♪♪ >> week nights at 9:00 eastern, c-span's encore presentation of our 10-part series, books that shaped history. and key pieces of literature that had a profound impact on our country. and monday night feature common sense, a 47-page tablet written by thomas payne and bell, a history professor at maryland. the c-span's encore presentation of books that shaped america, or go to c-span.org, books that shaped amernda, learn more about each book featured. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. who are funded by these television companies and more, including wow. >> the world has changed. today, the fast reliable internet connection is something no one can live without.

so, wow is there for our customers with speed, reliability, value and choice. now, more than ever, it all starts with great internet. >> wow. >> wow supports c-span as a public service, along with the other television priders, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> and we take you live to the senate now for more work on president biden's nominations and only one votes scheduled so far at noon eastern time, on whether to advance the nomination of a u.s. district court judge for western louisiana. you're watching c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. our guest chaplain, the reverend rear admiral gregory todd, chief of chaplains for the united states navy will offer the opening prayer.

the guest chaplain: the lord be with you. let us pray. eternal father, ruler of wind and wave,you establish the heavens and order all of creation. behold your humble people, seeking only to serve and not to be served. grant all who labor on behalf of the united states, a heart of humble service. lord, in your wisdom, you lead the predecessor to this congress, the continental congress of 1775, out of concern for the souls of sailors, to mandate that divine services be held on all navy ships thus giving rise 248 years ago to the navy chaplain corps. inspired by the insight of our forebears, we seek your divine

hand to raise up more religious ministry professionals to serve as united states navy chaplains. in our day, lord, grant us an increase of navy chaplains to care for the souls of sailors, marines, coast guardsmen, and their families as they navigate the daily challenges of military services. we give you thanks for raising up righteousness leaders who foster justice and promote the good. grant your wisdom to the newly confirmed and soon to be confirmed flag and general officers that they may bless your people. grant your favor to our nation this holiday season that though we are a people of many faiths or even no faith, we live united as a nation without hate or rancor.

into your divine hands we commit our prayer, trusting in your divine mercy. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., december 14, 2023. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable raphael g. warnock, a senator from the state of georgia, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patty murray, president pro tempore.

mr. kaine: mr. president the presiding officer: the senator from virginia mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise to commemorate the special occasion of having our navy chaplain, rear admiral todd appear to give the invocation and i do so noticing a ministerial hat trick in our presider and our senate chaplain and our navy chaplain all being on the floor as we open the session on this wonderful thursday. the navy chaplain corpse was creating -- navy corps was created with an order by george washington that there would be divine services on the ships of the united states navy. and that was 248 years ago. and often in the senate around the anniversary of the establishment of navy chaplains, the navy chaplains are invited to come and open a senate session. wefrp' a little bit after november 29, but it's very -- it's a very nice occasion to

welcome admiral todd here. admiral todd is a special individual. all chief of navy chaplains are special as we know from our own senate chaplain, reverend black. but get this. here's a little bit about admiral todd's career. he's a native of seattle. he joined the navy reserves in 1986 and then was a reservist at the same time he was pastoring churches. he superseded to active duty in 1994 and has been in the navy cha chaplainsy business since then. a very distinguished career. here's a mark that he holds that i'm not sure anyone else has or ever will hold. he's been the chief chaplain not only of the navy, but he was the tenth chaplain of the united states coast guard and the 20th chaplain of the united states marine corps before becoming the 28th chaplain of the united states navy. truly a servant whose service has spread far and wide to incorporate not only those who are in our military but also our

civilians and especially their families. and so this is a special occasion and a good one that we should do annually to allow the navy chaplain to open the senate session in memory of this 248-year tradition. but in particular, i want to express my gratitude to admiral todd for the great service that he's provided to thousands and thousands of our sailors, of our marines, of our coasties and their families. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, jerry edwards jr. of louisiana to be united states district judge for the western district judge for the western

the answer to those questions are not complicated. difficult but not complicated. for decades in my view, we have allowed large corporations in industry to entice children to eat foods and beverages loaded up with sugar, salt, and saturated fat purposefully designed to be over eaton. the situation has gotten so bad that most of what children in america eat today consist of unhealthy ultra-processed s that doctors have told us lead to a higher risk of type two diabetes. alarmingly, according to a

recent study that will be discussed this morning, ultra-processed foods which make up an incredible 73% 73% ofr nation's food supply can be as addictive, can be as addictive as alcohol and your as addictive as cigarettes. while diabetes and obesity rates in america soar, while we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to treat diabetes, the food and beverage industry spent $14 billion last year on advertising to make many of the unhealthy products appealing to the american consumer. even worse and i think really what gets to me, $2 billion of of their advertising budget is used to directly market food by predominate high in sugar, salt and saturated fat to our children. in order to get them hooked on these products at an early age. how's that? according to the center for

policy and obesity, children and teens view about 4000 food and beverage ads on television every year, an average of ten ten advertisement you today. another study found children watch nickelodeon and nick toons are exposed to over ten unhealthy food and beverage ads every hour, going after the children. let me give you one example. last year, for example, coca-cola spent 327 million on advertising in the united states alone, not one of those ads will tell you the drinking one or two cans of coke that they will increase your chances of getting type two diabetes by 26%. i didn't quite see that in the ads that they do. nor will their tv ads tell you that one, 20-ounce bottle ofid coke contains over 50 teaspoons of sugar, more than twice the ne house, senate democrats, and senate republicans will continue negotiations on a national

security supplemental package. yesterday we had another round of productive conversations, and there was more progress. but of course there's more work to do. and we're going to keep at it and keep at it. last night i filed cloture on a couple of nominations to the federal bench and the department of justice with possible votes on these nominees as soon as tomorrow. to my republican colleagues who have said action on the board was urgent, let's keep working to find a solution instead of rushing for the exits. if republicans are serious about getting something done, they should not be so eager to go home. this may be our last best chance to get this legislation done. after weeks of deadlock, we have seen significant progress over the past few days, and we should take advantage of the opportunity because we may not get one for quite a while. it is not easy to reach an agreement on something this complicated. but so much hangs on our success

so we need to try with everything we have. the world is watching what congress does right now. our friends are watching. our adversaries are watching even more closed. and most of all, vladimir putin is watching closely. he's eager to advance in ukraine. here is what putin said a few hours ago about american aid to the ukraine. quote, the free stuff is going to run out some day, and it seems it already is. that, mr. president, is vladimir putin taunting the senate, taunting america. while congress is mired in gridlock, putin is on the other side of the world mocking our resolve. in generations past, this would have been a no-brainer. democrats and republicans would have bent heaven and earth to stand up to russian dictators. we spent half a century, spent

billions and billions and billions of dollars, lost lives to safeguard the free world against the malicious spread of comm communism, against tyranny and those who undermine our values. now we find ourselves at another moment in history whether democracy is under siege. we heard directly from president zelenskyy two days ago about what's at stake if we fail. so fail we must not. there is too much on the line for ukraine, for america, from western democracy -- for western democracy to throw in the towel right now. we must keep talking. we must keep working. our republican friends must be reasonable. they must show their -- they're serious about getting something done and we have had serious discussions in the last few days. democrats are willing to keep trying. i urge my republican colleagues to do just the same. now, on ndaa. last night for the 62nd running

-- year running, the senate spassed our annual defense authorization act with a strong bipartisan vote, 87-13. the senate's bipartisan package of the defense bill stands in glaring contrast with the partisan race to the bottom we're seeing in the house. just look at the difference between these two bodies. while the senate is strengthening america's national security, house republicans are wasting time on a clown impeachment that will get nowhere. the house republican impechment inquiry is the definition of unserious. the house should be looking at the senate right now for an example of how both sides can work together in a meaningful way to pass serious legislation to improve the lives of the american people. now as i have said repeatedly, we began the month of december with three major goals here in the senate. before the end of the year. first, we had to end the blockade of hundreds of military nominees. we've done that. second, we needed to pass the

ndaa. we did that last night. and finally and of course hardest of all, we must reach an agreement on a national security supplemental. democrats are still trying to reach an agreement. we've had productive talks with republicans today, but of course we have a lot of work left to do. we're going to keep working. this is too important not to. i yield the floor. test:

>> i would also like and that would be a good thing to discussed today, have an hp using its discretionary funding that something over which we do

have jurisdiction. we should look at why and h habitually under funds obesity research, despite it being the kind of foundation of why type two, the rate of type two diabetes is gone up dramatically. as well as by the way its impact upon many other medical conditions. it's important to explore the impact of recent medical advances upon the diabetics. american medical innovation is saving countless lives. diabetes is no different. groundbreaking governments in diabetes management like continuous glucose monitor, or cgm, increases patient adherence to treatment while improving quality of life for patients in peace of mind for parents and caretakers. we could familiarize ourselves with that, i'm a doctor but i was aware of it and some he said look under phone. you can see what your diabetes is. it really brings it home to the folks and it was quite remarkable might in turn his

friends explaining to me how this has been so changing. so positive of a change in terms of the management of diabetes. point out even ten years ago parents were worried about their children developing diabetic shock but now with affordable cgm and other innovative devices like glucose levels are monitored in real time and these devastating occurrences such as diabetic shock are prevented. we need to continue to foster innovation and solutions to create -- miracles but at some point will become yesterday's news we need the next miracles. cellular treatment is on the rise and with the potential to again revolutionize how americans live with diabetes. i visited an outfit in massachusetts and they showed me this kind of twirling math and they said those are pilot cells that can be gathered up and ejected under someone's arm. this is a technology that will be implemented.

quite remarkable. again we could've been discussing that today. the task of this committee is to balance affordability and innovation. i accept the chairs point pic if there's an innovation to someone cannot afford, if that innovation doesn't occur. so i'm with you on that. but we should again be discussing topics within the committee's jurisdiction. that's what we have the responsibility to do. if there something we can actually address then consider legislation. i look forward to export the issues we can address with our witnesses. with that i yield. >> thank you very much, senator cassidy. now we'll hear from a very distinguished and knowledgeable witnesses we're delighted her with us today. our first witness will be doctor ashley gerhard who is a professor of psychology and clinical sites at the university of michigan. dr. gary hart's research focus on effects of poor nutrition on diabetes and obesity are, in fact, it's driving excessive consumption of unhealthy foods

notably shows published a recent study of ultra-processed food can be as addictive as nicotine and alcohol. doctor gerhard thanks so much for being with us. >> chairman sanders, ranking member cassidy, and distinguished members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's meeting. i will briefly review my qualifications to speak as an expert at this hearing. i received my phd in clinical psychology at yale university with a focus on addictive disorders, obesity and disordered eating congressman connolly professor of psychology and director of the food and addiction sites and treatment lab at university un. i'm also a licensed clinical psychologist. fill a clinical experiences i had gained first-hand understanding of how hard people are working to try and get control over the eating. i felt evil people are faced sul funding request and identified

four key national security priorities. for eight weeks senate republicans have been working hard to produce legislation that takes appropriate action on all four fronts, helping ukraine defeat putin in europe, helping israel fight iranian terror in the middle east, helping asian partners deter chinese aggression, and helping the men and women of border patrol get the crisis at our southern border under control. at the same time, we've had to spend several weeks now trying to convince some of our democratic colleagues not to tank the entire effort just because they wish a democratic president had not put border security in his request. a number of senate republicans have been working in good faith to make sure that supplemental

legislation makes substantive policy changes at the border instead of just throwing money at the problem. meanwhile, we've had to explain to members of president biden's own party why the border security issue he included in his proposal was not extraneous to america's national security. so here we are, with some very important conversations ongoing, and here's the bottom line -- the senate cannot claim to address major national security challenges without a solution to the one we're facing on the southern border. we can't pretend to be serious about threats facing america and our allies without fixing the broken asylum -- broken system that lets 10,000 illegal aliens

cross our border in a single day. so, mr. president, i'm serious, senate republicans are serious, and i hope our colleagues are as well. on another matter, the events of the past two months have underscored that something is rotten in the state of america's most elite universities, and there aren't many more glaring examples than harvard. last week, of course, harvard's president refused to say whether calls for jewish genocide would constitute harassment on her campus. two months ago, in the immediate aftermath of the october 7 terrorist attack, she declined to condemn the harvard student group who openly declared that the murder of innocent jews that day was israel's own fault.

under her leadership radical students for justice in palestine have organized to spin terrorist propaganda and mostly succeeded in getting harvard graduates blackballed by major corporations and federal judges. one jewish student at harvard business school was even assaulted on his way to study. and yet, despite her abysmal record of combating anti-semitism and mounting allegations of plagiarism in her own scholarship, the cadre of left wing financers and administrators has affirmed that confidence that president gay is the right leader to help our community heal. well, when you look at harvard's history, this embarrassing lack

of moral clarity is hardly a sur surprise. a century ago, harvard president abbott lowell proposed a numerical quota on jewish stu students. his reasoning? quote, the anti-semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of jews. so one harvard president says that the presence of jews causes anti-semitic. a hundred years later, another says that calls for jewish genocide really depend on the context in which they're made. frankly, you'd be forgiven for wondering whether anti-semitism isn't just business as usual at harvard. now, on one final matter, this week the united nations wrapped

up its latest conference on climate change. world leaders took private jets to dubai and the biden administration 's special climate envoy, john kerry, returned triumphant, with a joint statement condemning the evils of coal power. elite liberals sure are obsessed with killing jobs in places like kentucky, but that's only the half of it. yet again, the maximum hardships the biden administration is happy to heap on american workers and consumers are producing no meaningful benefits on the world stage. the past three years have been an endless parade of canceled permits and new regulations that make it harder than ever to produce affordable and reliable american energy. by canceling the keystone xl pipeline on day one, president biden also canceled as many as

59,000 jobs that were needed to build it. and now the president's envoy has returned with another meaningless pledge that doesn't even compel the world's biggest emitters of carbon. just look at the numbers. u.s. emissions are projected to fall by 4% this year. meanwhile, china's are projected to increase by twice as much. last year, beijing green-lit four times as much new coal power as they did the year before, but the biden administration apparently wants us to believe it's america's producers and job creators and workers who aren't pulling their weight. so the u.n. climate conference is a good reminder that the elite left wing obsession with self-inflicted climate pennance is not just an american problem.

canada's liberal government for its part has a bold, new plan -- paying farmers to make sure their cattle don't burn so much. apparently, canada's plan is to build around a carbon credit, a nebulous commodity that supposedly negates carbon emissions from activities like flying private jets. except in this case, the su subjects aren't elites looking to ease their conscience on the way to a conference in dubai. they're the workers who put food on the table. canada's so-called reducing methane emissions from beef cattle proposal would grant carbon credits to farmers who feed their cows special diets to reduce burning. well, that sounds an awful lot

like the way washington bureaucrats like to tell middle-class americans what kind of car to drive and what kind of stove to use. it also sounds entirely ridi ridiculous. mr. mcconnell: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.

quorum call:

a survey in 2021, 16.5% of people with diabetes ration their insulin because of cost. this is not just due to lack of insurance coverage. among medicare beneficiaries with diabetes one in ten reported skipping, delay or taking less medication to save money. there has been so much excitement about the new medications in type ii diabetes

and obesity. that's because some of the medications and really seem to work. they not only help people lose weight, but also important to reduce the risk of complications related to diabetes. but the price tag for these new medications are simply outrageous. the brand name approved for type two diabetes and marketed as a u.s. list price of over $900 per month. the brand name for the same drug approved for obesity is $1300 per month. if medicare were to fully cover all of this beneficiaries for one year, we as american taxpayers we didn't up with a $268 billion price tag. to get some perspective that 70% of all the money that was spent on prescription drugs in the u.s. in 2021. and could we stop at one year?

probably not. what we know about this and related medications is that they work while people take them. however, as soon as they stop their weight comes back. some patients are looking at a potentially lifelong treatment, and we could be facing the most expensive subscription service in the history of medicine. what can caucus do to fix this? ozempic is priced at roughly $100 per month in sweden and just $80 and australia and france. that's 10% of what we are being asked to pay. one explanation is that those governments are negotiating prices directly with the pharmaceutical companies. that's not socialized medicine. that's smart negotiating. price negotiation is critical but i believe we must do more. pharmaceutical companies have absolutely no restrictions on the launch prices of their products. nor is it in evidence that these

prices are reflective of research and development costs. no amount of expert negotiation can bring down drug prices years later when the launch prices is sky high to begin with. we have to align the launch price with the drug sally, the cost to develop and manufacture the drug, and what patients can afford. this is a rational approach that has been in place and many other developed countries. but i want to be clear here. medications alone cannot be the solution to the diabetes and obesity epidemic. we need to be more farsighted and strategic than that. neither diabetes and obesita moral failure or a personal choice. just telling people to eat less, exercise more is not going to solve the problem. instead, we must address the upstream causes of obesity like holding the food industry accountable and my fellow experts have already made clear. the reality is the drug industry is really good at pushing its

solutions and its products. drug companies are powerful. sometimes more powerful than government. denmark pharmacy has a -- big events host nation gdp. so he must remember that drugs alone can't save us. the early part of the solution. we can't simply prescribe eye way out of this problem, and before we sign up for that never ending subscription service and spend trillions of dollars, let's be smart consumers and have the government at the negotiating table right from the start. in closing, the bottom line is this, we had food industry that profits from making people sick, and the drug industry that profits from treating them. we must break that cycle. thank you. >> thank you very much. senator cassidy, and you want envision witnesses? >> thank you, mr. chairman. please first introduce ms. natalie stanback, a mother

to a type i diabetes patient. ms. stanback provides insightful personal perspective on the issues to do with type i diabetes and their parents encounter. in 2015 our daughter was diagnosed with type i diabetes and, and apparently your family has a strong some history of this. of type one. unrelated to obesity. natalie volunteer is with jdrf the juvenile diabetes research foundation to advocate for type i diabetes research. this year she served as chair of the jdrf children's congress picture lives in texas with her husband and three kids. thank you for joining us. i look forward to testimony. >> chairman sanders, ranking member cassidy, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. i am here because unfortunately i am deeply familiar with the many challenges presented by type i diabetes, or t1d.

i do not have this disease but my 11-year-old daughter nadia does. she lives with it. my brother died from complications of t1 d when he was only 38 so you can imagine the fear that i felt when nadia was diagnosed at the age of three. it was overwhelming to say the least. nadia does not know life without diabetes. we are blessed to have access to the best medical care which helps her live the life she wants to live. she has an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor she plays soccer and runs track. she looks like a normal kid, and in most ways she is, but diabetes is always there. 365 days a year, 24/7. this disease is hard and it is cumbersome. we are an emotionally positive family, glass half full, but disease is still hard on all of

us but especially it is hard on nadia. she can't eat without calculating how many carbohydrates are in the food so that she can dose the correct amount of insulin. her blood sugar levels can go low during soccer games which forces her to sit out and treat it and get back in the game is there still time. she has to do with the needles necessary to change insulin pump and fusion sites and glucose monitoring sensors in a way that many adults with and still do struggle with. and then there are prescriptions and doctors appointments must be diligently managed. my daughter is brave. she is responsible, and she is miraculous. but it is still so very hard every day, not just for her but for all those around her. her siblings come extended from the members, teachers, coaches, france, france parents anyone needs to understand not he is needs and how they can help, especially in the case of an

emergency. it takes a village to raise a child. it takes the city to raise a child with diabetes. i know that the members of this committee are aware of the realities of diabetes and get champion this cause for years. i am grateful. i was honored to chair jdrf children congress this past summer and into the amazing delegates and guardians you all met are so grateful, too. having you as champions has helped us get to where we are today. in fact, supported research directly contributed to the development of the incredible devices that nadia relies on every day. they could still be, they could still be here in the future if not for the support of the fte. what my daughter what every part of the child with diabetes needs and what every person affected with diabetes needs is a cure. something that removes the thousands of medical decisions

we must make every day so that we can focus on everything else in life. for my doubt that would mean focusing on scoring goals on the soccer field and doing well in school, not whether she will go dangerously low or high in blood sugar in the process. research can make that happen. the spd have been foundation for nearly every advance in pursuit of that ultimate goal which is cures. i'm excited about the progress and therapies to delay t1 d t1dt in those that risk developing the disease. anyone is able to take advantage of the onset is receiving an incredible gift. time without t1 d. i wish that nadia could've had that opportunity. i do believe that someday nadia will receive that ultimate gift, life without t1 d. we have made progress towards curing t1 d t1d through cel therapies.

this research is happening right now. i do not know when she received that gift. no one does but it do know the best way to bring that day closer is long-term, sustained funding for the special diabetes program. this research must continue. as a mom i do not want my daughter to face a lifetime with diabetes with funded research i know cures are possible. i know a life free of insulin pump and monitors and the looming threat of complications is on the horizon but only if the brilliant minds have gotten this far have the resources they need to get us across that finish line. and until then we need affordable insulin. the insulin act would help us make that more of a reality. i urge you for your support. thank you so very much for your time and i look forward to your questions. >> i now have the privilege of introducing the next witness,

dr. aaron kowalski, the chief executive officer and president of jdrf and his role as ceo and president of jdrf dr. kowalski is -- type i diabetes research by working closer with academics and the type i diabetes community. he's also a scientist and i'm told this is not a protected joseph type i diabetes. always have to fill that in there, dr. kowalski, to make sure i don't get busted. dr. kowalski is also a a numbf type i diabetes research articles focusing upon diabetes standards of care and artificial pancreas. he has a doctorate in microbiology and molecular genetics from rutgers. i look forward to your testimony. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. chairman sanders, ranking member cassidy, members of the committee, thank you so much for inviting me to testify and her interest in diabetes. i am dr. aaron kowalski, ceo of jdrf, the local nonprofit. as a scientist and just a person

living with type i diabetes a motor to work for jdrf for the past i can just come four in my current role. i'd like to start with a thank you because of your incredible bipartisan support and leadership. and the steadfast leadership of the senate diabetes caucus cochairs, senator collins who had to leave and senator shaheen, the special diabetes program is begin special diabetes program for indies, spd i are making a tremendous difference in the lives of people with diabetes and for their our hope for the future. these programs have fundamentally change what it means to live with type i diabetes and have put new life changing therapies in our hands and brought us closer to cures. jdrf and the countless volunteers are so grateful for the the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: mr. president, the list of things that we can do but haven't done is extensive. it's long.

we need to chip away at that list and get our work done as 2023 comes to a close. today i want to highlight the urgent need too pass a longs-term, a long-term, not a continuation of little extensions, but a long term faa legislation. current faa reauthorization expired on september 30 in which a subsequent extension was passed until the end of this year. that's not many days away. congress is now progressing toward another short-term extension until mid-march 2024. i serve as the lead republican and ranking member of the aviation subcommittee on the commerce, science, and transportation committee, and i stated at the very beginning of my tenure in that position the importance of passing a long-term reauthorization, and i am here today to continue to beat that drum.

continuing short-term extensions are detrimental to the agency, the industry, and the flying public. this is about public safety. we've been genuinely and rightfully concerned about the flying public, and reauthorization of the faa bill, as we have developed it, is an important component of making people safer as they fly. multiple-year reauthorization is necessary for long-term planning and growth of the civil aviation industry. i come from the air capital of the world, kansas, and we know the importance of this piece of legislation in our ability to compete globally and to defend our nation in its time of national security needs. mult pap year organization is for growth and infrastructured and technologies. if the united states is to remain a leader in the aerospace domain, it is critical we provide the faa the resources and the tools they require.

we spent months working on the legislation. it is designed and will improve the capabilities of the federal aviation administration. the u.s. house of representatives has passed an faa reauthorization, and they did so last july. unfortunately, the senate has yet to move a bill out of the committee. in november the aviation subcommittee convened once again to address close calls and near misses that have recently plagued our nation's air space. incidents that indicate now more than ever our aviation system needs certainty and stability provided in part by long-term authorization by congress. while i was pleased to see my colleagues come together this past october in a vote 98-0, 98 to nothing in the senate to confirm mr. mike whitaker as the faa administrator, i implore -- i request my colleagues to once again to find that collaborative spirit, that way forward to address faa reauthorization.

our colleague in the house, the house transportation chairman sam grey recently held a hearing on the consequences of the failure to pass a long-term faa authorization bill. while the hearing touched on a myriad of kishes -- issues, continued faa extensions -- airport programs and project delivery impacts due to uncertainty in planning, the inability of the faa to adjust to a merging tech -- emerging technologies and workforce issues for the entire aviation system, particularly air traffic control staffing which has led to continued delays and cancellations for the flying public. mr. rich santa, president of the national air traffic controllers association, summarized it this way. and i'm quoting him. the single most important action congress can take for the safety of the national air space system would be to pass a long-term comprehensive faa reauthorization bill and put it into law before the end of the

year. our aviation system cannot make needed advancements and improvements if we continue to allow the status quo which has near term and long-term implications. so once again i stand ready to work with my colleagues, the chairman and the ranking member of the full committee, my colleague senator duckworth from illinois, my chairman of the subcommittee that i'm the ranking member of. i stand here ready to not only encourage my colleagues but to put my work where my mouth is and make sure that we take every step possible to find that sweet spot, that needle which i don't think is that small of a needle hole to get us faa reauthorized long term. our aviation system depends upon it and most importantly, my kansans -- kansas constituents and all americans depend upon for their safety, this piece of legislation. mr. president, i thank you for your attention and i yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president the presiding officer: the senator from illinois mr. durbin: mr. president, i rise to speak on two issues.

the first i would like to ask unanimous consent that be print in the congressional record an article from "the new york times," we are no strangers to human suffering but we've sun nothing like the siege of gaza the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: thank you, mr. president. this article is authored by some remarkable people. michele nun, president chief executive of care. tanya mckenna, chief executive of mercy corp. john england, the secretary-general of the norwegian refugee counsel, abbey, chief executive of ox fan and mr. jeremy corndike, president, of refugees international, and ms. serepito, president of save the children u.s.a. i'd like to take a minute to read two paragraphs from this essay which i have just entered

into the congressional record. it reads as follows. as leaders of some of the world's largest global humanitarian organizations, we've seen nothing like the siege of gaza. in more than two months -- in the more than two months since the horrifying attack on israel that killed more than 1200 people and resulted in 240 abductions, about 18,000, including more than 7 -- 7,500 children have been killed according to the gazian health ministry. more children have been reported killed in this conflict than in all major global conflicts combined last year. the atrocities committed by hamas on october 7 were unconscionable and depraved and the taking and holding of hostages is abhorrent. the calls for their release are urgent and justified, but the right to self-defense does not and cannot require unleashing this humanitarian nightmare on millions of civilians.

it is not a path to accountability, healing, or peace, and no other war can we think of in this century have civilians been so trapped without any avenue or option to escape or to save themselves and their children. i think this essay is worthy of all of my colleagues and for the public to read it. i hope they saw it initially in "the new york times" and will read it now. now i ask consent to go to a separate, unrelated topic the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, five years ago congress came together to pass the first step act, the most important criminal justice reform legislation in a generation. i'm happy to come to the floor today with my colleague and friend, senator booker of new jersey, and celebrate this momentus anniversary. the first step act passed the house and senate by overwhelming bipartisan majorities and was supported by a broad coalition from across the political spectrum, including former president donald trump who

signed it into law. i was proud to champion this landmark legislation with the help of senators booker, grassley, and lee. it took months of bipartisan negotiation and painful compromise. but the net result was a historic victory that significantly improved our system of justice. i'm thankful for the tireless efforts of many dedicated advocates who never gave up hope that this law could be passed. it was a dramatic change to finally acknowledge that just being tough in the so-called war on drugs was not enough. i often think back to my early days in the house of representatives during the 1980's when the crack epidemic was devastating america. i vividly remember in 1986 when the nation reeled from the news that a maryland basketball player named len bias had died from a cardiac induced by cocaine. all of the evidence pounces to it -- points to it having been powder cocaine.

his death nevertheless became a public symbol of the crack epidemic. members of congress were desperate to do something to stop the despair caused by drugs in our communities and punish the dealers trafficking this new highly addictive product. so we passed legislation. the antidrug abuse act, that established mandatory minimum sentences for distribution of specific quantities of drugs. we thought we would clearly deter people from selling drugs by imposing tougher, tougher sentences for larger quantities. the law imposed much tougher sentences for crack cocaine offense than for powder cocaine offenses. an individual would receive a minimum, minimum five-year federal prison sentence for selling five grams of crack, the same sentence provided for selling 500 grams of powder cocaine. at the time we believed this 100-1 hit between sentences for crack and powder cocaine was the

right thing to do. we were so frightened by the impact that crack was having in america. but it never -- but it became clear over the next 30 years that we were terribly, terribly wrong. instead of the price of crack going up after the law was passed because of reduced supply, the opposite occurred. the price went down. even though we were locking up more people than ever for drug offenses, primarily african americans, the amount of drugs on our streets and the number of addicts was increasing. years after the law passed, i met a young african american from alton, illinois, who told me the story of his sister u jenni -- eugenie also from alton. as a child she was abandoned and seriously abused. at the age of 15 she started using crack to dull the pain of her life. at the age of 23, she was convicted for trading a small amount of crack cocaine for

clothingfor her small children. she was sentenced to 22 years in a federal prison, 22 years. she was a model prisoner while serving her sentence. while in prison she developed leukemia. i went to visit her in greenville, illinois, at the federal correctional center. i'll never forget the moment when i walked into the room and she was seated at the table. then she had been in prison for over ten years. she talked about how nice it was that she was in greenville, close enough to alton, illinois that her children could visit. but she was afraid because her cancer was taking her to a prison hospital in texas, and she wouldn't be able to see her children. she said to me something i'll never forget. she said, i don't know how much longer i'm going to live, senator. but i promise you this. if you can find some way to get me out of prison to be with my girls, i'll never do anything wrong again in my life. so i wrote a personal note,

handwritten, to president barack obama asking him to commute her sentence. he did. just in time for her to see her eldest daughter graduate from high school. it was the thrill of her life. sadly, eugenie died less than two years later. her story was tragic in so many ways but it inspired me to keep working to pass legislation to help other individuals who had been unjustly sentenced by our overly punitive laws. it became my personal mission to correct these errors and fix a policy that was doing far more harm than good. we took a big step in that direction in 2010 when president obama signed into law a bill i authored, the fair sentencing act. we reduced the 100-1 crack powder cocaine disparity to 18-1. but the fair sentencing act was not retro active meaning people while -- were still serving long sentences on crack cases after

the law was passed. the first step act finally brought them relief allowing them to be resentenced under the 18-1 ratio. the first step act also created an entirely new system programming in federal prisons designed to prevent incarcerated people from reoffending with the chance for them to earn extra time in community confinement or supervisory release at the end of the sentence, a strong incentive for them to do the right thing while in prison. last week senator booker and i had the pleasure of meeting with a group of individuals from an organization called families against mandatory minimums. it was a great meeting. many of the folks we met had been reincarcerated under the harsh 1980's drug law. i spoke with them, including some from my home state of illinois. one lady looked at me in the eye and she said, i was sentenced to life without parole and without your bill i'd still be there. several of them noted that they would still be in prison today and now they were back with their families.

they're back in their communities. they're spending time and contributing to their society. reforms in the first step act have been tremendously successful. i want to put the numbers on the record because they are so important. of the 29,000 -- 29,944 incarcerated people released under the first step act reforms through january 2023, only 12.4% have been arrested for new crimes. by comparison, the overall recidivism rate in the bureau of prisons currently stands at nearly 43%. 12% versus 43%. the success of the overwhelming majority of individuals released urt the first step act demonstrates that reducing the population in our overcrowded prisons can be done safely and effectively, and it's the right thing to do. it is, however, as its named, just the first step, to keep making our justice system fair and our communities safer, we

must continue reforming our outdated sentencing laws and provide opportunities for those incarcerated to successfully return. i hope congress will take many more steps in this direction toward a more justice criminal sentence. there is a natural impulse, mr. president. you know it. you've heard it. you've seen it. whether we talk about narcotics and drug crime, to say if we can just get fouf -- tough, if we can get the message out there we're going to impose tough sentences, then they'll stop using it. we tried it. it was a disastrous failure when it came to crack cocaine. let's not just get tough, let's get smart when it comes to sentencing people. let's realize an addiction is more than just a curse in a person's life. it is a medical situation that can be resolved many times. and we can do it if we work consciencely -- cons cons yensly. i hope congress works to more just sentences and response to the crisis of substance abuse in

america. now i'm going to turn the floor over to a man who has become a close friend and ally in this effort. when he first came to congress, cory booker may have been new to the federal level of this issue, but he certainly had ample experience when it came to state and local enforcement of drug laws because of the fact he was the mayor of the city of newark, new jersey which he reminds us of frequently, as he should. he has lived this issue personally in his home and community. he's seen the devastation it can cause. he has the same hope that i do, that rather than just say no, that these individuals will be given a chance to find a way, a new way, in life to overcome their addiction and become contributing members across america. i yield the floor to senator booker. mr. booker: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. booker: i am pretty excited, in fact, let's just say this is

the season of joy and i feel such joy today. the gentleman that just spoke, the senator from illinois, the chairman of the judiciary committee, he is a man of heroic action, and what we are marking today, this anniversary, is in so much due to his work, stea steadfast leadership on these issues years before i came here. we're celebrating this moment of joy and a moment of deep, profound gratitude, and i want to give senator durbin my deep thanks. i also want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. i want to thank chuck grassley. i want to thank mike leigh. i want to thank -- mike lee. i want to thank all of their staffs who worked so hard for this moment. this was truly a bipartisan effort and one of the best experiences i've had as a united states senator. in addition, we worked with the president's staff and his team to get to that bill and that moment. we had activists across the

political spectrum, from people like mark holden, who worked for koch industries, all the way to folks like jessica jackson and van jones. we had not only activists, but people directly impacted, advocating, organizations, nonprofits trying to bring justice to the justice system. it was a product, this bill was a product of compromise and shows what's possible in this institution when both sides come together on common ground. it was a recognition that had been growing that the criminal justice system needed reform and was devastating our nation's highest ideals and principles. we are a nation of liberty and justice for all. think about the backdrop to this. think about all of the facts happening leading into this incredible accomplishment five years ago. our federal prison system since

1980 had grown, exploded by 800%. the united states of america, which professes freedom as its fundamental ideal, had more people incarcerated than any other nation on the planet earth. one in four incarcerated people on our planet in the world were here in the united states of america. we had a system that was not based on justice or restorative justice, but based on retri retribution, and in many ways cruelty. we became captive of impulses of fear rather than the wisdom for healing and growth and security. i was stunned when i first saw that data point that about a third of the adult americans in our country, adults, had a criminal record. think about the criminalization.

think about that. over five million children in our country had a parent that was actually in jail or prison during their childhood. this overreaction to the war on dr drugs, it was not a war on drugs but a war on people, and disproportionately impacted certain people and not others. the african american community is a great example. because of this o overincarceration there were more black folks in our country under criminal supervision, more black men under criminal supervision than were enslaved in 1850. this is an affront to our ideals of liberty and justice, and other countries we malign for imp imprisoning journalists, for imprisoning politicians, imprisoning people that dare to protest the state, but our country, who do we imprison? the poor, the mentally ill, the

add addicted, survivors of abuse and sexual assault, black and brown folks who way overindex in our prisons and jails. any visit to an american jail can see in so many ways the failings of our system. instead of offering people help with substance abuse or mental illness, we were wasting billions of dollars tearing families apart, destroying communities, and ultimately making communities less safe. investing billions of dollars in warehousing people, not in roads, not in bridges, but incarcerating human beings. in fact, between 1990 and 2005, a new prison or jail opened in our country every ten days. think about that for a second. our national treasure was being used not for education, not for research, not for roads, bridges, technology, but to warehouse human beings. the perversity of the system was

that it was making us less safe. people being released that had recidivism rates so high because they weren't getting the help they needed, people nfor nonviolent drug offenses were coming out, facing over 40,000 collateral consequences that stopped them from getting a job, from buying a home, from providing for their family. our system is supposed to be about justice, and what was happening in the early 2000's is red states and blue states were starting to make an effort to reform their criminal justice systems. we saw states from georgia to new jersey lower their prison populations and lower crime at the same time. understanding that if you affirm people's dignity, give them pathways to health and well-being you not only lower your prison population but you make communities safer, you make families more intact. so after decades of these failed pol policies, a group of bipartisan senators working with a

republican white house and house members crafted this legislation that has affected thousands of people's lives. and senator durbin said it -- the population that was lib rafted from unjustice incarceration -- lib rated from unjust incarceration as a result of this bill has a lower recidivism rate than people who served out full terms and come home. because the fullness of of this bill wasn't just about liberating people from unjust incarceration but creating programs to empower people in prison and pathways to better lives when coming out. it was logical, it was common sense, and that's why from right wing think tanks to left wing think tanks and all in between were supporting, advocating, and pushing for this commonsense bill. five years after the passage ever the first step act, we now have evidence that not only demonstrates its success but

shatters the myths that criminal justice reform and public safety don't go hand in hand. the senator said, almost 30,000 individuals released, and almost nine in ten have avoided rearrest or reincarceration. compared to the 45% recidivism rates that senator durbin talked about. oh, but god, these are data, this is just statistics. what's powerful for me is meeting the human beings and their families, meeting the children who had their parents come home. you want to talk about joy? when this passed five years ago, i will never forget it, right out those doors, as soon as it passed it was an impulse, i hugged chuck grassley. because it was what i knew was going to happen. the holidays were really going

to be about the american value, that the most sacrosanct thing we could have is liberty, the most severe thing the government can do is to take someone's lint. we literally have slogans in our country, give me liberty or give me death. to see people come up to you and say all hope was gone. i was sitting in the at the present times of incarceration, like joseph thrown into the well, thrown into the prison, no hope, but yet i found deliverance because of republicans and democrats who worked together for common sense. i visited with those families. i've seen the impact on children. i've seen the stories of grades improving in school. i've seen the stories of people who have come out of prison, as we met, senator, who have gone to work making their communities safer, doing violence intervention, helping other

people not go the same way. this is what happens when we affirm human dignity. this is what happens when we understand how powerful and urgent families are in america. this is what happens when we live the values we swear an oath to with our hand over our heart, lint and justice for all. so yes, today again, i wish senator grassley was here, i might try to hug him one more time in honor of the anniversary, but this is a time where we should be celebrating this incredible step towards justice, but i will tell you, senator durbin, we called this the first step act. i remember the press conferences we had, republicans and democrats standing together, and said this is the first step, but we still have work to do. because we are still a nation with a majority of women incarcerated are survivors of sexual violence. we are still a nation where people struggling with addiction

more easily find jail than treatment. we are still a nation where our prisons and jails are filled with people who are mentally ill, indeed medical care that they do not receive. we are still a nation where you get better justice if you are rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. so, let us celebrate progress. let us celebrate success. but let us double down again on making our nation real for everyone, because if you want to judge a nation don't just look at their size of their military, the height of their towers. go to the dark plainses. go to the shad -- dark places. go to the shadows. on this holiday season, celebrating a man who focused on the least of these.

as it says in matthew 25, did you visit me in prison? if you go there, you see the unfinished business. if you celebrate this season, remember those who are in solitary confinement, remember those who are suffering un unjustly, remember those most in need of our empathy, our grace, of our love. the first step act was the height of my experiences as a senator, but the united states of america and this greatest deliberative body, we can go higher. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. durbin: i want to thank my colleague. he is outstanding as a senator

and extraordinary as a public speaker. i thank you very much for really driving the message home. i i'm sure you join me in adding congratulations and staff to dutiful staff members who worked without any kind of reluctance, months and years, to get this project done. i want to name two, there are others. joe zogby, my chief of staff in the senate judiciary committee, and dan swanson, who is no longer serving with me, but those two did an exceptional job on this issue and showed the kind of patience that was absolutely essential for suck selves. i want to add those to the list of those i thank today. mr. booker: senator, just four words. joe zogby for president. thank you. mr. durbin: he better not. thank you very much, mr. president. mr. vance: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio.

mr. vance: thank you, mr. president. i rise to speak to a particular problem in america's higher education system, a problem born of unfairness and mass subsidy from the american taxpayer that has now metastasized into one of the most corrupt and one of the most politically active and politically hostile organizations in the united states of america, and that is elite colleges. a lot of us have watched not just since the october 7 attacks on israel but for over a decade as america's colleges seem less and less interested in education and more and more interested in teaching things like racial hatred and various forms of far left ideology. a lot of us ask ourselves how is this possible? how is it that universities, that should be responsive to the public will, responsive to their donors and alumni and their students, how is it they can go so far, so fast, without any pushback? the answer, my fellow americans,

mr. president, is university endowments, which have grown incredibly large on the backs of subsidies from the taxpayers, and they have made these universities completely independent of any political, financial, or other pressure, and that is why the university system in this country has gone so insane. at just three universities, mr. president, harvard, mit and penn, the endowments are approaching $100 billion. that is as large as some of the largest hedge funds in america. harvard, penn, yale, many ivy league institutions and others beyond that, are little more than hedge funds with universities attached to them as pretend. this must stop. it must stop because it enabled political insanity. it must stop because it burdened an entire generation of americans with over a trillion dollars of student debt.

student debt that many of my colleagues on the other side would like plumbers to pay for. but they ought to pay for it. if they didn't have these massive endowments subsidized by taxpayers, then maybe they would be a little more to the public. i advance legislation that would do something simple, take the hundreds of billions of dollars in large university endowments, just the largest university endowments, and apply a tax to them. right now they pay a tax that is less than 2% on their net income, far higher than many of the working-class members of my own family -- excuse me, far lower than many of the working-class members of my own family, far lower than most americans pay in taxes. why is it that we allow these massive hedge funds pretending to be universities to enjoy lower tax rates than most of our citizens, people who are struggling to put food on the table and buy christmas presents this season.

and yet they enjoy a far higher tax rate than these university endocuments. it is insane, it is unfair and i think we ought to fix it in this chamber. my friends on the other side will oftening talk how the wealthy don't pay their fair share in aumf's. if they don't, there is no bigger offender than the massive endowments that pay almost nothing. so as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 3514 which is at the desk. i further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. wyden: reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, we hear often about this matter of taxing college endowments, that somehow this is going to address

college affordability, make the tax code, you know, more fair, and i'm the chairman of the senate finance committee, and i gather that my colleague has just introduced this legislation maybe as recently as today. and i think it's appropriate that before we start making tax policy on the floor of the united states senate we have a chance to actually have the senate look at some of the details. for example, if we're going to talk about tax fairness, i'll just say to the senator from ohio, i welcome that. i'm the author of the bill to say that billionaires who now under the current tax code can go for years and years paying little or no taxes, autumn author of the -- i'm the author of the proposal to change t all

you got to do is change three words. buy, borrow, die. that's how they do it. buy, borrow, die, pay little for years on end. so what we ought to do is take the gentleman's ideas and anybody else's ideas and bring them to the senate finance committee. i will tell you, i have not seen any evidence in the past about how somehow the kind of tax my colleague wants to levy is going to somehow make things better for students. which is what i want to do. so this tax legislation has not been considered by the senate, you know,^ finance committee. that's the correct place to hold a robust discussion about fairness and affordability. for that reason, mr. president, i object. the presiding officer: objection the presiding officer: objection

>> but also peace of mind and being able to manage the disease. >> thank you all. i yield back to the chair.

>> thank you very much, senator cassidy. we have five minutes. if i'm rude, that's the reason. you mentioned types diabetes, what is there besides genetics and genetics, what are the risk factors, other risk factors that we don't know about? >> you're hearing in both forms of diabetes. >> genetics and environmental factor. if we could find environmental factor, we can stop the disease. >> this is to be developed, it's not that we know it now. you say we need to study those who have risk factors but the principrisk factor, my gosh, years. >> yeah, no, definitely again itic component in types diabetes. if you have an 100% that the

second twin will get it. we have a study that tracks from utero to adulthood and we are looking at factors that could be triggering the disease. >> i graduated in med school since '83. they have been talking about it since '83. >> very difficult but we do have a number of candidates that are moving in clinical trials and we believe that we will get there. >> fantastic. the workers there have a hard time getting 35-dollar insulin. you're the person living with this, what is your experience in terms of not knowing the answer, what is your experience in terms of getting affordable insulin? >> our only insulin is only affordable because we are paying top tie for insurance. >> do you have inside of your

pharmacy manager. we are told that do not take low-cost insulin but get the higher-cost because pbm's make more money by costing you more money. do you have inside into that? >> i know that we selected the highest tier the insurance provided by my employer to make sure that we do not have issues with the choice of insulin. >> that's great. >> do you have insights what yale does for pbm's? yeah, there's a tax, dispensing fee but our cost is 35 and pbm's allegedly are saying we will give you top $and not take this one. will you inquire about this, do you know that extra cost being paid is due to the pbm or the drug company? >> that's a great question. i don't know, i haven't been able to get to the bottom.

>> this may come to you, it's my understanding that on some of the process foods, -- is that still kind of the thought? >> yeah, i don't know if the other panelists want to answer that as well since i have 2 diabetes. i'm familiar with some of that research. fructose does -- >> it's actually very similar to sugar from the a chemical competition perspective. >> the fructose. >> we are consuming in liquid form and rapidly digested.

the way that those foods are made means they are metabolized. >> exactly. >> more fiber is slower absorption. but fructose is independent factor and seems like fructose is a particular issue. i will point that out. coming back to you, we had conversations with regard to pbm's, when you change companies, periodically insurance do, are they making you go through authorization process for whatever your daughter is currently on, no, this didn't work before, you have to go through it once more to satisfy requirements? >> no, not with our private insurance. >> do you have a big employer or small employer? >> it's fairly large.

>> amen medical company. >> that's a big company. thank you all. >> thank you, senator king. >> thank you, chair sanders, great hearing, great witnesses. i would like to put unusual document into the record if jdrf 2020 scrapbook, a bunch of students in virginia who have diabetes told their stories and their emery kylie kits samples and i think these are worthy testimonies. i just want to read one that was interesting from mattie hawkins. she's in the family where mom, dad and a brother, mother doesn't have diabetes all the others have types diabetes and listen to this, my dad was diagnosed with diabetes before i was even before around my brother diagnosed in 2020. so it's always crazy at my house. there's always some alarm going off. always someone who needs to treat their blood sugar. my mom's goal in life for all of

us to have the same blood sugar at the same time but that hasn't happened yet. still at the end of the day, sharing diabetes creates a sense of commodore and then there's a picture of the dad and the two kids who share this commodore because they have diabetes. we just like to put that into the record. >> without objection. >> and focusing on young people. during the height of the pandemic, congress provided flexibilities around meals. one in five kids live without constant access to adequate food and expansion during covid allowed students especially in high-need areas to have meals that were more nutritious. now that the pandemic and policies have ended allowing for universal free school meals in virginia. there are currently 511 schools that have adopted the community eligibility provision where they can offer no cost to the all

students. what impact does nutritional school lunches have on health and what can congress help improve outcomes for kids? >> kids consume daily third calories in schools. this is critical. ensures kids have access to food. adequate nutrition is not only important for health and growth but promotes learning outcomes and kids can't stigmatize for receiving oh, some kids got this benefit. in addition to school meals as i said in my testimony the, really making sure that our schools are free from corporate food marketing, ultra processed food, sugary drinks, the marketing and sales to those products to our kids, reducing or eliminating that would make huge progress. >> let me ask another question.

i heard an interesting policy debate and the question is should snap benefits be usable to purchase unhealthy and ultra processed foods. those whether say, yes, you shouldn't have a separate standard for people using a snap benefit card versus person using dollars and cent cans. those who say that snap benefits shouldn't be used say why would we want to pay tax dollars to enable people to purchase foods that make them sick or kill them and if snap benefits weren't used the schools where there's high percentage of snap recipients would offer more healthy food options, what do y'all think about that debate? >> yeah, i can weigh in on this. i've tried to do research in the past on this and wasn't able to receive funding. i think it's really important to make sure that people who are using snap have dignity and

choice at the same time when we think about restricting, i think that clear place where we would start with that is around sugary drinks. there's an argument to be made that those may not be considered foods. they provide no nutritional values and the health harms are so very clear that snap is currently not allowed to use for hot meals or alcohol or things like that and i could see putting sugary drinks into that category. >> thoughts from other panelists? >> i think the problem is that those foods, unhealthy foods are cheaper so snap benefit is going to go potentially a longer way if you can -- if you can make those foods the healthy foods more affordable. yeah, that would make it easier. >> beyond restricting the program is effective strategy instead of saying, well, you can't buy this to incentivize people to buy fruits and vegetables by giving them more money to do that. >> thank you. isn't really a question. i know that we are talking about doing work in the older

americans act and i think there's a lot in this space that really we could do as part of reauthorization, the older americans act that has been touched on and the testimony earlier and look forward to working with you on that. >> i agree. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to the thank the panel, sorry i wasn't here earlier. we had an agent committee hearing that overlapped and we have your testimony and i know that sarah and my team has been here for the whole hearing. i wanted to thank the witnesses for your testimony bringing both experience and expertise to these issues and i know the hearing touched on a number of critical issues relating the diabetes and including the high-class of insulin. one of, senator warner were that

posed cap on copayment for insulin in the commercial market of 35 bucks a month. that was similar to what we passed in the inflation reduction act for medicare beneficiaries. i just have two questions, doctor, i will start with you. types is perceived disease for young adults. >> are there specific challenges or factors that we should consider with respect to types diabetes, that's the first part of the question, second, are there medical issues that need more research or policy changes specific to the needs of older adults that you'd recommend? >> well, the great news people with types diabetes are living longer. when i was diagnosed we were told that we would have

significant reduction in life spine. my brother and i fortunately are doing well. we neglect that older adults are particularly susceptible to hypoglacimia which can cause falls and broken bones and unfortunately broken bones are another issue in older adults with diabetes. so that's an area, reducing hypoglacimia is a big priority. as we drive glucose control, hardened kidney are fore-- forestalled. inhibitors can reduce kidney

disease and vascular disease. this is a -- an opportunity to reduce cost and improve care. >> thanks very much. dr. talye, nutrition for children is fundamental as many made referenced to. i introduced a bill which i believe are 5 freedoms for children. one of them is freedom from hunger? esident. a few days ago i was with one of the parents from sandy hook elementary school who lost her son 11 years ago today, and she talked about this being the time of the year where she starts to sp

spiral. today is a day when we are thinking about all of those parents, about all of those brothers and sisters who this morning had to relive the morning that they went through 11 years ago, december 14, 2012, when 20 sets of parents kissed their first graders goodbyes, they dropped them off for school and never ever saw them again. it's a fate that none of us would ever wish on another human being. for those of us who have never experienced the death of a child, there's no way for us to understand what those parents and what those families are going through.

one mother of a child who was lost in sandy hook had a tactic that she would use in those early days. she would pretend that her son was just at a friend's house on a play date. she convinced herself as best she could that he wasn't dead, that he was just visiting a friend around the corner. it was the only way that she could clean up the house, get through her daily work. but then all of a sudden it would come flooding back to her that he wasn't at a friend's house, he wasn't around the corner. he was never ever coming home. the things that you have to do on a daily basis so try to process the loss of a child, they are unfathomable to most of us. mr. president, i've kind of run

out of things to say about these amazing kids and these amazing adults, the adults who protected them that day, the children who would be turning 18 this year. and in connecticut, we wear our hearts really heavy, but we also get to celebrate all of the things that have happened because so many of these families took their grief and they turned it into action and they turned it into change. so many of these families have started not-for-profit organizations, have started charities to try to change other people's lives. many of these families have been deeply engaged in the work of trying to make sure that mass shootings never happen again. there has been a lot of joy and many miracles that have resulted

from this awful tragedy t. does not square the moral order of the universe, but it is important to pay tribute to the way in which so many members of the sandy hook and newtown community as well as so many families who are directly affected by this shooting have been able to manage through the grief and perform miracles at the same time. we just need to make a decision as a country as to whether we want to live in a world in which this carnage continues. this isn't an accident, it isn't bad luck. it's a choice. it's just a choice we've made to put our kid in jeopardy every single day that they go to school, for kids that live in my neighborhood, in the south end of hartford, to put them jeopardy every day when they walk to and from school. it's a choice we make and we could make a different choice. today is a day for me when i

think about all of my friend in sandy hook, that i think back on that day, being there at the firehouse that was serving as the emergency response hub, being outside the room as parents were told that thinker children were lying dead on the floor of their elementary school. but it's also a day in which i remember that we are not helpless. this is also a day in which i recommit myself to the notion that i as a member of the united states senate have something to contribute to the work necessary to make sure that kids never ever ever face this fate again. and today, on the 11th anniversary, i have a little bit more hope than i had on the 10th or the 9th or the 8th or the 7th or the 6th, the 5th, the 4th,

the 2nd, or the 1{l1}st{l0}anniversary. why? because last years republicans and democrats came together in this senate, in the wake of another mass school shooting tragically reminiscent of sandy hook, the shooting in uvalde, texas, and we acted, passed the first serious gun safety measure in 30 years. even though forces outside of this building opposed it, we decided to come together because we thought we had an obligation to make this country safer and try to make it a little bit less likely that a parent has to wake up on a morning of the anniversary of their child's death and try to figure out how to survive it. and why this year i feel more hopeful and more confident is because we now have data, we now have results in the wake of the passage of last year's

legislation. right now as we speak, we are tracking for there to be a 12% reduction in gun murders in this country from 2022 to 2023. that would be the biggest ever one-year reduction in gun murder in our lifetime. now, what does that mean? it means that eight or ten fewer people are dying every day from gun violence. what does that mean? 110 rather than 120 people are dying of gun violence. that's not an acceptable result, but it is proof of concept when we change the tlaus to honor -- the laws to honor the death of so many innocents, we prevent the death of innocents in the

future. so today is a day when i relive that moment 11 years ago today. it's a day when i reach out to my friends in sandy hook to tell them how much of my heart is with them. but this year, on the 11th anniversary, it's a day in which i have confidence that if we continue to do the hard work of changing our gun laws to make it harder for dangerous people to have weapons and harder for anybody to have the most dangerous weapons, the kind of weapons that were used to kill these kids and teachers, that we can save lives. in one year we have seen the biggest drop of gun murders in our life time. it's a result of legislation that we passed, and it is a signal to us of what we can achieve in the future.

i thank my colleagues for what we did last year. i thank my colleagues for making it possible to show the families in newtown, the victims of gun violence all across this country what's possible and on the 11-year mark of that tragedy in sandy hook, i compel my friends in the senate to do more. in the senate to do more.

>> so fail we must not. there's too much on the line for ukraine, for america, from western democracy to throw in the towel right now. we must keep talking, we must keep working. our republican friends must be reasonable. they must show they are serious about getting something done and we have had serious discussions in the last few days. democrats are willing to keep trying. i urge my republican colleagues to do just the same. now on ndaa, last night for the bipartisan vote.

defense bill stands in glaring contrast with the partisan race bottom we are seeing in the house. just look at the difference between the two bodies. while the senate is strengthening america's national security, house republicans are wasting time on a clown-karim carinquiry. now, as i have said repeatedly, we began the month of december with 3 major goals here in the senate before the end of the year. first, we have to end the blockade of hundreds of military nominees. we've done that. second, we needed to pass the nda, we did that last night. and finally, and, of course, hardest of all we must reach an agreement on national security

supplemental. democrats are still trying to reach an agreement we've had productive talks with republicans today but, of course, we have a lot of work left to do. we will keep working. this is too important not to. i yield the floor. >> eight weeks since president biden submitted supplemental funding request and identified four key national security priorities. for eight weeks senate republicans have been working hard to produce legislation that takes appropriate action on all four fronts helping ukraine defeat putin, helping asian partners deter chinese aggression, helping the men and women of border patrol get the crisis at our southern border

under control. at the same time, we've had to spend several weeks now trying to convince some of our democratic colleagues -- a number of senate republicans have been working to make sure that supplemental legislation makes substantive policy changes at the border instead of just throwing money at the problem. meanwhile we had to explain to members of the president's own party about border security issue. he included in his proposal scheduled vote immediately. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture the undersigned senators, in

accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 304, jerry edwards jr., of louisiana, to be united states district judge for the western district of louisiana, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of jerry edwards jr., of louisiana, to be united states district judge for the western district of louisiana, shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. the clerk: mr. braun, mrs. britt, mr. brown. mr. budd, ms. butler. mr. carper. mr. casey. mr. cassidy. mr. collins. mr. coons.

mr. cornyn. ms. cortez masto.

mr. cotton. mr. cramer. mr. crapo. mr. cruz. mr. daines. ms. duckworth. mr. durbin. ms. ernst. mr. fetterman. mrs. fischer. mrs. gillibrand. mr. graham. mr. grassley. mr. hagerty. ms. hassan. mr. hawley. mr. heinrich. mr. hickenlooper. ms. hirono.

mr. hoeven. mrs. hyde-smith. mr. johnson. mr. kaine. mr. kelly. mr. kennedy. mr. king. ms. klobuchar. mr. lankford. mr. lee. mr. lujan. ms. lummis. mr. manchin. mr. markey.

mr. marshall. mr. mcconnell. mr. menendez. mr. merkley. mr. moran. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. s mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff. mr. padilla.

mr. paul. mr. peters. mr. reed. mr. ricketts. mr. risch. mr. romney. ms. rosen. mr. rounds. mr. rubio. mr. sanders.

mr. schatz. mr. schmitt. mr. schumer. mr. scott of florida. mr. scott of south carolina. mrs. shaheen. ms. sinema. ms. smith. ms. stabenow.

mr. sullivan. mr. tester. mr. thune. mr. tillis. mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. vance. mr. warner. mr. warnock. ms. warren.

mr. welch. mr. whitehouse. mr. wicker. mr. wyden. mr. young. senators voting in the affirmative -- bennett, brown, coons, cornyn, fetterman, gillibrand, heinrich, king, lujan, shaheen, sinema, warner, whitehouse, and wicker. senator cotton voted in the negative.

mr. sullivan, no. the clerk: mrs. capito, aye.

the clerk: mr. peters, aye. the clerk: ms. hirono, aye. ms. smith, aye.

the clerk: mr. young, aye.

the clerk: mr. hawley, no. ms. ernst, aye.

the clerk: mr. cassidy, aye.

mr. durbin, aye.

the clerk: mr. reed, aye.

the clerk: mr. tester, aye. mr. ossoff, aye. mr. hickenlooper, aye. mr. scott of south carolina, no.

the clerk: mr. scott of florida, no.

ms. collins, aye. mr. crapo, no. mr. hoeven, no. the clerk: mr. schumer,

sara e. hill. vote: the clerk: ms. duckworth, aye.

the clerk: mr. merkley, aye.

the clerk: mr. welch, aye. mr. casey, aye.

mr. booker, aye. mr. murphy, aye. mr. thune, no.

the clerk: ms. rosen, aye.

mr. boozman, no.

the clerk: mr. sanders, aye. mr. rounds, aye.

the clerk: ms. klobuchar, aye. ms. stabenow, aye.

the clerk: mr. paul, no. the clerk: ms. lummis, no.

the clerk: ms. murkowski, aye. mr. grassley, aye.

the clerk: mr. schmitt, no. the clerk: ms. cantwell, aye.

the clerk: mr. moran, aye. mr. budd, no. mr. wyden, aye.

mr. risch, no.

the clerk: mr. cardin, aye. the clerk: ms. baldwin, aye. mr. carper, aye.

the clerk: mr. cramer, no.

the clerk: mr. schatz, aye. the clerk: mrs. hyde-smith, aye. mr. cruz, no.

the clerk: mr. kaine, aye. mrs. blackburn, no. mr. ricketts, no.

the clerk: mr. graham, aye.

the clerk: ms. hassan, aye. mr. vance, no.

the clerk: mr. tuberville, no. the clerk: mr. johnson, no. mrs. britt, no.

the clerk: mr. mcconnell, aye.

the clerk: mr. marshall, no.

the clerk: ms. cortez masto, aye. mr. barrasso, no. mr. romney, aye.

the clerk: mr. braun, no. the clerk: mr. lee, no. mr. mullin, no.test.

vote:

the clerk: mr. padilla, aye.

the clerk: ms. warren, aye. the clerk: mr. kennedy, aye. mr. rubio, aye.

the clerk: ms. butler, aye.

the clerk: mrs. murray, aye.

the clerk: mr. daines, no.

the clerk: mr. menendez, no. the clerk: mr. lankford, no.

the clerk: mr. kelly, aye.

mrs. fischer, no. mr. markey -- mr. markey, aye.

the clerk: mr. manchin, aye.

the clerk: mr. van hollen, aye.

the clerk: mr. warnock, aye.

the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 66, the nays are 31. the motion is agreed to.

ms. warren: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: mr. president, i rise today to ask the senate to cost ron co-hane to be assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs. in this role, mr. cohane will be the advisor on all matters related to military and personnel policies. he previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for military, community, and family policy. we need someone with m mr. cohane's sense of experience to oversee and develop policies to support our servicemembers and their families as well as to oversee our dod schools. strong leadership is also essential to address our military recruiting crisis. now, i recently held a hearing in my subcommittee which the senator from north carolina attended that identified a long list of areas where our military services can continue to step up

to inspire more young people to serve. they need someone like m mr. cohane to make sure that the services actually follow through. no one is disputing m mr. keohane's qualifications. the senate committee voted unanimously to advance his nomination. the only reason that m mr. keohane's nomination has not been approved is because the senator from north carolina is willing to play politics with our national defense. as we all know by now, the senator from north carolina disagrees with with the department of defense's policy to help members of the military and their families access health care; specifically, reproductive health care. republican senators claim they wanted to vote on dod's policy on abortion, but just this week, they lost a vote to move forward

toward overturning that policy. so if they can't get it on a straight-up vote, they're now blocking mr. keohanke's out of spite. last week after months of undermining our national security, the senator from alabama backed down from his nearly yearlong blockade of promotions for hundreds of senior military officials. nothing to show, that is, except for the long-term damage he inflicted on our military personnel, on their families, and on our military readiness. so now the senator from north carolina is stopping well-qualified nominees. he has no specific objection to this nominee. in fact, the senator serves on the senate armed services committee that unanimously advanced mr. keohane's

nomination. but the senator now blocks the confirmation of mr. keohane. we need leaders at the department of defense. blocking these confirmations is corrosive to our national security. our nation cannot continue to hold key national security officials hostage. we must put the safety and well-being of our servicemembers first. our greatest strength as a nation is our people, and we need a confirmed leader like mr. keohane to make sure that our servicemembers have everything they need to succeed. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate consider the following nomination -- cal spv n.109, ronald t.keohane of new york to be an assistant secretary of defense, that the senate vote on the nomination without intervening being a or debate, and that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be

considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. budd: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from north kale. mr. budd: thank you. mr. keohane has been nominated to be the assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs, which is a senior leadership role in the office of the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. this is the very office responsible for the department of defense abortion travel policy. i have been very clear with the pentagon since the day i placed a hold on mr. keohane that i would be happy to release it if secretary austin would rescind this abhorrent policy. this policy has been politicized. it has politicized the military. it has harmed the institutional norms of our country.

beyond the clear violation of basic morality, congress never authorized the department to use taxpayer funds to facilitate elective abortions. now, for the biden administration to begin such a policy and use taxpayer resources to aid in the taking of unborn life, it defies the will of congress and it violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. now, taxpayers, many of whom have deeply held religious and moral objections to abortions, they're on the hook to facilitate the very abortions that they fundamentally oppose. worse yet, the pentagon's stated reason for issuing the policy was that the supreme court dobbs decision had, quote, readiness, recruiting and retention implications. this is total nonsense. the pentagon was and is still able to provide any data or evidence to support their claim. for the administration to cling

to this policy is just wrong. at the end of the day, whether it was the hundreds of holds for my colleague from alabama or my hold on mr. keohane, the reason to resolve -- the power to resolve the situation, it begins and ends with the power of one man, and that is secretary lloyd austin. with the stroke of a pen, secretary austin can fix this situation and end the impasse. it's time for him to do the right thing and to rescind the policy now. i yield the floor. and i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. ms. warren: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: i think what the senator from north carolina just said is that he doesn't like the abortion policy that the department of defense hads just adopted. it was made necessary because of an extremist supreme court overruled roe v. wade with the

dobbs opinion and forced the military to have to decide with how to deal with access to health care, access to abortions for people who are now involuntarily stationed in states wither that care with a -- where that care was no longer available. the senator and all of the republicans were offered a vote on the department of defense's policy, and we voted just this week on a measure that would move toward that vote, and it failed. in other words, the republicans who oppose this policy simply don't have the votes. so instead of yielding to the will of the majority and letting this policy go through without a problem, instead they play politics with the people who are trying to serve our nation. that mr. keohane gets caught in

this, someone who is willing to serve our nation and, most importantly, right now to help our servicemembers live their best opportunities in the military, a the a time when -- at a time when we are having recruiting challenges, a is just putting politics ahead of the defense of the united states. it's putting politics ahead of our servicemembers and putting politics ahead of our servicemembers' families. i think this is fundamentally wrong. they had a vote. they lost. and they don't like it, and they're holding mr. keohane just out of spite. mr. president, i yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the clerk: ms. baldwin.

>> table this morning, republican rich mccormack from georgia. thank you very much for being here. 6th strict -- district, how did you vote on moving forward officially with this impeachment inquiry into president biden? >> i voted for it. there's actually a strong showing very resolutely voted for and passed. >> host: why? >> guest: i think there's always surprises in the republican party about who's going to hold out. in this case, i didn't see it. i think there's enough evidence right now of very suspicious behavior. it's way too, way beyond quips

dental that needs to be -- coincidental that needs to be exposed. certainly, if it was in my account, if it was my bank account, my family, we had the same exact scenario, i'd be looked at, for sure, so why not? >> host: they have been investigating for a year. there are republicans like chuck grassley who say i haven't seen any if evidence of wrong doing by the president after a year of investigating. >> guest: well, i don't think that's accurate at all. i mean, if you look at the number of accounts that are associated with his family which are unexplained when you talk about the loan payments but you can't see where the loan was made, which is unexplained, when you talk about every time an account comes from five different countries and there's 20 different accounts and it's transferred over to the wig guy -- big guy, that's unexplained. do you know how much scrutiny we are in the congress for everything that a goes into my bank account in every single dollar, every single investment is looked at with a fine-toothed comb every single year. why wouldn't the president who

has a son who was working for a foreign agency that had no qualifications for that,s who's received millions of dollars and five other family members who received millions of dollars in 20 different can bank accounts that seem to every time they get a deposit, make a deposit into the president's account, why wouldn't that be up for grabs? why that be someone we'd look into just like if my account had the same exact disparities, everyone would be talking about it. >> host: when you run for president, are you under that same scrutiny? >> guest: absolutely. we're all under the same laws. >> host: so why wasn't it found then when he ran for president? >> guest: i have no idea. i mean, this is -- the inquiry process is what started this. when we started looking into it. now, if he did not expose this, that's exactly what we're looking at. look, i can lie on my forms. we've seen members of congress lie on forms and get in trouble for that.

that's exactly what's going on. it's this stuff that's been exposed. when he said he didn't know anything about it, then we showed he did, i knee awe a about it, d, i knew about it, but i never attended thed any meetings. it's not like we haven't found anything, we've found something that disqualified him from the truth already, and his bank account is also showing very concerning behavior. >> host: moving on to the defense authorization bill. it pass pad the senate yesterdae yesterday 87-13. it includes reauthorizing section 702 of fisa, it also has money for ukraine and israel. that's separate from this debate over the supplemental, that $111 billion. but how will you vote today? it's expected to come ott floor. >> guest: so i'm going to vote for it. i know i'm going to take a lot of grief from it at home. there are some real concerns with having fisa expire. i don't like the way it is right now, and i think it's been abused. we had a brief intel chair,

mr. turner, and he talked about how it's already been pared down so that the egregious behavior of the fbi has already been addressed, but it needs to be addressed in very specific ways, and we're going to do that as we pass another bill on that. but to have it expire during a time where we obviously have security concerns, to have the military not funded during christmas period, to have so many things going on around the world that have to be addressed, i think it's the right thing to do. elections have consequences. we don't have the senate. we don't have the white house. if we met this expire, we're going to be the bad guys, and i think this is something that has to get done. it's not what i want, it's not everything i want. matter of fact, it doesn't have the pay raises for the junior enlisted that i think we need that are literally impoverished. we need to have an adjustment for cost of living that we haven't had for decades which they've fallen further and further behind inflation. we can show that, we can show

the military the people on food stamps. it doesn't have some of those fixes, other things that we wanted, but that's a debate that we have in congress especially when you have a split house. >> host: do you like what your speaker negotiated here, that inclusion of the 702 and the money for israel and you know, tying that all in this defense authorization bill? >> guest: i'm not sure if it was his idea or something he found that he had to agree to, i don't know the inner details, the inner workings of what they had to negotiate. it's not everything. it's just not. but i'm not part of that discussion. i know being the speaker is exceedingly challenging. i know that it doesn't matter who the speaker is, the house has to be in order, and regardless we're going to have some compromise. i wish i could have been there, but i wasn't, and i don't know exactly how that went. >> host: outline your military experience for our viewers. >> guest: sure.

i spent 16 years in the marine corpses, helicopter pilot, did some time with the 101st with the army, with the iraq marines over in korea. i spent a couple of tours in the persian gulf, in africa, in the far east, and then the i got out, went to medical school, came back in an e.r. doctor in my last tour in afghanistan as the head of emergency medicine. >> host: 20 years in the u.s. marine corps and the navy, the right? if. >> guest: yes, ma'am. >> host: so what do you like about the defense authorization bill for our military men and women? >> guest: first of all, it does continue to fund the military so we don't have any sort of gap in pay. it does have some mering accommodations for pay -- meager accommodations for pay increases for the military although it's 5%. we need closer to 30% for the junior enlisted for adjusted cost of living. it does have some consequential behavioral changes as far as what we allow in the military as far as dei and the way we

approach the military. it does put limits on what agencies are able to advise the military that on what they can spend, people like news forward and stuff like that that were base basically buy whereased against, news agencies saying they were lying which takes away advertising dollars from recruiting people ask for conse that we come out of our quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. kennedy: mr. president, i'm, i'm going to talk a few minutes about seafood. in many respects, at least in terms of our physical health, we are what we eat. and americans have been eating a lot more seafood, which is good

for you. 94% -- a lot of people don't know this. i didn't until i researched. 94% of the seafood sold in the united states is imported. 94%, pretty extraordinary figure. of the various types of seafood, shrimp represents the highest volume of imports of total edible fishery products. given that this seafood is imported, we have to be careful. for that reason, congress created what we call a seafood import monitoring program. seafood import monitoring program. i'm going to call it simp. so if i say simp, you'll know

what i'm talking about. and simp's job is to make sure that is foreign imports are safe, safe to eat for the american people. simp has jurisdiction over 13 different species groups and about well over 1,100 unique species. as i said, that includes shrimp and red snapper, but almost all forms of seafood that are grown overseas or produced overseas and imported -- or exported, i should say, to the united states. now this sounds simple but it's not. simp's job is to ask questions.

simp wants to know how the seafood was caught. simp wants to know the conditions under which the seafood was formed if it's a domestic product. if the seafood has been processed, simp wants to know how it was processed, what the final form was supposed to look like and what it actually does look like. simp is supposed to keep us safe. part of the way that simp keeps us safe is to inspect the product. not just look at the reporting requirements that the foreign producers give to simp, but actually look at the product, whether it's the raw seafood or whether it's processed. and simp inspects it.

in fiscal year 2020, simp, once again the seafood import monitoring program, simp and its auditing team completed 1,131 investigations. that's the good news. the bad news is that was only 1%, 1% of all of the imports. now of the audits or investigations, the inspections, if you will, that simp did, about 40% of those were on shrimp. and of the 40% that simp did on shrimp, 35% were found to be not in compliance with the rules.

35% was unsafe. this is serious business. unlike most of our domestic producers, a lot of producers in foreign countries try to produce their shrimp or their seafood on the cheap. they raise the product in filthy water. they don't have rigorous standards for processing the product if they take the raw product and turn it into a final product. they oftentimes many of these foreign producers shoot the shrimp and other forms of seafood like red snapper with antibiotics which, of course, if you eat enough of them, makes you resistant to those antibiotics if you get sick in another way that the antibiotics

could cure. let me just be blunt, some of this product is unsaechlt it will make you grow an extra ear. that's why we have simp, is to say wait a minute, you can't sell this in the united states. and once again, of the 1,100 and change inspections that simp did, 40% was shrimp and simp found that 35% of that 40% failed the test. simp is able to inspect, as i said, 1% of this exported, for us imported seafood, 1%. it needs to be doing 10%. it needs to be doing 10%. and my bill would help them do

10%. my bill would provide additional funding for additional seafood inspections on imported seafood, and we would be asking simp to go from 1% inspections of all imported seafood to 10%. now there's no free lunch, mr. president, and you don't get one now. my bill costs money. it will cost $36 million. in the grand scheme of our spending, that's not much, but $36 million is a lot of money. and i didn't want to come up here and just offer a bill that was a money suck. i wanted to come up here and say, look, we've got a problem. it will cost $36 million to solve it, and here's where the money is going to come from. the money, the $36 million will

come from the money that has been appropriated, the extra billions of dollars that has been appropriated to the internal revenue service. the irs, believe me, will never miss the $36 million. the irs wastes that much money between bites of oatmeal at breakfast. and if we do this bill, people can enjoy their seafood and they can appreciate the fact that it is safe. shrimp. so for that reason, as dp in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent -- as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 3533, which is at the desk, mr. president, and zest # 3533, as -- zest

3533, is the seafood import monitoring program audit program. i ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. wyden: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, i just heard about this legislative idea a few minutes ago, so i really have very little information about it, but what i can tell you is we already know what the bottom line is. the amendment offered by the senator from louisiana will hurt honest taxpayers and will help wealthy tax cheats. that's the bottom line. now, i'm all for seafood

inspections. we've got loads of seafood in our part of the world, but i want to take just a minute to talk about the reasons that members of this body ought to oppose the legislation. first, and the congressional budget office has made this point, this amendment uses the fake offset of cutting irs funding. the cut in irs funding colluded in this amendment -- included in this amendment doesn't pay for an increase in seafood inspections. it increases the student debt. and the -- the deficit. and the reason i say that is because that's what the congressional budget office says about these ideas. the congressional budget office are the folks that we put in place to give us objective nonpolitical analyses of various

important ideas. the congressional budget office are the people that weous on the -- that we use on the finance committee regularly. and the congressional budget office has said that every dollar cut from the irs budget reduces revenue by $2, and that increases the student debt. second -- the deficit. second, this has given a big pass to wealthy tax cheats. people need to know that there is a focus on irs enforsment is -- enforcement is because the wealthy tax cheats have the lawyers and accountants and they have all kinds of ways to get around the rules. the working families that we represent, the folks in michigan, the automobile workers, they pay taxes with every single paycheck.

we know what kind of financing they have because they pay with every check. it's the wealthy tax cheats that we've got to deal with. and i just say to my friend, the kind of person that he's giving a pass to is we recently found more than a thousand millionaires who didn't even file a tax return. they didn't even file a tax return. more than a thousand millionaires. the federal government lost more than $30 billion just on that. so the senate ought to be focusing on smaeg sure -- on making sure that we have tough irs enforcement. that we have the funding to

provide services for all taxpayers and ending the free ride once and for all for wealthy tax cheats. and the service has gone up. we have seen reduction in waiting times with calls from 28 minutes to 3 minutes. i wish i had time to have a more extended exchange with my colleague. we're right now in our caucus meetings having debates on important issues. but i would just say in the future if my colleague could even give us 15, 20 minutes notice, we could maybe have a more extended discussion. the people who get helped here are wealthy tax cheats. the people who are hurt here are honest taxpayers, and for that reason i object. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: look, i understand senator wyden's point of view.

i don't think he meant this, but i don't want to leave anyone with the impression that he didn't know about this bill and that all of my colleagues didn't know about this bill. we have something called a hotline, and when we have a bill and we want to try to move it on the floor, we, through this hotline, notify well in advance every senator, hey, kennedy's coming to the floor at this time on this day with his bill. if you object to it, you can come down and object. okay. that hotline was sent to senator wyden. it was sent to all other 98 of my colleagues. it was sent to every single senator. we do hotlines every day. if he was surprised, i'm sorry, but that's between him and his

staff. .2, i appreciate -- number two, i appreciate senator wyden's point of view. he's a smart gentleman. he's smart enough to know this has nothing do with wealthy tax cheats. this has to do with safe seafood for the american people. the bill would have cost $36 million. it would come from the irs. my democratic colleagues, no republican senator voted for it, my democratic colleagues gave the irs $89 billion extra -- $89 billion extra to go out and audit the american people. this will take $36 million of it to make sure that they're still

alive when the irs audits them. because they may not be eating dangerous shrimp full of ain't biotics -- antibiotics, does the irs need all $89 billion? of course not. te my word for ask president biden. he told us the irs doesn't need the full $89 billion. he offered up $29 billion for this year's budget to spend on other things. so the idea that the world's going to spin off its axis and wealthy tax cheats and all of this other foolishness is just not accurate. i say that with all respect to my colleague senator wyden. i'll be back for $36 million.

we can protect the american people, i can promise you, that the seafood board will spend that money better than the internal revenue service. i can promise you that will happen. final point, mr. president. i appreciate the opportunity to present this bill. be careful what you eat, particularly if it's imported seafood. i'm not kidding you. if you're eating seafood, given the statistics, you're probably eating foreign seafood, and this stuff can be dangerous. i mean it. some of this product has enough antibiotics in it you'll grow an extra ear, and you don't want that. the best way to be safe is to eat domestic seafood, good old american seafood. but if you don't, if you're going to eat foreign seafood, be

very, very careful. i'll be back with a very commonsense approach to try and solve that mrechl. i'm sor i -- that we couldn't solve that today. i thank you for your time and senator wyden for his time and i wish you both a very merry christmas. the presiding officer: the

>> mr. president, negotiators from the white house, senate democrats and senate republicans will continue to negotiations on a national security supplemental package. yesterday we had another round of productive conversations, and there was more progress. but, of course, there's more work to do, and we're going to keep at it and keep at it. last night -- federal nominations to the department of justice with possible votes on nominees as soon as to. to my republican colleagues who have said action, let's keep working to find a solution instead of -- republicans are serious about getting something done, they should not be so eager to go home. this may be our last best chance to get this legislation done. after weeks of deadlock, we have seen significant progress over the past few days, and we should take advantage of the opportunity because we may not get one for quite a while.

it is not easy to reach an agreement on something this complicated, but so much hangs on our success, so we need to try everything we have, our adversaries are watching -- and thinks heath things he's getting done. here's what putin said a few hours ago about american aid to the ukraine. quote, the free stuff is going to run out someday, and it seems it already is. that, mr. president, is vladimir putin taunting the senate, taunting america. while congress is so muired, putin is on the other side of the world mocking our resolve. in the past this would have been a no-brainer. democrats and republicans --

spent billions and billions and billions of dollars, lost lives to guard against the malicious spread of communism and against those who undermine our values. we find ourselves at another note history when democracy is under siege. we heard directly from president zelenskyy two days ago about what's at stake if we fail, so fail we must if not. there is too much on the line for ukraine, for america from, for western democracy to throw in the towel right now. we must keep talking, we must keep working. our republican friends must be reasonable. they must show they're serious about getting something done, and we have had serious discussions in the last few days. democrats willing to keep trying. i urging my republican colleagues to do just the same. now on ndaa, last night for the

62nd year running, the senate passed our annual defense authorization act with a strong bipartisan vote, 87-13. if the senate's bipartisan package of the defense bill stands in glaring contrast with the partisan race to the bottom we're seeing in the house. just look at the difference between these two bodies. while the is strengthening america's national security, house republicans are wasting time on a clown car impeachment inquiry that will get nowhere. the house republican impeachment inquiry is the definition of unserious. the house should be looking at the senate right now for an example of how both sides can work together in a meaningful way to pass serious legislation r:to improve the lives of the american people weeks, more than 7.5 million americans will fly to see loved ones and to celebrate the holidays. a record number.

this is no easy feat. a seamless travel experience depends on airlines, on air traffic controllers, on airport managers, on tsa screeners, all working together for the aviation system to run efficiently during times of extreme strain like the holiday season. at the center of this effort is the federal aviation administration, but there's one problem. the faa's authorities are set to expire at the end of the year. without the faa extension, air travel and air cargo for those counting on quick shipping during christmas and new year's will be severely impacted. at the moment we face a potential challenge of not extending the faa's authorities because of the objections of a senate democrat. this is irresponsible and,

frankly, bad for the safety agency's ability to operate effectively. for the past year, senator cantwell, the chairman of the commerce committee and myself have worked to pass a long-term faa authorization. the authorization we drafted on a bipartisan basis addresses airport infrastructure, workforce challenges, atc staffing, protections for passengers, the safety framework, manufacturing, i could go on. it is an important bill that makes progress towards solving some of the challenges facing aviation. but we need to make sure we get it right. we now find ourselves having to pass a second short-term faa authorization in less than six months. without even having gotten the bill through committee. the situation was entirely avoidable, but special interests

in particular, the pilots union like alpa have decided that if they can't get their way, then the american people should pay the price. there have been several times throughout this process where we thought we had a deal, but inevitably some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle often spurred on by the union have tanked these agreements. each month it seems there's a new issue we're told cannot be in the faa bill because the unelected special interests are opposed to it. first it was a modest reform to update pilot training. then it was raising the retirement age for pilots. imagine telling a perfectly healthy 66-year-old pilot who wants to fly, no, you can't fly anymore because your union has decided that younger pilots with a lifetime of union dues still to pay are more important than you are. what next will unelected,

unaccountable special interests tell senate democrats that we're not allowed to have in the faa bill? let me be clear. short-term extensions are not good for the faa. this extension until march should be the last extension. i am not satisfied with kicking the can down the road. i don't presume to speak on behalf of my partner in this effort, senator cantwell, but i'm certain she doesn't want to continue kicking the can down the road either. i would prefer that we pass a serious multi-year authorization such as the bill senator cantwell and i agreed to in june but unfortunately in the months since that stalled markup, we have not made substantial progress and we still have -- have numerous outstanding provisions. i'm very concerned given the time we have, the limited progress we have and the constantly moving the goalpost in negotiations, we're getting

to the point we'll be forced to extend the faa's authority until 2025. i don't want to do that. i don't think chair cantwell wants to do that, either. we need to get this bill done, and i'm still committed to trying to do so if it's a bill that is actually bipartisan and not a special interest wish list that ignores very real problems like the pilot shortage. in a moment i will ask unanimous consent for the senate to pass the faa extension, which will last until march 8. the house earlier this week voted 376-15 to pass this legislation. the senate cannot leave for the holidays without passing an extension. without an extension, here's what would happen. number one, all airport construction projects using faa grants would immediately stop. number two, the faa would lose

the ability to make new expendituresfrom the aviation trust fund causing many employees at airports, facilities, and equipment and r&d officers to be immediately furloughed. number three, special authorizations for drone operations would expire. number four, airlines would have no authority to collect ticket taxes that fund the aviation trust fund. in 2011 the last time the faa's authorization lapsed, more than 4,000 faa employees were furloughed, and the faa lost more than $400 million. the two-week lapse halted billions of dollars worth of construction projects and impacted more than 70,000 construction jobs. leaving town without giving the faa the certainty to operate would be a mistake. i remain committed to working

with senator cantwell to negotiate a truly bipartisan faa bill that the agency, the industry, and the flying public deserve. and with that i yield the floor to the senator from kansas. mr. moran: mr. president the presiding officer: the senator from kansas mr. moran: mr. president, i thank my colleague from texas, senator cruz. i appreciate his leadership. he is here to make the effort to see that we reauthorize on a temporary basis the faa. he's absolutely right. it has to be done before the end of the year. we're creating more uncertainty every day, every hour that we fail to do so. it is regrettable that the senator from texas is here to do that. it's almost a question in my mind when do we have an agreement that's not an agreement? we've been down this path several times now in which we believe we're ready to mark up only to find that something else stands in the way. i was here earlier today to talk about the importance of a

long-term reauthorization, and while i'm here to support this short-term extension only to get us to the point of a long-term reauthorization, it is significant that we do what we need to do today, and that means it's then an opportunity for us to complete our work in the early year, the first few weeks of january 2024. we came together to confirm an faa administrator. we can do this. we did it 98-0. i implore my colleagues to allow this opportunity to have this short-term extension take place and most importantly, i implore my colleagues that we find this path forward for the safety of those kansans and the safety of americans who utilize our airways. our country's economic interests, our public's safety interests all come together. it's a mistake for us to have a

short-term extension after short-term extension. one last time let's do it today and complete our work. we should be able to do this, and i ask that we extend the faa today and complete our work in january. and i thank the gentleman from texas for his efforts to accomplish that goal. mr. cruz: mr. president, at this point i yield to the senator from north carolina the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. budd: in the past year we've witn witnessed one aviation failure after another. the federal afshviation -- they didn't seem to know the first thing about aviation. the administration secretary of transportation presided over a series shall we say transportation challenges. from near miss incidents to the first nationwide ground stop since 9/11, the department doesn't seem to have a handle on

its basic function. and that is looking out for the safety of the traveling public. now, senate democrats are blocking the faa from being reauthorized right before the holidays. and the consequences of this lack of action, it can be really severe. the faa would lose the ability to collect revenue and spend money from the airport and airways trust fund. that would be disastrous as the aviation trust fund, it's one of the few funds in washington that actually runs a surplus each year. the airports and airways trust fund, it finances important safety improvements for airports across the country. any lapse threatens to halt new and existing construction projects. the faa would also lose the ability to hire new air traffic controllers at a time when key facilities are experiencing staffing shortages. finally, a lapse in authorization could mean 10% of faa's workforce will be

furloughed on january 1. simply put, families who are trying to visit their friends and lovered ones for the -- loved ones for the holidays, they shouldn't have to endure more hoops, hurdles, and delays. america, we have the best aviation system in the world. and we can't let politics get in the way of that. i yield. mr. cruz: mr. president the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 6503 which was received from the house. further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. president the presiding officer: the senator from colorado mr. bennet: thank you. reserving the right to object, mr. president. it's good to be here on the floor with my colleagues. i actually wasn't going to talk about the faa, but i came out here and i got accused by the

senator from texas of being irresponsible. and my friend from washington who is up for the faa was attacked for not knowing anything about airports. so i just want to address those two things before i go into my remarks. one, to the gentleman from north carolina, phil washington knows a considerable amount about transportation and aviation in this country. that was ignored by the senator from texas. it's being ignored tonight by the -- or this afternoon by the senator from north carolina. he runs denver international airport. that's one of the largest airports in the united states of america. it's an airport that has been built more recently than any other airport in the united states of america. it has -- it is the third largest traffic in the world. it now has the united hub there. i wasal