we need commonsense laws to prevent gun violence, like the ones we passed in nevada. it's unbelievable that i am standing here on the senate floor four years after i first spoke about this tragedy and that we still have not been able to pass background checks and commonsense gun safety measures. the majority of americans are with us. we need to act because las vegas deserves it and so do communities all across the nation. we cannot continue to stand by as mass attacks and shootings take a tragic toll all over the united states. to the people of las vegas who continue to grapple with the pain we experienced on that day, know that i am with you. we'll continue to work to create a permanent memorial at the site of the shooting to be a tangible reminder of what we know, that

even in the darkest times, especially in the darkest times, we can come together to help one another and we can make a difference. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. romney: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah is recognized. mr. romney: mr. president, from utah's red rock canyons to our alpine meadows from the sprawling salt flats to the towering mountain peaks, it's hard to overstate the beauty of utah's ma jest cal landscapes. so much about being a without indiana is the connection to and caring for our land. these values have been ingrained in our culture since the pioneers found refuge here in 1847. we take great pride in the fact that folks from all over the world travel to our state to experience these rich and diverse landscapes. utah has nearly the highest percentage of its land owned by the federal government. nearly two-thirds of our 52

million acres. and of that federal land, more than 23 million acres is managed by the bureau of land management. this land has been cared for and used by utahans for generations. recreationists and sportsmen who take advantage of the access to hike, hunt, mountain bike, a.t.v. and camp, the ranchers who graze their livestock to provide our food and fiber to communities that rely on the oil and gas development in the basin or the coal mines and power plants that provide more than 70% of our electricity, individuals interested in exploring the cultural anthropology of our land and simply the residents that look to our open spaces for solitude. utahans deserve and demand that our public lands be managed by someone they can trust. it's quite obvious that the president's nominee for director of the bureau of land management tracy stone-manning is not worthy of our trust.

ms. stone-manning's history of aiding eco terrorism is extremely troubling and alone should be disqualifying for the position to which she's been nominated. it would be like nominating bernie madoff to serve as treasury secretary. for those who aren't family with tree spiking, an action with which stone-manning has been associated with, let me offer a brief synopsis. tree spiking involves hammering a metal or ceramic rod into a tree trunk. loggers could be seriously harmed or even killed when they cut into the trunk of a tree that has been spiked. and the same goes for sawmill operators who are processing the log in the mill. ecoterrorists who engage in tree spiking are willing to cause the gruesome injury or death of hardworking americans who are simply trying to provide for their families. but it's not only her efforts assisting ecoterrorists that's of concern. ms. stone-manning's blatant dishonesty about being investigated over a tree spiking

incident to the senate, that should disqualify her from serving as b.l.m. director. i take my constitutional duty to provide advice and consent with regard to presidential nominees very seriously as we all do. and with limited exception, i believe presidents regardless of party should be able to put in place qualified individuals to lead their team. i've supported several of president biden's nominees, even though i've disagreed with them on particular policy issues because i believe they were basically qualified for the position to which they've been nominated. simply put, however, tracy stone-manning's past involvement in ecoterrorism and her attempt to conceal that participation before the senate make her unfit to serve as director of the bureau of land management. i will be opposing her nomination and urge my democratic friends, especially those who represent states with large amounts of federal land, to oppose her nomination as

well.

mr. lee: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah is recognized. mr. lee: mr. president, back in 1987 a 23-year-old mill worker jailed george alexander struck a tree spike, a tree spike like

this one in the log that he was processing. his saw-blade shattered and it caused a wound stretching from his eye all the way down to his chin. his teeth were smashed and his jaw was brutally gashed in half. the incident made national news. just two years later tracy stone-manning rented a typewriter to disguise her identity. she then typed and sent a letter to the u.s. forest service on behalf of an ecoterrorist group. she conspired to spike trees with spikes just like this one, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of spikes just like this one. and in so doing endangered the lives of foresters, of loggers, and of firefighters. she ended the letter with the following words.

quote, you bass tarreds -- bastards go in there anyway, and a lot of people could get hurt. unfortunately it wasn't until after her nomination hearing that we learned of her work, the echo terrorist -- ecoterrorist organization earth first. it wasn't until after her hearing that we learned she had been issued a target letter by a federal grand jury and had hired an attorney to negotiate an immunity deal prior to testifying in the tree spiking case. it wasn't until after her hearing that we read her words in a newspaper saying that she, quote, could have been charged with conspiracy were it not for her agreement with the u.s. attorney, close quote. it wasn't until after her hearing that we learned that she was compelled by that same federal grand jury to submit fingerprints, writing samples, and hair samples. now, beyond her involvement with the ecoterrorist group, since her hearing we learned of public statements she made just months

ago calling for homes to burn in forest fires. we learned of statements she made saying that grazing is destroying the west and calling for population control measures. and even labeling children as environmental hazards. after all of this, a white house official called her nomination a ma -- massive vetting failure. it was that but it's so much worse than that. she was and is a radical. she supported a criminal conspiracy to engage in ecoterrorism. our committee asked her if she had ever been the subject of a criminal investigation. she in a sworn statement lied. our committee never had the opportunity to ask her about these shameful acts. her past actions, her positions, her statements and her goals would each individually

disqualify her from service. but combined they make her, frankly, an offensive candidate to the countless people in utah and throughout the west and beyond who rely on bureau of land management cooperation for their livelihoods and for their way of life. now, inexplicably, president biden has not withdrawn this nomination, though ms. stone-manning is seemingly gone into hiding. she's left unanswered dozens of questions formally posed to her by me and by my colleagues. if confirmed she'll lack the credibility with constituents throughout the nation that she would otherwise need to perform this job. she just won't have it. and any accomplishments made by the biden administration to steward our lands will be overshadowed by her specker of deceit. the bureau of land management

controls 42% of the land in utah. in fact, the b.l.m. controls pore land in utah than utahans do, a lot more. so i speak for a lot of people back home today, people who are insulted by president biden's nomination of tracy stone-manning to run the bureau of land management. her confirmation would be bad for utah, bad for the bureau of land management, and bad for honesty and accountability in government. needless to say, mr. president, she will not receive my vote. it defies logic, reason, and the greatest traditions of this body to think that we would confirm her today. i urge my colleagues to reject this nomination.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nevada is recognized. a senator: thank you. mr. president, i rise today to honor the memories of the lives that were lost in las vegas on october 1, 2017. ms. rosen: four years ago tomorrow the las vegas community experienced tragedy on an unprecedented scale. tens of thousands of people gathered that night for a country music festival. they were there to have fun, to dance, and to enjoy a concert with family and friends. that night the fun quickly turned to terror when gunfire erupted taking 60 innocent souls and injuring hundreds and hundreds more in just ten minutes, ten minutes. dozens of lives were cut short and so many more were forever changed.

these victims were friends and family, brothers and sisters, parents and children, and that night they were taken from us. the people that survived and the roofed ones that didn't are still grieving, still feeling that loss with every passing holiday, every passing birthday, every single day their lives are forever changed. nevada will always feel that loss, too. this was the worst mass shooting in american history, and it happened in our state. but i know our community is strong, we're resilient, and in our darkest hour and in the days and weeks and months and now even years after we remain united. we remain vegas strong. we're united in our grief for those we lost but also in our

admiration for those who helped save lives and support others that night. heroic law enforcement officers and first responders, everyday citizens would ran toward the danger, they ran toward the danger to help others. countless nevadans who waited in line to donate blood and help people who were displaced in the chaotic aftermath of the shooting. as we reflect on the four years since this horrific event, i stand here today. i stand here today to honor the heroes who put themselves in harm's way to save others. i stand here today to honor those who were injured physically, psychologically action and emotionally, especially those who are still fighting to recover. know that we are with you now and always. and i stand

here today to honor those who lost their lives. they will never, ever be forgotten. may their memories be a blessing, and in their memory, we are resilient. in their honor, we are strong. we are vegas strong. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from idaho is recognized. mr. risch: thank you, mr. president. first of all, i ask permission to use an item to demonstrate the speech i am going to give, please.

fellow senators and to the american public, i rise today to underscore a travesty that's about to take place in about an hour on the floor of the united states senate. i'm talking about the b.l.m. matter, the bureau of land management matter, the nominee that the president of the united states has made to run the bureau of land management is the director of the bureau of land management, and that person is tracy stone-manning, and i think the facts have pretty well been laid out already in the media. at some time -- there's tremendous outrage, i can tell you amongst not only b.l.m. employees but among people who earn their living and recreate on the millions of acres of b.l.m. it is incredible, it is astonishing, and it's an embarrassment for this

administration to nominate a person who is an ecoterrorist and a person who has perjured themselves before the committee that she appeared before on her confirmation, and in addition to that has espoused a let-it-burn philosophy for people's homes that she will take an oath to defend if she becomes head of the b.l.m., which i believe she's going to before the sun goes down today. it is amazing to me that the administration would put this person in this position. there are 330 million people in america. almost every single one of those people, including some high school kids, could do this substantially better than she could and would not tarnish the name of the b.l.m. that is going

to happen when she is confirmed as the director of the b.l.m. so what did she do? well, she engaged in acts of ecoterrorism. she engaged in a conspiracy to kill other people. she engaged in acts with earth first that put her squarely in the target of the united states government, along with her cohorts with whom she all lived in a house in montana at the time. but she got off the hook. she didn't get prosecuted because she turned on the others and turned state's evidence. she hired an attorney. that attorney negotiated with the u.s. attorney there, and she wound up testifying against the others so she wasn't convicted. nonetheless, she was as deeply involved in this as they were. let me read for you a letter that she wrote.

she admits to writing this letter. to whom it may concern -- this letter is being sent to note fight you that the post office sale in idaho has been spiked heavily. post office sale was a forest service sale of standing timber in the clearwater national forest in idaho. she writes this letter regarding that. the reasoning for this action is that this piece of land is very special to the earth. it is home to the elk, deer, mountain lions, and the trees. she's absolutely correct on that. the next paragraph describes what she did. the project required that 11 of us, most of whom lived in that house in montana, spent nine days in god-awful weather conditions spiking trees. we unloaded a total of 500 pounds of spikes measuring eight to ten inches in length.

for people who don't understand what spiking trees is -- and most people in america wouldn't -- you think, how can it be harmful going out and putting a spike in a tree? this is a spike, not a particularly large one but it doesn't take a particularly large one. and what they do is they drive this item into a tree, drive it in far enough that you can't see it, and it then stands there until some unsuspecting logger comes alopping and cuts the -- along and cuts the tree down. that logger could be injured, but it is unlikely they will be. but they could be because of the hidden spike that was in the tree. the tree is then, after its cut down, cut into length, usually 16-foot, put on a truck and hauled to the mill. once it gets to the mill, it's put in the millpond. it is then pushed eventually

into the mill and when it enters the mill, it goes on a carriage and the carriage carries it to a saw. the saw may move back-and-forth cutting the wood that's on this log in the carriage or more likely the carriage itself will move against the moving saw. a couple kinds of saws. one is a circular saw. it could be five feet -- depending on the size of the mill, it could be six feet, ten feet. but in today's world, more often than not it is a band saw. a band saw is a piece of metal stripping that's a quarter inch thick or so and probably couple inches wide with teenage. and it -- with teeth. and it circulates in the mill between the first floor, second floor, even the third floor. and as the carriage hits it, it

then saws the log into boards. all is well unless there's one of these in the log. what happens when that saw hits this item in the log, the best description i can give you, it is much like a hand grenade going off, except that there's no fire explosion. but there is just as much shrapnel this goes out of this at that time a speed that is very, very fast because all the moving parts are moving very fast. and what does it do? it kills and it injures log workers that are right there on the floor. these are innocent people. they're people that are working to make a living for themselves, for their families, for their children. they're people that go to work in the morning and not come home because someone knowingly, intentionally, maliciously is,

with a black and abandoned heart stuck one ever these in the tree. that is the only reason you put one of these in a tree is to kill and maim fellow human beings who are absolutely innocent and who have done nothing wrong. she was involved in this. she -- this person that the administration wants to run the bureau of land management, that manages millions of acres, the largest tracts of land in the united states of america -- they want to put this woman in charge of this agency. they sell timber all the time. she will be in charge of that. there's no need for this woman to be in charge of this agency. there are plenty of people who could do this. today in the clearwater national forest, those trees are still there. some of them will be there for 100 or more years. it's very possible one of these

is going to kill somebody working in one of the mills at some point in time after all of us are dead and gone. they'll ask at that time, how did this happen? and they'll say, well, a woman who was -- eventually became head of the b.l.m. was involved in putting these spikes in these trees here and people will shake their heads and say, what were those people thinking? that's shameful, it's despicable. yet that's what is about to happen here. that was a while ago that this happened. but what's happened recently, she will be in charge of fire fighting. fire fighting is absolutely critical on public lands in the west. we need it on forest service land, we need it on bureau of land management land. but, like i said, she has embraced the idea that letting fires burn and burning down the houses thatter in the interface

zones is -- that are in the interface zones is perfectly fine. how do we know this? it's in writing. it's absolutely in writing. there was an article written, fortuitously by her husband, which she embraced in september 2020 in a tweet. this is the view that her husband takes of what should happen to houses perfectly innocent people's houses, who build near public lands. the idea is let it burn. he says, but the federal government then needs to make fighting wildfires a social process, subject to social contract. perhaps the feds should commit themselves to refusing to send in the troops to any county that has not taken such measures. perhaps the solution to houses in the interface is to let them burn. and he says, there's a rude and satisfying justice in burning

down the house of someone who builds in the forest. she embraced this. just a little over a year ago, she put out a tweet and said, not a bad time to revisit this piece from my husband, richard manning, from two years ago. this is a clarion call. let them burn, she says. a clarion call to let people's homes bun. she put that out september 15, 2020, just a little over a year ago. this is the person that we're going to confirm to fight fires and protect people's homes in the west. all of us in the west ■live relatively close to the interface zones, and many people -- millions of people live in the interface zones -- and she's saying, it's a clarion call to let them burn. and indeed we'll get a rude and

satisfying justice in burning down those houses that were built in the interface zone. you can't make this stuff up. if someone wrote a book about this, someone would toss it and say, that's too ridiculous. this could never happen. this is the woman that this united states senate is going to confirm on a straight party-line vote in the about an hour here. so she comes before the committee and the committee, although we didn't have all the facts at that time, as has been alluded to by my colleagues here, we were aware that she had attachments to ecoterrorist groups. and so some questions were put to her and as always happens before the committee, they're required to be signed under oath, which she did. and she was asked whether or not she'd ever been arrested or

charged or been the target of an investigation involving spiking. she says -- now, under oath, after solemnly sworn to tell the truth -- no, i have nevada been arrested or charged and to nigh knowledge, i have never been the target of such an investigation. she hired an attorney to negotiate with the u.s. attorney because she was a target of the investigation, had received a target letter, and been told she was a target of that. what are we doing here? how in the world can somebody come before a committee, take an oath that they would tell the truth, and then flat lie? she was also asked, did you have personal knowledge of -- did you have personal knowledge of, participate in, or in any way directly or indirectly support activities associated with the spiking of trees in idaho's

clearwater national forest in 1989? we read the letter she wrote where she admitted that she was involved in that. her answer to that -- i had no involvement in the spiking of trees. under oath she said that. we know otherwise. she says that, 11 of us spent nine days in god-awful weather conditions spiking trees. and she under oath says no. next question -- did you have personal knowledge of, participate in, or in any way indirectly support activities associated with the spiking of trees in any forest during your lifetime. answer -- no. she admitted to signing this letter where she fessed upped to it. i know i'm not going to talk the democrats out of confirming her. i can tell you that this is a shameful, shameful thing for the administration to do. it's a shameful thing for my friends in the minority to

confirm her. what i can tell you is when she comes before the committee that we sit on, where we have oversight of the b.l.m. and we have the director in regularly because we have oversight responsibility, how will we believe one word she says? when she has already perjured herself? this is wrong, it is a shameful moment for this administration. i can tell you the employees of the bureau of land management are going to have a very difficult time working under a person who is an ecoterrorist and who is a perjurer. she should not be confirmed. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. ms. lummis: i rise today to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from idaho and the gentleman from utah who just spoke about one of the most egregious nominations to ever receive a vote on the floor of the united states senate. i'm speaking of president biden's nomination of tracy stone-manning to be director of the bureau of land management. i have been here in washington, d.c., for close to a decade now, and i know that oftentimes it feels there are few things that unite us as democrats and republicans. i would have hoped, mr. president, that just one of those things that would have united us would be opposition to

ecoterrorism, and yet in about an hour, the senate will be voting to confirm a known ecoterrorist collaborator to lead one of the most consequential land management agencies. i'm flabbergasted, i'm aghast, i'm horrified. this is a solemn, bad day for land management in the united states. here we are, 28 million -- $28 trillion plus in debt. $28 trillion-plus in debt. inflation is threatening every single american. we have a global pandemic, a major crisis at our southern border, a massive government expansion and debt ceiling

debate, and senate democrats want to put an ecoterrorist collaborator to manage one of the biggest land management agencies in the united states. the bureau of land management administers about 245 million acres of land. it manages 18.4 million acres of public land surface in my state, and nearly 43 million acres of federal mineral estate in my home state of wyoming. as is required by law, the bureau of land management operates under a multiple-use mandate that balances recreation needs, energy development, grazing, conservation, mining, wildlife habitat, and more.

leading this agency requires someone who is balanced and committed to supporting this multiple-use mandate. it is the law that governs the bureau of land management. do we have that in ms. stone-manning? as reported by "the washington post," of all places, ms. stone-manning was a spokeswoman for earth first, the group responsible for the ecoterrorist tree spiking, spoken of by mr. risch and mr. lee moments ago in idaho's clearwater national forest. so what is the motto for the group for which ms. stone-manning served as a mouth piece? here it is. no compromise in defense of

mother earth, no compromise, none. and yet, we're supposed to trust that ms. stone-manning will compromise on the inevitable conflicts that will come before her as b.l.m. director? the requirement that she balance the interests on use of b.l.m. land. for president biden and my senate colleagues across the aisle, do you really want your names associated with a no-compromise mouthpiece of a convicted ecoterrorist organization? someone who lied under oath to the energy and natural resources committee. in her testimony, she lied under oath. someone who has advocated for population control as a means to save the environment. someone who has written that

grazing is, quote, destroying the west. now, pair that remark with what you just heard from senator risch. senator risch says she and her husband want those houses in the interface with the forest to burn. what prevents them from burning? it's grazing. grazing done right helps keep the forest floor and the grasses from igniting conflagrations. grazing is good for the west, yet she has written that grazing destroys the west. grazing is one of the elements of multiple use. does that mean that she's going to use her position to try to eliminate grazing in the west?

that would add to catastrophic fires. that would add to carbon emissions from these monster fires that we're having. management requires land management. that's why it's called the bureau of land management. it's not the bureau of land let it be, let it burn, let it rot, let it be ignored. it's the bureau of land management, with a multiple-use mandate. ms. stone-manning is wholly unqualified to serve in this position, absolutely unqualified. i urge president biden to withdraw her nomination before 7:00 tonight and for senate democrats to join us in saying no to this nominee.

this nominee is an insult to the american west. mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to be able to use a prop on the senate floor, a tree spike. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sullivan: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, you see some of my colleagues are down here. we're a little bit fired up, right. this is not some kind of partisan game. we are fired up for a reason that the u.s. senate is getting ready to confirm a nominee who has no business being even considered on the senate floor. no business being considered on the senate floor. and with all due respect, my colleague from montana, this

isn't -- what did he say? attacks against somebody. these are facts that we're going to talk about. these are facts. someone who is still continuing to not even tell the truth about her past as a violent ecoterrorist. now, look, we know this administration has put forward far-left individuals. i'm going to talk about a few, but to put forward a far-left violent nominee, i think we all should recognize is kind of a bridge too far for the united states senate. but that's happening right now, and i'm really hopeful that at least some of my democratic colleagues at the last minute will go maybe we shouldn't do this. maybe we shouldn't set this standard. so i have been on the floor a number of times talking about tracy stone-manning's nomination. it's actually the first time in

my senate career that i asked the president to withdraw a nominee, and for good reason -- because of all the things you have heard from my colleague from wyoming, idaho, colleagues from mostly western states. and i am going to ask my democratic colleagues from western states, do you really want to set this precedent? how are you going to go home and tell people who harvest timber legally for a living that you are good to go with this? good to go with someone who put hundreds of these kind of tree spikes in trees for people, our fellow americans, to get hurt. but that's what we're seeing right here. you know, i think that maybe the biden administration after i and many others requested that they

withdraw this nominee, that maybe they thought well, look, with all the noise going on around here, a reckless $3.5 trillion tax and spend extravaganza, the botched afghanistan withdrawal, the crisis on the southern border, inflation going through the roof, the price at the pump hurting working families in my state and those across america, the shutdown of the energy sector unilaterally and then going begging russia and iran for more oil that they can import to the united states. i mean, you can't make this stuff up, but i think the biden administration thought with all this chaos that they're creating, maybe nobody will notice tracy stone-manning's confirmation process and vote. well, they're wrong. as you see here, there's some really strong feelings about this nominee. a past ecoterrorist, a member of earth first, an extreme group

that performed violent acts as part of their platform for getting attention in america. in fact, she is so extreme that the director of b.l.m. from the obama-biden administration, bob abbey, made a statement saying that if her violent ecoterrorist past activities were true -- and they were -- they were. i'm going to talk about them. senator risch has already talked about them. senator barrasso has. senator lummis has. if these were true, then president obama's b.l.m. director said she does not deserve the job. so this isn't just republicans. this is the former democrat director of the agency that we're going to vote on that she wants to lead. so before i talk a little bit more about her -- and i know we have had a number of senators do it -- i want to make another

point. the reason i have been down here so much focused on this nominee is that b.l.m. for some states -- heck, if you live in connecticut, probably nobody knows what that is, but the bureau of land management in my state is one of the most powerful federal agencies there is. in the great state of alaska. mr. president, the alaska b.l.m. manages more surface and sub surface acres in my state than in any other state in the country, by far. the b.l.m. director in alaska is our landlord, and i don't want an ecoterrorist as my state's landlord. and neither do my constituents. let me give you some numbers. the b.l.m. manager in alaska manages over 70 million surface acres of land and 220 million

sub surface acres of land in alaska. a little context. that is the equivalent land of about 1/5 of the entire lower 48. you see why this is real important to me and my constituents. most states can't even comprehend land that size. one-fifth of the lower 48 of the united states of america is about the amount of land b.l.m. manages just in my state. this is a huge amount of land, and of course by definition a huge amount of power that this federal agency has over the people i am privileged to represent, their work, their jobs, their hunting activities, that you are

subsistence -- their subsistence activities. and that's why i've been down here talking about this nominee. i know to some east coast states, forget it, we don't know who she is. no power. she doesn't have any power over new jersey or some of these other small states on the east coast. but in my state, massive power power, and it is imperative that the director of this agency, the bureau of land management, with so much power and so much control over the future of alaska and its economic opportunity for working families that the manager of b.l.m. be trustworthy, be honest, be fair-minded, beyond reproach, and certainly not someone who is involved in ecoterrorism earlier in their career. is that too much to ask? -- my colleagues in the

senate. and what we know about tracy stone-manning is she is none of these things. she hasn't been trustworthy with the senate, fair-minded. but let's go back to a little bit of her background, because people need to know this. people need to know this. and my colleagues have already done a good job, but i hope the american people are watching this. she was not only a member of earth first, a radical far-left group that has engaged repeatedly in what's defined as ecoterrorism. she herself was complicit in putting metal spikes -- see this -- big, thick metal spikes by the hundreds in trees that were meant either to hurt or gravely injure american

citizens who are legally harvesting trees. we're okay with that, senate democrats? we're okay with that? americans who were cutting down trees legally as part of their job, to help their economy, to help their family, who were putting trees in sawmills legally. all the while she and her buddies, comrades i call them, were acting illegally, putting these spikes by the hundreds in trees. this was a common technique -- tree spiking as it's called, developed by eek terrorists in the late -- ecoterrorists in the late 1980's and early 1990's. ms. manning's group earth first began in the 1980's by a group who thought their movement wasn't radical enough and thought how can we get more

attention? let's perpetrate violence against our fellow americans. their slogan p was no compromise in defense of mother earth. in their view, no compromise meant destroying property, putting steel spikes in trees that could kill someone who harvested a tree. and they celebrated and even encouraged such actions. the group even put out a manual detailing tree spiking and instructions on how to do other sabotage activities -- cutting downpour lines, flattening tires, burning machinery, all directed at those who are trying to legally harvest trees. david foreman, the founder of earth first, described all these activities as fun. this is where you can have fun. so let me talk a little bit about fun.

i have an article, mr. president, from "the washington post" during that time. they were talking about a tree spiking incident, and i'm going to quote from it. george alexander, a third-generation mill worker, was just starting his shift at the louisiana pacific lumber mill in clover dale, california, when the log that would alter his life rolled down his conveyor belt toward a high-speed saw. now we have some of these saws and these mills in alaska, not nearly as many as we used to have. they are huge, they're giant, they're the size of people. they spin at incredibly fast speeds, huge teeth. they are dangerous to work normally, but when you put a

steel spike in a tree that's going through a fastly spinning saw, you can imagine the explosion and the violence. i'll continue the article. it was may 1987. alexander was 23 years old. his job was to split logs. he was nearly three feet away when the log he was working on hit his saw and the giant saw exploded. one half of the blade struck the log, exploded when it hit one of these. the other half hit alexander in the forehead with the giant saw tearing through his safety helmet, tearing through his face shield, his face was slashed from eye to chin. his teeth were smashed.

and his jaw was cut in half. good job, earth first. fellow american, trying to kill a fellow american. so these were the kind of activities that tracy stone-manning once conspired in. i wonder if that disturbs anybody. i was up at our fish camp on the yukon river this summer over the fourth of july, clearing some brush, trees, working a chain saw, a smaller chain saw, and i literally was thinking, i wonder what would happen if my chain saw hit one of these. it wouldn't have been good. so i think if you're not disturbed by this, you really should be. so i know that some of my colleagues have already read the letter on the floor that she

wrote, profane, anonymous letter from this member of earth first about the 500 pounds of tree spikes. 500 pounds hammered into trees in idaho. she rewrote the letter on a rented type writer because she later told a reporter her fingerprints were all over it, so she didn't want to be caught. so obviously she knew she was engaging in criminal activity. she didn't just hand write it. she typed it and then sent it to the f.b.i. i know some of my colleagues have already read it. i'm just going to notice a couple highlights. this letter is being sent to notify you that the post office sale in the great state of idaho has been spiked heavily. the project required that 11 of us spend nine days in god-awful weather conditions spiking

trees. we unloaded a total of 500 pounds of spikes, measuring eight to ten inches in lengths. 500 pounds of these, that's a lot of spikes. the majority of the trees were spiked within the first ten feet, but many, many others were spiked as high as 150 feet. again, why would they go that high? that's not where you're going to cut it down. so when it goes through a mill, you injure and kill the mill workers. she goes on further, p.s., -- mr. chairman, i don't know if i'm allowed to swear, but you can call me out if i'm not supposed to. p.s., you bastards, go in there anyway, and a lot of people could get hurt. that's real nice. now she kept quiet for many years on what she did. she later received immunity for her part in this tree spiking,

when prosecutors went after other members of earth first, and she testified about it. but in her narrative, she's always tried to portray herself as a victim. she wasn't a victim. the investigator of this disputes that characterization dramatically. the u.s. special -- forest special agent describes her as vulgar, an tag -- antagonistic , it was only clear that she knew she was going to to get in trouble that she began to cooperate. let me be clear the special agent said ms. manning came forward after the attorney struck the immunity deal and not before she was caught. in testimony before the senate, she claimed the tree spiking was alleged. it wasn't alleged and it was never investigated. that's not true.

we know that's not true, and it was recent. it's not just the tree spiking. she hasn't been honest but she is still clearly a radical. let me give you another example. her husband wrote an article from "harper's" magazine in 2018 claiming wildfires were a political issue, that such an issue should be solved by letting houses and forests burn. think about that. perhaps the solution to houses and the interface is to let them burn. those are his exact words. look, that's her husband. you can't blame her for her husband's radical views. but here's what she did. she weighed in herself in 2020, last year, retweeting the article and basically endorsing his views. here's what she said -- not a bad time to revisit this piece from my husband, richard manning, from two years ago. clarion call on climate action. think about that,

mr. president. so i was in charge of our lands in alaska. we worked, including fighting wildfires, we worked really closely with the federal government. the state of alaska, federal officials, on fighting our wildfires. we have big wildfires in alaska. always have had them, always will have them. never, ever, ever in any time i was involved in issues related to fighting wildfires have i heard a state official or federal official say, hey, if there's a fire near a bunch of homes, let them burn. but do you see the problem? she's going to be in charge of that in alaska. let them burn. you know what our federal firefighters do? they save structures. they save houses. they're very heroic. let them burn, she said last year. in a nutshell, mr. president,

this is potentially, if we don't stop this vote tonight, the new head of the b.l.m. she was a member of an ecoterrorist group who had a goal to actually threaten to hurt or actually hurt american citizens, hardworking americans doing something legal. she's clearly been dishonest. recently. with all due respect to my colleague from montana, these aren't some kind of ad hominem attacks. these are facts. last year she said, hey, i agree with my husband's article. let them burn, let the homes burn in these wildfires. that's not going to work in my state. she's going to head up an agency with enormous power over my state and its future. so look, we have differences on issues of resource development, energy for america, certainly on issues of jobs in my state.

unfortunately, the biden administration, i think we're up to 20 actions from this administration focused just on this state to shut down jobs. i gave a speech here a while ago asking not the president of the senate, the president of the united states, could you imagine if a republican administration came in and issued almost, who knows, 10, 15, it's hard to count, executive orders shutting down delaware's economy. what would you do, mr. president, if you were a senator? you'd be furious. well, i'm furious. and i'm furious because we've got another radical who's going to be in charge of my state's future. let it burn. tree spikes. but here we are, unfortunately about to confirm this individual

as the director of b.l.m. but here's the thing i want to know, mr. president. if you're a western senator, say, arizona, nevada, california, good luck going home and explaining this to your constituents. good luck with that. mr. president, i'm going to just mention another nominee to speak about briefly. if tracy stone-manning weren't radical enough to, i'd like to mention another biden nominee from the far-left socialist fringe. this person was nominated by the president to be comptroller of the currency. what do they do? supervise all national banks. another very serious position,

not a lot of americans, you know, highlight this or they think about it a lot. it's like b.l.m., but it's important, powerful. and you'd think you'd have somebody in that position who would understand and value free markses -- free markets and our banks. she doesn't value our system, doesn't seem to much like banks. she has other ideas, according to the "the wall street journal" today that said that might make our colleague senator sanders blurb. who is -- blush? who is she? she is a graduate from moscow state university where she received the lenin academic scholarship. yeah, you heard me right. i'm not talking moscow, idaho.

i'm talking the real moscow in the soviet union. let me say that again. moscow state university where she received the lenin personal academic scholarship. you can't make this stuff up. from her writings it appears that she still significantly believes in what she learned at old moscow u, particularly about our free market system and communism and socialism. here's what she tweeted in 2019 -- 2019, three years ago -- two years ago. until i came to the u.s. i couldn't imagine things like gender-pay gaps still existed in today's world. say what you want about the old ussr, there was no gender pay gap there. markets don't always know best. that was a tweet two years ago. say what you want about the old

ussr, about stalin and lenin and the roughly 100 million people killed during their reins -- reigns, talk about the trying to snuff out freedom, say what you want about the ussr, the gulags, at least there was no gender gap. there was no food, by the way, and there was no freedom. she said, maybe i should clarify this. i never claimed that men and women were treated equal in every facet of the old soviet union, but people's salaries were set by the state in a gender-blind manner and all women got very generous benefits but those things are still a pipe dream in our american society. that was her clirfication, --

clarification. her nostalgia for socialist communist regimes and policies doesn't end with pay disparities. she advocated for the federal reserve's mandate of draconian concerns over wages, bank deposits. how would she do this through, quote, a people's ledger, a national investment authority, a public interest council? it sounds like a modern day version of the system she learned about at moscow university. plainly put she's another radical who has sweeping powers over the institutions of our united states government. so, mr. president, i'm going to conclude with this. if you're watching, america, i hope you're seeing a theme here.

the biden administration, unfortunately with the help of some of my senate democratic colleagues, is trying to make us comfortable with far-left fringe radical appointments who will take over very significant posts in our government and will push us towards a path of socialism. they are pushing a radical left lurch for our country that the vast majority of americans don't want. just look at my what colleagues are coming up with with their $3.5 trillion tax and spend bill, written by the chairman of the budget committee, an avowed socialist. it is not a criticism. it's a fact. this is the biggest spending bill in decades with zero transparency. even the house had a markup, but the senate once known as the most deliberative body in the world is not having one hearing, one markup on a $3.5 trillion

reckless tax and spend bill. mainstream middle-class america does not want socialism and they don't want far-left radicals to run our government. my democratic colleagues think they can ram this far-left agenda without anybody noticing, but the american people are noticing and wise and are starting to feel the pain of the biden administration's far-left anti-energy, anti-capitalism agenda, especially at the pump. they will remember when senators who are enabling this and remember the senators who have no problem voting nominees who have a record of being part of organizations that sought to perpetrate violence against their fellow americans.

i hope my democratic colleagues have a change of heart and vote against tracy stone-manning because our country and my state don't need her in charge. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the

senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president, there has been a lot of impassioned words about the nominee that we will have before us in just a matter of less than an hour, tracy stone-manning. i join my colleagues and the concerns that they have expressed as we -- as we look to those individuals that we ask to -- to take the helm of some of these very important agencies, agencies, as my colleague from alaska has pointed out, have extraordinary impact on -- on the activities and the actions that go on in our state. we need to have only the highest caliber of men and women and what we have seen, the background that we have seen with this particular nominee, i -- i would hope would shock us all and so as we -- as we move forward with it this nomination process and consider the impact

to, again, not just an agency, not just to a department but the impact that then comes to our communities, our states, the people that we -- we work for. it is -- it is only appropriate and fitting that we -- we speak to -- to the issues that we have learned of, we speak to the truth of the matter and the truth of the matter is that this nominee is not an individual who should be in this position. mr. chairman, i did not come to the floor today to speak to this nomination. i've done it previously. i will be voting against her nomination in just a moment. but i came to the floor today because this is a day of special recognition, september 30. and i am joining colleagues and many people across our country and in canada who are coming

together on what we're calling a national day of remembrance to give voice to the thousands of native children who tragically died in indian boarding schools across america and in canada and to acknowledge and support the thousands of native children who survived but are perhaps still coping with inner-generational trauma from these experiences. today we -- we recognize and honor the lives lost of thousands of innocent native children who died and remain lost to their communities and families and misattributed or unmarked graves across america and in canada. we remember not only the children that were lost but not forgotten but also the families, again, that are impacted by this

tragedy. supporters like myself are wearing orange today because of the story of one first nation's boarding school survivor phyllis webstep. she recounted her own point of ordering -- boarding school experience in canada. she was just 6 years old. she was living with her grandmother when she was taken away to a residential mission school. think about what that means to know that the child is entrusted to you as the grandparent that her -- her education, the only education that she will be able to receive will be away from the family, away from you at 6 years of age of her family didn't have a lot of money but somehow her mother managed to buy her a new outfit for her to wear on the first day of school and that outfit included a new shiny

orange shirt that she picked out for this occasion. when that little girl arrived at school excited for her first day, she was shocked to be stripped of her clothes and her new orange shirt and forced to wear a standard uniform. it was that moment in time that would leave an indelible mark on a young girl that would later start a movement across nations to remind us how nrnt native -- how innocent native children were truly stripped of their identities and made to feel as if they didn't matter -- they just didn't matter. the stories of those children who were taken from their families and sent away to these boarding schools need to be shared, they need to be heard. and we collectively, as a country, need to support indigenous survivors in their healing journey. our nation's history and the treatment of native american

people is not an easy one to tell. it's not easy to hear or to acknowledge but our discomfort in sharing painful, collective history probably pales in chairson to the lived experience and realities that so many people continue to face today. for a long period of time, beginning with the enactment of the civilization act of march 3, 1819, there were thousands of native american children who were taken from their families, taken their their fiewnts, -- from their communities, often forcibly removed. they were relocated to residential boarding schools, some schools were perhaps closer to their home and some schools not so close to home and not so close to their families. the federal government made

attendance compulsory for all indigenous children. some of the children, mr. president, some of these kids were as young as just 3 or 4 years old. i find that just incomprehensible really that a -- that a toddler -- a toddler could be removed from their home and their parents. while indian boarding schools were in operation, many children were forced if into manual labor, some worked maintaining the schools that they were in and a number of the schools lent the children to nearby communities or surrounding states to work and they worked as domestic servants. they may have worked as farm laborers, at factories. while attending indian boarding school so many indian children were stripped of their native identities and their culture.

we heard the stories. we were forbidden to speak in their traditional language, they were forced -- forbidden to practice their religious beliefs, to wear their hair long or in braids. native identity was replaced with a new identity that was viewed as being more acceptable to american society at that time. by cutting a child's long hair, speaking to them only in english, dressing them in uniforms, shedding all parts of their indigenous cultures, our federal government really stole from these children their úthr legendary in many places. stories told about when a child

disobeyed the rules, they were often physically, verbally, mentally abused, sometimes placed in solitary confinement like a prisoner. it's been commonly reported that numerous native children who attended the indian boarding schools were abused both physically and sexually of the many children died while at the schools. and this is -- this is what is -- remains unknown. we know that they died from exposure to disease. we know that there were deaths due to accidents. there were many unexplained reasons but the abuse that some suffered. in recent months we've seen shocking evidence of hundreds of unmarked graves of first nations children who attended canadian residential schools, were found in former schools in british columbia and saskatchewan. here in this country the

department of interior has begun a comprehensive archival review of u.s. boarding schools that were here. this is going to be a very important and a very necessary investigation. mr. president, i want to share with you the story of one young al ute girl from alaska. she was an orphan. she was 17 years old when is he died. she died on may 6, 1906. she was a student of the carlisle indian industrial school. it's a rural boarding school located in pennsylvania. sophia tetoff was aliute. she was one of the many children who were lent from the carlisle school to live with and work for

other white families. so keep in mind when she left alaska, she was 12 years old. she's 12 years old. she thinks she's going off to boarding school. she's going to get her education and she's lent from the school to live and work for white families in that area. within her first year being at carlisle, sophia would be placed with families in new jersey, in maryland, and pennsylvania where she worked essentially as a servant. we don't know a lot of those -- the details of those five years that sophia spent at carlisle, but what we do know is that after the near responsibility long journey it took to get this young girl th from her home vile on st. paul island in the middle of the baring sea, think about -- think about that. you're 12 years old and you are put on a ship leaving your small

village in the middle of the baring sea and crossing the waters to get over to the southeast coast, a month-long journey for a 12-year-old. she spent the majority of her time living with various non-native families working as a servant without her family, any familiarity to offer her any comfort. it was during her last placement that she contracted tuberculosis. she was returned to the school, not returned hope. she was returned to the school where she died a year later alone in a school hospital. she died alone 4,000 miles from her home and her family. this year in july sophia's remains along with the remains of nine rose bud sioux children were repatriated from carlisle, pennsylvania back to their original homelands. sophia was returned home to st. paul for her final burial and her forever resting place

surrounded by relatives and people who loved her even though most had never known her. it's been reported that sophia was one of 188 students buried at carlisle and she was one of more than 100,000 native children that were placed in an estimated 375 boarding schools across our country in an effort to assimilate indian people. so just let that kind of sink in for a moment here. the sheer number of young, young children that were taken from their parents, from their families, their tribes and their communities who would never return home. this is just heart -- it's heartbreaking. carlisle was one of the first off-reservation government-funded

assimilationist boarding schools that native american children attended. we often hear the name brigadier general richard henry pratt mentioned when we learned of some of the atrocities that game from indian boarding school policies. mr. pratt was a founder of the carlisle school and coined the phrase kill the indiana, -- endian, save the man. at that time in history, mainstream society largely believed that native americans were a problem that needed to be solved and regarded indian people as almost less than hu human, savages who needed to be segregated or terminated. pratt, however, was of another mind and believed in the noble cause of assimilating native americans, and his mission was to civilize indians and assimilate them into mainstream american society. while pratt may not have intended to be malevolent, the policies and practices that were

carried out under his name and federal missions tore thousands of native families apart. the impact of these actions authorized by our government upon native american people and cultures is something that we never can truly make whole. in many respects, native cultures were gutted by the impact and loss of native children, and that is something that we as american people need to acknowledge, learn from, and reckon with in order to support indian self-determination and healing. in 1886 a government report about the progress of indian boarding schools stated that isolating native children from their families was the key. the report stated, and i quote, if it be admitted that education affords the true solution to the indian problem, then it must be admitted that the boarding

school is the very key to the situation. it went on to say, quote, only by complete isolation of the indian child from his savage antecedents can be satisfactorily educated. it wouldn't be until a 1969 kennedy report that found indian education had failed and was a national tragedy that the federal government would look to begin improving native american education policies. i think samuel tores of the national native american boarding school healing coalition said it well when he said we can't name the trauma if we don't know the scope of the trauma, we'll never heal from it. as we're looking to the future and continuing our mission of educating people about america's painful past and treatment of so many at a timive people, i would -- native people, i would ask that you consider remembering the names of the children who were lost like sophia tetoff and start weaving the names of these

innocent native children into our collective memory. if we're going to accurately account for our history and truly support indigenous people, we need to include native children in this narrative towards healing. say their names. remember their tribes. acknowledge the survivors and the families that are still with us. mr. president, before i conclude, i want to mention that to mark the significance of this day, i've introduced a concurrent resolution designated september 30, 2021, as a national day of remembrance for the native american children who have died while attending a united states boarding school and to recognize and honor the survivors of indian boarding schools and their families. now, my resolution is not meant to serve as a solution or an answer or even a long overdue apology. it instead seeks to honor the lives of the many native children who died in indian

boarding schools and to recognize support and honor the services -- the survivors and their families and acknowledge the grief and the trauma that our country created, we condoned and we codified. so my resolution is meant to open a door to the conversation and congressional recognition of the atrocities that our government contributed to and the impact that it has had on so many. i know we're approaching november. it's usually when we recognize national native american her tan month, but i think it's important that we remember every day, not only today, all those who fought to be here, especially our first people in this country. and i would encourage all to look at our resolution, support and recognize september 30 for all of the native american children who died while attending an indian boarding

school or survived the experience and are living to tell about it. we honor them, their tribes, their parents, their families, and their communities. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. lankford: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: the senate is currently taking up a nominee, the bureau of land management, tracy stone-manning. there's a lot that i can say about tracy stone-manning, but there are some key features if you're going to deal with the bureau of land management. you walk into a leadership role where you have thousands of people working under you and around you and you have care for the forests, and you have care for a lot of things that are in our environment. this particular leader was involved when she was in college and a group that was gathering to be able to spike trees. she's admitted that she's the one that actually wrote the letter to be able to actually lay out what they had done,

where they drove a spike into some trees intentionally designed to be able to threaten loggers that would come through that area that if they actually put a chainsaw to that, there's a decent chance it would break the chain and would come at the logger. or that if they put that log in a sawmill, it would split the band saw and throw debris across the workers that are there. to be clear, tree spiking is an act of ecoterrorism. and now this individual will be voted on by this body to lead the bureau of land management. i wish i could say that is the only issue that was there, but as you read through her writings, she wrote multiple different things about dealing with environmental issues, but one of the things that was most painful to me to be able to read was a section that she wrote where she had a picture of a child and in the picture of the child it said this is the greatest environmental threat that we face.

children. and her philosophy the world has too many kids and the way that we can protect the environment is to have fewer children in the world. i happen to think children are a blessing, not an environmental threat. but this body is about to vote on putting tracy stone-manning leading the bureau of land management. i wish i could say that's the only issue that's actually moving right now. as i turn and look around the world, there are so many issues and things that are going on right now. turkey has actually announced they're going to buy more russian missiles. they're completely ignoring what's going on. france is furious with the united states right now and feel like the united states stabbed them in the back in forming an alliance without them, withdrawing their ambassador, the first they've done in centuries with the united states

because of the broken relationship with france. we have put sanctions on individuals, but i wish i could tell you it was due to a russian pipeline but, no, those sanctions were pulled. or i wish i could tell you is was on turkey for actually buying russian surface-to-air missiles but that hasn't been done. we have added sanctions on to the attorney general of guatemala. the attorney general they're saying is corrupt though she's actually trying to address corruption in her country. i wish i could say that's even the only issue that we're dealing with. afghanistan, the taliban has now announced their new leader for the taliban in afghanistan, mohammad husson who is a u.n.-sanctioned individual. that's the transition to the new government we're going to work with where hundreds of americans still remain because they were left behind. in iran it doesn't get any

better. in iran they just announced again that they're not going to allow the inspectors to come in and deal with cameras in the cent fugue -- centrifuge sites and they continue to stiff-arm the world and say that's what they're going to do there seems to be no new consequences for iran. but there is for the attorney general of guatamala, but not in other areas. in the armed services committee this week, the top brass for the united states made it very clear that they had recommended to the president leaving 2,500 troops in afghanistan, when the president has announced no one ever told me that, the top leadership time is reserved said they made it clear -- the top leadership said they made it clear. many people don't know that president biden just a couple of weeks ago fired every appointee

from the trump administration time period, that president trump put in, for the board of visitors for all of our academies. the naval academy, west point, air forced academy, just cleared them all. it wasn't based on their qualifications. it was just if trump pointed them they're all bad. by the way, that's never been done by any president, ever. just cleared the deck. if trump said they were good, they must be bad. on the southern border, we all know full well what's happening in the chaos that's there. as we've now topped well over a million individuals that we've interdicted from over 100 different countries that have crossed our southwest border illegally. and the number, i would love to tell you, of those that have been allowed to come into the country except d.h.s. won't tell us that number, for months. federal courts have stepped in

and have told the biden administration they have to reimpose the m.p.p. process that president trump put in that dramatically dropped the number of people coming to our southwest border illegally. federal courts instructed the biden administration a month ago that they have to put that back in place, and so far the biden administration has said we're thinking about it. we're examining it, and won't even release a timeline to be able to follow the federal court. now, it's one thing for the biden administration to be angry at congress, but currently they're ignoring a federal court order. that's a whole different issue on our democracy. afghan evacuees have one set of standards to be able to come in. people in the southwest border have an entirely different set, and in the middle of it there's an ongoing dialogue about vaccine mandates for every american. the president gave a speech and dropped a mandate and said etch

that works in a -- and said everyone that works in a company that has 100 people or more has to get the vaccine. that's his requirement. he's yet to get the legal requirement for that. they've yet to put out a single document from the department of labor. they put a deadline date out there and asking every company to be able to implement it simply based off his speech. the president cannot just give a speech and mandate to the country what to do. that's not how a representative republic works. but yet, that's what's happening. it's even more chaos among federal workers and among federal contractors, because he did the same mandate to them h. but, quite frankly, agency to agency they're trying to figure out what to do. one agency handles it one way, another agency handles it completely different because no order has come down from the office of personal management and the office of management and budget. they have failed to put out the most basic instructions so there

is chaos. and literally we have individuals that are federal contractors and saying we're not going to do federal contracting anymore on this or they can't complete a contract because so many people within their company have said i'm not going to take the vaccine. i've already had covid. i have natural immunity. i'm not going to do it. current the president has only given a speech, and whether it's the national guard that only has 40% of the guard vaccinated or whether it's in private companies, the chaos is running around the entire country. as people that are vaccinated like me encourage others to be vaccinated and to say i'm glad that i've been vaccinated, i'm glad that i have the vaccine, and others are saying, you know what, i'm an american, why are you making me take this? why am i going to lose my job if i can't do this? i've talked to union employees that work in federal unions that are saying why isn't my union protecting me? my union seems to be

capitulating instead of actually helping me. i thought may union was supposed to represent me, but yet union bosses are telling their union members, we're not going to listen to you this time. we're going to listen to the president instead of you as a union member. and i've talked to quite a few that are really ticked off because this was not in their collective bargaining agreement agreement, and they are wanting know when their voice actually gets heard. i will tell you, i don't know when their voice actually gets heard because they have been locked out. all of those things are happening all around the world, and on the other side of the building, they're working on fighting over an infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion social welfare entitlement bill that they're working to be able to move through, as the left and the uber left fight about how much they can spend today.

the $3.5 trillion bill that's out there has an enormous cost, but, quite frankly, the content of the bill is more dangerous than the cost. i remember full well in the 1990's, president clinton standing in front of the nation and saying we're going to end welfare as we know it. and his statements about the welfare experiment that we have had for decades to be able to send cash payments out to individuals we now know doesn't work. we need to incentivize work. we need to incentivize individuals so that individuals are able to rise. shockingly in this $3.5 trillion entitlement bill, they're literally going back to welfare as we once had it rather than ending welfare as we know it. they're returning to just checks rather than encouraging jobs. we've seen already what that looks like in our economy, just this year when in march, april, may, june so many states had such a hard time hiring individuals because individuals were getting just

enough money to be able to get by, and so employers were trying to hire people but people were saying as long as i can get by i'm just going to be able to get by. and we watched company after company struggle to be able to actually bring staff on. we watched lots of restaurants cut their hours. we watched lots of stores cut their hours because they couldn't get enough staff. that's the plan for this $3.5 trillion bill, to cut more checks to more individuals, to make it even harder to be able to function in our economy. and it's not just that. it's throughout the bill. they changed the way that the affordable care act funding is even done. according to the kaiser family foundation study that's tracking all of these changes, a family of two adults with a five-year-old child with an annual income of $100,000 will now get $10,500 per year in additional subsidies. a family of $100,000, they're

going to give an additional $10,500 per year. that's not the only issue as well. dramatic change in preschool entitlements. $450 billion they want to spend on this massive child care and preschool entitlement program. it all may sound great like we need to do more. why aren't they engaging in things like head start and child development block grants? they're ignoring that to do an even bigger new program. it's fascinating to me, in the budget documents they put out, they continue to attack the most basic issue of life while they do child care spending on one hand and saying we want to help children. if you're a baby in the womb, you've got no chance under their bill. if you're a child that they can see, they want to do $450 billion in new entitlement programs. but if you're a child in the womb, the bill is full of additional incentives to increase abortion in america and to do taxpayer-funded abortion

in america. i have to tell you, i saw a "new york times" article just recently that had a line where they were talking about abortion and encouraging abortion, and they were talking about the new texas law dealing with abortion and life. and they added into it, i think a majority of women are being sentenced to being parents. sentenced to being parents. how about welcoming a child and seeing them for who they are. this bill includes a methane fee that will kill the oil and gas industry in my state and around the country. this bill includes a new clean electricity performance program which will drive up the cost of electricity for every single american. if you think your electricity bill was expensive this summer wait until the clean electricity performance program comes in. don't worry, if you plug in your electric vehicle, if you get an electric vehicle, they're going to give you a

$12,500 tax credit if you get an electric vehicle if it's produced in a union shop. because apparently union shops are more carbon-friendly, i guess. they don't say that. there is no requirement for that. it's not about cleaner environment. it's just an extra perk to the unions on that and a shot to anyone who does production in a state that's noniewnized or nonunion shop. $12,500 they want to be able to pay towards an electric vehicle. and that's not just for some. that's for most every american would get that. it includes massive new subsidies for solar and for wind, even though wind and solar can make money right now. but because it's so expensive to do the transmission lines from far distances, they're including massive new subsidies for that. they create $3 billion for the

civilian climate corps to be able to pay young people to do climate activism all around the country, so those folks that are climate activists will actually be paid for with your tax dollars. it includes what the joint committee on taxation states that taxpayers -- get this -- at all income levels will see tax increase under this bill. all income levels. 40 different tax hikes, over $2 trillion in tax increases that they have announced it will cost zero dollars. we're going to spend $3.5 trillion and it will have absolutely no cost except the joint tax has already looked at it and said all taxpayers will have a tax hit on this. in addition to that, companies in the united states will have one of the highest tax rates in the entire world. just basic economics. when you're trying to compete, do you want to have a lower price or a higher price? just basic economics. if the united states is going to compete compete with china,

should we have a lower tax rate than communist china or a higher one? well, according to this bill, the united states will have a higher tax rate than communist china on our businesses. i don't know of anyone that thinks that's a good idea other than the folks that are voting to increase taxes dramatically on the american people. and for folks that continue to say it's only on corporations, and they think it's apple and ford and conoco, you know what? when you talk about corporations, 1.4 million small businesses are organized as c corpses. over 84% of c-corps have 20 employees or less. if you think this is all about the big boys, oh, just wait. not only that, in their tax policy they include new marriage penalties to disincentivize marriage in america. or if you get married and file jointly, you're going to pay

more taxes. it includes new enforcement from the i.r.s. initially it was talk about $600, if you deposit or withdraw $600 from your bank account, we're going to do new enforcement that's going to have to get turned into the i.r.s. then they changed that because they figured people would get nervous with that so now if you do $10,000 of additions and transactions in your bank account. almost every american puts in $10,000 in their bank account. if you make $12,000, into your bank account you'll be turned over into the i.r.s. turned over to the i.r.s. that is leaking information like a sieve, as information is being leaked out to propublicly ca to be able to release americans' tax returns. at the same time our democratic colleagues are saying we want the i.r.s. to have even more data. if you don't capitulate to the

vaccine mandate, guess what? the $3.5 trillion new bill increases osha fines for you ten times higher than what they used to be. ten times higher than what it used to be. this is about caving to their will. there's a lot it of things in this bill and i haven't touched the hem on the garment of how many things are in it. we need to be engaged as americans. and we need to know what's actually being proposed by this body and by this president and to be able to see the results of that worldwide. it's time for us to engage and to stay informed. and it's time for this body to consider, is that really where the american people are? is this really what the american people want? i can assure you in oklahoma, it is not. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming.

mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes, allowed to use a prop, and that when i am finished senator tester be allowed to speak for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, thank you, mr. president. mr. president, the senate should emphatically oppose the nomination of tracy stone-manning to lead the nation's bureau of land management. she -- it's hard to believe, but she has colluded with ecoterrorists, plain and simple. she stonewalled a criminal investigation for years. she lied to the senate and she still holds radically dangerous views and yet she is still the nominee for the president of the united states for this very important post. it is outrageous. let's begin with her ties to the ecoterrorists. you know, we worry about

terrorism in this world and in this country. by her own admission in her court testimony when she was in graduate school she collaborated with ecoterrorists who had hammered hundreds of metal spikes into trees in a national forest. now, tree spiking involves hammering a metal rod like this one into a tree trunk. this can do serious damage. they put about 500 pounds of these in tree trunks in a national forest. if a logger or a firefighter cuts this rod -- you say why would a firefighter be there? they have chainsaws and work to clear areas to fight fire or a logger taking down trees, the saw will shatter, shrapnel will

fly in every direction and the user of that saw could become terribly injured or even killed. if a saw blade comes across a spike like this in a sawmill, the saw can explode. the results can be catastrophic to both life and limb. well, ecoterrorists who spike trees, they absolutely know what they are doing. it is always premeditated. even "the washington post" has labeled tree spikes as one of the most vicious tactics of the ecoterrorists. that's what we're dealing with with president biden's nominee to be the director of the bureau of land management. so you say what is her connection to this horrible, horrible practice? well, she has admitted that she edited, typed, and then anonsly sent a threat letter to the united states forest service on behalf of known tree spikers.

she and her democrat defenders have claimed this letter was a warning so no one would get hurt. that is false. here are just a few quotes from the letter that she typed and she mailed to the u.s. forest service. you bastards go in there anyway and a lot of people could get hurt. and, i would be more than willing to pay you a dollar for the sale, but you would have to fine me first and that could be your worst nightmare. think about these lines. think about what it must be like if you had received such a letter. she mailed this threatening letter to the target of the tree spiking and that was the united states forest service because she didn't want any trees in that area to be harvested. she and her circle of friends were investigated for their involvement with this ecoterrorist network and the

attack. she was subpoenaed, she had to give hair samples, palm sampling and fingerprint sampling to investigators. all this time she knew who the tree spikers were. she could have gone to the authorities to identify them but she refused. she didn't cooperate with the investigators, the lead investigator wrote a letter to chairman manchin and to me after she had testified in the senate to the energy committee and he referred to her as the nastiest of suspects. he also said she not only had being a -- had knowledge of the plan to spike the trees with spikes like this, she was one of the planners. -- planters. she was a ring leader, mr. president. the lead investigator in the criminal case wrote, it became clear that ms. stone-manning was an active member of the original

group that planned the spiking of the post office timber sale. now, he wasn't the only one that said she knew about it in advance. in an interview recently, within the last couple of months with ene news, one of the convicted tree spikers, one of those who went to jail, he also confirmed that tracy stone-manning, the president's nominee to be in charge of the national parks, that tracy stone-manning knew of the plan to spike the trees well in advance. this was premeditated. so who have we heard from? we heard from the criminal who's in jail, went to jail, she heard from the cop who prosecuted the case. both the cop and the criminal agree that she was involved and she knew about the plan to spike the trees. according to the investigator's letter, ms. stone-manning's lack

of cooperation would set back the investigation for years. from 1990 until the end of 1992, the case went cold. remember, she knew who spiked the trees. she was protecting the ecoterrorists' identities the entire time. eventually ms. stone-manning was identified and she received an investigation target letter to let her know she was being targeted as part of the investigation, the lead investigator said she only agreed to testify after she was caught and after her lawyer negotiated an immunity deal to testify. her defenders have said she helped put the bad guys away. in fact, president biden's nominee is one of the bad guys. she helped plan the tree spiking. she covered up the terrorist activity for years. she did not cooperate with the authorities and she only testified after she was caught

and received immunity. after all of this, she lied to the committee about the incident. on a swarn affidavit -- on a sworn affidavit on her committee questionnaire, she said she was not the target of any investigation. we know that's a lie we know she received a letter that she was a target of the investigation. she complained in the press about how degrading it was to be investigated and why did she tell us she was never investigated and tell the press how degrading it was to be investigated. she admitted to the press she could be charged with a crime if not for her immunity deal. she also lied about her involvement in the tree spiking. i asked her directly. did you have personal knowledge of, participate in or in any way directly or indirectly associated with the spiking of trees in any forest during your

lifetime? and she replied, no. she sent their letter, she knew the plan in advance, she knew their identities and she refused to tell the authorities. how is that not supporting activities associated with ecoterrorism and tree spiking? now, finally, senate democrats are very quick to say this tree spiking episode was decades ago, can't be relevant anymore in spite of the fact that it is a federal crime. as if collusion with terrorists is just a youthful indiscretion. but she lied this year when she came to testify to the united states senate, she lied to our committee and she lied to this institution. it is clear to me that her radical views have not changed. so in september of 2020, one year ago, she tweeted an article

written by her husband that calls -- because she's in charge in areas related to the forest. retweeted an article by her husband that calls for homes in forests to be left to burn during wieferls. senator -- wildfires. senator sullivan talked about the fires in alaska and we have fires in wyoming. her husband says, let them burn. her husband wrote, there's a rude and satisfying justice in burning down the house of someone who builds in the forest. rude and satisfying justice in burning down someone's home. tracy stone-manning isn't responsible for the views of her husband, but a year ago, not as a graduate student decades ago, we're talking now as wildfires

burned across the country, she actually endorsed her husband's views on letting the houses burn. in the tweet she called her husband's writing a clarion call. well, clarion call, if you look it up, means a call to action. as the director of the bureau of land management, tracy stone-manning would be in charge of firefighting operations on public lands and yet her husband and the things she retweets said, let it burn. apparently she is comfortable with leaving the family homes in our states to burn. i have constituents who have homes in the forest. i'm sure almost every senator does, and this tweet wasn't 30 years ago. this tweet was one year ago. who actually thinks her beliefs are different today? now, her views on firefighting are just the tip of the iceberg.

in her graduate thesis, she actually argued that americans need to have fewer children. you know why? because she says children are a threat to the environment. she actually called children environmental hazards. can you find the environmental hazard in this photo? she told her readers to stop at one or two. she even made ads like this one to promote these ideas. the child as an environmental hazard. and she's the nominee of the president of the united states for an important position in this government. she answered her own question by saying, you can find the environmental hazard, that's right, it's the cute baby. but this thesis wasn't the only time she argued for human population control. in an essay in the high country news she said, americans were,

quote, breeding our weapons in the war on the grizzly bear. she concludes that essay by saying, we should wage war on overpopulation. mr. president, these are ideas you hear in communist china not from the nominee to be the director of the bureau of land management in the united states. mr. president, there are many qualified democrats who can run bureau of land management and do a fine job of it. we should reject this nomination and the president can nominate someone else. it is astonishing to me to see democrats digging in to defend a proven liar, an ecoterrorist collaborator who still holds very dangerous and threatening beliefs. bob abby was the b.l.m. director under president obama. he said her actions should, quote, disqualify her from leading this important agency.

one biden administration official admitted on nbc news her nomination was a massive betting failure. obama's b.l.m. director said she should be disqualified, her actions should disqualify her, a biden administration official said it is a failure. and asked deb hauling about her views, she said, i didn't nominate her. no, the president of the united states did. this is not a rowing en -- rousting endorsement coming from democrats. the white house, the former b.l.m. director of president obama and now the secretary of interior. if confirmed, senate democrats will be held wholly responsible. they should consider carefully if they want their name

associated with tracy stone-manning. tracy stone-manning should never be the director of the bureau of land management. i strongly oppose her nomination. every republican -- every republican strongly opposes her nomination and senate democrats should do the same. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. telephone -- mr. tester: i want to thank you, mr. president. i have been listening to the debate here, or the conversation, however you want to say it about the debate on stone-manning. i take this very seriously. and that means not just picking up talking points that the leadership might give you and reciting them back on the floor time and time and time again. which, by the way, i heard the same talking points time and

time again for the last hour and a half, but it's to find out what's going on with this person. it's our duty to make sure there's good people in these agencies. i wish we had taken that same kind of thought with some of the folks that president trump put forth, but it seems as though the rules have changed. and now we're going to take a good woman, a good woman who the state of montana knows well, who in fact was vetted in the state of montana. and they said all these accusations have no merit. and we're going to run her through the ringer here, character assassination like i've never seen before. but let's be honest. what is this really about? is this about tracy stone-manning? no, this is about the republicans in the senate trying to make joe biden look bad. that's what this is about.

make no mistake about it. that's what this is about. so let's get back to the issue at hand. and that is the person that's been nominated to run the b.l.m. tracy stone-manning, somebody that i've known for the last 25 years, somebody that i've worked with for the last 20 years, somebody that when they were on my staff worked with the wood products industry, worked with recreation folks, worked with everybody out there. to write a bill on how we could better manage our national forests with montana input. she is somebody that lives by the statement you have two years and one mouth, act accordingly. she is somebody that knows the value of collaboration. she is somebody that can listen, that can reason, that knows our public lands, has recreated on our public lands for her entire

life. and she's somebody that will run the b.l.m. in a hell of a lot better way than this dude by the name of penley who sat in that office unconfirmed for months after months after months in the previous -- in the previous administration and nobody on the republican side of the aisle said a thing about him, somebody who wanted to sell off our public lands, somebody who really didn't care about access to it. but we have a person today that we can confirm that once again can make the b.l.m. the agency it needs to be, somebody who understands multiple use, somebody who understands that the b.l.m. needs to be run by a professional. tracy stone-manning is a professional. i would encourage everybody to vote for her:thank you, mr. president. -- for her. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: all time is expired. the question is on the

nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 50. the nays are 45. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately foifd of the senate as actions. -- notified of the senate's actions. in order in the senate please.

mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the vote on confirmation of the meyer amendment occur at 5:30 p.m. on monday, october 4 and that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's act actions. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: now, mr. president, i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is adopted. mr. schumer: mr. president, it's my understanding the senate has received a message from the house of representatives to

accompany s. 1301. the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. schumer: i ask that the chair -- i ask that the chair lay before the senate the message to accompany s. 1301 and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there is. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 50, the nays are 43. the motion is agreed to. the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: it was my intention to come to the floor to ask unanimous consent for a $1 billion replenishment for iron dome. we democrats believe this is incredibly important for the state of israel, our ally, unfortunately, senator paul, who has an amendment to my unanimous consent request could not be here tonight and as a courtesy to him, we are postponing until monday. but on monday i intend to come to the floor and ask for that unanimous consent. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: mr. president, so a few moments ago, the senate voted to proceed to going to the house message on the debt

ceiling suspension until december of 2022. for the information of all, this vote will only require a majority threshold and is a necessary procedural step before cloture can be filed on the house-passed legislation. now, despite republicans' twisted logic for wanting the debt limit to be addressed while blocking that from happening, the basic facts have changed. the debt must be addressed, it will be addressed and america cannot default. we are not asking republicans to vote with us. if they want to vote to stop checks going to veterans and to social security check recipients, but what we're saying is that republicans should get out of the way. that is what republicans have asked for. leader mcconnell talked about that idea repeatedly on the floor over the last several

weeks and it's the best way to avoid financial catastrophe without endangering the american people. now -- so, mr. president, i move that the senate concur on the house amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. mr. schumer: i move to concur to the house amendment with an amendment -- excuse me madam clerk. the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate a message from the house. the clerk: resolved that the bill from the senate, s. 1301, compiled an act to -- 6 physical activities recommendations for americans do pass with an amendment. mr. schumer: i move to concur on the house amendment to s. 1301

with an amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: the senator from new york moves to concur on the house amendment to s. 1301. the senator from new york, mr. schumer, proposes -- moves to concur on the house amendment to s. 1301 with an amendment numbered 3835. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i have an amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: a senator from new york, mr. schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 3836 to amendment numbered 3835. mr. schumer: i move to refer to the committee on finance with instructions to report back forthwith an amendment. with an amendment -- forthwith

with an amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: the senator from new york, mr. schumer, moves to refer s. 1301 to the committee on finance with instructions to report back forthwith with an amendment numbered 3837. mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there is. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: mr. president, i have an amendment to the instructions at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from norm, mr. schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 383le to -- 3838 to the instructions to the motion to commit. mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears, there is, the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: i have a second-degree amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york, mr. schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 3839 to

amendment numbered 3838. mr. schumer: now, mr. president, i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 336. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those may never say aye. all opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, united states agency for international development, paloma adams-allen, of the district of columbia, to be deputy administrator. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 336, paloma adams-allen, of the district of columbia to be deputy administrator of the international agency, signed by 18 senators as follows. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the reading of the

names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion all in favor say aye. the ayes appear to have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 253. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, lauren j. king, of washington, to be united states district judge for the western district of washington. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22, do hereby bring to a close debate on calendar number 253, lauren j. king, of washington, to be united states district judge for the western district of washington, signed by 17 senators as follows.

mr. schumer: i ask the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: finally, i ask consent that the quorum calls for the quorum calls for september 30 be waived. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen at 11:30 a.m. on tuesday, october 5. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: i yield the floor. mr. sullivan: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: mr. president, there's a lot going on in the senate as we've been debating on a number of things, important matters, no doubt, for the country, but that doesn't mean we're going to forget other

important matters that we regularly take up here in the senate and what i'm talking about is, of course, the alaskan of the week. now, our pages are back, which is such great news, but you need to know this is one of the most exciting times in the senate, usually every thursday i get an opportunity to come down here on the senate floor and talk about somebody in alaska who's making a difference. heck, we talked about a gold medal olympic athlete just a couple of weeks ago. making a huge difference for alaska, her community, the world, america. so we really enjoy this. it's kind of got a cult following, but the pages really enjoy because of stories and adventure all from the people who are doing wonderful things in my state. this week, on the actual day of

her retirement from a long and rewarding career with the alaska state troopers, our alaskan of the week is ann sears. so before i talk about ann and her extraordinary service to alaska, about her being the first and only alaskan native female trooper, let me tell you about what's going on back home in wasila, alaska where ann recently moved. she was actually born in nome. we're going to talk about that. the temperatures have been in the 20's, the sunsets at 7:30 p.m. you know, it moves fast in alaska. we've already had several pretty good-sized snowstorms, so winter is coming. winter is coming. definitely coming to alaska right now, but let's get back to

ann. after decades of hard work as an alaska state trooper, it's time for anne to settle into a new home, to rest, get some sleep, think about her next steps, all of which she's planning on doing starting tomorrow because today she's retiring. so anne sears, well, let's start with her gather, gladys who is from nome. gladys actually left nome for a little bit of time and moved to the lower 48 and among other things, gladys, anne's mom worked for alaska congressman raffle rivers -- ralph rivers. this was alaska congressman

ralph rivers and gladys, ann's mom met her father who was in the navy. they decided to move back to nome because they wanted to make sure that anne was going to be born in nome, which she was. so gladys is obviously a woman of ambition and so was her daughter anne. so after anne was born and her father left the navy, he got a job as an electrician with the federal aviation which took him and his family all around the state, betsle, so many great villages in our rural heart of alaska. now, eventually they settled in juneau, and after high school,

anne got a job as a clerk for the juneau police department. all through her younger years, she knew she wanted do something to help people. but it wasn't until the tender age of 31 that her calling came as the clerk at the juneau police department she decided, hey, i can do this. so she took the test required to become a police officer. of course a woman of this intelligence passed with flying colors and she was offered a job. on the first day of training, on the job training, anne was in a police car speeding to a site where a woman was hurt. she got there, she helped that woman, and her desire, motivation to be a police officer was cemented. she was hooked. she met her future husband jay

at the police academy and eventually they became alaska state troopers as a couple, both of them working in rural alaska together where they had worked for over 15 years. it didn't taken a long to realize she was actually really good at her job. that's not being arrogant. she just knew. quote, i could talk to people, she said, not being big and being a woman, you've got to use words in this job. mr. president, anyone who has watched the reality show alaska state troopers -- now there's a lot of alaska reality shows, but anyone at home watching right now, if you've seen alaska state troopers, you will have seen anne featured prominently in that series.

and you will understand what she means when she talks about using her words. she's articulate, she's tough, she's firm, she's very clear, but she's also calming, which is what you need from a good officer. she's able to bring calm and ease to the most volatile situations and situations that can be extraordinarily challenging for our law enforcement officers. now, as some might have heard me talk about here on the floor, the hundreds of small rural villages in the hub communities of rural alaska are literally the spiritual and cultural soul of my state. but like many areas across america, both urban and rural,

rural alaska also has many challenges and one of them is that there's not enough public safety officer present in rural alaska. we we have dozens of communities with nothing, no sheriff, no police officer, no trooper, no vpso, nothing. it's a big issue. it's something i'm certainly passionate about that we're all working on. more law enforcement presence in our rural communities. so being a law enforcement officer in rural alaska, particularly in the hundreds of villages that don't have roads to get in and out of can pose unique challenges. anne has seen those challenges throughout her career. would are some of those? first you have to get to the village, especially if it doesn't even have an officer in the village when there's a crime or a challenge.

that often requires flying in a single-engine plane to remote places in a giant state in tough weather. then when you get there, you have to figure out where you need to go. sometimes there's no facilities, no jail, no holding cell, no place to take people. maybe one city office at the most. and then you have to figure out how to get in those offices which can be particular will i challenging, particularly in the winter when it's cold and dark and might be 50 below zero with the wind howling. so these are many, many of the challenges that anne has dealt with. as she says, quote, this is not ncis or law and order. in rural alaska, we have to do it all. indeed, as a trooper, she has played many roles, a protector,

an enforcer, a trooper, a friend, a confidant, a social worker. and she loved it all and she was really good at it. quote, here's what she said. quote, it was the best job i could ever -- i could ever have had and the hardest job i could ever have had. but i couldn't have done it without my husband, jay, my sons hunter and zachary, and my brother perry, she said. anne also credits the health aides and public safety officers, vpso's, vpo's in these villages who have really, really important roles. one of the most difficult aspects of her job was handling cases of doaps violence and -- domestic violence and sexual assault. now, i love my state. we're a great state. i come down to the floor once a week and brag about it with our alaska of the week, but this is

something we don't like to brag about in alaska, the horrific problems we have with domestic violence, sexual assault, and the challenges that brings, particularly with young people, too many people. but she has been very focused on these issues. anne teamed up with local health providers to go into high schools to give presentations about these horrible crimes and talk about why it's wrong, this kind of abuse, and to try to change the culture of our state which we need to keep focused on. she had groups and gatherings for parent, too. she said mostly mothers would come and heartbreakingly almost inevitably tell stories of some of the victims and survivors of abuse that we have in our state.

but she was undeterred. she said, quote, if i could just touch one child on these kind of crimes, to help them, i know i've made a difference. mr. president, anne has made a difference. i would say a huge difference for alaska. here's what fellow trooper colonel brian barlow said about anne's service. quote, her legacy as a caring, compassionate, and dedicated trooper and investigator has without a doubt made our state the great state of alaska, a much safer place of the james cockrell, the commissioner of the alaska department of public safety said that anne's dead indication -- dedication to riewcial alaska was an extra ordinary asset to the department's mission to keep

alaska cans -- alaskans safe. as i have said, mr. president, anne was the first female alaskan native trooper but i guarantee you she will not be the last. she has proved a role model for so many, a true trailblazer, an example that we need in alaska and so many people look up to. now, she hasn't decided what the future holds. she's still young and still has the urge to help out. i have no doubt she's going to make big -- a big impact in other places helping alaskans. for now, though, you can tell this is a tough job. i think she needs a little rest and some sleep. so thank you, anne, for all you've done. congratulations on your retirement today from the alaska state troopers, thank you for being an inspiration and example

to so many in our great state. and of course congratulations on being our alaskan of the week. i yield the floor.

i ask

mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the senate consider the following nominations en

bloc. calendars 350, 351, that the senate vote on the nominations en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that any statements related to the nominations be print in the record and the president be notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk: nominations, national foundation on the arts and the humanities, darrell w. baldwin, of ohio to be a member, jermaine max to be a member. the presiding officer: the nominations are 0 in question. those in favor say aye. the nominations are confirmed en bloc. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the senate consider calendar number 243.

melanie ann agoran, to be assistant secretary of health and human services and that the senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, department of health and human services, melanie anagoran, of the district of columbia to be assistant secretary. the presiding officer: the question is on the nomination. all may never say aye. opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it and the nomination is confirmed. mr. schumer: i ask consent that the motion -- the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all without intervening action or debate, no further motions be in tortd nomination, any statements to the nomination be printed in the record and the president be notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the senate consider calendar number 353.

and that the senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: cloimtions office of the -- nomination, thomas monhime of virginia to be inspector general. the presiding officer: the question is on the nomination. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nomination is confirmed. mr. schumer: i the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table that no further motions be in order to the nomination any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc, calendars 370, 371, 373, 374, 375, that

the senate vote on the nominations en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, any statements related to the nominations be printed in the record that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate will proceed to the nominations en bloc. the question is on the nominations en. block. all in favor say aye. opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nominations are confirmed en bloc. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the senate consider the following nominations, calendars 377 through 385, 388, and 389 and all nominations on the secretary's desk in the air force, army, and navy, that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening

action or debate, that no further motions be in order to nil of the nominations, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar 124, s. 1037. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar 124, s. 1037, a bill to provide for the establishment of a section of the website of the department of commerce that shall serve as the primary hub for information relating to federal manufacturing programs and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. schumer: i further ask that the committee-reported substitute be agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be

considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on commerce be discharged from further consideration of s. 558 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 558, a bill to establish a national integrated flood information system within the national oceanic and atmospheric administration and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the wicker amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 2923 which was introduced

earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 29 it 3, a bill to improve the fishery resource disaster relief program of the national marine fisheries service and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. schumer: i ask the bill be considered read a third time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i know of no further debate on the bill. the presiding officer: if there's no further debate, the question is on passage of the bill. all in favor say aye. opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill is passed. mr. schumer: i ask that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to the following resolutions en bloc. senate res. 338, 366, 368. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is

discharged and the senate will proceed to the measures en bloc. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table all en bloc. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following senate resolutions which was submitted earlier today. s. res. 402. s. reds 403. s. res. 404. the presiding officer: woke, the senate will proceed to the resolutions en bloc. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles where applicable be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table all en bloc. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: and finally, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 12:00 noon friday, october 1, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be

closed. that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the adams-allen nomination. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until

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education secretary cardona and health and human services secretary javier becerra testified on schools reopening during the covid-19 pandemic at a senate health education labor and pensions committee hearing. senators from both sides of the aisle questioned the secretaries on sever