create wi-fi enabled listening so students can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >>omcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> the u.s. senate is about to gavel in on this wednesday morning. today senate lawmakers continue work on the president's judicial nominations and expect today vote on a house pill commerce, waiving tariffs on solar parts. dr. barry black, will now lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal father, strong to save, whose arms have bound the restless waves, let your still

small voice echo down time's corridors to renew our lawmakers and to lift their vision of one nation guided by your wisdom. inspire them to dedicate themselves to eternal values and to be unafraid of the consequences of following the highest standards they know. lord, guide them by your living word as you infuse them with a spirit of service. help them to see that nothing they do can separate them from your love. do for them as you have

promised, more than they can ask or imagine. we pray in your holy name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge f allegiance to our 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., may 3, 2023. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable peter welch, a senator from the stae of vermont, to perform the dutis of the chair. signed: patty murray, 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 to resume consideration of the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, orelia eleta merchant of new york to be united states district judge for the eastern district of new york.

the widespread existence of

those networks is acceptable . the mental health of a loved one is hard to work up the courage. hard to work up the courage to step up, try to coordinate their care. if they can't get help the last thing they need to be insurance company is a symphony of fees when a call and non-working numbers. i think we can all imagine because we are all hearing from our constituents, all of them personally about the mental health challenge and we've been working on it together but what i have to find is not ahypothetical matter . a secret shopper study made over 100 calls to a family member with depression and looked at well medicare advantage insuranceplans . the results were clear. our secret shoppers to get an appointment and this is after

people had paid vast sums. they could get an appointment only 18 percentof the time . that means eight out of 10 mental health providers listed in insurance companies materials were inaccurate or weren't taking appointments. a third of the time the number they call was a dead and completely. one was connected to a high school student health center. senator cassidy is pro- on this issue and most of us we would say we laugh until we feel like crying for the patients which is representative of. in my own state i'm not proud of what our investigators found there to. my staff and find we could make one successful

appointment. other secret shopper studies found the same thing. researchers closing as parents caring for a child with depression found an appointment 17 percent of the time, pretty much the same thing. these networks are an ongoing persistent problem. the finance committee is looking at this issue and we put a lot of sweat equity into developinglegislation to approve mental health care . all americans, i can look down to my public and colleagues because we've been working on this in the five partisan basis and we've got plenty more to do, senator crepo and i and looking at these closed networks to wrap up the three ligand approach. you've got to have more transparency and serious

consequences for insurance companies that are fleecing american consumers . i believe certainly greater transparency for example ought to be an easy one for members of this committee. i don't know anything about the accountability with transparency being a partisan issue so i want to work with my colleagues on that issue. with accountability questions and i will move this proposition forward with respect to medicare and many of my colleagues have interest in applying policies to commercial insurance. we got a lot of work to do. there's going to be nothing partisan about it and let me yield my time to center crepo. >> thank you senator wyden and i have prioritized mental health delivery in america. we got a number of major initiatives through and there are a number of major initiatives such as this one

that we still have work to do on and i appreciate the opportunity to work with you on it. we came together to conduct dozens of bipartisan policies to expand access to medicare services. these reforms will increase the number of providers participating in medicare and allow allow patients to receive more convenient locations such as through telehealth order for these improvements to achieve patient's knee up-to-date information on their health care . i've long championed medicare advantage for its ability to offer patients choice and control over theirhealthcare . through robust competition and innovative benefit offerings medicare advantage provides focused health care coverage to millions of americans . improving the accuracy of provider directories could further she medicare

advantage. patient provider relationship is the foundation of the healthcaresystem . whether a patient is suffering a mental health care crisis or receiving a troubling diagnosis director is should serve as crucial tools to help seniors across the country. while we work to better align incentives to improve accuracy we must also do so without increasing burdensome requirements that will only weaken our mental health workforce. regulatory red tape and reimport reimbursement strain can increase patient access, exacerbating physician shortages, compounding burnout and your health care access and quality. congress should build on their targeted relief measures like the ones we announced last year including temporary deficiencies and

medicare telehealth extension to address these issues on a bipartisan and sustainable basis. physician payment stabilization and health coverage for seniors received strong support from the members of both parties in both chambers. as we look to enhance medicare we should prioritize these and other bipartisan goals and we must do so in a fiscally responsible manner. i will forward to hearing from our witnesses about the opportunity to improve provider reporting requirements, empower patients and give them accurate information and advance more transparent healthcare system. >> thank you senator crepo and you've laid out a number of areas where we can continue our fight with all our colleagues. let me introduce our witnesses briefly.

there are partnerships that are inseparable in partnerships working to improve medical healthcare. i know you are a leading mental health executive, jack resnick is here, president of the american medical association . i know you are a professor and chairman of the department of dermatology. you and i have been in healthcare discussions multiple times over the last year . phd md comes to us at the recommendation of the american psychiatric organization and is addressing mental health parity. we welcome you and your long relationship with the american psychiatric association . mary gilbert serves as chief public policy officer for mental health and is also author of an important block series called designed to

fail looking at how these popular special interests determine the accessibility of so much mental health care in america i'm glad to have doctor jim right now. she's recognized for her work in provider data and in plain old english it makes sure there's a focus on particularly now where there's so much content in a legible way. let's begin with you mister, ms. myrick. >> thank you for conducting this hearing today and providing me the honor of testifying onour provider directories . my name is carrie myrick and i'm when a nonprofit working to advance equity for those who believe the help of our mind antibodies is comparable

. i'm also a mental health and and provider with a experience of health networks here to share my story and bring attention to this critical issue. ghost network directives are invisible barriers within our health systems preventing people from accessing the care they need. they are particularly damaging for those of us living with serious mental health conditions like me as aconsultant and delay . >>

families, retirees, veterans, kids, the very stability of our economy. by ramming the default on america act through the house, totally partisan, knowing full well this bill can never become law, speaker mccarthy and the hard right have made the odds of default go up. by handing his gavel over to the

hard right, the speaker is giving the american people two terrible options -- either default on the debt or default on the country, with steep cuts to law firm, first responders, veterans, seniors, and even cancer research. just think how radical such an ultimatum truly is. it's a dramatic break from how both parties approached default in the past. on one hand, a republican default would crash the economy, increase costs, kill american jobs. unemployment would rise to at least 8%. mortgage and car payments would all go up, by a lot, while the value of pensions and 401-k's would come crashing down. that is the future that speaker mccarthy and the house freedom caucus have made more likely by passing default on america act. but the alternative is also a nightmare scenario. if the republicans' default on

america act became law, one million seniors would lose access to meals meals on whe. these are seniors who literally can't get food on their own much of the time and rely on others bringing it to them. they would be on the chopping block if the gop has its way. deprive seniors who can't leave their homes of food? what is that all about? so that some very wealthy, wealthy multibillionaires don't have to pay any taxes? it's outrageous. here's another one -- the republican default on america act would eliminate 30,000 law enforcement jobs across the country. you know what that means? gun violence will get even worse, our neighborhoods will become less safe, border security would be deprived of billions in crucial resources, the war on opioids would decline

and more addictions, crimes, and others from opioid use would go up. what is that all about? once again, the hard right totally enthralled by the very wealthy, wealthy few who are so greedy they don't want to pay any taxes, say cut things like this, cut law enforcement, cut meals on wheels. the default on america act would shamefully attack our nation's veterans, purging 80,000 v.a. jobs, leaving our nation's heroes without the care they've earned throughout a lifetime. it service. these are just three of many, but eliminate meals on wheels, greatly hurt our efforts at law enforcement and safety by dramatically cutting, defunding police? greatly tying the hands of the v.a. so that veterans would get

worse health care and they'd have to wait even longer? this is what the republican deal does. that's why it's dead on arrival. not for some political or id lodge cal reason. it would do -- or ideological reason. it would do such harm. when you wonder about the motivation of these right-wing republicans, it's this -- listen to the greedy few, is the powerful, greedy few who don't want to pay any taxes, want taxes reduced. some even called for eliminating the income tax. and finally, the default on america act is chock full of totally irrelevant, hard-right goodies that deregulate fossil fuel, reward greed, shower the ultrarich with tax giveaways and

impose cruel work requirements on vulnerable families. whether it's kicking seniors to the curb, cutting law enforcement jobs or abandoning our veterans, everything about the default on america act reeks of maga extremism. so, it's no wonder the republicans did it in secret. it's no wonder they didn't want to do what they promised to do, have hearings, witnesses, and bipartisan discussion and amendments. if republicans won't level with the american people about their terrible bill, senate democrats are going to do it for them. tomorrow, the senate budget committee holds a hearing on how default on america act would weaken the economy and slash hundreds of thousands of jobs. i want to thank chairman whitehouse and all the members of the committee for doing the important work of bringing this bill to the public eye, because the american people deserve better. incredibly, mr. president, incredibly, tomorrow's hearing will be the very first hearing in either house that actually looks at what the default on america act does.

amazing. this huge bill that affects almost every aspect of american life, they haven't had one hearing on the issues they are doing. but we're going to start doing it. and that hearing will be the first, but there will be many others. as democrats shine a light on how unserious and extreme the republican default on america act is, our view about the path forward remains the same -- can't choose the default on america act, must avoid the horrors of default. pass a clean bipartisan bill to avert default. now, later today, i will join my colleagues and committee chairs at a press conference to talk about the next steps in the senate's effort to outcompete the chinese government and preserve america's global leadership in the 21st century. the democratic-led senate has

done some important bipartisan work to outcompete the chinese communist party in the last few years -- the infrastructure, chips and science and omnibus bill all did some in that regard, but we all know we can't stop there. we have to build on this progress. this work is critical to our national security. it won't be enough to outcompete the xi regime in any single area. we must be ready to compete with all of them, on all these fronts, and that will require comprehensive and bipartisan legislation. we must not aid and abet the chinese government's development of advanced technologies, like microchips, 5g, a.i., quantum computing and more that will shape the course of this century. we must limit investment capital from flowing to the xi regime, the chinese government, and prevent them from taking advantage of america's critical assets. we must continue investing in our workforce and other key

technology areas that drive american innovation. and we must strengthen our economic and military alliances and partnerships around the world to constrain chinese potential aggression. the chinese government is not constraining itself in its pursuit to dominate the 21st century. if we in america rest on our laurels, if we let the ccp beat us, it would have serious consequences for the world's democratic nations. the united states cannot afford to cede its leadership to governments opposed to democracy and individual liberty. we cannot let authoritarianism call the shots in the 21st century. that's why in bipartisan effort in the nate is so important. the -- in the note is so important. we've shown both sides are capable of working together on this most important issue. i thank my cloation who will join me -- my colleagues who will join me at the press conference. it will be another busy day on the senate floor. later in morning, the senate

will vote on the confirmation of orielia eleta merchant, whom i was proud to recommend to president biden to serve as district judge for the eastern district of new york. we'll also advance the nomination of two more terrific nominees, wesley l. hsu to serve as district judge for california, and lashonda a. hunt to serve as district judge for illinois. by the end of this week, the senate will have moved forward with one circuit court judge, anthony devos johnstone, and as many as five new district court judges, and the senate will continue doing the important work of ensuring the federal bench is filled with excellent, mainstream and highly qualified judges in the weeks and months to come. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: months of inaction from president biden have left our nation drifting toward economic disaster. his own administration says our nation is only weeks away from a debt crisis, but there has been a total absence of presidential leadership. president biden has simply been m.i.a. first the president said he would not negotiate unless

speaker mccarthy and house republicans passed their own bill. so they did. they did. our republican colleagues in the house passed a responsible bill. it's the only legislation currently in existence that can pass even one chamber of congress, let alone both. so let that sink in. this is where we are. senate democrats and leader schumer can give all the angry speeches they want, but they have no bill. leader schumer has no plan that can earn 60 votes here in the senate. he has no solution that can even pass his chamber, let alone the

house. speaker mccarthy and house republicans are the only people in washington who have actually -- actually passed legislation to avoid default. the senate majority offers plenty of angry noises but zero plan. the only solution is for presidential leadership. president biden has been sleepwalking towards this crisis. mr. president, it's time to wake up. time to wake up. the president has two options. two options. he can endorse the responsible bill that house republicans have already passed and instruct senate republicans not to block it in this chamber or he can finally sit down with speaker mccarthy and reach an

agreement. the speaker of the house has been sitting at the grownups' table for months waiting for president biden to act like a leader. whatever president biden and speaker mccarthy can both agree to will pass the senate easily. any bill that doesn't meet that description appears to have no chance. so i'm glad president biden has begun backing down and finally invited the speaker to begin negotiating. i accept his invitation to join the meeting myself but i'll continue to lend my support to the speaker. now on another matter. today the senate has two more opportunities to roll back this administration's overreach and red tape. the first resolution is from our colleague, senator marshall.

it builds on bipartisan efforts to remedy a hugely painful side effect of the endangered species act that is holding american farms, ranches and other small businesses hostage to an animal called the lesser prairie chicken. the lesser prairie chicken. americans in kansas and oklahoma were already striking a careful balance between prosperity and conservation without washington meddling. a voluntary partnership between local landowners and officials had already secured 15 million acres of potential habitat. since 2013, the population of this particular bird is actually

up -- up, but the biden administration wants to plow ahead anyway, throw the book at these americans and threaten nearly $13 billion in agricultural production. the second resolution tackles the issues at the top of the mind for many senators, winning the economic competition with the chinese communist party. last june president biden issued an emergency proclamation to let unfairly traded chinese solar panels to enter american markets without additional tariffs that should have applied. in other words, the democrats went soft on china for the sake of their green new deal daydreams. at the time president biden's own commerce department was investigating chinese producers for circumventing solar panel tariffs by rerouteing products

through other countries, american workers, and manufacturers were counting on the result of that investigation to re-establish a fair and level playing field. and in december a preliminary report did find -- did find that chinese companies had cheated, but the administration threw in the towel and gave china a win. today the senate can join the house and take bipartisan action to freeze the president's so-called emergency proclamation and make his administration hold china's unfair trade practices actually to account. i hope each of my colleagues will join me in -- join me in both of these commonsense resolutions.

mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. durbin: mr. president, the national institutes of health here in the washington, d.c., area is the leading health research agency in the world -- in the world, and we're very proud of that fact. one of the leaders of the nih was doctor francis collins, who is part of the biden administration, but as head of nih, he really brought the research capacity of that agency to an historic high. i visited him about six years ago and said, what can i do as a member of the senate to help you when it comes to medical research? he said, well, the researchers that we count on to come through with the breakthroughs in medical research are never sure what congress is going to do. are you going to fund us this

year, as much money as last year or are you going to cut our budget? some research give up on promising projects because they're worried about the future. he said the best thing you can do, senator, is give 5% real growth in spending at at nih year in and year out. so i came back to the senate and discovered the person i needed to win my point of view on this was a republican senator named roy blunt. he chaired the committee that funded that agency. i went to roy and said this is what francis collins thinks and we all respect him, and he said he thinks 5% could make a difference. he said i need to have lamar

alexander, another republican, on my side and you need to make sure that patty murray is on your side. i said i'm sure she is and so we put together a team of two democrats and two republicans and we did it, 5% of real growth in nih about six years ago. the response was positive across the nation. researchers said if this is going to be the future, woo we're going to stick with our research to see what we can find to help people alleviate suffering, and so our team put together an effort that raised the national budget of the national institutes of health from $30 billion to $40 billion. it was a bipartisan effort and a good effort. luckily some of the research they had undertaken was a practical value to families across america during the coronavirus epidemic. let me switch to another topic. one of the most insidious

diagnosis a person can get is to learn that you have brain cancer, there are 13,000 americans each year diagnosed with brain cancer. it usually gives them two years to live when they receive that diagnosis. 14,000 americans each year. ironically, coincidentally, it seems to have touched this body more than most. it was brain cancer that took the life of teddy kennedy and john mccain and one of our great friends in the democratic cloakroom, tim mitchell. i don't know why. i don't know if that is just a coincidence, but it certainly drove home to all of us what a serious diagnosis this is, brain cancer. now i will delve into territory here where my education has not prepared me. i'm a liberal arts major and law degree, and i will talk a little bit about science, but luckily

i'll be reading it to make sure i get it right. one of the real obstacles to treating brain cancer is known as the blood-brain barrier. you can inject a medicine into an ordinary person and it will flow through their veins, but it won't get into the brain. so the treatment of many brain cancers is very basic, surgery, try to remove the tumor with surgery, but the problem is, of course, surgery can't capture every errant cancer cell that might be flowing through your brain and eventually the brain cancer overcomes surgical attempts. there's always been a barrier, the blood-brain barrier the treatment has been dealing with and trying to find a way to get into the brain with chemotherapy. good news. the good news is this morning it was announced that northwestern university, which i'm proud to represent in the city of chicago, has made some

breakthroughs. if you bear with me, i want to make sure i state this properly. for the first time previously unusable chemotherapy drugs reached brain tumors in humans after cutting-edge procedure at northwestern university in chicago. doctors achieved the breakthrough with an innovative mix of ultrasound and microbubbles that open the blood-brain barrier to allow the drugs to pass through. dr. adam sonoven, one of the colead investigators, said this is a starting point to open the doors for 95% of the drugs that are usually not even considered for treating brain disease. the northwestern team released the report after treating 17 patients with brain cancer, the most common form of brain cancer viewed as incurable. this led to four and six-fold

increase drug concentration in the patients' brains, the researcher said. the doctor goes on to explain the situation. the blood-brain barrier blocks many drugs to treat cancer and blocks the dye they were using to see if they could finally go through the barrier, the doctor said, when he injected the dye while using the new ultrasound procedure, the dye appeared in patients' blood vessels but then spread into the brain. the patient's brain lit up in an x-ray that was taken during this procedure to show the effectiveness of this approach. the doctor, the chief of neurooncology at neurology said this is the first time taken to the next level with chemotherapy drugs that you

old -- could not use for brain tumors. in glioblastoma, there are cells that have been impossible to get to. now we have an avenue that might be promising to start dealing in more effective ways not only with brain cancer, but also with parkinson's and alzheimer's. it's amazing to me. literally it made me day to read that story that these researchers, funded by the national institutes of health here in washington, may have finally come through with the ultimate breakthrough that will allow us to treat brain cancer more effectively. can you imagine the hope this creates in the hearts and minds of so many families who have a victim of brain cancer in the family. why do i raise this on the floor other than to tell you i think it fascinating and important story? i do it because it's a political issue. you just heard the republican leader of the senate come forward and tell us that he

supports the proposal by the house republicans on budget cuts. do you know what the house republican budget does to medical research at nih? let me read it to you. they propose ending the bipartisan commitment to the national institutes of health by cutting more than $10 billion in 2024. that's 25% of the budget for medical research. and more than $100 billion over the next ten years. that will shutter hundreds of labs across the country, lead to fewer drugs being developed for cancer, diabetes, serious mental illness and other devastating conditions. it will decimate american biotechnology innovation and economic growth. sadly it will allow china to become the global leader in biomedical r&d. when we talk about the budget here and budget cuts and say we're just going to cut $10

million, we've got to step back and say what does that do for medical research in america? we take a step backwards. the hard bipartisan work that brought us to $40 billion is wiped away overnight. researchers like those at northwestern may lease heart and worry about if there is enough money to continue research projects and in -- innovation. what do we lose with quality of life? the cures that people count on. that's a small part to me. it's a part that troubles me the most. we've got to keep our commitment to medical research for the good of this nation and for the families that count on us to make certain we come up with new cures. we are blessed in america to have the best researchers on earth. i take them over any other country, and most americans would. but are we going to stand by? are we going to make the deep cuts in areas like medical research as part of this political debate?

mr. president, i ask permission to speak on a separate topic and that it be placed in a separate part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, you were there yesterday. the senate judiciary committee met. i chair that committee, and we had strong turnout of democrats and republicans to consider an issue which everyone has read about or heard about over the last several weeks, and that is the ethical standards applied at the highest court in the land, the united states supreme court across the street. we've all read the news stories that led to this hearing. questions raised about one particular justice, but not him alone, in terms of gifts that they have received and whether it influences their decision making on the court. that is basic and fundamental. if you think the fix is in on a court, you don't have much respect for their operation. so the question is, what's going on in the supreme court. and as it turns out, as you well know, we have ethical standards all across the federal government that applied to the

members of the senate and the house, the executive branch, and to all of the courts below the supreme court in terms of financial disclosure and basic rules of the road of what you can do and what you can't do. for example, there's a basic standard that is used for gifts, gifts for members of the senate and house that puts a limit of $50 on the value of any gift. i have returned gifts given to me which i thought exceeded that in value. i'm sure the presiding officer has as well. but that's our standard. there is no such senator as best we can ?awnd when it comes to the supreme court, the highest court in the land. so it turns out the highest court in the land has some of the lowest ethical standard. why? when this came to light in the news articles about justice thomas, i wrote to the chief justice of the supreme court, john roberts, and invited him to come to the hearing yesterday to tell his side of the story. what is the supreme court doing

when it comes to ethical standards? they don't play by the same rules as all the other courts in america. what are their standard? the chief justice declined my invasion and sent along some -- my in invitation and sent documents to what he thinks are the rules of the road for ethics in the supreme court now. they were interesting, but unfortunately they revealed that the standards at the highest court in the land are not even equal to the standards at all the other federal courts. so we had a hearing yesterday on the subject, and we invited witnesses from the republican side and the democratic side to comment on the current state of affairs. if the chief justice couldn't appear or would not appear, we went forward with the investigation, which is our responsibility under the law. asking a justice for the supreme court to come and testify before a congressional committee is not unusual. 92 appearances have been made by justices on the supreme court since 1960 before the committees

of congress, but yesterday the chief justice nor any other member of the justice on the supreme court appeared before us. so what we found was a surprise to me. i thought there would be some bipartisanship to this because in the not too distant past two senators on the committee had crafted an ethics bill on the disclosure of stock holdings, sent it not only to the president to sign but it was embraced as well by the supreme court. bipartisan, thoughtful measure for sure. but yesterday i'm afraid things were very partisan. first, there was a question as to whether or not this was an attempt to attack the conservative members of the supreme court by raising ethical questions. i tried to make a point several times that the first letter that i sent to a chief justice, this chief justice on the issue of code of ethics for the supreme court, i delivered on february

13, 2012, during the obama administration. so this was not some newfound interest. i had been working on it for years. my colleague, senator sheldon whitehouse, dedicated a major part of his career to this issue of ethical standards before the supreme court. the notion we just invented this because of unhappiness with a recent court decision just doesn't hold up. many of us have been working on this issue for years, years before any of these decisions were handed down. there was also an argument that congress has no authority to establish standards for the supreme court. as i mentioned earlier when we had this stock disclosure law passed last year, it was embraced by the court. the court goes through some form of financial disclosure based on a law passed in 1978. and by and large, there are many ways that the congress interfaces with the supreme court, not the least of which is its budget. so we're in constant communication with the court and

its operation. i believe that we clearly have the authority to establish ethical standards in law for the supreme court. the republicans to a person disagreed with it. we also had an argument made that somehow we had singled out clarence thomas, a justice on the supreme court, and decided that he was going to be persecuted by this type of inquiry. well, let me say the facts that were disclosed about his gift-take taking -- gift taking from a texas billionaire were extraordinary. justice thomas has not denied the fact that he took hundreds of thousands worth of vacations, yacht trips to indonesia, private aircraft from this texas billionaire. he dismissed it and said it was personal hospitality. personal hospitality does not include transportation. and of course this included a lot of most luxurious

transportation imaginable that the justice received. so to say that this was acceptable conduct, it clearly was to the republicans yesterday, but i think most americans want to know a little bit more about the relationship that would lead the justice to take hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of trips, not to mention the same billionaire bought his mother's home and allowed her to stay there afterwards. there were questions raised throughout as to why we would pick on one conservative justice. i will tell you the disclosures that have come out since the thomas article about the gifts he's received from the texas billionaire have included many members of the court, certainly those who wouldn't be put in the conservative category. questions have been raised. questions are raised about members of congress all the time, and they should be. i know each year when i disclose my taxes and my net worth in detail, somebody is going to call with a question.

explain this identity -- item to me. that is part of the responsibility of public service. it's no fun but it's part of the job. if you want to be a public figure, i want you owe it to the public that you will be honest about discharging your duties. so we haven't given up when it comes to the senate judiciary committee and the issue of ethics. we're far from finished. we had good testimony yesterday from witnesses that i think give us a basis for moving forward in this area. at the end of the day we want to make sure the people, as skeptical as they are of politicians -- they have every right to be -- believe that the institutions, whether it's congress or the supreme court or the president's office, are at least credible and trustworthy. establishing a fundamental ethical standard that assures that fact is absolutely essential, and the senate judiciary committee will continue that pursuit. mr. president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: mr. thune: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican whip.

mr. thune: mr. president, is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes. mr. thune: i would ask unanimous consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, last week i came to the floor to talk about how the president's economic policies are failing to serve the lower- and middle-income americans he claims are his priority. the president talks about wanting to give american families, quote, a little more breathing room, end quote. but his big-government, big spending policies are taking away america's breathing room as cash-strapped families struggling with the effects of the president's historic inflation crisis contest. today, mr. president, i want to talk about another set of the president's policies that are not serving americans and that's the president's energy policies. since the day he took office president biden pursued an agenda hostile to conventional sources of energy, namely, oil and natural gas. he set the tone on his very first day in office when he canceled the keystone xl

pipeline, an environmentally responsible pipeline project that was already under way and was to be paired with $1.7 billion in private investment in renewable energy to fully offset, fully offset his operations emissions. he almost also immediately froze gas leases on federal lands sending the signal his administration would be reluctant to work with them during energy production. and he's continued along the same lines ever since, from raising taxes on conventional energy to proposing a rule that would mandate that appointment makers only -- that automakers only make electric cars in the future. he announced he would clows off a substantial part of the arctic to oil and gas development. and the good neighbor rule

threatens to close a number of fossil-fiewl powered power plants. why is all of this a problem, mr. president? after all, members of both parties support alternative energy technologies. why are the president's efforts to shut down conventional energy production a problem? they're a problem because conventional energy still plays an eas soon as royal in providing a sedy, reliable energy -- steady, reliable energy to consumers. the technology to fully transition the united states to clean energy simply doesn't exist yet. all the green new deal anti-conventional energy policies in the world can't change that basic fact. if what the president's green new deal anti-conventional energy policies can do, however, is jeopardize our nation's energy supply and drive up prices for american consumers. americans know the energy price

hikes of the biden administration all too well. from restricting oil and gas production to imposing tax hikes on conventional energy, president biden's energy policies have driven up americans' energy costs. but that will be nothing compared to what will happen if the president succeeds in choking off and drastically reducing conventional energy production. prices will soar, blackouts, brownouts, and calls for energy rationing will become commonplace, and our economic and national security will be in jeopardy. we're not at the point yet where we're experiencing blackouts and brownouts on a regular basis, unless i guess you're a resident of california, whose energy grid is known for being unreliable because of the state's overreliance on renewables. but the president's policies could push us over the edge. mr. president, in february the pjm interconnection, which

manages a substantial part of eastern america's electric grid, released a report warning that fossil fuel plants are being forced to retire at a faster rate than new renewables can be brought online at a rate of roughly two to one. in other words, if we're rapidly approaching a situation where we don't have the ability to keep up with electricity demand. as the report underscored, that situation is being driven by anti-conventional energy policies. "the wall street journal," which weighed in after the pjm report was released noted, and i quote, most projected power plant retirements are policy-driven, end quote. that's what the report says. in other words, power plants aren't closing because they've reached the end of their operating life. they're closing because of policies designed to discourage conventional energy. i've already mentioned the epa's new good-neighbor rule, which

could force power plants in 22 states to close. then there are things like utility company, environmental, and social governance, or esg policies, that utility companies can voluntarily adopt, but this administration wants to mandate, by the pjm report highlights as a factor in plant closures. not only do overreaching esg policies force some of the most reliable energy facilities offline. these facilities are also being replaced with technology like solar that are inherently intermittent and can't be dispatched in high demand. "the wall street journal" notes, quote, illinois and new jersey climate policies could reduce generation by 8,900 megawatts, end quote. that amount of energy would be enough to power over seven million households. in other words, mr. president, policies that discourage conventional anymore are already having an effect and threatening

our nation's energy supply. if the president continues to pursue these types of policies, his presidency may be remembered not just for historic inflation crisis, but for setting off a long-term energy crisis caused by an up reliable and insufficient energy supply. mr. president, instead of trying to bring about a clean energy future before we have the technology to get thrust, the president should be pursuing an all-of-the-above energy policy, one that embraces the full spectrum of available energy sources, both renewable and conventional. i'm a strong supporter of clean energy, like so many of my republican colleagues, but unlike democrats, republicans recognize our nation is not going to fully transition to 100% zero-emission energy anytime soon, no matter how much the administration would like it to. there are a lot of hurdles to be crossed before we can rely solely on clean energy.

so republicans are committed to supporting both alternative energy and the responsible developments and deployment of the conventional energy we need to keep our nation's energy grid reliable and americans' energy costs down. for evidence, you need look no further than the energy legislation recently passed by the republican-led house of representatives. which would advance both responsible conventional energy development and clean energy technologies. predictably, the senate democrat leaders declared this legislation, quote, dead on arrival, in the under senate. democrats are so beholden to the radical environmental wing of their party that anything that doesn't adhere to their green new deal orthodoxy isn't up for discussion. democrats' opposition is unfortunate, not just because this legislation would help ensure an adequate supply of conventional energy, but also, also because it would help

advance alternative energy projects. republicans' legislation would tackle permitting delays, which are a leading impediment to energy development, including alternative energy development. republicans' legislation helps support the electric car development that democrats are so committed to by enabling the development of critical mineral resources at home. the same critical minerals that are essential ingreendz in -- ingredients in learning car batteries. mr. president, while on the subject of cars, i will say that the president made one right decision on energy last friday by approving the sale of e-15 fuel for the summer. americans saved $57 million last year thanks to summertime e-15 sales. with the war in ukraine continuing to stress fuel markets, renewing this helps drive down the expected summer surge in gas price prices, we benefiting our environment and offsetting production cuts from opec.

while i'm glad the president listened to calls from me and others to extend e-15 sales through the summer, it's is unfortunately one of just a handful. times where the president has oped for reliable and affordable and affordable energy instead of an unrealistic, anti-conventional energy policy. mr. president, in an all-of-the-above energy policy, that embraces both conventional and renewable energy sources is essential for keeping energy prices affordable, ensuring the reliability of our nation's energy supply, and keeping our nation secure. if the president doesn't start encouraging conventional as well as renewable energy development, consumers and our country are going to pay a heavy price. the president has already ensured that he will be remembered for a historic inflation crisis. he should make sure that he isn't remembered as the

instigator of a future energy crisis as well. mr. president, i yield the floor. could senator padilla be allowed to speak for up to five minutes, followed by senator kennedy for up to 15 minutes prior to the scheduled roll call votes? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. padilla: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mr. padilla: i rise to urge my colleagues to support president biden's nominee to serve as secretary of labor, current acting secretary julie su. julie is a proud californian and a champion for workers everywhere. she's a tireless advocate for workers. she was a tireless advocate for workers in california for years, and i was honored to introduce her before the help committee two years ago when she was first nominated to serve as deputy

secretary of labor. i should note that that year i was practicing every single democratic senator voted to confirm her nominations. since, i think it's appropriate to ask, in the time since what's happened? i'll tell you, she's gained even more experience defending workers nationwide and managing a federal department. she's been a highly effective deputy secretary of labor, now acting secretary, and she's played a critical role in helping the administration add 12.6 million jobs to the american economy. that's more job gains than any previous president has achieved in a four-year term. it's further proof that job creation and strong labor protections are not mutually exclusive. in fact, they go hand in hand in building a strong, resilient economy.

but julie's service and track record comes as no surprise, frankly, when you understand where she came from. she is a daughter of immigrants and a native of california. she knows personally the sacrifices that many working families make to make ends meet. her parents worked hard for decades in minimum wage jobs before establishing and growing their own small business. yes, colleagues, julie su and her family have seen both sides of a paycheck. they instilled in julie strong work ethic, which led her to take on tough fights, as a labor lawyer, as labor secretary for the state of california, as deputy secretary for the u.s. department of labor, and now as acting secretary. also to note, as secretary of the california labor and workforce development agency, then the fifth largest economy in the world, now the fourth largest economy in the world,

she was a strong manager, leading a number of major departments, boards, and panels at the state level. her experience and qualifications are unmatched. and as former secretary walsh put it, julie is a lifelong champion of america's workers. i'll end with this, mr. president, if confirmed, she would be the first asian american to serve as a secretary in president biden's cabinet. millions of americans will see themselves represented in the highest levels of government and take pride in her story as the daughter of working-class immigrants. i was proud to see her impressive recent testimony in the help committee, when i introduced her once again, and where she was successfully voted out from committee. she's exactly the type of labor champion that we need at this critical time. i urge my colleagues to join me in once again confirming her nomination.

thank you, mr. president. mr. kennedy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, today, for me, in one particular respect, is both a happy day but also a sad day. with me on the floor is mr. michael wong, to my right. michael is my state director. i'll come back to him in a second. also with us today is michael's spouse, jamie, in the gallery.

jamie is not only michael's spouse, she in her own right is a nationally known and locally renowned expert in special education. michael and jamie have two children. i'm going to read their full names and embarrass them. mr. thomas miller wong and miss julia rose wong. thomas is 7, julia is 5. they are both whip smart. they're both future leaders of this country, and i hope louisiana, because i hope they'll stay in my state. on top of that, julia is quite the gymnast, and thomas is a

heck of a right fielder and a heck of a point guard and a heck of a quarterback. and they are both cool. they are both cool what -- they are both what cool looks like. now, back to their dad -- i say it's a sad day for me because michael is stepping down from government. it's a happy day because he's going to pursue some very exciting opportunities in the private sector. michael has been working for the american people and the people of louisiana for 16 years. before he worked with me, he worked with senator david vitter, is worked with senator

steve scalise. michael has been my state director every single day i've been a united states senator. let me tell you, is a tough job and one of the most important jobs. you know, mr. president. we're here in washington. our people are back home. a state director has got to make sure that their needs are being addressed back home, their concerns are heard. the state director has to manage our local representatives, make sure they're representing me at all the different functions they need to do. in michael's case, he's also a valuable source of policy advice. i'm going to miss that every day. michael has maybe one of the best political minds in louisiana, and he's a nice guy -- much nicer than me.

and he -- i just can't overstate how important he has been, not just to me, but to the -- to the people of louisiana. i said michael is one of the best -- has one of the best political minds -- he has one of the best minds, period, not just in terms of policy and politics, but i want to mention the political mind in one respect. michael ran my reelection campaign, and it was certainly the best run campaign i've ever been involved in. i stepped back -- of course i was the candidate, but as you know, mr. president, the candidate is only one small part of the campaign. michael and his team, and i had a great team, they managed everything from the get out the vote, their work on the an lit

ibs and data was just -- analytics and data, i just don't understand how they did it, their vote targeting, their tv commercials. i mean, i had 13 different opponents and i was expected to win in the first primary. those weren't my expectations necessarily. the media back home would repeat that repeatedly and that puts pressure on us and it's hard to do when there -- when you've got 13 opponents, and that was michael's responsibility. and i was just hoping to win, period, in the first primary. i was hoping to just get 50% plus one. michael -- michael managed a campaign that returned 62%. i mean it was just breathtaking.

but let me talk about -- i've talked about michael's policy chops. i've talked about his policy expertise. i've talked about his political acumen. i've talked about the fact that he cares about people, and as an aside, a wise person once told me, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. michael understands that. and -- and i mentioned michael's beautiful family. he's also always made time for his kids and for jamie, and i know there are times when it's been difficult. but let me tell you one particular attribute, among many, about which i -- with respect to which i most respect michael.

he'll do the right thing, and he'll tell his colleagues, in a very tactful way but firm way, what they need to hear. he'll tell me what i need to hear, not just what i want to hear. i'm not going to go into detail, but early in my first term, we in my office had what i will call a capital t, tough, capital i, capital i, issue, and it involved our whole office and i thought i knew how to solve this capital t, tough, capital i issue. we had option a and option b. and i chose option a. and michael didn't agree with me. some others in my office didn't agree with me, but they tried --

tried to implement option a, my option. michael told me from the beginning option a's not going to work. we need to go option b, but i'll try to implement option a. but what i respect most about michael is that he tried to implement my option a but he never was frightened to look me in the eye, never was scared to look me in the eye, and i hope our pages are listening to this, do say in a respectful way, kennedy, you're wrong. it's going to hurt the people of louisiana. we need to -- he kept coming back and back and back. and i had said, michael, i mied made a -- i made a decision, implement option a. he said, i'm trying to, but i

think we're wrong on this one. and you know what? he was right and i was wrong. and if michael had less courage and just said, okay, the path of least resistance is just to agree with kennedy. i know he's wrong, but, you know, let him find out for himself, i would have been hurt and the people of louisiana would have been hurt. and that's not easy because all of us in this room have worked for somebody before. my first job in government was for a reformed govern. i was his -- governor, i was his legal counsel. and like michael, he was very, very, very smart. and buddy, god rest his soul, we used to say about buddy, often wrong but never in doubt. and buddy was a tough -- tough -- was a tough boss

because -- and part of my job was to go to him and say, governor, you're wrong on this, and then i'd cover up and take my whipping, and sometimes the governor would change his mind and sometimes he wouldn't, but was very opinionated. it was one of the things i loved about buddy. that's a hard thing to do. it's hard to go to your boss in a firm, respectful way and say, sir, i know i've told you before, but i'm going to tell you again, this is it a mistake. this is a mistake. and michael did that. and he avoided a lot of -- a lot of heartbreak. i don't want to overstate the case, but a lot of heartbreak for me, for our office, and for the people of louisiana. and that's the kind of guy he is. he doesn't think he has all the answers, but when he thinks he's

right, he will stick. i'm going to miss michael. i'm going to miss him every single day. he's not dying or anything, he'll be around and i know that, and i'm going to still call him and say, what do you think about this? what's going on? but i wanted to rise today, mr. president, and thank michael wong and thank jamie and thank thomas and thank julia for their years of service to the people of louisiana. and i wish them godspeed. i wish them health, i wish them happiness and i can't wait to watch how thomas' arm develops as a quarterback. thank you, michael. thank you, mr. president. i suggest the absence of a quorum, mr. president. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: the

senator from niewm new mexico. -- from new mexico. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: i ask dha the vote begin -- i ask that the vote begin immediately. the presiding officer: without objection. the question occurs on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

officer the yeas are 51, the nays are 48. the nomination is scoffed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: the president will be immediately notified of the senate's action. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion:

we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar 127, wesley l. hsu of california to be united states district judge for the central district of california, signed by 20 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of wesley l. hsu of california to be united states district judge for the central district of california, shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: the yeas are 54, the nays are 45, the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: the judiciary, wesley l. hsu, of california, to be united states district judge for the central district of california. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will proceed to legislative session. the committee of environment works is discharged from j & j rest -- s.j. rest 9 and will consider s.j. res. 9. the clerk: s.j. res. 39, disapproving the rules submitted

by the commerce with duties and estimated duties in accord with proclamation 1019, s.j.9, united states code the rules submitted by the united states fish and wildlife service, relating to endangered wildlife and plants and so forth. s.j. res. 639. -- s.j. res. 39.

mrs. capito: thank you, madam president. i rise today to talk on a subject that is of great importance to me and great importance to employers, workers, consumers, and really everyone across this country, and that is -- and that is the need for substantive reform of our country's federal environmental review and permitting process. now, this is a subject i talked about a lot. i championed efforts to make sure that our environment and economy benefit from a functional federal environmental

review and permitting process. and i am now, and once again, leading environmental review an permitting reform efforts through the environment and public works committee and i'm working with my fellow republican senator who's the ranking member on energy and natural resources, senator barasso, from wyoming, and we're working across the aisle with our counterparts. permitting reform is more than just legislative text, it's more than upstates to laws that have been on the books for years or counterproductive efforts by the biden administration. it is an essential element to give our nation what we need to be successful in the future. without permitting reform, american energy will continue to be stalled, jeopardizing our security here at home as well as our allies abroad. without permitting reform, communities across america will struggle as they are denied

access to the good-paying jobs that they need and are capable of doing. without permitting reform, america will not build at all. the same country that mined the goal, that made the steel and built the democracy and led the way for industry across the world will be held back by endless review processes and continuing court challenges and crippling regulations that limit our ability to be the world leader that we know we are. in my state of west virginia, which is synonymous with energy generation, we have long seen the negative effects of a permitting process that is designed to stall rather than to produce or create. there are multiple real-world examples of how our broken environmental review and permitting process is holding up my state of west virginia's ability to move forward and is

impacting multiple sectors important not only to the people of my state but also to our national economy. in the transportation sector in west virginia, there's quarter h. quarter h is a critically important highway that commerce needs to have the economy flow and encourage our tourism industry. in the manufacturing industry, there is new corps steel, an innovative, cutting-edge steel company that can't, as yet, build their plant as quickly as the biden administration keeps creating new emissions guidelines. and in the energy sector that's the mountain valley pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that is on the brink of completion, over 90% completed, yet it is unable to dlimp its needed contribution to american energy independence

due to the regulatory burdens and endless legal challenges that have gone on longer than the actual construction of the pipeline itself. these are just three examples in the state of virginia. think about the national impact created by outdated permitting processes. the damage inflicted on our communities and our economy and the opportunities we're losing because of an administration that champions red tape, feeds frivolous lawsuits, and whose agency celebrate delays that lead to the total abandonment of critical, critical projects. it just doesn't make sense, quite simply. even the renewable energy projects and manufacturing efforts central to the bide:administration's -- biden administration's agencies are being held up in permitting purgatory. president biden has long pledged that he will build our country back better. well, news flash, mr. president. you can't build back better if

you can't build at all. the fallout created by a broken environmental review and permitting process further strains our sputtering sputteri, drives up energy prices for consumers, negates good-paying jobs for hardworking americans, and really jeopardizes our ability to build into the future. mrs. capito: now, as my constituents in west virginia would say, well, what are you going to do about it? well, from conversations we've already started in the epw committee, i will soon be introducing legislation in tandem with my colleague senator barrasso that delivers on the environmental review and permitting process, reform that our country needs. this legislation will benefit all projects. renewable, conventional, surface transportation, manufacturing, all of the above. this legislation will mandate enforceable timelines with clear time limits and predictable

schedules for environmental review and consequences when agencies fail to reach these decisions in a timely fashion. this legislation will fashion guidelines that process and decide legal challenges to projects expeditiously instead of creating a sea of endless litigation. the legislation will actually amend the clean air act, the clean water act, and nepa and fix the obstacles holding our country back from the prosperity we deserve while maintaining, of course maintaining environmental protections. i will emphasize as i have many times in the past that any tangible, lasting environmental review and permitting solutions must be accomplished through regular order. backroom deals will not cut it. in fact, they will only lead to confusion among the american public and buyers remorse mopping the participants.

-- among the participants. we have forged the blueprint for bipartisan compromise through the epw committee time and time again and this process should be no different. i encourage my colleagues in both chambers on both sides of the aisle as well as president biden to heed the calls from communities across the country on the urgent need for our environmental review and permitting reform. and join in our efforts to deliver the modifications that america's employers, workers, and consumers need. i look forward to the continued debate on environmental review and permitting reform and while always maintaining our shared goal of moving america forward. and with that, i yield the floor and see my colleague who has been very instrumental in all of this as we work together with our colleagues, senator barrasso. mr. barrasso: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. it's a joy and privilege to join my colleague from west virginia, senator capito, on the floor

today to talk about legislation that will be -- that we'll be introducing tomorrow. it's about permitting. and i come to the floor to talk about ways to lower prices for american families and restore our country to energy dominance and of course the way to achieve this is by fixing our broken permitting process. there is a lot of work to be done. there is bipartisan support to do it. so she'll be introducing along with me our legislation tomorrow, and this legislation is going to streamline a very complicated permitting process. it's going to speed up american infrastructure, energy, as well as mining projects. taken together this legislation will address fatal flaws in today's federal permitting process. the current system moves in very slow motion. too often, as senator capito said, there is no motion at all. things are stopped in their

tracks. today's process forces project developers to endure a maze of regulations, mountains of paperwork, expensive studies, and bureaucratic foot dragging. it takes an average of four and a half years now just to complete an environmental impact statement for one single project. in some cases it can take a decade or more to get final approval for a project. and even if a project makes it through, the regulatory roadblocks to get a permit will inevitably be challenged in court. project opponents are skilled at exploiting our broken permitting process to stop all progress. litigation can drag on for years and cost millions and millions of dollars. in my home state of wyoming, activists are suing to cancel hundreds of federal oil and gas

permits. now, these permits were issued after years of environmental reviews. they're frivolous, the lawsuits, but they're happening all across the country. the longer it takes to get a permit, the more a project costs. the more it costs, the more likely a developer will either pull the plug or just give up before even starting. the result of all of this is that energy prices go up. people feel the pain. because investments aren't made, jobs don't materialize, projects of national importance don't get built. i'm talking about projects like oil and gas wells, pipelines, transmission lines, wind and solar farms, power plants, roads, tunnels, bridges, mines. to see what i mean, madam president, take a look at this chart from the economists. cancel culture. it shows that for the past several years, more miles of

intrastate gas pipelines have been canceled than have been built. let me repeat that. this shows past several years more miles of interstate gas pipelines have been canceled than have been built. you know, we used to be able to build things in this country. not anymore. it's not that we don't know how. it's that we're not being allowed. shouldn't take longer to permit a for project than to actually build it. in too many instances it does. the american people inevidentably lose whether that happens. the permitting process must change so we can lower costs for families and unleash american energy. we can't keep today's broken process and expect to stay ahead of rivals like china. taken together the legislature that senator capito and i are -- legislation that senator capito and i are introducing is going

to streamline the permitting process while preserving environmental standards. this will put america back in the lead. project developers need to expect a system that is predictable and delivers a timely answer. our legislation will do that by sticking to four basic principles. first, real reform must benefit the entire country, not a narrow range of special interests. our bills are technology and fuel neutral. by that we mean we don't put our thumb on the scale for politically favored technologies. this is going to help expedite projects from both conventional and alternative energy sources. we need all the energy here in america. second, our legislation includes enforceable timelines with specific time limits on environmental reviews. third, we place time limits on legal challenges to prevent

endless litigation intended solely to kill new energy projects. and finally, our legislation prevents the executive branch from hijacking the process to meet its own policy preferences. the energy bill that i'm going to introduce focuses on streamlines improvements to produce more american energy and more american mineral resources. it's going to lower costs for families. it's going to enhance america's energy security. it's going to reduce reliance on china, on russia, and on other adversaries for energy as well as key minerals. a key aspect of my energy bill is to resume federal onshore and offshore oil and gas leases. now, the biden administration has tried from day one to block access to federal lands and waters regardless of the law. we cannot allow any administration to deny, defy,

and disregard the law. my bill will also speed up the production of critical minerals used in renewable and battery technologies. our country is blessed with large mineral deposits, some in your home state, madam president. my home state in wyoming in particular. we have large reserves of coal, uranium, and other minerals yet it often takes over ten years in the united states to get a mining permit. our competitors in china move much faster as do our northern neighbors in canada. unlocking domestic mining means that we will no longer have to rely on china and russia for critical minerals. finally, my bill will ensure the affordability and reliability of our electric grid. we will have american energy that is affordable, that is reliable, and that is available.

now, the house recently passed the lower energy costs act. the senate now has an opportunity to pass our own legislation. we can pass bipartisan legislation that unleashes american energy, boosts our international competitiveness, creates jobs, and lowers prices. this starts with today, fixing today's broken permitting process. democrats said last year that this reform is necessary. senator capito and i are bringing solutions to the table. democrats are serious about fixing the broken process, meaningful reform is possible. thank you, madam president. and i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. sullivan: madam president, i want to thank senator capito, senator barrasso for their leadership on an issue that matters to every single american. and this is one of these issues, madam president, where the congress of the united states should be coming together in a bipartisan way to make sure we have a permitting system that enables us to build things. every kind of thing we need, roads, bridges, ports, energy, renewables, oil and gas. the system is broken. everybody knows it. and madam president, i'd like to show this photo when i'm talking about permitting reform. why am i showing this very iconic photo of some men here building the empire state

building? because we all know that one of the great things about america is we used to be able to build things, big things on time. 410 days to build the empire state building. the hoover dam took less than five years to build. a little closer to home to me, the 1700-mile alaska-canada highway, what we call the alcan highway through some of the world's most rugged terrain, 11 months. this was the great thing about america with the best workers in the world, we built huge things, on time, on budget. but not anymore, madam president. not anymore. and one of the things -- i don't want to be too partisan here, but one of the things we all know we need is permitting, is permitting. i am obsessed with this issue, but i will tell you this.

every time -- and it's probably going to happen again -- we have a big permitting opportunity, a big permitting bill on the floor, what happens? usually it's a battle between the men and women who build stuff, the unions who build things. they want permitting reform. they want to be back in action like these men decades ago. the men and women who women builds want it t the radical far-left environmental groups hate it because they want to block building anything in america. they want to block producing any energy in america. and, unfortunately, when it's a choice between the men and women who build stuff and the far-left radical enviros on permitting, my democratic colleagues almost every single time go with the radical left, not the men and women who build thing. i hope it doesn't happen again, but it happens all the time.

madam president, here's the thing. as i mentioned, our country used to build incredible things on time. now we are a country that is tangled up in red tape. a simple highway in the u.s. can now take as long as 19 years to permit and build. in alaska, we are ground zero for these kind of projects that the permitting is delayed, far-left, lower 40 environmental groups sue to stop, and they take advantage of nepa. let me give you an example, madam president. we had a gold mine in alaska called the kensington mine. if you included the litigation of the far-left environmental groups, it took 20 years to permit. 20 years. how does that help a country? how does that help my state? how does that help workers? it doesn't. the only people who like that are the far-left environmental

groups and xi jinping and putin who want to make sure america can't produce. so what's happened, madam president, is the national environmental policy act -- nepa, as we call it -- has been abused. it was a great idea when it was passed in the late 1960's. it required builders to engage with the public, consider the environmental impacts of important projects, but back then it was usually a couple hundred pages, a nepa review that would take about a year. madam president, now that is several thousand pages, takes several years for the nepa process to move forward, and we have, again, some of our great leaders in our building trades -- this is james callahan, general president of the international operating

engineers. here's what he said recently on a piece of legislation that i moved forward last year, a c.r.a., 0en a permitting issue. since its modest beginnings, nepa has evolved into a massive edifice, capable of destroying project after project, destroying not helping job after job, virtually every sector of the economy. so, madam president, whether it's the permitting bill that senator capito and senator barrasso have done such a great job in leading, whether it's my rebuild america now act, which is a major reform of the nepa process, which, by the way, the vast majority of the building trades in america, the men and women who build things, support my legislation, we need permitting reform. it's that simple. and when you talk to a governor, pretty much in mi state, whether

they are a democrat or a republican, when you talk to a mayor, democrat or republican, it doesn't matter, they say we got to fix our brokenment prosecuting system. -- our broken permitting system. we had a hearing in the commerce committee several years ago. the head of the seattle tacoma airport was testifying. they had just built a new runway at ctec. i asked them, how long did it take to build that runway? three to four years. he said, well, that seems little long, but i'm not in construction. so i don't no exactly. it seems little long to build a new runway. how long did it take to get you the permits from the federal government to build that runway? i didn't know the answer, but i'm obsessed with this topic, because it's killing our country. it's really hurting work working men and women like james

callahan, one of our great union leaders. this witness looked at me, the head etf see tech airport. he said, senator sullivan, 15 years. 15 years to get a permit to build a new runway. you could hear the entire hearing room just collectively grown because everybody knows it is bad for america. then he said, senator, by the time it took to build the new run way, four years, and the time to get the permits, 15 years, almost 20 years, the ancient egyptians would have built the pyramids by then. this is killing us. everybody knows it. this should be a bipartisan issue. i'll end with this, madam president. last year i was proud to lead the efforts on what's called a congressional review act, cra.

congressional review act, and what it was for was we passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill. we got some okay permitting reform in there, not as much as i wanted, but it was not bad. so that was good. i voted for the women. it wasn't perspective -- i voted for the bill. it wasn't perfect. but then the biden white house, at the behest of the far-left enviros, issued rules on permitting that were undermining its own bipartisan infrastructure bill. the ceq put out rules that would make it much harder to build things in america. not just energy projects, all projects. it was crazy. so i introduced a congressional review act resolution to rescind the biden rule driven by the far-left radical enviros. so here's a good rule.

my resolution passed overwhelmingly on the floor of the senate. over 40 groups, farmers, ranchers, people who build things, all the building trades in america, all the unions, this collective group of over 40 groups representing millions of americans who build stuff, who farm things, who grow things all came and said we support the sullivan congressional review act. that's what we should be doing now, madam president. the barrasso-capito bill, senator manchin introduced his permitting legislation. we all know it's the right thing to do. listen to the men and women who build stuff, listen to the men and women who grow things. don't listen to the far-left radical enviros who don't want any permitting reform because they love to crush projects.

be courageous, vote with us on the permitting reform that everybody in america knows we need. i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. a senator: madam president, i rise to call for permitting reform. the current system we have right now is in dire need of reform. it takes too long and costs the taxpayers too much money. as governor of nebraska, i had direct experience with this. met me share some of these experiences. mr. ricketts: the natural resources district, which is in charge of flood mitigation, saw

the need to raise the levees around the air force base. not only does it house the 55th wing, but it also is the home of strategic command which controls our nuclear forces. they went about the process of getting the levees raised. however, the ownership corps of engineers took -- however, the army corps of engineers took six years to grant the permit. the permit was granted and construction was set to begin in march of 2019. march 2019 was also the same month that we experienced the most widespread flooding in our state's history. as part of that flooding, offutt air force was damaged and it damaged over a dozen buildings. ultimately the cost to the u.s. taxpayer is nearly a billion dollars. if the army corps of engineers had only given the permit in four years, which by the way still would have been horrible service, those levees would have

been built up and we could have avoided nearly a billion dollars in damage to offutt air force base, risking our national security and costing taxpayer dollars. in another case, the natural resource district was looking to raise levee r16 -- r613. that permit took seven years to get issued and at the cost of $6 million. the overall project was set for $45 million. that means that the cost of the permit alone was 13% of the overall cost of the project. now, in hearings today with the army corps of engineers, we find out that the army corps of engineers has about 80,000 regulatory reviews and permits they issue. and they claim that they turn those permits around in 11 months. however, they have no system of detecting or reviewing outliers

like the six- and seven-year permits, nor do they have any goals for what a permit should cost as an overall percentage of the project. now here's the good news. this is something we can fix. in the state of nebraska, we undertook permitting reform as well because we wanted to do a better job serving our customers and reduce our costs. so, for example, with our air construction projects with the nebraska department of environmental issues, we looked at a process for doing that. it took almost 200 days to issue those permits. the process was 110 steps long. only four of those steps actually offered any value. we were able to cut that number of steps down to 22 steps and by 2019 had cut the days it takes to issue the permit down to 65, all without sacrificing any quality. through our department of transportation, we also have green sheets. these are the sheets that we give to contractors to make sure

they're complying with things like environmental regulations, antiquities, dangerous species, erosion control, also things such as hazardous waste disposal. it was taking us about 16 days to issue those and the pros was 87 steps long. we cut it down to 60 steps and reduced the time to issue the green steps down to three days. it then allows the contractor to get until field and start employing people faster. when you have a regulatory environment where people know they can have the certainty, it helps businesses. in fact, yahoo said they invested about $20 million in nebraska because they knew they'd have that regulatory certainty in our state because we focused on good customer service. we need to have the same sort of permitting reform at the federal government. in the state of nebraska, we use lean six signal, which is a methodology to be able to do our

permitting reform. our federal agencies can do something similar, and i look forward to working with ranking member capito on the environment and public works committee on how we can come up with ways to reform our permitting system here and our federal agencies. this is something that will impact power generation, power transmission, infrastructure, flood control, a number of different things. this is vitally important for our country to continue to grow, for us to create jobs, and ultimately be able to save taxpayers money. thank you, madam president. thank you, madam president.

ergy strategy right here in america that creates jobs, lowers costs, and reduces our dependence upon our foreign adversaries like china. new clean energy projects bring economic benefits and jobs to rural areas, including my home

state of iowa. the biden administration claims to build back better, but in today's reality we simply can't build anything. it's time we pass commonsense permitting reform and get washington bureaucrats out of the way. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hoeven: i join my colleagues today to discuss the need to to reform the federal permitting process. today it often takes longer to navigate the federal permitting process than it does to actually construct a project. it currently takes on average four and a half years or more to complete an environmental impact statement or eis. for a quarter of projects can take six years or more to complete an environmental impact statement. that's because some radical environmental groups have really weaponized the national

environmental policy act, nepa, and they're exploiting what has become a more and more opaque and convoluted federal permitting process. this uncertainty not only drives up the cost of future projects, it is being applied to projects currently permitted in good faith. takers for instance, the dakota access pipeline which has been operating safely for nearly six years transporting over half a million barrels north crude per day from north dakota and from a reservation and three affiliated tribes. takes it to markets and is used in our country to fuel our economy. the army corps held 389 meetings, conferred with more than 55 tribes and completed a 1,261 page environmental assessment before the pipeline went into operation, yet litigation continued following the federal approval and completion of the dakota access

pipeline, and the corps is currently expected to take more than four years to complete a full environmental impact statement for about two-tenths of a mile crossing unthe missouri river. subjecting a completed $3.78 billion projects without reasonable limits cannot be the new normal. delays and uncertainty drive up the costs of projects, and opponents are exploiting a more and more complicated permit prog sess so that delay -- process so that delay becomes defeat. american consumers are paying the price for this regulatory uncertainty, particularly through higher energy costs. increasing the supply and lowering the cost of energy is key to attacking inflation, because the cost of energy is built into every good and service consumed across our economy. to accomplish this goal, the biden administration needs to take the handcuffs off american energy producers and work with

us on bipartisan permitting reform. a good first start would be for the senate to consider h.r. 1, the lower energy costs act which recently passed the house on a bipartisan vote. h.r. 1 includes comprehensive permitting reforms that will unleash more american energy and make it more efficient and affordable to deliver energy to our nation. h.r. 1 also includes three pieces of legislation that i've introduced in the senate. first, the north american energy act brings certainty to the permit prog sess for important cross-border energy pipelines and electric transmission line projects and prevents the president from taking unilateral action to cancel vital energy projects, like he did with the keystone xl pipeline. second, the promoting interagency coordination for review of natural gas projects act streamlines the review process for interstate natural

gas pipelines and lng projects, helping to more efficiently deliver natural gas to areas that need it the most. third, the bureau of land management and mineral spacing acts improves the permitting process in states like north dakota with a split mineral estate, where the federal government owns no surface acreage and has a minority interest in the minerals underneath. the united states is fortunate to have abundant and affordable reserves of coal, oil, and gas. and u.s. energy companies are global leaders when it comes to producing more energy with the highest environmental standards. we need to empower our producers with a clear, consistent, and timely federal permit prog sess -- process. otherwise, we once again become dependent on unstable and adversarial countries like iran,

venezuela, north korea and china, hostile to our economic and national security interests. that's why meaningful permitting reform is needed to create jobs, and bring down costs for hardworking families. with that, ma'am chair, i yield the floor -- with that, madam chair, i yield the floor. ms. lummis: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. ms. lummis: i ask unanimous consent that jake newton and casey foss, interns in my office, be granted floor privileges until may 4, 2023. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. lummis: thank you, madam president. our federal permitting process is broken. back home in wyoming, important infrastructure and energy projects are oftentimes delayed years due to mountains of

regulation, red tape, bureaucracy, and even lawsuits. this is absolutely unacceptable. it's impossible for small businesses to even get off the ground, thanks to these hurdles. it's time to reform our federal permitting process, and i'm glad some of my colleagues from across the aisle are coming around to the idea of permitting reform. some on the left are finally warming up to reform, to try to push renewable energy projects. permitting reform needs to address all types of energy technologies, fuels, and projects. for that reason, any bipartisan effort needs to actually address the underlying statutes, including the national environmental policy act, or nepa, the endangered species

act, the clean water act, and the clean air act. window dressing will no longer do. since nepa is the single most litigated environmental statute, litigation reform needs to be part of the final product. litigation reflects something is broken. it is not working well. some would have you believe otherwise. litigation is the result of something not working well. the average time for nepa processes is four and a half years. nearly half a decade. and we also need to think about the processes and projects that have never been started because of these challenges. the cost of getting nepa, getting an environmental impact

statement, are so high and take so long that some projects never are undertaken. i have a friend in wyoming who's been trying for over ten years to get through the nepa process to open a rare earth minerals mine, to mine rare earth minerals we desperately need in this country, so we don't have to rely on places like china and republic of the congo. but this man is going to retire because he's read why toy retire and this process is -- ready to retire, and this process is still ongoing. all that time, all that money, all that energy being reduced to nothing because a process has taken the place of mining rare earth minerals we desperately

need in this country. i applaud senator shelly moore capito's leadership in addressing meaningful permitting reform. her legislation will provide regulatory certainty to states and stakeholders, codify environmental regulatory reforms, and expedite permitting and review process es. i'm especially -- processes. i'm especially excited about the idea of allowing states to take on more of the shared workload when it comes to permitting. particularly under the endangered species act. i look forward to the senate taking up this bill and providing much-needed permitting reform. thank you, madam president. i yield back.

mr. schatz: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. schatz: thank you, madam president. i have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. schatz: thank you, madam president. eight years ago -- excuse me, let's start over. madam president, eight months ago, we passed the inflation reduction act, and sometimes when a major bill is passed its effects are not immediate, but that's not the case with this legislation. since the i.r.a. was signed into law, more than 100 clean energy projects have been announced, these include solar, wind, hydropower, battery manufacturing, electric vehicle deployment and clean tech investments. if it seems like i'm excited, it is because i am. they are in rural areas, major

cities and everywhere in between, in more than 30 states from idaho to louisiana to ohio to arizona. collectively, these projects have created more than 100,000 new jobs for electricians, for mechanics, for construction workers, for technicians, and more. but these 100,000 jobs are only the beginning. a report from the university of massachusetts projects that the ira will create more than nine million jobs over the next deca. i want to repeat that, nine million jobs over the next decade. that's manufacturing jobs for wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles to make our power grid more resilient and roads less polluted. it's construction jobs to make our homes and buildings more energy efficient, and lower costs for families and small businesses. is environmental jobs to support farmers, to protect fisheries and restore our public lands.

investments supporting these new jobs and projects are already near $90 billion. with financial analysts projecting a multiplier effect of $1.6 in private sector investment, for every dollar of public spending, even the most optimistic projections about the ira's impact seem low now. a credit suisse report analyzing the bill estimates we'll see double the amount of clean energy that the bill was initially projected to accomplish. double the amount of clean energy. and new analysis from goldman sachs puts the impact even higher, triple the amount of clean energy that we were contemplating. this shift is already happening in colorado, where it is seeing a rapid expansion in clean energy development. d.r. richardson, who runs a business electrifying homes with heat pumps and induction wiring said about the change, quote, we're having a hard time keeping

up with the demand. the inflation reduction act has been a massive win for us. in michigan, this could lead to as many as 34,000 new clean energy jobs. according to researcher aaron brickman, there's a strategy, there's a plan, and the benefits are already being seen. michigan is poised for an economic boom. in texas, a massive $4 billion investment to create the country's largest green hydrogen facility was recently announced. it will also generate 1.4 gigawatts of wind and solar, enough to power nearly 750,000 homes. in the words of the ceo of the company behind the investment, quote, it will be competitive on a world scale while bringing significant tax, job, and energy security benefits to texas. that's really what the ira

entails -- new jobs, energy security, and a cleaner planet. but there is an opponent to this progress, the opponent is the fossil fuel industry. they've gotten rich digging up oil and burning coal for generations, but now we're seeing the energy of the future. it's not fossil fuels. they know they've lost, so the industry and its supporters are attempting to stall this progress by throwing whatever they can find at it. they're pursuing litigation. they're pushing nimbyism, not in my backyard. they're trying to stop clean energy projects through the state public service commissions. they're attempting to hijack the federal energy regulatory commission. through this cra, they're trying to grind solar manufacturing to a halt. so, if you hear this debate around this particular congressional review act

resolution, which we are contemplating today, it's not actually about this. there's a bigger story here, and the story is this -- we finally took climate action that wasn't small. we finally took an action that was equal to the moment. we finally took action that is equal to the obligation that we have to future generations. that is equal to the opportunity for the united states and the entire planet to move forward on clean energy, that benefits everybody, that lowers costs and saves our planet for the future. when they come after this particular action of the biden administration, don't get lost in the weeds. they -- they have lost. they are dead enders, they know that. they will pick up a could congressional review -- pick up a congressional review act or they'll introduce another bill

over there, but this is part of a story where for the first time, and i mean this, because it's been decades of us getting our butts kicked, for the first time we're taking the kind of climate action that can make a difference and they're terrified and that's what this cra is all about. we can choose more manufacturing jobs or less. energy security or continued dependence on foreign dictators, a forward-thinking outlook or a mindset from the past. that's what this cra is ultimately about and despite the arts of the dark money apparatus that the fossil fuel industry is making, those are arguments that belong in the past. it is the equivalent of a pay phone tie tycoon talking about e past.

no matter what happens with this vote, the demand for solar panels made in america is not going away. the demand for energy efficient homes and electric vehicles is not going away. the demand for renewable energy is not going away. the ira was not a one off, but a first meaningful step in the transition to the clean energy revolution and the forces opposing this progress will be forced to recognize that sooner or later. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: it is a happy coincidence that i get to follow senator schatz on this to oppose the review act effort mounted on the floor because i could not agree more with him that this particular episode playing out on the floor today is part of a larger scheme.

we begin with the fact that across the united states the solar industry employs a quarter of a million workers. it's a big deal. these are well-paying jobs in an industry that saves families money on their electric bills and decreases our carbon footprint, decreases our carbon footprint. so, of course, fossil fuel forces oppose it, and that's what we're stuck with now. this fossil fuel attack, through this cra, if successful, would lead to more than a billion dollars in retroactive duties on american solar companies. it would cost us 30,000 jobs, it would cost us $4.2 billion in domestic investment, it would lead to the cancellation of four gig weights of solar projects, and it would create an increase

of 42 million metric tons of co2. of course the fossil fuel industry is it against all of that, it's against the jobs, it's against the investments, it's against the solar projects and it couldn't care less about co2. so the problem that we have here is that we are in a race against time to solve the climate problem before it gets out of hand. and in this town and in this building one of the most dangerous things we face is group think, and the current group think is that climate change is a manageable problem, it won't get out of control. i don't believe that to be true. i think climate change is extremely dangerous. dangerous to our economy, dangerous to our ecosystems, dangerous to our well. and we have hearings in the

budget committee that showcase some of those dangers. the danger of a coastal property value crash, the danger of a similar appropriate value -- property value crash in the west, the danger of an insurance meltdown because nature won't let insurance companies predict things any longer safely so they can't ensure them any longer because they can't predict and you have a retraction of the insurance market and all of that means. and last of all, we've got a huge carbon bubble that we've been repeatedly warned is going to pop, and when it does, u.s. fossil fuel assets will be stranded, their value will go to near zero and there will be an enormous economic dislocation. these are deals that have been put together by huge companies, by freddie mac, by people who study the risk in wildfire

areas, by the major sovereign banks of the world. serious grownups are warning of these risks. and up against those serious grownups, we have the creepy front groups of the fossil fuel city denial machine continuing to put poison and nonsense into our ecosystem, into our mental health and political ecosystem. that has to stop. group think is dangerous enough. more dangerous, there is a subgroup in the house and in the senate that has stopped thinking entirely and is just taking marching orders from the fossil fuel industry. the conflict of interest could not be more apparent. it is obvious and plain on its face, and yet the money is there, the political dark money pours in so they line up and follow them right off the cliff like lemgs. that is -- lemmings. that is more dangerous than group think. last, this is not the only game

being played by our fossil fuel industry folks. one of the other things that we're going to have to continue to work on and with the -- and what the sec is working on right now is what is called esg requirements put out by corporations, esg is environment, socialist and government. it is corporate america deciding it is really important to its stockholders to make sure they are good citizens and that the likeliness of measures of bad citizenship will be bad environmental practice, bad social practice and bad governance and they continue to look that up and they are looking at the best ways for corporate america to avoid those risks. well, all of these warnings about what's happening with fossil fuel and with climate change that scientists have known about forever, they are now so real and so immediate that they are within the zone

where a fiduciary a corporation with an obligation to its shareholders, a bank with obligations to its customers, has to take the climate danger into account. if you're writing 30-year mortgages, you've got to look out 30 years and within 30 years, climate looks like it will be a nightmare. so this risk is now real. it is on the fiduciary horizon, and the fossil fuel industry can't stand it. so they're trying to break the rules of the market. they're trying to undo esg. they want the government to intervene in what corporations are doing to protect their shareholders and tell them the truth about market risks consistent with their fiduciary obligations, they want to break every step in that chain to protect their continued table the to pollute. so watch this esg nonsense. the anti-esg, so-called woke

corporatism is a fake. it is a broadway theatrical production minus being on broadway and being in a theater, but it's got actors paid for by the fossil fuel, it's got crypt writers who -- script writers telling them what to say, it has directors and producers driving the show behind the scenes. it is an operation, it is a fake, it is a piece of political theater, and we've got to be willing to push back against that. because you can't take these kind of chances with the climate risks that we are now facing. and, by the way, this objection to esg, it is never about the g. it is never about the s. it is always about the e, the environmental piece.

and within the environmental piece it is always about carbon emissions. that is a telltale as to who is behind the anti-esg political operation that is ongoing in america right now. with that, i yield the floor. i hope we have a strong vote to knock this down. i'm delighted that president biden is going to veto this. this would be self-harm if we were to allow this to happen to our country. thank you. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. ms. cortez masto: madam president, i rise today to talk about the solar tariff cra, which, unfortunately, is misguided and going to have a devastating impact on states like nevada, as you well know. house joint resolution 39 to end the pause on solar tariffs is a misguided effort that will not only cripple our solar industry but kill thousands of american jobs of our country is in a position to lead the rest of the

world in clean energy production, including solar development. -- and states like nevada are building up our solar capabilities and creating thousands of new jobs that support working families. talk to the unions in my state and you will hear how important solar is for nevadans. i spent some time recently at the gemini solar project which our madam president knows well, it is one of the solar rays in southern nevada. i heard directly from them how these are good-paying jobs for our workers, which is why so many unions, including the carpenters, laborers an operating engineers oppose this resolution. this effort to rein-state -- rein-state -- would hurt working families and make it more difficult to become energy independent in this country. just a few weeks ago, the energy and natural resources committee

held a hearing with energy secretary jennifer grand hoam. she told -- granholm, she said that she gets it. that we need a transition period to be able to build up our solar supply in the united states. it's happening thanks to the inflation reduction act, but we're just getting started started. right now the united states has capacity to manufacture a small fraction of our domestic solar demand. of course we need to keep building our domestic manufacturing of solar, we all agree we need to continue that process, but we shouldn't punish our workers by pretending that infrastructure already exists when we know it doesn't. that means we need to expand our supply of solar panels and cells. just having this vote this afternoon will have a chilling effect on the solar industry. when the threat of these tariffs were originally looming, just the threat of them back then, 75% of domestic solar projects

experienced cancellations or delays because of that threat, including in nevada and i heard it. madam president, you heard it. we heard it from our workers, the projects, and the pipeline. that is a sign of what's to come if this misguided effort is successful. nevada has the number one solar economy in the country, which has created nearly 9,000 good-paying job, many of them union jobs. but if we lift the pause on our solar tariffs, those jobs will be in danger. and i won't stand for it. madam president, i know you won't stand for it. and it's not just in nevada. it's not just blue states or red states. these tariffs would risk the jobs of the 225,000 americans who work in solar throughout the country. but some of my colleagues on the other side of the i'll still want to go ahead -- of the aisle still want to go ahead with this resolution. texas, for example, has over 10,000 jobs that will be in danger by these tariffs.

north carolina could see its nearly 7,000 solar jobs be jeopardized. and there are close to 12,000 floridians working in the solar industry whose jobs would be at risk. there is no justifiable reason to move forward with this resolution that would kill jobs in our own states. i agree that we need to stay competitive with the chinese government. but if we implement these tariffs, three-quarters of our solar deployment would stop. that would creed our leadership to the chinese -- cede our leadership to the chinese government. it would hurt our domestic manufacturing and our working families most importantly would pay the price. and we just can't let that happen. we need to be supporting american leadership and the solar industry. we need to be protecting our working families. and, yes, creating more solar jobs. that's why i'm going to be urging my colleagues to vote no on this irresponsible and

harmful resolution. madam president, thank you and i yield the floor.

mr. bennet: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: madam president, i'd ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: not in a quorum call. mr. bennet: thank you, madam president. i'm so delighted that you're in the chair, madam president, the senator from nevada who has led this fight on the floor against this incredibly counterproductive measure that the senator from florida has brought here, incredibly in the name somehow of being tough on china. this may be -- i've seen lots of things on this floor that didn't make sense. i've seen lots of things where i've wondered about the judgment of people that were pursuing something allegedly in the interest of the american people, allegedly in the interest of american jobs, allegedly in the

interest of manufacturing, allegedly because we're competing with china. i've never seen something as counterproductive as this. and i want to thank the presiding officer for her leadership because she comes from nevada. and i come from colorado. and we know the jobs that are at stake here. tens of thousands of jobs that could go away. a billion dollars of tariffs, of taxes that our solar industry would have to pay as they're going out of business because of what the senator from florida is trying to do in the name of being tough on the chinese. so let's talk about that for a second. let's think about who's actually being tough on the chinese. you know, one of the benefits of the way the chinese are organized is that -- or they see it as a benefit. i don't see it as a benefit but

they do -- is that they don't live in a democracy. they live in a totalitarian society. in that totalitarian society, they can make five-year plans. they can make ten-year plans. she can say this is what we're going -- xi can say this is would we're going to do for the next five years, the next ten years. i would argue that for the 20 years we were spending fighting those two wars in the middle east that we probably shouldn't have been fighting for those 20 years, the chinese were marching along and matching along and matching -- marching along and marching along stealing our intellectual property. developing new industries and new technologies. and we had our eye off the ball. and one of the things that's hard about democracy is sometimes we can't really plan much longer than between two elections or one election if we're really being pathetic. but recently there's been a different approach here. recently there's been a different approach in the

infrastructure bill that we passed a couple of years ago that was bipartisan, was the first infrastructure bill of any significance since eisenhower was our president. we finally said, you know what? we need to start investing in our country again and all over nevada, all over colorado. americans are working on our roads and bridges, long overdue as a result of bipartisan work, republicans and democrats working together. there was another bill that we passed that was the semiconductorror legislation, the so-called chips act. some people remember, i certainly do when i was in college. ronald reagan was the president of the united states. back then, madam president, for some reason everybody thought that it was a good idea to ship everything to southeast asia to get it made there. everything -- was a good idea to ship it to china and have it made there. that's kind of what ronald

reagan's view of the world was. i regret the fact that we went down that road for decades. and now that chips bill, that semiconductor bill, that is the first piece of legislation since ronald reagan was president. stop it, we're going to bring an industry back to the united states. we're going to bring the semiconductor sector back here and by the way, i hope that's not the last. i hope it's only the first. but it sure made sense to start with semiconductors because 90 % of the most important semiconductors in our fighter jets are made in taiwan, 110 miles off the coast of china. 90% of the semiconductors in our surface ships and in our submarines and in our -- in our submarines are made in taiwan, 110 miles off the coast of china. what could possibly go wrong? and yet democrats and republicans working together said, we're going to bring that back. well, we had another bill, madam president, that i regret didn't

get any republican votes. i wish that it had. i really do wish that it had because that bill had two pieces. one was health care and one was energy. and the health care pieces we cut drug prices for seniors. you know, we said we're going to cap them at $2,000. we said medicare is going to negotiate drug prices on behalf of the american people for the first time. we capped insulin at 45 bucks a month. pretty amazing. and i'm sorry some people didn't vote for that. and i don't know exactly why but the other part was an energy part. and here we were saying we're going to compete with china. and here we were saying we're going to lead the world in the transition that we're going to make from the fossil fuel economy that we have today to a clean energy economy and that no country in the world is better situated to do that than the united states. does that mean we can turn pos sill fuels -- fossil fuels off tomorrow? no. can we turn them off yesterday? no. i for one believe it's going to be very important for this

country to export lng, liquefied in gas over to europe to help keep europe in the fight against putin and to help replace chinese coal, i think that's going to help us with emissions. not everybody agrees with me on that. i believe strongly in that. i don't think there's a country in the world that's better situated because of our abundant fossil fuels that we have today, because of our commitment to the rule of law, because of our commitment to innovation, because we are not as corrupt as a lot of the countries that we're dealing with, and because we flat passed the inflation reduction act which had $270 billion of tax credits in it to drive innovation in the american economy. because of all those things taken together, i am so happy to live in this country because we can lead that transition and we can compete with china. we can outcompete china. but into this sunny picture came the biden administration, the

administration that i generally support, but they a few months ago decided that they were going to begin an investigation into where certain solar panels came from. and the presiding officer and i and some other places said, hold on a second. we haven't made the transition yet. we haven't done it yet. it's going to take us two to three years to set up these manufacturing plants to build solar panels here, make them here so we can compete with china. and that in the meantime we've got tens of thousands of people that are swinging hammers in nevada and colorado and all across this country that are climbing ladders and getting up on roofs to install solar panels, to make sure that we are driving away from our reliance on fossil fuels and into a world where we're relying on wind and

sun. and the minute that the biden administration did this, companies in colorado started to say we're going to go out of business. companies in nevada and new mexico said we're going out of business. the capital that was investing in them went away. this isn't hypothetical. this was happening. they were saying to me and i know they were saying to the presiding officer, we are going to go bankrupt as a result of this policy. we are going bruft as a result of this -- bankrupt as a result of this policy. we can't sell enough solar panels here in america. we can't install enough solar panels, we can't hire enough people and now our own country is saying we're going to bring this to an end. and we went to the white house and we said, we can't do this to tend of thousands of people all across our country. we can't do this if you're committed to fighting climate change. we can't do this if you're committed to the union workers that a i