make a buck element, you know, there's no question when you spend the amount of time that we spent -- >> we will leave this program to continue our 40 year commitment to congressional coverage. you can finish watching this on our website c-span.org. u.s. senate returning for work now after breaking for their party caucus lunches and a group photo. live to the floor of the u.s. senate here on c-span 2. of antigovernment insurrectionists. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. tester: thank you, madam president. it was the darkest day for congress in more than 200 years since invading troops set this building on fire. americans in uniform that day stepped up to protect congress. the officers of the capitol police and other law enforcement agencies literally put their lives on the line to protect senators, congressmen, and to

protect our constitution. more than 25,000 members of the national guard also came from across the country to secure capitol hill, including from my home state of montana. words cannot express my thanks for what these men and women did on behalf of our nation and their service was not without sacrifice. police officers were assaulted by an angry mob and we know that post-traumatic stress is a real problem for many who had been to hell and back. the citizen soldiers of the national guard stood watch day and night. now today we find out that pay is running short for both the capitol police and the members of the national guard. the good news is after weeks of senate negotiations, we are on the verge after bipartisan deal that ensures that the capitol police will have the money to

pay its officers for the rest of the year and as chairman of the appropriations committee, i worked with senator shelby on two critical funding items. first we learned that the national guard needs $25 million to secure them for -- to pay pay for dr pay them for securing this capitol. we need a prepared guard. second, we have learned of the substantial cost of moving afghans who helped our military get out of that country safely. we owe a debt to those brave afghans who risked their lives to support our troops, a debt that can never be repaid. i would like to thank chairman leahy and vice chairman shelby for working with me on this important bill. i hope we can seal the deal very soon and have this measure approved by the senate today

because it is our job to defend the brave officers who defended us on january 6 and who continue their tireless work to keep us safe today. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. barrasso: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: i ask unanimous consent to be able to use a prop during my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: i come to the floor to strongly oppose the nomination of tracy stone-manning, i want to focus my remarks on statements made by her. every nominee fills out a -- on the same document she stated that she testified for a grand jury about an alleged tree spiking. well, these statements are not true and ms. stone-manning knows it. tree spiking involves hammering

a metal spike like this one into the trunk of a tree. echoterrorists use spikes like this. this is something they do to prevent loggers from harvesting trees. if a saw blade hits that spike, it destroys the saw and metal shrapnel flies in every direction. the results can be catastrophic. make no mistake. there was nothing alleged about this. the trees in the clear water national forest were spiked in 1989. individuals were found guilty of the crime. some of the trees standing today are still spiked so can still do damage to loggers, to firefighters. these are serious dangers and damages that can occur to people still today. if there's a forest fire in the clear water national forst, the smoke jumper may need to cut

down trees to slow the spread of the fire. if that person hits a spike with a chainsaw, it could kill or maim the firefighter. worst still, tracy stone-manning knew who the ecoterrorists were and she could have turned them in at the start. in 1989 she typed, edited and sent this vile threatening letter to the men and women of the united states forest service. she did it on behalf of the tree spikers. it included lines like you bastards. go in there and a lot of people could get hurt. she went on. i would be more willing to pay you a dollar for the sale but you would have to find me first and that could be your worst nightmare. tracy stone-manning has said since the incident that she mailed this disturbing, threatening letter to warn people of the danger of the spiked trees. but she didn't go to the

authorities. no, she did not. she did not go to the police. no, not at all. she took extraordinary steps to ensure that she and the tree spikers would never get caught. if she had gone to the police, the forest service would have been much better able to identify the spiked trees. instead she covered up for the criminals for years. all the while these trees remain spiked and remained incredibly dangerous. ms. stone-manning told our committee she was never investigated. well, that was a lie. following the tree spiking in 1989, she was subpoenaed by investigators to provide hair samples, fingerprints, writing samples, and other physical evidence. these are criminal invest investigators. press articles from the time confirm this fact as do the court documents obtained by the energy and natural resources committee. this is further verified by the letter that our committee

received from the lead criminal investigator for the united states forest service mr. michael merkley. we received this letter after she had testified in front of the senate committee a few months ago. he wrote, the grand jury issued subpoenas for hair samples, handwriting examples, and fingerprints. these subpoenas were served on persons suspected of having knowledge of the incident, including tracy stone-manning. but don't take his word for it. let's listen to the words of tracy stone-manning herself. in a 1990 article about law enforcement's investigation at the university of montana, she complained about how the investigation made her feel. she said it was degrading. it changed my awareness of the power of the government. through this entire period, she did not tell the truth to the investigators. remember she knew who spiked the trees. she sent the threatening letter to them. she never went to the police and

she never identified the ecoterrorists. she also didn't cooperate. the lead investigator said in his letter that the committee has received since the time that she testified to the committee a few months ago, he said through this initial investigation in 1989, ms. stone-manning was extremely difficult to work with. in fact, he said, she was the nastiest of suspects. she was vulgar, antagonistic and extremely antigovernment. he goes on to say that she refused to comply with ■th investigation until she learned that she would be arrested if she did not. but the investigation of tracy stone-manning did not end in 1989 with the subpoenas. in december of 1992 after years of her covering up for the ecoterrorists, she was identified as the one who sent the threatening letter. a woman connected with the group came forward and gave her name

to investigators. mr. markley writes again in this letter we received since stone-manning has testified in her -- at our committee hearing in the senate, he writes, as a result of ms. lilburn's testimony, the grand jury sent tracy stone-manning a target letter which meant she was going to be indicted on criminal charges for her active participation in planning these crimes. her lawyer then negotiated an immunity deal. she would testify against the individuals who spiked the trees and she knew they could have been charged. in an interview published in the 1993 article in the mezulian, stone-manning said she could have been charged with conspiracy if not for the immunity deal. remember she told the senate she had never been investigated. she was subpoenaed for physical evidence. she was investigated. she didn't cooperate with

investigators. she complained to the press about being investigated. and she covered up for the ecoterrorists for years until she was caught. that wasn't her only lie. when our committee -- in our committee's questionnaire for the record, i asked her, did you have personal knowledge of, participate in, or in any way directly or indirectly support activities associated with the spiking of trees in any forest during your lifetime, in any forest during your lifetime? she responded no. everyone knows that's a lie. she sent the letter. she knew who they were. she supported their activities. period. the lead investigator's letter makes clear she knew of the plan to spike the trees in the idaho forest in advance. he wasn't the only one this investigator, the lead criminal investigator wasn't the only one to say she knew so in advance. one of the convicted tree

spikers, one of the people who went to jail in this episode, he told e.n.e. news again since the hearing and since this letter has come out just in the last couple of weeks, the convicted tree spiker says, quote, she knew about it far in advance, a couple of months before we headed out. he continued. she had agreed to mail the letter well in advance. to be clear, after stone-manning had her confirmation hearing here in the senate earlier this year, two people with direct knowledge came forward. one was the cop, the criminal investigator who investigated the crime. the other was the criminal who was constricted -- was convicted. both the cop and the criminal say she lied. ms. stone-manning helped plan the tree spiking.

she knew about it in advance. she sent the threatening letter to the forest service. she was investigated. she collaborated with ecoterrorists. she lied to the senate. lying to the united states senate has consequences. in this case her actions and her lies should cost her this nomination. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. sullivan: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: madam president, i want to thank my colleague senator barrasso for leading the effort to do what is the obvious thing to do right here on the

united states senate floor here in a -- floor here. in a couple of minutes we're going to vote on one of the most extreme nominees i've ever seen to be nominated for anything requiring the confirmation of the united states senate. to be honest, i can't believe we're even really having this debate. i can't believe that the senate is going to put forward and vote on an ecoterrorist. i can't believe the president of the united states after maybe not recognizing who he put forward didn't withdraw the nomination. and yet here we are, madam president. we know this administration supports far-left groups and certainly has nominated some far-left nominees for senate confirmation and important positions in the federal government. but what hasn't happened yet is they've knowingly put forward a far-left nominee who has clearly

lied to the senate, as senator barrasso just showed clearly, who is not just a far left extremist, she's a violent extremist. so normally you would think in america that would disqualify you from a position that requires senate confirmation, a position, by the way, that's one of the most important positions to my state, the great state of alaska and yet here we are. here we are. we're going to vote for her and it looks like all my senate democrat colleagues are going to vote aye. shocking. i hope america is watching because this is a bigger vote than just for the b.l.m. director. this is a symbol of how crazy and far left this a administratn -- this administration has gone and to be honest, how fearful some of my colleagues are of that. so, madam president, i was here

on the senate floor a little over a month ago, and i called on the president to withdraw his nomination to lead the bureau of land management. tracy stone-manning. it was the first time in my senate career i'd call on a nominee to be withdrawn before they'd gone through their vote on the senate floor and vote out of committee. i've never done that before. usually the president certainly gets to put forward who he wants, he or she wants for positions to fill out his cabinet in his federal government. that's normal. i've never done this before but i had a reason just like the way senator barrasso has been coming down to the floor to talk about this, to actually call for this withdrawal. because we have not confronted someone with tracy stone-manning's past which involves being a member, part of

an extreme, radical, violent group that performed violent acts in the name of getting attention. a violent group engouging in overt ec -- engaging in overt ecoterrorism. her past association with ecoterrorism is so heinous that even the director of b.l.m. from the obama-biden administration said that her actions should preclude her from consideration, and her nomination should be withdrawn by the president. you would think that would have been it. the last democrat nominee for that job said she wasn't qualified because of her ecoterrorism past. that was mr. bob abbey. madam president, i want to talk about b.l.m. for a minute and why i'm on the floor again talking about this issue. this is an incredibly important and powerful federal agency,

particularly as it relates to my state. the alaska b.l.m. manages more surface and subsurface acres in my state than in any other state in the country by far. in fact, i haven't done the math completely, but i believe that they manage more acreage in alaska than they do in the rest of the lower 48 combined. that's how important this is. let me give you some of the numbers. this includes over 70 million surface acres of land in 220 million subsurface acres of land in alaska. that is the land equivalent to about one-fifth the entire lower 48 states. most states can't even comprehend that size. that is why this is such an important nominee. this of course is a huge amount

of land, and it's a huge amount of now we are over my constituents for access to land, for our economy, for our environment, for our native culture. it is imperative that the director of this agency -- and i'm not always going to agree with the director of this agency. but the director of b.l.m. with so much power and so much control over alaska and its future and our working families be someone who is at minimum trustworthy, honest, fair- fair-minded, beyond reproach, and certainly, certainly not involved with an organization whose mission was to perpetuate violence defense their fellow americans -- violence against their fellow americans. is that so hard a standard? this nominee is none of these

things. as senator barrasso so abely has present -- ably has presented. and as i mentioned, madam president, she was once a member of an ecoterrorist organization. now, maybe she can go work for president biden and some -- in some other position, but to get senate confirmed given what she has done and have u.s. senators look the other way, it's okay. she was part of a group perpetuating acts of violence against her fellow americans to get attention and we're okay with that? 6 u.s. senators are -- u.s. senators are okay with that? my goodness, this is a low bar. tracy stone-manning was involved with a group that was involved in ecoterrorism.

she was not just a member, she was explicit, as senator barasso mentioned, putting thick yellow spikes in trees that were meant to hurt or gravely injure americans who are harvesting trees in our country legally and who are putting trees in sawmills legally. this was a common technique, tree spiking, as it was called, deployed by such ecoterrorist groups in the late 1980's and early 1990's, and it is extremely dangerous. so let me briefly talk about the group that tracy stone-manning was a member of. again, we know this administration is putting forward far-left nominees with affiliations of certain groups, but not violent groups.

that should be a red line that every senator agrees with. earth first began in 1980 by disaffected environmentists who thought it wasn't radical enough. they thought they weren't getting enough attention. they thought, let's get attention by perpetrating violence and destruction. no compromise in defense of mother earth, in their view no compromise meant destroying property, putting steel spikes in trees that could kill someone, trying to harvest a tree and they even celebrated and encouraged such actions. the group put out a manual -- yes, a manual on their ecoterrorist tactics detailing

tree spiking and instructions on how to cause other sabotage, cut down power lines, cut down timber, harvesters, burning machinery. again, all american citizens who are trying to do something legally. madam president, we harvest trees legally in alaska. we have loggers who have been doing this for generations are from hardworking american families. so do many other states in the senate -- represented here in the senate. and i certainly hope a senator from one of those states isn't going to vote yes in a couple of minutes on this vote. david foreman talked about these activities and he said, quote, this is where the eco tour have

fun. this is what he called fun. this is how an article from "the washington post" described such an indent of tree spiking that severely hurt one of our fellow american citizens. and now i'm going to quote from this article. quote, george alexander, a third generation mill worker was starting his shift at the louisiana lumber mill in cloverdale, california, when a log that would change his life rolled down toward a saw he was working on. now, we have sauce, these mills -- saws, these mills in alaska, these saws are huge, they spin at incredibly fast speeds with huge teeth. they are dangerous to work on normally but when you think about hitting a tree going through a mill with a spike in

it, you can imagine it is an explosion. let me continue. this article. it was may 1987, george alexander was 23 years old, his job was to split logs. he was nearly three feet away when the log he was working on hit his saw and the saw, the giant saw, exploded. one half of the blade struck the log. the other half hit alexander in the head. and, again, these are giant saws. tearing through his safety helmet, tearing through his face shield, his face was slashed from eye to chin. his teeth were smashed, his jaw was cut in half. good job, earth first. good job. trying to kill a fellow american. this is what earth first did.

madam president, i was up on the yukon river over the 4th of july at our fish camp cleaning brush, trees, working a chainsaw, and i -- i honestly was thinking about this, thinking, man, i have this saw, little saw, not one of these huge things. think about if you hit a spike. but these were the kind of tactics that tracy stone-manning, the biden administration's choice to lead the b.l.m., once conspired in. does that disturb you, america? does that disturb you, national media? does that disturb you, my fellow senators? it sure the heck disturbs me. every u.s. senator on the floor here should be very, very disturbed about this. so what did she specifically do?

again, senator barasso has highlighted this. she hasn't been truthful to the senate, by the way, that's a crime in and of itself. here's what she did in 1989 she did a fellow friend, an earth first friend, really a comrade, it's more of a socialist communist organization, a fellow comrade a favor. she rewrote word for word, a profane, anonymous letter, from senator barasso a couple of minutes ago, from this earth first member about 500 pounds of tree spikes that they had hammered into trees in an idaho forest by earth first. 500 pounds. that's a lot. she rewrote the letter on a rented typewriter because she later told a reporter her fingerprints were all over it, so she didn't want to get caught. she obviously knew she was doing something criminal.

she didn't just hand write it. she typed it and sent the letter to the f.b.i. and you saw it's a very disturbing, profane letter where she threatens people who are going to get hurt. so she's all in. she's all in. she kept quiet on this for years. that was 1989, until she came forward in 1993, received immunity, obviously been investigated, lied about that, for her part in this tree spiking in idaho. she has since then portrayed herself as a victim, but a former criminal investigator for usda forest service, again, senator barasso laid this out, wrote a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the senate committee on energy and natural resources and here's what he said. stone-manning was not an

innocent bir- by stand -- innocent by stander. not only was she a member of the earth first, she played a role in it. she was extremely antigovernment. he said she was uncooperate and refused to provide handwriting samples, fringier prints as ordered by the -- fingerprints as ordered by the grand jury. it was only after she knew she might get into trouble that she would begin to cooperate. let me be clear special agent michael merkley wrote, they recently. ms. stone-manning only came forward after her attorney struck an immunity deal, not before she was caught. in testimony submitted to the senate, she claimed that tree spiking -- the tree spiking was, quote, alleged but never investigated. that's untrue.

none of this is true. but here's what's true. she was a member of and ecoterrorist group that had as its goal to threaten or actually hurt americans, americans were hurt by this. hardworking americans doing something legally. she's clearly dishonest and she has no business heading up the b.l.m., a federal agency with enormous power, especially over my state. so this is a really important issue for me, which is why i've been on the floor talking about it. as i said, the president should have withdrawn her nomination, and i certainly hope my senate colleagues will not vote to confirm her. i don't think any republican is going to. but any of my fellow democrats who live in places where men and

women harvest logs, hard cowering american families -- hardworking american families, it's going to be real interesting if you vote yes. i hope we defeat her vote here today. but i think there's something else to talk about. as i mentioned, it's one thing to put forward far-left individuals for these senate-confirmed jobs. it's quite another to put forward who's far left and violent with a record of trying to hurt your fellow americans. and i think, madam president, this is a symbol. we know the biden administration has a lot of allies in some of these groups, but the fact that the president of the united states, with all of this evidence that's come out, and maybe they overlooked it, but now it's all out, lying,

violence, he's still standing behind her and it looks like all of my colleagues are going to vote for her. this is a traf et ceteray. i -- travesty. i hope all americans watching ask the proper question, dishonest, lying, ecoterrorist, took actioner hurt people will have one of the most important positions of power in america over my constituents. we need to do better here, folks. if she passes, this is going to show just how far left the biden administration is and, again, i try to be bipartisan here. i have a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle, but how compliant or scared my senate democrat colleagues are of these radical groups. do the right thing. vote no on this nominee. get the president to put forward

someone else without a violent pass whose been honest. we might disagree with them, but to my senate democratic colleagues today, do the right thing. you know what the right thing is. do the right thing. vote to reject this very radical, unqualified, dishonest nominee. i yield the floor. mr. grassley: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: because of the increase in hospitalizations because of the delta variant of the virus, we're told that the c.d.c. will soon be requiring in about half the counties of the country mask and other restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus. they say that they are doing it because of the science. we're told that they will not show us the data.

the very essence of science is peer review and anybody who wants to analyze it. in america, the public's business ought to be business -- the public's business ought to be public. if we can't get this data what the taxpayers are paying for and public policies being made on, it seems to me that that principle that the public's business is not really public. and when people are able to cover up things and make policy decisions that's not public and transparent, it obviously brings about less accountability. so let's have that data. we want to know why you're requiring masks again. today i join my colleagues to

mourn the passing of my friend, former senator mike enzi. just a few months ago, mike stood here in this very chamber on december 2, to say farewell to this institution and his colleagues. after 24 years the people of his beloved state, serving them, he returned home to wyoming. to the good people of wyoming, i thank you for sharing mike with us for a couple dozen years. he was a guiding light here in the united states senate. he worked effectively to find common ground and bridge partisan divide for the public good. mike practiced by word and by deed. the mission statement that he created for his office, do what is right, do our best, and treat others as they wished to be

treated. in his farewell speech here on the senate floor, he told us about the 80% tool as an effective way to govern. mike was a pragmatist. he understood good laws aren't made with a sledgehammer. he takes craftsmanship, consensus, and common sense. as mike said, focus on the 80% of an issue where we can find agreement and then discard the other 20%. today as congress seeks to reach consensus on a host of important issues, we would do well to follow mike's advice. we need more of that bipartisan buy-in that mike brought from his state of wyoming to washington, d.c. and the halls

of congress. i was honored to partner on so many bread and butter issues that had a direct impact on hardworking families, farmers, bread winners, and small businesses. as many of you know, i help on our family farm at new hartford, iowa. mike started a family-owned shoe star in gillette, his home there in wyoming. meeting payroll, paying bills, and making ends meet. inform each of us a philosophy about government spending and conservative management of the taxpayers' money. as disciples of fiscal discipline, we evangelized, caucused, and fought together to hold the line on reckless spending. too many people in washington forget taxpayers' dollars don't

grow on trees. it is the people's money. mike knew how to crunch numbers and watch over the federal purse better than all of us. he was an accountant and put his expertise to work as chairman of the senate budget committee. he held the federal bureaucracy to account and kept congress accountable to the american people. reelected by wide margins, mike relished retail politics and fought for small businesses and retailers at the policymaking tables. barbara and i traveled to gillette once to attend a political event with mike and his wife, diana. the feeling in the crowd was insightful. the enzis are beloved in wyoming. mike kept in touch with the grassroots traveling wyoming as

extensively as i travel to every corner of iowa. however, he always made time to foster relationships with friends, former staff, and of course his family. i don't often socialize in washington, but i made an exception for my friend mike enzi. i joined the enzis' weekly tortilla coast dinner when i could and my wife, barbra, joined every chance she had and she did it much more often than i did. on each senator's birthday, mike would write a long, heartful birthday note -- heartfelt birthday note with a personal p.s. i look forward to reading his birthday wish every year and the advice, very good advice that he included in it.

there was always a piece of advice or a challenge for the year ahead. mike was humble. mike was approachable. mike was respected by all. he was a true friend of this senate. i recall those parting words from the gentle giant of gillette, wyoming. quote, i like being a senator not for the title, not for the recognition, and certainly not for the publicity. i like solving federal problems for wyoming people. i like doing legislation. end of quote. and, of course, mike did just that. barbara and i extend a heartfelt sympathy to diana and his children as well. may god bless mike, a faithful

servant of the lord. and we saw that flightfulness to -- faithfulness to the lord as he led the wednesday morning senate prayer meeting on a very regular basis. and may he bring you and your family peace and comfort today and always. on another note, madam president, on june 8 of this year, i sent a letter. i came to the floor, i should say instead, to speak of my oversight activities with respect to the origins of the coronavirus. as part of that oversight, on march 8 and may 26 of this year, i wrote to the department of health and human services about its oversight of grants set to eco health alliances.

the department sent millions of dollars to ecohealth. that group then subawarded hundreds of thousands of dollars of that taxpayer money to wuhan institute of virology. reports have indicated that $600,000 to $826,000 was sent to wuhan institute of virology so folks, what we have here is taxpayer money that was sent to the communist chinese government. that's a pretty scary proposition. when we sent taxpayers' money to the chinese government, if there's no oversight done on that money, then we really don't have any idea how it's used. just look at the news about

china kicking the french at the wwuhan -- out of the wuhan laboratory. china can't be trusted, period. but i'm not sure bureaucrats share that same view. i'm talking about bureaucrats of our government. to illustrate, dr. anthony fauci has said that chinese scientists are trustworthy, that, quote, we really always trust the grantee to do what they say. end of quote. as a threshold matter, if a government worker doesn't show at least a little bit of skepticism about how a grant recipient is using the taxpayers' money, they aren't doing their job. that's kept -- that september schism is healthy and it's basic good government to question the recipient to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do with our money.

dr. fauci has also stated that the national institute of health, quote, has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the wuhan institute of virology, end of quote. that's a pretty confident statement. when my colleague senator paul questioned dr. fauci on his position with respect to gain of function research, that same dr. fauci called my colleague a liar. well, the way i see it the only way that dr. fauci and the government can be so confident that no gain of function research was done is if they performed the proper oversight of the money the american taxpayers' money sent to china.

in both my letters to the department of health and human services, i asked that very question. so far the department of health and human services have failed to answer the question. on june 10 of this year at the senate finance committee hearing, i asked secretary becerra what if any oversight was done. he didn't give me an answer. i asked again in a follow-up question for the record. still no response, even though all these people that come before our committee for nomination approval always say we'll answer your letters, we'll answer the phone, we'll testify. but no answer to that question yet. the director of the national institute of health dr. frances collins has also been silent on

what if any oversight was done on the grants to the wuhan institute of vir rolling. -- virology. dr. fauci has been silent on what if any oversight he did. this is a simple and very important question for the government to answer. in other words, as you heard me say a few minutes ago, the public's business ought to be public. and without that sort of transparency, we don't have accountability. and we're entitled to have accountability on this kind of money. the more that they deny the united states congress an answer, the more it looks like these bureaucrats don't give a lick about the american people. the people they work for, the people that pay their salary. dr. fauci is all over television and radio, you name it, he's on it. but apparently he and his

counterparts can't find enough time to answer this very simple question. did you do any oversight of the taxpayers' money you sent to ecohealth, money that you knew was going to the communist chinese government? if so, please explain. if not, why not? this should not be a difficult question to answer. either you did or you didn't. and either way the american people deserve an explanation. and if they didn't do any oversight, then how can they confidently say the money wasn't used for gain of function research or other bad conduct. we've lost over 600,000 americans, and this body has

spent trillions of dollars to support our economy and fight the virus. congress and the american people have an absolute right to know that dr. fauci and dr. collins, what they did to oversee this money. enough with the games. just answer the question. i understand that the department of health and human services office of inspector general is doing an audit of what if any oversight was done. they're supposed to be taking a deep dive on the grants, the cooperative arrangements, and other relationships the government had with ecohealth alliance. the audit isn't just focused on what the national institute of health did or didn't do to monitor the grants. the scope also includes what

ecohealth did or didn't do to manage the funds in accordance with federal requirements. and the scope of that review, at least right now, is from 2014 to 2021. i expect the inspector general to be aggressive and unrelenting, getting the records, the e-mails, and the memos. run the transcribed interviews and questions everyone up the leadership chain. leave no stone unturned. and make as much possible -- as much as possible public. if punches are pulled, then this i.g. audit will be a waste of everybody's time and taxpayers' money. the inspector general has a tremendous responsibility to get this job done right.

my last point that i want to make -- fourth and last point, i should say -- is on a major issue facing our nation, the issue of domestic terrorism and the threat it brings to our cities and communities across the country. on june 15 of this year, the national security council issued a national strategy for countering domestic terrorism. although the strategic objectives were very similar to the national security council strategy under the trump administration, i was very concerned to see that the policy took a partisan tone. for example, aside from the commonsense measures to combat crime, such as promoting cooperation between law enforcement agencies, there was

an emphasis on promoting gun control and critical race theory in the schools. the biden administration seems to make these recommendations at every turn. what the report was missing i found shocking. the report was lacking any strategy to combat an akist extremism. there was no mention of the 500 domestic terrorism investigations that were open throughout the 2020 summer riots. those 500 cases amount to about 25% of the f.b.i.'s current domestic terrorism investigations. how could the cause of 25% of the current f.b.i. caseload not be mentioned?

it's a grave mistake to make an issue like domestic terrorism partisan, even in the slightest. judging by the report, i'm afraid that's exactly what the administration is doing. it's of critical importance to keep in mind the great bipartisan work that can and should be done to address domestic terrorism of all types -- right wing and left wing, including anarchist extremism. we have to work together on diving deeper into serious apolitical solutions to this issue. it's very simple -- the american people deserve it. i yield the floor. mr. marshall: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. marshall: i ask unanimous

consent to use a prop during my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. marshall: madam president, i rise today to join my colleagues in opposing the motion to discharge president biden's nominee to lead the bureau of land management, tracy stone-manning. since ms. stone-manning's first hearing in the beginning of june, members of the energy and natural resources committee have garnered copious amounts of information that disqualifies her for this role in our federal government. ms. stone-manning was involved in a tree spiking plot as a member of the group earth first. a tree spike being lot -- i have to tell you, madam president, i didn't know what tree spiking was until a couple weeks ago. could you imagine taking this nail and driving it into a tree with the hopes it would deter that tree from ever being cut

down? the concern is, someone that would take a chainsaw cutting through a tree, that they would hit this spike, what would happen. now, i've had to take more than one chainsaw accident in the emergency room. the chain doesn't cut the flesh. it tears the flesh apart. it tears the skin apart, the muscles apart, it grabs a ten come to and literally wraps them around the chainsaw, usually permanently mapling people. if a chainsaw hit this spike, can you imagine what what would happen. sometimes the chainsaw bounces when you hit it. itens bos back into your body. that's where most of the accidents occur. so, could you imagine if that chainsaw hit the spike. the chainsaw is going to bounce back, recoil into the person's body, and turns this spike into

a piece of shrapnel. this earth first ms. stone was a member of, it is a radical organization that spanned the late 1980's and early 1990's, what's o referred to as the wilderness wars. earth first had at the time defined itself -- and i should quote here -- defined itself at the tip of the fanatical spear, end quote. and ms. stone-manning was referred to as an earth first spokesperson, debuting in 1985, a the group engaged in a number of protests over the expansion of certain campgrounds and street theater asking people to take oaths to protect the earth. however, they graduate to violence and ecoterrorist activities including arson, equipment destruction, and the dangerous practice of tree spikings, which can easily result in the death of loggers. in 1989 ms. stone-manning was involved in an incident of tree spiking herself.

despite her denial, she was aware of the act being carried out, aided those who were involved, and helped cover it up. she obstructed the investigation and finally traded testimony for immunity. at a time when the biden administration had declared domestic extremism as one of the biggest threats the united states faces today, how can the president nominate someone with a record like this to lead the agency that governs one-eighth of the country's land mass? how can this body bring her to confirmation vote -- bring her confirmation vote to the floor? it is dripping with hypocrisy. republican members are not the only individuals who believe she is unfit for this role. president obama's first director of the land management bureau, robert abbey said that ms. stone-manning should withdraw her nomination due to her involvement in the tree spiking case. deputy director of the b.l.m.

under president obama expressed his concern stating the leader of the b.l.m. must, again, i quote, be respected by career employees and across the landscape, in both blue and red states, end quote, in order to be effective. in addition to her involvement with earth first, and this horrific tree spiking incident, she had a questionable financial history during her time sesqui in government. during the lengthy hearing process, i was alarmed to learn that she received a $100,000 loan from a montana land developer and democratic donor when she worked as a congressional staffer. senate ethics rules and federal statute prohibit federal staff from accepting gifts greater than $250, including a loan, unless a waiver is granted. by ms. stone-manning's own admission, she did not consult with senate ethics about the loan, she did not disclose the loan, and she did not seek a written determination that, and

she did not receive a written determination that the personal friendship exemption applied. unfortunately, ms. stone-manning has also been unable to provide documentation of the terms of the loan, the schedule of payments, the actual payments or any other relevant documents. we can only rely on her contra-dicktory statements from the hearing and her answers to questions submitted for the record. due to the radical nature of many of president biden's nominees, the majority leader has been forced to bring forward six motions to clear to the floor. there were no instances where majority leader trent lott had to utilize a motion to discharge. with at least four other nominees having received a tie in committee, this practice is

being abouting commonplace under this administration. ms. stone-manning's record of dishonesty should be unacceptable, as many issues that should make rational people question her integrity in aings to of power. i encourage all members of this body to reject this motion to discharge and this radical nominee. thank you. i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. risch: madam president, fellow senators, i rise today to join the chorus of my colleagues that is urging that tracy

stone-manning not be confirmed, indeed, not even be charged from the committee that voted to not send her to the floor for confirmation. first of all, it is amazing to me that someone with this background is -- has been appointed to this position. now, i understand she's held some positions in the state of montana for politicians there, and i don't comment on that. that's up to them who they want to hire to do that. in idaho, that has a very, very significant number of acres of b.l.m. ground, we have a different view of how our public resources should be protected and to be administered. and this appointee in no way reflects the values that we have. this woman is an ecoterrorist.

she participated in a conspiracy to murder people who work in the timber industry for a living. she's a purger. very recently. and she's someone who's supposed to put out fires. as late as 2020 has made very disqualifying statements regarding her desire to do that and indeed commitment to do that. let's start with the ecoterrorist charge. i want to go a little bit further than what my colleague who just spoke did about using a chainsaw to tear down -- or to take down a tree in the forest. let me explain you to how this works. the prop that he held up was a spike that ecoterrorists put in trees. there's one reason to put a spike in a tree, one reason and one reason only, and that is to kill and to maple the people who -- and maim the people who

harvest that tree. these are innocent people who are involved in the timber business. they're my friends, my neighbors. we have lots of them in idaho. they work in a dangerous industry anyway. but for someone to go out and intentionally put these spikes in the trees, as the senator spoke before me, senator marshall mentioned, there can be an injury in the forest when you're actually cutting the tree with a chainsaw. but that isn't the main difficulty with this. the main difficulty is when it hits the mill. they cut these logs up into mill-sized pieces and then run them through the mill, which is cut with either a circular saw or ban saw into boards. when that happens, they move -- the log and saw move very quickly through the log and cut up the wood into timber, which is not a problem unless there is a spike in the way. if there is a spike in the way, somebody -- somebody in that

mill is going to be very badly injured and/or killed. when that saw hits the spike, the saw shatters, the spike shatters and it sends shrapnel to everybody standing in the facility. it is documents and ugly. when ecoterrorists do this, this is not a sunday school prank. this is an act knowingly, willfully, intentionally with a black and abandoned heart in order to injure somebody that works in the timber industry. the person we're voting on today participated in a conspiracy to do just that. indeed, she wrote a letter, she claims she just typed it. originally, she said it was handed to her by some person and asked to type. we now find out of course that this was a letter that was composed by a number of people, not the least of which was a

gentleman that she lived with, but she's the one that put this together and sent it to the federal government as part of the -- as part of this act of conspiring to take the lives of innocent people in the forest. so she says she edited the letter, but if she did, then it is what it is in front of us. she said she typed this and sent it to the forest service. she said, this letter is being sent to you to notify that the post office sale in idaho has been spiked heavily. the project required that 11 of us spend nine days in god awful weather conditions spiking trees. we unloaded a total of 500 pounds of spikes measuring et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. well, if she edited this letter, then she properly stated what

her participation was in all of this. there's no question that she admits that she prepared this letter and sent it to the forest service. today in idaho, those spikes remain in the trees. we don't know when one of those logs is going to be cut and going to cause the damage, possibly the loss of life, certainly the maiming of people who attempt to process that log into useable lumber. she says they put 500 pounds total of spikes into those trees. this is a person who the administration has chosen to administer the largest chunk of federal land in the united states of america, possibly in the world. she is going to manage these after she committed this act of ecoterrorism and participated in this conspiracy. now, you say why isn't she in prison?

well, her coconspirators went to prison because she testified against them. she was found out. the investigators determined what her participation was in the conspiracy. she hired an attorney. and the attorney negotiated a deal where she would rat on the fellow conspirators, and she did so, and thereby avoided going to prison. so that's what happened in her prior history. it's important to know those things because somewhere down in the recesses of her heart and her soul, she was prepared to participate in a conspiracy that would cause the death and the injury of innocent forest workers. now, more recently than that, she has made statements that certainly call into considerable question how she will be able to do her job. for those of you who don't live in the western states, as i do, and many of us do, when public

lands starts on fire, it's important that the fire be put out and be put out as quickly as possible. her husband wrote an article -- and i'm not going to -- i wouldn't ordinarily tag her with her husband's view of things, but she took that article, she republished it in 2020, and said this was a clarion call. now, if you look up clarion call in a dictionary, it is an urgent call to require somebody to do something. she calls this a clarion call. let me just -- he wrote this article about how people shouldn't be building in a forest around what's called interface land. if you're not again -- we westerners are familiar with interface. we have so much public land that many of our subdivisions, our individual homes, our cities butt up against interface land. and so this is what she said was a clarion call. the solution to houses in the interface is to let them burn. this is the person that the

administration is going to put in charge of fire suppression in an interface zone. let me state it again. the solution to houses in the interface zone is to let them burn, is what she said. then how do you feel about that? she said there is a rude and satisfying justice in burning down the house of someone who builds in the forest. that was in 2020. 2020, she said that. this is who the administration wants to take over the bureau of land management. well, in addition to that, she lied to the committee. she lied under oath. i will tell you, it's -- this is disgusting. she shouldn't be here. she should be charged and standing in front of a jury. now, i told you what she did about her participation in the tree-spiking incident. this was a question that was asked of her under oath as she came to the committee for her --

for her confirmation. did you have personal knowledge of, participate in, or in any way directly or indirectly support activities associated with the spiking of trees in any forest during your lifetime? no. now, we know she wrote this letter. she admits it. she participated in it because she testified she participated in it when she testified against the other people who were eventually convicted and sent to prison, and yet she swore under oath to this -- to our committee this year that, no, she wasn't involved in that. they asked have you ever been arrested or charged -- they asked her whether or not she had ever been a target of such an investigation. she says no, i have never been arrested or charged, and to my knowledge, i have never been the target of such an investigation. she knew she was a target. she was sent a letter that she was a target. and she hired an attorney to get her out from underneath that

mess because she was a target, and yet she said no. so she has perjured herself this year. well, look, this is not the right person for this job. it just amazes me that someone -- that they would even consider a person like this for this job. this is an insult to the thousands of good, hardworking people that are in the bureau of land management and who workday and night to protect our resources on the public lands in the western states. look, i know we're going to lose this. it's going to be a party-line vote. all republicans are going to vote against confirming her. the democrats are all going to vote in favor of her. and i say to this administration, this is not going to go away. this person's record of perjury, of ecoterrorism, of participating as a person involved in this plot, in this

conspiracy to actually take the life of forest service workers, this is not going to go away during the entire time that she is the head of this agency. it's going to come up again and again and again, and it should. so i say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, i say to the president of the united states, who has nominated her for this position, if this is the character of someone that you want us to remember as the legacy of your administration, here she is. a per jurorrer on -- a perjuror on ecoterrorist, a person who has participated in ecoterrorism to murder people working in the forest. if that's what you want for your administration, here it is, vote for it. i suspect that's exactly what's going to happen, that this is not going to go away. i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mrs. hyde-smith: madam president, i rise to join my colleagues in expressing my grave concern over the nomination of miss tracy stone-manning to be the director of the bureau of land management. the office of director of the bureau of land management is tasked with an enormous responsibility. as it manages an eighth of our nation's land, its leadership should be held to the highest standards. every nominee referred to the energy and natural resources committee must complete and submit the statement for completion by presidential nominees, which is the standard committee questionnaire. in a sworn statement, ms. stone-manning told the committee that she has never been arrested or charged and to her knowledge has never been the trgt -- rg target of an investigation. unfortunately, as many of us are now aware of,

ms. stone-manning's responses were not forthcoming nor fully accurate. i am particularly disturbed by ms. stone-manning's involvement with the ecoterrorist organization earth first which organized the tree-spiking plot in idaho. as you all may know, tree spiking involves hammering a metal or ceramic rod into a tree trunk in order to prevent loggers from harvesting the timber. if a saw makes contact with a spike, it can result in severe injury or even the logger's death. make no mistake, the people who put these spikes into the trees are well aware of the potential consequences of their actions. these schemes are carried out with intent to harm or even at the very least the intent to frighten the loggers who are carrying out their daily jobs. i want to be clear, no one is claiming that ms. stone-manning put any spikes in any trees

herself. however, it is undisputed that ms. stone-manning assisted the people who did. ms. stone-manning wrote a letter laced with vulgarities to the u.s. forest service threatening loggers who were simply carrying out their jobs, doing what they do for a living. in the aftermath of this tree-spiking conspiracy, ms. stone-manning was investigated and subpoenaed by a federal grand jury. ms. stone-manning was silent about her involvement in the plot, but when new evidence came to light four years later, she struck a deal for immunity in 1993. tracy stone-manning's involvement in ecoterrorism as well as her dishonesty to the senate is more than alarming. there are questions that need to be revisited and answered. the statements from the former lead investigator of the idaho

tree-spiking scheme, as well as the actions of the federal grand jury, tell a different tale than what ms. stone-manning led the committee to believe. these discrepancies must not be cast aside. i'm concerned about the precedent that was set -- that would be set for future nominees if my colleagues simply agree, accept, or disregard these inconsistencies. i'm very disappointed that my democratic colleagues on the energy committee moved forward with ms. stone-manning's nomination. there are serious unanswered questions about her veracity and her qualifications to lead. i applaud my colleagues who have sought the truth and i am disheartened that those efforts have met with resistance. the american people deserve transparency. i cannot support this nominee, and i would urge my colleagues to do the same. thank you, madam president.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: i ask unanimous consent to use a prop during my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lee: madam president, in 1989, tracy stone-manning rented a typewriter to draft and then send a letter threatening those who might choose to harvest trees. the letter stated that the trees in question have been sabotaged with hundreds of pounds of spikes. she closed the letter with, quote, you bastards go in there anyway, meaning notwithstanding her threat, and a lot of people could get hurt, close quote. she and her cohorts thus used

the threat of physical violence to achieve a political goal. this is the definition of terrorism. in 1993, multiple associates of ms. stone-manning were convicted of tree spiking by a federal jury. although she signed and swore that the information provided to the committee was, to the best of her knowledge and belief, current, accurate, and complete, ms. stone-manning told the energy and natural resources committee that she had never been investigated. this was, in fact, not true. it was widely reported that in 1990, ms. stone-manning was required to give hair samples, a full set of fingerprints, and writing samples. this was already a year after she had conspired with her circle of friends, members of the radical environmentalist group earthfirst. she was still not cooperating with the authorities. now, how do we know that she was, in fact, a target of the

investigation and not simply a bystander? well, we know that based on a letter from michael merkley, a retired special agent criminal investigator for the forest service. he writes the following. quote, the witness described how ms. stone-manning typed and mailed the letter to the forest service. she also recounted a conversation she had overheard wherein ms. stone-manning, along with her other coconspirators, planned the tree spiking and discussed whether to use ceramic or metal spikes in the trees. as a result of the witness' testimony, the grand jury sent ms. stone-manning a target letter which meant she was going to be indicted on criminal charges for her active participation in planning these crimes. she hired an attorney who negotiated a deal with then-assistant united states attorney to gain immunity in exchange for her testimony against the other defendants, close quote. now, ms. stone-manning did not gain immunity simply for being a

good person or a model citizen. no, she traded her knowledge after withholding it for years. this is verified by her own admission in the may 21, 1993, edition of the mizzouli, reading, quote, stone-manning said she could have been charged with conspiracy were it not for the agreement she reached with the u.s. attorney, close quote. furthermore, she received a target letter, meaning she knew very well that she had been under investigation. this is a direct contradiction of the sworn statement that she made to the senate energy and natural resources committee on which i serve. where she deliberately misled u.s. senators. unfortunately, ms. stone-manning has been able to deceive a lot of people, even a white house official acknowledged that this was a massive vetting failure. so what exactly did this tree

spiking involved? well, it involved spikes like these, spikes made of steel that when placed into a tree can cause widespread damage to those harvesting the trees, those milling the trees. they have maimed many and wounded many others as a result of radical environmentalists taking this tactic to try to stop the harvesting of timber on federal lands. now, regardless of how you may feel about timber harvesting policy on federal lands, i think all americans of good faith and conscience can agree that it's not a good idea to use terrorism to advance your goals. it's not a good idea to use threats of physical violence and present people with a real foreseeable and a foreseen and

intended risk that they could be harmed or could even die as a result of the 500-pound of tree spikes that they placed in the trees in question. so the white house admitted this was a vetting failure and a vetting failure it was. it was either a vetting failure or no one at the administration cared when tracy stone-manning treated out only months ago an article written by her husband, an article that itself states, quote, there's a rude and satisfying justice in burning down the house of someone who builds in the forest, close quote. when she tweeted tout this story, a -- tweeted out this story, apparently with her approval, she called this a clarion call, her words, not mine, seeming to revel in the misery and loss of those who had

just had their homes destroyed, oftentimes as a result of chronic mismanagement on federal lands, allowing fuel to build up and remain untreated. there are plenty of homes in forests in utah. i had presumed there were plenty of homes elsewhere, there are plenty of homes in arizona, montana, california, colorado, nevada, west virginia, and elsewhere. so i ask the question, how can we entrust the responsibility to protect the homes of those americans who live on or near a forest from forest fire to an individual who actively advocated only months ago for their demise, who apparently celebrated their demise? lastly, and perhaps most heinously, results have come out as a result of research.

in 1992, stone-manning -- tracy stone-manning had an article. it espoused views on grazing. she published a photo of a child with a caption. this photo with this caption right here. it says -- it's got a picture of a young child, a toddler, can you find the environmental hazard in this photo? she then indicated that the child, this baby, was the environmental hazard. she then elaborates. quote, americans believe that overpopulation is only a problem somewhere else in the world, but it's a problem here too. we breed more than any other industrialized nation. at the same time we suck up one-third of the world's energy. when we overpopulate, the earth

notices it more. stop at two. it could be the best thing you do for the planet. do the truly smart thing, stop at one or two kids. this is a fringe belief. it's a dangerous belief. not only is it factually flawed but it's morally repugnant. as a father of three, i'm repulsed ashamed and saddened. as much as anything, the resident of a state, two-thirds of which is owned by the federal government, 40% of which is under the direct management and control of the bureau of land management, the entity she's been nominated to head, i'm mortified she will be in charge of all that land because this is how she views human beings. we should all accept the fact that human beings are assets, they are blessings, they are not liabilities. children are beautiful gifts from heaven above, not

environmental hazards. i've consistently voiced outrage at china's one-child policy and we're here today voting on a nominee who calls for similar action, telling parents in the most condescending tone imaginable, quote, stop at one or two kids because according to ms. stone-manning, we're simply breeding too much. so now we must ask ourselves, will this body advance the nomination of a person who played a central role in endangering the lives of foresters and sawmillers engaging in acts of reckless, deliberately harmful environmental terrorism used 5,000 pounds of tree spikes and has advocated for homes to burn in the wilderness, indicating

she would celebrate when that happened and called children an environmental hazard. the director of bureau of land management, the position that ms. stone-manning has been nominated to fill has discretionary power. this is not a matter that is concerning for symbolic reasons, it is that too, but far more than that. if confirmed to this position, she's going to have immense discretionary power. could we rest knowing that she was at the helm of the bureau of land management making decisions about grazing, wildfire response, wildfire prevention, suppression, and rehabilitation, and everything else that the bureau of land management is charged with? i could not. i cannot, and i will not. and so i urge my colleagues to reject her nomination. thank you, mr. president.

i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. daines: i ask unanimous consent to use a prop for my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. daines: mr. president, president biden's nominee to lead the bureau of land management, stone-manning -- tracy stone-manning may not have personally spiked trees, but she covered up a terrifying tree spiking crime until she faced possible prosecution. now more many who are watching, what is tree spiking? and i think it's very important, these are these large spikes that ecoterrorists put into trees for the purposes of injuring loggers or sawmill operators when the blade comes through it.

when the blades go through the spikes, the spikes exploid causing -- explode causing injury to sawmill operators. for four years she refused to tell federal investigators who the perpetrators were. the time from 1989 to 1993, even though she knew and had every opportunity to tell it. and this happened in my home state. the actual spiking was in idaho, but when the feds were doing the investigation, this was in miss ssilo, montana, she covered this up until she faced possible prosecution. she never apologized for this crime. i think the coverup is as serious in many ways as

everything else. and for this reason and many others, i oppose her confirmation and i think montana and the nation deserves better. one week ago i stood here the information we knew about ms.stone and -- ms. stone-manning, in fact last week in a u.s. senate energy and natural resources committee on ms. stone-manning, my republican colleagues and i urged democrats to will listen to the new inforn and the alarming new facts about the knowledge she had of the crime and what she knew from the perpetrators. having come from montana and spoken to montana state legislators, i want my colleagues to understand the story we heard for years is

different from what we now know today to be true. up until 47 days ago, montanans, the montana state legislature, the montana media and myself were led to believe that in the tree spiking crime that happened in 1989, that ms. stone-manning was a hero, that she helped put bad people in jail. as i heard last week, that is uneeequivocally false. here's the truth, ms. stone-manning obstructed the federal investigation for four years and rather than bring criminals to justice, we're talking about very bad people who went on to commit even more violence, ms. stone-manning assisted and helped them evade justice for years -- for years, and now last week during the committee meeting and the debate we had over ms. stone-manning's nomination, there was discussion, discussion as to whether or not she was part of

the investigation at all or if she was a target of the investigation. what we know now is that ms. stone-manning only came forward after she was caught because what happened four years later suddenly an insider to the crime came forward with new information to the f.b.i. so she came forward after she was caught. she knew she was likely headed to prison. she didn't come forward because she wanted to help bad people in jail primarily, she didn't come on her own volition, she knew she had to get some kind of deal or she was going to go to prison. she didn't come forward when she was subpoenaed, when she was questioned about the crime, when she was asked by the f.b.i. for her hair, hand writing, fingerprint samples. in fact, she was described by the investigator as, quote, the nastiest of the suspects. she was described as being vulgar, antagonistic and extremely antigovernment. you see, ms. stone-manning came

forward after she received a target letter from the grand jury, meaning she was going to be indicted on criminal charges and struck an immunity deal for her involvement several years later. that's how she answered the question by the committee. have you been a part of an investigation? she said no. you tell me how you're not part of an investigation after you lay out the facts? and she bad-mouthed law enforcement despite she knew all of the details of the crime, all of them. had she stonewalled the federal investigation for four years from 1989 to 1993, she remained silent but she had all of the information many and while she was with holding this information, tragically, one of the perpetrators went on to commit a terrible act of domestic violence. i want to talk for a moment

about that letter that ms. stone-manning typed and mailed. remember, this wasn't available to us until just 47 days ago. ms. stone-manning stated that she mailed this letter and that she got it from a rather, quote, frightening man, her words. what we have learned since is that frightening man was her roommate. we also learned that this letter had not only been collaboratively composed, but after waiting for a few days, she went and typed it and sent it and she went an rented a typewriter to type this letter up when she sent it, which, according to her own testimony was because she wanted to avoid having it on her own computer and avoid having any fingerprints that could be traced back to her. the words that ms. stone-manning typed and smaild are ex police -- mail are explicit and not what you want to say when

you want to protect people but what you say when you want to terrorize people. she said, you bastards go in there anyway and a lot of people could get hurt. she also wrote, i would be more than willing to pay you a dollar for the sale, but you have to find me first and that could be your worst, all typed in caps, it's publicly available, your worst nightmare, enquote. and the text -- end quote. and the text of this letter was made public for the first time 47 days ago. you see, montana's never had the opportunity to read what stone-manning retyped on a rented typewriter and mailed 47 days ago. i find the most disturbing piece of this story to be that stone-manning never showed remorse or apologized for her role nor for misleading

montanans. we have yet to see a public statement for her response to this new information. mr. president, i believe healthy debate is important in this institution, i believe it's important at the committee level when discussing and advancing nominees that will potentially lead a majorrages agency -- major agency, which oversees 245 million acres of land. last week one of my colleagues across the aisle explained how it was a shame that she was not there to defend herself from this new information we learned over the last few weeks many -- weeks. i agree with that. a lot of this new information, the fact that we have yet to see a statement from the nominee, i think ms. stone-manning should come before the committee before we move forward, further explain her involvement, have the opportunity to speak to the new information we've learned about

her involvement in the tree-spiking crime. that's why i'm urging my colleagues to take the step here to not discharge her nomination from the committee today. by the way, for those who are watching, why is it we're going to discharge a -- what does it comeen we're going to discharge a nominee. that means there was no bipartisan support for the nominee because we're in a 50-50 senate. it takes a special action here to bring a purely partisan kind of vote out of committee for floor action. in fact, the only bipartisanship we have seen is her opposition, those who are opposed to her leading the bureau of land management. in fact, we now have two obama officials who have raised concerns about ms. stone-manning and what her confirmation would mean for the agency. in fact, president obama's former director of the bureau of land management bob abbey said her involvement in the tree-spiking crime would cause

needless controversy and that it should, quote, disqualify her. and we just learned yesterday that a second obama official steve ellis who is the deputy director for the agency under president obama said this isn't a republican or democrat issue. it's about the letter that she sent. and he went on to say, and i quote, the administration's got some great initiatives and their agenda for public lands is good. but you need the career employees to implement your agenda and successfully across the west. your leader has got to be respected by career employees and across the landscape in both blue and red states. end quote. and we know sadly this isn't the case. mr. president, i'm here today to urge my colleagues to wait to move forward with this nomination of ms. stone-manning, allow debate to continue at the committee level. we had a very spirited debate last week. mr. president, one important note i want to make here before wrapping is that this is not

just an issue for the west. ms. stone-manning's conduct could cause alarm to not only senators who represent the bureau of land management states but every state with a logging industry. stone-manning's refusal to come forward for four years places the safety of loggers in jeopardy which is offensive to loggers across our country. for the loggers in maine which is the most forested state in our nation to loggers in states like new hampshire, georgia, to the forestry, wildlife and logging groups like meadow river hardwood lumber company, the houston safari club, idaho logging counsel who withdrew their support or have come out in opposition. ms. stone-manning's actions matter. it should not be accepted by any senator. montanans deserve to hear from her about why she obstructed a federal investigation for four years and why she has yet to

show any remorse. i think it's also important for our colleagues across the aisle who admitted they don't know anything about the nominee, we heard that in the committee hearing last week or haven't spoken with her or had the opportunity to learn more as well. mr. president, i yield back.

mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. durbin: mr. president, my wife and i received our covid vaccinations and were grateful to the scientist, doctors, nurses and everyone else who made those miracle medicines possible. it's a relief to see vaccination numbers in this country picking up a little bit in the last few days after declining for months. it's a relief to hear some of the loudest antiv acs quakes about the importance of getting vaccinated. while many of the blow hards were dreaming up bizarre theories about the vaccines, the virus was not idle. in fact, months of confusion and

quackery have given the virus a chance to mutate and sadly to again regain the upper hand. this mutation known as the delta variant is now in every state in the union. covid infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are on the rise again. almost all, almost all of those who were hospitalized and facing serious illness and even death are unvaccinated. we know that. but this is a virus the world has never seen before and the science is still evolving. what scientists don't know yet is whether people who are vaccinated against covid can spread the delta variant even if they experience few symptoms. while unvaccinated people should wear masks whenever out in public for the time being, c.d.c.'s recommending that vaccinated people who live in high tran mission areas also wear masks in indoor public

space. further vaccinated people who have vulnerable individuals in their households, young children or those who are immune compromised should wear masks in public places .d and finally the c.d.c. is recommending universal masking for all teachers, staff members, and students in school regardless of vaccination status. no one, no one wants to wear a face mask. we all hope that those days were all behind us. but i'm bringing this mask with me in my pocket to be ready to use it when needed. others should do the same. if you want to protect yourself, your family, and your community, get the jab. it's free and safe. until then wear the mask when you must. on another topic, mr. president, i'm saddened today to learn of the death of our former colleague mike enzi. mike enzi was my friend. we were elected for the senate the same year.

nearly a year and a half after pandemic losses has reminded us all that life is fragile and fleeting. even so, mike enzi's sudden passing has left many of us stunned. it was less than eight months ago when mika up to me on the floor and bid me farewell as he entered his retirement. as i said we were elected to the senate in the same year. he was a staunch conservative wyoming republican. i'm a proud democrat. but over the years we found grounds for friendship. we disagreed on a lot of issues, but we respected one another and we trusted one another. trust in another's character and motives is sometimes seen a dwindling supply in this chamber but it's essential for the senate to function. mike enzi of wyoming knew that. he was willing to reach across the aisle and look for partners. the most unlikely political alliance i can think of was mike

enzi cochairing the committee with senator ted kennedy of all people on education. several years ago he even reached across the aisle to ask me to join him in a legislative effort. it was one that i was aware of, byron dargon of north dakota had been one of the early authors of this legislation. it was basically designed to help small businesses and main street america have a fighting chance in the age of am disoj. over the -- amazon. over the years we'd seen too many mom and pop stores and other small businesses crushed by competition from online retail giants in part because of an unfair advantage. unlike brick and mortar merchants, online-only retailers didn't have to pay state and local taxes. that's unfair. and it created an advantage for the online marketers over the small businesses on main street.

communities in states had a harder time paying for schools, police protection, and other vital services as more sales shifted to online and sales tax revenue fell. as a former mayor and retailer owning a shoe store, mike enzi understood well how the unfair taxing system hurt brick and mortar retailers and it also hurt state and local governments and their taxpayers. he had a solution. call the marketplace fairness act to apply the same sales tax rules to all retailers, simple, basic fairness. he asked me if i would be his democratic partner in this effort. i agreed. our bill passed in the year 2013. later a supreme court decision clarifying that state and local governments have the authority to collect online sales tax made our bill unnecessary. but during the time we worked together, mike enzi was a good

partner. he practiced what he called the 80% tool. he spoke about that tool as he called it in his farewell remarks here on the floor of the senate. he said we're all looking to make our communities and country a better place. we might not always agree on what the solutions are but we can respect each other for working to find one. then he went on to say, the 80% tool is where all of our energy, attention, and talents should be focused. if we just worked on the 20% that we don't agree on and will never agree on, we will only generate headlines about how hard we are working and nothing gets done. just gridlock. relying on his 80% tool enabled mike enzi to work with ted kennedy to reauthorize head start programs for preschoolers and tuition assistance programs for college students. he loved his state. he loved the senate. he loved america. mike enzi and his wife, diana, were amazing -- were an amazing

partnership too. for over 50 years, three children and many grandchildren. loretta and i send our condolences to diana. mike was a wonderful friend, colleague in the united states senate, and he will be missed. on an unrelated topic, over this past week the olympics has been an inspiring display of global unity and friendly competition. the champions representing america have taken tokyo by storm. we've won 25 medals, nine gold medals so far. but earlier today we received word that one of our great athletes simone ba les was taking a step back from today's competition. in announcing her decision, she cited the need to, quote, focus on my mental health and not jeopardize my health and well-being. there's no doubt that this is one of the hardest decisions miz b -- miss biles has had to make in her own life. it is not only viewed as a right decision, it is a courageous decision. she's the most decorated gymnast

in america's history. she's an inspiration to millions of aspiring athletes and fans around the globe and she is by all means a living legend. but she is also a human, a young woman who today had the courage to step forward and share her humanity with the world. she's an inspiration to all of us, on or off the mat, in competition or not in competition. over the past 18 months the pandemic has compelled each of us to appreciate our common humanity. covid-19 has claimed the lives of too many friends and family members. it's prevented us from coming together with people we cherish and put many of our plans on hold. it's caused and you compounded unimaginable stress and exacted an unimaginable toll. job loss, not enough food on the table, hardship, paying bills, racial injustice, all these stressors on life have been

magnified. so if we can learn from simone bi whr es' example -- biles' example today, it's a burden we've' we all carry a burden. i happen to think we have a responsibility if we request to help each other carry those burdens. here in congress we as lawmakers have the power to help people. for the single mother who lost her job waiting tables because of the pandemic, we have the power to help her pay her utility bills. for the recent graduate struggling to afford student loan payments and health insurance, we have the power to make life more affordable. and for the owner of a coffee shop who has considered laying off employees to stay in business, we have the power to help him keep the employees on the payroll. to me this is what president biden's plan to build back better is all about. eliminating the daily stressors that keep people up all night. giving people some breathing room so they can focus on the things that really matter.

mr. president, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. carper: okay. mr. president, like all of our colleagues, i was stunned to wake up this morning and find out that our friend and colleague, mike enzi, had been killed in a tragic accident -- i think involving a bicycle.

and i think we're still reeling from that. i just want to share a couple of thoughts, if i could. i see the senator from oklahoma is here to speak immediately after me. i'll be brief. i think maybe one of the last bills that mike enzi introduced i was privileged to cosponsor with him, and it was a postal naming bill. we do those from time to time, as the presiding officer knows, and there is a post office in wyoming that under the bill would be named under the late father of senator barrasso's wife. he served in the military with great honor and courage, awarded a number of military

awards,ically including the bronze -- i think including the bronze star and maybe others. i was proud to sponsor that bill and wrapped it up last december. one of my first memories of serving in the u.s. senate also involved mike enzi. the presiding officer, sitting right where you're sitting mr. presiding officer, and mike enzi took the floor and began to speak, and he talked about something called the 80-20 rule, the 80/20 rule. i didn't know what he was talking about. i'd heard several iterations of an 80/20 rule. he talked a bit about how he and ted kennedy, one of the most liberal members of the senate then, how they managed to work together and get a lot done, as senior members of what would become the health, education,

labor, pension committee, the help committee here in the senate. and i didn't know mike enzi. i was brand new here. he had been here a couple years before that. when he was finishing up, i asked one of the pages to give him a note and note said, dear senator enzi, before you leave the floor, would you come an chat with me? i was sitting right there. it was a slow day. so he finished up and came to chat with me as i was presiding officer. i said, mike, what is the 80/20 rule? and who does this apply here? -- and how does it apply here? ted kennedy, one of the more liberal senators, and i one of the more conservative ones, and we get to a lot done. he said, ted and i agree on about 80% of the issues that

come before the senate. and we disagree on maybe another 20%. what he and i have agreed to do -- we focus on the 80% wither we agree. the other 20% we'll set that aside and take it up another day. i said, is that what you do? he said, yeah. is this something you just started doing recent i will -- recently? no, we've done it for several years. i said, no kidding? he said, no kidding. when i think of that, we're going through a tough patch now with infrastructure and trying to figure out how to put together a bipartisan package with water and water infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, broadband, inner city passenger rail, transit, and it's not easy. and it's not easy. and as i heard about his -- mike's death today, i thought about, you know, that spirit,

the 80/20 rule, maybe we can take a little bit of that and use that to get us across the finish line on the legislation that's being worked on. i hope so. these are important bills, important legislation. and a lot of people in this country are counting on us to do that. the last thing i want to say son a personal note, you didn't think of mike enzi without thinking of his wife diana. they were inseparable. and they were here and they were in wyoming and traveling all over the state together. as popular as he was, she might have been even more popular. i know that's the case in my state with my wife and me. but i just with aens to say to her and to -- but i just want to say to her and the enzi family, a real thank you for sharing not just with the people of wyoming but the people of this country a very, very good man, a very good man. and we're grateful for that gift

that you've shared with us and mourn his death. untimely. died too soon. thrilled, privileged to have served with him. with that, i yield the floor.

mr. lankford: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, a few weeks ago, president biden nominated tracy stone-manning to be able to lead the bureau of land management. many people in my state don't know much about the bureau of land management. we don't have a lot of area that's actually managed in our state by b.l.m. it has more than 10,000 employees. it manages roughly an eighth of the nation's land including 65 million acres of our forests. lands that hold 30% of our minerals. and whoever leads this entity, not only leads the issue of how we're managing our forests, how we're handling our minerals, energy development, livestock grazing and, yes, timber harvesting. the individual president biden nominated we now know was an

earth first ecoterrorist. she actually typed out, as she has admitted in the past, a threatening letter that was sent out to leaders that were doing forestry in idaho saying in her letter that she typed out -- and she has admitted that she typed out the threatening letter -- that we, as she put it, drove 500 pounds of spikes into the trees in the idaho forest and then threatened this emto say, if you harvest -- them to say, if you harvest those trees, it will not be good for you. the challenge that we have here is that we have an individual that has admitted that she actually was a part of a group to do tree spiking. what we don't know is if she actually drove the spikes? what we do know is she turned evidence on others that did.

she is the with unthat did the letter from a rented typewriter to make sure she couldn't be traced. and in the letter said, if you find me, it'll be your worst nightmare. so what do we do about this? typically when you're going to deal with a person who handles forestry for the united states and the bureau of land management and you find out that this person has been involved in tree spiking, which is is actually designed to injure or kill people that are logging or people that are actually harvesting the lumber in the saw mills and actually processing those lumbers, it would cause a pause. i cannot imagine what it's going to be if she's actually confirmed in this position and the individuals that come to her to get a permit to be able to do any kind of forestry work that they would have to actually come to her office, what they would think when they actually walk through the door because the bureau of land management notices timber sales and signed off on timber sales for the

country. it makes forest product sales plans. it revises themans for all land management including for timber vaccines the bureau of land management is also the group that sends in the firefighters for wildfires which could be some of these same trees in the days ahead that apparently still have the spikes in them from decades ago. understanding this is not just a loose issue. individuals from the biden administration just recently have talked about timber harvesters and haulers are critical to forest management across the country. we need these individuals to be able to help with our forest management. we have wildfires in areas that individuals in the biden administration have testified because we're actually not maintaining our forest management enough. we're not doing enough harvesting and thinning in those areas, and so it's actually a problem. in fact, christopher french, the deputy chief for the national

forest system, recently testified the forest service research indicates we need to dramatically increase the extent and impact of fuels treatment such as thinning, harvesting, planting, and prescribed burning across all landscapes. but yet the leader for the bureau of land management that has been recommended is an individual that has been outspoken in opposition so much so that she has been active and actually -- in actually promoting spiking trees. and it's not just spiking trees. it's also been her environmental issues about grazing land. understanding the bureau of land management is responsible for millions of acres of grazing pasture land across the west, because the federal government owns so much land across the west, many ranchers actually then lease out some of that land for grazing. she has been outspoken as an opponent against this. that's not going to help our ranchers across the west. and what was most stark to me

was this presentation that she had years ago. where she designed several what she considered to be environmental-focused advertisements, this being one of them, where she has a picture of a young girl, and the heading is can you find the environmental hazard in this photo? then she lists out at the bottom of it, atwater, it's the cute baby. is the environmental hazard. with this statement below that she wrote -- we breed more than any other industrialized nation. listen. i understand every president has the right to be able to pick their team. but when the leader of the bureau of land ma'am considers this little girl to be an environmental hazard, have we not crossed a threshold of saying our problem with our environment is that we have too many little girls?

honestly, is anyone else disturbed by this as a possibility to be able to lead the bureau of land ma'am, to make a decision about how we are going to manage our forest, how we are going to manage our grazing land, and what's going to be the general attitude about permitting and people, because apparently from what she wrote, one of the biggest environmental hazards we have as a country is we breed too much. i don't think that little girl is a hazard. i think it's a little girl. and i will absolutely oppose tracy stone-manning to be able to lead the bureau of land management, and i would ask my colleagues, even one of my colleagues on the other side, to be able to say do you not see a problem with this nominee? if so, let's find another person. surely there is another democrat out there that doesn't have this set of views that can lead our

forestry, our grazing area, our minerals rights, surely there is one more democrat that's out there somewhere that does not share these views, because i don't think that little girl is a hazard. i think she is a blessing. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i ask unanimous consent to be able to speak for five minutes. following me, the senator from wyoming be able to speak for eight minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i rise to speak about the life and legacy of our friend, mike enzi, and his sudden loss. i saw mike via zoom just last week at the senate prayer breakfast. mike got up a little earlier than the rest of us to be able to join us over the internet from wyoming. but he liked participating in the prayer breakfast.

as we were reminded by some of our colleagues -- i think senator lankford may have mentioned it -- mike could always be depended on as somebody who was a last-minute cancellation, which happened from time to time. of course, it had only been a matter of a few months since mike had retired, marking the conclusion of a storied career in public service. mike literally did it all. he served in the military and at every level of government, from the mayor's office in gillette to the state legislature to here in the united states senate. and he always put the people of wyoming first. mike was pretty unique in this place because he never sought the spotlight. in many ways, it seemed like he was allergic to getting any sort of attention from the press or otherwise. whether he was in the midst of a high-pressure negotiation or celebrating a big legislative victory, mike did not run to the tv cameras or reporters in the

hallways. he preferred to work quietly behind the scenes, effectively, resolving differences in a quiet, thoughtful way. and once he succeeded, he didn't claim the credit for himself. he claimed credit for others. during mike's 24 years in the senate, he certainly had a lot of successes to celebrate, and he let me in on his winning formula not long after i got here. at the time, he and the liberal lion of the senate, teddy kennedy, were chairman and ranking member of the health, education, labor, and pensions committee. i think they may have swapped out as majorities changed. one became chairman, the other became ranking member. but i asked him how mike, the staunch western conservative that he was, could work so productively with somebody who shared very different views, and he told me it's easy. it's the 80/20 rule.

you're not going to agree or disagree with 100% of what someone has to say, but if you focus on the 20% or that that you will never agree on, you overlook the 80% that you can agree on. well, as simple as it may sound, it is a winning formula for success here in the senate, and more of us should practice the 80/20 rule. at a time when more attention is paid to what divides us than what unites us, i hope the legacy of mike enzi and the 80/20 rule will remain a constant in the senate. as we honor the life and legacy of our good friend, mike enzi, there's another favorite saying of his that has been on my mind. he used to say you have to have an attitude of gratitude. well, mike was always grateful, grateful to god, grateful to live in this great country, grateful to the people of wyoming for the opportunity to serve them, and of course

grateful for his wonderful family and their endless love and support. sandy and i send our condolences to mike's wife diana, their children, their grandchildren, and the entire enzi clan. we are grateful to them that they shared their beloved patriot remark with us for so many years. mr. barrasso: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: mr. president, i come to the floor this afternoon because we have heard a lot here today about tracy stone-manning, her nomination to head the bureau of land management, and how completely disqualified she is for that post. as you've heard, it's a critically important agency, especially for those of us in western states. it manages almost 1/8 of the entire land mass of the united states. in my home state of wyoming, the

bureau of land management oversees 18 million acres. if you came through the energy committee, i tell my friend and colleague joe manchin, that's more territory than the entire state of his home state of west virginia, and in your case, mr. president, more than the size of your state by a lot. it's not just my state. this agency oversees 12 different -- or 12 million acres of public land in arizona, 48 million in -- acres of land in nevada, eight million in montana. it's like that all across the west. included in the land that it manages is almost 65 million acres of federal forests. the bureau is also responsible for hundreds of millions of acres of mineral land below the surface. it's critical to america's energy independence because a lot of energy is under those lands. tracy stone-manning has no business leading this agency, none whatsoever. she helped plant a tree spiking

in one of our country's national forests. she sent a threatening letter to the united states forest service about it. she did not cooperate with federal investigators, blocked the investigation, only testified when she received immunity and lied to our committee about it. there is bipartisan concern about this nomination. i will tell you bob abbey, who was president obama's bureau of the bureau of land management said her actions should disqualify her. president obama's nominee to run that bureau. bob knows her involvement with tree spiking should eliminate her from any consideration. so steve ellis who was the deputy director of the bureau of land management during the obama administration and he was the highest ranking career official at the agency, he raised concerns about stone-manning as well. this is what he said. he said much of the focus seems to be on whether this is a democrat or republican thing. he said the lens that i look at

this through is as a 38-year career person in both agencies, and that letter she wrote went to my forest colleagues -- forest service colleagues on the clearwater. he makes a very important point. how can the men and women of the bureau of land ma'am, people who have devoted their lives to work for this agency, how can they respect president biden's nominee, tracy stone-manning, when they know she threatened their colleagues at the u.s. forest service? conservation organizations have begun to pull their support as well. the dallas safari club and the houston safari club which each represent thousands of outdoors men and women have now both reversed their support and publicly oppose her nomination now that they have learned this additional information. radical ideas are nothing new for tracy stone-manning. around the time of the criminal tree spiking, she wrote her graduate thesis. in her thesis, she argued that americans need to have fewer children because children are a

threat to the environment. even making -- she even made ads to promote these ideas. these are ideas you hear in communist china, not from a nominee to be the director of the bureau of land management. now, some democrats have defended tracy stone-manning by saying this tree spiking was decades ago. her radical views have not changed, i will assure you, mr. president, because right now many states in the west are burning from raging, dangerous wildfires. management of these fires has become a constant conversation at the energy and natural resources committee and on the senate floor, and we actually discussed it this morning in the energy and natural resources committee. tracy stone-manning has current views on this one as well. her husband richard manning wrote in "harper's" that firefighters should let homes built in forests burn. he wrote that's a rude and

satisfying justice, satisfying justice in burning down a house of someone who builds in a forest. now, tracy stone-manning is not responsible for the views of her husband, but last september, as wildfires burned last year and we had hearings on those, she actually endorsed her husband's views on letting it burn and letting the houses burn. in a tweet, she called her husband's comments a clarion call. it wasn't 30 years ago. it was ten months ago. tracy stone-manning endorsed her husband's call that actions to homes in the forest should be allowed to burn. there are currently wildfires burning in alaska, arizona, colorado, california, idaho, montana, oregon, south dakota, utah, washington, and wyoming. all of these states have b.l.m. lands. this year's largest fire, the bootleg fire, has burned over 400,000 acres, seven homes, and more than 40 other buildings.

thousands of homes are still threatened. this year, around two million acres have burned so far in the western states. last year alone, wildfires burned and damaged over 17,000 structures. and what do they call it? what does her husband call it and what does she tweet about? satisfying justice in burning down the house. i will con -- how can senate democrats vote to confirm a nominee of an advocate who has voted to let the homes of their own constituents burn? these views are disturbing and dangerous. president biden has made the threat of domestic terrorism a focus of his administration. his own national security council recently released a strategy to address domestic terrorism and specifically includes the threat of domestic environmental terrorists. but he has nominated someone who admitted to conspiring with

terrorists. every senator needs to consider carefully if they want their name associated with tracy stone-manning. all ten republicans on the energy and natural resources committee have asked president biden to withdraw the nomination. we all voted against her nomination last week during a committee business meeting. she conspired with ecoterrorist, lied to the senate and holds radically irrehencible views and tracy stone-manning must never be the director of bureau of land management. i strongly oppose her nomination and urge each and every member to do the same. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: thank you, mr. president. in montana public lands are a way of life. they create thousands of jobs, they bring billions of dollars into our state, and they form the backbone of our outdoor

heritage. today -- today we have an opportunity to take another important step forward in putting a real public servant who holds herself accountable to the taxpayer once confirmed to lead the bureau of land management. i know tracy stone-manning. she is a tireless advocate for the outdoor spaces that make montana special. she is a collaborative -- collaborative, responsible leader. and at the b.l.m. she will bring nonpartisan stewardship to our nation's greatest treasures. tracy is dedicated to smart management of our public lands, she is dedicated to the habitat and outdoors and one of the hardest working people that i know. but unfortunately, members of this body have played politics with her nomination. they have dragged a good

person's name through the muck in a cynical smear campaign ginned up by folks who would rather play politics than see a qualified, competent woman running the bureau of land management. now, it is particularly galling that these same folks stood by silently or worst cheered as william penny left the -- pendley led the -- he called for the federal government to sell off all of its public lands and actively encouraged armed standoffs between law enforcement and ranchers. it is a shame that we have people who put politics above people and our public lands, but that is the unfortunate reality of the united states senate in washington, d.c. the person these folks have made

tracy out to be is not the person i have known and worked with over the last decade-plus. if she were here -- if she were there, i with a not be standing here supporting her today. she will bring good, old fashioned commonsense to the bureau of land management and will be able to manage our public lands and the thousands of jobs that rely on the public lands of she will lead the agency with dignity, honor and integrity and as she has done her entire career, tracy will bring folks together from both sides of the aisle and all sides of the issue to get things done and make a real impact on our public lands. i am proud to support tracy stone-manning and i look forward to seeing the great work she will do as the next leader of the bureau of land management. i urge my colleagues to do the same. mr. president, i yield the floor.

i ask consent all remaining time be yielded back. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the question comes on the motion to discharge. mr. tester: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 50, the nays 49, and the motion is agreed to. the nomination is -- the nomination is discharged and will be placed on the calendar. the democratic leader -- the majority leader. mr. schumer: i move to proceed -- whoops, i'm sorry. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader.

mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 232. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. opposed, say nay. the ayes have it. the motion is greed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of homeland security, ur mendoza jaddou, of

california, to be the director of the united states citizenship and immigration services. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: the clerk: , cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive number 232, ur mendoza jaddou, to be director of the united states citizenship and immigration services for the department of homeland security. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call for the cloture motion filed today, july 27, be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i'm here once again to shed a little light on the dark money scheme to capture and control our supreme court. as folks may recall, my first two speeches covered the early foundation of this scheme, prominent conservative lawyer louis powell's detailed strategy memo for the corporate u.s. chamber of commerce and then justice louis powell's work on the court to assure his corporate power strategy's success. from there i turned to what historian richard hofsteter

called the paranoid style in politics and how extreme mega donors like the kochs harnessed the right-wing fringe and how they had the corporate administrative agency warfare. and then i discussed the schemes two big dark money wins at the supreme court, the -- afpf case and voter suppression case. the nutshell of this is that it's a short jump for big donors from regulatory capture, which is a well understood and broadly observed phenomenon to applying known techniques of regulatory mrs. capito: -- capture to

capture a court. mr. whitehouse: one of the most important players in applying capture techniques to the judiciary has been the federalist society. i'll start with some very straightforward observations. every member of the court's six justice republican majority is a current or former member of the federalist society. justices regularly headline federalist society fundraisers like the gala brett kavanaugh chose for his first major public speaking engagement after his disastrous confirmation and they boast of their association with the group. the federalist society is a dark money organization. it receives millions in anonymous donations. the federalist society carefully vetted and promoted each member

of the current court majority. each member rose to the top of the group's donor-approved slates of nominees. each was backed by the federalist society's extended network of satellite groups. for the dark money forces behind the capture of the court, the federalist society became their nomination's gatekeeper. the federalist society has three component efforts. the first is basically a law school debate club. at more or less every law school they organize seminars, invite judges, academics to speak. it's standard law school stuff. the second is a washington think tank, they host podcasts, host events. this is to reorder priorities within the legal system and to create a network of members that

extends to all levels of the legal community. then there is the third federalist society operation. this is the gatekeeper. it doesn't really care about fostering young legal minds. it doesn't care about galas or podcasts either. it cares about one thing, the allegiance of republican-appointed justices to right-wing donors' interest, and the dark money slew skates into the federalist society provides the perfect means of influence. money talks, mr. president, dark money whispers. the federalist society gatekeeper role began with the hiring of a cornell law graduate named leonard leo fresh from a

clerk ship in 1991. he served as a pipeline for right-wing lawyers to rise through the federalist society ranks to the federal courts. observers say the federalist society didn't hire him as an attorney, they saw in him a savvy networker and fundraiser. steven steeles said that the idea was to build what he called a network with leonard leo at the center to give conservatives to meet one another and check one another out. under leo's new system, quote, the one thing lawyers all would have in common is they all know leonard and he knows all of them. big right-wing donors recognize the opportunity that leo's federalist society operation presented, a trusted broker to sift through eager legal talent and pluck out adherence to

donor-friendly right-wing legal doctrines, and then push the most promising adherents towards judgeships where they could advance the scheme's ultimate goal of courts that will reliably rule in the donor's favor. as "the new yorker's" jeffrey tubeon written, leo predicted the key funders, including linda and harry bradley, richard scath, and the mischef and maligned koch blowers. the scheme also -- koch brothers. it also rigged in money through donors trust which has been called the dark money a.t.m. of the right. as another observer of the legal conservative movement, amanda

huskey said, you can win elections and have mass mobilizations, but unless you can change the courts, there are limits to what you can do. end quote. in the second bush administration the federalist society quietly became the big donor's nomination turnstile. need someone to pay for public relations cavalry to rescue a struggling circuit court nominee? leo's donors made it happen. according to a 2003 e-mail from a white house staffer to the then-presidential staff secretary, a young guy by the name of brett kavanaugh, leo coordinated, quote, all outside coalition activity regarding judicial nominations, end quote. in another e-mail uncovered by "the washington post," bush aides referred to leo explicitly

as their judicial nomination's cash machine. leonard leo will know, they said, where to find money to hold a presser for a failing nominee. that's from one bush aide to another. they go on, we probably don't want the fed soc, federalist society, paying for it, but he might know some generous donor. end quote. leo's official fed soc biostill online today boasts that he organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the roberts and alito u.s. supreme court nominations. the goal, of course, was to change the court. the court changed. under chief justice roberts, the court's republican-appointed majority served up scores of partisan 5-4 decisions delivering partisan win after

partisan win to identifiable republican donor interests. even before the republican majority expanded to six, that run of wins reached 80 -- 80 partisan 5-4 decisions, a judicial rout, favoring very happy donors. when donald trump assumed office, the federalist society gatekeeper role became even more obvious and even more toxic. you may recall that dark money emperor charles koch made waves when he told his right-wing network he could support neither hillary clinton nor donald trump in 2016. but the house of koch and the house of trump soon reached an accommodation. the house of koch decided on a

grand trump gesture for their scheme donors. let their operative, leonard leo, hand pick a list of supreme court nominees for trump to announce early in the general campaign. for the price of known scheme-approved supreme court prospects, peace might be acquired between house of koch and house of trump. trump announced the list. for what it's worth, i think the rest accommodation was for house of trump to turn over all energy an environmental positions in government to climate change deniers approved by house of koch. and at the end of the day it was probably a lot of the same dark money behind both of those accommodations. anyway, rewind to 2016, and

recall how large the supreme court loomed over that presidential campaign. justice scalia died suddenly during a hunting trip. mitch mcconnell broke with all senate norms and denied president obama any hearing or vote for president obama's pick to replace scalia, judge merrick garland. this vacancy would decide the partisan balance of the court, which meant the 2016 election would determine whether the 5-4 right-wing majority that had delivered to abundantly for the donors would end or be renewed for years or even generations. remember louis powell's member wrote, -- memo, this may be the

most important instrument for social and economic change. nothing could focus the scheme's donors on the stakes of that election more clearly than that vacancy. with scalia's sudden death, the scheme was at risk. so scheme donors' dark money flowed in ever larger amounts to the federal society, to leonard leo, and to donald trump. ambitious judges noticed. a court of appeals judge described to me the conduct of some of his colleagues as auditioning, auditioning. they weren't just deciding cases for the parties before them. they had another audience beyond the courtroom. you don't audition without someone to audition to. these judges knew they were being assessed and they

auditioned. and no one auditioned harder than brett kavanaugh. he filled his court of appeals decisions with signaling and even set the record for speeches to "the federalist" society. i think it was over 50. he knew who he was auditioning for. when trump took the white house, the federalist society assumed control of judicial nominations, at least the important ones. trump said so himself. he wasn't even subtle about it. house of trump had peace to keep with house of koch. this was no time for subtlety. trump's new white house council don mcgann even joked about this role. of course at a 2017 federalist society event. he said our opponents of judicial nominees frequently claim the president has

outsourced his selection of judges. that is completely false. i have been a member of the federalist society since law school, still am. so frankly, it seems like it's been in sourced. leo became the gatekeeper in chief, actually taking leaves of absence from the federalist society to advise trump directly on supreme court nominations. now, there are unanswered questions about whether this was even legal. but the point was clear. virtually all major trump nominees would be scheme chosen, donor approved, fed soc members. and indeed 86% of trump's supreme court and appellate court nominees were or are members. leo and the federalist society's control ran deep. in leo the donors controlled an

agent to orchestrate every aspect of supreme court judicial battles. and they provisioned him with dark money beyond imagining and with a devious structure of front groups to hide behind while effectuating their scheme. we are still learning about the scope of leo's covert funding and influence. but a 2019 "washington post" expose painted a remarkable picture. a vast network of leo-affiliated front groups, shell entities with no employees and vague connections to leo cutouts, shared post office boxes, common contractors and officers across separate entities, even some

sharing presidents. dark money funders, anonymous advertising, and enormous pay packages for operatives. it has the earmarks, mr. president, of a covert operation of the sort that is run by hostile countries in the intelligence arena. but this covert operation was run in america against america by americans. by the post's reckoning, $250 million in dark money flowed through this apparatus. testimony before the senate judiciary committee's courts subcommittee which i chair has since updated that number to $ $400 million. groups in this apparatus have gorged on dark money.

their coffers swelling by orders of magnitude as leo's influence grew. for instance, in 2002, donors trust, the scheme's dark money a.t.m., had contributed $5,000 to the federalist society. stroll forward to the most recent year on record, it contributed $7 million. before 2010, the federalist society received an indicational anonymous gift of $1,000 or more. at most one per year. over the last decade, it averaged more than a dozen each and every year. donors were not kidding around, not with that kind of money. $400 million. the scheme to capture the court was deadly serious. 11 days after donald trump was

sworn into office, he announced neil gorsuch, a name from the federalist society's infamous list to fill scalia's former seat. then brett kavanaugh was hand walked by leonard leo to the top of the list after all his ardent auditioning from his court of appeals seat. and seven days before donald trump lost the 2020 election, amy coney barrett, a regular featured speaker at federal society events filled ruth bader ginsburg's former seat. the schemes, federalist society gatekeeper operation had delivered to its big donors a complete overhaul of the court in less than four years. one man, his secretive array of

front groups, and hundreds of millions of scheme donors' money delivered a donor-"proved six-justice majority to the court. the federalist society was the tturnstile that controlled the appointments, and dark money was the inducement that controlled the turnstile. to be continued.

mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, as i give the closing remarks, i want to alert everyone listening that at the conclusion of the closing, senator inhofe will hold the floor for his remarks and his remarks will be regarding our common friend senator enzi. let me first ask unanimous consent that the nomination of p.n.193 of texas to be assistant secretary of labor for veterans employment and training be jointly referred to the help and veterans affairs committees. the presiding officer: without objection. bht i ask unanimous consent that

the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business for senators permitted to speak up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills enclock, calendar number 36, h.r. 208, calendar number 37, h.r. 264, calendar number 35, s. 566, and calendar number 101, h.r. 772. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measures en bloc. mr. whitehouse: -- i ask unanimous consent that the bills en bloc be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table all en bloc. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the finance committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 503 and the senate proceed to its

immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 503, a bill to amend part d of title 4 of the social security act and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. whitehouse: i know of no further debate. the presiding officer: is there further debate? if not, all those in favor will say aye. opposed nay. the ayes appear to have it. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the committee on banking, housing, urban affairs be discharged from further consideration and the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 452. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 452 to award a congressional gold medal to

willy o. reed in recognition of his extraordinary commitment to hockey and recreational opportunity. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the stabenow substitute amendment be considered and agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of h.r. 1002 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 1002, an act to amend the controlled substances act to authorize the debarment of certain rental strantses and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed.

mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the commerce committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to senate resolution 317. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 317, resolution congratulating the milwaukee bucks and the fans of the milwaukee bucks around the world on winning the 2021 national basketball association championship. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? hearing none, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. whitehouse: i was going to say reserving the right to object but i won't go there. i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed

to the consideration of senate res. 323 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 323 recognizing the 75th anniversary and the importance of the act and so forth. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. whitehouse: 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. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of senate resolution 324 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 324 designating july 30, 2021, as national whistle-blower appreciation day. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. whitehouse: 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. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it vowrn until -- adjourn until 10:30 a.m. wednesday, july 28. molg the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired be expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the wilcox nomination. 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. whitehouse: if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the aforementioned remarks of our distinguished friend senator inhofe. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. inhofe: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, let me thank my friend for recognizing me for something i consider to be and he considers to be and the rest of the senate considers to be very significant. our hearts are very heavy today because, like so many of my colleagues, i am mourning the death of my dearest friend, senator mike enzi of wyoming. i say dearest friend because he is. you know, mike enzi was a quiet leader in the senate. there aren't too many quiet leaders in the senate. when he talked, everyone listened. and that's a rare quality in a senator. he was humble. now, other than his humility, we

had a lot in common. we were both businessmen before getting into politics. we had that in common. we were both mayors of major cities. we had that in common. we were elected to the senate within just about the same time, just a very short time after we -- the first, the second came along. so we had a lot in common. something people might not know about mike is he had a heart for the downtrodden. he helped people that no one else helped. that's unusual. and the thing is, nobody knew it. just a handful of people that were with him. one of the places where i spent a lot of time with him, as a couple of the other members, john boozman of arkansas, mike rounds of south dakota, and

others, we were with him in some of these places where no one else really knew what he was doing. some people might not know about mike, that he had a heart for the downtrodden to help people that no one else would help. i spent -- i spent this morning reminiscing with friends of mine from all over the world who were calling up. most of them were in different time zones. they found out about mike's death later on. it put us in a position where we were -- we were talking to old friends that mike and we had in common. and that happened most of the night. and the stories came from all over the world. i think over the coming days and the weeks, america is going to learn a lot more about mike enzi. the only reason they never knew it before was because he was -- he was humble, but you will see that he had a hidden impact on

people. he had an impact on people that resonated for long periods of time, for years. he deserved enormous credit for his lifetime of service but accepted none. we both have a heart for africa and traveled there often, whether to promote our work that we were doing officially or the great partnerships for mike to see the implementation of pet petfar. i say this because if you were to single out one bill that helped more people than any other bill, likely arguably in the united states senate, it would be petfar. mike was the leading architect of petfar when aids was running across the globe. we all remember that. everywhere we looked, there were

people who were contacted with aids, especially undeserving places like africa and underserved. it was time for the united states to step up. president george w. bush was committed to whatever funds it might require. keep in mind this was the most significant, heart-warming thing that had ever happened in this senate. so george w. bush said we will come with any funds that might be required. the job of the senate was to structure the way the money was to be spent, but we needed someone to lead it. that was what the president at that time said. well, the majority leader at that time -- at that time, republicans were in the majority so we had the majority leader in the senate at that time was dr. bill frist of tennessee. we remember him, the fine job that he did. i remember him looking over the assembled members of our caucus and thinking -- because he told

me this afterwards -- he was thinking millions of lives are at stake. who do i entrust with this job? millions of lives are at stake. who do i entrust with this job? his answer was mike enzi, the shoe salesman from gillette. and that bill, pepfar, was one of the greatest, most generous, most effective bills passed in my lifetime and the most significant piece of legislation ever for the country, the continent of africa. it was mike enzi's skill, toughness, compassionate determination that got it done and kept it on track for a decade. millions of lives have been saved. millions of lives have been saved as a result of that one mission of mike enzi. mike had a story he would tell about his approach to tough problems. i have -- i have heard this probably 50 times over the years, but i still wish i could

hear it and hear him tell it one more time. i will try to do it justice. the -- mike was in south africa. by the way, this -- this thing that happened to him down there, something that changed his whole mission of prayer. he was with paul. i can't tell you who paul's last name was. mike couldn't tell us who paul's last name was. but he was a leader in south africa. on one of his first visits, mike asked paul what he could do for him. paul asked mike to pray, and mike said he would pray for solutions. the way mike told it, paul leapt up, slammed his fist on the table, and he exclaimed no. he said we pray for people. then the issues will solve themselves. pray for the people. see, this is what changed his whole prayer behavior until his

death. mike took that to heart and truly lived it. he kept the people as his focus, knowing that by doing so, the solutions would follow. throughout his trips, he was always there. he was always there. when you couldn't find mike, he would be account kids, with kids that had problems, in tanzania. the first call i got this morning was from lazaro, from tanzania. the first to express his condolences to mike. then the second one was -- call that i got was -- the first call was of the congo. it started -- he started a prayer breakfast there where he brought together political enemies, and that's still going on. so mike had started a prayer breakfast in the republic of congo in a place where nothing -- it's still going on

today. in uganda, another -- he went up to northern uganda. we were together at that time. he went with him to see the devastation of joseph kony and the l.r.a. people in this chamber know about the l.r.a., lord's resistance army. it was joseph kony. remember, joseph kony would be the guy that would go and take the kids out of the villages and teach them to scoot and kill people. i'm talking about 10-year-old kids, 11-year-old kids. if they didn't learn, they had to go back to their village and murder their parents. it was something that went on for a long period of time. i think we have here -- this is mike. both of them were here in both of these pictures, in the top one is that area in northern uganda where all that was taking place where joseph kony was

going through these horrible things. and diana was there and diana is with one of the nuns that was there at that time. the next picture down there, where is that one from? it is also uganda? that was also uganda. that was when those little kids were nearing the age where they would be captured and sent and he was able to stop that. in ethiopia, in yadabon. that was a place where we had a loved one that was someone that we really cared a lot for. she did so much for poor people. and yadabon was a place where they would go up and teach people, this very charitable group did. we used to call mike the socks

and shoes man. he was a shoe salesman. that's how he started out as a shoe salesman. but he also somehow got a hold of more shoes and socks to take to needy places, primarily in africa. so that's where we spent time with him. rwanda, that was when -- oh, the next picture. this has the president of rwanda and his wife jeanette. here is jeanette down here with his wife. it was somebody that we all loved. in fact, we had the wives there, four members of the senate who were with us at that time. this is one that -- more of the things that we just did together. kenya, a very similar thing happened. oh, this is another thing that's taking place today.

in kenya, we went to the national prayer breakfast. that was six or seven years ago. we were there. we played a part in that national prayer breakfast, but at the time, there had been a guy named kenyata who was president of kenya and odenga. odenga and kenyata were bitter enemies. they talked about killing each other. they actually tried several times. mike made a statement there with 4,000 witnesses in kenya and told the story about -- about love and how these people had loved these two members when they were in parliament together many years ago, that they loved each other, and invited them to come up and to embrace, and they did that, and that was when the -- between two groups of people headed up by a kenyata and odenga.

they became right at that point friends for life, and today they are still friends. kenyata is retiring from -- and odenga most likely will be elected to be his successor. now, that was years ago when that happened. western sahara. right now, we are fighting this thing that we are very much on the side of western sahara in a fight. the picture you are looking at i think is a picture of president galle. and then wherever we went, we would also see -- mike would disappear. these are the only two that he could find in that area that were from his state, but nonetheless there he is with the leader, the president of that country. john kupor, the same thing happened. it is kind of funny. if you go to ghana.

not to be confused with uganda. there are more jesus people there than anywhere else. so he named a stand to help some people there. he called it for jesus. he started a prayer group with the young people on this visit. he is now the president. we are getting a little bit old. this happened a long time ago. he was close to him. that was another call we got early this morning. there are probably half a dozen other countries in africa that we visited together, and a dozen or so outside the continent. no matter how difficult the trip was, whether he was getting left in kosovo, which actually happened, he was with a bunch of kids in kosovo, we miscounted

our passengers and had to go back and get him. no matter how difficult the trip was by the codel, leading the new term called getting enzi-ed. that is a new term here in the united states senate. if you are late someplace, if you get left alone, you are getting enzi-ed, or in uganda when the ceiling in his hotel room fell on him when he was sleeping, he was always there, no matter how tough things were. it was more than the policy for mike. he also loved people, all people. we couldn't go anywhere without him packing hundreds of soccer balls and shoes to give away to kids. now, i don't know how it happened, soccer balls and shoes. i don't know how many thousands of soccer balls and shoes that he had distributed to these kids, but one thing they all had in common, they were all barefooted when they started. one of the things that he --

that we attributed to him, because it was one of his favorite proverbs, proverbs 31, 8 and 9. this is actually not by solomon. this is by someone a lot of people haven't heard of. it was king lenwell. speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute, speak up and judge fairly, defend the rights of the poor and the needy, and that was the impact that mike had on everyone. he and diana also regularly hosted parties for capitol staff. this is kind of interesting. we're kind of used to parties around here. every night there are parties and all that, but not mike's parties. mike's parties were for the people. they were for the staff. they were for the people who were -- you didn't see every day. you would see them every day but you would never give appreciation to them, the cleaning staff, food service,

electricians, and others, these are the people, he and mike and his wife would do together and would -- would hold these parties for them. and diana enjoyed it just as much as mike did. he loved those parties. he also loved talking about how during one of them he was talking to an electrician in the capitol, someone who is working as an electrician in the capitol who kept the place going every day, we understand that and the man turned to him after he talked for a long period of time, mike had asked him what an electrician does around the capitol and all of that and when he got all through, he looked at mike and said, we, mike, what do you do? that was mike. he never wanted attention from anyone. and he always laughed about that story. that was good. kay and i were talking today about how much a team mike and diana were and how well they

complemented each other. she was saying how much fun they were to be with because they truly enjoyed everything that they did. as kay put it, and that's my wife, she said they both looked for ways to help people. while mike was steadfast and intentional, diana was a whirlwind of energy that brought vision to life. you know, kay and mike were also both members of the zipper club. i bet you guys don't know what the zipper club was because they both had their heart valves replaced, about the same time, and my wife used a cow valve and mike used a mechanical valve. and his wife would say that -- diana would always tell kay that she could hear mike's valve rattling at night so kay always

told him that he should have it done with a cow bell. these are very important subjects we're talking about here, but they are things that -- the kind of memories that is really who he is and who he was. mike never missed our weekly senate prayer breakfast where he was a leader for many years. he even had a card with -- he had a card with all 100 senators, that's all the senators who are here in this room right now, that's enough -- all 100 senators, and he divided the 100 senators up in five groups. and so he would pray for five senators, 20 senators each day. and one time when he was leading the prayer breakfast, he invited king abdullah from jordan to join us. in fact, king abdullah was here last week and i shared this story with him because he was always a little nervous about

what he was going to say, the lord gave him a verse and it was an excellent example of prayer uniting different faiths. different faiths, we're talking about the muslims and mike enzi. and so king abdullah paid homage to him saying he should have been there again. even after he retired from the senate, he joined us every week for virtual prayer, discussion, and fellowship. tomorrow's breakfast will not be the same because he retired from the senate just a few months ago but he attended every -- every one of our -- our prayer breakfast by virtually. so as mike rounds said, i got to know mike on a deeper level each week, but more than anything else, bigger than any other accomplishment was mike's love

for his family. mike was utterly devoted to his family, more than 50 years diana, their three children, amy, emily, and brad, and their -- their grandchildren. come to think of it, mike's four favorite topics were jesus, the family and fishing. you might think that trout fishing wouldn't be anyone's favorite thing to do if they are a member of the senate, but he would travel around. there's not a lot of people but a lot of land in wyoming and one of the problems he would have, his staff would tell me, they would line up something he was supposed to be doing in another part of the state but he would go across the creek someone and if he was catching a fish, he would completely forget about where he was going to go. staffs don't enjoy that kind of thing, but that's what he did. he knew how to fly fish. one of the things we were anticipating from mike and diana, was that kay and i spent

a lot of time -- people don't realize in the state of oklahoma, we have more miles of shoreline than any of the 50 states. do you guys believe that? yeah, it's true. and nonetheless, he -- and he loved to fish so one of the things they were going to do when they retired, mike and diana, they were planning to travel the -- the route 66 and go all the way across. well, the cabin we have at a lake in oklahoma actually is right on route 66 so they were planning to come join us. kay and i joined the entire enzi family today in their grief and in celebration, in celebrating the life of a true servant leader, mike enzi. and all we can say is, mike, we'll see you soon. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the the presiding officer: the in the the senate voted to advance the bureau of land management director from the energy and natural resources committee to the full senate. later this week both expected on a pair of nominations infrastructure package continues watch live coverage of the senate when they return on cspan2. >> sunday c-span series in january 6, views from the house continue. three more members of congress

share stories what they saw and heard that day including democratic on that vote count that day. >> capitol officer came and said it was necessary to evacuate. and that we should take the hoods, their hoods under the seats of each seat in the chamber, take them out and be prepared to put them on. so, everybody did. i think when you pulled the little red tagged it activates it. people were not wearing them. there had been a teargas released in the chamber were advised might need to wear them for there is a term in this hissing noise from all of these hoods it was the

background of the moment. and of course the pounding had become much louder. at some points the chamber gallery member was yelling at the republican to call trump and have tried call off his mob. there were some yelling back and forth among members in the gallery. [inaudible] [background noises] call trump. [background noises] this week you'll also hear from republican rodney davis of illinois and pennsylvania democrat matt alene dean, january 6 views from the house on c-span, c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app.

including media,. >> the world changed and that media, was ready, internet traffic soared and we never slowed down. schools and businesses went virtual wheat powered a new reality. because at media, we are built to keep you ahead. >> media, support c-span as a public service along with the other television providers. giving it a front row seat to democracy. >> joining us this morning, jean front hill of arkansas served on the financial services committee. he's also a member of the congressional oversight commission that is looking into the covid-19 pandemic. sir we always appreciate your time thank you for being with us. let's start with a january 6

committee, the first hearing gets under way at 9:30 a.m. eastern time for it what youth have about that day? >> guest: greta it's nice to be with you today. b it was she was fully bipartisan majority, minority, committee on an equal basement, equal control of the staff. i think that would be much more appropriate, or the congressional tradition. my question would be first, why was the security parameter and plan so week on january 6? i read the senate committee report that looked into that. my question on why the sgt of arms be so ill-prepared for this enormous crowd those going to come to the capitol? >> host: what would you want

to hear of the capitol police officers the metro police are going to testify this morning? >> i went and visited capitol police the night of generally six. i saw them lay down exhausted from protecting the capitol all day with insufficient backup from their bosses. insufficient backup from the police and national guard, all arrived far too late to protect the capitol and to protect so many of not only the people at the capitol but the people doing the peoples work in the capitol. the house and the senate. i want to know what intelligence to the sgt of arms have before january 6? there is confusion about that. there's mixed messages that in fact there were concerns about radical groups that were going to take advantage ofhi this rally to try to do harms at the capitol third let's get the facts about that but let's find out who it stopped the

national guard or the d.c. metropolitan police to stop helping our capitol police earlier than when they finally arrived. sue and speaker pelosi has named cheney and singer toy this panel should they serve? >> the decision they have made to serve. she vetoed kevin mccarthy's nominees to the commission. private problem with that rate that is not how congress is set up. each side of the aisle appointed their members to committees, select committees, task forces. i'm here, speaker pelosi is preemptively blocking appointments bite leader mccarthy. that is not in the traditions of the house. i thought it was inappropriate. i think it weakens the credibility of this task force. >> host: your leader, kevin mccarthy has called cheney andre ken zenger.

>> i think they are elected members of congress and the republican party. they were elected by the people in their state they serve at the pleasure of those people. both are good people. they have a difference of opinion about what happened on january 6 and what to do about it. many in the republican party does not make them in my opinion bad representatives per. >> republican leaderca has rejected putting republicans on this select panel but he has said they will have their own investigation. what do you know about what that would look like? >> i assume republicans on the oversight committee on homeland security committee and house administration committee will ask -- to their own due diligence. this is what happened in the senate. we had senate committees looking at the aftermath of generally six for they issued a report i read it. right after january 6 i endorsed a bipartisan commission led by rodney davis

a member of the house administration committee. the ranking member to do a fully bipartisan equal subpoena power,ub equal staffing, i would have supported that. i'm afraid now this is boiled down into a very partisan approach a speaker pelosi. >> host: were talking with franchot republican of arkansas at member the financial services committee but is also one of two members on the covid-19 congressional oversight committee paid this was established by the cares act, congressman. describe your work. >> we were responsible for following very closely all the actions of the u.s. treasury department and the federal reserve from the time of the beginning of the covid pandemic, how they responded, how they applied financial assistance to business. and to governments including municipal and state governments.. that is work that continues. most of those programs have been terminated most were terminated at the end of 2020

and that federal reserve and the treasury are no longer actively supporting business or state municipal governments. they were at the height of the pandemic last year. see what w what surprised you about your work on this commission? >> first my compliments to the speed congress acted last march and the speed is secretary steven miniature than the secretary and jay powell the secretary the federal reserve put in place immediate action to calm the markets for both debt and equity to make sure funding got to small businesses, funding got twolo airlines, funding cut to state and local governments to give them immediate relief from shutting down the entire economy to fight covid-19. that was the most important issue. the other issues that are concerning to me was it fast enough? do we help enough businesses? to restructure those loans

correctly? that work still continues. >> only 36% of citizens in your state, congressmen are fully vaccinated among the lowest in the country why is that? >> i think they believe the pandemic was over. we were doing very wellin the early vaccinations from the gutter elderly citizens vaccinated very quickly we're doing well. then starting in april as the cases fell, deaths fell, hospitalizations built arkansas got complacent. all interstate and congressional district to consult with your physician if you have concerns, if you are pregnant, if you are concerned you have covid-19 per if about any impact of this virus and the vaccine consult with their physician. and then consider getting the vaccine. the fastest way to reduce hospitalizations and all the

public health crisis we have in our state right now is to the vaccine. by the thousand people in hospital as of last night. take a look at this headline congressman of what your governor has said asa hutchinson said conservative leaning account for low vaccination rate. >> guest: i don't know how to react to that i don't know it's conservative leaning. people have concerns about the vaccine. i don't if they are conservative or liberal concerns. the best way to handle it is to consult with your physician, your pharmacist. ask the questions you have about the vaccine and consider if it is right for you. we know the vaccine works. we know over 95% of the people in the hospital today and arkansas are unvaccinated. we also know if someone isan vaccinated and gets covid-19 the symptoms are much better. and the recovery is faster.

hundreds of millions of people taken when these covid-19 vaccines they are appropriate for most people. the vaccines are the way back to a full opening of the economy. and back to a safe environment both at work and at school for our families. >> let's get the call, carries a republican to newportic kentucky. it is amazing. the got the economy, the border everything's out-of-control covid we gave focus on the president all focused on january 6. we have a president that came

in their and pushed unity, pushed unity bipartisanship. it has been everything but that. i like here, not, think usurper. >> joe biden campaigned on being different. he campaigned on bringing the country together. bernie sanders in the senate, aoc, give you an example joe biden said sure i will work with a bipartisan group of senators on an infrastructure plan. let's focus it on surface transportation. let's focus it on broadband that our state's need. let's target it. let's have it paid for. let's make sure it is bipartisan for job biden agreed to that. the minute the press

conference was over at chuck schumer, democratic leader in the senate. nancy pelosi, speaker of the house. see said no were not doingn that. we are going to insist on the green nude deal in a three and half trillion additional spending and $2 trillion in tax increases. we are going to do that before we consider in the bipartisan effort. so effectively nancy pelosi and chuck schumer throat joe biden bipartisan infrastructure plan under the bus. that is why it is so frustrating to see the far left in the house block even that kind of common sense. >> gary in new york and independent, you are next with the congressman. >> caller: skews me the situation we have, people

coming over the border they are all over the place in airplanes. they wonder why covid is spreading all over the place. and nancy pelosi put adam shift on the committee is nothing but a liar. hank understands that one. no one asked any questions, the whole thing is just a shame. on the border situation isan putting them all over the place. then cnn and the rest of them say covid is spreading print i wonder why? they're coming over the border like crazy. when let's get a response to that, congressman. >> guest: that the serious question as of the border in march. we've had an unprecedented surge across the border because biden has ended the trump policies that were working on the border pretty ended construction of the wall. he ended the policies that caused people to stay in mexico to have their asylum claim adjudicated.

we had a surge like we have not seen in two decades. a million people have crossed the border and all the ones that are cops are not tested for covid-19. it's on the health and human services center. only if they are exhibiting symptoms are they tested for covid-19 and we are not vaccinating them. and it is gentleman from new york said their sending children all over the country. we have paid for their ticket we've delivered them to the cell phone number and we do not know if there tested. do not know if they are vaccinated. we have seen evidence now that our border patrol agents are coming down with covid. we see evidence there is a new variant coming from central

america and mexico that's even more dangerous potentially than the delta variance. he is right this is a public health crisis and a border crisis has to be laid at the feet of the vice president having ineffective, poor policies and a lack of management of public health at the southern border. >> congressman front page of the "washington journal" covid-19 mandates imposed on public workers in the states of california and new york. do you believe they arere constitutional? >> i do not know if they are constitutional. workplaces are going to consider doing anything to keep their workers safe and back open from masking, to vaccinations, to testing. i think that is common sense. we have lived with this now for 18 months. we know what to do to prevent the spread of covid-19.

the number one thing to do is to be vaccinated. also social distancing and if you are ill staying at home is very important. you'll see public employers and private employers consider strategies to keep people healthy and keep their place of business (used at colleges and universities offering testing and vaccination for students and encouraging that if they're going to come back on campus. i think this is a conversation that employers and major educational institutions are having pretty think it is common sense given the spike in cases. ♪ ♪ >> c-span "washington journal" part every day we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day i would discuss policy and the impact to protect me up wednesday morning will discuss the generally six select committee a north carolina democratic adams and will continue the conversation later with florida republican

congresswoman. watch c-span's "washington journal" seven eastern on wednesday morning a pitcher to join the discussion with their phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. ♪ ♪ >> , republican representative matt gates and marjorie taylor greene on the treatment of suspects being held in connection to the generate six attack on the capitol. embers of congress of the justice department has not responded to their requests or information here's a portion of that event but. >> we also gave notice of the department of justice that we were coming to ask our questions. as you can see we were not even let in the lobby. as a representative of disick with hundreds of thousands of people, it is unbelievable to me the department of justice will not let us in their lobby to even answer our