talking about what i think was the 2018th they started doing researche on resetting police fr 2020 and i know myself being a previously retired military member i used to do research and i worked with research institutes, fellows, and what we would do was target, you know, basically bad people in the military. it would have them look for somebody who may be got -- spirit this entire program is online at c-span .org. we leave it to fill our long-term commitment to live gavel to gavel senate coverage. senators are continuing this afternoon on president biden's nominations, including officials for the epa and defense department. take you live now to the senate floor.

nominee, even some of the most partisan

progressives earned at least one or some republican votes. what makes this nomination even more out of the ordinary is this truly never happens with d.o.d. nominees. if you look back over the last decade, recorded votes on d.o.d. nominees are rare, and only a few times did a nominee receive support from fewer than two-thirds of the senate. it just doesn't happen. it happened this time. some of his tweets have raised concerns from a number of our colleagues that dr. kahl might have shared sensitive or classified information on his twitter. the junior senator from tennessee highlighted this on the floor last week. furthermore, dr. kahl's tweets also show a history of volatile behavior that goes further than just being highly partisan and unbalanced. he's also somewhat of a

conspiracy theorist. in may of 2018, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu announced that israel had seized a major neumayr archive -- a major nuclear archive from iran. that archive reviewed many previously unknown nuclear sites and the international atomic agency is working access -- to be gain access to these sites thanks to israel's discovery. what did kahl say about israel's discovery at that time? he was skeptical and said this has an eerie 2003 iraqi vibe to it. in other words, rather than being alarmed about the fact that iran had many undeclared nuclear sites, dr. kahl alleged that israel was trying to goad america into war. somehow for dr. kahl, the problem is never iran or the

weak 2015 iran deal that didn't uncover the nuclear sites israel revealed. he wants to give iran massive relief for that deal. according to dr. kahl, the problem is israel. again, this isn't about a policy disagreement. this is about whether dr. kahl is someone you can accept, who can accept facts, even who -- wn those facts undercut his preferences. national security is a bipartisan priority. it always has been, it always will be. as i said at the beginning of this, traditionally nominees for key d.o.d. roles receive bipartisan support in the senate. in fact, i can't recall a single nominee for the top d.o.d. position in the past 40

years who didn't garner at least one vote from the other party. either party. i hope president biden keeps this in mind as he staffs the rest of his administration. we need nominees who will work with members on both sides of the aisle and whose, and those members have to trust that person in return. moving forward, i encourage president biden to listen to his own calls for bipartisanship and unity and send us nominees who can be approved without controversy. with that, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to be able to complete my remarks before the vote. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: thank you very much. the senate has invoked cloture, and i just want to thank everybody who supported cloture on janet mccabe's nomination to serve as deputy administrator of the environmental protection

agency. i rise now to urge my colleagues to support the confirmation of this outstanding nominee, because janet mccabe is exactly the leader that administrator michael regan and the rest of e.p.a. need right now as we tackle some of the most pressing challenges in the agency and in our nation's history. and she'll do so as one who understands the challenges and opportunities of working as a director of an air program within a state environmental agency to create a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment not just for the citizens of some communities, but for all communities and all zip codes in indiana, but also for the industry throughout her state. i stand before you today, as my colleagues sometimes call me, a recovering governor. i understand how important and difficult it can be to bring a genuine interest to hear all

points of view to a job where agency actions have consequences in every home and business. perhaps janet mccabe's colleague, the vice president of research at the university of indiana put it best recently. i just want to quote him. here's what he said -- the reason she will be great at e.p.a. is the same reason she was superb here. it's her ability to get people behind a common vision and get them to do things and not just talk about them. janet mccabe is a steady hand who has built a 30-year career of leadership and environmental protection. her dedication and her know-how will be invaluable in protecting clean air and clean water. addressing the climate crisis, and realizing environmental justice for the most vulnerable among us. so it's no surprise that she has garnered support from 48 leading

environmental organizations. at the same time, anyone who has worked with ms. mccabe knows that she is a hardworking, pragmatic hoosier to the core. she works well with democrats. she works well with republicans and with independents. and that's why she has the public support of nine former e.p.a. deputy administrators and acting administrator, including four republican former e.p.a. deputy administrators who served in the reagan administration, who served in the administration with george herbert walker bush, and who served in the george w. bush administration. her professional experience includes service in both federal and state government. that includes impressive tenures in indiana indiana and massachusetts government agencies as well as years of leadership experience at e.p.a. based on that experience, ms. mccabe knows that in order for any federal agency to be

successful, its leaders must work closely and collaboratively with state and local partners, no matter which party is in charge. her pragmatic and inclusive style has also inspired the support of the electric power industry, the yettison electric institute enthusiastically supports janet mccabe's nomination. this is an organization -- listen to this. this is an organization that speaks for companies that provide power to 220 million americans. that's right, roughly two-thirds of all americans. let me put it another way. edison electric generates electricity for two-thirds for all americans, and they have thrown their support behind the nomination of janet mccabe for

this post. according to e.e.i., president tom coon says janet mccabe has a strong commitment to public service and a strong tack record of engaging with diverse stakeholders, including industry, as demonstrated by her time at the helm at the indiana department of of environmental management and e.p.a.'s office of air and radiation. that's a quote. ms. mccabe has their support because she has demonstrated time and again that environmental and economic progress go hand in hand. let me say that again. she demonstrated time and again that cleaner air, clean water, environmental progress, and economic progress go hand in hand. they are inextricably linked. that ethic has earned ms. mccabe the support of the american chemistry council, the association of equipment

manufacturers, the blue-green alliance which represents some of our largest labor unions. ms. mccabe knows that while e.p.a. is working to protect clean air and clean water and address climate change, the agency must seize the opportunity to protect and create good-paying jobs across our country. she understands that the environmental and climate changes we face are not just a problem, they offer economic and competitive opportunity. president biden's american jobs plan embraces these principles, and janet mccabe has the experience, she has the intelligence to work with her agency colleagues to translate into action at e.p.a. president biden's americans job plan embraces these principles. and janet mccabe has the experience and the intelligence to work with her agency colleagues to translate them

into action at e.p.a. the association of equipment manufacturers put it very well when they wrote last month -- and this is their quote -- ms. mccabe will bring leadership and collaborative spirit needed to address difficult environmental cheadged improve regulatory processes and ensure we can continue to build power and feed our country in an innovative and sustainable way. close quote. ms. mccabe will help ensure that everyone, everyone who has a stake in our environment and our economy has a seat at the table. she's built a reputation of listening to everyone, everyone. addressing real economic concerns. making sure government policy helps people and communities at the local level. ms. mccabe embodies these values in her current role as director of indiana university's

environmental resilience institute where she works every day, every day to help mayors, to help farmers and communities of all sizes and shape prepare for and adapt to climate change. i'll borrow once again from university of indiana fred cape. i quote him again. she understands that at the end of the day, if you don't bring along finance and industry and local buy-in, then we won't get things done. i couldn't have said it better. as deputy administrator, janet's role will be equivalent of a chief operating officer. she will be primarily focused on e.p.a. internal policies and procedures, the day-to-day running of the agency will not play a significant role in crafting new public policies. one of her key tasks will be to restore the agency's organizational health which

suffered during the previous administration as respect for science and career staff advice declined and morale deteriorated. there is no person better suited to overseeing this internal restoration than janet mccabe. under her leadership, i have every confidence that e.p.a. will recover and soar. i'm very grateful that janet has agreed to serve her country again in this new leadership role. we're grateful to her family for their willingness to share her again with all of us. her personal integrity, her work eghts thick are an in -- ethic are an inspiration to all public service and her willingness to engage all points of view is a boon to all who have strong interest in e.p.a.'s work. in closing, i just want to urge my colleagues, all of our colleagues to vote to confirm her today so that she can put her robust talents to work for all the american people. with that, madam president, i yield the floor.

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

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change his or her vote? if not the yeas are 52, the nays are 42, and the nomination is confirmed. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. cloture motion -- the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a close debate on of calendar number 68, colin hackett kahl,

to be undersecretary, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the voluntary quorum call has been waived. to be under secretary of defense for policy shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote: vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or to change his or her vote. the yeas are 49, the nays are 44 and the motion is agreed to. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider on the mccabe nomination is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. the clerk will record the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of defense, colin hackett kahl of california to be under secretary for policy. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: madam president, shortly we're going to be taking up s. 914, the drinking water and wastewater infrastructure act. i'm going to ask my colleagues to approve this legislation promptly.

the environment and public works committee-reported this legislation by a unanimous vote. we don't get too manyan votes here on -- too many unanimous votes here on substantive, important legislation and we were able to get that because this bill is truly bipartisan. i want to congratulate the leadership of the environment and public works committee, chairman carper, for the management of the committee to bring us together, and senator capito, the ranking member member. the two of them set the climate for us to work together to bring out a drinking water and wastewater infrastructure bill. i also want to compliment my counterpart in regards to the subcommittee on infrastructure, senator cramer, who is the ranking member. i'm the chair. and senator duckworth, who is the chair of the water committee. and senator lummis. all six of us worked together on is that this drinking water and wastewater infrastructure act really does represent the views of all the members of the senate and is a bill that is desperately needed by our communities. water infrastructure is critically important to our

nation. it's important for drinking water. it's important for how we treat our waste, wastewater. the needs are tremendous. the american society of civil engineers gives us a report card grade of d in 2021. the gaps are billions of dollars a year necessary to bring our water infrastructure up to standard. this legislation will move us in the right direction. it authorizes $35 billion of water infrastructure, which is desperately needed in our community. it will allow us to upgrade aging infrastructure, address the threat of climate change, invest in new technologies, and help marginal communities in dealing with these needs. covid-19 has made the challenges even more dramatic for our communities. water utilities have incurred

additional costs. i think that is quite obvious. they had to deal with the protective equipment for their workers to deal with covid-19. they had workers who were out as a result of covid-19. they had to deal with changing the way that they operated their business. there was a demand for greater water during covid-19, just the washing of our hands frequently. it requires us to have access to more clean water. the ability of our customers to pay their bills was challenged during covid-19, as we know american families' incomes were very stressed and still stressed as a result of covid-19. and the gap between the ability of the public support for water infrastructure and what ratepayers are asked to pay is getting larger and larger. we haven't made the money available from the public side for water infrastructure, and to put more pressure on the

rate, customers are already having a difficult time paying their bills, is not a viable option. that makes s. 914 even more urgent. i want to talk about a couple of provisions that are included in s. 914 that are bipartisan, that i worked on, that i think are extremely important part of this legislation. one, working with senator wicker, we have in this bill a pilot program that will establish 40 grants around the nation so that we can establish programs to help low-income households. by way of comparison, this is similar to the liheap program that we use to help our low-income families deal with their utility bills for heating their homes and air conditioning their homes. this will provide similar help for low-income families in dealing with the price of their water bills. i can tell you, having been through maryland and some of our

centers, i can tell you that there's many communities where individuals literally cannot afford their water bills. it's an essential utility. we need to do something to fill the gap. so this bill will establish a program so that we can take some of the pressure off of the ratepayers and, therefore, allow local utilities to be able to use rates to do some of their improvements without adversely affecting low-income families. this pilot program, to me, is long overdue, but i'm pleased to see it's included in this legislation. another provision that's included in this legislation is legislation i authored with senator capito, the clean water infrastructure resiliency and sustainability program. the two of us recognize that in the state of west virginia and the state of maryland, we have extreme weather events that are affecting our ability to handle drinking water and wastewater. now that's true in every state

in the nation. i could tell you about in maryland, in the community of ellicott city, where they have had two 100-year floods in a period of less than two years. these frequent extreme weather events are happening in this nation on a regular basis, and it's putting additional stress on our water infrastructure. the president in a recent summit he had on climate, this was one of the issues that was brought up. wastewater treatment plants and drinking water systems, we need to increase their resiliency and adaptability. that's what this provision will do by providing grants that will assist in planning, designing, construction, implementation, operations or maintenance of the facilities. storm water runoff is one of the largest sources of pollutants in our environment. we have over 600,000 miles of rivers and streams in america,

13 million acres of lakes, reservoirs and ponds. i can speak personally about the impact that runoff has on the chesapeake bay, a national treasure. it is the fastest-growing source of pollutant into the chesapeake bay comes from storm runoff. so this grant program on resiliency will help all of us plan for how we deal with water infrastructure in a way that can deal with our modern challenges. another provision in this bill comes from legislation that was authored by senator boozman and myself, the water resources research amendments act. this provides help for research so that we can find effective and efficient new ways to deal with water treatment facilities. in maryland, we're proud that we have the maryland water resources research center at the university of maryland college park that does this type of research that will help us to

the next generation of how we can use technology to help deal with our water infrastructure in america. the bottom line is that s. 914 is a bill that will help us preserve and provide drinking water to the people of this nation, to deal with wastewater. it's a very important bill for water infrastructure. it's bp. -- it's bipartisan. it will be on the floor. i urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation which is clearly part of building america back better. i hope that we can act on this bill this week and send it to the house and get this bill to the president for his signature. i can tell you our local water systems desperately need the help. with that, mr. president, i will yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. ms. sinema: i seek recognition. mr. president, i ask for the quorum call to be dispensed with. the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. ms. sinema: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to introduce a bipartisan senate resolution recognizing the thousands of arizonans and millions more across america who go to work every day to serve their fellow citizens, protect our communities, and make our country a stronger place. america's public servants work across our uniformed services, as well as federal, state, and local governments to advance our country's health and safety. if we ever needed a reminder of the importance of our public servants, the past year has provided one. throughout the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic downturn, public servants kept us safe, provided care for our heroes and coordinated medical supplies for our communities and

helped keep our small businesses open. along our borders with mexico and canada, border patrol helped to limit the spread of covid-19 and protect our communities from illegal activity. customs -- board trade and commerce to keep fueling american jobs. v.a. employees cared for our veterans and are playing a critical role in delivering vaccines to veterans and their spouses. postal employees continue to deliver the mail, keeping every day families connected and helping employers remain open. to all of our firefighters, police officers, public health officials and teachers, you deserve our thanks every day. but moments of crisis often help remind us how much we rely on all of you. when kingman, arizona, recently experienced a cyber attack, it was local officials, alongside

members of the national guard, who mobilized to contain the damage and get the city back online. through these moments of sacrifice and service, these men and women show that public service is not about winning partisan political battles or getting your name out on cable news. it's about serving a cause greater than ourselves. in arizona, we are no strangers to dedicated public servants who left their marks on our state and our country, from sandra day o'connor, the first women to lead the arizona state senate and to be appointed to the united states supreme court, and to my personal hero, senator john mccain who dedicated his life to public service in uniform and here in the senate. beginning this sunday, america will mark public service recognition week and i'm honored to introduce this year's bipartisan public service week

resolution with my friend senator lankford of oklahoma. on the subcommittee of government operations and border management, senator lankford and i worked together by making the government work better for every day americans. that's a goal we share with all of america's public servants. and i'm proud that last year the senate came together across party lines to approve our resolution and honor public service. our bipartisan resolution recognizes the crucial work of federal, state, and local employees and public servants across the country and particularly recognizes the work of the millions of public servants who have overcome the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. as senator lankford has often said to our country's public servants, america could not succeed without you. public service is a noble calling and millions answer that call every day, often underpaid

and underappreciated. i am honored to thank these employees for keeping these communities and our nation safe and secure and for serving as examples to the next generation of public servants who will continue their legacy. thank you. mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. in colorado, we've come out of one of the worst wildfires seasons you've ever seen. i think you can't call it a fire when it goes on when the snowfalls, but that was what happened this year, incredibly. three of the largest fires in our history all happened in the same year, and these fires

displaced thousands of people in my state. they obscured the views of the mountains for weeks at a time. they forced families to pack their entire lives into duffel bags while their homes went up in flames. they shut down major highways for weeks, paralyzed local economies and blanketed our communities with smoke. if you asked anyone in colorado why this is happening, they'll tell you it's because our state is becoming hotter and dryer each year. if you ask farmers and ranchers in colorado, and a lot of them are republicans, they'll tell you they are facing droughts that are longer and more intense than their parents or grandparents had to deal with. our mountain towns will tell you they are struggling with skiing

seasons that are growing shorter each year and our water officials will tell you they are planning on a future with a lot less water to go around and there wasn't enough water to begin with. and the reason for all of this is climate change, and it's why in colorado, a purple state, a swing state in the middle of the country, there is absolutely a consensus that we have a moral responsibility to deal with climate change as a threat to our economy, it to our environment, and to our way of life. that responsibility extends to the united states senate. but for most of the time i've been here, we've treated climate change like it was going to somehow solve itself or in some cases that it didn't even really exist and nothing could be further from the truth. this is a problem for all 50 states and every american.

it's a problem for humanity, and we can't deal with it in an enduring way unless the 100 people in this body take action, until 100 people are willing to lead. a challenge that is existential, yes, and also global, yes, and that's crying out for the leadership of this senate. there's nobody else to ride to the rescue. we have to do this, and we can start tomorrow by voting to reverse -- and i hope it will be a big bipartisan vote tomorrow -- by voting to reverse the last administration's terrible counterproductive, self-destructive policy on methane pollution. methane is not something people ever think about. it's one of the most powerful greenhouse gases behind climate

change. it can be over 80 times more potent, mr. president, than carbon dioxide. and it's responsible for a quarter of all the warming that the planet has seen since the industrial revolution. and today one of the biggest sources of methane pollution is the oil and gas industry. my state and the -- and the great state of texas where the senior senator is from and all across the country where methane leaks into the atmosphere from old piems and leaks out into the atmosphere. methane pollution is terrible for the environment because it accelerates climate change. it's terrible for our health because it puts toxins in the air we breathe, especially for the nearly 10 million americans who live near oil and gas wells

or go to school near oil and gas wells. but it's also terrible for industry because it makes their fuel much dirtiers and it cuts -- dirtier and it cuts into their bottom line. that's why years ago, i think it was in 2014, in colorado under the leadership of then governor hickenlooper, now senator hickenlooper, we adopted as a state the country's first rules to limit oil oil and gas facili. governor hickenlooper worked by bringing industry leaders together to craft a policy that reflected the consensus in my state around climate change and our economy and our approach worked to well that the e.p.a. and the bureau of land management drew on it for methane rules at the federal level. when the last administration

went after the rules at b.l.m., our late friend, senator john mccain, led a bipartisan majority in this body to keep them in place. at the time the trump administration claimed that the federal methane rules destroyed energy production and killed jobs. that was never true, to be polite about it. in colorado, our natural gas production has grown. our oil production has nearly doubled, our innovation in jobs have increased. today there are 52 different businesses in my state hiring people to repair pipes, to track pollution and develop new technologies to reduce pollution. this has strengthened our economy. colorado's approach worked so well, that we've gone back and strengthened our methane rules

another three times in 2017, in 2019, in 2020, each time with support from both environmental groups and industry. but instead of learning from our example, the trump administration went ahead with its plarns to dismanhattan -- plans to dismantle methane rules at the federal level and it did that over the objections of leading oil and gas appropriators in my -- operators in my state and across the country. the result was a self-inflicted wound on our economy, our environment, and it compromised our leadership in the world. and now i hope we'll pick the pieces up in a bipartisan way because here's what i think, mr. president. we are not going to solve climate change until we have an american climate policy just like we once had something we called u.s. foreign policy where

every president who waselected, whether a republican or democrat, they knew what their job was with respect to the soviet union and with respect to the transatlantic alliance. there were differences, of course, and we made lots of mistakes with that organizing principle, but it was an important organizing principle that we called american foreign policy. and we're going to need something called american climate policy. we didn't win the cold war two years at a time. and we can't accept the politics in here where i put in my idea for health care and two years later they get ripped out and somebody puts in their idea for infrastructure and two years later, they get ripped out. we can't tolerate it for those things, education, taxes. people need predictability. they don't want to succumb to

the political antics of washington, d.c., and this floor. but when it comes to climate change, that's really true because we can't fix it two years at a time. i often hear people say, we have to act urgently on climate change. we do, it's true, but we also need a solution that's durable, one that will last changes in the majorities in the congress and changes in who's in the white house so that we can actually pass off that solution to our kids and grandkids who can then pick up the baton. so let me say this. you cannot accept, if you want to fix climate change, the broken politics that we have here. we be can't accept the rubble that -- that we sometimes have here. we have to do better, and i think we can. i think by starting with this methane rule and hopefully doing

it in a bipartisan way, it will be a great beginning. coming together on methane pollution is the perfect place to start. in colorado, 91% of people support limits on methane pollution. it has the support of environmental groups and industry, as i said earlier, including america's largest natural gas producers. it has a record of bipartisan support in this body, and it has the potential to create thousands of jobs, high-paying jobs, mostly in rural areas where people are reasonably concerned about what this energy transition is going to mean for them. let's pay people to capture methane, to make the industry viable, to make the product less harmful, and to create high-paying jobs in rural areas in america that need them.

i know i don't have all the answers for how to build a durable climate policy in america, but i know that a sensible approach to methane has to be part of the solution. and that approach has to address not only new oil and gas facilities but existing ones, like we've done in colorado and that's what this resolution will do. it will restore e.p.a.'s obligation to regulate all sources of methane emissions, including existing oil and gas operations where there are hundreds of thousands of older wells that are responsible for 75% of methane emissions from the industry. it will help us protect the environment and create jobs. and it will show the world that america can come together, that this senate can come together in a bipartisan way to deal with climate change. because when i think about it,

mr. president, i don't want any of us to come back to this floor ten years from now or 20 years from now and describe how we've just gone through the worst wildfire season ever or the worst hurricane season ever, more likely in your state than my state. or the worst drought in our history. i want them to come back and celebrate how america led the world to overcome the climate threat. i want them to praise the era, the innovation and job creation unleashed across the country. and i want them to point out what we did in this congress with this vote to put america on a path to protect our planet, grow our economy, and fulfill our responsibility to our kids and our grandkids. so i urge my colleagues, every single one of them, to cast a

vote for this important methane policy to set us on the bipartisan course we need to create if we're going to have durable climate change policy in this country and if america is going to lead the world. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from -- mr. bennet: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: i have are 1r5 committees that want to meet. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. bennet: mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, tomorrow evening across the capitol, president biden will deliver his first state of the

union address. as we continue to make headway on our fight against covid-19, i expect the president to reflect on the tremendous progress we've made and encourage americans to get vaccinated. so far so good. but i also believe he will try to frame the nearly $2 trillion partisan bill that was rammed through congress earlier this year as a driving force behind that progress, even though less than 10% of the bill was related to covid-19. i expect the president will call on congress to pass his so-called infrastructure bill, which is similar to the covid-19 relief bill in that it is a partisan bill having very little to do with the title of the bill itself. only about 5% in fact goes toward roads and bridges, something we would all define as infrastructure.

i am hopeful that the president will finally announce a plan to address the crisis at our southern border because so far the administration has been largely silent. the crisis at the southern border is real. it's big. and it's growing. we're breaking all the wrong kinds of records, including the numbers of unaccompanied children, total monthly border crossings, and the capacity levels at our care facilities. in march we saw the highest number of border crossings on record, more than 172,000 individuals. that was a dramatic increase from the already eye popping 100,000 in february. february 100,000. march 172,000. and trust me, it's going to get nothing but worse. nearly 19,000 of these

individuals were unaccompanied children, the highest numbers we've ever seen in a single month. mr. president, sometimes people will say that child came to america all by himself or herself. i'm going to disabuse my colleagues of any notion that a child, small child would make that trip to the united states, quote, by themselves. these children are being turned over to criminal organizations who are paid by the head to transport them from their country of origin into the united states. and unfortunately these human smugglers known in my part of the country as coyotes care nothing for the welfare of those children. it's son the money that they can produce by transporting them to the united states that they care about. it's true we know that a spike

in migration is not an entirely new phenomenon and sadly neither is the dramatic increase in the number of children. but the current surge is unlike any we've experienced in at least the last 20 years, according to director mayorkas. these eye-popping numbers are compounded by a deadly pandemic. we've never seen that before. the pandemic, of course, is made once -- has made once routine tasks like transporting and caring for migrants incredibly dangerous to the men and women who are performing those duties. in an effort to downplay the seriousness of the border crisis or to defer attention from it altogether, the administration has spent literally no time talking about it, especially when compared to the time and energy that is dedicated to things like climate change. in fact, the biden administration has spent the first several weeks of this surge denying that there's

anything wrong at the border. then they came up with some creative euphemisms to describe what's happening. they called it a challenge. they called it a situation. they called it a mess. as long as you didn't call it a crisis, they didn't seem too bothered by it. a month ago the president tapped the vice president to lead efforts to address this crisis, which i thought was a positive sign until i realized vice president harris acted as though the president had handed her a hand grenade and had pulled the pin because she couldn't get away from it fast enough, saying the next day well, her job is purely diplomatic in nature. she hasn't made a single trip to the border and apparently does not plan to do so at all. the president has given lip service to encouraging migrants not to come, but those

statements mean absolutely nothing when all of the other signals being sent by this administration are there's a green light and a welcome mat out for migrants to come to the united states. the situation is such that we're reaching a breaking point, and the vice president and president could recognize that if they took the time to look and to learn from the very same people i've learned from, the exports who do these terrible difficult jobs along the border. as you can imagine, i've spent a lot of time listening to those folks because i represent them. they're my constituents. i visited border communities and heard from the border patrol, officers, mayors, n.g.o.'s, nongovernmental organizations who are doing the very best they can dealing with overwhelming numbers. i've had the opportunity to actually talk to some of the migrants themselves about their

journeys to our border and what brought them here. in the rio grande valley, i spoke with three young mothers holding their crying infants. less than a mile from the river they crossed into the united states. they had just undergone preliminary health screenings and were waiting for a bus to take them to a processing center. and please, mr. president, our colleagues should understand these migrants are not trying to get away from the border patrol. they're literally walking up to the border patrol and turning themselves in because they realize that's the next step to their being placed into the interior of the united states and completing their journey. of course, as can you imagine, each of these mothers was hopeful they'd made it to the united states and knew that as a family unit with young children, they would be cared for by our government and then released into the interior of the united states. one of the mothers paid $3,600,

she said, to get here. another paid $6,000. this is big business for the smugglers and the criminal organizations who charge thousands of dollars to bring migrants to the u.s. border. and i think it's important to note that this is not just a mexico central american phenomenon. a couple of months ago when i was down at the del rio sector of the border patrol, the border patrol chief showed us a slide with the names of 54 different countries represented by the people that were detained coming across the del rio sector just so far this year. 54 different countries. as i said, many of these, quote, customers are children traveling with no parents. we know the journey is not a safe or easy one. in fact, it's dangerous and it's hard. and many children arrive in

critical health having endured days, weeks, and months on the road. and the tragic fact is some of these children don't make it. they die en route. i've heard horrific stories of physical and sexual abuse that occurs at the hands of the criminals, cartels, and human smugglers and others traveling in a large caravan of immigrants. at the kay bailey hutchison convention center in dallas which is now serving as a shelter for migrant boys, i talked to one young man who endured a three-month-long trek on foot from central america to the united states. he told us he slept in the jungles along the way and that food was scarce. as you can imagine, he was happy now to be in a shelter receiving three square meals a day with a roof over his head. these stories are not unique. many of us have seen the

heartbreaking video of a young boy abandoned by smugglers in the rio grande valley dropped from the top of the wall into the interior of the united states. and we've ahead the story about a young girl who drowned trying to cross the rio grande river. and we've seen where the smugglers who care so little for the welfare of the people they are smuggling into the united states and in one instance they threw a 6-month-old child into the river knowing the border patrol would be diverted in order to save the child which thankfully they did while they skedaddled into the united states. i think it's heartbreaking that these children are enduring this sort of trauma, and it's infuriating that cartels and criminal organizations are getting richer in the process. so make no mistake, there is a crisis at the border, and the

policies of the biden administration helped make it worse. despite warnings from folks on both sides of the aisle, the administration revoked policies of the previous administration without any alternative plan in its place. making matters worse, they entirely failed to prepare for the obvious consequences. now the question is what are they going to do to address it. i believe the american people deserve to hear from president biden, his outline of a plan to address the border crisis and to manage this surge of humanity in a fair and humane way. if the president is still working on that portion of his speech, i would like to make a friendly suggestion. there's a grassroots plan out there that was built from bottom up by the senators and congressmen most familiar with the crisis. it includes input from the men and women who've dealt with

migration surges in the past and who are working around the clock to manage the consequences of uncontrol movement of migrants across the border now. it's called the bipartisan border solutions act. senator sinema from arizona who also represents a border state and i have introduced this legislation here in the senate, and we're proud to work with two texans, one republican, one democrat. henry cuellar of laredo and tony gonzalez, a republican in the 23rd republican congressional district. he represents, i believe, the largest single section of the u.s.-mexico border of any member in congress. our bill seeks to address the most urgent problems on the border today. there is more we can and should do, but at least this would address the most urgent problems. first, it would establish four regional processing centers to streamline the processing of migrants.

right now, the smugglers know if they blood the zone with children, the border patrol are going to have to go off the front line in order to take care of the children, leaving it wide open for smuggling of narcotics and other migrants. narcotics which, by the way, contributed to roughly 88,000 drug overdoses in america alone in the last 12 months. our bill would provide protections for migrant children who come into the country without a parent or any relatives, and it would help reduce the immigration court backlog and remove a major pull factor for migrants who do not have a legitimate asylum claim. but it will more importantly speed up the process for the most vulnerable migrants who do have a valid asylum claim. i think these are commonsense reforms that should earn the support of members of both parties and both chambers in

congress as well as a number of respected outside organizations. we would be glad to receive the support of the administration or at least a phone call so we could begin conversations. ignoring this prices will not make it go away. we spent the last couple of months demonstrating that inaction will only make it worse. as i said, we've seen surges in the past but never like this. the busiest months usually are april, may, and june, not february and march, which indicates by historical trends it's going to get worse and worse and worse. facilities and our personnel are overwhelmed, which they are, and we haven't yet reached the normal busy season, how much worse are things going to get? how many more children will die in the hands of these criminals on their way to the united states before we decide to take

action? mr. president, the presiding officer and i have discussed before, there is nobody else to solve these problems except us, and on something as important as this, it seems like a logical area for republicans and democrats to work together to try to take at least some modest steps to address this crisis. i hope the president will work with us and be part of the solution and not part of the problem. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i was listening intently to our senator from texas who is certainly familiar with the problems on the border. i happen to -- i spent 30 years down there as a voter developer many years ago. i got to know the border people. they are trying to do a great

job down there against some pretty impossible odds. you know, one thing i always think about, it has nothing to do with central american citizens or mexicans. it's the people of the middle east, terrorists from all over, open borders don't work. so i applaud him for his efforts on that. mr. president, this week, we have an opportunity before us to pass the bipartisan drinking water and waste water infrastructure act of 2021. if you only listen to the national media, you would think the congress can't get together on much of anything, but this bill is a real example of how that's not always the case. the reason is simple. everyone agrees that we need clean, safe drinking water and to support state and local projects to protect water quality. there are tangible benefits for communities to just consider what the bill does for my state of oklahoma.

first it will increase the federal funding for local projects over $315 million in the next five years, an increase of 123%. more than that, the state retains the control to direct the funds to projects that they have identified. it's called local support. this is -- you know, it's kind of a unique concept. it demonstrates clearly that we who are representing an area know more about the area than people who don't represent an area. this will increase federal funding for local projects. it will also provide needed resources to help oklahoma achieve its comprehensive water plan, meeting its goal for using no more freshwater in 2060 than was used in 2010. i'm proud to cosponsor this bill

because not only recognize that urban and rural communities have different water infrastructure needs but also provides specific benefits to rural states like my state of oklahoma. a month ago, the water quality division director in the state at oklahoma department of environmental quality shelly chard testified before the e.p.w. committee to highlight the challenges facing rural water systems and the innovation that they are using in rural states and communities to ensure safe and affordable drinking water. she highlighted the need for assistance to small rural states in complying with government regulations, and this bill does that by giving small and rural states access to federal funding and assistance in complying with government regulations that are often more burdensome and overbearing for them. the bill also empowers rural

communities to work with technical experts at nonprofit energies and state agencies to implement best practices and more efficient complying with the federal regulations. when a small town like meridiem, oklahoma, needs help addressing harmful contaminants in their water system, local rural water organizations can provide consistent expertise, and they do. they're out there. they want to help. dedicating resources to help our rural communities will ensure they spend more of their time and their money on community projects, not navigating a bureaucracy more than just taking care of our water infrastructure today, this bill has an eye on the future by reauthorizing the water resources research act. the water resources research act supports cutting edge water

research at universities across the country, including oklahoma state university in stillwater. o.s.u. will receive research funding over the next four years to study waste water reuse and produce water from oil and gas operations and more. the bill will also more than -- also more than doubles the funding for the enhanced aquifer recharge research program. this program does essential work to refill the groundwater aquifers, especially in areas with water shortages to sustain a reliable municipal water supply. now, i thank my colleagues, senator carper and senator capito, for working together to move this bill through the normal committee process and bring it to the floor. this is what bipartisanship means. we do see this every day in spite of what you might get from the media. i look forward to this bill being passed, enacted into law

quickly. but it's important that this not be the end of our bipartisan infrastructure work. we also need to reauthorize the new surface transportation plan before october 1. i know that it can be done because i did twice, with senator boxer we did the map-21 program. that was in 2012. we did the fast act in 2015. we are successful because we focused on actual infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, waterways, and the like. senator capito wrote out a meaningful infrastructure package just this last week. it is bold and focused on what our country actually needs. now, while president biden and the biden administration recognize the republican plan as a starting point, sadly senate democrats dismissed it outright, without even waiting to read it. and why? because the extreme left wants

to hijack the popularity of infrastructure to pass their green new deal agenda. you know, i had the honor of being with the president and the vice president in the white house in the first week in august, and at that time they were talking about the infrastructure package of the administration. now, i told the president at that time, one of the problems i have with what i meal is going to be in his infrastructure package is going to be using the popularity of infrastructure repair. that's popular. people want roads, they want highways, they want infrastructure. but they want to use that popularity to get their agenda passed. now, the infrastructure package that the president came out with, only about 7% of that actually is roads, highways, and bridges. so that's not what we want. we do have a bill coming out of

our -- out of the committee. the proof is in the numbers. the biden plan would spend more on electric vehicle charging ports and subsidizes for electric cars than it does on roads, bridges, and airport combined. you know, i didn't brief that when i -- believe that when i first saw it. how could he come out with something that would actually spend more on the electrical vehicles than it does on roads, highways, and bridges, but that's exactly right. it would be 157 for roads, highways, and bridges, but $174 billion for electrical vehicle support. if this sounds familiar to you, that's because it is. remember then president obama's america recovery plan that was supposed to be a massive investment in infrastructure with shovel-ready jobs. well, less than 5% of that bill went into infrastructure. the rest of the $800 billion

went to finance the obama climate agenda. i guess history really does repeat itself because that same thing is happening today. worse, it trades responsible pay-for methods with tax-and-spend approach. a lot of people here may be too young to remember this, but i remember, when the biggest problem we had in the highway trust fund was we had too much money. we had too much money. i ask the chair do you believe that because you haven't been here that long, but that actually was the problem. the highway trust fund was actually more than it needed to be. i can remember back during the clinton administration, i was pretty upset when he took several billion dollars out of that program because the surplus was there. i grant you that. but nonetheless, we knew that leaner times were coming, and we would end up with a highway program that we would not be able to pay for out of the

highway trust fund if we didn't let people take money out of that trust fund. but anyway, a lot of people here, too, may be too young to remember that, but that actually did happen. but no one of these unique things about our highway system is the user pays, user benefits model. as recent -- at a recent e.p.w. hearing we had just two weeks ago, every single witness was in agreement that every user who benefits should pay into the system. we all agreed that electric vehicles should be paying their fair share to maintain and improve our infrastructure. but instead, the biden plan takes the tax-and-spend approach, increasing the deficit and raising our corporate tax rate, undoing the historic tax cuts that we achieved under the previous administration, the trump administration. the people here, they don't fully appreciate just what it

means. they think that corporate tax rates won't affect them, but the people hurt by the most -- most of the higher corporate tax rate tend to be in the most vulnerable categories. that's because higher taxes on job creators not only hurts american competitiveness around the world, but it means lower wages, lower g.d.p. growth and fewer jobs to go around. in fact, the nonpartisan c.b.o. found that 70% of the savings businesses got when they lowered the corporate tax rate in the trump tax cuts went straight to working -- to worker wages, and the biden plan would undo that very successful program. a study by -- done by rice university found that raising the corporate tax rate back to 28% like biden plans to do will actually kill a million jobs in

just two years. before the pandemic, the economy was growing fast, thanks in large part to the historic tax cuts and the regulatory reforms that drove the record job growth. in fact, we had the best economy in my lifetime prior to the pandemic came along, and now 12 months into the pandemic, as many states are just now allowing businesses to reopen, the administration is looking to raise taxes on job creators who can get our economy back on track. the white house said it was serious about infrastructure investment, and i'm committed to working with the president and my colleagues in the senate to do this. it can be done this year, just as it has many times in the past, but it needs real infrastructure, not just big spending liberal climate bill. with that, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you. thank you, mr. president. i rise today to urge my colleagues to vote for this motion to proceed to the bipartisan drinking water and wastewater act of 2001, otherwise known as dwaa. as the ranking member of the environment and public works committee, i've been working closely with chairman carper and senators duckworth, lummis, cardin, and cramer, to craft meaningful legislation that addresses our country's aging drinking water and wastewater systems. every city in town can tell you all about it. this bill authorizes more than $35 billion for water resources development projects across the country, with a focus on upgrading aging infrastructure, addressing the emerging threats of extreme weather events, including those resulting from

climate change and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. this also includes measures to invest in innovative technologies and it provides assistance to marginalized communities. all of these things will help our communities keep their water safe and clean. something i'm particularly proud of is how this bill provides flexibility to both rural and urban areas and lets them decide how they can best address their needs. the most significant investments in this bill are in the drinking water and clean water state revolving funds, as we know them, s.r.f.'s. the s.r.f.'s maximize authority for the states to determine how best to address drinking and wastewater challenges. utilizing a revolving loan fund to facilitate additional future investments. for rural states like west virginia, we offer several solutions to unique water challenges. i will adhere we have a lot of great water in west virginia.

first, the bill invests $50 billion for those currently being served by intractable water systems. those are the systems that service fewer than 1,000 people and that have typically been abandoned by the operator. we have quite a few of those. towns in the southern coalfields of west virginia like those in mcdow county have historically struggled with this. since many of these households cannot connect to municipal water systems in an economic or technologically feasible way, the funding will go to a grant program to help them install environmentally sound, decentralized wastewater systems. this language was something that i worked on previously with my colleague from new jersey, cory booker, when he was on the committee in the last congress. the most pressing water issue from a human health and environmental perspective in appalachia is undoubtedly straight piping. this practice is common in other

exceptionally rural and remote areas around the country. so with new septic tanks installed, the grant program is working to improve quality of life and addresses public health and environmental concerns about straight piping waste into rivers and streams. infrastructure resiliency and sustainability is also a priority in this bill. in rural areas especially, some of the pipes are nearly 100 years old. i've actually heard about wooden pipes. small towns often don't have the revenues to spend on expensive drinking water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades. that's why this legislation creates grants for small public water systems to replace components, to identify and prevent leaks, and to install meters. this is based off of language i introduced last congress in the assuring quality water infrastructure act. i was joined there by my colleague ben cardin of maryland

to address the needs of small water systems that are being, facing operational challenges in maintaining drinking water services. every state has them. in west virginia, that is often the result of old infrastructure or the lack of adequate mapping of where these assets actually exist. it is hard to fix leaks when you can't find them. reports have shown -- this stunned me when i saw this. reports have shown that only one-quarter of the water that west virginia water systems pay to have treated and pumped even reaches a faucet. one-quarter, that's how much water leaks out. i think about my other states who have water shortages, and here we are wasting so much water in a state like ours who has an abundance of water. water is a precious resource, and wasting that much of it because of leaky pipes and faulty infrastructure is absolutely unacceptable.

the $250 million grant program will help provide the technical assistance and infrastructure investments that these small systems serving 10,000 people or fewer need to address to get those challenges off their back and to get on sure fiscal footing as they better serve their customers. of course we don't want to forget about our mid-size add large drinking water systems. another program that i worked on last congress, again with senator cardin, addresses the resiliency of drinking water and wastewater systems. adapted by the clean water infrastructure resilience and sustainability act, these programs totaling $370 million over five years, will help protect public water systems from a host of threats, both natural and man-made. in west virginia and many other parts of the country, the greatest threats to drinking and wastewater infrastructure comes from flooding. these investments will harden

infrastructure against these threats and protect taxpayers from paying for the same infrastructure again and again. i just discussed physical resilience, but we must also ensure the resilience of our water utility workforce, those workers who ensure the continued operation and maintenance of drinking water and wastewater systems every day. section 211 of dwia focuses on the resilience of america's water utility workforce by addressing recruitment, training, and retention challenges. this is a topic very important with me, and i worked again with my colleague from new jersey, senator booker, on this issue. i cannot help but think that we regularly take for granted the public service, public health services provided by this nation's water utility resource. just don't really think about who's actually working there and providing the service that we sometimes take for granted.

unfortunately, a large portion of the men and women who are in our water treatment facilities are getting older, and they're retiring and that's why we need to make sure we have the next generation of water workers ready. this bill increases funding authorized to $25 million over five years for the program that helps water systems grow their workforce through apprenticeships, through training programs, and also helps with their retention efforts. this program has been extremely popular with water systems around the country, and congress has recognized this by funding it beyond the authorization level. it is critical that we provide the tools and investments necessary to help our drinking water and wastewater systems face these challenges head on. after all, this is the workforce that will ensure the operation and maintenance of all the other infrastructure investments this package creates. additional technical assistance can also help systems with

operations much more complicated than what it used to be, and prevent outages and costly compliance issues. section 206 establishes and authored a circuit rider program designed to help owners and operators of small and medium sized publicly owned treatment works. we heard from the water community that other circuit rider programs have been a tremendous asset in providing technical assistance. it only makes sense for the e.p.a. to similarly provide technical assistance since they implement the relevant regulations. this can be tremendously helpful where a system may be struggling with an insufficient workforce and also must be a part of the resilience discussion. another concern for us was the alarming trend in cybersecurity threats in water systems. in february, you all might remember, hackers accessed a florida water treatment facility

computer system and were able to remotely raise the level of sodium hydroxide in the water. that is not just scary, it's alarming. this has huge national security implications on top of the obvious public health concerns. thankfully, that hack was detected and the system was returned to normal before the public was ever at risk. but in this day and age, water infrastructure resiliency also has to include addressing these cybersecurity issues. so we made sure that these vulnerabilities could be addressed under resiliency grants. while water infrastructure investments are critical to ensuring we're not wasting water and our water is clean, it is also critical to the economic, from an economic development perspective. berkeley county, close here to washington, d.c., in west virginia, made huge investments into their water infrastructure

system to ensure the system could handle the volume of water that the brand-new procter & gamble plant needed in its massive amounts of water and massive plants, and we're very happy they're there employing over 1,000 west virginians. so with that upgraded water system, p.g. was able to operate more efficiently and even to expand, and they're still expanding, and that meant more jobs. that kind of opportunity needs to be available everywhere, not just in my home state. connecticut and other places around the country. these are just a few of the provisions that address and are informed by the particular challenges that face my state. but based on the feedback of my colleagues in both parties and the ground swell of support from various water advocacy groups, it is clear these provisions have broad applicability to help communities all across this beautiful country. it is why we have such a diverse

and growing coalition of more than 70 supporters from water systems to local governments to industry to labor to environmental organizations who are supporting this legislation. these organizations, not to mention we had a unanimous vote out of our committee, these organizations recognize the value of this legislation and its commonsense and responsible approach to addressing our water infrastructure issues. we will be discussing more of the valuable provisions of this bill on the senate floor this week, and i look forward to that debate. in closing, i just want to urge my colleagues to vote in the favor, in favor of advancing this bill and later for final passage. i mentioned it passed unanimously out of committee. there's a big debate in a broader sense. can congress get together on infrastructure? this is what i would define as

basic core infrastructure. this, i think, is a good test case for us. and this, i think, is one in which we all have great interest. conservatives, moderates and liberals all came together on this. i'd like to thank my counterpart, my chairman, chairman carper and his staffer for their work as well as our water subcommittee counterpart chairman, chairman duckworth and ranking member lummis. this bill has approved that we can work together on infrastructure. this is a bipartisan, responsible, meaningful investment. we're taking care of pipes. we're looking out for our environment. and we're putting special emphasis on helping rural and disadvantaged communities. at the end of the day, this bill is really about helping people. this is a bipartisan bill that we can all be proud of. i again ask my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to proceed and again on the underlying bill, and i yield the floor and thank you,

mr. president.

mr. sullivan: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: we are in a quorum call right now. we are not in a quorum call. the senator is recognized. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to be able to complete my remarks without time restraints. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i

rise today to oppose colin hackett kahl's nomination as under secretary for defense, and i advise my completion to do the same as we're getting ready to take a vote on this very important position in the pentagon. that to me is one of the most important position, we have at the department of defense. while i have many policy disagreements with dr. kahl which i have discussed at length with him, i want to say i have a long history of working across the aisle, democrats and republicans, on defense issues, even with those who i don't agree with their policies on. as a matter of fact, the presiding officer and i have a very strong working relationship, and we don't agree on a lot of issues. but particularly on issues of the military, i serve on the armed services committee, i take these matters very seriously. they're one of the main reasons i ran for the u.s. senate six

and a half years ago. and i focus a lot on the military personnel, uniform and civilian, that we put in the pentagon that have this enormous responsibility to oversee the department of defense and whether it's assistant secretaries, under secretaries, admirals, generals, i try to understand where they're coming from and i have a record of strongly supporting almost all of them, whether in the obama administration, the trump administration, and even in the biden administration. for example, i not only supported the secretary of defense lloyd austin knowing that i wasn't going to agree with him on everything, i actually introduced him at his confirmation hearing because i served with him in the military a number of years ago. and i know he's a man of honor

and character. i strongly supported the deputy secretary of defense kat hicks given her background and knowledge. but some nominees i have not and will not support, particularly in this area that's so important to our nation's defense. i will object to these people because, like dr. kahl, i don't believe he has the temperament or judgment to do the job. and like i said, mr. president, i have looked at and focused on dozens and dozens of members who need senate confirmation in the department of defense, their temperament and judgment. the vast, vast majority, democrat or republican i have supported. but not this one. and this is a really important position. the under secretary of defense for policy is essentially the number three position in the pentagon. and as i mentioned, it's my view, and i believe most of my

colleagues' view, at least on this side of the aisle, that dr. kahl does not have the temperament or judgment. and in fact i believe that he has potentially to be a liability to our national security and our defense and not to be viewed favorably by the men and women he is supposed to lead. let me talk about temperament, mr. president, and a little bit of background. not even a year ago a number of senate democrats, my colleagues, wrote the official who was nominated by the trump administration for this same position, under secretary of defense for policy. brigadier general anthony tata. and the letter which was signed by a number of my senate democrat colleagues, many of whom are on the armed services committee, focused on that

nominee's record of, quote, offensive and inflammatory comments which would disqualify you from serving in your current position and the position for which you have been nominated. that's one of the quotes. remember, same position, trump administration. this letter also said that he had made inflammatory remarks regarding the president, that would be president obama, and inflammatory remarks regarding rhetoric for members of congress as well. again, this was last year. this is the standard that was being used. this letter goes on to say your multiple past statements cannot be dismissed as a simple aberration. sol i mention this letter, mr. president -- and i would like to submit it for the record.

the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. sullivan: -- because you have almost the identical situation here. what happened with general tata is that his nomination for a lot of these reasons was withdrawn by the trump administration. but now when you have the same almost identical issues with this nominee -- when i showed this letter to my democratic colleagues, they're like oh, no, that's okay. it's not okay. it's not okay. so let's talk about temperament. tweets. dr. kahl has been really the issue here is he more of a political hack who's tweeting all the time? he tweets quite a lot. or somebody with the temperament

of a partisan internet troll? or is he a measured national security professional who can lead the pentagon in the number three position? unfortunately, i think it's the former issue, not the latter. he's got a long history of tweets. and just like the issues that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle objected to last year for this same position, for the trump administration's nominee who was withdrawn for these reasons, here's just a small example of dr. kahl's tweets. same issues that my colleagues were concerned about. a lot of attacks on members of congress. okay. that's fine. we're in the public arena. here's what he said. the g.o.p. used to pride itself that put vol front and center on u.s. foreign policy. now they're the party of ethnic cleansing. i don't think we're the party of ethnic cleansing.

it's pretty strong stuff. he's teeting more -- tweeting more. let's not mince words. the trump administration kidnapped children. the republican party in terms of national security are now part of a, quote, death cult. he retweeted the now discredited lincoln project attacks. know a lot about them. spent a lot of money in my race. very discredited group of people, by the way, very disturbed some of their leaders, the lincoln project. he called in tweets, the president of the united states, the commander in chief, a more ron, repugnant, a coward. he went on to call my colleagues in the senate many additional things that i won't repeat here. he did this a lot, mr. president. no matter what your views of members of my colleagues or the former president, words matter. attacks matter. and if you can't refrain from

making them, maybe you don't belong in the number three position in the pentagon. that was the conclusion that pretty much everybody made last year. so why shouldn't that be different with this candidate? it shouldn't be different. don't get me wrong. it's a free country. you're allowed to tweet and criticize the commander in chief and members of congress all the time. that's fine. that's what america is. that's what democracy is. but that doesn't mean you get a free pass to be the number three guy at the u.s. department of defense, which is what he wants. so that's temperament. and i don't think it's a good temperament to lead the pentagon at all. let's talk about judgment, especially policy judgment. you know, the questions of temperament are often closely aligned with but they're not the same as judgment, particularly as it relates to policies. judgment is being able to assess the situation.

you use history as a guide and take appropriate action. and i think this nominee lacks judgment, something that was shown when he was then vice president biden's national security adviser. let me provide a few examples. first, as many know he was a staunch advocate for the iran nuclear deal. and i believe an advocate on being soft on iran. by the way, it's not always said in public but the -- a bipartisan majority of u.s. senators and a bipartisan majority of members of the house all opposed the iran deal. all opposed the iran deal. but in my view, mr. president, appeasing the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, leaders with blood of thousands of american troops on their hands, these terrorists, is not smart policy judgment.

and dr. kahl doesn't seem to know when we can press the iranians. and this is a really big issue. every time someone tried to press them, draw a red line, take aggressive action, he criticized it. dr. kahl in 2015 argued for sanctions relief on iran claiming that the vast majority of the relief would go to butter, not guns. well, we know how that turned out. that money went to arming terrorists and the continuation of iran's proxies around the middle east and around the world committing terrorism. dr. kahl said pulling out of the iran nuclear deal was, quote, a dangerous delusion. he said, quote, the hawks in congress -- and i think he meant that as an insult. by the way, i view that not as

an insult particularly after the obama-biden administration cut defense spending by 25% and drastically reduced readiness. but the hawks in congress who are supporting pulling out of the iran deal, quote, won't be satisfied until they get the war they've pushed for for decades. unquote. really? i don't want war with iran. those who oppose the jcpoa, again bipartisan group of senators, we didn't want a war with iran. we just thought the jcpoa was misguided. after the strike that killed the iranian terror commando soleimani, kahl tweeted the following. trump has started a war with iran in iraq. really? i think what the president and our fine military did when they killed general soleimani was

reestablish deterrents which we had lost in the middle east when this terrorist killed thousands and wounded thousands of u.s. service men and women and never had to pay consequences. we reestablished a red line. if you kill americans, you're going to pay. guess what? that war never happened, although kahl predicted it. and even iran's foreign minister mohammad zarif acknowledged in these tapes that we've been talking about here on the senate floor that the killing of soleimani, quote, was when the united states delivered a major blow to iran more damaging than if it had wiped out an entire city in an attack. that's the foreign minister of iran. knowing what we did was very significant. dr. kahl, if you look at his

tweets, wouldn't have done that because he thought it would have, quote, brought the war that the hawks want. we don't want a war. we didn't get a war. he, just like john kerry, who is now being accused of leaking secrets that israel had, one of our most important allies, to iran, one of our -- not one, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, i believe is soft on iran. we're going to get to the bottom of the kerry issue, by the way. it's alleged what he did, but if he did it, if he sold out israel for iran, he needs to resign and be fired. we're going to get to the bottom of that. mr. president, let me mention one other issue. it's a sensitive one. i admit it.

but i think it's also an important one. with dr. kahl. at his confirmation hearing, he said one of his priorities is to, quote, stamp out, quote, systemic racism within the ranks of the military. now, look, i care about this issue if we have and every organization has bad people in it. i spoke on the senate floor last year about some of these issues. i put forward legislation last year in the ndaa that looks at why aren't we having promotions of african americans at higher ranks, at the highest ranks of the military. it's an issue i care about. but when he said this in his confirmation hearing, systemic racism within the ranks, i was very curious. have you served in the ranks maybe? no. he hasn't. i have, 26 years, still serving.

where did he get the information? that's a broad statement to make about our troops that you want to lead. during the hearing, dr. kahl admitted, quote, he had no incredible evidence to back up that kind of statement. well, that's a real lack of judgment. you're besmirching a big portion of the force with no credible data to back it up, and you want to be the number three leader in the pentagon. this is judgment, mr. president, and this is one of the many reasons i'm going to vote against him, and i hope that my colleagues do. let me end with one final thing. dr. kahl made a statement in his

confirmation hearing about the requirements of the job. quote, the position of under secretary of defense for policy, while it's a political appointment, is not a political job. it is a policy job, one that requires whoever is in the position to be nonpartisan. mr. president, given his judgment, given his temperament, i don't believe dr. kahl has lived up to his own assessment of what is required to serve in the pentagon's third most important defense role. i don't believe he has the qualifications for this position. there are plenty of good policy experts, democrats, i'm sure who do, and i would encourage my colleagues to vote against this nomination for these reasons. i yield the floor.

mr. cruz: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cruz: i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to seven minutes prior to the vote on the kahl nomination. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. cruz: mr. president, i rise today to speak about colin kahl, the president's nominee to be under secretary of defense for policy. the most basic responsibility of our government and our military is to protect the national security of the american people, which requires helping our allies and constraining our enemies. the pentagon's policy chief is

responsible for those evaluations. unfortunately, i have come to believe that colin kahl's judgment is irreparably marred by obsessive animosity towards israel. i can think of no other way to explain his years of consistently wrong views regarding the middle east. and not just wrong, but impulsive and reckless. he has repeatedly skilled out his conspiracy theories and attacks on twitter and other public venues. he views the world through a cracked lens. and i challenge my democratic colleagues to explain one simple thing -- what other explanation other than animosity to the world's only jewish state could possibly account for all of these staggeringly wrong judgments?

i'd like to begin with a topic the senate has been united on -- our opposition to anti-semitism and to anti-semitic conspiracy theories. in 2019, this body came together unanimously to pass a resolution that i authored along with democratic senator tim kaine condemning anti-semitism as a unique form of bigotry that distorts people's judgments. recently, a top advisor to the ayatollah khamenei acknowledged what the world long knew, that in 2018, in an operation right out of a hollywood action movie, israel seized iran's national nuclear archive. the archive proved that iran had been keeping nuclear weapons' blueprints and materials on the shelf. the nuclear deal of which kahl was a principal architect had been flawed from the start. kahl responded to the news of

the raid by suggesting on twitter the archive was fabricated by israel. with the aim of dragging american boys and girls into another middle east war. this was a pernicious anti-semitic conspiracy theory, blood lie bell, not just pernicious but wrong. that was not the only time kahl leveled troubling conspiracy theories about israel and iran. he suggested on twitter that trump's policies regarding the iran deal and jerusalem were linked to donations from jewish billionaire sheldon adelson. this is not the judgment of anyone who should be anywhere near power or policy. another decision the trump administration made was to move our embassy in israel to jerusalem. there was an active debate

within the trump administration. i leaned in vigorously with the president and the president agreed with the view i articulated, that we should say to our friends and our enemies that we stand unshakeably with the nation of israel. kahl spent years fighting against that move, fighting against moving our embassy. according to reports from 2012, kahl was personally responsible for trying to remove language from the democratic party platform embracing jerusalem as the capital of israel. this is a long-abiding passion of his, and when president trump recognized jerusalem, kahl predicted it would isolate the united states and israel and even potentially trigger a third inif a -- infitada. he was wrong. he was also wrong about opposing

iran. in 2017, congress passed legislation mandating the president declare iran's irgc a terrorist organization. kahl said we were playing politics so we could show we were tough on iran. again, he predicted a disaster. again, he was wrong. kahl has even attacked democrats on this issue. for instance, he has repeatedly attacked chairman menendez for trying to, quote, kill and use poison pills to block appeasement of the iranian regime. turning to current topics, the obama-biden team shamefully, repeatedly, recklessly used leaks to leak secrets about israeli operations against iranian terrorists and forces. now there are new reports on a taped phone call that then-secretary of state kerry

may have leaked israeli attacks to iranian foreign minister zarif with whom he is personally close. if verified, these reports would mean he maliciously endangered not just israeli national security but american lives. if these reports are true, john kerry should resign, and if he doesn't resign, president biden should fire him. colin kahl was prominent in shaping obama-biden policies on israel and iran, and he has been credibly accused of weaponizing and electriccing classified information. i recently joined 17 other senators in a letter to f.b.i. director wray, requesting that the f.b.i. immediately investigate whether he did so, but we're not going to have the answer before we vote today and i don't see how he can be principally advanced without it. mr. president, on issues of foreign policy, this body is

often united. when standing up against our enemies and standing for our friends. this nominee, i believe, is the most virulently anti-israel nominee who would serve in the entire biden administration. many of our friends on the democratic aisle like to say they support the nation of israel. well, this is a chance to demonstrate you mean it. because you cannot vote to confirm a rabid anti-israel conspiracy theory-tweeting radical to the number three position in the department of defense and then claim you're a reliable friend of israel. colin kahl's record is extreme, fringe, and radical. he has a lifelong obsession with an antipathy to the state of israel and he has demonstrated a

willingness to endanger israeli lives and american lives to advance that hostility. i urge our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to oppose this nomination. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. smith: i ask consent that all remaining debate time be expired. the presiding officer: is there a second? is there objection? without objection, so ordered. the question comes on the nomination. a senator: mr. president, 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.

?oo vote: vote:

vote:

vote: 6 vote:

the presiding officer: if not, the yeas are 49 and the nays are 45, and 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. 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 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination on the motion to proceed to calendar number 34, s. 914, a bill to amend the safe drinking water act and the federal water pollution control act to reauthorize programs under those acts, and for other purposes, signed by 18 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the motion to proceed to s. 914, a bill to amend the safe drinking water act, and the federal water pollution control act to reauthorize programs under these acts, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll.

vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, on this vote, the yeas are 92, the nays are 2. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.

cloture having been invoked, the senate proceeds to legislative session to consider the motion to proceed which the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to s. 914, a bill to amend the safe drinking water act and the federal water pollution control act to reauthorize programs under those acts, and for other purposes. ms. duckworth: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. ms. duckworth: i know of no further debate on the motion to proceed. the presiding officer: is there further debate? hearing none, the question is on the motion to proceed. all those in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion to proceed is agreed to. the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 34, s. 914, a bill to amend the safe drinking water act and the federal water pollution control

act to reauthorize programs under those acts, and for other purposes. ms. duckworth: madam president, i call up amendment 1460, and i ask that it be reported by number. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from illinois, ms. duckworth, for mrt numbered 1460. ms. duckworth: madam president, i ask that 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. ms. duckworth: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the presiding officer of the senate be authorized to appoint a committee on the part of the senate to join with a like committee on the part of the house of representatives to escort the president of the united states into the house chamber for the joint session to be held at 9:00 p.m. on wednesday, april 28, 2021. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. duckworth: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. duckworth: i ask unanimous

consent the senate proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 180, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 180, supporting the designation of the week of april april 26-april 30, 2021, as national specialized instructional support personnel appreciation week. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed. ms. duckworth: i know of no further debate on the measure. the presiding officer: is there further debate? hearing none, the question is on the adoption of the resolution. all those in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the resolution is agreed to. ms. duckworth: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon

the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. duckworth: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on help be discharged from the further consideration of senate 848 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 848, a bill to amend the higher education act of 1965 in order to improve the service obligation verification process for teach grant recipients, and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding? without objection. the committee is discharged, and the senate will proceed. ms. duckworth: i ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. duckworth: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until

10:00 a.m. wednesday, april 28. that following the prayer and pledge, 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 proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. finally, that the cloture motion on the power nomination ripen at 12:30 p.m. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. duckworth: for the information of senators, members attending the joint session of congress should gather in the senate chamber at 8:15 p.m. to proceed as a body to the hall of the house for president joe biden's address. 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.

♪ ♪ c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> youth exec committee center? know it's way more than that. comcast's pardon with 1000 committee centers to create wi-fi so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. comcast support c-span as a public service along with these other television providers. giving a front row seat to democracy. approaches 100 and office present biden will give his first address to a joint session of congress wednesday night. our live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern with the president's address at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span.

online@c-span.org, or listen live on the c-span radio app. sunday night on q and eight invested journalist lawrence robert talks about his book made 81971 which examines a spring offensive when tens of thousands of anti- vietnam war protesters, including vietnam war veterans came to washington d.c. in an effort to shut down the federal government. >> the story tells a much larger once a story about how we as a nation, as a people as individuals go with one of those periodic emergencies in american democracy. does the system deliver justice? do people stick by their principles or are they caught up in their own self-preservation or their fear to stand against the tide. it is a story between the clash between an embattled president in this case richard nixon who confronts a social

movement in the streets in this case the antiwar movement , just as he trying to get reelected. what constitutional lines did he cross an effort to stay in power? >> investigative journalist lawrence robert sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q and a. >> next transportation secretary pete but a judge on the role of the thomas and electric vehicles. and how they factor to present biden's proposal. later in the founder interviews ceo about his company self driving vehicle technology. this is half an hour. >> hello and welcome to autonomous and electric vehicles after coronavirus virtual effects. i am joann transportation correspondent at ask io. i am coming to you from my