges to the Court of Chancery and the Delaware Supreme Court and superior court and family court, and on and on--a lot of courts and some with national and even international respect and roles.

One of my great regrets is that I never had the opportunity to nominate Judge Stark, young Leonard Stark. He did not apply. I know he was old enough but not by much. But I would have been very, very proud as Governor to have nominated him to serve in any one of the courts in Delaware.

Delaware is a little place that has about a million people, about 100 miles from north to south and about 50 miles from east to west. And it is not possible to know everybody, but you can know a lot of people. And I have been privileged to not only just know Leonard Stark but also to know his family and to know that one of the reasons why he succeeded--I would say one of the reasons I succeeded is that we picked the right parents, not a lot of wealth or fortune or fame but just people with really good values and just good people. And I just want to say to them, thank you for bringing him into the world and raising him with wonderful values.

I want to thank his wife and children for sharing their husband and their dad with the people of Delaware for all these years and for your willingness to let us give him a chance to serve in this new position.

From his service to the American public as assistant U.S. attorney for the last 12 years on the Delaware district court, Leonard Stark has earned the respect and the admiration of the legal community in Delaware and across our country.

I again want to thank our colleagues today for voting to take his nomination to go forward to the next step, and I think we will have an opportunity to vote next week on the actual confirmation. But I am pleased with the outcome of today's vote on cloture.

We have a State song--I know we have a State song in Maryland. I won't sing it here today, but the State song--the very first State, Delaware, the first State to ratify the Constitution--includes a line that goes something like this:

The sun is shining over our beloved Delaware.

And so today, indeed, the Sun is shining over Delaware.

We had a National Prayer Breakfast in the Capitol this morning in the auditorium in the Visitor Center, where the speaker was Brian Stephenson, famed attorney, defender, author. He was here, and he was our keynote speaker for the Prayer Breakfast. The cochair for the Prayer Breakfast was Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware.

The President of the United States spoke at the Prayer Breakfast today, Joe Biden, a Delawarean. And Lisa Blunt Rochester, our Congresswoman, and I had the privilege to be there and be part of that family.

It has been a good day for Delaware. I know with the vote to move this nomination to the next step, it is another good day for Delaware for this reason. It was also a very good day for our country and for all who have worked hard to make this day possible and this step possible. I just want to say a heartfelt thank you.

With that, I yield the floor to another fellow who has a Delaware connection. When he came for orientation a few years ago, he was nice enough to share with me that--I told him that the most popular Senate initials in the U.S. Senate were the letters ``TC.'' There were more ``TCs'' than any set of initials in the Senate, and when Ted Cruz joined us, we had another one as well.

He shared with me that his grandmother was from Wilmington, DE--1 of 17 children, if I am not mistaken, and that gave us a common bond right from the get-go. I am happy to yield to my friend from Texas for his comments today.

Mr. President, I have 3 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They

have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

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

Mr. President and colleagues, as today's debate begins to wind down, I want to rise to join those who have called for the passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Years ago, when the United States was in the early stages of conflict in Vietnam, I was fortunate to win a Navy ROTC scholarship to attend Ohio State.

During my freshman year there, as spring break approached, our commanding officer urged a bunch of us freshman midshipmen to--he said: I got a deal for you. How would you like an all-expenses-paid trip to Quantico, VA, over spring break?

That is where the marine officers trained after going to college.

We all raised our hands and said: Count us in.

On our way--1 day off--we had 5 days in Quantico and 1 day off. We took a train to Union Station in Washington, DC, just three or four blocks from here, and from there, most of my fellow midshipmen found their way to watering holes in Georgetown. I chose to visit Capitol Hill. It is a place I had never been.

That day, I walked up Delaware Avenue and passed this building, somehow finding my way into the Rayburn House Office Building just a short distance from where we are gathered today. I walked up to a security officer there and asked if there were any hearings underway that I might try to sit in on. He said yep, and he directed me to a long line leading to the House Judiciary Committee room.

After a long wait, I finally had the chance to find a seat and watch in person the debate over what would later become the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I was glued to that seat for hours, mesmerized by what I saw and what I heard.

Later, back on the train to Quantico that evening, my friends asked me what I had found on Capitol Hill on that day, and I told them I thought I may have found my future. As it turned out, I did.

That day and in the days to come, those hearings inspired by the civil rights movement forced a spotlight on the discriminatory State laws that had made it nearly impossible for many Black Americans to vote 100 years after the end of the Civil War.

Years earlier, my sister and I had grown up in Danville, VA, the last capital of the Confederacy. There, we saw racial discrimination up close and personal. Even as children, we knew it was wrong, and we knew it had to change.

Sitting in Rayburn years later, I found the place where I thought just maybe--just maybe--I might be able to help do something to right that wrong.

Nearly 18 years later, since sitting in that hearing room, after I had finished my studies and completed my third deployment to Southeast Asia as a naval flight officer during the Vietnam war, I found myself back on Capitol Hill in these halls, this time serving alongside John Lewis in the House of Representatives.

After years of blatant discrimination and voter suppression specifically targeted at Black Americans, we began to witness change. It came slowly at first and then more quickly.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of people like our friend John Lewis, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 gained increasingly popular bipartisan support over the years. In fact, as we heard earlier, by 2006, the vote to extend the Voting Rights Act was unanimous. Imagine that--98 to 0. Think about it--98 to 0. Today, 16 of the Republican colleagues who voted for it among those 98 are still here--are still here.

Given that history, however, it is almost unbelievable to think that the right to vote is under attack once again in many parts of our country. Today, in States across America, State legislators and some Governors are seeking to enact a wave of voter restrictions, many of them with the sole purpose of making it harder to vote, often specifically targeting Black Americans.

In 2021 alone, 19 States passed some 34 laws restricting the right to vote. How? Well, by allowing partisan observers to intimidate independent poll workers in Texas and by pulling drop boxes and ballot applications out of the hands of voters and imposing penalties for poll workers in Florida who were just trying to do their jobs. In Georgia, it is OK to make the poll lines longer and longer, but you can't bring food or water to the voters who wait in them, sometimes for hours, to vote--hours.

We know that in many parts of America, Black voters have to wait in line for twice as long as White voters to cast their ballots--twice as long--and in some places, for up to 6 hours. That is not just morally wrong, it is an assault on who we are as a people. How can we look at what is happening and not ask, for God's sake, can't we do better than this? Indeed, we must.

Let me leave you with one idea that worked in 1965 and just might work again in 2022. You know, every day across our country, Americans gather in places of worship. Every major religion in the world relies on one common principle that bolsters our connection to each other: the Golden Rule; the idea that we should love our neighbor as ourselves; the idea that we ought to treat people the way we want to be treated.

Most Americans would be surprised to learn that that admonition is repeated almost weekly in multiple Bible studies and prayer breakfasts that are regularly held here on Capitol Hill throughout the year. It is a shared belief across religious, ethnic, and party lines that the person across from us is just as valuable as us, just as deserving of love and dedication as we are and our loved ones are.

In 1965, the Golden Rule was a foundational principle for equality in the Voting Rights Act. Congress was guided by it. In fact, every major religion on this planet embraces it. I don't care if you are a Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and it goes on, the Golden Rule is in your teachings, in your beliefs.

You hear it here in this body, in this building, week in and week out. Maybe, just maybe, it is about time for us to rely on it once again in this land of the free as we seek to connect our values and our faith to our actions.

Most of us will recall that both Dr. King and the preamble of our Constitution called on us to work to make this a more perfect Union and fulfill the promise of our Founders that all men and women are created equal.

While across our country today, we are seeing a growing wave of voter restrictions, I am reminded of what Martin Luther King said many years ago. He said this:

Only when it is dark enough can we see the stars.

Think about it. Only when it is dark enough can we see the stars. And sometimes it is only when we are tested as a nation that our true spirit shows itself. I pray--I pray--that this is just one such time.

So while none of us hoped we would ever face these challenges in our democracy to our democracy in the year 2022, perhaps we can take some comfort in knowing that someone else has walked this path before us.

All these years later, we feel that ``fierce urgency of now,'' that ``fierce urgency of now'' that Dr. King spoke of five decades before, providing us with both a moral blueprint and the encouragement to do something with it.

As I close, let me just say, having said all that, let me reiterate that this

is not a time to wait and dawdle. Congress needs to regroup when we leave this building this day, this week, and then act with the same sense of urgency as an earlier Congress did in 1965 and pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in order to better protect the sacred right to vote and uphold the sanctity of our electoral processes. The legislation before us today seeks to make clear what we as a nation aspire to be. It makes clear that no one who is eligible should be denied the sacred right to vote.

Let me close, colleagues, by observing that in the end, we can quote Dr. King and praise my friend John Lewis until the cows come home, but when Americans' sacred right to vote is on the line, it is our responsibility to uphold our oath to the Constitution and get on with it.

I never knew Dr. King. I knew John Lewis, knew him well, and loved him. But I don't know if Dr. King or John Lewis were fans of Mark Twain. I am. I want to close by paraphrasing the words of Mark Twain, and this is that paraphrase: When in doubt, do what is right. You will amaze your friends and confound your enemies.

Well, friends, time has come to do just that, to do both of those things, and that is why no barrier should stand in the way of our sacred obligation to protect this democracy.

I yield the floor.

(The PRESIDENT pro tempore assumed the Chair.)

Madam President, 1 year ago tomorrow, a violent mob attacked our Capitol--this Capitol. Five Americans died, and hundreds sustained injuries in what has been described as the worst attack on our Capitol since the War of 1812 and the worst attack on our democracy, literally, since the Civil War. The mob assaulted and maimed police officers, desecrated our beacon of democracy, and in using force, sought to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power in this Nation.

One year later, as we recall the chaos and the bloodshed of that day, more than ever, I am convinced that we must fully understand what happened and make sure that it never happens again.

The 2020 election was hard fought, but it was not especially close. Not one example of widespread fraud was found nor was any evidence presented that would have altered the outcome. Let's take a moment and look at the facts.

There were 81.2 million votes for Joe Biden last year--81.2 million. There were 74.2 million votes cast for Donald Trump--74.2. That is about 51.3 percent of the vote for Joe Biden and 46.8 percent of the vote for Donald Trump; 306 electoral votes for Joe Biden, 232 electoral votes for Donald Trump.

Ironically, Joe Biden earned the same number of electoral college votes as Donald Trump did in 2016. Why is that relevant? Well, in 2016, Donald Trump declared that his 232 electoral votes was a--no, his 306 electoral votes. Joe Biden got the same number of votes in 2020 as Donald Trump did in 2016. When Trump won with 306 electoral votes, he said it was a landslide. When Biden wins by the same number of electoral votes, Donald Trump says: No, it is not a landslide; it is a theft. You have stolen the election.

Despite these facts, Donald Trump pressed ahead with legal challenges in several States. Many of these claims were downright bizarre, and many were unfounded. More than 60 Federal and State courts, involving more than 90 judges, many of whom were nominated by Republican Presidents, including Donald Trump, all agreed that no evidence of widespread fraud, wrongdoing or other irregularities were uncovered subsequent to the 2020 election--none. Allow me to quote one of them.

Judge Bibas is a longtime member of the conservative Federalist Society, whom Donald Trump actually nominated to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In ruling against Donald Trump's baseless claims of fraud in Pennsylvania, Judge Bibas said: ``Calling an election unfair does not make it so.'' Let me repeat that. ``Calling an election unfair does not make it so.''

Rather than accept defeat at the ballot box and in the courtroom, the former President embraced conspiracy theories and outright lies. The January 6 insurrection occurred because these lies--and let me repeat: lies--were a call to action for White supremacists and other domestic extremists.

As someone who grew up in Danville, VA, the last capital of the confederacy, I have seen Confederate flags before--a lot of them--but I never expected to see any of them in this Capitol or in this Chamber.

On January 6, the former President incited a mob at the National Mall, and he sent them to attack this Capitol. He lit a match, fanned the flames of violence, and did nothing to extinguish the fire. He was deservedly impeached for the second time for this heinous offense against our Constitution, which he was sworn to defend.

One year later, I am standing in this sacred Chamber, thanks in large part to the heroism of countless officers from the U.S. Capitol Police and the DC Metropolitan Police Departments. Over 150 police officers were injured that day--over 150. Tragically, five police officers have subsequently lost their lives in connection to the January 6 attack, including, tragically, four by suicide.

Many of the officers who defended our Capitol will carry the wounds of that day, both physical and mental, with them for years to come. In response, we must remain committed to their health and safety for years to come. They showed remarkable courage that day. They risked their lives--an unyielding to commitment to the oath that they took to protect our Constitution and this Capitol.

One of those officers was Officer Eugene Goodman. Officer Goodman is a U.S. Army veteran who was raised right here in the District of Columbia, not far from where we are gathered. He saw combat in the Iraq war, fighting with the 101st Airborne Division, until he returned home and signed up to serve with the Capitol Police in 2009.

He had shown valor in uniform previously--that was in a war zone--and I am certain that Officer Goodman never imagined that he would be called on to fight a battle to defend our Constitution in the U.S. Capitol, not far from his own backyard. Just outside these doors, Officer Goodman distracted the mob and helped to save 100 U.S. Senators and many of our staff members from harm, as well as Members of the House of Representatives and their staff too.

The brave men and women of law enforcement, like Officer Goodman, put their lives on the line that day to protect not just the Members of Congress inside the House and Senate Chambers but our very Constitution.

Ultimately, the insurrectionists and the former President failed to overturn the election because Democrats, Republicans, and a Republican Vice President, Michael Pence, returned to the House and Senate Chambers. After order was restored, we did not accept mob rule; instead, we certified the votes of millions of Americans because that is what our democracy and our allegiance to it demanded of us.

We have learned a lot over the past year that puts that day into better context. There is still much to learn. But January 6 was far from a random event. It was a premeditated, coordinated, and, in the end, violent effort to overturn an election. In other countries, we would call this an attempted coup.

One year later, I am alarmed and appalled by the attempts to rewrite the history of January 6 as a peaceful protest. These conspiracy theories and lies continue to fuel the same misinformation and hatred that led to January 6.

Colleagues, we need to lead by our example. We must choose truth over the Big Lie. We must choose the Constitution over the mob. We must choose the rule of law and mutual respect for one another over hatred and division.

Thomas Jefferson once said--this is a paraphrase, but something along these lines--he said: If the people know the truth, they won't make a mistake.

I love that. If the people know the truth, they won't make a mistake.

Well, we returned that day to this very Chamber to certify the votes of millions of Americans because we wanted the American people to know the truth: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election fair and square. We must now make sure that every American knows the unvarnished truth related to January 6.

Over the past several years, I have mentioned time and again the wisdom of the Framers of our Constitution. In the hot summer of 1787, they gathered and debated a new form of government, a constitutional republic with an intricate system of checks and balances. Little did they know that that document, first ratified by Delaware, would become the longest running experiment in democracy that the world has ever known.

I have sworn an oath no fewer than 12 times to protect the Constitution of our country: first as a 17-year-old Navy ROTC midshipman at Ohio State; 4 years later when I was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy to become a naval flight officer during the Vietnam war; again as I relinquished my regular commission and assumed a Reserve commission; and then another, gosh, eight times as a House Member and here as a Senator. We have a sacred obligation to protect our Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.

In his second inaugural address at the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln addressed a deeply divided nation. All told, more than 600,000 Americans would die in the bloodiest conflict in our Nation's history. Still, President Lincoln called on the Nation to come together, to bind up our wounds, and to begin to heal. I believe that these words, which were etched inside the Lincoln Memorial just a few miles from where we gather today, can guide our Nation in this moment.

Colleagues, in order to truly bind up our wounds related to January 6 and heal a deeply divided nation, we must continue seeking the truth and holding those responsible to account. More than 700 individuals have already been charged with crimes related to the attack on our Capitol.

Moreover, the bipartisan House Select Committee must finish its important work that it has begun and provide us with the facts of that day and the days that preceded it. Armed with those facts, many of us who serve in this Congress must make sure that the American people know the truth and that everyone responsible for the plotting, for the planning, and for the execution of an attempt to overturn an election in the United States of America is held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Our democracy demands no less.

Thank you.

I yield the floor at this time to my colleague from Texas.

The Commonwealth of Delaware?

The first State. The first State to ratify the Constitution before anyone else did. It made Delaware the first State and the only State for a whole week.

Jack Markell was a great Governor. I would like to say he is one of the two best Governors we have ever had. As a former Governor, you know what I am talking about.

Madam President, I rise today to ask unanimous consent to confirm Delaware's own Jack Markell as Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development better known as the OECD.

I have had the privilege of knowing Jack for over two decades as a steadfast Governor--a brilliant Governor, actually--of the State of Delaware, chairman of the National Governors Association, and as a prudent State treasurer for our State; someone who had a great career in the world of business, most recently as a compassionate Coordinator for Operation Allies, leading the national effort to resettle Afghan refugees across the United States.

Jack is someone whom I deeply respect as a public servant and whom I admire as a father, as a husband, and as a son.

After being referred out of committee by voice vote, he is someone whom Senators from both sides of the aisle trust to serve as a steward for American interests abroad.

I am confident Jack will serve the United States with great distinction as our top diplomat to the OECD, and I am honored to introduce him, if you will, here today on the Senate floor.

There are some people who might not know just what the OECD does and the important role it plays keeping our world leaders informed and their economies thriving.

Somebody asked me what is my favorite part of my job, and I tell them it is helping people. They ask: How do you like to help people?

I say I like to help make sure they have a job, to make sure people have a job and can support themselves and their family. That is about one of the best things you can do for them.

The predecessor for the OECD--the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation--was founded in the rubble of World War II to help European nations to serve and disburse funds received from the Marshall Plan and to lift up the economies of the world.

A little over a decade later, the organization was restructured. It was restructured to open up beyond the borders of Europe. In 1961, what we now know as the OECD was formed as a ``North Star,'' if you will, for global economic research, publishing data and forecasts for economic stability in this interconnected world that we live in.

Today, some 38 countries--38 democratic nations dedicated to free market principles--send Ambassadors to Paris every year to help lift up the economies of the world once more. It is a gathering place to seek out and to share solutions to economic problems and challenges and to strengthen our global leadership status.

Yet, for the last 4 years, not only have we as a nation withdrawn from our seat at the international table, we stopped looking outward for solutions that can boost our own economy. It has been almost 5 years--in fact, since January 20, 2017--since we had a Senate-confirmed ambassador to the OECD--5 years. Five years away from the table, our eyes closed to new solutions. That is particularly dangerous in the wake of an economic recession. I think it is foolish. It is beyond being foolish.

Right now, the OECD could use someone like Jack Markell. He will do a great job representing our Nation, and he is ready to go to work. When I think of Jack Markell, I think a lot about the successes he had in the State of Delaware, serving three terms as State treasurer, a position I once held, and two as Governor.

I also think of the great adversity he has been through. When he was first elected Governor of Delaware in November 2008, the housing bubble had burst, and our Nation entered the great recession. In an op-ed for the Atlantic in May of 2015, Jack recalled it was immediately clear that his time as Governor would be focused on one thing, and that would be job creation.

And he was right. In the winter of his first year, the great recession brought unemployment in our State to 9 percent--9 percent. In an instant, our economy was in free fall, along with the economies of many other States. The General Motors plant in Wilmington, the Chrysler plant in Newark--both in northern Delaware--the Valero refinery in Delaware City--all of these hubs for good-paying jobs for thousands and thousands of Delaware families shut down just like that. Workers across the State, whether an assembly line worker, a single parent working in the finance industry, or a family farm in our agricultural sector-- every family felt the pain of that recession.

But Jack didn't shy away from the moment. He didn't lose sight of what is important in the face of economic uncertainty. Jack Markell knows all too well that in adversity lies opportunity. I think he learned that from Albert Einstein. In the face of great adversity, Jack Markell worked to court companies from all over the world to bring their businesses to Delaware, to bring jobs back, to retrain the employees who lost the jobs they had held for decades. He got Delaware back on the move, and the voters recognized his economic prowess by reelecting him by a wide margin in 2012.

Over his two terms as Governor, Delaware's unemployment rate came down significantly. In fact, Delaware had the best job growth in the region, bringing vital jobs back to Delaware families at places like the Delaware City Refinery, a project that I was proud to work with Jack on, and wages grew to be among the best in our country.

Jack Markell was laser-focused on developing the workforce of our future too. Graduation rates improved, and Delaware launched something called Pathways to Prosperity, an innovative program in schools across America helping to better prepare students for a wide range of careers, whether they go to college or take a different path--a different path but a path to gainful employment.

For 8 years as Governor, Jack worked with both sides of the aisle to get things done and improve the lives of Delawareans, and his legacy as Governor of Delaware will be felt for generations.

I oftentimes like to say that the roles of Presidents, the roles of Senators, Governors, and other elected officials is not to create jobs. Sometimes people talk about the jobs that they created as President, mayor, Senator, whatever. We don't create jobs. What we do is we help create a nurturing environment for job creation.

What Jack Markell has focused on for years--for decades, actually--is how to help many stakeholders in our State create a nurturing environment for job creation and job preservation. Jack understood this, and he will take that with him to Paris, with the memory of what looking to companies and countries across the world for solutions did to help families in Delaware. He will continue to look anywhere and everywhere to help American workers.

Because of Jack's lifelong learning, he spent literally decades thinking about how to bring more Americans into a more equitable, prosperous economy.

He learned the fundamentals of economic development by studying development studies and economics at Brown University and earned his master's of business administration at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

He learned what businesses need to thrive by serving as a senior vice president at Nextel Communications and later in a senior management position at Comcast.

He learned about equity as State treasurer, where he led a campaign to promote the earned income tax credit for families and founded the Delaware Money School to offer free financial literacy classes to empower Delawareans.

He learned about the power of global economic solutions as Governor, bringing vital jobs back to the State literally at the depth of the great recession.

He learned how to lead with empathy. By answering President Biden's call to lead our Nation's Afghan resettlement operation, he embodied the core tenet of Matthew 25, and that is to welcome the stranger in our land and welcome our Afghan allies with open arms and open hearts.

Jack Markell succeeded in no small part because he is a lifelong learner, and every step of the way, he has exceeded expectations for the people of Delaware because he has followed a simple but sacred maxim, and I would quote it: A good job trumps all.

Before any politics in Washington or policy paper in Paris, he is worried about putting food on the table--and not just in Delaware but putting Americans back to work across the country so they can put food on their own tables.

Today, as we continue to build back better in the wake of an economic recession, we need someone who is constantly willing to look out for solutions to help find work for those at home because, after all, a good job trumps all.

So today, the OECD could use someone like Jack Markell, someone to look for and bring with him global solutions to the economic challenges of today.

Before I yield the floor, I am reminded of a story from when Jack's second term as Governor came to an end. He decided he wanted to find a way to raise money for Delaware's children on his way out. He settled on a novel idea--a 3300-mile bike ride across the country, from Astoria, OR, to Rehoboth Beach, DE, and along the way, across 50 days, averaging 80 miles a day. He raised something like $120,000 for groups like the YMCA of Delaware, Special Olympics of Delaware, Boys and Girls Clubs of Delaware, and more.

Of course, I worked just as hard as Jack during that trip. I jumped in my car and I drove 2 hours to Rehoboth Beach to meet him as he came across the finish line.

He dipped his bicycle wheel--I think the front wheel--in the Atlantic Ocean, as he had dipped his rear wheel in the Pacific Ocean some, gosh, 50 days before.

But that trip really shows you who Jack Markell is--proactive, thoughtful, and more importantly for the OECD, always willing to look for new, creative ideas to help improve the lives of Americans and always willing to put in the work to get the job done.

We still have a ways to go to get our Nation's economy and the economies of our world where they need to be, where we want them to be, but I am confident that with Jack Markell at the helm at OECD on our behalf, we will be able to get to the finish line, no matter how long it takes.

With that, I urge my colleagues to join my wingman in the Senate, Senator Chris Coons, and me in supporting Jack Markell to be our Ambassador to the OECD.

With that, Madam President, I yield.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes, Senator Tuberville for up to 10 minutes, and Senator Padilla for up to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled vote.

Madam President, I come to the floor this afternoon to talk about my friend Bob Dole, who was laid to rest last week. Before I do that, I want to just take a moment to express our heartfelt thoughts and sorrow at the loss of so many lives in more than a half dozen States, including Kentucky, where my sister and her family live; including Arkansas, where other friends live.

We just want the folks to know who are going through a really tough time and tough patch, that when we talk a lot about you are in our thoughts and our prayers, that you literally are, and it is not just words that we are saying. We hope and promise we will be there to help you going forward as you deal with all of this.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 minutes, if I may.

Madam President, 234 years ago today, the State of Delaware became the first State to ratify the Constitution. For 1 whole week, Delaware was the entire United States of America. And we opened it up, and 49 other States have joined us since then. For the most part, I think it has turned out well.

But the preamble to the Constitution didn't say that we are going to form a perfect union when they adopted it all those years ago. They said, ``in Order to form a more perfect Union . . . ''--acknowledging that we are not perfect, haven't gotten it right, and we may never get it right.

But today, we take a big step--or perhaps we can take a big step towards making our Union a bit closer to perfection.

The Constitution lays out a balance of powers that certain responsibilities fall on the executive branch--the President--and certain responsibilities fall on us; and, of course, the courts have responsibilities of their own.

Madam President, the last thing I would say is this is also Pearl Harbor Day. It is a day for us to remember those who lost their lives, sacrificed their lives standing up for us all those years ago, on December 7, 1941.

With that, I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.