thing to lower emissions. it won't bring down global temperatures, but it will bring down workers' wages. it won't cool down planet earth, but it will cool down our nation's economy. energy producers will simply go elsewhere while families in our country will suffer. president biden has also put a stop to the keystone pipeline. the pipeline creates jobs, reduces energy prices, and strengthens our bonds with our neighbor to the north, with canada. now, the prime minister of canada, just continue trudeau, he's no conservative. he is known to be extremely progressive. even he has said he was disappointed in the decision by president biden to cancel the pipeline. president biden's very first phone call with a foreign leader since becoming president was with prime minister trudeau. the prime minister raised the issue on the call.

president biden shut down the pipeline anyway. it's also been reported that t.c. energy warned the president's administration that the keystone pipeline means thousands of construction jobs, many of those union jobs. they're gone. president biden shut it down anyway. president biden has also begun the process of putting us back into the paris climate accord. under that agreement the biden administration is going to set unworkable targets for american businesses. so what does it mean? well, it hurts america but it means china and russia can continue with business as usual. it's a bad deal for our country. it makes us less competitive, sacrifices energy jobs to try to stop climate change which it will not do. the paris climate agreement is based on the fantasy that climate change is america's fault. blame america first.

in reality the united states is the leading driver of innovative climate solutions. president biden's actions aren't just targeting american energy. they're also going after american small businesses. president biden is calling on this body to vote to double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. now maybe the president's idea of national unity is national uniformity, but that doesn't work in wyoming or for the people of wyoming. maybe he thinks that imposing top-down regulations on every american would bring us all together. it's not the kind of unity that the american people are looking for. we want to stand shoulder to shoulder but not in the unemployment line. in 2019, well before the pandemic hit, the nonpartisan congressional budget office estimated that man dated a $15 minimum wage nationwide would

lead to 1.3 million fewer americans working. 1.3 million americans. madam president, at a time when ten million americans are unemployed due to our pandemic, 1.3 million americans more can't afford to lose their jobs. the c.b.o. also says it would lead to higher prices for consumers. paying more in wages, passing on the prices to consumers. now, this could hurt america's small businesses all across the country. talked to a small business owner from wyoming, jimmy has a sinclair station there. called me on sunday. said $15 an hour, he has a station, the food court next to it in level. he said we'd have to shut down the food court. can't afford $15 an hour for the young people who are working there, putting money in their

pockets, providing food and services to the people of the community. $15 an hour. shut it down. so the job ticker is now on president biden's watch. and the president will be judged by his decisions. the senate right before the -- before christmas passed another round of paycheck protection programs. we all supported it. these are loans to help small businesses. i voted for it. madam president, you voted for it. to help our small businesses. doubling the minimum wage is going to hurt small businesses. it's going to force them to lay off employees that will likely happen in lovell, wyoming and all across the cowboy state. a bill to provide $900 billion of relief was signed just in late december. president biden now wants to double that amount of funding. democrats may try to ram the bill through the senate using a

process called budget reconciliation. now of course this entire cost will be added to our national debt. and if it occurs, it will likely be done without a single republican vote. this isn't unity. it's not bipartisanship. it's not healing our divisions. this is a time for president biden to heed the words of his own inaugural address. we need to work together, to lower the cost of living, to produce more energy, to create more jobs, to create more opportunities for every american. that's how we bring our nation together. that's what we ought to do now. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: i'd like to ask the quorum call be ended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lankford: if you buy a new g.m. car, nissan, honda or toyota, even hyundai. you'll notice they started installing a new feature in their cars. ith -- it's a reminder when you turn off your engine to check your back seat. i rented a car not long ago and it started ding and i tried to figure out what i had done. i saw the monitor on the dash board and it said check the back seat, which i thought was great. because the makers of those cars all believe every child is precious, and they shouldn't be harmed. we've all heard stories like this, but i distinctly remember last summer seeing in the news

the story about an infant who died because they were left in a hot car. that's why these carmakers are making this feature now. i remember as i saw the story on the news and just the reports and how angry people were in the community, and they were angry at the store and they were upset on the news, and they couldn't believe that a mom had left a child in the back seat of a car car, and they had slowly died in the heat, because no one wants to see a child harmed. everyone believes that every child is precious. but i remember when i saw the story on the news last summer, i remember turning to my wife and saying, i can't figure out our culture sometimes, because that same mom and that same baby could have gone into an abortion clinic just a few months before, and that child's life could have been ended, and it

wouldn't have made the news. in fact, no one would have flinched. in fact, that very same people that were furious at that mom for leaving her child in a hot car to die would have argued for her right to destroy that exact same child, and in fact would have called it her reproductive right or even the new euphemism out there -- reproductive care. same child, same mom, nothing was different but a few months in time. reproductive care seems like such a nice little euphemism, but what it really means is paying someone in a clinic to reach into the womb with a surgical instrument to pull the arms and legs off of a child in the womb so that they will bleed to death in the womb and then suction out the little boy or girl's body parts one at a time.

that's what reproductive care means. and i don't understand why that's normal, but leaving a child in the back seat of a hot car is a tragedy. maybe it's because as a nation, some people are afraid to answer the most obvious question: is that a baby? that's the most obvious question. that face, that nose, those two eyes, that mouth, that chin, those fingers -- is that a baby? that's really the only question. is that a child? maybe there's a second question that needs to be answered -- are all children valuable, or are only some children valuable?

we seem to have a great deal of debate today in our society, and we should, about facts. people say we can't seem to agree on the same set of facts and truth. you can't have your facts and my facts. we just only have facts. the media, big tech, activists have all decried of our loss of our ability as a nation to just accept clear facts in front of our face. the obvious truth. so let me ask a question again -- is that a baby? yes or no? because if we're all supposed to say let's at least agree to the most basic of facts, how about that one? is that a human child? with a future and a purpose and

a name. are all children valuable, or are only some? gold is valuable. it doesn't matter its size. i have gold in my wedding ring. many people have gold in their wedding rings. if we found a small piece of gold on the floor, it would be valuable. it wouldn't matter its shape, wouldn't matter its size, small or large. we don't discriminate. gold is valuable because everyone recognizes its worth. every senator in this room recognizes the value of goagget. it's -- gold. it's around $1,800 an ounce right now to get gold. no matter how small gold is valuable but we can't seem to agree that all children is valuable. literally gold is more precious to some people in this room than children are. children aren't valuable only sometimes, or only certain children. children are valuable. it can't be just if a mom or dad

wants a child they're valuable and if they don't want a child, they're not valuable, they're disposable. if a mom or dad gets to choose who's precious and who's medical waste. is that a child? that's really the only question that has to be answered, because everything else flows from that. there are political conversations in this room about the value of children, and every time it comes up, it gets noisy. people will say, well, you don't fund enough money for education or child care or health care in communities, so you don't love children. i would say i voted for the exact same bill you did last year for billions of dollars for assistance in child care, billions of dollars for early childhood education, elementary and secondary education, higher education. we did additional assistance for snap benefits last year and assistance of benefits of moms

in need, increased health care for all communities, for federally qualified health centers to make sure we get health care to every single community. i voted on those exact same things multiple other people did in this room. i care about children outside the womb. but those questions really aren't the question. they are distractions to the question, and i get it. because if i ask is that a child, people respond, well do you spend enough for child care or health care? and i still say, stop, answer my first question. is that a child? maybe i should ask a more basic question -- does everyone in this room believe in the principle we should do unto others as we would want done unto us? what would you want done to you when you were in the womb? i don't want to address this issue lightly. this is a difficult issue for some people.

i don't think an abortion is a flippant thing that anyone walks into an abortion. i don't meet anyone that had a abortion is somehow gleeful about it. quite frankly, i can't imagine that anyone who had an abortion would ever forget the sights and the sounds and the smells of an abortion. knowing that a helpless child is dying at that moment. i grieve for moms and dads who will never, ever forget that they went into a clinic and paid someone to get rid of their child in the name of reproductive care. i can't imagine what their emotion is. we as a society have to answer this question still for every child that is yet to come. 48 years ago this week, the supreme court made a decision that has now resulted in the death of 62 million children in america. 62 million.

that is hard to fathom. and like so many other supreme court decisions, america has not forgotten about this one. our culture has not just moved on and accepted it. every year since 1974, the first year after the roe v. wade decision, individuals from across the country have gathered in washington, d.c. in defense of the unborn. friends, families, church leaders, community folks, they have all marched in the rain, the sleet, the snow. it's cold every year this week in january. but they come. this year will be different due to covid-19 and the ongoing security concerns in washington, d.c. marchers are staying home, and they are engaging virtually. maybe this is one more moment where even more people can get involved online because i expect the rally this year will draw an even larger number of people. students and families and people, quite frankly, from all over the world, just to ask a question is on the motion -- will we recognize the most obvious thing in front of our

face? that's a baby. president biden this week celebrated the passage of roe v. wade by declaring that he wants to pass a federal law requiring abortion to be provided in every single state in america. not just trust a court decision from 1973. he wants us to proactively require in statute that every state debates abortion in their state. and that the federal taxpayers with hard-earned tax dollars should actually be required to pay for those abortions all over america. it wasn't long ago that senator biden was saying things like taxpayers shouldn't be required to pay for abortion. they shouldn't be required to pay for something that they find so morally objectionable. it wasn't that long ago, senator biden was talking about abortion being safe, legal, and rare. now as president, within the first week, he's moving as fast

as he can to promote abortion and demand taxpayers pay for it. in fact, painfully so, president biden's nomination for the secretary of health and human services has actually no health care experience at all. it's a little surprising to a lot of us when we saw it because we are used to seeing the leader of health and human services be a physician or scientist. which would make sense in the time of enormous global pandemic to have a position leading health and -- to have a physician leading health and human services, but he actually nominated someone that his biggest qualification is he is one of the most radical advocates for abortion in the country. he did as a house member. he did as an attorney general in california. and clearly, the promise was made he will do it if you put him into health and human services. let me just give you an example of what i am talking about for mr. becerra. i just -- i can't process some

of these things. mr. becerra, when he was the attorney general for california, actually went to mississippi to be able to lead a suit against mississippi, another state, obviously, because that state was talking about limiting abortions, only the earliest days of abortion. their belief was after a child feels pain, we should at least not tear a child limb from limb in the womb when their nervous system is developed. mr. becerra led a coalition of state attorneys general to fight mississippi and say you can't protect children that way. he actually argued before the united states court of appeals in the ninth circuit against the little sisters of the poor, trying to require that group of nuns to provide birth control services so the group of nuns literally attacking the little sisters of the poor to kind of

push this whole agenda. when he was a representative in the house of representatives, he voted against the born-alive survivors protection act so if a child is in a botched abortion, is actually delivered instead of destroyed, he wanted to say no, even after they are fully delivered, that child can still be destroyed, even though they are fully delivered, which would make sense because he also, as a representative, fought against the partial-birth abortion ban. the procedure where they would -- it was a rare procedure but it was a procedure where they would deliver the child all but the head, and then penetrate the head with scissors and kill the child. he fought against that. he fought against the unborn victims of violence act, which really is odd to me. all it did was criminalize. if someone attacked a pregnant woman and killed her child, they could also be liable for that death as well. he also didn't want to recognize the child as a child, even if

the mother saw the child as a child. he also fought against crossing state lines for minors and saying they shouldn't have to get parents' permission if they cross state lines to go get an abortion somewhere else. as the attorney general in california, he fought to require churches to pay for abortion care in their health care plans when it directly violated their religious belief. unbelievably so, he also fought to be able to require pro-life medical clinics where you could go and say i -- i don't want an abortion, but i do want a sonogram. i want to be able to get some more information about this child. if you went into one of those pro-life centers and got a sonogram, he fought to require there to be a poster on the wall

that would say if you would rather have an abortion, here's the place that you would go. now, this is beyond just protecting abortion. that has moved to promoting abortion, encouraging the death of children. it got even so bizarre that in california, when there was a video taken of a planned parenthood group of folks that were trafficking the body parts of children and it was caught on video, instead of confronting the folks that were trafficking the child body parts, he went after the folks that took the video, the whistle-blowers, and exposed them. this is not an attack on mr. becerra. it's just a shock to me that all of those things seem normal. i don't understand that, culturally.

i don't understand how the person who is being appointed to lead health and human services can say that children are sub human. i don't have to recognize that as human, although i'm leading health and human services. that's apparently optional tissue, not a human child. i believe that children are human. we should honor every child's life. it should be baseline for us to be able to say if a child is actually delivered in a botched abortion and had been fully delivered outside the womb, we should help that child get medical care. i don't understand why that's so hard. i don't understand why it's so hard to say some people are absolutely appalled by the taking of a child's life.

don't force them with their tax dollars to pay for it. i don't understand why that's controversial. i don't understand why it's controversial that when a child can feel pain in the womb, that we shouldn't dismember a child in the womb. i don't understand why that's controversial. i don't understand why it's controversial to some that if a health care provider who has sworn to protect life, that that person shouldn't be compelled to take life in an abortion procedure by their employer. i don't understand why that's controversial. for some reason, it is. among our most basic rights in america, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. one of the most basic things that come out of our founding documents is these things are referred to as self-evident. facts are facts.

especially when those facts have a face. how can you look at that picture and say that's not a human child? how can we not acknowledge the simple facts? now, i do understand that for some people, this is very difficult because they fought for years for abortion, and they don't want that to change, because if it changes, they would have to admit there have been deaths of millions of children on their watch. that is not a simple thing to admit. but please do not tell me you're following the science. because that child has ten fingers and ten toes and a beating heart and a functioning nervous system. that child has d.n.a. that's different than the mom or the dad. that's not random tissue. that is a separate person and science would confirm that, so

please don't tell me you follow the science wherever it goes, because some facts are obvious. and the science is clear. and this all gets resolved when we answer one simple question -- is that a child or not? because everything else goes from that. those who are enjoying the march for life online this week, good for you. keep going. don't give up. defend the facts that are self-evident. speak out for those who can't speak for themselves. because millions of future americans are counting on it. they're watching for someone to admit the facts, the facts they have to face.

i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: thank you, mr. president. and i can never match the eloquence of the senator from oklahoma who just spoke about the same topic about which i rise at this moment. i remember -- i remember when democrats running for office would tell the american people that they were pro-choice, but they felt that abortion should be safe, it should be legal, and it should be rare. safe, legal, and rare. i remember when bill clinton said that to the american people. i think about how far the left has gone from -- from that to the attitude that my friend from oklahoma has described.

i first encountered the march for life when i was a staff member up here in washington, d.c., working for then-congressman trent lott in 1981. it was wonderful to see those people, and it will be wonderful to join them online in a virtual march this friday. i can tell you also that those people who say we followed the science are those of us who are now pro-life, because as the gentleman from oklahoma pointed out, as march -- more and more information, about d.n.a. and about the pictures, the pictures that my wife and i have had on our refrigerator of our unborn grandchildren. more and more americans, more and more people around the world understand that the science is

on the side of those of us who are pro-life. that the beating hearts, the faces that we see in these young unborn children are indeed humans made in god's image. and that they are entitled to the protections that our founders outlined of protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 25 years ago, 56% of americans considered themselves pro-choice. only 33% said they were pro-life. i was -- i was glad to be part of that 33%, but i'm certainly glad to see our numbers have risen. today's pro-life movement has closed that gap completely. the country is now evenly split.

but i will say this for some of my fellow americans who call themselves pro-choice. there are differences within that group. gallup reports that 81% of americans think abortion should be illegal in the third trimester. why can't we get democrats, republicans, and independents of the right and center and the left to agree to that? where 81% americans say we should make abortion inlegal in the third trimester. in addition, a poll found that 60% of americans are against using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, even if some of them feel abortion should be legal, 60% of americans -- a supermajority are against using

tax dollars to fund abortion, and that's up from 54% just one year before. so because the science is moving in our favor, the evidence is moving in our favor, public opinion is moving in our favor. that same poll found that 35% of democrats oppose using taxpayer funds for abortion. many of these americans might check the box saying they are pro-choice but they are willing to draw an important distinction between abortion being legal in some circumstances and taking taxpayer dollars from pro-life americans to actually fund abortion. in essence, these people are saying, we can disagree about abortion being legal, but let's not force pro-life americans to pay for a practice they find abhorrent and morally represent

represent -- reprehensible. that is a view i do not agree with because i'm solidly pro-life, but it's an eminently reasonable view. why can't we enact that into the permanent statue of the united states. it's a position that congress has adopted every year when we pass the hyde amendment to keep federal dollars from going towards abortion. i regret that our present president does not seem to share this view, although he once held this view. days ago in one of his first acts in office, our new president reversed the mexico city policy, allowing american tax dollars to begin funding abortions in foreign countries once again. this decision showed a disregard, to me, for the consciences of millions of americans taxpayers who are pro-life. i was appalled by this decision.

i know many of my constituents were. i think congress should pass legislation enshrining the mexico city policy in statute, but at this moment, mr. president, i rise proposing a more familiar and direct and i think politically popular step and that would be to put no taxpayer funding of abortion legislation into the permanent statute rather than passing it each year as the hyde amendment. of all the abortion-related bills that reach the senate floor, this one should be the least controversial. the hyde amendment is standard policy. it has passed annually for more than 40 consecutive years during terms of republican presidents, terms of democratic presidents,

during democratic majorities in the house and senate, and when it was, indeed, the other way around. it has stood the test of time and enjoys broad consensus in this body and in the united states of america. passing this legislation to make the hyde amendment permanent would keep taxpayers from having to worry each year if their money is going to be used for an abortion in this country. and so i stand this friday with millions of -- with millions and millions of americans who will join in supporting life. and i urge my colleagues to send an important signal to all the american people that congress is serious about seeking unity and healing. i hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation as we work to build bipartisan consensus for life in the days ahead.

and i yield the floor.

mr. merkley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: mr. president, when we have a new administration, lots of changes take place, changes in offices, changes in committee assignments, but for all of us here in the senate, perhaps the most challenging change is when members of our team decide to open new chapters in their lives and we celebrate those new chapters and wish them well but we will also miss them greatly. i come to the floor to talk about three of my team members who are headed to a new chapter in each of their lives. scott mcguire has been a central part of our team since day one. he's my good friend, valued team member who is preparing a new

chapter in his life in the form of well-deserved retirement. as of yesterday, january 26, he completed 12 years on our u.s. senate team as our state operations director. the boy scouts of america have a motto, be prepared. they also have a solicitor -- sa good turn daily. these are attributes that i have always held dear and it's qualities i look for when i build a team to serve the state of oregon when i was elected in 2008. scott was at the top of my list because i knew these were qualities that diswien who he is. i -- define who he is. i knew this because i have known him for a long time when we met at boy scout group 634 when we were 11 or 12 years old.

we riengd respected each other -- recognized and respected each other's leadership skills and i admired his leadership ability as he advanced to the rank of eagle scout. when we were 15, scott and i were dissatisfied with how the district council was running their annual first aid meets, so we proposed to the council executives that we take over and run the weekend event. and to our surprise, the staff of the council agreed. i think the resulting weekend event, which included dozens of troops, hundreds of scouts, was a tremendous success. it was a type of mutual project that has bonded us over our lifetimes. scott did many things in his career before joining my team. he served aspirations director -- as operations director of the evangelistic

association, as executive director of the oregon lions sight and hearing foundation and reporter and editor of the grishham outlook and he was included -- he worked with the grishham club and he has volunteered, i think millions of hours just so much to serve the civil air patrol and is now lieutenant colonel in the civil air patrol. looking back to 2009, i can't imagine how we would have gotten our oregon team off the ground or built the operation that we have today without scott mcgwire. he has kept the computers computing and supplies supplied, but he has done so much more. he pioneered our internship program which has been a pipeline for hundreds of

oregonians who have done great things serving in state and national government, in community organizations, and in business to make that intern program the best possible scott cultivated strong relationships with oregon's colleagues and the -- colleagues and the faculties that worked with them. he gave them the opportunity for public service and cared deeply about their experience and success throughout their time in our office but in the time beyond as well. scott has stepped in to serve as my field representative for a number of oregon counties, organizing the town halls they hold in those counties every year to hear from our constituents. he's not only helped to plan and organize events, but he saved them from going off the rails as unexpected challenges arose. back in 2017, when we were debating the future of the affordable care act, we knew that citizens with passionate

and angry so we anticipated a large turnout planning for a thousand attendees, twice of what has been seen before, imagine our shock when 4,000 oregonians showed up. constituents were packed in like sardines, hundreds packed into a courtyard outside, there was scott swooping in to save the day. mr. schumer: would my colleague yield for a cloture motion? mr. merkley: i will. mr. schumer: i thank my good friend from oregon. i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 4. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of homeland security,

alejandro nicholas mayorkas, of the district of columbia, to be secretary. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a close debate on the nomination of alejandro nicholas mayorkas to be secretary of the department of homeland security, signed by 18 senators as follows, schumer, peters -- mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask the mandatory quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i just ask unanimous consent, mr. president, that my motion be made after senator merkley finishes his statement and not be interrupted in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. and i thank my colleague from

oregon. mr. merkley: thank you very much to our majority leader. we need to keep the business of this senate rolling even as we pay tribute to our key team members who are leaving for other important assignments or retiring, such as my good friend scott mcguire, who, as i was recounting, was racing around the venue to save the day because of hundreds of folks stranded outside when we had this massive turnout of about 4,000 people. he reworked the sound system. he opened the windows, he figured out how to put speakers outside the windows so everyone could hear and participate. crisis averted. that was just another day for scott, working behind the scenes and taking care of things that most people don't even know were going wrong to ensure things were running smoothly. last year, before the pandemic shut down so much of our lives and our offices went remote, we saw massive shortages on

essentials, like hand sanitizers and tissues, but scott, seeing the crisis developing, raced around the area to get supplies to keep the members of our team healthy and safe. that's who scott mcguire is, the person who goes above and beyond for everyone in every situation, the kind of person who is prepared and always goes out of his way to do a good turn daily for others. the kind of person who, regardless of who you are, treats you like a v.i.p. i speak for all members of team merkley, for all of the interns who have come through our office, for all the folks scott has worked with over the years, when i say that he will be deeply missed and it will not be the same without him. we wish our defriend scott mc -- dear friend scott mcguire and his wife beth all

the best as they begin a new chapter in their life together. i picture scott who has had a business, shorty's barbecue, catering, i see him firing that grill up a lot more often in the years ahead. it will be a chapter undoubtedly filled with loving friends, family, great traveling adventures and, of course, as much barbecue as they can possibly handle. we'll miss you, scott maguire. i have two other team members who are leaving. laura uptegrove is leaving us to work with the obama administration. she came to us after serving in various foreign policy roles at the state department, the department of defense, the white house. she joined our team four years ago to bring her extensive

expertise to bear on our foreign policy portfolio. and i'm sure glad she did. during her tenure in my office, i've been astonished time and again by the breadth and depth of her knowledge, her work ethic, her strong organizational and management skills and the way she approaches each and every task with a very positive attitude. those traits make her not only a topnotch legislative staffer but a terrific partner as we work to address a variety of issues. on two occasions we had the chance to travel on international issues. one trip to many different countries in africa, to better understand the root causes and impacts of the four famines on that continent, to understand how american policy could be changed to assist in these desperately difficult situations.

and then some years ago we had the genocide carried out against the rohingya people in burma. she came and -- aung san suu kyi came and spoke to the united nations and said we have nothing to hide. come and see for yourselves. and so laura went to work organizing the congressional response, congressional trip. we really thought we were going to see exactly what had gone on in those villages. and she worked incredibly hard to arrange everything from boats to helicopters to get us to the right places. and then the day before we left, burma denied us ability to see those villages. but we had backup plan after backup plan to explore what had happened both in burma and the conditions at the refugee camps in bangladesh.

so she reworked everything in a short period of time to direct attention by our congressional delegation and through our delegation to the world to the traumatized, difficult circumstances of a community which was the subject of genocide by burma. and again the whole goal was to figure out how the u.s. could do more to help. laura really understood and cared about and helped with the plight of people in some of the most difficult circumstances around the world. the same passion and dedication and strategic thinking that laura demonstrated as a policy staffer are also what made her an outstanding legislative director for the past two years. she continued to lead our efforts on critical issues from rules reform to social justice but was a daily example of the

power of teamwork and mentorship to other staffers. her departure is a big loss for team merkley but a really big win for the biden administration, particularly the state department where she will be able to utilize her enormous talents on behalf of our country and on behalf of our country building a better world. and laura, we wish you all the best. our third team member who is leaving is ben ward. i think of ben as our appropriations wizard. he knows that system inside out and he's the master of tribal issues and natural resource issues and so much more, and he's heading off to serve as office of management and budget's deputy director of legislative affairs. i think the whole world noticed his extraordinary talents and we

are looking forward to continuing to work with him as we strive to make the appropriations efforts be as effective as possible. i think that virtually no one in oregon goes untouched by the work that ben has done over the past five years. he's worked to get piping money to central oregon, to assist the farmers and the farmers not only get more water, more water gets left in the chutes river. he's worked very hard to advance the improvement of native fishing sites, treaty fishing sites on the columbia river and the preparations to rebuild communities that were wiped out by the building of dams some 70 years ago that has never been properly addressed. he has proceed to help the

climate tribes secure the funds to improve the habitat for their sacred swam and fish and improve the whole entire water ecosystem in the klamath basin for all of the stakeholders. when we had a big problem with sea lions who were blocking the fish ladders and blocking the mouth of streams and tributaries, he concocted probably more than a dozen plans to try to find one that could move through this legislative process and address the challenge. and he succeeded. he helped get funding so that we could have more people fighting fires on the front lines. and he helped to get funding so we could thin the forests and treat the forests so they would be less likely to burn in the first place. he helped us get money for the coastal ports so they could be dredged, so they could continue to operate appropriately and

safely for the economy of the coastal ports. he helped us make sure we got help for the diverse agricultural research stations in oregon, for the mass timber project that is developing whole new categories of engineered wood products that can build buildings that are 14 stories high out of wood rather than concrete and steel. utilizing our incredible supply of amazing wood in the pacific northwest. he assisted our universities in getting funding for all kinds of programs. the list is almost inexhaustible but i think we all understand the point. he is incredibly talented at seeing opportunities and incredibly persistent in seizing those opportunities. that's ben's way of getting things done. and that's why he's been so

valued and that's why we will greatly miss him. ben, we wish you all the best as you work on behalf of the biden administration and the larger onb process in coordination with the u.s. senate. to each of these team members i say once you are a member of team merkley, you're never not a member. you will always be part of our family. we so much appreciate what you've contributed to the team and what you've contributed to building a better world. thank you, mr. president. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the pending quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i'm particularly glad to see the senior senator from new mexico presiding on what for me is a s sentimental - sentimental moment because he's been such a terrific friend and colleague and advocate in the battle about climate change. i'm here today because at last it's time to say farewell to my battered time to wake up image board here and to a run of more than 275 weekly climate spe speeches. it's been one of the senate's longer runs, i believe, but i

think it's time to say farewell. this long run began in the dark days of 2012 after speaker pelosi had passed a serious climate bill and the senate had refused to take up anything, not even a blank bill to go to conference with and see what could be done in conference. and as some of us remember all too well, when speaker pelosi passed that bill in 2009 over on the house side, we had here in the senate a filibuster-proof democratic majority. and this was climate change. and we just -- we just walked

away. i was told then that that was because the obama white house told leader reid to pull the plug, that after the obamacare wars, the white house was tired of conflict, didn't want another big battle, wasn't going to take on any fights it wasn't sure it could win. think about that. think of history's great battles and contests, legislative or otherwise, and consider in how many of those battles either side was sure it would win. if you limit yourself to battles you're sure you can win, you're pretty much sure to miss the most important battles.

and we lost this one for that most lamentable of reasons, failure to try. the fossil fuel industry, sure enough, knew it won this one once it saw the obama administration walk off the field abandoning speaker pelosi's hard-fought victory. and then years went by in which you could scarcely get a democratic administration to put the words climate and change into the same paragraph in which we fussed id on theically about whether to call it climate change or global warming in which the bully pulpit, the great presidential mega phone in the hands of one of our most articulate presidents stood

mute. we qairverred about polling snowing climate as issue eight or issue ten, ignoring that we had a say in that outcome when we wouldn't even use the phrase let alone make the case. no wonder the public didn't see climate change as a priority. those were, for me, dark, desolate days. so i made a commitment to speak about climate change every single week we were in session no matter what. the kitchen was dark. the oven was cold. but maybe somehow one little pilot light clicking on every

week would help. six years after the waxman-markey climate bill passed the house, the obama e.p.a. finalized its markey climate regulation. which was quickly killed dead in the starting block by the five republicans on the supreme court. the clean power plan never even went into effect. it had no regulatory core or backstop that was indisputably within e.p.a.'s authority. so when the clean power plan's novelties got smacked down, nothing was left. john kerry, bless him, led us into the paris agreement. but it wasn't signed until the last year of eight years of that

administration. it being so late, the fossil fuel interests behind trump hauled us right back out of it. so there we were after eight years in which democrats sometimes controlled both houses of congress as well as the white house, and we had at the end of the day no law, no regulation, no treaty. i'm hanging up the time to wake up poster after more than 275 of these speeches because i am going to trust that we bring more spirit and determination to the climate crisis this time, as president biden has promised that we will.

his opening executive orders are a fine start. i appreciate particularly the restoration of the social cost of carbon. but perhaps the most important signal is not any specific policy but the breadth of the scope of the emphasis on climate across the new biden administration. then we had the deal with the trump years when sins of omission became sins of commission and questions of commitment became questions of corruption. i'm personally confident that evidence will reveal that the trump administration was in fact corrupt on climate issues -- and

not just corrupt in the meaning of the founding fathers but corrupt in the meaning of the united states criminal code. and i will do my level best to make sure we find out. thank goodness we can put that disgraceful period of our history behind us. what did i learn along the way? i traveled to many of my republican colleagues' home states on climate trips to help me understand the climate change problem there. there is no state whose big state universities deny climate change. most all of them teach it, so i knew it wasn't lack of knowledge that was blocking progress. i learned that oceans are at the heart of the climate threat. first they bear incontrovertible

testimony to the dangers. try arguing with thermometers that measure ocean warming. try arguing with tide gauges that measure sea level rise. try arguing with ph tests that schoolchildren can do that measure the acidification of our oceans. i learned that the oceans are suffering extraordinary injury from warming at the rate of multiple nuclear explosions per second, and acidification at rates unprecedented in human existence, and from the fossil fuel industry's plastics contaminating our oceans. in every state i went to, there were businesses alarmed by

climate change, whether it was wildfire or flooding or the loss of iconic views and species, upheaval of fisheries and growing conditions of crops or business risk and recreation imperiled. i heard from western fishermen about warming trout streams and a glacier national park with no glacier. and i saw ancient western forests dying by the square mile to the bark beetle. i heard from coastal states about new pests and poisonous algae and flooding risks and fisheries in upheaval. and the great lakes i heard faced similar threats as the ocean coasts. i heard in the presiding officer's state of nordic sea

trails made mud because you can't do artificial snow like on ski slopes. and moose tours -- moose tours that visitors promised never to do again because once you made it down the mud trail, the moose were crawling with thousands of ticks eating them alive. things that winter used to clean up but did no longer. one day i wept in national airport sit something at one of those little round linoleum food tables reading pope francis' new encyclical on care for our common home. climate effects were everywhere. that wasn't the problem.

so i began looking at the fossil fuel industry and studying the dark money apparatus that it uses to spread climate denial and to obstruct climate progress. i recalled our bipartisanship here in the senate before citizens united, and i saw the death of bipartisanship after. when the fossil fuel industry upgraded its weaponry from political muskets to tactical nukes and set about subjugating the republican party. i came to like and admire bob inglis, a conservative the fossil fuel industry could not subjugate. so instead they made an example of him for his climate heresy

and crushed him politically. i came with groups of senators to the floor to identify and call out this corrupt and corrupting fossil fuel web of denial. i came to know and admire the tough band of investigators, writers, and academic researchers who examine and document this corrupt apparatus. i saw how this apparatus insinuated itself into the u.s. chamber of commerce and the national association of manufacturers and turned those two business groups into america's two worst climate obstructers. thank you, influence map, for that research.

i learned the ways the industry hid the money trail leading to its front groups, through shell corporations, through donors' trust, through 501-c-4's. and i finally came to the realization that this industry was running a massive covert operation, probably the biggest covert disinformation and political intimidation op in history, and it was running this covert op in and against our own country. another thing i learned was how little political effort america's corporations put into doing anything about climate change here in congress.

a lot of them put happy green talk on their websites. they had their consumer relations and public relations and investor relations people spread the happy green talk around. many of them actually hired sustainability officers and where it made the money began changing their internal behavior to actually be more sustainable. sometimes more attention was paid to heralding those sustainability programs than there actually was to sustaining anything, but sometimes it was sincere. bravo to those companies who have really changed the way they operate within their corporate bounds. and a few took climate change seriously enough to start pushing sustainability out their

supply chains. but none -- none -- took climate change seriously in congress. this was a battlefield they avoided. their trade associations were a nightmare. every one of them -- beverages, insurance, banking, chemical, agriculture, you name it -- every one of them was silent or worse. now, at last -- at last -- that seems to be changing. here is the 2020 lobbying pitch for silly convalley -- for silicon valley tech giants, the biggest corporations in america, many of them the most successful corporation of america, hundreds of american corporations, almost all of whom pride themselves on

their greenness, they lobby us through group called tech net. three pages of boleted priorities they wanted congress to achieve and not one mention -- not one mention of climate change, not one. not even a mention of renewables from a trade association that has renewables companies in its membership. until now -- until now. i was just notified that tech net has noticed this omission in its document and that it intends to rectify the error. good. change has even come to the biggest and most obstructive lobby group of them all -- the u.s. chamber of commerce.

i spent a lot of time chasing them with #chamberofcarbon. i stood outside of their headquarters where their own building said u.s. chamber of carbon. they were my nemesis, hostile to climate action in the legislative branch, hostile to climate action in the executive branch and regulatory agencies, hostile to climate action in the judiciary in cases that were being brought about climate. they were the beast. well, last week the chamber announced a dramatic reversal, that it will now support a serious market-based climate solution.

that -- that is a big shift. and if they fight for climate action anywhere near as forcefully as they fought against it, it could make a big difference. so, tbd as to how this turns out over at the chamber, but a tentative big thumbs up. so as i close my run of times to wake up, where are we? well, we again control the house and the senate and the white house, and this time i hope we'll be serious. senator markey has joined me, and i mentioned earlier in this speech nancy pelosi championing an actual serious climate bill through the house and lamented the senate's failure to do one

damn thing once we had the house bill over here to act on. that bill was called waxman-markey. it was the work of congressman waxman and congressman, now senator markey. senator markey over here, maybe this time it will be serious in the senate, with all of these departments government controlled. the latent partisanship here in the senate that the fossil fuel industry suppressed is still there. it has been there all along. talking to some of my colleagues about climate change has been a little bit like talking to prisoners about escape. but the latent bipartisanship

did not go away, and with these other changes, with corporate america beginning to show up with the big trade associations becoming less horrible, i am hopeful for a serious bipartisan bill, and if we can't get good-faith bipartisanship, well, we have got reconciliation. senator mcconnell can't block bipartisan climate bills from coming to the floor any longer, so there is a point to legislating. there is a point to advocates showing up. so maybe corporate america will show up and push back on fossil fuels subjugation of the republican party. a good, hard look at the fossil

fuel climate denial machinery can put that corrupt machine back on its heels. in my view, it would be dereliction and malpractice to ignore that apparatus and its french rust role. in trade associations, revolts are already taking place. within the chamber and then by members horrified to have been outed as supporting america's worst climate obstructors. do you want faster change there? disclose the fossil fuel money that bought the climate obstruction. that will speed things along. you finance in agricultural sectors and our coastal economies, all are looking down the barrel of multiple and

serious economic crash warnings. banks, insurance companies, freddie mac, sovereign banks, wherever you look in the world of finance, there are dramatic, dire warnings from sober, serious, bean-counter people who are not there to be green. they are there to make green. so corporate climate concerns have moved from the communications shops to business operations, to the sea sweeps. the famous author mary renault, who wrote wonderful historical novels, said there is one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected. the expected, for which one has refused to prepare.

there has never been a crisis or a hat as trough ee more warned about by more and more credible sources than the looming climate crisis, and it's going to clobber these businesses. now they just need to align their political effort with their own stated policies. how hard is that? all of this can break the right way. the dark pavilion of denial can fall. congress can rise in bipartisan force to stop the harm and cure the damage. but that's not foreordained.

we can still screw this up, no doubt about it. so let's not. let's do our duty. the conditions are at last, at last in place for a real solution. a new dawn is breaking. when it's dawn, there's no need for my little candle against the darkness. my little time to wake up pilot light can now go out. so instead of urging that it's time to wake up, i close this long run by saying now it's time to get to work.

the white house time to -- the whitehouse time to wake up run, farewell. the whitehouse, at least on time to wake up, out. thank you. mr. inhofe: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: before my friend leaves, i just want him to know

that i relish the opportunity to be here for -- really issued the opportunity to be here for his 400th or whatever it's been, but his final speech. and i'm excited about the final speech because i've got it pretty well memorized now. and while i have to say this -- and i say this about another person who has been on the committee with me for a long period of time. while i don't agree with very much of what you say, but you say it so well. that goes with you, i say to the senator from massachusetts, because we cover a lot of issues in that committee. i think it was -- we have the new majority now. you will see some things that you will seize upon as opportunities that may make some changes. i will be there to try to keep that from happening, but nonetheless, we'll enjoy it.

so there are so many issues right now -- and i say this to my friend from massachusetts -- that we're involved in this year that we -- you know, one of them is the issues that we have discussed in some detail about western sahara and some things that have gone there. we find so many things that we can agree on. i look forward to being in the new position of being in the minority and combating from a different perspective. so congratulations on the commitment that you have made to your cause and the time and the effort and the eloquence that you have used over the years. mr. whitehouse: well, thank you, senator inhofe. i am grateful to the senior senator from oklahoma. we are indeed fairly fierce adversaries on the issue of climate, but it is a fervent

prayer of mine that that might change because i have had the experience of working with senator inhofe on issues on which we are not adversaries, and let me tell you, the man is a senatorial caterpillar tractor at getting things done when our interests align. whether it's been cleaning up kleptocracy or fixing the enforcement of pirate fishing overseas or our ocean plastics work. senator inhofe has been enormously valuable in those things. and i will confess, because we have had these wars with one another on climate change, that when senator inhofe came to senator sullivan's and my hearing on oceans plastic, my heart sank. i thought oh -- i won't say the

word -- this was such a good hearing, it was going so well. why did he have to show up? because i thought he was going to ruin everything. not a bit. he listened, and when it came time to ask questions, he asked terrific questions, described an experience of his childhood along the texas gulf coast, and the sea turtles trying to make their way to the ocean from their eggs and asked how he could help. he was an original cosponsor of our bill. he was a staunch supporter of the bigger, better, 2.0 bill. i will close with reiterating my prayer that perhaps in this most marvelous of all worlds, the good lord can find a way to bring us to work together to solve this climate problem. if so, we may very well have a miracle in this chamber.

i yield the floor. mr. inhofe: madam president, we -- there are many other areas. i recall so many times during the -- a long period of time when democrats were a majority, barbara boxer was the chairman of our committee, when i was in the majority, republicans were in the majority, i would be the chairman and she would be the ranking member. but i have to say this, we -- in that committee, we got things done. you overlooked the infrastructure thing, how important that was. and i have to con -- confession is good for the soul. i have to admit every time we had a new infrastructure bill, i started off on the democrat side because they seemed to be more interested in some of the things that i was interested in. so anyway, that's the way it works around here. and we all love each other. all right? mr. whitehouse: i thank the senator for his courtesy in coming to say those words. i truly appreciate it.

mr. markey: madam president. mr. inhofe: i yield. mr. markey: thank you for rising, because i do believe what you were saying about senator whitehouse is accurate. in my opinion, like lou gehrig, like cal ripken, he will go down in history in this longevity streak in highlighting, spotlighting thriek the true north star the need for us to take action on these issues, and he is without question a climate change hall of famer. and i agree with you. there is a new dawn which has now arrived, with our fingers crossed. and i share your hope, with the senator from rhode island, that we might be able to finally persuade the gentleman from oklahoma that it's sunny most of the time in oklahoma. it's windy most of the time in oklahoma. and that there are tens of thousands of jobs yet to be created, and we can work in

partnership in order to accomplish that goal. but for today, i just wanted to come over and just honor the great sheldon whitehouse, for his incredible leadership during this time that we have been going through where the climate denier in chief is now gone and there is hope alive. your leadership is absolutely hall of fame and historic. so congratulations. mr. whitehouse: you are the hank aaron, you are the roger maris. so i appreciate it, and thank you. mr. inhofe: the cal ripken of climate. that's pretty good. well, madam president, that's not what i came to talk about, but i came to listen. one of the mess presentations that i have heard in a long time was just -- one of the best presentations that i have heard

in a long time was just a couple of hours ago by james lankford. talking about i have never heard a presentation more heartfelt and compassionate than he did on the unborn. and i couldn't touch that, but there are a couple of things i wanted to add that perhaps were not on his -- he didn't have time to get around to. it's really important that we recognize this -- celebrating this march for life. it's taking place, it's something that has happened each year for a long time now. i have always enjoyed being a part of it. we have groups, large groups of people that come up from oklahoma. however, it's virtual this year, as everything else is. but it's more important than ever under this new administration and its radical abortion practices and the personnel that have been suggested will be part of the

administration. so it's going to be a -- maybe a greater fight than it's been in the past. in light of that, i'm introducing a bill i have introduced before but we have never been able to get it passed. it's called protecting individuals with downs syndrome act which will prohibit abortions being sought because the unborn baby has downs syndrome. all abortion is tragic but this population has been specifically targeted. in the united states, and it just turned out this way, no law that influences it, but in the united states approximately 67% of the unborn babies diagnosed with down's syndrome are aborted. all lives have inherent worth regardless of their chromosome count. i think we all understand that. but my fight doesn't stop here. i'm also joining my colleagues in introducing several pro-life

bills as we prepare for the march for life, including senator sasse. he has a bill that is the born alive abortion survivors protection act. his bill ensures that a baby who survives an abortion will receive the same treatment as any child naturally born at the same age. people don't realize this, that babies, where there's been an attempted abortion and they survive the abortion, they don't get the medical treatment that they normally would get, which is, this bill directly addresses it. it has been going on for a long time. i have a feeling that we have an opportunity. the numbers are changing in our direction in terms of the unborn and have been for some time. my wife kay and i have been married 60 years. we have 20 kids and grandkids,

so i know something about babies. i know something about babies that are born. i looked up and i saw, because of the great presentation that senator lankford gave, i was looking for some material i used in the past. it was 28 years ago i came down here to tell a story about anna rosa rodriguez this is what i said. i was in the house at that time. it was in the house record. this is what i said at that time. i said, mr. chairman, there is a big misconception regarding abortion and the issue of women and their right to protect their bodies. it is not that right that i object to, but the right that is given them to kill an unborn fetus, unborn baby. i want to share with you a story that my colleague chris smith told me some time ago on this floor.

it was about anna rosa rodriguez she is an abortion survivor. at birth she was a healthy three-pound baby girl. except for her injury, she was missing an arm. anna survived a botched abortion. her mother attempted to get an abortion in her 37th week of pregnancy when she was perfectly healthy, perfectly healthy eight weeks past what the new york state law allows. in the unsuccessful abortion attempt the baby's right arm was ripped off from her body, but they failed to kill anna rosa. she lived. i got to know her after that. pro-life supporters agreed that nightmare situations like the rodriguez case are probably not all that common, but abortion-related deaths and serious injuries occur more often than most people are aware of.

it's amazing that we can pay so much attention to issues such as human rights abroad and can allow the violent destruction of over 26 million children here at home. we're fortunate that anna was not one of those children. she survived. that was in 1992. i was in the house at that time. but today we still don't have explicit federal protections for babies who survive the brutal abortion process. as i said, this issue is not about abortion, but about caring for a baby outside the womb. these kids are, they failed an abortion, so they're alive. in most cases they're in a hospital setting. in many cases anyway. and yet they don't get the same -- they don't look at them as someone that you can save. you don't want to use lifesaving talents on these babies. the need for these protections become even clearer as we see

states like new york and illinois that allow abortion for virtually any reason up to the point of birth in support infanticide by removing protections, for instance, born alive after a failed abortion. just a few years ago, after that speech i gave p in 1997, i was on the floor with my good friend, former senator rick santorum, to try to pass a partial birth abortion ban and end the horrific practice of late-term abortions. fortunately we won the battle against partial-birth abortions and finally ended that practice in 2003, that ban was upheld by the supreme court in 2007. but we have yet to pass legislation banning late-term abortions. only seven countries allow abortion after 20 weeks, including the united states and north korea. now that's horrific.

the united states is supposed to be an example in regards to global human rights, yet we're on par with north korea when it comes to protecting the unborn. senator graham's pain-capable unborn child protection act would help roll back this horrific practice by prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks post fertilization. that's when we know that the babies can feel. it's not even debatable. they can feel the pain at that time. it's another commonsense bill that should not divide us along party lines. a baby is a baby, whether in or outside of the womb. and each baby deserves a chance to live as an individual created in the image of god. there's still much more we need to do to end abortion on demand culture. under the last administration, we protected the hyde amendment, reinstated the

mexico city policy and stripped abortion providers like planned parenthood from using title x funds, title 10 funding for abortions. unfortunately president biden is trying to undo all these accomplishments that we made in the last administration. the need to stand up for our babies is as important today as it's ever been, certainly in 1992 and 1997, when i quoted from talks i made back at that time. and we'll overcome evil with good by upholding and affirming the dignity and inherent worth of every human being. we'll just keep fighting, and we're going to win this one. i thank the chair, and i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. durbin: i ask that it be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, 76 years ago today scouts from the soviet red army pushed their way through poland. they stumbled on a place that haunts the world to this day, a place of incomprehensible suffering, cruelty and depravity, auschwitz.

auschwitz was the largest of nazi germany's death camps, 40 strawling acres of -- sprawling acres of hell on earth, from 1930 to 1935, 100 children were transferred to auschwitz. at the height of the extermination camp's operation, an average -- an average of 6,000 jews were poisoned and cremated every day in the gas chambers and creamer yum -- creamer yum. the first soviet soldiers who entered auschwitz on january 7,

1945, were met with an eerie stillness. most of the camps people had been dispersed to other concentration camps where they continued to be exploited as slave labor. only 9,000 remained, they were too sick to endure the evacuation, they were left there to die, no food, water, or heat. the s.s. had tried to dismantle that killing machine before they abandoned it. they forced them to demolish the gas chambers an ovens, but the fires still burned in auschwitz. three weeks ago today on januarb attacked this capitol building and this congress as we gathered

to fulfill our constitutional obligation to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. that siege of the capitol was an attack on american democracy itself, sadly it was incited by then-president donald trump. so many scenes from that day still haunt us. police officers trying to maintain order battered with american flags, threatened to be murdered with their own service weapons. a scaffold erected on capitol grounds and called out to hang the vice president of the united states. a confederate battle flag paraded through the halls of the senate, a desecration that never happened during our civil war. but for many the most painful image of that day was of a

middle-aged white man proudly wearing a sweatshirt that read camp auschwitz and then the words, work makes you free, a translation of the cruel slogan atop the black iron gates leading into the auschwitz concentration camp. for one retired dentist and grandfather in the chicago air, that despicable hate symbol shown during the capitol insurrection and the chance of jews -- and the chants will not replace us three years earlier in charlottesville were shocking reminders. george brent is 91 years old but was in hungary when he and his brother saw a nazi invasion

1944. two months after that invasion, may 19, 1994, hungarian towns people woke george and his family early in the morning and told them they had two hours to get out of their home. they were taken to the jewish ghetto, the following morning they were loaded into open cattle cars. after six days traveling on the railroad, the doors were opened to reveal dogs and whips and s.s. officers barking command. george and his father were ordered to walk in one direction and out of the corner of his eye he saw his mom and little brother pete herded into the opposite direction. he never saw them again. they almost certainly died in

auschwitz. george and his father were not killed because they were strong enough to work. george was given different jobs at auschwitz. he remembers the smoke that billowed from cream torrian, as george and 56,000 other prisoners were evacuated from auschwitz. the men and boys were forced to walk hours in the freezing cold and snow in wooden clotion, they called it a march of death and a fourth of the prisoners died along the way, they were shipped west. george was sent to a notoriously brutal camp in upper austria, he was sent to a satellite camp. the official policy of both camps was extermination through labor. it was a cruel mockery of the

sign that greeted the prisoners as they entered auschwitz, work makes you free. george was put to work digging tunnels where the nazis could hide their war elements from allied bombing. on may 6, 1945, 11 and a half months after george was rip rhode island from his family, -- ripped from his family, he was liberated from the last of the nazi camps to be liberated. george was then 16 years of age. he weighed less than 70 pounds. after the war, george stayed with two of his aunts in budapest, they discovered that his father was alive but desperately ill in munich. george was able to visit him. he settled into a displace camp in munich. he moved in with his great uncle

who owned a grocery store on the south side of chicago. george slept on a recliner chair in the store room. he was happy to be there. he reached the age of 20. in may of 1950, seven months after arriving in the u.s., he enlisted in the air force reserve and served two years during the korean war. in 1951 george's father moved to chicago and they were reunited for to years before his father passed away. george married, raised a family, he graduated from the chicago college of dentist ri, he practiced dentistry for 50 years. he became a lecturer at the holocaust museum where he tells his story mostly to kids. george brent is a proud american. he's not really political. when he saw the clothing and the

symbols at the capitol siege glorifying the murderous nazi regime, he was outraged. how could this happen in america, he asked? one effort that i believe is needed, in fact, it's long overdue, is for congress to pass legislation aimed at addressing the significant threat of domestic terrorism, domestic homegrown american terrorism. that's why i've introduced the domestic terrorism prevention act in each congress since 2017. i'll be reintroducing it soon in this congress. for far too long we have failed to monitor the dangerous groups that threaten us, the violent white supremacists that other extremist groups while we look the other way, the threat grew. intelligence experts have now warned us that such groups constitute a serious and growing threat to america's security. unfortunately, instead of addressing this threat, the

trump administration spent four years downplaying it and the former president made appalling, embarrassing statements that only served to further incite these violent extremists. we can't waste another moment. congress has to act against this hate-fueled extremism. as the incoming chair of the senate judiciary committee, i'm going to hold hearings on this matter. i brought it up to the head of the f.b.i. before. he acknowledged the problem but little or nothing was done during the trump years. i trust that president biden will take a different approach. this is a serious threat to security in america. i feel badly for george brent, a man who survived auschwitz, the concentration camps and everything the nazis through at him. he came to the united states because he dearly loved this country and the freedoms that

are part of it. he made a great contribution here and still does at the holocaust museum. can you imagine what went through his mind as he saw the demonstrator in the united states capitol with a sweatshirt mocking his life experience, a sweatshirt which bore the words camp auschwitz. did with a was a sad -- it was a sad day that that group overran this capitol. i'm sad for the pain this brought to so many people. we cannot ignore it. it's not a question of getting over it. it's not a question of letting president trump ride off into the sunset. we've got to come to grips of what occurred three weeks ago today, three weeks ago today when we ran out of this chamber. we were told to move as quickly as possible with the fear that this mob was going to overtake

us and harm us. and after we left the building, they overran this chamber. they went through the desk. they posed in chairs where the presiding officer is sitting, took videos and photos of themselves and were just dumb enough to put them on facebook. so we have them and many of these people are going to pay a price for this criminal invasion of the capitol that they were part of. again, to george brent and his family, i'm sorry for what you had to go through. we're better than that. america is better than that. and we're glad that you're part of this great country. i will work to pass this bill and to get president biden to sign it into law, and as i do, i will remember george brent. madam president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be suspended. i ask unanimous consent that

notwithstanding rule 122, at 1:45 p.m. tomorrow, january 28, the senate vote on cloture on executive calendar number 4, alejandro mayorkas, that if cloture is invoked, the vote on confirmation be at 5:30 p.m. on mopped, february 1. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. thursday, january 28. further, that following the prayer and the pledge of allegiance, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.

>> use alomas where did all things that pertain to the trial of the impeachment of donald john trump former president of the united states now pending in partial justice according to the constitution so help you god? >> i do.

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