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of >> midco supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> we take you live this morning to the u.s. senate where today lawmakers will be working on a pair of judicial nominations. today the chamber may also take up a measure that would repeal some of the energy department's efficiency standards for gas furnaces. live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. ... the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. our chaplain, the reverend

dr. barry black, will open the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. father in heaven, hallowed be your name. today, give special energy, insight and patience to the members of this body. strengthen them against relentless pressures from constituents, lobbyists, and special interests, as you give them wisdom to resolve their differences without rancor or bitterness. lead them in the way of compromise that doesn't sacrifice principle or self-respect and that

preserves timeless values which serve the common good. may their consistent communion with you radiate on their faces, be expressed in their character, and be exuded in positive joy. lord, fill this chamber with your spirit and our senators with your strength, courage, and peace. we pray in your gracious name. 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., may 21, 2024. 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. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to calendar number 397, s. 4361. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 397, s. 4361, a bill making emergency supplemental appropriations for border security and combatting fentanyl for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2024, and for other purposes. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk.

the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: -- the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the mogs to proceed to calendar number 397, s. 4361, a

bill making emergency supplemental appropriations for border security and combatting fentanyl for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2024, and for other purposes signed by 18 senators as follows. mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i understand that there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: h.r. 8369, an act to provide for the expeditious delivery of defense articles and defense services for israel and other matters. mr. schumer: in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would object to further proceeding. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. now, mr. president, for years

our republican colleagues have insisted that the only real term solution to fixing the southern border was for congress to pass legislation. we democrats agree. congress must act. we need to fix the border and reform immigration, to make it fair and more humane. this week republicans will have an opportunity to join us in taking action. a few moments ago, i filed cloture on the motion to proceed to the bipartisan border act, the same bill negotiated three months ago by the bipartisan group of senators murphy, sinema, and lankford. the senate will vote on this bipartisan border bill on thursday. last night the president called both leader mcconnell and speaker johnson and urged them to go forward with our bill. all those who say we need to act on the border will get a chance this week to show they're serious about fixing the problem. unlike h.r. 2, the bipartisan border act was written

explicitly to win support from both parties with input, significant input from both sides. the border act is an exercise in legislating. h.r. 2 is not. when republicans pushed h.r. 2, it couldn't even get a single democratic vote here in the senate, much less all senate republicans for that matter. that was not a serious bill but what we're voting on this week is serious. it is the same bipartisan bill both sides negotiated for months last winter. it's the same bill endorsed by the national border patrol council, a very conservative group. by the chamber of commerce and by the very conservative "wall street journal" editorial page. by any objective measure, it is strong and realistic and most importantly a bipartisan proposal. if our bipartisan bill was good enough to win the support of the union that represents border agents, why isn't it good enough for senate republicans? our senate republican -- are

senate republicans saying they know better than our anxieties patrolling the border? i hope that's not true. i hope our republican colleagues are ready to join us. i will be clear, we don't expect every democrat or every republican to come out in favor of this bill. that's why as i have said before the only way to pass this bill or any border bill is with broad bipartisan support. if you go by what republicans said over the last few months, you'd think they'd leap at an opportunity like the one we have right now. in the words of speaker johnson, the time to act on the border is yesterday. in the words of my colleague from texas, it makes no sense to me for us to do nothing when we might be able to make things better. and in the words of my colleague from south carolina, to those who think that a president trump wins we can get a better deal, we won't. and he added, this moment will pass. do not let it pass, unquote.

well, i wholeheartedly would agree. we should not let this moment pass. border legislation is just about the hardest thing congress ever wrestles with. bipartisan border bills are rare opportunities here in congress. that's precisely why we have it in front of us this week. i urge everyone not to let the politics get in the way. now, on abortion. shortly i will join senators murray, baldwin, kelly, and some of the nation's leading reproductive rights advocates to highlight the terrible consequences of repealing the protections of roe v. wade. the maga supreme court repealed roe nearly two years ago. it will go down as one of the worst if not the worst supreme court decisions of modern american history. in one fell swoop, maga radicals on the court made it so that our children and grandchildren will sadly grow up with fewer civil liberties than those who came before them.

repealing roe was tragic, alarming, it was outrageous but it didn't happen in a vacuum. it happened because senate republicans packed our courts with hard-right judges, plucked right out of the federal society -- federalist society checklist. it happened because donald trump appointed not one, not two, but three magna justices, all who voted to overturn roe. remember what donald trump said a few weeks ago. he was, quote, proud, unquote, to be the person who paved the way to overturn roe. and after roe was eradicated, maga radicals opened the floodgates for draconian and cool bands on women's choice across america. and we know this is just the beginning. does anyone seriously doubt that should trump become president again he won't try to add even more extreme jurists to the bench so he can continue his assault on women's reproductive freedoms? of course he will and the republican senators are likely

unfortunately to go along. if donald trump and maga republicans get into power, the hard right would not rest until a national abortion ban becomes the law of the land. mark my words. that is the direction that they will take america in. house republicans already included the national abortion ban in their recent republican study budget. republican, the republican study committee includes a majority of house republicans and their leadership. roe may be gone but sadly the hard rite's obsession with eliminating reproductive rights is not. make no mistake, republicans will have to answer for their antiabortion records today, tomorrow, and at the ballot box in november. on guns, two years ago serious-minded democrats and serious-minded republicans came together to pass the most significant bipartisan gun safety bill in 30 years. we passed new -- we passed several new commonsense rules in our gun safety bill, including

rules closing dangerous loopholes on background checks, and i salute so many of my colleagues led by chris murphy and kyrsten sinema who helped make this happen. yesterday those rules on background checks were supposed to into into effect but sadly maga extreme incompetentses -- extreme ibss had other plans. instead they exploited our justice system and put our background check reforms on ice. how did they do it? by taking their case to their favorite judge in the country in the northern district of texas to rubber stamp a nationwide injunction. the decision out of texas is terrible for america for two reasons. first, the decision out of texas is another consequence of judge shopping, a deeply unfair practice which jaundices the whole fairness and support a judicial system has, where radicals, right-wing maga radicals all but guarantee a

favorable outcome by going to a judge of their choice often in jurisdictions where there is only one sitting judge in that local division, guaranteeing a favorable audience and guaranteeing a favorable outcome. no one had any doubt when these right-wing antigun safety groups went to this one judge, the very same judge who knocked out mifepristone. no one had any doubt what decision they would receive. judge shopping jaundices our legal system like few other abuses do. i've introduced a bill to rein in judge shopping and i hope both sides can work together on this legislation to restore fairness to the judicial system. if not, we're going to see injustice after injustice, a slanted judicial system leaning in favor of hard-right radicals imposing its will on the rest of the nation and the courts will have less and less respect because of it. i urge the judicial conference,

they agreed judge shopping is bad but they're doing nothing to implement it. they should. but second, maybe even worse the decision out of texas means maga radicals have temporarily succeeded in blocking commonsense gun safety measures and making our communities less safe. there were outrages in uvalde, in buffalo, and finally the congress in a bipartisan way acted the strong est gun safety laws in decades. and now people are less safe. less safe. because people who shouldn't have guns, young people are getting them. closing loopholes on background checks help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them, keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people should be something both sides can agree

on. but maga -- sadly maga republicans and the right-wing gun lobby thinks the opposite and with forum shopping they can almost automatically get their way, at least in the district courts. on the pact act, this is some good news. today president biden will announce some very good news. it's very good news for our nation's veterans. the biden administration has now approved over one million claims from over 180,000 veterans still suffering from burn pit exposure thanks to our pact act. when we passed the pact act two years ago it was the most significant expansion in veterans health care in generations. is sent a message to those sunk from burn pits, that we're here for you. i'm glad the pact act is delivering in helping veterans to get the care and benefits they deserved. like the gun bill i mentioned, like the ira and chips and science bill, it reminds us,

when democrats led in the house, led in the senate, around had the presidency, we got so much done for the american people. the farm bill -- later this week, house republicans on the house committee on agriculture intend to mark up their version of the farm bill that i believe falls terribly short. the farm bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation that congress works on, with consequences that affect tens of millions of americans and a broad range of interests, from farmers, both big and small, to nutrition advocates, to climate champions and rural development advocates who rebuild local economies and create jobs, lots of jobs, in rural america. some of these agriculture programs have helped rural parts of upstate new york, over and over again. a good farm bill represents all of the interests i just mentioned. so passing a farm bill has always been, and must be, bipartisan, but once again, the

maga-right house republicans are taking with their farm bill breaks -- sorry. but the path house republicans, the maga-right republicans are taking with their farm bill breaks with the bipartisan tradition, which has always enshrined the ag bill, a purely partisan bill that departs from long-standing spirit of bipartisan cooperation, unfortunately will not have a future in the senate. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.

>> recap for this body, starting last october a group of us sat down to have a serious conversation about border. senator from connecticut, chris murphy we had independent senator kyrsten sinema from arizona, a conservative senator from oklahoma. we all understood the problem is serious and there are very real threats or national security, our economy. it was spiraling out of control at the border. october is heisman ever in history of our country. november was a highest number ever in the history of our country. december was the highest number ever in his ever country with the largest they of illegal crossings in history of our

country in december of 12,000 people in a single day. things are spiraling out of control at the border and they continue. so we sat down in a series conversation and said with differences of how to be able to resolve this but we all want to be able to fix this, so we spent months trying to be able to hammer out a resolution. this is serious dialogue that we hope to go to get to conclusion. but we failed to do that. we created a bill that i felt like was a great bill with common ground in it. it didn't have everything i wanted in it, but it did have the essentials in it to be able to change way we do a a silo,o be able to change a processing. literally took it from the very first person they crossed the border each day would be detained, quickly screened and then deported. the very first person. if we had a flood of caravan up to 5000 people cross the day we can't control that so in that

situation instead of detaining quickly screening and deporting we would detained and deported because there was no time to do the screening we're not going to release people in. we were going to turn people around. they change the structure dramatically from '07 on the border. i felt like this was a good bill to be able to move forward. at a moving good faith to be able to get that done. but it's also well known here that i had disagreements are some of the my own party, the majority within my own party. that said, this is not the time to be able to resolve this. it is what it is. it's the political nature of what's going on right now. i understand that. but the problem is still unresolved. yesterday we had 5500 people that illegally cross the border yesterday. yesterday. last month when 174,000 people that illegally crossed our border last month that would've

been the highest month ever effectively been nice but in the past 20 years if it wasn't for the last three years under the biden administration. it would've been hiding a month under president obama, under president bush come under president trump, hiding any of those months but it doesn't be given the record recordsn set in the previous months before under the bryden administration because their dramatic change in policy. we have had one and half million people not illegally cross the border this fiscal year, one and a half million people. and they continue to be able to come across our border with almost no restraint. i've set for a long time this s a serious issue that we need to address. my own party has said this was not the time to be able to do that. now i'm hearing rumors that next week, the folks i was sitting down with to be able to have

serious dialogue to fix it, may bring bills back up again and to say let's do a political thing on the other side of the aisle. listen, if are going to solve the border issues, it's not going to be by doing competing messaging bills. if are going to solve this, let's sit down like adults and let's figure out how we're going to actually resolve this together. if there's a messaging bill that comes back, even the bill i helped negotiate next week, just to bring it up again and try to poke republicans in the eye for some sort of message and peace, why are we doing this? all the american people see it, everybody sees this is political, but everyone in the country also sees why don't you guys and ladies fix nsed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: yesterday, fdic chairman martin gruenberg announced he was prepared to step down from his position and expressed pride in maintaining public confidence in the

nation's banking system. unfortunately, there is little such confidence in his ability to foster a safe working environment for the agency's empl employees. but despite alarming reports about rampant sexual harassment, abuse, and retaliation at the fdic, is senate democrats in position to insist on change have actually pulled their punches. instead of calls for m mr. gruenberg's prompt resignation, we've heard everything from confidence in his ability to lead charge at the agency to delicate suggestions that the president nominate a new chair. the senior-most members of the banking committee apparently can't bring themselves to call a spade a spade. surely, their reluctance has

nothing to do with the fdic's line of succession, which would fill a vacancy with the agency's distinguished vice chair, who happens to be a republican. surely, our colleagues won't play politics in the face of such glaring failures of leadership at a major regulatory authority. the senates' oversight -- the senate's oversight responsibility is serious business, and i hope our colleagues in the majority are up to the task. on another matter, yesterday, the democratic leader once again tipped his cap to president biden for what he describes as many actions in recent weeks to secure the southern border, which leaves me with a couple of questions. first, what took the president so long? and second, why isn't he taking

the actions we know would actually begin to address the crisis that he actually invited? the reason i ask is because time matters here. the cost of an average day of avoidable crisis at the border is measured in thousands of apprehensions of illegal arrivals. and the interdiction of lethal drugs, like fentanyl. and if that's not alarming enough, consider the story reported earlier this month of the catch and release of a military-aged male who spent two years free in the interior of the country before he was detained for alleged affiliations with ayisis-k. of course, everything i've mentioned so far we only know because border patrol was able

to stop it. but think about what border officials know they're not cat catching, the known got-aways. for ten years before president biden took office, under administrations of both parties, an average of about 125,000 people per year successfully crossed the southern border and escaped into the interior. on the biden administration's watch in fiscal years 2021 through 2023, the average tally of known got-aways is 550,000. from 125,000 to more than half a million. president biden's press secretary says this administration has, quote, done more than anybody else, end quote, to secure the border. but if you wanted to make that claim true, you'd say this president has done more than anyone else to make the tough

jobs of cpb and other law enforcement personnel even tougher. in fact, one sobering new report suggests that intending for years with the historic humanitarian and security crisis without effective enforcement authorities is taking a heavy toll on the men and women of the border patrol. the rate of suicide among cpb personnel is three times higher than it was a decade ago. as one agent told reporters, quote, when it turned out that the job became nothing more than processing and releasing these people, that was very, very hard to take. going soft on border security may have started as just a short-sighted campaign strategy and a reckless debate stage

promise to surge asylum seekers to the border might have been just a cynical play to court left wing voters, but after three years on the job president biden's failure to perform one ever the most basic functions of his office isn't endearing. it's not some impressive sign of left wing bona fides. it's a glaring, avoidable failure, a profound moral embarrassment, and even washington democrats are beginning to recognize it as a tremendous political liability. the american people are telling in poll after poll that the border is a crisis and they want to see real solutions. the quickest way for the president to start undoing the damage he is to restore the

authorities he already has at its disposal like remain in mexico and a border wall construction and any of our democratic colleagues who recognize that the president must act ought to start telling him so. it's time for the biden administration to start exercising its authority to res restore sanity and start cleaning up the mess at the southern border. the time for distractions is long, long past. on one final matter, speaking of failure to discharge basic responsibilities, the biden administration's department of education around the country, high school seniors and their parents are still reeling from delays and processing errors in a botched rollout of the free application for student -- federal student aid. families have had to make tough decisions ahead of enrollment

deadlines with incomplete information. one such parent described the frustration she and her daughter were facing back in april. here's the quote -- she is supposed to decide by the end of the month and pay her housing deposit, but we can't commit to anything until we know what the financials look like. it certainly makes one wonder, what are all those bureaucrats at the education department up to if they can't complete a fundamental part of their job? unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the answer seems to be spending time and taxpayer dollars on activities that run contrary to the department's mandate. the rest of these activities, as i've discussed before, is student loan socialism. of course, the supreme court made it clear that this scheme is illegal and basic common sense tells us it is profoundly

unfair. both to folks who opted not to pursue a four-year degree and to those who worked through college and paid their own bills. but president biden has continued undeterred. last week -- last month his administration proposed a new rule to allow the secretary of education to cancel additional student debt for certain borrowers. it's estimated that this will cost taxpayers nearly $150 billion. with the department's illegal -- but the department's illegal nonsense doesn't stop there. unelected bureaucrats are also trying to rewrite title 9. the biden administration apparently wants to take a law that was designed to promote equal opportunity for women in education and make it do the exact opposite. this rule would require states

and educational institutions to abandon biological sex as the determinant in promise decisions and to use so-called gender identity instead. and institutions that refuse to comply would lose access to federal funding. more than 25 states have already sued to overturn this absurd rule. but the damage to the department of education's reputation is already done. high school seniors and parents have already had to make college choices without crucial aid information. working taxpayers are already footing the bill for the highest-earning segments of washington's democrat base. and laws that enacted protections for women are already being used to violate

those same protections. it's shaping up ■to be a banner year for the biden administration bureaucrats. the presiding officer: 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. krissa m. lan hmmm... of arizona to be united states district judge of arizona. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the clerk: ms. baldwin. >> for use our republican colleagues have insisted that the only real term solution to fixing the southern border was for congress to pass legislation. we democrats agree. congress must act. we need to fix the border and

reform immigration to make it fairer and more humane. this week republicans will have an opportunity to join us in taking action. a few moments ago i filed cloture on the motion to proceed to the bipartisan border act, the same bill negotiated three months ago by the bipartisan group of senator murphy, senator sinema, senator lankford. the senate will vote thursday. last night the president called both leader mcconnell and speaker johnson and urged them to go forward with our bill. all those who say we need to act on the border will get the chance this week to show they are serious about fixing the problem. unlike h.r. two the bipartisan border act was written explicitly to win support for both parties with input, significant input from both sides. the border act is an exercise in legislation. h.r. two is not. when republicans pushed h.r. two

they couldn't even get a single democratic vote here in ascent. much less all senate republicans for that matter. that was not a serious bill but what we are voting on this week is serious. it is the same bipartisan bill both sides negotiated for months last winter. it's the same bill endorsed ivan national border patrol council, very conservative group, by the chamber of commerce and by the very conservative "wall street journal" editorial page. by any objective measure it is strong and realistic, and most important, a bipartisan proposal. if our bipartisan bill was good enough to win the support of the union that represents a border agents, white is in a enough for senate republicans? are senate republicans say, saying they know better than our agents patrolling the border? i hope that's not true. i hope our republican colleagues are ready to join us. i will be clear, we don't expect every democrat or every republican to come out in favor

of this bill. that's why as i said before the only way to pass this bill, or any border bill, is with broad bipartisan support. if you go by what republican said over the last few months you would think they would leap at an opportunity like the one we have right now. in the words of speaker johnson, the time to act on the border is yesterday. in the words of my colleague from texas, it makes no sense to me for us to do nothing when we might be able to make things better. and in the words of my colleague from south carolina, to those who think that a president trump win that we could get a better deal, you won't. and he added, this moment will pass. do not let it pass, unquote. i wholeheartedly agree. we should not let this moment pass. border legislation is just about the hardest thing congress ever wrestles with. bipartisan board of bills are rare opportunities here in

congress. that's precisely why we have in front of us this week. i urge everyone not to let the politics get in the way. now on abortion. shortly i will join senator murray, baldwin counties of nations leading reproductive rights advocates to highlight the terrible consequences of repealing the protection of roe v. wade. the maga supreme court repealed roe nearly two years ago here it will go down as one of the worst if not the worst supreme court decisions of modern american history. in one fell swoop, , maga radics on the court made it so our children and grandchildren will sadly grew up with fewer civil liberties the notion came before them. repealing roe was tragic, , it s alarming, it was outrageous. but it didn't happen in a vacuum. it happened because senate republicans packed our course with hard-right judges plucked right out of the federal

society, federalist society checklist. it happened because of donald trump appointed not one, not two but three maga justices all who voted to overturn roe. remember what donald trump said a few weeks ago, he was comical, proud, unquote to be the person who paved the way to overturn roe. and after roe is eradicated, maga radicals opened the floodgates for draconian and cruel bans on women's choice across america. and we know this is just the beginning. does anyone seriously doubt that should trump become president again he won't try to add even more extreme of jurors to the bench so he can continue his assault on women's reproductive freedoms? of course he will, and republicans, senators are likely unfortunately likely to go along. if donald trump and maga republicans get into power the hard right will not rest until a national abortion ban becomes the law of the land. mark my words, that is at the direction of they will take a it

in. house republicans already included a national abortion ban in the recent republican study committee budget. remember, republican study committee include a majority of house republicans and their leadership. roe may be gone but sadly the our rights obsession with a limited reproductive rights is not. make no mistake, republicans will have to answer for the antiabortion records today,, tomorrow, and at the ballot box in november. on guns, two years ago serious minded democrats and serious minded republicans came together to pass the most significant bipartisan gun safety bill in 30 years. we passed new, we passed several new commonsense rules in our gun safety bill including rules closing dangerous loopholes and background checks. and i salute so many of my colleagues led by chris murphy, kyrsten sinema who helped make this happen. yesterday, those rules on

background checks were supposed to go into effect, but sadly,, maga extremists had other plans. instead, maga extremists exploited our justice system and put our background check reforms on i.c.e. how to be due? by taking the case to their favorite judge in the country in the northern district of texas to rubberstamp a nationwide injunction. the decision of texas is terrible for america for two reasons. first, the decision out of texas is another consequence of judge shopping, and deeply unfair practice which john disses the whole fairness and support a judicial system has. where radicals, right-wing maga radicals all but guarantee a favorable outcome by going to a judge of their choice, often in jurisdictions where there is only one sitting judge in that local division, guaranteeing a favorable audience and guaranteeing a favorable outcome. no one had any doubt when these

right-wing anti-gun safety groups went to this one judge, the very same judge who knocked out mifepristone, knowing that any doubt what decision they would receive. judge shopping jaundices our legal system like few others do. i hope both sides can work together on this legislation to restore fairness to the judicial system. if not, we are going to see injustice after injustice, a slanted judicial system leaning in favor of hard right radicals imposing its will on the rest of the nation. and the courts will have less and less respect because of it. i urge the judicial conference, a are doing nothing to implement it. they should. but second may be even worse the decision out of texas means maga radicals have temporarily

succeeded in blocking, tense gun safety measures and making our communities less safe. there were outrageous in uvalde, in buffalo, finally the congress and the by person we acted the strongest gun safety laws in decades ever since probably i passed the brady law and assault weapons ban, those are my bills, in the house 1994. and now people are less safe, less safe because people who shouldn't have guns, , young people, are getting them. closing loopholes on background checks help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have been. keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people should be something both sides can agree on. but maga sadly maga republicans and the right wing gun lobby thinks abbasid and with this shop and they can automatically get the weight of these in the district courts. finally on the pact act. this is some good news.

today president biden will announce some very good news. it's a very good news for our nation's veterans. the biden administration has now approved over 1 million claims from over 880,000 veterans still suffering from burn pit exposure, thanks to our packed active when passed the past act to use google as as a most significant expansion of veterans health care in generations. it sent a message to our veterans suffering from cancer, lung disease and other ailments from burn pits that we are here for you. i'm glad the pact act is a living on its promise and helping our veterans get the care and benefits they deserve. and like the gendering mentioned before, and like the ira unlike the chips and science bill, it reminds us when democrats made in house, let innocent and had the presidency we get so much done for the american people. the farm bill.

later this week house republicans on the house committee on agriculture into new mark up their version of the farm bill that i believe falls terribly short. the four build one of the most important pieces of legislation that congress works on with consequences that affect tens of millions of americans in a broad range of interests from farmers both big and small to nutrition advocates to climate champions and world velvet advocates to rebuild local economies and create jobs, lots of jobs in rural america. some of these agriculture programs have helped rural parts of upstate new york over and over again. a good farm bill represents all of the entries i just mentioned. so passing a farm bill has always been and must be bipartisan, but once again the maga right house republicans are taking their farm bill, are taking with the farm bill breaks -- sorry. but to pass house republicans and maga republicans are taking with the farm bill breaks with the bipartisan tradition which is always enshrined the ag bill

here in a purely partisan bill that departs from long-standing spirit of bipartisan cooperation unfortunately will not have a future in the senate. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. >> yesterday, fdic chairman martin gruenberg announced he was prepared to step down from his position and expressed pride in maintaining public confidence in the nation's banking system. unfortunately, there is little such confidence in his ability to foster safe working environment for the agencies employees. but despite alarming reports about rampant sexual harassment abuse and retaliation at the fdic, senate democrats the position to insist on change have actually pull their

punches. instead of call for his prompt resignation, we've herd everything from top is in his to lead charge at the agency did delicate suggestions that the president nominates a new chair. the seniormost members of the banking committee apparently can't bring themselves to call a spade a spade. surely there reluctance it has nothing to do with fdic line of succession, which would fill a vacancy with the agencies distinguished vice chair, who happens to be a republican. surely our colleagues will not put politics in the face of such failures of leadership at a major regulatory authority. the senate oversight responsibility is a serious is this. i hope our colleagues in the

majority are up to the task. on another matter yesterday the democratic leader once again tipped his cap to president biden for what he describes as many actions in recent weeks to secure the southern border, which leads me with a couple of questions. first, what took the president so long? and second, why isn't he taking the actions we know would actually again to address the crisis that he actually invited? the reason i ask is because time matters here. the cost of an average day of avoidable crisis at the border is measured in thousands of apprehensions of illegal arrivals. and the interdiction of lethal drugs like fentanyl. and if that's not alarming

enough, consider the story reported earlier this month of the catch and release of a military aged male who spent two years in the injury of the country before he was detained for alleged affiliations with isis-k. of course, everything i've mentioned so far we only know because the border patrol was able to stop him. but think about what border officials know they are not catching, the known gotaways. for ten years before president biden took office under administrations of both parties, an average of about 125,000 people per year successfully crossed the southern border and escape into the interior. on the biden administration's watch in fiscal years 2021-2023,

the average talent of known gotaways is 550,000. from 125,000, to more than half a million. president biden's press secretary says this administration has quote done more than anybody else quote to secure the border. if you wanted to make that claim true you would say this president has done more than anyone else to make the tough jobs cbp and other law enforcement personnel even tougher. in fact, one sobering new report suggests that intending for years with eu's torquay military and security crisis without effective enforcement authorities is taking a heavy toll on the men and women of the border patrol. the rate of suicide among cbp

personnel is three times higher than it was a decade ago. as one agent told reporters, quote, when it turned out that the job became nothing more than processing and releasing these people, that was very, very hard to take. while soft on persecuting them started this shortsighted campaign strategy, reckless debate stage promise to surge asylum-seekers to the border might have been just a cynical play. but after three years on the job president biden saved one of the most basic functions of his office is an enduring. it's not some impressive sign of left-wing bona fide. in declaring avoidable failure,

profound embarrassment, , and en washington democrats are beginning to recognize the tremendous political liability, the american people are telling poll after poll that their alarm on the border crisis they want to see real solutions. fortunately, the quickest way for the president to start undoing the damage he invented is to restore and use the authority he already has at his disposal, like remain in mexico, and border wall construction. any of our democratic colleagues who recognize that the president must act ought to start telling themselves it's time for the biden administration to start exercising authority to restore sanity and start cleaning up the mess at the southern border. the time for distractions is long, long past.

on one final matter, speaking of failure to -- the biden administration department of education, around the country high school seniors and their parents are still reading from the lace and processing errors in a botched rollout of free application for student federal student aid. family so that you make tough decisions ahead of enrollment deadlines with incomplete information. one such parent described the frustration she and her daughter were facing back in april, here's a quote, she supposed to decide by the end of the month and pay her housing deposit, but we can't commit to anything until we know what the financials look like. it's only makes one wonder what are all those bureaucrats at the education department up to if they can't complete a

fundamental part of their job? unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the answer seems to be spending time and taxpayer dollars on activities that run contrary to the department's mandate. the rest of these activities as i've discussed before his student loan socialism. of course the supreme court made it clear that this scheme is illegal and basic common sense tells us it is profoundly unfair, both to folks who sought to pursue a four year degree and to those who dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: april border numbers came out last week, bring us up to more than one and a half million migrant encounters at the southern border so far in fiscal year 2024. one and a half million in just seven months.

between official u.s. customs and border protection encounters and known got-aways which are individuals the border patrol saw but was unable to apprehend were closing in on a staggering ten million migrant encounters at our southern border under president biden. that's substantially more than the population of new york city. in fact, it's more than the population of all but the largest u.s. states, if you can believe that. and there are still eight more months in the president's term. mr. president, after three years of half measures, deflections, and outright ignoring the raging crisis at our nation's border, the president and democrats appear to have finally woken up to the fact that their border crisis might be a major political liability for them in the upcoming election. in fear for their election prospects is doing what three years of chaos at the southern border could not. and that's get them focused on

illegal immigration. sort of. because the vote on border legislation the democrat leader announced for this week isn't really about addressing illegal immigration. it's about giving the american people the impression the democrats care about illegal immigration. if the democrat leader were serious about addressing the crisis at our southern border, he would be bringing up legislation that actually stood a chance of making out of both houses of congress and to the president's desk. but he's not. instead he's bringing up a vote that he knows will fail in the hope of giving political cover to vulnerable democrats and with the side benefit he hopes of putting republicans in a difficult spot. political theater at its finest. and if the democrat leader goes through with this vote this week, he should expect some difficult conversations. perhaps he would like to explain

why if democrats are so concerned about illegal immigration and securing the border they have repeatedly banded together this year to oppose, to oppose commonsense amendments that came to the floor. would you think that if democrats were really worried about addressing the illegal immigration crisis, they might have supported senator blackburn's motion to allow state and local law enforcement to detain criminal illegal aliens for ice to deport them. or senator lankford's amendment to prohibit funding from being used to release special interests aliens, those are individuals who may pose a threat to the united states during legal proceedings. or senator hagerty's amendments to prevent taxpayer dollars to fly illegal immigrants to the united states. or to have them count engineer the census. the list goes on. mr. president, it's hard to understand why anyone would

oppose such commonsense me measures, yet all democrats did. so it's just a little hard to swallow their new-found enthusiasm for border security. needless to say, it's not just democrats in congress scrambling for political cover. the president is also desperately trying to make himself appear serious on the border. two weeks ago, the department of homeland security suggested a rule to expedite the deportation of criminals and terrorists. if the president thought this would make him look serious on border security, he was wrong, because the president's new order is a reversal of his own policy, which was established earlier in his administration. that's right -- the only reason the president had to finally allow for the immediate deportation of criminals and terrorists is because his administration had created a situation that allowed these individuals to stay in the country in the first place.

look, i'm glad president biden is making a small attempt to clear up part of the mess he's made, but i'm afraid the vote for me, i'm cleaning up the historic disaster i've created may not be the most convincing election slogan. mr. president, let's be very clear, we are here today with three successive years of record-breaking illegal immigration at our southern border because of president bi biden. on the day he took office, the president began dismantling the border security policies of his predecessor that, i might add, had been working. and illegal immigration began surging in response. mr. president, it's never sto stopped. while i appreciate my democrat colleagues would like to make it seem this is a congressional matter, in order to take the president off the hook and put

republicans on it, the truth is we don't need congressional action to fix the crisis at our southern border. president biden created this border crisis, and he can end it today, using the very same authority that he used to dismantle so many border security policies when he became president. mr. president, we have five more months until election day, and i suspect this won't be the last attempt by democrats to try to convince people they want to address illegal immigration. but after three-plus years of a democrat-created border crisis, will the american people really believe, really believe that the arsonist who started the fire are really serious about putting it out? mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. johnson: mr. president. participate the isn't that right from wisconsin. mr. johnson: mr. president, i come to the floor today to speak to the same topic that my distinguished colleague from south dakota was talking about. he called what was going to happen over the next couple days here political theater. that's pretty accurate. political stunt, political cover, a charade. instead of actually securing the border, that's what democrats in congress, that's what president bi biden, that's all they're interested in, because as my colleague mentioned president biden has all the authority he needs to secure the border. i want to spend a little time here talking about the

bipartisan bill that has been reintroduced, that we'll be voting on again on thursday. although it failed very quickly, because it literally was worse than doing nothing. but i think the first point to be made is, so the american people understands, when president biden and democrats in congress talk about securing the bo border, they're not talking about securing the border the way most americans think about it, like actually securing the border. what they're talking about is how do we make it more efficient to encounter, process, and disperse illegal immigrants coming to this country with invalid asylum claims, how can we encounter them, process them and disperse them as efficiently as possible? that is what they're talking about. so don't be fooled when they talk about securing the border.

proof positive of that is one of the lead democrat negotiators in this bipartisan bill, let me get the exact quote, he said the bill requires the president to funnel asylum claims to the land ports of entry when more than 5,000 people cross a day. that's not called securing the border. that's just sending the flow someplace else. then the senator went on and said the border never closes. so again, when democrats talk about securing the border, they're talking about more effi efficiently encountering, processing, and dispersing people. they're not talking about securing the border. i want to start, to prove my point, that they were never serious in these negotiations, other than looking for political cover, this quote that the majority leader gave to politico

a day or two after that border bill failed. the majority leader said, quote, we were playing chess, they were playing checkers, and we ended up with a ukraine bill, schumer said. he went on to say, we also end up in much better shape on the border than we were three months ago. i'll come back to this, but let me make the points now. if you're really negotiating in good faith, if those negotiations failed would you literally rub your negotiating partner's nose in the failure by claiming that we're playing chess, those knuckleheads were playing checkers and we got exactly what we wanted? i would argue that is not the sign of a good-fate negotiation. then -- good-faith negotiation. then, if you were really interested in securing the border, you would never make that statement, we ended up in

better shape on the border than we were three months ago? better shape on the border would have been actually passed enhanced authority for the president to actually secure the bo border. the majority leader thinks he's in better shape on the border because he got the political cover he sought, which was his only goal in those negotiations. let me spend just a little bit of time describing why that bill was far worse, and i mean far worse, than doing nothing. this is the border chart i've been producing since i became chairman of homeland security in 2015. it shows monthly totals of encounters on the southwest bo border, and you can see back here in 2014, i've re-created that right here, you can see that president obama when he hit

2,000 people a day declared that a humanitarian crisis, and president obama was correct. it was a humanitarian crisis. now, the solution back then was we started detaining people, we started clacking down -- clamping down, we built a new detention facility, and president obama actually had success in reducing the flow, until a court reinterpreted the settlement agreement and said that that applied to not only unaccompanied children, forking their release -- forcing their release within 20 days, it also applied to children accompanied by their parents. that was the one court decision that did weaken a presidential authority. the fact of the matter is even with that weakened presidential authority, because what sparked all this, and -- daca sparked all this, and president trump faced his border crisis, almost 5,000 people a day in one month,

he used the presidential authority that the supreme court in 2018 decision talking about the immigration naturalization act said that are current law exudes deference to the president in every clause. it entrusts to the president decisions whether and when to suspend entry, whose enterry to suspend, how long and for what conditions. it does vest the president with ample power to impose entry restrictions in addition to those elsewhere enumerated in the immigration nationality act. so obviously, president trump was able to use existing authority. he closed the border in 12 months. 12 months. not through any help by congress passing a law. by using that authority from the supreme court that said the law exudes deference to the

executive. well, when president biden came into office he blew the border wide open. how? by using that exact same executive authority that exuded deference to the president. he used that deference. he used that authority and he blew open the border, and we see the catastrophe that has resulted. now, the problem with this bill is it codifies most of president biden's open-border policy. it sets thresholds at 5,000, at 4,000, and i'll talk about those in greater detail. but thresholds to do what? supposedly secure the border, but it doesn't secure the border. again, it sends those individuals to the ports of entry to have their asylum claims adjudicated in a rube goldberg type situation.

it spends almost $20 billion this bill, $20 billion. prim primarily, again, to accomplish the democrats' definition of securing the border, which is to more efficiently encounter, process, and disperse illegal migrants that do not have valid asylum claims. that's what this bill does. it builds more detention faci facilities. it hires a small number of border patrol agents, 425, but it hires over 4,000 asylum officers to again jacquesed these -- to adjudicate these claims. they use a new standard now. it goes from a significant possibility these claims are valid to a reasonable. i'm sorry, i don't see much distinction there. again, these asylums officers are given all kinds of discretion, and the jacqueses are done -- the adjudications

are done by asylum officers, not judges. i see nothing in this bill that in any way, shape, or form force as higher standard. ity all subjective -- it's all subjective. under this administration, the subjectiveness of that i can pretty well guarantee you will continue the catastrophe. it pays for more detention beds. it pays for alternates to detention, which never worked effectively. $20 billion of money we don't have. when president trump secured the bretey, he -- secured the border, he didn't have additional funding nor that. he didn't have additional customs and border patrol agents. he used his policies. he used his executive authority -- remain in mexico. you can't come to this country and claim asylum, you have to do it from your home country or stay in mexico to do it. that was a huge deterrent, and the flow stopped.

we had safe third country agreements. there are other things. again, using that executive in order he secured the border. we didn't need the immigration bill, certainly not this rube goldberg bill that spends $20 billion we don't have. rather than spending all that money, to encourage more illegal immigrants to come to this country, we ought to stop the flow and then we wouldn't have to spend the money. doesn't that make a whole lot more sense? do what president trump did, actually stop the flow. but again, that's not what this bill does. i think the worst aspect of this bill, this is why i always talk about it's worse than doing nothing, is not the 5,000 average migrants a day, which was -- that's what this would look like. if we normalized 5,000 or 4,000. you are just codifying the open

border. the 5,000 threshold makes it mandatory that the president supposedly secure the border. again, doesn't really define that. i wouldn't argue that doesn't even secure the border. but it's the 4,000 discretionary threshold, that when average migration i think over seven days reaches 4,000 a day, a massive number, now the president it says has discretion to stop processing asylum claims and supposedly secure the border. why is that problematic? again, the supreme court said current law exudes deference. president trump had the authority. ably congress passing a law basically saying that the president doesn't have the claim to stop processing asylum claims, you are weakening thatter to. and even worse, that

discretionary authority ends after three years. so that bipartisan bill would actually dramatically weaken the authority of a president who's actually serious about securing the border. that's why this bill had to be defeated and must be defeated now. it's not a serious attempt. it's a bill that was negotiateded in bad -- negotiated in bad faith with the democrats supposedly playing chess and, unfortunately, our side playing checkers. now, again, it doesn't have to be this complex. use current authority. take a look at what president trump -- do that. don't spend additional money. stop the flow. that the ought to be -- that ought to be our goal. so again, most republicans in the senate conference, we weren't looking for an immigration bill. we certainly weren't looking for

one that weakened the president's authority. we would have been happy to strengthen the president's authority. we'd have been happy to clarify -- by the way, obama's secretary of homeland security, jeh johnson, completely disagreed with the court decision on the flores settlement. we'd be happy to clarify that, no, flores only applies to unaccompanied children. so we could follow the law to detain people that came to this country illegally. what we were looking for in a border bill was to have an enforcement mechanism that would force president biden to use the authority he has to actually secure the border based on our definition of securing the border. the way most americans view securing the border -- stop the flow of illegal migrants that has caused add clear and present

danger to this nation. i could go through the list of horribles, the drug traffickers, the human traffickers, the sex traffickers, the members of some of the most brutal gangs in mexico, the middle-aged men that are coming to this country. we are going to be dealing with this catastrophe for decades, for decades. the rapes, the murders that are being committed by people in this country who shouldn't be here, that's been facilitated by this open border policy. again, republicans would be happy to strengthen the president's authority to actually secure the border. what we're not happy to do is engage in this charade. let me end on this note again. is this the quote of someone who has entered into good-faith negotiations to develop a bill

to actually secure the border? this is the majority leader of the senate, one who is going to engage in political theater again this week, bringing up the exact same bill that has already failed. it failed within eyes of the public within 24 hours of flukes. it was so bad, it was worse than doing nothing. but the majority leader seems to be pretty happy with that failed bill. to quote, we were playing chess, they were playing checkers, and we ended up with a ukraine bill. that's what they wanted. their primary focus, their priority was providing $60 billion to a bloody stalemate, wit by the way a couple days after that thing passed, the administration was already indi indicating, well, that's probably not going to be enough, even though the majority leader came out of the white house and said, this is simple. ukraine gets $60 billion. they win. if they don't get $60 billion,

they lose. this is a disingenuous quote of a bad-faith negotiating partner, but it's also the quote, if you look at the last sentence there, of somebody who's not looking to secure the border but was looking for political cover. that's all he wanted. that's all the democrats wanted. theys all president biden -- that's all president biden wants -- political cover. we also end up in much better shape on the border than we were three months ago. again, the bill didn't pass. i'm glad it didn't. it would have been worse than doing nothing. but they didn't get a bill to supposedly secure the border. and he's happy about it? he's got a big old chesshire cat grin on his face. we got exactly what we wanted, $60 billion to secure another country's border, and we can keep our country's border wide

open. we can allow this flood of illegal migrants coming into this country. all we want is political cover, and we got it. we're in a lot better shape, passing nothing, not strengthening the president's authority to close the border, not having enforcement mechanism to force president biden, who wants an open border, to use the authority to secure the border. no, they got a bill that they're going to bring up again. it will fail. they're going to play political theater. they're going to use political cover, and they're just happy as a lark. they think they have political cover. i am hoping that the american public is paying attention to this charade, to this political theater and recognize that president biden and his colleagues in the democrat congress want an open border,

they caused this problem, and they will do nothing to secure it. with that, mr. president, i with that, mr. president, i

crisis might be a political liability for them in the election. it's doing 38 years of chaos of let's focus on illegal immigration so because of all

the legislation is it really about addressing illegal immigration and giving the american people the impression democrats care. if the democrat leader was serious about addressing the crisis of the southern border good bring up legislation best chance while making it up the president's desk but is not. instead he springing up a vote and giving it to vulnerable democrats. aside from that, he hopes putting them in a difficult spot. political theater at its finest. they should expect difficult conversations and perhaps would like to explain why democrats are so concerned about illegal immigration they have repeatedly

to oppose common sense i came to the floor. he would think democrats were worried about addressing the motion to state and local law enforcement to detain criminal illegal aliens or ice to deport them. senator langford's amendment special interest to individuals who may pose a threat to the united states during legal proceedings. to prevent taxpayer dollars to fly illegal immigrants to the united states or have them count in the census. the list goes on. tors, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar

number 599, krissa m. lanham of arizona to be ukraines district judge for the district of arizona. 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 krissa m. lanham of arizona to be united states district judge for the district of arizona shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: the clerk: ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso. mr. bennet. mrs. blackburn. mr. blumenthal. mr. booker. mr. boozman. mr. braun. mrs. britt. mr. brown. mr. budd. ms. butler. ms. cantwell. mrs. capito. mr. cardin. mr. carper. mr. casey.

vote: ms. collins. mr. coons.

mr. cornyn. ms. cortez masto. mr. cotton. mr. cramer. mr. crapo. mr. cruz. mr. daines. ms. duckworth. 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. the clerk: mr. mendendez mr. merkley. mr. moran. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff. mr. padilla. mr. paul. mr. peters.

the clerk: mr. padilla, mr. paul, mr. peters, mr. risch, mr. romney, mr. sanders, mr. schatz. being 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.

the clerk: mr. lee, no. the clerk: senators voting in the affirmative -- brown, butler, cassidy, collins, cortez masto, crapo, heinrich, murray, padilla, sinema. senators voting in the negative -- barrasso, britt, cotton, grassley, lee, sullivan, vance.

the clerk: mr. young, aye.

the clerk: mr. markey, aye. ms. stabenow, aye. vote:

vote:

the clerk: mr. romney, aye. the clerk: mr. scott of florida, no. ms. hirono, aye.

mr. mullin, aye. mr. kennedy, no. mr. kaine, aye.

the clerk: mr. casey, aye. ms. ernst, no. mr. whitehouse, aye.

the clerk: ms. baldwin, aye.

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

the clerk: rounds, aye. mr. coons, aye. mr. graham, aye. mr. reed, aye. mrs. capito, aye.

ms. rosen, aye. mrs. gillibrand, aye. the clerk: mr. wyden, aye.

mr. bennet, aye.

the clerk: mr. daines, aye.

the clerk: mr. kelly, aye.

the clerk: ms. warren, aye. mr. durbin, aye.

the clerk: mr. moran, aye. vote:

the clerk: mr. king, aye. mr. fetterman, aye. mr. braun, no. mr. schatz, aye.

the clerk: mr. cornyn, no. ms. murkowski, aye.

the clerk: mr. merkley, aye. the clerk: mr. cardin, aye. mr. manchin, aye.

the clerk: mr. risch, aye. mr. van hollen, aye.

the clerk: mrs. blackburn, no. mr. thune, no. the clerk: mr. johnson, no.

ms. klobuchar, aye. the clerk: mrs. fischer, no. mrs. hyde-smith, no.

the clerk: mr. wicker, aye. the clerk: mr. cramer, aye.

ms. duckworth, aye. mr. boozman, no. the clerk: ms. lummis, no. mr. warner, aye.

the clerk: mr. ricketts, no. ms. smith, aye.

the clerk: mr. carper, aye. vote:

the clerk: ms. cantwell, aye. the clerk: mr. hickenlooper, aye. mr. lankford, no.

mr. lujan, aye. mr. schumer, aye.

the clerk: mr. tuberville, no. the the clerk: mr. warnock, aye.

the clerk: mr. tillis, aye.

the clerk: mr. welch, aye. the clerk: mr. paul, no.

the clerk: mr. blumenthal, aye.

the clerk: mr. budd, no.

and humane. this week, republicans will have an opportunity to join us in taking action. moments ago i for cloture on the motion to proceed to the bipartisan border act, , the sae bill we negotiated three months ago by the bipartisan group with senators murphy, sinema and linker. the citizen will vote on thursday. last night the president called both leader mcconnell and speaker johnson and urged him to go forward with our bill. all those who say we need to act on the border will get a chance this week to show they're serious about fixing the problem. unlike h.r. two, bipartisan border act was written explicitly to win support from both parties with input, significant input from both sides. border act is an exercise in legislating. h.r. two is not. when republicans pushed h.r. two it could even get a single democratic vote here in the

senate. much less all senate republicans for that matter. that was not a serious bill that what we are voting on week is serious. it is the same bipartisan bill all sides negotiated for months last winter. it's the same bill endorsed by the national border patrol council, very conservative group, by the chamber of commerce, and by the very conservative "wall street journal" editorial page. by any objective measure it is strong and realistic, and most importantly a bipartisan proposal. it are bipartisan bill was good enough to win the support of the union that represents the border agents, why isn't a good enough for senate republicans? arson republicans say saying they know better than our agents patrolling the border? i hope that's not true. i hope our republican colleagues are ready to join us. i will be clear we don't expect every democrat or a republican to combat in favor of this bill. that's why as i said before the only way to pass this bill or

any border bill is with broad bipartisan support. if you go by what republican said over the last few months you would think he would leap at an opportunity like the one we have right now. in the words of speaker johnson, the time to act on the border is yesterday. in the words of my colleague from texas, it makes no sense to me for us to do nothing when we might be able to make things better. and in the words of my colleague from south carolina, to those who think that a president trump win that we can get a better deal, you won't, and he added, this moment will pass. do not let it pass, unquote. i wholeheartedly would agree. we should not let this moment pass. border legislation is just about the hardest thing congress ever wrestles with. bipartisan border bills are rare opportunities here in congress. that's precisely why we have it in front of us this week. i urge everyone not to let the

politics get in the way. now on abortion. shortly i will join senator murray, baldwin, kelly and some of the nation's reproductive rights advocates to highlight the terrible consequences of repealing the protections of roe v. wade. the maga supreme court repealed roe nearly two years ago. it will go down as one of the worst if not the worst supreme court decision of modern american history. in one fell swoop maga radicals on the court made it so that our children and grandchildren will sadly grew up with fewer civil liberties and those who came before them. repealing roe was tragic, it was a lovely, it was outrageous that he didn't happen in in a vac. it happened dickson republicans packed our courts with hard-right judges, , plucked rit out of the federal society federalist society checklist. it happened because donald trump

appointed not one, not two, but three maga justices, all who who voted to overturn roe. remember what donald trump said a few weeks ago, he was quote, proud end quote to be the person who paved the way to overturn roe. and after roe was eradicated maddock radicals open the floodgates for decoding and cruel bans on women's choice across america. and we know this is just the beginning. does anyone seriously doubt that you trump become president again he won't try to add even more extreme jurist to the bench so he can continue his assault on women's reproductive freedoms? of course he will, and republican senators who passed his prologue for likely unfortunately to go along. if donald trump and maga republicans get into power, the hard right would not rest until a national abortion ban becomes the law of the land. mark my words. that is in the direction that the will take america in. house republicans already

included a national abortion ban in the recent republican study committee budget. remember, republican study committee included a majority of house republicans and their leadership. rove may be gone but salaries se heart rights obsession with limited reproductive rights is not. make no mistake, republicans will have to answer for the antiabortion records today, tomorrow, and at the ballot box in november. on guns, two years ago serious minded democrats and serious minded republicans came together to pass the most significant bipartisan gun safety bill in 30 years. we passed several new comets and rules in our gun safety bill including rules closing dangerous loopholes and background checks. and i salute so many of my colleagues led by chris murphy and kyrsten sinema who helped make this happen. yesterday, those rules on background checks were supposed to go into effect.

but sadly, maga extremists had other plans. instead, maga extremists exploited our justice system and put out background check reforms on ice. how did he do? by taking their the case r favorite judge in the country in the northern district of texas to rubberstamp a nationwide injunction. the decision out of texas is terrible for america for two reasons. first, the decision out of texas is another consequence of judge shopping, a deeply unfair practice which john this is the whole fairness and support a judicial system has where radicals, right wing maga radicals all but guarantee a favorable outcome by going to a judge of their choice, often in the jurisdiction where there's only one sitting judge in that local division guaranteeing a favorable audience and guaranteeing a favorable outcome. no one had any doubt when these right wing anti-gun safety groups went to this one judge,

the very same judge who knocked out mifepristone. no one had any doubt what decision they would receive. judge shopping jaundices like few other do. i deduced the bill to rein in judge shopping at them both sides can work together on this legislation to restore fairness to the judicial system. if not were going to see injustice after injustice, isolated judicial system leaning in favor of hard right radicals imposing its will on the rest of the nation. and the courts will have less and less respect because of it. i urge the judicial conference. they agreed judge shopping is bad but they do nothing to implement it. they should. but the second may be even worse the decision out of texas means maga radicals have temporary succeeded veteran succeeded in blocking commonsense gun safety measure making our communities less safe.

there were outrages in uvalde, in buffalo. and finally the cogs in a bipartisan way acted the strongest gun safety laws in decades ever since probably i passed the brady law and assault weapons ban, those are my bills in the house, 1994. and the people are less safe. less safe because people who shouldn't have guns, young people, are giving them. closing loopholes on background checks help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people should be something both sides can agree on. but maga, sounded maga republicans and the right wing gun lobby thinks the opposite and with shopping they can almost automatically get the weight of these in the district courts. on the pact act, this is some good news. today, president biden will

announce some very good news, it's very good news, for our nation's veterans. the biden administration has no approved over 1 million claims from over 880,000 veterans still suffering from burn pit exposure. thanks to our packed act. when we passed the pact act two years ago was the most significant expansion of veterans health care in generations. it sent a message to our veterans suffering from cancer, lung disease and other ailments from burn pits that we are here for you. i'm glad the pact act is a living on its promise and helping our veterans to get the care and benefits they deserve, and likes again billy mitchell before, and like the ira and like the chips and science bill, it reminds us when democrats lead in the house, let innocent and that the presidency we get so much done for the american people. the farm bill, latest week as republicans on the house committee on agriculture to do more of the version of the farm

bill that i believe falls terribly short. the farm bill is one of the most important piece of legislation that congress works on with consequences that affect tens of native americans in a broad range of interests from farmers was big and small to nutrition advocates the climate champions and ruled velvet aggregates the rebuild local economy and create jobs, lots of jobs in rural america. some of these aggregate programs have helped rural parts of upstate new york over and over again. a good further represents all of the interests i just mentioned. so passing a farm bill has always been and must be bipartisan. but once again the maga right house republicans are taking their farm bill, are taking with their farm bill breaks -- sorry. but the path house republicans the maghreb republicans are taking with their farm bill breaks with a bipartisan tradition which has always

enshrined the ag bill, a purely partisan bill that departs from long-standing spirited bipartisan cooperation, unfortunately, will not have a future in the senate. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. >> yesterday, fdic chairman martin gruenberg announced he was prepared to step down from his position and express pride in maintaining public confidence in the nation's banking system. unfortunately, there is little such confidence in his ability to foster safe working environment for the agencies employees. but despite alarming reports about rampant sexual harassment, abuse and retaliation at the fdic, senate democrats in position to insist on change have actually pulled their punches. instead of calls for mr. gruenberg's prompt resignation,

we've heard everything from confident in his ability to lead, charge at the agency, to delicate suggestions that the president nominate a new chair. the seniormost members of the banking committee apparently can't bring themselves to call a spade a spade. shirley, their reluctance has nothing to do with fdic's line of succession. which would fill a vacancy with the agencies distinguished vice chair, who happens to be a republican. surely our colleagues will not play politics in the face of such glaring failures of leadership at a major regulatory authority. this send its oversight responsibility is a serious business and i hope our colleagues in the majority are up to the task.

on another matter, yesterday the democratic leader once again tipped his cap to president biden for what he describes as many actions in recent weeks to secure the southern border. which leaves me with a couple of questions. first, what took the president so long? and second, why isn't he taking the actions we know would actually begin to address the crisis that he actually invited? the reason i ask is because time matters here. the cost of an average day of avoidable crisis at the border is measured in thousands of apprehensions of illegal arrivals. and the interdiction of lethal drugs like fentanyl. and if that's not alarming enough consider the story reported earlier this month of

the catch and release of a military age to male who spent two years free in the interior of the country before he was detained for alleged affiliations with isis-k. of course, everything i have mentioned so far we only know because the border patrol was able to stop it. but think about what border officials know they are not catching, the known gotaways. for ten years before president biden took office under administrations of both parties, an average of about 125,000 people per year successfully crossed the southern border and escape into the interior. on the biden administration's watch in fiscal years 2021-2023, the average tally of known

gotaways is 550,000. of 125,000, to more than half a million. president biden's press secretary says this administration has quote done anything more than anyone else to secure the border. so if you wanted to make that claim true, you would say this president has done more than anyone else to make the tough jobs cbp and other law enforcement personnel even tougher. in fact, one sobering new report suggests that intending for years with historic humanitarian and security crisis without effective enforcement authorities is taking a heavy toll on the men and women of the border patrol. the rate of suicide amongst cbp personnel is three times higher than it was a decade ago.

as one agent told reporters, quote, when it turned out that the job became nothing more than processing and releasing these people, it was very, very hard to take. going soft on border security may have started as just a short sighted campaign strategy, reckless debate stage promise to surge asylum seekers to the border might have been just a cynical play to court left-wing voters. but after three years on-the-job president biden's failures to perform one of the most basic functions of his office isn't endearing. it's not some impressive sign of left-wing bona fide. declaring avoidable failure, profound moral embarrassment and

even washington democrats are beginning to recognize it as a tremendous political liability. the american people are telling poll after poll that they are alarmed by the border crisis and want to see real solutions. fortunately, the quickest way for the president to start undoing the damage he invented is to restore and use the authorities he already has at his disposal, like remain in mexico, border wall construction, and any of our democratic colleagues who recognize that the president must act on to start telling him so. it's time for the biden administration's is her exercising its immense authority to restore synergy and start cleaning up the mess at the southern border. the time for distractions is a long, long past.

on one final matter, speaking a failure to discharge basic responsibilities, the biden administration department of education around the country, high school seniors and their parents are still reeling from the late and processing errors in a botched rollout of the free application for student, federal student aid. families about to make tough decisions ahead of enrollment deadlines with incomplete information. one such parent described the frustration she and her daughter were facing back in april. here's a quote. she's supposed to decide by the end of the month and pay her housing deposit, but we can't commit to anything until we know what the financials look like. it certainly makes one wonder what are all those bureaucrats at the education department of two if they can't complete a a fundamental part of their job?

unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the answer seemed to be spending time and taxpayer dollars on activities that run contrary to the department's mandate. the rest of these activities as i've discussed before is student loan socialism. of course the supreme court made it clear that this scheme is illegal and basic common sense tells us it is profoundly unfair. both the folks who often sought to pursue a four-year degree and to those who worked through college and paid their own bills. but president biden has continued undeterred last week, last month his administration proposed a new rule to allow the secretary of education to counsel additional student at -- cancel -- for certain borrowers. it's estimated this will cost taxpayers nearly $150 billion.

but the department's illegal nonsense doesn't stop there. unlike the bureaucrats are also trying to rewrite title ix of the civil rights act. the biden administration. wants to take a law that was designed to promote equal opportunities for women in education, and make it do exact opposite. this rover dakar states and educational institutions to abandon biological sex as the determination, as they determinate determinant and program decisions and to so-called gender identity instead. and institutions that refuse to comply would lose access to federal funding. more than 25 states have already sued to overturn this absurd rule with the damage to the department of education's reputation is already done.

high school seniors and parents have already had to make college choices without crucial financial aid information. working taxpayers already footing the bill for the highest earning segments of washington's democrat base. laws enacted for protection for women already being used to violate the same protections. it's shaping up to be a banner year for the biden administration bureaucrats. mr. president april border numbers came out last week. bring us up to more than 1.5 million migrant encounters at the southern border, so far in fiscal year 2024. 1.5 million.

a staggering 10 million migrant encounters at our southern border under president biden. that is substantially more than the population of new york city. in fact, it's more than the population of all but the largest u.s. states, if you can believe that. and there are still eight more months in the presidency term. mr. president, after three years of half measures, deflections and outright ignoring the raging crisis at our nation's for the president and democrats appear to have finally woken up to the fact that their border crisis might be a major medical liability for them in the upcoming election. in fear of their election prospects is doing what three years of chaos at the southern border could not, and that's get them focus on illegal

immigration. sort of. because the democrat leader has addressed this week isn't really about addressing illegal immigration. it's about giving the american people the impression the democrats care about illegal immigration. if the democrat leader were serious about addressing the crisis at our southern border he would be brainy of legislation that actually stood a chance of making it out of both house of congress and onto the president desk. but he's not. instead he's bringing up a vote that he knows will fail in the hope of giving political cover to vulnerable democrats and with a side benefit he hopes of putting republicans in a difficult spot. political theater at its finest. and if the democrat leader goes through with this about this wiki should expect them difficult conversations. perhaps he would like to explain why if democrats are so

concerned about illegal immigration and securing the border they had repeatedly banded together this year to oppose, to oppose commonsense amendments that came to the fore. you would think if democrats were really worried about addressing illegal immigration crisis they might is supported senator blackburn motion to a state of local law enforcement to detain criminal illegal aliens for ice to deport them. our store link first amendment to brevet funding from being used to release special interest and in some individuals who may pose a threat to the united states during legal proceedings. our senator hagerty amendment to brevet taxpayer dollars from being he previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m. recess:

>> the same task apple out for a nap and i in recess until 2:15 p.m eastern when lawmakers return we expect them to continue consideration of judicial nominees which if both confirm what mark 200 administration. later we could also see the chamber take up a measure that would repeal some of the energy departments new efficiency standards for gas furnaces. coming up thursday senators will likely revote a board is to get a measure that failed earlier this year. live coverage when sandage return right here on c-span2. >> today a hearing on roadway safety including the particular risk to pedestrians and cyclists with testimony from transportation policy advocates and local officials it for a senate commerce, science, and transportation subcommittee.

live at 2:30 p.m. eastern on c-span3, c-span now our free mobile video at and online at c-span.org. >> the c-span bookshelf podcast makes it easy for you to listen to all of c-span's podcast that teacher nonfiction books in one place seek and discover new authors and ideas. each week were making it convenient for you to listen to multiple episodes with critically acclaimed authors discussing history, biography, current events and culture from our signature programs, about books, afterwards, booknotes+ and q&a. listen to c-span's bookshelf podcast feed today pick you can find the c-span feed and oliver podcast on the free c-span no mobile video app or where to get your podcasts, and on our website c-span.org/podcast. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of