immense and votes are scheduled for this afternoon, to ensure equal spending on defense and nondefense spending. at 1:30 p.m. eastern a vote on an amendment. i've got to the of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. -- life now to the u.s. senate here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, you store up goodness for those who have reverence for you.

give our lawmakers such reverential awe for your purposes that they will receive the maximum you desire to give. lavish them with your protection and grace, blessing them as a watching nation and world look at the unfolding of your prevailing providence. may our senators strive to walk with integrity, staying on the path you have chosen. show them daily the wonders of your unfailing love. continue to be their help and shield as they worship and trust you. we pray in your holy name.

amen. the presiding officer: please join me now 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 20, 2021. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jacky rosen, a senator from the state of nevada, 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: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i understand there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the leader is correct. the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: h.r. 3233, an act to establish the national commission to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capitol complex, and for other purposes. mr. schumer: now, madam president, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would object to further proceeding. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. schumer: thank you, madam president. now, on january 6, only now, january 6 is only a few months ago. the memory is still fresh for all of us who experienced it firsthand. a violent mob stormed this citadel of democracy, assaulted our capitol police, and tried to halt the peaceful transfer of

power. 140 officers were injured. five people would eventually lose their lives in connection to the attack. i was within 20 feet of these hooligans. it was one of the darkest moments in american democracy. the first time the capitol was breached since the war of 1812, over 200 years ago. and yet, not five months later, many on the republican side are trying to whitewash what happened. here's what one senate republican said about the attack last night. by and large, it was a peaceful protest, except for a few agitators, he said. even calling it an insurrection, this senator continued, was wrong. if there was ever a justification for creating a bipartisan commission to study and report on the truth behind the attack of january 6, the comments of that senator provide

it. republicans in both chambers are trying to rewrite history in fealty to or in fear of the former president donald trump, republicans in both chambers are trying to erase the memory of january 6 and perpetuate the big lie. they're now likening the mob on january 6 to a group of, quote, normal tourists. anyone who has seen the pictures of them breaking through the capitol barriers knows that these weren't normal tourists. they're calling the mob, not the police, the victims of the attack. we have dead and injured police officers, and they are calling the mob the victims? only a week ago, the house republicans fired congresswoman cheney for the crime of nearly repeating the truth about the

election. it's certainly not about the policy. congresswoman cheney voted with president trump far more than the member who replaced her. she was fired because she stood up to the big lie. it was a thomas moore moment here in 2020. all of the shameful comments by republicans reveal that a bipartisan commission is even more necessary than it once was. we always needed to look into it, but the fact that there is such denial, there is such lying, there is such obeisance to donald trump's big lie and to his fundamentally dishonest personality makes the need for the truth for a commission greater than it ever has been. for the sake of our democracy, it's crucial to end the poison of the big lie, to establish an independent and trusted record of what transpired, and to make

sure an event like january 6 never, never happens again. yesterday, the house of representatives passed legislation establishing just such a commission with a strong bipartisan vote. 35 republicans joined democrats in approving the measure, defying their leadership who turned tail at the 11th hour in an act of utter spinelessness. last night, and now just now, i began the rule 14 process that would make this legislation available for consideration on the floor of the senate. i just moved to place legislation for a commission on the floor under rule 14, and it is my intention to bring the bipartisan legislation for the january 6 commission up for a vote. my senate republican colleagues

must now ask themselves are they going to join us in pursuing the truth or are they going to cover for donald trump and his big lie? i understand the republican leader has decided to oppose the bill. the republican leader who called the january 6 attack a disgrace, who said he believed there was no question donald trump was morally responsible for the attacks, now finds this whole endeavor unnecessary. of course, that wasn't always the case. in the aftermath of the capitol attack, the republican leader, senator mcconnell, said we needed a serious and thorough review of the attacks, but very quickly, the goalpost started to move. a few weeks after the attack, republicans started complaining that democratic proposals for establishing a commission were too partisan. when democrats accepted all the changes, all the changes requested by house republicans,

the senate republican leader said that his conference was undecided but willing to listen, but now once again the goalposts have shifted. now the republican leader believes we don't need a bipartisan commission at all. let me be very clear to my republican colleagues. there is no good justification for opposing the commission. the commission is not partisan. it will have a 50-50 split of democrats and republicans with subpoena powers requiring cooperation from both sides. it was negotiated on a bipartisan basis by both the chairman and the ranking member of the house homeland security committee. it won the support of 35 republicans on the house floor. the commission's not duplicative. the scope of the investigations into january 6 by our senate committees are very focused. we need a dedicated, bipartisan commission to look at the whole picture. the fact that our committees can

investigate didn't stop congress from establishing a 9/11 commission. a january 6 commission is necessary for the same reasons that the 9/11 commission was necessary. the real reason, it seems, republican leaders are suddenly opposed to this bipartisan commission is they don't want to talk about the big lie at all. they don't even want to investigate how former president trump instigated an attack on our democracy because he was angry about losing the 2020 election and lied to the american people about the results. even now, five months to the day after he left office, the republican party is still so terrified of donald trump that they are apparently willing to abandon the truth and the safety of our democracy on into the future. maybe, despite the opposition of the republican leader, the unfortunate and sad opposition of the republican leader, enough

of my republican colleagues will step up and join with democrats to establish the commission. they will get a chance to do so very soon. now, on another matter. the senate continues to make great progress on the modified endless frontier act now called the u.s. innovation and competition act. yesterday, we considered two amendments and added one of them to the bill, a bipartisan amendment led by senators hirono and tillis. today we'll consider another two amendments. as my colleagues know, the bill itself is a product of at least six senate committees and already includes input from nearly every member of the senate, and, as promised, we are working in a bipartisan way, in a much more open way than the senate used to act to allow amendments and have debate. this is an issue where our two parties are working together

with a great deal of cooperation. down to a member, i believe we all want to see the united states maintain its position as the global economic leader in the 21st century. we all want to see america stay number one in science and technology. it is so important for jobs, for our economic security, for our national security. we have an extraordinary opportunity to set our country on a path to outinowe v-8, outproduce, and outcompete the world in the industries of the future. let's keep working and deliver a strong bipartisan result by the end of next week. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: madam president. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: we know that competition with china will shape america's security and prosperity for decades to come.

that's a fact. the legislation on the floor purports to deal with this issue. it covers a huge range of topics from economics to education to foreign and defense policy. earlier this week i voted with a majority of senators to proceed with this important debate. as members have noted, this bill did not come out of committee quite ready for prime time. it needs thorough floor consideration with a robust, bipartisan amendment process. today we'll vote on a very important amendment that i'll be proud to support. ranking member inhofe and vice chairman shelby have legislation that will return the pivotal issue of our funding of national defense to the center of the conversation about competing with china and this is right where it belongs. all the soft power won't benefit

us without the hard power to back it up. we must maintain our military edge against china and russia, yet for all this talk about competing with china, the biden administration's budget proposal seeks to cut defense spending after inflation. china's long-term military investments are paying dividends that really should alarm us, but democrats want to pump the brakes on our own? fewer resources for our men and women in uniform, less defense innovation. what sense does that make? if there is truly broad bipartisan support for taking our competition with china more seriously, there ought to be big bipartisan support for the inhofe-shelby amendment later today. now, on another matter. our nation's southern border is still in crisis. the biden administration still won't admit it. much of the media would prefer not to cover it. but the facts are clear and they are unacceptable. a few days ago customs an border

protection issued their report on the month of april. the number of illegal immigrants was 3% higher than in march. the crisis is still growing. encounters with single adults on the border were 16% higher last month vestures april of last year when the trump administration put emergency measures in place. encounters with unaccompanied children were up 2,217% year over year. let me say that one more time. 2,217% more kids without parents at our border on president biden's watch. the administration has tried to boast that the number of unaccompanied kids has gone down. it has because they transferred large numbers of kids from

d.h.s. to h.h.s. there are now more than 19,000 children in the custody of health and human services and hundreds more arriving every single day. we know why all this is happening. when washington democrats spent years reciting the mantra, abolish i.c.e., abolish i.c.e., people listened. when our new president spent his campaign signaling he would support a weaker border and discussed providing health care to people here illegally, democrats took note and now democrats can't get control of the crisis they have stoked. the president is the point person to fix immigration has yet to visit the southern border. apparently secretary -- it is

something that the senate republicans feared we would see under an h.h.s. secretary without relevant health care or management experience. last week h.h.s. announced it would be taking money that was meant to replenish the strategic national stockpile, to fight this pandemic and future pandemics, to help with the migrant crisis. today the senate will consider another amendment. it would stop the biden administration from canceling contracts that are already in place to build a wall on our southern border. perhaps our democratic colleagues will help us begin to address the border crisis this administration has caused. now, mr. president, on a completely different matter, as democrats have pushed their massive takeover bill, s. 1, americans' first amendment rights and privacy rights have been thrust into center stage. the legislation contains

multiple elements that would chill americans exercise of free speech and let democrats horde more private glens' information without -- citizen's information without cause. remember president obama's i.r.s. scandal, subjecting americans to scrutiny depending on their beliefs. nonprofits with just a whiff of conservative beliefs were slow-walked and singled out for unfair treatment. think back to 2014, the obama administration had to reach a settlement after a government worker leaked confidential information about a conservative group in violation of federal law. unsurprisingly, those private details found their way to a liberal group that had plenty of ideas about what to do with it. courts have found that the state of california has repeatedly leaked or inappropriately

released confidential information about nonprofit donors. last year, remembering all of these incidents, the treasury department finalized action on a basic commonsense principle. if there's no legitimate reason for the i.r.s. to have certain information, then the i.r.s. shouldn't collect it. it makes sense. the prior administration had the i.r.s. stop blanket collection of nonpublic information about citizens who make non -- i repeat nontax deductible contributions to certain organizations. contributions to 501c-4 organizations are not tax deductible. the i.r.s. doesn't need these details just for kicks and giggles. but now democrats' political takeover bill would roll back this step and open new fronts in the far-left war on privacy and free speech. s. 1 would narrow the protection of the first amendment and

empower feds to track the speeches of americans. this would essentially make washington democrats the board of elections for every county and state in america. i guess somehow maybe that wasn't enough. well, i worked with my colleague from indiana, senator braun, to nip one part of this nonsense right in the bud. our bill would codify the ill bill issued by the last administration. americans would remain free from a federal dragnet collecting private information that it doesn't need or uses for legitimate law enforcement purposes, information that can be mishandled, or worse, used to target and harass americans based on their views. so i'm proud to stand with senator braun and with 39 republican cosponsors and with citizens across america across the political spectrum who don't need the i.r.s. peering into their first amendment activities

any more and that is strictly necessary. i would certainly urge all of our colleagues to support our simple bill. now on one final matter. my senate office is losing a talented and dedicated young staffer this week. fortunately he's just been on loan from his home state, our home state. all along, and he's now heading back to the bluegrass many kevin grout started with me five years ago. this bright, sharp, and cheerful young mcconnell scholar from the university of louisville began as a staff assistant in the mail room or you might say sort of my body man. but in this line of work, talent attraction responsibility. before long, kevin had graduated to serve as the speechwriter in my personal office. in four and a half years he's helped me craft more remarks, op-eds, and written statements

than any of us could possibly count, almost all focused on issues that matter most to kentuckians many we're sorry to lose kevin's talents here on the team, but kevin and his wife are taking their careers and young sonhenry and putting down -- young son henry and putting down roots where it all again. washington will be sad to see him go, but it will be kentucky's good fortune to welcome him back. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of s. 1260, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 58, s. 1260, a bill to establish a new directorate for technology and innovation in the national science foundation. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the clerk will report the following amendments by number.

the clerk: inhofe amendment numbered 1523, johnson amendment numbered 1518.

mr. thune: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. thune: well, good. mr. president, the recent colonial pipeline hack which saw more than 15,000 gas stations run out of fuel and drove gas prices to their highest level in almost seven years was a timely reminder of the importance of cybersecurity. in today's world where almost everything we do has a cyber

component cybersecurity has to be a priority. companies have to prioritize it to keep information secure. state governments have to prioritize it and the federal government has to prioritize it. cybersecurity is a crucial part of our national defense and it is vital that we keep security systems and data security. the colonial pipeline hack was also a timely reminder, mr. president, of something else, and that's the importance of maintaining our energy security via energy independence. as americans panicked over gas shortages, gas stations saw lines that hearkened back to the 1970's when conflict in the middle east and the oil embargo resulted in serious shortages here at home. since then the united states has to a greater or lesser extent worked to become energy independent. in other words to make sure we are able to rely almost entirely on north american energy sources instead of imports from overseas and to make sure that american

consumers never have to question whether they will have reliable and affordsable access to energy and fuel. we've made a lot of progress on that front but it requires continued commitment and investment. it also requires an all of the above energy policy that pursues investment in everything to oil and natural gas to solar, wind and hydropower. unfortunately democrats are increasingly minimizing the oil and natural gas part of that equation. mr. president, i'm a longtime advocate of clean energy and clean fuels, but the fact of the matter is that our economy is still going to need traditional sources of energy, namely, oil and natural gas, for a long time to come. i don't expect airplanes or freight trains to be running on electricity or solar power any time in the near future. fortunately, as technology has advanced it's become easier and easier to explore for, extract and transport oil and natural gas in a environmentally

responsible way and it's vital we continue to develop domestic oil and nart resources so down the road we don't find ourselves again relying on oil from the middle east, venezuela or other unstable areas of the world. that's why it's so disappointing that prekd's first acts -- president biden's first act as president was to policy getting gas offshore. it accounts for 22% of domestic oil production and 12% of domestic gas production in 2019. only a tiny percentage of public land is used for production. but the resulting oil and gas, natural gas is significant. halting new oil and gas drilling could jeopardize the stability of our affordable energy supply and definitely jeopardize the hundreds of thousands of american jobs that are supported by this industry. not to mention the billions of dollars of revenue the oil and

gas development dis berses to states and federal programs like the land and water conservation fund. another early and discouraging sign of president biden's hostility to affordable and reliable energy security came when he halted construction of the keystone x.l. pipeline on the first day of his presidency. that one hit particularly close to home since the pipeline would have run through nine counties in south dakota and brought economic growth to small towns like phillip. mr. president, the keystone x.l. pipeline has to be the most studied project literally in the history of our nation, probably in the history of the world. it's been pretty conclusively demonstrated that the pipeline would provide an environmentally responsible way of transporting oil from canada and the back can oil fields in montana to refineries on the l gulf coast. the obama administration, that's right -- the obama

administration concluded that the pipeline provided the most environmentally sensitive way of transporting the oil. canadian prime minister justin trudeau, a staunch liberal, included the pipeline in canada's clean energy plan. on top of all that, the pipeline's owner committed to offsetting the pipeline's operations with a $1.7 billion in renewable energy investment. but none of that mattered to leftist environmentalists who fixed on keystone x.l. as a proxy for their opposition to oil. it's difficult to think of a more counterproductive crusade. thanks to their efforts, oil that would have been transported via the pipeline will now be transported by rail or truck. more environmentally hazardous methods of travel which

incidentally will also produce far more emissions, emissions that will likely not be offset by renewable energy investment. and i haven't even mentioned the cost to people's livelihoods. the cancellation of the pipeline will end up costing 11,000 american jobs. most of them those good union jobs the president keeps talking about. it also means that americans will not see lower prices at the pumple as a result of the efficiencies of the pipeline which is particularly frustrating at a time when prices are rising. but when you're pursuing an ideological crusade, i guess all that doesn't matter. mr. president, i find it particularly fascinating, or maybe more accurately, troubling that the president canceled the keystone x.l. pipeline and its 11,000 american jobs, yet is conceding to

russia -- russia -- on the construction of a russian pipeline, nord stream 2, by waiving sanctions against the russian company constructing the pipeline. think about that. the irony. of course the president has more direct authority over pipelines here in the united states, but the president is taking a notably new position. the successful construction of nord stream 2 will further isolate ukraine and deny the country billions in revenue as it defends against r russian aggression and it will make our allies more dependent on russian energy monopoly for their supplies. the president talked aggressively about countering putin and russian aggression and his secretary of state talked explicitly about the importance of halting the construction of nord stream 2. but now with a chance to do something about halting the construction of the pipeline,

the president is taking the pressure off even though the president himself has correctly called the pipeline, and i quote, a fundamentally bad deal. for europe. it's deeply troubling that our european allies may soon be relying on russia for an increased portion of their energy needs, and yet it's another reminder of the need to make sure that the united states is not dependent on bad actors anywhere in the world for our oil or any other energy resource. mr. president, i hope the biden administration will end its embargo on new oil and gas leases and think about pursuing an energy policy that embraces not only environmentalists' pet energy pro jedges, but all, all energy sources. it is no exaggeration to say that our very national security

depends on it. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i think i'm like you in one respect. i don't hate anybody. i try to look for grace everywhere i can find it. i've always believed there's always something to be thankful for. and i came today to, to thank the biden administration, but also to -- but also to ask for its help. first, i want to thank the president for encouraging everybody to take the vaccine.

i don't think -- could we have order, mr. president. i don't think anybody should be required to take the vaccine, and i'm not saying president biden does, but he and his team have been very aggressive in encouraging americans to take the vaccine, and i think that's the proper approach. do you have polio, mr. president? i know you don't. i don't either. thank you, science. the vaccine, i think, works. once again, we're not telling anybody they have to take it, but i wish people would stop and reflect on it and weigh the pros and the cons and i think they'll see the pros outweigh the cons. and i want to thank president biden for his efforts in that regard.

here's my criticism. president biden, at the worst possible time is about to raise the insurance premiums for every flood insurance policyholder in america, or almost all of them. so much for not hurting the middle class. so much for not taxing the working people. as you know, mr. president, the flood, national flood insurance program which is administered by fema began in 1968. many people don't know this, but if we own a home and we have homeowner's insurance, our homeowner's insurance doesn't cover flooding. and if we do want flood coverage and we call our agent and ask us to place our flood coverage with a private company, they're very

difficult to find. almost no private companies offer flood insurance. so in 1968, the united states congress decided to form the national flood insurance program and have fema administer it. we insure through our national flood insurance program which, once again, is the almost exclusive source of flood insurance for the american people. we insure about five million people. about 500,000 of those people are in my state, louisiana. but we're not alone. i'm sure we have people in colorado. i know we have people in new jersey and new york and most of the coastal states and many of the inland states who have flood insurance. now, fema has decided to implement a new program called

risk rating 2.0. they always come up with a fancy name when they're going to screw you. risk rating 2.0. and if you ask fema about it, you say what does this do, fema? well, they try not to answer your question first, and they dodge and they bob and they weave, but if you pin them down and read their literature, they will say with risk rating 2.0, we're no longer going to assess premiums on the basis of an area. we're going to look at every specific home and assess its risk and assign a premium. and we're also going to consider the future. climbing, what things are going to be like 15, 20, 30 years from now. i didn't come to debate climate

change, mr. president. i will save that for another day. there is a lot not to debate about it. there is a lot we agree about it. but this is coming from so-called experts. they are going to be able to predict things 30, 40, 50, 100 years from now, when they can't tell us if it's going to rain on friday. now, this is all a very clever way to raise everybody's premiums. as best i can tell, about 80% of the people in my state who have to have flood insurance are going to see their rates go up. and fema's probably going to start by doing a little bit the first year. they will say see, we told you that wasn't going to hurt, but then they are going to do it the second year and the third year and the fourth year and the fifth year and the sixth year. and some of fema's minions who are advocating this say well, kennedy, it's not right for the american people to be

subsidizing wealthy people who have two or three homes and one of which is on the beach. i agree with that. that's not my people. that's not my people. my people who have flood insurance get up every day, go to work, obey the law, pay their taxes, try to do the right thing by their kids. they try to save a little money for retirement, and their biggest financial asset is their home. and through -- through risk rating 2.0 or what other clever name they call it, when they start raising premiums, a lot of my people can't afford it and it's going to impact the value of their home, they're going to lose equity in their most valuable asset, and they're not going to be able to sell it. you don't have to be einstein's cousin to figure this out. fema knows what it's doing. now, you would think this is the most dramatic transformation of -- and change to a national

flood insurance program since 1968. you would think that congress would have something to do with it, mr. president. wrong. fema's doing this on their own. the first increases for new policyholders are going to take effect in october. for everybody else, in april, 2022. and you go to them and you say can we talk about this? no. read our pamphlet. they haven't had any public hearings. they haven't allowed the public to comment. they hired a very expensive consultant. they love expensive consultants at fema. the more expensive the better. the more expensive the lawyers are, the better. they have hired a consultant to try to cover their tracks on what they are doing here. this is just a flat-out rate increase. insurance companies help fema administer the program fema has

told, we found out, the insurance companies, we can't tell you about the new program unless you sign a nondisclosure agreement because we don't want you to tell anybody. president biden's fema is just going to drop this on us. and it's not just louisiana. look, this does involve louisiana. i mean, last year, my people, we got hit by two major storms. we got hit, like a lot of states, by an ice storm. right now, south louisiana, a big portion of it is on the water. we just got hit between eight and 20 inches of rain. we have people who with floodino are not even near a body of water. and i promise you, mr. president, if you get eight to 20 inches of rain in a short period of time, you're going to flood. i don't care if you're in the desert. i don't care if you're on pike's peak. you're going to flood. the water has to go somewhere. yes, this impacts louisiana, but

do you know what else it impacts? new york. new jersey. they're going to get devastated. chairman share rod brown, chairman of our banking -- chairman sherrod brown, chairman of our banking committee, held a hearing the other day on risk rating 2.0. we had some great people come testify about it. of course fema wasn't there. you can't find fema with a search party. you can't find fema with google. they are nowhere to be found. they don't want to answer questions. but we had a very intelligent, impressive lady from new york, i'm sorry i have forgotten her name, who testified very eloquently about how this rating increase across the board willy-nilly, arbitrary, capricious, we don't have any input, is going to devastate new york. and i'm just very disappointed, mr. president. i'm asking president biden today to pick up the telephone and

call his new fema director and say slow down here. at a minimum, don't treat the american people like moreons -- morons. sit down and talk to them and explain what you are proposing to do and why you're doing it and let them have input. and the second thing i wish the president would do is pick up the phone and call his fema director and say would you please consult congress and talk to congress about it? and let congress have a little input. because last time i checked, there are three branches of government. this is unilateral action by one federal agency. this is serious stuff, mr. president. this is going to impact a lot of people. i have said this before. i don't mean to overuse it. i try to save it for really serious situations, but this is

as serious as four heart attacks and a stroke. it's going to happen out of the blue come october. and i would just like to ask president biden to consider asking his fema director to please slow down and let us think this through. thank you, mr. president. with that, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. leahy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i would ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, i was opposing this amendment before. i thought i would just mention some of the pragmatic reasons for that. it mandates dollar-for-dollar parity between defense and nondefense programs unless there is a -- 60 votes to overcome a point of order. it's not limited to discretionary spending, which would be in the f.y. 2022 appropriations bills, but in all federal spending. let me tell you what that means. it may make people feel good, but let me tell you what it does. if you provide a dollar to the defense department for every dollar of nondefense spending, it is simply arbitrary.

this is some of the observed results. under this amendment, we passed an infrastructure bill through reconciliation, and we know that in the states represented by all 100 of us, we have roads, bridges, water systems, everything else breaking down, deteriorateing. it has to be fixed. if we don't do it now, it's going to cost us a heck of a lot more in the future. so let's say we have $2 trillion to rebuild our bridges, our roads, our water systems, broadband, and so on. then we would have to automatically provide $2 trillion more for defense. nearly tripling the defense budget, spending more on defense than the rest of the world put together, and the department of defense says very frankly there is no way they could spend that kind of money. unless this gets 60 votes, a

supermajority. come on. i will give you another example when this can get really weird. suppose a hurricane hits somewhere in the south and we've seen that happen, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding. or you have massive fires that rage out in the west. so as we've always come together in the past, republicans and democrats alike, to help those communities destroyed, we are the united states of america, and let's say we provide $10 billion, which we have in the past to help communities recover and rebuild. well, then, even though they don't want it, we'd have to provide $10 billion to the department of defense. and why are we spending that? because they had a flood in louisiana or a tornado in -- in

the midwest or an earthquake in the west or a forest fire. well, we've got -- we've got to spend an equal amount to the department of defense whether they want it or not. let's say we increase funding for veterans, which we should, then we'd have to say, wait a minute, the department of defense would have to have a dollar for dollar increase. i could go on and on with a whole lot of other examples. we're going to have to obviously address the costs and the efforts that we went through here because of the riots on january 6. do we do an equal amount for the department of defense if we -- after we repair the damage done to the capitol?

now, why don't i suggest that we do what we were taught to do, and i've seen the senate do over the past 40-some odd years, we actually have a debate about appropriations? have a debate about the defense level and vote them up or down. have a debate about nondefense spending in fy-2022, and vote it up or down. not start out with some arbitrary rules which make no sense. an arbitrary rule which says we're probably going to have to hesitate to help out communities that have been struck by a tornado because we have to spend twice as much money as it costs

to repair those communities because we have to put an equal amount into the defense budget, whether they want it or not. now, mr. president, i can say this as dhairm of the senate -- chairman of the senate appropriations committee, i understand some annual increases in the defense bill, but that should be considered as the defense bill, just as we should consider our health care bill, just as we should consider infrastructure bills, education, all those. we can easily do each one of these appropriation bills that make some sense to the american people. in the past many times we've been able to get bipartisan agreement. let's do that. let's stop playing like children with some arbitrary you give me this, i'll give you that kind of rules. we're united states senators, we

should be above that. we should be the conscience of the nation. there's only 100 of us. the country looks at us, we ought to respond to the country. and i don't see others seeking recognition at the moment. i'd just add another thing. the house of representatives did the right thing. they passed in a bipartisan vote to have an independent commission to find out what happened on january 6. what sparked it, who was involved, how many crimes were committed, why did police officers who protect the capitol lose their lives? why did others lose their life? why did we have a huge amount of damage? why did we end up spending hundreds of millions of dollars? why were the lives of republican

and democratic members of congress put at risk? why not do, as we did after 9/11 and other major things in our country, have a bipartisan committee to look at it? that's what the house voted on last night. i'm disturbed when i hear the republican leader, both in the house and in the senate, we don't want to have any kind of hearing. we don't know what happened. we don't want nobody to ask a question. well, mr. president, i don't know about your state, but i can imagine you probably heard a lot of questions from the people in your state. i heard a lot of questions from republicans and democrats alike in my state. basically, what in heaven's name is happening? we're the greatest country on earth and we're seeing our symbol of democracy with a mob of people going in, people

dying, property being smashed, people posing for selfies, hey, i'm breaking the law, don't i look great? a gallows with a noose and the vice president's name put on it outside here. come on. we have to find out what happened. we were shamed throughout the world by what happened. let's not have that happen again. let's have a real committee, find out what happened, who's responsible and see what steps we take not to have that happen again. i'm proud of the united states capitol. i've had the opportunity to serve here for decades. i remember coming through this body as a teen anger with my parents -- teenager with my parents and being in awe by it. i looked at the bur bu -- the

burmidi paintings with my italian-american mother and my irish-american father and the pride he had in its history. i have taken vermonters from both parties here and pointing it out and everybody appreciating the history. what do we see now? a locked down capitol because of the insurrection and we don't want to actually ask questions. what is this? what is this? why don't we all just could youer under -- cower under our desks. i can't ask a question. i'm going to hide down here. i see nothing. come on. the american people saw plenty. let's have that. let's have that committee. let's have that commission. let's find out what happened and

make sure, for god's sakes, it never happens again. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. shelby: thank you, mr. president. the chinese party has grown increasingly brazen in their power play to seize that. the bill before the senate purports to counter chinese aggression by accelerating american investment in critical technologies. i believe such investment will fail to meet the objective if we shortchange america's military.

unfortunately that's just what the president -- president biden plans to do. yes, amid all the tough talk about china, president biden proposes increasing domestic spending by nearly 20% while holding defense spending basically flat. and that's on top of several trillion more he's proposed in offbudget extending to supercharge the agenda here at home. meanwhile, china is headed in the opposite direction. increasing the budget for the people's liberation army by nearly 7% this year. mr. president, don't think for a moment they aren't taking note of what president biden's plans and sensing weakness and opportunity here because they are. the chinese communist party and the chinese leadership, which is the same, understands and heeds

only one thing, strength, power. the respected and feared american military is the bulwark against the rise of china and that's why we should not shortchange defense spending, not now, not ever, and that's why i'm pleased to join my republican colleagues in offering this amendment to ensure parity between increases in defense and domestic spending. i encourage my colleagues on the other side to join us here to put america's security first, projecting real strength to counter chinese aggression should be a bipartisan objective. we will see if it is.

mr. shelby: mr. chairman. the presiding officer: the senator from -- mr. inhofe: mr. chairman. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: china is competing with us in every area, technology, military, diplomacy, information warfare. you know, we operated for the better part of a decade under the idea that we should have parity in defense and nondefense increases. this is a bipartisan thing. this is democrats and republicans alike. we did this every year for -- for -- for every two years as we did the budget control act. and that was an agreement and all of a sudden somehow we're changing from that. so what senator shelby's and my amendment does is very simple. it says that for every dollar that we increase nondefense spending, we have the same

amount of money that is going to increase defense spending. i talked about this yesterday at some length. how can you justify not changing that policy when the greatest threat that we're facing right now is china. they are competing in every area and to leave that out conspicuously is not reasonable at all. i think the member, the majority leader and the speaker of the house back in 2019 said, and this is a quote, mr. chairman, they said that democrats have always insisted on parity and increases between defense and nondefense. so why would they change now? and i don't think that they will change now. so, again, i want to make sure that people understand what this is all about. this is a very simple thing. our amendment says that it says that for every dollar we chief nondefense spending we also increase defense spending by the same amount.

it's called parity. we lived with this now for eight years and we've been in agreement and somehow this has changed. as if the threats we're facing with technology, diplomacy and military -- military is the number one threat. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. shelby. mr. wicker: i want to commend the distinguished senator from alabama and oklahoma for this amendment. it seems to me this is a national security amendment that should get support on both sides of the aisle because the senator from oklahoma is absolutely correct. it has had bipartisan support in the past and particularly at this moment when we're talking about a bill to compete with china, we need to acknowledge that we will compete with china both in the r&d spear as this --

sphere as this bill discusses, but also in terms of military might. and it disturbs me, and i know it is of concern to my friends on the other side of the aisle, that the biden administration just this week announced that they would cut four ships from the most recent shipbuilding plan which was established by our military experts, by the admirals and generals who told us what we would need. to cut four ships from the shipbuilding plan i think would send exactly the opposite signal to china that we're trying to send through this bill and i know i have friends on the other side of the aisle as well as on this side of the aisle, who have signed the shipyard act which makes the statement on a bipartisan basis that we need to be preparing our navy for

competition in the pacific that will come from china and i think it's -- it's way to preserve peace in the asia pacific region by having parity there. so for that particular reason on this particular week this is a most timely and appropriate amendment and i do hope we can get bipartisan support. and i yield back. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question occurs on the inhofe-shelby amendment number 1523. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 44. the nays are 53. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, it is not agreed to. mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa.

mr. grassley: the foreign agents registration act is a law that i've spoken about on this floor many times. at its core, the foreign agents registration act brings transparency and accountability to foreign influences in our politics. i want to make very clear this act doesn't prohibit anybody from doing anything they want to do. it only requires those who lobby on behalf of foreign governments and their interests to register their affiliations and activities with the justice department. this fits in with a law that i tried to surely describe as bringing transparency and when you bring transparency you have

accountability. while it requires lobbyists on k street to disclose if they're lobbying on behalf of foreign governments and their interests, it lacks teeth necessary to enforce the intent of the law and its other requirements. that's very much a weakness in a law that goes back to the 1930's. and it hasn't been updated in the last 55 years. today i seek to change once again that environment i just told you about by introducing the foreign agents disclosure and registration enhancement act. if enacted, this legislation would grant the justice department new investigative

powers. the bill would increase civil and criminal penalties for violation, and it does this in order to deter abuse of the law. in other words, people not registering when they should register. the bill appropriately limits who in the justice department can use this authority, and it provides essential due process protections. in fact, it's based on identical authority in the false claims act, which for years has helped root out waste, fraud, and abuse. and the bill tasks the government accountability office with studying whether and to what extent the lobby and disclosure act exemptions to the foreign agents registration act is being abused.

these reforms are the result of this senator's oversight and policy work dating to 2015. these reforms are not in any way partisan, and the last congress, this was very much a bipartisan bill. this congress, it seems funny not a single democratic colleague would join me and my republican colleagues in cosponsoring this legislation, even though the same people cosponsored it in the last congress. so i have to ask my democratic colleagues, what's different now than at the tail end of the last congress? in december last year, i came to the floor for a live unanimous

consent on this very same bill. at that time, i had the support of the chairs and senior democratic senators on both the senate judiciary committee and the senate intelligence committee. now, what has changed between last december and right now? -- that these same democrats that helped us aren't helping us on a bill that's the same? are the compromises that we hashed out no longer relevant now that the democrats control the united states senate and, of course, the presidency? may be i should put it a little more bluntly. do my democratic colleagues no longer care that the trump

administration isn't in power? during the trump administration, i heard my democratic colleagues speak loudly about the risk of foreign influence on the trump administration. we all heard it. trump, russia. we heard it all day, every day. well, i can ask embarrassing things on the other side. what about biden and china? we all know about the links between the biden family and chinese foreign nationals connected to the communist regime, and those links are real and proven, unlike the links that supposedly existed between trump and russia that a whole two years of study proved were not true. if the democrats want to be

intellectually honest on the issue of foreign influence, they're going to have to face the music on both sides of the political spectrum. i've conducted oversight of the foreign agents registration act without regard to power, party, or privilege. that means i've done it both when we had democrat presidents and we had republican presidents. also, i raised concerns about the work for ukrainians like paul manafort and the poo dose is that group, also involved with the foreign agents registration act -- or maybe they should have been involved with it. i even raised concerns when the firm behind the discredited steele dossier failed to register for its lobbying work to repeal u.s. sanctions against

russia. i subpoenaed paul manafort to testify at the judiciary committee hearing on lax foreign agent registration act enforcement. i praised mueller for dusting off the law that had been ignored for so long. i want to remind my colleagues that we make laws to be equally enforced, no matter which power -- party is in power. the foreign agents registration act isn't a right or left issue. it's about foreign influence, about foreign control and the preservation of our sovereignty. without our sovereignty, we fail to even exist as a nation.

the last congress, getting back to my attempt to make a unanimous consent request, at that time senator menendez did what he had the authority to do and the right to do. he objected at that particular time, stating that it bothered him because the foreign agents registration act reform should move through regular order, because that committee, under republican leadership at that time, did not take up the bill, the chairman then, give his approval to it but obviously didn't get menendez's approval to it. so senator menendez did what he thought a ranking member of the committee ought to do to protect his side of the aisle, and he objected.

and he wanted it to go through regular reform. so i'm waiting for regular reform to happen. i look forward to working with senator menendez and the foreign relations committee to move this bill any way they want to move it -- through regular order or like we did last time with having the chairman just -- and ranking member just approve moving it. in fact, some of your members were previous cosponsors of this bill. so i'm saying to senator menendez that members of his committee cosponsored this bill last time, and i don't understand why they aren't joining me in cosponsoring it in time, and i'd love to have them do that. the issue with foreign influence in our political system -- the issue of foreign influence and our political system aren't going to go away. in fact, i think we can say

they're primed to get even worse. in the meantime, while partisan politics play out, the foreign agents registration act stands without necessary previously. so i strongly urge my democratic colleagues to work with me and my republican cosponsors to achieve a much-needed meaningful reform to a very important law that doesn't deprive anybody from making their living any way if they want to. if they want to lobby and influence our government for a foreign country, we accept that. they can work that if they want to. but we ought to know about it, and that's what the foreign agents registration act is all about. to get this information out so it can be made public because with transparency there is accountability. 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:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the

senator from wisconsin. mr. johnson: mr. president, there was a time of --. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. johnson: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. johnson: mr. president, there was a time, and it really wasn't all that long ago, when securing the border had bipartisan support. it was actually a bipartisan goal. i think that made a lot of sense, but it's not now. but it wasn't all that long ago. in 2006, congress passed something called the secure fence act of 2006. what that piece of legislation did was it authorized 700 miles of what was supposed to be double-layer fencing. in the end, only 36 miles of actual double-layer fencing was

constructed. another 613 miles, consisting of about 299 miles of vehicle fencing -- in other words, people could walk right through it -- and another 214 miles of single-layer pedestrian fencing was actually built. i think we've seen, unfortunately, that fencing did not fulfill the requirements of the secure fence of 2006 and it also didn't work. now what's interesting to know about the passage of the secure fence act is it passed overwhelmingly in this chamber by a vote of 80-19. 26 democrat senators joined the 54 republicans voting yes. it also passed the house in a pretty overwhelming margin as well, 283-138, with 64 democrats joining republicans. so in total, the total count in congress was 363 votes to build

a fence and secure the border versus 157 people that apparently didn't have an interest. in other words, 70% of members of congress voting on the secure fence act, voting for border security, voted yes. again, that was with the support of 90 democrats. by the way, some pretty notable democrats voted to secure the border by building 700 miles of double-layer fence, including those who are current president biden, former president barack obama, current majority leader of the senator, senator schumer; former secretary of state hillary clinton; my chairman and ranking member of homeland security senator tom carper; the chairwoman of judiciary in the past, senator feinstein; the current chairman of the finance committee, senator wyden. at the time the senator from ohio, senator brown, was a member of the house, and he

voted for it in the house. so again, that's only 14, 15 years ago when securing the border was actually a bipartisan goal. what happened? why isn't that the case now? why has securing the border become a partisan issue? well, politics happened. i wasn't here between 2006 and 2011, but i know there are multiple good-faith efforts to pass an immigration bill. they often refer to it as comprehensive immigration reform. when i got here that work was going on and we passed an immigration bill. i remember when i talked to senator mccain, one of the leading proponents, and i did suggest i would stop using the word comprehensive. i don't think we do a very good job doing things comprehensively here. we ought to take a step-by-step approach. senator mccain was not real

happy with my comments there but i made it anyway. i think the test of time has probably proven me right. bipartisanship pretty well ended, the efforts, when that effort failed in the house. it didn't move it any further. we had a split chamber. and so, the obama administration got impatient. i understand the frustration. i certainly want to do, i want to fix the problem. i want to take care of now probably adults that came here as children through no fault of their own, the daca kids. i think most members of the chamber want to do that. but you have to do it a legal way, and you have do it with a step-by-step approaching, starting with securing our border. i'll talk about that a little bit further, but let me just talk about what the effect of deferred action on childhood arrivals had. it's pretty obvious by this chart.

you can see this goes back to 2007. the red bar is just talking about unaccompanied children apprehended at the southwest border. you can see through 2011, at most we had a little over 4,000 unaccompanied children coming across the border illegally and being apprehended and then obviously, america, we have to take care of them because we are compassionate. in june of 2012, the obama administration issued the daca memorandum. the result was almost immediate. it was a magnet. it was a pull factor. it was used by the coyotes in central america so, they would tell people who want to come into america -- let's face it, who wouldn't want to be in america? i'm highly sympathetic to those who want to come to america, take advantage of the land of opportunities. but the coyotes would tell the migrants in central america, they changed their laws. come with us. we'll take you up to the border. we'll get you across the border

and then you'll get a slip called a permisso, which is really notice to appear. and so they came. they came in such qaints that in 2014 -- such quantities that in 2014 more than 51,000 children flooded our border and president obama rightly declared that a humanitarian crisis, and it was. that humanitarian crisis at that point in time entailed about 2,000 people coming and being apprehended at the border. 2,000. you can see the result. there are some ups and downs. quite honestly what ended up happening was the obama administration started to detain families, for example. they put in a consequence. and so it actually had an impact. i can show this a little bit better in this chart which really does show cause and effect. this chart picks up in 2012 with the passage of daca.

you can see president obama in 2014 declared a humanitarian crisis. when they built that mcallen facility that we went down as bipartisan members of the senate and sung c.p.b.'s praises for trying to deal with this crisis in such a humane fashion. four and five years later, same facility, same conditions, a bigger crisis, but now that facility is being referred to as keeping kids in cages. but you can see what ended up happening. president obama actually had a family detention policy, kept the families together. but then a court reinterpreted the flores decision and interpreted unaccompanied children, that the flores decision in terms of how you treated children, how you had to hand them over to h.h.s. in a short period of time, also apply that to accompanied children. so now the tough decision had to

be made, do we actually separate the children so they can be handed over to h.h.s. while we retain the parents who came in here illegally? a decision the obama administration made, and i can't blame them, is they kept the families together. but what i blame them for is they dispersed them into america, most of them never to have an immigration hearing. and when you don't have a hearing, you can't have your asylum claim adjudicated properly. and we know that a very high percentage of the asylum seekers here do not qualify for asylum. even as generous as our policies are, they still don't qualify. if the claim is never adjudicated, people come in here and they stay. they communicate with other people in central america, and it feeds upon itself. it takes awhile, it takes a few years. it took until 2018-the 2019 that the word really got out that even though donald trump was elected president, he was

dedicated to the bored and was going to -- to the border and was going to fix the border. people really felt that he was serious about it. and by the way, he was but he had no corporation either by congress or the courts in enforcing the laws and securing the border. word got out over a couple of years, and we had an explosion of illegal immigration primarily fueled this time by families. president trump, again, with no help from congress, no help from the courts, fixed the problem. you may agree or disagree with the migrant protection protocol program otherwise known as return to mexico, but it was a consequence. because that consequence combined with the fact that we also did agreements with mexico and central america, people stopped coming. we pretty much stopped the flow, reduced it dramatically the flow of unaccompanied children and family members coming to the border. and we pretty well had this

problem solved before covid hit. throw on covid, and the invocation of title 42, and we really had this problem solved until the presidential debates and you had every democrat presidential nominee or candidate say they were going to stop deportations and offer free health care. and you can see the number of adults. by the way, the color chart is gold is single adults, blue is family units, red is children. so we have this enormous crisis, first of all, surging beginning with single adults, and then of course the first day of office president biden dismantled the migrant protection program. he ended those agreements. he made good on his promise to end deportations until the court said you can't do that. but the result, the crisis came

back with a vengeance. so the last two months, there have been almost on an average basis, daily, almost 6,000 people per day being apprehended at the border. this crisis is out of control, but this crisis is also man made. it's a man made crisis -- man-made crisis by president biden's policies. now, last week, we had a hearing with the secretary mayorkas, secretary of the department of homeland security. it was actually surreal. first of all, they blame this on president trump. they said this was an inherited crisis. no, it wasn't. the democrats' presidential candidacy started to spike of single adults, president biden's dismantling of president trump's successful policies that sparked and is the catalyst for the renewed crisis of family units

and unaccompanied children coming here illegally to exploit our very generous asylum laws. it was surreal to listen to the secretary and quite honestly the chairman of our committee talking about that this was an inherited crisis, but that things were improving. well, the only reason they could claim things were improving is is -- and secretary mayorkas said this repeatedly -- is they are getting more efficient. we're getting more efficient. not at solving the problem. at processing and dispersing illegal immigrants coming into this country. that will just cause more to come. this crisis isn't going to end any time soon until we return to having consequences, and we actually have the goal of reducing or stopping the flow. that's not happening right now. i was disappointed under my

chairmanship, we almost always had second rounds of questions, but we were denied that. i'm sure there were time constraints. but in a second round of questions, this is what i wanted to ask secretary mayorkas. i wanted to ask him whether he was aware that human traffickers sell children to adults so they can exploit our asylum laws by posing as a family unit. understand these policies are being instituted to be more humane do the exact opposite. it leads to all kinds of human depredations, all kinds of inhumanity. i knew it full well. we held hearings on this in 2019. vice president harris had to know this as well. she was on my committee. so i wanted to ask secretary mayorkas whether he was aware that we heard testimony during my chairmanship that a child was sold for $84. i wanted to ask hem is he aware

that children are recycled, that they are sent back over the border to be used by another adult to pose as a family unit and exploit our asylum laws. i wanted to ask are they verifying that a child actually belongs to an adult, are they doing d.n.a. tests? if so, what is the percentage those are actual family units? i wanted to know was he aware of the fact that human traffickers slow children out of rafts when they are interdicted by law enforcement. i don't have the picture here. i honestly wouldn't even want to show it. i showed it in our committee hearing three or four years ago. it was hard enough showing it at that point in time, but it was a father and his 2-year-old daughter who drowned in the rio grande. i went down to the border with 18 of my republican senate colleagues. we saw a dead body floating in the rio grande. the day after a 9-year-old girl drowned in the rio grande. i wanted to know whether secretary mayorkas, whether president biden, whether vice

president harris was aware of this. i wanted to know whether the secretary was aware of the fact that migrant girls are given birth control because they know that such a large percentage will be raped during the dangerous journey when they are put in the hands of these human traffickers. i wanted to know whether the secretary is aware of the kidnappings and the beatings, the abuse, the additional ransoms demanded by human traffickers. i wanted to know whether he knows how much the human traffickers charge for their human prey and whether he is knowledgeable of how that debt is paid off. you realize, the border is almost 100% secure on the mexican side of the border. nobody crosses into america without either paying the human traffickers or being indebted to them. and i wanted to know whether the secretary knew how they pay those debts off. i wanted to know whether he knew how many young girls are forced into the sex trade and how many young men are forced into involuntary servitude, used to

traffic drugs or become part of gangs. i wanted to know whether the secretary -- i'd like to know whether the chairman of our committee is aware of the fact that president biden's policies created this crisis and they are facilitating the multibillion-dollar business model of probably some of the most evil people on the planet. i wanted to know. i didn't get a chance to ask those questions. what's beyond the human toll, beyond the human tragedy from a standpoint of legislation, what is the real tragedy is that we were so close to taking that first step, that necessary step of making america competent that we are taking border security seriously, that we will secure our border, because until we do that, we really can't move on without creating greater incentives, we can't move on to fix the problem with daca. we can't set up a legal

immigration system that works best for everyone. you know, it's not good for central america. i have been there. i have talked to their presidents. they ask us to fix our laws. it's not good that their countries are being depleted of the people that they need to rebuild their economies. it's not good for them. it's not good for us. it's certainly not good for the migrants who are put in the hands, again, of the most evil people on the planet and left to their tender mercies. so we are so close. president trump had stopped the flow largely of unaccompanied children, of family units, and he was doing the final step which was complete the wall. walls work. take a look at what happened here after january 6. double layers of fencing. wire tipped. we obviously thought they worked for us here in congress, they will work at the border as well.

so what my amendment would do is simply complete the wall that president trump started. he wanted to build 800 miles. he built 450. 250 miles of that wall has already been contracted for. it will be paid for whether it is built or not. but 100 miles was in the contract. as an american taxpayer, you need to understand this. you will be on the hook for a couple billion dollars -- you know, tens of thousands of tons of steel that's already been produced, all that waste, all that waste, and we won't even get the 250 miles of wall. isn't that absurd? isn't that ridiculous? all because securing the border has become a partisan issue when it was not a partisan issue in 2006.

so, mr. president, my amendment, amendment 1518, is really pretty simple. just two pages. it's very common sense. it just says complete the wall that we have already contracted for, that we're going to have to pay for whether we build it or not. now, in a rational senate, in reasonable times, this ought to pass 100-0. i fear this is going to be decided strictly on party lines, and that's a real shame. if there is one thing that we ought to be bipartisan about, it's about national security. it's about securing our homeland. and part and parcel of securing our homeland is having a secure border. one element of that, in addition to instituting consequences like

the migrant protection protocol, like something i proposed with the senator from arizona, senator sinema, operation safe return. there has to be a consequence to reduce or stop this flow. but we also need barriers. technology alone is not going to work. we can't hire enough border patrol agents. they are already being dispirited. we are going to have a hard time hiring enough people just to come up to the quota levels we want to hire. we can't do personnel, couldn't do technology. we need the fence. we have bought and paid for it. let's construct it. with that, mr. president, i will yield the floor. the presiding officer: the majority leader.

mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 117. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is adopted. the clerk will report the

nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of health and human services, chiquita brooks-lasure of virginia to be administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid services. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. 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 nomination of executive calendar number 117, chiquita brooks-lasure of virginia to be administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid services, signed by 17 senators as follow- mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: mr. president, i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 124. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. opposed no. the ayes appear to have it.

the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of justice, kristen m. clarke of the district of columbia to be an assistant attorney general. mr. schumer: i send the cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion. we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do here -- hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar 124, kristen m. clarke of the district of columbia to be an assistant attorney general, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions filed today, may 20, be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the senate resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. peters: mr. president, i rise to speak in opposition to the johnson amendment. the amendment would force the continued payment of government contractors to build ill-conceived -- an ill-conceived border wall. most of these funds were never intended for this purpose. more than $10 billion were redirected from the department of defense. these funds were intended for military missions and functions such as schools for military families and national guard equipment. the biden administration is conducting a comprehensive review of these contracts led by the departments of defense and homeland security. these decisions will be guided by what is best for our national security, not well-connected government contractors profiting off of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. we need to move forward with

smart, bipartisan investments to improve border security that secure both our southern and our northern borders, not look backwards at the former administration's boondoggle. i urge a no vote. mr. johnson: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. mr. johnson: i ask for a minute to respond. first of all, let me reiterate. the dollars will be spent regardless. the dollars will be completely wasted and no wall whatsoever. of course, this reconsideration of their policies, we can already see the disastrous consequences of what they have already done. god help us in terms of what the results would be of future policies as well. so again, mr. president, i ask that my amendment be considered. i ask support for it. i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a second? there appears to be.

the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

startle vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 46, the nays are 48. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption this amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington is recognized. ms. cantwell: mr. president, i come to the floor today to continue our discussion about the endless frontiers act and why america needs to make more investment in the areas of research and development for our nation. this is critically important, as

we've gone through this debate with some of our colleagues, to talk about this this is important for the -- why this is important for the united states, i spent my time yesterday -- the biggest reason we're doing this is because we believe in american know-how. that is, we believe in american ingenuity and we believe in american know-how and we've discussed already how that has helped build our country over and over and over again. that we are a nation of, if you will, explorers, of pioneers, and by necessity inventors, and that has continued throughout the history of our country. so we are so proud to continue to make these investments in all the areas of science, certainly in the areas of health care, but we're more specifically talking

about the engineers of the physical science and engineering, and we're talking about why we should make an increase in both basic research with this underlying bill that continues to drive dollars into early stage research so we can continue to grow jobs and help our economy, and it also continues the effort by saying we should make more investments in stem education so the workforce it will take for us to meet the job challenges of the future. so we're excited that we're there with american know-how, but we're also cognizant of this international debate that's going on, the debate about other countries and what they're investing in research and development. and one of the reasons why i like where we are in the united states is because our research

and development ecosystem is really an ecosystem of many different agencies doing research and development, and not only are those research and development investments by these various agencies helping in particular areas, because it's really distributed, as this chart shows, the united states works with the private sector, it works with our public universities, and it works with various agencies. instead of a centralizinged approach that you might -- instead of a centralized approach that you might find in other countries, the fact that we have this distributed ecosystem, the department of energy may collaborate with the department of agriculture, they may collaborate with the department of defense. universities may collaborate with the private sector. it is an eso system. and that ecosystem is whoas unique about research and development in the united states. it is not hierarchical, it is not the majority driven by the

private sector or by government. it's an ecosystem and fact that it's so distributed. that means almost like the competition at various places and the competition is helping us grow the innovation economy. so the one thing we need to be cognizant about is that we want to preserve that the uniqueness of our ecosystem and that why we're really talking about the n.s.f., the national science foundation, principally. you can see from this big pie -- we just had this debate. let's increase defense r&d. we're already doing a lot in defense r&d. you can see that n.s.f., it's currently, the numbers they're at today at 6.8, are not really, you might think this whole debate we're spending billions of dollars to change the focus. this agency is a powerhouse,

and it's a powerhouse mostly connection with universities. the r&d that's done there has been in the basic research area, but now this bill by our colleagues, senators schumer and young, is about taking the basic research, continuing that, making a little bit of investment in that basic research, but then also now trying to accelerate all the research that we now have at our hands, our finger tips, at our minds, and saying what other user-based research can we take that basic and applied research and actually put it into use in commercialization in the united states. so if you will, capitalizing on a faster tech transfer and a faster deployment of these technologies. why is this so important? well, it's important because in the information age, a lot of people can read our published research and development. they can read what we're doing, and they can continue their research and development. other nations are figuring out

that research and development in an information age economy really does matter. they're figuring out that the united states has come a long way as a nation in building job growth, maintaining competitiveness, national security issues, all because we at the federal government level have said we believe in research and development with the public taxpayer dollars, and its benefit, whether it's the internet, the biosciences in health care or national security, the american public gets that that research has made us competitive as a nation. so we've had two previous attempts to make investments in this issue in america competes. first started in the bush administration in 2006 when president bush published a report about america's competitiveness and proposed this concept about small n.s.f. budget that i was referring to and articulated that we needed to double that budget within a five-year or seven-year window

of time. they felt that with the level of change and transformation and innovation, that we wouldn't be keeping pace on a global basis unless we made that investment. so in 2007, we passed america competes act which gave money both to n.s.f. and to d.o.e., and literally the first three years we thought we were going to double this d.o.e. budget and an investment in d.o.e. within seven years. so there was a little good news, a lot of euphoria inrd, a lot of home -- inrd, a lot of hope for stem education, science, technology, engineering and math. and a 60-40 split between n.s.f. and energy. people thought we're not on pace, where we want to be but we'll get there within 11 years. we'll put enough money into this innovation effort that we will

double our research and innovation budget as it relates to n.s.f. and our energy innovation efforts in 11 years. this is what really happened. we didn't do either of those things. we're really on a track to have taken those 2007 numbers and double them in 22 years. so when you look back at the history and you say how did we -- what happened? if we were so enthusiastic about this, if we identified this, both a republican president identified this and then a democratic administration followed on, why didn't we execute on this? why didn't we execute on this doubling of this number and making this investment? well, we all know what happened. we basically hit a recession, and in a recession of 2009 and 2010, we just didn't live up to this obligation of funding the research and development that was in america competes to the

aggressiveness we all hoped for. i'm not sure everybody even realizes that this effort fell short, that we didn't make quite the level of investment that we wanted, that we were falling behind. i don't think anybody really understood it until now when people see the incredible level of international competition. all of a sudden as we see this incredible investment from the international community, people are starting to say, well, wait, what have we done on this effort? so our next chart shows the fact that the united states has been a leader in global research and development. and, as i said, i mentioned on the floor a report that was done by the pew charitable trust -- i mean the pew research center that basically said americans, seven in ten americans believe in public investment in research and development. we have a higher regard for this than other nations. and we just do, i think, because people get it here. i think they get that we've

invented a lot of things. they believe in that innovation. they know it creates jobs, and so we have a higher regard for that, and consequently we've been the leader in world r&d for a very long time. as this information comes along other nations get that r&d leads to job creation, transformation and certainly to security. so just since 1991, we have seen china, who was ninth in r&d, now they are number two. and i'm pretty sure at current trajectories will end up being number one some time very, very soon. and so it's not, everything about china -- although many of my colleagues here discuss this as a china bill, i view it as a bill about the future and making the investments in the future to capture the economic opportunities. there are security issues here. there are clearly national security issues here. there's clearly issues about a supply chain and whether you can depends on a supply chain and

whether if you have a concentration of an industry in one region of the world, then are you really dependent on that one region of the world for that particular product. what happened to all of us in the last year and a half -- and i'm saying now on a global basiy realized with covid, well, wait, supply chains really matter. product really matters. where we get product in an emergency really matters, whether it does what it says it does in an emergency really matters. and so all of these issues about supply chains and who's building what and the interkasis of it -- interkasis of it got ripped open. as the world community starts to look at this too, where do we get our product, who's making it, is it made to the standard that we want, is it secure? and obviously, you know, people have made lots of decisions about supply chain based on just pure cost and

effectiveness of a product, but now people are starting to realize that it's way more complex and it's led us to this current debate. so again, why do we do this? why does america want to make an investment in an innovation economy? well, we don't have to go too far to understand that from our past history. it enables competitiveness. if you just think about these sectors, i'll never forget years ago we had somebody, this is in the 1980's visit seattle. they said what's everybody going to do? make car phones and computers? in reality there was a big decade or so of making what then was supposed to be great technology -- car phone -- and obviously we all know where we've now been with computers and operating systems and how much it drives the economy of the future. but at the time when we were seeing a transformation to

that, people thought what are we all going to do? is that what we're going to do? telecommunications, semiconductors, advance materials, all were huge things that enabled this competitiveness of our nation, in automobiles, in aviation, in the tech sector, in health care, in a whole variety of things. and it drives our economy with this level of innovation. the internet, just one example, is something we started working on in the 1960's, became a reality in the 1990's, and today it's$2.3 trillion part of our national economy and 12% of u.s. g.d.p. that's what we got out of previous research. that's what we got out of saying we're going to let scientists do basic research and figure out what they think are the most important advances moving forward. the job growth, millions of jobs, and national security

today, we can see just from this past week in a pipeline that was affected by a cyberattack. we cannot afford to take our foot off of national security research and development in the purposes of things like cybersecurity. we have to continue to be a leader in this area of technology. it's now as if you're not going to have intimidation of our nation by somebody maybe sticking the nose of a foreign sub in u.s. waters or flying a spy plane over the unts. -- united states. it's going to come in the form of intimidation of our banking system or pipelines or other forms of security and hacking. there's no doubt, no doubt we need to stay on top of the level of investment in national security. i would say the underlying bill that we will be talking about

next week in detail relates to a very important aspect of national security, and that is the area of semiconductors. we need to make an investment in our competitiveness in semiconductors, and we need to make that investment because it's going to be critical to our national security. so let me talk about a few things that are in the bill, just so people understand some of the priorities that majority leader schumer and senator young came up with as it relates to this legislation. as i mentioned, it creates a new tech directorate in the office of n.s.f., the national science foundation, so that it will be like a darpa system. that is that they work with the private sector, they create technology centers, they build partnerships between government and academia, they support

rapid-technology demonstration, they advance the competitiveness of the united states in important fields like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and they focus on these ideas similar to how darpa has done where the individuals involved are critical to the effort. that is to say to get the best and brightest minds who are working in these areas to be part of this effort and concentration. we also looked at and approved in this legislation the fact that universities and academia provide a lot of research and development, but oftentimes don't even, in the academia world, people are focused on publishing, publishing their research. that's kind of how they get known. that's what they get basically

almost rewarded for at the university system. and you'd be surprised how little time they take to actually take that research, turn it into a patent, and then turn it into a commercialized product. so one thing we heard in our hearings is that we needed to get more help to universities on tech transfer and patenting of information. why patenting? because patenting helps us protect the science that we already have developed. it helps us say that somebody can't just take that published science report and then go off in another country and develop it, because it is now protected under our u.s. law. so we feel this is a very important effort, and we think that it also helps lead a lot of research at universities to then be supported, developed, exposed to the venture capital markets and, thus, actually helped turn into

commercialization. so efforts at the university of washington that specifically focused on this, specifically hired somebody to come into the university and kind of, if you will, shake the tree of the level of r&d that was being done and saying what are we doing to actually patent this content? what are we doing to actually transfer it into commercialization had outstanding results. yes, it was a transformation of what our universities do, but in the end they came up with something like just in a few years 20 companies that ended up becoming supported by venture capitalists and making it on to the markets. so we're very excited that we will now, with this provision, be trying to get more out of the research we do by patenting it and doing tech transfer. our colleagues senators young and schumer also believe that university research should continue to get investments,

and that's the major aspect of the provision here, is to have the tech directorate work on these ten areas of expertise, work with selected universities around the united states on those critical focus of technology. i -- i mentioned some of them -- artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and many others. so the fact that the bill really is depending on our university system i think is something that our colleagues should applaud and be excited about. that chart that i showed at the beginning where everybody's working together, this is just research dollars going to the best universities in our nation to continue to focus on this, but now focus on it in partnership with experts in these sectors and with industries so that we can actually get to