four were in control for a while and eventually they got a new leader, deng xiaoping, and he was a reformer. and he said, and the chinese they have a great work ethic, they're very entrepreneurial. he says it's all right to become rich. it's all right to work. >> we will break what you're to take you live now to the u.s. senate as we continue our over for your commitment to bring you live coverage of congress. the senate about to gavel back in following a recess for the weekly party caucus lunches. this is live coverage of the senate here on c-span2. legislation and proceed to clam 305, s.j. res. res., and the majority in control of the remaining time until 5:30 p.m. and that at 5:30 p.m., all

remaining time on the joint resolution be yielded back, the joint resolution be read a third time and the senate vote on passage of the joint resolution without intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, it is so ordered. mr. whitehouse: and with ■that, yield the floor for i hope a happy event to my colleague, senator rubio. mr. rubio: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: let me cut to the chase, as if in legislative, i ask that science commerce be discharged from a bill to make daylight savings time permanent and senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 623, a bill to make daylight saving time permanent. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the committee

is discharged and the senate will proceed. mr. rubio: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the rubio substitute at the desk be considered read and agreed to, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. mr. rubio: as the day goes on, others will come to the floor in a moment. it is a collective member of the united states senate in favor of what we have done here in the senate and that is to pass a bill to make daylight saving time permanent. we went through the biannual ritual of changing the clock and one has to ask themselves, why are we doing this? this really began back in 1918 as a practices that was supposed to save energy and we have adjusted it. today, daylight saving time was extended to eight months in twief, clearly -- 2005.

we're doing this back and forth of clock changing for about 16 weeks of standard time a year. now, there's -- i think the majority of the american people's preference is to stop the back and forth change thatting, but beyond that -- changing. but beyond that is to make daylight saving time permanent. i'll tell you a couple of the reasons why i think that's important. there's strong science behind it that is now showing and making people aware of the harm that clock switching has, there's an increase in heart attacks, car accidents and pedestrian accidents. the benefits of daylight saving time has been accounted for in the research. reduced crime as there is light later in the day, decrease in seasonal depression that many feel during standard time and the practical one, one i

witnessed with my own eyes. in a country we desperately want our kids outside, playing, doing sports, not just to sit in front of a tv playing video games all day. it gets tough in many parts of the country to be able to do that. what ends up happening is for the 16 weeks of the year, if you don't have a park or outdoor facility with lights, you're basically shut down at 5:00 p.m., in some cases 4:00 or 4:30 p.m. a lot of communities are resistant to them. i've seen it with my own eyes. i've watched iewtsz sporting events be called during -- youth sporting events be called during the game because there's not enough light. if you want to live in this country, you want to have the ability to spend more time in the evenings to be outside at a time when we're frankly losing

an hour or an hour and a half of some daylight. i hope today it will go to the house. i know this is not the most important issue confronting america, but it is an issue where there's a lot of agreement. it is my hope that the house will pass it today and the president will sign it. i want to lay out one caveat. it delays its implementation. i asked why are we delaying it, and i think it is important to delay it until november 20, 2023 is because airlines and other transportation has built out a schedule and they asked for a few months to make the adjustment. if we can make -- get it pass, we don't have to do this stupidity anymore. hopefully this is the year that

this gets done and pardon the pun, but this is an idea whose time has qom. i yield -- come. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: madam president, i want to join with the senator from the sunshine state, letting him know that the senator from the bay state, the senator from the ocean state, we share a common agenda. we bridge ideological divisions, liberal, democrats from the northeast, conservative, republicans from florida coming together to show that this institution can work. and why is that? well, because we know that daylight savings time helps to turn the corner of people's mouths upwards into a smile. it's sunshine and smiles.

we've only had daylight savings time so far for two days, but all across the country people are out in the evening with extra daylight. little league can start, people taking their walks feel more safe, people can walk down to the town square knowing that the daylight is out there. and so this is something that should be bipartisan. it should bring us all together and -- and i thank the senator from florida for his leadership on this issue and so many people are wondering, can the congress work? and i think here is something that does have a big impact on every american life. and getting that extra hour of daylight, of sunshine into people's lives is absolutely essential. so we've been working, you know, together to once and for all

deal with this issue of springing forward and falling back and that's to make daylight saving time permanent. this past sunday americans had to once again change their clocks all because of the outdated government policy on daylight saving time. this biannual ritual of toggling between daylight saving time and standard time isn't just an inconvenience to people everywhere, it has real repercussions on our daily lives. studies found that year-round daylight saving time would help with public policy, health, and especially important commitment after this cold and dark covid winter. season affect disorder is real and when they get that extra hour of sun in the evening, it's

helps tens of millions of people all across the country to finely put the winter into a rear-view mirror. let's be honest, spring really starts when we spring forward to daylight saving time. so daylight saving time brings sunshine, smiles and savings to every pesh in the country -- person in the country and more evening sunshine also leads to fewer traffic fatalities, more recreation time, to afterworkshopping, to little league games to family bike rides, an extra hour of sunshine puts a spring in our steps and gives us a reason to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. the case for daylight saving time is clear. so let's go from polar to solar. let's finally make that change in our country because cutting back on the sun during the fall and winter is a drain on the american people. we must pass the sunshine

protection act and make daylight saving time permanent once and for all. this is an opportunity for democrats and republicans to come together and do something that really helps the american people feel better about themselves every single day of the year. thank you, madam president. mr. whitehouse: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: madam president, i'm happy to bring the voice of the ocean state to the floor today as an original cosponsor of senator rubio's bill to make daylight savings time permanent. i hope very much that we can actually agree to this on the floor today and hope for similar action in the house. pretty much everybody in rhode island experiences the same thing on that unhappy day in early november, it's usually the

sixth or seventh, when suddenly an power of your day, an hour of your daylight disappears and dusk comes an hour earlier. and it is a sad time. people are unhappy. it does darken our lives in a very literal sense. and by the time you get from november, when we fall back, to the shortest day of the year in december, december 21, i think it is, we have sunset in rhode island at 4:15 p.m. 4:15 p.m. that means everybody is driving home if they work regular 9:00 to 5:00 hours and they are driving home in the pitch dark.

there's no need for it. let's make it 5:15 instead. now, granted, there are people who are up between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning who will lose their hour of daylight, but there are a lot fewer people up and about between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning than there are between 4:15 and 5:15 in the afternoon and particularly in the afternoon hour, that's when kids come home from school and you would like them to run around outside. and that's when people run errands, and it will be nice to have daylight for that. i will be eager to be rid of fallback, and this will give us a chance for americans all across the country to be rid of fallback, to make daylight savings time permanent and to add a little sunlight into most people's lives. with that, i'll recognize the

distinguished chairman of our help committee. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, madam president. madam president, today the senate has finely delivered on something americans all over the country want, to never have to change their clocks again. my colleague, senator rubio, and i have finally passed the sunshine protection act, a bipartisan bill to finally make daylight savings time permanent. this past weekend americans from washington state to florida had to lose an hour of sleep for absolutely no reason. this is a burden and headache we don't need. any parent who has worked so hard to get a newborn or a toddler on a regular sleeping schedule understands the chaos changing our clocks creates, and for no good reason. there is enough going on as it is and we can fix this one inconvenience and stress pretty easily. if the house follows the lead of

the united states senate, we can make it so no one has to change their clocks by making daylight saving time permanent. i hope that everyone in the house and everywhere, can understand why no one wants to see the sunset at 4:30 in the afternoon which it does for those of us on the west coast many we have passed major bipartisan bills to strengthen supply chains and make a generational investment in our infrastructure. let's keep up that bipartisanship and make daylight savings time permanent. voters throughout the pacific time zone have made clear, they are ready for permanent daylight savings time in california, oregon, idaho and my home state of washington, we have all passed laws to adopt permanent daylight saving time as soon as congress acts. so many other states are on the same page. these states need us to take action at the federal level. this is a simple, commonsense

measure that we can take back to our constituents and does away with an inconvenience. no more dark afternoons in the winter, no more losing an hour of sleep every spring. we want more sunshine during the most productive waking hours. i've said it before. i'll say it again. americans want more sunshine and less depression. people in this country, all the way from seattle to miami want the sunshine protection act. we got it passed here in the senate. now the clock is ticking to get the job done so we don't have to switch our clocks again. so i urge my colleagues in the house to act swiftly as we have done to get this bill on president biden's desk and deliver sunshine to americans across the country. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: mr. whitehouse: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: neighbor watching in case it's not clear what happened, this just passed. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. whitehouse: let me ask unanimous consent that the senate exit the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: and let me make it clear to anybody who is watching that they just saw this measure pass. we have just passed the bill to end the return from daylight saving time to make daylight saving time permanent. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. whitehouse: let me rescind my notice of the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: and make nine requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate with the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. whitehouse: with that i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

>> good afternoon, everyone. i think it's perfectly clear that vladimir putin is not the cost of this rampant inflation that began at the beginning of $2 trillion so-called rescue package which produced exactly what larry summers predicted, forty-year high inflation. so let there be no confusion about the reason we are in this

inflationary spiral. with regard to the ongoing war in ukraine, it seems to me the president believes that any effort to help the ukrainians is potentially provocative to the russians. look, provocations already occurred. we need to do any and everything we can to help our ukrainian friends, short of as we all agree, putting american troops across the nato line. all of the eastern nato countries want to be helpful. we ought to be encouraging them to be helpful and not try to deter their efforts to get arms of all kinds into the ukrainians as rapidly as possible.

you probably heard a number of our republican senators get up on the floor and talk about covid mandates and later today we are going to vote on repealing the federal transportation mask mandate. now, that of course is a mandate that has been in effect for a while but you will see how democrats decide to vote on that but i think it's ironic the administration to this day still has not repealed the rule that requires toddlers, toddlers to wear masks, even when you're out on the playground. so this is an issue that a lot of us have been talking about for a long time. leave it to this administration to worry more about toddlers wearing masks even when out on the playground, or people wearing masks while they're traveling, instead of the

historic price hikes that we're seeing not only in energy but all the other things that people buy in this country, these inflationary increase our historic in size and scope. and they are the things the american people care deeply about. in fact, the typical family we are told is going to be $2000 more this year for gasoline than they did last year. and the administration is now shamelessly trying to say these are putin's price hikes, or if this is corporate greed. let's be clear about this. this is a direct result of policies this administration is put in place that are demonstrated hostility toward energy in this country. the president campaigned on, campaigned on it, ran against oil and gas companies in this country and putting them out of business. we are seeing today a direct consequence, and the results of those policies.

so if you look at the last 14 months, gas prices have been going up steadily. this isn't something that happened overnight as as a rt of the conflict in ukraine. this again is a direct result of this administrations campaign and crusade to put oil and gas companies out of business. you don't have to look very far in the distant past to see when america energy independence. as result of all-of-the-above energy policy. we can get there again but this administration is going to have to dramatically change course in order for that to happen. >> the biden energy policies have resulted in record high prices at the pump for american consumers. in some places across america day people are paying five dollars a gallon for gasoline. joe biden says it's because of vladimir putin.

well, that's not the case. if you just take a look at what prices were like when joe biden took office, price gallon gasoline $2.38 the day biden became president. it was probably lower than that when he was elected. and now before the invasion of ukraine by russian price at the pup was $3.53 in the united states. this is all on joe biden. families in america know that in joe biden's first year as president they paid over $1000 more for energy than they did the year before. joe biden is the president of high gas prices. he surrendered our energy dominance to vladimir putin. we were the number one producer in the world. we are now number three. it was a cash cow for putin to fund his killing machine, and at the house is trying to play

catch-up. a spokesperson at the white house said we are producing at record numbers. that's not true. producing about $1.4 million, million gallons -- sorry, million barrels last a day come 1.4 million barrels less a day then we were right before the pandemic. big difference. white house also uses an excuse they say there's a number of leases out there that haven't been used. many of them are tied up in red tape come out of this administration. the lease is just the first step. you need to then get a permission to drill for the energy, and they're blocking those permits. it's like if you rent an apartment to pay the rent and the don't to be the key to move in. joe biden has been fighting american energy and oil, gas goal since dana bowen and it's because he is a puppet on the string controlled by the climate of elitists. joe biden would rather turn to

dictators like those in iran and those in venezuela rather than turn against the climate elitists who dictate the energy policy of that democratic party and of his presidency. so now he tried to pass the buck to vladimir putin. the american people are not buying it. they know we have the and the granitic in no, we have workers here who can get and deliver that energy to market. cbs poll on sunday showed 63% of americans say we should be using more american oil and gas. that's the way to lower the prices at the pump. >> so last week that congress passed a 2700 page appropriations bill. hard to believe that any member of the congress had time to read all 2700 pages from the time it was done until the time we voted on it. and there was really good things

in that deal. money to defend the country, money to help the ukrainians, more money for the national institute of health, more money for pell grants, more money for individuals with disability, education act but that's the way to do business. we all know that. so i was trying to think when was the last time we even came close to doing this in the right way, and when did we get started? it was my first year in the senate 2011. we passed the bill for the year before in april of that year. so passed the bill in march, no excuse not to go forward. senator kohl and i took our bill to the floor in late october, spent about two or three weeks on it and pass november 1. and with it we added the commerce justice science bill and transportation and housing and urban development. signed into law by the end of november, out of the senate, conference, signed into law and

we passed all the rest of the bills between then and the 23rd of december. people need to see us do our work in the right way. members need to have a chance to participate and amend those bills and see if their ideas are good enough to get a majority of their colleagues to join them. the country is tired and members of congress are tired of one big bill usually in the following year that nobody gets the chance to read. doesn't mean the weather been a mistake not to have -- not to increase defense spending. what a been a mistake not to help the ukrainians but there are other ways to do this, and now is not too late to get started for this year. >> folks, we need to get real about what's happening with our fuel prices, and the biden administration wants everyone to believe that the price at the

pump is all putin's fault. and we know that's not true. fuel prices have been going up since day one of the biden administration, and how did that happen? one, he stopped the keystone excel pipeline. that was on day one. he has certainly been any new drilling, and then come along with all of the red tape as senator barrasso outlined for actually drilling to get those resources here in the united states, and the president has failed to live up to his promises when it comes to biofuels all across the midwest which would benefit the entire united states if we would utilize more of our homegrown energy resources. so let's not be fooled the president is literally gas lighting the american people. he feels if he says it enough, people are going to believe that

fuel prices are putin's fault. we know that's not true. so folks, let's all stepped up, let's push this administration to get over their deranged climate policy and let's unleash american energy. >> so all across florida we have families now that are going to food banks because food prices are up. we have families all across our state that are struggling, gas or food, gas or food for the kids? that's was going all across florida. last week cpi down 7.0% almost 40 hot. wholesale prices up 10% 10%t today. this is unprecedented. this is all because biden doesn't care about poor people in this country. he doesn't care about people and fixed income turkey's causing all this. we need to do these things. when it operation warp speed and he's got to get started or went to streamline the permitting process. it is a pain in the rear to do

business with. if you want to get more jobs, get low inflation we got to get more people in business. biden administration is not. tampa has the highest inflation rate in the entire country right now, 11.8%. think about how many individuals income is going up at almost 4% a year? very few. it's all cause because of what biden is doing. >> you talk about what is -- [inaudible] how you say no once he comes before congress? is going as for specific -- asking for no-fly zones. how you think we will help? >> well, my guess is everything is going to request a something we ought to be doing. and so my individual response would be yes. unfortunately. the administration keeps on dragging its heels even when you

do the right thing they do it too late, and the administration needs to get the message. we need to help the ukrainians in every conceivable way and we need to do it right now. not only us but our mirror allies who seem to be way more anxious to help the ukrainians that this administration. >> you are convinced that his requests all that he's ugly as for no-fly zone? >> he already knows the u.s. is not going to engage directly in ukraine. we are not going to enforce a no-fly zone in ukraine. but there are a lot of weapons that are extremely effective in controlling the air. a good example of that is the migs which the administration discouraged. >> would you support sanctions

against china if they help russian debate western sanctions to say military hardware to russia? >> look, i think we are open to outline any pressure we possibly can, not only on russia but those who try to help russia. [inaudible question] to force the administration stands on the ukraine aircraft issue? >> well, i mean, i think it's pretty clear. i have met anybody in the senate who is not in favor of seeing those migs get into ukraine. exactly how to make that happen is still under discussion. >> this morning in your floor seat -- [inaudible] supporting judge jackson but when how you reconcile that statement with the sop and all the other police and law enforcement groups that of indoors judge jackson. i was just talking about some of her support groups and they are

always anxious to talk about groups that support our nominees so we have a republican president. what's good for the goose is good for the gander. >> leader mcconnell? mr. tuberville: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. tuberville: i'd like to vitiate a quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tuberville: thank you very much. i have trouble with that word. first of all, i'd like to say thanks to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle for getting out here today and starting down the road to making daylight savings time permanent.

i cannot overstate how grateful i am that this brill -- this bill has passed this chamber by unanimous consent. it is especially timely that we all had to change our clocks this past weekend and we're now experiencing longer, sunnier days. but it would be better news if longer, sunnier days were a new norm and not a cause for a temporary seasonal celebration, which is why i hope my colleagues in the house of representatives pass this bill quickly. the practice of springing forward impacts folks across the nation and has a far-reaching benefit beyond the obvious. but enjoyable -- but an enjoyable hour of daylight brings happy, happy times to everybody. alabamians have made this clear. since i joined senator rubio in had the effort to pass the sunshine protection act, the

phones in my office have been absolutely ringing off the hook. -- in support of permanently adopting daylight savings time. moms and dads who want more daylight time before putting their kids to bed so dinnertime doesn't feel like bedtime, elderly people who want more sun in the evenings in order to take a walk, enjoy working in their yards, farmers who could use the extra daylight to work in the fields -- for them it's a better business model and adds to the bottom line. but it's not just people in the state of alabama. americans across the country want to make daylight savings time permanent. in fact, it is worth noting that this bill has bipartisan support, evidenced by the fact that it passed with no objection here in the senate mere moments

ago. it is no secret how rare that is here in this chamber. locking the clock or doing away with twice-a-year time change is a simple measure that would have far-reaching results. for example, from a health perspective, cases of s.a.d. -- or seasonal affective disorder -- are much more common in the winter months than in the summer months. from an economic perspective, the time change costs the u.s. economy an estimated $430 million annually when accounting for lost productivity. it is simply common sense to update this outdated practice. daylight savings time began as a temporary measure during world war i to conserve energy, but in the last century, our world has changed dramatically. what might have made sense during 1918 does not make sense

today. that is why alabama along with 17 other state legislatures have passed legislation or resolutions to flip the switch on this outdated practice and permanently increase our daylight hours. but these changes on the state level cannot take place until the federal law is passed. we've taken the first step today in the senate by passing this bill. now it's in the house's side. so, again, thanks to senator rubio and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, i hope the house acts quickly so we can get this to the president's desk and get the results that the american people want, and that is more sunshine. i notice the absence a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

there are couple elements that i inadvertently missed he wrote judge griffith wrote this

direction has a demonstrated role of excellence and i believe based upon a judge when i served on the court of appeals should the fact ratings. just yesterday a gallon of gas sold for the highest price ever in the united states and inflation is at a 40-year high. the american people clearly understand that radical democrat energy policies, they are the cause of these high prices. the prices that people are paying every time they go to the pump to fill up. now on thursday the white house admitted in terms of these high prices, they admitted it's going to get worse. of course democrats are trying to blame vladimir putin for the high price at the pump.

to me, it is dishonest and it is desperate. vladimir putin didn't cause the inflation crisis that began in this country 12 months ago. now, vladimir putin has cashed in on america's inflation crisis. he's done it by selling more energy at high prices, and he's done it for more than a year. it has been his cash cow. america's inflation crisis is specifically the result of democrats spending and democrat attacks on american energy. the two combined have added to the situation that we're in now -- attacking american energy and massive spending. last march joe biden signed the single-most expensive spending bill in american history. even his own experts warned him not to do it. democrat economist expert larry summers, who had been treasury secretary for president clinton, he warned that this is going to cause inflation.

last february the former obama and clinton advisor wrote in "the washington post", quote, -- this is from larry summers -- there is a chance that stimulus on a scale closer to world war ii levels will set off inflationary pressures. he said inflationary pressures of a kind that we have not seen in a generation. he's exactly right, that's what's happened. that's why we're at a 40-year high of inflation, and that's a generation. obama advisor jason furman said the same thing. he said that bill was, quote, definitely too big. he said i don't know any economist, any, he said, who are recommending something the size of what president biden was doing. yet, joe biden proved to be hard of hearing, refused to listen to what they had to say, signed the bill anyway, put $2 trillion on our nation's credit card, and he flooded the country with government cash.

ever since then, this country has been in an inflation upward spiral. at the same time joe biden has also had to stranglehold over american energy supply. he announced this during the campaign and enforced it the day he took office. now, madam president, energy is called the master resource for a reason. it powers our economy, it powers our military, it powers our nation. it's critically important. if the price of energy goes up, so does the price of everything else. starting on his first day in office, joe biden has waged an all-out war on american energy. he shut down the keystone x.l. pipeline, and he bragged about it. no hiding from this one. he shut down oil and gas leases on federal government lands. he bragged about that as well. he shut down exploration for energy in the arctic. it's always interesting to see

the senior senator from alaska, senator murkowski, come to the floor and say over the last year that we're using more energy from vladimir putin's russia than we are from alaska, her home state, in terms of oil. those are because of joe biden's policies. now his lackeys at the federal energy regulatory commission are making it almost impossible to move pipelines. as a result we are today producing a lot less energy than we were prior to the pandemic. i heard the white house spokesperson. she talked about the fact that we're at record high. we're not. we're at about 1.3 million barrels of offensively per day, fewer -- of oil per day, fewer now than we were prior to the pandemic. prior to the pandemic we were number one in production in the world. now we're number three, behind saudi arabia and behind russia.

what does a lower supply of american energy mean? supply and demand, lower supply means higher prices. when joe biden took office a gallon of gas was at $2.38. it went up every month 12 of the last 13 months, the price of gas kept going up at the pump. 12 of the 13 months joe biden has been in the white house, the price of gas went up. meanwhile, vladimir putin was laughing all the way to the bank. joe biden must be patting himself on the back right now about banning russian oil, something that took him kicking and screaming to do after bipartisan members in the house and senate came together and said you've got to stop doing this. it took him a couple of extra weeks to come to the realization that this body in the house in a bipartisan way were opposed to the delays, the ongoing delays of this administration.

now joe biden has his latest excuse for inflation. he says it's vladimir putin. the american people aren't buying it. in record numbers they're not buying what the president is trying to sell. the american people haven't forgotten the past year. it's been a year of high prices, it's been a year of misery and pain for families all across the country. for joe biden, it's been a year of excuses. the excuses keep changing, but they are ongoing. first he said inflation was transitory. he said it month after month after month after month. and then remember when he said inflation was a good thing? then of course he blamed corporate greed, always looking for somebody else to blame, always trying to pass the buck. now he says inflation, which has been crushing american families, he said it was because of vladimir putin, just

three weeks ago. mr. president, people have been suffering under inflation and their wages haven't been keeping up with the rising prices in this country for well over a year, since you took office. people recognize that. they remember the pain and suffering and trying to to go through christmas, whether they can decide to afford gifts for the family. families that had to decide living on a fixed income, if they could afford to eat or to heat their homes. that was all before putin, and they haven't forgotten, mr. president, even though you may not think they remember. they do. well, it's now eight months until our election, and i know we're going to hear a lot more excuses from the democrats in washington between now and november 8. and i expect the excuses are going to change a couple of more times. none of the excuses are going to be believable so they'll keep

trying to come up with another one. inflation sure wasn't transitory, not for a full year, not to a point where we're now at the 40-year high for inflation. how about that idea when the president said inflation was a good thing? actually we heard it from the white house press secretary, we heard it from the white house chief of staff. they said inflation is a sign of high demand. if our economy is doing so well, why don't the american people believe it? what kind of fantasy land is the president living in? according to "the washington post," joe biden's approval rating on the economy, how well he's doing on the economy, is out of 100 points, he's at 37% approval. these are record low numbers. now, so democrats can use their arguments, all that they want. i think it just makes americans

want to reject anything the democrats are trying to sell. democrats are right about corporate greed, then why have democrats done nothing about it? they've run washington for the past full year plus a couple of months. democrats have had the time taxo win many elections, pack the supreme court from 9 up to 13 members. bills to make washington, d.c. a state. what can they point to as an accomplishment to actually address and lower inflation? just this past weekend studies are out, what's the number-one concern of the american people? it's inflation. what are the democrats doing about it? nothing. they're making it worse. so we're living in this world where the democrats in the white house continue to spin one story

after another, and democrat spokesman for the party continue to try to convince the american people. don't believe your own two eyes. believe them. the american people are smarter than that. so russia invaded ukraine on february 24, 2022. it's about a year after the inflation crisis began. it is a great human tragedy and is heartbreaking. tomorrow members of this body will be having a video address by president zelensky, the president of ukraine, a heroic and courageous individual who is leading his nation with stubborn courage, historic patriotism, fighting for freedom. to try to tie this to the inflation that the american people have been suffering there for the last year is just wrong.

2021 wabs the worst inflation in 40 years, long before putin invaded ukraine. by the time putin invaded ukraine, gas prices were up in the united states more than $1 a gallon and america was more addicted to russian oil, because that's what joe biden wanted. he wanted us to need more russian oil. but that didn't stop joe biden from firefighting blame -- from trying to blame the whole thing on putin. steve rattner put it this way -- this is joe biden's inflation and he needs to own it. another said the president was wronger to blame this month's inflation number on the war in ukraine. larry summers went on to say everyone had been expecting from the time before putin launched the invasion that inflation was going to accelerate. he went on to say this is a

consequence fundamentally of an overheated economy. he said we're not going to have a full final solution until we do something about the overwheated economy. -- overheated economy. a full year has passed. one year in office, 40-year high of inflation, and a year full of excuses by a president whose excuses do not add up. what adds up is the fundamental fact that american families spent a thousand dollars more on energy during joe biden's first year as president than they did the previous year, and it's going to be worse this year. the time for excuses is over. there is no excuse for restricting american energy production. democrat senators spent ten months denying that there even was inflation, and doing nothing about it.

yet now, some democrats in this body are talking about making it even worse. they've introduced multiple bills to raise taxes. astonishingly, one of the bills they've introduced is to raise taxes on american energy. they already tried that last year with their reckless tax-and-spending spree. now it seems like some of them want to do it again. put more taxes on american energy, what's that going to do? it's going to raise the price even higher. higher costs on producers are going to become higher costs on the customers. people don't want us to raise costs. they want us to reduce costs. that's what they're complaining about. that's what we've gotten as a result of the biden policies. we need to break this choke hold that the democrats and the biden administration have on american energy. so, how do we do that? well, two weeks ago i led a --

lead a letter with every republican on the senator energy committee, and sent to to president biden the morning after the state of the union address. we gave ten specific actions that he could take today to produce more american energy 2nd &, to bring down the -- american energy, to bring down the cost for american families. step one would be to end his executive order on oil and gas leases on federal lands. of -- half of my home state of wyoming is federal lands. there's an abundance of energy there. the american people need it. it will help reduce costs for families. it will bring tax revenue into the government, both state as well as federal government. but yet joe biden's not interested. joe biden's executive order has no bases in science, no bases io be rescinded today. the fact that some people have

leases to explore for energy, a small number, is no excuse for the president's actions. over 4,000 leases are waiting permission to drill right now. they have a lease, but they're tied up in red tape and cannot get permission to drill from the government. so even if you have a lease, you need to then get permission from the government to use the lease. they ought to approve those leases today. but we need to go further. we need a long-term commitment from the government of the united states to produce american energy to help american families. leases take years to explore and to develop. we need a commitment that's going to last long term. no one's going to make those kinds of investments if they think joe biden is going to shut

them down again the next day. no, american energy companies have a lot of good reasons not to trust joe biden, not to trust those who he has -- the anointed ones he's appointed to high positions in the government. you just take a look at joe biden's nominees. they're a murderer's row of climate elitists and climate alarmists. and those are the ones that call the tune for this president. if you take a look -- if you took a year of joe biden's energy policies, take a look at what's happened over the past year, that got us here today, and you explain that to the american public, and you say what do you think about this, as they're filling up their tank, two-thirds of them would say under these biden policies -- two-thirds would say the country's headed in the wrong direction. that may be every republican.

it's also a lot of independents, and it's also some democrats as well who have buyer's remorse of what they've gotten from this president. it's going to take time to repair the damage. we need to start today. the time for excuses and blame from this administration needs to be over. the american public is demanding american energy, and we need it now. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

>> you'll see a collection of members of the united states senate and favorable what we've done in the senate, that is to pass the bill the daylight savings time permanent. just this past week and we went through that biannual ritual of changing the clock back and forth in the destruction that comes with it and one has to ask himself why do we keep doing it. in 1918. it started out was extended to eight months. showing where the preference wars were doing this changing for about 16 weeks of standard

. i'll just tell you a couple of reasons there is strong science behind it that is now showing in making people aware of the harm the clock switching house we see an increase in heart attacks and car accidents and pedestrians in the week the bubble the changes. the benefit of daylight savings times is also been accounted for in the research reduced crime later in the day and decreases in child obesity and seasonal depression that many feel during standard time and the practical one the one that i witness with my own eyes. many parts of the country understand the country we desperately wanted kids to be outside and playing into in sports and not to sit in front of a tv or computer or playing video games all day. he gets really tough in many parts of the country to be able

to do that. what ends up happening, especially for the 16 weeks the year, if you don't have a park or an outdoor facility with lights you are basically shut down around 5:00 p.m. and places for 4:30 p.m. the like and parks are a lot of expense. i've seen it with my own eyes and watched sporting events be called, youth sporting events being called concluded because there's not enough lights. i think that is one of the practical reasons, if you look at the way that we live in this country and you want the ability to spend more time in the 80s outdoors and to make sporting an actor activity available at a time when were losing an hour an hour and a half in some parts of the country because this daylight i'm hoping this'll go to the house and the quickly and it's not the most important issue confronting america and there's a lot of issues with his a lot of agreement and people

wonder why it took so long to get her in the house will take it up and the president will sign it. i want to lay out one caveat on the amendment it delays this implementation and the reason why i ask why are we delaying this. i think it's important were delaying until november 2023 because airlines, the reels and transportation methods and others have built our schedule based on the existing schedule on the existing timeline and they asked for a few months with broadcasters and airlines to make that adjustment period the good news we can get this passed we don't have to keep doing this anymore. why we would enshrine the center laws and keep it for so long is beyond me but hopefully this is the year that this gets done. pardon the pun but this is an idea of the time has come. i yield the floor. >> madam president.

>> senator from massachusetts. >> madam president, i want to join with the senator, the sunshine states. letting him no from the sunshine state we share a common agenda, we bridge ideological divisions. liberal, democrats, conservatives, republicans from florida coming together to show that this institution can work, why is that. it is because we know daylight savings time helps to turn the corners of people's miles upwards into a smile. it is sunshine and smiles. we have only had daylight savings time so far for two days but all across the country, people around in the evening with extra daylight. little league can start people taking the evening walks feel more safe.

people can walk down to the town square knowing the daylight is out there. this is something that should be bipartisan and bring us all together and i think the senator from florida for his leadership on this issue and so many people are wondering can the congress work? and i think here is something that does have a big impact on every american life. getting the extra hour of daylight of sunshine into people's eyes is absolutely essential. we have been working together to once and for all deal with this issue of springing forward and falling back. that is to make daylight savings time permanent, this past sunday americans had to once again change the clocks because of the

outdated government policy on daylight savings time, the biannual ritual of toggling between daylight savings time and standard time is not just an inconvenience to people everywhere it has real repercussions on our economy and daily lives. studies have found that your light daylight savings time would improve public health, public safety energy policy, mental health and especially important commitment after the cold and dark covid winter. this disorder is real, when they get the extra hour of sun in the evening it helps tens of millions of people. all across the country to finally put the winter into a rearview mirror. let's be honest bring starts when we spring forward to daylight savings time. daylight savings time spring sunshine, smiles and savings to

every person in the country and more evening sunshine also leads to fewer traffic fatalities and increase economic activity and more recreation time from after work shopping, little league games, family bike rides an extra hour of evening sunshine puts a spring in our step. the great reason to get outside and enjoy the great outdoors. daylight savings time is clear, let's go from polar to solar. let's finally make that change in our country. cutting back on the sun during the fall and winter is a drain on the american people. we must pass the sunshine protection act and make daylight savings times permanent once and for all. this is an opportunity to put democrats and republicans to come together and do something

that really helps the american people feel better about themselves every single day of the year. thank even a president. >> madam president. >> madam president i'm happy to bring the voice of the ocean state to the floor today as an original cosponsor of senator rubio's bill to make daylight savings time permanent. i hope very much that we can agree to this on the floor today and hope for similar action in the house. pretty much everybody in rhode island experiences same thing on the unhappy day in early november. usually the sixth or the seventh when suddenly when an hour of the day injured daylight disappears. and desk comes an hour earlier. it is a sad time people are

unhappy. it does darken our lives in a very literal sense. by the time you get from november from when we fall back to the shortest day of the year and december the 21st of think it is we have some set in rhode island at 4:15 p.m. 4:15 p.m. that means everybody is driving home and they work regular nine to five hours, they are driving home in the pitch dark. and there is no need for it. let's make it 515 instead. granted there are people who were up between 630 and 730 in the morning who will lose their hour of daylight.

but there are a lot fewer people up at about between 630 and 730 in the morning then there are between 415 and 515 in the afternoon. in particular he in the afternoon our that's when kids come home from school and you would like to have them run around outside a little bit more that's when people are doing errands and it would be nice if there was daylight for that. i am eager to be rid of fall back in the so give us a chance for americans all across the country to fall back to make daylight savings time permanent and to add a little sunlight into most people's lives. without all recognize the distinguished chairman of her health committee. >> better president. >> senator from washington. >> madam president the senate has finally delivered on something americans all over the country want to never have to

change your clocks again. my colleague senator rubio and i have passed the sunshine protection act. a bipartisan bill to make daylight savings time permanent. this past weekend americans from washington state to florida had to lose an hour of sleep for absolutely no reason. this is a burden and a headache we do not need. any parent who worked so hard to get a newborn or toddler on a sleeping schedule understands absolute chaos changing the clocks for no good reason. there is enough going on and we can fix this one inconvenience and stress pretty easily. if the house follows the united states senate we can make it so no one anywhere has to change the clocks by making daylight savings time permanent. i hope my colleagues in the house and everyone can understand no one wants to see the sunset at 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon which it currently

does in the winter for those of us on the west coast. injustice congress would pass major bipartisan bills to strengthen supply-chain and promote american manufacturing and make a generational investment in our infrastructure. let's keep up the bipartisanship and make daylight savings time permanent. voters at the pacific time zone have made clear the ready for permanent daylight savings time in california, oregon, idaho in my home state of washington we have all past loss to adapt permanent say lights enter daylight savings time as soon as congress acts. many other states on the same page. these states need us to take action at the federal level. this is the simple common sense measure that we can all take back to her constituents that does away with a completely unnecessary inconvenience in everyone's lives. number dark afternoon in the winter. number losing an hour of sleep

every spring. we want more sunshine during the most productive waking hours. i said it before and i'll say it again americans want more sunshine and less depression. people in this country all the way from seattle to miami want the sunshine protection act. we got it passed in the senate now the clock is ticking to get the job done so we don't have to switch your clocks again. i urge my colleagues in the house to act swiftly. to get this bill on positive findings desk and deliver the sunshine to americans across the country. thank you, madam president i yield the floor. >> the clerk will call the roll

>> just for anybody watching in case it's not clear what happened this just past. >> the senate is in a quorum call. let me ask that they exit the quorum call and anybody who is watching. >> the senator from rhode island. >> we have just passed the bill to end the return from daylight savings time to make it permanent. >> good afternoon everyone i think it is perfectly clear that

vladimir putin to begin at the beginning the year and by the 2 trillion-dollar so-called rescue package which produced exactly what larry summers predicted. a 40 year high inflation. that there be no confusion about the reason. with regard to the ongoing war in ukraine it seems that the president believes that any effort to help the ukrainians is potentially provocative to the russians. the publication has already occurred the war is underway. we need to do any and everything that we can to help our ukrainian friends as we all agree by putting american troops

across the nato line. all of the eastern nato countries want to be helpful we want to encourage them to be helpful and not trying to deter and get arms of all kinds into ukrainians rapidly as possible. you heard a number of our republican senators get on the floor and talk about covid mandates. were going to vote on repealing the federal transportation mask mandate, and how democrats decide to vote on that. i think it's really ironic that the administration to this day still hasn't repealed the rule that requires toddlers to wear

masks even though there on the playground. this is an issue that a lot of us had talked about for a long time but leave it to this demonstration to worry more about toddlers wearing masks even without the playground and traveling instead of the historic price hikes and the only other things inflationary increases of historic and sizing scope they are the things that make you people care about, typical family is going to pay $2000 more this year for gasoline than they did last year. the administration is shamelessly trying to say these are persons price hikes and this is corporate greed, let's be clear about this and this is a direct result of a policy of this administration has put in

place and demonstrated a hostility toward energy in this country. the president campaigned and ran against oil and gas. we are seeing today a direct consequence in the results of those policies if you look at the last 14 months gas prices have gone up steadily and this isn't something that happened overnight in the conflict with ukraine read this is a direct result of this administration campaign increasing to put oil and gas companies out of business. he'll have to look very far in the distant past to see when american had energy independence. it is a result of all of the above energy policy. we can get there again but this administration is going to have to dramatically change course in order for that to happen.

the biden energy policy resulted in record high prices at the pump for american consumers. some places across america today's some people paying $5 a gallon for gasoline. joe biden said it is because it's because of vladimir putin. that is not the case. if you just take a look at what prices were like when joe biden took office, a gallon of gasoline, 238 vita became president. probably lower than that the day he was elected but it went up when he became president in before the invasion of ukraine by russia the price of the pump was $3.53 in the united states. this is all on joe biden. families in america no. they paid over a thousand dollars more for energy than they did the year before. joe biden is the president of

high gas prices. he surrendered our energy dominance to vladimir putin. we were the number one hour the number three. it was a cash cow for putin to fund his killing machine and all the white house is trying to play catch-up in the spokesperson of the white house said were producing at record numbers, that is not true were producing $1.4 million, million barrels loss a day. 1.4 million barrels less a day that we were right before the pandemic. a big difference. the white house also uses an excuse of day-to-day number of leases onto the hundred been used. many of them were tied up in red tape coming out of this administration. this is just the first step. you need to get permission to drill for the energy and they are blocking those permits.

it's like if you rented an apartment you paid the rent and they don't give you the key to move in. joe biden has been fighting american energy and oil, gas, coal since day number one and that's because he's a puppet on the string holding control by the claimant elitist. joe biden, biden would rather turn to dictators like those in iran and venezuela rather than turn against the claimant elitist to dictate the energy policy of the democrat party and of his presidency. now he's trying to pass the buck to vladimir putin redeemer could people are not buying it they know we have energy in the ground and they know that we have the workers here that can get and deliver the energy to market, cbs poll on sunday showed that 63% of americans say we should be using more american oil and gas that is the way to lower the price at the pump.

last week the congress passed a 2700 page appropriation bill. hard to believe that any member of the congress have the time to read all 2700 pages from the time it was done until the time we voted on it. there is really good things in the bill money to defend the country, money to help ukrainians, more money for the national institute of health, more money for pell grants, more money for individuals with disability, education acts, that is no way to do business and we all know that. i was trying to think when is the last time we even came close to doing this in the right way and when did we get started. it was my first year in the senate 2011 we passed the bill for the year before in april of that year. pass the bill in march, no excuse not to go forward. senator and i took the ad fda bill to the floor in late

october and we spent about two or three weeks on it and it passed november 1 and with it we added the seed that the commerce justice science bill and transportation in housing and urban development. signed into law by the end of november. out of the senate conference signed into law and we passed all the rest of the bills between then and the 23rd of december. people need to see a sewer work in the right way. members need to have a chance to participate and amend those bills and see if their ideas are good enough to get a majority of their colleagues to join them. the country is tired and a member of congress is tired one big bill usually in the following year that nobody gets a chance to read does not mean it would be a mistake to defend the country it would've been a mistake to increase defense spending, it would've been a mistake not to help ukrainians but there are other ways to do

this and now is not too late to get started for this year. >> folks, we need to get real about what's happening with the fuel prices in the biden administration wants everyone to believe that the price at the pump is all putin's fault. we know that is not true. fuel prices have been going up since day one of the biden administration. and how did that happen. you stop the keystone axle pipeline, that was on day one. he has certainly banned any new drilling and then come along with all the red tape as senator barrasso outline for actually drilling to get the resources here in the united states and the president as failed to live up to his promises when it comes to biofuels all across the

midwest which would benefit the entire united states if we would utilize our homegrown energy resources. let's not be fooled ings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: thank you, madam president. i am a here on the floor today to make what i consider to be a super cool announcement. and i think my colleagues know well that i am a fan of the last great race, the i at this time rod, and -- iditarod. and i am shameless in my promotion of not only the exceptional athletsix of the mushers themselves but the canine athletes. and, madam president, as an athlete yourself, i think you can appreciate the endurance training that it takes to be a

qualified and truly exceptional athlete. and today we're able to celebrate an extraordinary musher and an extraordinary team. it was just a little over a week ago, last sunday morning, that -- well, actually it was saturday that i was in anchorage for the ceremonial start of the iditarod. it takes place downtown in anchorage. we have to truck snow in. we close off all the downtown streets. not too many cities actually bring the snow in. but we brought the snow in, dumped it around the street, closed the streets. mushers comes from town from all over the state. 49 mushers this year. they bring their sleddogs in along the sides of the chutes are thousands of alaskans and thousands of visitors. the people who come from around the country and around the world

to launch these extraordinary teams down the street, everybody all bundled up. it was one of those days that was just picture-perfect for the start of an iditarod. it was big, huge snowflakes coming down making everything white. the dogs are jumping in their traces, just straight up, just bouncing up with excitement, and the yipping and the howling was -- it was excitement that was contagious. and to be out there in the chutes wishing the racers luck, cheering them on before they embark on their thousand-mile journey to the north, it's an experience that i would encourage anyone, whether you are a canine lover or not, those of you who understand the value of working dogs and what they mean and how they love to do

what they do, the iditarod is an experience like none other. it was the 50th anniversary. for 50 years now the iditarod has been going from south central in the willow area all the way up to nome. again, 49 teams entered. these mushers face some pretty challenging conditions. you're going over terrain that is mountain range and down into gorges. you are on flat glare ice going across norton sound, howling winds, driving snow. it is a mental task. it is a physical task. and it is truly one of endurance. keep in mind -- keep in mind that most are thinking, wait, this is alaska in the wintertime. it's cold. but, in fairness, the teams

actually prefer to be running at night when the temperatures are cooler. society they're running -- so they're running truly based on the dogs' schedule, the endurance, but not necessarily in the tamest of conditions. this is not only a race where we celebrate the musher and their teams, but we also celebrate the volunteer spirit that comes with this. this is an extraordinary race over 1,000 miles going through some of the most extreme wilderness that you will encounter. and then occasion alalia long the way -- and then occasionally along the way, small villages that are used as checkpoints or opportunities for the many volunteers to basically gather. there's about 1,500 people who volunteered to put this race on. so those who sell the trail markers, who set out there with

their snow machines to mark that trail, it's nothing more than like a wood marker that you would get at home depot or lowe's with a little painted orange on it. that's the sophistication of this. this is what guides the team in a blazing -- in a blizzard. but veterinarians that are there, four or five cycles through. each dog needs to be checked every time they go through their checkpoint. all of these folks come from all over the country to volunteer. they pay for their flights up. they take a week off work and they're there to support not only the race bus they're there to support -- but they're there to support gold-standard canine care a so it's also a celebration about the volunteers. this is such a great part of aerostats heritage, our -- this is such a great part of our state's heritage, our culture. even my necklace, madam president, is a dogsled with a

musher on it. so this is the time of year that i like to celebrate it. so, this morning at 5:39 a.m. alaska standard time -- so about 11:30 here in d.c. -- eight days, 14 hours, 38 minutes since beginning a roughly thousand-mile race, brent sasse and his team of 11 dogs crossed the finish line. so here's brent with his two dogs yellow roses flown in from -- don't know where that's yellow roses came from, but they certainly weren't from nome, alaska. but that man has traveled with his team for eight days now, 14 hours, 38 minutes to win the 50th iditarod. i had a chance to talk to brant by phone just about an hour

after he went into nome. he sounded britt vibrant -- he sounded pretty vibrant, pretty happy. i talked to him in the starting gate on sunday. i think this is your time because you have proved yourself year over year in the iditarod and easterncy in the yukon quest. he lives in eureka, alaska on a homestead that was established in the 1970's. he is a pretty seasoned mush he. he took part in his first eye at this time roll in 2012. he got rookie of the year thattee. he is a three-time yukon quest champion. the yew on-quest runs a different race from dan into alaska. it is -- from canada into alaska. it is also a thousand-mile race. it is extraordinarily difficult. he took first place in the yukon quest in 2015, 2019, and 2020. so a couple little quick stories

here, madam president. because i know i don't have much time, but this guy is pretty exceptional. he's not only a strong competitor, but the care that he provides his dogs is amazing. one story from 2016. brent was getting ready to leave the white mountain checkpoint, it is about 77 miles from the finish line in nome. he was teed upped here to win third place. and depending where you are in the ranking is how much of the purse you will take home. if he is going to make third, he was going to get about a $44,000 prize money. but he's getting ready to leave the checkpoint and his dogs said, no, we're not moving. so think about it. you're that close to $4,000. you're -- if you're that close to $44,000. your dogs say, this has been a long trek and this is where we're stopping just rest. so brent sasse didn't push those dogs. he waited as they rested. and when they were ready, he took it slow, he took it steady,

brought them to the finish line, he ended up placing 20th instead of the third. and he did that for his team and for that he was recognized twice with the vet's choice care award for the care he shows his dogs a it's not just his team that brent is known for taking care of. he's also known for taking care of competitors along the trail. there was a headline a few years back that said sass to the rescue again. and time after time brent has been highlighted for acts of heroism on the trail. in vicious storms, he's held mushers and their dog teams reunite after becoming separated on the trail. keep in mind,s there's no rescue team out there. it's you. and if you're lucky enough to have somebody else come upon you, fortunately. but during one race a fellow musher was at risk for scratchinged race, and instead

of leaving him behind as many competitors might have done, brett -- brent helped him scale eagle summit so he won the race. hans gott, a four-time champion was stalled out, wasn't able to clear the summit, weather conditions were awful. so hans did the only thing he could do which is to hunker down into a sleeping bag in these horrible winds, the driving, cold snow. brent's sled comes upon hans', sees he's on the verge of hyperthermia, he hooks his sled on his own and hauls both teams up the summit. and brent credits his own dog for guiding him in these conditions. as a result his heroism, the

silver legacy award. brent claims that to be one of the proudest moments of his life. i wish i could have there at 5:39 in nome to watch brent cross the finish line as a first time iditarod champ with his team. even from afar we could hear alaskans celebrating brent. for brent sass, we thank you for the care that you showed, your dog team, your character, how you show what it means to be a true competitor and for representing the great state of alaska so well. and to all the others that are still on the trail, we wish you well and safety and godspeed. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. peters: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for two minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. peters: mr. president, i rise in support of shalanda d.

young's nomination to be director of the office of management and budget. ms. young has done an exemplary job serving as o.m.b.'s acting director for the past year. she is a dedicated public servant and a proven leader. she has played a key role in the administration's efforts to help the nation recover from the pandemic. she has worked closely with congress to pass the historic bipartisan infrastructure package, and she is truly committed to making the federal government work better for the american people. i have absolutely no doubt that ms. young is the right choice to lead the o.m.b. going forward. i urge my colleagues to join me in voting to confirm shalanda young to be the director of o.m. b. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question is on the nomination.

mr. peters: yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 61. the nays are 36. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. under the previous order, the senate will resume legislative session and proceed to the consideration of senate res. 37 -- senate -- joint resolution 37 which the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 305, s.j. res. 37 providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, united states code of the rules submitted by -- to seize control related to requirement for persons to wear masks while on conveyians and at -- conveyances and at transportation hubs.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise in opposition to senate joint resolution 37 which we are now considering and which we will vote on at 5:30. this is a resolution that would use the c.r.a. process to undo the c.d.c. guidance requiring use of masks on transportation,

planes, buses, trains and some transportation hubs. i think this is an issue that should be discussed and possibly to use a medical metaphor, a scalpel should be used to make it just right. unfortunately the c.r.a. process is a meat cleaver and this is not the kind of thing we should be using a meat cleaver against. if resolution 37 passes, it would lead us to be extremely vulnerable if there were a resurge in coronavirus cases as we are seeing in other nations like germany. let me explain. the c.d.c. imposed a mandate to wear masks on transportation in february of 2021. again, planes, buses, trains, and train and bus stations as well as airports. we all know that the c.d.c. has

recently examined the caseload of covid-19 in the country and dropped their mask recommendations for most of the nation. about 98% of the american population now live in communities where there is no mask recommendation. thank goodness not even indoors. that's great. but in some parts of the country, some parts of my commonwealth, infection rates are still so high that the mask recommendation for wearing indoors is still one that the c.d.c. strongly recommends. the c.d.c. mandate with respect to masks on transportation was set to expire on march 18, saturday. friday, excuse me. on friday, march 18 it was set to expire. after the c.d.c. dropped the

recommendation about wearing masks indoors, the c.d.c. decided to extend the mask requirement on transportation for one month, from march 18 to april 18. why did they do that when they were dropping the mask recommendation indoors for much of the country. well, the reason was pretty obvious and they explained it. here's the problem with transportation. you might board a bus, plane, or train in an area with low infection. but pass through areas of high infection and end up in an area of high infection. so transportation is a little bit different than what should the rules be in an indoor venue in my hometown of richmond or in communities in connecticut where the presiding officer lives. so what the c.d.c. said is we're going to take an additional month and we're going to analyze the science around close spaces, transportation venues, and we're going to look at this issue of

traveling from one community to another and then we'll come up with a best recommendation and best guidance with respect to mask mandates in transportation. that sounds very reasonable to me. very reasonable to extend the mask requirement by one month. and i would argue to my colleague senator paul this is his resolution. we should be weighing in with the c.d.c. and giving them best guidance and obviously they're considering what science is recommending. they're in dialogue with the transportation industry that has strong feelings about that. and then seeing what guidance the c.d.c. comes up with in april before the april 18 deadline to which they've extended. that would be reasonable. but what this resolution does is not reasonable. it not only wipes out the mask requirement, it wipes it out forever. it states that the c.d.c. no

longer will have the authority to impose a mask requirement in transportation unless or until this body passes new legislation allowing them to do so. that legislation in the senate would require 60 votes. i would venture to argue that there is no way in the politicization of covid that a piece of legislation giving the c.d.c. the power to do mask mandates in transportation would get 60 votes in this chamber. so if resolution 37 passes, we will have taken away from our premier health organization the ability to impose a mask mandate if it's necessary. now, i pray that it's not necessary. i'm happy to see the reduction in covid caseloads in virginia and across much of the nation. but there are parts of virginia where the case loatdz are still

-- where the caseloads are still high and where masks are still recommended. and there are parts of every one of our states or commonwealths where the infection rates are still high and masks are still recommended. and so it's fine to wish that covid is going away. i mean, lord, do we all wish that it's going away. but we know that in some parts of the country it isn't. and we also know if we're looking at the data internationally, that china is experiencing a significant upsurge. germany is experiencing a significant upsurge. and so what if, what if we face a new covid variant that starts to wreak havoc on us just as delta did when we thought we were in a decline, just as omicron did when we thought we were in a decline? what if there is a new variant that comes and starts to wreak havoc more broadly across the

country? wouldn't we want the c.d.c. to have the power immediately upon an upsurge of covid nationally to impose a mask requirement on transportation? if resolution 37 passes, they will not have the ability to do that. and what might be the consequences of that? the consequences could be very severe in terms of people's health. we know that. we've experienced now close to a million deaths to covid. but it also could have severe economic consequences. our transportation infrastructure, public transit and buses and trains and planes is a critical backbone of the american economy which is now starting to grow and add jobs, thank goodness. but if covid hits again and c.d.c. does not have power to impose a mask mandate, many people who use transportation to

get to work or to travel to places where they can do their work will no longer feel confident in their ability to do so. many employees who work in the transportation sector will worry about being exposed to rising covid case levels and may choose not to work. and so the consequences of another covid surge in this country are not only health consequences but they are critical potential consequences to our economy at a time after two years when finally we're seeing some significant g.d.p. growth and job growth and wage and salary growth. so i would urge my colleagues don't use a meat cleaver. when this mask mandate is set to expire on april 18, it's barely more than a month away. don't use the meat cleaver to

bar the c.d.c. from taking necessary public health action should there be a resurgence in covid. instead let's work with the c.d.c. and see what guidance they come up with for this april 18 deadline. that would be much better for our public health and much better for our economy. so for those reasons i would urge my colleagues strongly to stand with smart economic policy and wise public health policy and not eliminate the ability of the nation's premier public health agency from imposing a transportation mask requirement should public health demand it. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

please welcome the president of united states accompanied by the vice president of the united states. [applause] [applause] i want to thank vice president harris for being here today.

with this bill, we are going to send a message to the american people, democrats and republicans actually come together and get something done right now fulfill our most basic responsibilities. responsibilities.

that did not enhance the public safety at all. the efficacy of mass is debatable the question of whether or not the federal government possesses the power to mandate that you wear a mask is not debatable. the 10th amendment clearly states that powers not specifically enumerated by the constitution for the federal government are retained by the states or the people respectively. in u.s. versus lopez the suprems court ruled the constitution gave congress a plenary power that would authorize enactment of every type of legislation. ths general police power of the sort retained by the states would violate the principle that the federal government is one of enumerated and limited powers. no statute exists that remotely conveys a power to mandate masks to any department of the federal

government. yet since march of 2020 unelected bureaucrats from the centers for disease control have increasingly declared or incessantly declared that we should follow the science and submit to their mandates. but those bureaucrats defy science and practice something closer to sorcery. for two years they have incan'ted the magic word -- emergency, which they believe conjures up special powers that requires each one of us to wear a face mask they tell us have talismanic qualities. the only quality with this assertion is that none of it is true. the c.d.c. does not have limitless authority during emergencies, and masks are not effective at preventing the spread of covid-19. this is, after all, is the same agency that decided merely by uttering the word emergency that it empowered itself to tear up every rental contract in

america. fortunately the supreme court put the c.d.c. in its place, saying that it imposed a nationwide moratorium on evictions in reliance on a decades-old statute that authorizes it implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination. it strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the c.d.c. the sweeping authority that it asserts. the c.d.c. has yet to learn its lesson. for a third time the c.d.c. extended the mandate forcing everyone wishing to exercise their right to travel to wear a mask. the mask, to the c.d.c., is effectively a passport. those who work for airlines are compelled to incessantly remind paying customers not only to wear a mask while we board, but in between bites and in between sips. sir, please put your mask on in between peanuts. sir, after each peanut, please put your maverick on.

-- put your mask on. the absurdity. is it any wonder the federal aviation administration launched a surge in reports of bad passenger behavior. nearly two thirds of 800 reports of unruly peargdz is related to masks. the populace, which has been pushed around too far for too long no longer sees a flight attendant entrusted to make travel more comfortable but rather a border guard who polices the unfriendly skies. who blames them when a company wants to put their names on a no-fly list, a place reserved for those of terrorism. perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that if all 50 states

dropped or planned to drop the mask mandate the c.d.c. stubbornly perpetuates its mandates. the history of the last two years is the history of the c.d.c. making recommendations despite the evidence, not because of it. from the beginning, the c.d.c. has ignored the scientific data that demonstrated the inl effectiveness of -- ineffectiveness of masks. at the beginning of the pandemic, dr. fauci advised americans to refrain from wearing masks. but as we were so often told, the science has changed, except that it really hasn't. at least 30 studies demonstrate that masks have little to no impact on transmission, including those that predate the emergence of covid which highlight the lack of effectiveness of masks outside the hospital setting. in may 2020, an article by researchers at harvard medical school published in the "new england journal of medicine" not only held that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any,

protection from the infection, but that one of its few useful functions would be to serve as a reminder of other infection controls. the article went on so far as to state that masks are not only tools, but they are also tallies mans that may help increase health care workers' perceived sense of safety. in other words, the masks are a placebo. they might not do anything, but at least they can trick people into thinking they are protected. unfortunately for those who support mask mandates, the article went on to warn that focusing on universal masking alone may paradoxically lead to more transmission of covid-19 if it diverts attention away from implementing more fundamental infection control measures. translation? the mere symbolic benefit of universal masking comes with the cost of a false sense of

security which potentially risks further spread. for example, imagine the 80-year-old husband who chooses to wear a cloth mask to take care of his covid-stricken wife. the c.d.c. has prompted him to believe that wearing a cloth mask will keep him safe when in reality this misinformation has prompted him to engage in risky behavior. among the reasons why masks have such poor results outside a hospital is user error. about a year after the initial reports of covid cases, a large, controlled study of about 8,000 participants was published by the public library of science. that study found that face masks did not seem to being effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections nor against clinical respiratory infection which was likely due to poor adherence to the protocol. people simply cannot replicate the hospital setting at all

times in all locations, even n-95 masks cannot help a person who does not know how to use it. multiple studies show surgical and cloth masks are not effective in reducing transmission. in november 2020 a danish study found that high-quality medicine , high-quality surgical masks failed to demonstrate significant reductions in confirmed viral transmissions. this is a large study. this is a randomized, control study in denmark with thousands of people who wore masks and thousands of people who didn't wear masks, and guess what? they had the same incidents of disease. additionally, a randomized trial in bangladesh found that cloth masks did not have a statistically effect on covid transmission. but we should not be surprised by these results because we have known the limitation of masks for a long time. a 2015 vietnamese study of 1600

participants found that cloth masks allowed 97 percentage penetration of particles. they took sodium chloride particles the same size as the virus and blew them through a cloth mask and got 97% of the particles on the other side of the mask. they didn't work. a 2019 study from nepal found the pore size of the cloth mask, the opening the air goes through in the cloth mask range from 80 to 500 micrometers. that means the pores in the cloth masks are more than 650 times as big as the covid particles. science, if the virus is 650 times smaller than the pore, it's not going to work. covid, wearing a mask to stop covid is like trying to catch flies with a chain link fence.

the virus can simply travel right through and around the mask. and what was dr. fauci's prescription? after studying and concluding that masks were inl effective? wear two masks. he's wearing masks all over his face. probably if we had four masks maybe we'd be safe. that's not science. that's theater. the c.d.c. announced it would look into two masks but we never heard back from them. a few days later even fauci conceded there is no evidence that double masking is going to make a difference. i guess he was just wearing it for style. actually there is data even on double masking, just not the kind likely to be approved by dr. fauci. a study published in the "new england journal of medicine" in late 2020 monitored nearly 2,000 marine recruits who were subjected to anti-infection measures, including double masking. what it found? it found several incidents of covid still being transmitted

despite the double masks. yet our president, our governors, and our mayors routinely lectured us to just wear the damn masks. now two years later what benefits do we get from all of them asking? not a damned thing. a 2021 study published in the international research journal of public health found that there was no association between mask mandates imposed bid respective states and reduced spread of covid-19. the study verifies what we have seen in the real world. if you look at mask mandates that were put on state by state or country by country and you compare that to the incidents of the disease, there is no relation. in fact, often the relation is inverse. here you have california and florida. in florida, if you've been down there, even a.o.c. goes to florida because they won't make you wear a mask. you can do whatever you want. nobody has worn a mask for two years in florida. in california, if you are

paddle boarding by yourself they will send the coast guard after you. if you are on the beach by yourself, they will arrest. you. wildly different mandates but this is the infection rate for florida and california. it's the same. death curves, infection curves, there is no mandate that any state mandate changed anything. in fact, at the end of this pandemic people are going to discover -- i don't know if they'll ever admit this -- but the truth of the matter is nothing that man did, other than the vaccine and natural infection, accumulated immunity from natural and vaccine sources slowed this down as well as the mutation of the virus. plexiglas, give me a break? you think the virus doesn't go in and around the plexiglas. we spent millions of dollars on stickers, stand six feet apart. you're on a plane sitting next

to people for two hours and what do they say? as you exit the plan, we're going to practice social distancing. it's moronville. it's medieval. they knew more about infectious disease in the medieval ages than they do in today's modern age with the government directing this. despite different mask policies, california and florida ended up with about the identical outcome. the dean of brown university school of public health who provided one of these charts on twitter noted that the infection rates for california, which had a mask mandate, and florida, which did not, have strikingly similar infection rates. specifically health care reforms 9.5% -- specifically 9.5% for florida, 9.54% for the draconian mandates of california. they were the same. one place had no freedom, one place had their freedom, and the rate of disease was the same. is nobody willing to really look at the science? are we willing to submit and

wear masks forever? as journalist jacob sullen pointed out, if you compare california to texas, another pop louse state that had no mask mandates, the trends were similar. the same basic pattern was discovered in almost every state. in short, states with mask mandates fared no better than states without them. unsurprisingly nationwide masks did not prevent transmission or even death. this is a chart, looking at the death rate, and with the mask mandate. so the dotted line is the mask mandate. oh my goodness, we put a mask mandate on, and many more people began to die. did the masks cause death? no, they are unrelated. but if you're trying to prove a mask mandate lessened death there is no evidence of it. death went up and then down and up and down again. the trends on death, the trends on incidents have nothing to do with plexiglas, they have nothing to do with stickers,

they have nothing to do with masks. and yet we did all of these things in medieval fashion. in the 14th century, the pope burned incense. they thought they could protect themselves from playing. -- plague. people wore garlic and their neck, it didn't work, except the garlic probably did scare some people and keep them away from them. in july of 2021, there was a recommendation that vaccinated people who didn't have to wear a mask had to wear a mask again, the death rate, which had been going down for months, rose sharply. no relationship unless it's inverse, unless putting on the mask to get worse, there is no connection between lessening incidents and lessening deaths. masks do not prevent

transmission of a disease. we have been comforted by something that is not working and we've been tricked into thinking that wearing a mask makes you safe. they've been vaccinated and wearing a mask and still getting infected. maybe we ought to reassess. despite the evidence, the c.d.c. cannot bring itself to end the mask mandate. they have lost their credibility because they treated every mensch as if they had the -- every american as if they could get -- this is as aggressive as it can get, recommending universal masking by all students, staff, and visitors

regardless of vaccines status -- vaccination. school children have to wear masks all day, which results in complaints of difficulty breathing, headaches, acne, anxiety, depression and by covering the lower half of the face, we robbed students of effective communication. we have now changed the definition for adequate number of words for children to know. we have changed it from 50 to 30. for people hearing impaired, they have more difficulty if they can't see the lips. here's really the insult of insults. we go to the state of the union, now we've got these elderly senators and these he would herly congressman, they take their masks off and your 4-year-old -- the chance your 4-year-old dies from covid is

one in 2.32 million. they will be struck by lightning before they get covid and die. but these old guys are fine now. they are a thousand more times likely to die from covid than a 4-year-old, but the 4-year-old has to wear a mask. it's authoritarians run amok. swedish schools stayed open for the majority of the pandemic and did not wear masks. not one died. if you look at the incidence of the disease among teachers, you say we have to put masks on kids or the teachers will die. the incident of covid among the teachers, no difference. their test scores were not lowered and their test scores

were up. mask mandates on planes don't make anymore sense than mask mandates in school. while testifying before the senate commerce committee, southwest c.e.o. gary kelly said 99.7% of airborne path agains are -- pathogens are captured. masks don't add much if anything, from the c.e.o. of southwest. it is safe compared to any other indoor. united airline c.e.o. added, in fact, air quality on planes is safer than an intensive care unit. sitting next to someone on a plane is equivalent to being 15 feet away in a typical building. it is not just airplane c.e.o.'s that say that mask mandates don't make sense.

even the doctors on cnn, the radical desiep he'lls of dr. fauci admit that -- and that it should shift from a government mandate to an individual mandate. when the left-wing doctors on cnn are getting it, you would think the c.d.c. would wake up. doctors, scientists, and airplane c.e.o.'s will tell you that the mask mandates are nothing more than covid theater. but the mandates have been more like a curse. think about what you have lost, fathers were not there allowed to see their babies born, mothers have given birth to babies alone, our children have fallen behind in education and mental development, weddings were postponed and ceremonies are were -- were scaled back, many of us were denied saying good-bye to a loved ones.

we're about to get our lives back, to get our liberty and our pursuit of happiness back, but it won't happen until we wake up and say the science doesn't indicate this. until this body that supposedly represents the people votes to say enough's enough, enough of the theater and psuedoscience, let's let people make their own decision. the c.d.c. said no, there's another month of this. people are upsettlement i don't care if you're a republican, democrat or independent. there are democrat moms, independent moms and republican moms and dads are upset that their children are going to school with masks and now elderly senators are running around without a mask have no problem but are going to make your kid wear a mask.

it makes no sense. now is a chance to say enough is enough. we have it within our power today to ensure the american people that we are irreversibly going back to normal. we can tell our constituents that the unscientific mask mandates are be on the way out once and for all. for once we can follow the science and put an end to the travel mask mandates. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. marshall: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. marshall: i request we end the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. the senator from kansas is recognized. mr. marshall: thank you, mr. president. we finished up some three or four town halls this weekend, bringing this i think to over 90, and i will tell you this, americans know they are being lied to. they know the decisions coming out of the white house and the

c.d.c. are politically driven. and let me tell you this for sure, kansans are mad and they are upset. and they know this lie is continuing and their anger continues to grow. and at the end of every town hall i can tell you two or three people grab me and say please, please keep fighting for our freedoms. this is what else they tell me. they tell me they don't trust the c.d.c. anymore. that the c.d.c. has lost their reputation and i'm telling you, it will be difficult for them to ever get it back. and now they are being told that we have to wear masks on airplanes for another month or so. another horrible decision coming from the white house. more ill advice from -- from the c.d.c. all the time we know with the masks come a psychosocial downfall, that it creates

problems but the c.d.c. continues to lust for control. control our lives and exert their control over us, over me, over our children and our grandchildren. my concern is this, the c.d.c. continues to make decisions as if they are in a vacuum without consideration of the big picture, so let's just take a moment and talk about where we are today. 95% of americans have some level of immunity, 95%. new infections are down 94%. hospitalization is it down over 80%. and as far as we know, there's no new variant of concern anywhere in the world that's rearing its ugly head right now. what do we truly know of the science and benefits of wearing a mask? what do we know about the risk of wearing a mask? i asked the c.d.c. the same question i'm sure over a year ago now. i asked them for the studies

that support their recommendation to wear masks. some 80 studies. i looked at every one of them. i would say half of them weren't worth the paper they were printed on, poor scientific quality, cherry picking data, but most were still inconclusive. a few suggested masks might help if they are worn perfectly and if it is the right type of mask and some said it was even harmful. i will acknowledge for a brief period of time, wearing an m-95 mask properly could give some benefit, but we know that cloth masks offer little benefit and may make viruses and infections more common. does the c.d.c. believe masking would help in an airplane? and if they did so, why wouldn't suggest that we wear n-95 masks.

it's inconsistent. the big deal is compliance. seatbelts don't wear unless you wear them, an air bag in the car doesn't work unless it's turned on. look around, nobody can wear these masks for hours and hours at a time without touching their nose and math and then we take it off to eat and drink just for moments at a time. so in the real world it doesn't make sense that the mask would work, certainly not in schools and i think that has been well proven. i think we look at sweden, a country whose mortality is a fraction of ours when it comes to the covid virus, a country that had very limited use of masks without mandates as well. i think the big opportunity with airlines is they made a big investment in their exchanges. we know air exchange works, from our experience in surgical

centers, we know when we move to the modern air exchangers, that post on infection -- post on infections went down and we knew air exchanges were a big part of this. but, no, this administration continues to want to control our lives. dr. fauci decreed that even after airline executives gave testimony that masks were of no help, dr. fauci said he didn't think masks would never not be -- it is time to stop the travel mask mandates it's time to let our people go. thank you and i yield back.

the presiding officer: under the previous order, all time is yielded back. the clerk will read the title of the joint resolution for the third time. the clerk: calendar number 305, s.j. res. 37, joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, united states code and so forth. the presiding officer: the question is on passage of the joint resolution. is there sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote: the presiding officer: the yeas are 57, the nays are 40. the joint resolution is passed. the presiding officer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, and that i be recognized for up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. i rise again to discuss the scheme that has captured and now controls america's supreme court if you've been following this series of speeches, you know that we've gone over the powell memo and the plan it laid out for the corporate right wing. we've gone over the technique of

agency capture, regulatory capture that has been applied to the supreme court. we've gone over the turn style, that big, anonymous right wing donors set up within the federalist society to approve republican nominees. and the dark money front groups that sped those nominees through senate confirmation. and we've discussed how the big right wing donor interests influence justices while they're on the bench, through fast lanes for dark money litigation and flotillas, flotillas of dark money amicus curiae. dark front amicus curiae. if you you set up a machine like that, you will pretty soon see

justices auditioning for the role. to understand the origins of this auditioning, you need to start with a little bit of history. so it's 1990 and president george h.w. bush needs to fill a vacancy left by the legendary just william brennan. president bush appoints a recent first circuit nominee named david souter who spent most of his career in new hampshire state government. at the time, republicans thought souter's short time on the federal bench was an asset, without a long paper trail there was less chance that souter's nomination would go down in flames like robert bork's had. but souter wasn't the conservative the right wing hoped for. indeed, he could be downright moderate. in their disappointment, they

adopted a new mantra -- no more souters. when rumors got around that george w. bush might nominate his white house counsel alberto gonsales to the court, he was not seen as right wing enough, and the scheme panicked, and the mantra became al gonsales is spanish for david souter. john paul stephens was another right wing disappointment. so, no more souters as a mantra was joined by no more stephenss. with these i did points, the right wing donors and their federalist society acolytes vowed to better groom and vet future candidates, scouring republican nominees' records for maximum adherence. to scheme orthodoxy. well, once that process was up

and operating their response was predictable -- ambitious right wing lawyers aspiring to the federal bench aren't dumb. they will follow the path that guides them to their goal. so, the maximum adherence auditioning began. i have described the circuit court judge who observed his colleagues taking cases and issuing rulings that seem to have the clear intent of sending a signal. they strained to write decisions that were dressed to impress. they were, in his word, auditioning. auditioning for the federalist society gatekeepers. so how exactly does this auditioning work? there's a recipe. one, you got to understand what matters to the big donors -- guns, unbridled campaign spending, corporate political power, shrinking the so-called

administrative state, and right wing social issues. two, fly solo. it can actually help if you go it alone. write opinions so extreme that they stand out and donors take notice. and three, of course, where you can, deliver the goods. if a case allows you to score a win for a big donor interest, take it. three justices who knew this recipe well were the trio nominated by donald trump. as a circuit court judge, neal gorsuch became a darling of the right wing donor elites for his commitment to dismantling this so-called administrative state. to do that, he deployed radical legal theories, cooked up and propagated in the schemes legal theory hot house, with where

they develop themes, kind of reverse-engineering them to give victories in cases. in one instant, gorsuch even wrote two opinions for the same case. one, the majority opinion that his colleagues joined. and the other an out-there solo opinion displaying his scheme bona fides. gorsuch also displayed his fervor for what he called religious freedom, which usually translates to dismantling the separation between church and state, which is another scheme favorite. justice amy coney barrett new how to audition -- new knew how to audition. she refused to hear a challenge to women's law on the right to choose, barrett bucked it by joining a dissent aimed directly

at supreme court abortion precedent. on guns, judge barrett authored an opinion in a second amendment case, canter v. barr that would have given a felon back his gun because his felony wasn't violent. constitutional scholars' jaws hit the floor at that one. adam winkler, a second amendment expert at ucla law school told the new yorker that the opinion was, and i quote, amy coney barrett's audition tape for the supreme court. it was her audition tape because her, quote, view of the second amendment was outside the mainstream and would appeal to the federalist society. of course, the biggest auditioner of all was brett kavanaugh, on the d.c. circuit kavanaugh did so much auditioning it's hard to know where to begin. he issued opinions on abortion,

on guns, on the administrative state, on campaign finance and more. he was not concerned with building consensus. he wanted to make a point. here's "washington post" editor ruth marcus in her book on kavanaugh -- his more liberal appeals court colleagues found him affable but unyielding. he would engage, but rarely if ever change his mind. and he displayed a propensity for filing separate concurrences and i did sense. actions that -- and dissents. actions that some colleagues took as judicial grandstanding, and more to the point an effort to position himself for a supreme court seat. auditioning. in fact, kavanaugh dissented more each year on the bench than any of his d.c. circuit colleagues, whether republican or democratic appointees.

kavanaugh made clear that he would be on the team if on the court. kavanaugh pumped up the major questions doctrine, one of the hothouse legal theories pushed by the far right. it says that courts should ignore an agency's authority to solve a problem if the court thinks the problem is too big. big regulated companies love having regulatory agencies hobbled. so this was cat nip for scheme donors. the majority in that case panned kavanaugh's major questions idea which hadn't been raised by the parties. but kavanaugh wasn't out to win votes from colleagues or to do justice in that case. he was firing an auditioning flare for scheme operatives and don't nors -- donors to see from

miles around. like barrett, kavanaugh did his own publicity. he spoke at 52 -- count them, 5s over his career. you almost couldn't keep him out. and he wasn't the only one seeking an audience with the federalist society donor elite. after trump's election, nine of the 21 people on trump's short list spoke at a three-day federalist society panel dedicated to remembering justice scalia. almost all the others were hanging out, mingling in the crowd. it was a judicial beauty pageant, with some real beauties. kavanaugh had a little problem. he wasn't on trump's first list of potential supreme court picks. and he wasn't on the second list either. but all that eager auditioning got him onto the third list, and the rest is history.

i'm not alone in noting all this auditioning. here is how one writer for "slate" paraphrased former u.s. district judge nancy gertner about scheme auditioning -- conservative justices auditioning for the supreme court of the united states go all out proving their federalist society bona fides. gorsuch used this totie himself as a -- to advertise himself as a die hard proponent of religious freedom. kavanaugh flaunted his support of the unitary executive and hostility to reproductive rights to earn a spot on president trump's short list. amy coney barrett brandished her second amendment maximallism. end quote. as the "slate" writers note, the

conservative legal movement rewards this kind of flagrantly ideological auditioning. if republicans demand evidence that their justices will aggressively overturn precedent and laws that conflict with their political goals. end quote. as i said earlier, no more souters, no more stevenses. that's the auditions by these sitting justices. i'll close my remarks with an example of what happens when you haven't auditioned for the scheme. when justice sandra day o'connor announced her retirement, george w. bush wanted to replace her with his friend and loyal white house counsel hair yet myers -- hairy yet myers. myers was a died in the -- dyed in the wool conservative. she served bush and his inner circle faithy. but she wasn't -- faithfully.

but she wasn't a federalist society insider. she didn't have a record of auditioning for the big donors behind the federalist society's turnstyle. she couldn't soothe those right wing donors that she was no souter, no stevens. her sin wasn't anything in particular. she just wasn't part of the club. as supreme court scholar amanda hollis br esky put it, the message leonard, leo, and others sent was, if you want to rise through the ranks, we need to know you. and that's what they were all saying about myers. we don't know her. she is not one of us. leonard leo, by the way, is sort of the spider at the center of the web of donor interests that drive the turn style at the federalist society during republican presidencies.

mr. president, we are now embarking on the confirmation process of someone who has not auditioned to donor elites for a seat on the united states supreme court. no dark money machine guided her selection. that's refreshing. still, the auditioning continues on the right for the next time a republican president holds office. scheme donors expect standout candidates who wear their commitment to their donor welfare on their sleeves. watch closely for more. to be continued. i yield the floor. mr. portman: mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: mr. president, i come to the floor again today to stand with the people of ukraine. what russia is doing to ukraine and its citizens is an atrocity. ukraine is an american ally and an independent and democratic country of 41 million people who simply want to live in peace. the russian invasion is an illegal, unprovoked, and brutal assault that over the past 19 days since the full-scale invasion began has targeted and killed thousands of civilians. americans have seen this atrocity in real time with horrific videos online or on our television screens. the videos and photos have sometimes been shocking. remember the one of the woman who was on a stretcher, pregnant leaving the maternity hospital

that had been bombed by the russians. we now learned that that woman and her baby have died. today we learn more journalists have been killed including an american journalist, fox news camera person. i just returned last night from a bipartisan congressional delegation trip to poland neighboring ukraine. i was joined on that trip by senator klobuchar, senator wicker and senator blumenthal. i see senator wicker is on the floor. senator blumenthal is also here. senator klobuchar has a conflict. she wanted to be here but she's going to be submitting her statement for the record to join us tonight. we had a very emotional trip because we talked to a lot of the refugees coming out of ukraine. talked about the incredible trauma they're going through.

we also got some very sobering briefings when we were over there from our own team that also -- but also from the polish government, from people who are helping the refugees. it's a very difficult situation. poland is doing what they can to help their neighbor. they have a special bond with ukraine. and they're doing a lot. in fact, most of the nearly two million refugees who have fled ukraine because of this invasion and the brutal attacks have come to poland where they have been met with open hearts and open homes. literally people in poland are opening up their homes to these refugees. we were at the border where some of these polish families have come to welcome ukranians into their apartments or into their homes. in addition to briefings from our u.s. embassy team in poland, the u.s. embassy team from ukraine who are now in poland,

the u.s. military in poland, and the polish government, we did go down to the border between ukraine and poland to meet with the border officials from poland, u.s. and polish international relief organizations and of course with the refugees themselves who are streaming across the border. roughly a hundred refugees every minute are leaving ukraine. it was heartbreaking to hear their stories, you can imagine. we spoke to them at the border crossing but also a couple of miles away, what's called the reception center, a convention center that's been converted into a place where you toes of refugees can come, get a good night's sleep, maybe stay for a few days, a few weeks, find food, find health care, mental health treatment. most of this, by the way, has been donated. the polish people have donated bed sheets and blankets and quilts. we worked there as volunteers with what's called the world

central kitchen, something -- actually a washington, d.c. chef has set up at natural disaster areas to help feed people. he's now doing in on the border with ukraine and in ukraine. in fact, he has about 20 different world central kitchens set up. this one was at this reception center being used by refugee families who need to find some comfort and food as they have made a long trek in many cases across ukraine to get there. there are also lots of displaced people in ukraine itself and those people are being helped by the same group, this world central kitchen. i thank them. i thank all the volunteers that give them support and help so that they can lend a hand at these reception centers and help these refugees along their way. i also thank so many other volunteers we saw there from

every organization. catholic relief organizations, other faith-based organizations, world health organization, and others. we were at the border only about six hours after the russian missiles had attacked and killed at least 35 and wounded more than 130 at a ukranian training center just 15 miles away. the border guards said they had felt the earth tremble when the bombing attack occurred, again just several hours before we got there. this was the first russian attack so close to the western border with europe and so close to a nato ally, a potentially dangerous new phase of the russian assault. we met refugees there from all over the country. the vast majority of whom were mothers with their children, sometimes grandmothers with their grandchildren, men between 18 and 60 are required to stay and fight. so we heard some really tough

stories about families being split apart and moms and wives and sisters wondering whether their sons and husbands and brothers who are in harm's way were still alive. some refugees had traveled by bus, some by foot, some on trains, some had come over ukraine for several days. they told of heart wrenching stories of their homes being destroyed, of friends and families being wounded by the indiscriminate russian bombing of civilian areas. they had backpacks or small suitcases. that's it. they had to travel and travel quickly and travel light. they left everything else behind, including again in some cases family members. some again had been traveling for several days. one family we met from the eastern part of ukraine said it had been over two weeks. some who lived close to the border had only made the difficult decision to leave

their homes that very morning after the bombing of the training center 15 miles away. refugees spoke with tears in their eyes about the pain of leaving their homeland and all the families i spoke with said they want to go back when it's safe. many said they appreciated what america had done but just about every single refugee we talked to asked that the united states of america and other countries around the world do more, particularly to stop the deadly bombing of civilian targets and the senseless destructions of their towns and cities. in particular they begged us to close the skies as they said, keep us from getting bombarded. stop the carnage. they were very proud of the courage of the ukranian sol soldiers. they're patriots. and of course of the citizen soldiers, sometimes including their own family who stepped forward. they're proud of the bravery and leadership of president

zelenskyy but consistent with what we heard from the military experts on the trip and what many of us have heard directly from president zelenskyy, these families, these refugees, the grandmothers, the mothers said the ability to provide better air cover with more and better ways to protect them is what they really want. what president zelenskyy and others have said is better antiair systems, better ways to protect against missile attacks, antimissile systems, drones, airplanes, that that's the single most important thing we can do to save lives and give ukranian military fighters the civilian soldiers we talked about, professional soldier, give them a chance, give them a fighting chance. other countries in the front lines also need to know we're with them, especially our nato allies because they're nervous, as you can imagine. while in poland we met with hundreds of 82nd airborne troops who have come to poland the past couple of weeks along

with some troops from other nato countries. we've gone if about 5,000 u.s. -- from about 5,000 u.s. troops in poland to 10,000 troops over the past couple of weeks and the polish government and the polish people are deeply appreciative. they believe that this is a deterrent to russia making an even bigger mistake coming into their country. we received extensive briefings from the polish government but also from the 82nd airborne and we were able to join troops for dinner to hear directly from them. i was fortunate there were a lot of ohioans there and hearing from them made me very, very proud that they're willing to step forward and serve their country in this way. we listened carefully to everybody. listened to the refugees, listened to the humanitarian aid workers, listened to the u.s. diplomats to the military experts as well as the polish military officials. there were differences of opinion, to be sure, on some of the specifics. but actually broad agreement on

the ongoing role of the united states can play. based on what we learned the following steps should be taken immediately. first on the military side, we've got to redouble our efforts to provide ukraine with the equipment and the munitions they need and were necessary the immediate training to provide the air defenses they need to give them better capabilities, defense and offense. whether to facilitate providing more mig 29's from poland or not has been hotly debated in this past week. in my view we should have done it when it got that initial green light from part of this biden administration because the ukranians asked for them. i don't believe they are any more escalatory than the escalation that the russians are engaged in virtually every day and what we have done on other weapon transfers. so they should have done it immediately, quietly. but the administration seems to have dug in on this for now and

it's become too much of a public debate. i would hope that at least they would facilitate spare parts and other assistance to keep the current ukranian planes flying. perhaps more promising is to immediately help ukraine bolster its antiair systems. the u.s. can and should facilitate the transfer of soviet antiaircraft and antimissile systems so the ukranians know how to operate them and there are a number of regional partners who have this equipment. without going into detail, this should also include extra munitions to replenish existing antiair batteries that the ukranians have. in conjunction with transferring antiair systems and aircraft, we need to continue to provide stingers and enhancements to them. all can be useful in shooting down the russian fighters and the missiles that are raining bombs on innocent ukraine civilians and causing so much needless death and destruction. we must find ways to quickly

provide ukraine with more armed drones such as the turkish tb-2 which the ukranians know how to use and have been devastatingly effective on the battlefield already. especially now that congress has passed the omnibus spending bill with a bumpup of defense and additional security systems for ukraine and higher drawdown authority for the president, there can be no excuse for a gap in the flow of arms to ukraine. we want to be sure that this is seamless and as we complete one traunch of help to ukraine, there cannot be a gap before we do another. we must move more quickly. ukraine needs this help as a as a matter of fact of hours and days, not as a matter of weeks or months. in addition to the items mentioned above, this also means more antitank javelins, antitank mining, antiship weapons, and more.

so the brave ukranian soldiers can continue to protect their country and their citizens. before i talk about the second part of this which is the humanitarian side of this effort, i'd like to ask my colleagues who i see here on the floor with me if they had any comments particularly about what ukraine needs right now in terms of military assistance to be able to be effective or other comments that they might have. a senator: would the gentleman yield and perhaps we can proceed in colloquy form. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wicker: thank you. i thank my dear friend from ohio and i see we've been joined by my friend from connecticut. we did have a bipartisan american delegation in poland and on the ukranian border this weekend. i don't recommend for tourism purposes a weekend trip to

eastern europe and back. it's a pretty hard -- it's pretty hard on the anatomy. but i think we flew the colors for the united states, for the united states senate, and made a bipartisan point. and my colleagues can speak for themselves about exactly where they come down on these issues. but it was clear from the statements we made that the united states can do more and should be bo -- and should be dg more and i call on the administration tonight to listen to the -- the learned words of the distinguished senator from ohio. yes, i support the migs from poland and from other eastern european countries. i think the debate got awfully heightened. i don't know why we needed to have an international discussion among allies about that rather

than just do it. and maybe that should be a lesson to us on other decisions which i hope we're about to make. about there are certainly other weapons that we can facilitate in delivering. does it make any sense, madam president, to say smaller weapons delivered from the united states are okay to fire against the russian aggressors in putin's war, but more effective mig aircraft from nato somehow would be escalatory? listen, our friends are in a war against the remaining dictator and tyrant on the face of the earth, and if we're not willing, as we're not, to get involved directly in that war, yes, we ought to give our friends the weapons they need to win.

and let me say this. i hear debate in the up in and in the -- in the newspaper and in the media even today about an off ramp. what putin would agree to to simply quit fighting. we'd give him some of the territory that he thinks he's already conquered. ukraine would get to have part of the their country and everything would be okay. it makes me feel like somehow i've been transported to 1938 and 1939 hearing talk about what adolf hitler might agree to to avoid a world war. now, madam president, it is my understanding that the distinguished majority leader has a unanimous consent request. and i'm willing to defer our debate at this point to accommodate some administrative matters that need to be taken care of. mr. schumer: i want to the thank my friend and colleague

from mississippi, as well as my friend and colleague from ohio and from connecticut. and we have one very important unanimous consent request, which i'm going to mention now and then ask that unanimous consent and then do the other ones as well. so it'll take a few minutes, and i appreciate that. so in a few minutes we will pass a resolution. we will pass a resolution, senate res. 546 condemning the russian federation, condemning vladimir putin, and expressing the sense of the senate condemning the russian federation, putin, and members of russian security council, russian armed forces and russian military commanders for committing atrocities, alleged war crimes against the people of ukraine. now, it's been 19 days, madam

president -- 19 long, bloody day, sips the war erupted on the european continent. today all of us in this chamber join together as democrats, republicans to say that vladimir putin cannot escape accountability for the atrocities committed against the ukrainian people. the legislation passing today championed by senator graham sends an unmistakable message that the united states stands with ukraine, stands against putin, and stands with all efforts to hold putin accountable for the atrocities levied upon the ukrainian people. putin is not winning militarily, so now this evil man is trying to win by massacring civilians, massacring babies, parents, the elderly, pregnant women, shooting at hospitals, sending missiles to hospitals, apartment buildings, et cetera. just as he did in syria, just as it did in chechnya, wiping out the civilian population in hopes of winning. but in his monomaniacal hubris,

putin has severely, severely underestimated the ukrainian people. every time an innocent ukrainian is killed, the resolve of the ukrainian people grows stronger, and we stand with them. we've all seen the images, heard the stories, watched the videos of the realities of this awful war. hundreds, maybe even thousands, of civilians have been killed. as i said, from the elderly all the wait down to babies, not even a month old. these atrocities deserve to be investigated for war crimes. entire cities with hundreds of thousands of people have been left with no water, no power, no connection to the outside world. unable to overtake ukraine in a quick strike, russian forces seem to be openly targeting sites that have little significance. so today i am proud to ask unanimous consent and ask all of my colleagues to support today's legislation condemning putin's atrocities and supporting

efforts to hold him accountable before the eyes of the entire world. so now, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of senate res. 546 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 546, expressing the sense of the senate condemning the russian federation, president vladimir putin, members of the russian security council, the russian armed forces, and russian military commanders for committing atrocities, including alleged war crimes against the people of ukraine and others. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. schumer: i -- the presiding officer: the majority leader leader. mr. schumer: i know of no further debate on the measure. the presiding officer: if there is to further debate, the

question is on the measure. all those in favor, say aye. those opposed, say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the resolution is agreed to. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now, madam president, i have several more just wrap-ups. would the senator from mississippi just indulge me? it'll take about five minutes to do, three minutes. a senator: yes. mr. schumer: madam president -- understand i thank him once again. he is always courteous. even when we disagree, he's courteous. and i will hasten to say for his sake, which is often. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc -- calendars 420, 421, 423, 472, 784. that the senate vote on the

nominations en bloc, with no 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, and the senate resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the question is on the nominations en bloc. all those in favor, say aye. those opposed, say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nominations are confirmed en bloc. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, tomorrow, march 16 is at 11:45,

the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on executive calendar 656, the nomination of jack lean corley and on the nomination to invoke cloture on calendar 73, the nomination of fred slaughter. further, at 3:00 p.m., the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on calendar 682, the nomination of ruth montenegro, and the motion to invoke cloture on calendar 678, the nomination of victoria calvert. that, if cloture is invoked on any of these nominations, the senate vote on confirmation at a time to be determined by the majority leader or designee, following consultation with the republican leader. finally, that the remaining cloture motions ripen at a time to be determined by the majority leader or designee, following consultation with the republican leader. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: and, finally, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:30 a.m. on wednesday, march 16. and that following the prayer

and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the corley nomination. if any nominations are confirmed during wednesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be immediately notified of the senate's actions. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. schumer: for the information of senators, the first roll call votes of the date will begin at 11:45 a.m. if there is to further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of senators portman, wicker and blumenthal. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i yield the floor. mr. wicker: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: madam president, i thank the distinguished majority leader for working with the

distinguished minority leader and with senator graham, for bringing this important legislation to the floor tonight. it says what many of us have been saying for a long time and which i wish the president of the united states, our commander in chief, would explicitly say tonight or tomorrow, that vladimir putin is a serial war criminal and that he should be investigated by the war crimes authorities internationally, brought to justice, and made to pay not only for his genocide and war crimes of the last two and a half weeks but also for aleppo and grozny and the tens of thousands, tens of thousands of innocent civilians that he

has killed by his desires out of some other century to conquer his neighbors. i was mentioning 1938 and 1939, madam president. when hitler went into the sudan land he told other governments, that'll be the end of it. if we get that, we'll have peace in our time and some leaders of the allies were convinced that that was true. vladimir putin hasn't even said he's going to stop. -- stop with ukraine. so who in the world thinks that if he gets away with this he'll stop there? i don't believe he will, and here's why. not only aleppo, not only grozny, but this is a man who without question poisons his political opponents when they

leave the country to get medical treatment, he causes them to be charged for breaking the terms of their parole and puts them in prison. that's his political opponent, mr. navalny, who had the temerity to be a candidate for president against mr. putin. we're talking about the vladimir putin who authorizes the assassination of former members of the russian government because they have the temerity to oppose him. we talk about -- we're talking about the very same person in vladimir putin who jails persons for years and years who dare to oppose and disagree with him publicly, who invents enormous lies and gets some people even in the west to believe it when he broadcasts the enormous lies

through his monopoly of the media. this man can be stopped in this ukrainian war, and we're going to hear tomorrow morning from a courageous leader who has risen beyond the expectations of so many people in the free world, president zelenskyy, and i intend to be there along with my colleagues wishing him the best. i think i can say for our delegation, we might have nuances on how these things can be done, but we're united on ideas like getting the polish mig's somehow to -- into the hands of the ukrainian fighter pilots who can then use them to win the war. the equipment from other nato countries and european countries, enhancing ukraine's air defense, and sending more troops to harden the borders in

the eastern flank of our nato allies. i would say to the president of the united states, mr. biden, you have been too risk-averse, too late from time to time, from step to step on all of the sanctions that we've needed, on the delivery of weapons. we've brought the administration along, but they've been a day late or a couple of days late or a week late. it's time for us to show international leadership on this. even today, almost three weeks into the war, we have not yet dropped the full load of sanctions on russia. we need to do that. and i call on the president and the administration to listen to those of us who were just in eastern europe. history shows that weakness

breeds war. instead of pacifying tyrants, weakness emboldens tyrants. -- tyrants like vladimir putin.e good news is that with the represent of nato and werp arms, the ukrainian military defied all expectations. the intelligence reports we heard on the public medium this is nothing secret, was that three, four days the ukrainian military would be overrun by this vast russian military behemoth. that's not happened, in fact. these people defending their homeland, defending their country, through the leadership of president volodymyr zelenskyy, have shown courage, they refuse to flee, and they've rallied the american people and the entire world in a lesson of

leadership. if president zelenskyy survives till in the morning, i will be cheering him from capitol hill on his remarks, just as the british parliament did last week. this war is far from over. suffering and dying and refugees will continue every day, and i call on president biden to recognize that vladimir putin is not simply at war with ukraine, but they are at war with the entire free world, and this is our best opportunity to stop him. our baltic states, our baltic allies in nato understand this. they know they can be next on putin's kill list. now is our moment to make sure this is the last time that putin and his band of war criminals invade a sovereign country. we watched it happen with the

republic of georgia, in south acedia and in the donbas and crimea. it's time to stop vladimir putin's expansionism. we should be enabling the ukrainians to defend their own air space, and we've not yet done all we can do. we need to be creative, but madam president, we need to take calculated risks, because the future of the rules-based world order is at stake. it western deterrence has so far failed, and now putin is thinking he can succeed in shredding the rule book of the post-cold war international order. it is up to us, and it is up to our commander in chief, to restore faith in that order and to protect the free world.

and i'm glad to be joined on the floor with my friend, the distinguished senior citizen -- the distinguished senior senator from connecticut, and was honored to join him and our other colleagues on the trip this last weekend to eastern europe. mr. blumenthal: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, madam president. i want to thank my really distinguished and able colleagues and friends from ohio, senator portman, and senator wicker, and also senator klobuchar, who accompanied us on this trip and enabled us to be so much more effective because of her very perceptive and inciteful -- insightful wisdom on these topics and her experience with the issues that we confronted, and a special thanks to senator portman for so ably organizing us and also to

enable us to meet with senior members of the polish government, our own ambassador, mark brzezinski who is doing such a great job there, along with his team at the embassy, the brave men and women of the 82nd 82nd airborne division, and heart breakingly the women and children who are fleeing ukraine with nothing more than what they could carry on their backs. i want to thank as well senator schumer for bringing to the floor this resolution, and senator graham for his leadership. this resolution is a very powerful and compelling message to the world that the united states will stand strongly with the people of ukraine against this brutal, insidious invasion by vladimir putin and russia. and tomorrow, we will hear from president zelenskyy, who's

passionate and powerful -- whose passionate and powerful plea for action will, no doubt, illicit more words of support. but we need more than words now. we need more than declarations of support. we need action, action that will make a difference on the battlefield. it and let me just say very bluntly and simply, the ukrainian resistance has proved to be more courageous, resilient, tough, and effective than vladimir putin ever imagined. it has become the wonder and admiration of the world. it is not only their trained army, it is the men and women who took to the streets and the fields using weapons that we have supplied, the stinger and

javelin missile, to hit russia's most advanced weapons system, their aircraft as well as their tanks, and take them out. if the ukrainian people have a fair fight on the ground, they will win. they will drive russia out of their precious land. but right now there is no fair fight. right now in the skies putin dominates. he has the aircraft, the missiles to do insidious damage and to wound, damage, and destroy the ukrainian ground forces. and he is using that air superiority with consummate recklessness. while we were in poland, just

hours before we visited the border crossing at korchova, 30 of his missiles rained down on a training center in -- 12 miles away from that border crossing. the polish authorities there told us the ground shook with the tremor of those bombs hitting a training center just 12 miles from the polish border. vladimir putin was literally playing with fire. one of those missiles going astray into poland could have triggered dramatic escalation, nuclear confrontation, and destruction of unknown magnitude

vladimir putin is recklessly taking this fight westward in ukraine to the very border, the very doorstep of a nato ally that we have an obligation to defend. and part of our trip was to visit with the 82nd airborne. so impressive, these young men and women, in their intelligence as well as their dedication and bravery. they are holding the line. more and more of them are there. and they are also enabling support for ukraine in the kinds of arms -- stingers and javelin. but we must do more than what we are doing now, and in that respected i join my colleagues. we have a common message.

i personally appreciate what the administration has done in its providing support, those javelin and stinger missiles, the ammunition, the night goggles, drones, spare parts, and more. but we must do more to counter that air superiority, the dominance in putin's missiles and jet fighters. i personally believe that we should provide more air crafort, jet fighter -- aircraft, jet fighters, that president zelenskyy has desperately requested. but i also think there are tools that we can provide, antiair batteries, to bring down the

planes and the missiles, defense mechanisms, that vladimir putin cannot call escalatory under any possible definition. and likewise, means of defense that the people of ukraine desperately need and deserve to successfully defend. there is no way any of these weapons systems are offensive. they are defensive, whether it's planes, stinger and javelin missiles, drones, all of it is to defend their country and do it effectively and have a fair fight on the ground against putin's air dominance. we saw heartrendingly women and children coming from that

bombing in -- at the border crossing. literally, we visiting with them, spoke with them, saw and heard the grief and mystery, the trage -- grief and misery, the tragedy and drama they are enduring. almost all are women and children because the men stayed to fight. and they brought with them bags of clothing, their pets, stuffed animals, all they could carry, but no more, facing a future of total uncertainty, not knowing when, if at all, they would return, and when, if at all, they would see their husbands, brothers, sons who were left to fight. we must make sure that ukraine stays in that fight, and we can

do it if we raise our commitment. i appreciate what the administration has done in its skillful use of public intelligence, its uniting of our allies, it's adroit rallying of america, but now is the time to do more, and it must be done urgently. the time is now. days, weeks -- not on our side. time works against us. the longer we allow putin to command the skies in the way that he does now, the longer innocent people will be salutered in their homes, in -- slaughtered in their homes, hospital wards, and the longer the world is put at risk of another attack, a nuke lar

facility that could spread contamination throughout the world and even throughout europe. the trauma and terror on the faces of those women and children, the tears that we saw will stay with me forever. i was reminded of my own family, my dad, who came to this country in point 35 to escape the holocaust. he too came with not much more than the shirt on his back. he spoke virtually no english. he knew no one. he brought his entire family, his immediate family, but he lost much of his other family. america has always been a nation of immigrants and refugees, and we have always spread our generosity to them. and now, likewise, in connecticut we see the ukrainian american community providing

clothing and blankets, donations, along with the polish american community. indeed, throughout the state of connecticut and throughout the country america's hearts are going out to these refugees in this humanitarian crisis. that is what we do in america. that is what we saw, in fact, if americans and others doing at the world central kitchen in the reception area that we visited. my colleagues and i served chicken, vegetables, rice, potatoes for a couple or more hours to these refugees, and we had, i think, a tremendously uplifting experience. i mention it because, as senator portman has said so eloquently, even in the midst of this evil, we saw good in that team of the

world central kitchen, in the 82nd airborne, our men and women in uniform, in the embassy staff that were willing to risk their lives in kiev and stay in lviv. and finally move from lviv to warsaw. our foreign service, our men and women in uniform. and of course the people in poland who have welcomed these refugees literally, welcomed them into their homes, two million of them. 10% or more of the population of warsaw alone an effort of unprecedented magnitude in recent history. and as we returned home so

grateful for the good in those people, it was brought on me again to realize that this invasion was a war of choice, that evil inmoscow is one man -- in moscow is one man. i still believe the russian people if they knew what was going on in ukraine would throw him out. that is not to say that he should be assassinated or that he should be attacked. i believe that if there were a democratic process with full and fair information in russia, there is no way that vladimir putin would survive a democracy. and so i think we must continue

to tighten the economic sanctions to bring that pain home to the russians, to make them feel the hurt they've inflicted on others and to know that they have a responsibility to end this conflict. they must do more as we must do more. and our action must tighten and broaden economic sanctions to stop vladimir putin from continuing to reap the revenue of sales of oil and gas. i commend the administration for stopping importation of russian oil and gas to this country, but other western countries continue to do it and other countries around the world. and therefore i am partnering in a measure with senator blackburn of tennessee urging the president to work with our allies to halt russia's ability

to sell its oil and gas on western markets, to stop the connection of all russian banks to the swift financial system which is the means for him to reap that revenue. if he is cut off from it, his ability to sell that oil and gas and reap the revenue and finance his war machine is broken. and a second measure introduced today with senators whitehouse, graham, and my colleague from mississippi senator wicker provides the president with authority to seize and sell all of the super yacht, the jets, mansions, and luxury possessions of putin's criminal kleptocracy as well as his cronies, his family an anders -- and others.

these ill begotten gains will be used to support freedom fighters and provide humanitarian assistance to those refugees we saw escaping. i have no illusions that putin can be forced right away to the negotiating table, but these measures will eventually force him to respond. we must give the people of ukraine a fair fight. we must act immediately to provide them with support they need to stop putin's war in the air. much as winston churchill rallied britain in the battle of britain to survive and resolve at the beginning of world war ii in the battle of britain to resist hitler's onslaught from

the air, so, too, the people of ukraine are fighting their battle. and we must respond with action. our security is at peril. our defense is at risk. the economic implications are perilous. and the world order is threatened. this time is a turning point, and we must enable ukraine to chart its own course to remain as a free and sovereign nation and to have a fair fight. i yield the floor and i yield back to my colleague from mississippi. mr. wicker: the senator from connecticut is correct to commend the massive effort to

prevent the humanitarian suffering in ukraine and in poland. the dozens of nongovernmental organizations, such as the world food kitchen, the usaid agency, a part of our federal government, the world food programme, the diplomatic corps beet of the united states -- both of the united states and our allies and certainly our american military, the 82nd airborne. but let me conclude by making this profoundly important point. what we have heard tonight, madam president, on both sides of the aisle, are bipartisan calls for us to do more. in this system that we have

under our constitution, we have one commander in chief at a time. and we have heard from democrats and republicans tonight on the floor of the united states senate that we need to do more. this administration needs to do more. of this commander in chief can do more and needs to do more to help this small country preserve their freedom, to win against this war criminal and his unprovoked aggression, and to preserve the international order that has governed nations, civilized nations for decades and decades. i hope the administration is hearing the bipartisan message that we bring back from our observations and that we're hearing from our constituents.

and i yield back to my dear friend from ohio. thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: first i want to say i appreciate my colleagues being on the floor tonight and their really moving statements about the crisis in ukraine and the atrocities that are being committed there. i think what you did tonight is you added a lot of lex tur and per expect -- texture and perspective to the resolution that just passed this body by a unanimous vote. nobody objected. we're now on record here in this body with a strong statement of support for ukraine and strong opposition to the atrocities being committed and our commitment to do more. so again i appreciated being with you in poland and i appreciated you coming to the floor tonight. i'm going to pick off where i left off and talk a little more about what we can do because that is the real question that faces us here in the united states senate. we talked a lot about military

assistance tonight and we -- -- we again i think had a consensus among us as to what we need to do to help the ukranians protect themselves, particularly from the aerial assault they're under. i know we -- another colleague who couldn't be here on the floor because of scheduling concerns as i said earlier, senator klobuchar, but she will be making a statement for the record that will go along with our statements tonight, and i look forward to seeing that. the four of us got in about midnight last night, and we come back with a heavy heart but also lots of advice for our government as to how we can do more. on the humanitarian side the u.s. has got a key role to play as well, not just on military assistance but ensuring that people who are fleeing this conflict and people internally displaced have the help they need. we support our european partners who have opened their homes as i said earlier and their borders to ukranian refugees. in fact, they have provided a three-year visa in essence to ukranians in the european union

and permission to work. this is a i think a strong signal of the special relationship that the countries of the e.u. feel toward ukraine who i hope some day will be a member of the european union as do they. congress just passed some immediate help for ukraine. it was in legislation called the omnibus appropriation bill a few days ago. that will help a.i.d. here in the united states and other organizations around the worlden able to help with these -- world be able to help with these refugees and help ukranians trapped in cities under seen. this is the number one city right now. cities like mariupol. you probably read people have been without food or water for days, for days. there was a child, a girl apparently who died of dehydration recently and others are going to be finding themselves in impossible situations not knowing where

their next meal may come from. so we need to help them, particularly in these cities in the east and south in the country that are under such terrible siege and being surrounded. this is an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, and it's being caused by vladimir putin's attack on ukraine, vladimir putin's war and russia's war. the actions that they have undertaken have created the largest movement of refugees in europe since world war ii. that's already. by the way, i favor seizing rather than freezing the assets of kremlin officials and oligarchs and in providing those proceeds to the refugees. doesn't that make sense? so when a billionaire has his assets frozen, it's one thing. but when they are seized as some countries have done, france, germany. the united states needs to step up and do that as well.

we should be leading on this, not following. that's another thing we can do to help get proceeds to help with the humanitarian efforts. but i also have a message tonight to those russian officials and to the russian commanders on the ground which is that you have a choice to make. you can stop this atrocity. can you refuse the orders to kill innocent civilians. you can stop this atrocity that's already taken the lives of thousands of civilians, men, women, and children, your neighbors, your neighbors, some with family connections to russia who want nothing more than just to live in peace. you can stop this atrocity. disobey the orders. the world is watching. and the war crimes are being recorded. you have a choice. on sanctions, we talked a little

bit about this earlier tonight but we need more and faster sanctions. we need to remove all russian banks from their access to the global financial system. russia must be financially cut off from the rest of the world or it won't work. we've already seen the pain that we can inflict using a portion of our sanction authority. we need to do more. we need to exert maximum pressure to ensure no money can be sent to russia to fund the war effort. this was one reason it was so important that we finally stop the importation of russian oil and gas. why would we want to spend $40 million, $50 million a day which we were sending to russia to be used for the war machine? but we can implement full blocking sanctions on all russian banks and we can ensure that energy transactions are not exempt from these sanctions. that's very important. because right now there are some exemptions for energy. russia should not use its oil profits to kill innocent ukranians. that should be our principle.

we should not allow money to flow down like water in cracks in the pavement. we should pass legislation to ensure that these funds stop and not by june 24 which is in the sanctions that the administration has put forward but now. blocking sanctions now, not for the energy sector transactions on june 24. that's too long. i think we should move ahead with legislation to cut off most favored nation treatment. this is permanent trade relationship with russia we granted back in 2012 bringing them into the world trade organization. access to the united states market is a privilege, not a right. and we should not only ensure that we are not giving russia that privilege of access to our market, lower tariffs on all kinds of products including oil and gas but also to other countries of the world follow suit. that way it would be much more

effective. but i'd like to go beyond most favored nation treatment tonight and suggest we also suspend our tax treaty with russia. why would we want to have a tax treaty that provides tax benefits to russian businesses? again, our principle there could be no tax breaks for invaders. that would make more sense. we also need to sanction the russian energy sector with currency and blocking sanctions. as i said, right now, not by june 24. i know this is more difficult for the europeans, who are more dependent on russia for energy. but there are many steps the united states can take to help expand energy production here at home appeared help our allies a-- and help our allies abroad. i met someone who is trying to set up l.n.g. terminals in places like germany and ireland

to bring liquefied natural gas -- we have plenty of natural gas in this country. we should use it to help our allies. finally, i would like to advocate for a similar approach as to how we designated -- we didn't sanction waivers to companies who continued to do business with iran's economy. we forced companies to leave iran even at their displeasure. bottom line, it can't be business as usual. there's a popular ukrainian national rallying cry. it's slava ukraini. there is a response which is, glory to the heroes, [speaking non-english] and even in these

dark times, there are many heroes. while we heard firsthand about the first of humanity represented by the brutal bombings of civilian targets, we also saw the best of humanity at work when we saw acts of kindness and generosity, polish border guards helping carry suitcases of mothers who were overwhelmed as they carried young children in their arms fleeing from the only home they've ever known. volunteers at the centers where they provided health care and provided meals to thousands of families. and in the midst of this atrocity, there are so many heroes to glorify in ukraine. yes, glierry to the heroes. -- glory to the heroes. the brave border guards. the grandmother walking up to russian soldiers and handing them sunflower seeds.

if you don't leave, this is so something beautiful will grow on your grave. the courageous president of ukraine who when asked by western countries if they could help him escape responded simply, i need ammunition, not a ride. i need ammunition, not a ride. president zelenskyy's bravery, resilience has been an inspiration to ukrainians and freedom-loving people everywhere. tomorrow he'll be here virtually in a joint session of congress to talk to all of us, and i look forward to it. glory to the everyday heroes who are caring for the wounds, feeding desperate families huddling in basements and subway stations, glory to the professional soldiers and citizens alike who are taking up arms and putting their lives on the line to defend their beloved homeland and the cause of freedom against great odds. glory to the heroes. [speaking non-english]

godspeed to hem in their battle for a free and independent ukraine. some may ask and some of my colleagues have asked, why does the senator from ohio get involved in ukraine? why do you care? well, tens of thousands of ukrainian americans call ohio home, as do hundreds of thousands he was others who trace their family to that part of the world. it is an honor to represent them and their values. i stood together with a thousand fellow ohioans in a prayer rally for ukrainians in parma, ohio. we prayed for friends and family in ukraine in harm's a way. we prayed for the courageous ukrainian troops and asked for god's wisdom and blessing on the actually elected government of ukraine. and of course for the protection of president zelenskyy. ohioans like andy fute and martha are coordinating efforts to provide humanitarian relief and need in ukraine and in neighboring european countries.

they're heading up through the united ukrainian organizations of ohio a fund called the fund to aid ukraine. i've contributed to it. they do great work. two weeks ago sunday, i was honored to speak at an emotional rally here in washington, d.c., much like the one in parma, ohio. many ohioans were there. and this past weekend on the border between ukraine and poland, ohioans were there. volunteering. even if i didn't have a single constituent of ukrainian descent, i would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the people of ukraine because this fight is our fight. this is where in our generation at this time all freedom-loving people are called to defend what we hold dear. eight years ago ukrainians made a choice. they stood up to a corrupt drugs-backed government -- corrupt russian-backed

government. they stood up for peace and prosperity and the rule of law. they looked to america and thette u. they chose tyranny over freedom. they chose democracy over a authoritarian regime. i was there is right after the heavenly hundred who shooed up to the corrupt russian-backed government, the maidan. i saw the commitment that the people of ukraine had to independence, to charting their own course. right now, those friends in ukraine need our help. we cannot let this call to action go unanswered. we cannot sit by and watch as innocent civilians are brutally killed. america and our allies must stand up for freedom and the world is watching. our friends are watching. our adversaries are watching. we must show them that america stands with ukraine. i yield back my time.

the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: i want to add one more quotation to the very stirring and powerful words that my colleague from ohio has just given us. decades ago president john f. kennedy went to berlin and in a statement of resolve and commitment that mobilized the world he said then, i am a berliner. and he spoke for america. today we are all ukrainians, just as he said that he is an american, was a berliner, today we're ukrainians. my colleague from ohio is

absolutely right that this fight is ours and there are actions we can take, not just words, that will make a difference. actions that should not and will not involve american troops or escalatory response, actions that will be in the best traditions of the united states going back to our own revolution when we overcame a more massive british force. we didn't need to defeat them. we simply needed to survive. and by surviving, george washington understood that the british would be defeated. and so we can enable the resilience and reseveral of the ukrainian people -- resolve of the ukrainian people to defeat the russians if we give them what they need, if we give them

more of what we have been giving them. and today truly this bell tolls for us, and it is the world's fight, not just the ukrainians'. i thank my senator, my friend and fellow senator from ohio for leading us on this trip. and i hope that our colleagues -- a few of them may have heard us tonight at this hour, but i hope they will come to the floor and that we will continue this conversation because it is a debate that really unites all of us across the aisle. -- as did the resolution that passed overwhelmingly. thank you. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 10:30 stands adjourned until 10:30

sent today approved a bill making daylight saving time permanent. also confirmed young to be director of the white house office of management and budget passed a resolution condemning russia for invading ukraine. also on the agenda this week the senate will consider a number of president biden's judicial nominations. watch live coverage of the senate when they returned here on cspan2. ♪ c-span issue unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more including cox. >> cox is committed to providing eligible families access to affordable internet to the connect compete program. bridging the digital divide one connected and engaged at a time.

cox, bring us closer. >> cox service along with these others television providers. give me front row seat to democracy. >> on wednesday ukrainian president zelenskyy will give an update to congress remotely about the russian invasion as the war in his country intensifies. watch live coverage at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, online@c-span.org or watchful coverage on our free video app c-span now. next a look at the laws and procedures in place to help preserve presidential records and other federal documents for this was held by the homeland security and governmental affairs committee. it is just over an hour. [background noises]