quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator for mississippi. without objection. under the previous order, all postcloture time has expired. the question is on the nomination. a senator: i ask for the yeas and nays.

the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second. there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any other senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 556789 the nays are 42. the nomination is confirmed.

under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator follow alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to legislative session for a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i want to come down and speak today about a very important sector of the economy, for alaska, for america. that's our fishermen and some important legislation, very bipartisan legislation that i'm trying to move right now that i'm hopeful that everybody can agree to. the senate has agreed to it previously and i'm hopeful we can do it again right now. i talk about the great state of alaska b being the super power f

seafood. over 60% of seafood, commercial, recreational harvested in america comes from my great state's water. 60%. so this is a vital industry in my state but also vital industry in the country. and my colleagues know that our fishermen are some of the hardest working americans. they're also some of the americans who have been hit the hardest by this pandemic. the salt and saw kennedy act helps these hardworking men and women across the country by providing consistent funding for research and development and related programs, grant programs, very popular. decades ago, mr. president, congress authorized a group of experts from all around the country, alaska, east coast, vessel owners, fishermen, distributors to advise the secretary of commerce how to distribute the funds.

makes sense since they're close to the action. and over time unfortunately this group was disbanded. nobody thought that was a good idea. abolishing this advisory committee and then you had the national marine fisheries essentially determine how all of these salt and stall kennedy funds would be diggs butted to fishermen. so with all due respect to d.c. bureaucrats, they're the ones making the decisions. so we have a bill, my bill -- by the way, passed the senate previously, unanimously -- that members in the fishing community from all over the country be chosen to determine how to get these funds out to our fishermen, whether in new york or north carolina or alaska. and, mr. president, everybody thinks that makes sense. our fishermen need support right now. there's no doubt. they're being hammered by this pandemic.

so the legislation which i am hopefully going to be able to pass in the senate mere in a couple of minutes -- here in a couple of minutes has cosponsors, broad -- across the broad political spectrum in the senate. senator cantwell, markey, warren, murkowski, myself. mr. president, i am aware of no policy objections to this important piece of legislation. to the contrary. it's already passed the senate unanimously. i am, however, aware of an unrelated dispute between the democratic leader and some of my senate colleagues from the east coast regarding an entirely different bill. now, i respect disagreements over regional issues. i certainly hope my colleagues can work them out. this issue is thousands of miles away from alaska and my constituents, the people i represent who are hurting. and moreover, mr. president, the bill i'm getting ready to

reduce, s. 494, helps all fishermen nationwide, new york, north carolina, alaska. so, mr. president, the american fisheries act, s. 494, should not be collateral damage or a hostage taken in an unrelated fight. if my colleagues want to try and work together, i'll certainly help them work out their differences, but i don't think it's constructive to hold hostage this important legislation for a fight that's thousands of miles away from alaska. so, mr. presidents, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 179, s. 494, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection?

without objection. a senator: objection. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator for new york. mrs. gillibrand: reserving the right to object, i ask unanimous consent that the request be modified so that in addition to the request from the senator from alaska, the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar 317, senate bill 908, the fluke fairness act. i request that the bill be read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection to the modification? a senator: reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you. i've been in the senate for five and a half years and i don't consider anyone to be a better friend and advocate for his state than senator sul van. even though senator gillibrand and inside have differenced, we

found way to work together. what i have before me is something very important to understand. i agree with everything senator sullivan said. his measure, i suspect, has broad support, probably support on its own. but what we have here is the addition by the motion of senator gillibrand that affects my state, north carolina, and it has to do with reallocation of quotas that would particularly affect the flounder industry in north carolina. i hope that we're able to work out differences and get senator sullivan's bill passed but because it has been amended to include something is that hurts my fisheries and hurts my fishermen when they're suffering like everybody else from the covid crisis and all the challenges that produces, i do object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: is there objection to the original request? mrs. gillibrand: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from alaska.

mr. sullivan: mr. president, while i am disappointed, and these are two good friends of mine here on the national floor who i've worked with on numerous pieces of legislation. they both represent their states very well. but, mr. president, this is a missed opportunity for the fishermen of america -- america, not just alaska. but for the whole country -- new york, north carolina, and i'm certainly hopeful that my good friend from new york and north carolina can work this out. i will certainly lend my efforts, my staff's efforts, because we shouldn't have a regional fight blocking what will benefit everybody, particularly when fishermen right now are really hurting. they're one of the sectors of the u.s. economy that have been hammered by this pandemic, and this kind of legislation, although it is not going to solve all their problems, shows that we're working for them. so, mr. president, we will live to fight another day here soon. i hope that we're able to pass

my legislation, commonsense legislation, the american fisheries advisory committee act, that will help every fishermen in america. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: mr. president, the covid-19 pandemic has revealed

the people doing the truly essential work in our country, and it isn't the fortune 500 c.e.o. or inbanker. it is the home health care worker, the delivery truck driver working a 12-hour shift bringing food, medicine, and other critical supplies to people who need it. it's a grocery store clerk working a checkout line or stocking shelves to keep up with the skyrocketing demand. it is the migrant agricultural worker picking berries or standing on an assembly line at a meatpacking plant. it is the housekeeper custodian, working longer hours to clean our hotels and other public places a. it is the child care worker coming in every day to care for other children while being unable to afford care for their own. and it's a bus driver who, despite operating in a tightly he is enclosed place, transports

hundreds of people to work every day. these people, and others like them doing essential work, are literally risking their lives every day for the rest of us and they're earning much-deserved recognition during this pandemic. but, let me be clear, these workers have always been essential, even if our economic system has not valued the jobs they do or treated them with the respect they deserve. valuing appeared respecting essential -- valuing and respecting essential workers is about more than calling them heroes when that's the popular thing to do. it's about recognizing and calling out how these workers have been treated in our economy and it's about doing something to fix it. for too long, people doing the work now deemed essential during the pandemic have been forced to work for low wages that are either at or just above minimum wage. they have jobs that offer no paid family or medical leave, have little access to affordable child care, have jobs that offer

no employer-sponsored health care coverage, and have been forced to work in dangerous conditions. coping with these inequities in normal times was challenging enough for our essential workers, but the pandemic exacerbated by donald trump's failure of leadership, is creating new problems and is making existing problems worse. the administration's failure to implement emergency safety standards is creating unsafe workplaces for essential workers. meanwhile, it's pushing to provide businesses immunity from coronavirus-related lawsuits. if they're successful, employers would have even less incentive to provide safe workplaces for employees or to protect customers and consumers. it's failure to fully and effectively use the defense production act means the most vulnerable workers continue to face shortages of personal

protective i want request, putting them at greater risk for contracting the coronavirus. and its failure to implement a national tracing program means that essential workers also face testing delays and may never be notified if a coworker has test positive for covid-19. as donald trump refuses to act responsibly to keep our essential workers safe, their needs has fallen to state, local governments, and the private sector. in hawaii, we are fortunate to have responsive state and county governments, strong unions, and one of the lowest uninsured rates in the country, thanks to hawaii's prepaid health care act. these advantages, however, have not shielded hawaii's essential workers from the danger of the pandemic. let me share a few of their stories. a few weeks ago i spoke to a group of transit workers who operate the bus in honolulu. a simple shower curtain

separates the drivers from passengers boarding their buses. many passengers do not wear masks putting the drivers and others at risk. drivers are facing threats and physical violence when they ask passengers to put on a mask. one passenger even spat on the bus driver. many of the bus drivers live in multigenerational families. they spoke about the fear that they will contract the virus on the job and bring it home. three bus operators have already tested positive, including one just this week. transit workers in other industries have also experienced challenges relating to coronavirus safety. a group of hawaii flight attendants i recently spoke with are unable to be tested regularly due to supply shortages, despite showing up to work every day, and they also spoke about their daily challenges, convincing

passengers to wear masks. essential workers are also providing child care during this pandemic so that other essential workers can continue to do their job. kate cheeks a nanny on oahu, has provided child care for essential workers and military families on oahu during the paneled. she lives with her mom who has been battling stage-three cancer for years. she is worried she might bring this virus home with her from work. in april, katie received a scare when one of the families she worked with told her they might have been exposed. katie is like so much other essential workers in hawaii and across the country who live with uncertainty about their jobs and families every day. more firefighters, grocery store workers, bank tellers, postal workers, community health center employees and paramedics tested

positive for covid-19 this week. they certainly won't be the last. something as simple as showing up to work every day shouldn't be an act of bravery. but that's exactly what we're expecting from our essential workers every day. if they can show up and do their job, congress should certainly step up and do our job. it's why senate democrats have been fighting so hard to pass the heroes act, to bring this to the floor, to debate the heroes act. the heroes act includes a number of strong provisions that will support essential workers during this pandemic. it establishes a $200 billion fund to provide up to $10,000 of hazard pay to each essential worker. it requires the occupational safety and health administration to issue an emergency temporary standard within seven days of enactment. it prevents employers from retaliating against workers who report workplace safety issues. it adds another $75 billion for

covid-19 testing, contact tracing and isolation measures. and it also provides every american access to free treatment for covid-19. it provides access to free and affordable child care options for essential workers who are expected to show up to their jobs regardless of the whether they have someone to look after their children. and it provides permanent paid sick and family leave so that people don't have to choose between their jobs and the health of their families. the heroes act is a bold worker and family centric bill. we should have passed it months a instead is the bill has been sitting on the majority leader's desk for more than three months now. he called it taking a pause. the people in our country didn't have the luxury of taking a pause three months ago. they sensely don't have the luxury to take a pause now. as senators, we are able to

telework. we can attend hearings remotely, stay socially distant. maybe this is one reason some republican senators don't have sufficient empathy or sense of urgency to pass the next covid reef bill that would actually help the bus driver who can't drive a bus from home, the u.p.s. driver who can't deliver packages from home, a health care aide who can't administer medications to seniors from home, an agricultural worker who can't pick coffee beans from home hand a postal worker who can't deliver the mail from home. millions of people are suffering today. they should be able to count on the senate to especially is it up and take action to help them. and at this very moment, negotiators are deciding who we will help and who will be left behind. democrats are fighting to protect essential workers and help the unemployed. republicans are fighting to protect businesses from their own negligence and allow corporate executives -- corporate executives -- to write

off their business lunches. these are very different priorities that reflect very different values and point out what's at stake in these negotiations. protecting and assisting essential workers is of value. it isn't enough to simply tell them, thank you very much, and call them heroes. actionsspeaklloweder than words -- actions speak louder than words. it is time to being a. it is long past time to act. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator for hawaii. ms. hirono: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator for oklahoma. mr. lankford: i ask unanimous consent that we set eight side -- set aside the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lankford: mr. president, last week thousands of radical islamists rallied on friday in northwestern pakistan in support

of a man who early this week walked into a courtroom and gunned down a u.s. citizen on trial for blasphemy. that's how "the new york times" started their article on this issue last week. the american, he died of his wounds before he could be taken to the hospital while the gunman was taken into custody. u.s. state department said nasim was on trial and entrapped by the blasphemy law. the blasphemy law calls for the death penalty for anyone found guilty of insulting islam, but in pakistan the mere allegation of blasphemy can cause vigil antes to kill those accused.

at the rally, -- rallying in support of the person who murdered the american citizen, at the rally, the demonstrators carried signs praising the murder for killing -- murderer for killing and calling for his immediate release from jail saying that he killed naseem because the government was too slow with the blasphemy case. mr. president, eight months ago, last december, i filed a resolution to speak with a unified voice on what i consider a nonpartisan issue. simple statement from this congress condemning blasphemy laws across the world wherever they exist. we are a nation who stands for the ability of every individual

to choose any faith, change their faith, or have no faith at all. that is a basic human right. but according to the united states commission on international religious freedom, 84 countries, more than a third of the world's countries have a blasphemy law on the books, including in pakistan where an american citizen was murdered last week under an accusation of blasphemy. this resolution that i filed eight months ago with the foreign affairs committee, this resolution has moved already in the house. the house foreign affairs committee worked through the process of this resolution in march of this year and passed it unanimously. the response by the democrat jamie raska and had the support of multiple democrats on the foreign affairs committee and was overwhelmingly moved. while this resolution, a mere

eight pages, has sat unmoved for eight months. the vice chair of the u.s. commission on international freedom who was appointed by speaker pelosi had said this organization has noted countless times that pakistan's blasphemy thraws too often lead to violence. we urge the state department to enter a binding agreement with the pakistani government that appeals the plas if i my -- blasphemy. the house of representatives has spoken on this, the international committee for international religious freedom has spoken out on this and we in the senate should speak out on it and the time to speak out on it is when we just had an american citizen murdered overseas because of these laws. it is prime time to be able to move this. this is something that i believe should be able to be passed by

unanimous consent. how would we oppose the movement of something like this? now, i have heard that possibly we should slow this whole thing down because resolutions like this should have a full -- fulsome committee process. they should be heard and marked up and read and reread and eight months is not enough time to be able to review it. the problem with that is last week a democrat resolution on elections in belaruse was filed, was never heard by the foreign relations committee here in the senate, yet it was discharged, was placed on the hotline yesterday morningnd and cleared last -- yesterday morning and cleared last night. so for democrat bills, they don't have to go through the committee process apparently. they can just move through on their own because republicans have not opposed those. republicans take the time to be able to read this on their own, to be able to go through the resolutions and to be able to make decisions on it. that resolution had a majority

of democratic sponsors, but also had republican sponsors. this resolution is sponsored by chris coons and i, and it is considered a nonpartisan issue. and something that sat in the committee eight months waiting surely can move when something that was filed last week and never heard by the foreign relations committee can move on the hotline in a single day. so i bring this resolution because i think we should speak out on this as the house has already spoken out on it, as the state department has already spoken out on it, as the trump administration has spoken out on it, why wouldn't 100 senators today speak out on this blasphemy resolution. so, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the foreign relations committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to s. res. 458. i further ask the resolution be

agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. menendez: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator for new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, reserving the right to object. first of all, i just want to note the customary path for bills and resolutions is for them to be considered by their committee of jurisdiction marked up through a regular process and reported out to the senate floor. now, i understand that many members of this body have noble causes and good ideas that fall under the jurisdiction of the senate foreign relations committee. unfortunately, the chairman has only held one real legislative markup this entire year in may. that one meeting, which included multiple pieces of substantive, bipartisan efforts was ended prematurely before many pieces of vital legislation could be acted upon and without a vote on

even a single amendment. and while the minority was strongly supportive of more legislative activity, the chairman pulled down another legislative markup the first week of july without any explanation and yet another one just this week without any explanation. and regardless of that -- those facts, i can tell you that i don't believe the majority who has the convening power and lately has been -- has been -- when they do list a committee hearing or a markup unilaterally decide to do so, have ever sought committee activity for senator lankford's resolution, and this was the first time, and i would assume for others, many are seeing it. so he mentions the eight months. the chairman of the committee is the chairman, by virtue of the innovator party, -- the majority

party, the republican party, i'm sure he could speak to the chairman but the chairman hasn't brought his resolution forward. if he is chagrined it has been languishing in the committee, it is because chairman risch has not been asked for it then when there was a markup nor has he asked for it now. on occasion a resolution gets released. i did one for rob portman. and it was released to the senate floor. but there are many other critically important legislative items that have been marked up and ready for action on the floor. last december the defending american security from kremlin aggression act passed out of the foreign relations committee with regular already order -- regular order with a strong bipartisan vote. it has been pending on the floor

for nearly eight months. over the course of that time russian aggression has manifested itself in syria, libya, on the streets of syria, this past week all senators have been briefed on the broader question of foreign interference in our elections and we know that is a threat that is real and growing. if the senate should dedicate any time to a foreign policy issue, it seems to me that should be it. our election's in # 8 day, yet the senate trudges along blind to the threat before our very eyes. that is what should be passed. similarly the senate foreign relations committee passed a saudi arabia bill more than a year ago. it has been waiting floor action. i could go on and on. i won't for the purposes now. i don't want to undermine the purpose of what senator lankford is trying to address. around the world we see

autocratic rulers imposing blasphemy laws. his resolution rightly condemns blasphemy laws for violating international human rights standards and raises serious concerns. but i would just say we need to have here a moment of self-reflection. this resolution doesn't say anything about this administration's disparaging attitudes and comments about certain roins and neth -- religions and ethnicities. how can we do that with president trump's approval of concentration camps in xijiang. coddled the dictator of gentlelady malkhashoggi, attacked the freedom of the

press, sent chills around the world about u.s. commitment to freedom of religion and slashed the admission of refugees, many of whom are persecuted. certainly the foreign relations committee in the senate should say something about that as well. between fiscal year 2017 and 2018, there was a reduction of christian refugees by 65% and muslim refugees by # 5% and we should talk about -- so in closing, i believe addressing blas if i any -- blasphemy and standing up for freedom of religion is urgent and warrants much further attention from the foreign relationles committee and this body -- relations committee and this body as a whole. i urge senator lankford to work

with senator risch to schedule a markup so it can be considered under regular order. when his resolution or others are before it, there is an opportunity to amend it, augment it, include other issues even within the context of the issue of religious freedom. that is not provided here. for those reasons, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. lankford: would the gentleman yield for a question? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma has the floor. mr. lankford: i would want to ask my colleague if there's a difference between this resolution and the resolution on elections in belarus that was filed last week, was discharged, and then passed in the hotline yesterday. obviously there are lots of other issues about elections. there's been a lot of conversation we've had about elections worldwide, about security of elections. but that particular resolution wasn't held up to go through the foreign relations committee, to discuss international elections

more. it was discharged and it was sent to the floor on a hotline, and republicans and democrats alike agreed on that resolution anded passed it through. is there a substantive difference between this resolution and that one? mr. menendez: the issues that were expressed in senator durbin's resolution have been issues before the committee on the issue of belarus. as a matter of fact, even today the nominee to be the u.s. ambassador has been discussed. so that issue has been discussed. unfortunately, although i think it has merit, the issue of religious freedom, as you have defined in your resolution, has not. so at least the substance of the issue has been the possibility of debate. i would simply say i know you're highlighting that one resolution. yes, you know, our colleague from ohio, senator portman, brought to me the attention of the anniversary happening, and

he said i did not ask for it to come before the committee. i thought that it should. you know, it fell between the cracks. so we agreed. that doesn't mean that everybody's going to come to the floor and not give the committee members a chance to work on resolutions and to have their views cast on that resolution for the full body to consider. mr. lankford: reclaiming my time, it's a lesson learned because the challenge of the foreign relations committee is almost nothing's been able to get through. no ambassadors, no resolutions. everything's not good enough, everything's not big enough. quite frankly, everything that doesn't attack the trump presidency and trump state department which really becomes the issue. even things that are nonpartisan that we all have wide agreement on that the house of representatives was 100% in agreement on, can't even get a hearing here, can't even move through. and when an american citizen is

killed over a blasphemy law issue, we still can't speak as the senate. it's unfortunate. there are things that we disagree on strongly as a body, but protecting the lives of american citizens who are being murdered because of a blasphemy law in pakistan should not be an area of disagreement for us. standing up for religious liberty, speaking out with this one bill, if there are other issues do ten more. it's a basic american freedom. we should do multiple resolutions on freedom of the press, on freedom of speech, freedom of people to live their faith out worldwide. that's who we are as americans. so do a bunch of them. speak out on them. but don't stop us from speaking at all on issues where we should speak with a common, unified voice. we can do better and we should

do better, and we will in time. but right now we're still not speaking with a clear voice on blasphemy and the death of americans worldwide, and that's something is that we should all look at and say there's one more example of not getting the job done the same. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, i take offense to the suggestion that nothing is good enough for the senate foreign relations committee, that nothing gets done. 160 ambassadorial employees and of that rank have passed through the senate foreign relations committee overwhelmingly with bipartisan support. every year we get the state department's budget. every year we have a budget that is decimated, including for the issues that my colleague cares about. and it is because those of us on

the committee who believe in the power of diplomacy in the state department work feverishly to restore and enhance the budget of the state department, that it's been able to carry out its mission. but the budget that the secretary of state comes before the committee to defend and advocate for is a huge, huge consequence. we're constantly doing things to protect the lives of american citizens in the committee. i could enumerate the number of of both, of resolutions as well as legislative language that would have far-reaching -- i mean, i'm in favor of resolutions. they are an expression of sentiment. but legislation that puts into action within our laws the ability for countries that conduct blasphemy and other types of crimes against people who simply want to pursue their religious views, that would be

far more consequential. so there's a lot that goes on in the committee, and a lot of it has actually been bipartisan. but by the same token, if the, if our colleague is chagrined that not enough is moving to the committee, talk to the chairman. because you can't move anything through the committee if you don't have committee business markups, and we haven't had oner one -- and we are in august. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. p. mr. portman: mr. president, i think we're all a little frustrated right now because the negotiations on the next covid-19 package seem to be at a

standstill. and if you talk to the negotiators and you even read the press accounts, which are pretty open, what they say is that they're deadlocked. and one of the main reasons they're deadlocked is over this issue of unemployment insurance. now recall, back in the cares act there was an extension of a federal supplement to unemployment insurance. so we put in place a $600 federal benefit on top of the state benefit. at the time there were concerns about whether that would lead to people on unemployment insurance getting more money than they would at work, and there was actually an amendment here on the house floor, on the senate floor regarding that. and although it did not pass, i think pretty much every republican supported it with that concern. in fact, that's what's happened. if you look at what's happened over the past couple of months, as the $600 has been put in place, it clearly has led to

people making more on unemployment insurance often than they can make at work. in fact, the congressional budget office, which is a nonpartisan group here in the united states congress that analyzes some of these economic issues, has said that if someone is on unemployment insurance today, they are likely to be making substantially more than someone who is mott -- not on unemployment insurance. c.b.o. says roughly five out of every six recipients would receive a benefit that would exceed the amount they would earn during those six months if you were to extend this until the end of the year. in other words, they're saying 80% of u.i. recipients would make more on unemployment insurance than they would have at their old jobs, meaning that if you followed where the democrat negotiators are and keeping $600 in place until the end of the year, that there would be an unprecedented

disincentive to go to work in this country. and i think that's widely acknowledged. the university of chicago has a study that isn't quite 80%. it says 68%, though. i don't think anybody disputes the fact that most people on unemployment insurance are making more than they would than if they were work. when i talk to my democratic colleagues about that, they're hearing the same thing i'm hearing from small business owners. the by the way, from nonprofits, from employers of all size and all stripes saying it's tough to get people to come back to work when they can make more by not working on unemployment insurance. and i think a lot of my democratic colleagues agree it's good to get people back to work, get back to work safely, yes. and we ought to be sure that the employers are following the guidelines of the centers for disease control and others. but it's good to get people back to work because then they're reconnected with their health care if they have it with their retirement savings, reconnected

with training. and that connection to work is a positive thing, providing people dignity and self-respect comes with work. so we should all be for that, right? and yet, when you see what's happening in this negotiation, this is being stalled because democrats are being intransigent. they're saying stubbornly we're going to stick to $600. today there was a press conference with speaker pelosi and democratic leader schumer, and that's exactly what they said. here is the quote, we have said that we're going to have $600. this is necessary, end quote. so i know that that's not where the rank and file are here in this chamber because i've talked to a number of my democratic colleagues about this. they realize that the $600, even those who thought it might have been necessary at the time -- and i voted for the package at a time when, you know, we had unemployment that was such a shock and so high and people were in such need of

immediate cash. but also i have heard, again, from so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that $600 is something i'm hearing about more and more back home from the employers who say we can't get people back to work. so the $600 is something that there needs to be some flexibility on to come up with a smarter way to ensure people can continue to get a federal supplement, because we do continue to have relatively high unemployment in this country. in my own state of ohio, it's almost 11% unemployment. but let's not have it be so much that people are incentivized not to work. that doesn't help anybody. there are help wanted signs all over my state. i was at a ford plant recently where they have 25% absenteeism which they attribute to this issue. i've been in a lot of small businesses which is probably where most of my colleagues are hearing a lot of concerns about the fact they can't get people to come back who used to work

for them and they can't hire the new people who they need, even though they're reopening safely and doing everything they're supposed to do in terms of the guidelines. and they're having a tough time getting back to work. there is a auto plant in ohio where the white collar works -- p workers are working on the assembly line because they can't get enough workers to work on the assembly line who would normally have that job. this is a problem right now and i think everybody acknowledges this except democratic negotiators in this negotiation. i don't think we're actually as far apart as the media accounts would suggest because there are lots of ideas out there. one idea, by the way, that makes a lot of sense to me -- and i'm going to offer this in a moment as a resolution for the senate to take up, and i think this is the ultimate common sense, let's keep $600 in place for now while we negotiate something. so let's have an extension for

another week on the unemployment insurance at $600 just so we can negotiate something. because what you don't want is for people to fall off the cliff, and that's starting to happen now. the $600 expired last friday. six days ago it expired, and six days ago, seven days ago, martha mcsally, the senator from arizona, came to the floor and offered this same unanimous consent request saying let's just have $600 for another week, and chuck schumer objected, the democratic leader, instead offering the $3.5 trillion package from the house but didn't respond to why wouldn't you at least give the negotiators a week to come up with something? so i'm going to offer that same thing today because i do think it's not fair to have a cliff. i don't think there should be a cliff. i think people should be able to have some level, but not at $600 because that's not understood by everybody to mean

that you are disincentivized to work. and americans are generous people. back in 2008 and 2009, when we had the great recession, we also did this. by the way, we did $25 a week then. so for democrats who say this is unprecedented, well, we had 10% unemployment back then. very high unemployment, and we did $25. i think we should do a lot more than that now. but not so much that people are making more by not working than by working. and there are a lot of ideas out there. again, my ideas, ideas of individual members may not be what this body chooses to use, and that's fine. we're not going to all get our way, but we should be able to come up with a compromise here. my idea is to have a return to work bonus so that you're getting the $600, but then you can take some of that money back with you when you go to work. that will create an incentive

for people to go back to work and connect people back to those businesses as we talked about, the importance of doing that. but there are other ideas as well. there's a plan that was put out recently by former secretary geithner and jason furman. they joined with glenn hubbert to put out a proposal from the aspen institute, hardly a conservative group that proposes that the unemployment system, not at $600 but continue at a cap of $400 and have it be determined at $400 based on the unemployment level for the state. the way unemployment works in the states is, the states have a benefit and this federal benefit is on top of it. most states provide on average about 50% of ben fits.

some -- benefits. some less, no more. again, the $600 is over 100%, it's over $130%, in fact of the so this solution from, again, two obama administration economists is that you have $400 as the cap when unemployment in those states is above 15% and zero federal supplement when a state is at 7% or less. it phases out entirely. that's one bipartisan solution that's out there. instead of insisting on $600, i would hope there's at least a discussion of those kinds of proposals. senator remove any has a -- romney has one that takes it to $400 to 80% wage replacement. senator mcconnell put his proposal out for a $200 amount over a two-month period as a

transition and then to go to a percent of wages. his percent of wages is 70% of wages. again, there's no state that that's high. the states are 40%, 50%, 60%, in that range. so there are ideas out there and yet the democrats keep coming back again and again to this notion of, we want it all or nothing. and i will tell you my colleague from oregon, who is here on the floor and i'm glad he did, did a very good job for the democrats negotiating this proposal. i told him that at the time. i know he took pride in it and he should have. but we also need now to figure out where we're going going forward. none of us should want people to be disincentivized from going to work. we should not have people where you have the leaders on the democratic side, speaker pelosi and democratic leader schumer

saying, quote, today we have sid said -- said that we're going to have $600. quote, this is necessary. end quote. we have to be able to show some flexibility or to be able to break this impasse to be able, yes, provide for people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and need some help but not to continue to have this policy in place that doesn't work for our economy, for small businesses, and for workers themselves. let's get the politics out of this. let's do something that makes sense to be able to move forward on this broader crisis. and i think if we can fix the unemployment issue, we're likely to get there. with that, mr. president -- mr. sullivan: will my colleague from ohio yield? mr. portman: i would be happy to yield. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: thank you. i want to thank the senator from ohio for his great leadership on this and so many other issues. i see my colleague from oregon is on the floor as well. but i want to talk about an issue that senator portman just

touched on, but it's really the key to what's going on here, and it's good faith -- good faith. our negotiations -- are negotiations happening in good faith or are they not? sometimes that's hard to tell. sometimes there's posturing, but, mr. president, last week at this time senator portman, senator mcsally, myself, we were on the floor with regard to discussing senator mcsally's very simple unanimous consent resolution which said, as we negotiate, hopefully in good faith, the difference between what we've put forward, the heals act and the speaker pelosi bill from early may, by the way, a bit of a stale $4 trillion bill, one-third of which has nothing to do with the pandemic. but as we're trying to negotiate in good faith, let's move

forward with an extension of unemployment so people who are hurting can continue to rely on it. that happens all the time in the senate. so what happened? the minority leader came down to the senate floor and blocked it. he blocked it in -- and his response was, i'm going to block this one-week extension unless the republicans take the entire $4 trillion pelosi heroes act. that's what he said. that's what he said. now, if you're watching or paying attention, that is the definition of not negotiating in good faith and every senator knows it. all 100 of us know it. that was not a good-faith maneuver. what i predicted was the minority leader of the u.s. senate, despite that maneuver, which will hurt millions of americans, did it because he

thinks the national media will give him a pass. that no one in the national media will say, boy, oh, boy, the minority leader just blocked a reasonable request for an extension to help people but he thinks -- and i think with good reason -- that the national media won't blame him for what he just did so he did it with no explanation. so, mr. president, that's not good faith by definition, saying, take my $4 trillion package or you won't get one week of an extension of unemployment. let me mention one other that senator portman mentioned. now on this tough issue of unemployment insurance, and as senator portman has been a leader on this, there were a lot of good ideas. i was talking to a lot of my democratic colleagues. i believe most don't think that $600 a week until january is a

good reason. again to have the minority leader of the u.s. senate and speaker pelosi just say $600, take it or leave it, colleagues, you all know, we all know that's not good faith. that's not good faith. so it's starting to feel like the minority leader, the speaker are not negotiating in good faith right now. i hope they are. i know a lot of democratic colleagues are, but people have to remember, regardless of what party you're in, americans are hurting. they need help. we have one foot in the recovery, one foot still in the pandemic, but what we need as we negotiate this package is good faith. and so i want to thank my colleague from ohio, again, for his strong leadership on this and so many other issues.

and i'm certainly going to be supportive of the unanimous consent request, which we made at this time just last week, to help people, not controversial, a week extension as we negotiated, it happens all the time here in the senate, and i certainly hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not going to say, no, take my whatever or we're not going to do it. because it sure doesn't look or feel like good faith. and you know who who's hurt -- you know who's hurt by that? the american people who are suffering. mr. portman: i thank my colleague from alaska. reclaiming my time. i think he's made a good point. we're not talking about a negotiation, we're talking about a week-long extension of the existing $600 per week so we can enable people to have some certainty and predict ability in their lives. i'm hearing that from people on unemployment insurance, what are you guys doing?

why can't you come to an agreement? we know that democrats don't appear to move off of their proposal. we heard it again and again. maybe they think it's good politics, maybe they think it's worth hurting these people to see if i'm going to get my unemployment or not. i had a town hall of a woman whose husband works in the hospitality business and he's been told, sorry, we're not open for business. he needs the help. she didn't insist on $060, but she said give us some certainty that something will go forward. that is what this is about. this is a unanimous consent to request to give us just a week in order to negotiate something that makes more sense for the economy, for small businesses and for workers. and so this martha mcsally motion which was offered earlier this week and last week, we are going to offer today. it's a unanimous consent request. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate

consideration of the bill at the desk. i further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? wyden wyden re -- mr. wyden: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, the senate republicans have spent much of this week offering this idea of a one-week extension of the $600 unemployment insurance supplement, and they have done this as an alternative to spending the week doing real negotiating, which is what i and many senate democrats have been calling for for not just days but weeks and weeks, literally months as we called for it in advanced proposals. now, in my view the only thing

worse than what the republicans have done, cutting off desperately needed unemployment insurance to millions of mesh families and communities -- american families and communities, would be to allow a bill to pass that promises money without actually delivering it. that is snake oil. and i'm going to be very specific in describing why that's the case. even if this short-term extension were to pass, experts and state agencies have said in very clear terms that states don't have enough time to reprogram their systems and avoid a lapse in benefits. a lot of them just have -- and as my colleague from ohio knows, i was talking about it for days

in the finance room, these state unemployment systems are not equipped to flip the benefits on and off. these short-term extensions won't work and don't work administratively. and nobody following this debate has to take my word for it. that's what the national association of state workforce agencies have said, and i was struck -- i think there was a comment, well, this is an image problem, it's a problem of the national media. i'd say, mr. president, and colleagues, the national media has been repeating what i just said which are the exact views of people who aren't democrats or republicans. they are the administrators of this crucial program.

a short-term extension isn't enough for the hardworking americans relying on this lifeline who don't have jobs to go back to. what about next week and the week after? there's going to be promises for week after week that also can't get them money to -- get the money to people so he had can -- so they can make rent and buy groceries. the only responsible route is to debris to the attention -- agree to the extension that looks to economic conditions, ties these benefits to economic conditions that will lower the payments only when it's appropriate to do so. and that means when the economy is in recovery, not when it is facing the kind of dramatic contraction that we all were so concerned about last week. and, to me, this is all a part of an effort to deflect the fact

that when i and -- i'm just going to talk about myself specifically, but senator schumer, the speaker sent letter after letter calling for negotiations because everybody knew there was a cliff. i said it repeatedly. i said don't go home, leader mcconnell, stay here. this cliff is coming, end of july, last weekend when people got the checks. so there was a comment about unemployed folks being pushed off the cliff. well, i'm here to tell you it was senate republicans by their inaction who pushed those workers off the cliff. now, what's needed is a long-term solution that insures the extra $600 remains available

for as long as this devastating crisis continues. i heard my colleagues talk a bit about workers. a lot of workers who were laid off once and then got brought back have been laid off again. and that's really representative of the challenge. i also want to mention, as we talk about ideas -- i heard my colleagues talk about it -- another big snake oil idea coming out of the white house that somehow an executive order is going to accomplish all this. now we hear the words executive word. that sounds like it's going to be fast. man, that sounds good. executive orders. let's move fast. in actual wallty, it would throw

the states in chaos. it would be tied up in the courts. it would slow everythingen down just like each of the senate republican legislative proposals so far. for example, they also still try to drive the idea of wage replacement which we've seen problems getting the amount out initially, the $600. wait until you see what happens with these republican wage proposals. there's a path here and that's to negotiate in good faith. my republican colleagues have been stalling on negotiating in good faith because they thought somehow -- and i find this a real head scratcher -- they could win a war of words by insulting the american worker in

claiming that they're kind of lazy and they don't want to work and the like. being on the finance committee i hear continually from my friend from ohio who talks about the superior work ethic of ohioans and now he's out here talking about how everybody is not willing to work and unemployment folks -- unemployment benefits are causing folks to stay home rather than work because they're too generous. i think that's just a bunch of hogwash. i believe americans believe deeply in the dignity of work. we just had a nationwide town hall meeting about the unemployment issue. and people were saying, i can't believe they're calling us lazy and we don't want to work. i get a job offer on monday night. i'll be there at the crack of dawn on tuesday. that's what workers are saying. so this idea that they're

staying home because they don't want to work, besides it's a violation of the rules of the program as well i think is just hogwash. mr. president, i would also like to put into the record right now the latest assessment from the bureau of labor statistics about what's really going on out here. because the issue is not workers being lazy. the issue is the scarcity of jobs. and the bureau of labor statistics, again not a political operation, has reported that there are four unemployed americans for every job out there. let me repeat that. not politicians, not anecdotes, not somebody who said something to somebody else. those are the facts, colleagues. the bureau of labor statistics, there are four unemployed americans for every job out

there. mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the bureau of labor analysis showing the paucity of jobs. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: so i just say i'm just stunned that colleagues are saying that american workers are out trying to scam the system and really don't want to work and all of these things that i think suggest a very different picture than i hear from workers. and by the way, i hear from my friend from ohio when he's in the finance committee so i have a final point. the republicans knew the cliff was coming in may when the house passed the heroes act. they knew that the cliff was coming in june. i'm just going to walk this

through because i heard oh, my goodness that, you know, all the democrats are involved in pushing workers off the cliff. the republicans knew the cliff was coming in may. that's when the house passed their bill. they knew the cliff was coming a few weeks after that when senator schumer and i introduced and tried to get past a piece of legislation that was really based -- i say to my friend from ohio and something i heard our friend from south dakota, senator thune talk about. senator thune said i get it when folks are hurting. the benefits got to be one that pace the rent and -- pays the rent and buys groceries. but when unemployment goes down, the benefit should taper down. that's essentially what the democratic leader, senator schumer, and i offered to tie unemployment insurance to the realities of what is on the ground in the american economy.

so republicans know the cliff is coming in may. they know a few weeks later that senator schumer and i tried to actually pass a bill that, as i developed it and brought it to our leadership and showed it to colleagues, was really to a great extent sparked by what our friend from south dakota, a member of the republican leadership, said about well, let's kind of recognize when the economy gets better, the benefit tapers off. republicans knew the cliff was coming in july when again leader schumer and i tried to provide certainty for american families and communities by passing our bill. did they come to the table with earnest proposals? senate republicans have spent the week on this idea of a one-week extension which the

people who run the programs, the people who are the most knowledgeable, who don't have election certificate, they're experts in the field are saying it would not deliver to the people who are desperate to buy groceries, pay rent. it would not deliver the funds that they so desperately need for quite some time. these proposals are not serious. they're political theater. the cliff is here. and as american families fall over it, i'm just stunned that we're seeing republicans say, you know, it's okay to offer these proposals. i've seen a number in elevators leaving town. i'm going to be here. i'm going to be here because i think when workers are hurting

and they can't make rent and they can't pay groceries, you stay at it. and the senator from ohio knows that that's how we got the $600 because when secretary scalia folded his arms and said you really couldn't do anything that would present a real benefit, we spent three days, three long days and we said on our side, you're not going to stiff the workers and we'll just average the benefit. some would get more. some would get less. but we give everybody in america who through no fault of their own had been laid off a chance to pay the rent, buy groceries and at the same time keep the economy afloat. so for all those reasons, mr.

president, and especially reflecting my disappointment that after -- and i just walked everybody through it. one effort to go and negotiate. a couple weeks later another effort. then in july another effort. but nothing happened. in fact, i stood right where i am as benefits were about to expire, and i said how can the republican leader basically say we're going home? and when they asked him about moving anything to really meet the needs of the workers, the press reported -- everybody was quoted in the press that the republican leader halved. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. portman: mr. president? the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. wyden: mr. president, excuse me. i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard.

mr. portman: i was hoping after all that there wouldn't be an objection because i can't believe that my friend from oregon believes it's not a good idea to do an extension. all we're talking about is an extension a week of the $600, the full amount even though again all the data out there shows that amount is not practical for our economy, for workers, for businesses. and you did a valiant effort of trying to explain why you're not for that but i know that people who are watching just think it's common sense. let's continuing to discuss but let's be sure we have, as my colleague from alaska said, good-faith negotiations. it's not good faith to say $600 or nothing. that's exactly what the negotiators have ed is. i wish, to my -- have said. i wish, to my colleague from oregon they would authorize you to negotiate. i think we could work out something and i think you probably do, too. but they have not authorized it. and the democratic negotiators have said $600 or nothing. this notion that the one-week extension doesn't work, absolutely it works.

are you telling me the state unemployment offices would not provide the $600? of course they would. there would be a lapse, of course. there would be a week or two, they say. but that $600 would be in people's pockets. by the way, there's a lapse right now so people who lost their unemployment last friday in some states, including ohio continue to get it because there's a lapse in the payment. yeah, people would get the money. of course they'd get it and they would be able to plan on it and have some certainty. and, frankly, 'it hasn't been blocked last week when senator mcsally stood right over here and offered it, it would be even sooner that people would get it. i say it's one to two weeks. for some people they would be getting it right now. so it is absolutely essential for us to figure out how to find a way forward here. it's not, to me, an option for us to do nothing. we can't allow this cliff to continue. but in the meantime, all we're saying is let's just have a little time to work it out and

hopefully the democrats will get off their $600 and realize that that's not a path forward because it doesn't work. you're right, when we put the $600 in place, our thought was that would be about average. in other words, it would be the average wage replacement so that you would have half the people making a little more than half the people making a little less. that's not how it worked out. again, congressional budget office, nonpartisan c.b.o. says more than 80% of the recipients are going to make more on unemployment than their old jobs if you follow the democrat proposal. in chicago 68% but that's not what we intended. so certainly we should be able to adjust here and we should be able to get to yes. and my deep concern is that the negotiators are so intransigent on the democratic side on this that we'll end up hurting the very people that democrats are talking about helping. so let's come up with a sensible solution. i think there is a path here and

it's to negotiate in good faith. i think an executive order isn't necessary if we do our work. i think inaction by not negotiating in good faith is the worst possible outcome. i yield to my colleague from alaska. mr. sullivan: thank you, senator portman. i have a lot of respect for my colleague from oregon who unfortunately just left the senate floor. but, mr. president, there they go again, right. on the senate floor the senator from oregon just said republicans cut off unemployment insurance for millions of families. that's a quote. when in reality what we just witnessed, if you were watching, on the senate floor is that the senator from oregon objected to restoring unemployment for millions of americans. that is a fact. that's just what happened. so he says one thing. and again, i think they get a little bit careless because they think the national media will

just report what he says. but he said, i object. when he said i object, here's what he meant. i object to restoring unemployment benefits for millions of americans. that's what the senator from oregon just did. there's no ben nying that. -- no denying that. and right before he did it, he said republicans cut off unemployment for million, of americans. -- millions of americans. that's just not true. not true. he just objected to restoring unemployment benefits for a week, $600 for millions of americans just like the senator, democratic leader from new york did last week. then he said, short-term extensions are not enough. that's another quote from the senator if oregon, but he didn't

finish the sentence by saying and because i objected, they're going to get zero. so think about that one. short-term extensions are not enough, sounds good, so he objects so there is no extensions. again, that's just what happened on the floor. and, mr. president, he didn't say one thing about this issue that senator portman and i have been discussing, which is good-faith negotiations. there is not one senator in this body that believes that when the democratic leader comes to the floor of the senate and says take the $4 trillion speaker pelosi bill passed in early may or nothing, that that's good faith. it's almost by definition bad faith. so i think our colleagues who are trying to negotiate in good faith but are getting locked

down by their leadership are having a bit of a problem because they know this isn't good faith, and they know people are suffering, and that's why we have got to work together to get to an agreement. but what we cannot do, mr. president, and what i fear the other side is starting to do is use people who are suffering as leverage in negotiations. that's not what we should be doing. we should be working in good faith to try to get to an agreement, and we should be making statements on the senate floor that are actually factual. and what just happened here was that the senator from oregon objected to american citizens getting their unemployment benefits restored. that's a fact. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, before they leave the floor, i just want to compliment my colleagues from alaska and ohio on making a very important point. you would think that from the press that there are negotiations taking place, but the truth is that speaker pelosi and the minority leader in the senate, senator schumer, have shown zero interest in resolving the differences on this next covid-19 package. and i think it's just very important for my colleagues to to -- to lay out the facts

because there is a tendency not to ignore the facts in favor of a mythical or fantasy construct. and so i appreciate their statements. mr. president, i have four requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have been approved by both the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. cornyn: mr. president, hopefully sometime soon now that the enhanced unemployment benefits have been allowed to expire as a result of democratic objections and where the paycheck protection program, which is the single most self-part of the cares act legislation that we passed is likewise scheduled to terminate here soon, i hope democratic negotiators will get serious about providing a fifth corona

relief package to support our country through this unprecedented crisis. you know, we're doing pretty good. during the previous legislation, we virtually passed these trillion-dollar-plus bills, multitrillion-dollar bills essentially by unanimous vote because we knew we were in the middle of an emergency. we knew it was not a time for politics. it was a time to try to help people who were out of work or needed help from our beleaguered health care providers. so we rose to the occasion previously by bolstering our health care response, making testing free of charge, providing vital funding for our hospitals and arming our medical workers with the personal protective equipment and other medical equipment they needed in order to sustain the fight. we have poured funding into the research and development of a violent crimes, therapeutics and

treatments which are coming along, and we're all hopeful an american company will win the global race for a vaccine in addition to these pair -- these therapeutics. the legislation we have passed so far has given families in need of financial assistance direct payments, bolstered unemployment benefits, as well as conferred the ability to defer student loan payments with no penalty. we have supported the would-bely economy for main street businesses through the paycheck protection program that i mentioned a moment ago and other loans for industries at our state and counties -- that our state and counties rely on, as well as countless jobs. while republicans and democrats were negotiating these bills in good faith, it was clear we had some different ideas about the best way to support our country through the crisis, but what mattered most is that we shared

the same goal. at least we did then. i'm beginning to doubt whether we share the same goal now. the goal then was to help people in distress economically and from a public health standpoint. now it seems like speaker pelosi and the minority leader in the senate are more interested in trying to score political points. and use people who are in distress and anxious and fearful, to use them as a hostage. well, it's really, really unacceptable. we should be strengthening our fight against the fire and supporting those harmed by economic impact and lay the foundation for a rebound of our economy, which was one of the strongest in my lifetime right before this pandemic hit. those remain my priorities today as we navigate these uncharted waters and prepare to strengthen

our fight at this crucial time, but the hangup in negotiations between democrats and the administration seems to indicate that our democrat colleagues have shifted course, or at least that speaker pelosi and minority leader schumer have. the majority of information we're learning about these negotiations is not coming from rank-and-file members but from links and press conferences to the media about private meetings in speaker pelosi's office. from what i understand, it sounds like the speaker and the minority leader have simply stiff-armed any offers that fall short of their ridiculous heroes act legislation, that the speaker and the house passed on a partisan basis a few weeks ago that they knew at the time had no chance of becoming law. this legislation was heralded by speaker pelosi and minority leader schumer as the solution our country needs to defeat this

virus, so let's talk about what's in it. for starters, the so-called heroes act is a massive tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. that the -- if the heroes act became law, the wealthiest people in new york and san francisco would receive an average benefit of nearly $60,000. $60,000. higher than the household income for many texans. well, this has nothing to do with covid-19. or supporting those who are struggling to make ends meet. it's a handout to the people who need it least. at everyone else's expense. but there is -- that's only one line in the long list of absurdities in this legislation, the heroes act, that have absolutely nothing to do with the crisis at hand. once the speaker's priority -- what's the speaker's priority when it comes to covid-19?

well, it's a soil health program, environmental justice grants, permanent changes in election law, and not one but two diversity studies in the marijuana industry. "politico" called this bill at the time a democratic wish list filled with all the parties' favorite policies. npr, hardly a bastion of conservative communication, said it is a long wish list for democrats. "the new york times." "the new yorkthe -- "the new yo" basically a party organ for the democrats, said the bill was more a messaging document than a viable piece of legislation. the reason they said that is because one-third of that bill is unrelated to the coronavirus. it paid people more to stay home than to work. it sent checks to illegal immigrants.

it bailed out poorly run states. it facilitated ballot harvesting, marijuana banking, and as i said tax breaks for coastal elites. that stands in stark contrast to what we have proposed and what leader mcconnell aptly summed up as kids, jobs, and health care. those ought to be our priorities. as we discover our new normal that exists somewhere between the virus arriving in the u.s. and a vaccine being distributed, that is where we need to target our attention and our support. that includes funding for educators that are in the process of planning the safest way to teach students in the fall, and child care for working parents who are heading back to the office. it includes helping workers who had the rug pulled out from

under them when our democratic colleagues refused to continue bolstered unemployment benefits until they could get -- until these workers can get back to a steady paycheck. our bill included continued support for our war against the virus itself, both in hospitals and research labs. these have been the main concerns in my recent conversations with my constituents in texas, especially now that the bolstered unemployment benefits provided by the cares act has expired. since march, more than three million texans have filed for unemployment benefits, and recipients have taken advantage of the additional $600 a week. this additional income has helped families cover the rent, groceries, and other critical expenses until they are able to return to work. and for many workers, there is still a great deal of uncertainty about when that might happen. well, it's clear, though, that

that $600 additional benefit had some unintended consequences. frankly, we should have capped the amount somebody could receive for unemployment benefits at their previous earning level. but according to the texas workforce commission, with the $600 weekly benefit on top of the state benefit, 80% of the people receiving the unemployment insurance benefit were making more on unemployment insurance than they were previously employed. 80%. that brings us to a point far beyond giving workers the financial support they need to stay afloat. instead, the federal government is paying people not to work. that's the wrong incentive and certainly completely unnecessary. payroll, wage substitution, yes. paying people not to work, no. a recent poll found that

two-thirds of americans believe that these enhanced benefits discourage people from going back to work, and they're right. among unemployed americans, nearly half said they would avoid returning to work if these benefits were extended. the businesses in my state that closed their doors earlier this year have now had trouble hiring employees back because some of these, 80% of those former employees are making more not working than they were working. if we were to extend that benefit through january, as the heroes act would, our economy would not recover as we all need it to do. so there is a delicate balance, but it's an important balance between supporting those who need help until they can return to the workforce and giving them an incentive to avoid returning to work. this is not an all-or-nothing

approach. it's not $600 or bust, even though that's the way speaker pelosi and minority leader schumer like to put it. we can and we should begin continue to supplement state unemployment benefits and give workers the income they need to support their families without paying people more to stay home than to work. it's not rocket science. mr. president, we're all anxiously awaiting for the speaker and the minority leader to wake up and start focusing on the task at hand, which is on commonsense policies that support our country through this crisis. texans don't have time to wait for the posturing and the politicking and the grandstanding, not to mention the heel dragging. they don't have an interest in knowing how diverse the marijuana business is, and they don't want to provide a massive tax break to the richest

americans on the east and west coast at the expense of everyone else. my constituents want to be able to feed their families. they want to be able to work. they want to be able to pay their rent. and they want to know their kids will be healthy as the school year begins. so, mr. president, i implore our colleagues, speaker pelosi and minority leader schumer to drop the games, quit hurting people you claim to champion, and pay attention to what america really needs. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. sullivan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i want to thank my good friend and colleague from texas on laying out the choice before us and

highlighting again this issue of good faith negotiations, which we're -- hopefully we're starting to see but last week we didn't see, and you talked about the so-called heroes act passed in may. so quite stale. i will say one other element of that that was shocking and has been shocking to me is a whole section on clawing back cares act money that went to alaska natives. with the heroes act, the pelosi to $4 trillion billion has a section that targets expressly about 20% of the population of my state, and my state only. by the way, amazing patriotic people who have been through pandemics before and have suffered horrendously through these pandemics.

and the heroes act targets them and says any money that native alaskan organizations have received -- by the way, organizations regional and village corporations set up by congress -- any money that they've received will be clawed back in the heroes ability. so, of course, i'm never going to let that bill pass -- ever. on this floor. it's an outrage. so they need to get more serious about these negotiations and take it or leave it on the $4 trillion pelosi bill that specifically targets some of those patriotic americans in the country, who happen to be my constituents, alaska natives, is never going to lay it. never. -- is never going to fly. never. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that my following remarks exist in a separate

place in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: mr. president, it's thursday, and it's a time that i get to come to the senate floor and recognize an alaskan who has made a difference in my state, and in this case someone who has made a difference literally around the globe. and this is someone i refer to as the alaskan of the week. and i love to do it. i know some of our reporters listening enjoy this. kristin, i know you love bears, so this week you'll be particularly interested. but before i get into the bears and the story and the individual

we're going to honor today, let me tale you a little bit about what's happening in alaska. like other places in our great nation, our state is certainly facing challenges. like the rest of america, one foot in our economic recovery, one foot still in this pandemic. and it's a challenging time, but alaskans are tough. certainly some of the toughest people in america. and as i say, tough times don't last, but tough people do. and we will get through this as a state, as a nation, and i think that certainly applies to alaska. but it's summer. the sun is high. the salmon are stunning thick. the bears are digging them out of the streams. a word to the wise -- when you have salmon, you most always have bears, so be careful. in alaska, we love our bears and so does our alaskan of the week,

julia bevin, who recently moved from anchorage to the gorgeous home of homar. for those of you who have been there, you no he what i'm talking b for those of you who haven't, you got to get out to homar. the halibut capital of the world, a magnificently beautiful place. breathtaking. there's no other place in the world like it. and it's from homar now that julia keeps running the international bear conversation fund which is part of the international association of bear research and management or the i.b.a. that she and her late husband, wildlife biologist john bevin founded. so why the foundation? why the bears? mr. president, let me tell you about a tragic and beautiful

story relating to julia and her late husband john. julia was born this new mexico and raised in australia. she came to alaska to get a ph.d. at the university of alaska-fairbanks. her focus was on reindeer herd health and disease control. she met john in 1985 and the the two were married in fairbanks in july 1990. they were both in love with alaska and with each other. it was the love of a lifetime, julia said. indeed, it was a great match. she was a veterinarian focusing on reindeer. he was a wildlife biologist for the u.s. fish and wildlife service working on polar bear research. the best wildlife biologist job you could ever have. then, mr. president,

unfortunately tragedy struck. three months after they were married on october 11, john and his colleague, george menkins, understand their pilot, clifford menyh got into an airplane at dead horse. they were headed north to do a low-altitude aerial survey of female bears with cubs who prowl the ice hunting for food. they were believed to have traveled as far as 250 miles northwest of barrow now known as utia vick, the northernmost paint in north america. that's where people believe that the plane they were traveling on vanished. no one really knows where. the search at least extensively in the -- was extensive in the first few days. members of the u.s. coast guard through c-130's as well as

civilian and their aircraft spanned the area looking for any signs of the aircraft. after a week, they decided that the search was over. julia was desperate. she knew that her late husband and the two others had two weeks of provisions and adequate survival gear. what if they had survived? what if they were on an ice flow? what if they were still out there and the searches just happened to -- and the searchers just happened to miss them in that huge expanse? this idea was overwhelming to her, so she called everyone she knew to help in keeping the search going. and eventually, like so many alaskans did, she called the late, great senator ted stevens, who, as he was known to do, got to work for his fellow alaskans. he did an amazing thing, julia

said. quote, he arranged for the canadians to send a military radar plane that could detect metal above sea ice. anything bigger than a four-foot square. the plane could cover an area the size of manitoba in one night. so they did it. and it was that search that finally gave julia peace of mind. she said, quote, after the military plane came and left, i felt like we had done everything we could have possibly done to find my husband. i knew that my husband was gone and there was a peace of mind going forward. senator ted stevens gave me a life, she said. he gave me a life free from self-recrimination and free of doubt. she also credits senator stevens

for giving her enough peace to work to honor her husband's memory in a way that was unique to him. she took the proceeds that she received from the insurance and she began the bear foundation. it started off small in 1993. the first year it was up in and running, the foundation gave away $5 now in grant money. then money, which was invested well, began to grow and so did the amount of the grants awarded. one year the foundation was able to give out $50,000 in grant money. the average size of grants is now $8,000. all told, they're able to give about $100,000 a year, including donations that they get from individuals and organizations. but, mr. president, it's not just about the money. that has grown. so has the prestige of this foundation. the i.b.a. now has 550 members

from over 60 countries. because of julia bevin in homer, alaska, all across the globe, researchers are working with other biologists. they're tracking bears, assisting in management of these great animals. they're writing papers and sharing information. they're doing what they love for for the ecosystem. julia said, quote, when people love bears, they love them with their whole heart and soul. it's a very profound thing. julia talked about how the i.b.a. funded a researcher to search for a rumored small brown bear, the gobi bear in montana goal, why the only bear to exist in this extreme desert habitat. there had been sightings throughout the year, but no scientist had ever been able to prove its existence.

the i.b.a. funded a scientist, an alaskan from fairbanks, to travel to mongolia and find the gobi bear, and he found him. now the mongolian government is committed to its protection. scientists funded by the i.b.a. have, woulded with other scientists in -- worked with other scientists in iran to not only document bears but to find 16 new wildlife species. and from the border between india and pakistan to the forests of colombia, bear researchers helped with i.b.a. money are working with other citizens and scientists, forming true alliances to help save bears. science ties the world together, julia says. when you have a collective of like-minded people working for a common goal, all things are possible. mr. president, when you have someone with a mission like julia bevin, all things are

possible, too. so thank you to julia for your commitment to this great cause, for your work in helping keep john's memory alive, and for your awe macing work on -- and for your amazing work on bears in alaska and the world. and congratulations an being our alaskan of the week. i yield the floor. ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you, mr. president. well, it's thursday afternoon, and it just looks like any other thursday afternoon. there's no sense of urgency, the leader, senator mcconnell, has sent folks on their way for the weekend, and no agreement on the covid-19 survival package, which is what it real lay is for so many families.

we are in a situation where it's another week of not focusing on how we get unemployment extension passed or how we deal with hungry families or make sure people can have a roof over their head or support our small businesses or our small family farms or our first responders on the front lines and others in cities and towns and in states that are providing public services essential to us, people who are in jobs that may lose their jobs if we can't get them the support they need. so that's not happening. no, there's a few nominations -- a couple, a couple nominations, judges. let's put a few more ideologically extreme right-wing extreme judges on the bench. no sense of urgency. we're here on a thursday as if it was just regular business.

you know, over two months ago, senator mcconnell said he felt no sense of urgency to act on what the house passed. no sense of urgency at all. two and a half months ago the house of representatives passed a critical survival package to continue to tackle the pandemic testing, support our hospitals and nurses and doctors and communities on the front line trying to maintain, manage, and keep us safe, save lives. and senator mcconnell said he felt no sense of urgency. well, he certainly has demonstrated no sense of urgency since that time, not even being in the negotiations that are going on right now. this isn't a regular thursday for folks in michigan. no, this isn't a regular

thursday, ho-hum, let's just go home for the weekend or longer. we have 1.8 million people on unemployment benefits. we don't, by the way, have 1.8 million jobs right now that they could get. these aren't folks that just don't want to work. the jobs aren't there because of what has happened with the pandemic and the necessary closures and the challenges going on for businesses large and small. and we certainly want to support them to safely be able to reopen. but we have 1.8 million people that this week, this friday as opposed to last friday, this friday, tomorrow when they get help through unemployment, it's going to be about a 60% cut. 6-0. not 6. 60% cut. their rent didn't go 60%. their food didn't go 60%.

their utility bills didn't go 60%. the other things that they need to take care of their families didn't go 60%. but their income is going down 60% because there is no sense of urgency in this senate. the republican majority sees no sense of urgency. just another thursday afternoon. no sense of urgency to help people that are trying to figure out right now because everything collapsed when the pandemic hit and their business closed or the other challenges that they have took over where they're not able to work right now. what are they going to do? it is not just another thursday afternoon for them. it's not just another thursday

afternoon for the single mom of two kids in michigan right now who frankly could very well be deciding whether or not she eats tonight because it's so important the children eat. and she can't do both. so she'll go hungry one more time so the kids can eat. we have a hunger emergency in this country right now. it is not just another thursday for folks, although they have spent too many thursdays feeling hungry. it's not just another thursday for the person who is probably right now in their car, maybe they've been there two or three, four hours waiting in the food bank line to get some groceries to take home. and they used to donate to the food bank. now they're in a situation where they have to go to the food bank.

never thought in their wildest dreams that would ever happen. and yet it has. they feel a sense of urgency, not just another thursday afternoon in the united states senate. for them they feel a sense of urgency for today and tomorrow and saturday and sunday and monday and on into and however long it's going to take to be able to bring our colleagues together. you know, i find it -- you know, it would be -- it would be humorous if it just wasn't so outrageous to hear colleagues talk about how we need to get something done when the house of representatives passed a bill two and a half months ago, heroes act, came over here. it's just been gathering dust on senator mcconnell's desk. we know that negotiation takes time. we know that you always have to

compromise. and that should have started two months ago or a month ago, not after somebody is losing 60% of their income trying to hold it together for their family. by the way, we tell people go home, shelter at home. so your rental protections go away. your mortgage protections go away. we put more people on the street. that makes a lot of sense in the middle of a health pandemic when we want people to stay at home. i mean, every move that has happened in this u.s. senate since the house acted has been too little too late. and it's causing more and more devastating consequences as a result of that. i'll tell you who doesn't think it's another thursday, just normal thursday afternoon.

it's 85-year-old retirees who i know are trying to figure out how to get their medicine versus their groceries, and by the way, they haven't been able to be out of their house in over four months, trying to stay connected with their families but terrified of what's happening. will this be the rest of their life? what's happening right now? they certainly feel a sense of urgency for us to act. you know, the month and dads who want the kids to go -- moms and dads who want the kids to go back to school safely who are trying to figure out, who are saying come orks this cntsz -- come on, this cannot be my child's education versus their safety. it's got to be both. that is not exactly rocket science. it's got to be both. i'm excited about the tigers playing now and the baseball league.

i'm excited about the nfl. but if those guys can get tested every day, why can't our teachers? where are the priorities here? do they feel a sense of urgency? i can tell you that my son and daughter and their families and my grandkids feel incredible sense of urgency. they want to go back to school to see their friends. they want to do it safely. they know it has to be safe. it's not either/or. they feel a sense of urgency. they would love that this would not be just another thursday afternoon when we end the week and everybody goes home. it's not that for them as they're trying to figure out where they go for child care or for their school. it certainly isn't just another regular day for the teachers trying to figure out what to do who went into teaching because

they love children, they want to teach. they also know that they may have their own preexisting conditions. they also have their own children at home. they have to think about their own exposure and how can they be teaching which they want to do, but it has to be done safely because of all the other issues in their lives as well. when i think about the small business owner and we have so many in michigan, we have the most incredible entrepreneurs in michigan in every small town as well as big cities. and there are people that have poured their hearts and souls and capital and second mortgage on the house and maxed out the credit cards to have that small business that they always wanted. they're certainly not happy that it's just another thursday afternoon ending the week in the united states senate. they're desperate to know how to keep their doors open and the

three employees on the payroll. we've done some good work in a bipartisan way on that, which needs to continue. but that small business person, the people i talk to in michigan feel an incredible sense of urgency. and when i'm talking to our family farmers who work night and day battling the weather and low prices and chaotic trade policies and i talked to someone raising livestock who can't find a processor that they need right now to turn their food -- into food for hungry families. they certainly feel a tremendous sense of urgency. so the reality is that there are millions of people across this country who don't understand what is not happening here, why there is no sense of urgency, why there hasn't been a

willingness to come together, why didn't it happen two and a half months ago, what is going on, and why don't -- why don't too many people appear that they don't care. this is the united states of america. we be one of the wealthiest nations in the world. we invented the assembly line. we put our footprints on the moon. we are seeing what is happening today. we should never have gotten to this point right now where people are losing 60% of their income on unemployment benefit, are hungry trying to feed their kids, worried about losing the roof over their head or their small business or the family farm. we should never have gotten to this point. but here we are. it's been more than 80 days since the house passed the heroes act, more than 80 days. and since that time our essential workers who deserve hazard pay have been waiting.

those providing public services in our cities and towns and states have been waiting for the support they need so they don't lose their job and we don't lose those public services. our businesses, our schools, our farmers all have been waiting, waiting, waiting. and the reality is because it's just another thursday, right? just another thursday afternoon in the united states senate. senator mcconnell has made it very clear that they're just going to have to wait some more. we should be right now voting on an important survival package for people in our country. we should be investing whatever it takes to manage and get our

arms around this virus, do the testing, provide the health care, remain laser focused on getting vaccines. and people should have confidence that everything humanly possible is being done and that there is a sense of urgency here. i feel the sense of urgency. my democratic colleagues feel the sense of urgency. we do not see through the actions on this floor that the senate republican majority feels the sense of urgency that every single person in michigan feels right now. we need to take action. people are tired of waiting. they can't afford to wait any longer. this is about their lives and their livelihoods. people need help. the united states congress working with the president needs

to provide that help, and there's no excuse not to act. thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: mr. president, here we are, another thursday afternoon in the united states senate. it's pretty quiet around here. it's amazing how quickly this place gets quiet when the senate majority leader, the republican leader, senator mcconnell tells people we don't have any more work to do today. and by the way, we don't have any more work to do tomorrow,

friday. and by the way, don't worry about saturday or sunday. monday, you know, i'll be here, says the majority leader but the senate doesn't need to be in doing its work and maybe not tuesday or wednesday either. i want to thank the senator from michigan, senator stabenow, for being down here standing up for working men and women and families and small businesses because for them it's not business as usual. it's not business as usual for all the folks who are out of work, 30 million americans are on unemployment insurance. but here in the united states senate, senate majority leader, business as usual. take a day off. take the weekend off. and be on standby next week. maybe we'll start doing something real. well, i can tell you the coronavirus is not on standby.

the coronavirus is not taking a day off or two days off. it's continuing to spread in many parts of the country. we don't have enough testing equipment. we're not able to test people quickly. it takes people days and days and days, in some cases weeks to get their results. we hear the president of the united states saying he wants to open up the economy, open up schools. we all want to open up the economy. we all want our children back in school. classrooms are the best place for learning. but you know what? you can't just wish for that to happen, just like you can't just wish for the coronavirus to go away, and that makes it go away. you need to do real work. you need the testing equipment so that we can test people in real time, make sure that we prevent further outbreaks. we don't want fires to turn into

bonfires that turn into brush fires that turn into prairie fires. you need to catch the virus and contain it. you can't do that if you don't have testing equipment. so, mr. president, the virus is not taking a day off or two or three or a week, and we shouldn't either. this senate needs to do its job. we're in the middle of a pandemic. this is not a normal august. this should not be business as usual. and as senator stabenow said, we should not be here at this moment with important protections having already expired. this senate sat by, did nothing while the protections against evictions expired. the eviction moratorium that was protecting millions of

americans, gone. the extra $600 a week in unemployment, gone. and here we are. the majority leader, take friday off. take saturday off. business as usual. well, that's a difficult thing to tell families and workers and small businesses around the country, and it cannot be business as usual. now, the house of representatives passed the heroes act more than two and a half months ago. two and a half months ago. they realized that after we passed the cares act in a bipartisan way, important protections were going to expire, and they acted. they made sure they passed legislation to extend the

enhanced unemployment $600 a week. they passed legislation to extend the eviction moratorium. they provided additional food assistance for our kids. they provided important funds for rental assistance, which not only helps tenants stay in their apartments and homes, it provides the payments to the landlords so the landlords can make the payments to the people they owe money to. and on up the economic food chain. they did all that. and what did the senate do for two and a half months? nothing. nothing. it's like a train is headed right for you, and you stand in the middle of the tracks until it hits you, when any commonsense person would do what the house of representatives did, which was to take action to make sure that we didn't cross

these deadlines and cause unnecessary harm to millions of american families, workers, and small businesses. but that's what the senate has done. and now even after we're into those deadlines, we've crossed those deadlines, what does the majority leader, the republican leader here say? take tomorrow off. take the weekend off. take monday off. in fact, the senate may not come in for a while. it will come in, but no voting. no real business. let me tell you, mr. president, what i am hearing from my constituents, because i know it's not different from what other members are hearing from theirs. here is a letter i received from

a single mom. i live with my 15-year-old son as a single mother. i'm asking for your help in voting to extend the $600 federal unemployment benefits. i understand a lot of politicians do not want this extended due to the thought that the benefit is too great and will prevent marylanders from wanting to return back to work, in that they may make more money from staying at home off the state government this way. now, we all know if your job calls you back during this time and you choose not to return, your benefits are going to be cut off anyway. as for me, i am losing thousands of dollars each month being out of work and am barely scraping by as it is now with the extra $600. i desperately want to return. that's in all caps. want to return to work and make

my regular salary, which is more. i am very thankful for the extra $600 a week and have no idea how i would have survived without it during this time. i have zero other means to any money or credit. i have been able to pay my rent, feed my son and i, and pay some bills. i have deferred my car payment until august and am behind on car insurance. i am desperately asking for your help and the help of the government to extend this other -- this extra $600 a week benefit for a little while longer. not to sound ungrateful, but an extra $100 or $200 per week is just not enough to help pay rent and other bills. cutting this benefit will cause

such economic hardship and devastation to so many americans. this is a single mother, 15-year-old son, pleading with the united states senate to do its job. and what does the majority leader say? to senators? take tomorrow off. take saturday off. take sunday off. take monday off. mr. president, i want to read another letter i received on this subject. here's what my constituents said. i am e-mailing in hopes of asking for your support to extend the $600 federal assistance in additional unemployment. while i realize the country has to spend more and more during this pandemic, many of us are learning -- are leaning on our temporary layoffs -- are learning that our temporary

layoffs are now permanent. i received the call yesterday, and our industries are still completely shut down. i have always worked in the hotel industry and have no further education or experience than that. the hospitality industry is the hardest hit during this pandemic. while i search multiple times a day for jobs, they simply are not open because the industry is not yet recovered. in fact, our industry is downsizing immensely. i'm a single mother to one 5-year-old boy who will start kindergarten in the fall. we do not receive any financial assistance through the state, such as housing assistance nor child support. maryland unemployment of $430 per week will not even cover the rent costs, and we will quickly be evicted with no options for housing. i am not looking to make more

money than i was at my job. that's not possible. i grossed $75,000 in 2019. but i am looking to be able to pay my rent and bills and part-time child care because it is in the best interests of my son to have social interaction and education during the pandemic, even if i'm not working. please, i beg you, please support the extension of $600 per-week benefits. now, mr. president, i've heard a lot of senators on this floor over weeks and months talk about how we just cannot extend $600 a week. and yet, we hear from these moms and parents pleading for that help so that they can simply pay their bills and get by, and even with that, they're not able to pay all of their bills. and the republican leader says

to the united states senate take a day off. take two days off. and next week, i'll be in, says the majority leader, but i don't need for the senate to be in doing its work. mr. president, what are we all here for? we should be here 24/7 working around the clock together resolving these issues. we have a lot of multi, multi, multimillionaires in this united states senate, and it's really rich for all of us to be telling families out there that the extra $600 per week is not -- is too much. that's just too much. these are individuals that want to go back to work. i just read you a letter from someone who works in the hospitality industry. that's their experience. that's what they know.

i don't know if our republican colleagues have checked recently, but the unemployment rate is around 15%. 15%. there are a lot of people out there looking for work who can't find it. they can't find it because we're in the middle of a pandemic, and that has caused a lot of small businesses and others to shut down in order to make sure that we stop the spread of the virus. so these are people who want to get back to work. they want nothing better than that. they want their children back in school, all of us do. and yet, we have a failed, botched federal response starting with the white house. starting with the president who has made this a political issue when it's got to be a health issue. he has made the problem a lot worse, and we all know it. we all know that this pandemic

is lasting longer in the united states, and it's killed more people in the united states because of a totally failed response right from the top. and we should not be complicit in that. we should do our job. you know, i'm -- i'm seeing that the majority leader, the republican leader, what is he saying? he's not even part of the negotiations. right? he says -- and, you know, i'm in my republican caucus lunches, and reportedly only half of the republican senators want to do anything. i don't know if that's true or not, but that's what republican senators are saying on national television. that's what we're hearing from the republican caucus. so if that's not true, it would be great to hear every republican senator come down to the floor and talk about what they are willing to do, not what

they are not willing to do. because -- because there are not the votes there, the majority leader has contracted out his negotiation authority to the white house, and he's told the senate to go home. so let's just start doing our job here in the united states senate. nobody should be contracting out their job and their vote and their negotiating authority to the white house. it's the united states senate. i don't know what people ran for if they just want to say oh, i can't deal with this because my caucus doesn't support any response. go talk to the white house. and in the meantime, the senate, take friday off, take saturday off, take sunday off, and maybe take monday, tuesday, and wednesday off, too. that's a hell of a message to send to the american people in the middle of a pandemic where

so many people are hurting. so i will end with this, mr. president. the majority leader today, instead of coming down to the floor and telling everybody to go away, we should stay here. we should stay here and we should do our job, and doing our job means coming together with the next round of emergency legislation to slow down and then stop the spread of the virus and help the millions of americans who are in tremendous economic pain right now. this is not business as usual. the senate needs to do its job. let's stay here and get it done. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. coons: mr. president, i rise to join my colleagues this afternoon in asking is this just another thursday? is this just another afternoon

in a week, in an average year, in an average august, when it's fine for all of us to simply head to our other commitments and concerns? and you know, sometimes, mr. president, here in washington, it's awfully easy to feel and be disconnected, disconnected from the daily concerns, from the grinding anxiety, from the pressing issues that make the lives of the folks we represent so different. i want to start by reminding us of something, a senator, a senator from minnesota once said in the 1970's, it was hubert humphrey. he said the moral character of a society can best be gauged by how they treat those at the dawn of life, its children, those in the shadows of life, the disabled, the disadvantaged, and those in the twilight of life, senior citizens. well, if that were the measure of this place and this day and

this time, then we are failing. i think every person here, every person listening or watching knows we are in the midst of three crises at the same time, a global pandemic, the covid-19 pandemic in which a highly transmissive disease has spread rapidly across the world. many other nations have gotten ahead of it, have managed it, have stabilized it, but here in the united states we have failed to get our arms around it, to stop it, and to deliver the coordinated resources and supplies needed to give some confidence, some positive direction in our public health infrastructure and our schools, in our senior skilled nursing centers, in our communities. it has gotten away from us. more than 150 million americans have died so far and states that thought they had it well under control are seeing it reemerge and states early on that saw no impact are seeing record deaths

and infections. and coming right on the heels of it, a recession, a recession deep and sharp in the last quarter in near -- a nearly 40% drop in our g.d.p., the sharpest drop since we began recording it. third, a renewed focus on inequality in our country. we have seen because of this pandemic and recession and because of the brutal killing of george floyd a reminder of the ways in which we are unequal in our access to health care, our access to opportunity, our access to housing. so that's the environment that we are in. several months ago, mr. president, we all came to this floor and unanimously voted, unanimously in this bitter and divided time, we unanimously voted to deliver $2.3 trillion in assistance and support that sent checks to individual americans and families, that sent checks to those who are newly unemployed, who sent

support for small businesses at risk of going under, that sent support to state and local governments, that sent support to hospitals. it was the single largest spending bill since the second world war. and some reminder of just the seriousness, the gravity, and the scale of this challenge. and two months later the house of representatives took up and passed the here's rose -- heroes act, another $3 trillion to provide support across many of those same areas. and for weeks this body, the majority, failed to act to propose an alternative, to take it up and examine it, to put something back on the table. it was just this monday, the 27th of july that we got to see the answer. and that answer fails to meet this moment. i'm from a small state, state of delaware, state below a million

people. and our department of labor since march has received over 130,000 claims for unemployment. in a state of less than a million, more than one in ten delawareans have filed for unemployment assistance. we have had huge challenges delivering all over our country the assistance we voted on months ago out of that 137 -- excuse me -- out of that 130,000, 27,000 of them are still waiting to get their unemployment checks. my office and other offices in our delegation are helping hundred also of individuals and families who have called, who have e-mailed, who texted, who reached out for help. and yet this body through inaction allowed the additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance that has sustained so many families to expire because we can't work out a simple agreement on how severe this moment it, on how deep the need

it, and on what the right path forward it. when i talk to my governor, my mayor, my county executive in my home state, my city, my county, one of their biggest needs is additional support for state and local governments. there is robust support in the heroes act sent over by the house. $875 billion. that's a lot of money. there is nothing in the heals act presented this monday. and why? so far 1.5 million public employees, public servant, state, county, local employees have been laid off. some folks i hear on television talking about the speak as if they are faceless bureaucrats in gray buildings. but they're teachers, they're paramedics. they're nurses and county hospitals. they're the folks who administer these unemployment claims. they are the folks who help support small businesses. they are the folks who help make sure that our water is drinkable, that our parks are --

our libraries are functional and our schools can open safely. this moment is the tale of two worlds, a world in the house of representatives that says we are in a crisis and an emergency. and when the american people see a challenge this big, this deep, they often look to our federal government for the resources that will make it possible for their state, for their county, for their community, for their hospital, for their school to get through it. and here there's been a resounding silence for weeks. i hear week in and week out from parents, from teachers, from paraprofessionals anxious. how are our schools going to reopen? what's the plan? where are the resources? what are the details? how do we get testing? how do we get personal equipment, personal protective equipment? even now there's conversations urgently going on in my home state about how and when and where we'll be able to reopen.

when it comes to child care, millions of americans are unable to return to work because there isn't support for child care. and when it comes to small businesses, thousands have closed their doors. thousands more are at risk. we will not get through this unless we can pull together and deliver a sustained and meaningful response. so to my colleagues and friends, i don't know where the rest of our colleagues are. i don't know what they're hearing. but i know what i'm hearing from my constituents in delaware. the way they make sure, mr. president, that we don't get disconnected from our home when we're here in washington, boy they text, they e-mail, they call, they post on social media. some even still write good old fashion letters. and the thousands of letters and e-mails and comments that i got

in the first few weeks of this pandemic and recession, motivated me, motivated this entire body to vote unanimously on the cares act, one of the biggest moments of federal assistance in our nation's history. so what's going on now? why the lack of focus? why the sense this is just another thursday afternoon. well let me read to you for a few minutes from a few of the folks who reached out to me from my home state. christine in wilmington. lost her job. now months ago she is a single mother. she's raising a 12-year-old son. she got just one unemployment insurance check. she has been barely hanging on and ultimately had to sell her car to buy groceries. she sent me a message, painful in its focus on the urgency of

there being an additional $600 in federal aid. she has no job prospects in sight. the $1,200 stimulus check that came from the cares act months ago and that one unemployment insurance check so far has been critical to keeping food on the table and the lights on and a roof over their head for her son. she's just one of millions of americans right now, right now wondering what it's going to take to get this body to put down the tools of partisanship and work together. some folks say well, why don't you just go back to work? study from the department of labor says for every four unemployed americans, there's only one job that is even post posted. and there's others that cannot work because of their family circumstances. a husband and wife from millsboro who are senior

citizens reached out to me. the wife wants to go back to work. she has an opportunity to go back to work. but her husband has a serious chronic condition, a lung disease. and she is terrified of going back to work, catching covid, and infecting her husband in a way that would lead to his death. they've also relied on this additional unemployment, the $600 a week which if it runs out, they will have to make very hard choices. she wants to work but she wants to protect her husband. a friend of mine jeff runs a small candy store on rehoboth beach. this time of year it would normally be just humming with clients and customers, folks stopping in for schneider's candy, a great small business. business is down 50%. he applied for and he got one of those p.p.p. loans in the cares act, but he received just $9,000, far too little to keep

everyone on his payroll to stay fully open. and he is waiting, waiting to see if we will work together to come up with a compromise with a next step, with a next round of loans. another person, a woman sherry who runs a day care in wilmington. small day care in her own home. has six families whose children she cares for. even if she's able to reopen, fully and safely, she's heard from those six families. only two of them are coming back. so she's going to have to close her business which means she loses her wages and the families lose child care. she has seen firsthand that parents can't go back to work if they don't have child care. there's funding for child care in the house bill. so far none in the senate bill. and robert, a man from newark, delaware, works in the entertainment industry, one of the areas hardest hit is the small stage, the enter statement -- entertainment venues that are

so vital to our culture. he's on unemployment. robert's mess a j to -- message to me, quote, when the stimulus runs out, where do i turn? do i have my vehicle repossessed? do i not pay for food or do i not pay my mortgage? i have no prospects of being reemployed. i've worked my entire life, and i'm ready to get back to it as soon as there's a direction we can follow. my unemployment is not my choice, robert said. it is an unfortunate byproduct of not taking this virus seriously enough from the beginning of the pandemic. the publisher of a storied local newspaper in sussex county shared with me a story that once their p.p.p. funds were exhausted, they had to lay off 20% of their full time staff, half of their contract employees, and he said, quote, the uncertainty in regard to the economic condition over the next few months weighs heavily over

all of us here at the cape gazette and our industry as a whole. the loss of local news will be devastating to our community and across the country. mr. president, i can see that i've got colleagues eager to join me in these remarks on the floor. so let me bring this to a close. one of the moments this became most real for me was when the delaware food bank partnered with the delaware national guard to provide supplemental food for delawareans. i was out at the mall just off of i-95. a huge parking lot. the mall of course closed. this was early on in the pandemic. we thought we'd see dozens, maybe a hundred households line up in their cars to get some extra food, much of it from federal sources. the line went all the way around the mall. hundreds and hundreds of delawareans, people who later commented either on radio or letters to the editor that they

never thought they'd be in a food line. not since the great depression have the food banks of this nation seen lines as long and made up of as diverse a background in groups asking for, eager for, willing to accept, hoping for support for them and their families. this year alone 50,000 delawareans have turned to our food bank so that they can put food on the table for their families. i don't know what my colleagues are reading, what e-mails they're getting, what calls they're answering, what texts or posts on social media are moving them, but i know that the delawareans have reached out to me have shared with me the pain of 150,000 americans who died, have shared with me the anxiety and concern about how schools and businesses will reopen, and have asked when will we do our

job. work across the aisle, find responsible compromise, and support our nation in this moment of crisis. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. ms. hassan: thank you, mr. president. since the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, it has been clear that we would need a sustained response to mitigate the damaging health and economic impacts facing the american people. and when republicans and democrats came together to pass the cares act in march, i, along with my democratic colleagues, made clear that we would need to stand ready to provide additional robust support as the situation demanded.

and this afternoon, we have been hearing from our colleagues -- i thank senator stabenow for gathering us here. i thank senator coons for the way he just illustrated in such personal, direct terms about the way this pandemic and all of the very rippled effects are impacting his constituents, as they are impacting my constituents and the constituents of every single member of this united states senate. unfortunately, the trump administration and washington republicans have not met the challenges facing the american people today with any sense of urgency, and the costs of that inaction have been seen all across the country. but today, senate majority leader mcconnell decided to act as if this was just any

other thursday. just any other thursday for the republicans in the united states senate. well, it is not just any other thursday for our constituents. mr. president, back in may, house democrats passed a substantial relief bill called the heroes act. but for months, republicans refused to even acknowledge the necessity of providing more relief. in the three months since the house acted, the pain that our citizens are experiencing has only grown. cases have skyrocketed. the united states of america is approaching 160,000 americans killed by this virus.

small businesses have shuttered. and millions of people have lost their jobs. meanwhile, president trump continues to down play the significant toll that this virus has taken. earlier this week, he said of the covid-19 death toll, quote, it is what it is. just yesterday he again claimed that the virus would simply go away. not recognizing the gravity of this threat has significantly harmed americans and america. and while congress can't undo the damage that has been done, i am urging my colleagues to come together on a response that will lead us forward.

mr. president, thought this week, i have joined with my colleagues to come to the floor and to lay out some of the priorities that we are focused on and to share what we are hearing from people all across our state. the costs of inaction grows every single day. millions of americans lost enhanced unemployment benefits, and with it the ability to feed their families and pay their rent. people who lose their homes now to evictions -- and by the way, their landlords will feel the ripple effect when they can't pay their rent. their grocers will feel the ripple effect when they can't buy groceries. the economic pain will spread and spread and spread. lack of supplies and testing

capacity, a national disgrace months into this pandemic. it is hindering the ability to slow the spread of the virus and of course hindering the ability of people then to get back to work and school safely. schools are struggling to open without the adequate guidance that the federal government could provide and without resources that they need to keep teachers, staff, students, and families safe. states and local communities are accelerating cuts and with it adding to job losses and lost economic activity. americans, mr. president, are hurting. they are hurting in red states, and they are hurting in blue states. they are crying out for help. you know, one of the great privileges of this job is that

people come forward with their ideas, with their hopes, with their fears. they share incredibly personal details about the challenges that they face and then are also so, so willing to share with us their successes, too. we get to witness our constituents and work with them in difficult times and in good times, and they are willing to share that with us, and they demonstrate to us day in and day out what it means to be a member of a community, what it means to come together and solve a problem. they do it in their businesses. they do it on school boards. they do it without regard to political party or walk of life.

the least we could do in the united states senate on this thursday, over this weekend, over the next week is follow their example. represent them at their best. display that american ingenuity, innovation, pragmatism, compromise, can-do spirit, and in the process, we could save lives, we could begin to rebuild our economy, and we could demonstrate to the rest of the world that we know how to come together and work for what's best for all of us. we must help our constituents.

we must act. our country cannot wait any longer. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, senator stabenow said some time ago that this is not just another thursday. and she and my eloquent colleagues, senator coons, senator hassan has just left the floor, they have shown how painfully true senator stabenow's statement about this not being yet another thursday here in the senate actually is. mr. president, with republican colleagues headed home for the weekend, perhaps for weeks, i want to take stock for a moment of all of the various crises the

country faces while american families and communities don't have the luxury of a weekend. there is the covid crisis, senator stabenow, which you touched on, senator coons has talked about. more than 50,000 newly confirmed cases and a thousand or more deaths a day, with a total of 4.5 million cases in our country to date. there is the joblessness crisis, enhanced unemployment benefits have expired, tens of millions of americans out of work, millions walking on an economic tightrope. my colleagues are reading the letters. this is not based on some kind of media reports. they are reading directly from

what their constituents are saying. and i want to make sure everybody knows, having listened now for days to our colleagues saying that the big problem is that somehow the american worker doesn't actually want to work. senator stabenow, you and i have heard that repeatedly in the finance committee room. i think it's insulting to the american worker. we had a nationwide town hall sponsored by the town hall project on unemployment issues recently, and people would say things like if i heard about a job on monday night, i would be there at the crack of dawn on tuesday morning to get that position. so as we take stock of these crises, the covid crisis, the

joblessness crisis, i think what we ought to do is add the crisis of legislative malpractice that we are seeing with this senate republican walkout today and heading home instead of working as senator coons has said in a bipartisan way to get a coronavirus rescue bill. i have not seen anything like this in my time in public service, the biggest public health disaster in over a century, the worst levels of unemployment since the depression, an economy that barely holds on, and tomorrow's jobs report will almost certainly show that any hope for a v-shaped recovery that donald trump talked about is long gone.

republicans delayed and sat on their hands for months. mr. president, i think you heard me walk everybody through the calendar how weeks passed, months passed. we made offer after offer for negotiations. senator schumer and i developed a proposal that to a great extent was based on some of the thinking of senator thune. i always think of my friend from delaware, the champion of bipartisanship. that proposal was based on senator coons -- excuse me, senator thune's thought that, you know, if unemployment is high, people need a benefit so they can make rent, pay groceries. and then senator thune said but you know, when unemployment goes down, the benefit should reflect that as well. he said that. and so senator schumer and i

wrote the unemployment insurance bill to reflect that. the unemployment benefits would be tied to economic conditions on the ground. and yet, what we have seen is that somehow senate republicans can now leave in good conscience for the weekend, possibly the august recess, when the senate hasn't passed a bill to help all of those americans who are sick and jobless. our job is to legislate on the big issues, not to run home and campaign. our job is to sit down, negotiate, and find solutions. mitch mcconnell, the basis of this morning's newspaper, doesn't seem to even show up at

the negotiating table. now, as i mentioned, we have been warning for days and weeks and months that enhanced unemployment benefits were going to expire at the end of july. republicans sat on their hands. earlier, we heard senate republicans talk about how they had a one-week proposal, which of course wouldn't, based on the unemployment experts get any real help to people who need that money for rent and groceries any time soon, and the senate republicans said you know, workers are going over the cliff. well, the fact that republicans have sat this debate out is what pushed those workers over the cliff. pushed them over the cliff, as we warned week after week after week.

that the economy was cratering, permanent layoffs are increasing. senator merkley has joined us. you know, we hear all the time at home and in the pacific northwest about people who got laid off once, things seemed to be getting better. they got brought back, and then they are laid off again. so it seems that the recovery, when senator stabenow points out this is not just another thursday in the senate, the economy is headed in the wrong direction. so i'm just going to spend a couple of minutes, as we talk about this issue of how things are definitely not right here on this thursday in the senate, on the question of what would it

take for senate republicans to get serious about working with us on a coronavirus bill now? how bad would it have to get? a quarter million american lives lost? half a million? how many jobless? 40 million? 50 million? does the economy need to contract even more than it did in the second quarter before senate republicans say we're going to work with democrats to help the economy and help the jobless? now, back in march there was a basic deal between the american people and the government to try to make sure that there was an effort to try to provide help for people, as the pandemic took hold in this country.

senator stabenow and i were sort of the point people as it related to the big issues in the finance committee. senator stabenow doing her usually terrific job on the big health care issues and i spent days and days here essentially from the labor secretary, secretary scalia, about how he really wasn't going to push hard for much of anything except business as usual. but after that difficult period that went on for days and days in the finance committee, we actually got the $600 extra per week each week, modernized the unemployment program because, as senator stabenow knows, when the program began back in the 1930's, nobody knew about a gig worker or a freelancer

understand that the like. and there was a sense that we would be working on unemployment for a long time, particularly the way it's administered because the states have these kind of bronze-age technologies and one of the most frustrating parts of this period is that even though millions and millions of americans have gotten those extra benefits, that is really cold comfort to the many people who haven't been able to get through the system, haven't been able, call after call after call, to get their claim resolved. and yet there was the beginning, based on that vote, of a strategy to help people get through the economic hardship. right now the trump administration and republicans in the congress are breaking that deal. the virus is out of control,

spiking in so many states. the key economic lifeline for jobless americans is getting yanked away. it just is unconscionable. and now, just in the last few hours, there's talk that donald trump is looking at possibly tomorrow, senator stabenow, at tearing up the constitution and ordering a cut in the social security and medicare tax on his own. now, this won't give a dime to the millions of families who've lost jobs during the pandemic, but it'll put thousands of dollars in the pocket of every lawyer and wheeler dealer who can pay themselves a salary while sitting at home. and what really concerns us -- and i have been involved in these issues since my gray

panthers days. one more thing is what donald trump is talking about, senator stabenow, is draining the social security trust fund and bringing closer the day when social security benefits will be cut. so for all those people that are say in their late 50's and they've worked so hard, they've done difficult labor year after year after year, just hoping -- hoping -- to be able to get social security, now donald trump is talking about draining the social security trust fund, cutting the social security and medicare tax on his own. it sure seems like he's got a monopoly on bad ideas. he's also talking about some kind of executive order on enhanced unemployment benefits that he doesn't actually have the legal authority to issue. one more donald trump conoil,

additional bit of snake oil. and with respect to the unemployment issue and his idea of an executive order, what he would do there is throw state workforce agencies into chaos. and as we've talked about, so many states have faced real challenges in getting benefits about out to all the -- benefits out to all the zev's americans. we've been -- to all the deserving americans. we've been trying -- senator stabenow been a big champion on improving technology. donald trump's proposal would hurt americans counting on benefits even more. if donald trump were serious about extending enhanced unemployment coverage, he would be working with democrats on extending the benefits instead of fighting us. and i'm going to close with this

-- and it's a response to something i've heard from many of my republican colleagues who seem to have rediscovered their sense of fiscal conservatism that disappeared when donald trump was inaugurated. i've heard some of them say that passing another covid bill would amount to sacrificing our children's futures. well, here's what's worse for america's children -- growing up in a time when their parents can't find good-paying jobs because of double-digit unemployment, getting evicted from their homes in the middle of a pandemic and becoming homeless, having to skip meals because their family can't afford enough food each month, going to school in a district that laid off teachers and staff due to the coronavirus recession, which means packing too many kids into classrooms that can be dangerous. so let's forget about all that same old republican deficit talk. it's the same old routine from a

decade ago and decade before that and a decade before that. republican deficit talk was nowhere to be found when they passed over the opposition of democrats on the finance committee a $2 trillion tax handout overwhelmingly benefiting multinational corporations and the wealthy. americans struggle with the pandemic and the joblessness crisis right now. the senate needs to deal with it right now. and as senator stabenow said when she eloquently launched in important discussion -- and i know my friend from oregon is here to be part of it -- it is certainly not another thursday in the senate, not another garden-variety end of the week when you have enhanced unemployment benefits expiring, 160,000 americans dying.

it's unthinkable -- unthinkable -- that anybody could be going home when there are so many challenges right in front of us. so i hope that the majority leader, senator mcconnell, and my republican, you know, colleagues understand the power of what senator stabenow has basically outlined, because there are times on a thursday afternoon in the senate where i think you could say you wouldn't have the kind of challenges we're talking about. this is not one of them. this is one where on issue after issue there is a crisis, the covid crisis, the joblessness crisis. now we have a legislative malpractice crisis by senator mcconnell leaving his senators

out. i urge him to come back, work with us, bring about the negotiations we need, as i've said again and again, on unemployment. i'm not going anywhere -- not anywhere. this is one of the most important causes i've ever had the opportunity to be part of, even with all the challenges with unemployment. i can only imagine, senator stabenow, how much more hurt there would be in america without those millions of people getting the money for groceries and rent and paying medical bills and car insurance and keeping the lights, you know, on. we need the majority leader and republican colleagues of the united states senate to work with us. there is no time to waste. they ought to be recognizing the power of what senators have said

here today, that negotiating needs to take place now rather than having yet another break for senators to pursue other kinds of matters. mr. president, i thank my colleagues and yield the floor. mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, is this just another thursday? things going along well in america? nothing to worry about? nothing to keep us up at night? nothing to keep mothers and fathers up worried about the health of their children? is this just another thursday with america doing well? or, mr. president, are we here in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century, since the

spanish flu? because you wouldn't know it from this chamber. you wouldn't know it from the majority leader shutting this place down. is it possible that we're in the worst economic implosion since the great depression? is this just another thursday? you wouldn't know that we're in a terrible economic collapse, based on the fact that the majority leader is treating this period of time like just another thursday when everything is fine, everything is good in america. it's almost three months ago that the house passed a robust bill to address the pandemic and to address the economic implosion. three months ago. why didn't the senate say

immediately we will act as well because we're having big issues in america? they didn't act in the first week after the house acted. just treated it like another week. no concerns. didn't act in the second week. well, now we're 11 weeks since the house acted, and still the majority leader says, don't worry, be happy. just another thursday. all is good in america. no concerns. no anxiety. no worry. just be happy. well, i can tell you what i'm hearing from oregonians, and they're saying, it's not just another thursday. they're saying, our state government is estimated to lose $10 billion in revenue over this

the biennium, the next biennium. a little over $4 bill in the next biennium. $10 billion of lost revenue for core programs of health care, education, transportation. that's a pretty good deal in terms of the foundation for the programs oregonians count on. and i'm hearing from a whole lot of parents -- moms and dads -- and they're saying, this is not just another thursday. we are worried about our children's education. now, i recognize there's a lot of rich people in america buying tutors for their children, maybe two tutors for a child, maybe a math tutor and a reading tutor and maybe a special education tutor. who knows? because they're