stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ♪♪ ♪♪

>> the u.s. senate is about to gavel in this morning, senators will be continuing work on a research and development bill aimed at improving competition with china. live coverage of the u.s. senate now here on c-span2. . the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, do not permit negativity to triumph over us. use our senators to remind us with their faith and works that the best is yet to be. as they remember that your

mighty power is at work in our nation and world, may their optimism create a contagion of hope. lord, continue to accomplish in our lives infinitely more than we request or imagine. we exalt you for you continue to rescue us. we trust you to save us though the storms may rage. we pray in your glorious name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c, may 18, 2021. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable raphael warnock, a senator from the state of georgia, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order the leadership time is reserved.

mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. schumer: are we in a quorum? the presiding officer: we're not. mr. schumer: thank you. good morning, mr. president. and a landmark report from the international energy agency says countries need to move faster and more aggressively to cut planet warming pollution. that's from "the new york times" this morning. the international energy agency for the first time is recommending specific steps to accomplish the drastic cuts in

carbon emissions that nearly every developed country has pledged to achieve. one of the principal recommendations is, quote, the rapid phaseout of gasoline-powered vehicles. it just so happens that this report lands on the same day that president biden is in michigan to celebrate the release of a new line of electric pickup trucks. as one of the best-selling cars in america, replacing gasoline pickups with electric pickups could save us huge amounts of carbon. but we shouldn't stop there. transportation still accounts for roughly one-third of america's carbon output. there's no way the united states can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions without looking out how americans drive. so i have put forward an ambitious, comprehensive proposal to accelerate our country's transition to zero-emission vehicles. we've called it clean cars for

america. the goal of that plan is that by 2040, all vehicles should be clean. all vehicles on the road should be clean. the international energy agency, by the way, recommends the world reach that target by 2050, so we beat them by ten years if this proposal goes into effect. my plan would help us get us there ten years ahead of time. it's one of the many reasons that president biden put clean cars for america at the heart of his american jobs plan, something i hope and expect he'll discuss today in michigan. and i want to thank the biden administration. they have been open to many new ideas, the american competitive and innovation act that we will be debating today, and clean cars for america, which they have more or less adopted in whole and put into in their build back better plan. the benefits would be

far-reaching, far beyond the subject of climate change. for a long time, critics have said you can't help the economy without hurting the -- sorry. for a long time, critics have been saying you can't help the environment without hurting the economy or costing jobs. not so. it's actually the reverse. we negotiated the clean cars for america proposal with the unions, with the environmental groups, and with the auto companies, and all three are on board. the good news is that clean cars for america would create tens of thousands of good-paying union jobs, in battery manufacturing, construction, and automaking. through targeted investments, it would put americans to work all across the country, building charging stations for a new fleet of electric cars. right now, china leads the world in the electric vehicle market, overtaking us in 2015. we need to take back the initiative and create thousands upon thousands of good-paying

jobs as we do. so i'm very glad that the -- that the biden administration has taken this proposal and adopted it. we worked, as i said, long and hard for the first time on a major environmental proposal to bring our friends in the union movement on board so that workers saw their future, a bright future, a prosperous future was with clean energy, that we weren't excluding them but including them. and that's why, unlike many proposals in the past, my clean cars for america proposal unites the environmental community, the labor movement, and major automakers. the sierra club, the u.a.w., ford and g.m. are all supported. isn't that amazing, isn't that great? when you want to get something done in washington, you need to build a broad and powerful coalition for support. that's what we did with clean cars for america. the senate and the country should prioritize it this year.

now, on the endless frontiers act. last night, the senate voted to move forward with the endless frontiers act by a vote of 86-11. it's likely that today the senate will take another step to begin debate on the bill. it's my intention to have an open, bipartisan amendment process. the endless frontier act already includes more than 20 bipartisan amendments from the commerce committee under the leadership of senator cantwell and ranking member wicker, and i'll expect we'll consider several more here on the floor of the senate. later today, i will file a substitute amendment that pulls together more bipartisan legislation from across senate committees into our comprehensive bill that we are now calling the u.s. innovation and competition act. in addition to chairwoman cantwell and ranking member wicker, i want to thank chairman menendez and ranking member risch of foreign relations,

chairman brown and ranking member toomey of banking, chairman peters and ranking member portman of -- chairman murray of help, and senator klobuchar of judiciary. finally, i want to thank the bipartisan group of senators working on the chips and 5g proposals throughout the process. not only senators cantwell and wicker, but senators warner, kelly, cornyn, cotton, leahy, and stabenow. restoring america's competitive edge should unite senators from both sides of the aisle. the foundation of the past century of american prosperity has been our leadership in science, technology, and innovation. if we're going to win the next century, the united states needs to be the one discovering the next ground-breaking technologies. we had that opportunity for instance with tech, and we lead the world because of early investments by n.s.f. and darpa.

we have the opportunity now to set our country on a path to outinnovate, outproduce, and outcompete the world in emerging industries of the 21st century with profound consequences for our economic and national security. if we don't lead in science and innovation, we will fall way behind. if we don't lead in science and innovation, millions of good-paying jobs that will be available to this generation and the next one will go poof, gone. we have no choice, we have no choice. we have always led and now we have fallen behind. other countries are investing more than we are. they're not as good at it as we are. they're not as innovative as we are. but if they put in the dollars and we don't, woe is us. woe is us. so when you ask -- when you ask americans why they're upset,

they say we're not sure about our future. we're not sure if our children will have better jobs than we will. we're not sure that our jobs will grow. this is the way to do it. this is the key. this unlocks our future to a bright, sunny america, the way we've always had but we may have lost in the last few years, at least to some extent. so i am so glad, so glad that this legislation which we have worked so hard on has bipartisan support. it's a place where we can unite america and say we will stay number one, and we're giving our country, our universities, our businesses, our workers the tools to do it. okay. next is the eeoc c.r.a. today the senate will vote to overturn yet another terrible regulation approved during the final days of the trump administration, a rule that actually makes it harder for victims of employment

discrimination to get justice. for decades, the equal employment opportunity commission, the eeoc, has protected employees against workplace discrimination. if a worker believes they were targeted by their employer because of their age, their sex, their religion, their disability, or any other unlawful basis, their race, the eeoc can conduct an investigation and begin a conciliation process. rather than force employees to sue in court where well-heeled corporations can afford high-priced lawyers and the plaintiff almost has no chance of winning, conciliation gives the eeoc the power to fight on workers' behalf against discriminatory behavior and win some speedy and effective results. so of course the trump administration in another example of their callousness, another example where they talk about working people but don't care about them and do things to

help them. so nastily, almost viciously change the rules on conciliation at the eeoc to put a large thumb down on the scale in favor of corporations and against individuals who were discriminated against or at least who allege discrimination, making it easier for corporations to slow down investigations and even retaliate against workers. today's vote would use the congressional review act process to immediately repeal this rule change. at every opportunity, the trump administration seemly really issued in making life harder for working americans while stacking the deck in favor of unscrupulous corporations. now that donald trump is president no more -- thank god i say -- we have a chance to undo this terrible rule and give workers the confidence that the federal government is in their corner. and finally o'in asian hate crimes. i'm delighted the house will pass the asian hate crime bill today which passed the senate

last month with overwhelming bipartisan support. once the legislation's approved by the house, it will go directly to the president's desk. i expect it will be signed into law later this week. discrimination against asian americans is sadly not a new phenomena in our nation's history, but the pandemic brought old biases and prejudices back to the foreground. this legislation will strengthen law enforcement's ability to detect, deter, and prosecute hate crimes of all varieties, especially hate crimes involving asian americans, and it sends a powerful message of solidarity to all our friends in the asian american community so important, so vital, so strong and an important piece of the puzzle of how we build a better future in america. i thank my colleagues from both chambers from senators hirono and duckworth in the senate to representative meng in the house and all those who improved the

legislation through the amendment process here in the senate. today we're another step closer to making progress in the fight against racial discrimination and violence aimed at asian americans in recent months. the senate can be proud it took the lead. i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent

further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: recent headlines have reinforced a warning that republicans and economic experts have been articulating literally for months. the massive spending democrats insisted upon at the outset of the biden administration was not in step with actual needs. yesterday i talked about some of the ways the multitrillion dollar spending spree rammed through in march has actually delayed our reopening and our rover ri. about the disappointing falloff in hiring, despite an historic number of open jobs. after democrats renewed a federal program that pays people extra not to work. well, here's another misplaced priority from that spending spree. our democratic friends insistence of stuffing another

wheelbarrow of cash into the accounts of local states and governments rebounding from the crisis. back in february as democrats insisted states were in dire need of another huge bailout. 29 of the 50 states were actually closing a 12-month chapter in which their revenues met or exceeded the year before. 29 of the 50 states were actually closing a 12-month chapter in which their revenues met or exceeded the year before the pandemic. the faster than expected economic recovery, combined with the five bipartisan bills congress passed in 2020, left a lot of cities and states in even better shape exiting the pandemic than they were heading into it. rising tax revenues have put these states in a position not only to weather pandemic-related downturns but to fill in preexisting budgetary potholes

that actually had nothing to do with covid hardships. but, of course, that didn't stop democrats from cramming nearly another $200 billion in state bailouts into the american rescue plan. impressively, california got its hands on $26 billion of the $200 billion. the state of california claims it has a budget surplus three times that size. three times that size they have a budget surplus and then we're sending them another $26 billion. they are having to brain storm new ideas to spend the unneeded avalanche of cash. i understand the state's governor has come up with one idea he likes. he's planning to cut a timely round of state stimulus checks to include people in the country illegally just in time for his recall election later this year.

is that the kind of urgent priority democrats had in mind when they used covid to push through what they called the most progressive legislation in history? experts warned it was poorly targeted. republicans said american families deserved better. but the big catalog of political payouts was pushed right through. so let's remember exactly how this played out before we're doomed to repeat it again. now, mr. president, on an entirely different matter, yesterday the senate took a step toward considering wide-ranging legislation that would touch on multiple parts of the u.s. economy in the name of increasing innovation an competitiveness. a secure, productive and innovative america that can outcompete china is something that all 100 senators want. of course in place like the senate, you're guaranteed to find a wide variety of different

ideas of the best ways to encourage that. a number of colleagues have assembled a proposal that touches on a long list of subjects, everything from funding universities to indo-pacific politics, to artificial intelligence to cybersecurity and beyond. legislation this broad needs a thorough, robust and bipartisan floor process, including a healthy series of amendment votes. as one of my republican colleagues, the ranking member on the commerce committee explained as he supported moving the legislation out of committee, the current draft is, quote, not ready for prime time yet and deserves a robust process on the floor. i understand this bill has come to the floor with a bipartisan understanding and the democratic leader's assurances that there won't be an effort to close debate on amendments prematurely. ill look forward to the senate -- i look forward to the

senate -- and to rethink president biden's intention to cut our defense spending after inflation. the single best thing we can do to stay competitive with china is to give our armed forces the resources they need to stay competitive with china. now on one final matter. sometime soon we also expect a vote on the democratic resolution to overturn a rule put in place by the previous administration. under republican leadership, the equal employment opportunity commission, an aggressive washington regulator of the american job market, issued modified marching orders that increased transparency and decreased the odds of expensive lawsuits. several years back, one investigation found the eeoc had become very aggressive and perpetrating a kind of legal harassment on job creators, often leaving american taxpayers

on the hook for court cases which the commission actually lost. taxpayers were paid to sue job creators and lose in court. so republicans updated their guidance. it was the first substantial update of the way the eeoc handles disputes an conciliation since back in 1977. it said that the employer in question deserves a written summary of the facts behind a complaint, a written explanation of the legal justification, a few other details, and 14 days to respond. sounds pretty reasonable. this helps ensure the commission is making a good-faith effort to see if the dispute can be settled outside of court before beginning a costly adversarial process. apparently even these modest steps were too much for my friends on the democratic side. they want to roll back this progress, a number of groups have asked them not to do this, from small business owners to

builders and contractors to restaurant owners to retailers and beyond, the same employers that are already struggling to climb back out of this pandemic and retire workers. they don't need anymore washington headwinds in their faces and taxpayers don't need more of their dollars being fund back toward trial lawyers. so i would urge senators to vote against this resolution so the current improved rule can actually be left in place. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the republican whip is recognized. mr. thune: mr. president, i understand the senate is in a quorum call. the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. thune: i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to s. 1260 which the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 58, s. 1260, a bill to establish a new directate for technology and innovation in the national science foundation and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: the

republican whip. mr. thune: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, ronald reagan once said that the nine most terrifying words in the english language are -- i'm from the government and i'm here to help. he was partially joking, of course, but what he was getting at is that government is not always the solution. and the government can sometimes do more harm than good. and we're definitely seeing some evidence of that right now. on may 7 the bureau of labor statistics released the april jobs report. with businesses desperate to hire and vaccination increasing daily, the report was expected to be big, with a good chance that a million or more workers would be hired. but that's not what happened. just 266,000 workers were hired, despite the fact that there were 8.1 million job openings as of the end of march, and the unemployment rate ticked up. that's right. despite the fact that businesses are desperate to hire workers,

the unemployment rate actually increased. and it turns out that we don't have to look far for one of the reasons. democrats' massive partisan spending bill which, among other things, extended the expanded unemployment benefits to september of this year to the point where many workers are making more staying home than they would be going back to work. mr. president, increasing unemployment benefits was the right thing to do early in the pandemic. businesses were closed, workers were being forced to stay home, and the landscape was bleak. but even last year it became clear that our economy was starting to rebound. that didn't mean it was time to eliminate all government help, but it did mean that we needed to calibrate the help to actual need. the democrats consistently rejected that line of thinking, and despite the fact that we had passed our fifth bipartisan covid bill in december bringing the total amendment of covid fund the federal government

provided to $4 trillion, weeks later democrats announced that we needed another massive covid relief bill. republicans tried to suggest that maybe we should keep it carefully targeted to meet remaining needs without wasting taxpayer dollars or running the risk of overstimulating the economy and driving up inflation. but democrats were having nothing of that. this was urgently needed funding we were told. america needed a massive rescue plan to save us from the virus, and democrats were going to make it happen. mr. president, as it turns out, that massive rescue package was too massive. democrats insisted on extending increased unemployment benefits to september of this year, and now we're seeing the result. reports suggest that many people are declining to return to work because they can make more money staying home and drawing unemployment benefits. that's right. jobs are available.

the number of job openings is very high, but thanks to democrats' long-term extension of increased unemployment benefits, some workers are staying on the sidelines. it's not surprising. if individuals can make as much or more sitting at home instead of working, it's not very shocking that many would choose not to work. the long-term increase in unemployment benefits is not of course the only factor keeping people from returning to the workforce, but it's clear that it's one substantial reason why businesses are struggling to find workers. in the wake of april's dismal jobs report, democrats of course were quick to discredit or down play any association between increased unemployment benefits and the reluctance of some workers to come off the sidelines. the president's treasury secretary suggested that a significant reason for not returning to work was the fact that schools have not fully reopened. well, that's definitely another factor. and it's a problem democrats could have addressed with their

march covid legislation. democrats directed tens of billions of additional dollars to schools in their legislation, most of which will be used long after the pandemic is over. republicans repeatedly urged democrats to tie this funding to school reopening, but the teachers unions were not too interested in returning to school, and democrats have made it very clear that unions' wish is democrats' command. so democrats gave schools billions of additional dollars to respond to covid without actually requiring schools to follow the science and reopen. and so, yes, many parents are struggling with returning to work because their kids are still not fully back to in-person learning. it's too bad that democrats were more committed to satisfying the teachers unions than getting kids back to the classroom. mr. president, before democrats passed their covid bill, there

were concerns that the size of it could end up overstimulating the economy and thus driving up inflation. even some liberal economists sounded the alarm over the size of democrats' coronavirus legislation. but again, democrats were not about to listen to any calls to reduce the size of their massive spending bill. and while the full results of democrats' spending spree have yet to be seen, there are already signs that inflation may be coming a problem. consumers are seeing increases in some cases steep increases in the price of everything from groceries to used cars to trucks. mr. president, there is no question that government had a significant role to play in responding to the covid crisis. that's why a republican-led senate passed five, five covid relief bills totaling $4 trillion, and why we supported everything from increased unemployment benefits to

forgivable loans to help small businesses weather the virus. but as the crisis wanes, so should the role of government. american workers are no longer being forced to stay home while businesses close their doors. our economy is back up and running, and businesses are desperate for workers. we should be doing everything that we can to get americans back to work, and democrats $1.9 trillion boondoggle isn't helping us with that goal. mr. president, democrat operative famously said never let a serious crisis go to waste. as our economy has recovered, a lot of democrats have seemed very unwilling to let go of the pandemic. i don't know if that's because democrats want to take credit for getting our nation out of this, even though all the essential groundwork for our massive vaccination campaign and our economic recovery was laid in the previous administration, or it's because democrats think

that the covid crisis will provide them with the cover they need to permanently increase government spending and government intervention on a massive scale. but whatever their motivation, the fact is that democrats need to realize that it is time, it's time, mr. president, to get government out of the way of the recovery. and that should start with increasing, not decreasing incentives for americans to get back to work. as we're seeing right now, sometimes throwing government money at a situation can do more harm than good. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. cotton: i ask unanimous consent to end the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cotton: over the weekend, israeli fighter jets demolished an office building in gaza that housed members of hamas. a terrorist organization dedicated to wiping israel and its people off the map and actively pursuing that mission as we speak by firing thousands of rockets and missiles indiscriminately into israeli cities. to minimize casualties, defense forces gave persons in the building one-hour advanced notice that the building was coming down. everyone evacuated safely, including, one sadly assumes, hamas fighters. when the airstrike came, there

were no reported civilian casualties. certain activists in the press meet it with outrage, but this one was even more so than usual. it quickly came to light that the associated press and al-jazeera had news bureaus in that very building. the a.p. had lost prime real estate in the strike, real estate with a rooftop terrace. some even lost their cameras. the a.p.'s top news man said he was shocked and horrified by an airstrike that as youd to cash -- that caused no casualties, he claimed no knowledge of hamas in the building despite actively checking. many other journalists and advocacy organizations moraled up on their high horses against israel. but the a.p. story just didn't add up. so i asked a few basic questions

in a speech right here yesterday afternoon. namely, why was the associated press sharing a building with hamas in the first place? did it knowingly allow its journalists to be used as human shields by a u.s.-designated terrorist organization? did the a.p. pull its punches and decline to report for years on hamas' misdeeds? one would think these are simple and reasonable questions but i directed them to a media organization so the usual suspects circled the wagon expressing more outrage at my audacity to question the a.p. leadership than they do at hamas for trying to kill jews by the thousands. keith olbermann called me an anti-constitution, anti-free press racist fascist.

one slate reporter wrote i was making deranged insinuations and going to bat against civilians in war zone even though no civilians had been harmed in this airstrike. the constant refrain of their criticism was i was attacking the brave reporters associated press gaza bure roavment my claims were baseless, reckless, without evidence, they claimed. but, in fact, there's plenty of evidence that some media outlets stationed in gaza allow themselves to be used as pawns by hamas. according to an article from the atlantic magazine in 2014, written by none other than, yes, a former associated press reporter, the a.p. had abundant reason to suspect hamas' presence years before the i.d.f. informed them by telephone last weekend. according to the article, hamas

fighters burst into the a.p.'s gaza bureau during the previous conflict and threatened the staff. hamas also launched missiles right outside the a.p.'s office. in each case somehow the intrepid reporters of the associated press' gaza bureau didn't even report on these incidents. the a.p. instead turned a blind eye to terrorism and embraced a culture of silence on behalf of murderers who actively endangered its own reporter and staff. what's equally scandalous is the a.p. continued to locate their offices in a building they knew was dangery. the -- dangerous. the a.p. had been in that building for 18 years. they launched missiles right outside on the street. in 15 years did no one ever say, gosh, i wonder why hamas keeps running around our office building?

did no one in the a.p.'s leadership think, you know, maybe we should move our people to a safer building in a better neighborhood? under the circumstances, i'm not sure what's worse, that the a.p. knew they shared a building with hamas or that they didn't know. instead of uncovering the truth, the a.p. concealed it. then when the i.d.f. carried out its fully justified and wholly appropriate airstrike, the a.p. condemned israel in one final parting gift to their neighbors to hamas. one would think this would have so soul searching, you would think they would not grandize. but the a.p.'s willingness to double down on the hamas -- would the a.p. allow its

reporters to share a building with al qaeda? what about isis? because there's little differences between these u.s. designated terrorist organizations and hamas. some prestigious news outlets have fallen pretty far from the heights they once occupied. being a reporter and certainly a war correspondent can be honorable work. great men and women, including winston churchill have dedicated themselves to the profession. correspondents have gone to the front lines and reported on some of the deadliest conflicts in human history with hiewrnlg, commitment to truth and patriotism. during the second world war, for example, a great american named ernie pyle marched along g.i.'s in normandy and the pacific, reporting up to the moment when he was killed by japanese machine gunfire. he did some of his very best work for none other than the

associated press. ernie pyle was the farthest thing from an old press hack. he described the fighting up close and advocated for better pay and conditions for the troops. he could be critical of the services when they were wrong, but he never forgot whose side he was on and he never gave up his commitment to telling the stories of normal people in the -- and the hardworking troops on the front line. before america's entrance into the war, pyle reported on the streets of london during the blitz recounting terrifying scenes for readers in the states. he told a story of people under siege and forced into bomb shelters by an indiscriminate and evil attacker, people unbent and unbroken by terror. dedicated to victory no matter the adversariesty.

-- adversity. we all can learn from reporting like that, but you may not read it these days in the associated press. mr. president, i yield the floor. noalt the absence of a quorum -- note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: on may 7, we learned of a cyber attack on the

colonial pipeline. this resulted in gas shortages and lines across the east coast. you see it on television every day. during the news conference, energy secretary grandholm said pipelines are the best way to transport fuel. this is a fact. pipelines are safer than transporting oil by rail or truck. iowa has 240,000 miles of pipeline which go largely unnoticed but play a large role in our nation's transportation of fuel. it is not lost on millions of americans that this statement from the energy secretary comes from the same administration who on day 1 -- january 20 -- shut down the keystone pipeline. on day 1 -- january 20 -- this

administration cut 10,000 jobs. remember, they ran on a platform of creating jobs. this is alreadying, this has already resulted in rising gas prices like we're seeing across the country. in fact, gas prices will soon be more expensive than at any time since the obama administration. this cyberattack on colonial showed america just how critical pipeline infrastructure is for transportation and how that affects national security. for an administration that is stressing infrastructure, maybe they should take a second look at the decision on january 20 to shut down the keystone x.l. pipeline. i shudder to think that if the

colonial pipeline was attempting to get a permit today, this administration might not even allow the construction. the united states should be encouraging private infrastructure investment, not getting in the way of progress that that investment would bring. as long as our country is still relying on oil to fill our gas tanks, we need to have the infrastructure and security in place so that what happened last week never happens again. when there is a shortage of oil oil, then biofuels can be an easy substitute that can be subbed in. but again, government red tape is getting in the way. the environmental protection administration should quickly finalize a rule to broaden the

availability of existing infrastructure for use with e-15 ethanol and related labeling requirements. this would allow more gas stations to use their current tanks for e-15. we need a balanced approach, and biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel can help achieve greenhouse gas reductions, strengthen our national security, keeping gas prices in check, and helping agriculture of america at the same time. on another matter, mr. president, i have heard from a large number of iowans convinced that a republic is effectively lost with the election of president biden. this seems to be like flight 93 election theory in the 2016

election where some conservatives felt that if clinton won, the country would be lost for good. so like the flight 93 passengers who rushed the cockpit at the last-ditch attempt to avert a catastrophic outcome that probably would have hit this capitol building, they argued that any alternative to clinton was justified. the left then felt the same way after trump won. when president trump was elected, i received an outpouring of messages expressing a truly startling degree of fear and anguish. it's as if we had just elected an evil king or dictator. understanding human nature, the framers of our constitution set up a system of separation of powers, knowing it was not safe

to just trust the character of individual public officials. the president is supposed to see, as the constitution said, see that the laws be faithfully executed, not to be some all-powerful elected king. the american presidency shouldn't be and was never supposed to be so important or so powerful that americans ought to feel that their entire future is at stake every four years. yet, many americans do feel that way. and it isn't all just a misunderstanding. presidential power has grown beyond its proper bounds as intended by the constitution. and why is that? that why is it lies right here with the congress of the united states, because over time congress has delegated too much

authority, piece by piece in countless bills and failed to this very day to do much to take back that authority. during the trump administration, i worked to reclaim some delegated powers over terrorists, emergency declarations and reservations but lacked sufficient support to get the job done. i have no illusions that a democrat congress will limit president biden's powers, but perhaps we could agree to reclaim powers for congress with some future effective date. so much focus on one person, whether it's republican or democrat, and one election every four years like we worried about 2016, or people are still worrying about 2020, that's not

a healthy environment for a democracy. restoring the proper balance between the presidency and the congress can help restore some balance to our fiscal recourse, discourse. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. a senator: thank you, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to suspend the quorum call. mr. sasse: mr. president, winston churchill is often credited with the quote, we sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand steady in the night. this is still true, but the 21st century has gotten more complicated. we live in an era of hybrid wars, there are many more zero exploits in enemy servers. americans sleep soundly at night because in addition to the rough men at the ready, brilliant men and women work around the clock to develop national security technology that defends our interest and undermines our enemy. darpa, the advanced research projects agency, is on the front lines of that work. they are racing against our adversaries. our technology struggle against

the chinese communist party is the defining national security challenge. chairman shall xi and his regime are opposed to not just american values but american interests around the globe. our citizens watching this chamber most days might think that most of their political leaders are content to ignore this reality, but i assure my colleagues in the chamber the c.c.p. is not asleep at the switch. beijing is investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence and hacking and stealing america's research and america's intellectual property. they are object -- they are on a mission. they want to be the preempt nent superpower they think they can achieve this. we can't let that happen. my amendment to today's legislation is simple. it doubles darpa's budget from 3.5 million to $7 million a year. the work of the national science

foundation is important as well. i support that work. i support that research. but the research is broad. darpa's research is directly applied to our most critical national security challenges. cutting edge tech development is in darpa's ndaa. when we talk about the c.c.p. enabled information campaigns, we want darpa to lead the work. when we talk about developing new technological tools to push back on the c.c.p.'s hybrid warfare, we want darpa to lead the work. if we want american dmoscy to outlast chinese authoritarianism, we need darpa's vestment. it bolsters the work of the front tiers legislation we're debating this week and i encourage all of my colleagues to support this amendment. thank you, mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. rubio: a year ago saturday, the trump administration launched something called operation warp speed. it was -- at that time it was a $10 billion program by the government, and it was designed to incentivize pharmaceutical companies to invest and develop -- to invest in developing, researching, and producing effective treatments and a vaccine for a disease that was ravaging and continues to ravage the world today. less than four months later, a new antibody treatment was

beginning to save american lives and improving the outcomes of patients with covid-19 here in america, and less than seven months after that operation warp speed program began, americans began receiving the first dose of two different and highly effective vaccines. why did the government have to step in? why did the government have to provide the money? wouldn't the market have solved this? there was certainly a demand. there was certainly a need for it. in fact, i would argue that people probably would have paid whatever it took to get their hands on a vaccine and on new treatments, given the level of desperation that existed in may of last year here and around the world. yeah. the market would have eventually developed the antiviral, would have developed the antibody treatments, would have developed the vaccine. the market would have eventually done it.

without the government stepping in in this dramatic way. but it wouldn't have done it in the timing that we needed. we needed it right away. our economy was shut down. children were not going to school. workers had no jobs. small businesses were being wiped out. hospitals were being overrun. and people were dying. we were facing a global crisis and a national emergency. it was a moment that required urgent attention and the fastest results possible. and so for the common good of our country, our government partnered with the private sector to reach a targeted end, one that served the interests of our country and our people. in short, we pursued industrial policies. almost one year to the very day it was announced, life in america is slowly but steadily returning to normal. now, i first spoke about the need for a 21st century american industrial policy well over a year before the pandemic

hit. let me tell you that for much of my adult life, much of the time i have even paid attention to policy, industrial policy was generally sort of a dirty phrase for me. i was raised -- politically, i was raised capitalist orthodox. it's an economic faith grounded in the belief in less taxes and less government and more freedom. i still believe in less taxes and less government and far more freedom, and my faith in capitalism has only grown. because unlike socialism, the market always produces the most efficient outcome, and usually, generally, invariably the result of that is prosperity in opportunity. free market, capitalism has eradicated more poverty than all the socialist programs in the world combined. but the market is agnostic. it doesn't take the impact -- it doesn't take into account the

impact that an efficient outcome, a market outcome would have on a country or its people. since the market does not take into account the national interests, it's agnostic. we in public policy cannot be agnostic. the job of those of us who serve in the american government is to make decisions that are in the best interests of america and the people that we serve. and i believe that generally and invariably that usually means supporting a vibrant system of free enterprise in which private businesses invest and innovate and produce and government makes it easier for them to do that and gets out of the way. but what do we do? what should we do? when the market reaches the most efficient outcome and the most efficient outcome is one that's bad for america, bad for americans, or doesn't meet a crisis at hand fast enough. what is our role when we face such a crisis, when we must --

one has to be addressed faster than the market's ability to do it. this is not a hypothetical question. it describes what we faced in may of last year when operation warp speed was announced, and it describes many of the important challenges we face today. over the last 20 years, maybe 25 years, the market sent american factories and jobs to other countries. this was the most efficient decision to make, because workers in other countries cost less. so it lowered labor costs and increased profits. it was the market decision. it was the efficient decision. but it destroyed the jobs of americans. it shattered families. it gutted once-vibrant communities. major american corporations headquartered here in the united states, multinationals, have allowed china to steal trade secrets and cheat on trade because for them gaining access to even a small sliver of the growing chinese market of over a

billion people led to profits. this indeed did create short-term profits and extravagant health for some, but in the process, it began transforming america from a country that invents and makes things into one that increasingly just finances and buys them. it is indeed more efficient to make the active ingredients in many of our medicines, to make them in china. it's cheaper to do it. and so today we find ourselves depending on china to produce the active ingredients in everything from acetaminophen, which is generic for tylenol, all the way to blood thinners and everything in between. it was cheaper to buy rare earth minerals from china, still is, than to produce and mine our own. and so today we depend on them for almost 90% of these valuable metals that are needed. not just for advanced electronics, but for our own major weapon systems. and we have made the decision to allow chinese companies free

rein to own, buy, make money in america almost without restrictions because we are capitalists. they on the other hand restrict and ban our businesses from doing work in china because they are nationalists. none of this is an accident. china has a plan. it is a plan to overtake america as the world's leading economic, technological, geopolitical, diplomatic, and military power. and i don't say this to you based on some super-secret intelligence document or an educated guess. they put it on paper. they have written this out for everyone to see in 2015. the chinese communist party late out a plan with a title. it's called made in china, 2025. basically, it's a plan to invest us and overtake us in ten of the industries that will define the 21st century economy. biomedicine, advanced technology, air and space,

artificial intelligence, quantum computing, telecommunications, 5g, rail systems, shipbuilding. they intend to lead the world in all of these areas. and they are executing on a plan to carry that out. and we have been complacent and distracted. so while china channels every element of their national power, every element that you can imagine, while they channel all of it to dominate these key industries and to do it at our expense, we assume that our position in the world will continue on its own without having to do anything to maintain it. while china is pursuing economic and technological dominance, we find ourselves here busy canceling people and demanding the use of the right pronounce to describe people or claiming that requiring a photo i.d. to vote is the return of a jim crow era. we have placed ourselves on the road of decline and into humiliation, headed towards a world in which a totalitarian

regime, one guilty right now as we speak of committing genocide against uighur muslims because the leading power on the planet and relegating our country, america, to the status of a once-great nation in decline. we do not need to abandon capitalism and embrace socialism to take on this challenge. in fact, i believe socialism would only accelerate the damage our decision is doing to our country. we need capitalism. but it must be a capitalism geared towards promoting the national interests and the common good. where the private market drives our economic decisions, and in those instances where the market outcome is bad for our country, in those instances in which the market's most efficient outcome is one that's bad for our people, for our national security, for our national interests, bad for america. in those instances, what we need is targeted industrial policies to further the common good and

to protect our people, our country, and our future. an industrial policy targeted not to every industry or to the one who hires the right lobbyist, no. an industrial policy like operation warp speed targeted to urgent national needs. policies like my medical manufacturing economic development and sustainability act which would help bring back our ability to make medicines in this country again, including in places like puerto rico that needs an economic growth in jobs. like the chips act we passed last year to make sure we never have to depend on china or any other country for that matter for semiconductors. in 2019 well before the pandemic, i proposed modernizing the small business administration and aligning its programs for the national interest, like my american innovation and manufacturing act which would incentivize private investment in small american manufacturers through the s.b.a. and even as we make these sorts

of targeted industrial policy decisions, we need to make sure that we're protecting them from being stolen from us. one of the changes we need to make in the china bill that's now before the senate is we need to have stronger protections against the research that we are funding being stolen. first, more of this money should be invested through agencies like darpa for an example which has very good safeguards in place. second, we should prohibit any entity from receiving the funds called for in this bill if they receive china-based financial income or any kind of support or have otherwise failed to disclose foreign funding in the past ten years. third, we should require certification that a potential recipient of the funding has sufficient protections in place to guard against i.p. theft and other threats from foreign governments before they were getting the money. it would be something if we appropriate all this money for industrial policy, we invest it, and then we see it stolen.

fourth, we should prohibit federal employees and contractors from participating in any foreign government talent recruitment program. we should require federal contractors to disclose any commercial ties they might have to the communist party of china. and fifth, we should establish a system of outbound investment screening, even if we are successful in preventing adversarial actors from acquiring federal research dollars or intellectual property developed by it. there is nothing to stop corporations from simply buying the i.p. and using it to develop capacities to develop china and hurt ours interests. this is an important moment. i think one that will define the remainder of the century. when the book about the 21st century is written, it will have a few chapters about a lot of different things, but that book's going to be about the relationship between china and the united states and what happened, and what happened is in very many ways being decided right now. we must ensure that our public policies are aligned to the

urgent challenges of our time. our job here is to promote the common good and to defend the national interests, and by and large that is a free enterprise capitalist economy that will produce the innovation, the advancement, the investments, all the things necessary to make that possible. but in those instances in which a national need is urgent in which the outcome that the market has delivered is hurting our market and long-term future, we have an obligation to act on the common good and we should not allow orthodoxy or policies that made a lot of sense in the 1980's, in a very different world from today, to stand in the way of the sort of targeted private government partnerships needed, the kind of partnership that will allow us to tackle what we face now so the 21st

century will be an american century and that it is neither endangered nor lost. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, one of the topics of discussion right now here in washington, d.c., -- actually there are many different topics of discussion, but one of those is infrastructure, and depending on who you ask, you will get different answers on exactly what people mean when they say the world infrastructure. when i and my constituents in -- what i and my constituents in texas think about infrastructure, we think about our highways and bridges, those

are the two big things that come to mind. we are the home to the largest network of highways in the nation as well as the largest number of bridges. and these structures are supporting more and more texans by the day. it's no secret that in the last decade texas has grown by nearly four million people. roughly the population of our neighbor to the north, oklahoma. if we want to get all 29 million texans and our visitors and our crucial commercial cargo around the state safely and efficiently, we need a reliable network of transportation infrastructure. and there's a lot of room for improvement over the status quo. every year the american society of civil engineers evaluates america's infrastructure and issues a report card letting us know how we're doing. well, america is barely passing with a c minus.

texas is faring only slightly better with the last of -- with the rest of the class with a c. there's no doubt about it, it is time for an investment in our infrastructure and now more than ever that investment must be made responsibly. we just spent trillions of dollars to help the american people and our economy get through a pandemic and our national debt is at its highest level since world war ii. i've told my friends back home this is a domestic equivalent to world war. we didn't ask in world war ii how much money can we spend? we needed to defeat our enemies and we did and then we need to come together responsibly and figure out how to pay for it. well, we don't need to the quit spending all together, but we surely must take a closer look at what's necessary and what's

desirable and what is something we'd like to have but could be put off for another day. think of the goldilocks principle, not too hot, not too cold. in this case, not too small, not too big. in this case we need to find the right size and agree on what that means. the most recent highway and transit funding bill that became law was the fast act of 2015. that bill came in right around $300 billion, and last congress, before the pandemic hit, it looked like we were poised to pass a similar bill at roughly the same price tag. i think we can all agree that now something of that size is probably too small. we need to invest in our infrastructure, repair our roads, our bridges, our airports, our levees and other transportation infrastructure that's long overdue.

the pandemic highlighted the need to expand that definition though, for example, to strengthen broadband and internet access. for many commutes to school or work have been replaced by telework. our 21st century society depend on internet connections and we need to do more to improve access, especially in rural areas where the big internet companies don't find it commercially advantageous to offer service. republicans and democrats agree that this time around we need a larger investment in our nation's infrastructure, but, frankly, the proposal from president biden is far too big. the nonpartisan committee for responsible federal budget estimates it would cost an additional $2.65 trillion, roughly nine times the recent highway bill that became law, and that's on top of the

$1.9 trillion that the senate majority and the house and the president just passed into law purportedly for additional covid-19 relief, although only about 10% of it actually addressed covid-19. but the point is we've been spending a lot of money and we can't keep spending money that we are borrowing from future generations. well, not surprisingly the president's infrastructure bill is only a fraction of it is dedicated to roads and bridges. 5%, in fact. the vast majority of the fungoes towards a long list of programs an policies that are unrelated to infrastructure -- and policies unrelated to infrastructure. for example, caring giving for the disabled, programs to improve diversity and stem careers. all of those are important topics, but they are not

infrastructure and we shouldn't be paying for it by borrowing money from future generations. we ought to figure appropriate offsets and pay-fors like we used to do here before the pandemic hit. so our job is to find the right-sized bill that suits our needs without going overboard with unnecessary and unrelated spending. fortunately, senator capito, the senator from west virginia, is leading the way to find that goldilocks just right fit. she and a number of our colleagues have outlined to president biden and our democratic colleagues a framework to improve our nation's infrastructure. the plan they proposed comes in at $568 billion, more than we spent in the past, but far less than the president's proposal. when we talk about the need for bipartisan compromise, this is a great place to start. with the -- the republican plan

includes nearly $300 billion for roads and bridges, two and a half time the president's plan for roads and bridges. it also invests in airports, drinking and wastewater, ports an waterways, broadband and some of the most urgent infrastructure priorities in our country. last week senator capito and five of our republican colleagues met with vice president harris and president biden to discuss a path forward. they apparently had a productive meeting and the president seemed to be receptive to many of the ideas that were shared. i hope this is the starting point for a consensus package that addresses our infrastructure needs, but here's the question that almost nobody wants to talk about, but thank you -- thanks to senator ron wyden of oregon, senator mike capo, of idaho, we actually had a hearing on in this morning, a

virtual hearing in the senate finance committee to answer that taboo question that nobody really wants to talk about, which is how do we pay for it? as i said, this was a subject of a senate finance committee hearing this morning and i'm sure some of the ideas that were put forward then will begin to start to take traction and hopefully lead us to a way to responsibly pay for this infrastructure bill. in the past, funk for infrastructure bills -- funding for the infrastructure bills have come from the highway trust fund, but in years it has faced severe shortfalls. through a serious -- series of degrees, my state paid for the shortfalls, a state that receives less than it contributes to the highway trust fund. in other words, we're a donor state. for every dollar we put into the highway trust fund, we get 95

cents back. well, that's not the same treatment every state is getting. in fact, we have a lower rate of return than every other state. if we want to have any long-term successes in maintaining our roads and bridges, we have to bring this formula up-to-date and it has to be equitable. the smart spending though can't stop there. we need to repurpose the mountain ofunused federal funds from the so-called covid-19 relief bill. the states are awash with cash that they frankly don't know,000 to spend -- know how to spend. the massive bill became law without a single republican because it was so extravagant and poorly targeted. case in point, the blue state bailout. this legislation sent $350 billion -- additional dollars -- to state and local

governments, many of which were not facing any budgetary shortfalls. we started to see a flurry of news stories in the past few weeks that demonstrate exactly why we were opposed to this reckless spending. for example, california has reported a $75 billion budget surplus, a massive amount of money. governor newsom says this will be used to pay down past state debts, sent direct checks to californians and add to their rainy day fund. in addition to california, you've got new york, colorado, michigan, minnesota, each of these states is expected to have more than a million dollar surplus because of a massive shoveling of cashout of washington, d.c., -- cash out of washington, d.c., into the states that was not targeted at covid-19 relief. this is why we advocated against

this tidal wave of funding for states that weren't even operating in the red. taxpayer dollars shouldn't be spent to raise the debts of mismanaged states or to add to their rainy day fund. they have the ability to raise revenues themselves, so it shouldn't be the responsibility of the federal taxpayer to bail them out or to provide them this huge cash cushion with them looking to try to find responsible ways to spend it. well, tens of billions of unused dollars from this legislation should be repurposed to help cover the cost of these investments without driving down -- driving our national debt even higher. it's common sense. and i actually believe, mr. president, there's a way to incentivize the states to use that additional cast for infrastructure purposes, whether it's through modifications and cost sharing between state and local government, and many of

those states are -- are struggling to find a way within the guidelines and guardrails that we provided for covid-19 relief to spend it any way. so why not spend it for infrastructure? maybe there's a win-win there. so there are a number of ideas now on the table about how it pay for this infrastructure bill, but i hope we could all agree the massive tax hike that president biden is proposing is not the answer. this would constitute the largest set of tax hikes in more than half a century and these increases would do serious damage to our economy just as we're coming out of a pandemic-induced recession. at a time when our economy is already on fragile footing, the tax burden on americans would be greater than that of our biggest trading partners an competitors, and -- and competitors, and this would have far-reaching consequences to our competitiveness and our economy as a whole. after all, we know these tax

hikes won't be reflected in lower earnings for c.e.o.'s. the brunt will be borne by consumers who will pay higher prices, workers who earn lower wages, and let's not forget those whose jobs have disappeared entirely. we are seeing price hikes on most used consumer products covering everything from cereal to diaper to lumber and cars. this is not the time to increase taxes and drive inflation across our economy, which is actually a tax increase on low and middle income people. we need to find responsible ways to fund an investment in our infrastructure hurting our economy and the people we represent. right now it appears that bipartisan progress is being made toward that just-right-sized policy and paid for in a responsible way or at least that's my optimistic hope.

so i want to thank senator capito for her leadership on this effort and all those who have been working with our democratic colleagues and the administration to -- and encourage them to continue to work with folks on our side of the aisle so we can get this done on a timely basis. mr. president, i yield the floor, and i note the -- i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m. >> senate lawmakers taking their weekly lunch break for party meetings. they will be back at 2:15 p.m. eastern to continue an initial debate on research and development bill that is aimed at improving competition with china. possible this afternoon reversing a rule on settlements, advancing the nomination of kristin clark for assistant attorney general. live coverage when senators return at 2:15 p.m. easterner