and their dark money cohort mobilized against the clean electricity performance plan that would have helped decarbonize the power grid. republicans did their bidding. the american petroleum institute and other fossil fuel industry groups fight paying a price on methane emissions from their oil and gas facilities. they want to pollute for free knowing full well the harm. republicans do their bidding. the c.e.o. of that 800-pound climate-obstructing gorilla the u.s. chamber said the group would do whatever it could do to prevent the provisions from being abouting law. and republicans do their bidding. these groups spent millions on political ads. they unleashed a deluge of campaign contributions. they're almost certainly behind big super pac spending. they mull out all the stops. and against them in corporate america to push back against the

polluters stands who? no one. corporate c.e.o.'s talk a big game about decarbonizing, and they wield enormous influence in washington when they want to, but here in this building where the legislative rubber hits the road, corporate america has been totally, utterly, completely m.i.a. on climate. one set of lobbyists told my staff that once the corporate tax stuff they cared about got squared away in build back better, they didn't want to rock the boat by supporting climate provisions, even though they are provisions the company publicly claims to support. not one corporate trade group is lifting a finger here in this building on climate, not the banks, despite their own warnings of economic crash, not the insurance company, despite

the huge checks they write for climate disasters, not big tech, not big pharma, not anyone. the fossil fuel industry has its choke chain around the republican party so tight that industry folks have told me they're scared to press for climate measures, that they might be punished by republicans working for the fossil fuel industry, punished on the tax and deregulatory business stuff they really care about. so they're not here. they just aren't. the frustrating thing is that there actually is a way to get to a safe place, to get to the where we can hold warming below 1.5 degree celsius. the key policy is a border-adjustable price on carbon. to get to safety, we need to do more than just this. but floss pathway to -- but there is no pathway to safety without that. it is the necessary but not sufficient safety measure. take a look at this chart.

this was prepared in conjunction with the white house, with the leader's office, a lot of eyeballs have looked at this h the green line here is business as usual. we do nothing. and carbon emissions do mostly nothing. this next line down, the orange line, represents our emissions trajectory if we pass the finance committee's clean energy tax credit package. thattest goes us to here. -- that gets us to here. the gray line right below it, the third one, is if we could pass a clean electricity standard. and the yellow one here is the emissions traject if we do both the tax credit package and a clean electricity standard. this one here, light blue, that's a carbon price alone. by the way, it's a modest carbon price that starts at only $15 per ton in 2023 and increases to

$70 per ton in 2032 and doesn't cover unleaded gasoline at all. the dark blue line here, the safest line is all those policies together. to get to safety, we must deploy all of these policies. the more policies you have, the deeper the emissions reductions, the better the chance of safety. at the center pole in the climate policy tent is a climate policy. a carbon price fuels innovation suddenly every carbon reduction strategy has a revenue proposition. no more government-chosen winners and losers. a carbon price raises investment, growing the low-carbon economy will take trillions in job-producing investment, maybe about $575

billion a year from now until 2050. carbon pricing sends an investment market signal and produces revenues to support those billions of dollars in private job-creating investment. it carbon price is exportable that will keep china and others from cheating. and, last, a carbon price helps to unravel what the international monetary fund says is a $660 billion annual subsidy propping up fossil fuels in the united states. you want to know why the fossil fuel industry can so easily corrupt american politics? that's your answer. that $660 billion answers, a $660 billion subsidy every year is one hell of a motive. once your policies are assembled

surrounding the carbon appreciation you then need a battle plan and the leadership to carry it out. we cannot win legislative victory without setting the conditions for victory. we're up against a fossil fuel armada of dishonest p.r. campaigns, phony front groups, co-opted trade associations, fake science and political dark money. we cannot overcome the corrupting force oz of the fossil fuel industry without sound countermeasures. step someone what i'm doing here, call out the dark money mischief. voters don't like being lied to, especially not by big corporate polluting interests. they've been lied to for decades, and they need to know that. if we all expose the fossil fuel industry's pattern of deception the way we years ago exposed as fraud the tobacco industry's pattern of deception, that would open up real political space for

the kind of legislative progress the times demand. over in the house, representatives maloney and khanna are on the way. hearings are on the which. let's support and amplify them. next -- stop the flow of polluter dark money into our politics. in politics, money corrupts and dark money corrupts slowly. next, rally the rest of corporate america to the banner. if they're too chicken to go first, and face the risk of republican punishment on the stuff they really care about, join together. they can't punish everyone. corporate america is actually rich enough if it wanted to to buy the damned fossil fuel industry, fire the crooks and the p.r. firms, shut off the money to the front groups and trade associations, and clean up the industry from the inside.

but corporate america not only doesn't do that, it does nothing here in congress. however we go, madam president, we have got to get going. either we act now or we pollute our way to oblivion. either we summon a serious response or we meh our way to catastrophe. either we enact a serious, effective climate bill or we lose our chance at a safe climate pathway. and i will promise you, that will earn the merited disgust of future generations. we have a moment here to measure up to. we are failing catastrophically, and we are failing for the worst and smallest and most dishonorable of reasons. so when we reignite work on a real climate bill, when we're

starting to see real administration climate progress, i'll see about getting this battered poster over to the smithsonian. but if we don't, i'll be back over here again and again and again to call this chamber to wake up. i yield the floor. mr. portman: the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i ask unanimous consent that senators blunt, blackburn, and i be permitted to speak up to five minutes each prior to the scheduled vote. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: madam president, i am here today to discuss the crisis at the border. unfortunately, it's not getting any better. in fact, it's getting worse by any measurement. the flow of illegal drugs, illegal migration continue to surge. as the lead republican on the homeland security and governmental affairs committee, i recently traveled to the

u.s.-mexican border in nogales, arizona, just south of tucson, to learn firsthand from border patrol and customs officials and border patrol agents who are on patrol 24/7. it was my third trip to the border in the past year, and like other trips, what i saw was alarming. officials at the port of entry told me about the increasing and more sophisticated efforts to smuggle illegal and deadly drugs into the united states. they showed me some of the x-rays that have been taken of some of the vehicles where the smugglers are cleverly hiding these narcotics into compartments. this is deadly stuff. this is mostly now the illicit drug called fentanyl, a sympathetic form of opioids that according to the c.d.c. is probably killing about two-thirds of the people who are dying from overdoses. the number of overdose deaths in this country is at record levels. during the year of 2021, we

believe it's going to exceed $100,000 individuals -- 100,000 individuals, record levels. so why aren't we scanning more of these vehicles for drugs and contraband? the best numbers we have is less than 2% of the passenger vehicles and less than 20% of the commercials vehicles coming into the united states are scanned for illegal drugs like this dead lid fentanyl we talked about. that's just unacceptable. a smuggler with multiple pounds of fentanyl needs to know that there is no chance of getting across our border without some kind of search. it's not just a gap in our security, it's at gaping hole -- it's a gaping hole in our security and it is resulting in lives being lost. in my home state of ohio, where we've got a big issue with opioids, but also all across america -- in a sense, every state is a border state now. last year nearly 10,000 pounds of fentanyl was seized. as officers on the line told me when i was down there recently, most of it is getting through.

a year ago congress mandated that the department of homeland security give us a plan and a strategy to scan all vehicles at the ports of entry for deadly narcotics such as fentanyl. unfortunately, even with this, the biden administration has failed to deliver this report, which was due more than six months ago. let's get that report done, whether it is crystal meth or cocaine or fentanyl, sometimes pressed into pills to make it look like something else, it's flowing across the southern border. let's have a plan to stop this. we also face challenges between the ports of entry. in nogales,the porter patrol agent -- the border patrol agent in charge road with me to look at the border. what he described was an overwhelming, record-breaking number of unlawful migrants hand a record number of drugs like fentanyl and others coming into the united states. and he talked about the urgent

need for more agents to be able to cover the border, new vehicles, the vehicle maintenance is a huge issue for the border patrol right now, and then technology, particularly cameras and sensors. so there is a lot of discussion about the wall. but what's really important about a fence or wall is the technology that goes along with it. when the biden administration came in and stopped construction of the ball, what they really did was they stopped the technology. in the el paso sector, where i've been, only about 10% of the technology had been completed for the fence that was being reacted there. so they stopped building the fence, and you can see all the metal on the ground which is very demoralizing for the border patrol because they have to figure out our ways it to stop people. but most importantly, only 10% of the technology had been done and they cut off all of that. we've already paid for it, by the way. the taxpayers violence paid for all that. -- the taxpayers have paid for

all that. monitors of some coming, there are various kinds out there that are effective. i toured the border area that had huge gaps in the fencing, too, which i don't get. why would you want to spend all this money to build the barriers and then leave big gaps in the middle. i saw broken areas that need repairs. i sawed need for new -- i saw the need for new fencing in some areas. there are 15' to 20' areas -- i saw lots of plastic bottles and bags discarded in the area from migrants who had crossed right there. leaving these gaps is one of the reasons we face a crisis. we just learned in december that

the border patrol apprehended more than 170,000 unlawful migrants in december. that's the highest number ever in december. people say, this is season all. so it'll stop in december and january. it is colder or when it is really hot in july or august. that's not happened. for the first time ever we've seen a continual flow of people. not slowing down at all. these dramatic increases in illegal entries in the last year are clearly due to the policy changes put in place on day one of the biden administration. not just fewer deportations and a more laxed approach to immigration but a specific issue of stopping the installation of this technology and fencing. they made immediate changes to the asylum policy. people know if they claim asylum they will be released in the united states which on average will be five or six years away. they say the backlog is 1.3

million people now. is it any wonder when people go to my home state of ohio or missouri or nevada, with five or six years ahead of them it's sometimes not possible to find them when the court dates come up. we need a policy that just makes sense, that doesn't tell the smugglers if you get somebody in the united states, you can tell them they can get in, they can work, they can get their kids in school. that's what the smugglers do to people all over the world. it's not just central america. there are people coming from ecuador now and honduras. i'm told in the last week there were five syrians apprehended coming across the border. it's a lot of people from around the world being told by these smugglers who are exploiting them and their families saying come with me and we can get you in, pay me $10,000 or whatever it is. that's one reason we have right now this pull factor because of a policy issue we've got to address. the administration also chose to end the remain in mexico policy

which said to people you can come and apply for asylum but you've got to wait over in mexico until we adjudicate this. that discouraged a lot of people. a lot of folks went home because they were trying to obviously come in the united states. that policy was ended. but generally speaking, the right policy is adjudicate these cases immediately. let people know. we don't want to have a 1.3 million backlog of people in the united states five or six years awaiting a court case. it doesn't make sense. with these policy changes since the president's inauguration, the southern border faced the worst unlawful migration policy in decades and the worst drug crisis earlier. we're working on bipartisan legislation to increase the number of agents, address the challenges of the existing workforce and respond to the crisis that can respond to surges. i'm always impressed with the men and women in customs and

border protection. they've got tough jobs right now, really tough jobs. a lot of them are overworked. a lot of them are being pressed into doing processing and other things they weren't hired to do or trained to do. it's tough and we're making it even tougher with policies we're putting out here in washington. the ongoing crisis is clear and persistent, no longer seasonal. i urge the biden administration to change course. stop the policies that send a green light to human smugglers to be able to exploit migrants and families all over this hemisphere and elsewhere now. and stop giving a green light to the drug traffickers. instead provide congress with a plan to detear illegal immigration, to detect and deny deadly drugs from crossing our border. america's national security depends on it. american lives depend on it. i yield back.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: the ability to secure your border, to follow my good friend from ohio, the ability to secure your border is actually one of the fundamental responsibilities of a legitimate government. even former president obama within the last few months has looked at what was happening at the border, and i believe the word he used was unsustainable. we cannot continue to let this happen. it's a border crisis whether the administration is willing to call it a border crisis or not. drugs coming across, i know my friend from tennessee is going to talk about that, as the senator from ohio did. more than two million people were apprehended trying to cross the border last year. of that number, more than

171,000 were unaccompanied children. the year before had been 37,000. 2020, it was 37,000 people. it should have been a warning sign, 37,000 children is bad enough, let alone 171,000, almost four times the number that cames the year before. we need to ask ourselves what are we doing to encourage that from -- to encourage that happening. why would parents let their children come, send their children? or why would children come on their own to the border at the numbers of 171,000? obviously we don't know exactly how many people actually entered the country illegally. so if two million people were apprehended entering the country, some of them may have been making repeat efforts to come into the country. but there's no real evidence that very many people get sent back. let's assume some do. so some of the apprehended

people may have been multiple offenders, if you will, of trying to violate our law by coming in. i think it's more reason to believe that more people weren't apprehended than were apprehended multiple times. so we have a huge problem here. the policies have already been discussed. why would the number just over 2,035,000 last year, why would that number be 272% greater than the year before? the numbers they come from, aren't different substantially than they were before. the weather is not in crisis in any way different than it was the year before. let's look at day one of the biden administration where one of the first decisions is we're going to stop building the barrier that's in process of being built. not we're going to debate whether we should do more of it

or not, but we're going to stop building the barrier that congress has appropriated the money for, that the equipment has been bought for, that the necessary metal and fencing and other things have been bought for and they're delivered. after we get that up, let's decide if we need to do more. i've never been of the view that every inch of the border needs to have a barrier, but i've always been of the view that a barrier or a fence or a wall, whatever you want to call it, has to be helpful, particularly if it has the technology that was going into this fence. just watching that great investment that the american people made sit there and not completed is a problem. some wall and fence had been torn down already, so the new wall and fence could be put back up. we have areas that don't have the kind of fence they had five years ago or ten years ago or

under the clinton administration because we decided, no, we're just going to stop doing what the congress has already provided money and the authority to do. and the remain in mexico policy, which, frankly, i thought was one of the most amazing things that our government got the government of mexico to agree to. it was a major step on their part to help us not only secure our border, but discourage people from needlessly coming all the way through mexico. most of our immigrants are not mexican immigrants anymore. they're central american immigrants, the immigrants that others have talked about today from all over the world. but they come through mexico. and mexico doesn't like that either. so why would remain in mexico work? remain in mexico was working because people, when they see that they're not going to be let loose in the united states or

delivered somewhere in the united states and told to come back 90 days or five years later, when they see that's not going to happen and they talk to anybody who understands the law, nine out of ten of them know that they have no chance for an asylum claim, and they're in mexico. it's not that they have no chance for an asylum claim and they have arrived and been taken somewhere in the united states and told to return at a later date. it clearly just did not work. the remain in mexico, we could put more money there. in fact, we put quite a bit of money there. but then walked away from the facilities that were just about to begin to serve the purpose in the way that the american people, the most generous people in the world about people coming to our country, some of the, i think the most liberal immigration laws in the world for legal immigration, we could have made an investment so that people could have safely and

securely understood that you're not going to be able to advance this asylum claim. the easiest thing in the world to do is show up at the border and say we're claiming asylum. the united states government sends you somewhere in the united states to wait and come back later for a hearing. now we see people, single adults getting on planes in the middle of the night and being flown to other airports and getting off in the middle of the night. i've even heard, surely this can't be really accurate, you're told to use your arrest papers as your identification to get on the plane. if we have come to the point where our border policy is use the arrest papers to get on the plane so wherever we take you, you are able to then be part of our society until somebody catches you and tells you you can't be part of our society, is a huge problem. the border is out of control. there is clearly a border crisis. i am a major supporter of legal

immigration. i'm a major supporter of kids who were brought here by their parents illegally and have grown up in america and not gotten in trouble. i think they should be able to stay, and we should want them to stay. i am not a supporter of this blatant violation of the law and sending a message to the whole world, here's how you get done what you want to get done even though it's against the laws of the united states to do what we are clearly helping you do. i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, madam president. it was such a joy to be in tennessee last week and visit with so many of our local officials. i had the opportunity to spend some time with some of our sheriffs. and one of the sheriffs made a point that i think deserves attention in this body today. he said, marsha, for years

we've measured the drugs we've apprehended in grams or ounces. but today everything is in pounds. that is the uptick in volume that our local law enforcement are seeing in our communities. now the question is, why is this happening? how is it that so much more is getting across that southern border? and my colleague from ohio, my colleague from missouri have each mentioned the problems that exist there. no remain in mexico, no wall. and we're at a time here in this country where our supply chains are really being stressed. but the supply chains of the cartels seem to be doing just fine. fortunately our border patrol

have been able to cause some blips and some problems with those supply chains, and they have been able to apprehend some of the drugs coming across our border. in january, in a period of seven days, one week, our border patrol caught 47 pounds of methamphetamine in california, 3,800 pounds of marijuana in texas, and 20 pounds of cocaine in texas. the street value was about $7 million that they pulled off the street. but this is, unfortunately, madam president, a blip for the cartels. just a blip on their radar. these thousands of pounds of drugs are a footnote in the long history of the got-aways and the drug mules who keep these cartel

supply lines flowing from south and central america and into the u.s. now as my colleagues have said, until this administration decides they want to get serious about protecting our nation's sovereignty and securing this southern border, this is going to continue. now what does this cause in our country? what it means is every town is a border town and every state is a border state. until the biden administration decides they're going to get serious on that border, it means that your town will function like a border town. your state like a border state. nashville, knoxville, memphis are all experiencing some of the

same problems that you are seeing on our nation's borders. and whether the state is maryland or wisconsin or nevada, whether these are other states -- illinois, colorado -- what you're seeing are these problems that are brought about. by an open d -- border, gangs, cartels, human smuggling, sex trafficking. so i would ask my democratic colleagues, and i would hope they would ask the president, where else do they think these thousands of pounds of drugs are being headed? that's right, it's a rhetorical question but they are coming to your neighborhoods and your local law enforcement agencies are going to find themselves dealing with this. now, the biden administration has said repeatedly that they

want to focus their border policy on finding the root causes of illegal immigration, so vice president harris recently took her second trip to the northern triangle so she could try and figure out what the root causes are. but while she is there and meeting with diplomats, the cartels drug trade, their human trafficking trade is booming. it is booming. the number of apprehensions across this southern border are at an all-time high. and as my colleague mentioned, the got-a-ways, the hundreds of thousands of gottaways that are now in your communities, the hundreds or maybe even thousands of pounds of different drugs are coming into your communities.

we've been down this road before. we've made investments in the northern triangle to try and beat back the poverty, the corruption, and we're having the same problems. they are the same that they were years ago. there's no buy-in on a policy. the only buy-in that this administration has managed to earn is the buy-in of corrupt officials and drug lords who have invested in our wide-open border. why is it that you have to pay the cartel to come in? why is it that the cartels are moving these sex trafficking rings on to u.s. shores? why is it that the cartels are setting up distribution centers in our cities? madam president, it is because this administration has that

border wide open, and they see the opportunity to make big bucks to really enrich themselves. how can we expect to fight corruption what we encourage them to set up these business operations? i would encourage my democratic colleagues to take a look at the numbers that are coming from that southern border. look at the numbers that were there from 2021. look at the numbers of not grams and ounces, but pounds of illicit drugs that are being apprehended. talk to their local law enforcement about what they are finding on their streets and then ask themselves, are you doing everything you can to keep our communities safe? are you doing everything that you can to keep our children and

our grandchildren safe in their communities? if you had to answer that question today, if the administration had to answer that question today, madam president, the answer would be an emphatic no, they are not. because the border is open. that policy is failing the american people. it is failing our communities that are truly struggling to keep drugs out of the hands of kids. and they are failing the thousands upon thousands of people who took you at your word and then you have seen this border turned over to the cartels. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the kenia seoane lopez nomination.

the clerk: kenia seoane lopez, of the district of columbia to be associate district judge of the district of columbia. the presiding officer: the question occurs on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there taps to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: op this vote, the yeas are 59, the nays are 38, and the nomination is confirmed. a senator: madam president. i make an inquiry of the chair? how long was that last roll call? the presiding officer: the -- approximately 55 minutes.

mr. durbin: can the chair report the last senator who voted? the presiding officer: the chair does not have that information. mr. durbin: thank you, madam chair. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and and the president will be immediately notified on these actions. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the staples nomination, which the clerk will report. the clerk: the judiciary, sean c. staples of the district of columbia to be an associate judge of the superior court of the district of columbia. the presiding officer: the question occurs on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 59, the nays are 38. 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 notified of the senate's action. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 613, john p. howard iii of the district of columbia to be an associate judge of the district of columbia court of appeals, signed by 18 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it is it the sense of the senate that debate

on the nomination of john p. powered iii of the district of columbia to be an associate judge of the district of columbia court of appeals for the term of 15 years shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

ing vote: vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 62, the nays are 346789 the motion is disagreed to. -- the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary.

john p. howard% of the district of columbia to be an associate judge of the district of columbia court of appeals. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. tuberville: thank you, madam president. my colleagues have spent the first part of this year lasesser-focused claiming this was the most important issue facing americans and that the future of our country was at stake. but this was not a righteous crusade. it was a march into complete delusion, a message completely out of touch with the struggles of real americans. while democrats lectured, americans confronted reality. across the country inflation is squeezing paychecks and covid cases are skyrocketing. these are the issues that families are focusing on.

omicron surge sent students home from classrooms and back in front of computer screens. and this is where parents minds have been these last few weeks, not on senate rules, not on the filibuster but on their children's education because when parents think about the future of our company, they think about their -- of our country, they think about their children and the opportunities that they will have when they get this good education. during my four decades of coaching, i saw firstshand how education provides an unparalleled opportunity to uplift students from all different brac grounds, race -- backgrounds, races, and religions. education is the key to opportunity. opportunity and freedom. it empowers students to create a future for themselves, to make a better life for themselves.

it is a way to achieve the american dream. in short, education is our country's future. ensuring the next generation receives a quality education is the most important investment, the most important investment we can make in the future success of our country. but before i talk about where we should go and when it comes to education, it's important to note where we are today in education. right now the united states of america is slipping. it's slipping in the classroom when it comes to our global standing. we're 37th in the world, 37th in the world, in math. we're 13th in the world in reading. just over half of the young people in our country today can

read over the sixth-grade reading level. that is simply not good enough for the most powerful country on the face of the earth. our students are falling behind. at no time was this more important than the last two years. covid turned our living rooms into classrooms, bringing lesson plans to kitchen tables in homes all cross the country. -- all across the country. this gave parents a front-row seat to what their children were and were not learning. and many parents did not like what they saw. students weren't being taught how to think. they were being taught what to think. and this shift from what is right to what is woke has startled parents. but it was also start thing for parents to see what isolation does to their developing

children. as kids, we saw less of their friends, they retreated into darkness, rates of depression and anxiety have risen dramatically. since the start of the pandemic, hospitals have seen more mental emergencies among kids than in the history of our country. and young girls, the suicide rate jumped over 50% compared to the prepandemic levels, 50%. and while we're nearly two years into the pandemic, the digital divide still creates profound roadblocks in learning for many children who lack access to rural broadband and even a laptop. learning by low-income and minority students was disrupted the most by school closures. the pandemic compounded existing

problems in our education system and every child has felt the effects from this pandemic and not being in the classroom. but it also has highlighted a key piece of the educational puzzle -- parents a, parents are the ketoeducation for our kids. -- are the key to education for our kids. parents are advocating for improvements for education for kids in the classroom. time appeared time again we've seen -- time and time again we've seen parents stand against restrictive mandates and unnecessary school shutdowns. now as we look toward the future of education, we need to remember what the pandemic taught us. one size does not fit all. it rarely works, and it certainly does not work in education. that's why when we talk about

education moving forward, we have an opportunity to revisit the conversation about importance of choice. parents know their child best. they understand the unique needs of their children and can serve as the best advocate for those needs, especially now that the needs may be different than they were two years ago before covid. a child's education shouldn't be defined by their zip code or financial limitations. a child and their parent should have a choice about education. school choice increases options through vouchers or tax credit scholarships allowing parents to select the best learning environment for their child. school choice breaks down barriers and allows the funds to follow the student.

school choice embraces the truth that different children learn in different ways and in different environments, whether it be a charter school, public school, private school, or homeschool. there are school choice successes and there are stories everywhere we look. just take this story about a young man from alabama. his name is nicholas west. without alabama's tax credit scholarship, nicholas and his brothers would have no option to shall but to attend a -- but to attend a high school that they were zoned for, which was a school unable to deliver individualized training that they needed. thanks to school choice program, nicholas and his brother were able to thrive in different learning environments based on their unique needs and interests, by being in an environment that set him up for

success, nicholas was able to earn college credits during high school, and he went on to start his own business. upon graduating from high school. i believe that this country owes you one thing. it owes you an opportunity. but what you have to do with that opportunity is up to the individual. for nicholas, he used his opportunity presented to him through the school choice to tap his full potential. it makes sense that we should increase access to the opportunities for young men and women, just like nicholas. we must deliver the same opportunities to other students who have skills and the drive to need a path forward. alabama is making strides in opportunities and creation. charter schools continue to grow in popularity in our state. last year enrollment increased

over 65%. the second highest enrollment percentage in the nation. if i sound like i'm proud of the steps that alabama has taken to give our students opportunity, i am. i believe other states can learn from what we are doing emphasizing school choice in alabama. as we learn more about how the pandemic has impacted students, educational choice will become that much more important. in fact, choice may make all the difference. when we look forward to discuss the future of our country, we have to get back to talking about education. the future of our country depends on educational opportunities we make available to the next generation. that is why i am proud that the resolution i helped to introduce to recognize national school choice week passed the senate

last night. i'm glad my colleagues recognized how important it is to encourage parents and students to explore all available educational opportunities. the conversations about the importance of school choice should continue to drive our priorities throughout this year. if we join together, we can make that commitment and our future for this country and our kids in this country will be much brighter. i yield the floor.

mr. braun: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: last year i introduced a handful of bills that would help the i.r.s. do their job better. one of those bills called the i.r.s. customer service improvement act. this bill simply says that i.r.s. staffers cannot perform any union tasks during the tax season. it would seem to make sense. it doesn't keep them from doing

it through the rest of the year. it's just not during the busy tax season. according to the treasury, fiscal year 2019, 1,400 treasury employees used over 350,000 hours of taxpayer-funded for union time. cost $17 million. of course that's kind of like chump day in this day and eaj. in indiana that's a lot of money. 1,500 were i.r.s. customer service representatives. 204 were i.r.s. agents. the american public deserves out of our agencies, i think, service better than that. we can debate how much money the

i.r.s. needs to do its job, but we need commonsense policies like this to where we're not trying to restrict what already to many would seem unusual, that when you're on the dime, when you're being paid by the federal government, you maybe shouldn't be able to do union activities at the same time. anyway, a lot of things don't make sense here. this will immediately add value to the american taxpayer. the i.r.s. is warning americans to prepare for delays and long hold times when filing their taxes this year. i would say that most folks would say that you need improvement. here are a couple of other particulars. receive more than 100 million calls, but only answered one out of four. calls averaged 18 minutes of

hold time. in my own business, if you had 18 minutes of hold time, you just gave the order to one of your four or five competitors. none of us like that. face-to-face assistance declined from 4.4 million in fiscal 2016 to only one million in 2020. the i.r.s. is now telling us to buckle up for service even to get worse. let's use some common sense. before you raise prices in a business or you ask your customers to even be more forebearing when you're delivering bad service, your competitors would take you out. here in the federal government, you don't have that kind of inherent competition, and sadly

the public, american taxpayers have to put up with it. and when your default position is always to spend more money, i know the american public is interested in something better than this. and sadly, for whatever we do that's above and beyond the ordinary, we were borrowing 23 cents of every dollar we spend here. now it's up closer to 30 cents. and it's in the context that we're $30 trillion in debt to boot. this is something, what i'm proposing here, since it doesn't eliminate your ability to do it, let's just take it out of the tax season. madam president, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the finance committee be discharged from further consideration of

s. 2132 and that the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. i further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. wyden: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: thank you very much, madam president. madam president, i certainly agree with the proposition that was advanced by my colleague to improve service at the internal revenue service. the fact, however, is the effect of this proposal is to demean i.r.s. workers and distract from the real challenges facing the i.r.s. and the real challenge can be embodied by the fact that for

years and years my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been squeezing and downsizing critical enforcement services at the i.r.s. to the point where the wealthy cheats basically can get a free ride. they can get a free ride. madam president, about the other day in the context of talking about tax cheats at wealthy partnerships that aren't getting audited, i said the chance that they're going to be subject to real enforcement when they're a wealthy tax cheater, about the same likelihood as being hit by a meteor. and it is because of these policies that have been downsizing resources at the i.r.s. to deal with these wealthy tax cheats for years.

now, commissioner rettig, who is a trump appointee, an appointee of former president trump, recently said there are fewer auditors to deal with these wealthy tax cheats today than at any point since world war ii. they've got that challenge, and then they have an enormous i.t. challenge, because the i.r.s., by their admission, is still using some systems that are practically dated back to the dark ages. now, according to the national taxpayer advocates, during the last fiscal year, the i.r.s. received a record282 million customer service phone calls and with limited staff was only able to answer 11% of them. commissioner rettig told the

finance committee in a remarkable statement that it was his opinion that the amount of taxes that go unpaid each year could now be as high as $1 trillion. so to just wrap up, i want to describe how this all is connected. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have repeatedly attacked the i.r.s. they cut, they squeeze, and have constantly reduced the i.r.s. budget. wealthy tax cheats are out basically celebrating the decline of real tax enforcement. law-abiding americans, the vast majority of americans are of course frustrated by declining customer service. then we have our colleagues on the other side of the aisle attack the i.r.s., and the cycle just repeats.

more cuts, less enforcement targeted to wealthy tax cheats, and unfortunately, inadequate customer service. that has been the pattern now for decades. in my view, this is a gift to tax cheats and an annual headache for just about everyone else. there's no question the pandemin true for every aspect of government, madam president, has brought new challenges, just like it has for every business, every school, every government agency around the country. and in my view, instead of misplacing what the target really ought to be, which is inadequate resources so we can't go after the wealthy tax cheats. somehow we're hearing it's the workers, these union members who are at fault. that's not my take.

and for the reasons i've outlined, madam president, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. braun: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: briefly, respecting what the senator says about wealthy tax cheats, i agree with him 100%. everybody should pay their fair share. but i guarantee you there wasn't one wealthy tax cheat that was on hold for 18 minutes. they're not calling in. they hired a lawyer or somebody to do it. this is impacting americans, mom and pop business owners, folks that just need to talk to someone. it's not at wealthy tax cheat that would have made one of 100 million calls. they don't do that. there's another way to go after that. all i'm saying is during the busiest time of the year, let's take the resources that we've

got, whether they need to be enhanced or not, and let's let them focus on the job of answering the phone and not making a small taxpayer suffer. they are the ones wrestling with the i.r.s. by numbers, not wealthy tax cheats. i yield the floor.

mr. wyden: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22 at 6:30 p.m. tonight the senate vote on the cloture motions with respect to executive calendar number 614, 644, 649, 627, 616, 473 and

474, that at 12:30 p.m., tomorrow, thursday, february 3, the senate vote on the cloture motions with respect to executive calendar number numbers 495, 496, 673, 654. further that if cloture is invoked on any of these nominations, the senate vote on confirmation of the nominations at a time to be determined by the majority leader or his designee following consultation with the republican leader. the presiding officer: without objection.

the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: thank you, madam president. this week news reports made public in may 2019, subpoena from the justice department. that subpoena requested financial records relating to hunter biden as part of the department's criminal investigation into his activities. notably, that subpoena also

requested records relating to james biden, deven archer, and eric swearen. that subpoena sought records relating to companies that senator johnson and i discussed in our biden report. if the reports are accurate, this subpoena is yet another stake in the heart of a totally unsubstantiated claim made by the liberal media and democrats that the grassley-johnson report on biden was russian disinformation. today i come here to speak about a matter directly related to the recent news. specifically, the biden justice department's failure to answer

fundamental questions related to hunter's criminal investigation. i've asked serious ethical questions of the justice department that the department so far has refused to answer. in fact, the department has actually publicly contradicted itself. just one ask example of contradiction -- on may 31, 2021, senator johnson and i wrote to attorney general garland. our letter noted that hunter biden had a close association with patrick ho, an individual who is associated with the communist chinese government and its intelligence services. patrick ho was also charged and

convicted of international bribery and money laundering offenses relating to his work for companies connected to that communist regime. after his arrest, his first call was reportedly to james biden, president biden's brother. hunter biden reportedly represented patrick ho for $1 million. in our letter, we noted that a justice department federal court filing said d.o.j. had fisa information on patrick ho. not only did they possess this information that the department informed the court that he intended to use it to prosecute that person.

senator johnson and i asked the justice department for that fisa information as well as fisa information for other chinese nationalists linked to hunter biden. in response, i quote the justice department. unfortunately, under the circumstances described in your letter, we aren't in a position to confirm the existence of the information that is sought if it exists in the department's possession, end of quote. now get that. if it exists in the department's possession. simply put, that is not true, an accurate statement, unless the department's statement to the federal court in the patrick

ho matter wasn't true and accurate. so, then as we naturally follow up, on november 15, 2021, we asked attorney general garland to explain the discrepancy. no response to this very day. both statements can't be true. either the department possesses the information or it doesn't possess the information. so we can legitimately ask attorney general garland again what's your answer? now this doesn't end there with that question. on february 3, 2021, and march 9, 2021, senator johnson and i

asked attorney general garland if nicholas mcquaid is recused from the hunter biden criminal case. now, this mcquaid works in the department's criminal division but worked with hunter biden's criminal attorneys before joining the department.. this poses a clear conflict of interest. attorney general garland has refused to answer to this very day. on june 29, 2021, senator johnson and i asked attorney general garland whether susan hennesey, is recused from the durham investigation. before working for the department, she made negative comments about the durham

investigation. in attorney general garland's july 13, 2021 response letter, he failed to answer our questions. however, as the senate judiciary committee at the committee's oversight hearing, october 27, 2021, the attorney general said she, quote, has nothing whatsoever to do with the durham investigation, end of quote. although this statement doesn't fully answer our questions, such as whether she's been formally recused from the matter, it -- it's more than what we were provided in the department letter's response. likewise, the justice department said that margaret goodlander, quote, has no role in

mr. durham's investigation, end quote. she's married to biden's national security advisor, jake sullivan. sullivan worked for the clinton presidential campaign. while there, he peddled the false alpha bank story about the trump organization having a secret back channel to this russian bank. those false allegations were reviewed as part of cross fire hurricane. now with all that said, let's take stock of where we are. on the one hand, attorney general garland has publicly said susan hennesey and margaret goodlander have no roles in the durham investigation. on the other hand, attorney

general garland refuses to say the same for mcquaid and the hunter biden criminal investigation. so we can really ask why is it that way? why won't the attorney general say that mcquaid has no role in the case involving the president's son? because this is a fundamental, ethical question. our letters have provided attorney general garland the opportunity to hit the ball right out of the park, instead, he doesn't even try to make a swing. what's the biden justice department hiding? this blatantly inconsistent treatment has cast a cloud over hunter biden's criminal case.

just imagine if this pattern had involved between -- evolved between president trump and his sons of the media would have gone nuts over it. you wouldn't have heard the end of it. also from my democratic colleagues here in the senate. yet, not a sound from them, not a peep. the american people are rightly skeptical of how the justice department is handling the hunter biden criminal investigation. and the secrecy and the lack of public transparency will only increase the skepticism that the american people have. so i and senator johnson won't stop doing good government oversight on this issue.

the american people deserve answers one way or another. madam president, on another point -- on a shorter point, i'd like to take a moment to update my colleagues on a bill that i introduced in 2021 designed to fight counterfeits. as we all know counterfeits are a threat to the united states economic and national security interest. most counterfeits originate in china, one of our larger competitors. counterfeits are dangerous to consumes, and lastly, counterfeits rip off american ingenuity and result in billions of dollars in losses.

for these reasons, congress must ensure the federal government arms its partners with the tools and the resources that these people need to combat the bad guys who sell these fake goods. my bill has the number s. 1159, and it does just that. it gives the partners the tools and resources they need to combat the bad guys. now, it happens that s. 1159, was incorporated in the united states innovation and competition act of 2021 that passed this senate on a very bipartisan vote. it was a bipartisan -- the bill with that title, innovation coop competition act was --

cooperation competition act was a bipartisan effort in a way to crack down on china. now the bill i'm telling you that i cosponsored and is part of that, gives our u.s. and customs and border protection the authority to share counterfeits identified at the border. it also gives dowms and border protection -- customs and border protection the authority to share with other parties. sharing information secures a more trade system that keeps counterfeits out of our country. this is good, commonsense policy. now my colleagues may be asking themselves why is this really

needed? well, customs and border protection believes that the trade secrets act keeps this agency from sharing certain types of information with the private sector. this keeps american companies then in the dark and prevents these companies from pursuing the bad guys who ripped them off. indeed, companies have repeatedly told me that if they just had more information from the federal government, they would -- they would and could keep more counterfeits out of the united states. so my bill removes this barrier and specifically gives customs border patrol the authority that it needs to share information with the private sector.

now, here is the icing on the cake. recently customs border protection confirmed that my bill would -- would, quote, resolve their concerns about violating the trade secrets act and would permit the sharing of more information, end of quote, on counterfeits. a few weeks ago, the imoo -- congressional budget office confirmed that my bill will confirm absolutely nothing. so good government legislation that costs the taxpayers zero dollars ought to not raise any questions when it protects the consumer and protects our business people. that is what i would like to call a slam dunk, and i hope my colleagues will join me in

making sure that it gets past this congress. and now since this has become an issue in the house of representatives, i hope that the house wakes up to this commonsense policy being included in the china package as negotiations continue because they left it out in the version that has come to the house floor now. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from washington. a senator: i ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: madam president, i come to the floor because this week hopefully our house colleagues will be taking up legislation that they have named america competes and my colleague was just here on the senate floor talking about the legislation we passed last year, that we're glad our colleagues are finally addressing in the house of representatives. i said gladly addressing. we're happy about that because between 1996 and 2015, federally funded research led to over $1 trillion in economic growth and millions of new jobs. we know when we invest, we see a big return in our economy. what we know, though, is however r&d investment is at its lowest point in nearly 45 years, as measured as a percentage of

g.d.p. that's where we've been going. and the rest of the world isn't waiting. overall, u.s. r&d spending places us ninth globally behind advanced economies like south korea, japan, and germany, and far below the fifth-place ranking that we held in the 1990's. so this is why we need to do something and that's why we passed what was called the united states innovation and competition act last year and why we encouraged our colleagues to take it up. there is a competition for global leadership in technology in a range of areas. semiconductors, manufacturing, artificial intelligence, low earth orbit satellites. and there are countries that are very eager to make investments to try to capture those jobs that i mentioned come as a result of investment and technology. we know that we thried to -- we tried to solve this problem for, that is to say competitive. we passed an america competes

act in 2007 and we passed one in 2010. and we were trying to stay competitive with changing economies and the information age that we now live in. these acts were intended to double the key research accounts at the national science foundation and the department of energy, but unfortunately the appropriations authorized did not materialize. in large part we had a 2008 recession and subsequent fiscal sequestration. and we reduced the n.s.f. and d.o.e. budgets. so we have the right idea. we had a year or so of activity that really tried to get us on the right track, and then fiscal issues put us behind. so job openings today and the opportunities for us to grow our economy by making this investment are just monumental. and that is why we hope that

this is a bipartisan effort by the senate and ultimately a bipartisan effort by the house to come together to make the investments to help fill these jobs of the future. job openings in computer science occupation are expected to exceed one million in the next few years. nearly 400,000 just in the area of cybersecurity alone. "the wall street journal" reported that planned growth in the u.s. semiconductor industry will require up to 90,000 more workers by 2025. 90,000 more workers just in that one sector and these are very well-paying jobs. according to the national science board, the only way that the united states can fill the gaps in these stem workers is to couple the number of women in stem workforce and double the number of other unrepresented minorities in these jobs, and that is exactly what we're trying to do with this

legislation. our manufacturing sector which we have a very large manufacturing sector in the northwest driven by aerospace but other forms of transportation, and it also includes small and medium size manufacturing. but one organization estimated that it will take up to $250 billion over ten years to help us upgrade our existing infrastructure in manufacturing and equipment to be competitive. so that means we must do our part. many of these industries will do their part, but on the r&d side, we must continue to do our part. other countries are investing heavily. the semiconductor advanced manufacturing facilities which are very, very expensive to build. we just heard of a major announcement by intel a few weeks ago about their investment in the state of ohio. these facilities can cost $30 billion over ten years, including $20 billion in just the capital expenses.

other countries are making huge investments to help build cheaper foundries anywhere from 30% to 50% of the investment in asia. so as a result, over the last several decades the united states has lost a big share of what they had in the semiconductor manufacturing chip sector, going from about 37% of the market for production from the u.s. down to 12% today. so the united states must respond and we must continue to make investments in these sectors. my colleagues as we had this floor debate will remember, we talked about a $52 billion investment, an enormous amount of money. but i asked my colleagues who helped us to get this legislation and those who weren't with us at that moment to consider this information. the semiconductor shortage costs

vehicle manufacturers just in 2021 $210 billion. one year, our shortage cost us $210 billion. so i think making this investment in chip production in the united states is critical. it's time we try again with our house colleagues. it's time that we engage in a bipartisan legislative process to get this legislation to the president's desk. i know the house will consider many amendments on friday when they're supposed to take up this bill. we in the commerce committee had over 230 amendments filed. we approved 130 amendments. we had a six-hour mark yum. we had a healthy -- markup. we had a healthy debate on amendments and the senate proceed to an open floor debate and hundreds of amendments were filed here on the senate floor. so i encourage our colleagues in the house to have their amendments, to consider these

ideas, and come to an effort with us to get this legislation passed. we know that this would be the largest five-year commitment to public r&d in our nation's history. we need it for the job growth. we need it to stay competitive. this legislation would also make a $15 billion investment in growing the diversifying that stem workforce. as i said, given the large amount of job openings in this sector, we're not going to find the people to take them unless we are diversifying our workforce. this would establish a senate-confirmed position on improving stem diversity and make sure that n.s.f. and the investments we would make would help us not only assure diversity but geographic diversity within the united states. this legislation would also create first of a kind n.s.f.,

the national science foundation tech director to help accelerate the development and translation of new technologies within the united states to the future and helping those jobs grow more quickly. now i know a lot of people probably at the beginning, n.s.f. was already doing a good job, if d.o.e. was already doing a good job, why do we need to do something different? the issue is the united states is producing a lot of r&d, and that r&d is being used by other people. it's actually documented public information that ends up getting used and translated by somebody else hung grer, faster -- hungrier, faster moving and getting translated. so this bill addresses that. this bill with the creation of a tech director is about accelerating the r&d that we do and turning it into real

manufacturing at a faster rate. we call this tech transfer, and if you have any kind of university in your state, you know exactly what i'm talking about and these universities play a key role in tech transfer. in fact, tech transfer in this realm of university has been responsible for about four million jobs over the last 20 years i think it is, last 20 years. so these are big investments that they have supported, supported over four million jobs. so iew they would make -- authoe a tripling of the manufacturing extension partnership to help with those manufacturing opportunities and also make investments in tech hubs to help create private sector investment in the same kind of workforce opportunities for the future.

as i mentioned, madam president, the announcement by intel in ohio to build new -- a new foundry and the expense of cost of building a new foundry was interesting news because it wasn't in the same places that investments and chip fabrication has been done so far. and yet the c.e.o. of the company said if we pass this legislation, there could be a hundred billion in investment. that's important because we have to understand how important chip fabrication is, semiconductors are to the information age that we live in today. how important it is that we not lose market share any lower than 12% and we actually start going back in the other direction so that we can grow these jobs in the future. so i just want to emphasize

there is a lot to agree on with our house colleagues. both bills call for a $52 billion investment in semiconductor industry. both bills call for a major investment, about $160 billion in critical r&d agencies like the science foundation and department of increase. both bills recognize the need to invest in creating tech hubs and making investments in the domestic supply chain. both bills call for growing diversity of our stem workforce to meet workforce gaps. both bills attempt to address disparities in our trade and research policy that i was just mentioning, trying to not let people just grab the r&d of the -- that the united states does and translate that but make sure that we have strong laws and preventing intellectual property theft where it occurs and making investments in american businesses. and we know that there are other provisions that we will be able to agree on as well.

so with our investment in r&d reaching a 45-year low, now is the time to grow our economy, madam president. i hope our colleagues in the house will join in a bipartisan effort. we stand ready in the senate to join a serious discussion to get this legislation on to the president's desk and grow these jobs, very important economic opportunity for the united states and continue our leadership. i thank the president, and i yield the floor. mr. scott: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. scott: madam president, as our nation continues the battle against covid-19, we know that the best way forward for defeating this virus is making sure americans have adequate prevention and treatment options against this terrible illness. while i understand that we are still learning about covid-19 every day, i share the frustrations of public health leaders and the american people in fighting this virus.