first step so i thought, you know what? i've been quiet most of my life. it's time to stop being quiet and stand up and get changing minds before things go completely insane and that's my goal here. other people, say, hey, we've got to speak up, i'm not scared, i'm not going to be shut down and you shouldn't be scared either and that's the thing to have. you have to have the attitude that you have to stand up for what you believe in at some point in your life or you might as well lay down and die. >> to watch the rest of the program, visit book tv.org. find the search box near the top of the page to look for pat and dave brown or the title of their book, black and white. >> the u.s. senate about to gavel into session. weeks of work on the 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill coming to an end today

with a final passage vote scheduled for 11 a.m. eastern. the senate will then immediately turn to the democrats' 3.5 trillion dollar budget plan. votes on that are expected throughout the day. now live to the senate floor on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal and ever-blessed god, the alpha and omega, thank you

for the gift of this day. give us the wisdom to use it to enrich lives by service to others. use our lawmakers to continue your momentum in our world, enabling them to become salt and light to this generation. as our senators strive to be productive members of the family of humanity, empower them to do your will. supply their needs out of the bounty of your celestial riches. if they fall, may they fall forward as they trust you to remain the author and finisher of their faith.

we pray in your great name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership

time is reserved. mr. leahy: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of h.r. 3684, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 100, h.r. 3684, an act to authorize funds for federal aid highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs and for other purposes. ms. cantwell madam president,.

ms. cantwell : washington needs infrastructure investment. we've been blessed with a growing economy and big trade economy based on the pacific rim and the actions of the pacific rim. so we need to keep moving product, we need to keep moving services and need to improve infrastructure to do so. i want to thank the commerce committee and those who worked on the act, specifically, kara, gleb, ronce, gigi, and nicole, jennifer, matthew, jamie, david martin, stacey baird, patrick enrock, masin, hannah albert,

elle asono, john, sean, brian mcdermott, john, jordan blue, lucy hunter, kelly ryan, melissa porter and david strickland. these are some of the individuals that were involved in putting together the commerce piece of the underlying bill. 20% of the underlying bill was the fowfer -- focus of the commerce committee. i want to thank senator wicker and his staff to pull off the bipartisan bill that came to the senate floor as part of this package. our legislation, i think, is an historic investment to rebuild the infrastructure, including for things like mega projects, basically helping to eliminate our problems, improve our

freight network, improve our environment and helping amtrak better serve the united states of america. all of these were important investments, but we should look at the first. first we're authorizing for the first time mega projects. mega projects often take up so much of our budgets in our states and federally they never get funded, but that doesn't mean they aren't critical to the united states. in the northeast corridor, we have mega projects and we have mega projects that will be critical like the columbia river crowing between vancouver and portland. these projects deserve the attention of the nation and this will do so. this bill puts historic investment in freight and in amtrak. as i mentioned the economy of a global nature is demanding that

we be able to move competitively our products. but if we don't continue to invest in freight, we're not going to get that job done. so this provides $66 billion to improve our passenger rail and freight system, the single largest investment that we've had in our amtrak system that was funded 50 years ago. the commerce committee bill laid the foundation for this funding which i believe will do three things. it will mean more investment to fix the problems in the northeast corridor. more specifically, it will give us the ability to have more sequencing of trains throughout the united states of america. and it will provide for new service in city fares that i hope will help economy in many states with more investment. i know the senator from montana, senator tester, was more than adamant about our amtrak testing

and the services that montana demands. i want to thank him for his help on this. i want to thank senator duckworth for his hard work in making sure that amtrak complies with the americans with disabilities act. this is so important for us to do, and her language making sure that we also have someone from the disabilities community on the amtrak board is the kind of things that should be followed and other examples in this legislation. i also want to say for the first time we are addressing specifically at-grade crossings. this is the instance where congestion and freight in my state multiple times the increase in freight traffic. again, you know, a lot of midwest product moving to asia has increased demand in safety and transportation. somebody quoted a -- one of our reports that it took freight three days to get through just the city of chicago because of the amount of congestion. so our job here is to make sure

that our product made and grown in the united states of america gets quickly to its destinations or we will be outcompeted by other nations that have an infrastructure system that can beat us to those marketplaces. so this provides for the first time a focused program on improving at-grade crossings to continue to make the investments that need to be made to keep our freight moving and our public safe. it also for the first time authorizes transportation improvements to repair culverts. culverts and other transportation infrastructure have done damage to our environment. they have done damage to fish. they have basically blocked spawning grounds. they have caused other infrastructure challenges to species all along our coastal states. this program will help to improve that situation by repairing some of the fish passage that has been blocked for so many years. this is so important for us in

the pacific northwest, but it's also important throughout the south and for our many, many coastal communities. so this transportation legislation that went through the commerce committee, as i said, also makes other investments. this bill also makes other investments for bridge repair, for transit systems, for climate resiliency, and specifically for our airports. you probably haven't heard too much about that out here on the floor, but in the commerce committee, i can tell you that aviation, transportation, and competitive -- i know the presiding -- the president knows this very well, that in loss vague or in reno, that infrastructure like our airports is essential to our economy's continuing to grow. sea-tac is probably one of the fastest growing airports in the

united states right now. under this legislation, we will also see an important improvements for our -- an important improvement for our airports so they can continue to grow and we can continue to make investments. i also as i mentioned want to thank senator wicker in the title for vehicle safety. these are important provisions that he and i and others on the committee. senator blumenthal for his work on safety legislation that related to both the northeast corridor and to individuals in transportation. including with senator wicker the lifesaving technology like automatic emergency braking system and preventing child heat stroke, deaths, and impaired driving facilities. so, madam president, i again thank all of the members of the commerce committee for their hard work in getting this legislation as part of this package. i think we can see that we have some firsts here. first investing in megaprojects.

first cleaning up our environmental problems with culverts. getting our freight product through our most congested corridors with improved at-grade crossing. and making the major investment that amtrak can continue to expand. so i look forward to working with my colleagues as we move through the legislative process and continue to make improvements in our transportation infrastructure. i thank the president, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: later today, senate democrats want to take their next big step toward playing russian roulette with our country. they want to begin pushing through a reckless taxing and spending spree that was authored by our self-described socialist

colleague, chairman sanders. today the american people will learn exactly where each of their senators stand. the american people elected a 50-50 senate, an incredibly close house of representatives, and a president who pledged to govern down the middle and unify the country. but as soon as president biden, speaker pelosi and leader schumer got the keys, they handed them right over to the far left. remember, democrats inherited three safe and effective vaccines that were already rolling out nationwide and an economy that was primed to come roaring back. but our colleagues pressed ahead with a massive springtime spending package that even liberal experts said would drive inflation. and of course it did. overall inflation has risen at the fastest rate in nearly 13 years. core inflation hit its highest level in almost 30 years. families are getting hit by

higher prices everywhere from the grocery store to the gas station to their housing costs. small businesses have had trouble reopening because would-be workers are getting a government bonus to actually stay home. so the country is still working through the side effects of the borrowing and spending the democrats forced through back in the spring. but democrats don't want to just refill their socialist prescription. they want to double the dose. double the dose. according to what they just released, democrats want to unite behind chairman sanders' resolution to spend a staggering $4.2 trillion more. of course, outside experts estimate the real cost will be even higher still. if it's even close to fully offset, as they claim it is, this seems almost certain to be the largest peacetime tax hike on record. so let that sink in.

the largest peacetime tax hike on record. even though their rough sketch of these tax hikes would shatter president biden's promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. families earning well under the president's stated threshold would get hit and hit hard. this new reckless taxing and spending spree will fall like a hammer blow on workers and middle-class families. fewer jobs, lower wages, more inflation, pushing costs higher and higher. what our colleagues are proposing and planning is absolutely jaw-dropping. people want to pretend this is just business as usual, just liberals doing liberal things, using senate procedure. make no mistake, this reckless taxing and spending spree is nothing like we have seen, nothing. the basic math of their taxing and spending is toxic enough, but the radicalism that will

be -- that we will be debating on the floor goes well beyond dollars and cents. the dolls they want to put behind this budget resolution read like somebody walked across the rotunda to the house and handed the squad a pen and piece of paper. sweeping, sweeping amnesty for illegal immigrants in the middle of a border crisis. regulations that are so radical that our colleague, senator markey, quote, said the green new deal is in the d.n.a. of this budget resolution. all of the things that are in this we talked about in the green new deal, end quote. senator markey. they want to introduce 49 other states to make their -- they want to induce 49 other states to make their electric grids more like california's, make it more expensive to mine critical minerals we need to compete with china. they want to take working

families' child tax credits and turn it into a permanent welfare program -- listen to this -- with no work requirements. they want to tamper with the prescription drug industry in ways that would leave americans with fewer new treatments and fewer new cures. they want to put government's thumb on the scale of family's child care choices and selectively subsidize parents whose households work the way washington wants. and they want to tax more money out of americans' pockets while reviving a special tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits wealthy people in blue states. so let's face it. the brute facts of the senate's rules mean that if 50 democrats plus the vice president stick together, republicans will probably not be able to save our colleagues from themselves. if all 50 democrats want to help chairman sanders hurt middle-class families, if even our colleagues who claim they

are moderates want to follow the far left off this cliff, well, that's their prerogative, but we're going to argue it out right here on the floor at some length. every single senator will be going on record over and over and over. senate republicans will be bringing forward commonsense amendments that represent what americans actually want and actually need. our colleagues can look forward to votes on national security and funding our armed forces, votes to remove backdoor tax cuts for wealthy liberals, votes to protect family-owned small businesses and family farms from crushing tax hikes, votes to encourage schools to finally reopen in person to stop the catch and release of covid-positive illegal immigrants coming into our country. to protect taxpayers from being forced to hundred dollars the horrors of abortion. and that's just a sam building, because our democratic colleagues missed some

deadlines, it has been an all-out sprint to prepare amendments. so i want to thank our nonpartisan senate clerks and parliamentarians. they have worked multiple weekends straight through. they were kept up late last night processing hundreds of amendments, and they are going to be up late with all of us yet again. if president biden and 50 senate democrats want to outsource domestic policy to chairman sanders, if this historically reckless taxing and spending spree is how the modern democratic party wants to define itself, if they want ininflation and tax hikes to be their legacy, then republicans do not currently have the votes to spare the american families this nightmare. but we will debate and we will vote and we will stand up and we will be counted, and the people of this country will know exactly which senators fought for them.

mr. mcconnell: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority whip is recognized. mr. durbin: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, this past saturday at 9:00 p.m., chicago police officer ella french was shot and killed during a traffic stop on the chicago south side.

her death is devastating. officer french was 29 years old. she had served as a member of the chicago police department since 2018. her brother described her as the epitome of a good samaritan. a fellow officer said of her, and i quote, she truly showed the community that she loved them and would do anything for them. officer french's partner was also shot and critically wounded. we pray for his recovery. two men have beening charged by the cook county state's attorneys office in the shooting of these officers. a third man has been charged by the u.s. attorney's office for the northern district of illinois for conspiracy to violate federal firearms laws. i hope that justice is delivered swiftly and fairly for the perpetrators of this horrible crime. and let me be clear, as

devastating as her death, scores of individuals are shot every week in chicago and many lose their lives. for each of their families, the loss is just as intense as the loss of officer french. and as heartbreaking as officer french's death is, it is also infuriating. we learned yesterday from the chicago u.s. attorney's office that the gun used to murder officer french was straw purchased from a gun dealer in indiana. what is a straw purchase? it happens when a person who can pass a background check buys a gun and gives it to a person who can't. straw purchases have long been the way that guns have funneled into the hands of those with felony convictions in chicago into the streets, then to deadly incidents. according to the charges filed yesterday by the u.s. attorney, an indiana man bought the handgun from a dealer in

hammond, indiana, gave it to a person with a felony conviction who allegedly used it this last weekend to kill officer french. for years i have been fighting to toughen our laws against straw purchases. right now straw purchasing is treated -- listen to this -- as a federal paperwork violation for lying on a federal gun purchase form. charges are rarely brought, and when they are the sentences are often just a matter of months. that needs to change. i've joined with senator leahy of vermont and senator collins of maine to introduce the stop illegal trafficking and firearms act, a bipartisan bill that would make it an explicit federal crime carrying federal penalties when a person straw purchases a firearm. we immediate to take this type of gun trafficking seriously. it's time for us to stop treating straw purchases like a paperwork misdemeanor. as we learned in the death of officer french, it is a deadly

act and should be punished accordingly. officer french's death is also a call to action for the strike force recently set up by the department of justice to crack down on regional firearms trafficking in chicago. i met with attorney general garland in chicago when he launched the strike force two weeks ago, and i have written to him now urging that the strike force immediately prioritize the investigation and prosecution of straw purchases like the one that took the life of officer french. the strike force was established to keep a sustained focus on firearms trafficking in chicago. that focus should include stopping straw purchases and holding the perpetrators accountable. i look forward to working with the justice department and with my colleagues to find ways to crack down on the deadly gun violence that straw purchases help to fuel. mr. president, i ask for

consent that the next statement might be placed at a separate part in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, 2020 set a record for drug over deaths in america. more than 93,000 lives were lost in the year 2020. in illinois, 3,500 of our neighbors died of an overdose, a 27% spike from the year before. how did we get to this point? who's responsible for this? there is one clear culprit -- the pharmaceutical industry. for years opioid manufacturers deliberately lied about the risks of their drugs. deliberately. these companies have claimed their painkillers should be prescribed for common aches and pains. they even down played their addictive nature, even though their research showed that it was a very real danger.

these companies then shipped mountains of these pills to every corner of america. they aggressively promoted them to doctors with the backing of dark money organizations. this epidemic wasn't created by some infectious virus. it was created by corporate greed, corporate greed. in the words of richard sackler of purdue pharma his company chose to flood our streets with a blizzard of prescriptions that would bury the competition. it ended up burying the users. as a result, 500,000 american families have had to bury loved ones who died of opioid overdoses and addictions since the start of the opioid epidemic. 500,000 americans, a figure in the same range as the 610,000 americans we've lost to

covid-19. the numbers are numbing. from 2006 to 2014 drug companies like purdue pharma inundated the company with 100 billion pain killers. let that soak in. that's roughly 300 opioid pills for every living american. they flooded communities like the rural county of harden in downstate illinois. they received enough opioids in hardin county for each resident to have a three-month supply. some counties in west virginia and kentucky have twice that level of oversupply. one pharma rep even bragged, quote, i don't know how they could even house this many bottles. another wrote, keep them coming, flying out of here. it's like people are addicted to

these things. oh wait, people are. that level of greed and disregard for human suffering is an outrage, and the companies responsible must be held accountable. you may be asking haven't we done that already. it's a good question, because not only was the federal drug enforcement administration aware of this obscene overproduction, they authorized it. they gave permission. the drug enforcement administration of the united states federal government is responsible for determining the amount of opioid pills allowed to be put on the market each year. they are effectively the gatekeeper for these drug manufacturers, and for years, years they allowed opioid production quotas to keep increasing. between 1993 and 2015, production of oxycodone increased 39-fold. hydrocodone, 12-fold.

fentanyl 25-fold. in 2016, america's pharmaceutical industry produced 14 billion opioid doses in 2016 alone, enough for every adult in america to have a three-week supply of opioids. think about that. authorized by the federal government, requested by the pharmaceutical industry, we put a quota that pharma asked for to produce 14 billion opioid pills in a year, enough for every american to have a three-week supply. any wonder that we had an opioid epidemic? i pressed the drug enforcement administration on this issue years ago when i learned of this. i asked them how can you approve these he ever-increasing quotas? pharma is insatiable. they will ask for as many pills as they can possibly push into the american people's families, especially when d.e.a. had data

that showed this overproduction was fueling a deadly national drug crisis. a couple of years ago i worked with my republican colleague, senator john kennedy of louisiana, to start stemming the tide of addictive drugs. we passed a bipartisan bill that gave the d.e.a. the authority they said they needed to set commonsense production levels. we changed the law so the d.e.a. must consider abuse, overdose deaths and the public health impact when determining opioid quotas. our approach worked partially. over the past five years the d.e.a. has lowered opioid quotas by an average of 60%. the d.e.a., this federal agency, will soon be proposing its 2022 quotas, and i'm sending a letter urging them to use their new authority and common sense to rein in the greed of big pharma. in the face of all this suffering, new legal challenges

have been brought to hold big pharma accountable for death and despair of the opioid epidemic. thousands of lawsuits from states, counties, cities, victims have been consolidated in one federal court in cleveland, ohio. this movement reminded me of another breakthrough moment in public health when our nation came together to hold big tobacco accountable for its misleading marketing over the decades. we started holding these companies accountable in 1998 with the master tobacco settlement agreement. that settlement was estimated to provide states with $246 billion over 25 years. but despite the pressing need, only a tiny fraction, a meager 8% of that amount was actually dedicated to tobacco prevention and cessation activities. instead, with the permission of congress, tens of billions from that settlement have gone toward filling gaps in state budgets

and funding pet projects like roads and bridges, stadiums, even a tobacco museum. as new opioid settlements are reached, we must learned from missed opportunity with tobacco lawsuits. we must ensure that the funds from forthcoming opioid settlements are used to fortify health systems so they can respond to the current opioid crisis and prevent our next drug epidemic. all of us know what's going on out there. even people who acknowledge their opioid addiction and are desperate for treatment and need help immediately wait for weeks and months to enter a drug rehab facility. that's just unacceptable. we need community and residential-based treatment. we need to expand the nalaxone access, bolster behavioral workforce, address the childhood trauma often at the root of addiction and other

public health strategies. mr. president, one of the things which i believe is essential as our kids get back to school after the pandemic experience, we need more counselors on the scene at the schools dealing with these kids and this transition back into somewhat normal life. these are critical moments in a child's formation, and i hope that we can have resources available to they them. the best way to hold big pharma accountable is by compelling these companies to pay the price for fueling this crisis, and their restitution should be devoted to hempg america heal. last month a bipartisan group of states attorneys general nounsed a framework of litigation settlement involving johnson & johnson and the nation's three largest drug distributors. they would pay a total of $26 billion over 18 years to resolve the suits in addition to changing their business practices. the work isn't over yet, and i applaud the state attorneys general for their extensive work

involving these opioid defendants. legal proceedings continue for several other key industry stakeholders that have yet to be held accountable. that includes the sackler family of purdue and oxycontin infamy. the sacklers are trying to engineer a legal scheme to escape liability through the bankruptcy court. that's the family that started purdue pharma, that was responsible for this opioid crisis. they think they found a venue now, a bankruptcy court that is going to get them off the hook, or at least make sure they can protect the money that they made. off of this criminal enterprise. the sacklers tried to engineer a legal scheme to escape liability for their conduct through the bankruptcy court. avoiding future lawsuits while paying $4.5 billion while protecting their vast fortunes estimated at over $11 billion.

that's why senator warren and i recently teamed up to introduce the nondebtor release prohibition act which would prevent the nonconsensual release of liability through bankruptcy proceedings. translations -- the sacklers should not get a discounted ticket to ride into the sunset protecting their billions of dollars. they need to to be to be held personally accountable and the amount charged against them should be taken in account. we must demand that the worst corporate actors are held accountable for their role in this crisis. far too many families have suffered as a result of corporate greed and malfeasance. mr. president, i have one additional statement, which i ask be placed in the record.

i would just like to speak for a moment or two on that statement. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, sometimes you have the best of luck in life and it's not planned, but neighbors of ours in springfield, illinois, todd and brigitte lamont have invited us to join them at their little house on lake michigan up in the leyland peninsula in the state of michigan. in that time we've had great experiences together and we've come to know a terrific little shop called barb's donuts in northport, michigan, after years and years of wonderful service and great product, they are giving up the business soon and i put in the record a tribute to barb's donuts of northport, michigan. i am joined from debbie stabenow

and gary peters, both senators from michigan. i ask that the statement be placed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: thank you, mr. president. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the republican whip is recognized. mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, in the time that i've been in the congress, which includes six years in the house of representatives and now in my

17th year in the senate, i have been a part of or witness to or voted on numerous spending proposals and appropriation bills and tax bills and deficit reduction bills and debit limit increasing bills. and i don't believe i have seen in my time in the congress a spending bill where democrats didn't want to spend more and republicans wanted to spend less. and maybe that's consistent with our overall governing philosophies. republicans historically believe in limited but effective government in personal freedom, coupled with individual responsibility, in economic freedom. in peace through strength, and those are sort of guiding principles. and so when you get into a

debate about spending and budgets and appropriations and taxes and all those sorts of things, mr. president, in all the time i've been here and i say this with respect to the bill that we're going to be voting on here in a few moments, republicans try and spend more efficiently, more effectively less because they know that every dollar that gets spent here is coming from an american taxpayer. and so when the bipartisan legislation that the senate will vote on here momentarily was being considered, it started at about $2.5 trillion. that's what president biden wanted to spend on infrastructure and democrats in the congress and the senate, for sure in the house of representatives, but in the senate here as well, want to spend way more than what republicans wanted to spend. republicans, on the other hand, wanted to come up with a bill that met the needs of the country has, it was robust in addressing infrastructure concerns out there, but spent

significantly less than what democrats have proposed. and i say that, mr. president, simply because it's been my experience, i've observed this, as i said, over the better part of 25 years here in the congress, that every debate, every fight about spending, taxes and debt. democrats want to spend more, republicans want to be spend less. and, again, with the recognition that every one of those dollars that gets spent in washington, d.c., is coming from an american taxpayer somewhere across this country. and so as we think about what we're going to do next, i have to just say it is staggering to me what we're talking about. the dimensions the scale, $3.5 trillion in spending on top of $2 trillion spent earlier this year, much of which was --

had nothing to do with the coronavirus, and much of the justification of the spending at one time at least was we had to deal with the pandemic, the coronavirus, but that's not the case now. we still have ongoing issues there. we need to make sure we're investing in vaccines and all the things that make sure that people in this country are able to combat and we're able to get this pandemic behind us. but what we're talking about with this $3.5 trillion that the democrats are intending that we're going to vote on later today, $3.5 trillion, their own estimate, not ours, a lot of private stilts out there -- estimates out there that when this is fully implemented, you're talking $5 trillion to $5.5 trillion, you add to that the $2 trillion spent earlier this day, all borrowed from our children and grandchildren and you are talking about a stunning, staggering, insane amount of money.

and, you know, i've heard the analogy used here on the floor and other places by democrats saying, this is like the new deal. this is a modern new deal for america. well, mr. president, the new deal occurred in the middle of a great depression where unemployment rates were running as high as 25%. the new deal happened at a time when my dad grew up through the depression and i heard him tell the story through the years, people were suffering, they were struggling enormously and the government stepped in with some programs to help address that to get people back to work. but what we're talking about here, mr. president, is double -- double the size of the new deal as a percentage of our economy. double. at a time when we've got and the president was crowing about this the other day, 5%, 5.4% unemployment in this country, 900,000 new jobs created in the last -- in the last reporting.

and so if you think about where the economy is, we're coming out of the pandemic, people are investing again, people are getting out, they are spending money, and we're seeing growth get back in the economy, we're seeing jobs created. it is just -- it is literally, to me, the definition of insanity to pour 3 and a half by their estimate, $5 trillion more into the economy to literally give people free everything. this isn't about addressing the pandemic or helping get people back to work. we have programs that do that. we have unemployment insurance that's been in place now for a long time and many of us think the plus up that the federal government provided for too long because it prevented people from going back to work. but the fact of the matter is we are talking about a massive expansion of the federal government, literally to give people pretty much free

everything. now, not only does that contradict what i think this country was all about, which at its inception was freedom and liberty, personal freedom, economic freedom, individual responsibility, providing people incentives to achieve and do well, making sure that we have programs in place, safety nets for those who need that help. but the idea that at a time when the economy is growing and expanding and unemployment is at a fairly low rate historically, we are creating jobs that the federal government would think that it needs in all its wisdom here in washington, d.c., to infuse $5 trillion. we already have inflation. it's the highest rate in 13 years. you think pouring a lot, flooding the economy with a bunch more money isn't going to exacerbate the inflation problem we already have, not to mention that we're paying for.

by the way, under this budget being proposed today that the democrats are on a one-sided partisan procedure, going to vote on, is -- is the biggest thing that we have seen, certainly in my lifetime and will dwarf anything that we've seen in history and the debt at the end of all of that, at the end of all that, 20131 -- 2031, the intend-year budget -- the ten-year budget window will be 130% of our gross domestic product. there was a day we worried about borrowing up to 100% of g.d.p. we have blown past that. we dwarfed that. this is completely out of control and out of hand and we are talking about an -- it will

hit individuals and businesses, they will hit small businesses and hit farmers and ranchers, you go down the list of tax increaseses of in this proposal, again, i don't know where you stop. again, the suggestion by the administration you're not going to hit people who make less than $400,000 a year is insane. i don't know how you can raise $3.5 trillion and not have people impacted on the lower end of the income scale. when taxes go up on businesses, what happens? well, people work for businesses. democrats think it's easy. we'll raise taxes on businesses. businesses aren't paying enough. well, where do people work? businesses. that's where they get their paychecks and benefits. wages go down when taxes on businesses go up, to an

historical fact. if you think about when taxes are put on businesses, businesses can do a couple of things, they may reduce wages or not hire people or reduce the size of their workforce, but they also pass that on the cost of higher prices the people out there in the economy who are paying the price for that. that's what we are talking about here. it is absolutely, absolutely stunning, really. in my time in the congress to observe something that is being compared to historically, the new deal, in a circumstance where the economy is growing and expanding, people should be going back to work and at a time when we have already a $30 trillion debt, as i said, headed in 2031 to $45 trillion in debt and something that literally dwarfs as a percentage of the economy who was done at the time of the new deal.

to parallel the analogy that is being used here by my colleagues on the other side. there is just absolutely no rationale, mr. president, for doing this. that's what it calls for, $3.5 trillion. according to the budget committee analysis, it includes $4.2 trillion in spending when discretionary spending and interest on the debt are included. this bill, that bill which was entirely unpaid for -- and i'm talking about the $1.9 trillion bill that was passed in march -- was ostensibly a covid relief bill but was in reality more a payoff for democrat constituencies. billions and billions for schools while omitting any requirement for actually getting kids back in the classroom. even those schools that barely touched the billions in covid aid they had already been given. by the way, handouts to states with the distribution formula heavily weighted in favor of blue states, included bailout for union pensions, loans for

labor unions, and i could go on. and we talk about the money that's going to be in the budget the democrats are going to force us to vote on later today. the additional spending that's going to be in there. that's on top of, on top of the trillions that we put out the door last year, much of which went to state governments and many of which don't know how to spend the money they already have. we're talking trillions, mr. president, much of which went to, as i said, blue states. but while that bill wasted a lot of taxpayer dollars, the problem with that bill pales in comparison to what is before us today. today democrats are taking the first step toward a massive and permanent expansion of government that would pay for on the backs of ordinary americans. and my colleagues, as i said, on the other side of the aisle will tell you they are just letting tax hikes on wealthy americans. but that's not the whole story.

those corporate tax hikes that democrats are proposing, that tax just isn't going to be paid for by c.e.o.'s and the board members of corporations. a huge part of that is going to fall on american workers in the form of things like lower salaries and fewer opportunities. the tax foundation notes that the share of the corporate tax burden that falls on labor is, and i quote, routinely found to be between 50% and 100%, with 70% or higher the most likely outcome. by substantially hiking taxes on corporations, democrats will be substantially increasing the burden borne by the workers. not to mention reducing our competitiveness in the global economy by once again giving the united states one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. with our economy still emerging from the challenges of coronavirus, it's very difficult to understand why democrats would decide that we should make american businesses less competitive on a global stage. and that's the impact of just one of the democrats' tax hikes. i haven't talked about the probabliable effects of their

tax hikes on small businesses. that's right, small businesses. or the negative economic effects of their huge tax increase on investment. and then, then there is the democrats' new death tax -- that's right, a new death tax to add to our already existing death tax which will reduce inheritances for middle-class americans around the country. not to mention threatening the very existence of family farms and ranches and small businesses. mr. president, from the way that democrats have been governing, you would think that voters have given them a resounding mandate to permanently expand government and implement the socialist fantasies of the far left. in fact, we all know this, democrats hold a narrow majority in the house of representatives where they lost seats, and the senate is equally split between democrats and republicans. and democrats' far-left presidential candidates couldn't make it out of the democrat primary. that's right. president biden was able to win the democrat primary and the general election because he

presented himself accurately or inaccurately as a moderate. but despite their lack of a mandate, democrat leaders are apparently more and more willing to let the far left of the democrat party run the show, which is why we're standing here today contemplating a $4.2 trillion spending spree to permanently expand the size of government. mr. president, we don't yet know all the details of the democrats' budget-busting spending legislation, but what we do know is not encouraged. in addition to taxes that will burden hardworking americans and hurt our economy, democrats are con policemen indicating a new welfare benefit with no work requirement. lots and lots of free stuff like two free years of community college. elements of democrats' most extreme socialist fantasy, the green new deal, amnesty for individuals here in our country illegally, funding for tens of thousands. yes, tens of thousands of new

i.r.s. agents. a tax cut for blue state millionaires and billionaires. and more. and by the way, on that point, mr. president, it's really ironic for me to hear democrats come down here and talk about republicans wanting to cut taxes for rich people when this proposal in this legislation, 50%, 50% of the tax cut by doing away with the cap on deductibility of state and local taxes, 50% of that benefit goes to people making more than $1 million a year. so much for worrying about people on the low-income scale. democrats want to pay taxpayer dollars to hire hundreds of thousands of young people for a civilian climate corps to fight climate change. civilian climate corps.

no word yet on whether this is actually an effective way to address our nation's climate challenges. that isn't going to stop democrats from spending billions of dollars to find out. mr. president, i haven't even mentioned all this new government spending is likely to increase inflation. americans are already facing significant inflation thanks in part to democrats' earlier flooding of the economy with government spending. now democrats want to come close to doubling that spending. and i don't even want to think about what inflation will look like if they succeed in their spending plans. mr. president, thanks to democrats' decision to utilize special senate budget rules for their tax and spending spree, they have the ability today to force through this massive spending package on a totally partisan basis, but my republican colleagues and i will do everything we can to protect americans from the consequences of democrats' reckless, reckless legislation. and i hope some of my colleagues

on the other side, on the other side of the aisle -- all it takes is one -- will intervene before their party's taxing and spending spree turns an economic recovery into an economic disaster. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio is recognized. mr. portman: first let me start by commending my colleague from south dakota, senator thune, for his explanation of what's before us next after the vote that we're about to take and that will be getting into the budget resolution leading to a reconciliation package, and he's absolutely right. these taxes and this high-level spending is not something that our country can sustain, and i appreciate his outlining the very specific impact that we have on -- that it would have on the people we represent. but this morning, mr. president, i'm also here to talk about how

the senate will do something very good today prior to getting into the budget resolution. the senate's about to make history. we've heard over the years -- in fact, over the decades about the need for us to fix our infrastructure. every president in modern times has talked about it. president bush, president obama, president trump, president biden. we have talked about it a lot here. there is a joke around town that infrastructure week has come and gone so many times that people are a little cynical when we talk about it. well, today is infrastructure day. we're actually going to see what we have been talking about, which is the senate on a bipartisan basis saying, you know what? it is time to fix our roads and bridges. we can do so in a responsible way. not by raising taxes on the american people, but by making important investments in long-term capital assets that will last for years. so it's an investment in fixing up our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our railroads, our ports, our electrical grids,

our broadband network and expanding that and more. we've had a number of procedural votes to get us to this point, and based on those procedural votes, i think it's clear that we will have the votes today on a bipartisan basis to do this important work. the senate will have done its job and will have achieved a real lasting bipartisan victory for the people we represent. the bill called the infrastructure investment and jobs act will improve the lives of all americans by making these long overdue investments. $548 billion over the next five years in new spending to repair, upgrade, and replace the crumbling infrastructure all of our constituents rely on every day. that doesn't mean the money is going to be spent, by the way, over the next five years. it's authorized for that period. it will be spent over the next five, ten, 15, maybe 20 years on projects all over the country. we know we need this investment. the american society of civil

engineers gives our american infrastructure a grade of c-minus. they also project that our economy stands to lose more than $10 trillion in economic growth in g.d.p. by 2039 should we fail to invest in repairs. there is an international organization that looks at all the countries in the world and says who has got the best infrastructure and the worst. by the way, we're number 13th and 14th on that list now. so many countries are ahead of us. china spends about four times more than we do on infrastructure as a percent of their g.d.p. why? because they know that will make their economy more efficient, and they want to beat us in the economic fight that we have globally. we want to win. that's one reason this is so important. the american people, by the way, understand the need for this investment. in two of the more recent polls from cnbc and cbs news, 87% of the american people backed bipartisan efforts to fix our roads, our bridges, our water systems. we know that this targeted long-term investment in core

infrastructure is good for the economy. building out hard assets makes us more competitive in the global economy. it will create hundreds of thousands of good jobs for builders, plumbers, electrical engineers, coders, and so many other fields. economists, including douglas hotels-eakin have pointed out that this type of spending on long-term spending, hard assets, does not further inflation but in fact is counterinflationary. to me, not only does this investment make sense, but importantly, what we are doing here today also demonstrates to the american people that we can get our act together on a bipartisan basis and get something done. we can do big things on a bipartisan basis if we put our minds to it. again, after years, even decades, of talking about the need to do this, we're finally getting it done. is it exactly the bill i would have drafted? no. it's not exactly the bill any

senator in the chamber would have drafted because it represents a true bipartisan effort. each side made concessions to find that common ground. i want to take this opportunity to briefly thank my colleagues who have gotten us to this point. we have spent a lot of long nights and long days working to write this legislation, and there has been a group of members who have been particularly committed to it. one is shelley moore-capito who is on the floor right now. the work she did with president biden early on laid the foundation for this. she is also the ranking member of the e.p.w. committee that produced some of the legislation we incorporated on the surface transportation front. but there are so many others. i would like to start with my counterpart, the lead negotiator on the other side of the aisle, senator kyrsten sinema of arizona. the two of us began meeting more than four months ago to have discussions that would then lay the foundation for our path forward, and it was in the

context of president biden having proposed a huge package, $2.65 trillion, so-called infrastructure package, we believed we could pull out real infrastructure from there, take the high taxes out, and get something done for the american people. i commend her for her leadership, for her courage, and for her ability to keep us on track during some tough times during this process. from there, it truly became a group effort, particularly among five republicans and five democrats who spent a lot of long days and nights negotiating the framework of this legislation. some of us have worked together before at the end of the year in putting together the so-called 908 framework for the covid-19 bill that passed late last year that was also bipartisan. to my friends and colleagues, senator susan collins, mitt romney, lisa murkowski, bill cassidy, joe be manchin, jeanne shaheen, mark warner, and jon tester, thank you for your

efforts these past few months. i also want to give special thanks to our colleague kevin cramer who joined our group late but was instrumental in finalizing this agreement. i want to thank the white house and especially steve bruschetti and brian deese, lisa turrell for their support of this commitment and trying to work in a bipartisan way to get it done. i want to thank senator tom carper who joined us in the room. along with senator exat tow he was the -- capito he was the e.p.w. chair. i want to thank my other colleagues in the so-called g-22 who helped in the 22 different working groups that were formed to help put this legislation together. richard burr, lindsey graham, mike rounds, thom tillis, chris coons, maggie hassan, john hickenlooper, angus king, jacky rosen.

11 democrats and 11 republicans. to my colleagues who voted with us repeatedly to advance this bill toward final passage and helped us to get to this point by giving us good input that was incorporated in the legislation -- mike crapo, roy blunt, chuck grassley, john hoeven, jim risch, roger wicker, dan sullivan. thank you for your input, your encouragement and your support. i want to give a particular thank you to my friend and colleague, our republican leader, senator mitch mcconnell. i want to thank him for his encouragement and his support throughout this process, for sticking his neck out. i know he's probably the only person who is as happy as i am in this chamber to see us move forward with this legislation that will help us find a long-term solution to a major bridge, the brent spence bridge. i want to thank the committee staffs who did so much to lay the groundwork for this legislation. about 73% of the pages in this

final 2,300-page legislation are legislation that either passed the senate or cleared committees in the senate in this congress, and that's a tribute to the quiet bipartisanship that goes on at the committee level every day that allows us to get these things done with the requisite knowledge and expertise. i also want to thank all the nonpartisan staff here in the united states senate for their work as well. i know over the past few weeks especially the legislative counsel has worked closely with my staff and the staffs of other offices to help formalize this proposal in the final text before us today. they worked weekends, nights. the same with the joint committee on taxation and the congressional budget office. they worked around the clock to get us to this point. and the staff here on the floor, they have been here just as early as we have and stayed just as late as any of us, in fact later, to ensure that this could be possible. i thank them. i also want to thank the more

than 100 industry associations, unions and trade groups that came forward to endorse this infrastructure investment and jobs act. that includes business groups like the chamber of commerce, the business roundtable, the national association of manufacturers. it also includes labor groups like the afl-cio, building trades council, international brotherhood of teamsters, international union of north america. it includes supporters from all levels of government including the national league of cities, u.s. conference the mayors, the national governors association. it includes more than 30 agricultural groups including the american farm bureau. these organizations and so many otherses like them have been critical to encouraging members of the senate to do the right thing. and finally, i want to again thank my staff and the staffs of all the members who worked for months to get this bill to the finish line. we would not be here without them, there is no question about that.

on a personal staff level i want to thank kevin smith, sarah perry, ann gore, adelai huing, and our entire team. angie youngen and nate denlow. chris mitchell. on my governmental affairs staff, sam melopolis, leah mckenna and emily. we wouldn't be standing here and about to have this vote without them working their hearts out, staying late, getting it in early and ensuring that every single part of this bill has been looked over carefully to make sure we got it right. everyone involved in this effort can be proud of what this body is achieving today. the senate is doing its job. it's doing its job by helping the american people we represent

through an historic investment in our nation's infrastructure that will serve the american people for decades to come. i yield the floor. ms. capito:i ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to speak for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. capito: it's great to be on the floor today. i think we have much to celebrate. we have a lot of tired people i think who have devoted a lot of time and energy to this effort. after a long week of amendments, it's time to get this done, isn't it senator carper, my chairman on e.p.w. we've talked all week about how the infrastructure investment and jobs act delivers for the american people, and i'm proud

that the foundation of this bill, the foundation of this bill is as the senator from ohio just mentioned, is based off of the two very bipartisan, unanimously bipartisan e.p.w. infrastructure bills that we passed in the spring. this historic investment reflects our commitment to keeping america safe, improving our global competitiveness and growing our economy. i'm going to go through the highlights. it provides $303.5 billion over five years for federal highway programs, a 35% increase from the last bill. there is a new $2 billion rural surface transportation grant that will dedicate resources to the appalachian development highway system that runs through many of our states and other critical projects across rural america. combined, the overall package

includes $40 billion in dedicated resources for bridges, the single-largest investment in bridge infrastructure since the construction of the interstate system. i'm from a small state, but i've got a lot of bridges. i've got a lot of bridges, and unfortunately a lot of them are not in the best condition. this will be a monumental improvement in what i see every day in my state. the bill authorizes $35 billion for water projects across the country with a focus on upgrading aging infrastructure. this is a bill that we passed out of our e.p.w. committee. it invests in innovative technologies and provides assistance to rural and low-income communities to help them keep their water safe and clean. this package represents the largest investment in clean drinking water in our nation's history. that's something that i think we can all be proud of. there's funding for broadband, essential to this 21st century, education, tourism, health care, all of the things

we've realized that broadband brings us and how important it is for each family and each business to have it. ports, airports, locks and dams, funding for the corps of engineers will prove our water resource infrastructure, facilitating the movement of goods and mitigating flood risks. reauthorization of the a.m.l. program will provide billions of dollars to clean up abandoned mine sites. it's important in our state. pennsylvania's got a lot of them too. we're fighting against climate change and we're cleaning up our environment. this legislation doesn't just invest in our infrastructure, but it will quickly allow -- it will allow projects to move more quickly. far too often infrastructure projects are delayed because of the expensive and arduous environmental review and permitting process. an environmental impact statement takes an average of seven years. think about how long that is and how much more money that costs.

the highway bill unanimously approved our e.p.w. committee includes numerous project delivery provisions to provide a more efficient, predictable process. notably it codifies one federal decision, one federal decision for highway projects would establish a two-year goal for completing environmental reviews. this isn't scirgt the environmental process. this isn't running roughshod over it. this is putting a time clock on it. let's move it. require predictable schedules coordinated by agencies and requires a single document with concurrent reviews providing accountabilities and transparency. the e.p.w. bill that we passed makes other commonsense reforms like allowing states to be reimbursed for early utility location necessary for a project while the process is ongoing. additional provisions in the broader legislation will extend the fast 41 permitting reforest that senator portman is very, very instrumental in and to help

us build other types of infrastructure more efficiently. the reforms and investments this bill makes aren't just for now, but for the next generation. we've had a very lengthy and robust debate on the senate floor. i would like to thank senators portman and sinema, senator collins who's on the floor, senator portman, senator sinema, all of the group of 20 -- if i start naming them i'm going to leave somebody out. but particularly senators portman and sinema picked up the ball where i left it. i'd like to think i got it to the five-yard line, maybe not so quite. but i got the ball rolling and i got it moving in the right direction, and they did the tough sledding ahead. i'd like to thank my counterpart senator carper. he has been great in managing this bill on the floor but also to keep the guardrails on that we established to make sure that the group, the bipartisan group was following along with the

committee had unanimously passed and how we felt would be the most effective way to invest in our infrastructures for the future. i would like to thank my entire e.p.w. committee team starting with my staff director adam who has been with me for many, many years. what you don't know and what i know is that adam was back in the back with mary francis, and they were the traffic cops through the whole amendment process, working the committees, the different five committees, republican and democrat, leadership-leadership, all the different individual members. i'm going to give adam one day off, and then i think he'll be right back at it. he is really irreplaceable to our committee but also to this whole process. also in this chamber with us today lauren baker and murphy barrett and many hours of incredible depth of knowledge in this area. we couldn't have done it without you. i'm going to name the rest of my staff who is not here with us. libby calloway, georgeana

clemens, travis cohen, sarah delavan, elizabeth warner, jess cramer, matt loops, taylor mcmurray, jacob mitchell, kelly moore, katherine smith, travis boyles and andy zock for efforts that have helped advance our legislation. on my personal team i'd like to thank my chief of staff joel bru baker for leadership. i want to thank senator carper's e.p.w. staff especially mary francis who is on the floor with the senator today, but also rebecca higgins, john kaine, greg dodson, heather dan, mackie mcintosh, kenneth

martin and tyler for their dedication to this process as well. i will say under mary francis' leadership and adam's leadership on my committee, i think they have demonstrated to many committees and certainly to us as the chairman and ranking member that you can have conversations and communications and you can work things out. you can work things out if you stick with it. thank you both very much. it's time to bring this bill home and do what the american people expect under the circumstances to do which is to find bipartisan solutions to our nation's pressing challenges. and this is a pressing challenge. again i urge a vote yes on this historic bipartisan bill that will improve our core infrastructure. if we pass this important legislation, i hope that the house will move swiftly and as a former member of the house, as we all are, the house can move swiftly when they need to and get this bill to the president's desk quickly. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. carper: mr. president,. the presiding officer: the

senator from delaware is recognized. mr. carper: mr. president, i have three requests for committees to meet today during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. promise duly --. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. carper: mr. president, senator capito has been gracious in her thanks and praise. it's now her turn to be on the receiving end. we've all heard of the gang of 20 or the gang of 22, the group of 20 or 22. before there was a gang or group of 22, there was a gang of one. the gentlewoman from west virginia, my native state. and she joined in with the president's team to really get the ball rolling and sort of took the hand off from what we had done working with the administration, meeting with the administration, meeting with the president. but when the president, after our meeting, they decided to engage, they decided to engage

with you. eventually used the football analogy here. you might not have gotten the ball in through the end zone but you certainly got into the red zone. we are grateful for all of your work. and your good humor when things were tough. on my left is mary frann is, who -- francis and she is joined by john, tyler and we have adam over here sitting over to the -- next to the ranking member. i have gone through before the names of your staff. we are grateful for the great support and work you've done, each one of you. i would be remiss if i didn't thank -- you don't get to be floor managers without somebody in the leadership saying, we'd like you to be floor managers so to senator schumer and senator mcconnell, thank you for

putting your confidence an trust in senator capito and me, to the floor folks, thank you very much to keep us on the straight and level and heading in the right direction. while senator portman is here on the floor, i don't see senator sinema, senator portman succeeds senator voinovich, we were governors together and senators together and i miss george every day, but you have more than filled his shoes, my friend and salute you. senator sinema is fairly new here but she has impressed a lot of people and took the bull by the horn and never gave up and because of her efforts and partnering with senator portman, we are here today. i quoted a couple of times the words of winston churchill, he was asked when he left 10

downing street, is this the end, he replied, in is not the end, this is not the beginning, it is the end of the beginning. so it is with us today. we are nearing the end of a debate and final vote on the infrastructure investment and jobs act of 2021. and before we take a vote on the adoption of this measure, i want to take a moment to reflect briefly on how this bipartisan infrastructure bill came to be. senator capito referred to this, but i want to reinforce this. in february of this year, at my encouragement, president biden invited senator capito, senator cardin, senator inhofe and me to the white house to discuss the need to make bold investment in our nation's crumbling infrastructure. he asked us, the environment and public works committee, to lead the effort to address that need, to get to work in our committee

to craft and report to the full senate, to this body, surface transportation legislation, roads, highways, bridges as well as drinking water and water sanitation infrastructure by springtime. that was the request. in the weeks that followed, working together with all 20 members of the environment and public works committee, that's exactly what we did, ten democrats, ten republicans working together. in may we record out of our committee a five-year transportation bill with a unanimous bipartisan vote, 20-0, by more than a third we increased -- by more than a third we increased investments in our roads, highways and bridges with an historic highway title and facing global warming. that transportation bill is at the core of the legislation we're considering today. long with the drinking water and infrastructure act, it was

reported unanimously out of the committee of environmental public works and passed by the full senate earlier this year by an 89-2 vote. that bilateral targets the most impoverished communities to help them meet their drinking and wastewater treatment needs. we're proud of the work this our committee has done made possible by the partnership that we enjoy. i think of the work that we did, mr. president, i think it is like laying the foundation, clean drinking water, wastewater sanitation, roads, highways, bridges, climate, the foundation on which this package was built and we tried to provide an example to the rest of the senate, the other committees of jurisdiction and i would like to think that maybe we did that. leadership is all about leading and the president sought and

encouraged us to try to lead earlier this year and i think we met that request and then some. i want to thank him. he didn't give up either. he's been negotiating with senator capito, negotiating with the team of the gang of 22, never gave up. a lot of people said this is a fool's errand, but he never gave up. the bill before this body today, the bill -- builds on the strong bipartisan work of the committee of environment and public works as well as the good work done by other committees, commerce committee, energy and natural resources committee, among them. my appreciation to all who worked to tirelessly on this herculean undertaking. let me be clear, this legislation isn't perfect. it's been said before, you will hear it again. i've never written al bill that's -- a bill that's perfect, and even though we had a hand in writing it, it is not perfect.

in spite of making progress, it doesn't go as far as we would like to do in terms of equity, in terms of tackling climate change. there is more work to be done on these issues, issues that we have a moral obligation to address. rest assured, i'll be joining my colleagues in fighting for progress on these fronts in the days and weeks ahead. let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good and make no mistake, the bill before us does a whole lot of good. it's the largest long-term investment in our nation's infrastructure in almost a century -- almost a century and the largest federal investment in history when it comes to public transit, clean energy, climate resiliency and wastewater infrastructure. on this day, the american people are looking for us to strengthen our economy and support our

communities and build for our future. on this day we have a president dedicated to moving past bipartisan divides and meeting the moment for our nation and on this day leaders in this body from across the political spectrum, we've come and gathered and shared a purpose, a common cause in a commitment to find a way for -- i want to close with the thought that there's a lot of bridge money in here. a lot of money to fix bridges, west virginia, ohio, delaware, maine, you name it. there's a lot of troubled water in our country, troubled water. and i like to think of this legislation crafted together across the aisle bipartisan with the administration, we created a bridge over troubled waters. think about that. a bridge over troubled waters. and right at a time when we really needed one and we could use a few more as we go along. sometimes when i travel, people ask me, say, what do you do?

they don't know what i do on the airplane or whatever. i say i help people. they say, how do you help them? i think the best way to help people is to help them find a job, a job where they can support themselves and their families and make sure they have clean water to drink and make sure they have clean air to breathe. that's -- those are ways that we're helping people with this legislation, big time -- big time and we'll be doing it for a long time. colleagues on this day we can vote to make a down payment on a brighter future for our country. i want to ask you to join me in seizing the day in voting to advance this legislation together on this day let us seize the day, carpe diem. i yield the floor, thank you.

mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. schumer: let me, before i begin, thank senators carper and capito for managing this bill and doing it in such a fine way and their staffs as well. now, mr. president, it's been a long and winding road but we have persisted and now we have

arrived. there were many logs in our path, detours along the way, but the american people will now see the most robust injection of funds into infrastructure in decades. in a few moments the senate will pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill dedicating over $1 trillion to strengthen every major category of our country's physical infrastructure. it's been a long time in coming. our economy is number one in the world, but infrastructure ranks number 13. you will find better roads, bridges, airports, broadband in the united arab emirates than in the united states of america. today the senate takes a decades-overdue step to revitalize america's infrastructure and give our workers, our businesses, our

economy the tools to succeed in the 21st century. the bill -- the bill will make large and significant differences in both productivity and job creation in america for decades to come. to my colleagues, particularly the group of ten, then 11, then 22 who worked so hard in a bipartisan way, congratulations, congratulations on a job well done. thank you to our committee chairs and ranking members whose expertise was required at several stages. and to the staff who sacrificed weekends, family gatherings, and more often sleep in order to finish this bill, thank you. can we have order, mr. president. thank you. thank you to president biden and

his team at the white house. president biden has been in office for only seven months and already the senate is about to pass the first major infrastructure package in over a decade on a bipartisan basis with his complete and total involvement. throughout the process i have tried to prod the negotiators along when they needed it and given them space when they asked for it. at times it took a deadline to kick negotiations into high gear. other times it required a few extra days to allow compromise to gel. but when the senate is run with an open hand rather than a closed fist, senators can accomplish big things. so despite this long road we've taken, we have finally -- finally reached the finish line. of course, we democrats believe we need to do much more.

the bipartisan infrastructure bill is a very significant bill, but our country has other very significant, very important challenges. working families need help, small businesses need a leg up, climate change threatens the future of our planet, our tax code needs to be straightened out. other parts of our infrastructure, not deafd in this bipartisan bill -- addressed in this bipartisan bill still needs focus, attention, and help. so to my colleagues concerned that this does not do enough on climate for families and for making corporations and the rich pay their fair share, we are moving on to a second track which will make generational transformation in these areas. once the bill is complete, the senate will turn to passing a

budget resolution that will unlock historic investments in american jobs, american families and the flight against climate change. the two-track strategy is proceeding full steam ahead. at its core, the democratic budget, both parts is about restoring the middle class in the 21st century and giving more americans the opportunity to get there. too many in the middle class are worried about their futures, the sunny american optimism has turned into a sourness, an angerness, a divisiveness in the land. bold, transformative action on both traditional infrastructure and on helping families -- middle-class families cope and on climate will restore that bright, sunny optimism that has been part of this american psyche for centuries. at its core, what we want to do

is this -- we want to -- thank you, mr. chairman. at the core, what we want to do is this -- we want to cut taxes for american families. we want to create millions of jobs while tackling the climate crisis. and we want to pay for it by making corporations and the wealthy finally pay their fair share. after we pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill this morning, senators should expect to vote to proceed to the budget resolution, and we will begin the process for debating amendments shortly thereafter. democrats are prepared to move quickly and decisively through the amendment process so we can finish what we set out to do before the end of the work period. the longer it takes to finish, the longer the senate will be in session. at the start of july, i set two ambitious goals for this chamber before our august recess. one was to pass a bipartisan

infrastructure bill to boost our economy, something the senate has not achieved in many years. this is a strong and bold accomplishment. the second was to pass a budget resolution with the kinds of transformative changes i have mentioned. pundits called it wishful thinking in a chamber known for unhurried deliberation. well, we are moments away from achieving the first goal, and i'm confident that very soon the senate will take the first major step towards achieving our second goal. the senate is on track to finish both tracks and deliver an outstanding result for the american people. i yield the floor -- no, i don't yield the floor. i take back the floor.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, all postcloture time is expired. the clerk will read the title of the bill for the third time. the clerk: calendar number 100, h.r. 3684, an act to authorize funds for federalloid highways, highway safety programs, transit programs, and for other purposes. the presiding officer: the question is on the bill as amended. mr. schumer: 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:

the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 69, the nays are 30. the vice president: the bill as amended is passed. mr. schumer: madam president. the vice president: the majority leader. the senate will be in order.

mr. schumer: and once again, congratulations to all of those who worked hard, so hard on this very significant and very important bill. and now we proceed to the second track. so, madam president, i move to proceed to calendar number 122, senate -- s. con. res. 14, the concurrent resolution on the budget, and i ask for the yeas and nays. the vice president: is there a sufficient second? there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 50, the nays are 49, and the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: calendar number 122, s. con. res. 14, setting forth the congressional budget for the united states government for fiscal year 2022, and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2023 through 2031.

perot the the presiding officer: the

senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that for the duration of the senate's consideration of s. con. res. 14, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2021, the majority and the republican managers of the resolution, while seated or standing at the managers' desks, be permitted to deliver floor remarks, retrieve, review, and edit documents, and send e-mail and other data communications from texts displayed on wireless personal digital assistance devices and tablet devices. i further ask unanimous consent that the use of calculators be permitted on the floor during consideration of the budget resolution. further, that the staff be permitted to make technical and conforming changes to the resolution, if necessary, consistent with the amendments adopted during senate consideration, including calculating the associated change and the net interest function and incorporating the effect of such adopted

amendments on the budgetary aggregates of federal revenues, the amount by which the federal revenues should be changed, new budget authority, budget outlays, deficits, public debt, and debt held by the public. finally, that the following staff members from my staff and from senator graham's staff be given all-access floor passes for consideration of the resolution. majority staff, michael jones, joshua smith, melissa kaplan, billy gendell and liam fagan. republican staff, nick meyers, matthew jeroux, becky cole, and chrisanne pierce. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. sanders: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that there be two minutes for debate equally divided prior to each vote during consideration of

s. con. res. 14. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. sanders: mr. president, let me begin by thanking president biden and majority leader schumer for their leadership in the arduous process which has gotten us to where we are right now. mr. president, i do understand that many of my republican colleagues are in a bit of shock. they're in a bit of shock now. they are finding it hard to believe that the president and the democratic caucus are prepared to go forward in addressing the long-neglected needs of working families and

not just the 1% and wealthy campaign contributors. that's not the way things usually happen around here. usually, it's the big-money interests, the campaign contributors, and the lobbyists who call the tunes. but not today. today we move this country in a very different direction. mr. president, the american people are sick and tired of growing income and wealth inequality in our country, where two people now own more wealth than the bottom 40%, where the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 92%, and where 45% of all new income has gone to the top

1% since 2009. in other words, the people on top are doing phenomenally well. meanwhile, while the very rich have become much richer, the gross unfairness of our current tax system has allowed in a given year some of the wealthiest people in our country and some of the largest and most profitable corporations to not pay a nickel in a given year in federal income tax. not one penny. well, that is about to change. the american people want a government which represents all of us and not just a few, and

this legislation is going to ask the wealthiest people in our country to start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can address the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. and despite what some of my republican colleagues may be saying, no one in america who makes less than $400,000 a year will pay a nickel more in federal taxes. in fact, what we are looking at in this budget proposal is an historic tax cut for working families and the middle class. further, and importantly, at a time when california is on

fire, when oregon is on fire, when greece is burning, and when countries throughout the world are experiencing unprecedented drought which will clearly impact food production, this legislation begins the process of combatting climate change so that our kids and grandchildren can live in a country and a planet which is healthy and habitable. it would be immoral and an absolute dereliction of our responsibilities as elected officials to do anything less. we cannot ignore climate change any longer. now is the time for our great country to lead the world out of

this existential crisis. and, by the way, as we address the long-neglected needs of working families and as we combat climate change, we are going to create millions of good-paying jobs, many of them union jobs. let me very briefly take this opportunity to describe some of what is in this budget proposal. first, we are going to address the disgrace of the united states having the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. this is the wealthiest country on earth, and we should not have millions of our children

living in poverty. this budget is going to provide the long-awaited for help that working parents all over this country desperately need. and when we do that, we will substantially reduce childhood poverty in america. and we're going to do that by extending the child tax credit so that families continue to receive monthly direct payments of up to $300 per child. we began that process in the american rescue plan. it has been enormously successful in vermont and all over this country as parents finally get the help that they need to raise their kids. and in fact, it has helped reduce childhood poverty in our

country by 61%, and we are going to extend those child tax credits. further, we're going to help working parents by addressing the crisis in child care by making sure that no working family in our country pays more than 7% of their income for child care. and all over this country, talking to parents in vermont, elsewhere, people are paying 20%, 25% of their income for child care so that they can go to work. that makes no sense at all. and under our proposal, no working family will pay more than 7%. and when we do that, when we make child care more affordable and accessible, it will allow over a million women who are now home with their kids to reenter

the workforce and improve our economy. and further, in terms of addressing the needs of our working parents and their kids, we will expand public education by providing universal pre-k to every three- and four-year-old in the country. madam president, this budget proposal is going to end the international disgrace of the united states being the only major country on earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave as a right. somebody who is sick today should not be forced to go to work and maybe by expanding

their illness by contagiant make other people sick. parents should be able to stay home with their sick children and when a woman has a baby she should not be forced back to work a week after birth simply because she has no income to stay home. yes, in america we will join every other major country and guarantee paid family and medical leave. madam president, we will begin to address the crisis in higher education by making community colleges in america tuition-free. and this will give millions of young people and working people the opportunity to get the education they need to acquire the skills so they can go out and get the good-paying jobs that are out there. it will also give people the

opportunity to transfer the two years of credits earned at a community college to a four-year school. now i hope in years to come we will go further. but two years of free community college is no small thing. madam president, this budget proposal begins the process of taking on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars by requiring that medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. it is not acceptable to me and to the american people that we continue to pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. medicare must negotiate prescription drug prices, and this budget sets the stage for that to happen.

madam president, we will use the savings acquired by negotiating prescription drug prices in medicare by expanding medicare, use those savings to expand medicare to cover the dental care, the hearing aids, the eyeglasses that seniors desperately need. this is the wealthiest country on earth, and yet we have millions of senior citizens who lack teeth in their mouth. they need dentures, they can't afford to get them. they need hearing aids in order to communicate with their grandkids, can't afford to do that. they need a decent pair of glasses, can't afford that. and in terms of health care, we will also substantially increase the number of doctors, nurses, and dentists who practice in

underserved areas and expand the community health center program into new areas as well. madam president, this budget proposal will combat homelessness in america and address the reality that nearly 18 million households are paying over 50% of their limited incomes for housing through an unprecedented investment in affordable housing. we will ensure further that people in an aging society -- we're getting older as a societl ensure that those people can receive the health care they need in their own homes instead of being forced into expensive and inadequate nursing homes, and that the workers who provide that important care to the elderly and the disabled are not

forced to exist on starvation wages. this is such important work and such emotionally draining work, those folks deserve a decent paycheck. madam president, we will bring undocumented people out of the shadows and provide them with a pathway to citizenship, including those very brave workers who have courageously kept our economy going in the middle of a deadly pandemic. madam president, as i mentioned earlier, we will take on the existential threat of climate change by transforming our energy system toward renewable energy and energy efficiency, among many other provisions in terms of climate change, we will establish a civilian climate corps which will give

hundreds of thousands of young people good-paying jobs and educational benefits as they roll up their sleeves and get to work to help us save the planet. this proposal, budget proposal will make it easier, not harder, for workers to join unions in america. madam president, my republican colleagues are upset that we are using the reconciliation process and only 50 votes to pass this budget. they're very upset about that. but let us be clear, this idea of using reconciliation is certainly not a new idea. when republicans controlled the senate, they used reconciliation to pass trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the top 1% and large corporations.

when republicans controlled the senate, they used reconciliation to make climate change worse by opening up the arctic national wildlife refuge to oil drill. when republicans controlled the senate, they tried to use reconciliation to repeal the affordable care act and throw 32 million americans off of the health care they had. well, today it is true we will also use reconciliation, but we will do it in a different way. we will use it to help the working families of our country and not just the wealthy and the powerful. madam president, it is no great secret that millions of americans are giving up on democracy, on moving toward authoritarianism and on -- are

losing faith in their government. many of those people are working longer hours for lower wages. they can't afford health care. they can't afford to send their kids to college, and they worry very much about the future of their kids and the future of this country. this legislation will not only provide enormous support unprecedented in recent american history for the children in our country, for the parents in our country, to the elderly people in our country, to the working families of our country, but it will also, i hope, restore the faith of the american people in the belief that we can have a government that works for all of us and not just a few.

thank you, madam president. mr. graham: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. good to see you back. mr. graham: good to be back. thank you for the inquiries and i appreciate the good wishes, phone calls and the food. i made it. if you haven't been vaccinated regarding the covid problem, you need to get vaccinated and i got covid anyway. a couple of really bad days, but i'm doing better and i yield on the mend and i'm confident if i hadn't had the vaccine, it would have been a lot worse. in my state 50% of the people are still unvaccinated. for your own good and the good of our state, i would urge you

to consider getting vaccinated. i believe the vaccine is good and it is safe and the sooner we get through immunity through vaccinations, the better off we will all be. thank you to all the kind words and inquiries. we are back to work and i'm glad i made it to this debate. we just passed a trillion dollar infrastructure bill, the presiding officer, senator sinema, from arizona, was one of the originators. congratulations. we have been talking about infrastructure for ten years, and it goes into ports, roads, and bridges and rural broadband, 19 republicans voted for it. i hope we can make it a reality and get it to president biden's desk because i think infrastructure is much needed

and we were finding bipartisanship in that space. now we're moving on to something completely different. i dare say radical. right after the majority was seized by the democratic party, you pushed through a $1.9 trillion package that had a lot to talk about covid, but most of it wasn't related to covid as we know it. after we worked together on $4 trillion of spending. now this budget resolution is proposing $3.5 trillion of additional spending and we'll talk about how that affects you and the public in a minute. the first thing i want you to know is not the $3.5 trillion. that's not accurate. when you look at the increase in public debt and the new discretionary spending is $3.2 billion.

it is over $4 trillion. first you have to be honest with the product you're spending, this will cost well over $4 trillion if fully implemented. what else does this bill do? it changes the rule regarding emergency spending. right now we can spend, through an emergency, basically unlimited money and not have to worry about offsets and all that good stuff because it's truly an emergency, but you need 60 votes to declare something an emergency. this budget resolution will change that rule so that a simple majority of senators can determine anything they would like to be an emergency and spend without any accountability. i think that's a bad idea for the body because anything you can do, we can do and it really is an assault on the idea of minority rights. i think it's the biggest blow to the institution yet. it's buried in this bill but it

eliminates the 60-vote requirement to declare items emergency spending, replace it with a simple majority, allowing a majority, a single party, to spend without restriction in the name of emergency. so to my friends on the other side, you need to look at what's in this bill and i hope you will find that to be unacceptable change the united states senate because when it comes to spending, it guts the idea that the minority matters because all you have to do if this budget resolution is implemented the way they've written it is to declare something an emergency, get 50 votes and spend. very bad idea. we hope to change that and hope to find some bipartisan support. so let me tell you about this bill. i will ask some questions. on the immigration side, senator sanders said that this bill creates millions of new green cards for people here illegally.

so here's a question. if we told the world that the budget reconciliation we're going to increase millions of green cards for people here illegally, do you think that would entice more people to come here illegally? here's what i think. i think that's the dumbest idea i could think of in the middle of an invasion of this country by illegal immigrants, the democratic party, through budget reconciliation, is going to authorize millions of new green cards for people here illegally. it's in your document. senator sanders admitted that. here's what's happening as i speak. these statements are being translated into spanish and every other language and human traffickers all over the world

are going to let the word get out that, hey, the senate is about to increase the number of green cards available for illegal immigrants, why don't you go and get in line? nobody's asked the border patrol how do you think this would affect our illegal immigration problem? have you spent 15 minutes talking to anybody at the border about what this policy change would do to a broken immigration system? i guarantee you haven't. if you talked to anybody with common sense on the border, they will tell you the last thing we need to do right now is incentivize for illegal immigration by allocating green cards for people already here illegally. what happened in the past six months. a 262% increase compared to last year. do any of the democrats have any idea what is happening here? has anybody explained what the

hell is going on at the border? you don't care. the same people writing the budget resolution for a wish list are the same people in charge of the border. they haven't asked one border patrol professional the effect of this bill on a broken immigration system. we've had 1.2 million people come to the country illegally already. let's compare that to last year. a 262% increase. illegal crossings by unaccompanied minors that surged 168% compared to last year. why? the biden administration has kept the covid deportation title 42 law in place but it's made exception by unaccompanied minors. if you're a certain age, you can stay. guess what.

the human traffickers found out and word is all over the northern triangle countries and there is a 186% increase of minors because of policy changes made by the biden administration. 27% of unaccompanied minors recently deported tested positive for covid-19. how many of the unaccompanied minors have been released into the country? of the 1.2 million people who have come here illegally, how many of them have been released? how many have been tested? how many are positive for covid? nobody if these numbers because nobody seems to a -- to have a clue on what to do about it. so what are the trends? look at this chart. look at 2020 compared to 1819 and 20 -- 2018, 2019, and 2020.

an explosion of illegal immigrants. 1.2 million, almost, year to date in -- in 2020 we had 458,000, more illegal aliens across the border because the biden administration did away with -- we're allowing unaccompanied children to stay as an exception to title 42, along with families, and guess what, you have an explosion of illegal immigrant crossings in this country. if you pass this budget resolution the way senator sanders described, you're going to throw jet fuel on this. this number will go through the roof. every human trafficker in the world is going to get the word out throughout the world they are increasing the number of green cards made to illegal immigrants in america. come now.

the time is right. what a dangerous idea, but it's part of this grand, new vision for america. let me tell you about this vision for america. open borders, dropping people by the thousands off into the interior of the united states, not adequately tested. enticing young people to take a very dangerous journey, destroying all of the gains we had, stopping a wall that was almost built. that's the vision being created by the budget resolution, and then some. the idea of increasing green cards for illegal immigrants already here will make these numbers explode beyond what they are already exploding. only god knows. has anyone told you the price at the pump?

has anybody mentioned to you on the other side what is the cost of this bill when we implement climate change reforms to you as a consumer? senator markey, who is a very passionate believer in climate change, said the green new deal is part of the d.n.a. of this bill. senator sanders is an avowed voacialist, one of the -- -- this budget resolution is a dream for those who want to socialize america. it's a nightmare for working people. how much has gas prices gone up in the last six months? a dollar. here's what i think. if you implement the provisions of this budget resolution

regarding climate change, you're declaring war on the internal combustion engine, you are going to shut down coal-fired plants. how much will gas prices go up if this bill becomes a reality? how much will your heating bill go up because you shut down supply? how has there been an increase of a dollar at the pump? policy matters. i dare say that if this bill is ever implemented, you are going to double gas prices. i hope you're listening america. if they implement this radical transformation of our economy, you will have a dramatic increase of gas prices and heating prices. this is the worst thoughtout idea i have ever seen. they are throwing every liberal idea and hope it sticks to the wall and their whole reason for

being on the left is in this bill. there's a border adjusted carbon tax proposal floating around out there. what does that mean to you? what the hell a border adjusted carbon tax? the best i can understand it's going to be a tax on products coming into the country because the way the product was made is not sufficiently green enough. so they are going to charge for that product, put a tax on it at the border. guess what. that's going to increase the cost of whatever good we're talking about and where do you think that cost goes? it goes to you. this is the most inflationary idea i've ever seen. we've had 5.4% increase in inflation recently, wiping out all the gains in the economy. how could that be? you're spending money like drunken sailors and if this bill ever becomes law, if it's ever

implemented and there's a border-adjusted carbon tax, it's going to be passed on to the consumer. if you're on a fixed income, this whole idea is a night entire you because your gas prices are going to go up, your heating bill is going to go up, and all the things they are going to make for free will create an inflationary effect, the size of the government is going to increase dramatically, interest rates will have to go up. so if you own a home, drive a car, breathe air, get ready for more taxes and more spending. all i can say is that i believe in climate change and i'd like to have a rational approach to solving the problem but this is not rational, this is partisan and t$4