>> speaking about it and rallying support behind federal voting rights legislation, that's very encouraging that helps us stay in the fight as well. >> the reason we were able to have the announcement last night about progress being made towards a very very powerful bill that would affect things like providing childcare and addressing housing. >> ..

>> they have votes around 2:30 eastern on a couple of biden administration nominees. we will take you live to the senate floor now, on c-span 2. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri.

mr. blunt: madam president, like all of us, i just got home from some time at home and got being from being there and making a difference. i think one of the important things of being outside of washington is you get a chance to hear what really people are concerned about. we have all kinds of speeches given here every day of what members of the congress are absolutely sure people are concerned about. i think that topic becomes much more crystal clear when you get home. i know it's certainly much more crystal clear to me when i'm home in missouri. over the 4th of july holiday, there were a number of visits all over the state -- columbia, st. louis, montgomery city. monroe city. lots of events everywhere in the state where i talked about the importance of getting a vaccine and the progress we were making

there, but the first thing that people wanted to talk to me about was inflation. people are already seeing that prices are well above the numbers that they believe they are seeing that the official numbers are confirming. in may, the national number was -- in may of this year, prices were 5% higher than they were may a year ago. in june, they were 5.4% higher than they were a year ago. but people are seeing a lot of prices that are higher than that. the price of whole milk is up 7.5% from a year ago. the price of an airplane ticket average is up about 25% from a year ago. used cars are more expensive than they were last june. in fact, they are 45% more expensive than they were a year ago in june. there is an incredible increase in the cost of people, things that not only people want to buy

but maybe more pressing people have to buy and need to buy. a lot of people specifically talked to me about gas prices. i was on the road a lot, driving a lot while i was home. i saw those prices for myself, but the average cost of a gallon of regular gallon nationwide is about $3.15. that's 45% higher than june of last year. that's a hidden tax that working people every day, whether it's a hidden tax on a glass of milk, a hidden tax on a tank of gas, the hidden tax on other things that they like to do or have to do. it makes a real difference. people who want to take a vacation or have to travel to work, you know. in the part of missouri i live in, there are a lot of little towns that have manufacturing jobs but not unusual for somebody to drive 40 or 50 miles one way to get to that job. and if gasoline is 45% higher

than it was a year ago, it makes a real difference. that's a real hidden tax, and it's usually a hidden tax on the people that the president rightly would not want to pass tax increases for. i think the administration has to start taking into account the issues that are out there. larry summers and others from the obama administration have warned the great risk of inflation, but when we talk about energy, for instance, i think we have to do that clearly in a way in a if we're making transitions to energy, we don't make those transitions in a way that needlessly have a negative impact on families and on opportunities. the first few days in office, president biden rescinded the permit for the keystone x.l. pipeline. not too long after that, blocked the new oil and gas leases in alaska and the gulf of mexico.

these were things that the congress had talked about for a long time, and in some cases, things congress had specifically decided it was time to do, but an executive order from the president decided no, we were going to head in a different direction. that was just the beginning, really, of what my colleagues have seen in the discussion in the congress and what my democratic colleagues in the congress have in mind, so if you like paying higher prices for gasoline, you're going to love what happens to the restrictions that go into effect and drive prices of all energy even higher. now, the other thing i talked to small business owners about and frankly all business owners about was the trouble finding enough workers. republican governors in 25 states now have determined that that larger unemployment benefit kept people from going back to work. people were choosing to stay on

the sidelines rather than go to work. frankly, if you look at that $618 weekly unemployment check that was the average in america in may, that unemployment check doesn't have any child care costs associated with it, doesn't have any travel to work associated with it. you've got to have a job that pays a lot to not consider if i'm continuing to get this check, why should i go back to work. well, missouri was one of the 25 states that decided that extra bonus not only is bad for families and going back to work but it is bad for our economy, so as of june 12, the return to the important but much lower normal unemployment benefit happened in our state. i think you can already see people making the decision that it's time to go back to work. now, surprisingly, even though we have created a lot of

opportunities for people to stay home, we had -- the june economy created 850,000 new jobs. we should all feel good about that, but this is an economy that's created 850,000 new jobs, at some point, we have got to stop pushing money into that economy that we don't have. there are obviously a lot of factors in play here, but the 850,000 people going back to work is an important and a significant thing. part of the explanation, obviously, is the rush by republican governors principally to eliminate that bonus, but part of it is just simply an economy that's already beginning to rebound and rebounding based on the current tax structure and rebounding based on what governments already spend, rather this incredible rush to drive inflation even further. the congressional budget office put out a new report recently that said the federal deficit

for this fiscal year will be more than $3 trillion. the problem is nobody has any idea what $3 trillion really is. and that probably includes most of us. if i said the deficit was $3 million, or $300,000, somehow divided up to every american family, they would immediately think oh, my goodness, we could never deal with that, but a a $3 trillion deficit -- and by the way, it was just announced that there is a budget committee on top of that $3 trillion deficit to spend another $3.5 trillion, it's time we started talking frankly about how much $3 trillion really is. that $3 trillion is something that somebody has to pay back sometime. all that borrowing and spending has been one of the big factors contributing to inflation. it doesn't even count the $3.5 trillion again that have been added just overnight in

that discussion. some people are beginning to call this bidenomics. i think the congress has to take its share of responsibility here. the belief that we can spend without limit and that won't cause any problems is outrageous. the idea that we can pay people not to work more than they would make if they did work is outrageous. all these things lead to tounintended consequences. the belief that high gas prices and inflation is just temporary, that people shouldn't be concerned about it, well, people are concerned and they should be concerned. i hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will spend some time listening to people, hearing their concerns. i hope they will reconsider their policies that are fueling inflation and holding back our economy. and i would yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa.

ms. ernst: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to use a prop during my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. ernst: thank you, madam president. ms. ernst: madam president, president biden's economic policies are causing nationwide sticker shock. the price of nearly everything is higher today than it has been since biden was in the white house the first time. the cost of consumer goods has gone up every month since january, and the markup in prices over the past year is the biggest annual increase since 2008. the democrats' response to these rising prices is to simply spend

more, which is making the problem worse. paying people not to work is contributing to worker shortages. not having enough workers is resulting in service and supply shortages. combine these two factors are trillions of dollars of government spending, and it all adds up to higher prices on everything for everyone. it is a common story wherever i visit on my 99-county tour. because of washington's upside down economic policies, small businesses are struggling to hire workers and our families are paying much more for far less. put simply, under bidenomics,

the price is up. everyday products like diapers and paper towels are either increasing in cost or decreasing in size, which is the same result -- more money out of our wallets. whether you are eating in or you are dining out, the one thing you are guaranteed to find on every supermarket shelf and restaurant menu is higher prices. a pound of sliced bacon has increased a whole dollar in just the past year. and the fast food dollar menu is disappearing. we are paying more at the pump, too. a year ago, a gallon of gas cost about $2.18. today the price is just under $3 in iowa. nationally, the cost has risen

to about $3.15 per gallon and is expected to keep going up throughout the summer. meanwhile, the shipping costs are lifting the prices of everything from coffee to furniture. all in all, bidenomics has resulted in the biggest surge in inflation in nearly 13 years. for iowans who are living on a budget, these unpredictable price markups are making every purchase a real guessing game. they keep finding themselves asking if the price is right. to demonstrate just how much costs are spinning out of control, i brought the wheel of inflation with me here today. each of the numbers on the wheel represents a price increase for

a common household product. it will tell us exactly how much more bidenomics is costing hardworking americans. so, folks, let's go ahead and give it a spin. oh, let's see. eight. eight. in the past year the price of bacon is up about 8%. let's give her a good spin. okay. five. and it is a black five. in the past year the price of clothes is up about 5%. 11. in the past year the price of

auto insurance is up 11%. and if you go to the 17 there, you'll find that hotel rates, the price has gone up 17% in the last year. there's no winning numbers on this wheel. again, every number represents the increase of a common good american consumers are dealing with. there's no winning numbers on this wheel. no matter how you spin it, we simply cannot afford any more bidenomics. i think the american people will agree all of these prices need to come on down. but instead of addressing inflation, democrats are trying to outbid one another over a massive new government spending program they are calling human

infrastructure. want to guess what the price tag being floated by the chairman of the senate budget committee for this package might be? $3.5 trillion. all capital letters, folks. the endless giveaway of cash and prizes may make it appear like democrats in washington are running a game show, but we all know that this is not a game. with our national debt approaching $30 trillion, the bills are eventually going to come due. and you know who will be stuck with the tab? taxpayers. what runaway inflation doesn't take from working americans' paychecks the i.r.s. will take to pay for the democrats' never ending spending. we are all going to be paying

back the trillions of dollars borrowed to pay for bidenomics, both in higher taxes and in higher consumer costs. and that price, folks, it isn't right. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: like my colleague from iowa who has just spoken, i travel iowa as well and in holding my county meetings and visiting with employers and employees, not just these last two weeks that we've been in recess but all year, i've been hearing all of what senator ernst has referred to that people are afraid of inflation and a lot of people are old enough to remember the 12% to

15% inflation we had during the mid-1970's to the early 1980's. we don't want to repeat that. traveling iowa is always refreshing to hear directly from my constituents. because as i often say, washington is an island surrounded by reality. midwest seems to be the real america compared to what we know here in washington, d.c. where everything that dominates the economy is affected by government and very big government. there is no better example of this than how the biden administration and washington elites talk about inflation and rising prices. to them inflation is transitory

or the result of base effects, and those words, transitory and base effects, are used to justify this inflation. really something not to worry about i think is the impression they want to leave us with. to the iowans i spoke with, inflation is real and pers persistent. as senator ernst has so colorfully shown. i heard concerns from my constituents about inflation wherever i went and why, because it's affecting people's lives right now. i heard about how inflation was cutting into families' budgets making it hard to make ends meet. i heard how prices in grocery staples, such as milk, meat,

fruit, vegetables are on the rise along with all manners of household goods. yet the president and his top economic advisers say inflation is nothing to worry about. or as president's treasury secretary put it, quote, i don't think there's going to be an inflationary problem. but if there is, the fed will be counted on to address it. end of quote. they shouldn't be so nonchalant about it. as we know from the 1970's, once inflation takes off, getting it back under control can require very painful measures. they should take the advice of former clinton treasury secretary summers who recently

stated, quote, the fed has had almost no success gently bringing down inflation once an economy has started to overheat. notice that word gently because everybody thinks this is just going to occur very easily getting it under control. but we remember the results of the 1970's, early 1980's. it took a paul volker to take a sledgehammer through the policies of the federal reserve to bring down interest rates. and a lot of farmers in iowa lost their farms when we were borrowing on that inflation. trusting the government that there was no problem. and then we have just farmers going out of business because

volcker used a sledgehammer and he probably had to use it because there wasn't a gentle way of doing t. unfortunately, instead of taking inflation seriously, the current administration appears intense -- intent on stoking its flames, pouring gasoline on the inflation fire. in his budget the president proposes government spending and debt at levels previously only seen temporarily during war or economic recession. the nonpartisan congressional budget office and economists surveyed by "the wall street journal," both recently raised their inflation expectations. c.b.o. raised its inflation projections because, quote, output now exceeds its potential level sooner and by larger

amounts than previously anticipated. end quote. output exceeding its potential is economic speak for the economy to start to overheat. consumer price data released yesterday shows inflation heating up. in june prices climbed 5% and 4% over the prior year compared to 5% in may. moreover, corn inflation which omits volatile food and energy goods rose at the highest rate in 29 years. the trillions of dollars in new spending proposed by the president could set inflation ablaze. if that occurs, it's not going to be the wealthy and the wall street elites that pay the

price. the average hardworking american living paycheck to paycheck and particularly tough on the retiree, on fixed incomes. those are the people that are going to pay more and get less for paying more. the president would be well served to listen more to everyday americans about how rising prices are affecting their lives today. president biden might then realize pursuing another multitrillion dollar spending spree isn't worth the risk. it could fan the flames of inflation and devastate the livelihoods of average americans. it's incumbent upon the president and the congress to avert a catastrophe by pursuing

responsible fiscal policies. we can't just expect the federal reserve to clean up our mess if we act irresponsibly by spending another $4 trillion. by that time it could already be too late to waiting on the fed. i yield. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. a senator: thank you, madam president. what the senior senator from iowa just said is exactly right. mr. wicker: and unfortunately, the biden inflation tax increase is real and it's already here. we warned about it earlier this year when our friends on the democratic side decided to spend almost $2 trillion that was unnecessary. and here it is. just the other day consumer prices increased by 5.4%. this is the largest year over

year price surge since 2008. it's a tax increase on every american consumer. and then today even worse news. the producer price increased 7.3%. we are in an inflation problem. it is caused by this unnecessary spending spree that we've been on this year. we've known about it. now we see the statistics because we felt it at home. the senior senator from iowa mentioned what he was hearing during the break. mississippians are paying more for a tank of gas, for a gallon of milk. they're paying more for a new home, for a used car. used car prices have shot up by 10% since may and about 45% since june of last year. used cars up by 45%. that is real inflation.

and it affects real working americans. the hard reality is that our economy is now saturated with a tsunami of spending unleashed by the democratic majority back in march when party leaders abandoned what had been a balanced and bipartisan approach in the year 2020 to covid relief. i would remind my colleagues that in february, the congressional budget office had predicted our economy was already going to return to its pre-pandemic size by midyear without the spending of a new $2 trillion. as the senior senator from iowa mentioned, larry summers, a long time democratic adviser and adviser to president obama warn thad more stimulus could overheat the economy and cause inflation. and more spending came and the economy got overheated and we are faced with real statistics

about inflation that cannot be denied. our democratic friends brushed off that warning and instead pumped trillions more of borrowed money into our economy. our nation's money supply has increased by an unheard of 31% since the pandemic. now, some of it we had to do in the year 2020 when the economy had fallen off a cliff. but we're halfway through 2021. the fed is still printing cash. and the majority party in this body seems intent to spending trillions more. as a result inflation is now eating away at family earnings, at bank accounts. at 401(k) savings account, most of which are shrinking as a share of the economy. loss of purchasing power is making it harder for americans to buy homes, start a family, or send their children to college.

madam president, all of this should serve as a caution to all of us, to our friends on the other side of the aisle. this week's consumer price index, today's producer price index information is an early alarm bell signaling that this congress and the biden administration are courting runaway inflation. i yield the floor. if i might, madam president, i ask unanimous consent that senators marshal, scott of florida, and furry be permitted to speak for up to five minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wicker: thank you, madam president. mr. marshall: madam president?

the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. marshall: thank you, madam president. this past week we held 12 town halls back moment in my home state of kansas. we heard from kansans about a variety of issues, but thanks to this administration's economic policies, runaway inflation has replaced covid at the top of the mountain of concerns for the people from my state. now, make no mistake about it, the inflation harming checking accounts of kansans and all americans rests squarely on the shoulders of the socialist economic policies coming out of the white house, otherwise known as bidenomics. as we all know, yesterday the department of labor reported consumer prices climbed for the third straight month, jumping over 5% in june, the largest increase in 13 years. gas prices are up, groceries are up, utilities are up, and i could go on and on. every day we see the bidenomics

of inflation impacting hardworking americans. in fact, inflation is a great social injustice. inflation is really a regressive tax. it hurts everyone, but none more than our seniors and young, hardworking families living paycheck to paycheck. so what exactly is bidenomics? let's look at what they did to create this crisis. stating the obvious, they're printing money, borrowing money we don't have, and implementing quantitative easing like there's no tomorrow, like there's no generations of america for our future. look to the cost of utilities. the administration has made it hard to use affordable, clean, traditional energy and they leveled more and more regulations on the industry. manufactured products, ditto. bidenomics is paying people more to stay at home than go to work, creating labor shortages and government-created bottlenecks at manufacturing plants. then to top things off, we don't even have enough truck drivers

to transport goods to market. as for gasoline, i bring your attention, which is up 31% since january, and according to aaa, it's expected to rise another 20 cents this summer. the administration shut down the keystone x.l. and stopped drilling on government lands and imposed harmful regulations to slow down drilling and make it more expensive. we're now importing more oil from russia than alaska. i had the privilege of delivering a baby almost every day as a i if i guess. when the price of gasoline got above $3 a gallon, all of a sudden those moms were is inning their appointments. tidd we're at that number and expecting it to go even higher, unfortunately. kansans aren't the only ones feeling the squeeze at the pump. many popular items we already purchase have increased in months. the cost of a typical

all-american kansas breakfast -- two eggs, hash browns, orange juice and toast, is up. we had the greatest economy of my lifetime. we lowered taxes, regulations and energy prices. now, out-of-control spending and socialist policies dictated by the white house are leading to rampant inflation had a shows no signs of stopping. thank you, madam president. i yield back. mr. scott: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: madam president, america is in a debt crisis because of reckless government spending, now thanks to the insane spending and policies of president biden and democrats in washington, we're seeing higher and higher inflation. inflation has grown every month. the consumer price index rose 5.4%. energy costs are up 24.5% and

gasoline prices are up 45%. nearly $1 more from where they were last year. inflation set is at the highest rate begins the great depression. a.% increase in june, and an historic 22.%-up in the prices of processed goods, the highest since 1975. for six straight months, we've seen the data show that spending beyond our means has consequences. inflation has grown at the fastest rate since 1981. these aren't just numbers or statistics a. these represent a growing pressure on florida families and businesses. every time prices rise, life gets harder. last month i met with business owners in miami and heard firsthand how they were struggling with the rising price of goods. every time i hear from families that gas pricings are up, food prices are up.

all have a direct impact on a family's budget. it hurts especially our poor families. i saw how it was for more parents to make ends meet with inflation in the 1970's. when gas prices up. i remember going to the grocery store when my mom took in ironing to raise money for groceries. she says, you got to look at the price of things because they're constantly going up. that's happening again. families are suffering because of the democrats' reckless spending. take a look around p. average prices of everything -- everything -- is up. families are filling up their tanks once a week. if you drive a car, that means joe biden raised their expenses $600 a year. if you drive a truck, joe biden raised your expenses more than $1,000 a year. let's remember -- half of americans make less than $35,000 a year. inflation is a new tam on our families.

instead of addressing this crisis that is hurting americans, biden and the democrats are living in an economic fantasy lander where debt has no consequences and inflation is impossible. they're ignore the fact that our nation is barreling towards $ed 30 trillion in debt. that's $233 of debt for every family in america. now democrats want to spend another $4 trillion of your money on a show of called infrastructure plan that has little to do with infrastructure. they don't care if americans get a return on their hard-earned tax dollars. we can't keep spending like this. there is a day of reckoning coming if we don't get our fiscal house in order. that's why i've introduced a act to take steps to rein in the out-of-control spending. that includes preventing the democrats from mindlessly spending by requiring that two-thirds of the senate vote before approving any deficit spending.

any bill reduce the debt by 5% over ten years is fast-tracked. we are in a debt crisis. this isn't monopoly money. it is americans' money. it is time to end the madness, stand up for low and fixed-income families and for small businesses who bear the brunt of president biden's inflation crisis. with the debt ceiling suspense expiring, we must chart a new and scale path forward. i look forward to every fiscally responsible democrat working with me, quickly pass my bill and protect the few this nation. thank you, madam president. mrs. murray: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: i i ask unanimous consent that upon disposition of the nanda nomination, i senate resume consideration of the liang nomination. the senate vote on the nominations at 5:30 today to

incloak cloture on the liang and remy nominations in the order lists and the cloture on the cunningham nomination ripen upon disposition of the remy nomination. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: thank you, madam president. madam president, i was proud to vote to confirm jocelyn samuels to the equal employment opportunity commission last year when she was confirmed on a bipartisan vote and i am proud to do so again. the eeoc has a role to play in addressing inequities in our economy which disproportionately harm women, people of color and people with disabilities and more. it is responsible for enforcing discrimination and harassment laws and works to address the gender pay gap. workers need a champion at the eeoc fighting for them and ms. samuels has proven over her nearly two decades of experience with the federal government and her recent service as is the commissioner of the eeoc she is that champion.

from pushing to pass the lilly ledbetter fair pay act to leading civil rights efforts at the department of justice and department of health appeared human services to working as a staffer on the senate health education and pensions committee and a senior attorney at the eeoc, ■she has spent her career working to address discrimination and ensure no one is treated unfairly because of their age, sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity, race, religion, or disability. i was pleased to see her nomination advance out of our help committee with bipartisan support and i hope to see similar bipartisan support for her final confirmation. madam president, i also would like to urge my colleagues to join me in voting to confirm seema nanda as solicitor for the department of labor. another nominee who has advanced from the help committee on a bipartisan vote.

ms. nanda has served in the department of labor previously as deputy chief of staff, deputy solicitor of labor, and chief of staff. and she previously served as a career attorney in the department of justice where she fought to defend immigrant workers from discrimination and held employers accountable for unfair hiring practices. she has proven herself to be an excellent choice for this important role. we take some hard votes in this chamber. these should not be mopping them. workers are the backbone of our economy and that meanings every one of us should beviting for them and voting to confirm commissioner nanda and samuels will fight for them as well. i yield back my time and ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: the question occurs on the samuels nomination. mrs. murray: i ask for yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second?

there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: have all senators voted? does any senator wish to change his or her vote?

on this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are 47, and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the question occurs on the nanda nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 53. the nays are 47. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motions to reconsider are considered made and laid upon

the table, and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's actions. the clerk will report the liang nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of treasury, j. nellie liang of maryland to be an under secretary. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: mr. president, i'd like to thank my colleague, senator rubio for joining me to honor the lives lost in the horrific tragedy on june 24 when the champlain towers in surfside, florida, suddenly collapsed in the middle of the night. in honor of the brave men and women that risked their lives in search, rescue and recovery efforts. senator rubio and i were on the ground in surfside following the collapse talking to families, first responders, and members of the community. the pain these families are

experiencing is unimaginable. those unexpectedly lost in this horrific tragedy were mothers, fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, friends, aunts, uncles and cousins. they were children, grandchildren with their full lives ahead of them. i can't imagine losing any member of my family like this, but the thought of losing one of my grandchildren is too painful to imagine. we mourn with these families. we continue to pray for the surfside community, the families and loved ones of those lost, and all of those working tirelessly to serve the surfside community. in the face of tremendous tragedy our first responders ran into the danger. they are heroes. they immediately answered the call to serve and firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency medical technicians, physicians, nurses and others from the state of florida and the nation came rushing to save them.

the first responders and they are working tirelessly to try to find some who survived. your heart goes out for them as they went from rescue to recovery. the miami-dade fire and rescue and others from around the area were there every step of the way. some of these responders lost family in the collapse, yet they still answered the call. we heard the absolutely devastating story of the miami-dade firefighter who carried the body of his own seven-year-old daughter stella away from the rubble. can't even begin to imagine the pain and loss experienced by this father. international rescue crews and emergency support organizations from israel and mexico also responded to the site to aid in the search and rescue efforts. numerous volunteer organizations responded including the red cross as well as community leaders and individuals offering resources, support, and comfort to the survivors and community in surfside. our jewish community, particularly orthodox jews, have been especially affected by

this tragedy and we thank c.s.e., zakka and all those who worked selflessly. we can never thank these brave men and women enough for their braver and determination in the face of this terrible tragedy. i know right now we all have a lot of unanswered questions. we're all going to work tirelessly to understand exactly what happened. while we can't bring back the lives lost, our work to honor those lost will be relentless in the search for answers to make sure a tragedy like this never happens against. as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 300 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 300, honoring the memories of the victims of the building collapse in surfside, florida, on june 24, 2021, and the bravery and selfless service of

the individuals who responded to the building collapse. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. scott: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection,so ordered. mr. scott: mr. president, i appreciate the unanimous support of my senate colleagues passing this resolution to honor the lives lost in the horrific tragedy in surfside and i thank the many first responders for their incredible bravery in search and rescue and recovery efforts. our hearts are broken but we stand together. florida is surfside strong. thank you, and i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. my colleagues, it is not a coincidence that in 2020, gun sales in this country spiked by 40%. it's an extraordinary increase in gun sales. and homicides in this country

increased by 30%. violent crime is increasing in the country. you can't miss that if you turn on the news at night. and there can be no doubt that our nation's gun laws, the loosest and most loophole-ridden in the nation, are a primary contributor to this spike in gun crime. i want to spend just a few minutes this afternoon making sure that all of my colleagues understand that if we want to do something about violent crime in this country, then you cannot continue to close your eyes to the fact that we are allowing criminals all across this country to traffic dangerous weapons that are being used in gun homicides. first let's burst the bubble of the gun lobby. their primary argument is more guns keep people safer. that's not true. it's never ever been true.

study after study tells you that your common sense should already tell you. in fact, one study makes it very plain on a nearly one for one basis, the more guns you have in your community, the more crime you are going to have. one study says this. what they found was that for communities that saw a 1% increase in gun ownership, guess what they also saw, a corresponding 1% increase in gun homicides. thus it should surprise no one that as the number of guns increase in this country, the number of gun crimes increase in this country. now, there are a lot of reasons for that, but, again, you don't have to search dmeep the data to -- data -- into the data to understand why. let me give you an example. a family i'm close to in

connecticut, a young man named shane was shot down the street from where i was in the capital city. he was in an argument about some young men about things they said about his girlfriend who happened to be with them. it just so happened there was an illegal gun sitting in the front seat of one of these cars, an argument over a girl that in any other nation in the world would have at worst resulted in some punches being thrown, yet this resulted in a gun homicide. shane oliver doesn't live on this earth anymore. he was taken from his parents when he was 20 years old because there was an illegal gun that just happened to be sitting in the front seat of a car. in almost any other country of the world, there is not a gun the city citizenning in the front -- sitting in the front seat of a car.

access to guns means more gun crime. here's the other problem. there's been a 40% increase in gun sales. those are just the sales that are reported to the criminal background check system. what we know is that somewhere around 20%, 30% of all gun sales in this country don't happen with a background check attached to it. those are gun sales that very often are going straight to criminals, straight to gun traffickers, and so if there's been a 40% increase in background check transfers, there has likely also been a 40% increase in the number of guns that have been transferred to criminals, transferred to gun traffickers, the folks who are selling them to folks who will use them in gun crimes. here's a study out of new york. the new york a.g.'s office

recently reviewed aggregate gun trace information for about five years, and what they found was that 74% of the recovered guns in new york, normally recovered because they were used in a crime, came with a known source state that wasn't new york. that's interesting, right? three-quarters of the gun being used in crimes in new york aren't being bought in new york. there's a reason for that. you have to go through a background check in new york if you want to buy a gun and if you're a criminal, you can't get a gun in new york at a gun store because they have background checks and because they don't have internet sales or gun show sales without background checks either. what the a.g.'s office also found was that half of the guns that came from outside of new york came from six states. all six states with really weak

gun laws, meaning there is this very intentional iron pipeline of juns guns in this country coming from states with no universal background checks and can bring them to states like new york, connecticut, or new jersey and sthem on the black -- and sell them on the black market. and what we also know is that there's a really short period of time between when these guns are purchased and when they are used in crimes. which shows an intentionality and a clear artic around the purchase -- and a clear act. of the one million crime guns traced in this country between 2015 and 2019 more than one-third were used in a crime within just three years of their initial retail sale.

it's a -- this short time to crime timeline is a strong indication that the guns were purchased with intent to divert them to criminal use. so every year that goes by that we choose as a congress to not close these loopholes, to not simply say if you're going to buy a gun on the commercial market in the united states, you have to prove you're not a gun trafficker is another year that we endorse and facilitate the murder of thousands and thousands of americans and there is a clear connection between this increase in gun sales and this increase in criminal activity. why? because along with those legal gun sales come all sorts of gun sales that do an end around on the background check system. thank goodness president biden is doing something about this. there is a new loophole that criminals are taking advantage

of, the ghost gun loophole. in california today 30% of the guns confiscated are unserialized. they have no serial number on them because of the new phenomenon of ghost guns, guns that are assembled from a kit, not guns purchased at a store. in connecticut, a convicted felon who couldn't have bought a gun in a gun store in connecticut because he's a convicted felon, used a ghost gun to shoot his girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son before turning the gun on himself. people who know they can't buy guns in gun stores or online in a place like connecticut that has universal background checks are assembling ghost guns and committing crimes. the biden administration is taking action, but so should we.

i come to the floor to share this with my colleagues because our constituents are concerned about the rising rate of gun homicides in this nation. they expect us to do something about it. i'm not saying there's only one solution. i'm not saying that changing our gun laws is the only step we should take to do something about the rising rates of gun homicides in this country. there's a longer story as to why people have become so desperate to resort to gun violence in order to mediate disputes or project power. but the prevalence of so many more guns in our country today than just a year ago, the prevalence of so many more illegal guns due to intentional choices by this body is a big part of the story and i hope that we'll be able to bring to this body bipartisan legislation that will close the background check loopholes very soon to give this body a chance to do

something about the rising rates of gun violence in this country. mr. president, if there's not objection, i'd like to give a short second set of remarks and have it appear in the record separately. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, last month the nation lost a great patriot and i lost a great friend, william sandra -- vandehovel. he grew up in a working familiar during the great -- familiar during the great depression. he became obsessed with the idea that regular people could band together. upon learning of f.d.r.'s death,

bill hitchhiked alone to the roosevelt estate to try to attend the funeral. he was 14 years old at the time. he was, unsurprisingly initially turned away, but somehow he found his way to eleanor roosevelt who was so impressed with the young man's passion for her husband's legacy that she welcomed the 14-year-old in. in many ways it's a story emblematic of bill's life. he grew close to several leaders from the kennedys to the carters, not by accident or any privilege he was born into but because of his tenacity and unbridled infectious love for his country. he was given a difficult task. help integrate prince edward county which was flouting brown v. board of education

requirements. he noticed his record of success in integrating maryland schools and the two became close friends. it was another leader, jimmy carter who would ask bill to represent america abroad as ambassador to the european office of the united nations which kicked off his diplomatic career. his diplomatic accomplishments are too long to go through, but he was a prominent advocate for the united nations and what it does to address pressing global issues. bill remain committed to solving problems at home. he was a renaissance man. for years he helped lead the charge in new york city to reform its prisons. he tackled the squalled conditions and he made sure that even the most hardened criminals

were treated like human beings. and in his later life, when i got to know him, he returned to his first love. he started and led the franklin and eleanor roosevelt institute and championed the long fight to champion the for freedoms park on roosevelt island. it will stand forever to his patriotism. it's his private accomplishment which defined his true greatness. his wife melinda and katrina and wendy and ashley and john know him as a kind and loving husband and father. the reforms and diplomats that he mentored over the years, they are grateful for tt time he took to mid-wife the hopes and dreams of others. i'm one of those people. bill took me under his wing

early in my public service career, it was his advice i turned to over and over, especially in my early years in congress as i set my own course and picked my own battles, so above all bill's family and friends will miss him dearly. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. booker: first i want to recognize my colleague from connecticut and thank him for his steadfast leadership on the issues of gun safety in this country. i'm standing here with my colleagues today to talk about what is going on in this country around empowering children. we have a big thing happening tomorrow when the vast majority of families with kids across the country, as of tomorrow, will start seeing more money in their bank accounts every year for the rest of the year.

these payments are the result of changes that we have made to the child tax credit that were signed into law by president biden as part of the american rescue plan because of the changes we advocated for and that president biden made law more families and children are going to benefit from the child tax credit. more than ever before in history. in fact, this will be the greatest cut in overall child poverty in the history of america for this coming year. so starting tomorrow, 90% of kids in america -- 90% of their families across the country will start to see these payments for the rest of this year, up to $300 for every child in a household under 6. for families in suburbs and cities and rural areas, for families across the country, this policy is transformative. for the family of people with essential workers in florida,

the grandmother raising three children in california, a single mom in pennsylvania, working the same job for 20 years, for a parent in utah, you could go on and on and on, this is one of the most transformative policy changes made in our nation in more than a century. this this policy means stability. it means help is on the way. it means hope is here. in my home state, margarita from passaic, new jersey who is raising three kids on her own, working two jobs, one before sunrise starting tomorrow she will see hundreds of dollars a month to help her pay the electric bill, help her make rent, help her children succeed in school. for the family of two educators with kids in new york, tomorrow is transformative. washington state, north dakota, blue state, so-called red state. all over this country we are

seeing a transformation. this is what a mom from kansas said. she said, and i quote, this child tax credit would help so much for sipping gal moms like me to -- single moms like me to be able to feel secure as a parent. if at any time something were to happen to me, such as a car repair, a doctor's visit, even a book fair for my children, i am just not making enough to have any extra for anything other than bills. shoes and coats, maybe a ball glove, karate or dance lessons to improve social skills and athletic abilities and teach children teamwork would be possible. and maybe even at christmas, since they didn't get one in 2020. for middle-class families trying to stay afloat, lower-income families desperate to make ends meet, families living in poverty struggling to put food on the table, tomorrow is a new start.

for millions of americans across the country, this body, our president tomorrow will begun a historically unparalleled moment. senator brown and senator bennet, senator warnock and i along with our house colleagues are going to continue to do what must be done. this change for this year, cutting child poverty, empowering millions of families, 90% of whom with kids will see a benefit, we must make this permanent. i will fight alongside my colleagues to see that this is not a one-time benefit for one year but a permanent change. we change our status, 30 wealthiest nations, we're fourth from the from in child poverty, second to last in term of child allowances. we in america have to make this country live up to its promise to every child, that we are the cornerstone of the idea of the

american dream, that we are the most fertile soil for which a child could thrive, that we love our children not just in words but in the policies we make. this is a historic moment. and the one thing i'll say for anyone listening to my words, because as my colleague knows, some families are eligible but might not benefit, please, we need to make sure that that portal, people know to go to, childtaxcredit.gov to get the information. all of us have an obligation to not only avail themselves of this policy i believe will make it permanent. i now turn to my colleague senator bennet from colorado, mr. president, with your permission. mr. bennet: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: we're all here today -- i want to say how much i love my colleague from new jersey and from ohio who are here with me today on this floor to celebrate this incredibly important milestone. i love you for your commitment

to the country and for your commitment to our kids. i want to wish your brother well. i know that he is recovering from his stroke. our astill taking time to be here -- you're still taking time to be here on the floor to make sure that people need it most hear about this tax credit. and i want to thank you for that. i've heard the senator from ohio just like the senator from new jersey talk about the lives of real people in their states. i've sat in the chair where the presiding officer is listening to senator brown talk about families in ashtabula or zanesville or dayton or cleveland or cincinnati or toledo. and what the policies in this -- that we pass in this body either -- you know, the difference they make are very often the difference they don't make to real people at home. to the people that you work for

and represent in newark. i think about a mom, i say to my colleague from ohio -- or colorado, the presiding officer, a mom in rifle, colorado what was in an early childhood center. she was so happy to be there. the other moms were happy to be there too because until they had that early childhood center, they mad to drive 30 miles to glenwood canyon to put their child in day care to work. now they can actually have in in their community. what she said to me was that i work so i can have health insurance. and every single dollar i make goes to pay for this early childhood center so i can work. it's that triangle that so many americans are caught in because we have had an economy that for 50 years has worked really well for the top 10% and not for anybody else in america.

and for too long it seemed like washington wasn't paying any attention to that. what was our solution to that? to spend $5.6 trillion on two wars in the middle east that lasted for 20 years? to come to this floor to cut taxes not for working people, not for the people that needed it, but for the wealthiest people in the country at a time when our income inequality was higher than it was at any time since before the great depression. it made no sense. it was like if the mayor of denver who the presiding officer used to be so let's just imagine that for a second, it's as if the mayor of denver said to the people of denver, we are going to borrow more money than we've ever borrowed before. and i'd say as a concerned citizen of denver to the mayor, that worries me. i'd like to know what you're spending it on. are you spending it on the

parks? no. mental health services because we certainly need those in our -- no. homeless? no. our roads and our bridges? no. schools? no. what -- you're borrowing all this money. what are you spending it on? the mayor would have said well, i'm going to give the money that we're borrowing to the two richest neighborhoods in denver and expect that somehow it's going to trickle down to everybody else. that sounds crazy but that was the bush tax policy. that is the trump tax policy. 65% of that bill they call the middle class going to the top 5% in america. and that's why this is such a new day. i've said on this floor before that it's long past time we started treating america's children like they're our children.

and that we wouldn't accept the conditions that so many kids live in unless we thought they were someone else's children. this country is, as the senator from new jersey has said before, this country is 48 -- 38 out of 41 industrialized countries in terms of childhood poverty. in other words, we have the 38th worst childhood poverty in the industrialized world. only three countries are worse than we are. the poorest population in america are children. and we have some of the lowest economic mobility of any country in the industrialized world. we tell ourselves where the land -- we're the land of opportunity, but we haven't looked like that for a very long time. and the policies that have been passed here haven't helped. and that's where the child tax credit comes in -- comes into

being. we increased it to $3,000, $3,600 for kids under the age of 6. we made it fully refundable so the poorest kids, the millions of poor kids who've never benefited from the tax credit before because their parents made too little money now have the benefit of it, and it's going to be paid out starting tomorrow on a monthly basis. so when families are making decisions about how to pay the rent, put a little food on the table, buy a few hours of day care so that they can stay at work and earn a living, they'll be able to do it. so they can work as the senator from ohio so eloquently says, with dignity. and in my view this should just be the beginning of creating an economy that when it grows, grows for everybody, not just the people at the very tom. and it strengthens our democracy by giving everybody a sense that

they've god a real stake in the economy. and that their kids are going to be able to live a brighter life than the life they lived. that's what it's supposed to be in america. so i am grateful to stand here today with my two colleagues and with the presiding officer to say finally, finally with this president we are treating america's children like they are america's children. and we don't have to accept chronic childhood poverty as a chronic feature of our economy or our democracy. we have an ambition that's greater than that for our country and for our children. and we can say to our kids, you're important to us. in some ways you're all that matter to us. and the position we put you in to be able to get an education

and contribute to the society and help lead the country, participate in our economy and our democracy, that's our priority, that that's what we care about. and i think that's president biden's priority and he's reflected it incredibly well in this policy. and i'll turn it over to the senator from ohio just by saying now we have to do the very hard and important work of making this a permanent part of our tax code so that we -- we cut childhood poverty permanently in half of this country. i'd like us to end childhood poverty in the united states myself. i think that would be a very worthy aspiration for all of us to have. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor to my wonderful colleague from ohio who has been an incredible leader even before i was in the senate. mr. brown: senator bennett, thank you. mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio.

mr. brown: thank you. michael bennet, thank you. when you said this is a new day, i loved how you set that up. the mayor of denver gives a tax cut or at least pours money into the richest neighborhoods in denver expecting that to trickle down or trickle out and help other neighborhoods and other people. it obviously doesn't work that way any more than i was going to say the bush tax cut. but it's been their playbook for years whenever they get a majority to give a tax cut to rich people, arguably will -- argue it will trickle down and it never does. senator booker has been articulate about that. as you say, senator bennet trks is a new day for -- bennet, it is a new day for this country. i think the three of us think and senator hickenlooper, the presiding officer has thought this as most members of the senate that this is perhaps the most important thing we've done in this senate in 25 years. tomorrow parents across the country should check their bank accounts. not all of them are going to know what cory booker and

michael bennet and all of us did, but they're going to see most importantly, in many ways -- maybe my religious faith teaches me this. it's almost better that these people have these -- they get these checks in cleervegland -- cleveland and akron and mansfield and they didn't know i had anything to do with it as their senator. they just know their lives are better. families will see $250 or $300 direct deposit in their accounts every month for the next six months. this enthey get the rest -- then they get the rest of the year in a lump sum. as ?o senator bennet and -- as senator bennet and senator booker said, it's up to us to make this permanent. we've got -- a great majority, at least we think 90% of them will see these checks this week either in their bank account or in their mailbox. we've got to make sure we get the other children who are eligible, that their parents may not have filed a tax return and those families need to go to

childtaxcredit.gov and make sure they get this benefit. even before the pandemic we know hard work was not paying off for millions of workers. productivity we've seen in the last 20 years, productivity has gone up. corporate profits have exploded. c.e.o. pay has soared almost unimaginably yet wages have essentially been flat. that's gone on for decades, even though the cost of everything is up, especially the cost of raising children. our child tax credit recognizes the fact that raising children it work. it happens to be the most -- maybe it's not compensated the same way, but it happens to be the most important work that any family can do. but from child care to health insurance to transportation, we've seen a hard day's work doesn't begin to cover expenses for so many parents and even middle-class families don't feel stable. two weeks ago we were out of session. i spent the week in fremont, in defiance, in cleveland and

columbus and dayton and cincinnati and youngstown and toledo talking to people about the child tax credit and the stories i heard from people, these were mostly parents who will benefit. these are some community activists whose kids may have been grown or don't have kids. the stories i heard, things like -- senator bennet and i did a discussion with people from denver and cleveland one day, a couple of weeks ago, too. we heard over and over that parents were saying, you know, we -- every month it's -- we just have to figure out during the last week of the month how are we going to pay our rent? now those people family will have a little more comfort in being able to know they'll make the rent payment. over and over i heard a number of paints say, now -- parents say now i can send my son to scout camp or a day camp. other parents said i don't have to choose between the food we need to buy and buying diapers.

i don't have to reuse diapers. people were saying, i don't have to work that second job and be away at night. i can get day care on my regular job and have is a little money so i can do these things. and the stories, the resemblance -- are as limitless as the number of people that are involved. i heard -- and maybe the best part of this -- and michael and cory and i have talked about this. maybe the best part of this is, you know, we have snap benefits. we know that's important for hungry families. we do the rental assistance, emergency rental. we know how important that is. but these dollars, this $250, $300 a month, this goes to the families and they make the decision as to what they need. i don't make t the junior senator is older than the senior senator, right? these decisions are made by the mothers and fathers that go to their mailbox and get this check

or see it in their direct payment. so we know that this is not just good for those families. it means dollars in their pockets. it means they can build a foundation for their own children to have more opportunity. all of that. but this is also really good for the community. it means more dollars are spent at local restaurants, more dollars are spent at local stores. it will help lift up our economy families aren't putting this money into a swiss bank account, unlike the trump tax cuts that every republican supports and blew a hole in the budget. that money was put in swiss bank accounts. that doesn't trickle down. this money is spent in the community. this is how we grow the economy and invest in the people that make it work. we don't shovel tax cuts to the people at the very top and hope

it trickles down. weight show parents and workers you're on your side. we won't stop fighting, mr. president, until these tax credits are permanent. senators booker and bennet have talked passionately and persuasively about that. i would add a couple other thanks here. two of my staff are sitting in the back, katie mullhall, and chad bayh, who have made this these tax cuts to reduce the poverty rate and making it happen this session with president biden's active support. i also would call out two staff people, one still in the office, one who is now working in the house of representatives -- jeremy heckeisen, and gideon braggen, who began work on this in 2013 when we first started working with rosa did he laura

row and the work she had done. i especially thank my colleagues from new jersey and colorado. we keep fighting to give these families peace of mind, that these tax credits will be up until their winner are -- until their children are 18s i yield the floor.

mr. bennet: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: are would new england a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. bennet: i just felt inspired by some things here. i'm only going to be one minute. something senator brown said in his remarks about his staff. i also with aens to mention charlie anderson, who is no longer with me because he quit me to work for the administration. but if it hadn't been for him, i would be very surprised if we would all be here today. so i wanted to say thank you for -- to charlie for never giving up on this and for holding me accountable as we did the work together. i also -- i'm not going to address the issue about junior versus senior senator from colorado, just to own that what a wonderful delegation it is we have from the state of colorado. so with that, a i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. sorry, the senator from -- oh, there -- i thought that was right. mr. braun: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor today to oppose the confirmation of mr. chipman, president biden's nominee for the director of the a.t.f. many hoosiers are concerned about the nomination of mr. chipman and rightfully so. his statements have made one thing clear -- if confirmed, he will fail to uphold the constitutional right to bear arms. he has stated under oath that he supports mandatory federal registration of common semiautomatic firearms and the ultimately supports a been on ar-15 rivals.

semiautomatic supporting rifles can be found in the homes of hunters, recreational shooters, and for defending their families. the eight t.f. also a responsibility to clearly articulate its decisions to the public. in his confirmation hearing, mr. chipman revealed that he is not able to articulate what an assault rifle even is. his beliefs represent, in my opinion, a direct attack on our second amendment rights. it's no surprise that organizations that have never opposed an a.t.f. nominee before are loudly opposing the nomination of david chipman. the a.t.f. accountability act -- mr. chipman's nomination comes as the a.t.f. is already in the lower accountability for politicized decisions. american gun owners,

manufacturers, and small business owners deserve clarity and the right to appeal politii.s. seed decisions made by the a.t.f. currently, the a.t.f. engages in secretive, behind-the-scenes classification to decide if a firearm will be regulated by the national firearms act. no law-abiding american should have to wonder if they are going to suddenly is be made a criminal by a bureaucratic decision. doesn't make sense. that is why i joined representative dan crenshaw in the house to introduce the a.t.f. accountability act. law-abiding gun manufacturers and small businesses should be able to appeal the legal status of classifications within a regular time frame. and i yield the floor at this time.

the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: mr. president, thank you. i want to thank my friend and colleague, senator braun,? leading this discussion. protecting the second-amendment rights for montanans and all americans. today president biden and chuck schumer are propping up yet another very controversial nominee, one that far from unites us as americans; rather, another nominee that divides us further. sadly, we're witnessing a complete disregard for our constitution. the constitution could not be clearer. now i know why my democratic colleagues may want to say it otherwise, but it's clear -- it's very clear when it says -- and i have my pocket constitution here. it says, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. it is very strong and very clear

language. montanans and the american people are guaranteed these rights as protected in our constitution. despite this, we've seen president biden and the far-left democrats abandon this right to fit their own gun-grabbing agenda. their latest attack on the second amendment is the nomination of a registered antigun lobbyist who has called for the ban of certain firearms to lead the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. this is the very agency that oversees firearms. it's unbelievable. putting david chipman in charge of the a.t.f. is shrike putting an arsonist in charge of the fire department. he has a very hostile record towards the second amendment, and this hostile record against law-abiding gun owners speaks loud and clear. it is interesting. look at 2020 data that's coming

in. 40% of the firearms sold in our country last year were to first-time buyers of a firearm. 40%. why? the american people want to be able to defend themselves. as we're seeing the far left push to defund law enforcement, defund the police, when we see the anarchy going on across the cities of earthquake in, the lawlessness -- of america, the law alsoness, the high murder rates, it is no wonder americans are saying i want to own a firearm myself to protect myself. if confirmed, mr. chipman would help the democrats push their gun-grabbing agenda. we can't allow the left to continue this attack on our precious constitutional rights. david chipman would be a disaster to the second amendment rights of montanans and all americans. the senate mis-oppose mr. chipman's nomination -- the senate must oppose mr. chipman's

nomination for the sake of protecting our second-amendment rights. we must also pass some commonsense legislation that protects -- like what senator braun is trying to do with his a.t.f. accountability act. i support of him in his efforts. i urge all my colleagues to joining me in opposing mr. chipman's nomination to lead the a.t.f. and encourage my colleagues to pass and support senator braun's a.t.f. accountability act. mr. president, i yield back my time to the senator from indiana. mr. braun: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: here in a moment i'm going to ask for unanimous consent on the a.t.f. accountability act and protecting the right to keep and bear arms act. governor cuomo has declared gun violence a public health emergency in new york. we want to do with gun violence what we just did with covid,

governor cuomo says. during the pandemic, governor cuomo and other elected officials used the public health emergency to infringe upon americans' constitutional rights. they barred americans from exercising their freedom of release -- religion by closing churches, they banned many gatherings, and now gun control activist organizations are pressuring president biden to declare gun violence as a public health emergency. doing so would allow the administration to take executive action to hold up gun sales. declaring a public health emergency should not give the executive branch the right to infringe upon our second amendment. this is why i introduced the protecting the right to keep and bear arms act to stop this.

this bill would prevent the white house from declaring an emergency for the purpose of imposing gun control. i took an oath to represent hoosiers and protect their second amendment rights. that is why i will oppose the nomination of david chipman and why i will ask for unanimous consent to pass the a.t.f. accountability act and the protecting the right to keep and bear arms act. mr. president, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 1920 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. further, i ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered, read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be

considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. durbin: reserving the right to object -- the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. durbin: i read this bill and i'm not sure the senator from indiana really wants to do what this bill says because the bill makes it a priority at this agency, alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives, a priority if there is a request from a licensed manufacturer exporter or dealer, a request of the agency for information questions on regulatory matters, puts time lines on them, deadlines and says that the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives, the attorney general shall after 90 days make a ruling or determination. well, you think to yourself, if

this agency has very little to do with thousands of employees, then perhaps the timeliness of a response from the industry would merit some 90-day deadline, but the senator in introducing this completely overlooks the obvious. this legislation would force a.t.f. to take resources and manpower away from their other activities and put them into answering regulatory inquiries with a 90-day deadline in his bill. so what are the other duties that will be -- are we taking the a.t.f. agents away from? the senator's from indiana, my neighboring state, and i'm sure when he goes to northwestern indiana, i'm sure he hears about the city of chicago. it was the 4th of july weekend that there were 104 people shot in the city of chicago, 19 died,

13 children shot and two law enforcement agents. what is the responsibility for the alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives agency when it comes to this kind of mass shooting when it takes place in a city i'm honored to represent but it breaks my heart to hear those numbers? they are supposed to be investigating the gun violence. they are supposed to be gathering the information and evidence so they can work with the prosecutors to stop this mass shooting. unfortunately, the senator from indiana said, no, that's not your priority at a.t.f., your priority is to answer regulatory questions from gun dealers an manufacturers, and you've got 90 days to do it no matter what else is going on. you may going after someone else guilty in a mass shooting, put it aside, you have a book keeping question that should take priority over anything else you're doing.

stop preparing information an evidence for trial, answer the industry questions on regulations, that's your highest priority. at least that's what your bill says. and so i look at this and i think, in the reality of gun violence and death and the crimes that are being committed, a.t.f. has the most important role of keeping us safe. i want them to be efficient in dealing with the industry, but that is not their highest priority as far as i'm concerned. the highest priority is to keep america safe and to do something about gun violence and for that reason, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from indiana. brawn brawn madam president, a -- mr. braun: a quick response to that before i ask for unanimous consent on the next item is that argument i hear so often is that the city that sports some of the toughest state gun laws and local laws that ends up having

the statistics that no one would want to have across our country and then would try to cast that blame on a neighboring state tells me that you're looking in the wrong place to solve the problem. the a.t.f. here, we're just wanting clarity, that's the purpose of this act, and i suggest that my friend from illinois look at some of the more basic issues that might be underlying what's happening there. madam president, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 1916, and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration, further, i ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the

motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. durbin: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i did not mention the issue of the source of crime guns in illinois, the senator from indiana raised it and since he did, i want to make a record of it. when we trace the gun crimes in illinois, we show a large percentage coming from your gun shows in your state. they buy guns at your shows and come back and commit crimes in chicago and other neighborhoods. that's a fact. you may not like it. i certainly don't like it. but we ought to be doing something like that instead of worrying about the gun manufacturers an gun salemen and whether or not they will get special treatment from this agency. let me address the second matter

and that is senate braun's ask for s. 1916. current federal law, the stafford act, prohibits the federal government from seizing un -- seizing lawfully owned guns during a period of a major disaster or emergency. it's on the books. that's the law. the stafford act is also clear that during a major disaster emergency, the federal government is prohibited from creating new registration requirements for guns, new prohibitions on gun possession or new prohibitions on gun laws. so current law protects guns that people own legally during periods of disaster or emergency, but the senator's bill goes much further than that. section 4 of the bill would amend the stafford act, get

this, to say that the federal government also cannot prohibit the manufacture or sale or transfer of guns or ammunition during a disaster or emergency. there's several problems with this. first, current law has exceptions that allow the government to continue enforcing laws already on the books during a disaster. this includes laws that prohibit convicted felons from possessing guns. your bill does not make that exception. i'm sure you don't want to do that. i hope you will look at your bill. under the billing as -- bill as i read it, during a major disaster or emergency, there would be prohibition of any gun sales. that doesn't make sense. i'm sure that's not what you want to do. it's what your bill says. i hope it's not what you intended. there are legitimate reasons why

the government might need to temporarily limit juns sold in a disaster -- guns sold in the disaster area. supposed the background check system is knocked off line, we wouldn't want felons to buy guns inengible to buy. there is no clear justification for granting untouchable status to gun sales during a disaster. this bill needs some work. i hope we'll be able to mass it in a hasty matter and in light of these and other concerns, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. durbin: david chipman is the nominee for the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and

explosives. i know a little bit about him. he went through the agency process. he is a veteran of 20 years of working for this agency. we need him and i'll tell you why we need him. in the history of the alcohol and tobacco and firearms agency, there's only been one person who has served -- i believe he was from your state of minnesota, there was only one person who served as the head director of the agency, otherwise, over and over again it goes without any leadership. you say, well, is that just an accident that this agency never has a director? i don't think it's an accident at all. you see, the gun lobby when they want to make their case against new gun laws, they say the same thing, enforce the laws in the books, you don't need new laws. enforce the laws on the books. the alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives is one of the

laws that does that. if you can weaken the agency, fewer agents, fewer employees, no director, then the actual enforcement done by this agency is diminished. so now president biden brings us mr. chipman. there are two parts of his career that should be noted. 20 years at a.t.f., involved in some of the most serious investigations and did an incredible job. after he left the a.t.f., he went to work for a gun safety group. he's the first one to tell you, i own a gun and i respect your second-amendment rights but i don't want guns to get into the hands of the wrong people and that's how i would run the a.t.f. i think that reflects what the majority of americans think. second-amendment rights, i respect them, but when it comes to guns and i look at the violence taking place, i don't

want guns getting into the -- gs getting into the hands of felons. people behind the gun lobby they don't want an agency that enforces the laws. it may be controversial, but i hope he gets this job. i'm going to vote for him. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, this morning our friends in europe claimed first place in the race against climate change. the european union laid out a plan to decarbonize europe and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% at the end of this

decade. it's an ambitious plan and it's one that will in the world of the climate policy chief give humanity a fighting chance. to our allies in europe, i want want to say -- i want to say that america stands with you in this effort. earlier today president biden joined members of the senate democratic caucus to discuss our historic budget proposal that was unveiled last night. it's a proposal designed first and foremost to help working families and secondly, and not a distant second, right up there with that, to secure our planet's future. climate change impacts every single one of us. it doesn't care about our borders or national identities. it does present an opportunity for us to lead the world and saving this planet, literally, for our kids and grandkids.

i'm glad we have a president who understands this issue. the budget resolution we discussed with him today will pave the way for that to happen. madam president, more than 156,000 allied troops stormed the beaches of normandy on d-day. among them with 2,000 african american soldiers many within that group was an even smaller band of brothers. # 00 members of the -- 700 members of the barrage balloon battalion, the only all black combat unit to take part on d-day. henry parham, the last known living member of that historic battalion died, 99 years old. he was one in a million, literally. he was one of the one million

african american men and women who served in the branches of the military who served for u.s. armed forces in world war ii. they believed they were fighting for a double victory, to beat fascism and beat segregation and racism at home. an -- another left high school at 17 to enlist in the army. he served for two years in france and germany. when he returned to mississippi, jim crow was waiting for him with whites only water fountains, segregated public schools, discriminatory poll taxes and literary tests when he showed up to vote. so this veteran of the united states army, this black veteran of the united states army who risked his life to fight for democracy had to return to america and fight for it again. in 1954, he became the first mississippi field secretary for the naacp. one of his first assignments was

the 1955 killing of emmett till. he was asked to look into that for the naacp. he organized boycotts of segregated businesses, voter registration drives that were established to help african americans. for his efforts, he received countless death threats. his home was fire bombed and they tried to kill him more than once. on june 12, 1963, he arrived home after a midnight meeting, got out of his car, took a few steps, and was shot in the back by a white supremacist klansman. the bullet pierced his heart and killed him. he was 37 years old. i remember the news reports on this. i was just a kid in college. the victim's name was medgar evers. when he was murdered he was carrying in his arms naacp t-shirts that read jim crow must go. 60 years later, i'm afraid jim

crow is still around. the invidious voting discrimination that medgar evers, john lewis, fannie lou hamer and so many others fought to end is not just returning to mississippi, not just returning to the south, but across america. we are witnessing a coordinated, relentless nationwide attack on voting rights and on free and fair elections in america. already this year 17 states have enacted 28 new laws to make it harder for americans, especially people of color, to vote. a total of nearly 400 bills limiting the right to vote have been introduced in 48 states. these new voter suppression laws and proposed laws are the poisonous fruit of a dangerous, discredited lie, the big lie, the same one that brought a murderous mob from the trump rally to this capitol on january

6. an angry, insecure man with a fragile ego can't bear the thought of losing. he can't stand the notion of public rejection, so he summoned a mob to the capitol on january 6 to try to overturn the presidential election. they were on a mission for the president. and as a result of their storming this capitol, more than 140 capitol hill and other police officers were injured. one died defending this capitol, defending us. the fact is the 2020 election was free and fair, and donald trump lost. despite all of his protests, lawsuits, there is no evidence other than that. a record number of americans in that election braved a deadly pandemic to cast their votes. the department of homeland security called the election, and i quote, the most secure in american history. more than 80 judges, including

many conservatives appointed by president trump himself, threw out his claims in court that the election was stolen. when a voting machine company sued one of those lawyers for defamation over false claims of switched and stolen votes the defense her lawyer offered was that, quote, no reasonable person would believe his client's vote fraud lies. yet republican lawmakers in nearly every state are now using those same lies and the big lie to wage a sweeping assault on voting rights. these new voter suppression laws would make it harder for millions of americans to cast their votes, many who are eligible to cast their votes would lose the opportunity because of these new laws. even more a large, in many states new laws would make it easier for partisan election officials to simply throw out the election results they don't like. donald trump used all the powers of his presidency to try to force state election officials to overrule the will of their

state's voters, and he failed. the rule of law won. remember the recording that he had with the election official in georgia? he did everything but threaten him with criminal action if he didn't change the final official vote tally. now some republican state legislators want to change the laws to make voter nullification schemes legal. never before in american history have we allowed anything like that. this is not democracy, and it must not be allowed to happen. this week 51 lawmakers from the state of texas took the extraordinary step of leading their state to -- leaving their state to deny the texas house a quorum and from passing yet another state voter suppression law. the texas law among other things would end some of the very practices that made it possible for historic numbers of americans to vote safely and securely last november. things like drive-through voting, 24-hour polling places, ballot drop boxes. each one of these changes would make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote, and

that's what this is all about. in fleeing their state and traveling to washington, the texas lawmakers are sending an s.o.s. for american democracy. they're sending a distress signal for voting rights. they are pleading with the senate, our senate, to act to end the republican filibuster of the for the people act and update and pass the john lewis voting rights act now. only federal action and federal protections can stop this assault on america's voting rights. madam president, there are solutions. this onslaught of attack on voting rights and election and independence would not be possible without two rulings from the conservative majority in the supreme court that have gutted the voting rights act. earlier today the judiciary committee subcommittee on constitution held a hearing on what it takes to restore the voting rights act after the misguided shelby county decision and the brnovich decision this month. i want to thank senator

blumenthal for chairing that important hearing. and i want to commend president biden for speaking out so forcefully about protecting voting rights in his speech yesterday in philadelphia. like president kennedy nearly 60 years ago, president biden reminded us that voting rights is not just a political issue. it's a moral issue. and it's not just merely a legal concern. it's a concern that goes to our values as americans. i also strongly support attorney general garland's decision to double the size of the justice department's civil rights division after years of attrition. but the only way to truly end this unprecedented assault on voting is for congress to step up. it's our responsibility. the big lie that brought a deadly insurrection into this chamber on january 6 has american democracy in its crosshairs. we have to act, and now is the time. the senate must end the republican filibuster of the for the people act. stop voter suppression in the states.

get dark money out of politics. prevent billionaires from buying elections. and end partisan gerrymandering. we cannot stand on ceremony and tradition while the pillars of our democracy are destroyed. if we lose free and fair elections, we lose our democracy. we must also introduce and pass the john lewis voting rights advancement act to restore and expand those rights and prevent voter suppression. i'm working with senator leahy to that end. the right to vote is an american ideal. it shouldn't be a partisan battle. john lewis told us so often the vote is precious, he said. it's almost sacred. it's the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democratic society, and we have to use it. i'll close with this story. every year john lewis led a group of congressmen and others in what he called a pilgrimage to some of the sacred places in the american civil rights movement. i had the privilege of attending one of those pilgrimages.

in 2014, john lewis led the pilgrimage to a different hallowed ground in american history. that year the 50th anniversary of freedom summer, john lewis led groups to money, mississippi, to the place where emmett till was murdered. remember emmett till, the teenager from chicago who was brutally murdered in the south, mississippi? they went to philadelphia, mississippi, as well where three young civil rights activists, names well known to my generation -- james chaney, andrew goodman, and michael swar schwarner were kidnapped and murdered because they were there to register black voters. then they went to mississippi where medgar evers was gunned down. standing on the spot where medgar evers fell, john's voice caught as he said the man this man -- the night this man was killed something died in all of

us in the civil rights movement. john led us there because he wanted us to never forget the terrible sacrifices made by so many to fulfill the promises by our nation and secure voting rights. this saturday will mark the first one-year anniversary of john lewis' passing. i miss him. he was a real friend. when he left us, something in all of us wept. but we can't keep the spirit of john lewis alive by p defending the greatest cause of his life, the cause -- i should say that we can keep the spirit of john lewis alive by about defending the greatest cause of his life, the cause for which he nearly died as a young man on that bridge in selma, the right of every american to vote. madam president, i yield the floor. before i yield, i have 11 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate with the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted.

mr. inhofe: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that i complete my remarks before the vote is called. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: thank you very much. madam president, this is the fourth speech this year that i had arguing how we're going to have to match our defense resources to our national defense strategy. as a reminder, this is the national defense strategy. people seem to be forgetting about this. this was put together in 2018. here are the names of the individuals, and one was former colleague that was jon kyl.

so we had to have 12, six republicans and six democrats. and everyone agreed this is what we need to do not just for 2018, but for each year afterwards. and for this year, for example, they actually have in here we should be increasing the defense budget by between 3% and 5%. i show this because we all adhere to this, democrats and republicans, up until this year. this is the first time that i've had a chance to talk about this budget in the biden administration where we now have a lot of details actually released in terms of the budget and what it does to our military. remember our expert bipartisan n.d.s. commission report says that we need 3% to 5% real growth in the defense budget each year to actually execute this strategy. the defense budget, the biden

administration sent us does not achieve this goal. in fact, it's really a cut in this administration. even worse, just last week the fed predicted inflation next year will be bigger than predicted. if that continues, this budget will be even bigger cut than expected and will hamstring our troops even more than we thought. a lower defense top line than last year is just the first problem. the details of this budget are also worse than we forecasted. we have a flowchart here that shows the budget puts shipbuilding on a starvation diet. the navy tells us we need 355 ships, probably more than the 400 that we have, we're talking about right now. right now we're under 300 ships

and the trend is down, not up. and what's the administration answer? they joke around about having a 355-ship navy with only tugboats. but we don't have the luxury of jokes. the people don't know this out there. the people don't realize that china is ahead of us, russia is ahead of us in some of these areas. they assume it was like it was after world war ii. the chinese navy already has 355 ships. they already have it. we're at 300 ships looking at 355, they've already got them. and then there's the russians you add to that, that's another 223. so we're talking about far more they have right now than we have. and nobody understands that. so it's -- it's as if we have only one opposition, one

adversary out there and we don't. we have several, but the two prime adversaries are china and russia and they have -- they are up right now up to 995 ships and we're at 300. so what does that tell you? and i'm not the only one who is concerned about this. a lot of people say that republicans are the only ones concerned about our military and that's not true. democrat congresswoman elaine floria said it well. she said, quote, the navy budget is not a serious budget for a great power competition. without objection, i'm adding her recent article about the navy's fleet to the record. this budget also fails to make any progress on growing or modernizing the air force. instead the biden budget procurement decreases by almost 15% across the entire military.

the air force, that's -- that is 25% -- 20%. president biden's own nominee for the secretary of the air force told us that one of the best things that we could do is accelerate buying additional f-35's, but this budget doesn't do that. the fleet just gets older and smaller. the -- perhaps the greatest casualty of the biden budget is the army. you know, i guess i'm used to that by now. i was a product of the army and all of my army friends remember what happened back in 1994. i was in the house at that time and on the house armed services committee at that time i -- i can remember when someone who was in -- in a hearing, an expert, predicted that in ten years we would no longer need ground troops. and, of course, we know what has happened since that time. so the greatest casualty is

always the army. instead of investing, it deeply cuts the army across the board and the modernization procurement, force structure, readiness -- force structure, i can't understand why we can't have full readiness after the readiness crisis of 2017. we all remember what happened in 2017. that was the last five years of the obama administration, for years it cut our military substantially and they actually did reduce our budget in the last five years by 25%, the military budget. at the same time china was increasing theirs by -- by 78%. and so this is the problem that we had back there and it is still going on again. don't take my word for it, general mcconville said last

week most of the army's weapons is 1980's vintage. our adversaries are relentlessly advancing and they are. the secretary warmuth is the secretary of the army and said that the army is under stress in some areas, including defense, which is a critical priority, and that is unacceptable. additionally, while secretary as you -- austen kept his promise. this has been going on for a long time, and that is our nuclear modernization program is not substantial and others have been catching up with us slowly but surely. he kept his word. his concern was -- his promise

was to fully fund modern nuclearization. i remain concerned about the $6 million cut in the n.s.a. budget. we're talking about nuclear now, in our nuclear capabilities. it would have fixed our infrastructure. you can't see this very well, madam president, but when you look closely, it's worth coming up and looking. we see some of the oldest equipment here and it's obvious just by looking at it that it doesn't work. so not only are other countries catching up and passing us, our equipment has not been modernized. this is what secretary asten wants to do but we have not been able to pay for it yet. it would fix the crumbling infrastructure that would keep nuclear weapons on track.

the reality of this budget cut is on display in the unfunded priorities list put together by military services. now, the combat and commanders, no one knows more than the combat and commanders that know about our state of readiness. until total we're looking at $25 billion in key equipment weapons and more that our services could use but that is -- this budget can't support. many people call these a wish list. i call them a risk list. the reason we don't hear a lot about people that are -- that are talking about the risk, the military people, is because risk means lives. when military people talk about risk, they talk about the -- the -- about losing lives and people don't like to talk about that, but that's something we're now in the position where we have to talk about it. we can only kick the can down

the road so far generating more risk. we don't talk about aristocrat. we alexandria -- about risk. we demand our military do more with less. and this trend of increased risk will only accelerate. the administration is signaling that they want to cut the military deeper next year. earlier this month, i read in the press about a memo by acting secretary of the navy as he tries to minimize the damage and risk of sailors resulting from the significant budget cuts. he was sincere about this. he said that the navy is having to choose between ships and aircraft. does anyone believe that the chinese are choosing between

ships, subs, and aircraft? general milley told us that the chinese and russians combined actually spend more than us on defense. think about that for a minute. you don't hear that. nobody's talking about this. we've been told for so many years that we don't need to spend more on defense because we already spend more than our competitors. it turns out that is just not true and the american people are not aware of this. now, part of the difference is that the -- the chinese and the russians don't take care of their people. you know, i talked a lot about the -- about the fact that we don't do that. remember all the housing problems we were all concerned about, are we spending enough money on housing for our people? communist countries don't care about that. they give their people a gun. the greatest expense we have in supporting the military is the expense that we have for housing

and for the quality of life for our troops. i can remember that we had a democrat -- and, by the way, i'm drawing out a couple of democrats when i talk about the problem and the fact that this is a concern. it is not just a concern of republicans. these are democrat members, and they are concerned. democratic congressman anthony brown made this point recently and i agree with him. he wrote, quote, we spend a billion dollars more on medicare in the defense budget than we do on new tactical vehicles. we spend more on the defense health program than we do on new ships. now, that came from -- from a -- a democrat member of the house. he concluded, he said in total some $200 billion in the defense budget are essentially for nondefense purposes from salaries to health care to basic

research. now, i'd like to add congressman brown's article to the record because i think it gets -- gets it exactly right. and this is coming from the other side. so i make that u.c. request. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: thank you, madam president. we can disagree sometimes on how we compete with china on nondefense areas. it's an important debate. we the want to do that. but we've got to be on the same page when it comes to national security. now some people would say my criticism of cutting the military is because president biden is a democrat and i want to be real clear. this is not about politics. it's about protecting this nation, making sure our men and women in uniform have the training, the resources, the equipment that they need to compete and complete their mission an come home safe -- and come home safely. that is what we're supposed to do and that's what we are doing.

i told president trump when he set his initial budget up when he became president of the united states, it was not adequate at that time. and i called up secretary mattis and we met the president in the white house and we showed him why it was inadequate and it was inadequate. and so we were able to get something done at that time and that's something that we are concerned about today. now, i happen to think president trump wanted to spend even more on his trips but i think he got some bad advice from his advisors, i think the same is true with president biden. i think he wants a strong military when he's up against our adversaries. i know the president believes that a stlong military -- that a strong military underpins the other -- i know that we -- i know the president believes in

the importance of our allies and partners who look to us for -- for commitments and for investments to know that we are very serious and our president knows this, president biden knows this, but we don't have the -- have the budget to support it. and so we need -- the president needs to be -- to be coming forthwith adequate budgets to take care of the problems that we are faced with today. and we all know that the obama readiness crisis was right in the -- the flight training hours were slashed and we know all the things that happened during the last five years of his administration. this administration should remember how dangerous that was not just for our deterrence, but also because there was a human cost and that's one of many reasons i'm struggle to understand the administration's cuts to the defense budget. one thing we've been told is

that anything more than this defense budget is -- is just not affordable and we've been told that by the pentagon -- that the pentagon must live, we have to live more fiscally. that's one way to tell the military that you don't care about them. this administration wants to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars on everything you can think of except for the military and this comes through very clear when the amount of increase that they are having right now is between 16% and 20% and ours is -- is 1.6%. so in reality the investments we need to strengthen our military for the decades to come are minimal when compared to overall federal budgeting. defense spending compared to our g.d.p. is half of what it was in the cold war and we live in a much more dangerous world. we were told that the pentagon

must make hard choices as if it is part of strategy. we are not making hard choices, we're just making bad choices. all of our current military and senior d.o.d. officials agree, we have a good military strategy for china and russia, but the budget doesn't support this strategy and as a result i'm worried deterrence will fail, navy today, maybe five years from now, and when it does, the cost will be much higher than any investment we would make today. we've made a sacred compact with our service members. we tell them, we'll take care of them, we'll take care of their families and we do that very well, but we also tell them that we'll give them the tools to defend the nation and to come home safely but we're not holding up that end of the bargain. with this proposed budget, the prospects of further cuts, we are failing to give them the

resources they need. we can't simply spend our way out of the military problems. we can spend too little and give ourselves too little to give ourselves a chance. we've seen the high cost of under investing in the military. underfunding military attempts our adversaries raises doubt of our allies and war not legislation likely. we need to make an investment on our defenses so our children and grandchildren don't have to and we're not doing that now. we have a lot of impatient people right now who want to vote. so i yield the floor. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory -- the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we,

the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 171, j. nellie liang of maryland to be an under secretary of the treasury signed by 16 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of j. nellie liang of maryland to be under secretary of the treasury shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the. the presiding officer: the yeas are 72, ■the naysare 27 the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with it standing rules of the senate standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of donald michael remy of louisiana to be deputy secretary of veterans affairs, signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of donald michael remy of louisiana to be deputy secretary of veterans affairs shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory

under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 90, the nays are 8. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the republican leader, the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 1652, which was received from the house and is at the desk and that the only amendment in order be the following: toomey 2121. further that there be two hours for debate equally divided between the leaders or their designees, that upon the use or yielding back of the time, the senate vote in relation to the toomey amendment. that upon the disposition of the toomey amendment the bill as amended, if amended, be considered read a third time. the senate vote on passage of

the bill as amended if amended, with a 60 affirmative vote threshold required for passage, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. finally that there be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote in this series. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mrs. gillibrand: i rise today to once again call for every senator to have the chance to consider and cast a vote on the military justice improvement and increasing prevention act. this bill would ensure that people in the military who have been subjected to sexual assault or other serious crimes get the justice they deserve. i know that my colleague from oklahoma, the ranking member of the committee of the armed services, reached out to our military chiefs for their thoughts on this bill. while there was, as army

general james mcconville wrote, recognition, quote, that there are concerns with the way our current process pursues justice for major crimes, i understand they also have concerns about this legislation that i would like to allay those concerns today. more broadly, the service chief's letters all seem to indicate a misunderstanding of how fundamental this change would be. marine court colonel burger wrote it appears to be a more complex system that could potentially slow the militaries justice process and space force general john raymond wrote the proposed changes add a layer of complexity that needs to be fully understood. this bill would streamline not complicate the military justice process. the lawyers would be making these prosecution decisions under our legislation are already working on these very cases. navy admiral michael gillden

expressed concern authority could cause sailors to doubt the capabilities of their commanders or believe that their commanders operate without the full trust of their superiors. that worry is unfounded. iraq and afghanistan veterans of america surveyed their members, recent veterans, and 77% said that moving a serious crime like sexual assault out of the chain of command would have no impact on their view of the commander's authority. and nearly one in ten said that the change would lead them to view their commander as more of an authority figure. i would point out that the i.r.c. chairwoman lynn rosen thal said the i.r.c. rejects the notion that commanders would have no role. it's simply not the case. commanders are responsible for the climates they create. they're responsible for working to prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment and responsible for making sure victims are protected when they come forward to report, so the

idea that they won't have an interest in solving this problem if they are not making those technical legal decisions we think is simply false, end of quote. i trust that our commanders will be able to maintain their authority and maintain their investment in the welfare of the troops without being responsible for deciding these serious crimes. general burger put it well. he wrote, i expect commanders to always bear responsibility for their marines. changes like those in this bill will never relieve commanders of their duty to care for and lead their marines, including when certain military justice processes are removed from their control. there were also questions about whether or not these changes were needed for all serious crimes. admiral gillday wrote that he had seen no evidence that there is a being la of trust among victims for all crimes for which the punishment exceeds one year

of confinement. there is evidence. the department of air force inspector general conducted a survey in 2020 which found that one in three black service members said they believe the military discipline system is biased against them and that three in five black service members believe they do not and will not receive the same benefit of the doubt as their white peers if they get in trouble. the level of distrust must be addressed. general raymond also suggested a more limited reform, writing that beyond sexual assault, quote, the other offenses are not as complex and do not require specialized training. on the contrary, crimes included in our bill like murder, manslaughter, fraud, extortion all present complex cases and they deserve to be put in the purview of trained legal experts. as you know, mr. president, our bill has a bright line at

felonies. to be a felony, it has to be a complex crime. our bill does not include misdemeanors. the service chief letters also included calls to put an emphasis on preventing rather than prosecuting these crimes. i too would rather see these crimes not happen, which is why this bill includes various provisions on prevention efforts. but given the current reality, prevention is not enough. we must prosecute these serious crimes and show that there are real consequences for anyone who commits them. doing so not only changes the culture, it will remove recidivists from the ranks preventing them from committing more crimes. right now there is a deep lack of trust in the current system and whether or not it can or will deliver justice. that is detrimental to our armed services. as general raymond wrote, quote, lack of trust and reluctance to seek justice are in themselves

readiness issues. i remind our colleagues in a our job is to provide oversight and accountability over the executive branch, including the armed services, and to ensure that those who serve our country in uniform are being well served by their government. as berger noted if the uniform code of military justice does not adequately promote justice or assist in maintaining good order and discipline, then it must change. the current system does not adequately promote justice, and it must change. it is our duty and our obligation to do the work to change it, and this body and every senator in it deserves to have a vote. as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation

with the republican leader, the senate armed services committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 1520 and the senate proceed to its consideration. , that there be two hours of debate equally divided in the usual form and that upon the use or yielding back of that time the senate vote on the bill with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. reed: mr. president, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of veterans affairs, donald michael remy of louisiana to be deputy secretary.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask that the quorum call be eliminated. the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. mr. merkley: thank you very much. mr. president, this is a critical time for america. it is a moment in which the actions we take or don't take will affect the very design of our government for generations to come. our founders had a vision that we're all created equal. in our initial constitution, it wasn't fully manifested, but we

have worked through several hundred years to come to that point that we recognize that every american should be able to participate in the direction of their country. and we had some key moments in that national debate. i was always fascinated that when my father was born in 1919, women couldn't vote in america. and we had all kinds of other barriers for communities of color, for black americans, for native americans. and those barriers we struck down time after time after time, and then we came to 1965, and we said there are still so many ways that communities are trying to keep every citizen from participating in voting. and we're going to make sure that that ends from this point

forward. president johnson, who said that the power of the vote is the most significant tool ever developed to strike down injustice. it's it's a powerful tool. it really is the beating heart of our republic. that ballot box, the ability to say this is what i like and this is what i don't like, this is who i like and this is who i don't think will carry the policies i believe in. at its heart this is a vision of power flowing up from the people, not down from the powerful. but here's the problem. the powerful don't like that vision of america. and so they have many, many

strategies designed to try to override that founding vision of participation. they have legions of lawyers. they have legions of lobbyists. there's three drug lobbyists for every single member of congress. they have the ability to fund mass media campaigns to try to change the way that issues are framed. they have the ability to participate with dark money in elections that manifest itself in those endless attack ads you see on social media and on television. they have all of these abilities but the thing they really fear is the ballot box. and right now in america, they are going after the ballot box. and we have to decide if we're going to defend it or not.

that is the challenge that faces us. and it's a challenge that shouldn't be that difficult because every single one of us in this chamber took an oath to the constitution. and the constitution lays out the power, the vision of government, of, by, and for the people. it starts off our constitution, we the people, not we the powerful. we the people. this assault has now spread to 18 states, and 35 new restrictive voting laws. these laws attack the ability to vote and they're targeting black americans, communities of color, poor americans, and college students.

they make it harder to register. they make it easier to purge voters off the voting rolls. you can't vote if you're not on a voting roll. they attack early voting. they attack vote by mail. they attack curbside votings. they make it hard to drop off your ballot. they make it hard for people with disabilities to fill out their ballots. and in some cases they are creating a strategy of voter intimidation, allowing poll watchers to essentially hover over you as you vote and challenge your legitimacy to vote. they even have decided in some cases to make it so that if you are in line to vote and it is a hot day, nobody can give you a drink of water. all of these strategies are

about biasing america in its process so the powerful will run this place rather than the people. i'd love to hear a senator come to this floor and defend these attacks on the right to vote because if you're not defending the right to vote, you're not defending the constitution. and every one of us took an oath to that constitution. we also have a challenge with the courts. it's a supreme court that said that it's okay to have hundreds of millions of dollars of dark money that nobody knows where it came from in our elections. now, if you or i donate $100 to someone, it has to be disclosed. everyone knows i made that donation. but if a powerful corporation or a billionaire puts a million dollars or a hundred million

dollars into an election, they can do it and remain in complete secrecy. that's why it's called dark money. and that's what the court unleashed with its citizens united decision. and then the court said that's not enough. we're going to go after voting rights by undermining the 1965 voting rights act, even though this chamber reauthorized that act on a bipartisan basis time after time after time. well, first the court said in shelby county v. holder that preclearance no longer applies. so a state that had been routinely attempting to block citizens from voting no longer had to have new changes in its voting laws precleared to make sure that they did not have a prejudicial effect against a targeted group of voters. and within days chambers were

plotting in this country about how to stop people from voting. the supreme court, maybe they were just so idealistic that they said nobody would ever do this again in america, no chamber would ever do this in america. if that's right, if that was their thought, they're wrong because within days those plots unfolded. and then we have the most recent supreme court decision brnovich v. the d.n.c. and alito says making voting inconvenient doesn't make access unequal. well, let's just explain to this justice who apparently knows nothing about how voting really works. when you make it inconvenient for a targeted group, you make access unequal. it's exactly the intent of these laws is to make access unequal.

elena kagan in her dissent said equal chance to participate in our democracy, referring to the 1965 voting rights act, that law of all laws should never be diminished by this court. section 2 is the most recent section attacked by the supreme court. and it bars procedures that result in denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the united states to vote on a count of race or color. one of the issues was from arizona, a situation where you have no easy places to drop off your ballot in large native american reservations. so by banning the ability for people to collect ballots and drop them off, you essentially make it extraordinarily difficult for this targeted

community to vote. and that was the intent. that was the intent. now, this law, section 2, it didn't say that anything about intent. it said the result. and it didn't say it had to be denial. it said an abridgement. in other words, an afringe -- an infringement on the ability to cast a ballot. but alito doesn't care. the majority doesn't care on the supreme court about defending the right to vote. the pulse stating heart of -- pulsating heart of our republic. so where does that leave us? it leaves us as the critical factor to defend the constitution. the supreme court won't do it. the states are undermining it. it's our responsibility, our responsibility to set out those

basic standards that defend the ability of every american to vote. and that's why i'm here on the floor tonight talking about the for the people act. it's called s. 1, number one, senate bill number one. why? because defending the right to vote is our number one responsibility. that's the challenge we face. and if we fail in this challenge, then across this country in state after state after state communities are being targeted to make it hard for them to vote, and it will be harder for them to vote and it will change the outcome, and it will destroy the idea of equal representation. and we cannot let that happen. today i met with members of the texas legislature. they have come here in order to stop the texas house of representatives from passing these types of laws that are

targeted at stopping specific groups from voting. and what are the types of laws that are being considered by the texas legislature right now. well, one they don't like the idea of christian communities voting on sundays and getting in buses to go to the polls together. they call it souls to the polls. and so they said, you know what? it will be against the law for more than three of you to get in a car and drive together to the polls. are you kidding me? has anybody heard of the right of association? are there any senators here caring about defending the right of association in our constitution? can you imagine something so diabolical? all three of you can get in a car but not four. you no he why? because we want to stop you from

using vans or buses to go vote. that's crazy. it's as crazy as the georgia effort to stop people from passing out water in long voter lines. what else is the texas legislature trying to do? well, infringing on overnight voting. voting for people who have long hours, who are working during the day, overnight voting really made the ballot accessible. they're attacking drive-thru voting. they're attacking online registration. they're attacking assistance to disabled americans. they are making it easier to purge voters off the list of voters, the registration lists. they even have in that bill stopping election workers from sending out act yees ballot application -- absentee ballot applications. it's a crime to be able to help your fellow citizen apply for a

ballot? yes, if texas passes that law. and they are engaged in a process of voter intimidation allowing partisan poll watchers to freely intimidate voters. that is wrong on so many levels. you know, intimidation is something that has a long history in our country. it's a very racist history. i remember one of the stories after the civil war. you had a situation where you'd form of group of horses surrounding a ballot poll place to prevent black americans from being able to get to the poll to vote. there are all kinds of other voter intimidation strategies. they were racist strategies. these efforts to stop black americans from voting, these are racist strategies.

they're simply, simply wrong. and we have the responsibility to end these practices. the effort to silence the voices of american people, to stop them from having a say through their vote is just fundamental to the vision of government of, by, and for the people. citizens wonder why it is that they're hearing that billionaires don't pay any ta taxes. they're some of the -- some of the most profitable corporations in america don't pay any taxes. well, it goes back to the many advantages the wealthy have in influencing the outcomes. those reams of lawyers, those platoons of lobbyists, those media campaigns, that dark

money, and now the effort to block the ballot box. that's how afraid the powerful are that the voice of the people will say invest in american families rather than tax breaks for billionaires. tackle health care and housing, education. create living wage jobs rather than new tax cuts for the already wealthy and influential. what we have is a battle between the powerful and privileged holding on to their levers of power, trembling at the idea that american voters can get to the polls and dete determined to block it. they're afraid that if voters can get to the polls, they might elect people who are fighting for main street rather than wall

street. they're afraid that they might invest those elected individuals in quality, affordable health care. and health care should be a right, in the a privilege. that we might invest in housing, because there is a tremendous housing shortage across america. and we might invest in education because education is the path to success in our complex society. so how do we address this? we pass senate bill 1, the for the people act. we do it by following the example of the men and women who set in this chamber a half-century ago and used their power to pass the 1965 voting rights act to give every american a full opportunity to vote. once again, this more than half a century later, we're called

upon to fight to defend our constitution, to defend we the people vision. to be sure that every american can freely and fairly cast a ballot. this bill sets out basic national standards for how elections are conducted in accordance with the constitutional powers specifically stated for congress to be able to so set such standards, to ensure that every american has equal freedom to vote, equal opportunity regardless of who they are, color of their skin, where they live. it ensures this access by protecting vote by mail and early voting and fairness on ballot drop boxes. why are early voting and vote-by-mail so scary to the powerful? here's why. on election day, there's so many

ways to stop people from voting. first of all, you reduce the number of precincts in the communities you don't want to vote, so there is tea fewer places to vote. then you put them in places where there's no parking. that makes it harder. then you reduce the number of precinct workers in those locations so there's really long lines and you've heard about those lines -- three hours, four hours, five hours, six hours, seven hours -- and then you tell people you can't even give people a glass of water who are waiting in those lines. and then you intimidate people by allowing partisan poll watchers toss whoever over people -- hover over people while they vote, or one person to challenge the right of someone. election day can be easily manipulated and there's even more ways to do it. one is -- and this happens -- you send out false information

about what day is election day. you send out texts that say, so sorry you missed the election last tuesday. hope you make it to the polls next time, so people think they missed the vote. they're like, i thought it was next tuesday. you put out false information about where the voting location is. you proceed to make sure you change the location from the previous time so people get confused about where to go and vote in the wrong precinct and then you mawk it illegal for -- and they understand you make it he he he will lie their vote to count. election day is easy to manipulate. the anecdote is early voting and vote-by-mail, and that's why the powerful are attacking early voting and vote-by-mail. in my state, oregon, it was the first state to adopt vote-by-mail. it did so when we had a

republican house and a republican senate in my state. it's considered a red state, a republican state, utah. this isn't blue or red. this is american. this is our constitution. a second thing that the for the people act does is stop billionaires from buying elections with dark money. you know, no matter if you poll republicans, independents, or democrats, they all believe billionaires shouldn't be able to buy elections with dark money. they know that in a billionaire can create the equivalent of a stadium sound system that drowns out the voice of the people, that that's just wrong. think about how americans thought of those early debates in the town square. everyone got their chance to stand up and have their say. you didn't allow someone to erect a big sound system to drown out the people you didn't want to speak. no, you give everyone -- that's kind of the heart, isn't it, of

our first amendment -- free speech. everyone should be able to have their voice heard and not be drowned out by advertisements, by anonymous billionaires buying elections. the third thing this act does is it ends partisan gerrymandering, creates independent commissions, equal numbers of republicans, democrats, independents. and, therefore, it fights for the vision of equal representation. now, i've heard some folks salivating over increased gerrymandering, hoping to influence that other institution down the hall, saying, hey, we've got an extra 15 votes we shouldn't have right now. let's get 25 with increased gerrymandering. distinguishable well, it's just wrong -- well, it's just wrong to attack the principle of equal representation. you don't have equal representation if the system is rigged so that politicians choose their voters rather than

voters choosing their politicians. and the fourth thing that the for the people act does, it takes on ethics reforms, targets corruption, and again whether you ask democrats, republicans, or independents, they want the corruption out of our system. they want to ensure that public officials serve the public, not some private cause. or serving themselves. that we're here to do the people's business, not the business of some outside billionaire or some outside corporation. these principles are widely supported across the country. people sometimes say, why don't you have any republican sponsors on this bill? why don't republicans support this bill? across this nation, republicans overwhelmingly support these four principles in this bill. it's incredibly bipartisan. but not here in this chamber.

because here is where the powerful speak, and the minority leader has said i'm going to lock down my senators from supporting these efforts to defend our constitution. i'd be embarrassed -- i'd be embarrassed if the leader of a caucus said it's going to lock me down and prevent me from defending the constitution. i'd be more than embarrassed. i'd be alarmed, i'd be outraged. as should every member of this body across the aisle -- to be outraged that they're being told they're locked down from defending the constitution. next month america will celebrate the 56th anniversary of the 1965 voting rights act. the most powerful significant advancement in nation has every made to realize the we the people vision of america.

lyndon johnson called august 6, 1965, the day he signed that law, a triumph for freedom, as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield. he said, the heart of the act is plain. wherever by clear and objective standards states and counties use regulations or laws or tests to deny the right to vote, then they will be struck down. well, that's our job. to do what president johnson thought was accomplished when he signed the voting rights act -- to strike down regulations, laws, or tests designed to deny the right to vote to targeted groups of americans across this country. so let's do our job. put this bill on the floor and

get it passed. thank you, mr. president. mrs. blackburn: mr. president? oh, that's rightment -- oh, that's right. mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 87, s. 65. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 87,

s. 65, a bill to ensure that goods made with labor force in the xinjiang region not enter the country. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent is that the committee-reported substitute amendment be degreed to and that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i know of no further debate on the bill as amended. the presiding officer: if there is no further debate, the question on passage of the bill, as amended. all those in favor, say aye. those opposed, say no, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill, as amended, is passed. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the motions to

reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of calendar number 92, senate resolution 10. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 107 expressing the sense of the senate relating to the tenth anniversary of the march 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami in japan. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that the resolutionen agreed to it the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to senate resolution 289. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: designating june 2021 as national post-traumatic stress awareness month and june

27, 2021, as national stress' a wareness day. the presiding officer: without objection, the bill is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that at resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. thursday, july 15. that following the prayer and

pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. further, upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the liang nomination. further, that at 11:00 a.m., all postcloture time on the liang and remy nominations expire, that the cloture vote on the cunningham nomination occur at 1:45 p.m. finally, if any nominations are confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: if there is to further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of

senator blackburn. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. blackburn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. begin i before my remarks, i do want to respond to my colleagues and his comments about the for the people act. which the democratic party is continuing to push. now, i will say that i am pleased to learn that many of my democratic colleagues are standing up against the jim crow era policies that their party put in place, the would, that their party did with the kkk and other entities to block and obstruct access to the voting booth. and i will remind him also that the 1965 voting rights act was a very solidly bipartisan effort

that took place here in this chamber. and in regards to their s. 1, h.r. 1 for the people act, it is anything but the for the people act. what this would do is make it easier to cheat and harder to vote.. and we should be working to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. that's what election integrity is all about, and that is what the american people would like to see. what this bill would do, their s.1, h.r. 1, would federalize elections. now many in this chamber may have served on an election commission or been the secretary of secretary of state in their state and they fully appreciate and understand it is the constitutional duty, the constitutional duty of the state to set the time, place,

and manner of elections. and that the voter rolls are maintained there in your local county by citizens who serve on the election commission and who work those polls. but this bill that the democrats are wanting to pass would in essence do away with voter i.d. and you know what, mr. president? recent polling of various, different groups, numerous groups has shown 80% of the american people really support showing a voter i.d., showing an i.d. in order to cast that ballot to prove that you are who you are. their legislation also would instutionalize ballot harvesting, something that really offended so many thousands of citizens this year because with mail-out ballots which they want to instutionalize, some people got

three, four, five ballots. you could go online on social media, see pictures or videos of people holding up multiple ballots. that is not election integrity. that is not something that will ensure trust in the system. that would cause more doubt. and we should agree, we should agree as members of this chamber that we will work together to ensure that our local and state officials can carry forward with their elections. now, mr. president, one of the most important duties we take on as members of this chamber is the confirmation of the president's cabinet and other top executive branch officials.

-- not until i finish my remarks, but i thank the gentleman. a senate confirmation hearing is probably the world's worst job interview, but there is a good reason for that. the various candidates who come before our committees are asking to take on some of the most important challenges that we face as a country, and so when the president sends us these nominees for consideration, it is our job to vet their resumes, to vet their records, and to go through the motions is not enough. we need to meet with them and review their history. so imagine our shock when the biden administration began to send us candidates that made it clear the president expects the senate to act as a rubber rubber

stamp for some of the most controversial and unqualified nominees in recent memory. his choice for health and human services secretary, xavier becerra, he had no meaningful experience in health care before his very first day serving as the country's chief health care officer. he did, however, have quite a long history of weaponizing the full force of government against people whose views differ from his own. aljangro mayorkas boasted a proven record from his time serving in the obama administration. an investigation by the inspector general for the department of homeland security

revealed that mayorkas abused his position as the director of uscis to help politically powerful friends violate immigration laws. associate attorney general vanita gupta's record as a radical liberal activist was so die -- diametrically opposed to the beliefs of most americans that she tried to, and i quote, evolve her positions on drug crime and defunding the police just to avoid scrutiny during her confirmation hearing. of course by evolve, i mean she outright lied about her positions. and, mr. president, there have been many, many that have stood on this floor and have

challenged her nomination. another, david chipman, this is biden's pick to lead the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives. he is so anti-second amendment, he has endorsed policies that would effectively ban all sporting rifles in the united states. he has no respect for the constitutional right to bear arms, no respect for the nearly 20 million americans who hold a concealed carry permit or the 15.5 million americans who hold hunting licenses. president biden chose the anti-gun lobby over the american people when he nominated chipman for this post. president biden's parade of genuinely unacceptable nominees

continued this week. today the majority leader has decided to move forward with the nomination of donald remy to be deputy secretary of veterans affairs. if that name sounds familiar to you, it's because you've heard about mr. remy's work in other controversial contexts. he serves as the ncaa c.o.o. and chief legal officer and was the architect of that organization's restrictive policy against name, image, and likeness compensation. between september 2018 and august 2019, the ncaa spent more than $26 million defending an n.i.l. business model that the supreme court recently

described as patently and inextricably stricter than necessary. mr. president, it was a 9-0 decision by the u.s. supreme court. the $26 million, where does the ncaa get that money? from colleges, from universities, from student athletes. that is where the money came from, and it was used to defend this lawsuit. but let's not focus on this one policy governing n.i.l. compensation. we need to keep in mind that mrg his training as a lawyer and his considerable power as a top ncaa official to maintain the culture of exploitation that defines modern college athletics. mr. president, i'm not sure what led president biden to

believe that mr. remy could help lead an agency notorious for its own brand of careless exploitation, but whatever the reason, we have a duty to get in his way. for our veterans, decisions can be life or death. i have objected to his nomination since i came through the committee. and, quite frankly, i think it's a shame that president biden refused to nominate someone who could demonstrate an ability to earn back the trust so many veterans have lost in the v.a. system. our veterans that have served this nation honorably deserve better choices. they deserve at least that much from their commander in chief. this nomination is just one more

unserious shot in the dark from an administration that has yet to focus its energy on any one of the long list of problems they say they came to washington to solve. a quick scan of the morning newsletters on any given day show a complete lack of direction on the part of the white house and the senate majority. will we be working on infrastructure in the next few weeks or are we just going to be handling nominations? are the most radical elements of the american families plan on the table, or are we going to pivot to election law? well, we won't have to flip a coin on that last one. we know that over the next few weeks we'll waste time and energy resurrecting the democrats' failed election takeover bill. as most everyone has seen, this week washington is playing host

to a delegation of texas democrats intent on holding election legislation hostage in their very own state. they've come all the way to capitol hill to try and convince their federal counterparts to go nuclear on behalf of a bill that has failed in various forms so many times that the objections right themselves. this political stunt is part of a larger movement within the radical american left to destroy the concept of one-person,one-vote, and replace it with an unconstitutional centralized election system that invites fraud and encourages donor intimidation. this foolish attack on ballot integrity has seized hold in texas, georgia, and other states, attempting to protect the vote for all eligible voters. mr. president, ballot integrity

is a foundational concept in our republic. it should be easy to vote. it should be hard to cheat. state and local officials should feel empowered to grow and tailor elections in a way that meets the needs of the community, not the demands of power-seeking politicians. i think i speak for all my republican colleagues when i say that we will not legitimize this hysteria that has gripped the democratic party. instead we will defend the constitutional prerogative of one-person,one-vote through however many objections it takes to relegate this scheme that the democrats have been trying for 20 years to relegate this to the dustbin of history. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until stands adjourned until

you can live here on c-span2. c-span is your unfiltered view of government funded by these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. ♪♪ ♪♪ broadband support c-span as a public service along with these

other television providers giving farc to democracy. >> chuck schumer joined senator ron brightman, cory booker to enact the new bill passed by both chambers signed by president biden to an prohibition on marijuana. this is about 20 minutes. >> good morning, and thank you for coming. today is a big day in the senate for the first time i asked majority leader, the chairman of the finance committee and senator, one of the foremost candidates for justice and equity here in the senate, we are all joining together to release draft legislation to end federal prohibition on canvas.

this is monumental because how long last, we are taking steps in the senate to right the wrongs of the failed war on drugs. i was the first democratic leader to come out for legalization of marijuana and i will use this to make it a priority in the senate. as my colleagues and i have said before, the war on drugs has really been a war on people, particularly people of color. the kenaston canvas administration and opportunity act would help put an end to the unfair target and treatment of communities of color by removing canvas from the federal list of controlled substance. this is an idea -- not just an idea of time has come, it's long overdue. we've all seen the agony of a young person arrested with a small amount oar