>> you can see the rest of this "washington journal" segment on our website c-span.org. right now on c-span2 as part of our decades long commitment to live gavel to gavel coverage of congress we take you to the u.s. senate which is considering several a president biden's nominees to serve in his administration. the clerk: cloture, we the under signed senators, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 791, c.s. eliot kang, to be assistant secretary of state, internati the presiding officer: the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 52, the nays are 47 and the motion is confirmed. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, department of state, eliot kang, of new jersey to be an international secretary international security and nonproliferation.

how the fed will respond to one of the most pressing challenges facing pennsylvania and the nation . we learned inflation hit four almost 8%.

prices are skyrocketing for just about everything, gasoline, food, rent. the amount of money americans have to pay for basic goods and services that they need every week are going up, and they're going up much faster than their wages. that means working americans are falling further and further behind. under the guise of fighting disinflation my colleagues across the aisle on the senate banking committee have urged the swiss confirmation of president biden's slate of nominees to the federal reserve board. chairman of the committee said president biden's nominees are quote ready to get to work fighting inflation. and yet we could have confirm nominees many weeks ago. still haven't voted on two of the nominees that have unanimous republican support, and near unanimous democratic support which makes you wonder about our colleagues amendment to this urgency.

maybe it's because our democratic colleagues know that even if we don't confirm these nominees, the fed has nine out of 12 voting member on the fomc in place. that is more than enough to raise rates if they decide they should raise rates to fight inflation. how do we know for sure that that is more than enough? at the last meeting just two weeks ago the fed did, in fact, raise interest rates. so it was never the case that the fed somehow unable to fight inflation until the nominees are confirmed.

the white house cites as her main qualification for the us monetary policy her appointment as a chicago fed the rector. the appointment was made in january of this year. two weeks before president biden announced professor cook's nomination >>

-- impartiality and if the nominee is so far outside the mainstream. i opposed a number of president trump's nominees who met one or multiple of these criteria but i also supported a larger percentage of president trump's nominees. even though these were not people i expected to agree with

on policy, they didn't fall afoul of the three criteria that i look at in a primary way. i'm here today because of several nominees within the jurisdiction of multiple committees i set on. they're being blockaded and i would like to focus on one just now. amy lloyd is nominated to be the assistant secretary of education for career, technical, and adult education. ms. lloyd designed and -- led programs across the united states in her prior role at the education think tank jobs for the future and native american educational advocacy group. she had a distinguished academic career attending community college first in santa fe prior to a doctorate in education leadership from harvard graduate school of education. she is a lifelong professional in the field of career and technical education. and she brings personal life experience in the field having

begun her career at community college. i believe she is an outstanding point person for president biden when it comes to matters of career and technical education. the committee on health, education, labor, pensions advanced her nomination by a voice vote with no recorded opposition. i sit on the help committee. i'm the chairman of the bipartisan senate career and technical education caucus. i was proud to support her. although i do not know ms. loyd personally, i do have a personal connection to her nomination. my dad ran a welding and iron working shop. i grew up working in that shop with my two brothers and my mother. i saw the power of career and technical education and the art i.r.s.ry of the iron workers who worked in my dad's business. when i was in the middle of law school, i took a year off to go be a missionary in honduras and ran a school that taught kids to be carpenters and welders. again, seeing the power of career and technical education. and i think there's a bipartisan

understanding in this body and the house, really in society at large that we may have undervalued career and technical education in recent generations and as we're contemplating things like an infrastructure bill or other important priorities to grow the economy, we need to put more stress, not less on the value of career and technical education. so as a snore, i'm proud to have made this one of my central policy fields working on c.t.e. bills with many, many colleagues on both sides of the aisle. there's a hold on amy loyd's nomination. and that's the right of those who would hold her. but i'm here specific because i'd like to know why. i'd ask my colleagues under which of the three buckets does ms. loyd's nomination fall short. is there a perception that she's not qualified? is there a perception that she's not ethical? is there a perception her views on career and technical education are outside the mainstream. you don't have to support

president biden's nominee if she's confirmed, part of her job will be answering tough questions from colleagues. but i'd ask my colleagues if you're voting against nominees of any president from the other party, not because of flaws of the kinds i described, what does that get us? the american people put democrats for a period of time in charge of both of the executive and legislative branches. the american public often vote for divided government. does that mean that any time the white house and the senate are controlled by different parties, the parties just won't have anybody in their administration? what does that get our country? i think we know the answer, dysfunction. clearly, madam president, as i conclude, there are nominees who engender significant controversy either because of the peculiar nature of the post they've been nominated or their charter. i know of no such controversy, either about the position or herself. i think if we were to succeed in

the necessary project of elevating the importance of career and technical education, we need to have ms. loyd confirmed in her position. for that reason i ask unanimous consent that the senate consider the following nomination, calendar 669, amy loyd to be assistant secretary for career, technical, and adult education, department of education, that the senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate, that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. lee: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: madam president, reserving the right to object. i do think it's significant that the parties' now in the majority that was previously in the minority took a different position when it was not in the minority, when it was not in the majority, and when a president of their political party was not in power.

there was elaborate and i believe excessive delay in the confirmation of a lot of nominees, even more so than what we're seeing now. i do have concerns that are particular to this particular nominee and not generalized, not concerns that can be dismissed simply as a result of basic partisan disagreements. but based on views that are considerably outside the mainstream and that are radical and harmful. let me explain. as vice president of the think tank jobs for the future, mrs. loyd was responsible for overseeing that organization's workforce development efforts through the lines of diversity, equity, and inclusion. it's of great concern to me that this body of work produced reports that promulgated ideas aimed at furthering the divisive agenda of critical race theory and e.s.g. scores. one of the most alarming of these reports was one that was

published on september 8, 2020, which assert thad due to, quote, unconscious or implicit bias toward minorities, managers are limiting the advancement or promotions of minorities in the workforce. these divisive, inflammatory assumptions are dangerous to the civil fabric of our society. elevating individuals who espouse this dangerous and divisive ideology to key leadership positions within the federal government will only further divide americans. pitting them one against another. we should instead seek to elevate into positions of leadership those who aim to unify the american people and emphasize the importance of making sure that people are evaluated on the basis of the character of their heart, not the color of their skin. her work has done the opposite of that. in good conscience, i cannot and will not support the nomination of mrs. loyd and on that basis i object. the presiding officer: the

objection is heard. mr. kaine: madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: >> high-rise to speak on the

nomination of lisa cook to serve as governor of the release board. on the nomination is how the fed will respond to one of the most pressing challenges facing pennsylvania and the nation. earlier this month, we learned inflation hit afour decade high . almost 8 percent. prices are skyrocketing for almost everything. gasoline, food, rent. the amount of money americans have to pay for basic goods and servicesthey need every week are going up and they're going up much faster than their wages . that means working americans are falling further and further behind. now, under the guise of fighting disinflation my colleagues across the isle have urged this with confirmation of president biden's slate of nominees to the federalreserve board . the chairman of the committee said presidents biden's

nominees are ready to get to work fighting inflation. and yet we could have confirmed nominees many weeks ago. still haven't voted on two of the nominees that have unanimous republican support and near unanimous democrats support which makes you wonder about our colleagues commitment to this urgency. now, maybe it's because our democratic colleagues know even if we don't confirmthese nominees , the fed has nine out of 12 voting members on the fomc in place.that is more than enough to raise rates if they decide they should raise rates to fight inflation. how do we know for sure that's more than enough? at their last meeting two weeks ago the fed did in fact raise interest rates so it

was never the case that the fed is somehow unable to fight inflation until the nominees are confirmed. so it should be asking ourselves is are these nominees going to be the inflation fighters that we need that the white house claims they are? in my view one of these nominees, professor lisa cook dramatically fails this test. first of all professor cook has nearly 0 experience and monetary policy. now, she does have a phd in economics but not a single one of her publications concerns monetary economics. the white house cites as her main qualification for appointment as a chicago fed director. that appointment was made in january of this year. two weeks before president biden announced professor

cook's nomination to be a fed governor. and professor cook made clear in her conversation she is not participated in any policy ordecision-making so far in her term at the chicago fed and in fact describe her role aslimited to filling out paperwork . that's her quote. for a new position which is understandable . she's been here two weeks before she was nominated to the fed governorship. so that appointment to the regional fed certainly doesn't count as a qualification to serve as the main fed governor, professor cook herself has acknowledged her academic work on monetary issues is let's say sparse. when asked to list few works on monetary policy for the banking committee she provided only one and that was a book chapterabout nigerian bank reforms in 2005 . what's even more troubling is that in addition to having no monetary policy experience, professor cook also appears

to have no opinion at all on how the fed should address inflation. professor cook refused to endorse the fed's decision to pull back its ultra easy monetary policy and only did god truly say she agreed with the feds right now at her nomination hearing in february. prior to that she couldn't bring herself to acknowledge that maybe it was time for the fed to change the policy that have contributed to the worst inflation we've seen in 40 years . professor cook's answers to basic questions about what tools the fed should useand how should the fed consider using them in order to get inflation under control, her answer was nothing more than an incomprehensible word salad .professor cook has continued that she would need to be confirmed to the fed before she could have a view on inflation because in her own words and i quote we don't have access to all the data that has. and also quote, we don't have access to thedeliberations at the time they're being made .

these statements are due will during coming from someone who's been nominated to address the most pressing inflationary threat in nearly 2 generations. to be clear the fed has no secret data as professor cook seems to believe. that monetary policy including the recent order one percent increase in the money supply is extremely transparent . and if professor cook is counting on fed economists to guide her in making a prediction about inflation than first of all they've been wrong on inflation consistently, very wrong. and secondly what is she going to do on the fed, what is her role there all she's going to do is take instruction from fed staff? just about every economist in the country as an opinion about inflation right now because the data is all readily apparent and extremely disturbing. every other nominee to the federal reserve as an opinion

about inflation. and certainly every pennsylvanian i talked to has strongly held views about inflation. professor cook's claim made her nomination hearing last month said and i quote we have to be patient with the data and she was referring to rising consumer prices that certainly suggest what is to me an unacceptable toleration for the inflation that's ravaging american consumers. and that brings me to my second point. that is professor cook's history of extreme left-wing political advocacy and hostility to opposing viewpoints . the combination of which i think aches are unfit to serve on the fed. as i've said many times it's important we keep politics out of the money supply. the fed is supposed to be independent, apolitical so it can focus on his job . unfortunately we've seen the encroachment of politics at the historically independent

federal reserve and the fed is not doing sucha great job . our people on the left including an biden administration will openly advocate the fed use its regulatory powers to address complex political issues including what to do about global warming, social justice, even education policy . look, these are all important issues. very important issues butthey are completely unrelated .

paid for with russian energy.or with russian energy accounts for nearly half of putin's budget. energy's the only successful industry in the russian economy. if you want to defund vladimir putin, you have to drain his tank. you have to defund him on energy. so what have we seen from the president of the united states? well, joe biden spent all last

year acting like vladimir putin was his secretary of the energy. joe biden played right along. putin wanted it, biden did it, followed the secretary of energy. biden decided against sanctions on putin's nord stream 2 pipeline. people in this body, both sides of the aisle said mr. president, it sanction the pipeline, don't allow it. putin said i want it, biden gave it. actually, joe biden actually lobbied this body, the united states senate, to not do what we knew was the right thing to do in terms of sanctioning vladimir putin and the pipeline. biden caved to putin. biden also caved to putin by extending our nuclear arms reduction treaty without any conditions. essentially gave vladimir putin exactly what he wanted, a permission slip to build up the military.

even after the invasion, two weeks in, joe biden was still fine with buying russian oil. it took a bipartisan members of the house and the senate to stop it. he didn't ban russian oil because of the war. it was because of this bipartisan effort in congress, we finally forced his hand. dessments in -- democrats in congress were willing to stand up to the president of the united states and they were willing to join the republicans in overriding the president on this very matter. joe biden dragged his feet, so a bipartisan group in congress had to drag joe biden. every member of this body should remember what president zelenskyy had to say to us. he said, if there had been sanctions, meaning in january, he said, there would not have been a war. in january, i came to this floor, and i said history would not be kind to those who ran

interference for vladimir putin. it's even more true today. history will not be kind to those who stood by as vladimir putin planned, prepared, and paid for the invasion. at every step in this crisis congress has had to take the lead. the president had to be pulled along. congress had to drag joe biden into banning seven russian banks from the swift payment system. congress had to drag joe biden into revoking russia's trade status. congress had to drag joe biden into sending lethal aid to ukraine. two-thirds of this aid still hasn't been delivered. congress signed a check for $3 billion in weapons. so far it looks like joe biden has provided to ukraine about $800 million. so where are the weapons? where are the weapons right now?

no time to waste. senate people are being murdered so much of this joe biden has been not just a day late, but billions of dollars short, and he is leading from far, far behind. joe biden seems to be proud of himself. he went to europe last week, bragged about the sanctions on russia. well, there's still a lot of work to do. i'm here on the senate floor to tell you that we have more work to do in terms of dragging joe biden along. on friday joe biden announced an energy agreement with the european union. the white house listed 14 things that they would do. well, what was missing from that list? well, i'll tell you. the one thing that would actually work -- missing from the list of 14 was the thing that would actually work, which was increasing the production of american oil and gas.

under the agreement, europe will buy an additional 15 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year. now, that's about 10% of what they currently buy from russia. so, where's it going to come from? it's a legitimate question. they don't know. on friday, a biden official said this, he said, we can't speak to exactly where the natural gas is coming from. the white house also said that the suns will, quote, maintain -- the united states will, quote, maintain its regulatory environment. in other words, no change to current policy, the war on american energy will continue. and if you took a look at the budget that came out yesterday, there are 36 new taxes proposed, 11 of which are going to drive up the cost of american energy, at a time when the highest gas prices ever, 40% inflation, and the biden budget says we need to put more tax on the production of energy in this country.

we they'd to -- need to produce more energy. we need it, we'll use it, europe needs, we promised it to them. joe biden's regulators want to keep it in the ground. now, secretary gran home waited -- granholm waited until last week to approve two applications for liquefied gas exports. could have approved them last year, didn't. waited two weeks after russia invaded ukraine to finally approve two of six permits. it took weeks of blood shed. there are still four more applications waiting on her desk. well, they've been sitting there for well over a year. time to wake up and to approve the applications. europe has woken up. they're wide awake from their addiction and reliance on their

enemies for their energy. joe biden is still sleepwalking. now, russia is still exporting energy all around the world. we put sanctions in place, but this is what "the washington post" had to say. they called the energy exports continuing today from russia the loophole that keeps russia, russia's economy alive. china is stocking up on russian oil at a discount. none of joe biden's sanctions do a thing to stop china, not a one. china can continue to prop up the russian war machine. as senator toomey has said, we need secondary sanctions to stop the flow of cash to the kremlin. joe biden's banking sections explicitly avoid hitting russian energy. it is the key to this funding,

$5 billion to $7 billion a week for the killing machine, from exporting russian energy. the banking sanctions don't even go into effect until june 24. it's still march. april, may -- june 24. the war may be over by then, but in the meantime thousands of people could die. oh, and the president's sanctions do not include russian uranium. they should, but they don't. as a result, our nation, america, remains dependent on vladimir putin for one of the most important elements on earth. you want to defund putin's invasion, it's time to finish the job with banning of imports from russia to the united states, and we must ban uranium. we need to do it now. now, earlier this month i've introduced legislation to do just that. i'm grateful that senator lummis

and senator marshall and senator cramer have added their strong support. here in america, we have vast uranium supplies, and it's especially true in my home state of wyoming. there is no reason at all that america should be buying uranium from vladimir putin and russia. now, joe biden is also helping sell russian uranium in other countries, because right now, joe biden is pushing our nation into a deal with iran that was negotiated by russia. yes, you heard me right, negotiated by russia. not negotiated by the americans, not negotiated by us. no, we let vladimir putin negotiated -- negotiate with iran on a nuclear deal. a deal were you don't believe me? it's true.

russia state-controlled energy company will get about $10 billion out of the deal. more bullets, more bombs, more blood shed, paid for by joe biden's iranian deal. when it comes to iran and russia, no deal is a good deal. whether it's uranium, whether it's natural gas. the solution for russian energy is american energy. we have it. we have it in abundance. this administration will not let us get it out of the ground. today we're producing 1.3 million fewer barrel of oil than prior to the pandemic. the administration is sitting on 4600 drilling permits. joe biden still hasn't had a single lease sale on federal lands for oil and gas, and just yesterday joe biden proposed a $ 43 billion tax increase on

american energy. who pays these taxes? clearly, the hard-working families of this country in the form of higher prices. this is the last thing the country needs now in a time of 40-year high inflation and the highest gas prices ever. now, energy security is worth a lot more than climate zealotry. our friends in europe, who are held hostage by vladimir putin, will tell you that today. we are much better off as a nation selling energy to our friends than being forced to buy it from our enemies. president biden and the democrats don't seem to understand this, energy security is national security, for ourselves, for our allies, we are need more american energy and we need it now. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

i suggest the absence of a quorum. quorum call: >> pot harrison's defense

budget analysis at the center for strategic and international studies joining us to talk about this budget request by president biden, thank you for joining us 's thank you for asking me >> this request comes at the tail end or just past 20/20 to request for the budget, what are the differences ? >> it's interesting, congress didn't get around to passing the 20/20 to budget for this year until halfway through the fiscal year as you can imagine that makes it difficult for the administration to plan what they want to ask for in next year's budget they don't yet know what's in the current year's budget . so that's one of the difficulties that emerged here. i think the big difference we're seeing is that in the

23 budget, they are asking for some substantial increases in defense. even relative to what congress ended up enacting for the current year which was more than the biden administration requested. they're going above andbeyond that in fy 23 request and it's driven by a lot of different factors including inflation, higher labor costs, things like that . >> is it also animated by the current conflict going on in russia and ukraine or are there other factors? >> even though they just released the budget yesterday the department of defense had it finalized a couple of months ago so they made it clear during the budget rollout yesterday was not actually informed the russian invasion of ukraine. that happened after they had finished this budget and it's just been in the pipeline for getting reviewed and putting the right format and being submitted to congress so really the conflict in ukraine did not check this

budget at all. what we should expect is that conflict drags on, if it continues and it's looking like it's going to go into the next fiscal year that starts october 1 then we may see the administration come backand asked congress for a supplemental budget request . extra funding for next year to help offset some of the costs of us support to ukraine. >> when it comes to that large figure you talked about, how much will go into specific programs whether it be new programs for modernizing current format? >> that's one of the biggest areas of increased we're seeing in this budget request is an acquisition of new weapons systems and in particular funding for research development , test and evaluation. rdp and d and the budget. that's up to $130 billion and this request and if you look historically going to put the r&d part of the budget at a historically high-level. even when you adjust for

inflation for previous years. we're getting into record territory for reaching research and development and the defense budget and that reflects part of the administration's strategy which is really to double down on investments in new technology and new military capabilities to sustain our military advantage in the future. >> can you elaborate whatsome of those programs that look like as far as the new investments ? >> those investments are sprinkled around a lot of different areas across the budget . one that stands out to me is our increasing investments in building a new stealth bomber for the air force, the b 21. that program is ramping up to just over $5 billion in fy 23 request. a lot of about that program is secret. they have revealed there are six initial aircraft

currently under construction but we don't know a lot more about that program just yet. there may be more details to come out with further budget documents. the other one that's interesting to me is a military and space force in particular are investing in a new generation of missile warning and missiletracking satellites . these are satellites in space and we had systems like this for decades. they keep an eye on other countries on potential missile sites, russia, china, north korea, iran and other places there constantly overhead watching to see if they are missile inspired might be on introductory to the united states. one of the big problems the space force has been grappling with his have a small number of these satellites today that are vulnerable to attack . russia and china have various types of counter space weapons that could blind or disabled are missile warning satellite. that leaves us vulnerable.

are missile this defense systems can't work at all if we don't have warning about the missiles coming in so they investing i think it's $4.7 billion between the budget and a new generation, a hybrid architecture of warning satellites that would be high up in geostationary orbit. about 22,000 miles above the surface of your as well as a large constellation of smaller satellites and low earth orbit couple of hundred miles above the surface of the earth. all of which would be looking to identify missile launches and track those missiles all throughout their flight including hypersonic missiles which currently today we have a lot of trouble being able to track. >> lp 45, i want to ask questions about the defense budget request. you can call it 20 274-8000. republicans 20274 8001 and

independence 728 4002 and you contact us at 202-748-8000 three. mister harrison the minority leader mitchmcconnell on the floor of thesenate yesterday and one of the things he spoke about was the defense portion of this request . i want to tell you what he had to say and get your thoughts on it . >>first and foremost , a dangerous time the presidents budget fails , falls woefully short on defense spending. our commander-in-chief failed the budget for the resources that our armed forcesactually need . the biden administration proposes a nominal four percent increase for defense over the budget bill congress passed for this year. that's nominal four percent increase before any of the democrats historic inflation is takeninto account. and inflation right now is about twice that .

so even if you accept the white house rosie's predictions about where inflation is headed , this would amount to a flat funding defense with none of the robustgrowth we need to keep pace with russia and china . even in the best case scenario for their budget would leave our armed forces simply treading water . and what if democrats historic inflation does not plummet downwards as quickly as they would like. what if the inflation they caused keeps sticking around. then president biden's budget would actually cut funding for armed forces in real dollars . >> mister harrison at the minority leader's approach to what was requested , what do you think ? >> i think you're seeing how the debate will shape up in congress over the coming year and one of the biggest factors is the defense budget debate. is likely to be inflation. if you look at the details of this budget request not just

for defense but the overall request for the federal government administration had to make assumptions in there about what inflation will be not only for the rest of this year but for next year as well. and of course that's highly uncertain and it's difficult to predict with any accuracy but what they did do is they assume in the budget request that inflation would be coming down. and it would return to near the historic normal level of a little over two percent inflation. now, they had to make those assumptions whenthey were building the budget act in the fall . a lot more information about the economy and inflation has come out since the fall. we now know the consumer price index of the most recent report, the consumer price inflation was running 7.9 percent. hopefully that doesn't continue for the rest of the year but i think that's an indication that the

assumptions they made from the hall that informed this budget request are like little bit too optimistic for how things are playing out. so the question is how much higher will inflation actually be and that something congress ultimately is going to have to weigh in on wednesday ultimately enact this budget into law. the president can request it but congress has to appropriate the money so i think that's what be one of the factors that we see and that's why i think that in all likelihood the budget request level that we see for the department of defense hundred 73 billion for next year , that is probably the floor that congress is likely to increase that substantially to account for inflation and for other riot priorities that congress has for funding different weapons systems and different parts of the force structure for the military. >> harris, center for

international and strategic studies. let's hear from student susan in massachusetts, you're on withour guest . >> thanks for taking my call. good morning. i don't know where to begin onthis topic . i would like don't dispute the fact that the us need to catch up quickly as china's past us on supersonic weaponry and god knows what else. but i've long believed that our military industrial complex and pentagon, the never had a standard of accounting. there's no visibility and rather than move forward with obviously urgent priorities are we at the same time going to hold onto boondoggle projects? i just don't understand why we can't be more intelligent with the way we invest in our military industrial complex but i do believe they should be on standard accounting

which i believe they are not . also i think we should retrench. we are over invested in military bases and interventions that really defeat the purpose of countering china. china also has an advantage over the united states and that they have a much stronger citizenry. their education system is better. their infrastructure is fast moving into the 20th century while ours is not so it's a two-pronged approach. you want to have a strong internal country where people have solid jobs and they are constantly having education that matches new economy needs but the lack of transparency and visibility into the military industrial complex and not putting them on standard accounting is scary.

>> since you made that point we will let it stop there. we will let our guest respond to that. >> what she may be referring to is when defense contractors have what they call cost reimbursement contracts where the government is allowed to have greater visibility into the actual costs incurred by the contractors so they're going to be reimbursed and based on this costs they do have to meet a certain set of financial standards but it is a specific set of standards for defense, not just having new accounting but having management and reporting. and it is different than your regular commercial accounting standards. that's actually is a thorn in the side of the defense industry. a lot of folks in the defense industry are happy about that , that they have to keep these separate accounting standards in order to work with the government. that makes it very hard for small business or commercially oriented

businesses that may not have a lot of resources to be able to work with the federal government. it can be difficult, sometimes counterintuitive to get contracts with the federal government so that's one of the things of the issue and the defense industry in terms of transparency and to the defense industry. i think one of the biggest roadblocks is classified information so if a program is classified as a then that does limit public visibility and i think in many cases, you'll hear senior military leaders themselves saying we tend to over classify things. we tend to classify things at a higher level than they need to be and that makes transparency much more difficult. that's a known problem but it's a difficult problem to fix because you've got incentives in the system where people don't want to accidentally reveal classified information like our national security, they

don't want to go to jail so the default is keep things at a higher classification level that may not seem necessary. it's a set of incentives that's a difficult system to work with. i can tell you members of congress who oversee the military and intelligence community, folks who are on that committee and senior staffers they are able to see behind the curtain if you will and they are able to conduct effective oversight of these programs. it's up to congress how effective they are but they do have access and they can see that. it's just for a lot of that information the public doesn't have complete visibility into it. >> this is john in maryland, democrats line. >> i have a question i would like to, your guest to specifically elaborate on. and it is about the hypersonic missiles. and i'm curious about that. so the other country that may have those, if they set them

off, there's a certain range that the missile will go but my question specifically is if there's a stage ii, a smaller maybe subsonic part that will make it go further like to reach the continental united states. that's it. >> guest: happy to talk about that. when people talk about hypersonic missiles hypersonic means something that goes more than five times the speed of sound. my five so there are lots of different type of hypersonic missiles and in fact are ballistic missiles are technically hypersonic. they travel faster than five times the speed of sound but what people tend to need when they're talking about modern hypersonic missiles is something that can travel faster than mock five and is

maneuverable so something that can fly and maneuver itself at those speeds and that makes it very difficult to track. instead you made our missile defense systems and evade our tracking systems. able to maneuver thosehigh speeds . what we're worried about is russia and china working on these technologies . they are already able to reach us with their intercontinental range ballistic missile which do travel very fast, difficult to defeat, that threat has been there for decades, i think what

we are more worried about his use of hypersonic missiles in leader within their region against u.s. forces. for example, an aircraft carrier or something like that, at range but very quickly in a way that's difficult for us intercept with our missile defense system. the other thing is just because russia and china are developing these hypersonic missiles, it does not necessarily mean we need to develop comparable systems because their strategic needs, their offense of weapons may be different than what we need to have so we do have several different u.s. programs that develop hypersonic missiles, several are going to continue under this budget request. the hypersonic mix zero program, it looks like they have decided not to move forward, they will continue testing that system,

there have been failures in mishaps and they are not ready to commit to that program yet but the biggest thing is when russia and china are developing hypersonic missiles, that really means we need to develop better defenses against these types of missiles and threats so that is the balance of power we should be looking at, how much are we investing in missile defense systems that can be effective against hypersonic missiles? >> doesn't do anything specifically for the united states arsenal? >> it does a lot of things. in 2010 president obama started to put into place modernization of all three legs of a nuclear triad, the submarine base missiles and those programs are continuing in this budget request from a particular as i mentioned before, the bomber we

are seeing in the program wrap up in funding moving into production of aircraft, the new icbm, crown -based strategic deterrent and the program is continuing to ramp up funding and the new submarines that will carry our submarine base missiles and armed missiles, the columbia class submarine program, that's continuing as well as we get to manufacture the first few of those subsets of the project continues to find nuclear modernization programs, we are likely to see slight differences between the biden administration's approach to nuclear weapons but the trump administration, there are slight differences has not come out yet, we are waiting for a document known as nuclear posture review. we are waiting for that to be released.

it would have been released before the budget but it wasn't so we are hopeful that will come out in the next moment or so. >> this is james and arizona, republican my. >> 750 billing dollars for defense budget the other year and the bill was 21 trillion. twenty billing conduct to each state and it's ridiculous we don't have that money here for each person in the state, if you could break that down. 750 billing dollars is way too much money to be used when we are essentially not fighting, we are giving it all away, backing everybody else and not letting

them, it's not fair. how do we earmark the money for people who need it rather than the budget of defense? >> james and arizona. >> this is one of the classic debates we have in the federal government. sometimes called guns versus butter debate. how much do you spend on domestic priorities, infrastructure, helping folks with education, transportation and all the things the federal government does, healthcare versus how much do we spend on national defense? the caller touched on something that might be apprising to a lot of people but as we have been in afghanistan for many, many years, two decades we spent in afghanistan, the fact we pulled out of afghanistan and all of our troops, it doesn't make it different at all.

spending on afghanistan the true amount of spending was only around 15 billion a year the last several years and much higher with a larger number of troops in their a decade ago but a relatively small amount in the defense budget and now that we've pulled out in the defense budget -- [inaudible] we continue. [inaudible] the focus now for defense is long-term competition with china. china -- with u.s. military trying to build a worse capable of countering china, deterring china. [inaudible] we had treaty commitments in the

region and they are trying to build a military capable of deterring china and allies and partners. [inaudible] the more immediate threat is russia and what they are doing in ukraine but long-term russia -- economically and demographically and as we see in ukraine, they are losing a lot of their weapons and forces and performing nearly as well as a lot of people thought they would. russia is a media threat to security in europe but long-term, the strategy of the united states and this administration frankly in the trump administration as well as to focus on china, that threat and how we deter china from having similar aggressive ambitions in the indo pacific region. >> bryant in new mexico.

>> good morning, china has grown powerful, all these great western and political leaders decide manufacturing their, a huge mistake. in my mind, if you want to do business with china, you should pay a huge tax to defend against china. you can't have it both ways, it was a mistake to invade china the way we have and allow manufacturing to move there so wall street can reap massive profit. another source of funding for our military, we should have transaction on wall street, most of the wealth has blown -- excuse me, has flowed to the top of the income brackets in the country so let's talk about funding our military taxing chinese products -- >> that brian.

mr. harrison. >> i think he touched on something better, a deliberate policy, the u.s. going back to the 1990s to try to engage china and bring china in to the world community and allow china to become a member of the wto, wto and have increasingly close financial economic relationship with china. the hope was if we engage economically, eventually the system put reform from within, that's not proven to be the case of course, china has not reformed lyrically so now we are becoming increasingly competitive, there is potential for conflict in the future with china over key touch.like taiwan and island billing china is doing in the south china sea and triggerpoints between china and india as well and i think what

we are looking at right now is a shift where we realized china is more of a threat not a good partner economically and because of covid i think we've become acutely aware of supply chain vulnerabilities, where things are stored and how dependent we are economically on china so i think what we are starting to see is a gradual economic decoupling between the united states and europe and other western countries decoupling economically from china so that will be an interesting trend to watch in future years if we continue to decouple economically, that's going to be difficult for china and cause difficulty to the united states as well but the question is, who

is it going to hurt worse decouple from one another? go lay in bed with the phone but also when you have economic decoupling, we are not as dependent and that the prospect go up. one of the things i think deter conflict is we've been so dependent on one another economically to pick a fight in the south china sea as we have become more decoupled from one another, prospect starts to go up. >> we talk about the programs of the fence, what does the budget do for the people in the defense department in arms and others as far as salaries and the like? i'm glad you brought that up because one of the reasons we see budget go up in 23 is to accommodate higher pay rates, military personnel. in the budget they are getting 4.6% pay raise, the highest the

military has gone into decades. it not anything unique the biden administration, what they are doing is keeping up with increase in wages in the private sector. by law they are supposed to submit a budget request including pay raise equal to employment cost index for the year prior so that index came in at 4.6% so they are submitting a pay raise in line with what they are supposed to do according to existing law but a substantial pay increase, not something they were anticipating a year ago when they started working on the budget request, it's something they only learned about in november, december timeframe and they had to figure out how to pay for it so it looks like they addict money to the budget request to accommodate higher pay rate and higher labor costs

overall for department in defense so that's something military personnel will appreciate and something we should expect the following year and that's why 44 budget we are likely to see a substantial pay raise from a high pay raise for military personnel because we are continuing to see wage growth in the overall economy right now -- objection. mr. grassley: yesterday senator johnson and i discussed our joint investigation into the biden family's foreign financial entanglements. we reviewed much of our earlier work and provided a brief preview of the new material. today we will give our second speech on our biden investigation series. once again we're going to make public and we're going to

describe new financial records relating to hunter biden and his connections to the communist chinese government. most of that focus will be on his connections to the cefc, a company that's effectively an arm of the chinese government. but first we must go back to 2015. at that time hunter biden served on the board of bah ris ma -- bar ris pa and was paid tens of thousands of dollars each month. its owner was a corrupt russian-aligned ukrainian oligarch. but that's not all that hunter biden was up to. in that year cefc international

announced an agreement with northern international capital holding. northern international is incorporated in china and it's very much involved in the energy sector. one of the companies was a majority shareholder of cefc international. northern international purchased $123 million worth of cefc's shares binding the two companies together. we must also mention hudson west 3 and its financial connection to cefc. hunter biden was an investor and a manager of

hudson west iii. he was tasked with advancing its interests. hudson west iii also involved chinese nationals connected to the communist regime, such as gong win gong, whom i talked about yesterday. now let's look at this first poster. and i should note that senator johnson and i will make these documents public in full. we're providing snapshots for our presentation here on the floor of the united states senate. here we have one portion of an l.l.c. agreement from a bank. it shows the companies that have bound themselves together -- hudson west v, hudson west iii,

and owasco. owasco is hunter biden's firm. now, let's turn to the second poster. the paragraph at the top shows the purpose for which the l.l.c. agreement exists. so what this tells us is that hunter biden and james biden linked up with companies connected to the communist regime to assist them with finding projects for global and domestic infrastructure energy. and, as we know from my and senator johnson's report from last august, some energy projects explorations between the biden family and china were

here in the united states. one example is a multimillion-dollar natural gas project in louisiana. now, let's move to the next paragraph at the bottom of the same poster, which defines the word affiliate in the agreement. and i want to quote. for the avoidance of doubt, c.f.c. china energy company limited or any of its affiliates shall be deemed as an affiliate of hudson, end of quote. accordingly, this agreement between hunter biden's firm and hudson west iii and hudson west v directly connect to hunter biden to cefc.

so was this agreement executed? let's look at this third poster which contains a signature block executing the agreement. here we see hunter biden's signature with gongwendong. he was an associate of minute. both men were connected to the communist regime including its military elements. notably, hunter biden worked for yi jingming to get him involved in a natural gas project in louisiana. that project eventually fell through. now let's bring up a fourth

poster labeled joinder agreement relating to the l.l.c. agreement. again, hunter biden is signing with gongwen dong with respect to the l.l.c. agreement. now, accordingly, we can now conclude the following -- hunter biden was financially connected to cefc, a company that was an arm of the communist chinese regime, for the purpose of advancing energy interests. this agreement also shows two additional findings. first, hunter biden's

responsibility to advance hudson west iii's interests as of august 2, 2017. second, hunter biden's close association with hudson west iii's cefc and its affiliates after of august 2, 2017. that date is important, as i will show you soon. let's turn to a fifth poster. on this fifth poster, look at the top. this is a bank record showing an august 8, 2017, wire transfer from northern international capital to hudson west iii for $5 million. this is $5 million from a company that's connected to ying

jingming and cefc and its affiliates which are essentially arms of the communist chinese regime. and that france -- and that transfer took place after hunter biden became closely associated with hudson west iii, as the l.l.c. agreement shows. so what was the money for? as noted, hunter biden was working with chinese nationals linked to the communist regime to help them explore energy projects. now look at the bottom of this poster. this is a paragraph from the l.l.c. agreement. it shows that hunter biden was paid $100,000 per month, james

biden was paid $65,000 per month, and hunter biden will be paid a one-time retainer, a fee of $500,000. again, this is money connected to hudson west iii, a company connected to cefc and gongwen dong. both are connected in turn to the communist chinese regime. we can now conclude with this respect to james biden -- james biden was financially connected to cefc, a company that was an arm of the communist chinese regime, for the purpose

of advancing energy interests. after the l.l.c. agreement was signed, money flowed to -- from cefc and its shareholders into the bank account of hudson west iii, including the $5 million from northern international. this l.l.c. agreement was the trigger point for high-dollar financial transactions involving hunter and james biden. now let's turn a poster six. and view the top. this is hudson west iii's bank record that shows a wire transfer on august 31, 2017, for

$165,000. notably, this is the same month as the $5 million wire from northern international. it is also the same month that hunter biden signed the august 2, 2017, l.l.c. agreement. the wire is to wells fargo clearing services. now look at the bottom of this poster. senator johnson and i have acquired more than just the bank statement. we've acquired underlying wire data. so look at the fourth line at the bottom. it says, quote, further credit to owasco p.c., end quote. the underlying wire data shows

that it went to owasco, a hunter biden firm. senator johnson and i have years of bank records to show multiple $165,000 wire transfers from hudson west iii to owasco. there were also wire transfers for other amounts, some for more, some more less. more likely, some of those payments were for expenses under the l.l.c. agreement. so you have an august 6, 2017, l.l.c. agreement with hudson west iii and owasco noting $165,000 a month to hunter biden

no, that's m.d. 100,000 to -- no, that's $100,000 to hunter biden and $65,000 to james biden. then you have an august 8, 2017, wire transfer of $5 million from northern international to hudson west iii. after that august 8 wire, you see years of wire transfers from hudson west iii to hunter biden's company. the majority of these for $165,000, the exact amount due under the l.l.c. agreement. based on the timing of the transactions, hunter biden and james biden's payments under the l.l.c. agreement came from that

$5 million wire, a wire, mind you, that came from a company connected to yi xingming, which is an arm of the chinese government. these years of records show that hunter biden and james biden were more connected to the communist regime's elements than had been previously known. these records place them at the center of hudson west iii, gongwen dong and cefc. this is a finding that senator johnson and i made public in our biden reports last congress, the same reports that you found members of the other political

party in this body and the liberal press finding fault with that somehow it was russian disinformation. so i say this to the liberal media and our democratic colleagues who tried to smear our work all these years and accuse us of peddling russian disinformation -- you've seen all of these documents that we've presented. are these official bank records russian disinformation? to our democratic colleagues and the liberal media, we deserve an answer because you made several efforts to smear our reputation, as we were starting this investigation two or three years ago. now i'm going to turn it over to senator johnson to discuss a name that i gave you yesterday,

patrick hoh, and related records to patrick hoh that we've acquired. thank you. mr. johnson: thank you, senator grassley. the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. mr. johnson: thank you, senator grassley. as my colleague, the senior senator from iowa has shown, hunter biden and james biden received millions of dollars from companies connected to the communist chinese regime. but frankly it's worse than that. these companies were effectively an arm of the chinese government. this isn't russian disinformation. these are hard facts backed up by bank records of actual financial records and transactions that prove just how connected the bidens were and how compromised president biden probably is. i use this next series of transactions to prove my point. the first chart here shows a bank record showing a $1 million wire transfer into the account of hudson west iii from cefc

limited on november 2, 2017. senator grassley and i have already established cefc is effectively an arm of the communist chinese regime. it's also important to note that at the time of this transfer in november 2017, hunter biden was already invested in and providing management for hudson west iii. so a company that was effectively an arm of the chinese government transferred $1 million in november 2017 to a company that hunter biden is managing and is invested in. i also bring up the second record. folks on the $1 million wired out on march 22, 2018.

again, this is a record from hudson west iii's bank account. like the previous record, this is showing the transfer of $1 million, but this time the money is being transferred out of hudson west iii to owasco, another one of biden's firms. this transaction took place on march 22, 2018, less than five months after the transfer from cefc to hudson west iii. hudson is transferring $1 million between two firms he manages and has ownership in. so what is the purpose of these two $1 million transfers? this next record seems to answer that question. this record shows owasco's receipt of the march 22, 2018 $1 million transfer. it also shows what the transfer

is for on the o.b.i. line. o.b.i. is an abbreviation for originating beneficiary information. like the memo line item on your check, tells you really what that check is about. in this case the o.b.i. indicates the transfer is being made for, quote, dr. patrick ho chiping. recap. on november 2017 patrick ho's company cefc wired $1 million to hudson west iii. on march 22, 2018, hudson west iii wired $1 million to owasco, another hunter biden company. the bank record states the $1 million payment was being made for the purpose of representing patrick ho. represent him for what? here's where things get interesting.

we know that patrick ho was arrested by u.s. authorities in november 2017 for international bribery and money laundering charges. keep in mind this arrest occurred in the same month that patrick ho's company cefc is wiring $1 million to hunter biden's company, hudson west iii. according to the department of justice, quote, ho orchestrated and executed two bribery schemes to pay top officials of chad in uganda in exchange for business advantage for cefc china, a shanghai based multibillion-dollar conglomerate that operates in multiple sectors including oil, gas, and banking, end quote. these are crimes for which patrick ho is eventually convicted and sent to federal prison for committing. so the company that patrick ho is making bribes for sends $1 million to a company hunter

biden manages and is invested in. that company in turn transfers $1 million to another hunter biden company for the purposes of representing patrick ho, who was eventually convicted of international bribery and money laundering. and guess what patrick ho did around the same time he's arrested by the f.b.i. for corruption bribery? he contacted james biden, president biden's brother. patrick ho's decision to call the biden family around the same time he got arrested is revealing, particularly in light of the fact that the same month $1 million just happened to be transferred to hunter biden's company. hunter biden isn't a criminal attorney, criminal defense attorney. patrick ho was charged and convicted for bribery and related federal offenses and crimes. so what kind of representation was patrick ho's company paying

hunter biden's firm to provide? were they paying for his firm's legal expertise or for hunter's political connections? in march 2021, senator grassley and i asked the justice department about patrick ho. why? because there's a federal court filing that says the department has pfizer records on patrick ho. we requested these records. in response, the department would not confirm whether they even had his records. unfortunately, the attorney general refused to clarify that outrageous contradiction for congress. oh, and one more tidbit. in a recently uncovered audio extracted from his latop, hunter biden referred to patrick ho as, quote, the expletive deleted spy chief of china, unquote.

let that sink in a minute. hunter biden referred to patrick ho in an audio as the, quote, quote, -- expletive deleted -- spy chief of china, unquote. this quote alone tells you that hurnd biden knew exactly who he was dealing with. he knew exactly who he was dealing with. he was dealing with the, quote, expletive deleted, spy chief of china. now that fact should alert the media and our democratic colleagues to seriously consider the implications of the biden's family vast web of foreign financial entanglements have on the administration's foreign national policy and our national security, but i'm not holding my breath. in october 2020, senator grassley and i requested to interview hunter and james biden about their financial dealings. if they had nothing to hide, they could have volunteered to come in and sit for an

interview. if there was an innocent explanation for these foreign financial transactions, they could have used that interview to clarify what those transactions were about. unfortunately, rather than being transparent, honest, and forthcoming, they declined to speak for us or to us. their silence speaks volumes. fortunately, facts are stubborn things. as the bidens, our democratic colleagues and the media is learning, it's difficult to keep them hidden forever. senator grassley and i will continue to investigate the biden family's foreign financial entanglements and provide the american people with the truth to the best of our ability. our challenge is the deep state does not give up its secrets easily. new evidence of biden family influence peddling is surfacing on a regular basis, often coming from records from hunter biden's latop, the same latop,

by the way, that the media and deep state foreign intelligence agency officials inferred, strongly inferred was -- you guessed it -- russian disinformation. and their guile worked. prior to the election, people bought the fact that that latop was probably russian disinformation. it wasn't, as "the new york times" just admitted about a year too late -- more than a year too late -- that latop is authentic, and the evidence it is producing is real. but, of course, that latop wasn't russian disinformation, nor is any of the information we presented in our reports and here on the floor of the senate. we may never know all the details of the biden family foreign entanglements or the full extent to which those entanglements compromise the current president, but i'm pretty confident i know who does know.

intelligence operatives in russia, china, iran, and north korea. elements within our u.s. intelligence agencies probably also know. they're just not going to tell us or you, the american people. senator grassley and i will return for our third speeches in this series on the biden family's foreign financial entanglements. until then, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas.

mr. cornyn: mr. president, it's been more than a month since russia launched an unprovoked and unwarranted attack against the people of ukraine. in the interim the world has marveled at the strength and the resiliency and the courage of ukrainian forces as well as their leadership in president zelenskyy. ukraine has a real shot at defeating this russian aggression, but that can only happen if it has the weapons and resources it desperately needs. i recently traveled to poland and germany with a bipartisan group of senate colleagues to learn more about what ukraine needs and the challenges our nato allies are up against. over the course of three days, we met with american military leaders and diplomats as well as members of the 82nd airborne. we spoke with our nato partners who are supporting both the

military and humanitarian needs of ukraine, and we had the opportunity to talk to some of the ukrainian refugees themselves. the primary message we heard, consistent message that we heard was we need more and we need it faster. more stingers, more javelins, more air defenses, more lethal aid. and they reiterated their need for aircraft like the poland mig's. statements of support are important, but they do nothing to help the ukrainian forces defeat this russian aggression. it was an incredibly powerful and enlightening experience to hear directly from the incredible men and women on the ground, and i want to thank our friend, senator ernst from iowa, for leading this bipartisan congressional delegation. i think it also sent a very

strong message to our friends and allies in the region that ten senators, one-tenth of the united states senate, were willing to make this trip on a bipartisan basis. i think we all came back with a deeper understanding of ukraine's needs and a renewed sense of urgency to do everything in our power to make it happen. over the last four weeks, russia has bombed ukrainian hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, humanitarian refugee corridors even, even civilians waiting in a bread line. it's pretty clear that we need to use every tool available to bolster ukraine's defense and weaken the aggression of the russian forces. it's not a matter of one or the other. we need to do both. to support ukraine, we need to answer the call for more

defensive weapons. whether intentionally or not, the administration has given ukraine the bare minimum, just enough to keep it completely -- from being completely overrun by the russians, but not enough to help it win the war. in other words, the biden administration is propping up ukraine to keep taking further hits rather than giving it the full forces it needs to win the fight. we need to help ukraine vanquish russian forces from its territory entirely, not just to extend the length of this war. actually by not giving ukraine everything it needs in order to repulse russian aggression, we're playing into putin's hands, because putin has clearly changed his tactics from the initial reports of trying to encircle kiev and perhaps

assassinate president zelenskyy and install a puppet government government, clearly the ukrainians -- piewnts -- putin has bitten off more than he can chew when it comes to invading ukraine and executing on that original mission. now he's engaged in a war of attrition, flattening ukrainian cities, killing innocent civilians. from outside of ukrainian air space because he's worried about the antiaircraft capabilities of ukrainians using things like man peds and javelin missiles and stinger missiles, excuse me. well, time is on putin's side. and we need to level the playing field and actually give the ukranians what they need in order to stop this war as soon as possible before further loss of life and further damage to their country is done.

now, the most effective way to do this since ukraine is not a member of nato, we're not going to send troops there as president biden has said, appropriately so. but we need to ensure the ukrainians have everything they need in order to do the job themselves. as president zelenskyy has said, ukraine can't shoot down russian missiles with shotguns and machine guns. unfortunately there are a lot of roadblocks standing in the way. and unfortunately one of those is the reluctance of the biden administration to quickly and expeditiously get the ukrainians what they need. for example, poland offered to transfer its entire fleet of mig-29 fighters to the united states for delivery to ukraine. ukrainian forces already know how to fly these russian aircraft and president zelenskyy assured us they are desperately needed. but the biden administration rejected the offer after first

secretary blinken seemed to give it the green light. the administration changed its mind out of fear that they might provoke putin. once again playing right into his hand. all putin has to do is rattle his saber to deter the united states and its allies from helping ukraine to the maximum and our capability. another big obstacle the ukrainians are finding is the red tape associated with anything that the federal government seems to do. ukraine provided a detailed list of the resources it needs. fighters, an friday aircraft, missile systems, more stingers, more javelins. it's not a list of items they'll need next month are the next. it's what they need right now in order to survive. the process of getting defense articles into ukrainian soldiers' hands includes some big bureaucratic hurdles that

not only make it harder to act quickly but make it more difficult to send ukraine the resources they desperately need. fortunately there's strong precedent from world war ii that we could follow to help expedite the process. during world war ii when britain was hanging on by a thread and the united states was a noncombatant in that worldwide war at the time, president roosevelt vowed to transform the united states into the arsenal of democracy, as he called it. and he worked with congress to pass the lynn lease act. this legislation allowed the united states to use its industrial might to supply britain and our other allies with the resources they needed at a critical time in world war ii and without lengthy delays. borrowing inspiration from president roosevelt, i introduced bipartisan

legislation with colleagues called the ukraine democracy defense lend-lease act which will expedite getting ukrainian forces the resources they need to win the fight without any unnecessary delays. i also think that in addition to the actions by the administration, i think it sends a strong bipartisan message of support from this body and gives encouragement to our friends in ukraine who are fighting for their very existence. this legislation authorizes the president to enter agreements directly with ukraine and provide ukrainian forces with lethal weapons to defend their sovereignty. but i think rather than the piecemeal approach being used by the administration, this would open this arsenal of democracy known as the american industrial base to provide ukraine what it needs and give them the

insurance whether they need it today or tomorrow or need it replenished next week, it will be there for them as long as they need it. i'm proud to have worked with a number of colleagues on this bipartisan bill, including senators cardin, wicker, shaheen, and many others. so far more than 20 senators have cosponsored this legislation, and i hope we can pass it without any further delay. this is obviously an urgent crisis. putin thought this was going to be like the taliban taking afghanistan after the united states and nato's withdrawal. he thought he could take ukraine without firing a bullet. well, so much for putin's plans, his arrogance and underestimation of the willingness of the ukrainian people to fight for their own country. but we need to pass this legislation and ensure ukrainian forces that they will have what

they need when they need it. as i said we have a moral obligation, maybe not a treaty obligation under nato, but i believe we have a moral obligation to support people fighting for their very freedom and their very lives in a democratically-run country like ukraine. the united states and our allies have imposed crippling sanctions on russian businesses, banks, oligarchs which has sent the country's economy into a tailspin. but in typical russian fashion, they planned for some of these sanctions and they've found loopholes in the current sanction regime. it's taken a page out of venezuela's book by using the purchase and sale of gold to bring in cash with which to run their economy. the russian federation is buying gold to offset the devaluation of the ruble, its currency. and then selling that gold in

international markets in exchange for high-value currency. in short russia is laundering money through the gold market and we need to put a stop to it. i along with other colleagues introduced the stop russian gold act that would bring an end to this practice. we talked to secretary yellen and she agreed that this supplemental -- this would be supplemental to what the administration has already done unilaterally. this legislation would apply sanctions to parties who help russia finance their war by buying or selling this blood gold. that means anyone who buys or transports gold from russia's central bank would be the target of sanctions. this would be a huge deterrent to anyone considering doing business with russia and helping them evade sanctions. in short we need to take every possible step to cut the

financing for putin's war machine, and this is one additional way to do so. along with the lend-lease bill i mentioned a moment ago, i hope we can pass this legislation without further delay. there's more we can do to support ukraine and hit russia where it hurts and to raise the costs associated with its unprovoked and unwarranted invasion of ukraine. but what's -- but it's past time to continue to ramp up the pressure to the maximum ability that we can. at this juncture principal leadership and decisive action are absolutely critical. as leader mcconnell put it, president biden has generally done the right thing, but never soon enough. for example, last year the president ignored the immense pressure to sanction the nord stream 2 pipeline. he finally after resisting

imposed those sanctions last month. as russian troops mounted on ukraine's borders late last year, the administration withheld millions of dollars in aid for weeks before finally releasing it. president biden disregarded bipartisan calls to impose paralyzing sanctions on russia before the invasion in order to try to deter it. instead he waited until after the invasion happened to try to impose costs on russia. president biden ignored calls to stop russian oil imports until it became clear that congress would pass legislation to do just that. once the handwriting was on the wall, the president announced an import ban to try to get ahead of congressional action. president biden has been so preoccupied with how putin might

react that putin has been deterring the administration from acting with the sort of expediency and dispatch that are absolutely necessary and called for. waiting until the court of public opinion is not the kind of leadership that this emergency requires. mr. president, ukraine is being bludgeoned by russia every day. we need to act with all deliberate speed to get them the additional resources they need, which means we need to do it now so they can fight and ultimately prevail. the united states may be an ocean away from this conflict, but democracy itself is on the front lines. we know president putin is motivated by a vision of restoration of the russian empire after having called the fall of the soviet union one of

the greatest geo political tragedies in history. so we don't know when putin will stop or if he will stop, which gives us the only option of doing everything we can to assist our ukrainian friends from stopping him themselves. we stand in solidarity with our partners in europe, and we're committed to supporting ukraine as it defends its sovereignty. so in the coming days, hopefully in the coming hours, i hope the senate will take action on these bipartisan bills and impose greater costs on russia in the interest of peace and ukrainian sovereignty. mr. president, i yield the floor. and i'd note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the coronavirus did change how we did business. in 2022 we still have to recover somewhat and then probably things would get better and hopefully things will go back to normal versus what we have now. >> host: so than fact or in the ukraine as far as what might happen to the conflict there? >> the analogy we like to use is when you are sick and so we were sick with covid we got hit with his geopolitical situation with his russian invasion of ukraine so that cause more issues in the

supply chain. we wanted to cover the culprit and with the geopolitical issues we are seeing other problems so ukraine and russia make up 3% of domestic product so it's not huge but would they do make contributes to the slight change so our global wheat comes from ukraine and 20% more comes from russia and ukraine. 70% from ukraine. we get all types of metals from russia and basic materials so unfortunately when the conflict started this change happen unfortunately the big impact is owing to be with food. a big concern we have is food insecurity issues that we have. right now we are finding as far as that goes the big issue is ukraine has implanted anything so the harvest the harvest and the summers debate thing.

this is where we see these that insecurity issues. so ukraine is more like a breadbasket of europe and africa and asia so without them having having. >> host: we are showing a map to our viewers from the usda as far as we production in ukraine. to what degree is the united states impacted? >> guest: i don't think the united states will be impacted too much. in the u.s. we will have food and that won't get problem. the issues that are food prices are going to go up. the countries that we have a big concern about his africa. africa is getting food from ukraine and from russia so if they are unable to get that you'll see that insecurity issues which could lead to civil unrest which is a concern. >> host: want to see a little

bit from cecilia rouse. she talked about supply-chain issues related to russia and ukraine. i'll tell you -- a what she had to say and get your response. >> what we do know is that putin's invasion of ukraine will have an impact on energy and food crisis so the president has said we can expect while our sanctions are going to have a locus and most of their impact on the russian economy that we can expect we will see an impact in the united states as well so the first we are seeing is an impact on gas prices in oil prices. we can also expect fertilizer and energy prices to impact food. that said the president is focused on doing what he can to ensure that those increases are contained and they are not affecting the american people. he is working to increase an additional 60 billion barrels from the strategic petroleum

reserve and he has other options on the table that he will be considering as they come up. in terms of the prices the u.s., we don't expect a shortage here because we are a net exporter. we are acutely aware of the fact that there countries that depend on exports of wheat in particular their grains from ukraine and russia and working with our partners to ensure we minimize the impact globally. >> host: that last part mr. penfield you heard cecilia rouse talked about the administration. what they were doing before for supply chains what is the result and how many more can they do? >> guest: really it's kind of out of their hands to some degree. they can help. for the most part they can't do too much so this is the dilemma we have. it's really up to the corporations to figure out how do we work with these constraints that we currently

have and that's the dilemma. the longer ukraine russian war goes on the more our situation becomes. >> host: 2-027-488-0004 democrats to the -- i'm sorry we are regional and if you live in a mountain and pacific timezones (202)748-8001 and (202)748-8003. let's talk about specifics. we talked about agriculture. everyone was concerned for several weeks about gas prices. as far supply and the changes involved where we? >> guest: rushes the second-largest exporter of oil so unfortunately we have another situation brewing with oil.

we are taking steps in their eu partners are taking steps. that just means there's less from the pies since we are buying from russia so prices will go out up more. i expect certain states where a gallon of gas might be up to $6 probably in the summer if the war in conflict continues. >> host: if those prices start to rise how long could they stay that high? >> i think this is a pretty big issue. again the russian invasion of ukraine is when we started to see the price pressures -- until that happens you will see things go up. there is an alternative pedro using renewable energy sources but the time to do that would take years of that's the dilemma we are in right now so short-term a lot of pain and long term if we move over to

renewable energy we would have -- we would not have these issues. >> host: like tronics microprocessors and likely her concerns about this and for several months to the lead to where we are at. where are we now? >> guest: it's. the big problem within the electronics electronics world is semi semi- conductors who ukraine produces 70% of the semi or dr. process so unfortunately there's not another capacity throughout the world so ukraine was almost the sole-source situation. there are some production in china and the united states. they can fill that hole gap that ukraine was supplying. right now i would say most of the customers haven't anywhere from four to six month supply so once that supply dries up there will be more issues with electronics. >> host: there's a report from

the "washington examiner" on his twitter feed saying the u.s. and western isles was lee's russian military and economy by directly targeting its chip supply chain according to the treasury department and there's a global chip shortage already. can you factor that into the conversation? >> guest: absolutely. russia they have outside sources. if they can't get chips they can't produce electronics and russia. a smarter approach but it's not going to help us. we are going to need similar supplies and we have a limited supply. >> host: patrick penfield from syracuse unit versa the joining us. let's hear from brian tampa florida you are on with our guests. go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: good morning. i just have to say this

inflation stuff is really not very truthful and i thought i heard them say their word are a net exporter of food and our food prices will go up and i think that's a big lie. the comment about used cars all the rental companies have and it decrease in inventories so they must have had millions of cars that should gone into the used-car market used car market soyuz car prices should have gone down. and it's really, really that there are so many people that are reading and want to raise prices just for their own gain. sad. the world is really going downhill and there's way too much corruption. >> host: brian. >> guest: i understand what

you are saying. unfortunately good to tell you you'll probably see doubled digit inflation by the end of this year the problem is we do have enough food here in the united states but it's supply and demand so if you are a farmer you will get the most you can for forward every harvest which is their right. that's probably what's going to happen. the other countries in the world -- right now we are fine. six months from now when there is no ukraine harvest and you get 30% of wheat in 20% of corn coming from that area. those folks that are dependent on this have to do something else. what will happen in the united states we will have enough food and prices will go up because there aren't enough customers. any time you take supply out of the supply-chain prices will go

up. oil and gas are another good example. if you take what russia contributes to the world and europe uses a lot and other countries in africa you have to get it from someplace else and they are being told they can't get gas or oil from russia so that's what's going to happen is you'll see less supply. >> host: to the point of getting it from somewhere else it was in the president's budget request specifically addressing several supply-chain issues setting aside $230 million for ports development 1.5 billion for harbor main is 125 million for domestic manufacturing in 200 million for solar manufacturing. without money outlay what can be done as far as the lowest things the united states and from the united states? >> guest: for 30 or 40 years we are looking at our infrastructure pattern for

structure is in bad shape our roads and bridges in our ports so i think any money that goes towards that to improving the efficiency is better for us. it's going to help us immensely so we need those. i'm a big proponent of manufacturing here in the united states. the better jobs we can offer so i believe it's really a win-win situation when we try to get better infrastructure. >> host: we saw the president early on in the supply-chain concerns think he would have talks to alleviate the backup there. what has been the result of that as you can see? >> guest: it hasn't gone down much so unfortunately the ports are very clogged. they did make some effort and we saw some problems alleviated. we have another issue that's china is not shipping as much as they have because they have the

cold outbreak right now so china is our largest supplier with $500 billion worth of trade last year and imports. unfortunately the chinese look at covid differently than we do in the united states. right now some of their big ports are a lot down so we are seeing that stuff coming over. what should happen is the poor should hopefully be able to clean up any of those ships that are there. in forteau will happen is once they do open up there'll be another wave of ships so the unfortunate thing is that ports are unable to catch up with demand and a lot of it is because those ports are not very efficient. the other dilemma that you have pedro is there's a potential longshoremen strike that may happen in july. there a lot of negotiations going on right now and normally when that starts those negotiations start to slow down as far a ships being unloaded.

so that's a concern. we haven't really seen really what needs to happen in trying to clear out those ports and not have any ship the backlog. >> host: you highlight in "the new york times" today saying new contracts could affect 22,000 workers and 29 ports along the west coast. >> guest: absolutely. i'm really concerned about that because it's going to be 2021 all over again. we'll have the same situation that we had trying to get stuff from the port. pedro a lot of retailers are trying to get their summer stock into their stores that's because again a lot of stuff they buy comes from overseas in china and they can't get that stuff through the supply chain. so a lot of them right now don't have the stock that they are accustomed to having on their floors. >> host: let's get to it maryland you are on with our

guest. go ahead. in missouri, i apologize. >> caller: no problem. i have a question. i think one of the silliest things we can do in this world is the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. peters: mr. president, i rise in support of nani a. coloretti's nomination to be the deputy director of the office of management and budget. ms. coloretti is a dedicated public servant and a proven leader who is well qualified to serve as o.m.b. deputy director. she has over 20 years of experience at the federal, state, and local level, executing complex government programs, improving service delivery, and managing large organizations. ms. coloretti served with

distinction in the obama administration as the assistant secretary for management at the u.s. department of the treasury and then as the deputy secretary at the department of housing and urban development. it is absolutely critical that we have senate-confirmed leaders in place at o.m.b., and i have no doubt that ms. coloretti's experience will serve the agency and the american people well. i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting nani coloretti's nomination to be o.m.b. deputy director. mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise to a couple of things. i am awaiting the arrival of the senator from missouri. i'm going to make a c.u. motion to bring up a very important nominee in the secretary of defense department. but before i do, i want to comment on a u.c. thai made two -- that i made two hours ago. i stood here in this spot and made unanimous consent to bring forth the nomination of amy lloyd, the nomination to be assistant secretary for career and technical education. she passed out of the help committee unanimously. we knew there was a hold on her nomination. we didn't know why. and so i sought to bring forward her nomination. the senator from utah, senator lee, appeared, and i asked him why was he objecting to amy lloyd. the good news was he answered. he didn't have to, but he gave me an answer, and he said that

her work indicated an attachment to critical race theory. that was his response. and he cited an article. so i went up to him after, and i asked limb what the article was -- asked him what the article was, and he referred me to an article dated august 2020 titled diversifying apprenticeship: acknowledging unbiased to improve employee access. he said that was the-- that he was opposing the nomination, focusing on career technical education in the country. i went back to my office and i got the article. the article is seven pages long -- august 2020. it's actually six pages long. it is entirely uncontroversial. mr. president, listen to this. there's a block that says what is unconscious bias?

talk about fair and balanced language. unconscious bias leads to social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside of their conscious a -- awareness. is that controversial? is that controversial? there are recommendations for diversifying apprenticeships because, as we know, mr. president, there's a lot of apprenticeships where there are not many women in apprenticeships. ms. lloyd is a woman. she wants to diversify apprenticeships, that doesn't seem unusual. the recommendation in this controversial article where the phrase critical race theory is never mentioned are widen the selection pool, seek out workers across skill levels, develop transparent, detailed and uniform criteria, get multiple perspectives, complement selection processes with program designs that increase access. this is just basic human resources. there's nothing in this document about critical race theory.

and when i read it thinking i was going to find some real reason to oppose ms. lloyd, i found this basic human resources 101, nothing about critical race theory. then, mr. president, i realized something even more amazing. i looked at the author of the article. this was being held against ms. lloyd's confirmation. the author of the article is jessica toglia, senior program manager of j.f.f. unless this is a the senator from deblume -- unless this is a non deplume, amy lloyd had nothing to do with this. there is acknowledgments on pays 7. ms. taglia thanks ten different people who gave her ideas and thoughts. amy lloyd's name isn't among the ten. there are then 28 footnotes and references citing articles and other pieces of scholarship that

were written. none of them are by amy lloyd. none. and so in response to my request, as the son of a welder, that we ought to have somebody at the department of education who values career and technical education, this well-qualified individual who got out of the help committee by unanimous vote is being now sort of tarred with the critical race theory label based upon an article that she had nothing to do with. nothing to do with. i knew if i came back and stated this, who would listen and who would care? you could assert a reason. but the reason for opposition to her nomination has nothing to do with her. i'm here on another nomination. the nomination of christopher loman to be assistant secretary

of defense for sustainment. that position, assistant secretary of defense for sustainment is the principal assistant and advisor to the department on logistics and material readiness. the assistant secretary prescribes the policies and procedures for the conduct of logistics, maintains material readiness, strategic mobility, sustainment support of d.o.d., supply and maintenance transportation, extremely important functions to have a military that works. we're watching the russian material bogged down in ukraine now for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons is their military has not been sustained and maintained, and a lot of their equipment is bogging down. mr. loman is the person who would do this important job, and he has been pending before us since november with a vacancy in that position at the pentagon. let me tell you about mr. loman. he spent his entire life serving his country in the military.

i mean his entire life. he was born on a military base in germany because his father was an army civilian. when he graduated from high school, he went to monmouth university and immediately joined the united states marine corps in 1984. since 1984, 38 years, mr. lowman has worked first as united states marine and then as an army civil servant totally for more than 30 years. he served as assistant chief of staff for the g5-s direct which provides planning and management for agencies under the authority of the armed support command, served as deputy director of of logistics, deployed as director of sustainment in afghanistan from october 2017 to 2018.

prior to that deployment, he served as director of maintenance policy for the u.s. army in the office of the chief of staff. he was the chief supply of maintenance at headquarters u.s. army europe. he is a much awarded member of both the military and the military civil service. the department of army integrated logistics supported the year award, three army meritorious service awards, the samsamuel -- samuel sharp award. the assistant secretary of defense is the advisor to the department on logistics and materiel readiness. this is a most important function. mr. lowman is a virginian who has served his entire life from his birth in military families serving this nation as an active duty marine and army civil

servant. i ask unanimous consent that the senate consider the following nomination, calendar 777, christopher lowman of virginia to be assistant secretary of defense, that the senate vote on the nomination without intervening action or debate, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. hawley: i want to thank the virginia for accommodating me and allowing me to come to the floor. i thank him for his remarks. i only got to hear the second half of his remarks but i thank him for his remarks and am sure that he is in earnest about this nomination. let me tell you why i am here, and i'll be brief, mr. president. i know we have a vote that is about to kick off. let me tell you what i am in earnest about. the crisis in afghanistan, the

attack at abbey gate this past august that cost 13 american servicemembers, including one from my home state, from the state of missouri, their lives is a catastrophe unparalleled in our foreign policy in my lifetime, and it is my firm conviction and it is also a promise that i made to the family of the fallen marine from my state that we should do, this senate should perform its oversight functions related to the catastrophic withdrawal from afghanistan and in particular the events leading up to that attack at abbey gate that resulted in the deaths of those servicemembers and the deaths of hundreds, i'm afraid, hundreds of civilians and many hundreds of other americans left behind. i've come to this floor before many times now to ask the senate to hold accountable those who planned and led or failed to lead in some instances this

operation leading to the attack at abbey gate, leading to that catastrophic loss of life and leading, i'm afraid, to the disastrous turn in our foreign policy, the effects of which we continue to feel. so it is my humble but earnest request that the senate perform its basic oversight functions. very briefly, let me mention one. united states central command ordered a report of the events leading up to the abbey gate attack that we learned of in february, february 8, i believe we learned that report had been completed. it's several thousand pages long. i have the barest summary of it here. my staff and i have been through all of it, the thousands of pages. they had over 169 interviews that u.s. central command conducted, again, to try to understand how we got to this crisis point leading up to and including abbey gate. we have not had a single hearing in the united states senate armed services committee on this report. i applaud central command for carrying out the report, for

ordering it, for putting it together. but we, mr. president, should be learning what we can and holding accountable those who need to be held accountable. who has been fired? no one. who has been relieved of duty? no one. if you read the report, and i commend it to my colleagues, if you read the report, you will see individual after individual, commanders on the ground warning that we are not prepared that the administration was not prepared to get civilians to safety in kabul, warning that the planning was not adequate, warning that there were dangers. and so, mr. president, i ask again that the committee do its basic oversight job, perform its basic function, hold a hearing on this report. hold accountable those who failed in that catastrophic withdrawal from afghanistan. until that time, mr. president, i will continue that the senate observe regular order in

leadership positions at the department of defense, and for those reasons, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. mr. kaine: mr. president, i respect my colleague's right to object, obviously, but i will say while the senator from missouri raises very valid concerns, none of those concern this nominee christopher loman and it is not enhanced by leaving the pentagon without a assistant secretary of defense during a war in europe where the united states military is playing a very important role. thank you. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous motion, the question comes on the coloretti nomination. the yeas and nays have been requested. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

mr. schumer: the presiding officer: the yeas are 57, the nays are 41, and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the president will be immediately notified on the senate's actions. the question now occurs on the kang nomination. yeas and nays. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are 46, and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the president will be immediately notified of the senate's actions.

the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. maip madam president, a lot of meshes are tracking day by day what's happening in russia and ukraine.

mr. lankford: as we watch the russian army continue to roll its way through ukraine, city by city, pummel innocent people, to literally shell homes, apartments, businesses, to level whole cities to the ground, for the sake of russia's aggression. this congress and this body, particularly the senate, has sphoaken out often -- spoken out often on this issue. i'm grateful the president engaged to cut off purchases with russia, to be able to slowly open up the weaponry we're giving to ukrainians as they continue to ask for more. they're looking for help. oklahomans that i talk to want us to provide help. it's ironic, some people may not know, that while isolating russia in every way we possibly can, right now this administration is working with the russian representatives to be our spokesmen to iran

negotiating a revised nuclear deal with iran. we're not doing face-to-face negotiations with iran. we're working through the russian representative to represent our beliefs to the iranians. now, if anyone in this room could say they trust the russians to represent our values at the table with iran, please rise. because we don't, and we shouldn't, and it makes absolutely no sense that a revised nuclear deal is being done with iran through the russian negotiations while russia is currently pummeling ukraine. i wish i could tell you that's even the worst part of this deal. iran has a couple of things that they need to be able to get to a nuclear weapon. the two things they need are time and money.

they have the technology. they have the know-how. they have the facilities. they have the advanced centrifuges. they just need time and money. in my frustration with the iran nuclear deal done in the obama administration is it gave them both, time and money. it set a 10-year window where they, quote-unquote, couldn't have nuclear material that would be usable for a nuclear weapon, but allocated $100 billion in release of sanctions to the iranians. $100 billion to the iranian regime. i have no beef with the iranian people. they're remarkable people, extremely well educated, but they live under the thumb of a horrible regime. what did the iranian regime do with that 100 billion dollars they were given? well, we saw the advance of the war in yemen that happened, as the iranians were supplying the houthis to attack the saudis and emiraties. we saw what happened in lebanon

with the support for hezbollah to attack israel and continue to destabilize. we saw what the iranians did in syria, supporting bashir assad and becoming his army in testimony areas across syria. and that ruthless dictator is still there today, because of iranian support, because of the $100 billion that was given to iran so they could prop up assad and so he could stay in place. that's what happened with the $100 billion that iran want given last time. now, the trump administration came in and took away that and imposed maximum presh unon the -- pressure on the iranians, walked away from the deal and said we're not going to give the largest state responsible sponsor of -- state sponsor of terrorism billions of dollars. that seems like a terrible idea. i assure you the people of syria understood that was a terrible idea. but now what?

president biden has reopened negotiations, as i mentioned before, by using russia as our proxy to be able to negotiate this. today, we add negotiators brought on by the biden administration, that are former negotiators under the obama administration to renegotiate this deal that have quit the negotiating team, that have said this negotiation is going so bad they will not be a part of it. and they have walked away. we don't know everything that's in this deal. and i will tell you, quite frankly, i'm not encouraged by what bit of rumors i'm hearing in this deal. i'm hearing this deal puts us back into the timetable that was done years ago under the obama administration to give the ten-year window, that we're back into that same window, that allows them to be able to move

to a nuclear weapon at an end time period, that it doesn't challenge their terrorist activities, that it doesn't challenge their missile development. literally, they're developing ballistic missiles designed to carry a nuclear warhead and that's not part of this agreement, apparently, to restrict their development of a missile capable of carrying nuclear material, as long as they don't actually work to develop that nuclear material. it releases sanctions to them, so again they get billions of dollars. and the negotiation, we hear at this point, it lifts sanctions on the entities in iran that took away the property and the homes from iranian jews in 1979, that we've had sanctions on. we understand it takes the sanctions off of those responsible for the beirut bombing in 1983 that killed 243 americans, mostly marines. we also understand it changes the stat fuss of iran -- the

status of iran being recognized as state-sponsored terrorism, even though they are, and there's negotiation to take the iranian revolutionly guard corps off the list of a foreign terrorist organization. are you kidding me? this is not a good deal for the peace of the region. this is not -- does not prevent iran from becoming a nuclear power. this continues to destabilize our relationships with our allies in the region, as saudi arabia and the emiraties and israelis and everyone stares at the americans and say why in the world would you make this deal that would allow iran to become a nuclear power in the days ahead? this is personal from many american families who lost a loved one in the battle in iraq, when iran engages iranian

revolutionary guard to provide lethal equipment to the iraqis so they can kill more americans. many americans died in iraq because of iranian actions. on march 11 of 2020, technical sergeant roberts from owaso, oklahoma, was killed in iraq. an iran-backed militia group equipped by iranians, supported by the regime, arbitrarily launched rockets at american forces in iraq. killing technical sergeant roberts. listen, this is personal for a lot of families. this is not some theoretical negotiation. this is a problem. why we would say to the russians negotiate on our behalf, while they're salutering ukrainians and -- slaughtering ukrainians

and sanctions those russians, makes no sense. but a deal that lifts the sanctions on the iranian revolutionary guard, on those that killed americans in 1983 in beirut, to give access to missile technology and to look away from their terrorist activities, and hezbollah and hamas and in yemen and multiple other places in the world is not a deal americans should make. mr. president, walk away from this. there is a reason that your own staff is walking out of the conversation, because you're headed the wrong way. this body is also in the process of negotiating issues with china. i've had quite a few folks from oklahoma that have caught me and have said, hey, while the world is focused on russia and ukraine, have we taken our eye off the ball in china? i would pray we have not, and i continue to be able pentagon ans across our government to not

lose focus on taiwan, to not lose focus on what's happening in trade agreements. but right now the senate is actually negotiating a bill dealing with china. i have to tell you, i didn't support this bill, and don't. it is a quarter trillion dollars in new spending. a quarter-trillion. it is enormous in size. but the basic philosophy is the chinese have a state-controlled system for how they're putting out semiconductors and research, so we should do that in america and invest a quarter-trillion to try to keep up with them the way they're doing it. the united states and our free market system has raised up the greatest entrepreneurs the world has ever known. in areas of research, there are quite a few areas where we have government and private-sector cooperation both in disease research and technology, all kinds of research that happened that have been very successful in transitioning into marketable products.

but $250 billion is a big number and philosophically shifts us into a very different structure of trying to be able to quote, unquote, keep up with the chinese. i have to grant, the senate bill is much better than the house bill. the house put together a bill dealing with china that is classic house of representatives at this point. they sent over a bill to us that they called their china bill, but it actually uses the word climate in it more than it uses the word china in it. it actually authorizes $4 billion a year into the u.n. green climate fund which actually gives grants to iran, china, and north korea to help with their green transitions. the house bill also, again their china bill, has a whole section on it on providing access to financial institutions for marijuana. now if you're wondering why marijuana banking is ending up

in the china bill, so do i. the only thing i can come up with is if you're nervous about china, smoke some weed and you'll be more relaxed, i guess. i'm not sure why that ends up in the china bill to have a whole marijuana section in the united states on it. a meaningful china bill would focus in on critical minerals, which neither bill does. all of us see the supply chain issues that are happening with china right now. we all see it, but neither bill actually deals with the serious issues that we have with critical minerals and rare earth minerals. some of the areas on critical minerals, china has access to 85% of them, and we're not responding to that. that's a problem. the bill it is, the quarter-trillion that is spent exposes us even more to chinese debt. ironically enough to be able to pay for this bill, we're going to have to borrow money from china to go compete with china, and i find that a little ironic.

it doesn't address the belt and road initiative as china continues to be able to expand around the world putting in airports, putting in ports and to be able to do its expansion through its own system, we're not addressing that nor even trying to focus on keeping a list. i even asked for the ability just for us to keep a list of all the places china is actually expanding, and that's actually not included in the bill. other areas like internet freedom for the people of hong kong that are living under the oppression of china is not included. countering the chinese influence in multilateral organizations like the u.n., the world bank, international monetary fund, as china moves to put key positions in place so they control these multilateral organizations, there is no push in this bill for this. there is no push to be able to push the chinese out of our college campuses as they move confucius institutes on to our campus to plant a chinese influence on those campuses. and it doesn't deal with

something as basic as agriculture. why do i bring up agriculture? because the chinese are purchasing land all over the united states, and especially in my state. as they snap up private land and start to do activities there, where they own that land, control that land, and develop it, there is no cfius restrictions that deals with chinese espionage, dealing with agriculture at all. and this bill doesn't address that. i see that as a problem. we need expansive, very engaged issues to be able to deal with china. china is on the move. they're becoming more and more aggressive. they continue to be more and more aggressive as they deal with a multitude of issues, everything from agriculture all the way through biotech, engineering, chemistry, ownership of intellectual property, theft of intellectual

property. they continue to be able to move across our supply chain and be able to dominate things worldwide. we need to address that. this fails to do those critical things. does it take some steps? yes. it does. but we're not even debating the other issues. we're not even discussing it. we're conferencing with the house bill that focuses more on climate than it does on china and marijuana banking more than it does on supply chain. we've got to get serious on these issues. for the sake of our children and our freedom in the days ahead. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: i rise this evening to urge my colleagues to oppose

the nomination of alvaro bedoya to be a commissioner of the federal trade commission. recently the commerce committee deadlocked on this nomination, madam president, with all republican members voting no and all democratic members voting yes. so it will take a discharge petition here on the senate floor to move mr. bedoya's nomination further. if our democratic colleagues are successful, mr. bedoya will become the fifth tie-breaking commissioner of the f.t.c. and let me just observe, as someone who's been on the commerce committee for years and years here in the united states senate, the federal trade commission, which is where mr. mr. bedoya would become a member, has always approached

issues and addressed the public in a spirit of bipartisanship. unlike the federal communications commission, the f.c.c., we've -- where we're used to the vote being 2-3 in a very partisan manner -- that's the f.c.c. for you -- but we haven't had that over time with the federal trade commission. the federal trade commission has had a tradition of bipartisanship. they have had a tradition of issuing policy statements with all five of them participating. issuing statements to the commerce committee before testimony, with the one statement speaking for the entire federal trade commission. mr. bedoya's records show that

he would bring that sort of partisanship that we've had at the f.c.c. to the federal trade commission. and i hope we can avoid that, madam president. as a matter of fact, mr. bedoya has publicly supported eliminating the longing standing bipartisan policy statement, and he's advocating excluding minority party commissioners from agency investigation. this would be a troubling step for a commission that's been bipartisan. mr. bedoya has a long history of divisive social media statements for example, he called for the elimination of the united states immigration and customs enforcement agency. he called for the elimination of

i.c.e. that is how extreme and out to the left field this nominee, alvaro bedoya is. he called on local law enforcement agencies not to cooperate with i.c.e. if your local police department, just don't cooperate with the federal agency in charge of immigration and customs enforcement. he has accused cabinet-level departments of committing human rights abuses. and he has even demanded that several of our colleagues here in the united states senate resign. he is a hothead, plainly said, madam president, more appropriate for a talk radio host of the far left rather than the fifth vote on the federal trade commission. additionally, as the judiciary committee continues to consider

a supreme court nomination, i think it's instructive to recall that in the fall of 2020, this nominee, mr. bedoya, urged senate democrats to boycott the judiciary committee's hearings on the nomination of amy coney barrett to serve on the supreme court. now, madam president, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be outraged if republican members of the judiciary committee actually refused to attend the committee's hearings which occurred last week. this is exactly what mr. bedoya, the f.t.c. nominee, called on democrats to do just 18 months ago. clearly he's out of the mainstream. this is not the temperament we need to send to the f.t.c., particularly at a time when the agency's current leadership has pursued a more partisan agenda

of late. we need to get away from that trend. and then beyond temperament, madam president, mr. bedoya has demonstrated a lack of experience and a lack of knowledge on the major policy areas that he would be responsible for regulating as an f.t.c. commissioner. although the f.t.c. is the nation's premier regulator of consumer privacy, mr. bedoya's experience on thing topic of privacy comes from his time on the staff at the senate judiciary committee, and there he largely dealt with issues of government sante fe -- surveillance that fall outside the f.t.c. jurisdiction. even the limited experience mr. bedoya has gives him no help in dealing with federal trade commission issues. through the commerce committee's vetting process, mr. bedoya has also shown a limited knowledge

of the competition and antitrust issues that are at the heart of today posts major policy debates at the f.t.c. i don't want the f.t.c. to lack a tie-breaking vote forever. that is not the reason every republican on the commerce committee voted no. but i do want the agency to be able to tackle these important issues, to reign in big tech's dominance of so many marketplaces, to support a 21st century economy that spurs innovation, and to protect consumers from fraud and other unfair and deceptive business practices. i want the f.t.c. to return to its original standing as an agency driven by bipartisanship, an agency that can be counted on to use its broad authority with a steady hand and a measured approach. and i do not believe mr. bedoya

is the right person to do this. i do not believe someone with his tech prament and lack of experience and lack of knowledge about the issues will be able to put the federal trade commission back on track. and so for those reasons, i urge my colleagues to support any effort to discharge mr. bedoya's nomination from the commerce committee to the senate floor. and i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

the 23 budget they're asking for substantial increases in defense. even relative to it congress ended up enacting for the current year which was more than the buy demonstration requested.

they are going above and beyond that in fy 23 requester. it's driven by a lot of different factors including inflation, higher labor costs things like that. >> i was going to say the current conflict going on with ukraine are there other factors there too? >> it's interesting even though they just released the budget yesterday, the department of defense had to finalize this a couple of months ago. and so they made it clear during the budget rollout yesterday it was not actually informed by the russian invasion of ukraine. that happened after they had finished this budget. this has been in the pipeline for getting reviewed, put in the right format to be submitted to congress. really, the conflict in ukraine did not shape this budget at all. what we should expect as if that drags on, if it continues and it looks like it's going into the next fiscal year that starts

october 1, then we may see the administration come back and asked congress for a supplemental budget request. extra funding for next year to help offset some of the costs of u.s. support ukraine. >> when it comes to the large figure you talked about, which goes to specific programs whether it's programs developing or modernize current programs? >> that's one of the biggest areas of increased we are seeing in this budget request. since the acquisition of new weapons in particular funding for research development test and evaluation. rdp and eat what they called the budget. that is up to $130 billion in this request if you look back historically that's going to put the r&d part of the budget at a historically high level. even when you adjust for inflation for previous years, we are getting into record territory for research and development in the defense

budget. that reflects part of the administration strategy which is really to double down on investments in new technology and new military capabilities to sustain our military advantage in the future. >> could you elaborate what some of those programs could look like? >> those investments as you can imagine are sprinkled around. there's a lot of different areas offset. one that stands out to me as their increasing investment in building a new stealth eightball mart for the air force, be 21. that program is ramping up to just over $5 billion in fy 23 requester. a lot about that program a secret prayer they have revealed there are six initial aircraft currently under construction. but we do not know a whole lot more about that program just yet. there may be more details that come out with further budget documents. sed with.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now i would like to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all those no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to h.r. 310, 4373. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4373, an act making appropriations for the go department of state for the fiscal year to 22 and for other purposes. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 310, h.r. 4373, an act making appropriations for the department of state, foreign operations and related programs for the fiscal year september 30, 2022 and other

purposes, signed by 17 senators as follows. mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: finally, i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call for the cloture motion filed today, march 29, be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. any opposed? no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. it. mr. schumer: pursuant to senate res. 27, the senate commerce, science, and transportation committee tied on the question of reporting, i move to discharge the commerce committee from further consideration of alvaro m. bedoya of maryland to be a federal trade commissioner. the presiding officer: under the provisions of senate resolution 27 there will be up to four hours of debate on the motion, eke wamly divided between the two leaders, designees. it. mr. schumer: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there sufficient second? there appears to be.

the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: now, madam president prk i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following senate resolutions, which were submitted earlier today -- senate res. 561, 562, and senate res. 563 and 564. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measures en bloc. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 565, submitted earlier

today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution, 565, honoring and celebrating the life and legacy of representative don young. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate will proceed. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc, calendar 642, 643, 734, 789, that the senate vote on the nominations en bloc, without intervening action or debate, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, in i statement related to the nominations be printed in the record, and the president will be immediately notified on the senate's actions, and the senate resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. the question occurs on the nominations en bloc.

all those in favor say aye. all opposed no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nominations are confirmed. mr. schumer: madam president, if i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. on wednesday, march 30, following the prayer and pledge the morning hour be deemed expired, the judge of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate resume to executive session to resume consideration of the pryor nomination. that it ripen following disposition of the motion to discharge the bedoya nomination and the senate vote on the motion to discharge the bedoya nomination at 11:45 a.m. further, if cloture is invoked on the pryor nomination, all post-cloture time be considered expired at 130 p.m.. finally, if any nominations are confirmed during wednesday's session of the senate, the motions to

reconsidered be considered made and laid upon the table, and and the president will be immediately notified on the senate's actions. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the provisions of s. res. 565, following the remarks of senator cantwell. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: madam president, i thank the leader for mentioning the move to have a vote on alvaro bedoya to be the commissioner of the federal trade commission. this is such an important task, and i know that the leader probably knows that mr. bedoya hails from new york, but also must be a very proud moment for him as well. the f.t.c. is the security guard for america's consumers. if a company is lying to its customers about their products and what they can do, or teaming up with competitors to keep prices high, the f.cxfing t.c.

is the -- the f.c.c. -- the f.t.c. is the policeman on the beat -- mr. schumer: would the senator yield? ms. cantwell: yes. mr. schumer: i want to thank the senator for her leadership on this issue. we all know we've seen prices go way up, and we suspect a lot is due to different gouging and manipulations. the f.t.c. is about the best agency to look for this. without mr. bedoya, the chair and members are handicapped in moved that forward. this is a an important motion to discharge. i hope anyone who cares about inflaition, rising prices -- inflation, rises prices and manipulation of those prices should vote for the motion to discharge and nomination. once again, the senator from washington led the way. i salute her this is a very, very important motion to discharge. i yield back to the senator from washington state.

ms. cantwell: i thank you for that con advice recognition of what the f.t.c. is all about, it's about fighting for crushes on issues. we need the f.t.c. more than ever. we needed their muscle during the covid pandemic as opportunistic scammers stole $ 5.9 billion out of the pockets of americans. that doesn't include people who never knew they were scammed or were too embarrassed to report what happened. so congress, on a bipartisan basis, pumped up the f.t.c.'s power, and at the end of 2020 we passed the covid-19 consumer protection act to help root out promoters of dangerous, fake treatments and cures. second, we gave the f.t.c. $30 million in the if american rescue plan to promote and protect americans against scams that targeted their covid stimulus package. last year, we confirmed that the f.t.c. chair, elena kahn, was

supported by 21 republicans from this body. today, we're talking about the next important step in protecting consumers, moving to confirm mr. bedoya to fill the last seat on the federal trade commission. mr. bedoya has the right experience to tackle the problems faced rye now, some of the faced right now, regarding how to protect our privacy and children's online privacy. i say that because i heard my comments from my colleague about mr. bedoya and the fact that he issued various tweets about this or that in his time in the private sector. i guarantee if we voted for people based on their tweets, there would be a lot of people that wouldn't be approved at all, including some of the people that have been through this process. mr. bedoya served as the chief counsel of the u.s. senate judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and law. i would says as it relates to te

f.t.c.'s ability to do something about reining in some of the bad practices we see online, he's a very qualified person and individual. mr. bedoya graduated summa cume lauda from harvard and holds a law degree from yale where he was on the yale law journal. he received the paul daisy fellowship for new americans. mr. bedoya has dug in on a variety of issues and has the experience and leadership in one of the most critical areas, technology, that the f.t.c. is dealing with today. i encourage my colleagues to support him. that is why he is supported by the current republican f.t.c. commissioners. they also support his nomination. they say they recognize his willingness and expertise and ability to reach across the aisle and find common ground on solutions that work for people. is that skill set that we're looking for at the f.t.c. to

help hard-working americans get a fair shake in the marketplace, whether at the pharmacy, gas pump or online. i know as a proud immigrant, mr. bedoya will use his role to expand the f.t.c.'s work in underserved communities. the f.t.c. needs to be able to protect all americans, and to accomplish that we need to have a commission not deadlocked now, but has somebody like mr. bedoya who can help us move ahead on these issues. his experience working, as i said, in the judiciary committee in 2009, he cofounded the estonia per anza -- espiranza education fund, for college scholarships for immigrant students and has worked in various issues within the community. if right now, we need an f.t.c. that is going to look at the market systems and make sure there is fair compe significance, to make sure consumers are protected and

there is a level playing field. i think his experience here on the hill understands exactly what that is. he's testified before congress and state legislatures and appeared in numbers of publications about these critical issues on privacy and on the online world in which we need to have more oversight. so, i finally, mr. bedoya's experience, as is said, on data privacy specifically, the internet and making it safe for children. he ek posed racial bias -- exposed racial bias in facial recognition soft wear and against companies that collected data on millions of americans. we need that kind of expertise mr. bedoya knows and understands, how we're using that today and what we can do to better protect the american consumer. i hope my colleagues will join us to prove and move quickly to discharge the committee of alvaro bedoya's nomination to be

commissioner of f.t.c. and support his nomination as we get this to the senate floor. i thank the president and yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, pursuant to senate resolution 565, the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on thursday, and does 10:00 a.m. on thursday, and does ♪ ♪ c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more including charter communications.

>> broadbent is a force for empowerment that is why chart invested billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications support c-span as a public service. along with these other television providers. giving him a front row seat to democracy. >> next, president biden sign the anti- lynching act into law. making lynching of federal hate crime during a ceremony at the white house. the bill same as in honor of 14-year-old who was lynched in mississippi in 1955. more than 100 years since he first antilynching legislation was introduced in 1900. and after 200 failed attempts by congress to pass similar legislation. this is about 40 minutes.