starts with great internet. >> wow. >> wow supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> now available at the c-span shop, c-span's 2022 congressional directory, go there to order a copy of the congressional directory. the compact spiral bound book has contact information for every member of congress, including bios and committee assignments and contact for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. order your copy today at c-span shop.org or scan the code with your smartphone. every purchase helps to support c-span's nonprofit operations. the u.s. senate today working on more of president biden nominations. coming up at 11:30 eastern this morning a vote to confirm a judge to the 2nd circuit court

of appeals and at 1:45 p.m. eastern a confirmation vote on the nominee to head the transportation security administration. later in the month, lawmakers will consider a short-term spending bill to fund the federal government past september 30th. and senate majority leader chuck schumer also plans to bring a bill protecting same-sex marriage to the floor over the next couple of weeks. as always, live coverage the senate on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, who harmonized the world with seasons and climates, sowing and reaping, color and fragrance, we praise your loving name. lord,

strengthen our senators to do their part in fulfilling your purposes for this land we love. be for our lawmakers a refuge and a shelter from life's storms. give them the wisdom to find in your word a lamp for their feet and a light for their path. provide them also with the resolve to walk in that light and follow your guidance. in your compassion free them from the cares that deplete their trust in you. we pray in your merciful name. amen.

the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., september 15, 2022. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jacky rosen, a senator from the state of nevada, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the following nomination,

which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, sarah a.l. merriam, of connecticut, to be united states circuit judge for the second circuit.

mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: madam president, last night, as most americans were in bed asleep, freight rail companies and unions representing tens of thousands of workers secured a tentative agreement that will keep the trains running on time and keep our economy moving. and the best part is that union leadership, representing tens of thousands of railway workers who have worked themselves to the bone over the course of the pandemic, seem to have secured the better pay conditions for their workers. railway workers have earned that pay and defendant through blood sweat and tears and i hope it will secure stronger benefits. this is the sort of outcome that

will keep our economy going, our supply chains running, and most importantly our workers taken well care of. the epidemic is a -- the episode is a reminder that workers are what make the wheels of our economy turn, in this case literally. i want to thank president biden, secretary walsh, he was steadfast and dedicated and a word that we use in our senate caucus, he persisted and persisted and persisted. and i want to thank every single representative and rail worker who worked to reach this outcome. now i have a few short remarks to say on marriage equality. negotiators have been meeting practically every single day, democrat and republican, have been meeting practically every

single day this week. there will be a meeting later today from both sides and i look forward to see what progress republicans make to reach the number of ten. the onus is on our republican colleagues to demonstrate they are serious about passing marriage equality into law. every single democrat is for it, but of course we need 60 votes. let me be clear, my number one priority is to pass legislation. it's an issue that will have profound consequences for millions of americans in same-sex marriages and who identify as lgbtq. to down this or let it pass by or act like we can put it off to another time is not the right thing to do. we should do it now and that's why we're eager to get 10 republicans to support the bill and across the street we have heard justice thomas and maga

republicans to one day follow through to drag same-sex marriage rights back under the spotlight of the supreme court. that thought should send a shiver down all of our spines. i thank my colleagues from senators baldwin to sinema to collins and i'm glad to give them space to lead these negotiations because this needs to be done and done right. finally -- oh, one more point on marriage. but for the sake of tens of millions of americans, we need to get this done and i hope we have ten republicans willing to raise their hands and push this process forward. finally, on judges, it was another productive week on the senate floor when it comes to confirming more judicial nominees, we completed the nomination process for salvador

mendoza and lara e. montecalvo to sit on the first circuit and we will later confirm sarah merriam. that brings our total for the month of september to five circuit court judges and we now have confirmed more than 80 judicial nominees to the federal bench, on numerous occasions, it has been with bipartisan votes, and i thank my republican colleagues who joined us in voting for these fine nominees. so to the judiciary committee, senator durbin, and all of my colleagues, i say great work. let's keep going. i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

>> yesterday my republican colleagues introduced the ban and made it clear that they're coming after the rights of my constituents and they're coming after the rights of people across the country. this atrocious bill threatens the people of kansas who just voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion rights. it threatens the hundreds of thousands of people in michigan who just signed a petition for a referendum vote to protect

abortion. in states like mine which already have strong abortion protections on our books. up to now republicans have tried to play down their abortion extremism. they are trying to run away from the consequences of their extreme agenda even as patients have been denied prescriptions that they need. even if doctors have been forced to wait until patience lives are in danger before they can take action, even as healthcare crisis they have caused spill across state lines to disastrous effects. but despite their empty rhetoric about leaving it to states, the truth has been painfully clear. they think they know better than women when it comes to reproductive health care decisions. they have shown again and again they do not trust women to have full control over their own bodies, and they are also

willing to go after doctors they like him like the bill that would have made sure people can still travel to other states for legally available care, or my bill making sure that doctors in states where abortion is legal cannot be punished for doing their job. over and over there stood in the way of democrats efforts to protect women's abortion rights. and it's crystal clear why. this bill shows the true republican position. they want to ban abortion for everyone in every single state. and they want to punish doctors. they want to put them in prison for doing their jobs. so to anyone who lives in a blue state like mine, anyone who thinks you are safe from these attacks, here is the painful reality. republicans are coming after your rights.

and you don't have to take my word for it. the senator from south carolina said yesterday, and i quote, if we take back the house and the senate, i can assure you we will have a vote on our bill. there it is. couldn't be clearer. that's the maga agenda for all 50 states. rights stripped away. doctors in prison. regardless of your circumstances, , regardless of what is best for your health, regardless of your family plans or your hopes or your fears or your dreams for your future. republicans want to control your personal decisions. they don't trust you to have full control over your own body. this is horrifying. and madam president, when he unveiled the bill yesterday the senator from south carolina also said, and i quote, i'll make a prediction. we stay on this and we keep talking about it, maybe less than a decade from now this will

be law. unquote. this will be law. this is a future that they want, a national abortion ban. well, let me tell you something. the senator from south carolina might not have been paying attention but democrats are already talking about this issue every week, every day, every opportunity. and women across the country have been with us fighting for the right to abortion and fighting back against republicans harmful attacks. we saw it in kansas. we're seeing it in michigan. and i'm seeing it everywhere i go in washington state. i have been talking to doctors and patients and women and men across our country, and they are outraged, outraged that republicans want to take away their rights, that republicans want to put doctors in prison. and i am, too. i have never been matter. so here's my message to republicans. if you want to go after my

constituents rights, if you want to go after women's bodies and futures, if you want to pass a national abortion ban like this extremepr bill, you are going to have to go through me. because democrats are going to keep standing up week's inflation report confirmed what working people across the country know all too well. the cost of feeding a family and keeping the lights on have skyrocketed more quickly this past year than at any time since the wake of the carter administration. a year and a half of crippling, runaway inflation is the most important story to the american people every single day. the media have grown somewhat numb to month after month of 8% and 9% inflation, but working marines have not had the luxury of growing numb. the paib gets worse -- the pain gets worse every single time

they have to fill a shopping cart or pay their credit card bill. one mother of young sons in my hometown of louisville put it this way, quote, my grocery bill has gone up a lot. it's terrible right now. i have to be really strategic on how i plan out the whole month to make sure we have enough money. of course, kentuckians aren't the only ones in this predicament. in nevada, an office worker recently told reporters, quote, i've not been buying a lot of things because i can't atbord it. i'm -- i can't afford it. i'm like, the kids don't need juice for school anymore. we'll just do water. in arizona, so many families are having to make tough choices at the grocery store, many are accepting charity to keep food on the table. according to an employee of one food bank in phoenix, the impact we're seeing day in and day out continues to go up, the families are stressed.

who can plame them, madam president? -- who can blame them, madam president? food inflation is more than a four-decade high. bread is 16.2% more expensive than a year ago. milk is up 17%. flour is up 23.3%. eggs are going for nearly 40% more. week after week feeding a family has become a stressful proposition for millions of americans. and every extra dollar spent on gross are is is one fewer to spare for soaring electricity bills. in the suburbs of las vegas, residents have economies rated over the astronomical cost of keeping their homes cool this summer. one neighborhood message board reads like this, my bill for this month will be $574. it's insane. yes, ours was $800 for june. in arizona, a restaurant worker

didn't mince words about scrapping together enough to keep the lights and air-conditioning on, quote, if i didn't have roommates, i wouldn't be able to make it on the salary that i have. overall, inflation in phoenix and atlanta is way, way higher than even the sky-high national average. the country as a whole is still grappling with inflation over 8%, but phoenix has seen a staggering 13% inflation in just the last year, and atlanta has seen nearly 12%. of course, for working americans in some other states, the most acute emergency is not the cost of summer cooling, but rather the cost of winter heating. in places like new hampshire and vermont, where many homes burn heating oil, this important price is up more than 91% since president biden took office. in every corner of the country, one of the biggest collective headaches facing working

families with young kids is the rising cost of back-to-school shopping lists. according to one working mother in pennsylvania, she had to take items like a backpack for her preschooler out of her shopping cart in the checkout line, quote, it's been at least 20 years since i have had to pull back to this extent. this is a new and humbling experience for me as an adult, she said. american families are facing math problems that just don't add up. meanwhile, the same washington democrats that got them into this mess spent tuesday celebrating having rammed through on a party line vote a bill that does nothing to help them solve it. hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending just as working families are having the hardest time in a decade making ends meet at home. hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that wouldn't even accomplish democrats' own underlying radical climate goals let alone the false claims of

inflation reduction on the cover. so our economy continues to hand working families a raw deal. but the same day this latest awful inflation report was published, washington democrats went to a concert at the white house and celebrated, celebrated their economic policies. how much more out of touch can you get? the democrats' giant inflation-year spiral is causing the average american household $460 -- 460 extra single dollars every single month to buy the same things as last year. president biden has put a silent inflation tax of $460 every single month. in kentucky the average household has to pay $608 more a month, well over $7,000 a year just to stay where they were when president biden was sworn in. americans' real wages, their purchasing power has plummeted

since this all-democratic government was sworn in. and the democrats' response? print and spend hundreds of billions more. make americans without bachelor's degrees pay off the graduate school debt of doctors and lawyers and throw themselves a party on the white house lawn? our colleagues across the aisle created this human catastrophe, this runaway inflation was a policy choice by democrats. and they aren't even trying to stop it. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

>> not even connecticut is safe from this threat. they are coming after our laws and connecticut. they're coming after women in connecticut and men who believe in the rights of women. as a matter of constitutional and personal freedom. to make these decisions. our laws should protect the rights of women seeking to make their own personal decisions about the own reproductive

health in consultation with medical providers. and i will fight tooth and nail this effort and any other effort that seeks to control, criminalize, and dehumanize women, making this choice and healthcare providers compassionately giving them care. the american people are in our corner. the american people whatever they may think about abortion in their own lies with her own family, for the daughter or wives or other, they support the rights of those women to control their own health care decision. it is an intensely personal decision when it has to be made. and sometimes the threat of life, something going horribly wrong in a pregnancy is the

reason for it. i will continue to fight for all in connecticut who believe in this fundamental right. it is a matter of our constitution dna in connecticut, beginning with griswold v. connecticut, which laid the groundwork for the right of privacy, and which is the underpinning for that constitutional freedom. and all of us i hope will reject this effort to ban abortion in the united states. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. >> madam president? >> the senior senator from nevada. >> madam president, in june as we are hearing, the supreme

court struck down a roe v. wade reversing nearly 50 years of law that recognized a woman's fundamental right to reproductive freedom. and we also that justice kavanaugh was occurring -- concurring -- the court's decision would return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives in the states, but this was never about states' rights. really, to my right wing colleagues who want to restrict a woman's fundamental rights. we know that because now they are pushing for a national abortion ban. yesterday as we deferred senator graham introduced a strict national abortion ban with criminal penalties for doctors who provide critical care. if it passes, this bill will preempt the laws in states across the country where

abortion is still legal. i'm going to thank you. including my own state of nevada. in nevada, our voters approved a ballot initiative in 1990, to enshrine a woman's right to choose in our state laws. so what happened to my colleagues claims of respecting the rights of states to make that decision? well, apparently it wasn't enough to pack the court was supreme court justices who would vote to deprive women of the right that they they've he0 years under the guise of states' rights. now when far right republicans disagree with this date decision like mine, they plan to impose their own laws. the current legislation introduced by senator graham stops the people in pro-choice states, like mine, like nevada, from choosing to protect the rights of women.

at the same time it leaves in place stricter abortion bans in 14 states. what these far right republicans are effectively saying now is, anti-choice states, you are free to choose however harsh you want your abortion bans to be, but you pro-choice states, you're out of luck. whatever the voters want in your states, it really doesn't matter because we're going to impose her own laws. look, nevadans as a set in 1990 we we work to codify roe v. wade because we know that it is impossible to walk in another women's shoes. we know that each woman, this is an important decision for each individual woman to make with your doctor, with her loved ones about her health care, about her family planning. i do not know what another woman is going to go through that again i want to restrict your as to any type of care, nor should any of us be imposing our

beliefs, our experiences, our religion on someone else. that's what this is about and that's why nevada voters voted in 1990 to codify roe v. wade and give women the right to make this decision. right now we are seeing some politicians once again declare that they know what's best for every family in this nation. they want to force the state of nevada and other states like nevada to limit women's freedoms, even though voters in my state voted to legally protect the right to choose that nevada women have had for 50 years. i have been saying for months now that some of my colleagues would never be satisfied with just overturning roe. and that they wouldn't rest and tell the was a national abortion ban. this bill shows every american that that only a women's right under attack, but so is a a

democratic process in states like nevada. if we don't have an abortion ban on the books, horst dates rights don't matter. that is just unacceptable. we can't let our nieces, our daughters, our granddaughters grow up in a world where they have fewer rights than we've had in the past. so i for one will keep fighting back. because this is about the fundamental right for american women in the will of people in states like nevada to make this decision and help and vote for the rights of women to choose. so thank you, madam president, and i yield the floor. >> madam president? >> the senator from hawaii. >> when the extreme far right supreme court overturned roe, my republican colleagues lauded

this horrendous decision, claiming that a a woman's rigo an abortion should be left to the states. but now they are admitting what we knew all along. this is never about states' rights. this has always been about republicans using their power to control women and our bodily autonomy. despite the fact that the vast majority of the american public supports reproductive freedom, and despite the fact that voters across the country are overwhelmingly voting to protect this freedom. republicans are pandering, i think that's a really good word, pandering to their extreme maga base. and they had that entered is a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks. why 15 weeks, you ask? because that's what the senior senator from south carolina who introduced this legislation said he would, quote, feel

comfortable at. so we now have a republican senator attempting to restrict the bodily autonomy of women across the country because that's what he feels comfortable at. it's not enough that overturning of roe had created fear and confusion all across the country. we now have the introduction of a nationwide abortion ban further adding to the chaos. this is not some sort of hypothetical debate. or hysteria a somewhat republican colleagues have claimed. if republicans take control of the senate we now know what they will do. they will work to pass a national abortion ban. which would mean even in my home

state of hawaii, which was the first date in the country to decriminalize abortion, even before the roe decision, we did this in hawaii in 1970. and for voters in states are pushing back against their radical legislators and exercising the right to bring the issue of abortion to ballot including states like kansas and michigan, this bill would overrule their efforts. but, of course, to add to their utter hypocrisy, it states like texas or mississippi want to be even more restrictive, even more harmful to women than a 15 week ban, that would be a-ok, according to the senator from south carolina and is extreme bill. allowing republicans to regain control of congress would be catastrophic not only for women

but for our entire country. because when we women can't control what we do with our bodies, of course this impacts our families, our communities, our economy. and so this november people are going to have a choice. do you want to live extreme map maga republican site you what you can and can't do with your own body? orgy want to hold these politicians accountable for pushing their far right extreme agenda and perpetuating the chaos, confusion and fear that women, families, communities and our healthcare professionals, let's not forget all the doctors were out there wondering how they can provide the kind of care that they are trained to do right now, how they can do that in the face of this kind of man

instantly states across the country, not to mention a nationwide abortion ban. so the chaos, confusion, experience being experience all across the country following the dobbs decision is only multiplied by this nationwide abortion ban bill. talk about government overreach. when i hear my colleagues talking about how it should be states' rights or government should not be telling us what to do, the word hypocrite, it doesn't even go far enough to call them out and what they're doing. this is an outright attack on women in this country. that is how i see it. that is how more and more women and those who support our right to make decisions about our own

bodies, that is how we see it. and -- because that's what's happening. madam president, i yield the floor, but clearly, you know, this is literally a call to arms in our country. yield the floor. >> the senior senator from oregon. >> madam president, i come to the floor to discuss the new grand legislation to create a national abortion ban. now, the centerpiece of the senators argument is that senator graham wants our country to believe that his national abortion ban is a moderate proposal, his words. wrong, wrong, wrong. a moderate bill would not institute criminal penalties for

doctors providing life-saving medical care. that's what this so-called moderate bill does. a moderate bill would not take rights away from american women, no matter where they live. that's what this so-called moderate bill does your a moderate bill would not create a presumption of women's guild by requiring them to report a rate or seek counseling before they get an abortion. this so-called moderate bill does that, too. so just think about that last point. if you are trying to assess our colleague from south carolina's argument that his bill is, quote, moderate. under senator graham said new restrictions, a 12 year old rape

victim, regardless of the terror she feels or the danger she faces, could have to find a way to report her assault to police before she could get the care she needs. that is a stunning overreach, madam president, and there is absolutely nothing that is moderate about the proposal that i just gave. now, the reality is this is not a moderate proposal. it is an extreme proposal, we had a step with the overwhelming opinion of the american people. now, the other important argument i wanted to discuss was this whole matter of how so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have pledged

loyalty, pledged loyalty to the importance of states' rights, that they're going to leave the decision on abortion to the states. what senator graham has shown is that all his talk about states' rights means that the states have got to agree with senator graham. that's what his idea about states' rights is all about. his bill tramples, for example, on the rights of oregonians who sure don't share senator graham's view on this. and many people another state who voted to protect individual women's freedom. senator graham's bill is about control. it's about government, government -- mind to these wordsic -- government having control over women's bodies rather than women esiding office.

mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: madam president, august inflation numbers came out this week and they weren't good. inflation was higher than expected and it was clear that soaring prices will continue for a while. it doesn't seem to concern democrats one bit. the president was asked on tuesday if he was worried about the august inflation report worse than expected. his answer, he was not. on tuesday, the president and democrats gathered at the white house to con grat themselves for having passed their so-called inflation reduction act, a bill that will do nothing -- nothing to reduce inflation. and that's not just my opinion, madam president. that was the conclusion of the nonpartisan penn wharton budget model and of the democrat

chairman of the budget committee who referred to the bill as the so-called inflation reduction act on the senate floor while admitting it would do nothing to help with the inflation crisis. that didn't stop the democrats from celebrating. most of us wondered what there was 0 to celebrate. we know that the bill will fall short on deficit reduction. democrats' claim that the bill will provide deficit reduction was somewhat dubious but even granting democrats' rosiest assumptions, president biden whiepped out any -- wiped out any inflation reduction. no inflation reduction, no deficit reduction. one other thing, and the inflation reduction act will drive up energy bills for

americans. so the question is what was there to celebrate? well, for democrats, the inflation reduction act marked a chance to finely pushed through some of their green new deal, to help wealthy americans buy electric cars. more than $60 billion -- $60 billion for environmental justice priorities, including $1.9 billion for things like identifying gaps in tree canopy coverage. and the list goes on. so i think democrats are pretty satisfied with themselves over fine -- finally jamming through elements of their green new deal agenda and they have obama health care subsidies that will push americans into government-run care. and then -- then there are the

tax hikes. madam president, the current democrat leader once said and i quote, you don't want to take money out of the economy when the economy is shrinking, end quote, like it has in the previous two quarters. but those days are gone. for democrats raising taxes has become an article of faith. it goes far beyond raising money to pay for their big government spending. democrats believe raising taxes on corporations and well-off americans is good even if the tax hikes have a negative effect on less well-off americans and the economy. and the tax hikes that democrats included in their so-called inflation reduction act will have a negative effect on the economy and the hardworking americans who help support it. democrats' tax hikes on businesses will will result in lower growth, lower wages and thousands of fewer jobs. and democrats' tax hikes on conventional energy will result

in higher energy price ps for working families. -- prices for working families. madam president, in addition to raising taxes, the other main way the inflation reduction act raises revenue is placing new burdens on taxpayers. the democrats' bill contains a whopping $80 billion increased funding for the i.r.s. that's the increase in funding which represents six times the annual budget of the i.r.s. today. more than half of those funds, or $46 billion, are earmarked for increased i.r.s. enforcement. just 4% is for improving customer service, which should tell you where democrats' real priorities lie. the bill would provide for the hiring of as many as 87,000 new

employees which would more than double the current sides -- size of the agency and make the i.r.s. -- make the i.r.s., if you can believe this, larger than customs and border patrol and the u.s. coast guard combined. in the leadup to passage of the democrats' bill, the biden administration put out a statement declaring the money for i.r.s. enforcement would not go to increased audits of households making less than $400,000. because we had reason to doubt that was the case, the republicans put forward ale bill to prevent the i.r.s. to use that money to audit americans. every democrat -- every single democrat voted against the amendment. so i guess democrats are happy to oppose more i.r.s. audits of middle-class americans in

theory, but they don't want to cut off the possibility of those audits in practice if they end up needing them to help fund their green new deal spending. madam president, i don't need tole tell anyone that the i.r.s. is notorious for mishandling taxpayer data. we learned recently that the i.r.s. posted confidential taxpayer data for 120,000 individuals on its website. private taxpayer information that was available to the general public. then, of course, there was last year's leak or hack of confidential taxpayer information shared with the left-leaning propublica and neither the i.r.s. or the biden administration has provided any accountability. then there was the infamous targeting of conservative groups

for extra scrutiny under the obama i.r.s. and the list goes on. and i haven't even discussed the i.r.s. record of grossly underperforming, some would say nonexistent, customer service. during the 2022 tax season, just 10% of taxpayer calls -- 10% of taxpayer calls to the i.r.s. were answered by an i.r.s. employee. what we need to be doing is holding the i.r.s. accountable, not sending tens of thousands of new i.r.s. agents and turning them loose on taxpayer accounts. earlier this week, i joined my republican colleagues on the senate finance committee to introduce legislation to prevent the i.r.s. from using its new funding to audit american workersor small business owners earning less than $400,000 per

year. i introduced a bill this week, along with senator collins to improve taxpayer service at the i.r.s. our legislation called the increased reliable services now act would prevent -- until customer service at the i.r.s. has reached a more acceptable level. it is unacceptable -- unacceptable that taxpayers have a one in ten chance of receiving assistance when calling the i.r.s. and the agency should not be allowed to increase enforcement hires until it has achieved at least a basic level of customer service. so 87,000 new employees double -- double the size of the current irs workforce.

$80 billion, six times the current annual budget of the i.r.s. with a specific focus on going after taxpayers in this country to try and get, raise, whatever, more revenue to fund the democrats' big government fantasies. at the same time one in ten taxpayers is getting their calls returned at the irs. madam president, i'll continue to work to increase irs accountability and prevent hardworking americans from being squeezed to fund democrats' green new deal spending. madam president, like the $1.9 trillion american rescue plan, the spending spree that came before it, which i would add helped plunge our country into our current inflation crisis, the inflation reduction act is a bad deal for the american people. and

all of the self-congratulatory white house parties in the world aren't going to change that basic fundamental fact. americans are experiencing serious economic hardship, and democrats are doing nothing to help. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: thank you, mr. president. at 12:01 tomorrow morning our nation's transportation system was set to come to a screeching halt. it now sounds like we have a bit of reprieve, but we still have a threat. since 2019, railroads and unions have been negotiating a new contract.

two months ago, president biden appropriately appointed members of what's called the presidential emergency board. this board recommended the largest pay increase in industry history, at 24%, in addition to an annual bonus and health care changes. president biden promised to be the most prounion president in history, but even president biden's recommendations weren't enough for these unions. a few unions continued to hold out, and in fact took us on the verge of a nationwide strike. a railroad strike would really plunge us back into the supply chain issues that have just now started to somewhat improve.

these trains that would be stopped actually carry the food we eat, the gas for our tanks, and the energy that heats our homes. already i'm hearing from grain elevator operators in my state that they're having trouble transporting their grain. hazardous cargo, like the chlorine cities need to purify drinking water, stopped moving earlier this week. amtrak has canceled long-distance routes. maybe they're going to be up running now, but at least they were getting ready to stop. but what i just described is the tip of the iceberg, unless these unions agree to a long-term deal. the last thing we need is for grain shipments to grind to a

halt right as farmers are going to the fields to harvest their grain. iowa corn and soybeans can't feed the world if they're stuck on the farm or in the local elevator. that's why i cosponsored senator burr's joint resolution to prevent all this. the resolution would mandate that both sides adopt the recommendations of president biden's emergency board, and then of course if we pass that the trains would keep running. we're just learning about a tentative deal that would let unions back away from the cliff. if they don't, then congress must step in and pass the joint resolution to keep our economy going. the alternative is unacceptable. i yield the floor, and i suggest

the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

what it has done for the economy so far and then i will get your reaction. >> we've already accomplished

together historic american rescue plan is taking economic researchers. jobs are up, people are back to work. since we can't go off as nearly 10 million jobs, record for any . 3.7% unemployment, 50 year low in this country. more small business trade that anytime before in our history. american manufacturers coming back, 6680 manufacturing jobs. what is a say america can't leave an american manufacturing? yes but, for the criticism i got in the help you gave me the gas prices, down more than a dollar and 30 cents a gallon the start of the summer. we are making progress in getting all the prices down as

well. we have more to do, but we are getting there. a once in a generation law will modernize roads, bridges, airports and deliver clean water and high-speed internet to every community. eliminate ever led pipe in every home and school. >> your reaction to his touting of the economy? >> at that moment, that report that came out, it's high. it's grown, causing the cost of living for everyone. colleagues of mine have said gas and groceries election, gas is more expensive than it was 32% more than it was when president took office. groceries are more expensive, it is painful to most of the american people. >> how to bring inflation down and what is the administration doing? >> administration pushed all this into the economy and they want to do it again and more with student loan forgiveness, i

think it's a mistake of the president was warned by economists such as larry summers the policies could trigger inflation and they dismissed that in the president did it anyway and it's been damaging to our economy. >> what would republicans do to curb inflation? >> when you look at covid in a bipartisan basis of the prior to keeping in the job, 2020 at the beginning of covid when unemployment spikes and gdp, congress got involved on the temporary basis. by the end of 2020, gdp is back to about even we should have left well enough alone, they would have. president biden newton office and wanted to push that money out, it was a mistake. >> are talking about the

economy, what's it like where you live? he sits on the ways and means committee, topical get on the trade subcommittee amassed by the white house and labor secretary this morning they've come to a deal with the union, a freight rail. this is what he wrote at 50:88 a.m. twenty consecutive hours of negotiations, the rail companies and union negotiators made an agreement balances needed of workers, businesses in our nation's economy. there had been a strike, can you talk about what that would mean for trade? >> it would have been devastating so the fact that there's this tentative agreement but the fact that not everything has been resolved, it makes me nervous, been talking to agricultural producers who told me it had instructions in terms of freight coming in, perhaps other products to market. a vital part of our nation's economy especially during the supply chain crisis, the strike

is the last thing we would need. >> the farmers in your district and state, how much do they rely on freight versus trucking? >> both. >> we have a lot of rail workers, the largest railyard in the world in the middle of my district, it's very busy, diverse traffic and coal as part of that, that's been on the decline, rail is important. it's so efficient hall a lot of freight a long way for an efficient amount so it leads to other things, opportunity also challenges as well. >> what are farmers telling you about high food prices? are they seeing more money because of high food prices? >> it's volatile. we talk about farmers not

getting those for the products they work hard to produce the commodity markets are volatile. we are looking at a farm bill next year to renew a farm bill, we will have discretion on the but there is frustration. often times when prices are higher at the grocery store let's take with beef but beef producers on branches across the country typically nebraska, they tend to be done and she was pay more, it's frustrating so speaks to several other issues from a workforce shortage is huge part as well. >> explain for people who don't know how it works for farmers and prices, is it future, the price is set long before, how does it work? >> the future that is involved,

contracts are out there for a farmer will agree to deliver a product, a processor months down the road or even longer so times there's a market on the spot being able to sell product but a lot of times it's forward contracted in a way that allows producers to have part of the risk and processors as well. >> with got calls linda for you. >> hi, how are you doing? to make money. >> money. normally i wouldn't be up but this time. [laughter] usually i wouldn't be watching your show even though i record it every day a lot of times and put it on you see i just happened to catch up today. i am extremely curious graham, they want to bring supreme

court's to start to the state and now back to the senate again. they have no clue what they are doing. you know? it shows all the time. he doesn't have a good plan. i hope the democrats don't go along with it the thing is, they don't want to work together but now they want to work together. wrong. they're trying to take the rights of women away. >> we have limited time with the congressman's i'm going to have him tell us, what is your position senator graham's nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks? >> i am pro-life, the fact the supreme court handed down to the state i think is very important, we should focus on that. that is the litigation was about so there will be debate across the house and senate and that's as good, something we should not try away from we want it to be

civilized share ideas and come together with policies in this case, i think it is the states should address this as the supreme court would allow them. >> you wouldn't be in favor of a nationwide ban? >> i would support a ban overall, reasonable ban because i am pro life but i think ultimately handing it to the states to decide is the best way. >> is the proposal are reasonable grounds? >> i haven't read all the details yet, i've seen headlines, i haven't had details but also, discussions debates are what we should pursue and hopefully with a civilized debate we can work on policies that are workable and appropriate. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> you need to do to your television please. >> okay.

these republicans, you can't believe nothing they say. i would you want to take a woman's right away? people of color brown and black, they want to back tickly voting rights, every chance think get. i don't care what this man say. it's all they do. fox news claims joe biden committed all kinds of travesties. what about trump? >> all right, what about a woman's right and then we will move on to the next call. >> again, i am pro life, lifelong pro-life position. i think as we debate the issue, let's have civilized debate and

there will be disagreements, this country was founded on disagreement yet still came together to give us various policies was still have today the constitution and let's have the discretion. >> the federal reserve chair said they will keep raising interest rates until the job is done and the job being bringing down inflation. do you support that strategy? >> i hesitate to say raising interest rates is the solution. what the feds can do is control spending and congress. we need to reduce spending and congress and avoid huge injections of cash into our economy the president has been pushing so readily. to me that's the biggest trigger it happened more quickly than we are going to be able to undo that but i think better policy reducing wasteful spending is the better way to go.

>> democratic color -- >> i listen to this show, this upsets me when i hear this nonsense. this is something only -- this is a global deal here. when we came back online, kurds were being chased and that causes inflation. had we not put money out the, this would have been worse in my opinion, republicans wanted that they want to be able to blame joe biden and democrats and everything. >> okay, this is not just america, it's global and democrats have not put money into the economy, it would be worse. >> reasonable promise to the president not to do this because spending would trigger

inflation. it has. we are the leading economy in the world and a lot of economies follow suit and especially rushing to do this one look at the president student loan forgiveness to be done at the executive level without debating congress especially after speaker, speaker pelosi and leader schumer specifically said this cannot be done without a vote of congress, these are just issues, examples pushing money into the economy that i think is dangerous led to higher cost of living. i'm afraid we will see college students facing even higher tuition rates. >> north carolina, independent. >> i'd like to speak on the inflation and money he speaks on joe biden, the administration

being the primary source when the beginning of money inflated into the economy starts with the text under the administration as well as tax breaks, there was a phrase used during the trump administration called trigger economics. we don't really hear that anymore because if we did, we would understand policy failed. as an independent, i look at on both sides. democrats do spend too much money but it's a necessity because the numbers fail. >> let's take that argument. >> the tax reform in 2017 offered tax relief and resulted in increased and revenue to the government because of growing economy. one huge focus is the fact that we want to to improve and increase permittivity to the tax court of encouraging businesses to invest in more production and higher wages so they could

expense all that, it's key, it worked. the data shows this and it worries me the president for this worldwide minimum corporate tax it discourages companies from becoming more productive, i am very concerned about that. >> that's one of the tax provisions in the reduction act, let me list the others and react. drops proposed increase on incomes as 1% tax on stock buyback. it enhances tax enforcement efforts at the irs, doubles the agency side. extensive expanded health insurance premium tax credits and tax credits for buying electric and hydrogen vehicles making energy efficient homes improvements as well as tax credits for companies that build efficient free elections. >> many of these provisions were not appropriately fêted.

he look at the focus on electric vehicles, read the economy and innovation is leading to electric vehicles growth is a time and place for that book of the government to pick these winners so to speak, the infrastructure is not prepared for that so we could very well, in fact california is a great example, not having enough electricity they had to prohibit their own citizens from plugging in their electric vehicles at home, that's just one example that all of these policies were thrown together, thrown in voted on quickly. there are many issues i sure will have more debate about but they should have been more deliberation before that bill was passed. >> in wisconsin, democratic color. adrian smith, go ahead. >> i would just like to ask you in 17 and 18, beans were like

five a bushel and now double that. it was due to trump's trade embargo, trade tariffs in china so the farmers on russia and wisconsin where i live, we are happy about the prices, commodity prices and diesel prices are sky high but that's price gouging and doesn't seemed like anybody on the republican side wants to take it on because ten years ago diesel was cheaper than gas because it was the first thing out of the refineries and as far as the economy goes, i look at the red states and they have the lowest standard and poorest wages and i don't see where they have a foot to stand on as far as helping the average person and therefore when they retire they get very little social security because wages have been suppressed because of the anti- union and

big business policies so i like you to explain some of that, please. >> one of the biggest issues is the cost of energy in the president, he started day one boasting about the fact that he wanted to shut down domestic production of fossil fuels, that was his priority. we are paying for the results of those policies and that's hitting everyone. when we talk about wages, we saw an increase in wages following tax reform in 2017 and lowered inflation rate, workers were getting ahead. now with the inflation now, the cost of living even low wages have come up, it's overshadowed and undermined by the higher prices for the at the grocery store, the gas pump, looking for a new house if they can find one, the supply chain crisis in a situation where any price

aren't available. >> louisiana. georgia is there watching, democratic color. >> good morning. my question, i'd like to know why we are not saying there's a food shortage. we use the word inflation when we are looking at the bird flu, fields are being slaughtered with rain or drought, why are we not talking about that situation ask it's globally. >> and on top of that the russia ukraine conflict adding to the food shortage. >> russia invaded ukraine and appropriately i would add has complicated everything because ukraine is considered the bread basket of europe, commodities are worldwide issue.

i have to say -- 2021, other thas supposed to be a historic day in america's efforts to stop the purveyors of candy and fruit-flavored e-cigarettes from preying on america's kids. but september 9, 2021, was the deadline and it was set by a federal judge for the u.s. food and drug administration to finally, finally clear its enormous backlog of applications from e-cigarette companies seeking to sell their products in america, companies that could prove that their vaping products were in fact appropriate for protection of public health. they could go ahead and sell their products legally. but e-cigarettes products can't meet that standard. they can't demonstrate a benefit to public health. vaping as we know is dangerous and addictive and these

companies like the tobacco companies of years gone by are preying on our children. fda had a legal mandate to ban these products from u.s. markets on september 9, 2021, but the food and drug administration failed to meet the deadline, not by one day, not by one week, not even by one month. last friday marked the one-year anniversary of the fda's failure to meet this federal court or order. as of today the fda has completed reviews of about half of these e-cigarette products that represent a large share of the market. as a result of fda's inaction, dangerous kid friendly e-cigarettes remain available on store shelves without fda review or authorization. the cops are not on the beat. there are consequences to this action. the truth initiative is a nonprofit consortium of health groups that aims to protect

young people from using tobacco. it estimates that in the year since the fda missed the court-ordered deadline to approve or reject e-cigarette applications, nearly two and a half million kids in america started using vaping products. many of these young people will go on and develop nicotine addictions with serious harm to their health. that's the human cost of this fda failure. now the fda says, well, we might be able to finish this by 2023, two years after the federal court-ordered date. and that's not the only deadline the fda has blown when it comes to protecting kids from nicotine. after parents and public health groups demanded the fda take action against candy-flavored nicotine-spiked e-cigarettes, the vaping industry came out with a new -- brand new miracle product designed to evade fda jurisdiction.

synthetic nicotine. products like puff bar, incredibly popular with middle and high school students. these new synthetic nicotine products included all the health dangers of traditional e-cigarettes. none of the regulation. when congress learned about this loophole, we changed the law to say that the fda had jurisdiction over synthetic nicotine products. to make matters worse, even when the fda does review a product and issues a denial, many e-cigarette companies just ignore them. it's reached a point that they're not viewed seriously. the number one regulator of food and drugs in america when it comes to protecting our kids from these deadly addictive products isn't viewed seriously. the fda has the legal right and the legal authority to do something. they can pull these products off the shelves tomorrow. and yet with respect to illegal e-cigarettes, they do nothing,

nothing. look, i understand they're understaffed. i understand they're underresourced. fda is not currently authorized to collect user fees for e-cigarettes as it does for so many ear products. congress fails to -- other products. congress fails to appropriate the funds that they need. these are real problems but they do not absolve the fda of its repeated failure to effectively regulate e-cigarettes. i'm at my wit's end when f.d.a. continues to miss these court-ordered deadlines, fails to enforce orders and shows a lack of urgency when this comes to vaping products. last week i asked health appeared human services secretary becerra to step in. if f.d.a. cannot or will not do its job, it's time for the lead agency, health health and human services to take a more active role. we cannot continue to let the

companies put their profits ahead of the health of kids. congress has a big decision make in the next few weeks. every five years congress must reauthorize f.d.a. user fee programs. these programs authorize f.d.a. to collect user fees from companies they oversee -- prescription drug companies, medical device companies. these fees help provide the funding that f.d.a. needs for staff. in fact, almost half of their funding comes from user fees. but we shouldn't settle for a clean authorization of user fees. we should give f.d.a. the authority to collect user fees from e-cigarette companies. we should better regulate the dietary supplement industry. i want to thank the members of the senate help committee, especially its chairman, senator patty murray, for including my proposal for better regulation of dietary supplements in the committee-passed bill. but i fear this commonsense proposal may be lost in the sauce in the closing days of this fiscal year.

many people were surprised to learn that today dietary supplement companies are not even required to register their products with the f.d.a. they aren't required to tell the f.d.a. even the ingredients of their products. if you're going to put a product on the shelf in america, most americans walking into that drugstore or that vitamin shop believe that there's been some government review of the product, some inspection, some standards. not the case. when it comes to prescription drugs, they have to be proven to be safe and effective; not so for dietary supplements. these products products can hite shelves and not be regulated. what our bill says that each of the companies sell something these products has to register with the f.d.a., the name of the product and the ingredients. if something goes wrong we at least have the most basic in fact to protect americans much the f.d.a. is one of the most important agencies in the

federal government. it's fallen on hard times. it is there to protect the health of families across the country, especially our children. whether it's dietary supplements or tobacco or e-cigarettes, we need to make sure the f.d.a. not only has the tools for the job but uses them. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, all postcloture time is expired. the question is on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

you. the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 53, the nays are 44, and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is laid upon tt table and -- and the president will be notified of the senate's action and the senate will proceed to the following nomination. which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, department of homeland security, david p. pekoske, of maryland, to be administrator of the transportation administration.

mr. padilla: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mr. padilla: mr. president, i have six requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate, and they have the approval of majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. padilla: mr. president, i also rise today because today is a bitterwe day for me -- bittersweet day for me. i rise to recognize and express my gratitude for the work of my communications director since my first day in the senate. i speaker for everybody in my office when i say we're going to miss her, but i'm also proud. next week she will begin work at the white house as special

assistant to the president and as press secretary to the first lady, and i have no doubt that she will do great things in her new role. since our first days in the russell basement, in the senate office building i had when i was transitioning and vanessa brought her incredible experience, her unique personality, and tremendous passion to the job, helping me communicate our work to the people of california. from my maiden speech here on the senate floor during the depths of the covid-19 pandemic, to crisscrossing the state on an infrastructure listening tour as we were negotiating the infrastructure investment and jobs act here in washington, to ensuring that californians were consistently informed of the historic progress that we've made this congress, vanessa has

been a key leader in my office and an adviser to me. she is a california native and a proud daughter of mexican-nick mexican-nicaraguan immigrants. some of you may remember some of my remarks during the confirmation hearings of now justice ketanji brown jackson, when i said that often americans of color need to work twice as hard to garner half the respect. well, it comes as no surprise that vanessa has gained the utmost respect from her former bosses and colleagues on the various presidential and senate campaigns that she's been a part of and the senate offices that she's worked in, including senators booker, heinrich, and peters, in addition to mine. and i have no doubt that she'll bring the same work ethic and

savvy to serving the first lady and the biden administration. now, mr. president, i also ask unanimous consent to deliver the next part of my remarks in spanish. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. padilla: vanessa [speaking spanish ] [speaking spanish] mr. padilla: mr. president, let the record reflect that vanessa valdivia will be deeply missed and the state of california and

the united states senate thank her for her service. i yield the floor. mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senior senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, the 109th -- excuse me, 117th congress is drawing to a close and there's a lot we need to do before the end of the year, when the 117th congress is no more. at the top of that list, of course, are must-pass bills. in the next couple of weeks, the senate is expected to pass a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown later this year, we'll either have to pass another short-term extension or a full government funding package, otherwise known around here as an omnibus. on top of that, congress needs

to pass the national defense authorization act, which it has done 61 years in a row. the majority leader has so far declined to put that bill on the floor. this is a piece of legislation that provides our men and women in uniform the training they need and the equipment they need to fight and win america's wars, and hopefully to prevent a war. but it also supports our military families, and in an all-volunteer military like we have it's critical that congress step up and not only provide for those who wear the uniform, but for those who also serve as a member of that military member's family. even though these major pieces of legislation garner most of the attention, though, there are

countless other bills that need to reach the president's desk before the end of this congress. as the presiding officer knows, if a bill passes one chamber but doesn't pass both, and isn't signed into law, it literally expires. many of these bills pass the senate with overwhelming bipartisan support, but continue to collect dust on the house calendar. one of those bills is the gina quinn law, which i've spoken about many times here on the senate floor. this legislation carries the name of a brave young woman from texas who was a survivor of child sexual assault. gina has, as a result of her own terrible experience, made it her mission to ends the cycle of abuse that harms children in communities across the country, and her work is having a big impact. she was the inspiration behind a 2009 texas law that required

training for teachers, caregivers and other adults who work with children on how to prevent, recognize, and report child sexual abuse. since then a number of other states have passed similar laws, but this training lacks a source of funding, in many instances, and that's where the gina quinn law comes into play. i introduced this bill with senator hassan, of new hampshire, to finally back those training sessions with federal funding through grants from the department of health and human services. we initially introduced the bill last congress, and it passed the senate unanimously, but unfortunately it became a political hostage and was used to try to exert leverage to advance a partisan bill that stood no chance of passage. so here we are, two years later, and the bill is once again stuck

in house purgatory. it's now passed the senate twice, both times with unanimous support, but for some inexplicable reason the house refuses to even hold a vote. this is an issue that is way too important for politics. the children who suffer as a result of child abuse and neglect continue to suffer, and the caregivers, who might be able to as a result of the training they receive identify a child that is suffering from that abuse, that training is not occurring as a result of the intransigence of the house of representatives. so, i would implore speaker pelosi, leader hoyer, and other democratic leaders in the house who control the majority, please pass this critical legislation.

here's another great example of a bill that passed the senate and which is stuck in the house -- last year, the senate passed a bipartisan bill i introduced with senator whitehouse from rhode island called the residential substance use disorder treatment act, to help incarcerated individuals strug tlg with drug abuse -- struggling with drug abuse. there's a well-established link between drug abuse and crime. in order for these individuals who have the requisite desire to try to turn their lives around, and who have the best shot at living healthy and productive lives, they need to break the cycle of addiction. the residential substance abuse treatment act provides incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for their substance use disorder. this treatment is coupled with programs to prepare these men and women to reenter society and

provides them community-based treatment once they are released. we learned from experience in texas, it's not just enough to give people who commit nonviolent crimes an opportunity to improve themselves while in prison, but also there needed to be follow-on services to support them, particularly if they're trying to recover from their addiction. our bill updates the program and expands access to treatment in jails and prisons around the country so we can reduce recidivism and build safer and healthier communities. more than two dozen organizations have endorsed this bill, including law enforcement, criminal justice, and behavioral health groups. it passed the senate with unanimous support last year, but for some unknown reason it still is lingering on the house calendar.

this is a commonsense nonpolitical bill that will help get folks the critical assistance they need in order to break the cycle of addiction and to live healthier, productive lives. so why won't the house pass a bill that will help fund law enforcement and bolster our fight against drug abuse? well, we're not receiving any sort of answers. and then the third bill i'd like to mention is one i introduced with senator padilla, the senator from california, to support infrastructure projects and disaster relief across the country. last year state and local governments received huge sums of money for covid-19 relief, but as more people have gotten vaccinated and we've learned somehow to live with this virus, many of these governments at the state and local level have found

themselves with huge amounts of cash that they can't use for the agreed-upon purpose, and they don't need it anymore for that purpose. so the idea behind the bill is pretty simple -- give the state and local leaders the flexibility they need to invest in the most critical projects in their communities. in some places that may mean pandemic-related expenses still, alleviating hospital staffing shortages, and supporting for vaccinations. but in places where the need is simply not there, our bill gives these leaders the option to invest in things that are actually needed, and that will have a lasting impact. that includes infrastructure projects like constructing bridges, extending railways, modernizing ports, and expanding access to brought band -- to broadband. it also includes disaster relief, a major need in many states across the country.

both texas and kentucky, for example, have experienced devastating flooding in the last couple of months. jackson, mississippi, is in the midst of a water crisis that has dragged on for weeks, with no end in sight. the speaker's home state of california continues to battle destructive wildfires. if this bill becomes law, and again it passed the senate 100-0, state and local leaders will be able to put a portion of the covid-19 relief dollars toward disaster relief. this is voluntary on their part. there's no requirement they do so, but if they need it, and they don't need it for covid-19 purposes, then we ought to give them the authority to use it. again, these funds are already appropriated. so there's no worry about an inflationary appropriation of additional funds.

local leaders know their communities best, and they should be able to use this funding in a way that makes the most sense for them. senator padilla and i worked with our senate colleagues and the white house to craft language that everyone could live with. we built broad bipartisan support for the bill, and it passed the senate, as i said, 100-0. once again, eight months later, the house has done nothing. speaker pelosi so far has declined to let this bill pass, even though it would support disaster relief in her own state and would be -- and passed by huge bipartisan majorities. those are just three of the bills that are stuck in the house that have passed the senate. the senate flawct advanced legislation -- unanimously advanced ledges legislation to p

law enforcement officials with the tools they need to help people in mental health crisis, to increase cross-border trade with canada and mexico, and to beef up security for cargo at ports of entry. bills to cut red tape, increase payments to the child support program, and ensure noncustodial parents have the opportunity to spend more time with their children. our colleagues have even refused to pass a bill naming the post office in arlington, texas, after their late colleague and my friend, congressman ron white. there's no particular reason for it. they just haven't done it. with no explanation. all of these bills i named are just a handful of the ones i've introduced that are waiting in house purgatory. add in the long list of bills led by colleagues on both sides of the aisle, you've got a major

legislative pileup in the house. unlike the senate, the house has not been in continuous session, and the house is only scheduled to be in for six more weeks this year. unless speaker pelosi allows movement on these commonsense bipartisan bills, wire going to have to start all over again come january. but, mr. president, it's time to get these bills moving. i know our colleagues in the house don't necessarily embrace all the legislation that's passed by the senate, but when commonsense legislation passes with unanimity or broad bipartisan support, there doesn't seem to be any excuse nor not acting. we're talking about preventing child sexual abuse, breaking the cycle of drug abuse and supporting people in crisis and so much more. as i said, these bills are just

one step away from heading to the president's desk for his signature. so i implore speaker pelosi to please take up these senate-passed bills and allow the house to vote on them and pass them and send them to the president for his signature. 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:

[inaudible] [applause] >> well, good morning, everyone.

as you might guess i am very pleased to announce a tentative labor agreement between the railroad workers and the railroad companies. this agreement is a big win for america and for both in my view. i look to thank the lead negotiators from the labor movement, the locomotive engineers, international of air rail and transportation workers union and other labor unions engaged and this this is ar tens of thousands of rail workers and for their dignity and the dignity of their work, it's a recognition of that. during these early dark uncertain days of the pandemic they showed up so every american could keep going. they worked tirelessly to the pandemic to ensure that families and communities got the deliveries they needed through these difficult few years. because of the labor agreement, those rail workers will get

better pay, , 24% wage increase over the next five years. and improved working conditions, peace of mind rather healthcare by capping the cost that workers will have to pay. and it's about the right to go to a doctor to stay healthy to make sure you're able to have the care you can afford. it's all part of this agreement. they earned and deserve these benefits. and this is a great deal for both sides, in my view. the agreement is also a victory for railway companies. i want to the lead negotiators from the railway, the national railway labor conference at her major rail companies. these companies also played a critical role in keeping america moving during the pandemic, and that's not hyperbole. it's a fact. with disagreement railroad companies will be able to retain and recruit workers. they will be able to contact -- operate effectively as a vital piece of our economy. they are the backbone of the

comment. i've a visual image of rail being the backbone. i mean literally the backbone of the economy. so i think the unions and rail companies for negotiating in good faith. they have been up for 20 straight hours through that negotiation. and for sticking with it especially over the last few days. in fact, the negotiators here today i don't think they have been to bed yet. i don't want give the straight long and have them stand aside. together we reach an agreement, you reached an agreement that will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruptions of our economy. and i'm grateful grateful to the members of the administration who worked tirelessly on both sides to help get this done. i especially want to thank labor secretary marty walsh, card-carrying union member in the first union labor secretary in decades for his tireless -- [applause] this agreement is validation, validation what i've always believed. unions and management can work

together, can work together for the benefit of everyone. they are traveling now a number of them but a what you think secretary of transportation pete buttigieg and agriculture secretary tom vilsack who were deeply involved along with a what effect deputy labor secretary julie su, director national economic council brian deese, and the deputy national director of labor celeste drake for this commitment and hard work. to the american people, this agreement can avert a significant damage that in the shutdown would have brought. our nation's rail system is the backbone of our supply chain. everything you rely on, it's hard to realize this but everything from clean water to food to gas, to everyday, i mean liquefied natural gas, to every good that you need is on on l getting delivered what needs to go. with unemployment still in record lows and signs of progress and low in cost this

agreement allows us to rebuild a better america with an economy that truly works for working people and their families. today is a win, i mean this sincerely, a win for america. i want to thank you all for getting this done both business and labor. thank you, thank you, thank you,, and may god protect our troops. thank you so much. [applause] >> mr. president -- >> mr. president -- >> grocery prices are up over 13%. what do you tell struggling americans? >> are you confident the situation at the border is under control, mr. president? >> mr. president, is -- [inaudible]

>> sounds like we have a bit of reprieve but we have a threat. since 2019, railroads and eweons negotiating in new contract. two months ago president biden appropriately appointed members of what's called the presidential emergency board. this board recommended the largest pay increase in industry history at 24%. in addition to anti-seek story s and healthcare changes. president biden promised to be the most pro union president in history.

a railroad strike would really plunge us back into the supply chain issues and just now started to somewhat improve. these training that would be stopped actually carry the food we eat, the gas for our tanks, and the energy that heats our homes. already i'm hearing from green elevator operators -- grain elevator operators in my state that they're having trouble transporting their grain. hazardous cargo like the chlorine cities need to purify drinking water stopped moving earlier this week.

am track canceled long distant routes. what i just described was the tip of the iceberg unless these unions agree to a long term deal. the last thing we need is for grain shipments to grind to a halt right as farmers are going to the fields to harvest their grain. iowa corn and soybeans can't feed the world if they're stick on the farm in the local elevator. that's why i cosponsored senator burns joint resolution to prevent all this. the resolution would mandate that both sides adopt the recommendations of president biden's emergency board and then of course if we pass that brunt, we're just learning about a

tentative deal that would lead you back away from the cliff. if they don't, congressman will pass the joint resolution and the alternative --

>> last night as most americans were in bed asleep, freight companies and unions representing tens of thousands of workers secure add tentative agreement to keep the trains running on time and keep the economy moving. the best part is union leadership representing tens of thousands of railway workers who work themselves to the bone over the course of the pandemic seemed to have secured the

higher pay and better working conditions for their members. railway workers have earned that pay and those benefits through blood, sweat and tears and i hope it will make it easier for other workers in future negotiations to secure stronger benefits. this is exactly the sort of outcome that will keep our economy going. our supply chain running and workers taken care of. it's a reminder of evergreen truth that people underappreciate even now. workers are what makes the wheels of our economy turn in this case literally. i want to thank president biden. secretary walsh was steadfast and dedicated and a word we've used for senate caucus, he persisted and persisted and persisted. and i want to thank every sedge union representative and rail worker who negotiated in good faith to reach this outcome.

negotiators have been meeting practically every single day. senate negotiators, democrat and republican, have been meeting practically every single day this week to find a path forward. they'll be meeting later today between both sides and i look forward to seeing what progress republicans make to reach the magic number of ten. the honis is on the democratic colleagues to show they're serious about passing marriage equality into law. we need 60 votes. to down play the issue or let it

pass by and act as another time and it's not the right thing to do and we should do it now. we're eager to get 10 republicans to support the bill and across the street from here, we have all heard justice clarence thomas and his fellow maga republican justices waiting for the chance to follow through on his threat, justice thomas' threat to drag same sex marriage rights back under the spotlight of the supreme court. that thought should send a shiver down all of our spains. i want to thank my colleagues from senators walled win to cinema to colins to others for continuing their talks. i'm glad to give them the space to lead these negotiations because this needs to be done and done right. finally -- one more point on marriage. for the sake of tens of millions of americans, we need to get this done, and i hope we have 10 republicans who are willing to raise their hands and push this

process forward. finally on judges, it was another productive week here on the senate floor when it cops to con if i wering more judicial nominees. on monday re-completed the nomination process for salvador men doe sackmary to sit on -- mendoza to sit on the second sir cat and later today water vote for sarah miriam to be on the second circuit and the return the nomination of [inaudible] to the third circuit. that brings five circuit court judges for the month of september and 80 nominees to the federal court ben. the it's been with bipartisan votes on numerous occasions and i want to thank my republican colleagues who joined us in voting the fine nominees. senator durbin and all of my colleagues, i say great work, let's keep going.

i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. >> this week's inflation report confirmed what working people across the country know all too well. media has grown somewhat numb month after month of 8 and 9% inflation but working americans have not had the luxury of growing numb. the pain gets worse every sedge time they have to fill a shopping cart or pay their credit bill. one mother of young sons in my hometown of louisville put it this way "my grocery bill has

gone up a lot. it's terrible right now. i have to be really strategic on how i plan out the whole month to make sure we have enough money. of course, kentuckyens aren't the only ones in this predicament. in nevada, an office worker recently told reporters "i've not been buying a lot of things because i can't afford it. i'm like the kids don't need juice for school anymore, we'll just do water". in arizona, so many families are having to make tough choices at the grocery store and accepting charities. the impact we're seeing day in and day out continues to go up. the families are stressed. who can blame them, madame president. food and inflation at a four decade high in inflation. bread is 16.2% more expensive than a year ago.

milk is up 17%, flowers up 23.3% and eggs are going for nearly 40% more. week after week, feeding a family has become a stressful proposition for millions of americans. every extra dollar spent on groceries is one fewer despair for soaring electricity bills. in the but bushes of las vegas, residents have commiserated over the cast no, ma'am can believe costs of keeping their -- astronomical cost of keeping their homes cooled. my bill will be $574. it's insane. yes, ours was $800 for june. in arizona, a restaurant worker minced words to scrap together about keeping the lights and air conditioning on. "if i didn't have roommates, i wouldn't be able to make it on

the salary i have". overall inflation in phoenix and atlanta is way, way higher than even the sky high national average. the country has a whole is still grappling with inflation over 8% and phoenix seeing a staggering 13% inflation in just the last year and atlanta has seen nearly 12%. of course for working americans and some other states, the most acute emergency is not the cost of summer cooling. but rather the cost of winter heating. in places like new hampshire and vermont where many homes burn heating oil and it's up more than 91% since president biden took office and in every corner of the country, one of the biggest collective head cakes in working families with young kids is the rising cost of back to school shopping lists. according to one working mother in pennsylvania, she had to take items like a backpack for her

preschooler out of her shopping cart in the checkout line. "it's been at least 20 years that i've had to pull back to this extent. this is a new and humbling experience for me as an adult, she said". american families are facing math problems that just don't add up meanwhile the same washington democrats that got them into this mess spent tuesday celebrating having ran through on a party line vote a bill that does nothing to help them solve it. underlying radical goals and claims of inflation reduction on the cover. the same day the way the awful

inflation report was published, washington democrats went to a concert at the white house and celebrated, celebrated their economic policies. how much more out of touch can you get. the giant inflationary spiral is costing the average american household $460 extra every month to buy the same things they bought last year. president biden and his government imposed a silent democrat inflation tax of $460 every single month. in kentucky, the average household has to pay $608 a month, well over $7,000 more a year just to stay where they were when president biden was sworn in.

run away inflation was a policy choice by democrats. and they aren't even trying to stop it.

>> companies that can prove for products of public health, kay can sell them. e cigarette products can't meet that standard and can't demonstrate a benefit to public health and vapeing is dangerous and addictive. these companies like the tobacco

companies of years gone by are preying on our children. fda had a legal mandate to ban these products from u.s. markets on september the 9, 2021. but the food and drug administration failed to meet the deadline. the fda completed half of the e cigarette products that hit the market. the result of fda's inaction, dangerous, kid-friendly e cigarettes remain on store shelves without fda review or authorization. the cops are not on the beat. there are consequences to this action.

nearly 2.5 million kids in america started using vapeing products. many of these young people will go onto develop nicotine addictions and that's serious harm to their health and that the human cost ovfda fail jury and they say well, we'll might be able to finish by 2023.

number one priority related to the sector. each day at over 430 airports across the country, tsa screens over two million passengers and 1.4 million checked bags for explosives and other dangerous items. this ensures the security for over 24,000 defense flights and 3,300 outbound international flights a day. security demands for the agency are returning and every day are continuing to grow. over the labor day weekend, tsa screened nearly 11 million people, or 3% more over the corresponding period in 2019. in fact, tsa screened more people on four of the five days from september 1 to 5th making

the first sustained period of checkpoint through-put during a holiday weekend above prepandemic levels. so the traveling public is back, and obviously we need dedicated tsa officers and individuals to continue to work. we're not saying there aren't improvements to that process. there certainly are. but tsa has been charged with a critical, obviously, responsibility, to make sure we continue to work to have the safety of our air transportation system. last year's ransomware attack on colonial pipeline threatened nearly 50% of the east coast fuel supply. we must harden all of our target and make sure tsa has leadership to make sure that they too are helping us address these emerging threats. admiral pekoske's experience in leading tsa in these critical missions deserves support for renomination to this position again. i thank the president, and i

yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. a senator: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. hoeven: i ask that it be vaish yited. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hoeven: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to discuss the harmful economic consequences americans are seeing from president biden's reckless tax-and-spend ageneral today just yesterday the biewfer row -- bureau of labor statistics released the latest consumer price index figures for the month of august. inflation increased 8.3% compared to august 2021. inflation has now exceeded 8% for six straight months. this persistent high inflation is causing price increases for american families at the grocery store, the gas pump, and for basic housing needs leaving many americans struggling to make

ends meet. rather than getting government out of the way, increasing domestic energy production, securing our border, and taking meaningful action to reduce inflation, the biden administration is instead doubling down on its failed economic policies. gas prices are $1.34 per gallon higher than when president biden took office. diesel fuel prices are even higher. at nearly $2.40 per gallon more than in january 2021. a gallon of diesel now costs more than $5 a gallon. yet last month as a follow-up to the massive $2 trillion spending package from march 2021, the fuel -- the ininflation fire we're now dealing with, democrats jammed through another package on a party-line vote, tax-and-spend bill that imposes new energy taxes and green new

deal style subbies -- subsidies that will only worsen our energy crisis and weaken our nation's economic and national security. ironically, the so-called inflation reduction act does nothing to reduce inflation. analysis by economists at pen wharton school at the university of pennsylvania, the congressional budget office, and others all agree that this bill will do nothing to help reduce inflation. meanwhile, the cost of food at the grocery store has increased 13.5% over the last 12 months. the largest 12-month increase since march 1979. yet the biden administration has done nothing to alleviate these inflation-year price increases on americans. now we're on the brink of another inflationary supply chain disaster as rail unions plan to go on strike. we hope it will be averted but

shutting down rail movement throughout the country would be a huge disruption to our economy. already the rail companies have been making plans should that occur. it cannot be overstated how significant a rail strike would be to our national supply chain. with fall harvest particularly for my state, that is a huge concern, and it is vitally important that we avoid a rail strike. on the energy front, north dakota is a huge provider of energy for this nation. so it's very important whether it's our energy producers or energy producers across this country, we need to empower our domestic energy production. we also need to get our debt and deficit under control. we need to help our farmers and ranchers produce the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world and we need to address the supply chain issues that continue to be disruptive

to our economy and create more inflation. the bi biden administration nees to stop with the tax-and-spend agenda if we're going to get this inflation under control. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. hoeven: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. hoeven: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator for north dakota. mr. hoeven: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the vote scheduled for 1:45 commence. the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing none, the motion is agreed to. the question is on the nomination. the clerk will report.

mr. hoeven: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

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will go ahead and get started today. because this is a critical issue because this week republicans put out their true position on abortion, a national ban and punishing doctors. for months they have been posturing and hiding their extreme views and ignoring the healthcare crisis that they are causing.

but republicans can't pretend they just want to leave abortion to states and in block senator cortez masto bill, the bill acts and make sure people could travel to other states for an abortion. they can't figure they don't want to punish doctors and meanwhile block my build make sure doctors in states where abortion is illegal can be punished for doing their jobs but if there is any doubt about republicans true intentions, about their extreme abortion plan, there is no question after this week. their plan is plain as day. republicans want to ban abortion in every single state, and want to punish doctors. part of the overwhelming vote in kansas, to protect abortion were you one of hundreds of thousands of people in michigan who signed a petition for a referendum to protect abortion? or are you one of my constituents in washington state where we have strong abortion

protection? or any other blue state. well, now republicans have told you where they're at. they are come after your rights. does your doctor provide abortion care for patients who need it? republicans want to punish them. their national ban includes a criminal penalty for doctors for up to five years of prison. that is the mag agenda. that is the bill those introduced this week. that is what senator graham promised they would vote on if they take the house and senate. and he predicted it could become law. he said loud and clear, this man is, and i quote, what we're trying to accomplish at the federal level. he claimed he's going to come and i quote, rally the public nationally. well i've got some news for senator graham. democrats are already talking about this issue all across the country, and the nation is already rallying for, for the right to an abortion and against

these republican harmful attacks. women want to control their own bodies. they do not want politicians making their health care decisions. so if republicans think they can go after my constituents right, go after women's bodies and their futures and overrule the personal medical decisions that people across the country, they have got another thing coming. i'm not going to stop pushing back. democrats are not going to stop pushing back. and by the way neither our men and women across this country. they see it, , they know it. they will be voting. with that i'm going to turn over to senator amy klobuchar who's been an amazing champion and despite. >> thank you, very much, senator murray for your incredible leadership for a really, really long time. as i i was thinking i was remembering back in the barbara mikulski days, liking the height level and kill that guy arrived.

this was so good, i felt so tall. but i was remembering barbara mikulski when she used to stand there and say sued up, square your shoulders, put your lipstick on a get ready for the revolution. i never really knew what she was even talking about but i think we now know that the women of this country have had it and the men that stand with them have had it. to one half month ago the supreme court issued a ruling shredding nearly five decades of precedence just like that. now women are at the mercy of state laws across the country, and basically this ruling and the republican senators have said, women, it's not your choice over your healthcare, it's politicians choice. this bill that was introduced will take these restrictions even a step further because right now states like mine that are kind of an island of healthcare in the middle of the

country where say the north dakota clinic in fargo has now moved over based on go fund me funding that they're able to raise online have moved over to minnesota in morehead. the rules of there would change. we would no longer have the right of our state to make a decision under this law because a man would be put in place. and make no mistake because i think this was done in a way that was confusing, the states that have much stricter rules, which is so many of them, with 12 12 with no exceptions for rape or incest, dangerous, dangerous plants that are out there. we saw the story of the young ten-year-old in ohio who actually after being raped had to go to another state. those states that have those laws in place, they still stand. basically under this law it would take a bill, it would take all of the states to 16 weeks but then allow the states to

have what they already have in place. as senator murray mentioned this is not with the american people want. 70, 80% of americans believe this is a decision that should be made between a woman and her doctor. as we've seen already across the country the sunflower state of kansas, over 500,000 people showing up to vote on the side of the women try to make her own health care decision. that's more than showed up over all in its entirety in the last midterm. the race that was one in the house race in the hudson valley, what we saw happen in alaska. they should be a wake-up call. what is the response instead? double down. double down and put forward a bill for a ban. it is now more clear than ever that we must codify roe v. wade into law, and we thank senator murray for her incredible leadership. thank you.

>> the tall guy? [laughing] >> you. >> oh well. so many of us have been on the side of a woman's right to choose an abortion rights or decades. if you add up all of the years of all of us fighting that battle, this battle, it's going to be over 100 years i think. i'm glad to join my colleagues in pointing out that the issue was never about states' rights. it was all about controlling a woman's right to make decisions about her own body. and when a woman can make decisions about her own body and about abortion that affects their family, her community and our economy. so as mention the vast majority of americans support a woman's right to bodily autonomy but apparently republicans don't think so. so we have thanks to you senator from south carolina saying he

has proposed a 15 week national ban. why 15 weeks? because that's something he's comfortable with. something he's comfortable with. amazing. and this is not some sort of hypothetical debate. because if republicans take control over the senate, they are going to push for a national ban. and that means states like a y which was the first state in the nation to protect a woman's right to choose, that we supported abortion before roe was decided. and all of the states that come forward are already have in place basically codifying roe, under this national ban bill would fall by the wayside. .. have babies. so asking somebody to wear a

mask, oh, my goodness, that is just, you know, too much. but forcing a woman to have a baby, not a problem. talk about government overreach, talk about hypocrisy. [inaudible conversations] [laughter] >> all right, thank you. i think, everyone. you know, if i listen hard enough, and maybe you can well, i can almost hear the echoes of many, many of my republican colleagues claiming, insisting that if the supreme court overturned roe, they would still never push for a nationwide abortion ban. i can almost hear it. if you believe them, then i are have a bridge to sell you. you have to see that the legislation both by senator

graham and senator rubio are lethally pushing forward makes a lie of those previous statements. this proposal makes obvious that republicans never really wanted to leave women's rights to the states like they have long told the american people. and while democrats spent this summer helping working ap families keep more of their hard-earned money, are republicans tried to strip away millions of americans' rights and effectively making 50 of america second class citizens -- 50 of america second class citizens. and, frankly, i refuse to let my daughters grow up in a world with fewer rights than i had. and it's not just me. i spent the summer talking to folks all across illinois, and let me just remind you, illinois is 6 blue counties and 96 red ones. and all across illinois time and again i talked to mothers, and i said let me explain to to you what this abortion ban does, and let me tell you what illinois is facing with people coming from as far away as texas in order to

come to illinois to get the health care that they deserve, that they need. let me tell you what it means to your daughters who choose to go to school in one of these southern states. they're not going to have access to their own reproductive health care decision can making. and so it is those women as well who have said, you know what? i've never voted on abortion before. it's something i support and something i'm concern about, but i am voting on abortion this time x. if these are women on both sides of the aisle. in fact, it is often independent women who have been very supportive of the right to choice but have never voted on it. let me tell you, like in kansas, they're voting on it now. i refuse to let my constituents walk into their o.b. appointments and have to be haunted by the voice of marco rubio telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies. i refuse to force any woman to have to live her life fearful that lindsey graham effectively has more control over her medical decisions than she or her doctors. so i'm going to promise you all here today, and i will say it

until i no longer have a voice, i'm going to keep doing everything i can in my power to prevent this nation's wide ban on basic health care, a ban that a exclusively goes against what the vast majority of americans want from happening. our country deserves better than that. and, you know, my girls need to grow up in a country where their decision making is just as valued and just as trusted as everyone else, and these abortion bans tell them that they are second class citizens, and i refuse to let that happen. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> my colleagues seem to have promoted me. i'm barely a household word in my own household, but now my colleagues say i'm just tall guy. [laughter] so i've got -- all three of my colleagues have said it very well. we're so proud in the northwest at senator murray's leadership. this is not just something that came up in the last month. she's been doing this for years

and years. my two colleagues have been all in. i'm very proud if because even though i do a fair amount of technology work and i've been particularly concerned since dobbs that women are going to have personal data weaponized against them. and three cheers for senator hirono, i'm really pleased to be one of her wingmen on this whole effort. here's what i think think the bottom line is. senator graham is trying to crush the rights of millions of american women to secure an ideological triumph. and what we're all trying to make sense out of for years they pledged -- to small government. and now we're talking about a federal ban, a federal, national ban. nothing small about that.

the bill tramples on the rights of oregonians who sure don't share senator graham's view on the right -- views on this. as i said, millions of other women. this is fundamentally -- and senator graham has really highlighted it -- this is an issue about who's in control. when you've gone through all of the other debating points, that's what this comes down to. is it going to be policies that senator graham defines, or is it going to be women having control over their own bodies? and now as senator murray and all my colleagues have said, we know what they want. they want a national federal ban with. and i assume if he were to get that, they'll start criminalization because we've already seen what they're saying about are doctors. so i just want everybody to know i'm all in, senator murray, on this. we're thrilled that you're leading the fight not just in the northwest, but for our

country, and i will be pleased to be tall guy in this effort -- [laughter] in this cause to make sure that the rights of women are protected. >> we witnessed over the past several months a full-out assault on women, on their reproductive freedoms, on their basic civil rights and civil liberties to make decisions that are life and death decisions to them, undermining their right to travel, undermining their right to pryce, to be able to have communications with their mothers on facebook, to be able to talk to their doctors, to be able to access life saving care. it is uncon unconscionable to me that senator graham now believes that this should be a federal law, that he believes now that

states' rights no longer need to weigh in our minds, that he wants to have a federal ban across the board. he wants to codify the supreme court's decision that women, for 40 years of their lives, their entire reproductive life, have no right to privacy. that's what he wants to codify. and no woman in america for 40 years of her life has a fundamental right to privacy. those fundamental rights that allow her to make these very intimate decisions about when she's having children, under what circumstances she's having children, with whom she's having children. that's what's so unconscionable about senator graham's bill. he wants this to be law of the land regardless of where you live, regardless of the rights and privileges that statements have put in their own constitutions to protect women's right to privacy and their basic civil is liberties. and if you really want to think about it, this is more than

political. it's more than i'd logic it's basically the imposition of a theocracy in the united states. that's what it is. it's taking one religious viewpoint, one, and imposing it on the entire nation. and if you listen to clarence thomas, he wants it expanded. he wants to eliminate all the rights and privileges under the right to privacy. he wants to eliminate the right to contraception, the right to privacy in the bed rom, the right to lgbtq equality and marriage. he's taking this country back over 50 years. he's taking this country back to a time when women did not have full equality. he wants to deny right to privacy to half of of the population. this should be blocked in every way possible. it should be called out for what it is, an attack on womenment --

women, an attack on our bodily autonomy, an attack on our sovereignty as human beings. it's unconscionable, it's wrong, and we have to defeat it. [inaudible conversations] >> senator schumer is not here yet. i will be happy to take any questions. i just want you to know that he is adamantly a huge force behind us if we do this, on our side. yes. >> [inaudible] >> look, i purported what was the principle in this country for 50 years, and that is the roe decision, which was rejected by the supreme court and has now put our country into chaos. >> [inaudible] >> what are you talking about? >> [inaudible] >> look, we want to put in law

protections for every woman in this country no matter where they live or how much money hay make or with where they come from, ability to make their own health care decisions as they had under roe before it was overturned by this court. >> [inaudible] >> look, you know with, he can debate weeks and countries and everything else. i know what my constituents want, i know what the women and men of america want many vast numbers, and that is the ability to make their own health care decisions for their families, their faith, their doctor depending on what they need. i am not in that there's office with them, neither should any other politician be. it should be their decision, and that's what -- [inaudible] one last question, yes. >>

[inaudible] enter yep. >> [inaudible] well, not everyone, but most people -- [inaudible] do you think they're lying? >> well, what i can tell you is last time lindsey graham introduced a bill like this, 48 republicans cosponsored it. so i know everybody's worried about an election and they're seeing what we're seeing, which is women and men standing up in this country and saying, no, you cannot and now they're running from it. but i also have been in so many rooms for so many years where the last issue that republicans put in our face before they'd allow a budget to go forward, before they would allow the postal reform bill to go forward, before they would even allow ukrainian support to go forward, they had to put on us a question of whether they could put in abortion language. these are people that are not going to give up.

i watched the supreme court nominee stand before us and say that they believed in precedent. look what happened. so i'm going to fight back with everything i have, and i really ask everyone in this country, stand up, be loud, let this country know where we are going to stand. thank you of. [inaudible conversations]

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 77. the nays are 18. and the nomination is confirmed.

under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid on the table. the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate will resume legislative session. mr. schumer: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. schumer: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. schumer: and i thank my colleagues from oklahoma and nebraska for letting us go forward. now, in a few moments, i will file cloture on a measure that will get the senate to approve the amendment to the montreal protocols. this important amendment which already has been agreed to by 120 countries will affirm our nation's commitment to curb the use of dangerous hydrofluorocarbons. these hyper toxic chemicals are regularly found, unfortunately, in everyday appliances, from air conditioners to refrigerators. in december of 2020, we passed the amat which took a drastic step to eliminate hfc's and was one of the most significant climate accomplishments ever until we passed the inflation reduction act a month ago. hfc's need to be dealt with as soon as possible because they are thousands, thousands of

times more damaging to our atmosphere than carbon dioxide. so this is a very important opportunity for the senate to make official america's intention to phase these dangerous chemicals out of use. approving this amendment will require two-thirds of the senate. reducing our country's use of hfc's has been a bipartisan priority in the past so both parties should work together to accelerate passage of this measure. also, madam president, i will file on the nomination of judge florence pann to serve as a circuit court judge for the d.c. circuit. one of the most important judicial appointments we can make. after the supreme court, the d.c. circuit court of appeals is the most important federal court in the country with jurisdiction over cases involving congress and the entire executive branch. the judges who preside on the d.c. circuit must be individuals of high character and unsailable qualification.

a few months ago we elevated someone who meets these standards when confirming michele childs to the bench and intend to do it again with judge pan's nomination. looking ahead, confirming even more of the president's judicial nominees will be a priority for the senate. so, madam president, i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 1067. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. those opposed nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, florence y. pan of the district of columbia to be united states circuit judge for the district of columbia circuit. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the

nomination of executive calendar 1067, florence ycht pan -- y. pan of the district of columbia to be united states circuit judge for the district of columbia circuit 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: i move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. those opposed nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. schumer: i move to proatd to executive session -- proceed to executive session to consider executive calendar number 2 treaty document 117-1. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. those opposed nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the treaty. the clerk: calendar number 2, treaty d ooh c117-1kigali amendment to montreal protocol. mr. schumer: madam president, i

ask that the treaty be considered as having advanced through the various parliamentary stages up to and including the presentation of resolution of advice and consent to ratification. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. 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 calendar number 2, treaty document 117-1, amendment to the montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, the montreal protocol adopted at kigali on october 15, 2016 by the 28 meeting by the parties to nts montreal protocol and resolution of advice and consent to ratification with one declaration signed by 18 senators as follows. mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: finally, i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum calls for the

cloture motions filed today, september 15, be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the filing deadline for first-degree amendments to calendar number 2, treaty document 117-1 be at 4:00 p.m. on monday, september 9. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate consider the following nominations en bloc. calendar numbers 1066, 1141, 1142, 1143, 1144, and all nominations on the secretary's desk in the foreign service, 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, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there an objection? without objection, the question occurs on the nominations en bloc. all in favor say aye. all opposed nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it.

the nominations are confirmed en bloc. mr. schumer: 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 ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the secretary of the senate be authorized to request the house of representatives to return the papers on s. 1198. further, upon receipt of the bill from the house, it be vitiated, the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 1198, that the committee-reported substitute be withdrawn, the tester substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now

proceed to senate res. 755. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 755, recognizing september 11, 2022, as a national day of service and remembrance. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharge and the senate will proceed to the parent. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed immediately to consideration of s. res. 767 which was submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 767, designating the week beginning september 11, 2022, as national direct support professionals recognition week. mr. schumer: i ask -- i further ask that the resolution -- oh,,sorry. the presiding officer: without

objection, the senate will proceed to the measure a. mr. schumer: i further ask that 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. the presiding officer: without objection. sure schumer i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the -- mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of s. is reserve 7689. the presiding officer: the clerk: s. res. 768 supporting the goals of national science week. the presiding officer: is there an objection proceeding to the measure? without objection, the senate will proceed to. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: and finally -- and i thank again my colleagues from oklahoma and nebraska -- i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 3:00 p.m. on monday, september

19, following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. that upon the conclusion of morning business, the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the pan nomination. the cloture motions filed today ripen at 5:30 p.m. finally, if any nominations are confirmed during monday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. so ordered. mr. schumer: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of senators lankford and sasse. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i yield the floor.

mr. lankford: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: two years ago almost to the exact moment, i was sitting on the south lawn of the white house in the blazing sun where a redhead should never sit, getting a sunburn on a hot september day in d.c., watching leadership of the uae, about a lane, israeli and the united states all shake hands and sign an agreement called the abraham accords. it was a remarkable moment in american history. we've become so accustomed in the last two years to this discussion about the abraham accords, we lose track that it was just two years ago we had one of the greatest

breakintroduce in middle east peace that we've had in decades. in 1979 egypt and israel came together for a peace agreement under president jimmy carter and the camp david accords. jordan and israel normalized relationships under president clinton. but for 26 years, there were no additional peace agreements, quite frankly very few conversations even. it stopped. all the conversation among foreign affairs was that you had to resolve the palestinian conflict before anything else could be resolved in the middle east. and for 26 years all the focus was on that. the trump administration came in and put the whole thing on its head and said, what if? what if we worked towards peace agreements outside of the palestinian conversation, if we set that aside, could we still normalize agreements?

again, most people said, no, that's not possible. until two years ago today. two years ago today, when the leaders of uae, bahrain and israel met together and signed an agreement, they started not just a proficiency they started a conversation -- they start add not just a process, they started a conversation. they signed and agreement about religious liberty, that we look at and we think, the arab world would not sign that. but they did. there were conversations and agreements made about energy policy, about economic development, in a region of the world that many would say no one will ever meet and this will never get better. president reagan once said, our involvement in the search for middle east peace is is not a matter of preference; it's a moral imperative. we are a people of peace. we are a people as a nation

passionate about religious liberty. we're a people that want to see a nation joining our nations in economicempt have. that's who we are. that's who we've been from the beginning. and we're pat our best when we're expanding that. since the signing of that document, several things have happened since that two-year time period. the first thing that happened really was october of 2020, sudan raised their hand and said, i want to join that agreement. then in december of 2020, morocco raised their hand and said, i want to be in that agreement. and it quickly went from four nations to five to six, all this ongoing dialogue about peace in the region. the countries have exchanged ambassadors since then. again that may not sound revolutionary, but it is in that region. the uae, morocco, bahrain all opened up embassies. revolutionary. israel opened up its embassy,

the first ever, in the gulf nations in abu dhabi, january of 2021. it opens up its next embassy in bahrain in september of 2021. the uae and israel have signed comprehensive free trade agreement. s. it's now $10 billion worth of trade in the next five years that's been set is up between those nations. trade has begun between israel and mo row co-. it's increased 94% in a year. trade between the uae and israel has increased 88% in one year. trade between israel and egypt even has increased 41% in the last year. and between jordan, with a long-standing agreement, has increased 55%. the uae and morocco now have students studying in israely universities. the uae has overhauled its school curriculum to increase

tolerance of other faiths and religious groups. dozens of daily flights are now moving in those abraham accord countries, bringing business and tourism. there's even real conversations about water, about energy sharing and development and large economic infrastructure projects. there are other countries even in the region that have started to take notice of this. countries like saudi arabia, now allowing israeli-bound flights to fly through airspace. you understand, two years ago, that didn't happen. the saudis made every israeli-bound flight go around their airspace. israel and saudi arabia have also participated in multilateral naval and air drills alongside uae, bahrain, and other countries. it's an enormous shift. and if i can say this, in the region, israel and lebanon are

very close right now to forming an agreement on that -- what they call the blue line, the border between israel and lebanon, including the maritime areas. what does that matter? it is a tremendous development for lebanon, for their economic development, because there is a large natural gas field just off of lebanon's coast, but the border has been unresolved for years. and in the conflict between nations and the trust that has collapsed, the abraham accords have provided an opportunity and a moment for the nations in the region to say, if peace can begin with uae and bahrain and sudan and morocco and israel and recognition and economic development and ambassadors can be exchanged, who else can engage in economic development? let's start with their neighbor, lebanon. to build trust is to also build clear borders. this is real progress in two

years. my challenge to the administration and to our state department is the fan the flame. keep going on this. we've seen nations begin to do economic development, families meeting other families, school curriculum changing to taking out anti-semitic tropes bakely out of their curriculum. we've seen real progress in this area. keep going. other nations should be welcomed to be able to join in the abraham accords. it is not closed. other nations can join in that economic development. there are four of us that began the abraham accords caucus. myself, senator rosen, senator ernst, senator booker. we launched out the four of us and invited all of our colleagues to join in it. our focus is to be able to work with the ambassadors of those nations to say, how can we work together to bless what has already occurred and how can we expand into other nations? how can we encourage increased

economic development? now there are still very real challenges. the work is not done by any means. but it has at least begun and progress is taking off. the simple principle of economic engagement, going past all the government noise and saying, what if we allowed infrastructure to be able to work together? what if we allowed tourism to be able to happen? what if we allowed businesses to be able to work with other businesses in other nations that used to be hostile? how can we engage in such a way that would help? the four of us in the abraham accords caucus brought to the floor today a resolution to recognize this two-year anniversary, and its set before all 100 senators, and i don't know a single senator that's opposed to that. because we all want to see peace in the middle east. we all want to sea that kind of progress. and we all want to see this increase. so to our state department, keep

the work going. keep the conversation is going. and to nations around the would recalled that used to be hostile to israel and in the region, when we sat down in the past -- why don't we set down the past and prepare four families for the future. with that, a i yield the floor. mr. sasse: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. sasse: thank you, madam president. first i'd like to associate myself with the comments of the senator from oklahoma and thank him for all the work he's done on this. the abraham accords are really something to celebrate, something that we should be building on, and there's not a lot of good news right now, and on a whole bunch of scores, and this is worth celebrating. so commendations on your resolution. something we shouldn't be celebrating is inflation, and, madam president, i wasn't invited, but it looks like there was one heck of a party this week at the white house.

in case folks missed it, president biden, majority leader schumer, speaker pelosi, and others gathered on the south lawn of the white house on tuesday afternoon to clink champagne glasses and celebrate the so-called inflation reduction act passed along straight party lines last month. james taylor even flew in for the festivities. but at the same time that washington politicians were patting themselves on the back, here's actual reality, not sort of made-up names for legislation to spend hundreds of billions of dollars. here's actual reality -- americans are getting slapped in the face with yet another month of bad news. core inflation grew another .6% just in the month of august. defying even the most pessimistic stimulations and analyses heading into those reporting numbers. both the dow and the s&p had their worst days since the

arrival of covid. consumer prices are now up 8.3% for the year. but it is worse than that for median-income households. grocery prices are 13% more expensive this middle of september than they were the last middle of september. how do you think about what 13% of nation looks like? here's how i explained it to my kids. if a year ago today you went to a grocery store checkout line and had $100 and paid $100 for the $100 amount of groceries, if you checked out with the exact same groceries and the exact same amount of money, you would have to say, i have to figure out how to take out $13 from the checkout line because the $100 i had last year. only buys $83 worth of food.

cnn called the event vent a bizarre be -- while in the real world inflation was tanking markets. that was what was actually happening on tuesday. the cnn anchor said it feels a little hard to be celebrating. that's awkward. a lot of us have become used to split-screen reality. where washington says one thing, but reality subpoena different. it feels like officials in washington are living alternate realities and then telling the american people, what you see -- the great news is we have wine glasses in our hands, let's clink them together. washington, d.c., is obviously in a bubble and not for the first time.

the same folks who threw that party are the types who order lots of their food from door dash and therefore might not know what the price of eggs, milk and meat are. they see inflation as something that happens on paper, but seeing ton paper is different than feeling it. d.c. sees many problems on paper but doesn't really connect with what the american people arele living. dmplet c. saw the housing crisis of 2008, 2009 as something on paper. why? because five of the seven richest counties in america are the five suburban counties of northern virginia and maryland. think about in a of 3,000 counties in america, five of the seven richest ones surround this city. in 2008 and 2009 when lots of people were going bank wrupt in -- in this country. , people around here said we

don't know what you're talking about. housing prices in washington, d.c., and northern virginia and in suburban maryland went up even as the country was living that class. opioid epidemics is a crisis that a lot of people in washington, d.c., -- opioid yodz -- are not known around washington, d.c. inflation is that kind of crisis. it is a very real thing yet people in this city host white wine parties to talk about how great it is that passing legislation that spent hundreds of billions dollars more accelerating inflation and called it the inflation reduction act. let's show what we learned about inflation. more had than ar year ago last summer when americans felt prices creeped higher, the president dismissed long-term inflation with this quote, there's nobody suggesting there's any unchecked inflation on the way. no serious economist. close quote. with what?

that was an incredibly bizarre dishonest statement an everyone knew when it was spoken when speech writers wrote it, they knew that wasn't true. why did they know? well, because inflation went are from 1.4% to 5.5% in the three months before that statement was uttered. larry summers, long-time democrat economist, well respected by folks in academia and both parties was screaming at the white house not just in private but in public that this was nonsense. they were delusional about what was happening with inflation numbers yet the president said there's nobody suggesting that unchecked inflation is on the way, no serious economist. here's what was happening in white house meeting rooms at that time. half of the obama economic team was coming in telling the biden economic team, you're going to get caught with your pants down.

inflation is big, bad, and growing and yet speech writers said let's have the president said there's no serious economist whos believes inflation's coming. that was in july of 2021. this year when inflation hit 7.8%, the president said, inflation should start to taper off. he predicted in december that inflation had already peaked. every one of these comments was detached from reality and the people writing speeches knew they were detach prd from reality. the president is not the only defender. last october with high prices eating away at families' saving accounts, there was a tweet applauded scraping it as, quote, high-class problems, close quite. that's not white wine drunk commentary. this is a middle-class family

that people in all 50 states are going through. the secretary shugged it -- slugged it off as the tragedy of a treadmill that's delayed. ouch. do these people know anyone in america who's ever had to put stuff back at the checkout line at the grocery store? because that's what i experience and see at wal-mart in freemont, nebraska. have they sat down with people who compared their receipts week over week or month over month, those people looking at that receipts knowing they had to put stuff back, they're not wrong or talking about a three hf month delay on a peleton delivery. there was another press secretary who said the economy is stronger economically than ever in our history. that was said at the white house podium. stronger economically than we've

ever been in our history. totally drunk stuff. according to the gallup poll, 56% of americans say price increases are causing hardships, that is up 45% from the previous fall. according to a mammoth poll, nine out of ten americans say the country is on the wrong track. but they are throwing cheese parties to celebrate the inflation reduction act. the president announced that he plans to allow noncollege graduates to pay for the debt burden of those with masser's and ph.d. in berkeley and bethesda. 56% of the student loan debt is held by people with graduate degrees. about a third of americans go to college, but what we should do, washington says, is take money from noncollege graduates and

give it to folks with graduate degrees and hope it reduces the deficit. drunk stuff. americans have watched as every basic household necessity has become more expensive from groceries to gas and then they hear politicians change the name of their bill to the inflation reduction act and applaud themselves for spending hundreds of billions of dollars of inflationary dollars on the steps of the white house tuesday afternoon. folks, this isn't just p offensive, it's the kind of behavior and dishonesty that poisons democracy. politicians are saying things here that are 180-degrees reverse rd from reality. it doesn't just matter economically, it matters civically. this is a relationship bills on trust, a trust that when elected officials in washington should be taking seriously the needs and desires of their

constituents, we have a bunch of people enterwashington, d.c., who mistake the washington, d.c., elite experience where the income of folks who work for the federal government is substantially higher than the median american. it attacks public trust. eel lectd officials are not special. elected officials, quite frankly, are often not that impressive p. elected officials -- elected officials are not demagogues. it is in our job description to trust that the people we represent know something about their struggles and challenges and their day to day difficulties about making ends meet. it is in our job description to listen to them, learn from their experience and take it to heart. it is in our job description to think carefully about the challenges they face and how we can address those challenges, always with the idea of the constitutional order and

traditions. that relationship is destroyed when washington, d.c., breaks faith with the american people when it declares, you don't know what you're talking about. you don't know what you're experience -- what your experience is at the grocery store checkout line. there's no serious inflation, no serious economist thinks inflation is coming. the actual numbers are 13% grocery and 8.5% overall. these are late 1970's kind of numbers. politicians know best. no, we don't. the relationship is destroyed when self-satisfied appointees and smug bureaucrats in washington bustle up an down pennsylvania avenue deciding that division is more effective than competent governance. lectures about the soul of america ring hollow from practitionerrings from in politics of content. americans deserve better. starting with honesty is a start.

here's honesty. we have an inflation ri crisis on our hands it is making life a lot more difficult for millions of our neighbors. our families and friends are feeling pain at the pump and checkout lines, they're watching their saving accounts and pensions nibbled away. they haven't imagined a hardship. this is reality, the only thing misaligned is the rhetoric of this place. and americans won't be bludgeoned into believing they are thriving when they experience 13% grocery inflation. things are hard and the bare minimum this white house could do is tell the truth p and put away the party pats. the american people are resilient -- hats. the american people are resilient and we'll work our ways through this but we need a lot more truth telling from those in power, fewer tone-deaf

wine-class clinking parties who have claimed that the american people are wrong and that this new spending will somehow reduce inflation. nobody really believes that. and so the folks writing those press releases and those speeches, inviting people to parties at the white house, they should reconsider. they should tell the truth. it's hog wash and they know it, but more importantly, the american people know it. and we should tell them the truth. thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 3:00 p.m. >> and david pekoske as head of

the transportation security administration. and an update on the timing of when the bill protecting same-sex marriage will come to the floor. senator tammy baldwin says the vote on marriage equality will be held after the november 8th election. majority leader schumer has said he hoped to bring the measure to the floor by by the edge of the month. as always, live coverage of the senate on c-span2. ♪ >> c-span is your with unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more, including wow! >> the world has changed. today the fast, reliable internet connection is something no one can live without, so wow is there for our customers with speed, reliability, value and choice. now more than ever it all starts with great internet. wow! >> wow supports c-span as a public service along with these

other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> officials from ukraine take part in a discussion on cyber threats from russia and oh parts of the -- other parts of the world. watch tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2, our free mobile video app c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> and now, a conversation on efforts by the chinese government to control religion through online censorship and digital technologies. this hour, 45 minute long hearing was held by the congressional executive of commission on china. the panel was established by congress in the year 2000 to monitor human rights in china. >> good morning. today's commission on china, control of religion in china through digital authoritarianism, will come to order. before we turn to the subject o