Tina Smith

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to say a couple of words about this bill that I strongly oppose.

This bill would expand the already draconian global gag rule to apply to more types of foreign aid, more services, and more organizations by codifying the Trump administration's so-called human flourishing policy. So this would basically be a gag rule not just on global health programs, which is bad enough, but on all nonmilitary foreign assistance.

What it would do is it would say that any organization anywhere in the world that provides, refers, or even mentions abortion or support of LGBTQ+ people or any diversity and inclusion initiative would be banned from getting U.S. foreign assistance. This gag order would put-- basically, it would put a gag order on the world's most vulnerable people by the world's most wealthy Nation.

What is ironic about this is that this is not just a cruel policy but an incoherent policy because it would not in any way reduce abortion, which is what my colleagues say their goal is.

There was a previous narrower gag rule earlier imposed by the Trump administration, and in that case, abortion rates actually went up in those countries. Why is that? Well, because of this gag rule. It resulted in less access to contraceptives, to birth control, and more unintended pregnancies.

This is about forcing foreign governments and forcing multilateral institutions and NGOs to accept an ideological agenda or risk being cut off entirely from U.S. assistance.

I think everybody should have the ability to make their own decisions about their own bodies and their own lives and their own futures. Certainly, they should be able to make those decisions without somebody in Washington, DC, who knows nothing about their lives telling them what to do.

We should be joined together in our belief that U.S. foreign assistance should be helping people, lift them out of poverty, support them in getting the services they need, and not trying to impose an ideological gag rule on their activities.

Therefore, I object.

Mr. President, I ask for consent for 10 minutes prior to the scheduled vote.

Mr. President, I rise today as the Senate takes the next important step toward passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

This legislation is probably the most important bill Congress has passed in decades to lower housing costs and boost the construction of homes for Americans.

We all know that without a safe, comfortable, affordable place to live, nothing in your life works--not your job, not your family, not your education, not your health. Our homes are a source of stability and comfort and dignity, and they give us the freedom and the opportunity to build the lives we want to live.

Today in America, people are trying to figure out how to afford their lives and how to hold it together as prices skyrocket and paychecks aren't keeping up. Millions of people in big cities and small towns and rural communities that we all represent stretch to pay their mortgage or make their rent payment. And the American dream of owning your own home? It feels like a pipe dream to working families. I hear from young Minnesotans who tell me they can't even imagine a future where they own their own home.

So why is this happening? There are simply more people who need a place to live than there are houses that people can afford to rent or buy. And affordable places to live for people working in low-wage jobs, for veterans, or for folks living on a fixed income? We don't have nearly enough places for these people to live.

The result is that the cost of housing is soaring higher and higher. Over 22 million people in this country are paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent, which means that they don't have enough money for the other necessities in their lives. Over 12 million people pay more than half of their income on rent. In Minnesota alone, there is a shortage of 100,000 affordable homes.

Home ownership, as we have heard today, is increasingly out of reach. Mortgage payments are roughly 40 percent higher than they were in 1990, and that is even after adjusting for inflation. And in the past few years, the median home price has reached $400,000.

So all of this is why the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will make such a difference. This bill will boost housing supply by cutting redtape and empowering local governments to make it easier and less expensive to build good places for people to live. It creates incentives for cities and towns to build more housing. It removes regulatory barriers to help streamline environmental review and to speed up construction and make it less expensive. It strengthens existing programs that help local communities address their housing and infrastructure needs--especially when it comes to natural disasters.

This bill also takes several important steps to promote high-quality modular and manufactured housing, including doing away with outdated chassis requirements for manufactured homes that add thousands of dollars in costs but no value. And thanks to the important work of Senator Cortez Masto, this bill will also help preserve and upgrade manufactured home communities.

Very importantly, this bill cracks down on large institutional investors who swoop in, make all-cash offers on homes, and then buy up single-family homes as investments and rent them back to people for a profit. Out-of-State landlords have gobbled up homes, leaving properties in disrepair, tenants in the lurch, and jacking up the rent.

For the first time, in this bill, we are banning big private investors from buying up the American dream of home ownership, because homes should be for people, not corporations.

But I want to focus for a minute on reforms in this bill to the Rural Housing Service to preserve over 400,000 very affordable homes in rural communities. This has been a project I have been working on for quite a few years, and I am so excited that it is included in this big bill.

You know, I began working on this issue when I first came to the Senate over 8 years ago, and people in Minnesota were telling me that they couldn't find an affordable place to live. Businesses were telling me that housing shortages were making it impossible for them to recruit talent to their communities. Mayors told me that the housing shortage was hurting the vitality of their communities. Homebuilders were telling me it was too complex and expensive to build new homes.

In 2018, Senator Shaheen and I went to work, and we figured out how the USDA could do a better job of preserving affordable rural housing.

Then, starting in 2022, when I became chair of the Housing Subcommittee, Senator Mike Rounds and I started to hold hearings that dug into the challenges that faced the Rural Housing Service at the

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns in my office be granted floor privileges for the day: Mumtaaz Hirsi and Elijah Minicozzi.