Floor Statements

Mr. President, Indiana was settled by men and women who left the safety of their homes, they headed westward, and they crossed the Appalachian Mountains into the wilderness and the unknown. They were willing to endure hardship, to risk danger in search of a better tomorrow, to clear a path for others to follow. They were pioneers. But, long after our State was settled and Indiana's population drifted up from the banks of the Ohio River toward Lake Michigan, Hoosiers never stopped looking at the frontier. Only, they cast their gaze away from the west and toward the sky.

In the fall of 1959, 15,000 people gathered in the southern Indiana town of Mitchell--population 3,500 at the time. Some lined the streets. Others sat on rooftops or watched through windows. They hadn't come to Mitchell's annual Persimmon Festival for the beauty pageant nor did they come for the pudding contest or the classic car run. No. They were there to see the convertible at the head of the festival's parade as it drove down Mitchell's Main Street. Seated inside that convertible was one of their own, a local boy. They knew him from the house on Baker Street. Maybe they knew him from Mitchell High or from the First Baptist Church. History knows him as the second American to travel to space and the first man to go there twice.

So I am proud to have the privilege to deliver these remarks in front of the Presiding Officer, who has also been to space. His name was Lt. Col. Virgil Ivan ``Gus'' Grissom. There he is--a great Hoosier, a great American.

I ask all who may be watching to study his portrait--that flat-top haircut, the serious expression. That was Gus Grissom. They should look at old photos of the White House press events. It is uncanny. He is the odd astronaut out, the one who looks like he would rather not be there. You see, the images don't lie. He was taciturn, tough-minded, and hard- driving.

NASA's head physician described him as ``confident but not conceited.'' He was a ``stern competitor but a good teammate, a frank but carefree speaker.''

He had little use for publicity or even the press. He only went to White House events because Betty, his wife, and their boys wanted to. Gus Grissom wasn't a celebrity; he was a pilot and an engineer. He was more comfortable racing fellow Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard in his souped-up Corvette around Cape Kennedy. He was a regular guy. But the race that Gus Grissom truly cared about was the one to the stars. He was determined--determined--to beat Russia there.

``I think we ought to declare an out-and-out race with the Russians to put the first man in space,'' Grissom once stated.

You see, this Hoosier didn't mince words. He saw the space race as an important global competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, between freedom and communism. And the prize was more than just a flag that was planted on the Moon. It meant prestige and pride, yes, but also technological superiority and the national security and economic benefits that went with it. America won that race in part because of Gus Grissom, and our Nation reaped incredible benefits because of his sacrifice.

On July 21, 1961--almost 2 years after he was at the center of the Persimmon Festival in Mitchell--Grissom splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, 260 nautical miles south of Cape Canaveral. He had just ridden the Mercury-Redstone 4 above the Earth and back down. Appropriately, Grissom nicknamed the ship Liberty Bell 7--a tribute, of course, to the bell that rang after the reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Regardless of what you have read in novels or seen in movies, Grissom's flight was flawless. The vessel sank after its hatch blew-- the result of a poor design and electrostatic discharge, not astronaut error.

Four years later, on March 23, 1965, friends and former classmates gathered at the First Baptist Church back in Mitchell. Nearly every business installed a television so their customers and employees could watch Grissom return to space. This was a different journey, though. The Mercury ships boosted astronauts into space and retro-rocketed them back to Earth. This new craft, Gemini, gave them a degree of control and added maneuverability--technological leaps that anticipated manned flights to the Moon.

Grissom, along with pilot John Young, did not only skillfully guide Gemini 3 as it orbited the Earth three times, he virtually designed the ship. Stung by the ``hatch crap'' on Liberty Bell 7, as he called it, Grissom securitized and directed the assembly of the new spacecraft. Their construction so closely followed his vision that other astronauts nicknamed the Gemini the ``Gusmobile.'' The cockpit and seat were even configured to his 5'7'' frame.

Grissom was next given command of the Apollo program's first mission, with its goal of realizing President Kennedy's charge of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. When the Apollo Lunar Module landed at Tranquility Base in 1969, Grissom was not aboard. He had perished 2 years prior in a launch pad fire aboard Apollo 1 during testing. The tragedy, though, inspired NASA to improve the construction and, ultimately, the safety of the Apollo crafts, leading to the Moon landing.

Grissom said:

The conquest of space is worth the risk of human life.

The race to the stars ended in America's favor because he gave his.

Now, Grissom may not have been aboard Apollo 11 when it reached the Moon, but it never would have gotten there without him.

At the onset of that journey and the most daunting journeys Americans have embarked on, there has been skepticism, and there have been questions of purpose and value. It never stopped the pioneers, the doers and dreamers, and Americans like Gus Grissom from making the voyage and making our country better.

Back in the fall of 1959, during the Persimmon Festival, Mayor Roy Ira handed Grissom a plaque and gave him a simple tribute:

Mitchell is proud of Grissom. I urge our youth to take note

of Virgil's example.

Six decades later, we are still proud of him, and we should all still follow his example and always press on toward the next frontier, wherever it may be.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall votes.

Mr. President, I often speak of Hoosiers whose service, patriotism, and sacrifice capture the spirit we celebrate on civic holidays. For Flag Day, however, I rise to share the story of a Hoosier who didn't merely embody the occasion. She helped establish it, and she made history too.

Alice Sanger played such an important part in Benjamin Harrison's Presidential campaign in 1888 as a stenographer that he made her an important part of his Presidential staff. So Alice left her home in Indianapolis for Washington, DC, to become the first woman ever to serve on a President's staff.

This historic distinction doesn't quite capture the breadth of Alice's service to the President and to our Nation. Neither did her title of ``clerk'' or contemporary reporters' descriptions of her, which often dwelled on her looks and her clothes.

So let me share with you what this clerk did in the White House. It is quite remarkable.

A renaissance woman who was skilled with a paintbrush and had an ear for music, Alice could take dictation at 200 words a minute without a single misspelling.

She had a discretion seldom seen in Washington--now or then--and she was known as a ``jewel of secrecy'' in the White House.

Not only did she type President Harrison's annual address to Congress, she was given sole responsibility of safekeeping it until it was sent here to the Capitol.

She personally read through all of the President's and First Lady Caroline Harrison's correspondence, and she answered much of it in her own hand. During the late 19th century, no woman's signature was better known in America than Alice's.

In 1893, after losing his bid for reelection, Harrison left the White House but Alice remained. You see, she was so essential to the executive branch's function that the new President, Grover Cleveland, from a different political party, asked her to stay on.

In 1894, she moved to the Post Office Department, which was then a significant Cabinet-level Agency. She was no less indispensable in that capacity. For decades, she managed budgets and advertising. She kept track of regulations and postal laws, and she assembled the 700-page directive that guided the operations of every post office in America.

She was a masterful organizer. She planned war bond drives, donations to the Red Cross, and holiday celebrations, including the one we mark today.

Now, the idea of commemorating the day in 1777 when the Continental Congress created our national banner was not her own. Celebrations of the American flag were staged periodically around the country, dating back to the 1860s. But in 1908, Alice, as part of her responsibilities at the post office, planned and staged a grand celebration for Flag Day.

The sound of bands and distinguished speakers lifted out of the Old Post Office building's courtyard, where a giant American flag hung. In the years that followed, other government departments joined in the celebration with their own Flag Day festivities, in large part due to Alice's efforts. States followed suit, many with input from Alice herself, who advised local post offices on appropriate celebrations.

Presidents Wilson and Coolidge recognized Flag Day with proclamations, and, in 1949, the 81st Congress passed and Harry Truman signed legislation formally establishing its observance.

You see, there is some harmony between Alice's career and her work to promote Flag Day. When we look up at the Stars and Stripes, we catch America's reflection. It is a symbol of our ideals, after all. Wherever it waves, on battlefields where we have defended it, alongside the graves of those who have died for it, in front of the places where its democracy lives--courthouses in our towns and statehouses in our cities, the dome under which we meet, and from the homes across the Republic for which it stands--our flag represents the promise of freedom and self-government; that any man or woman can live their life in pursuit of happiness. But it also is a reminder that the work of honoring those ideals goes on.

It is fitting then that, on Flag Day, we remember Indiana's Alice Sanger. This Hoosier served her country so faithfully in an era where pathways for women to do so were so few.

So, on Flag Day, we raise a pair of salutes: one to Old Glory, forever may she fly; and a second to the trailblazing spirit of Americans like Alice, long may it live.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, Boston is perhaps a surprising place to begin a tribute to Indiana's veterans on the occasion of Memorial Day, but there, on Augustus Saint-Gaudens' magnificent memorial to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, their names are etched.

Maybe the coast of South Carolina is no less unexpected a place to continue that tribute, but there, on the shore, they fell, the men who helped save our Union, who forever ended its greatest scourge, who fought for the Declaration of Independence, though they had been denied the unalienable rights it promised.

Seldom have American soldiers taken up arms and laid down their lives with such selflessness and yet so much at stake. Many Hoosiers were among their ranks. Their names should be known, their stories told. As Proverbs 10:7 says, ``the memory of the just is blessed.''

Abraham Lincoln described the Emancipation Proclamation as ``an act of Justice.'' One of the greatest instruments of that justice was embedded at the end of the document. It read ``that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States.'' ``Such persons'' were Black Americans.

Lincoln's words spread far and fast and wide. In my capital city of Indianapolis, Pastor Willis Revels petitioned Governor Oliver Morton to raise a fighting force, and when the request was denied, rebels encouraged Hoosiers to join the first all-Black regiment forming near Boston.

Unable to fulfill its recruitment goals at home, the Massachusetts 54th Infantry sought and welcomed volunteers from across the Union, and Hoosiers answered the call. There were men--men like George Broady, George Charles, Alfred Lewis, George McGowan. They came from across the great State of Indiana, from places like Newport, Richmond, Louisville, and Centerville. They were farmers, blacksmiths, barbers, laborers, and, soon enough, they were soldiers for the Republic.

There was no doubt of that when the 54th appeared on the dunes of Morris Island, before the twilight on July 18, 1863. They were in South Carolina to take Battery Wagner, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle between the Union Army and the port of Charleston.

When the 54th had marched to within 300 yards of the fort, shots streaked overhead. They were ordered to the ground until the fire had passed. Then they rose. They charged forward, through sand and marshy water, as the sun sank in the western sky.

As they reached the fort, Battery Wagner exploded with fire. The 54th was razed, ``like grass before the mower's scythe,'' one Hoosier survivor wrote afterward.

In the end, the regiment lost nearly 300 men that night--over 40 percent of its ranks. Fort Wagner remained in Confederate hands. Among the dead were Hoosiers Thomas Ampey and John Wilson.

They didn't simply fall for a good cause. Their bravery at Battery Wagner turned a tide. You see, it shattered prejudices about the supposed inferiority of Black soldiers and debunked foolish notions about their ability or willingness to fight.

Indeed, inspired by their example, additional Black regiments formed across the North. And by the end of 1863, Indiana had authorized the formation of the 28th U.S. Colored Troops.

Old Willis Revels, he was at work recruiting Hoosiers to fill its ranks. ``Your country calls you,'' he declared--``your country.''

Initially, over 500 men enrolled, forming 6 companies. The gallant 28th fought during the siege of Petersburg in Virginia. Its men fell at the Battle of the Crater.

When the Union Army marched into the fallen Confederate capital of Richmond, in the spring of 1865, the 28th was there. They helped bring the rebellion to its knees and slavery to its end.

And they were present in Galveston, TX, too, when General Order No. 3 was issued on June 19, 1865, ending legalized slavery, an event we now celebrate as Juneteenth.

Over 1,500 Black Hoosiers served in the Civil War in the Massachusetts 54th and 55th, the Indiana 28th, and across the Union Army. As President Lincoln acknowledged, the bravery of Black soldiers from Indiana and across the Union helped preserve the Union.

Offering an appropriate tribute to the fallen on Memorial Day can be a very difficult task. How can we, after all, express sufficient thanks to those who died for us?

To paraphrase President Lincoln, ``the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,'' but it will never forget the sacrifice of the men who fought in the 54th Massachusetts or the 28th Indiana.

It took great courage for these Black Americans to believe in the goodness of this country, its people, and the promise of its founding. The reason we build monuments and memorials to those fighting dead is so their examples live, so that we might draw inspiration from these heroes who did incredible things and fought for a more perfect Union and a world at peace.

So I close where I began, in Boston, because there, on the memorial to the 54th, the names of fallen Hoosiers Thomas Anthony and Elisha Burkett can be found. Their legacy lives on.

We remember these men and all who paid the ultimate price for our freedom on this Memorial Day.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, ``much better than you all expected.'' That is what President Biden said when asked about the conditions at the border after the expiration of title 42. ``Much better than you all expected.''

At the end of a week that saw a record 10,000 illegal crossings a day, he says, ``much better than you all expected.''

Those were just the ones that were stopped by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The President's statement is clearly disconnected from the on-the-ground reality at our border. Everyone knows that. And as far as I can tell, the Biden administration's policy, when it comes to the southern border, is largely to do the opposite of what the previous administration did.

This is the ``Costanza'' policy of border security. Whatever the previous President did, do the opposite. Within his first 100 days in office, President Biden stopped construction of the border wall, but he didn't stop there. He halted deportations, but he didn't stop there. He suspended the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy. As a result of these and other actions, there have been at least 6.4 million--6.4 million-- illegal border crossings at the southern border since the President assumed office.

Now, to put that in perspective--and this is just the number of people whom we have seen and been able to track come across the border illegally, so we know there are far more--but I represent a State, the great State of Indiana, where the population is 6.8 million.

That is a whole lot of people. Since 2021, hundreds of thousands of children have been trafficked across the southern border. Eighty-five thousand unaccompanied children are now missing. Last year, overworked and underappreciated Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 12,000 illegal immigrants who had already been convicted of a crime. Again, just the ones we have been able to apprehend.

This year, this year so far, those agents have stopped 82 people, according to my most recent count, from crossing the border, and they are on the terror watchlist.

Fentanyl smuggled across the border from Mexico is now the leading cause of death for Americans between ages 18 and 49. Record numbers of migrants are dying, swept away in the currents of the Rio Grande. So many, in fact, that law enforcement has to keep refrigerated trucks at the ready to store the drowned bodies.

The administration pretends that its lax border policy is somehow humane. It is the benighted, ultra-MAGA conservatives, the mean Republicans, in this vision who are inhumane.

Well, I have to say, swamping our law enforcement officers, overwhelming our resources, allowing lethal drugs to spread through our communities, not discouraging migrants from a deadly journey to the border, this is inhumane.

And saying so and demanding a measure of border security is not anti- immigrant. It is pro-American.

These are not Republican talking points; these are the sentiments of regular Americans. The failure to plan for the end of title 42 to enforce our immigration laws to secure the southern border is a disaster. Americans, no matter their political party, know it. But the President of the United States does not seem to understand.

In New York City, where illegal migrants have displaced homeless veterans in hotels, Mayor Eric Adams said: ``The President and the White House have failed this city.''

The truth is, when it comes to the border, the President and the White House have failed this country.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 8 minutes prior to the rollcall vote.

Cpl Marion ``Wayne'' Saucerman--there he is.

He graduated from Dugger High School in Sullivan County, IN, in 1943. Two days later, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. This is a decision he made after he listened to reports of the attack on Pearl Harbor over the family radio in 1941.

Corporal Saucerman was ready to fight, and fight he did with great valor. In a year, he went from rural western Indiana to the volcanic beaches of Iwo Jima. He was part of an elite sniper platoon in the 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division.

As he and other marines approached the shore, the battle was so fierce, the marines could barely make out the smoke-shrouded island.

Days after landing, Corporal Saucerman and his 30-man platoon reached the frontlines. Only 10 returned. While Corporal Saucerman did not raise the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi, he could see it waving high in the distance from his position down on the shoreline.

That American flag would not have flown over the island had Corporal Saucerman and his brother marines not been there fighting for it.

Weeks later, he led an operation to flush out Japanese riflemen who were hidden deep in caves. Wayne Saucerman was hit three times by enemy fire: a bullet to the right hand and two more in the left leg, one of which he carried the rest of his life.

The Purple Heart was Corporal Saucerman's reward for his bravery at Iwo Jima. The bullet in his leg was a lifelong reminder of the service to his country.

The sacrifices of those marines and sailors on Iwo Jima, men like Wayne Saucerman, saved the lives of 24,000 American air crewmen from a perilous fate in the waters of the Pacific and changed the tide of World War II. And then they came home. They built communities; they raised families; they continued to make history. In fact, for 35 years, Corporal Saucerman worked at Allison Transmission in Indianapolis, helping build the machines that took Americans across highways, into the air, and to the Moon.

Corporal Saucerman passed away on May 2. He was aged 97.

I rise today to give tribute to a life well lived in both heroic service to his country and dedicated service back home, a man who had great love for his family and friends and a Hoosier who was, in return, greatly loved.

His passing is a reminder that the ranks of our World War II veterans grow thinner by the day. They have saved civilization by simply doing their duty.

In what time we have, with what poor power each of us has, let us never forget or cease to thank these heroic veterans for doing their part.

Semper Fidelis.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, we are entering graduation season; 17- and 18-year-olds should be attending their senior prom, preparing to finish high school, and looking forward to their futures, as my oldest daughter is right now. They should not be in the obituaries of our local newspaper. Their high school lockers should not be makeshift memorials covered in flowers. And yet all over America, they are.

Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45-- the leading cause of death. A rapidly increasing number of the dead are teenagers. And the rate of teen overdoses since the pandemic have more than doubled compared to the decade before.

Between 2019 and 2021, the number of deaths caused by fentanyl among 10- to 19-year-olds increased by 182 percent. And this is due almost entirely to the fentanyl found in counterfeit pills, many of which are sold via social media--platforms like TikTok and Snapchat.

The drug is incredibly lethal. Two milligrams, the equivalent of 10 grains of salt, can kill. It is inexpensive to produce and exponentially more dangerous than heroin or morphine. Even the overdose rate of children 5 and under is growing. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are dying, so many of our kids among them.

How can we be so powerless to prevent this?

To all the families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl, we grieve with you. We share your anger, and we vow--we vow--not to let your loved one's death be in vain. It is past time we took the fight to the monsters who traffic in this poison, who profit from our loss.

I know the Presiding Officer feels the way I do about this issue.

First, we know that the majority of fentanyl is making its way into our communities through Mexico. To President Biden and his administration: Secure the border now.

Second, let's give the frontline soldiers in this fight the tools that they need to keep fentanyl off our streets. The HALT Act, which my colleagues and I recently introduced, would do this. It would permanently classify fentanyl-related drugs as schedule I, meaning they would be deemed dangerously addictive with no medical value, and holds those who deal in this poison liable to civil and criminal punishment. This legislation would enable our law enforcement officials to better fight the impact of this deadly drug.

Lastly, we need to cut off the dealers' back channels to our children. We know that pushers prey on teenagers across social media platforms, embedding advertisements with emojis or codes. Social media companies must work with the Federal Government to shut down these one- stop digital drug shops--shut them down.

Another recently introduced bill, the Cooper Davis Act, would require social media companies to play their part in this fight and duly report drug trafficking across their platforms. To accomplish this, our bill would create a standardized reporting system with the Federal Government, modeled after the existing reporting system for child sexual abuse material on social media platforms. It has worked there. It will work here as well.

The Cooper Davis Act is a bipartisan proposal reflecting the scale of devastation caused by the drug crisis across all of the 50 States. In fact, this crisis knows no region, no class, no party. No American family is immune from it.

By securing the border, by passing the HALT Act, and by passing the Cooper Davis Act, we can start--we can start--to rally a true national response to this crisis. We cannot let the deaths of so many young Americans be for naught. Enough is enough.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled votes: Myself, for up to 10 minutes; Senator Kaine, for up to 10 minutes; Senator Risch, for up to 5 minutes; Senator Menendez, for up to 5 minutes; and Senator Schumer, for up to 2 minutes.

Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleague, the great Senator from Virginia, Senator Tim Kaine, on the floor of the Senate today. And as we await this final vote--final passage of the repeal of the Authorizations for Use of Military Force in 1991, the Gulf war, and, in 2002, the Iraq war--I reflect on just how much work it took to get here, how much persistence. And I thank Senator Kaine for sticking it out.

A lot has happened over the last couple of decades.

A lot has happened over the last couple of decades. Twenty years ago, American soldiers were fighting that war in Iraq. Today, they are still there. They are advising Iraq's army at the invitation of the current government. Twenty years ago, Iraq was our enemy. Today Iraq is a strategic partner, an ally in advancing stability across the Middle East. A lot has changed in the last 20 years; and, yet, according to our laws, today we are still at war with Iraq.

This isn't just the result of an oversight. It is an intentional abdication of this body, of its constitutional role in America's national security. Allowing it to continue is a strategic mistake. It is a mistake that disrespects the sacrifices of our soldiers and their Iraqi partners as well. It is one that could endanger their work across the Middle East, and it is central to our national security that we set this right.

Here is why.

Iran has designs on a path to the Mediterranean Sea. The world's leading exporter of terror wants to build a route to move manpower and materiel to its proxies all across the region. Once it reaches the sea, it will establish a foothold to threaten Europe. This terrorism thoroughfare would run through Syria, through Lebanon, and, of course, through Iraq. Iran has sent many thousands of soldiers into Syria to prop up Dictator Bashar Al Assad and co-opted regions of that war-torn nation. Lebanon's institutions are weak. Hezbollah, with Iran's backing, dominates many sectors of the governments and the country.

Iraq cannot follow this path. It cannot become a satellite of Iran, and Iran cannot be permitted unrestricted access across the region.

Our advisers are fortifying and working with the Iraqi Army to prevent this dangerous future.

But we are undertaking this vital mission with a nation we are still technically at war with. The authorizations for both the 1991 Gulf war and 2002 Operation Iraqi Freedom are both still on the books. These authorizations for long-ended wars passed almost entirely by Members of Congress long-retired. These authorizations are outdated. They are a detriment to our national security strategy, and they are an abdication of Congress's constitutional role in declaring and, yes, ending wars.

In the centuries before our revolution, Kings waged wars--wars that their subjects fought. Reflecting on this history, our Founding Fathers placed the power to make war not with the executive, but with this branch, the legislative branch. And it is here in our Congress, in the people's Congress, they determine that debate and deliberation and consensus should precede a decision to go to war or to avert it.

You see, the Framers placed this great responsibility in our hands-- our hands. And we let it slip right through them. By allowing these authorizations to live on long past their purpose, we have forfeited the power to make and to oversee wars to the White House. Presidents of both parties--of both parties--have employed specious legal reasoning and used them as a justification for military interventions wholly unrelated to their original missions.

So here is the choice before us: We repeal these authorizations; we restore a part of our system of checks and balances; or we let them live on, extending a permanent blank check for Presidents to bypass Congress in authorizing military action. That is the choice.

By doing the former, we not only take a step towards realigning the function of our government with its Constitution, we also send an important message to Prime Minister Sudani that our interests are shared; our nations are allies; that we will continue to partner with Iraq to train and equip its Army in their fight against ISIS; and that we oppose Iran's violation of Iraq's sovereignty and its ambitions of regional dominance--ambitions that endanger the world far beyond the Middle East.

And let us not forget that in case of urgent national security emergencies, even after repealing these authorizations, Presidents can still, as they can now, invoke their article II war powers.

In closing, I just want to underscore the heroic legislative efforts--the heroic leadership--that my colleague Tim

Kaine has shown throughout this long effort to get this legislation on the floor to persuade those around the country that this should remain a first-order priority; to persuade people in both parties that this merits our time and our attention; that these repeal efforts are important not just to this generation, but to future generations.

Thank you to Senator Kaine and his team.

I want to thank my team--my amazing national security team and legislative team--for their hard work on this effort, as well.

I want to reiterate something I know that Senator Kaine agrees with: that repealing these war authorizations will give a greater voice to those whom we represent. We live with the possibility every day that our men and women in uniform could be called away to fight, to sacrifice their very lives for our freedom. We dread for that moment to come. But if it does, we must be certain that the American people are united behind the decisions we make here and that our intentions are clear to our military commanders.

By reclaiming our war powers, by restoring the open, civil, but passionate debates about matters of war and peace, we will do exactly that. And our Nation and its allies will be stronger and safer because of it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate very much my colleague from Florida's continued focus on the need to fully account for what went wrong with the Biden administration's horribly botched withdrawal from Afghanistan; however, I regret that I must oppose his amendment because this is not the right venue for establishing a committee of this nature.

In the coming months, we are going to consider the annual National Defense Authorization Act, and important oversight issues such as the ones raised in the amendment by the gentleman from Florida should be debated within that context and that framework.

This legislative effort to remove outdated authorities that were put in place two decades ago for a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq to prevent them from abuse in the future has to be kept, in my estimation, as clean as possible to enable them to be signed into law without further delay.

As I said before, by allowing these authorizations to live on long past their original purpose, Congress has forfeited the power to authorize military force to the executive branch.

I know my colleague from Florida cares deeply about oversight issues, as evidenced by this amendment, so I hope he and I can work together both to pass a clean repeal of these two outdated authorizations and then discuss

robust oversight measures for Afghanistan within the confines of the NDAA process.

In closing, I would urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment in order to keep this bill a clean repeal of the 1991 and 2002 authorizations.

Vote on Amendment No. 13

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, thousands of miles separate Warsaw, IN, from America's southern border. That distance doesn't mean events on our southern border don't affect Hoosiers in Warsaw and communities across our State.

Last month, I met with local law enforcement officials in the Warsaw area, and they shared some heart-wrenching stories with me. I heard about police arriving at a family's home. Both parents had overdosed, and one was unconscious--these terrible experiences right in front of their kids. They told me about emergency calls, the voice on the other end crying that a child had gone into cardiac arrest.

In these situations and too many others, they suspected the same source: fentanyl. The fentanyl entering the United States through our southern border is hitting this northern Indiana community hard. It is hitting all of our communities.

The opioid epidemic--and it is that--is the worst drug crisis in America's history. In the decade between 1999 and 2020, it killed over 564,000 of our country men and women. The number of lives lost is so great, it brought America's life expectancy down to a 25-year low.

Now, because of fentanyl, this crisis is growing worse. Two milligrams of this synthetic opioid are enough to kill, and it is killing more young Americans than cancer, more than car accidents, more than COVID. There is enough of it reaching our country to kill every single American many times over. Its point of origin is Mexico, and its point of entry into America is our southern border--the same border that 4.9 million illegal immigrants have crossed since President Biden took office.

His administration argues that because large quantities of fentanyl have been seized at our official ports of entry, the overdose epidemic is somehow unrelated to the broken border.

But if we don't know who is crossing our border, how do we know what they are bringing across it?

The tragedy is not just taking place on our side of that border; President Biden's lax immigration policies send out a deadly ``welcome'' sign to migrants in search of opportunity. Drawn to it, they fall in with or place their children in the hands of merciless human smugglers. They are packed into and suffocate in trucks. They attempt a treacherous crossing of the Rio Grande and end up swept away by its currents.

The bodies of 890 migrants were discovered last year along the southern border. Police on the American side are diverted from law enforcement while recovering the bodies. Funeral homes in Mexico don't have enough refrigerators to store them in.

America is a welcoming country. It is also a country of laws. The two are not incompatible. And what good is a country without a border? It has been said many times by many people, but I will say it again: A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation. We can secure our border. We can demand to know who and what is crossing it while also welcoming those who seek to start better lives in America legally.

Americans in places like Warsaw, IN, are looking at this chaos on our southern border in anger, and they are looking to us right here in the U.S. Senate for help. They are asking us to stop the flow of drugs poisoning our people; to enforce our immigration laws; to build a border barrier; to reinstate the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy; to do whatever it takes to end this crisis; to do what the President and too many in his party will not. Too much time and too many lives have been lost. So let's not let the American people down. Let's secure the border.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the Founders of our country understood the dangers of concentrating military power in the hands of a single individual.

They had seen how dangerous this can be, thanks to their experience with King George III. In fact, the specific charges against the King in our Declaration of Independence, as so many know, lay out ``a long train of abuses'' by the military.

When it came time to draft the Constitution of the United States, the Framers had to strike a balance between giving the President the flexibility to respond to attacks and imminent threats and safeguarding against military adventurism, so they gave Congress--they gave this body--the power to declare war.

The practices of our early Presidents recognized the distinction between defensive military action--over which the President has control--under Article II of the Constitution and offensive operations, which must be approved by Congress in advance.

Fast forward to today; this process has broken down. And for the last three decades, this body has often neglected what is arguably its most important responsibility.

I think many Americans will be surprised to learn that these authorizations for use of military force--or AUMFs--especially the 1991 Gulf war resolution, are still on the books.

Today, these are, in the words of my friend Tim Kaine, who joins me on the floor today, ``zombie resolutions.'' They have fulfilled their purpose, and now they should be removed from our law.

Importantly, the repeal of the 1991 and 2002 resolutions would affect no current military operations. So the issue for us to consider is both what these AUMFs actually do authorize and what they could be used to authorize in the future.

It has been well over a decade since any administration has cited the 2002 AUMF to authorize any military action; however, leaving these authorities on the books creates an opportunity for abuse by the executive branch and bypasses Congress on the most important issue we consider as a body, which is how and when to send our men and women in uniform into harm's way.

On the topic of Iran as it relates to this effort, I share the views of so many of my colleagues on the need to counter Iran. I really do. But reimagining a more than 20-year-old authorization that was passed to combat a totally different enemy is not the way to do it.

Practically, repeal of the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs is very important because of the message that we send to our partner Iraq and to our other partners in the region and beyond.

Let us be clear. Saddam Hussein is dead, and we are no longer worried about the threat posed by Iraq, as stated in this AUMF, which we propose repealing.

Iraq has faced pressure from Iran for the past 20 years. The presence of the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs has not changed that. Going forward, as Iraq continues to face Iranian coercion and violence,

we must increase our resolve to stand with them as partners, not as our enemy, and repealing these authorizations would help us do just that.

This legislation is the rare issue that brings together supporters of all political persuasions. It doesn't fall on party lines. It certainly doesn't fall on ideological or philosophical or geographical lines.

In addition to bipartisan congressional support from across the political spectrum, this important effort has earned the support of a number of outside groups. Just a few of them are the American Legion, Concerned Veterans for America, Heritage Action, and FreedomWorks.

Later this morning, we will vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to this important bill. We don't need to debate extensively whether or not we even proceed to consideration; therefore, I urge a ``yes'' vote as we work together to reclaim these important authorities and arrest the trend of giving away our war powers to an unchecked Executive.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, in recent weeks, the Biden administration has reassured Americans that our economy is historically strong and that their policies are the reason why. But far away from the White House, most people, I have to say, are unpersuaded. The cost of their bills and the state of their savings simply don't match the rosy picture that the administration presents.

There is a reason the rhetoric of this administration is so disconnected from the reality. This administration claims it is investing in America's economy, but, at the same time, it strangles our economy with unnecessary and ideologically motivated rules and regulations.

Just ask Hoosier farmers. The latest in their deluge of redtape, the rewritten waters of the United States rule, will make it much harder and significantly more expensive for our farmers to help feed the rest of the world.

Look at what they have had to navigate over just the past few years: a global pandemic, a supply chain stoppage, inflation, and the increased price of inputs.

In an industry that is so fundamental to America's prosperity, where margins for generations have been razor thin, why would we create even more uncertainty for our Nation's farmers? Because the priorities of environmental ideologues in Washington, DC, are evidently more important to this administration than the needs of the people who actually work the land--the people who provide our food supply.

This isn't part of an agenda that helps Americans. No, it is a bare- knuckle attempt to expand the reach

of the Federal Government over the lives and activities of regular people.

Now, my office has recently heard from James Ramsey from Rush County, IN. James and his family farm corn, soybeans, and wheat in the east central part of our State. They have been farming and maintaining the same land since the 1860s. They also run a small business helping farmers and counties with drainage installation, ditch digging, and land clearing, improving water quality and soil health in the process.

They started out doing minor projects back in 2008 but have since grown, acquiring their own wheel trencher and commercial plow. Through hard work and through a lot of planning, James, his father, his brother, and others have expanded this business. They have clients now throughout the State of Indiana, and they have eight employees.

It is a real American success story--exactly the type WOTUS will interrupt. James, like many other farmers and small business owners across the country, knows what these newly revised, overly complex rules will accomplish. They will accomplish increased overhead, prolonged permitting processes, slowed or even stopped projects, and, ultimately, laid-off employees.

James has never had to let a single employee go because of a lack of demand. Instead, he regards his employees as family. They have their own families to feed. They have their own mortgages to pay, their own homes to heat. And James understands this.

This is why one of his greatest fears is having to one day--sometime soon, perhaps--walk into his shop and tell one of his guys that he can't keep everyone because of these new regulations. If this new definition of WOTUS stands, that has a strong chance of becoming reality. James might have to make that walk that he so wants to avoid.

Listen, our farmers don't want to clear the land or harm its creeks and streams. They want to take care of the soil--what they have been doing for generations. They want to continue to work hard on behalf of their families and ensure that they can continue in this noble profession that their fathers and grandfathers have been involved in. They want to pass this on to their children and grandchildren.

I have to say, our farmers also know quite a bit more about their land than the bureaucrats who wrote this WOTUS rule. As James pointed out, much of Indiana is not naturally drained. Because it was cleared long ago, rain empties into manmade streams and tile drains. We have the highest percentage of subsurface drainage in the entire nation in the State of Indiana.

Drainage systems are central to the productivity of our farms. Tangling them up with greater Federal regulation could be disaster for our agriculture industry. Farmers like James have been through so much over the past few years. They have hung in there nonetheless.

Now, just when they think they have turned another corner, WOTUS resurfaces, and, as James said, there is a real fear that these new regulations will have an even greater long-term impact than the pandemic or supply chain crisis.

Right now, our farmers are asking for clarity, for an even-handed approach to regulation that, at once, respects the environment and allows them to continue to grow. If the Biden administration is serious, if they are genuinely serious about strengthening the economy, they will reverse course and give our farmers this clarity and certainty they so desire.

We should rescind this rule.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, during the Civil War, Walt Whitman took stock of Abraham Lincoln's appearance. The President had a face, the poet wrote, like a ``Hoosier Michelangelo.'' But Whitman sensed that underneath the lines and the crags were wells of wisdom and tact perfectly suited to the President, hard-earned long ago.

You see, Abraham Lincoln is widely regarded as one of our country's greatest Presidents, a visionary and an inspiring leader who appealed to the highest American ideals and moved our Nation toward a more perfect Union.

Sunday marks the 214th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Even today, historians still wrestle with the question, how is a man of such character forged? The answer, I think, can be found in Southern Indiana, near the Ohio River. In 1860, when asked for details of his youth by a biographer, Abraham Lincoln was uncooperative. It could all, he said, ``be condensed into a single sentence--the short and simple annals of the poor.''

``That's all you or any one can make of it,'' Lincoln insisted. But, if you will pardon me, I would like to make a little more of it. My colleagues from Kentucky will no doubt point out that Lincoln's birth occurred in their Commonwealth, and as my colleagues from Illinois will likely remind you, when Abraham Lincoln departed for the White House, it was from their State. I will give them this: Lincoln was indeed born in Kentucky, and he did make his name in Illinois. But Abraham Lincoln was a Hoosier. ``It was there I grew up,'' he recalled of Southern Indiana. It was there in Spencer County ``I grew to my present enormous height,'' he once joked.

True, there is little left that Abraham Lincoln would recognize in our State today. There are just reminders of a once unbroken forest among the low hills; the soil--in it the graves of loved ones; and a great river separating north from south. In what does remain, though, we can still see where his character was formed, what prepared him for the trials to come.

The Lincolns arrived the same year Indiana became a State. It was still the frontier line. The woods were full of bears and the night air alive with the roar of mountain lions. This was a hard and heartbreaking life, uncertain and often short. Those years of Abraham Lincoln's life were characterized by loss--first the loss of his mother Nancy and later his sister Sarah--and by constant labor which he grew to so dislike. Schooling was scarce. Opportunities for self-improvement were few. By his own account, he had no more than a year of formal education.

Decades later, when Abraham Lincoln recalled his life in Indiana, he wrote, ``My childhood home I see again, and sadden with the view,'' but he also wrote that among the memories, there was ``pleasure in it, too.'' There were happy days in the Little Pigeon Creek community, captivating friends with his homespun stories, and there was the love of a stepmother who nurtured his curiosity.

The sparse schooling he had taught him to read and to write. In fact, he pored over what few books he could find: the Bible, a tattered biography of George Washington borrowed from a neighbor, and later a collection of Indiana law containing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

There was the Ohio River. That river was a gateway of possibilities and a point of departure to the outside world. Lincoln earned his first half dollar ferrying passengers on the river. He first saw the horror of slavery traveling down it.

By the time Abe Lincoln and his family left the Little Pigeon Creek community in 1830, Lincoln had spent a quarter of his life in Indiana. He crossed the Wabash River into Illinois, a grown man whose heart, touched by grief, was kind, generous, and strong; who could spin a yarn like no other; whose intellect far outpaced his meager education. Of course, he carried with him a great reverence for our founding's promise of freedom and a burning desire to rise in life.

Although Lincoln was loathe to speak of it as he grew older, those 14 years in Spencer County, IN--the sad and the joyous--shaped him. The qualities that saved the Union in its time of greatest peril were forged in the Indiana wilderness.

In March of 1865, only a few weeks before Lincoln's death, he addressed the 140th Indiana Regiment. The soldiers had recently captured a Confederate flag in North Carolina, which the President gave to Indiana Governor Oliver Morton. Lincoln reminded those Hoosiers assembled that he was raised in their State, and he praised their Hoosier valor. But he was ever mindful of the Union. He said that day, ``I would not wish to compliment Indiana above other states.''

Well, Mr. President, for whatever it is worth, I do, because Lincoln belongs to all Americans, but Hoosiers can claim a special connection with Abraham Lincoln.

So, on the occasion of his birth, we once again celebrate the life and legacy of this remarkable Hoosier. He represents the best of us. He was one of us.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.