[applause] >> washington on c-span in your pocket. download c-span now today. >> the u.s. senate today is voting on legislation that would prohibit employers from requiring that their employees resolve workplace sexual assault and sexual harassment cases in binding arbitration. if this legislation is signed into law, workers would be allowed to sue their employers for sexual misconduct

allegations, also today the senate is considered a nominee to the maritime commission. ine senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. .almighty god, the center of our hope, open our hearts to your movement in our midst. .as we trust your prevailing providence, and cling to your promises, provide us wisdom and spiritual discernment to see you at work. lord, save our lawmakers from being intimidated by today's challenges, as you

protect them by guiding their steps. clothe our senators with the armor of integrity, shield them with your truth, and guide them with your power. .give them a hunger for your word and a desire to apply your knowledge in their daily walk, pleasing you by living with humility, honesty, and joy. we pray in your precious name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c, february 10, 2022. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jacky rosen, a senator from the state of nevada, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. the morning business is closed.

mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: madam president, it's been a busy, productive, and truly bipartisan week here in the united states senate. after days -- sorry. madam president, to begin, it has been a busy, productive,

and truly bipartisan week here in the united states senate. after days of fruitful cooperation from both sides, the senate is now a few moments away from approving one of the most significant changes to employment law in years, eliminating for good the awful practice of forcing victims of sexual harassment and assault into arbitration. an hour from now we'll be able to say this. the house has acted. the senate has acted, and we are sending bipartisan forced arbitration reform to the president's desk. it's a momentous reform bill and one that is painfully overdue. for decades arbitration clauses have been routinely tucked into the fine print of employment contracts. today they impact about 60 million americans, and many people may not even realize such clauses affect them until it is too late. all of us have heard the searing

testimonies of those who have faced harassment or abuse at work only to discover their jobs offered precious little in accountability. countless leaders, countless careers have been derailed or undone. worse still, countless lives have been forever damaged, and for decades workplace practices like mandatory arbitration have perpetuated cultures of abuse and unaccountability. we can't ignore a basic reality of these clauses. they deprive victims of sexual harassment and assault of their basic rights by mandating they seem remedy only behind closed doors of private arbitration with no other alternative. this is wrong. it is unfair. and it's about time it changed. and that's exactly what we'll accomplish through this bipartisan legislation. it will not only ensure that those who have suffered sexual

harassment or assault have the option to go to court if they choose, it will also be retroactive. people locked into these clauses right now will benefit just as much as new employees will in the future. that's an important point that hasn't gotten enough attention. it will undo the pernicious effect of these clauses that already exist. i want to thank my friend and fellow new yorker, senator gillibrand, for spending years advocating for this legislation. this accomplishment wouldn't be possible without her leadership and her commitment to working with the other side. likewise, i want to thank senator graham and senator ernst for reaching across the aisle and working with us to get this bill done. yesterday senators graham and ernst met in my office, and we came to an agreement to move this forward, and we very much appreciate that. it was truly a collaborative effort by the senate. and thanks to everyone's work,

forced arbitration for sexual assault and harassment will soon be a thing of the past. as i said in my very first speech as majority leader, democrats will always be open to working with members of the other side of the aisle when the opportunity arises. the differences between the parties are real and cannot be ignored, but we can neither ignore the genuine chances for progress when both parties agree to move forward on certain topics. last year it was precisely this majority's commitment to bipartisan cooperation that cleared the path for historic hate crimes legislation. together we also passed a historic jobs and supply chain bill which we hope is enacted soon. and together democrats and republicans secured the first stand-alone infrastructure package in years. this week has been a continuation of that commitment to working with the other side when possible. the legislation on forced arbitration is a prime example, and yesterday we saw another

example. appropriators from both parties announced that they reached a framework agreement for a yearlong appropriation package. this is a huge step forward for arriving at an omnibus, and it is great news for our goal of avoiding a yearlong c.r. which would have been painful and costly. there's a lot of work left to do before we pass a government spending bill, but yesterday's announcement shows appropriators are now on a very good path. we are driving forward towards an omnibus, and i am very, very hopeful and optimistic that we will get there. in the meantime, the senate will do the responsible thing by passing a temporary c.r. next week in order to give the appropriators enough time to put their funding packages together. vawa. yesterday our colleagues from both sides of the aisle came together to announce an agreement on reauthorizing the

violence against women's act which was last acted on -- last acted nearly a decade ago by this chamber. i want to commend my colleagues, senators feinstein and durbin, as well as senators ernst and murkowski for all the work they've done to bring us closer to reauthorizing vawa. i also want to thank my colleagues who are cosponsoring this legislation, and i have a particular interest because when i was in the house, i helped carry the original vawa legislation that became law and has now lapsed. most importantly, i want to thank every single person who participated in yesterday's press conference who shared their own experiences of abuse. the violence against women act is one of the most important laws that passed by congress in the last 30 years, and it's my hope that the senate can take action on this bill in the near future. there are nine republicans cosponsoring this legislation, so we need one more at least in order to clear a path forward.

if we can find more support for vawa, i would expect that the senate would seek to take action. vawa must be reauthorized. we cannot allow inaction to persist for a moment longer. and with yesterday's bipartisan announcement, we are closer than ever to achieving that goal. now, on postal. there's one more sign of progress this week that i want to mention, another bipartisan effort, like vawa and like all of the other bills i've mentioned -- arbitration and the c.r. and this is the bipartisan efforts by both chambers to pass the most significant postal reform bill in decades. later today, soon, i will file cloture on the postal reform bill approved overwhelmingly by the house earlier this week. for the information of all senators this will set up the first vote this coming monday evening. postal reform has been decades in the making, and is one of the best steps we can take to strengthen one of our country's

most important institutions. tens of millions of americans depend on the post office every day. seniors and veterans need it for things like medication. businesses need it to function. rural communities need it to stay connected. and countless people rely on the post office to connect with each other for things like birthdays, travel, the holidays, or any one of life's many, many special occasions. by passing postal reform, we can assure that americans will continue to rely on a speedy, dependable, and well-run post office. we've all heard complaints about how the mail delivery has slowed down. this is a strong, important effort to rectify that problem. it will be a win for everyday americans and for dedicated men and women who work to deliver our mail every single day. finally, on cannabis legislation. madam president, all of these issues i've mentioned -- forced

arbitration reform, appropriations, vawa, postal reform -- have been bipartisan efforts. they reflect a commitment democrats made at the start of the year to work with the other side when the opportunities presented themselves, around i thank my republican colleagues for work working with us. before i close, there's one more appeal i want to make for bipartisan coongs, and that is on -- cooperation, and that is on cannabis reform. this morning, i joined with senators booker and wyden in sending a dear colleague to ask colleagues from boat boat to join in exree lensive cannabis reform. last summer, we introduced legislation for federal reform of cannabis. we want to work on this, build on this in the near future. today, hundreds of millions of americans live in states, both blue and red, where cannabis has been legalized in some way. it's long past time for the federal government to catch up.

this is about individual free document and about basic fair net. for decades, federal cannabis laws caused immense damage to millions of americans, particularly black and hispanic people who've been unfairly targeted by these laws. we need to clang change that -- to change that. we need to create opportunities for entrepreneurs and small businesses to legitimately pursue new opportunities and comprehensive federal cannabis legislation is critical to reaching that goal. so i want to thank senators booker, wyden and all my colleagues to worked with us on this important and long overdue change. i hope we can make more progress to cannabis reform in the near future. now, madam president, i move to proceed to calendar 266, h.r. 3076. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the clerk: motion to proceed to

h.r. 3076, an act to provide stability to and enhance the services of the united states postal service and for other purposes. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. 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 motion to proceed to calendar 266, h.r. 3076, an act to provide stability to and enhance the services of the united states postal service and for other purposes, signed by 18 senators as follows. mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar 668. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say eye. all opposed say 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, department of health and human services, robert mcan --

mckenan califf to be commissioner of food and drugs. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the clerk: cloture motion, we the under-- 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 nomination of executive calendar number 668, robert mackinnon califf to be administrator of the food and drug. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: finally, madam president, i i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the cloture motions filed today, thursday, february 10, be waived. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. schumer: madam president, i understand there's a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: s. 3623, a bill to reauthorize the violence against women act of 1994 and for other purposes. mr. schumer: in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would object to further proceeding. the presiding officer: objections having been -- objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. schumer: thank you, madam president. i note the absence of a quorum. it. the presiding officer: will you withdraw noting the absence of the quorum, please. mr. schumer: i ask that that be withdrawn. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous offered order, the -- order, the senate will proceed to h.r. 4445, which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 264,

h.r. 4445, an act to amend title 9 of the united states code with respect to arbitration of disputes involving sexual assault and sexual harassment.

mr. mcconnell: madam president. the presiding officer: the

republican leader. mr. mcconnell: moments ago, the country got yet another terrible monthly inflation report under the biden administration. yet again, the data confirm what working families already know painfully well -- rampant inflation and soaring prices are crushing, crushing the american people. experts had predicted another red-hot inflation report around 7%. even that alone would have meant we were still trapped inside the worst inflation in 40 years. but reality turned out to be even worse than that. turns out inflation this past year has been -- hasn't been 7%, it's been 7.5%. in other words, if you haven't personally gotten a pay raise of 8% or more in the last year,

then democrats' policies have given you a pay cut. pay cut. to add insult to injury, reporters say the worst of this inflation was driven by the most painful categories for working families -- food prices, energy prices, and rent. this is not about financial inconvenience for wealthy people who can afford to stomach it. this is about massive price increases for essential goods that make up a huge share of working families' budgets. gas is up about 40% since this time last year. used-car prices are up about the same. meat, fish, and eggs cost over 12% more than they did just one year ago. the cost of natural gas for home heating has soared by 24% since

this time last year. fuel oil has shot up almost 47%. the cost of essentials is absolutely -- has absolutely exploded since washington democrats took power. and to be clear, the worst inflation in 40 years is not something that just spontaneously happened to democrats on their watch. as the pugh report democrat dawk the pew report demonstrated late last year, it's true, countries around the world are facing inflation, they are, as a result of covid, but america has it worse than almost everybody else in the developed world. this is a direct result of liberal policy choices. here's how jason furman, president obama's c.e.a. chairman explained it recently, so i'll quote from "the new york

times" -- the united states has had much more inflation than almost any other advanced economy in the world, said jason furman, an economist at harvard and former obama administration economic adviser. he used comparable methodologies to look across areas and concluded that u.s. price increases have been consistently faster. the difference, he said, comes because the united states stimulus is in a category of its own. obviously, he's referring to the $2 trillion so-called rescue package last year. the severity of this inflation was directly fueled by the reckless, far left spending spree that every single democrat in this chamber voted to ram through at president biden's behest last year. even the most prominent liberal economists knew this would

happen and tried to warn the democrats. a year ago, larry summers warned democrats' binge could set off, quote, inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation. ah, but democrats ignored their own experts. they plowed ahead, using the pandemic as a pretext, a pretext to dump $2 trillion into left wing policies that were overwhelmingly unrelated, unrelated to the healthcare fight against the virus. and we see the results all around us. families are living with the results every day. as recently as the last few days, some of my democratic colleagues have come here to the floor to boast about the increase in nominal wages. they want a round of applause because the numbers on many americans' paychecks have gone up. but that's staggeringly out of touch with the reality.

yes, an inflationary spiral lots of people will see the numbers on their paychecks go up. the problem is that even those bigger paychecks are buying americans less in reterms today than their smaller paychecks bought them before democrats were sworn in. it's like this -- democratic policies have created an inflation rip tide that is forcing families and small businesses to swim as fast as they possibly can just to avoid getting sucked out to sea. but democrats are trying to call this a success because of how fast everybody's arms and legs are moving. talk about an absurd effort to spend your way out of reality. the truth is plain for everybody to see. a few weeks ago, "the washington post" ran a story with the headline that raise meant

nothing. inflation is wiping out pay increases for most americans. the story explained, and this is a direct quote, many workers said that despite considerable pay raises, as much as 33% in some cases, they were still struggling to cover basic expenses. several workers said they had taken second jobs to keep up with the rising cost of groceries, gas and rent. so republicans are not buying the democrats' spin for one second. one year after president biden with an economy primed for a roaring comeback, 75% of americans say our economy is doing badly. about 90% of americans say they are concerned with inflation -- 90% of americans say they are concerned with inflation.

a 60% supermajority say their families' income is falling behind the cost of living. so it didn't have to be this way, madam president. this was a policy choice. this democratic government was warned that this radical agenda would supercharge inflation and they pushed ahead anyway, and our country is paying the price. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: madam president, i come to the floor to talk about a number of the items, one is the nomination of mack beckidge and to talk about colleagues coming together to work on america's innovation. let me talk about the nomination

of mack beckidge. the covid pandemic has caused unprecedented congestion at our ports and supply chain disruptions and americans are feeling the pinch of the rising prices of these products every day. the news is our colleagues can do something about that this morning. they can do something about that this morning. at a time when our country is in need of a strong maritime commission, it is important that they do their oversight role. that they regulate unfair practices by foreign shipping companies and make sure that -- maritime is important to make sure that american products get access. while i don't agree with the

conclusion of the minority leader in helping investments on helping americans during the pandemic. i know this right now the federal maritime should be investigating international shippers who are overcharging u.s. exporters. farmers have been hit hard, u.s. agriculture exports have experienced a 22% degree in exports. agriculture accounts for -- 20% of what u.s. farmers and ranchers produce are sent abroad and that's why they deserve a fair deal on shipping products. many of these containerized freight cost has more than doubled since the pandemic. washington hay consumers predict that it could be three times more expensive this winter. our ships are returned to asia

with empty containers and standing on u.s. ports and docks, this is an unprecedented nature of shipping and has had a major impact on american exporters. and it's important that we understand that we need to do something about it. the national milk producers federation estimates that the shipping costs the u.s. dairy industry nearly $1 billion in the first half of 2021. apples are washington's most profitable agriculture commodity and 20% of the state's product is exported. port congestion has producers concentrating more on north american markets as opposed to overseas markets that are cutting into their profits. so for every one million boxes of fresh apples shipped into the u.s. domestic market, it drops

down to 50% less. these losses impact real american jobs and the american economy. but let's look at the other side of the equation as washington growers and american growers and american manufacturers struggle, foreign shipping companies are reporting more than $200 billion in profit, more than double the profit that they made over the last 20 years combined. that's what these international shippers are profiting. so it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that we helped americans get a paycheck during pandemic, it has to do with foreign companies who are overcharging u.s. producers of goods. at this critical time in our country we need a federal maritime commission to move sighsively to -- decisively to address port congestion and help

them not to be the target of unfair practices such as high shipping costs. we need a commission that will take action and investigate the illegal practices and taken forcement action against foreign bad actors who are overcharging u.s. exporters and other shippers. we need a commission who will stand up to foreign shipping interests and protect american manufacturers, farmers, and other exporters. so, madam chair -- madam president, there is something that we do about our supply chain woes, particularly for states with big export economies. that's why american shippers and producers, american shippers mean the people actually moving product, that's why they are behind the nomination of mack

vekige, he knows the ports and shipping communities and spent more than 40 years on the waterfront. he spent his life working in the maritime industry and knows what we face in congestion and continuing to move forward on how we advance our ports. if you have worked on the docks for 40 years, i guarantee you, you know about every product and you know what are the challenges that we face from this international competition. we are in the precipice of moving important competitive legislation but part of that competitive legislation is getting our products on vessels instead of being stranded at the docks and preventing shipping companies from retail eighting against u.s. -- retail eighting against u.s. exporters. again this is moved by international shippers, it is an

international business. so we need a commission in place willing to act, willing to use their authority to enforce our current laws and make sure we are protecting american exporters. that's why exporters like the idaho dairy association supports mack vekidge, because he knows how to move product, that's why the trade associations representing more than 80 ports across the united states support mack vekidge, the pacific northwest waterways represents steam ship operators, agricultural producers, forest product manufacturers, electric utilities, irrigation utilities and organizations throughout washington, this organization does not normally support someone in this office, but they

are calling for mr. vekidge to be confirmed based on his first-hand knowledge of the maritime industry and their operations. end quote. he knows what it takes to move product from the heartland. he knows in our washington ports we are helping u.s. products get their -- u.s. farmers get their products to market. he knows what it takes to move them and what it takes for us to continue to improve the efficiency of our ports. whether it the midwest manufactured products like cars and jeeps, he knows what that takes and what it takes to continue to grow a skilled workforce that will help us to do that effectively. he knows how to work with industry like agricultural producers and the waterfront workforce alike. at a time when we're asking our dock workers and shoremen to

help elevate our efficiencies and improve port congestion, and i might say, madam chairwoman, at the loss of life. the amount of death in the longshoreman community would break your heart that they worked through the covid pandemic and literally lost their lives. they are helping us to keep our supply chain going. the least we can do is invest in somebody who can help us understand what it takes to do that on a day-to-day basis. we need to make sure that we have a competitive and fair environment for u.s. companies. so i ask my colleagues to confirm mack vekidge as commissioner of the maritime commission this morning. i will enter in, dairy gold northwest dairy association,

tott maritime, matteson, s.s.a. marine, the iowu, the inland boatman's union, the local chapters of the farm union, and many other organizations. i'll enter that into the record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: thank you, madam chair. now i'd like to turn our attention to the -- also an issue of dealing with our supply chain. that is the issue of congress moving forward on the differences in the house and senate bill on america's investment in r&d and vision. this shows r&d investment today equals u.s. jobs tomorrow, the united states innovation act is at a crossroads because we need

to get it into conference. other countries definitely aren't waiting, i guarantee you that. they are making investments in innovation and toj and where we -- technology and where we are in the united states we are at a 45-year low in r&d against g.d.p. so we're not keeping pace. many times i've been on the floor talking about why we're not keeping pace. we tried, unfortunately we tried several years ago and then had an economic downturn, we signed up for more r&d investment and then there was an economic downturn. so the consequences is that we are now behind in key sectors that we need to make investments in. the good news is people are willing to make investments like the intel company who decided to make a multibillion-dollar investment in ohio to grow chip

fabrication there so we have these opportunities if we make investments. when the world presents a challenge, the people in our states rise to the challenge and the american spirit never ceases to amaze me. r&d is in americans. why? because we live in a country where you are free to do what you want and to try to start a company and your skillset. we need to have that same spirit here working collaboratively to get this legislation rectified and on to the president's desk. there isn't a moment to wait. revolutionizing science, creating jobs, invigorating our new economic centers around the nation and my colleague and i, senator wicker worked on an important aspect of the bill which is driving more innovation dollars into research institutions in states that

haven't traditionally had large research foot prints. this will be an issue of contention, i'm sure, with some of my colleagues. innovation can happen anywhere and innovation infrastructure should be everywhere and so if we want that to happen, madam president, in reno, nevada, we need to make an investment in reno, nevada. i believe in that because i pretty sure the sierra company is headquartered in reno, if i'm not mistaken, and this is what i'm talking about. you can build. guess what. not everything has to happen in seattle or san francisco or boston or out here on the corridor here in virginia. and that is because the innovation age means that innovation can happen at a very flat level. it can happen anywhere so why would we constrict it? we don't want to constrict it. we want to empower it.

american leadership can't wait. what we need is to be collaborative here in the united states senate, because that collaboration between government, academia and industry is what drives the next level of innovation. just think about what happened with -- with arpa, darpa as we made the innovations in the internet as the president knows because she's a programmer, she knows that that innovation allowed us to then build out a commercial aspect of the internet that would not have happened at least at that moment in time. not in 1993. it wouldn't have happened and look at where we are today with an internet economy, all because we had u.s. innovation. so technology after technology has been invented, and our u.s. companies have continued to innovate, develop a workforce and skill people for the opportunities of tomorrow. but that leadership is not guaranteed, and time and time

again history has shown us that people, while we innovate here, other people are going to follow. in aviation, the wright brothers were the first to demonstrate with the kitty hawk in north carolina, but the united states soon fell behind in aviation as european governments invested and built out this new industry. by 1913, the united states military had six planes and 14 trained pilots. france had 216 airplanes and 171 trained pilots. so leadership can't wait. you can't wait. i think people get this. we do a lot of innovation, and other people take that innovation and go implement it. that is why a major section of the bill is about translational science. it is about taking that innovation in the united states and translating it into faster adoption, applications for industries. so congress finally decided to invest american leadership in 1915 by creating the national

advisory committee for aeronautics which worked with academia and industry to regain america's dominance and define how we build planes that even last today. that's what we're talking about. that's why we feel that nasa is part of this bill. nasa is our r&d agency for aviation. that is what nasa is. yes, it deserves a place in this legislation. a new aviation industry, a new aviation supply chain sprung up across the country in places like wichita and kansas and seattle. the story would repeat itself after the soviet union challenged u.s. leadership in the 1950's and almost immediately congress recognized that leadership could not wait, and that is when we did nasa. so bringing together government, academia and industry to create new generations of american expertise and technical advancements is what eventually put people, a man on the moon, and what will put someone, a woman this time, on the moon.

but america had to choose to lead. that's what we're going to be asked with on usica in getting it done. we have to choose to lead, to invest in technology. that technology brought us places like huntsville, alabama, and houston, texas. in 2020 the aerospace industry supported two million good paying jobs with an average salary of, over $100,000 per year and generated $900 billion in revenue. that's what the innovation economy did for us. so that's why we want to now upgrade the innovation, particularly as it relates to semiconductors. since the availability of these tiny chips and one of the most pressing issues facing our country now is people can't get access to them. people who -- it's so bad, madam president, that people now who have cars that are electric cars or hybrids, if you have a used car, you know

that your price goes down, just continues to go down. now used cars prices are actually going up because there are so few cars available that the consumers want in this area that actually used cars are going to more money. it's going up and not down. the shortage costs the transportation sector $210 billion last year alone. we can't wait. we can't wait on these issues. we can't wait. the essence of acting now, getting together, communicating with our colleagues, working together in a collaborative spirit is what is going to get this legislation over the goal line and help us. the first transistor, as part of this chip industry, was invented in 1947 in new jersey, representing a collaboration from scientists across physics, electrical engineering and chemistry. in the 1980's, the united states semiconductor industry

faced a serious challenge from an ally of ours -- japan. leadership did not wait. we did not wait. the government set up a government industry partnership, sematech, with specific goals of creating new collaborations and investing in american manufacturing. the united states maintained that leadership role and in the 1990's we produced 37% of the global chip supply. the semiconductor industry now supports more than a million jobs, but today, because people didn't stand around and wait, but today we see overseas competitors who are investing heavily in technologies of the future, everything from a.i. to composites to clean energy solutions. and they are trying to do everything from driving their own energy independence to combatting climate change. they're investing in the resilience of their supply chain

by promoting domestic production. they are training their workforce the aspects of the legislation that we passed that help skill and keep americans working and training workforce, very important policies. in fact, the administration just released yesterday another round of investment as part of what was the aerospace and manufacturing jobs program that helped keep the aviation worker in place or actually try to recapture some of them who were laid off during the pandemic. very important piece of legislation that we worked on, that my colleagues over here for the most part didn't support in the final package. some of them supported it as a concept and an idea, but did not support the final package. right now it's 30% to 50% cheaper to build a semiconductor foundry in asia than in the

united states, mostly because of foreign government investment. moreover, as i said, we're being hard hit by semiconductor supply chain crisis, car manufacturers, including tesla, g.m., and others are removing some of their most advanced and desirable features from their cars just to reduce the number of chips that are needed. literally we're cutting our innovation skill set just because we don't have the chips. ford announced last week that it will either cut or halt production at eight plants. do we really, are we really going to sit around and wait to get this legislation done? are we really going to sister around and -- to sit around and wait? we have eight plants that are going to shut down because they don't have chips and we're going to wait for another eight weeks before we go to conference to resolve these issues. it has been projected that chip shortage costs the global auto industry in 2021 $210 billion in

revenue and a loss of production of 7.7 million cars. so leadership can't wait. it can't wait. fortunately the united states is showing that we can respond, and we in the senate did pass legislation, and now we have an opportunity to go to conference and work with our colleagues, but some people want to wait another three weeks or four weeks to do that. i don't want to wait, madam president. i don't want to wait another second. the competitiveness of u.s. manufacturers who are competing on an international basis to receive the investments that we make in technology just can't wait. recent investments from commercial sector from intel show that over 10,000 new jobs will bring a domestic semiconductor industry into the midwest, specifically ohio. and our experience has shown us that if we make the investments

that we're talking about in usica, in the competitiveness act, that we will grow an even larger u.s. semiconductor manufacturing business. but foreign competitors are not sitting still when it comes to technology leadership, they are obviously going to try to do their part. so our solution is simple. all we have to do is work together. all we have to do is be collaborative. as someone once said, collaboration is the next phase of innovation. you can have all the science, you can have all the creativity. but if you can't get it implemented because people don't sit around the table and talk and innovate and work together, then you can't get it implemented. that's where we are. we know we need to do this investment in r&d. we know we need to invest in chips. and we're not doing it because some people don't want to move ahead and get this done.

the senate commerce committee passed the legislation, and we obviously got and understood the urgency of it. we got and understood the urgency of it. trust me, madam president, there are many other things we thought we were going to put on our agenda -- and you know because you sat through the hundreds of amendments that were marked up, the process that we went through, the regular order, the regular order that we went through here on the senate floor, and the regular order we're willing to go through. so no one's asking for anything else but regular order. but the people who want to hold up and don't want to move forward, i would ask them to think about our competition who are working very hard on beating us at semiconductors and the issues that it represents as it relates to the investments we should be making. so, i want us to make the investments in semiconductors. i want us to make the investments in manufacturing

extension programs, in stem education, in tech hubs, and making sure that the united states of america maintains its leadership role. i thank the president, and i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. ms. ernst: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that senators graham, gillibrand, schumer and i be able to complete our remarks prior to the vote on h.r. 4445. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. ernst: thank you, madam president. madam president, i also ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my colleague, senator graham. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. ernst: thank you madam president. madam president, protecting survivors of sexual assault and harassment has been one of my top priorities here in the senate. in fact, yesterday i introduced the bipartisan violence against women act authorization act of 2022 which now has the support of ten of my republican

colleagues. today we're here to talk about another issue that is impacting too many in our nation's workforce -- the ending forced arbitration and sexual harassment act of 2022 provides survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment with a choice between litigation and arbitration so their voices will not be silenced. earlier this congress i was glad to see progress in the senate judiciary committee as they moved forward on this bill. the committee took action that i supported. they removed the provision on collective bargaining agreements. just this week i was even more encouraged when the house made further changes to the bill that improved the definition of sexual harassment. and while these changes are important and significant, it is still not a perfect solution. that is why when i sat down earlier this week with the majority leader and the lead republican sponsor of this bill, my friend from south carolina, we agreed to come to

the floor and ensure the congressional intent of the ending forced arbitration and sexual harassment act of 2022 is crystal clear. during our meeting, my colleagues agreed with me that this bill should not be the catalyst for destroying predispute arbitration agreements in all employment matters. specifically, we agreed that harassment or assault claims should not be joined to an employment claim without a key nexus. harassment and assault allegations are very serious and should stand on their own. the language of this bill should be narrowly interpreted. it should not be used as a mechanism to move employment claims that are unrelated to these important issues out of the current system. these clarifications are needed. i care very much and support survivors of sexual harassment and assault. having access to the appropriate process to ensure swift justice.

but it is also very important to me that those claims stand separate from any other kind of claim, and i'm grateful that senator schumer and graham stand with me today in knowing that those claims are meaningfully different. there is one other important piece here that i would like to mention and that i hope my colleagues can agree with me on. if an employment agreement contains a predispute arbitration clause and a sexual assault or harassment claim is brought forward in conjunction with another employment claim, and the assault or harassment claim is later dismissed, a court should remand the other claim back to the arbitration system under this bill. i think we can all agree that we want to ensure survivors of sexual assault have their voices heard. we just have to do this in a

thorough and thoughtful way. my hope is that the legislative intent of this bill reflects the conversation with my colleagues discussed here today. namely, the ending forced arbitration and sexual harassment act of 2021 should not effectively destroy arbitration in employment litigation. this bill is narrow and scoped to address sexual assault and sexual harassment cases. these clarifications we're making here reflect the specific challenges that victims of these particular allegations face. and if any subsequent litigation manipulates the text to game the system, senator schumer and graham have pledged to work with me on a bipartisan bill to further codify the intent and language of this bill. and i would yield to senator graham for further discussion. mr. graham: number one -- the presiding officer: the

senator from south carolina is recognized. mr. graham: thank you, mr. president. i agree with everything you said. you said it well. what's the goal here? senator gillibrand, myself, and many others have been working to stop the practice of someone signing an employment contract, having a sexual harassment or assault problem in the workplace, and being forced into arbitration that's skewed for the employer against the employee for these things to be hidden. we do not intend to take unrelated claims out of the contract. so, what we're preventing here is sexual assault and sexual harassment claims being forced into arbitration, which perpetuates the problem. the light of day of a courtroom is what we're hoping for. if the plaintiff still has to prove their case, the defendant has robust due process, but senator ernst's concerns i share. if lawyers try to game the

system, they're acting in bad faith. they can be subject to disciplinary proceedings by courts. so, what we're not going to do is take unrelated claims out of the arbitration contract. so if you got an hour and wage dispute with the employer, you make a sexual harassment, sexual assault claim, the hour-and-wage dispute stays under arbitration, unless it's related. that's the goal. and i hope people won't game the system. i hope it will bring about the reform we're all hoping for, to make it harder to hide these problems in the workplace, easier to get justice without gaming the system. the presiding officer: the senator from new york is recognized. mrs. gillibrand: i just want to thank my colleagues, senator graham and senator ernst, for their outstanding work in this regard. we've worked over many years to get a bill that can be agreed upon. senator ernst made sure that her

concerns were met in several ways. but i agree with both of their statements. i do not believe that survivors of sexual assault and harassment will abuse the ability to file cases in court, and the bill plainly reads, which is very relevant for senator ernst's concerns, reads that only disputes that relate to sexual assault or harassment conduct can escape the forced arbitration clauses. that relate to is in the text. the language of the bill specifically states that, quote, the term sexual harassment dispute means a dispute relating to conduct that is alleged to constitute sexual harassment under applicable federal, tribal, and state law, and quote, the term sexual assault dispute means a dispute involving a nonconconsensual sel act or conduct. to be clear, there are no new legal burdens to sexual harassment established in the bill. this was another concern that senator ernst had, it's all tied to existing federal, state, and tribal law. this bill will basically give

survivors the ability to go to court where they are, quote, alleging conduct constituting a sexual harassment dispute or sexual assault dispute. when a sexual assault or harassment survivor files a case, it may include multiple claims, but as senator ernst said if those claims on harassment, assault are dismissed, she would go back to the arbitration process. but it is, and this is important to senator graham and i, it's essential that all the claims related to the sexuality assault or harassment can be adjudicated at one time for the specific purpose senator ernst is well aware of. we don't want to make a victim relive that experience in multiple jurisdictions. we want to deal with all of the harassments and assaults and related claims in one go. if those aren't part of it, this bill does not apply to it. so you are quite right in your clarification, and that is exactly how we intended the bill to do. every state and federal court in

the country requires a person to allege certain things in a certain was i to properly plead a case such that it won't be immediately dismissed. victims here must follow the rules and plead a case correctly, and then they must also affirm to the court that they have a good faith basis for doing so. attorneys must do the same thing. if victims and attorneys break those rules, they can be sanctioned in court as senator graham mentioned. to ensure that a victim is able to realize the rights and protections intended to be restored to her by this legislation, all of the related claims will proceed together. i yield back to my colleagues. can i give -- just read my full statement now? do you have more to say, senator ernst? thank you. mr. president, i just want to for the record talk about this legislation and how important it is. i'm extremely grateful for the work of senator graham over the last five years in writing this bill. and i'm very grateful to the majority leader for meeting with

senator ernst and senator graham yesterday to make the final decisions on this bill and to close the deal. senator schumer is one of the greatest listeners and has the ability to bring legislation to fruition and that's exactly what he did yesterday. i'm very grateful. this bill represents one of the most significant workplace reforms in american history. it will help us fix a broken system that protects perpetrators and corporations and end the days of silencing survivors. too often when survivors of sexual assault or harassment in the workplace come forward they are told that they are legally forbidden to sue their employer because somewhere buried in their employment contract was a forced arbitration clause. often accompanied by a nondisclosure agreement. instead of being allowed their day in court, these survivors are pushed into a system designed by the same corporation that they're challenging. they're blocked from seeking information that could prove their case, and they are left in the hands of an extra judicial arbitrator who is typically

selected by their employer and not always a trained lawyer. the arbitration process not only allows the corporations to hide sexual harassment and assault cases in the secretive and often biased process, but it shields those who committed serious misconduct from the public eye. across board, employees are less likely to win an arbitration than in court. even when they do win, they typically receive much lower monetary awards. because of the results of arbitration being secret and binding, there's no chance for appeal, and repeat owe feppedders are often not -- offenders are not held to account. estimates suggested more than 60 million americans are subject to arbitration clauses. many don't know it, because they're hidden in the fine print. forced arbitration clauses are especially common in female-dominated industries. the aclu reported that 57.6% of female workers are subject to this practice. this also is especially prevalent in low-wage fields in

industries with disproportionately high numbers of women with color. these clauses leave those women who often cannot afford to challenge employers without recourse. this affects women in every industry. a 2018 analysis of sexual harassment claims made on wall street found that in 30 years, just 17 women, 30 years, just 17 women won their claims before wall street's oversight body and in most cases were dismissed or denied of i want to share the stories of two survivors to illustrate how broken this system is. first, laura henry, who worked at a kia dealership in ohio where her boss sexually ha rad rads -- harassed her, touching her inappropriately, inappropriate comments and gifts. when she reported her, the company did a sham investigation and forced her into arbitration. she was only able to share her story because congress issued her a subpoena. she shudz not have needed the -- should not have needed the protection of a subpoena to

speak out. when she testified, quote, the cycle of harassment will tip if you force women to be quiet and allow sexual harassers and the companies that allow them to hide behind arbitration agreements. the second about is about adala newton working for the vice president of legal affairs at the luxury good company will lvmp, louie vitton inc. in new york. when she reported being sexually harassed and assaulted by a colleague. she filed her case in a new york state court, but the company moved to compel forced arbitration and on the grounds that federal law supersedes new york state law, that attempts to protect victims in harassment being forced into arbitration. she said, quote, because of forced arbitration and confidentiality agreements i may never know the extent to which this perpetrator sexually assaulted or harassed others and if lvmh retaliated against others as they did me. the sexual harassment attempted

assault and assault made me feel scared, demeaned, and ashamed. i found myself constantly agitated, distressed, and hypervigilant, preoccupied with a avoiding the trauma of encountering him. even about legal expertise as vice president of legal affairs, she was powerless. she said the company convinced her that, quote, harassment was a by-product of being an attract ive woman who works in a company with a french culture. that is the same company running the arbitration process. that yet this bill -- that's why this bill fixes the problem. survivors deserve a real chance at justice, and that's what this bill does. this bipartisan, bicameral bill would amend the federal arbitration act to void all forced arbitration provisions for sexual assault and harmtd provisions. removing those give the survivors a day in court to discuss their case publicly and end the days of institutional protection of harassers. this legislation passed with

bipartisan, broad support in the house, and i hope my colleagues will join us in supporting this critical workplace reform in the senate. again, i thank senator schumer and senator graham. i yield the floor. mr. schumer: first -- the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. schumer: let me compliment my colleague from new york. her persistence, her intelligence, her determination and passion to change the law so these injustices, which occur so many times that we don't know about, will no longer be there, is so vital. so, thank you for a job well done. thanks to my colleague, senator graham, the lead republican sponsor, who when he gets hyped something it gets done. so, i want him behind more things with us in the future. and to senator ernst, who is not here, she's been a great leader on this as well. when we met in my office, senator graham, senator ernst, she was very amenable to getting this done.

it is an outrage, just a outrage that women and men who are abused cannot seek justice, are forced to be quiet, are forced to keep the agony inside themselves. it's outrageous. for decades this forced arbitration has just deprived millions of people, almost all women, from basic rights to justice, and we need justice in so many areas. but when you can't seek justice when you are harassed, it is just one of the greatest marks of injustice, one of the greatest times of injustice. and the good news about this legislation is all the clauses that people already signed in their employment contracts, even we -- when they didn't know about it, will no longer be valid of it not only affects of the future, but those who sign in the past. if any legislation is long overdue, this is it. it's time for a change, and moments from now the senate will finally act to make forced

arbitration for sexual harassment and assault a thing of the past. we are now going to voice vote this wonderful, needed legislation. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. graham: real quick. senator schumer, thank you for making this happen. you made sure it would come up today, we get a voice vote. senator ernst has been great. ceernsen, it's been a -- kirsten, it's been great. we talked with microsoft, they jumped on this chance. we talked with the chamber to make sure it doesn't hurt business. it doesn't hurt business for people harassed in the business to be treated fairly. it's better for business. this shows that we can function up here, that we're listening to the world as it is. so the days of taking sexual harassment, sexual assault claims and burying them in the basement of arbitration are

over. arbitration has its place between business. it can be a good thing. but when you sign a document, multiple pages, just to get a job, you really don't know what you're signing. we're saying you're not going to sign away your life in terms of having your day in court when somebody treats you poorly. you still got to prove your case. the defendant has robust due process rights, which they should. but the abuse of arbitration that perpetuates sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace is soon to be over, is soon to be done away with. thank you thank you, senator schumer, thank you, senator gillibrand. to all of my colleagues on the republican side, thank you. this is not bad for business. this is good for america. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the clerk will read the title of the bill for the third time. the clerk: calendar number 264, h.r. 4445, an act to amend title

9 of the united states code with respect to arbitration of disputes involving sexual assault and sexual harassment. the presiding officer: the question is on the passage of the bill. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the bill is passed. the clerk: nomination, federal maritime commission, max vekidge, of washington, to be a federal maritime commissioner.

the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire is recognized. mrs. shaheen: mr. president, i come to the floor today to support three extraordinarily qualified department of defense nominees, melissa dalton to be -- dr. david honey for research and engineering and dr. wallender secretary of

defense for international security affairs. they have been nominated to serve in critical national security positions and they are tasked with confronting those challenges of national security and securing u.s. interests at home and abroad. as a senior member of the armed services committee, i attended the committee nomination hearings for all three nominees, and i came away convinced that tall three were qualified for their positions and deserving of swift confirmation. melissa dalton, previously served as a career civil servant in various positions at the department of defense for a decade under both president bush and president obama. so she had bipartisan support, clearly, in that position. she also was a senior fellow and director at the center for strategic and international studies. if confirmed, one of ms. dalton's core spoments as

assistant -- responsibilities would be looking at infrastructure, an area we have seen our adversaries are trying to exploit, particularly through cyberattacks, as ms. dalton has said, the resilience of our abilities and infrastructure at home, strengthens deterrence of aggression abroad and d.o.d. must be able to demonstrate their resilience, russia's a cyberattacks, along with the troop buildup near ukraine, underscores the need for this position to be filled. i also want to express my support for dr. david honey. dr. honey served in various research positions at the department of defense, including darpa, which is so important to our innovation. he also served on the air force

scientific adversary board and as deputy assistant in research. today, more than ever, we need talented, qualified individuals like dr. honey at the forefront of d.o.d.'s technological efforts. it seems every few weeks we hear in the press about shocking technological breakthroughs by the chinese military. former vice chairman of the chiefs of staff talked about an orbital bombardment system as stunning. if lost, this would be enormously disstabilizing for global security. but if we are truly committed to preserving our defense technological superiority, it's vital that we confirm dr. honey

as quickly as possible. finely, i want to speak to support dr. celeste waldoner. in her role she will be responsible for defense policy for europe, nato, the middle east and africa, all places right now which are hot beds of potential conflicts. in light of the ongoing and unprecedented russian threat to post-cold war european stability and ukrainian sovereignty, dr. waldonner's nomination comes at a critical time. as former president of the u.s.-russia foundation, top russia expert on the national security council and former secretary of defense for russia, ukraine andure asia -- err asia,

she is respected on both sides of the aisle. i traveled to several weeks ago and we met with president zelensky to discuss the russian threat and how we can do everything possible to help our ukrainian friends. you can't turn on the radio, read a paper or watch the news at night without seeing the russian troops who are massed on ukraine's border and the message from the ukrainians is clear when we met with them. they share our democratic values and the people are proud of their hard-won independence and every step that putin takes toward escalating the situation at the border is a step closer to threatening not only ukraine's future but the liberal democratic system that he fierce and we -- fears and we all

benefit from. i can think of no one more qualified for this position at d.o.d. at this time than dr. waldonner. for these reasons i believe we must confirm these three nominees as quickly as possible so they can fulfill the duties of these crucial positions that are so vital to national security. so, with that, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of the following nominations en bloc. numbers -- calendar numbers 476, 692, 694, that the senate vote on the nominations en bloc, without intervening action or debate. 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 printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's actions. the presiding officer: is there

objection? mr. hawley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. hawley: mr. president, reserving the right to object. here we are six months since the last foreign policy disaster in which this administration led this country, the disastrous withdrawal of afghanistan, 13 service members killed, including one from my home state of missouri. dozens more wounded, hundreds -- hundreds of civilians killed, hundreds more, maybe thousands of civilians left behind enemy lines to terrorists to defend for themselves, still hundreds of americans stranded there in afghanistan as we speak. and what accountability has there been in this time? who has been relieved of duty? who has been shown the door? what have we learned? the answer is there's been no

accountability, no one has been relieved of duty, no one has been shown the door, and now this administration has bungled, having denied military u- aid, having stuffed dollars in vladimir putin's pockets by green-lighting the nord stream 2 pipeline and here they are on the verge of another foreign policy crisis, still we have no answers, still we have no accountability. i will say, we did learn a few things this week about what happened in afghanistan. by the way, if you think that vladimir putin and the other dictators around this world aren't emboldened by this administration's weakness, by their failure in afghanistan, then you've got another thing coming. what did we learn this week about afghanistan? we learned, actually, a couple of interesting things, a number of interesting things.

we learned that, in fact, the white house and the state department were warned for months on end -- months on end that their failure to evacuate civilians would result in disaster, that the afghan government was on the verge of collapse. they were told over and over, one service member who was in kabul told investigators, i'm voting now, the -- quoting now, the writing was on the wall, the government was actively collapsing and we should not have started evacuations until every event capital had fallen, except for kabul. that's what the administration did. our top military ambassador in kabul tried to get the ambassador on the ground to see what it was. as one military investigator told -- they were told to

withdraw. why aren't the civilians evacuated in a timely matter? the white house wasn't taking it seriously, according to one brigadier general, as late as august 6, the national security council, and i quote, was not seriously planning for an evacuation. mind you, by this point, our military presence is gone. we have withdrawn militarily from the country. here we are in august and the national security council, the white house, was not seriously planning for an evacuation. the state department hadn't even put a team together that was responsible for informing individuals, including american citizens, that they were eligible for evacuation or started collecting the information they would need to put those americans on flights to safety. and it wasn't as if the white house or the state department

didn't know better. our top military commander on the ground in afghanistan warned as early as march -- as early as march, he has testified, that he said the security situation in afghanistan was dire and collapse could come quickly, when the united states withdrew, collapse could come quickly. he said it in march. by july our troops were gone and in august the administration still hasn't started planning. here's what the top commander in kabul said. he said, i think we could have been much better prepared to conduct a more orderly evacuation, civilian evacuation, if policymakers paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground and the taliban advance and the taliban intent to conduct a military takeover. that's what we learned this week. that the white house was told over and over and over again and

did nothing. in fact, worse than that. rejected the council of military commanders on the ground saying that the situation was urgent, saying that civilians needed to be evacuated, saying that their needed to be other steps, new measures taken and the white house drug their feet, did not. and so what was the consequence of that? well, we also learned this week that the consequence was a rapid, chaotic, rush for the exits once the white house suddenly and belated realized they bumbled into a crisis, once they realized that they left american civilians with nowhere to go, once they realized that they had a collapse on their hand that they had not prepared for despite being warned repeatedly. central command found commanders at each gate around the airport exercise authority to open or close their respective gates as

they deemed appropriate according to the situation on the ground, however, there was tremendous pleasure from the strategic level to continue to process and evacuate the civilians to the maximum extent possible. it was a mad rush to the exits once the administration realized that the government was collapsing, realized they had not done the preparation they needed to do, realized that hundreds of thousands of civilians were in grave danger and we know the result of that, the result was 13 service members were killed. hundreds of civilians were killed and hundreds of americans, maybe more, were left behind to the enemy. i said we learned all this week. where did we learn it? we're making some progress, we're getting some account ability. did we learn it in an oversight

hearing? did we learn it in sworn testimony given in public on the evacuation of afghanistan? no. oh, no. we learned it from a press report. we learned it because "the washington post" obtained what were previously confidential, unpublished, nonpublic reports from within the military. within central command in particular. "the washington post" published them. so, mr. president, in what has become an all too typical scenario, we learned nothing from any hearings this body is doing because they aren't doing in public. what we learned from, what we learned is entirely from leaked reports, secondhand sources, the public having been shut out, having been denied access. we had multiple hearings or briefings on afghanistan and the security situation in ukraine last week. did they happen in public? no. was there testimony taken in

public? no. were there questions asked by senators in public? no. mr. president, i'm willing to come to this floor as long as it takes and insist on regular order as long as it takes until there is accountability for what this administration has done in afghanistan and now what is bumbling towards in ukraine. we have got to get answers. why is it the commanders on the ground warned over and over that disaster is imminent and the white house does nothing? why is it that the white house and the state department deny the request for a civilian evacuation? why is it that we are still here all these months later and the only answers we can get are from leaked reports in the press. why has not this body done its job to conduct rigorous and serious oversight hearings in public for the american people to see? i will come to this floor and insist on regular order, insist

this body do its job and vote on defense department nominees until we get accountability, until there are public hearings and until we can letter what actually happen -- can learn what happened in afghanistan and who is responsible. i'll tell you this. i wasn't alive for vietnam but i'm not willing to participate in the kind of cover-up that happened for years in the vietnam war. i'm not willing to kick this oversight responsibility off to some commission that won't report for years from now most of its findings probably in a classified annex and by that point somebody will say, oh, well, it's just too late to do anything about t. the american public was lied to for years in the vietnam war. it has been lied to for years with afghanistan. and it is time to get answers. and so yes, i will be here insisting on those answers, insisting on oversight and insisting on accountability until we get it. and until that time, it is not too much to ask the senate to do

its job. i believe the majority leader said just the other day that the senate is here to vote. that's what the senate is here to do. well, that's an apt phrase, mr. president. and for once, i agree very much with the senate majority leader. and for those reasons i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: mr. president, i appreciate my colleague's grandstanding on afghanistan when he knows that in the ndaa we passed a provision to create a commission to look at afghanistan. and i want those answers just as much as he did. and i stood up and said when the president announced the withdrawal that i didn't support that withdrawal. but that is beside the point that we're dealing with now. because what we're dealing with now and what my colleague from missouri is doing is making us less secure because he's holding

nominees, he's complaining about the problems we have in russia and ukraine, and he's making it worse because he's not willing to allow those nominees who can help with that problem to go forward. and he's absolutely incorrect about nord stream 2. i opposed nord stream 2. i authored the legislation with senator cruz to put nord stream 2, to sanction nord stream 2 and for the four years that the previous president was in office, they didn't take any action to sanction nord stream 2 until the day that donald trump left office. and the fact is that pipeline is not operating now because it hasn't been certified and so russia is not making any money from the nord stream 2 pipeline. so he needs to get his facts correct. he sits on the armed services committee with me where he has access to the same information about our pressing national security challenges and yet he's holding up these nominees.

he's disregarding the threats that we face because he'd rather stand here and grandstand on afghanistan. well, we do need to get answers and i'm willing to work with him on that, but this is not the way for do it. so let's remember that senator hawley declared china as the biggest threat to american security. and that's a quote. and yet he's blocking the confirmation whose job would be to ensure our defense research and development efforts are continuing on par with china. so if his goal is to ensure china's technological capabilities surpass ours, i could think of no better way to do that than to refuse to confirm dr. honey. on russia my colleague has claimed the biden administration has coddled russia. we heard him say it just now that they failed to aid ukraine. but in a recent op-ed, my

colleague made his views clear on the current russian-created crisis. in it he suggests that the u.s. is better off closing nato's doors to ukraine and stating that our nation's history of promoting and defending liberal democratic values across the globe has been a failure. i'm not going to agree to that. we have an international order that developed after world war ii that has had as a large part the containment first of the soviet union through nato and now of russia and part of that world order says that a sovereign nation should be able to help determine their own future. so i'm not going to be part of some agreement that says we're going to turn our backs on nato, we're going to turn our backs on ukraine, and we're going to say to russia you go ahead. you go into ukraine. he argues that we should reduce our commitments to places like europe because he claims russia

poses a greater threat to our european allies than to the united states. well, the last time i looked when the united states got attacked in 2001 and maybe he doesn't remember 9/11 because he wasn't too young, the countries that came to our aid were our nato allies. so with all due respect, i find my colleague's assessment both disturbing and shockingly uninformed. as members of the senate armed services committee, my colleague and i have been briefed on the multitude of evidence of russia's amendments to subvert democratic institutions, including right here in the united states, by the way, to attack our own infrastructure, to compromise the sovereignty of our allies around the globe. in 2018 russian private military contractor forces even assaulted an outpost of americans in sy syria. and they were forced to defend themselves and of course they did and they ultimately routed

the russian force. so my colleague's stated sentiments do just what vladimir putin wants. he wants to divide the united states from our nato allies and other democracies. he wants to diminish u.s. presence in europe and to rewrite the european security order in a way that favors his authoritarian interests. we simply cannot allow that to happen. and i could not disagree with my colleague any more in how he has chosen to associate himself. continuing to block qualified leaders such as dr. wallender, dr. honey and ms. salten does not make us stronger. it does not contribute to productive discourse over our national priorities, and it doesn't accomplish would he's trying to accomplish. if what he wants is answers on afghanistan, then work with -- work was. let's work together. let's make this commission that

we passed in the ndaa, let's make it work. what he wants casts us as an unreliable partner to our allieses and forces the department of defense to operate with one hand tied behind their backs. so i'm disappointed to hear my colleague. and he talks about regular order. well, in the last 24 hours, we've confirmed three nominees by regular order. we held up the senate to get cloture votes, and then we passed alexandra baker, the deputy under secretary of defense for policy 75-21. we passed douglas bush, assistant secretary of the army, 95-2. i don't know if senator hawley was one of those two. i assume he was. and we passed patrick coffey, general counsel for the navy 79-17. and then on february 2 by

unanimous consent we passed gabriel camarillo, under secretary of the army and andrew hunter, assistant secretary of the air force by unanimous consent. so this is not about regular order. this is about trying to use the senate process for his own personal ambitions and that's unfortunate, mr. president. it's unfortunate because it doesn't get us the individuals who we need to get confirmed to make government run, and it's unfortunate because it doesn't accomplish what he says he wants. so, mr. president, i'm disappointed to hear that we are not going to move these nominees forward, and i hope at some point my colleague will reconsider. i yield the floor. mr. thune: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: thank you, mr. president.

i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes prior to the scheduled roll call vote. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, the average american household spent an estimated $3500 more in expenses last year as a result of inflation. $3,500. that may not sound like much to a wealthy democrat politician but for most american families, that's a lot of money. for a lot of families $3500 is the difference between putting something in savings or living paycheck to paycheck. the additional $3500 in expenses could mean having to forego essential home retears or car work, putting off braces for a child or needed medical care. the white house chief of staff may have the budget to regard inflation as a high-class problem, how she referred to it, described it, but for ordinary

americans inflation is a very real problem, a problem that is eating up their wage increases and lowering their standard of living. mr. president, we are in the midst of an inflation crisis. the supply chain crisis. and if those weren't enough, a border crisis. huge numbers of illegal immigrants are pouring across our southern border and have been pouring across our southern border for months creating a security enforcement and humanitarian nightmare. so there's a lot for our country's leadership in washington to be focused on right now. what is the majority party doing about these crises? well, not much. in fact most of the time you can be forgiven for thinking that neither the president nor democrat leaders even realize there's an inflation crisis or a supply chain crisis or border crisis. the president for one seems to be hoping that if he ignores these crises for long enough, it will just go away. so what is the president and congressional leaders doing with their time if they're not

addressing our border crisis or inflation crisis? well, mr. president, for one thing they're attempting to double down on the strategy to help get us into this mess in the first place. that's right. that inflation crisis democrats would like to ignore is actually something they helped create by flooding the economy with excessive government spending and their so-called american rescue plan last march. and for months they tried to double down on that bill with another massive spending spree that would flood the economy with more government money and undoubtedly make the inflation crisis worse. the president has attempted to justify this massive spending legislation by claiming that it will help inflation. right. so the first massive spending spree helps push us into an inflation crisis but a second massive spending spree will fix it. i'm pretty sure that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. but massive inflation concerns haven't stopped democrats. after all, why deal with a

boring inflation crisis when you could be thinking up new ways to expand the federal government, new ways of taxing americans to pay for it. of course democrats build back better plan isn't all tax hikes. democrats did manage to include a tax break in their tax-and-spending proposal, a tax break for blue state millionaires. and if they succeed in passing it, i'm sure wealthy democrat donors will be grateful. while an inflation crisis is raged, democrats have pushed new ways to spend taxpayer dollars and expand the reach of federal government into americans' lives. a huge expansion of government's involvement in child care that would disadvantage the religious providers so many americans choose for their children. a massive increase in the size of the i.r.s. a proposal to allow the i.r.s. to examine the details of americans' banking transactions.

energy policies that would drive up the cost of electricity and gasoline for american families. billions for priorities like tree equity and environmental justice programs at well funded colleges and universities. mr. president, the list goes o. but it would be unfair for me to suggest that democrats have expended all their energy on tax and spending sprees. the administration has also found time to implement the democrats' original spending free, the american rescue plan, until they got caught, including free government crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia. onst covid front, the administration has struggled with testing. but it has found time for

vaccine and mask mandates, some of which i believe have far exceeded the administration's authority. fortunately, the courts have stepped in to check some of the administration's excesses, like the administration's attempt to impose a vaccine mandate on large private-sector employers or the administration's decision to impose a mask mandate for 2-year-olds. yes, for 2-year-olds. your democrat government at work, ladies and gentlemen. in november the administration issued a mask mandate for head start programs requiring all children two years of age and up to be masked inside and outside. out on the playground. now, is there scientific evidence to support this? not really. the world health organization, in fact, recommends against -- against -- masking for children

age five and under. but that hasn't stopped the administration. democrats seem determined that nothing, including science, will pry their masks from them or perhaps i should say pry our children's masks from them since democrat politicians have not already demonstrated the consistency in mask wearing that they specific from our children. and democrats wonder why republicans think we should be careful about how much power we give the federal government. mr. president, if democrats really wanted to help american families, they would be focusing on our supply chain crises and addressing the security nightmare posed by our border crisis. instead they're busy focusing on ways to secure their hold on power and vastly expand the reach of the federal government into americans' lives. i guess we'll have to see how that strategy works out for them.

mr. president, i yield the floor. i don't yield the floor. 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 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 705, max vekich of washington to be a federal maritime commissioner, signed by 18 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of max vekich of washington be -- to be a federal maritime commissioner shall be brought to a close.

the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 52, the nays are 45. the motion is agreed to.

mr. sanders: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president, before i begin, i would like to ask unanimous consent to put in the "congressional record" an open letter to the russian leadership from the russian congress of intellectuals who state, and i quote, this is the russian congress of intellectuals. our position is l simple. russia dmots need a war --

russia does not need a war with ukraine and the u.s. such a war has no moral basis, end of quote. this is a very brave statement made by russian intellectuals. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sanders: mr. president, as i speak today, europe for the first time in almost 80 years is faced with the threat of a major invasion. a large nation threatens a smaller, less powerful neighbor, surrounding it on three sides with well over 100,000 troops as well as tanks and artillery. my colleagues, as we have painfully learned, wars have unintended consequences. they rarely turn out the way the planners and experts tell us they will.

just ask the officials who provided rosy scenarios for the wars in vietnam, afghanistan, and iraq, only to be proven horribly wrong. just ask the mothers of the soldiers who were killed or wounded in action during those wars. just ask the families of the millions of civilians who became collateral damage in those wars. the war in vietnam cost us 59,000 american deaths and many others who came home wounded in body and spirit. the casualties in vietnam, laos and cambodia are almost incalculable, but they are in the millions.

in afghanistan, what began as a response to the horrific attack against us on 9/11/2001, eventually became a 20-year war costing us $2 trillion and over 3500 americans who were killed, not to mention tens of thousands of afghan civilians. george w. bush claimed in 2003 that the united states had, quote, put the taliban out of business forever, end of quote. well, not quite the case. the taliban is in power today. the war in iraq, which was sold to the american people by stroking fear of a mushroom cloud from iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction,

led to the deaths of some 4500 u.s. troops and the wounding, physical and emotional, of tens of thousands of others. it led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of iraqis, the displacement of over five million people, and regional destabilization whose consequences the world continues to grapple with today. in other words, despite all of the rosy scenarios we heard for those foreign policy and military interventions, it turned out that the experts were wrong and millions of innocent people paid the price. that is why we must do everything possible to find a

diplomatic resolution to prevent what would be an enormously destructive war in ukraine. no one knows exactly what the human costs of such a war would be. there are estimates, however, that come from our own military and intelligence community that there could be over 50,000 civilian casualties in ukraine, not to mention millions of refugees flooding neighboring countries as they flee what could be the worst european conflict since world war ii. in addition, of course, there would be many thousands of deaths within the ukrainian and russian militaries. there is also the possibility

that this regional war could escalate to other parts of europe, a continent with many nuclear weapons, and what might happen then is beyond imagination. but that's not all. the sanctions against russia that would be imposed as a consequence of its actions and russians' threatened response to those sanctions could result in massive economic upheaval with impacts on energy and gas and oil prices in our country. banking, food supplies, and the day-to-day needs of ordinary people throughout the entire world. it is likely that russians will not be the only people suffering

from sanctions. they would be felt throughout europe. they would be felt right here in the united states and likely around the world. and, by the way -- and we haven't discussed this terribly much -- at a time when the scientific community tells us that climate change is an existential threat to the planet, any hope of international cooperation to address global climate change and to address future pandemics would likely suffer a major setback. mr. president, it should be absolutely clear about who is most responsible for the looming crisis, and that is russian president vladimir putin.

having already seized parts of ukraine in 2014, putin now threatens to take over the entire country and destroy ukrainian democracy. there should be no disagreement that that behavior is totally unacceptable. in my view, we must unequivocally support the sovereignty of ukraine and make clear that the international community will impose severe consequences on putin and his fellow oligarchs if he does not change course. with that said, mr. president, i am extremely concerned when i hear the familiar drumbeats in washington, the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war demanding that we must show strength, demanding that we must get tough, demanding that we must

not engage in appeasement. a simplistic refusal to recognize the complex roots of the tensions in the region undermines the ability of negotiators to reach a peaceful resolution. i know it is not very popular or politically correct, i guess, in washington to consider the perspectives of our adversaries, but i think it's important that we do so if we are going to formulate good policy. i think it is helpful to consider this. one of the precipitating factors of this crisis -- one, not the only one -- at least from russia's perspective is the prospect of an enhanced security

relationship between ukraine and the united states and western europe, including what russia sees as the threat of ukraine joining the north atlantic treaty alliance, nato, a military alliance originally created in 1949 to confront the soviet union. it is good to know some history. when ukraine became independent after the soviet union collapsed in 1991, russian leaders made clear their concerns about the prospect of former soviet states becoming part of nato and positions hostile military forces along russia's border. u.s. officials recognized these concerns as legitimate at the time.

one of those officials was william perry, who served as defense secretary under president bill clinton. in a 2017 interview, perry said , and i quote, -- this is defense secretary under bill clinton --, quote, in the last few years most of the blame can be pointed at the actions that putin has taken. but in the early years, i have to say that the united states deserves much of the blame. further quote, our first action that really set us off in a bad direction was when nato started to expand, bringing in eastern european nations, some of them bordering russia. that is former secretary of state william perry. another u.s. official who acknowledged these concerns is

former u.s. diplomat bill burns, who is now head of the c.i.a. in the biden administration. in his member -- in his memoir, burns quotes a memo he wrote at the u.s. embassy in moscow in 1995, and i quote, hostility to early nato expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here, end quote. over ten years later, in 2008, burns wrote in a memo to secretary of state condoleezza rice, and i quote, ukrainian entry into nato is the brightest of all red lines for the russian elite, not just putin. in more than two and a half years of conversations with key russian players, i have yet to find anyone who views ukraine in nato as anything other than a

direct challenge to russian interests, end of quote. so again, these concerns were not just invented yesterday by putin out of thin air. clearly invasion by russia is not an answer. neither is intransigence by nato. it is important to recognize, for example, that finley, one of the most developed and democratic countries in the world, borders russia and has chosen not to be a member of nato. sweden and austria are other examples of prosperous and democratic countries that have made the same choice. mr. president, vladimir putin may be a liar and a demagogue, but it is hypocritical for the united states to insist that we

as a nation do not accept the principle of spheres of influence. for the last 200 years, our country has operated under the monroe doctrine, embracing the principle that as the dominant power in the western hemisphere, the united states has the right, according to the united states, to intervene against any country that might threaten our alleged interests. that's united states policy. and under this doctrine, the united states has undermined and overthrown at least a dozen countries throughout latin america, central america, and the caribbean. as many might recall, in 1962 we came to the brink of nuclear

war with the soviet union. why was that? why did we almost come to the brink of nuclear war with the soviet union? well, we did that in response to the placement of soviet missiles in cuba 90 miles from our shore. and the kennedy administration saw that as an unacceptable threat to national security. we said it is unacceptable for a hostile country to have a significant military presence 9. and let us be clear. the monroe doctrine is not ancient history. as recently as 2018, donald trump's secretary of state, rex tillerson, called the monroe doctrine, quote, as relevant

today as it was the day it was written, end quote. in 2019, former trump national security advisor, john bolton, declared, quote, the monroe doctrine is alive and well, end quote. to put it simply, even if russia was not ruled by a corrupt oligarchic, authoritarian leader like vladimir putin, russia, like the united states, would still vr an interest in the security policies of its neighbors. and i want people to think about this -- does anyone really believe that the united states would not have something to say if, for example, mexico or cuba or any country in central or latin america were to form a military alliance with the u.s. adversary? do you think that members of

congress would stand up and say, well, you know, mexico is an independent country. they have the right to do anything they want. i doubt that very much. mr. president, countries should be free to make their own foreign policy choices, but making those choices wisely requires a serious consideration of the costs and benefits. the fact is that the u.s. and ukraine entering into a deeper security relationship is likely to have some very serious costs for both countries. mr. president, i believe that we must vigorously support the ongoing diplomatic efforts of the biden administration to de-escalate this crisis. i believe we must reaffirm the

ukrainian independence and sovereignty, and we must make clear to putin and his gang of ollie garks that they will -- oligarchs, that they will face major consequences should he continue down the current path. my colleagues, we must never forget the horrors that a war in the region would cause, and must do everything possible to achieve a realistic and mutually agreeable resolution, one that is acceptable to ukraine, russia, the united states and our european allies, and that prevents what could be the worst european war since world war ii. that approach is not weakness. it is not appeasement. bringing people together to resolve conflicts without war is strength and it is the right thing to do.

thank you, mr. president. yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president. mr. schumer: majority whip. mr. durbin: i have six committees to meet today. they have the approval of the majority leader and minority leader. i listened to my friend and colleague, senator sanders from vermont. i read his published article in "the guardian" newspaper yesterday, and it paralleled many of the things which he said on the floor today. we have a very positive starting point between us. i think my record on voting to go to war may be identical to yours, if not very close. neither of us want war. that is the last resort, and it is frightfully predictable that there will be innocent people killed, even in the best of times, in the best of military force. secondly, i couldn't agree with you more that we should be

promoting all that we can in terms of diplomacy at this moment. the other night, i had the opportunity to be at a meeting with some senators with the new chancellor of germany, chancellor scholz. he was on his way soon to moscow. president macron of france has been there. others are encouraging. i encourage that dialogue as much as possible. i think it is hopeful that these efforts can lead to a peaceful resolution and the -- in the controversy that we are now facing in ukraine. third point, which i certainly agree with, it is certainly in the interest of the united states for our values to make it clear that we want to protect and defend, at least not in military fashion, let me say in the general fashion, the notion of sovereignty when it comes to ukraine. it is up to the ukrainian people to chart their course and make

their future. where i think we disagree, senator, is on this whole question of sphere of influence. i'm afraid that suggestion is the green light for vladimir putin. if you will concede that he is somehow entitled, because of the size of his country, to reclaim soviet republics or to move into other theaters, i'm sorry, but i have to part company with you at that point. i was fortunate enough 30 years ago or so to be on the ground in the baltics when i saw a dramatic demonstration of courage rarely seen in the world. this tiny nation of three million people broke away from the soviet union and scheduled a free election. i was there at the time the election took place. and we knew it was an invitation for mikhail gorbachev to

retaliate, and he did. he moved in the soviet tanks and started killing innocent people. before it was all over, more than a dozen innocent lithuanians, several in latvia gave their lives, because they wanted to be free again. who would question why they would want that? i visited that area. my mother was born in lithuania. i must put that on the record. i visited in 1978, and i saw what life was like in the baltic states under soviet rule. it was sad. it was enraging. it was disgusting. what they had done in the soviet union is to forcibly take those countries and others, some through the war saw pact, some through the direct accession through the soviet union, and control every aspect of their lives with communism. i went to the university of vilnias, which i believe dates back to the 16th century. they took me to their catholic

chapel, which under soviet times had been converted into what they called a museum in tribute of eight ism -- atheism. in display in the middle of the chapel setting were a show case of boomerangs from australia in this holy space, with i they were trying to eradicate by demonstrating a new materiel approach to the entity. i only say this because when the time came and they finally, through their courage, broke from the soviet union, lithuania , latvia and estonia came to me, knowing i had a interest in the people, as did the polish people, and said we don't want to be under the thumb of russia ever again. we want our freedom. we want to decide our future. the only way we can achieve is that is if we can align with the united states. can we be considered for nato

membership? eventually, through a lot of hard work and determination, that's what occurred. poland and the baltics states, along with others, joined in the nato alliance. it is worth noting here that the nato alliance is a defensive alliance. the savalki gap, which links russia as it now exists with kaliningrad, one ever the former soviet republics is a gap, a land bridge on either side is poland and lithuania. it is still contested territory by the russians. and they're concerned about it. when the russians put tens of thousands of troops in military exercises in the baltic border in belarus, it's understandable they're concerned. they are small countries and can be easily pushed over. the only thing that saves them, i believe, is their noolt. should -- is that their nato alliance.

should ukraine be part of the nato alliance? there are two decisions, and the first is by the ukrainian people. they have to decide if that is in their best interest and future. we cannot decide it for them, nor should we try to. secondly, the nato alliance has to decide. under article 5 are we willing to risk the lives of the nato allies if some terrible event should occur in ukraine? that is what the sovereign nations of poland, lithuania, latvia, estonia and others did when they decided to ask for membership in nato. i don't understand this theory of turs that somehow vladimir putin is entitled to a sphere of influence or control. that to me is unacceptable and inconsistent with the notion of ukrainian sovereignty. if they are to decide their future, how can we say that vladimir putin has any voice in that process? there is a way that he can find a more peaceful situation in the world, and it's if he'll stop being a thug and stop sending

his troops on the border of countries, and stop cutting off gas supplies to countries that he doesn't like. his strong arm tactics deserve a response from the united states, and i'm afraid simply sending a harsh letter is not enough anymore. so we've made it clear that he will pay a price if he invades, the noorlt has, that -- the nato alliance has. that price will be a string of sanctions, which are included, some, in the legislation that senator menendez is working on, which i've cosponsored. that is the only way to make it clear to him that that is such a price to be paid. what he has done is very obvious to me. he has united the nato alliance in a way we didn't expect, and there were some divisions within the alliance, some serious, some not serious. but he has brought us together. we should be together, standing in defense of the territory of the nato allies and making it clear if vladimir putin is going to try to extend his reach into ukraine or any other area, he will at least meet with

political resistance. i think at a minimum that's where it should be. i hope it doesn't go any further. i share your feeling on that. i don't want the military situation to escalate and to threaten american lives and involve us at that level at all. but unless we're firm with him now and don't concede that he has any sphere of influence in ukraine, i'm afraid he will take advantage of the situation. i'm open to a question, if you have one. or i'd like to have a dialogue, if possible, on this. through the chair, of course. mr. sanders: i appreciate the thoughts of my friend from illinois. much of what he said i obviously agreed with. my father came from poland as well. i think maybe the difference of opinion that we have has something to do with what we don't talk about very often, openly, but i think everybody knows exists.

i mention, and i think you will not disagree with me, that over the last many, many decades the united states has overthrown governments throughout latin america, central america, and the caribbean. there is no denying that we almost went to a nuclear war in 1962 under the kennedy administration, who felt, and probably correctly, that soviet missiles in cuba, 90 miles away from us, were a threat to this country and not to be tolerated. so, i only ask my friend from illinois to put himself into the mindset of russians. and that is nobody here, not me certainly, has ever talked to you about reclaiming other countries. let me mention that. certainly not anything that i support. but if the united states has a right to overthrow countries throughout latin america to

protect our so-called interests, if there would be an uproar in this chamber perhaps from you and me as well, if mexico, an independent nation, decided to form a military alliance with china or russia, people say, well, you can't do that. should we not put ourselves a little bit in russia's position and understanding that if we consider latin america and central america and the caribbean within our sphere of influence, the right to intervene, that russia itself might have some legitimate concerns about military forces five miles from their border? that's the question i was asking. mr. durbin: and it's a legitimate, historic question. but if you're saying that in the name of the monroe doctrine, to protect ourselves in this hemisphere we have done things which we're not proud of today, interfering with the sovereignty of nations, the term banana

republic emerged from that monroe doctrine and whapt in many of these -- what happened in many of these countries, they became vessels of the american economy. i don't say that with any pride. we wouldn't want that to happen in europe, would we, with putin invading the sovereignty of other nations? sarnd -- mr. sanders: it's not just history, you and i can agree that the united states should not have overthrown governments. the monroe doctrine exists today. i don't know how many people in this chamber would tell you that it does not exist today. i use that example, to my friend from illinois. if mexico were to enter into an alliance with china, would my friend say, well, mexico's an independent country, they have the right to do anything they want? mr. durbin: i think that

hypothetical is just that. of course, it's only a hypothetical, but look at the reality, it wasn't that long ago when you can with a dor -- ecuador elected a new president. russia, cuba, and iran, are not on a list of close allies. did we invade ecuador? never considered it. we live in a different time. i understand the monroe document and moving a handful of troops back to take over the republic. but to have a notion that there is going to be a military alliance in the united states, therefore putin is able to invade ukraine, that doesn't make sense. mr. sanders: the secretary of the united states said the monroe doctrine is alive and

well, and, yes, of course, it's hypothetical. i do not believe that mexico will enter into an alliance with china. but all i ask is to put what is going on in russia into a context and to look at american policy and history as well. this is a complicated issue and i think it's important for us to at elizabeth look at the -- to at least look at the concerns that russia has. there is no disagreement that if putin were to commit the horrible, horrible blunder of invading ukraine, count me in as somebody who will go as far as we can to make sure there are real consequences against the oligarchs on that policy. if we are to reach a settlement on a very important issue, it is important to understand a little bit on russia's issues.

mr. durbin: i would only say, i believe ukraine has been a victim of russian aggression for a long period of time. the leader who was deposed in ukraine at the m -- when the midon demonstrations took place was a servant and vessel of moscow. i believe it was the russians who invaded crimea and reclaimed that territory, it was the russians who sent in little green men with symbols on their uniform and continued to kill innocent ukrainians for eight years now. it is clear that ukraine has been a victim of russian aggression for a long period of time. to suggest the notion that this is it somehow within putin's sphere of influence is to rationalize putin's contact.

i don't think we should. you don't put 100,000 troops on the border and threaten war unless you plan to have military -- it won't be long until the -- that the russians invade. the sphere of influence, the united states has made its own mistakes in the past with the sphere of influence and that we should look away at what putin is doing is contradictory. mr. sanders: the senator knows i'm not in for looking the other way. that's not a fair statement. as i said many, many times, strongly supportive of major, major, major consequences if putin invades ukraine and we've got to do everything we can to protect ukrainian sovereignty. i made my point. mr. durbin: and i thank you for it. and i want to close by saying, i see a senator is waiting to

speak. i close by saying that i hope very soon in the next couple of weeks to make a trip to poland and to the baltics, and i will you that the people of polish descent and baltic descent are watching these events by the day. they lived through the soviet takeover of their countries and they understand with the freedom of speech and religious belief as a result of it. they don't want to return to those days. the united states has said we are committed to their democracy and i think we have demonstrated it and should continue to, i hope that putin will not take advantage of the situation and invade ukraine. i'm not calling for a military response, but a type of response that he will never forget. i yield the floor. mr. toomey: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania.

mr. toomey: mr. president, i feel the need to just make a simple point, although it should be abundantly obvious. let me state, to be clear, what we're watching with the military buildup at the russian border, ukrainians could not mount an attack on russia if they wanted to and they don't want to. what this is about an authoritarian leader of russia who wants to establish hem iny, it is nothing to do with any legitimate concerns that russia has and so i strongly feel if he makes the outrageous mistake of invading ukraine, that we will use the many very, very powerful

tools at our disposal to ensure that he regrets that decision. the reason i rise is to discuss a serious concern. it goes to the heart of the nature of accountability in a democratic republic such as ours. there's an awful lot in your culture and our country that have been politicized and polarized, in sports, news, and maybe music and our government and we have seen that demonstrated in many ways, even over the filibuster. but there are some things that congress has tried hard to keep from being at least overly politicized in our government and one of those is military policy. and i think it is exceptionally important that we try to the best we can and the max anymore extent -- max anymore extent --

i would suggest to say that we have seen politics at the historically independent federal reserve. in the past month the banking committee has held hearings for five of president biden's nominees for the fed, jerome powell, chairman of the fed, sarah bloom casskin for vice chair of supervision at the fed, lisa cook and mr. jefferson for fed governors. i have different views on the different candidates, but one thing that's clear this moment when we're going to decide whether or not to confirm these nominees is not just about the qualifications about the individuals, it's really a referendum on the role that the fed is going to play in our country and whether it's going to remain an independent he

entity. let me explain -- entity. let me explain. there are some in the biden administration that the fed use its enormous supervise ri powers over financial institutions to resolve very complex but essentially political issues, about what we should do go global warming, social justice, and even in some cases, education policy. these are very important issues. these are big challenges for our country, but they are entirely unrelated to the fed's limited statutory mandates and expertise for that matter. and addressing these challenging issues of climate, social justice and education policy, all of them necessarily involve making tradeoffs. some tough decisions and in a democratic society, those tradeoffs must be made by

elected representatives, the people who actually report to the american people. that's us. it's a legislative body. these -- these big, tough policy decisions should not be made by unelected and unaccountable central bankers. so the question's not about the importance of these issues, it's not about the specific policies, it's about who should decide, who should decide how we proceed on these. just take the case of global warming. so we could decide to limit domestic oil and gas production, if we do that energy prices will rise, americans will pay more at the pump to accomplish the intended goal of decreasing emissions. well, how much of that is appropriate? to what degree should we pursue that policy? if we move aggressively to remove energy production, but other countries don't, then scientists tell us that global

warming won't change in any significant way. should we do it anyway? how much of a change in the projected temperature of the planet should we insist on for any gifnt amount of -- given amount of economic pain we inflict on the american people? look, i'm not here to debate the answer to those questions. those are tough questions, it seems to me. it's not about whether you think those are important questions. i think they are very important questions. my point is that they are difficult choices and they have to be made by the accountable representatives of the american people through a transparent and deliberative legislative process. that's how we ought to make big decisions in this country. my concern about the fed is it is wandering away from its mandate, it is overreaching and there are some who are advocating that it use its enormous powers to make some of these decisions that the

american people should be making through their elected representatives. by the way, this is not just a hypothetical. i have a number of examples, i will share one example where the fed is exceeding its mandate engaging in political advocacy. the minneapolis fed, the leader of the minneapolis fed with apparently the full support of the board of the minneapolis fed, is actively lobbying to change minnesota's policy. specifically through education policy. does anybody think that how we approach primary and secondary education is for the role of the fed to provide? i can assure you it is not. i will warn you, if this kind of political activism by what is

supposed to be an independent central bank, if this is tolerated, then the potential for abuse is inevitable. ms. brannard, raskin and mr. cook have made statements that tell us exactly what the fed should do. let's start with governor branard has nonetheless urged the fed to take an activist role on global warming. according to "the new york times" she has endorsed the use of super -- -- it's exactly what i'm talking about. using the powers of the fed to pressure financial institutions to decide who gets credit and

who doesn't. i'm particularly concerned that she specifically advocated for the fed to shape environmental policy through the so-called environmental analysis. they said they want to understand the systemic risk that arises from global warming. but, first of all, the fed doesn't have any expertise in environmental policy and the fact is there's no reason to think that global warming actually poses systemic risk to the financial system. it doesn't. as i've stated repeatedly, we haven't found a single bank, a single financial institution anywhere in america that has failed in modern times due to any weather event. we get hit with very severe weather events every single year, year in and year out, never has a financial institution -- not a single one, much less the entire system. now, ms. raskin who is the nominee to actually be in charge of the supervision of

fed-regulated banks has gone further in advocating for regulators to take this activist role with respect to global warming. she has repeatedly and forcefully advocated for using financial regulation in general and the fed in particular to allocate capital and debank energy companies. now again ms. brainard, ms. raskin will say this is just about assessing risk, but in reality ms. raskin has also said the quiet part out loud n. a 2020 report from a progressive organization, ms. raskin urged financial regulators to adopt policies that will, and i quote, allocate capital, end quote, away from energy companies. in a 2021 speech at the green swan conference, she proposed, and i quote, portfolio limits or concentration limit, end quote, on banks' loans to energy

companies. it's not because the banks can't withstand a credit loss should that occur. the american banking system is more heavily capitalized than it's ever been. that's not what it's about. it's about her view about climate change. in may of 2020 at the height of the pandemic, she wrote an op-ed in "the new york times" specifically calling for excluding a single sector, the fossil energy sector, which she called the dying industry, from the feds emergency lending facilities. the fed, you could argue whether the fed should ever stood up these facilities, but at least the fed at the time had the good sense to say if we go in and buy corporate bonds, we're going to do it through a vehicle where we do not discriminate at all among the many, many sector, of our economy because it's not our job as the fed to decide which ones get favorable treatment and which ones don't. that's up to markets to decide. it's not ms. raskin's view. she was very clear. she criticized the fed precisely because they did not

intentionally exclude fossil energy sector. this is a bad idea on many, many levels, one of which is, by the way, central committees that try to allocate capital in economies usually do a really bad job and that's one of the reasons why our economy is -- has outperformed the rest of the world. we tend not to do that. many other countries tend to do that. give you an example of where this can go. she wrote at the time back in 2020 that even in the short term, in the short term fossil fuels are a terrible investment, end quote. well, whatever you might think about the long term, the jury is back in on the short term. investment in fossil fuels was absolutely terrific. that's just the data. the s&p 500 over the last 12 months was up 21%. oil and gas indices are up 65%,

70%. it's the kind of mistake that too much hubris in government can lead to. ms. raskin's proposal would not just be devastating for energy workers but also consumers who would end up inevitably having to pay much more for energy. and again what's the basis on which she defends exercising these extraordinary powers? well, it certainly is her belief that climate risk is so imminent, so threatening and so devastating that it just requires this. let me be clear. the folks -- ms. raskin and ms. brainard -- they divide this into two categories, climate risk that is. there is the physical risk and then transition risk. the data is very clear about the physical risk like an adverse event from severe weather events. they don't pose a threat to our financial system.

think about the things we've withstood in the last few years. hurricane sandy. forest fires, devastating ev events. name one financial institution in america that failed as a result. there isn't one. not even close. they weren't even harmed much less our entire financial system. so even chairman powell agreed there's no physical risk to financial institutions. so the one that they rely on is -- but, there's transition risk. transition risk. well, transition risk is really about changing customer preference. and, you know, that happens all the time. customers' preference change. i would suggest bankers know how to manage changes in customer -- in their customers' preferences better than central bankers do or regulators do. that's not that different from the risk they run every day. they lend money to companies that have a permanent risk that

consumer preferences will change in ways that could be adverse for the company to which they lend. it's a fundamental part of their business to understand the risk they take of that sort. so what is a transition risk really? what transition risk really is a political risk and chairman powell pretty much acknowledged that, too. the real nature of the transition risk is unelected officials like ms. raskin exercising the power she thinks the fed should exercise, which is the step -- which is to step in and make it prohibitively expensive for banks to.credit to the energy sector or put caps on how much exposure they can have to this. that's the risk. and i don't know how you do a scenario analysis when the scenario you've got to analyze is one in which there are political moves to constrain your business. as i said ms. raskin says the

quiet part out loud. let me turn to professor cook. the administration cites her role as direct oosh of the chicago fed as one of the main qualifications for her elevation to fed board of governors. she is the director of the chicago fed. she was put in that position two weeks before she was nominated to be fed board governor. she has a ph.d. but she's done no academic work in monetary economics. and the few times that she has spoken about monetary policy, it's been a cause for considerable concern. so we've got unemployment at or maybe below 4%, inflation above 7%, and professor cook refused to endorse the fed's recent decision to at least begin to withdraw the easy money policy that they've been pursuing. let's keep in mind today the fed is still buying bonds. the fed is still throwing gasoline on the inflation fire. they're throwing a little less

gasoline than they did before and they do intend to phase it out completely by march so we've got inflation roaring along we're pretty close to full employment. and she couldn't bring herself to suggest that yeah, at least we should accelerate the pace at which we withdraw the easy money we've been pouring into the economy. i don't know how professor cook could come to that conclusion. the fact is inflation is way, way -- it's multiples of what the target -- the fed target is. it's at a 40-year high and while wages have been growing, they're not growing as fast as inflation. so people's take-home pay goes up but the cost of things they need to buy goes up by more. that unambiguously leaves workers further and further behind. i'm also concerned that most of what professor cook has focused on in her writing and speaking

and certainly tweeting is very extreme political advocacy. so, for instance, she's big supporter of race-base reparations. she's promoted conspiracies about the georgia voter laws. she's sought to cancel those who disagree with her views. she in fact publicly called for the firing of an economist who dared to tweet that he opposed the idea of defunding the chicago police. and after banking committee republican staff highlighted some of these tweets and others and brought it to the public's attention, professor cook blocked the banking committee republican twitter account. maybe she realized just how inflammatory her partisan tweets have been. but look, the fed is already in my view suffering from a bit of a credibility problem because it has wandered outside of its lane. it has sought to influence policy beyond its mandate.

and i'm concerned that professor cook will further politicize an institution that absolutely should remain apolitical. so mr. president, i'll conclude with this. what's the danger here if we went ahead and confirmed all of these nominees? we'd be confirming partisans to the fed board, contributing to its movement in a partisan direction, and ratifying the idea that the fed ought to engage in what in my view certainly should be the domain of accountable elected representatives. they've told us this. it would be in global warming. it might very well be in issues of social justice. it might even be education policy as we're seeing today. and this is not the role of the fed. this is not appropriate. and it probably doesn't end there. you know, if this is ratified and if the fed starts to go down

this road, well, some day republicans will be in control. republicans will populate the board of governors of the fed. and will those appointees decide well maybe congress doesn't spend enough money on defense so maybe we should allocate some financial resources to defense companies. or maybe congress doesn't spend enough money building a border wall. maybe we ought to find a way to subsidize companies engaged in that. or maybe there's not enough offshore oil development and we should do that. look, that would be a terrible idea. it would be a terrible idea. i might support those policies. i would adamantly oppose the fed having the authority to decide anything about those policies. i know my democratic colleagues have spent the last several months talking about how passionately dedicated they are to democratic values and democratic principles. and look, i think there's a lot of sincerity on the part of my democratic colleagues. but certainly one of those

democratic principles has to be that unelected governors of america's central bank can't exercise responsibility that belongs with the american people and their elected representatives. so i think the vote on these nominees isn't just about the individual nominees. it's about whether we're going to keep the fed apolitical and independent and ensure that elected accountable representatives make the difficult decisions for our country. if that doesn't convince my colleagues, then i would urge them to remember that in this line of work, one thing is always true and that is eventually the shoe is on the other foot. i yield the floor.

mr. lankford: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, i really believe you can tell a lot about an administration's priorities based on the people that they put in place in each location. that's true for every administration. there are more than 300 million americans, many of them are passionate about serving our

nation. many great federal employees that spend their entire life serving our nation. so there are a lot of individuals to be able to choose from to be able to put in different administration roles, but they -- their background tells you a lot about what the priority is and the purpose is. for instance, i would say xavier becerra leading h.h.s. who has no health care background right now, an attorney, now leading our nation's health care foe causes, the major issue for him, he was the most vocal opponent of abortion while he was in congress, while he was leading his -- as attorney general in california. he was an activist pushing abortion in every single country, even suing other states when they limited abortion as the attorney general of california. he was an activist about abortion. wee increase abortions in america. that was a major reason he was put in that spot with h.h.s. why else would you put an activist attorney leading our nation's health care area? you can say the same thing, some

of the major nominations that have come in for didn't o.j. kristen clark, vanita gupta. both of them were outspoken proponents of the defund police movement. now they're actually in the depadepartment of justice. kristin clark wrote, we must invest less in police and more in social workers. she also w -- she also wrote we must invest less in police, more in mental health aid. it was the main focus of the defund the police movement that she continue to be able to rise. vanita gupta said it's critical for state and local leaders to decrease police budgets and police in our lives. there's a reason that she is actually selected to be in that spot. it matches with the priorities and the values of the administration. the same thing when with you look at defense. national defense -- alexandra

baker said she's outspoken and believes that climate change is the leading national security challenge that we face. the leading national security challenge. i'm sure the folks in russia and ukraine would be glad to be able to hear that our leading challenge currently is climate change in the department of defense. these are all sets of priorities. it's the same when we look at ms. sarah bloom raskin being nominated to be the vice chair of supervision at federal reserve. this is no just ordinary position. she will have an immense amount of regulatory and supervisory power to push her agenda and control every aspects of the federal economy. she is in lockstep with president biden's agenda to take on fossil fuels. the problem is, the direction that she's trying to lead the federal reserve is to be able to engage in picking winners and losers not just from a policy

expect but from a capital aspect from the federal reserve. this is just something that it i'm being able to write in to be able to say. this is something she said, that the federal reserve should be able to reach in and make it more difficult to get capital for anyone who handles fossil fuels. why is that important to us? well, because 70% of the energy in the united states is fossil fuel-related. so what happens suddenly if it gets harder to be able to do natural gas investment? it gets harder to do oil investment in the united states? well, two things happen with that. it's pretty straightforward. we import more energy and the prices go up. that's what happens. because we're not going to have a decreasing amount in the foreseeable future. that's not me just saying that. that's president biden's u.s. energy information administration. if you look at the charts and details that they put out about what's going to happen for oil

and gas and natural gas usage, they would forecast all the way out to 2050, it is going to be about what it is. worldwide it's going to go up significantly. but in the united states, we're still going to need oil and natural gas at about the level we're at right now at least through 2050. now we can talk a lot about carbon capture, and i'm all in on that conversation, but making it harder on the one hand more expensive to -- and more expensive to actually get oil and natural gas while we know we're going to need the same amount or more? who pays for that? well, consumers do. so let's look at the simple facts on this. january of 2020, before covid starts striking worldwide, natural gas prices -- $2.02 a unit. natural gas prices in january of 2022, the latest number we have -- $4.38. let's look at gasoline. for every person that's actually

filling up their tank. go back to, let's say, february 2019, well before the pandemic. we'll just compare february to february. before that time period, $2.39 a gallon. today, average price $3.47 a gallon. what are we experiencing? policy pressure on limiting access and what's happening right now is sarah bloom raskin has been nominated to step into the federal reserve, and her primary issue is make it even harder. when our gasoline plies have gone -- when our gasoline prices have gone up almost 50 per in the last year -- 50% in the last year? i have to say this administration is intention legal alien finding ways to be able to make the price of energy more expensive, to be able to push people to other energy sources,. who feels the pain that have? every single american. i wish i could just say this was

hyperbole. but let me read a few things to you. during the covid pandemic, federal reserve was stepping in and trying to stabilize companies around the country that were struggling and that were challenged, and we all know plenty of companies that were struggling and were challenged. one of the things the federal reserve did, like they did for every other company, was also stabilize oil and gas companies because those -- if those oil and gas companies tank, that means we've got to get energy from overseas in the days ahead. so they did what they did in every other entity. they were neutral in it and said, if you are a a. company that's providing an infrastructure, we're going to provide you access to resources the same as everyone else, except sarah bloom raskin wrote this -- the federal reserve buying troubled assets from the fossil fuel industry is dangerous, she wrote. she said, it's bad for the economy, bad for the environment, bad for all of us. if sarah bloom raskin was in the

federal reserve during the covid pandemic, we would have likely seen multiple energy companies across the united states collapse for lack of capital and right now we would be buying even more gasoline and even more oil or natural gas from russia instead. i'm not sure how that solves the problem, but her priority is this simple she's made -- financial regulators must reimagine their own role so they can play their own part in the broader reimagining of our economy. i don't know how many people i would run into in oklahoma who would say, you know who i want reimagining our economy? not the free market but someone in d.c. i'd be interested in them at their office, working with the capital assets across the country and managing who gets access to capital and who doesn't, i'd like to have someone i've never met in d.c. reimagining our economy based on

their preferences. i don't meet many people like that in oklahoma. they want a fair playing field. they want a level playing field. and they want free markets. do we want a clean economy? absolutely we do. i would challenge anyone in this chamber to look at the energy breakdown in oklahoma and compare if to your state's energy breakdown in the amount of renewables that we use in our state versus what you're using in yours. we're passionate about a clean energy future. but we're also realists in the process and not trying to drive the price up for every person in the process. maria robinson, i met with her earlier in week. mrs. robinson is from massachusetts, vocally opposed to natural gas pipelines coming into new england. she was pretty clear that she understands they use dirtier

home heating oil in the northeast, but she doesn't want natural gas pipelines coming in, but she didn't seem to oppose when a russian tanker pulled in and offloaded natural gas into boston harbor. so literally buying natural gas from the russians, not from the united states, didn't seem to be an issue. but she did make this statement -- i would certainly be a part of the group of folks who oppose any gas -- new gas pipelines. in my conversation with her, i asked her about -- i just picked a day, january 16 or, 2022 is the day that i picked just in our conversation. i said, that particular day in new england, 24% of the energy generation was from fuel oil. over 30% was from natural gas, and 8% was from renewables. 8%. that particular day, 24% from home heating oil, over 30% natural gas, 8% from renewables. so my simple question was, what

are you planning to substitute in that? how is this going to work? her response was, well, in our area in new england we're working on connecting our grid more to other parts of the country to deliver electricity to us. what that really means? we don't like windmills, we don't like to look at them in boston harbor, we don't like offshore wind. we want windmills built in oklahoma, and you guys just ship us our electricity so we can flick on the lights. ms. laura daniels davis, she's been nominated for the assistant secretary for land and mineral management. she's currently in a role already with d.o.i. she's already made the change that routine permitting decisions that are typically made in the field to expedite process of making permits, those have all been pulled up to her desk in washington, d.c., where they've slowed down dramatically. the clear signal was, if you want to do any oil and gas

development, it's got to come through me and it's not going to be rapid like it used to be. so if you're going to invest capital, just understand your capital is whether i make that decision or not. they've not held a single on-shore oil and gas lease sale, even though they're required by law to do so. just ignored it for a year and said, we're studying it. there's also a five-year leasing plan that's required for offshore oil and gas development. so while they've cut off on-shore, offshore there's a five-year lease plan that has to be put in place and done by june of this year. so far we have no signal they've even begun that. and it takes months to develop that. why are these individuals being selected for these positions? because it's very clear they have certain priorities in place. they were selected because they're going to block out anything that deals with oil and gas, and their focus is to cut

it off right now, cut off pipelines, cut off new lease, cut off offshore leasing, make it harder to get access to capital. all of that will raise prices for american consumers. today -- today -- it was announced the inflation rate in the united states is now at 7.5%. it continues to rise month after month after month. i would say to you, that is directly connected to a group of policies that have been put in place to make energy more expensive -- and it is; to make it more difficult to be able to do a lot of things in permitting appeared such -- and it is. yes, we're recovering from covid. i'm very aware. but the policies that are put in place are also driving this. we have two million people that have illegally crossed the border last year.

that two million number didn't happen by just the calendar and by covid. policies were put in place that have led to a flood of people illegally crossing can our border. -- crossing our border. policies are being put in place by individuals that are directly leading to 7.5% inflation in our country. can i say to you, half of the americans alive have never in their lifetime of experienced inflation like they're experiencing right now. half of the americans alive do not know what 7.5% inflation is going to be to them personally, but they're learning quickly because what they thought they were going to buy last month they can no longer afford this month, and it doesn't look better next month. and if we don't deal with real consequences for people, including who is put into different positions, this never gets better. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: i ask that the scheduled vote occur immediately. the presiding officer: without objection. the question is on the nomination. ms. cantwell: mr. president, i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

?roo vote: vote: 1

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 51, the nays 43, and 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 actions. mr. cardin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senior senator from maryland is recognized. mr. cardin: thank you, mr. president. i ask that the senate resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i rise today in recognition of black history month. black history month provides an opportunity for our nation collectively to reflect and on celebrate the contribution and legacies of black americans. while we have chosen this month, february, to engage in collective celebration, you must remember that we benefit from the contributions of these great americans every single day. today i would like to focus my remarks on our nation's black

entrepreneurs, from madam c.j. walker and beyond, black entrepreneurs have long been vital to the success of the american economy. unfortunately throughout history those who seek to hold back the progress of the black community view the successes of black entrepreneur as a threat. one need only look to the 192 tulsa massacre, a dark incident in our nation -- in our nation's history. white residents of tulsa, oklahoma, bombed burned aned destroyed the greenwood district. estimates range rd from dozens to hundreds of lives lost. schools, churches were destroyed. at the time it was known as black wall street due to the

middle-class thriving, successful instances. it is with instances like greenwood and the dozens like it in mind that i stand here today because while black entrepreneurs no longer work under the threat of such violence, they still face longstand being systemic barriers. former congresswoman mitchell believed very strongly that the federal government had an important role to play in our efforts to right these historical injustices and support black entrepreneurs. in 19 # 7, congressman mitchell -- 1977,man mitchell worked to pass legislation to set aside 10% of the funds for minority owned businesses. he would go on to call the amendment his prouder congressional accomplishment. i was proud to build on his

legacy by working across the aisle by codifying the minority business development, giving the resources and leadership necessary to help support entrepreneurs in black and other minority communities. in is particularly important in maryland, as the presiding officer knows, since we are home to the highest concentration of minority-owned businesses in the country. we must continue to work together to address the systemic inequities. at the height of the pandemic, we came together to create the paycheck protection program, the p.p.p. program and we worked in a bipartisan manner to improve the program once it became clear that it was leaving far too many of our most vulnerable small businesses behind. we invested in nonbank financial institutions, like the community depository financial institutions and microlenders, we strengthened the relationship

with our historically black colleges and universities. we created grant programs that reduced structural barriers instead of reinforcing them. recent studies have shown that these policies address the inequities of the phase one p.p.p., which favored larger businesses. we made the programs more equitable with the sheer of loans to minority businesses in proportion of their overall share of small businesses. as i speak here today, the senate is still trying to find a path forward on president biden's build back better budget, which implements many of the s.ons we have learned -- lessons. for instance, the build back

better act would create a direct loan program at the s.b.a. it would create a new program to deepen relationships between the s.b.a. and h.c.u.'s and it would make the loans more accessible and affordable. the pandemic shows that when we come together free of partisan and in good faith we can make great strives. we have addressed -- this black history month, let us commit to pairing our words with actions, just as we did during the pandemic. we need to enact these proven policies as quickly as possible. we cannot let this opportunity pass us by. mr. president, with that, i would suggest the absence of a quorum and yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska is recognized. mrs. fischer: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to -- the presiding officer: i'm sorry. the senate is in a quorum call. mrs. fischer: thank you. i would ask that it be vitiated, please. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: thank you. mr. president, i rise today to celebrate the distinguished career of a nebraska public servant, united states district court judge john gerard. after just over ten years on the federal bench in the district of

nebraska, he announced monday that he will move to senior status starting next year. judge gerard's impressive career has spanned more than four decades, and it's not over yet. after his successors confirmed -- successionor is confirmed, he will remain on the bench with a redussed caseload. -- reduced caseload. he is a native nebraskan, grew up in schuyler and attended wesleyan university in lincoln. he left the good life temporarily to pursue an m.p.a. at the university of arizona and j.d. at the university of pacific in california. i am grateful that he came home to nebraska after law school. in 1981, judge gerard began his career in the private practice in norfolk. a year later he also began serving as a part time city attorney for the neighboring community of battlecreek.

that was the start of 40 years and counting of selfless public service. in 1995 he was appointed to the nebraska supreme court by then-governor ben nelson. he was just 41 years old at the time making him the youngest ever nebraska supreme court justice. and after more than 15 years on our state's highest court, he was nominated by president obama to the federal judgeship he holds now in 2011 serving as chief judge for three of those years. at every turn judge gerard has used his respect for the law to advance the greater good of nebraskans and all americans. during his time on the bench, i have appreciated hearing his views about many pressing

judicial matters. his perspective as a sentencing judge has also been crucial in helping me to unpack how proposed legislation in congress would affect federal judges. it's been an honor to know judge gerard and to work with him for over a decade. he is an accomplished, skilled, and respected jurist, and i am glad that he has chosen to continue his service after moving to senior status. everyone who knows judge gerard can attest that his wisdom extends far beyond the law. he has never failed to impress me with his keen observations about life. he is a good man with a servant's heart, and i am proud to call him a friend. on behalf of all nebraskans, i would like to thank him for his four decades of dedicated public

service. i look forward to working with president biden to confirm a district court judge who will live up to judge gerard's legacy of ruling fairly and in accordance with the constitution. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the support of republican politics. today we are here to talk about another issue impacting too many in our nation's workforce. the unenforced arbitration and sexual harassment act of 2022 and survivors of sexual assault and harassment with the choice between litigation and arbitration so their voices will not be silent. earlier this congress i was glad to see progress in the senate judiciary committee as they move forward on this bill. the committee took action that i supported and removed the provision on collective bargaining agreement. this week i was even more

encouraged and made further changes to the bill that improved the definition of sexual harassment. while these changes are important and significant, it's still not a perfect solution. that's why when i sat down this week with the majority leader and leave republican sponsor of the bill my friend from south carolina we agreed to come to the floor and in short the intent of the force arbitration as sexual harassment act of 2022 is crystal clear. during my meeting my colleagues agreed the bill should not be the catalyst for destroying arbitration agreements in all employment matters. specifically we agree harassment or assault claims should not be joined.a claim without a key exit. harassment and assault allegations are very serious and should stand on their own. the language of the bill should

be narrowly interpreted, it should not be used as a mechanism to move employment claims that are unrelated to these important issues out of the current system. these clarifications are needed. i care very much support survivors of sexual harassment and assault having access to the appropriate process to ensure swift justice. it's also important to me the claims stand separate from any other kind of claim and i'm grateful senator schumer and plan stand with me today knowing the claims are meaningfully different. there's one other important piece i'd like to mention and i hope my colleagues can agree with me. if employment agreement contains a pre-dispute arbitration clause and sexual assault or harassment claim is brought forward in conjunction with another claim

and assault or harassment claim is later dismissed. mr. moran: mr. president, thank you. last month the american red cross began sounding the alarm on a national blood crisis. the first they have ever declared. covid-19 has added extra volatility to the blood supply and this shortage strains hospitals and patient care throughout america. we continue to face the critical blood supply shortage today with kansas' blood supply standing at a twun to two-day -- one to two-day inventory. i heard from medical pro-- professionals, doctors and nurses, about the tough decisions rural doctors and health care providers are having to make, including canceling surgeries, blood transfusions and possibly not delivering babies because bleeding complications may require blood at these facilities -- that these facilities just don't have. my hometown is plainville,

kansas, a population of about 2,000. we're fortunate to have a county hospital with dedicated health care professionals and physicians. one of my hometown physicians, dr. sanchez, who i'm told is not on facebook very often but posted his plea, his plea for people to donate blood. dr. sanchez' facebook post says -- this is his story. today we had to tell a patient with heart disease take the -- that the blood tran fusions that prolonged his life with marked improvement and quality could no longer happen at brooks county health center. my patient and his son were understandably upset. it just so happens that the same patient was told a few days previous that the melanoma cancer that he beat for 40 years back returned. and now no blood transfusion. the doctor says that the hospital is considering

canceling surgeries, possibly even not delivering babies. our stock of common blood type a positive and donor o positive blood units are down over 30% from six units to four units. the universal donor o negative blood has been in short supply for months, maybe for years. blood supplies are usually replenished by the american red cross every three weeks but we've had no new units replaced or given. that the' one owe on owe that's one doctor, one hometown, one hospital. but it's kansas, people we know and care for, people we love, people with families and people we don't even know. the most vulnerable patients among us rely on blood down nations for transfusions to -- donations for transfusions to support essential treatments such as those battling with cancer or living with chronic diseases. there is no substitute, no alternative. our nation can turn to the absence of blood donations. the only answer is for each of

us to step -- stepping up to donate, helping to end this crisis, and contributing to saving lives of those in our communities. the shortage is severe and it's affecting kansas health providers and their ability to care for their patients. it will cost us lives. kansans pull together in times of need and i encourage everyone in kansas and across the country to donate. the united states every two seconds someone needs blood or platelets and donating blood is one of the most tangible actions we can give to help save lives. donation centers provide specific guidance on blood donation process and safety measures taken within their centers. you can find a location that's accepting blood donations near you. you can visit the american red cross website. so just the plea that we all consider donating blood to help save the lives of our friends, our neighbors, our fellow americans. mr. president, i yield the floor and note the absence of a

quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

separate from any other kind of claim and i'm grateful senator schumer and graham stand with you today and knowing the claims

are meaningfully different. there's one other.piece i'd like to mention and i hope my colleagues can agree with me on. if employment agreement contains a predispute arbitration clause and sexual assault or harassment claim is brought forward in conjunction with another employment claim and the assault or harassment claim is later dismissed, a court should remand the other claim back to the arbitration system under the bill. i think we can agree we want to ensure survivors of sexual assault have their voices heard, we just have to do this in a thorough and thoughtful way. my hope is the intent of the bill reflects the conversation with my colleagues discussed here today. namely the force arbitration sexual harassment act of 2022

should not effectively destroy arbitration and employment litigation. the bill is narrow and sexual assault and harassment cases. these clarifications we are making reflect specific challenges victims of these particular allegations face. if any subsequent litigation manipulates the text to game the system, senator schumer and graham are pledged to work with me on a bipartisan bill that further codifies the intent and language of this bill. i yield for further discussion. >> senator from south carolina is recognized. >> i agree with everything you said, you said it well. what is the goal here? we been working to stop the practice signing a contract from

a sexual harassment or assault from a problem in the workplace and forced into arbitration skewed for the employer against employee for these things to be heading. we do not intend to take unrelated claims out of the contract so what we are preventing is sexual assault and sexual harassment claims forced into arbitration which perpetuates the problem. this is what we are hoping for, they still have to prove their case and the defendant has robust due process by senator ernst concerns i share. they try to game the system, there acting in bad faith so what we are not going to do is take unrelated claims out of the arbitration contract so if you

have an hour and wage dispute with the employer to make a sexual harassment sexual assault claim, hour and wage dispute stays in arbitration. that is the goal and i hope people want game the system, i hope it will bring about reform we are hoping for to make it harder to hide the problems in the workplace, easier to get justice without gaming the system. >> senator from new york is recognized. >> senator graham and senator ernst for their outstanding work in this regard. we've worked over many years to get a bill that could be agreed upon. senator ernst made sure her concerns were met in several ways but i agree with their statements, i do not believe survivors of sexual assault and harassment will abuse the ability for this court and the bill plainly reads which is

relevant for senator ernst concerns reads only dispute that relate to sexual assault or harassment conduct can escape these clauses that relate to the text, the language of the fifth specifically states the term sexual harassment dispute means dispute relating to conduct its alleged sexual harassment under federal and state law and sexual assault dispute means dispute involving non- conceptual acts. there are no new legal burdens with sexual harassment established in the bill, it's another concern senator ernst has, it's all tied to current laws. this will give survivors the ability to go to court where they are alleging conduct constituting sexual harassment dispute or sexual assault dispute. when a sexual assault or harassment follows a case to speak accountability, this may

include multiple claims but as senator said if the claims on harassment assault are dismissed and she would go back to the arbitration process but this is important to senator and i, all claims related to sexual assault and harassment can be adjudicated for the specific purpose, we don't want to make sexual assault or harassment victim relive the experience in multiple jurisdictions so we want to deal with harassment and assault related claims in one gulp but if it's part of it the bill does not apply so you are right and you're clarifications and that's how we intended the bill to do. every state and federal court in the country requires a person to allege certain things in a certain way to properly adjudicate such that it won't be immediately dismissed. they must follow the rules correctly and they must affirm to the court they have good

faith basis for doing so. attorneys must do the same thing, if they break the rules, they can be sanctioned in court as senator graham turned to ensure a victim realizes protections intended to be restored by this legislation, all related claims will proceed together. and can i read my full statement? thank you. for the record, i want to talk about legislation and how important it is, i'm grateful for the work of senator graham the last five years in writing this bill and i'm grateful to the majority leader for meeting with senator ernst and graham yesterday to make final decisions on the bill and close the deal. senator schumer is one of the greatest listeners and has the ability to bring legislation to

fruition and that's exactly what he did yesterday and i'm grateful. the bill represents one of the most significant reforms in american history that will help us fix a broken system that protects corporations and and silencing survivors. too often with survivors of sexual assault comes forward, they are told they are legally forbidden to sue their employer because some are buried in the contract a force arbitration clause often accompanied by non- disclosure agreement instead of being allowed report, they are pushed into our system designed by the same corporation they are challenging. they are blocked from seeking information that can prove their case and left in the hands of an arbitrator typically selected by their employer and does not always a trained lawyer. the process not only allows them to hide sexual harassment assault cases in a secretive and

often biased process but it shields those who committed serious misconduct from the public eye. across-the-board employees are less likely to win in arbitration than they are in court even when they do when, they typically receive much lower monetary awards and because of the result, there's no chance for an appeal and repeat offenders are often not held to account. estimates suggest more than 60 million americans are subject to arbitration clauses, many don't even know because the causes are hidden, first arbitration clauses are especially common in female dominated industries. the aclu report 87.6% of female workers are subject to the practice and also especially in low-wage fields and industries disproportionally high numbers of women of color. these clauses lead those women who often cannot afford to

challenge employers without recourse but this affects women in every industry. 2018 analysis of sexual harassment claims made on wall street found in 30 years, 17 women, 30 years 17 women won their claims before wall street oversight body and in most cases were dismissed or denied. i want to share the stories of the survivors to illustrate how broken the system is. first, laura henry who worked at a dealership in ohio for her boss sexually harassed her touching her in her properly, making inappropriate comments and bringing inappropriate gifts. when she reported him, the company did a sham investigation and she was only able to share her story because congress issued a subpoena. she should not have needed protection of congressional subpoena to speak out. when she testified, cycle of harassment will continue if you force women to be quiet and allow sexual harassers and the companies that allow them to hide behind arbitration agreements. the second story is about

someone working for the vice president of legal affairs at the luxury good company ldm h in new york. when she reported sexual harassment by a colleague even though filed her sexual harassment case and a new york state promote the company moved to compel force arbitration and on the grounds of federal law supersedes new york state law, that protects victims and harassment from being forced into operation, she said quote because of force arbitration and confidentiality agreement, i may never know except to which the perpetrator sexual assaulted or harass others and if they retaliated against others as they did me the sexual attempted harassment made me feel scared, demeaned and ashamed. ...

that's why this bill fixes the problem. survivors deserve a real chance of justice and that's what this bill does. itwould amend the arbitration act to avoid all forced arbitration provisions for sexual assault and harassment survivors . removing those provisions would give survivors to allow them to discuss their case publicly and and the days of institutional protection of harassers. this legislation passed with bipartisan broad support in the house and i hope my colleagues will join us in supporting this critical work . i think senator schumer and i yield the floor.

>> the majority leader is recognized. >> let me complement my colleague from new york. her persistence, her intelligence, her determination and passion to change the law so this injustices which occur so many times we don't know about will no longer be there . it's so vital so thank you for a job well done. thanks to my colleague senator graham, the lead republican sponsor who when he gets behind something gets done so i want him behind more things with us in the future and to senator ernst, she's been a great leader as well and was very amenable to getting this done. it is just an outrage that women and men who are abused cannot seek justice while forced to be quiet or forced to keep the agony inside themselves. it's outrageous. for decades this forced

arbitration has deprived millions of people, almost all women from basic rights to justice and we need justice in so many areas but when you can't beat justice when you are harassed it is just one of the greatest marks of injustice. one of the greatest times of injustice and the good news about this legislation is all the clauses that people already signed in there and one contract will no longer be valid so no not only affects the future but affects those who signed in the past. if you can ever say any legislation is long overdue this is it. it's time for a change and moments from now the senate will finally act to make forced arbitration for sexual harassment and assault a thing of the past. we are now going to voice vote for this wonderful needed legislation. >> mister president.

>> senator from south carolina. >> senator schumer, thank you for making this happen. you made sure it would, today. senator ernst was great. it's been a hell of a ride. we talked to microsoft three or four years ago about this. they jumped on board and started changing it internally. i'm open-minded about making sure we don't business. it does not hurt business to make sure people are arrested in the workplace get treated fairly. it's better for business i want to say this shows that we can function appeared. that were listening to the world as it is so the days of taking sexual harassment, sexual assault claims and burying them in the basement of arbitration are over. arbitration has its place between business. it can be a good thing. but when you sign a document multiple pages just to get a job you really don't know what you're signing. you're saying you're not going to find a way sign away

your rights in terms of having your day in court if somebody treat you poorly. you still got to prove your case. the defendant has robust due process rights which they should be abuse of arbitration that perpetuates actual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace is soon to be over. soon to be done away with. thank you senator schumer, thank you senator and for all my colleagues on the republican side thank you. this is not bad for business.

for the wars in vietnam, afghanistan and iraq. only to be proven horribly wrong. just ask the mothers of the soldiers who were killed or wounded in action during those wars. just ask the families of the millions of civilians who became collateral damage in those wars. war in vietnam cost us 59,000 american deaths. and many others who came home wounded in body and spirit. the casualties in vietnam,

laos and cambodia are almost incalculable but they are in the millions. in afghanistan what began as a response to the horrific attack against us on september 11, 2001, eventually became a 20 year war. costing us $2 trillion and over 3500 americans who were killed not to mention tens of thousands of afghan civilians . george w. bush claimed in 2003 that the united states had quote, the taliban and out of business forever ". well, not quite the case. the taliban is in power today. the war in iraq which was sold to the american people

by stroking fear of a mushroom cloud from the racks nonexistent weapons of mass destruction led to the deaths of some 45 hundred us troops and the wounded, physical and emotional, of tens of thousands of others. it led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of iraqis, the displacement of over 5 million people and regional destabilization whose consequences the world continues to grapple with today . in other words, despite all of the rosy scenarios we heard from those foreign policy and military interventions, it turned out that the experts were wrong. millions of innocent people

paid the price. that is why we must do everything possible to find a diplomatic resolution to prevent what would be an inordinately destructive war in ukraine. no one knows exactly what the human costs of such a war would be. there are estimates however that come from our own military and intelligence community . that there could be over 50,000 civilian casualties in ukraine. not to mention millions of refugees flooding neighboring countries as they flee what could be the worst european conflict since world war ii. in addition, of course there

would be many thousands of deaths within the ukrainian and russian militaries. there is also the possibility that this regional war could escalate to other parts of europe. a continent with many nuclear weapons and what might happen then is beyond imagination. but that's not all. the sanctions against russia that would be imposed as a consequence of its actions and russians threaten the response to those sections could result in massive economic upheaval within with impacts on energy and gas and oil prices in ourcountry .

banking, food supplies and the day-to-day needs of ordinary people throughout the entire world . it is likely that russians will not be the only people suffering from sanctions. they would be felt throughout europe. they would be felt right here in the united states. likely around the world. and by the way, we haven't discussed this terribly much. at a time when the scientific community tells us that climate change is an existential threat to the planet any hope of international cooperation to address global climate change and to address. >>

hotlines receive roughly 20,000 calls from victims or people who are at riive of intimate partner violence. that number a sobering reminder that sexual and domestic violence touches every community in america. we need to ensure that every victim, whether they live in a native community in rural alaska or in a city like chicago or las vegas, they can reach for help and they're going to get it. yesterday, i joined senator feinstein and senator ernst, murkowski and 16 of our democratic and republican colleagues in introducing the reauthorization of the violence against women act, known as vawa. since it was first enacted nearly 30 years ago it has transformed the way we deal with domestic and sexual violence in this nation. it has saved countless lives. let me tell you about one of them. her name is megan.

years ago, she was brutally assault assaulted by her ex-husband. the beating was so violent she's still suffering from a hearing loss today. while megan was being attacked, her 2 1/2-year-old son, who is on the autism spectrum, ran over to help his mom. as he was running, the ex-husband picked up the child and threw him into the closet. megan said the experience was so traumatizing that her son didn't speak for fully a year after the attack. when megan finally broke free from her ex-husband she packed her bags, burkeled -- buckled her two kids in the car and ran for her life. today, her ex-husband is on the run with six open warrants for his arrest. megan says she and the kid are constantly looking over their shoulders. as megan and her family have begun to heal from this horrifying ordeal, she says they have found much-needed

compassion and support in the law enforcement and social workers who came to their aid. she wrote that service providers, quote, were patient with me and didn't push me. they only showed me they cared most of all, and didn't give up. with their support and guidance, i found the light at the end of the tunnel. and i fowt my way out of -- fought my way out of darkness, the darkness my ex-husband had cast on my life. megan's story is just one example of the world of difference vawa has made for victims of sexual and domestic violence. in her days, vawa provided critical resources to law enforcement and social service agencies that helped her and her family escape the danger. and with the bill we introduced yesterday to update and modernize vawa we can build on that legacy. to be sure, this legislation is a compromise. it doesn't include every provision i wanted. not every provision that senators feinstein, ernst or murkowski wanted either. but it will deliver critical

assistance to survivors across the country, including funding for legal services, trauma in law enforcement, access to services for survivors who require culturally specific care, like lgbtq survivors, survivors with disabilities, survivors in rural areas, and members of other underserved communities. we've crafted a proposal that will save lives and has a pathway to passage in the senate. in fact, the broad bipartisan coalition supported this effort was on full display yesterday when we announced this legislation alongside survivors, advocates, district attorneys, baltimore police commissioner, oh, and yes, the actress angelina jolie. let me just say, if thena, the gods of -- goddess of war can't convince 60 senators to support this bill, i have my work cut

out. it's bullpen nine years -- been nine years since we last reauthorized vawa and four years without a bill. survivors can wait no longer. let's send this bill to president biden as soon as possible. madam president, one more thing we can do to support survivors of sexual misconduct. these acts of abuse and harm leave behind scars, visible and invisible that can last a lifetime. every survivor deserves the right to seek justice on their own terms. that's why this morning the senate voted to fact the ending forced arbitration of sexual assault and sexual harassment act. it was introduced in the house which my -- by my longtime friend, since she was 8-year-olds and illinois congressional colleague, cheri bustos, and was passed by a bipartisan vote of 335-97. my hat off to sherry -- cheri

for her hard work. a few hours ago, the senate joined the house in passing this legislation on a bipartisan basis, and this version of the bill was introduced last year by two real fighters, senator kirsten gillibrand and lindsay graham and myself. the premise is simple -- survivors of sexual assault or harm deserve a day in court, if that's what they wish. they should be able to choose whether to bring a case forward, instead of being forced into secret arbitration proceedings where the deck is often stacked against them. ity becoming increasingly clear that the forced arbitration clauses have enabled sexual abusers to escape scrutiny while their victims are compelled to stay silent. that is just plain wrong. survivors deserve accountabilities, and that's exactly what this law will deliver. far too many survivors have been locked out of the court system because of forced arbitration clause buried in the fine print of their employment contract.

consider the case of molly sobert. she had a monthly membership to a therapeutic massage company, called massage envy. one day she was sexually assaulted by a massage therapist. she tried to cancel her membership, but to do so she had to download the company's app and agree to terms and conditions. there was one detail buried deep within those terms and conditions, a forced arbitration clause. she didn't even know it was there. when she tried to file a lawsuit against the company, this he responded by trying to force her into secret arbitration proceedings rather than a day in court. even national figures have been trapped by forced arbitration clauses. people like gretchen carlson, the journalist and fox news anchor. she was in our press conference on the subject. you may remember that miss carlson brought a sexual harassment case against her former boss, roger ails.

responded by invoking a forced arbitration clause in her employment agreement with fox. forced arbitration clauses not only deny survivors the right to a day in court, they also conceal their allegations from the public. that is a green light for abusers to continue harming and harassing victims. hidden in fine print, these agreements silence survivors and enable abusers. it is time to end this injustice. the bill we pass today will ensure that every survivor has the choice to go to court. it will not change the law around what constitutes sexual harassment or assault at all, but it will give survivors a choice of whether or not to bring a claim in court of a the sexual assault or harassment claim has arisen, notwithstanding the presence of a forced arbitration clause. there are a few other points about the bill i want to emphasize clearly on this day of passage. the senator from iowa discussed her concerns about the bill being used to move claims that

are, quote, unrelated, end of quote, to allegations of sexual harassment or sexual assault. the bill is clear on this point. under the bill, if the survivor so chooses, no predispute arbitration agreement shall be valid or enforceable, quote, with respect to a case which is filed under federal, tribal, or state law, and relates to the sexual assault dispute or the sexual harassment dispute, end of quote. that resolves the senator's concern. i do want to clarify, though, that the bill text does not require any court to adopt new dismissal mechanisms for survivors' claims. current state or federal law governs how and when a case moves forward, and the bill does not create any new mechanism to allow for dismissal, nor does it require that victims have to prove a sexual asexual assault or harassment claim before the rest of their related case can proceed in court.

furthermore, the bill should not be interpreted to require that if a sexual assault or harassment claim is brought forward in cob junction with another -- conjunction with another related claim and the assault or harassment claim is dismissed, the court must remand the other case back to forced arbitration. that is not required by the bill. there is nothing in the bill directing courts to dismiss related claims and compel them to forced arbitration if a victim ultimately does not prevail on her sexual assault or harassment claim. if there were such a requirement, it would have the undesirable effect of hiding corporate behavior, such as retaliation and discrimination against women who report assaults and harassment. take the real world of miss taylor gilbert. in 2015, at the age of 22, she started working for a company called indeed incorporated. while at a company training in a hotel, she was assaulted and raped by a company manager. fearing she'd lose her job, she did not initially report the

assault to the company. but after further repeated sexual harassment from colleagues, she filed complaints with the company and told her supervisor what had happened. the company took no action, and miss gilbert claimed she faced retaliation for reporting her complaints, including being bypassed for promotions and raises. miss gilbert tried to bring a case in court against the manager who raped her and against the company, not just for the rape and harassment but also for the retaliation that adversely affected her career path. but there was a forced arbitration krause in her -- clause in her employment contract. her case was sent to i object to. under this bill -- sent to forced arbitration. under this bill that we passed today, that had change. her case and all of the claims were related to assault and harassment. under the bill we passed, the survivor would get the choice to bring the case in court and the bill does not require dismissal of some claims in the case if other claims are not ultimately prof be. -- proven.

in miss gilbert's case it was essential that the company's conduct in enableing the abuse and harassment and retaliating against her be brought to light, not covered up by being separated and forced into arbitration. to clarify, for cases which involve conduct related to a sexual harassment dispute, or sexual assault dispute, survivors should be allowed to proceed with their full case in court, regardless which claims are ultimately proven. i'm very happy that's what the bill specifically provides. with this bill becoming law, survivors like lilly s obert, gretchen carlson and taylor will have their day in court. it prevents abusers, and those who enable them, from hiding behind a veil of secrecy. thanks to my colleague, congresswoman cheri bustos. her leadership will make a difference in many days to come. i want to thank senator gillibrand, a tiger of a leader in the united states senate.

and lindsey graham for joining her in this effort. senator graham has been a vital partner in this efforts. he, meld a hearing -- held a hearing when he chaired the same imle. he's a great partner in getting across the finish line are. i want to thank the members of my staff who worked day and night, literally, on this legislation. alexandra on senator gillibrand's staff. katherine on senator graham's staff. and shonna on my staff. today is a historic day in the united states senate with the ending forced arbitration of sexual assault and sexual harassment act, the rights of every survivor will be protected mr. durbin: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senator be in a period of morning business with senators

permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that pursuant to the order of the senate of january 24, 1901, the traditional reading of washington's farewell address take place on monday, february 28, following the prayer and pledge. further that senator leahy be recognized to deliver the address. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointments at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h. con res 69, received from the house and at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h. con. res. 69 providing for a joint session of congress to receive a message from the president. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous

consent the commerce committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to s. res. 467. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 467, recognizing the contributions made by the 305-meter radio telescope at the arecebo observatory. the presiding officer: without objection. the committee is discharged, and the senate will proceed. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the blumenthal amendment at the desk to the resolution be agreed to, the resolution as amended be agreed to, the blumenthal amendment be agreed to, the preamble agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 510, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 510 recognizing january 25, 2022 as national poll worker recruitment day.

the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the tame, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3:00 p.m. on monday, february 14, 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 resume consideration of the motion to proceed to calendar number 266, h.r. 3076, the postal service reform act that the cloture motions filed during today's day of the senate ripen at 5:30 p.m. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: we expect to have a roll call vote at 5:30 p.m., and if there is no further business

to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned. misconduct allegations . when the senate returns we will have live coverage here on c-span2. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of governmentby these television companies and more including cox . >> cox is committed to providing eligible balance to affordable internet through the connect or compete program. bridging the digital divide one engaged student at a time . cox, bringing you closer