primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced unfiltered coverage of government. taking you to where the policy is debated and decided all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span 45 years and counting powered by cable. >> we take you live now to the u.s. senate where today members are working on several nominations including the deputy u.s. representative to the united nations lawmakers will also work on a pair of judicial nominations. this is live senate coverage here on c-span2.

the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray.

almighty god, holy, powerful, loving, and good, thank you for expressing your love to us with generous gifts. you have sustained our families and loved ones and nourished us with the blessings of faithful friends. you also have honored us with the privilege of being called your children. you've showered our land from your bounty with freedom, justice, and strength. you've delivered those bruised and battered by life. thank you for our lawmakers who work to keep america strong. lord, use them this day for your

glory. lord of hosts, we lift to you this day our gratitude and praise. we pray in your powerful 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, july 31, 2024. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable kirsten gillibrand, a senator from the

state of new york, 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: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i understand there

is a bill at the desk that's due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the leader is correct. the clerk will now read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: s. 4853, a bill to prohibit the federal communications commission from promulgating or enforcing rules regarding disclosure of artificial intelligence-generated content in political advertisements. 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: the objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. schumer: thank you, madam president. now, madam president, 245 days ago i stood right here in the senate, on the senate floor to raise the alarm of rising anti-semitism in america and the need to condemn anti-semitism whenever we see it.

this week, squirrel hill, the tree of life synagogue massacre of 2018, was targeted once again with anti-semitic vandalism and attacks. these attacks are vile, they're hurtful, they poison our society with division, fear, grief, and for the squirrel hill community which has already suffered unimaginable tragedy, this is particularly horrific. it pains me to say that anti-semitism like this is unfortunately not unusual today. in our community and in our politics, anti-semitism is ascending. this week none other than donald trump once again added to the division. yesterday during a radio interview with wabc in new york city, donald trump agreed with his interviewer that the nation's second gentleman, a jewish american, is, quote, unquote, a crap pi jew. why? presumably because he's a

democrat. on air, donald trump then repeated the sick idea that if you're a jew and if you happen to support democrats, you should have your head examined and that you're a bunch of fools. sadly, we've been here before but it must be said again, donald trump's comments were reprehensible, dangerous, and proof that he is disturbingly at ease with anti-semitic rhetoric. it might be tempting to listen to what donald trump said on the radio and tune it out just as another trump insult, but that would be a mistake. calling jews fools and suggesting they are bad or disloyal because of their political beliefs is not just some juvenile insult. it's an old anti-semitic trope that goes back centuries, one of dual loyalty. it's been used for a long time to drive jews out of their homes, to paint them as untrustworthy, to deny their basic dignity. so when donald trump goes on air and attacks jews for the way

they vote, he knows precisely what he is doing. he is sowing the seeds of division. he is propagating naked anti-semitism. donald trump will always try to drag this nation down with insults, intolerance, fear, smear. but we are better than that. as the american people will make clear, make very clear in the months to come. on tax, tomorrow senators will have a chance to take up a bill that in one fell swoop will deliver significant tax relief for america's families, america's businesses and american suffering from natural disasters. all we have to do is come together, both parties, bipartisan, and vote yes to advance the bipartisan tax package. democrats are ready to get this package done. it already passed the house under the leadership of a republican chair of ways and

means, congressman smith of missouri, with an incredible margin of 357-70. a majority of both parties voted strongly for this bill. frankly, it's hard to imagine a vote more lopsided than that in this congress. if we get this bill done, it will go right to the president's desk. it will become law. that means families and businesses and parents will see more money coming back to them during this tax season. more americans will have a little more money in their pocket. half a million kids will be lifted out of poverty by expanding the child tax credit. 16 million kids will also see these benefits. and most of those kids are working-class, poorer kids. and now that the senate democrats and house democrats and house republicans are all on board, senate democrats, house democrats, house republicans, all on board, we're very close to getting this bill done. the only one standing in the way

of enacting tax relief right now are senate republicans. everyone else, even house republicans, hardly known for their moderation, support this tax bill. respectfully, it is never a good -- respectfully to my republican colleagues here in the senate, it is never a good sign to be more obstructionist than house republicans on any issue, but that's precisely where our senate republican colleagues find themselves in right now. that's where they are. at yesterday's republican weekly lunch one senator was passing around pamphlets telling his colleagues to oppose this bill, to oppose even having a debate. they're repeating a whole bufrnl of false talking points about undocumented immigrants and about discouraging work. they're trooig very hard to -- trying very hard to justify voting no. let's be honest there is no great mystery about senate republicans oppose a tax bill

many helped write. senate republicans are looking at the calendar and they have decided they care more about results of the election than in passing a law. they hope that if things go their way they can get a more conservative package sometime in the future. and they're willing to walk away from expanding programs like the child tax credit along the way. don't take it from me. listen to what my colleague, the senior senator from missouri, said yesterday about republican leadership. they're not interested in passing anything, clearly. they're not interested in passing anything, clearly. what a shame. what a shame. senate republicans love to say they care about families, yet it seems like most of them will block a bill that expands the child tax credit, lifts half a million kids out of poverty, expands benefits to 16 million children. senate republicans also say they're champions of business yet it seems like most of them will block a bill that rewards business, that invests in r&d,

help pay for new equipment that will promote new jobs, new job growth and new innovation. i hope i'm wrong, madam president. i hope republicans will seize this opportunity and send a tax bill package to the president's desk, a bipartisan tax relief bill passed by a majority of senate, of house democrats and house republicans. if the american people see that the only reason this tax relief bill fails was because senate republicans stood in the way, they're not likely to forget it very soon. now on the vacca nomination. today the senate will confirm another exceptional judicial nominee from new york who i recommended to president biden. meredith a. vacca to serve as district judge for the western district of new york. that's the buffalo and rochester areas of our state. judge vacca's confirmation will be a historic moment for western new york, a proud korean american, judge vacca will be the first asian american and the first woman of color ever to

serve in the western district of new york. and i'm proud to say judge vacca is a western new yorker through and through, and through and through, a buffalo law school graduate, long-term resident of the rochester area, raised in the town of greece. judge vacca will bring great talent, experience and respect for the law. the western district, as i mentioned, stretches along, to buffalo and rochester and many other counties in western new york. these are places that benefited from the great asian community. as the senior senator from new york, and majority leader, i've always worked to make new york's federal bench reflect better the communities it serves. i know you have worked, we have worked hand in hand, madam president, on that noble goal. judge vacca's nomination will mark another major step towards that goal. judge vacca has every quality you could want in a jurist --

compassate, tough, legally astute, with a general win lover for her community. she spent over 15 years as an attorney, prosecutor, and judge fighting for vulnerable new yorkers. she has developed a rare institutional knowledge of our state and our country's laws, and will bring tremendous legal expertise and experience to the western district bench. and, notably, once confirmed, judge vacca will make the formerly all-male western district bench 50% female, making it one of the few country's 50% female benches. one day, i hope this is the norm in the country. i'm proud to support judge vacca's nomination, and i look forward to voting to confirm her later today. 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.

>> we do it, we will dominate this market no matter if how big it is or how small it might be. i'd like to dominate this market for a lot of reasons or at least be competitive. i met with the chinese ambassador yesterday, and i'll close with this. i said, we're going to have an honest discussion about the way

you produce electric cars. get ready for that discussion. >> i think before i turn to senator merkley, there is a very significant bipartisan common cause towards cleaner energy, lower emissions and taking back chinese come consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: it's been less than two weeks since president biden 's name was removed from the democrat party's ticket. i've already spoken about how the effort to sideline democrats' de facto nominee robbed primary voters of their role in the electoral process. now, as the dust settles, more and more americans are realizing

this wasn't just a process. it was also a massive promotion for someone with a failing record in her current job. remember, just two months into their term the president asked the vice president, gave her the task of getting to the bottom of the surging illegal immigration at the u.s. mexico border. he called her, quote, the most qualified person to lead on this issue. so, why don't we take a look at how she did in the past three and a half years. the crisis at our southern border has made history. border patrol agents have recorded over 9.9 million

illegal encounters. we know that nearly two million more have literally gotten away. and the administration's catch-and-release policies have let in over three million, without any fert means of enforcing immigration law -- any federal means of enforcing immigration law. what rapidly became a humanitarian crisis on vice president harris' watch is also a national security vulnerability of alarming proportions. since october 2021, cbp have encountered 539 individuals on the terror watch list along the southern border. the failure is vast. the facts are shocking. the numbers are staggering.

but for too many american families there's only one number that matters -- the one empty chair at the dinner table. for some families that chair is empty because an illegal immigrant killed their loved one. for many more, it's empty because chinese manufacturers and mexican cartels have exploited the chaos at the border and made fentanyl the leading cause of death for american adults. and yet, yet, in the face of pain and suffering, the admini administration's point person on the border has approached this crisis with profound unseri unseriousness. it took the vice president months to get around to visiting the border. when asked why she hadn't made time to see the effects of the admini administration's open borders

policies firsthand, she quipped, i've not been to europe, either. sometimes, instead of deflection, she's employed o outright denial. for example, she said we have a secure border. another example, everything is going rather smoothly. of course, years earlier, under an administration that took border security seriously, then-senator harris found plenty of time to elaborate on her aversion to that commonsense policy. in 2017, when a federal judge blocked the previous administration's effort to deny federal funding to sanctuary cities, she reacted as follows -- it's fantastic. i'm jumping up and down. put five exclamation points after what i just said. democrats are poised to nominate

someone with a long record of being dead wrong on securing america's borders. so perhaps it's not surprising that their media allies are working overtime to be a solve the vice president -- to absolve the vice president for responsibility of the undeniable crisis that unfolded on her watch. last week, we read headlines like no, kamala harris is not the border czar, and claims that, quote, the vice president's role was more lim limited. after the short hiatus of asking tough questions about president biden's fitness for office, the legacy media are back in bills, papering over democratic vulnerabilities, even in this case if it means blatantly gaslighting the public. but, at the end of the day, the

american people know what he into athletic -- know what neglect look like, families missing loved ones know what this sort of catastrophe fa failure -- catastrophic failure feels like, and in november i expect they'll have plenty to say about it. now, on another matter, the senate's about to leave washington for the august state work period. when we come back, senate democrats will face a daunting list of radical judges that the biden-harris administration will want them to confirm. there is adeel abdullah mangi and his record of bumping elbows with terrorists, apologists, and advocates for cop killers. there's kevin rich and karla campbell, both beneficiaries of corrupt bargains between the biden-harris administration and the judges they would replace.

there's julia lippis, another nepotism hire, who distinguished herself and her leniency towards a parent who killed their baby with fentanyl. there's embry kidd who went soft on sex abusers and then misled the judiciary committee about it. there's ryan park, the self-described tip of the spear of progressive activism, who fought hard to let colleges discriminate illegally against asian applicants. there's sparkle l. sooknanan, whose nomination congressman velazquez called an insummit to the -- an insult to the people of puerto rico. then there's mooums moves, who advocated -- then there's mustafa taher kasubhai, who

advocated incorporating -- listen to this -- markist theories -- marxist law into property law. i suggest the democrats consider where the radical goals of the biden-harris administration judicial project are really worth it. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.

>> about 125 billion -- >> would you agree that all of that's being borrowed to push that onto consumers? >> well, cbo's estimate was that the inflation reduction act a was more than paid for, so i'm not sure i agree with that. >> i'd say that's a fake pay-for, but thank you for your perform okay, we'll go on to to

ms. gross and ms. hinman. >> senator, thank you for that question. i'll just with add on the policy, i'll just add that consumers are choosing these vehicles, senator merkley talked about the energy wallet. the fact that you can feel it in your pocketbook when you don't have to go to the gas station, and the cost is so much less when you're servicing an electric vehicle. truck drivers, data shows truck drivers actually like driving electric vehicles because you don't experience that fatigue you have with the rumble and the roar of a combustion-engine vehicleful we're starting to see there is, there are reasons to want to drive an electric vehicle based on a data the that's out there that are really extremely compelling for auto makers and truck drivers out there -- manufacturers. >> thank you. ms. hinman. >> yes. thank you so much, senator. i think it's a little bit of an uncomfortable conversation to have the about the fact that we've got a very large predatory market who is influencing prices up and down the value chain in

ways that americans just can't simply compete with. and to me, the sense of sort of how much we're spending is really hard to sort of swear against and that amount of spend and predatory nature that occurs from the chinese communist party. you know, in a perfect world, this would be a purer, you know, a global market, right? i mean, we wouldn't feel the need to have to -- the way that we do. i do think there's hope for trade policy tools and environmental policy tools at the border, but some of these distortions we have to kind of appreciation. it's not just coming from american, but from an adversary overseas. >> thank you. and i've got one more question, but i'd like to also tell you that it was about nine months ago, and i was holding up a letter from 4,000 dealers that said, please, don't send us any more evs. and i'm for the cleanest, least

expensive. and i like the idea that it's out there as a choice. but 4,000 dealers said they are choking on them. it's even hurt their own enterprises to have to tie it up because they're not moving at the speed at which the government would like to see it even when they're offering $ -- $7500 a pop. i've got one more question, and i'd like a yes or no answer on the part of all of you. i'm for whatever's going to be the cleanest, least expensive fuel in the long run and even how that impacts electric generation, transportation, the whole gamut. there's been a very robust discussion in the senate climate caucus on that which i was part of that. we still have great conversations. but a lot of it says that so much of this is going to be due to technological breakthroughs in the future, and as much as we'd like to see those results in the present, we either can't afford it, just doesn't make

sense to do it. as it relates to electric vehicles, to all witnesses, does the u.s. currently have the grid capacity to sustain a growing domestic vehicle fleet that is being mandated on consumers by policies from the biden administration? and respecting time, just give me a yes or no. mr. jenkins. >> we can expand the grid at a ace that's sufficient to accommodate all of those evs as a we have in the past. it's one that american utilities can easily meet. >> with planning and investment, the pace can be met and we can be ready. >> yes. >> we can meet, we can meet the demands today, and we need to plan for the future, absolutely. >> yes. if you start today and anticipate where the event will be ten years from now, you can get there. >> thank you so much. >> mr. chairman, can i correct the record on one of the statements i just made? the total tax outlays this year

are $1 billion for the ev subsidies to date, through the first half of this year. i think mys spoke by several orders of magnitude, so i apologize for that. [laughter] >> thank you, dr. jenkins. senator cain. >> thank you, mr. chair. i love walking in and seeing this bipartisan senate budget committee hearing. and i appreciate that this has been a hearing and a discussion with witnesses who are really trying to explore an opportunity that has a real upside, that is going to need some planning and investment. in virginia there's 100,000 electric vehicles on the road in my commonwealth of 8 plus million people, and those who charge at their home pay about $1 a gallon. that's what folks in virginia are paying if they charge at their home. we knead to have some advance -- we need to have some advancements in enrich -- a lot of people don't have driveways,

apartments or curbside rest area. we need to make sure in the deployment of charging technologies we're not just looking at passenger vehicles, but we're also looking at trucks. every involve slow mac truck that you see -- mack truck that you see in north america is made in dublin, virginia, about 3,000 workers there. in the last ten days, the doe announced a $208 million investment through the inflation reduction act a to match an equivalent investment by the company to expand electric vehicle production. i would encourage, if anybody ever wants to do something fun, come with me to dublin and and drive an over the road volvo mack truck on their test track. it's about a 3-mile test track. you'll get in that vehicle, and it's so smooth you think you're going 35, and i looked down at the speedometer, i was going 65. the point about a fatigue was remarkable. a diesel truck just has this kind of low grade rattle that

really tax a toll on over the road drivers if they're in that truck for multiple hours a day whereas the electric vehicle is as smooth if as can be, so it is the going to be kind of a fatigue help improvement for those who are doing this job. it's hard to recruit enough over the road drivers now. i think this is a technology that might make it a little easier. but in addition to the $208 million investment into the volvo plant through the i.r.a., there's also been the announcement over the last year of a $100 million investment new d the oe to a company ficer: the senator from mississippi. mrs. hyde-smith: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. 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 710, meredith a. vacca,

of new york, to be united states district judge for the western district of new york, 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 meredith a. vacca, to be united states district judge for the western district of new york 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. mr. cassidy. ms. 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.

the clerk: mr. grassley. mr. hagerty. ms. hassan. mr. hawley. mr. heinrich. mr. hickenlooper. ms. hirono.

the clerk: 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. 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.

vote:

the clerk: senators voting in the affirmative -- booker, brown, cardin, collins, durbin, gillibrand, hirono, shaheen, stabenow, warren. senators voting in the negative -- blackburn, boozman, cassidy, cornyn, ernst, hyde-smith, marshall, paul, ricketts, rubio, tuberville.

mr. tillis, no. mr. cotton, no. mr. casey, aye.

the clerk: ms. hassan, aye. ms. butler, aye. mr. mcconnell, no. mrs. murray, aye. mr. grassley, no. mr. graham, aye. mr. johnson, no.

the clerk: mr. braun, no. the clerk: mr. markey, aye.

mr. lankford, no. the clerk: mr. kaine, aye. the clerk: mr. blumenthal, aye. mr. scott of florida, no. mr. warnock, aye. mr. ossoff, aye. mr. van hollen, aye.

ms. cortez masto, aye.

the clerk: mr. risch, no. the clerk: mr. scott of south carolina, no.

mr. carper, aye. mr. cramer, no. mr. king, aye. mr. bennet, aye. ms. rosen, aye. mrs. fischer, no. mr. wicker, no.

the clerk: mr. moran, no. mr. daines, no. mr. peters, aye. mr. thune, no. mr. hickenlooper, aye.

the clerk: mr. reed, aye. mr. young, no. mr. padilla, aye. mr. lujan, aye.

the clerk: mrs. capito, no.

mr. hagerty, no. mr. schumer, aye. the clerk: mr. schmitt, no. ms. lummis, no.

the clerk: mr. schatz, aye. the clerk: ms. baldwin, aye.

the clerk: mrs. britt, no. mr. sullivan, no.

the clerk: ms. murkowski, aye.

the clerk: mr. mullin, no.

the clerk: ms. klobuchar, aye. mr. crapo, no.

the clerk: mr. hoeven, no.

the clerk: mr. kelly, aye. vote: the clerk: mr. whitehouse, aye.

the clerk: mr. kennedy, no. mr. sanders, aye.

the clerk: mr. wyden, aye. mr. murphy, aye. the clerk: mr. heinrich, aye. mr. welch, aye. mr. barrasso, no.

ms. cantwell, aye. ms. smith, aye. mr. coons, aye.

ms. sinema, aye.

the clerk: mr. tester, aye. mr. cruz, no.

the clerk: mr. merkley, aye.

the clerk: mr. budd, no. mr. hawley, no.

the clerk: ms. duckworth, aye. mr. manchin, aye.

the clerk: mr. rounds, no. vote: the clerk: on this vote the ayes are 51. the nays are 43. the motion is agreed to.

the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: i ask unanimous consent that janice lapore, a fellow in our office be granted -- be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the congress. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: mr. president and colleagues, if i started the work day with the opportunity to help 16 million kids from low-income families make america

more competitive with china, build affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of americans, and pay for it all by cracking down on fraud, i'd call that a hell of a good day at the office. tomorrow we're going to find out if senate republicans agree. the vote on the tax bill tomorrow has been more than six months in the making. in fact, i've been working on this in a completely p bipartisan way for two full years. the only reason this didn't get done a long time ago is delay on the part of the senate republicans. so no more delay. it's time to vote. everybody is going to see where

each senator stands. and over the next 45 minutes or so, i'm going to have a number of my colleagues talk about why this bill is so important. so i'm going to start with just a few key points. for starters, the bill was designed with balance in mind. for every dollar in tax cuts for business, the joint committee on taxation, which is the official scorekeeper of these matters, they have told us that an equal amount goes to children and families as goes to business. our focus on families is on those that are walking an economic tightrope. 16 million kids are going to benefit from the bill. half a million lifted out of

poverty, a huge accomplishment. and it's especially important for the families with modest incomes, families with two, three, or four kids. under the current rules, they get discriminated against because those big families get only a single child tax credit regardless of how many kids they have. think about that. federal law tells these struggling families that if you got a hard family, try to figure out how to get by by splitting a single child tax credit and figure out how three or four kids can split a pair of shoes. three or four kids can't do that and they can't split a single meal. this economic discrimination against large families in america ought to end. there's been a lot of talk about who's really looking out for the families. my view is that's going to become clear when the senate

votes tomorrow. we'll see who's actually on the side of the families that need a boost, the families that are facing that kind of economic discrimination i just outlined. i know that my colleagues on this side want to make sure that families can get the assistance they need, and we want to end the discrimination against large families. there's so much in this bill that ought to bring the two sides together. certainly what happened in the house, 357 votes, for example, the bill builds 200,000 new affordable housing units. the lack of affordable housing is a nationwide crisis. it's not just blue states and cities. it's everywhere. on housing, you can call me a supply sider. we've got to build and build and

build 200,000 new units. in a minute or two we'll hear from my colleague from washington state who has single-handedly led the effort to meet housing needs in america. the bill invests in research and development so we can outcompete china. it changes -- changes republicans made to the tax code in 2017 slashed of value of tax activities for research and development. it's only 20% of what it used to be. republicans said in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, they would fix the research and development tax credit mess that they single-handedly created. tomorrow's going to be their chance. according to the treasury department, 4 million small businesses would benefit from this bill. picture that, mr. president.

four million small businesses, start-ups, ones that depend so much on research and development to compete with china. many of them are in fields that compete directly with china and other countries. they want to know why in the world, why would congress put this off until 2025? a lot of them say, ron, we're not going to be around in 2025 if you all don't act. the bill also provides help to families and businesses hit by megastorms and megawildfires. this is so important to the people in my state. i've told them at town hall meetings, i've had almost 1,100 of them, mr. president, we're going to get this done because in oregon and virtually everywhere in our country, so many of our communities have been devastated. as i touched on, 357 votes in the house, mr. president,

doesn't happen by osmosis. you by and large, on a normal day you can't get 357 house members to agree to order a piece of apple pie. but that's the kind of support this tax bill had. left-leaning groups like it, right-leaning groups like it, family organizations like it,ing pro-life groups, pro-choice groups, across the political spectrum. and in the next day or so we're going to see if the republicans who talk so much about these issues -- help for small business, help for families, building housing, preventing fraud. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about it constantly. now we're going to find out if anybody wants to actually follow through on the rhetoric. i know we do. we believe with the senate voting now, we've got a chance, as i touched on at the beginning, mr. president, to have a real day at the office, a

day when you help the kids, when you help the families and the small businesses and people that need housing and people that have been devastated with disasters. get all that done tomorrow, mr. president. that's one hell of a day at the office. i yield my time now to my colleague from washington state, our leading on the housing issues, and many others. ms. cantwell: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: i come to the floor to join my colleague, the chair of the finance committee, and thank him for his incredible leader on the tax relief for american worker act. i can't think of a more critical effort than the leadership role he has played to negotiate legislation that passed the house 357-70. now when in this institution do you see such a big and tremendous vote across many different aspects of financial

and tax policy that affects americans? and why he want the house has -- and yet the house passed it 357-70, and somehow our colleagues here don't understand there is that much support behind that legislation. mr. president, i want to enter into the record on behalf of 140,000 members of the national association of home builders their support, their very strong support for the tax relief for american families and worker act. i think that's an important organization that knows and understands how much affordable housing we need in america, and how this underlying bill addresses that by building over 200,000 more affordable units in the next two years. it really is a shot in the arm, at a time when americans know that the cost of their housing has gone up because we haven't built enough supply. and as my colleagues know,

especially since the downturn of the financial crisis in 2008, from big cities to small towns the crunch of actual housing supply has meant an increase in cost. that means it hurts the economy overall, like the skyrocketing cost was the largest contributor, 3%, to inflation. so that is why we have an opportunity to do something about that tomorrow. we have the opportunity to do something about the rising cost of housing and to pass this legislation that will build more supply and bring down those costs. i know our colleagues -- this is a very bipartisan aspect of the legislation. they know that expanding supply works. a 2019 study by the, study done by the office of revenue analysis found that renters

basically save $177 per month for every 2,100 units built in a city per year. literally you can do the math. when you don't build supply, you're just making everybody else's expenses go up. so why aren't we building more supply? well, i can tell you that the low-income housing tax credits are a real achievement in bipartisan efforts to build more supply. it basically is the best tool to build affordable housing. it expands and improves, just as i mentioned from the home builders, why tech is the most successful, affordable housing program in u.s. history. end quote. and that is why it is so important that we remember this analysis. a new york study found that for every 10% increase in housing supply, nearby rents decrease by 1%. and yet our colleagues don't

want to build more supply? and property, specifically, new data from moody's analytics found these low-income housing projects and renters in the seattle area saved $957 per month compared to the average rents in the region. i could go on and on to my colleagues about why we got into this position. certainly the downturn of 2008 and when we stopped building more supply. we did have returning veterans who needed workforce housing. we had workforce housing overall in seattle. but yakima, it doesn't matter, if you're not building affordable housing housing, people don't have places to live and it stymies the economy moving forward. but we have had seniors leaving longer. we've had other issues that made

the need for housing national priority. so we want to hear what our colleagues say about this very important attack on inflation, 3% of it derived from housing, and study and analysis that says we will lower costs if we just build supply. tomorrow we have a chance to build that p supply. i hope my colleagues will join us in passing this legislation and driving down the cost for americans. i thank the president, and i yield the floor. mr. wyden: i thank my colleague for her good work. senator casey sitting with senator brown have been two champs of the child tax credit. let's start with senator casey. mr. casey: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: mr. president, i first i ask unanimous consent that eleanor norheim be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's proceedings. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: that you want. i'm -- thank you, mr. president.

i'm grateful to be on the floor here today and join with our colleague from oregon to led this fight as a member of the finance committee to bring us to this moment where we have a chance to vote on a bipartisan bill that i'll mention what happened in the house in a couple of minutes. but this bill addresses our long, our, some of our long-term challenges. one of them is addressing our low-income housing shortage. the bill also enables our businesses to continue to invest in research, development, and manufacturing. the bill eliminates fraud. the bill reduces the deficit. and for me, most importantly, invests in america's children by expanding the child tax credit. that's why groups from across the spectrum have lined up to endorse the bill. groups like the u.s. catholic bishops and so many other groups support this bill that will grow

our economy, reduce poverty, and reduce the deficit. the house overwhelmingly passed this bill by a vote of 357-70. this happened back in january, so now we're hoping for a similar result in the united states senate. i hope that the senate, in a similar bipartisan fashion, will pass this bill. we know that, for example, just with regard to one provision in this bill -- the child tax credit provision -- in 2021 democrats passed the american rescue plan, which had as one of its features an enhanced version of the child tax credit. i've often said we took the child tax credit in 2021 and we turbocharged it to help families in a much more substantial way. by passing that legislation in 2021, for six months -- and only

six months, unfortunately -- but for six months, we cut child poverty in half according to the census bureau. so after all the years of work, decades of work to reduce child poverty, helping to set the stage for that reduction in child poverty, in 2021 we finally, we finally found the solution to substantially reduced childhood poverty and give our children the freedom from poverty. and that solution was the child tax credit. in addition to other investments in children. i want to thank as if in morning business brown, my -- i want to thank senator brown, my colleague from ohio seated next to me here today, for his years of work on this, laboring in the vineyards long before this was popular and long before it had a chance to pass. i want to thank his work and chairman wyden's work to bring to this moment. i am one of eight children. my parents had eight children.

i'm right in the middle, and i oftening think about -- and i often think about how difficult that was for a mom and a dad to raise that many children. my mother passed away last august, august of 2023. we'll be coming up on august 11, the one-year anniversary of her passing. i was thinking today that, what if my mother was not only the mother of eight children but what if she didn't have a husband? or what if she didn't have a -- we didn't have a household income that allowed us to be economically secure. we never went without food or went without a meal. we never had to worry about that in my life. but what if that wasn't the case. what would my life have been like if my mother faced the same challenges that so many families face today? we had the full measure of economic security when i was growing up u -- up. so pack in october of 2021 after

we had passed the american rescue plan which contained that enhanced child tax credit, i met another mother in the lehigh valley of pennsylvania, the southeastern corner of our state. this was a mom also of eight children. just like my mother. but she was a single mom, and she gave us a sense of what it meant to have had a child tax credit in place. her name was crystal, and she said that the extra mild tax credit payments gave -- extra child tax credit payments gave her the chance to spend more time with her children and allow her children to do more school activities for the first time. how do you put a price on that? how do you put a price on the opportunity a child has because their mom or their dad or their -- the person taking care of them has a little extra money in a month? first of all to buy food, which was often the number one utilization of the child tax credit, the enhanced version of

it, or to pay for rent or child care or so many expenses of raising children? why did it take us so long to finally say that raising children is really difficult and we should give families a chance to do that in a more substantial way? why is it that every time we have a tax debate in washington, year after year, 40 years now by my recollection, every time we have a tax debate, the most powerful people in the country benefit disproportionately and the most powerful corporations on the planet earth benefit disproportionately. why is it that families raising children have always been left behind? we finally broke that cycle in to 21. the big boys got nothing from that. we finally said, you've had enough. it's time to help those families raising children. but how do you put a price on a parent being able to pay for a school activity that that child

would benefit from? maybe they have a chance to join a math club or to join a science club or to play a sport or to be in the band. whatever it is, how do you put a price on that? that lost opportunity because a mom or a dad or someone taking care of that child didn't have an extra $100 or whatever it cost to pay the fee to be in that school activity. how do you put a price on having a couple hundred dollars more a month to pay for food? it is incal could you lack. -- it is incalculable. we began to change substantially the trajectory of these children's lives in 2021, millions of them, tens and tens of millions across the country. so we've a chance to do that again in a similar fashion, not exactly how we did it in 2021

but in a similar fashion. this bill doesn't fully revive the version of the child tax credit that we enacted in 2021. we should do that next year when we have a big tax debate in 2025, a in my judgment, the most important tax bill of our lifetime coming up in 2021. but this bipartisan -- coming up in 2025. but this bipartisan tax bill will make more children economically secure, closer to what we family had when we were growing up. this year it will give benefits to 16 million american children whose families are either in poverty or in near-poverty. half a million just in pennsylvania. half a million children who are near poverty, in poverty or near poverty in pennsylvania. for example, a single parent with two kids who earns $22,000 a year as a child care worker would gain $675 this year. how do you put a price on that,

the benefits that to family, just in this year? research shows that when the child tax credit was expanded in 2021, families useded that money on essentials like food and housing and clothes and so much else. in 2021, those payments lowered the distress that a lot of families felt, that parents felt and -- especially among single mothers. no mother should have to worry about how she will put food on the table. my mother never had that worry, even though she had eight children. she never had that worry because of our circumstances. no mother should be concerned about or burdened by worrying about buying her kids new clothes for school or keeping a roof over their head. so we have the power in one vote to move this bill forward and enact it into law to help millions of children and millions of families across the

country. so i encourage all our colleagues in both parties to stand with those children, stand with those families, and vote yes on this tax bill. thank you very much, and i yield the floor. mr. wyden: senator casey, one of the things that i most appreciate the senator's service, as we bring up a bill, and you invariably say what does it mean to the kids that are hurting? and we thank you for it. i yield to senator brown. mr. brown: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from brown. mr. brown: i particularly thank the moral leadership of senator casey. the first question is is how does this affect the family, how does this affect children? he knows it from his experience and he knows it as he travels the state of pennsylvania from philadelphia to the ohio border, he talks to a lot of families and children and sees what this means. so, senator casey, thank you. it seems like listening to my colleagues -- senator cantwell and senator casey and chairman

wyden -- that everybody not in d.c. is for this bill. it is a bunch of insiders here in this city, it is people who -- it's interest groups that are always looking for a handout, as senator casey said, so many of these interest groups get great tax advantages for themselves and maybe a few crumbs for others, and the interest groups that are always looking for tax cuts for the rich and for their large corporate interests, frankly, have too much influence in this body. and fortunately in the house of representatives they overcame that and passed this bill with 357 votes. but this ought to pass close to unanimous lay here because it real areally is helpful. it helps business, it helps families. but it's still a struggle, and it should be easy. i remember -- i remember sit something on the floor -- i remember sitting on the floor march 6, 2021 is and i remember voting on this bill.

and it was a bigger bill, but it had the child tax credit that senator wyden and others had helped to write. senator bennet played a big role with a couple of newcomers, senator warnock played a role, senator booker also played a role -- he was not a newcomer. senator warnock had been sworn in a couple months earlier. i remember saying -- and this is the best day of my career because we were about to pass the expanded child tax credit. i knew what it meant. most of us knew what it meant. it passed. it was a partisan bill. the vice president came in and broke the tie. it passed 51-50. immediately after this passed, the president signed it soon after. i called secretary yellen, the secretary of the treasury, i said we've got get this up and running. by july checks went out to the families of 2 million children in ohio. the checks went out to 60

million children around the country. the child poverty rate dropped almost in half by september. think about that. but then that tax break expired for reasons i won't go into here. but it tells you -- i hear these numbers. i hear people say, the child poverty tax rate dropped by 50%. i hear people say, as senator casey said, it means people can afford school fees for their kids. it means day care is more available, good, quality day care. it's a lot of statistics. that's really important. these 60 million children, and 2 million in my statute it is the individual stories we hear. after we passed this, people saw what it meant. i got letters from ashtabula, cincinnati, lyons, ohio, about what it meant too their families. probably more mothers than fathers, what it meant to these families, they just had a

burden -- it wasn't just the lowest-income families. it was families that are -- you know they're solidly middle class, even upper middle class that could do a few more things for their children. the question is, how do you put a price on this, as senator casey said? how do you put a price doing this when it made such a difference? so let me talk a little more about the bill, if i could. we had something called the lookbook provision allowing parents to use the previous year's income. senator kennedy, a republican from louisiana, and i worked together on this. it's the same options, interestingly -- it's the same options that corporations have in the tax code that they're allowed to look back to reduce their taxes. that's the illness in this place. that's why people hate washington. it's that we -- we treat these big corporate interests not even the same.

we're really asking -- maybe we ought to treat kids can the same as we treat corporate interests because we treat corporate interests with kid gloves and giving them always too much and kids don't get enough. families don't get enough. so it's important that we pass this. it's going to matter. we come back next year and we do it in a bigger way, the way we did last year. it's always got some provisions that are a major priority for american companies. and i want to encourage companies that are -- you know, that will produce in the united states, that will do the research and development here, that will keep the intellectual property in the united states. i mean, i had a meeting once at the white house -- senator wyden was there. it was soon after -- i think probably senator bennet was there at this meeting. it happened when president trump was considering what we were going to do with the major tax bill. and we had a bill called the patriot corporation act. it said simply this -- i had the

bill in my hand. it simply said, if an american company pays good wages and provides good health care and pays -- and provides a retirement, that they would get a lower tax rate. but if this company didn't pay good wages -- so workers got food stamp and medicare and housing tax breaks -- housing breaks, if workers had -- if the company wasn't paying good enough wages, the taxpayers had to step up. if companies do the right thing, we ought to give them tax deduction breaks. if -- tax breaks. if companies undermine the dignity of work, we shouldn't. it's pretty simple. this bill does it right. this is a bill that lgbtq. right. it passed with 3 -- 357 votes thank to chairman wyden and chairman smith in the ways and means committee in the house.

we have 169 republicans, 188 democrats. and this should not be about politics. when you fight -- you fight for people in this country who make this company work. who make this country work. we should come together and cut taxes for working families and cut taxes for people who want to do production in this country. can i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president, before he leaves, i just to say that one of the things that senator brown often says in the finance committee is who's side are you on. and senator brown is always on the side of communities where everybody has a chance to get ahead, not just the people at the top, but the small businesses and the kids and the working families and we so appreciate that leadership. next to senator whitehouse, not

only -- he uses the budget committee to focus on these priorities. senator whitehouse. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: first of all, let me congratulate senator brown and senator casey for all the work that they've put into this effort and chairman wyden for his negotiation to where we are right now. this is a big deal for ron. we actually tried the child tax credit during covid. we knows how it worked. it helped 174,000 rhode island families during covid and what we saw is it lifted many of them out of poverty. and what else we saw is that it enabled parents to get into the workforce. there is a phony narrative that if you give the child tax credit to families, they will just avoid work. our experience was the opposite. once you had child tax credit revenues and can you could

afford, for instance, child care for your kid, then you could go to work. and of course we needed workforce through covid so people paid attention to this. and that was our experience. this is a pro-child and pro-work tax credit. now, you would think it would be an easy slam dunk over here because it came through the house with a big bipartisan vote and the corporate benefits included in this bill far exceed the family benefits included in this bill. so you'd think our republican friends, who are all about corporate tax benefits would be saying, hey, 3-1, 4-1, whatever the ratio is, we won this one big, let's close the deal. i support this even though it is a little out of balance. the budget committee showed the imbalance problem. we can always go back and solve the balance problem later.

families can't wait for the child tax credit. i support this deal and i also support having a memory, as we go forward, and as we further deco decorrupt tax code about how to bring that better into balance. it ain't forever. the child tax credit is the key here. i will only add that the low-income housing tax credit that is in here is important. we have a housing crisis in rhode island. we have exactly zero of our municipalities left in which it is affordable for the average family to be able to own a home and we have one -- one in which it is affordable to be able to rent a home. so we have a lot of work to do and the low-income housing tax credit is a huge lift that allows our very expert and very able housing community to build

more and revamp more and produce more housing to meet the needs and quell the crisis. so i'll close by thanking chairman wyden for his leadership and his skilled negotiations that have gotten us to this point and i hope that common sense, what's good for children, what's good for work and what's good for the corporate sector will prevail here in the senate. mr. wyden: senator whitehouse, thank you for your comments and talking about the immediacy of what is in this bill. i've had some come to me and say, if this is put off by 2025, who won't be around to see it. senator bennet has been in in fight since day one. really dedicated his public service to kids. welcome. bennet bennet thank you to --

mr. bennet: thank you to my colleagues who are here and i thank the presiding officer who's been a champion on all of the tax credits, the -- and bringing together people on both sides of the aisle. and you, mr. chairman for your steadfast leadership over many, many years. and i'm not going to give everybody a long history lesson here. but you want to know why our politics are so messed up, why it feels like we're having these incredible disagreements and divisions and all of this in our politics. i believe there is one fundamental reason for it and i believe that fundamental reason is that people in america have lost the sense of having economic mobility for themselves and their families. the whole idea of the american dream is that if you worked hard enough, that your kids were going to do better than you did and grandkids would be better

than they did. so much has been lost, there are so many families in colorado, nevada, new hampshire, and oregon are going through stuff that so many people all over america is going through. they are working harder than ever before and bringing less home. and the money has been going for years and years to people at the very top. that is the result of a real, you know, a philosophical approach to how to run an economy, which is called trickle down economics or supply-side economics, it was something that ronald reagan led here. there were democrats and republicans who supported those tendencies for a long time and the result of that is today the bottom half of americans in our economy have less wealth than they did in 1980 when ronald reagan was president. we're the first generation of americans, the people in in the

senate, that are actually leaving less opportunity, not more to our kids and grandkids. that has never happened before in american history. half the people that are in their 30's today are earning less than their parents did. i heard my colleague from rhode island talking about housing in rhode island. you could say exactly the same thing in colorado. there's not a single place in colorado where people think they can afford housing because they can't. there is no workforce housing left, mr. chairman, as you and i have discussed in the state of colorado or the state of oregon. and all of that is a preface to saying that finally -- finally we have a bill in front of us that doesn't just cut taxes for the biggest corporations and the wealthiest people in the country, but actually cuts taxes for working family -- working people. amazingly, as has been said before, amazingly it got 357

votes in the house. i know the chairman is fond of saying you couldn't get that kind of majority vote for apple pie or who's your favorite celebrity. and, yet, they were able to come together over there in the house of representatives and pass a bill with 357 freaking votes. so we're going to the put this on the floor. there's a lot of debate going on right now about was this party for kids or that party. i assume everybody is for kids. i assume that everybody, given the opportunity to vote for a piece of legislation that has that number of votes that does not just the important work that this does for the child tax credit, but also does important work on the research and development tax credit that my colleague from new hampshire has been a leader on that when we

get it here we'll all vote for it. and then, mr. chairman, i hope we come back next year and do the work we really need to do with the child tax credit which is to once again show that we do not have to accept as a permanent feature of our economy or a permanent feature of democracy the disgraceful and immoral levels of childhood poverty we have in this country that we know because president biden put it in place several years ago that we have a tool, the child tax credit that will actually lift half the american children out of poverty and give them a fighting chance to contribute to our democracy and to our economy. this is one important step in that process. i urge everybody in in chamber to vote yes. -- to vote yes this week on this bill because this will be your opportunity, before we go home, to demonstrate where we stand on behalf of the american people

and their families. wooend wyden senator -- mr. wyden: senator bennet, you've been leading on these issues for a long time. i want to make a special note about tomorrow. we've all been reading in the press and discussing what is going on sometimes thousands of miles from here and sometimes there's a debate about kids. i want everybody to remember what senator bennet said, every single senator can be for the kids. that's going to be our message for tomorrow. by the way, our next speaker, our colleague from new hampshire, really shows her support for that proposition because she's been a champ on small business issues and as we went into these debates, she pointed out, folks, we better be for the kids because kids who have an opportunity can be better workers down the road. and at every step of the way she championed both kids and small businesses. my colleague from new hampshire.

mr. hassan: thank you very much, chairman wyden. madam president, i rise to join my colleagues in urging members from both parties to come together and pass the bipartisan wyden-smith package to lower taxes for working families and small businesses. i want to add my thanks to my colleague from colorado for his remarks because this really is about making sure that our families and small businesses can get ahead and stay ahead. as you know, earlier this year, members from both parties in the house overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan package to cut taxes. like any legislative compromise, it may not have included everything people wanted, but it included commonsense provisions that a majority of americans agree on. and as my colleague from colorado and the chairman have just said, it had provisions of not only the majority of

americans agree on but a significant, a really large, outsized majority of the house of representatives agreed on. this bipartisan package to cut taxes includes provisions that would help keep our economy on the cutting edge by restoring critical r&d, research and development. this provision would give american creators and entrepreneurs the resources they need to outcompete countries like china and help ensure our country and economy are second to none. i have been working on a bipartisan basis to pass this provision and heard from small businesses in new hampshire about the tough financial decisions they have made because the r&d reduction has expired. not only would this help us have a more innovative economy, it would help our economy work better for everyone through a bipartisan expansion of the child tax credit. we know that families are still

struggling with the burdens of high costs, expanding the child tax credit is a commonsense practical way to put more money back in the pockets of hardworking families. and this child tax credit provision would have helped families who have the most children, the families who, because of their higher number of children, have the most costs. there's a reason that a majority of americans support these proposals. it's because they're good ideas that will make a difference in people's lives. but despite what our constituents are telling us in support of this legislation, despite the good faith bipartisan discussions that we have had and despite the fact that the house was able to come together to overwhelmingly pass this bill, we still don't have an agreement on,000 to advance -- on how to advance the bipartisan tax cut package this week. unforly some of my colleague on the other side of the aisle have

seemingly allowed partisan politics to interfere with good-faith efforts to find a path forward. despite this, i will continue to work across party lines to pass the provisions of this bipartisan tax cut package, and i urge my colleagues to reconsider and come together to pass this legislation when it comes to a vote tomorrow. i understand that for some of my colleagues, this bipartisan tax cut package doesn't have everything that they might want, but we would be ill-advised to miss this window. we have the opportunity to lower taxes for the american people now. hardworking families struggling to keep up with high costs, they aren't asking to expand the child tax credit a couple of years down the line. they want tax cuts to keep more money in their pockets now. if we are serious about outcompeting china, we can't

simply hope that we restore the tax credit in up fao. no, we need to give american innovators, creators and entrepreneurs the support that he need now. for many small businesses, even waiting another year will be too late. because ultimately the american people aren't asking for perfect legislation, nor do they care if an idea is red or blue. they care about results. and they don't want politics to get in the way of a good idea. so i urge my colleagues to come together and support this bipartisan tax cut package that will strengthen our economy, support our entrepreneurs, deliver for american families, and demonstrate that we can accomplish great things when we work together. thank you, madam president. mr. wyden: and what we've heard from our friend from new hampshire, it's time for results, not just rhetoric. our last speaker will be senator padilla, our friend from the

west, senator padilla. mr. padilla: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mr. padilla: madam president, i, too, rise today in support of every parent across the country working multiple jobs to help put food on the table, parents who are now buying school supplies and clothes as our kids are preparing to go back to school, parents who are working hard just to afford basic child care. i rise in support of every american, including many in my

home state of california, who are struggling to find housing that they can afford. and i rise today for every constituent of mine wondering why senate republicans continue to block a bill that passed with overwhelming, bipartisan support? the house of representatives -- in the house of representatives. because we no he that the policies included -- bus we know that the policies included in this measure are indeed bipartisan. in the bipartisan wyden-smith tax proposal, these measures are not controversial. we know that they're actually effective, madam president, because we've seen them work. in 2021, we saw an expanded child tax credit cut the rate of child poverty in our nation in half to historic lows. we also saw a 12.5% increase in the low-income tax credit

allocation help finance the construction of affordable housing. affordable housing that communities across california and across the country are so desperately in need of. so let's just kind of simplify this conversation here. we know these policies can work. we know these policies have worked. we know that letting them expire has been detain transcriptal -- has been detrimental to so many parents, children, and communities across the country. and we have today an opportunity to do right by them once again. madam president, this past week the park fire and other wildfires continuing to burn in california have burnt hundreds of thousands of acres, but in addition toha they have reawakened painful memories of some of the worst wildfires in california history, many just in the last decade.

i also want to spend a moment to highlight what the disaster assistance provisions of this bill would mean for many, many families in my state. now, earlier in month "the los angeles times" told a story of reah abernath, a 55-year-old woman living in buke county, in northern california. six years ago reah experienced devastation that most americans couldn't even dream of, to which many californias have grown all too familiar with. on the morning of september -- on one morning in november of 2018, reah woke up to see black smoke engulfing the land around here. flames moving so fast that within hours the entire town of paradise, california, would be nothing but embers.

fortunately, reah acted quickly, and she was able to flee safely. but in order to save her life, she had to sacrifice all of her possessions. in what would become the deadliest wildfire in california history, the campfire went on to burn everything that reah owned and it leveled the town around her. and it claimed 85 lives, all because of a failed piece of equipment from a transmission tower that ignited the fire. for eight months reah was forced to find shelter in a trailer alongside others, along a the although of her neighbors, living in the parking lot of a local church as they began the long emotional path to rebuilding.

and while she was eventually rewarded an $80,000 legal settlement, her troubles were far from over. it turned out that reah would owe taxes on the settlement that she recovered. and that year reah says, quote, i lost my whole history and it's not coming back. but as devastating as reah's story is, she's not alone. over 70,000 californians have been impacted by the destruction of the butte fire, the northbay fire, and the campfire. now, when a fire victim is wading through the ashes of their former home and thinking about how to rebuild -- not just their homes but their lives -- the last thing that wildfire

victims should have to worry about is how they're going to pay taxes on any settlement they receive. madam president, disaster settlement funds are not income. disaster settlement funds are not assets. it's compensation for what they've lost, and insufficient most of the time, at that. but disaster settlement funds are also meant to be an opportunity to begin to rebuild your life. an opportunity that should not be diminished because our government tax codes are outdated. so i was proud to see that the wyden-smith tax package includes my bill, the protect innocent victims of taxation after fire act. it would make sure that people who have suffered from a

heartbreaking wildfire can receive full compensation for their losses without the fear that their settlements will be subject to taxes. and i.t. not just for -- and it's not just for my constituents in california looking to rebuild. this bill would make sure that all recent and future wildfire victims throughout the country have access to their full settlements. it's a commonsense, bipartisan solution to protect americans at the most difficult point in their lives. for that reason, along with the historic provisions included in the package to make life more affordable for working families, i urge my republican colleagues to join me in supporting this bill. thank you, madam president. mr. wyden: i thank my colleague. and senator cornyn said i could just take a second to add on. i think my colleague from california has made a central

point. in the west in particular we want to make sure that those who have been clobbered by these fires don't get clobbered again by an outdated tax code. i am strongly in support of senator padilla's work. we have an opportunity to get it on the books tomorrow. if it passes tomorrow, it goes to the president, gets signed into law. i yield the floor and i thank senator cornyn for his courtesy. mr. cornyn: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: madam president, this week my fellow texans and people across the country will be celebrating the life and legacy of congresswoman sheila jackson lee. like some of the best-known texans from george bush to simone biles, she will with a wasn't born in texas, but as we like to say, she got there as

soon as she could. she was born in new york, but she and her husband. she was a lawyer, then a judge, and a city council member and finally a member of the u.s. house of representatives. when i came to the senate, i quickly learned a few important qualities about sheilah. she was passionate. very passionate. sheilah was honored to represent the 18th congressional district, and she cared deeply about her role as a voice for those constituents here in congress. two, she was persistent. some might even say relentless. she was never afraid to pick up the phone and track you down and

try to convince you to see things her way on an issue. and, third, she was willing to cross party lines to get things done. despite our opposing political parties, sheilah and i partnered on a number of bills to notch bipartisan wins for our state. along with the rest of the texas delegation, she helped secure critical resources in disaster assistance after numerous storms and hurricanes, which always seemed to find their way to the southeast region of texas. we worked on bills to support survivors of sexual assault and violence including the debby smith act, which was sues signed into law this week. -- which was just signed into law this week. we passed a law establishing the emancipation national trail which will stretch from galveston to houston and two

years ago we led legislation to establish juneteenth as a federal holiday, something that is examined in texas for the last 40 years because juneteenth celebrates something very important that happened in galveston, texas, when two years after the emancipation proclamation the african american slaves in that region learned for the first time that they were indeed free. sheila was a true stateswoman. a texan through and through and devoted her life to serve the people of houston. we'll miss sheila, both in texas and in the halls of congress, and sandy and i understand is our prayers for comfort to. l elwyn and the entire lee family. madam president, on another matter, yesterday the senate notched a major bipartisan

victory by processing the package of bills to keep kids safe online. members of both sides of the aisle celebrated the return to good ol' fashion legislating, but unfortunately that was short-lived. we know the majority leader has teed up another yet signed-to-fail -- designed-to-fail vote for tomorrow before gavelling out for the month of august. in other words, we've maybe two days or one day at the most that we'll actually be in session until september. and then we're only scheduled to be in session three weeks, out all of october. even though we have almost 100 days until the election, we've just a handful of days in which the majority leader has scheduled us to be in session. why he would decide after six months to put a tax bill on the floor knowing we would be leaving the next day is beyond

me. it does not strike me as a serious effort to legislate. in addition, as the presiding officer knows, the house ways and means committee had a chance to weigh in on this. the senate finance committee on which we both serve has not had an opportunity to even shape this piece of legislation at all. the chairman of the finance committee has declineded to have a markup of the bill in the finance committee, which i think would have enhanced the chances that we ultimately would get a bill approved by both chambers and on the president's desk. but these designed to fail votes or show votes as you might call them have become a familiar exercise in the chamber. in the last few months the majority leader scheduled show votes on bills guaranteed to fail but maybe provided a talking point or two on the

campaign trail. the senate has held show votes -- and by that, i mean votes that are not designed to pass, legislation that has not been processed through the committees, to try to build consensus to see if we can get a majority or supermajority of the senate behind them. the majority leader scheduled these show votes on bills relating to the border, to contraception, to abortion, to in vitro fertilization and now tax policy, all designed to fail show votes. not serious legislating. at the beginning of this year the house passed the bill i referred to a moment ago that made significant changes to the, america's tax system. it was negotiated by the chairman of the senate finance committee, our democratic colleague ron wyden, and the

head of the house ways and means committee, jason smith, the republican. they released a framework of this agreement in mid-january. the ways and means committee immediately scheduled hearings on a markup, and by the end of january this bill p was passed. and passed with broad bipartisan support, admittedly. given the partisanship that often grips congress, advancing a bipartisan tax bill is no small feat, but they only got it half of the way there. they cleared the house, but we are the senate and we have our ability and, frankly, the need if you're going to build bipartisan consensus, to be able to shape that legislation here in this body, starting on the finance committee. the senate is not a rubber stamp. it was never intended to be, and it isn't today. members of both chambers have a

responsibility to evaluate and shape legislation before it goes to the president's desk. but you don't put a major tax bill on the floor after waiting six months, the day before we're supposed to break for august and with very little time left between now and the election. republicans and democrats alike would like to see some changes to this bill, but of course if we were to get on the bill, i'm confident the majority leader, because there isn't much time, would simply prohibit any real debate and amendment process and then try to jam this bill through the senate. there are a number of things i would like to see addressed in the bill. i voiced my concerns about the watered-down work requirement for the child tax credit which would allow parents with zero earnings for a year to be eligible for a refundable tax

credit. in other words, able-bodied individuals should be working and contributing to the welfare of their family, and should not receive means-tested benefits when in fact the reason why they have no income is because they chose not to work. we cannot provide monetary incentives for able-bodied workers to stay out of the job market. some of our democratic colleagues have announced their opposition to this bill because of the projobs tax reforms. but the bottom line is this -- members of both sides of the aisle oppose this bill for various reasons, and there's one easy way to address those concerns. move the bill through the committee process where we can shape the bill in both chambers and then bring it to the floor and allow for debate and an open amendment process.

we know how to do this. that's the way the senate should operate and it's the way it used to operate. the wyden-smith tax bill passed the house in late january, so why did the majority leader wait until august 1 to bring the bill to the floor, knowing we would be breaking for the rest of the summer the next day? right after the house passed this legislation, i asked senator wyden, the chairman of the finance committee, to schedule a markup, but he refused. he showed no interest in giving senators a vote, voice in this legislation. well, i don't know about anybody else, but i didn't come to the senate to be a spectator while this legislation moved across the senate floor. i expect to represent the 30 million people that i have the honor of representing on each and every piece of legislation that comes across the floor of the senate, or through the

committees of jurisdiction. at any time in the last six months the chairman of the finance committee could have scheduled a finance committee markup to allow members to try to improve the bill, but he simply refused. and the majority leader could have made this a priority for floor consideration by scheduling a vote in february or march or maybe april or maybe may or june, but he didn't. when did he schedule the vote? for tomorrow, august 1. he knows that's not adequate time for us to do what we would need to do in order to represent our constituents in the way that they have come to expect and the way they deserve. he could have carved out a little bit of floor time that otherwise has been used to vote on some of the nominations, but

he didn't. over and over again he's refused to move this legislation through the regular order of the senate, and then sat on the bill intentionally for six months and waited until the final hour before a five-week recess to bring it to the floor. that's why we call this a show vote. it's not for real. but in light of the run up to the election, this will be, i assume, a campaign talking point that democrats will try to use to bludgeon their republican opponents. in case there's any confusion, the rushed vote on the wyden-smith tax bill is not an honest attempt to pass legislation. well, all this boils down to the fact that democrats are offering two options on a bill that's not even been the subject of a hearing or markup here in the senate.

take it or leave it. those are the options that were presented. i, madam president, will vote to leave it. leave it to next year when we know, as president biden has s said, he wants all of these tax provisions that will expire next year to expire, which will be a $3 trillion tax increase on the american people, 62% of taxpayers will see a tax increase. so we will revisit all of these matters next year. and we believe we can come up with a better product, one which will better serve american families and better help jump-start our economy once again. given the fact that the senate needs to complete things like paying the bills, appropriations, the defense authorization bill, the farm bill, all of which need to be done before the end of this year, i don't see any window for

wide-ranging debate on this topic, and it didn't be deserve a short shrift. i hope we will next year revisit this topic and i can guarantee we will have the kind of debate i'm talking about if senator crapo becomes the chairman of the finance committee and we have a new majority come january. madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you, madam president. i rise today to address something that is not getting done on time as it deserves to be done on the senate floor, and that is the fiscal year 2025

national defense authorization act. i'm very pleased to see my fellow senator from the great state of mississippi, who is the ranking member on this committee, and he has spent numerous hours and days and weeks working this bill, but also educating members and senators as to how important this is. the national defense authorization act, or the ndaa as we call it, is an annual display of support for the national security of our country here in the united states congress. in fact, we have passed the ndaa for 63 consecutive years. this bipartisan legislation supports our troops, supports our national security, and is then thence the capabilities -- and strengthens the capabilities of the u.s. military. in a time when we face some of the most dangerous security environments since world war ii, the ndaa should be one of our

top priorities but unfortunately leader schumer just doesn't seem to dprae. and with the support of my democrat colleagues, leader schumer has spent much of the summer on messaging votes that are crafted with no true intention of making a law, nominations for federal entities which we're going to be doing all day today, and the confirmations of judges that some of them have no business serving on the bench. this is not what the american people sent us to do for our country. the urgent need to pass the ndaa becomes obvious when you take into account what is currently happening in the world around us. first, our ally and friend israel is under attack by iran and its terrorist clients. last week we welcomed president benjamin netanyahu for a joint address to congress and he detailed the stark reality his country is facing. just a few daysing a, just a few

days ago we learned the devastating news that 12 children and teenagers were killed by a hezbollah strike while innocently playing on a soccer field. we know that iran is the aggressor behind these attacks and we know that they're doing all they can to grow their nuclear capabilities as well. imagine the dangers of a nuclear armed iran and what that means for the stability in the middle east. the last 24 hours alone have shown the rapid pace at which the middle east security environment is changing. israel is showing that it has the will and the capability to fight back against their aggressors, and i stand strongly in support with this ally. second, there is a large-scale ground war going on in europe for the first time since world war ii. and we know that putin's territorial ambition and ago depressions extend far beyond

the ukraine. third, we are witnessing an unprecedented military build-up by china, accompanied by aggression against taiwan, the philippines, japan, and other partners in the region. this summer alone china ago depression in the south china sea -- aggression in the south china threatened a conflict with the philippines. just five days ago, i feel like everything is week to week, five days ago two chinese and two russian nuclear-capable bombers were detected near the coast of alaska, prompting u.s. fighter jets to intercept these aircrafts. this is the first time we've seen this type of joint strategic bombing training between china and russia in their no-limits partnership.

throughout all of this we are watching china, russia, iran, and north korea reinforce one another in their aggression. they're supporting one another and sharing resources to achieve objectives directly opposed to the united states, our way of life, and our values. if that doesn't raise alarm bells, i just don't know what will. on top of this, the national defense commission, charged with assessing our nation's preparedness for future conflict, gave us a pretty stark warning this week, which was, and i quote, the u.s. is facing the most challenging threats we've seen since 1945, and we aren't ready for it. according to this report, the biden national defense strategy simply doesn't prepare us to deter or prevail in a future conflict. according to one headline, the pentagon has insufficient

forces, inadequate to face china and russia. here again, we cannot wait. we have to get serious about our national security. as i mentioned, senator wicker, he understands this. that's why he released a proposal to help us repair or anemic military so we are not at our lowest number of aircraft, ships, and munitions when china is building to their highest. it is clear now is the time to invest in our military, personnel and our capabilities. we can do that, and send a clear message to both our allies and our adversaries by passing a strong and robust ndaa. american leadership on the world stage has long been defined by peace through strength, but in order to do that we must invest in strength first. the ndaa authorizes programs the

department of defense needs to replenish and grow our military stockpiles, and to invest in innovation and modernization programs we might need for a future fight. the ndaa will make critical upgrades to our nuclear, hypersonic, missile defense and our space programs. and restore the arsenal of democracy by ensuring our cou country's ammo plants have the tools they need to modernize amid increasing demands for munitions. these are the facilities like the allegheny ballistics laboratory, which proudly operates in my home state of west virginia. it also invests directly in the men and women of our military, providing a 4.5% pay raise for servicemembers. and increasing that monthly pay for our junior enlisted troops as well. i've also worked to ensure provisions for my own state of west virginia and how we can

contribute to building our military and strengthening our national defense. it supports upgrades and operations at the air national guard facilities, like the 130th airlift wing in charleston, west virginia. it directs that the u.s. army moves forward on testing and fielding active protections systems on army ground combat vehicles, to implement lessons learned from watching the failure of russian tanks in ukraine and some of that testing is being done in west virginia. the bill supports the resilience of undersea cables used by the department of defense to make certain critical -- make certain that critical missions are not disr disrupted, and provisions that move our country away from reliance on foreign sources for critical recursor chemicals used for the manufacture of u.s. weapons. these are a handful of the provisions included in the ndaa, but they speak to the importance of the legislation and the steps

we need to take now to make sure our military remains ready for any conflict we may face in the future. the crux of the issue is this, the house of representatives passed their version of the ndaa on june 14. the senate armed services committee approved our version of the ndaa the day before that. that would be june 13. and we've heard absolutely nothing from the democrat leader about when he will bring this vital leadership to the floor for debate and consideration. so, we're wasting the time of the american people on show votes and inconsequential nominees. republicans are demanding action. we want to continue to point out the danger of sidelining our national security priorities. there is a desperate need for american leadership on the world stage, and a strong bipartisan national defense authorization act helps us to get there.

so i encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to please recognize that. with that, i yield the floor. mr. wicker: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: madam president, i want to congratulate and thank my colleague from west virginia for her remarks and for her leadership to make america strong again so that we can have peace through strength. the distinguished senator mentioned a hearing that the armed services committee had yesterday. our witnesses were two distinguished experts in the field of national security. the democrat who testified before us was none other than former representative jane harman, of california, a high-ranking committee chair when she was in the house of represe representatives, a loyal democrat but someone who

understands that we are not where we need to be under this administration when it comes to national defense. the other witness was eric ede edelman, a very distinguished diplomat and ambassador. their message was absolutely as the senator said -- the united states is not ready to face, and to face down and to deter, this axis of aggression that threatens the united states, as we have not been threatened since 1945. those are not my words. those are the words of this bipartisan commission on a unanimous basis. we are more threatened as a nation than we have been since 1945, and we know what was happening during that are decade. now, just over a year ago, madam president, in a late-night vote, after a long, long day, 86

senators stood together, passed the national defense authorization act, and advanced american security. as i say, we had spent a full day with debates. we had 24 roll calls. we passed 121 amendments, the most ever adopted on the floor for such a bill. and we overwhelmingly passed the senate version of the 2024 national defense authorization act. we did it in the light of day so that every american could see how their senators stood on important issues. that was last year. over the past several days, we could have done the same thing with this year's national defense authorization act. we could have followed the same procedure. but, for whatever reason, and i'll speculate on those reasons,

the senate majority leader has allowed politics to stand in the way of such progress. of our national security oblig obligations, preventing americans from seeing in the light of day how their elected senators feel on some very controversial issues, of taking up this important legislation that we do every year in an open process. the united states senate armed services committee has worked hard this year to develop our 2025 ndaa. it's a bill that reflects the overwhelming bipartisan consensus of the committee. and i'm pleased to report, and americans now know, that in a bipartisan vote the committee added a $25 billion budget top line increase specifically designed to address the rising threats of this axis of aggressors --

china, russia, north korea, and iran, and their proxies. we're entering a long presidential leadership transition period, and we need to present a strong front to that axis of aggressors. that are present, as the commission unanimously said, the most dangerous threat we've had since 1945. the tyrants of these adversaries are watching our every move. they know we haven't taken up this bill in an open process. they're looking for every vulnerability. by passing the ndaa under regular order, we could have shown them that the united states senate backs our servicemembers to the hilt, and we intend to repair the damage that has occurred to our national defense. instead, majority leader schumer has allowed the bill to collect dust. the $25 billion top line

increase was a bipartisan choice, and i am grateful to members on both sides of the aisle for supporting that in the committee. but the majority leader has somehow been afraid that the vote, although passed in a bipartisan measure, would reflect badly on the biden-harris administration. the political partisanship caused him to prevent a full debate on the ndaa. basically, there are a number of sensitive leftist issues that the leader wants to prevent some of his vulnerable members from having to point on, pure and simple. we shouldn't let political calculations dictate our national security decisions. our enemies are working together, and we are not prepared to defend against them. don't ask this senator from mississippi. ask the bipartisan commission. our enemies are helping each

other sow chaos around the world, in israel, ukraine, the indo-pacific, venezuela where an election was stolen just a few days ago, a snapshot of events from the past week gives us a glimpse of this trend. on wednesday of last week, israeli prime minister netanyahu spoke before congress. in my opinion, his remarks were among the most stirring and profound speeches ever delivered to a joint session of congress. in clear and factual language, prime minister netanyahu testified to the threat from iran and its proxies. iran is backing hamas and hezbollah, two terrorist organizations who seek nothing short of the elimination of the jewish state in israel. cr iran has harmed the houthis, another terrorist group who

barrage our navy sailors in the red sea. the same day as the prime minister's address, russia and china performed their first ever joint military flight exercise. first ever in history, russia and china together. and they did it directly approaching alaskan air space. american air space. the following day, u.s. prosecutors brought charges against a north korean operative with cyber attacks on american hospitals and military assets. this is dangerous. over the weekend, hezbollah continued assaulting israel from the north. the tryst group launched a horrific rocket attack, killing 12 israeli children on a soccer field. on a soccer field, madam president. these incidents are not isolated. each aggressor receives growing support and encouragement from the others, around they follow up -- and they follow up on the

atrocious october 7 terrorist attack that killed so many israeli and american civilians, babies, women, children, husbands and wives, last year. yesterday the senate armed services committee heard testimony from the national defense strategy as the distinguished senator from west virginia said, and i would again emphasize that they didn't mince words. they agree with the recommendation of my white paper, that the united states needs to get back to ronald reagan's peace through strength and spend up to 5% of our gross domestic product on our security. we need to develop the kind of strength that keeps the axis of aggressors from growing stronger. we need to develop the kind of strength that keeps the axis of aggressors from doing anything

foolish that would plunge the world into a war. leader schumer should appreciate the stakes and urgency of this moment and the need to act now, to send a strong message now, and to do it with the sun shining on it in the light of day. he should have brought the bipartisan ndaa to the floor instead of covering up for the biden-harris administration. instead of shielding vulnerable democrats from issues like the left wing social policy being forced on our military, and from using the department of defense resources to prevent our dod from securing the border and take on the cartels. there's no time to waste. while the democratic leader avoids tough votes, our adversaries launch more missiles. when our leaders place politics above strong defense policy, when america shows weakness, more towns elsewhere fall into

the hands of evil regimes. this this moment of heightened global instability, we have missed a chance to project the kind of american strength that promotes peace. and because of the leader's actions, we will not be able to take this bill up in the light of day. it will be written in secret, by a handful of people in a closed room, and that will be the final version. i regret this. i'm sorry that the leader has missed a great opportunity to send a strong signal to our enemies in the light of day, and to let the american people know how their elected senators stand on these important issues. i yield the floor. thank you. thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. budd: thank you, madam president. i thank my colleague and the ranking member for his comments

and his leadership on armed services. we meet at a time of increasing peril for our country. the threats we face, they're demanding attention in a way we haven't seen in decades, from the middle east to europe, the indo-pacific, weakness and moral bankruptcy from the biden-harris administration have allowed chaos to spread around the globe. in the middle east, israel is in a fight for survival against genocidal hamas terrorists and other terrorist proxies from iran. thieves forces of evil are bent not only on the completely annihilation of the jewish state, but the destruction of united states as well. russia continues to commit war crimes against innocent civilians and threatening the very sdablt of europe -- stability of europe. in china they are taking provocative action towards taiwan and the philippines.

they re determined to replace -- they are determined to replace the united states as the dominant world power. this would be staggering for america and the world's security and economic well-being. we know the answer to all of these crises is the one thing that has been missing for the last three and a half years, than is america strength, particularly america's military superiority. this year's ndaa, or the national defense authorization act commission report, has made clear the dire threats we face can only be confronted if america's military might is strengthened. our diplomatic efforts will never be successful if they are not backed up by the real threat of overwhelming military force. simply put, in order to be a strong nation, our military must also be strong. i'm proud to say in my home state of north carolina, it plays a leading role in our

national defense. it is home to eight active military bases and has thousands of active military servicemembers and veterans and their families as well. as a member of the armed services committee, i see it as my responsibility to do everything i can to support the military and keep it strong. i'm particularly proud of the work the committee did this year on the national defense authorization act to combat the growing threats posed by china, russia, and iran and the dangerous individuals coming across our own southern border. in this dangerous world, the u.s. senate should prioritize the passage of the ndaa. we shouldn't procrastinate and we shouldn't play politics with it. we should put it on the floor, have a full amendment process and let everyone debate the issues. it's pretty simple. but don't be fooled by the political calendar.

the democratic majority to make the time if they wanted to do it but they are prioritizing politics, they are holding show votes to fundraise for their political base. this does not only a massive disservice to the servicemembers overseas and this is at a time when our enemies sea the united states weaker than we have ever been. to the majority leader i say, if you care about keeping america leadership in the world, if you care about u.s. troops stationed here and abroad, put the ndaa on the floor so that we can do our job. thank you, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: madam president, i want to join my colleagues here on the senate floor and talk about the importance of the national security. it is one of the drop priorities for our nation. you know, president ronald reagan who focused on the issue of peace through strength, and i'm going to talk about that here in a minute, madam president, he once said, quote, we know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong but when they are weak, it is then that the tyrants are tempted. it is then that the title 42s --

it is then that the tyrants are tempted. madam president, tyrants like this guy, that is xi jinping sporting cammies. the tyrants like this guy and around the world they are tempted -- they are tempted. they are on the march. look at this poster. that's xi jinping, again, in his military uniform, kind of looks ridiculous from my perspective. but, hey, they're on the march. putin, the terrorists in iran, kim jong-un in -- in north korea. the tyrants are on the march because the forces of freedom, as president reagan said, have become weak. and look, madam president, you've heard it from my colleagues from north carolina, mississippi, we're on the armed

services together. by the way, they're both doing a great job. i want to make sure everyone can see that. thank you. and, yet, this body is not taking up what we need to take up. so just a couple of examples, senator budd was talking about the chaos in the middle east, the appeasements of iran by the biden-harris administration. by the way, in my great state, just this past week, we had a joint russian-chinese strategic bomber patrol come into the territorial airspace right near alaska. it never happened before. in the history of the country, the chinese-russian joint bomber patrols, with fighters, coming into american airspace. the tyrants, this guy, they're

tempted. they've never done that before, madam president. we heard about this. we know this started due to the botched chaotic withdrawal from afgs that has -- afghanistan that has sent the message of weakness. our bombers scrambled and greeted the chinese and russians and said, not today, guys. turn around, get out of our airspace, but that was an escalation, madam president. it never happened before. and the united states, we need to be stronger, much stronger than the biden-harris administration has enabled us to be. so what can we do here on the senate floor, madam president? well, what we can do -- and you've heard my colleagues talk about it -- is that we can bring up the national defense authorization act. like a lot of my colleagues who

have been talking on the floor right now, i serve on the armed services committee, was glad to work on this bill in a bipartisan way. i saw chairman reed here on the floor a minute ago, he did a great job, chairman of the committee we dramatically increased the top line number that we need in terms of our military, the men and women who did the mission like they did last week in alaska. by the way, that's not an easy mission flying 1,000 miles away from their base to interfere with chinese and russians. our military members did it really well. but here's the issue, madam president. for so many of my democratic colleagues, especially the majority leader, the military and bringing the ndaa on the floor is just not a priority. i mean, no offense to some of the people we're confirming right now, but these are not priorities. the time on the senate floor reflects priorities, and the

majority leader has kind of indicated, hey, even though we've got a good ndaa, even though our country is in peril right now with the dictators on the march and even though the house passed a version of it, the senate, forget it. we'll do like a tax judge and won't bring the ndaa to the floor. i know a lot of democrats who worked hard, the presiding officer is one, who worked hard on this bill. a lot of my democratic colleagues want the bill on the floor. for whatever reason, the senate majority leader, during this dangerous time, will not bring a bipartisan bill strengthening our military to the floor. why won't he do that? why won't he do that? well, i will say there is a major, major difference between our parties. major difference. what is that difference? well, i like to proudly proclaim that the republicans have been

our -- and i hope will always be -- the party of peace through strength. peace tlau strength -- peace through strength. by the way, madam president, if you take a look at the republican party platform that we issued in milwaukee at our convention a couple of weeks ago, it is all about returning to peace through strength. that's what the platform's about. by the way, i took a look at the republican party platform in 2025 and the reagan-bush platform in 1984 on peace through strength, they're almost identical. that's what we believe in. that's what president eisenhower believed in, roosevelt, reagan, president trump certainly did in his first term. here's the difference, madam president. i know some of my colleagues don't like it when i say this,

but, hey, the truth hurts. the democrats are the opposite of this. when the democrats have gotten into power in the white house, what do they do? they always come and cut defense spending and they always undermine readiness. that's why the senate majority leader is saying, hey, i don't want to bring the ndaa to the floor. that's not our priority. we don't do that. let me just give a couple of examples. jimmy carter cut defense spending in his first 3 years in office and the russians and iranians took advantage of america's weakened posture, bill clinton cut the size of the military by one-third, upending the progress made by the reagan and george w. bush administrations, bapresident oba cut the military by 37%. i remember coming to the senate

in 2015, i was the ranking member on the readiness subcommittee and was shocked to see three out of 58 brigade combat teams were at the highest levels of readiness. three out of 58. obama slashed readiness. and, of course, now we have the biden administration, madam president. every year this president, biden-harris, have been in office they have cut defense spending. every single year. this year's biden-harris budget shrinks the army, navy, and marine corps. that's a fact. next year's budget -- in the next two years if the biden-harris team are reelected, we will go below 3% of gross domestic product -- take a look at this chart. it shows, these are the numbers on gross domestic product. that's 15% during the korean

war, 8%, 9% during korean war, cold war, reagan era 5.5%, bush 4.5%, around here 3%. we've been below 3% of gross domestic product four times, that is the wrong time to send the dictators in the world that's what the biden-harris budget for the department of defense does right now. now, we can fix this. we can work on the ndaa, which as i mentioned, in a bipartisan way we significantly increased the top-line budget. i want to commend roger wicker, the senator from mississippi, ranking member on the armed services committee, for his great leadership on that. by the way, the white house was against that. they love going below 3%. and during the biden-harris

administration, they'll crank up spending for other federal agencies by double digits, some up 20%. but homeland security, securing the border, and our military men and women, they get a cut. again, that's what national democrats do. our tradition is what the american people want, particularly during these dangerous times -- peace through strength. and one way we can do that right now on the senate floor is to bring the ndaa to the floor, to bring the ndaa to the floor. and yet the senate majority leader doesn't want to do that. not surprising, that's the tradition of national democrats, weakening our military, not taking it seriously, not a priority. but that's not what the american people want, madam president. we need the ndaa to the floor now during these dangerous times, and my colleagues and i, i'm glad to be with all of them on the floor -- by the way, i'm

pretty sure there will be some democrat senators calling for this, too. they're not doing it right now, but we need it on the floor today, and i'm honored to be here with so many republican senators making same call. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: madam president, we shouldn't be here giving speeches about the national defense authorization act. we should be here on the senate floor voting on the national defense authorization act. once again, as he has done year after year since i've been here, majority leader chuck schumer is refusing to advance this critical bill to set the policy and funding levels for america's armed forces. washington's failure to move legislation forward is always frustrating, but the majority leader's refusal to being a on the ndaa -- to act on the ndaa, an act which passed with strong bipartisan support out of the armed services committee more than a month ago, is more than frustrating; it is actually

dangerous. every single day our enemies -- communist china, iran, russia, north korea -- are active working with one single goal in mind -- to dominate the world stage by destroying the american way of life. we passed out of committee a month ago becoming law, communist china has tools at its disposal to do great harm to our country. our country has fall noon a trap of dependence on our enemies like communist china from everything from drugs to food and we've got to stop that today. when the senate fails to quickly advance the ndaa, as majority leader chuck schumer has done year after year, it sends a strong message to our enemies, that military strength and cutting dependence on our enemies is not a priority for the u.s. congress. it is a dangerous and unacceptable -- it is dangerous and unacceptable toll allow that -- unacceptable to allow that message to go out.

thanks to the weakness and appeasement of the biden-harris administration. i hope we can all come together and recognize we cannot be dependent on communist china for our medicine, technology or food, especially if we are at war. the time is now to get serious about securing u.s. interests and de-cumming our supply chains -- and decoupling our supply chains from communist china. we must demand action. i am a member of the senate armed services committee, along with my colleague who are presiding, so i know firsthand how much hard work has gone into crafting a good bill that is essential to maintaining america's military as the most lethal fighting force on the planet. but this bill does so much more than that. the ndaa isn't simple mr. i a reauthorization of our -- the canada canada isn't simply a reauthorization of our military programs. it ensures that our armed forces are on the cutting edge of administration to not just win wars but to deter threats from

our enemies because they know they stand no chance of victory in a conflict with the united states. try as they might to project weakness, president biden and vice president harris have no role in crafting this legislation. nothing could be more important to protecting our nation and our men and women in uniform. i fear that is the exact reason why majority leader continues to stall and refuses to bring this legislation to a vote on the senate floor. the ndaa also ensures our military families are taken care of as they make sacrifices eve and every day to support our war fighters and keep america safe. much of that work is reflected in the big wins we have in this ndaa for my home state of florida. the u.s. military is incredibly important to florida.

we're home to 21 military bases and three combatant commands. for servicemembers and their families, i fought aggressively in this ndaa is secure a 4.35% pay raise along with my colleagues. we continue our work to support military families and expand access to affordable onbase child care. we've also included language to eliminate disgusting chinese garlic from our on-base grocery stores so no family is forced to buy chinese sewer garlic. it is reported to be grown in human sewage, then bleached and harvested in conditions often with slave labor. with russian warships sitting 90 miles off our shores, and

growing partnership between communist china, russia, and iran with cuba, venezuela, and nicaragua, we made sure that the air base in south florida will continue to serve a critical mission for years to come and protect our nation from the growing threats posed by our enemies. we've also personally secured big wins including making sure the department of defense buys generic drugs made in the united states of america to cut dependence on our enemies for these essential medicines. we cannot continue to -- i'm also fighting to stop the department of defense purchase of chinese computers and prints that pose a threat to our national security. passing this bill will prevent the dod from procuring lidar technology unless granted

specific approval. it also supports research to enhance the lidar capabilities. we authorize a report on the operational value of the air base in qatar given the concerning relationship the government of qatar has with hamas. and other terrorist organizations as well as the continued hostility to the state of israel and other u.s. interests. and thank god one of the leaders of hamas is not alive today. as we provide support for israel, america's great ally, with u.s.-israel cooperation, an increase of 47.5 million for u.s.-israel cooperation. the united states is at a critical moment. the ndaa reflects what must be done to combat the threats posed by our enemies and communist --

from communist china, iran, and russia and protect our allies and protect and grow our military strength in florida where we have massive defense assets that are critical to our national security. a strong defense is key to protecting the freedoms that make america great. i will never lose sight of one of the most important roles i have as a u.s. senator -- to protect and serve the families of our great nation. i look forward to working closely with my colleagues to make sure we are protecting our national security, investing in america's greatest asset -- the men and women our armed forces. i want to thank chairman reed, ranking member wick we are and all my colleagues on the armed services committee for their leadership. i am important of the work we have done and again call for majority leader schumer to stop stalling and put this bill on the floor today. we cannot afford to send any signal of weakness at this time of growing threats and instability around the globe. thank you, madam president.

mrs. fischer: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that myself and senator tuberville be permitted to speak for up to seven minutes, senator cardin for up to ten minutes, and senator tillis for up to two minutes prior to the scheduled roll call vote. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: madam president, as election season approaches, our political discourse has been heated, to say the least. from an assassination attempt a couple of weeks ago to sdroukive protests across -- destructive protests across washington last week, the friction within america is undeniable. my colleagues and i are here today to discuss one of the things americans do agree on -- defending our nation. we all see the tension simmering

around taiwan in south korea and the tension exploding in israel and ukraine. and we see the threats china and russia pose to our nation. these threats are decades in making, and while they sound far away, they are, after all, around the other side of the world. the close connections between the security of the world's democracies and the economies of the world mean that these developments impact our everyday lives. america should have woken up anden ahead years ago -- and gotten ahead years ago. but at the very least, we must wake up now. the most critical job we have in the united states senate is providing for our national security, and we do that through

our national defense authorization act. we passed the ndaa out of the senate armed services committee last month with bipartisan approval. it includes provisions that will benefit our servicemembers and that will bolster our national defense. i supported a pay raise for members of our military and secured funding for several nebraska military construction projects. this year's ndaa also included important provisions to address issues within the munitions industrial base, contributing to thousands of good-paying jobs throughout the country while providing for our national security. the bill incorporated elements of my restoring american deterrence act to foster a skilled nuclear manufacturing and vocational trade workforce.

we heard about the importance of that need at our hearing yesterday when members received the report from the commission on the national defense strategy. i'm hopeful that the full senate will recognize the bipartisan importance of passing the ndaa, just as we did on the armed services committee. but before we can do that, majority leader schumer must prioritize bringing the ndaa up for a vote. just as these threats impact our everyday lives, so also does our response -- or lack thereof. this is a matter of urgency. our defense is not something we can deal with in five years, in ten years. it's something that we must

address now, and we better get started. if we fail to ensure that we can produce munitions at scale, we will run out of missiles within a week -- within weeks of a conflict. if we fail to field and equip a modernized navy, marine corps, army, air force, or space force, one day she will think, maybe we can win. preventing that day will prevent a conflict that would touch the lives of every american citizen in ways this country hasn't seen since the second world war. the majority leader should have reflected that by bringing the ndaa to the floor before the august state work period, and

now he needs to bring it to the floor as soon as possible. but instead of doing our most important constitutional job, we've been seeing political show votes on the floor of the united states senate. america's safety, america's safety is a bipartisan responsibility, a bipartisan duty that requires bipartisan commitment. let's show americans

responsible for those american hives lost. the events of last night highlight one of the senate -- why the senate needs to now move on the ndaa to strengthen our military and our allies abroad. instead, senator schumer has done nothing this week but bring low-level nominations to the floor, while the bipartisan ndaa gathers dust on its desk. it's par for the course for senator schumer. democrats ride the fence on this, because hamas is a key

constituent of the democratic party. it's why kamala harris couldn't bring herself to show up for the prime minister netanyahu's congressional address this last week. it's why the biden administration has flushed iran with cash and now iran is bankrolling terrorism all over the middle east. but they act surprised when the middle east is destabilized. they're more concerned about appeasing our enemies and supporting our friends and allies. now joe biden and kamala harris have brought us to possibly world war iii. it's the weakest administration in the history of the united states of america. we've become a complete joke in the eyes of the world, which is why, mr. president, i rise today to call on senator schumer to immediately bring the ndaa to the floor for a vote. senator schumer has refused to

act on this legislation since it passed out of committee on june 13 with bipartisan support. after the events last night, it is imperative now more than ever that we move this bill. senator schumer, let's be serious here. if you really care about our military, you will bring the ndaa up for a vote immediately. stop wasting our time on messaging bills that are a ploy to bail out vulnerable democratic colleagues in an election. we need a military that is 100% focused on protecting our country and enhancing our national security, not implementing the biden-harris woke agenda, which is why i've taken steps to return our military to the greatness in this year's ndaa. among these victories, i count my amendments which will help refocus the pentagon on its stated mission to deter war and ensure our nation's security. one of these amendments includes

eliminating all funding for the woke diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the dod. another amendment prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars from being spent on transgender surgeries or any other costs associated with these surgeries. i appreciate my colleagues on the committee supporting these commonsense amendments that were included in this year's senate ndaa. i along with millions of americans am scratching my head as to why the dod implemented these policies to begin with. sadly, no institutions, not even our great military are safe from infiltration by the biden-harris regime's radical woke policies. immediately after taking the white house, the joe biden and kamala harris weaponized the dod using it as yet another tool in the arsenal to further their progressive agenda. one of the biden-harris administration's first moves was mandating diversity, equity, and

inclusion training in the dod. on day one the administration announced the military would begin conducting training, quote, have knowledge of systemic and institutional racism and bias against underserved communities, end quote. this hateful ideology has no place in the united states, let alone our military. the military is not a social experiment. it should be a lethal fighting force, feared by our enemies and comprised of our best and prietest brightest. the military should be built on merit, not diversity. it is dangerous and insulting to waste our troop's valuable time on political indoctrination such as this, and that's not all. in 2021, the biden administration announced it would begin directing taxpayer dollars to pay for hormone they are partnership and trans -- therapy and transgender surgery. it is not the job of the

taxpayers to pay for someone to get a controversial elective procedure. american taxpayers' resources should ensure troops who are injured or sick get quality health care, timely as they need it. and taxpayers should not be forced to bankroll these dangerous experimental procedures that often backfire. of course the biden-harris administration would rather spend valuable taxpayer dollars on programs that affirm its progressive world view. the die and transgender surgery policies are two examples of the woke policies being implemented. we can't forget that the biden-harris dod illegally mandated taxpayer dollars to fund elective abortions in the military. i have spent the better part of two years fighting the biden-harris administration on this front, and we cannot forget the biden-harris dod fired more than 8,000 able-bodied troops

for refusing to take the covid-19 vaccine. nn of these policies -- none of these p policies should be dod priorities. it is a distraction from keeping america safe and secure. and the consequences are dangerous. for decades support for the u.s. military was one of the few topics that brought republicans and democrats together. in the past years the u.s. house and senate armed services committee would draft ndaa which would authorize funding for the military and establish policies and priorities for the dod. these bills were largely bipartisan and not usually controversial. both parties were united in the belief that the united states military should be the most lethal fighting force in the world. there were some policy differences here, and there should be, but both parties largely left politics out of the military. this until the biden-harris administration came to town. it's disappointing we've reached

a point where we need to legislatively intervene to refocus the pentagon on its mission to protect and defend our great country. but here we are. predepictably the biden-harris regime has come at a price. the departure from commonsense policies at the dod resulted in detrimental impacts to military readiness and lethality. take recruitment, for example. in 2023, the pentagon announced it fell way short of recruitment goals in what it referred to as, quote, the toughest recruitment year for the military service since the interception of all volunteer army. end quote. i would ask why would young men and women volunteer to serve in a country and in our military if it's become a place of the far-left indoctrination. why would they do that? why would young men and women join a military that teaches them to hate our country?

why would any patriotic citizen join an organization that is more committed to social justice than defeating our enemies? i must say i share their concerns. the military under today's regime is not the same military that my dad served in over 60 years ago. it's the sad truth. the recruiting failure resulted in a national security emergency. as a member of the armed services committee, i have asked our top military leaders about the decision focused on woke policies instead of asking the recruiting crisis, addressing the recruiting crisis. unsurprisingly they didn't have an answer for me, and the impact of implementing those left-wing social priorities extends far beyond the recruiting priorities here at home. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. tuberville: madam president, these dangerous policies have consequences for our military readiness and the world stage.

the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. a senator: back in the early 1980's disco was popular. i was young and laverne allen was just coming into the senate first as an intern and now as what everybody refers to as the enforcer on the floor. i had to come over here, i'm even doing this on a bipartisan basis. i came to the democratic side of the aisle to trace laverne down to force her to get on a picture probably for the first time in her career. mr. tillis: but ladies and gentlemen, a lot of times we take for granted what happens in this chamber. we don't think about all the hard work staff does. they get here before us, leave after us. we don't think how difficult it is to come to a u.s. senator and tell them to be quiet. i will tell you she trains her

proteges well because she just had sherrod brown asked to be quiet by an intern there. laverne was about to perch but you trained somebody else to take your place really well. this place only runs because we've got a strong sergeant at arms staff and we've got great staff in both cloakrooms up tep dais and i did not want this week to pass when la vern is about to get retired, hopefully spend time with her son marcus who is in the navy, i think stationed in japan right now. i feel like if it wasn't against the rules and it wouldn't make the parliamentarian mad for me to ask unanimous consent to take a selfie on the floor. i'm not going to do that but i am going to thank laverne for 43 years of service to this great institution. i know we're not supposed to applaud but i'm going to anyway. thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: thank you. the question occurs on the

nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: the clerk: ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso. mr. bennet. the clerk: mrs. blackburn. mr. blumenthal. mr. booker. mr. boozman. mr. braun. mrs. britt. mr. brown. mr. budd.

the clerk: ms. butler. ms. cantwell. mrs. capito. mr. cardin. mr. carper. mr. casey. mr. cassidy. ms. 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. 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 -- ben apt, brown, butler, carper, collins, gillibrand, graham, hassan, heinrich, king, rosen and warnock. senators voting in the negative -- cornyn, cotton, crapo, fischer, lummis, paul, risch, rounds, rubio, tillis, tuberville, and wicker.

mr. marshall, no. mr. thune, no.

the clerk: mr. braun, no.

mr. moran, no.

the clerk: mr. tester, aye. mr. schmitt, no. ms. warren, aye.

the clerk: ms. ernst, no.

mr. cramer, no. mr. white house, aye. ms. cantwell, aye. ms. duckworth, aye. mr. lujan, aye.

mr. manchin, aye.

the clerk: mr. cassidy, no. mr. johnson, no. mr. sanders, aye. mr. ricketts, no.

the clerk: mr. padilla, aye. mr. kaine, aye. ms. hirono, aye.

ms. smith, aye.

the clerk: mr. scott of florida, no. ms. baldwin, aye. mr. hickenlooper, aye. mr. blumenthal, aye. mr. daines, no. mr. welch, aye. mrs. murray, aye.

vote: