have not fully banned abortion but have enacted bans on abortion early in pregnancy and that creates additional challenges not only for people in that state and all the people from the neighboring states that don't have a legal abortion and trying to get their care in that state and georgia has a really early and many people might not know they're pregnant by then and getting the time off work tiand access abortion in that state and similarly nebraska made a lot of characteristics and that story with bans on abortion and gender affirming care and playing in nebraska and illustrates that really well. >> brings up the, what you're

talking about in the first paragraph. the presiding officere previous order, the question is now on the nomination. is there anyone sufficient to second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: vote: vote:

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the clerk: hickenlooper, menendez, merkley, peters, row is en -- royceen -- welch, whitehouse, and wyden. the clerk: mr. murphy, aye. senators voting in the negative. barrasso, brawn, britt, cornyn, crapo, lankford, lee, . the clerk: mr. brown, aye.

mr. blumenthal, aye. 123450 jenniferósb-20icap@svc10

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the presiding officer: have all senators voted? does any senator wish to change his or her vote? if not, thia yeas are 50, a the nays are 49. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion is reconsider is considered madeland upon the table and 9 president will be immediately notified of the senate's actions. 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 calendar number 1, treaty doc 112-8, tax convention with chile, and a resolution of advice and consent to ratification of two reservations

and two declarations signed by 18 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the tax convention with chile and a resolution of advice and consent to ratification with two reservations and two declarations shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: dchendoraicap@svc106

vote:

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the presiding officer: three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having

voted in the affirmative, the motion is disagreed to. the clerks will report the treaty. the clerk: treaty doc 1112-8, tax convention with chile. mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i call up amendment 136. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from new york, practice schumer, proposes an amendment numbered 136. mr. schumer: i ask to dispense with further reading of the amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: i yield the floor.

mr. markey: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: mr. president, one year ago the right-wing majority of the united states supreme court overturned decades of established precedent and stripped away the right to abortion in the dobbs v. jackson

women's health organization decision. in this decision, the supreme court overturned the right of american people to make decisions about their own bodies and their own health. that is why one year ago i filed the right to contraception act with my colleagues, senators duckworth, hirono,and baldwin and murray, and i stood here, much like i am today, to request unanimous consent to pass our legislation. the house of representatives passed the bill by a bipartisan vote of 220-195 at that time. unfortunately, republicans in this chamber chose to block its passage. here is just a short list of what has befallen us since that time. district court judges have

blocked teens from accessing birth control at federally funded clinics and taken aim at health insurance coverage for contraception. extremists, state legislators have restricted, criminalized and stigmatized reproductive care including by suspending payments for emergency contraception for survivors of sexual assault. and people are left paying more, traveling further, and working harder to get essential medication. the threats to contraception are real and happening now. so i stand here today once again to invite every member of the senate to join me, senator duckworth, senator hirono, senator baldwin, senator murray, and the 35 additional cosponsors

to pass the right to contraception act because cosponsoring this bill means that you support codifying the right to obtain and use contraception, enshining supreme court precedent into federal law, guaranteeing a health care provider's right to prescribe these services and share information related to them, preventing the federal government and states from interfering with the right to contraception, and authorizing the united states attorney general, health care providers, and all americans harmed by unlawful restrictions to go to court to enforce the rights this bill establishes because there is no right without at remedy. passing the right to contraception act means setting

the bare minimum standard that the right to contraception should be protected, even if the supreme court once again overturns settled precedent. nine in ten americans support the right to contraception. this is not just a moral duty. part of our duty to represent the will of the american people. the right to contraception is central to life, liberty, and freedom. this is for every person who wants to live without politicians in their homes and waiting rooms, especially women, black, brown, indigenous, lgbtq, rural, immigrant, low-income, and disabled americans most impacted by the failures of this supreme court. but the right to abortion is stolen and the right to contraception now threatened, i urge my colleagues to stand with

us and to pass today the right to contraception act. as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on health, education, labor, and pensions be discharged from further consideration of s. 1999 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. braun: reserving the right to object, this bill is not about contraception. it's about abortion. the bill defines contraception as any drug, device, or biological product nented

for -- intended for use in the prevention of pregnancy, whether specifically intended to prevent pregnancy or for other health needs as approved by the fda. the fda has approved dangerous chemical abortion drugs that can also be used as contraceptives off label. there is a huge difference between a drug that blocks fertilization and a drug that can end a life. this bill also includes a provision that would act as a guaranteed earmark for planned parenthood. under the bill, the government cannot directly fund a health organization unless it provides abortion drugs. and finally, this bill does not respect freedom of conscience or health care providers. it would no longer allow for religious exemptions for

organizations who have deeply held objections to providing abortions. the bill uses intentionally vague language to hide its ulterior motive of protecting abz -- access to abortion drugs. for these reasons, i object. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: thank you, mr. president. this is an issue that we're going to return to. justice thomas, in his comments on the dobbs decision, said that of the decisions made by the supreme court that extended privacy rights were an overreach. this supreme court began with the dobbs decision. it's very clear because he mentioned it specifically that

the griswold decision, the decision to in fact protect the right to contraception, is also now in the crosshairs of the supreme court. so it is imperative that we return to this floor to begin the process of passing legislation to codify this protection for americans. i yield back. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. ms. cortez masto: this saturday marks one year since the supreme court overturned roe v. wade at the urging of extremist politicians upsend -- upending 50 years protecting women's right to health care. at the end of that decision half the states in our country have banned or effectively banned access to abortion. women in those states have extremely options for getting the health care they need. those who can afford to travel have no choice but to go to

other states to receive critical reproductive care. that's what happened to lauren hall. she and her husband were excited that she was pregnant for the first time. but then she learned her fetus was developing without a skull, a condition that meant it wouldn't survive. this condition also increased lauren posts risk of hemorrhaging. her doctors at home in texas refused to help her terminate the pregnancy, so she had to travel to seattle where she was finally able to get the abortion care that she needed. she's currently suing the state of texas for refusing to give her potentially lifesaving medical care. we knew that after the dobbs decision, stories like lauren's would only happen more often, and millions of women would lose the health care they need. even before roe fell, health care organizations in nevada were prepared for arrest influx of women -- an influx of women from out of state who needed abortion services.

justice brett kavanaugh indicated that women who have to leave their home state to get the care they need would be protected by the constitutional right to interstate travel. but we could see from miles away in nevada that the far right would never stop plotting to roll back women's right even further. and last year alone we've seen extremist republicans try to stop women in our military from getting the health care they need. they have come after safe and effective birth control and they've even supported a federal abortion ban to outlaw reproductive care in all 50 states. now we're seeing far-right extremists actively work to bar women from seeking care in states outside their own. now let's be clear, this is about controlling women. the far right doesn't trust women to make their own health care decisions. they think those decisions should be made by politicians instead. well, i don't know about some of my colleagues across the aisle, but i don't think elected officials should be

telling women what to do with their bodies. and neither do the vast majority of nevadans. we are a proud pro-choice state. back in 1990, nevadans overwhelmingly voted to codify a woman's right to choose, and today over two-thirds of nevadans believe that a woman's health care decisions are between her and her doctor. and that's across all parties, democrats, republicans, and independents. even though nevada is a safe place for women who need health care, far-right republicans living outside my state are telling women, no, sorry, we're making it illegal for you to go there. this april, idaho became the first state to make it a criminal offenses for someone to help someone travel out of state to seek an abortion. elected officials in states like tennessee and missouri are trying to prevent women are --

from leaving their state seeking health care, including their doctors. this is why we are introducing the freedom for travel health care act. one year after roe v. wade was overturned we need this bill more than ever. our legislation reaffirms that women have a fundamental right to interstate travel and makes crystal clear that states cannot prosecute women or anyone who helps them for going to another state to get the critical reproductive care that they need. we're talking about upholding a constitutional right to allow women to travel outside their home state. why do some of my anti-choice colleagues want to restrict women from moving freely between states? the answer is simple. they don't trust women to have control over their own bodies. well, i do. and i'm going to keep doing everything in my power to protect women not just in nevada, but in every state across the country.

we must pass the freedom to travel for health care act. so, mr. president, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 2053 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. further, the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, reserving the right to object, there is an obsession on the left with abortion. it's becoming all encompassing and affecting conversations we have in the senate on everything from the military to the department of veterans affairs to phantom state laws that don't even exist.

judges have the policy objectives if they want to be appointed in this administration, or those already on the bench, if they don't bow to their policy objectives, if they don't bow to the abortion-obsession seed culture on the -- obsessed culture on the left, then all of a sudden they will face attacks to their credibility and even threats of violence. this bill properly understood should be called the freedom to traffic act. to my knowledge, no state, not a single state has enacted a law restricting an adult's right to travel across state lines for purposes of an abortion or otherwise. i'm not even aware of a single state considering such a thing. and if a state were to even consider it, they wouldn't do it. and if they did do it, such a law would undoubtedly be struck down as unconstitutional.

on one of at least several grounds, including the fact that the commerce clause, article 1, section 8, clause 3 of the constitution has been interpreted by the supreme court, among other things, to prohibit any state from treating an article of commerce, including a good, a person, or thing, in interstate commerce differently based on its origin or destination out of state or outside the united states. states can't cabin their own residents or anyone inside their own state boundaries. that's well understood. they don't have that authority. but more importantly, we're dealing with a phantom problem, a phantom law that does not exist. there's not a single state law out there that restricts an adult's right to travel out of state for an abortion or otherwise. what some states do have, and perhaps that's what's causing the confusion here, are some laws to stop the trafficking of

children across state lines to obtain an abortion without notifying their parents. this is well established. we have laws on the books prohibiting the trafficking of minors across state lines, with good reason. this is very different than what was implied as a reason why we need to pass this bill here today. and it just isn't true. those laws don't exist. they are not on the books. they're not even being considered to be placed on the books. these laws are aimed to stop the sexual abuse of children by prohibiting their adult abusers and those in the abortion industry to help facilitate that abuse by transporting them across state lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion and, thus, hiding the fact that they got an abortion from their parents. there are good reasons for these laws, mr. president. in 2004, for example, a

14-year-old daughter of marsha carol was taken by her boyfriend's family from their home in pennsylvania, where they lived, to new jersey. new jersey, where parental consent for an abortion was not required at the time. there, once in new jersey, they threatened to leave her in new jersey unless she got an abortion, which she did under duress, under coercion, afraid. the grief and devastation crushed this 14-year-old girl and her family and agreed to keep the baby. this so-called freedom to traffic act would hamper the ability of states to punish such criminal and cowardly actions. i don't think there's anyone here who can defend that. trafficking a child across state lines for purposes of obtaining an abortion. sadly, this is not an isolated

incident. far from it. we know from undercover videos, from testimony from other courageous victims and reports from former employees that planned parenthood actively works to hide these child sexual abuse instances, of covering up for adult abusers by providing their child victims with abortions and failing to report abuse. this, again, is another thing that happens. not only do we distort the facts, not only do we distort the status quo of the law in this country, but we also distort key facts when people become obsessed with abortion, and they see abortion as if it were somehow an unmitigated good. look, this bill was just barely introduced in the senate, i believe as recently as

yesterday. this bill has not been through any committee. it's not been marked up in the committee of jurisdiction, the senate judiciary committee on which i serve, but democrats think we should just pass it anyway. i guess maybe they're channeling the now infamous words of former speaker of the house nancy pelosi when she said we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it. this isn't how we legislate. we certainly shouldn't be legislating when we haven't reviewed the bill, hasn't been through committee. we don't know what it says, and the bill's proponents are badly mischaracterizing what it does and why we need it. on that basis, i object. the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. ms. cortez masto: well, as we've already pointed out, the constitution does protect the right to travel. in this country. there's no doubt that the supreme court has made that

precedent clear. but constitutional rights don't enforce themselves. and my colleagues on the far right only cloak themselves in the constitution when it suits them. and right now it really doesn't suit them. that's why far-right republicans and state legislatures across the country are working on and passing law specifically focused on restricting a woman's right to travel for reproductive health care, something i noticed my colleague from utah seemed to ignore that tennessee, texas, missouri or some of those states. and at the end of the day, let me just touch on this idea that somehow this legislation is focused on -- focusing on trafficking of individuals for sexual exploitation. now, again this is a perfect example of some of the far-right republicans when they really can't argue the facts and the law of something, then they just

make things up. or they throw inflammatory arguments out there to try to scare individuals. let me just make this clear. as a former attorney general who works and continues to work on human trafficking issues that address the sexual exploitation of adults and minors, this is not trafficking. and i would say to my colleague in utah who knows better that sexual exploitation of individuals that this country needs to address as well as many other countries, and we pass laws to protect individuals, this is not it. what i do know is instead of addressing the true issue before us which is why can't women be free to travel from a state that has restricted their right to abortion to my state where we

have chosen to allow them to get the health care they need, the essential health care. now, it's always fascinating to me that i hear on the far right my colleagues say, it's always about states' rights. it's about states' rights. this is a states rights issue. dobbs basically said in its decision, this is a states rights issue. but then whether it doesn't suit what -- when it doesn't suit what they care about, the far right says forget those states' rights. only listen to what we as elected officials determine you should have. ignore what nevada has done. ignore the democrats, the republicans, the independents, the men and the women in nevada who chose to codify the right of a woman to choose and seek essential health care and ignore that completely. that's what this legislation is about. it is about trusting women and

giving them the ability to come to a state like nevada to seek essential health care for their reproductive rights. and again, i constantly hear this emotional arguments about -- and my colleague from utah whom i respect, but he said this. the left somehow has an obsession with abortion. this is outrageous. outrageous and inflammatory talk. what we do have an obsession with is freedom. and that every american in this country, whether you are a man or a woman, should have that freedom. and it shouldn't be taken away from you by elected officials who think they know better about your health care than you do, who think that they can restrict in their state your access to health care that could jeopardize your health care and your decisions about your family and your future because they think they know better.

mr. president, i just think it is outrageous that one simple thing that we cannot agree to in this congress in a bipartisan way is that women should have that fundamental freedom to travel for their health care needs without being restricted, without being called names, without being fearful, and we should be protecting those doctors and the health care decisions to do it. i will say one final thing. we have worked hard in this country to evolve so that all our medical care is some of the best. we are fighting right now to make sure that we have access to technology. we have access to medical care, we do the research, we do the development. we have the medical care of the 21st century. and what my far-right republicans are telling women across this country is you can't access that far. you can't access that medical care for the 21st century.

you know why? because we think that we should hold you back to the 19th century. we want to politicize this and we want to take away your rights. and so we are going to take you back to the 19th century. it is outrageous, outrageous that we have to be here this day and age. over 50 years of roe v. wade, not one issue that we can see impeded anybody's rights here for women across this country and this fundamental freedom about reproductive rights. and so i am disappointed but i will tell you what, mr. president. this is an issue you are going to see all of us urks one after another -- of us, one after another, continue to fight. this is an essential fight for women in this country and their rights and their freedom to choose. the freedom to choose and not have somebody else dictate what they should or shouldn't do with their bodies, not to have

somebody else dictate based on whatever the religion is, their rights, that they know better than somebody living in an issue that is so personal to them that they can be dictated to in this day and age. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, it's important to point out that this legislation makes no distinction between those covered by whether they're children or adults. and that's my whole point is that one of the problems with this is that it would block the effectiveness of state statutes that are there to protect children against interstate trafficking for the purpose of getting them abortions in other state without the knowledge or consent of their parents. and that's an issue. and, yes, and i do maintain -- i'm not aware of a single state law that prohibits a woman from traveling out of state. an adult woman from traveling out of state.

if such a law exists, i'm not aware of it and if it exists, despite my nonawareness of it, it's unenforceable. it would be deemed invalid instantaneously. you can't do that. but what this would dough since it makes no distinction -- would do since it makes no distinction between children and adults, is it would halt the operation of a state's laws designed to protect children from interstate trafficking for the purpose of obtaining abortion which is very often necessary in order to conceal child sex perpetrators and child traffickers and what they're doing. now, my colleague and friend from nevada, the distinguished senator from nevada, referred to this, characterizing the far right. to my knowledge nearly every republican in this challenge is pro-life.

there's a few variations along the way but nearly all of us are pro-life. call of us far right is excessive and it's unfair. it's unfair especially because there's a mischaracterization also over why we believe, what we believe. at least i can tell you what i believe about this. she refers to states' rights. i never call it that. why? because states don't have rights. states have authority. authority is sort of the inverse polar opposite of a right. a right is something that you have that protects you from action by the state, by the government. protects you from the authority of the collective coercive force that is government. so state rights. this is state authority. that's really how we arrived here. that's really where we've been for the last half century.

and while people are -- on the left bemoaning the deprivation of a right, i challenge each of them to tell me where in the constitution it talks about abortion. and even though -- of course, the word abortion doesn't appear in the constitution but what part of the constitution actually confers that right? that's the problem that we're getting at here. that's what i would like to address here for a moment. you see, because in washington it sometimes starts to feel like we're up against an immovable object. and we're -- and where progress is measured in inches and then victories are sparse and hard fought but occasionally the tides turn and something significant happens and there's a seismic shift. one year ago we experienced such a seismic shift when the supreme court issued its landmark decision in the case of dobbs v. jackson women's health. but to fully appreciate the

significance of that historic moment and that decision, we must first understand the journey that got us to this point in the first place. so let's rewind the clock 50 years, all the way back to 1973 when the supreme court handed down its ruling in roe v. wade, a decision that -- to say that it legalized abortion doesn't really capture the image. it centralized power in washington, d.c. over abortion policy decisions, and then it kept that power not in the legislative branch of the federal government based in washington, d.c. but across the street at the supreme court. nine lawyers wearing black robes who have been sworn in as justices. by removing the american people's ability to make

decisions through their duly elected lawmakers regarding abortion. it was a moment that completely reshaped the american people's ability to impact abortion policy. so for nearly five decades after that decision, this power to determine abortion policy rested ultimately with the supreme court. sure, the supreme court would leave enough wiggle room to leave the impression that lawmakers, primarily at the state level, of course, could make law but the supreme court was constantly inventing and reinventing what the standard was, what was and what was not a permissible restriction on abortion. you see, this is what happens when you make up a nonexisting constitutional right. when you just decide that something is really important that you feel so strongly about that it must be in there, it's got to be in the constitution because it's so important. when you take it away from the

constitutional -- the constitutional text, from the words of a document, all of a sudden you're left in a sort of no man's land. you have to make things up as you go along. the result was chaos. 49 and a half years of chaotic manipulation at will of the law. a state would do one thing. the supreme court would strike it down. another state would do something slightly different. the supreme court would uphold it, sometimes changing standards along the way. but in dobbs, the supreme court recognized the constitutional importance of keeping the power with the people affirming that they have legitimate interest in protecting the lives of the unborn and that they possess the authority to enact laws that reflect their values. you see, remember a moment ago when we talked about the difference between authority and rights. they are the opposite of each

other. rights protect you from authority. so when the supreme court decided as a matter of policy that it was so passionate about abortion in 1973 that it had to be in the constitution, they effectively wrote it into the constitution, even though it's not there. they made it utterly impossible for people's elected representatives either in their state legislative bodies, entities of local government, or where appropriate in congress to make most of the laws. ultimately those were all subject to the will and the whim and the caprice ever the supreme court. they did that because they deemed it parts of the constitution. but when you just deem something part of the constitution doesn't make it part of the constitution. i believe it was abraham lincoln who once asked rhetorically the question if you call the tail of a dog a leg, how many legs does

the dog have? he asked the question. someone answered five. he said no, wrong. it's still four. just because you tall the tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. the dog still has four legs. this still is the constitution. there still is nothing in here that says by the way, the people can't make laws to protect the lives of the unborn unless the supreme court decides that they are permissible based on its own meandering standards, utterly untheghterred from the -- untethered from the text of the constitution or injuries prudential tradition. so in dobbs, they restored this power back to the people. in dobbs they reaffirmed the fundamental belief that every life is sacred and every life is deserving of protection. in dobbs, the court recognized deep lay moral and significant decisions should be made closest to the that they affect.

unfortunately in the wake of roe, we've witnessed a really dark chapter in our nation's history. this decision wrongly declared that abortion was a right, despite no mention of it anywhere in the constitution. the decision ushered in a new era that forced us to tolerate some of the most barbaric of practices. practices that practically no american supports became a stain on our society. even as those cases were litigated, the you gosome -- the gruesome procedures were described. a senator: will the senator yield for a question as to how long he intends to speak? mr. lee: i anticipate that i will be finished in about five minutes. mr. whitehouse: i appreciate that. thank you. mr. lee: but we refuse to accept this as the new status

quo. we no he that something had gone -- we know that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. the dobbs decision brought us a glimmer of hope. it reaffirmed the fundamental belief that every human life is sacred and deserving of protection and is capable of being protected of being protected within our constitution system. we are prepared to exercise our constitutional prerogative and protect the lives of the unborn and end these unspeakable horrors. and so this issue of states' rights, again, they're not rights' rights. that's oxymoronic. we call it federalism, state authority. this victory of dobbs, it's not just a victory of states' sovereign authority. it's also a victory for humanity -- it's also a victory for humanity. because when we told by the

judicial branch of government, contrary to fact that the constitution tell us that we cannot, may not, must not protect unborn human life, that really does grave damage to humanity. the victory in dobbs is a reminder that he would not afford to turn a blind eye to the implications of our laws. we must proceed in a way that protects the innocent and defend against the atrocities allowed under this lofty-sounding but ultimately barbaric platitude of choice. even with this victory we still have a long way to go. contrary to the assertions of many on the democratic side, the dobbs decision did not make abortion illegal. it did nothing of the sort. while many states have passed laws to protect preborn children -- and i applaud them for doing so -- others have expanded their

abortion laws. late-term and partial-birth abortions are still a reality in many states. this isn't something this i celebrate. i greet -- i disagree distinguish disagree -- i disagree with those laws. the people in those states are making those laws and most of the time it is in the states and not here in congress where things not rendered federal by the constitution should be decided. as we approach the one-year anniversary of dobbs, i believe we're duty bound to remember the millions upon millions of innocent lives lost, the pain and suffering endured and the resilience of the men and women who fought for those who could not fight for themselves, who have no voice and therefore had to have others speak on their behalf. we should be inspired to build a society where life -- every life is cherished, where compassion

triumphs over convenience and cowardice and where the horrors of abortion become a distant memory, especially the horrors of abortion forced upon us by a judicial oligarchy utterly untethered from the text of the constitution. now we're positioned to acknowledge that every life, from conception to natural birth, deserves our protection and orb compassion -- and our compassion and our care and, yes, in some states they're going to do that differently than in others. but the fact that they're going to do it differently in one state or another doesn't mean that they don't deserve protection. i hope that we can remain committed to this cause. let us never forget the horrors foisted upon us by roe and the significance of the dobbs decision in restoring compassion

to the laws that guide ourlation. together we can forge our future, where the rights of the unborn are safeguarded, where the dark days of the past remain only as reminders of our resolve to create a better world. in the face of adversity, remember that change is possible, remember that we possess the ability to achieve great things. our nation's health and strength lie in the people's hands, and together we can shape a future where every life is valued. mr. whitehouse: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i come up to the floor to support my colleague and friend, senator cortez masto in her efforts to bring this legislation not only to the floor but to passage. this has been a long, long trail

of broken promises and false assertions. it began with the broken promises and false assertions of judicial nominees who came before the judiciary committee to assure us that the protections of roe v. wade were a precedent, that they would remain precedent. of course, that all evaporated. we then heard the argument that this was states' rights. my friend from utah may not like the phrase, but it's one that his side has used over and over and over again. call it states' rights or call it federalism, the notion was that all we were doing was opening this up to states. but you heard right here on the senate floor the notion that every pregnancy is subject to the control of the government from the moment of conception. that does not allow for a

differentiation between one state and another, and now that the states' rights assertion has been proven false, now that it's clear that many members not only of congress but of state legislatures want a nationwide ban on women's ability to make these reproductive choices, it becomes clearer and clearer why this particular bill is so important. it is only a matter of time until we see those bills being voted on in legislatures trying to criminalize a citizen of one state if they go to another state to get this kind of care or trying to create a nationwide abortion ban. however you call it, it will intrude on the ability of women to go and seek this care. and we are seeing already -- and what we're seeing already is

women with troubled pregnancies for whom there is an indicated treatment unable to get the treatment that medical science knows is the right treatment, whether it's twins, one of whom isn't viable; or a woman's ability to have further pregnancies, if this one is not terminated; or the ability of a woman to simply be treated for a sepsis, for instance, before it turns to life-threatening and not have to wait and look at the watch and let her get sicker and sicker, knowing that the end is the same in any event but putting her life and health at risk in order to allow the will of a bunch of state legislators to turn up in the examination room or the treatment room with her and her family and her doctor. for all of these reasons, because the proponents of a

nationwide abortion ban, because the proponents of undoing roe v. wade have simply been incredible for too long, we simple simple have to assume the worst, and this bill is an important and sensible way to make sure that if the presiding officer's state or my state want to allow that freedom to women, that women can come there and get the care that they need. very often in a troubled pregnancy for their own or their future children's or the siblings' well-being. so, for all those reasons, i wish we'd had the chance to vote on this, and i look forward to future chances. i yield the floor. ms. cortez masto: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: as we know,this sat someday marks the one-year anniversary of the day the united states supreme court decided to overturn half a century of precedent on a woman's right to make her own

health care decisions. i appreciate the remarks of my colleague from rhode island andal of my colleagues that are here today. when they made this decision, it went against the 70% to 80% of americans who believe that this decision should be made by a woman and her family and her doctor and not by politicians. as a result, as we predicted that day, women across the country are at the mercy of a patchwork of state laws governing their ability to access reproductive care. in states like texas, women have been forced to carry pregnancies for days after learning that their baby would not survive, because their doctors can't legally provide care unless their life is at risk. and then there was the

heartbreaking story about the 10-year-old girl in ohio who had to go to indiana to get an abortion after she was raped. ten years old. people said it was some kind of a hoax. it wasn't. it was real, and everyone in this chamber knows it. the supreme court's decision threatened women's health and freedom and to this day it demands a legislative response. not a response where the women of texas are told that they have different rights -- in fact, no rights -- compared to women in minnesota or even in our next-door state of wisconsin. part of that is codifying roe v. wade into law. that is true. we must also address the full scope that women are facing, the full scope of threats right now. recent reports have illustrated

how social media companies are collecting and data brokers are selling location data that could be used to identify women seeking reproductive health care services. we know that the collection of this data, we know this -- people on both sides of the aisle understand that this has ramifications beyond women seeking abortion care. they could have anyone, man or woman, seeking a mental health provider, an addiction clinic, counseling therapy, all of it. the rules are murky. and the data is being collected and sold. that's why i am leading the uphold privacy act with a number of our colleagues, including senator warren and senator hirono, and that's why i am seeking unanimous consent to pass this legislation. our bill sets commonsense limits

on how companies can use people's personal data. first, it bans data brokers from selling location data. women making their most personal health care decisions should be able to go to their doctor's appointments and consult specialists without worrying that the data about their location where they are going to be or are will be purchased or sold. second, it says you can't use health data for commercial advertising purposes, period. that means companies can't use data from fitness trackers or browser histories to sell apps, all health care data. and, third, it gives consumers more say over how their personal health care information can used by allowing them to request that their data be deleted. it also places limits on what health data companies can collect about americans. consumers deserve to be in the driver's seat when it comes to

determining how their personal health data is used. this legislation does just that. it's past time had that we update our privacy laws in general. and i hope we get that done by the end of this year. but we must also update our health privacy laws to reflect the reality of how social media platforms and data brokers are profiting off our data. in a world without roe, this couldn't be more urgent. i supported with the republicans health on this -- on this health dat data to begin with. now that we are nuclear this post-roe world, as i know, it becomes even more important. i invite my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in declaring that these big tech companies cannot sell off through data brokers our private personal health care and that our decisions should never be a tool for profit. this is not a radical proposal.

it is completely common sense. as we get closer to marking a year without roe v. wade, i continue to stand with my colleagues in the fight for reproductive freedom. we stand firmly on the side of the american people who have come together time and time again in kentucky, in michigan, in montana, in the middle of the prairie in kansas to defend reproductive rights. we will not settle for a reality in which our daughters have fewer rights than their mothers and their grandmothers. madam president, i yield. and as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on commerce, science, and transportation be discharged from further consideration of s. 631 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. further, that the bill be considered read a third time and

passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there an objection? a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mrs. hyde-smith: i'm reserving the right to object. madam president, this bill presents a solution in search of a problem. unfortunately, it appears that the intent of this legislation is to treat abortion as health care, to prevent pro-life entities from sponsoring ads designed to help provide women and girls with trustworthy support during pregnancy and to make it harder for states to enforce their own laws protect ing life and the most vulnerable. when it comes to ensuring patient privacy in health care, i believe there are bipartisan solutions to be found that we can all agree on. one-sided efforts to promote abortion is not the way for us to find common ground on this issue. i would also like to point out this bill has not received a

hearing or markup in the commerce committee, which would be a great opportunity to have. madam president, i would like to turn now to recognize that this saturday will mark the first anniversary of the supreme court's landmark decision in dobbs v. jackson women's health organization. i'm incredibly proud that this victory for the pro-life movement reversing the moral stain of roe v. wade came out of my state of mississippi. i am amazed and grateful that in god's sovereign plan a law introduced by my friend, mississippi state representative becky curry, ultimately achieved what i and so many have prayed for for 50 years now, to restore sanctity of life. my friend, mississippi attorney general lynn fitch, our state solicitors general scott stewart and the many others in the a.g.'s office worked tirelessly

to represent our state, direct challenge to roe. after a draft of the dobbs jorpt opinion was -- majority opinion was shamefully leaked, the conservative justices resisted disgraceful intimidation tactics and threats to their own lives. they stayed true to their judicial oaths to uphold and defend the constitution. the supreme court recognized correctly in dobbs that the constitution does not confer a right to abortion and that roe was wronged on a collision course with the constitution on the day it was disietd --ed -- decide. the dobbs decision took a monumental step in returning it back to the hands of the people and their elected representatives. today as a result 14 states are protecting unborn children

through all nine months of pregnancy. several others now protect babies at the point where they have a heartbeat in six weeks, still others at 12 weeks. one recent study found that there were more than 24,000 unborn children saved from abortion in the first nine months since dobbs. that's 24,000 miracles, because that's what a child is -- a miracle. but it's not just the states that can protect life from dobbs. we in congress also have the responsibility to protect life and stop the democrats' extreme pro-abortion agenda. it saddens me deeply that democrats in congress continue to advocate for appalling legislation that would impose legalized abortion on demand up till the moment of birth across all 50 states. their legislation is even moraled than roe was and would eliminate even the most modest pro-life protections like

parental involvement laws and bans on sex-selective abortions. democrats cannot name a single limit on abortion they support, not one. the american people, however, reject this extreme position. a new terrence group poll this month found three-fourths supporters support at least some limits to abortion. more americans continue to reject abortion when they learn more about the child in the womb. when they can hear the child's heartbeat, when they can see them suck their thumbs and yawn in an ultrasound and when they learn that they can feel pain. despite this, the biden administration's fda and department of justice continues to allow the abortion industry to obstruct the will of pro-life states by illegally flooding the mail with do-it-yourself

abortion pills, turning post offices into abortion centers. these actions not only endanger women's lives and their health, but they violate long-standing federal laws that clearly prohibit the mailing of abortion drugs. finally, we also must advance policies to support pregnant mothers in choosing life. in particular, we need to support the work of pregnancy centers. more than 2,700 pregnancy centers across the country provide critical medical and material support for women and families facing unplanned pregnancies to choose life rather than abortion. this is the promise of the declaration of independence, that all men are created equal endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights to life, thanks to the supreme court's decision in dobbs one year ago this week, we can finally begin

the work hard to make good on the promise for unborn americans too. finally, i object. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. ms. klobuchar: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: just a few specific responses. first of all, this bill is very specific. it addresses health and location data. and as i noted before, i continue to believe that we need federal privacy legislation in general to address other privacy needs, but this bill is targeted at sensitive health data when it comes to location. and i note it was the conservative members of the supreme court that actually -- the broad decision to overturn half a century of precedent on a woman's right. and this bill is a targeted response on one issue and that

is to set commonsense limits on how companies can use people's personal data. i also wanted to respond to the issue of meth priss -- meth priss stone which was temporarily thrown out by a judge in the state of texas, and that is now pending before several different courts. a different decision was made in another court in washington state. but i will note that the statute referred to which would somehow limit this drug thatches approved by the -- thatches approved by the fda decades ago and has been found safe in dozens and dozens of countries across the globe, that that law that was referred to was actually enacted, the comstock act in 1873. 1873, when they treated

pneumonia with bloodletting, when the pony express existed and which i note is ten years before they did the yellowstone prequell. if my colleagues want to move backwards to that time period, those are the laws they are citing. i believe the people of this country want to move forward. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: listening to this debate today, i can't believe we're having these debates in 2023. it's just stunning to me that we're having to debate privacy and the ability to make your own reproductive health decisions and all the ramifications for it, but here we are. so i rise today to speak up, to speak up for american women. the doctors who care for us and our freedom to make our own health care decisions. what a novel idea that in the

united states of america we would be able to make our own health care decisions. thanks to a are ad clip conservative -- to a are ad clip -- to a radically cal conservative, it is no longer a right in the united states. roe v. wade protected our freedoms for 50 years until it didn't. nearly half of the 50 states have already banned abortion or are likely to do that. half. and sadly, this change is already making american health care worse. it just breaks my heart to hear about the individual situations of women. in michigan, we're in a situation where the people of michigan have stood up for reproductive freedom. but to see the women come in to

michigan, the people who are pregnant coming in to michigan who are coming in to get help that they can't get in their own state, it just breaks my heart. a poll of ob-gyn's released today by the independent health policy research organization, kff, shows the effects. 64% of ob-gyn's surveyed said that the dobbs decision has increased pregnancy-related deaths -- think about that. 64% of the doctors of the ob-gyn's surveyed said that this supreme court decision increased pregnancy-related deaths. 70% of ob-gyn's said that the dobbs decision has made racial and ethnic inequalities in health care worse. and 68% of ob-gyn's, the

doctors serving women, say that the dobbs decision has made it harder for them to manage their patients' pregnancy-related emergencies, including women who desperately want their babies. they're desperate for this. they want to have this child, and something comes up and it breaks their heart and their family's heart, and there is an emergency that may threaten their life. and doctors are saying that it's harder for them to respond in an emergency. just think about that. 68% of doctors say that this supreme court decision made it harder for them to keep patients alive. these doctors know what they need to to -- do to save lives and many say they're not allowed to do it. how can that be in america in 2023? and even doctors in states like

michigan -- and i'm proud to say we now protect reproductive freedom in our constitution voted on by the people of our state overwhelmingly last november -- but even we aren't immune from that. a state law in texas allows vigilantes to sue doctors even in states where abortion is legal. so much for states' rights. and radicals in other states are scrambling to pass similar legislation. that is why we need to let doctors provide reproductive health care act. thank you to senators murray and padilla and lujan and rosen for leading this effort. i'm proud to be their partner, as we all are. this bill would ensure that health care providers in states

where abortion is legal -- states' rights -- it's legal, can keep providing the reproductive health care their patients need. and it would help patients -- help protect patients across the country who choose to access reproductive health care in a state where it is legal. i trust michigan doctors. michigan doctors know what their patients need. what michigan doctors and their patients don't need are texas legislators standing in their exam rooms. it's time to pass this legislation and protect doctors and to protect their patients. so, as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 1297, and

that the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there an objection? a senator: madam president, reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. budd: madam president, i object to s. 1297 for a simple reason, it would make it easier for unborn life to be ended. last year's dobbs decision brought help to americans who believe in the sanctity of life, including life in the womb. after 49 years, a new culture of life has begun to take hold across our country but this bill would take us backwards. this bill would allow abortion on demand in pro-life states so long as a patient is from another state. it would expose doctors who work in religious organizations and clinics and hospitals, it would

expose them to costly lawsuits if they stand by their beliefs. this bill would violate the spirit of bipartisan hyde protections by providing 80 -- 80 million taxpayer dollars. i was elected to save as many as unborn lives as possible, and this bill puts more unborn lives in danger, therefore, i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: let me say two points to my colleague. first, fundamentally this is about who makes medical decisions. do we trust women? do we trust the person who is pregnant? do we trust the ability for them to work with their doctor? who makes the decision in the united states of america? and we stand with the women of america. and the second is because it's difficult for me to hear over

and over again when i lead the agriculture forestry commission where we have to fight every day to make sure there is food for children who are born. and the house of representatives just passed an agricultural appropriations bill that gutted wic, which is the women, infant, and children's program for newborn babies to help them get started in a quality life. when we can't pass legislation for -- because we have had objections on the other side of the aisle for years about somehow having quality standards for prenatal care around birth is very hard for me to listen to to the idea that we ought to be protecting. it's not just the unborn, it is the born.

it's the children, it's the moms, it's the quality of life that we fight every day, food, health care, and so on. and so i find it very hard to listen to that language and i'm very -- i'm very disappointed that there's an objection to a bill that would let doctors practice health care to protect women and babies. i yield the floor. mr. wyden: madam president, before she leaves the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. wyden wind before she leaves the floor, let me just say to my seat mate on the senate finance committee, how much i appreciate her passion an leadership on this critical issue and i note that the president of the senate is also one of the outspoken members of the committee on this issue and it has been a tremendous debate.

i thank my colleagues. it has been a year since the decision on dobbs v. jackson women's health organization. i remember reading the decision in the press early last may and realizing with dread that the court was going to strike down roe v. wade. and my first reaction was that the court had set in motion a catastrophe for the health, safety, and privacy of american women. to the horror of the 36 million women living in states that have already banned abortion or likely to ban access to abortion, unfortunately my prediction was right. now, the supreme court's decision in dobbs tossed a half century of legal press precedent, -- legal precedent and jeopardized the health and safety of millions across the country. the decision defied the reality

that some of the most powerful people are eeg eager to violate -- are eager to violate their privacy and make their own decisions with respect to health care. so the last year has been a nightmare for millions of women in america and it's been especially felt by those living in the more than 20 states that have passed law banning or severely restricting access to abortion. the personal stories that you hear if you spend time listening are gut wrenching. women in texas who desperately wanted to be parents who suffered pregnancy complications nearly died trying to access lifesaving care. yet, they were told, madam president, they weren't sick enough to get it. far-right politicians suing health care providers for providing care to a 10-year-old who had been raped -- raped, madam president, and pregnant. the cruelty apparently is the

point. i'm proud to be from oregon where abortion remains legal. we've got some of the most pro-choice laws in the country for those seeking reproductive care. that's because in oregon we understand that people can make the best decisions for themselves and their families. but even in oregon we can't take freedom for granted. extreme republicans won't stop until they pass a national ban on abortion, and they're trying. a national six-week ban was introduced in congress right after the dobbs decision came out. and anti-abortion advocates sought out a lone judge in texas to ban mifepristone which is widely used in abortions nationwide. the fda approved the safe medication more than 20 years ago, and i organized the first

congressional hearings about this drug as a member of the other body in 1990. and this effort was never based on some extreme or some political agenda. it was based on one proposition, that science ought to be making the judgments and not politics. so i came to the senate floor in february, called on the administration to do everything it could to keep the lifesaving medication on the market, and thankfully the far right extremists haven't won yet, but as a number of my colleagues have said today, and correctly, not home free as that case moves through the courts. contrary to what justice kavanaugh told us in his concurrence of dobbs, anti-abortion zealots are not leaving these matters up to the states. several states are trying to restrict freedom of movement, criminalizing women who travel to other states for an abortion

or even the person who gives them a ride. think about that. you can't sugarcoat that. they're talking about enacting laws that reach beyond state borders, and that harkens back to some very dark days in our history. this has always been about control. and one speaker after another on our side has said that through the course of the day. this is about politicians inserting themselves in exam rooms and private decisions about whether and when to start a family. now, i care about this issue for several reasons, and right at the heart of my concern is americans' right to privacy. that right to privacy, madam president, is what makes america america, and as women face laws that threaten their privacy,

they face the crisis of digital privacy and what we've come to call cervical surveillance. health care is being used against women. i and a number of colleagues on my side have been sounding the alarm for years that location data leach rd from phone -- leached from phone apps. we know that shady data brokers who track women to and from planned parent centers, they will sell this information to anyone with a credit card. anything that women see on board can be used against them, using a tracking act or carrying a phone into a doctor's office, you maim name it -- you name it,

it is potential evidence for the prosecution, the possibilities are frightening and as are laws protecting women's privacy health data. i commend the administration for drawing attention to this issue and being interested in shoring up loopholes in our laws. more has got to be done. we've seen over the past year that republican state attorneys general and governors are ready and willing to discard women he -- women's privacy to have access to reproductive health care. this has been a horrific year and as my colleagues said on the floor, we will be resolute. all the bills led by senator murray and my colleagues are common sense, they are common sense, the bills, the package

that my colleagues have offered today, they go a long way to protecting women and health care providers. and i want my constituents to know. i want my colleagues here in the senate to know. i'm on the program. i don't think this is a time when we can even take for granted any of these concerns, not a one, the whole question of access to care, right to privacy, making sure that states' rights really mean states' rights and not tracking people down across the country. these are all priorities that my colleagues have laid out very, very well. as long as i have the opportunity to represent oregon in the united states senate, i am going to be working with them. as we close, and it seems like we're getting ready to wrap-up, it seems like the american people on -- are on the side of

my colleagues. the presiding officer: the senator from wisconsin. ms. baldwin: earlier my colleague senator markey asked to advance the right of the contraceptive act and there was an objection heard. but i wanted top come to the floor to voice my strong support as a cosponsor of the right to contraception act. you know, across the country women are frightened. they're frightened after progress of advancing their rights and freedoms, they're watching an activist supreme court strip away their rights and freedoms. for nearly six decades american women have come to rely on their right to control when and if they're going to have a family, including through the use of contraception. in fact, about 90% of women in the united states have used

contraception. and in 1965, the supreme court correctly decided griz griswald -- griswald v. connecticut, guaranteeing the right to privacy, this particular case was over a connecticut law that banned the use of contraception and imposed penalties including up to one year in prison for doing so. the supreme court correctly overruled the law as an invasion of the right to privacy and determined that americans could use contraception should they choose without government interference. at the time, the majority opinion reasoned that there were many implied rights that americans have within the constitution, and on a basic level, this is obvious, not every single right could be

written into the constitution, so this concept of implied rights is the foundation for various rights that americans have come to rely on and frankly never think twice about, like the right to learn a foreign language or travel across state lines or to live with your own family. eight years after griswald was decided, the according to used a similar legal foundation, the constitutional right to privacy to rightly decide in roe v. wade that women in the united states have the right to abortion care. but despite roe be the law of the land for nearly 50 years and as, quote, settled as a precedent ever the supreme court entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis, end quote, according to supreme court justice brett kavanaugh, it was thrown out the window.

and this saturday will mark the one-year anniversary since the activist supreme court, this activist supreme court crafted of course by antichoice republican politicians, stripped 22 million women and counting of their freedom to control their bodies, families, and future. one year since women lost the right to an abortion nationwide, one year since women in my home state of wisconsin were sent back to 1849 and i didn't misstate that, 1849 living under an archaic law that effectively criminalizes all abortion procedures. one year since women in america became second class citizens. sadly, that fateful decision that overturned roe v. wade put more of americans' rights on the

chopping block. in justice clarence thomas' concurring opinion, he explicitly said that the rationale used to overturn roe should be used to overturn cases establishing the right to contraception, the right to same-sex consensual relations, and same-sex marriage. justice thomas wrote that the court, quote, should reconsider, end quote, all three of these decisions saying the supreme court had a duty to correct the error in these decisions. he was essentially providing an open invitation to litigators across the country to bring their cases to the court inevitably instilling fear among millions of americans. let that sink in. with the right to abortion care already ripped away from tens of millions of americans, a supreme court justice essentially asked for someone to bring him a case

so he could rip away the right of -- to one of many -- one of the only tools many women have left to control if and when to have a family. that being access to contraception. americans have spoken loudly and clearly. they do not believe that a woman's right to control her own body is an error or the freedom for someone to love who they love is an error. we cannot rely on an activist supreme court to protect our rights and freedoms. congress must act. so i stand here with the backing of nine in ten americans who support access to all forms of birth control to call for the senate to listen to our constituents and pass the right to contraception act. our legislation is simple and common sense. it would guarantee the legal

right for individuals to get and use contraception and stop politicians or the government from trying to get in the way, and that's it. americans want the right and freedom to control their own reproductive health care without interference from judges or politicians. in my home state of wisconsin where women are already living under an 1849 criminal abortion ban, access to contraception is absolutely essential. every person should have the right to control their own bodies. families and futures no matter where they live. and former supreme court justice louis brandeis who advocated for the right to privacy called it the right to be left alone. so i stand here to reiterate this sentiment and to tell washington to pass our

legislation and give women the right to be left alone. i yield back, madam president. mrs. murray: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, madam president. one year ago americans lost a constitutional right for the first time in history. and they didn't just lose it. republicans ripped it away just one year now after the dobbs decision, more than 22 million women have lost their right to an abortion. no country -- no corner of our country has been spared from the fallout. abortion providers in states where abortion is legal like in my home state of washington are being overworked and just totally overwhelmed with patients who have had to wait weeks and travel hundreds of miles to get an abortion. and then there's the wave of other appalling republican attacks on abortion, proposals

to charge grandma as and older sisters with human trafficking if they drive a minor out of state for an abortion. prosecutors charge them as criminals. ban emergency contraceptive itself like plan b and let's not forget the partisan lawsuit on mifepristone to rip ■safe medication abortion off the shelves in all 50 states. you know, when you listen to patients about what this all means, when you hear the actual stories, the nightmares that republicans are putting women in this country through, they are heartbreaking. parents driving miles and miles because their child was raped. their child's pregnant and abortion is banned in their state. doctors being forced to forego providing lifesaving care because they feared republican politicians will put them in jail for doing their job. women facing miscarriages left

bleeding unable to get the care they need for days on end. one woman learned that her fetus had no skull. no chance of survival. and she still could not get abortion care in her state. another woman learned that she had an ectopic pregnancy, a serious life threatening condition. she was not able to get an abortion. instead when she was on death's door, she ended up having to get a hysterectomy. why? because republican politicians decided that their views mattered more than her health. mattered more than her family. let's be clear. the vast overwhelming majority of americans stand with women and support the right to choose abortion. every place abortion rights were on the ballot last november, every single place abortion rights won.

still republicans are ignoring their own constituents and doubling down on their extreme antiabortion politics. just now when we tried to pass other basic protections, and i mean the most simple, most straightforward protections imaginable, protections that just say yes, you can travel to another state for an abortion, yes, doctors can provide an abortion in states where it is legal without fear of being thrown into prison. yes, we will protect the right to birth control. yes, we will keep your on-line health and location data private so it cannot be used against you. republicans said no, we're not going to let you do that. one senator on the floor earlier even said that legislation that restricts a woman's right to travel is really about protecting minors from trafficking. seriously? that is outrageous. and i was absolutely, and i mean absolutely outraged to hear him

say that. i hope that the american people understand what those laws mean. what it means is that a grandmother taking her 17-year-old granddaughter who was raped or maybe just wants to make her own personal health care decision to a state where abortion is legal could be jailed. states like idaho have passed these laws that restrict travel, and what they do is hold young women captive in their own state and threaten anyone who might help them get the care they need with time in prison. those kinds of laws and proposals in other states are an appalling attack on the rights of women and our most basic right as americans to travel freely within our own country. i absolutely refuse to let a senator or anyone twist the reality of these truly heinous laws being passed to hold women captive and force them to stay pregnant no matter what.

now, republicans have basically adopted two approaches to the health care crisis they caused. one, double down with increasingly extreme, dangerous proposals or two, sphik their head -- or stick their heads in the sand. whether it's pretending this isn't a problem, pretending it's not their fault, hoping it will fade away. but madam president, there is just no forgetting the unforgivable pain republicans' policies have caused. there is no forgetting the fear of being pregnant when you don't want to be or the heartbreak of learning a pregnancy is not viable or the horror of learning it is life threatening and knowing you have no control over your body. there is no forgetting the panic of calculating how many thousands of miles you will have to travel to get care or how many days you will have to take off of work and wondering how

you can possibly get the care you need and whether you will face legal action for doing so. there is no forgetting being investigated for having a miscarriage or driving your kid across state lines to get an abortion or hearing your doctor tell you they cannot act to save your life because they are afraid of going to jail. and people across this country are facing those realities every single day. women are heart broken and terrified. but madam president, they are also mad. they are determined and they're speaking out. they are not going to settle for a country where they don't have the fundamental freedom to decide what happens to their own bodies where their daughters and granddaughters have fewer rights than they did just a few years ago. and neither am i. we on the democratic side are going to stand up, tell our

stories, and we're going to make your voices heard. and we're going to fight here on this side to restore the freedoms that republicans took away. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. durbin: madam president, let me first salute my colleague from the state of washington. she has shown extraordinary leadership on this and so many other issues. she asked us to gather today, the first anniversary of the dobbs decision, to really reflect on what's happened to america in 12 months. i would say, madam president, that two months ago the senate judiciary committee which i chair held a hearing on the devastating consequences of the dobbs decision, on the women and doctors who are feaked by -- are affected by them. we did it two months ago because the news was pouring in of incidents which had to be told and shared with the american people. growing reports of chaos and

harm caused by that decision were so alarming that we decided to move up our fact finding to two months ago. there was one witness i'll never forget. one of the people we heard from that day was amanda zurowski. she shared some of the most heartbreaking testimony i've ever heard and i've heard a lot. last august in the second trimester of her pregnancy, amanda suffered a catastrophic medical condition which ensured that she would lose her much lovered and much longed -- loved and much longed for baby. what's more, without medical care to help manage her miscarriage, amanda was in grave risk of dying herself. but she was denied that medical care for one reason. she lived in the wrong place. because amanda lives in texas, one of the first states to impose a near total ban on abortions afro v. wade -- after roe v. wade was overruled so

amanda waited at home in agony for days. then sepsis set in. her husband rushed her to the hospital. hours later her daughter arrived stillborn. amanda spent the next three days in the icu fighting for her own life. amanda told her committee, and i want to quote her words exactly, people have asked why we didn't get on a plane or in our car and go to a state where the laws weren't so restrictive. but we live in the middle of texas and the nearest sanctuary state is at least an eight-hour drive. developing sepsis which can kill very quickly in a car in the middle of west texas desert or 30,000 feet above the ground is a death sentence so all we could do was wait. this was amanda's first baby. tragically because of the trauma, her body endured, they may never have another and she's not alone. this is happening to women

across america. every day brings us another heartbreaking story of a woman denied health care, another story of a woman whose life was needlessly put at risk by the dobbs decision. according to a new survey, nearly two-thirds of ob/gyn's say the dobbs decision has worsened mortality rates in the united states which are already the worst of any developed nation. and 70% of these doctors say the rules has deepened racial disparities and maternal and infant health care. these findings are from a survey released this week by kff known as kaiser family foundation. the american college of obstetricians and guinn congressists -- gynecologists and ama both warn the dobbs case would unleash an immediate health care crisis in our country. with the first anniversary of this ruling, those warnings sadly have come true. just 100 days after the dobbs decision, 22 million americans

of reproductive age, almost one out of every three women in america, found themselves living in states where abortion is now illegal or highly restricted. abortion is now completely banned in 14 states, leaving large swaths of the country without care. some statewide bans include jail time for health care providers who perform abortions. and make make no mistake, unlese act, more and more severe restrictions are coming. the last year has exposed the true aim of the antichoice extremists -- they want a nationwide ban. more than 20 years ago the food and drug administration approved the drug mifepristone as safe and effective for use in medicaid abortions. yet antiabortion groups are now seeking in federal court to ban its use in every state in america. the impact of abortion

restrictions in any state are felt well beyond that state's borders. in my state, largely as a consequence of near-total bans in many surrounding states, the number of abortions performed by planned parenthood in illinois increased by 54% last year. that increase was driften largely by women from -- was driven largely by women from out of state. as a result, wait times to obtain abortions have increased dramatically in our state. in addition, some antichoice extremists are seeking to deny women's right to abortions through increased threats of violence against abortion clinics. we saw this recently in illinois when a man rammed his car into a building that was being renovated to serve as an abortion clinic in the danville area. he also tried to set fire to the clinic but thankfully he was stopped. according to the national abortion federation, last year saw a huge increase in violence at abortion clinics and a

disproportionate increase in states like illinois that protect the access to women's health care. decisions should be made between women and their doctors. that's why i support the four measures that my colleagues have introduced today to protect women's right to travel, to health care, to protect data privacy, and protect the right to contraception. it's hard to imagine in 2023 that we are actually facing the prospect of losing a woman's right to contraception as well as access to reproductive health care. the dobbs ruling has sewn chaos, fear, and division. it has usurped doctors' rights to make the best health care decisions for their patients. doctors live in fear of these new laws and whether they include criminal liability for

what was good medical practice and still is. they've stripped women of their right to make health care decisions and given the power to politicians. it is now up to congress to protect women and health care providers from the constitutionalities of this disastrous -- from the results of this disastrous hearing. today we had a hearing on lgbtq rights and there was some extraordinary testimony. a 16-year-old came to us who has gone through a change to her status. this young woman at 16 years of age explained how she realized at the age of 10 or 11 that she was really inclined toward being a woman and not a man. she sought counseling through understanding parents, sat down with doctors and they began working through the psychology of that decision, the importance of it. fortunately for her -- and she testified her parents were supportive of her all the way.

we were lucky to have dr. elena lopez at the hearing as well. she practices medicine in texas. she is an endocrinologist who treats patients like this 16-year-old girl. she discussed the myths that come with respect to health care. no, there are no surgeries early in life on these children who are making this decision. yes, medications are held back until puberty to make sure that they're doing the right -- that they're doing the right thing at the right time. yes, parents are consulted every step of the way. these are important an critical decisions which parents and families make every day across america, every day. they're decisions based obstruction of justice the advice of a doctor as to what is right for your child. there's decisions that parents will never forget. i know. i've been involved in them. they're decisions which really did will determine -- which real lay will determine the future

lives of individuals. toothy that so many legislatures across the united states are now regulating and putting criminal penalties on the conduct that have doctor who was before us today is heartbreaking. it defies medicine, it defies science. it is politics, pure and simple. the same thing is true on this issue of women's reproductive health care. we've got to leave these basic decisions, fundamental decisions to the families that are affected by them directly, to the women who are affected by them directly. and we've got to say to the doctors across america, follow the science, practice good medicine, don't let a local legislature divert you from the best treatment of your patient to make sure that they come out of this process in a very positive way. it's a sad moment in america that we're debating these things and debating whether or not to rely on sound medical judgment. in the end, that's the only thing we can count on, and i am glad that we had the hearing today and i'm glad that we

gathered on the floor to make a record out of what's happening in our great nation a i yield the floor. -- in our great nation. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa -- the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: all nominations placed on the secretary's desk in the air force, army,marine corps, navy,and space force, that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection.

mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: am i in order to speak? the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. grassley: i am in order. okay. thank you. the recent supreme court ruling in favor of california law that's called proposition 12 affecting the pork industry has sent shock waves through the entire agricultural industry. particularly hard hit by the news is my state of iowa, which is number one in pork and number one in eggs. and another proposition california law affects the selling of eggs in california. california is 15% of the

national market for pork, so you can see what california is doing can have a big impact on the pork industry in the other 49 states. if california can regulate pork producers out of business through costly and unrealistic regulation, which food will be next? what segment of agriculture will be negatively affected next? consumers should be waking up to the reality of activist policies coming from folks on the left who want to put the kibosh on animal agriculture. california's law is based on arbitrary and prescriptive standards that lack any scientific, technical, or agricultural basis. it also jeopardizes safety.

and for you city slickers, sow is the word we use for mother pigs. the cost to implement proposition 12 has been measured to be pproximately $3,500 per sow. a cost that farmers will need to pass on to the consumer. this additional cost will threaten the independent pork producers in rural iowa and run them out of business due to burdensome regulations. and i'm not only speaking for iowa pork producers, even though we're number one in pork production. this is affecting pork producers in the other 49 states. the result of this law will be significant on iowa's independent pork producers. we all know people will continue to eat pork chops, ham, and bacon. but this will only lead to

further consolidation that you will only have three or four companies controlling the entire supply of pork for our country. the future of the independent pork production is at stake, and i do not want to sit idly by as pork producers across iowa go out of business. so this monday our national holiday when the senate wasn't in session, i met with 40 pork producers in palo alto county, hearing from iowans firsthand on this issue was especially impactful. iowa producers who have raised hogs for nearly 50 years told me that they've never been so worried. how will rural agriculture fight against the special interests and big money of the coast is the question i was asked.

how can farmers afford to remain compliant with nonsense policies written by someone who has never been on a hog farm? so there has to be a legislative solution to what california is negatively doing to pork producers in the other 49 states. so senator marshall and senator ernst and i have been working on a solution. the eats act, e-a-t-s act. that's an anonym. it prevents states from competing ag trade from other states within the united states under the constitutional power of congress to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. our legislation is an example of congress regulating interstate commerce. in the court's majority

decision, it was a 5-4 decision, oddly, an odd combination of liberals and conservatives on the supreme court saying that california did the right thing, and an odd combination of liberals and conservatives that said is that california didn't have the power to do what they did under our constitution. but in this majority opinion, justice neil gorsuch wrote that congress has the power to regulate commerce but has yet to enact legislation displace proposition 12. now, i read justice gorsuch saying to the congress of the united states, why do you -- or the courts are kind of saying to themselves something like this -- why should we say that cost of living has acted

unconstitutionally when congress has the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce and they have not done it? so this is the reason for this bill. this bill would put an end to the california's war on breakfast and override the coastal state's overreach into the heartland's breadbasket. the supreme court asked congress to act. so that's what senator marshall, ernst, and i and many other senators have now joined us in this effort -- that's what we're responding to the supreme court decision. feeding your family is not a partisan issue and neither is protecting our food supply chain. food security, after all, is national security. i'm engaging in discussions with as many as -- as many of my

colleagues as i can on this issue. i hope this will soon be a bipartisan bill. it's common sense to protect affordable, quality food for america's families and support the 2% of the country that we call family farmers who feed the other 98% of the people in the state and not only produce for the other 98% but about a third of our agriculture production is exported. remember, bacon doesn't grow in grocery stores. i urge all of my colleagues to join me as cosponsors of the eats act. i have one more statement in regard to education that i'd like to give -- that i'd like to give, mr. president. every person taking out a loan knows it must be repaid. still, we've seen lots of talk about canceling student debt after the debt has been assumed.

but that doesn't help students who are not in college yet but going to enter college. it's closing the barn door after the horse has been stolen. to lower the cost of college, we need to let students be able to compare the true costs between schools. they can't do that now, because right now schools that are up front about their costs, meaning they give the figures -- the students an exact figure on what they're going to have to pay to get a college degree, these very students -- or these very schools are at a disadvantage to their competition that doesn't play by honest rules and honest policies about what it actually costs to go to a particular school. i'm going to go into some detail

about what's wrong with the present environment, and i'm going to start with the government accountability office taking a look at the financial aid letters that should show students how much they will pay. unfortunately, according to the gao, not a single college followed all ten best practices that have been suggested by that agency, the general accountability -- tt accountability office. a third of the colleges confuse loans and grants. how misleading. you think you're getting a grant and you find out later it's a loan. 91% of the cleanse understate their true costs -- 91% of the colleges understate their true costs. it's quite obvious the free market doesn't work if students only find out how much they owe

after they've already selected the college that they will attend. that's why my bill that i entitled understanding the true cost of college creates a standard, easy-to-read financial aid letter. under my bill, stiewments could take this -- students could take this letter that they get from the various colleges, that they've been accepted to, and see side by side what each school offers them. they can compare, in other words, apples with apples, not apples with oranges, as is the very case today. another thing that doesn't make any sense works do you know -- another thing that doesn't make any sense, do you know that the current practice effectively encourages students to go into

debt more than what it actually costs to get a college degree? the paperwork offering student loans tends to default to the maximum eligible loan amount, whether that maximum is needed or not, to get a college degree. so, then, understand this practice students have to ask to go out of their way to borrow less money than what is offered. but guess what -- most students actually do borrow the maximum. so, you see, we have a federal policy that encourages students to take out more debt than they need to get their degree, and we shouldn't have the federal government encourage indebtedness that is not needed. the federal government, in other words, should help students borrow only what they need. so, i have a bill that i -- that

goes by the title of know before you owe act. this act would show students their estimated monthly loan payments after graduating. they would see it compared to the average salary for graduates of their particular college major. it would also require students to type in the amount that they want to borrow, instead of clicking a box that ends up them taking the maximum that is allowed. each of these proposals puts students, then, in the driver seat, where the student should be. choosing a college happens to be one of the largest purchases many americans ever make. it should be a good investment for a bright future, not a one-way ticket to excessive debt. students should have all the information they need when they

are making that decision of what college or universities to attend. all the ideas i mention here are bipartisan, and i have been advocating some of these issues for years. it is not a republican or democrat idea to give students the information they need to make the right decisions for which school to attend. that's why i was glad to see each of these two ideas that i am talking about now included in a legislation called lowering education costs and dead acts. my colleagues in -- lowering education costs and debt acts. my colleagues in the senate are right to start in the process when students take out a loan. dealing with debt only after it is taken out does not lower the

cost of a college education. right now, a student can't pick a college on a price, even if they wanted to. i hope this is the start of a discussion to help students limit their borrowing on the front end and ultimately put pressure on institutions to bring down the cost of college. whereas president biden's proposal to wipe out student debt would give colleges license to pump up tuition costs, these proposals would pump the brakes on soaring tuition costs by empowering students to make smart decisions on the front end. i yield the floor.

mr. lankford: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, i have a question for this body. it's not a legislative question. it starts first as just a

question. it's a question for us to be able to think about and it's a question, quite frankly, that's essential that we think about, but we don't think about very often. because it's introspective, because it's personal, because it connects both science and faith and culture and backgroun background, but it's essential to who we are as people, human beings, and it's this simple question -- when does life begin? i don't say it flippantly. it's a real question. it's a question that we've had as a nation now the entire time we've been a nation, and it's been decided by different states and by different people from the very beginning of our nation. when does life begin? for some people they would say life begins at birth, when i can see that child and they're screaming and crying and just

born, red-faced. some people would say it's actually ten minutes before that birth. it's not at birth, but just a little bit before. for some people, they would back it up and say no, you're really a child and you're alive when you're viable, somewhere around 21 weeks gestation now. when you're viable, that's when you're really alive. some people would back it up even more and say not 21 weeks, maybe 15 weeks, because science would say at about 15 weeks that child in the womb has a nervous system that's developed and they can feel pain. some would say no, i would back it up more than that. i would actually take it to six weeks, because at six weeks there's the early stages of a beating heart. they would say when that heartbeat is actually happening, that's when that child is alive. and others would back it up even further and would say when that child has unique dna, that's

different dna than the mom or the dad. in fact, in that mom's body, every single cell in her body has the same dna marker, except for those cells, for those cells in the woman's body that dna is different it's the only cells that are different. as they multiply and divide, that dna signature grows, but it stays right there with that child. it's a real question. 51 years ago our country had different opinions, different states had different ideas about when life began, and each state voted and each state had a don't in their state about when life began. that was what we were like, from the very beginning of the country up to 51 years ago. then, 1973, the roe v. wade decision happened in the supreme

court, and at that time nine justices said nope, individual states and people aren't going to decide this, the nine of us are going to decide this. for almost 50 years, the law of the land was that those justices all made one determination for everybody. until 52 weeks ago, when that same supreme court and nine justices again said, no, this should be back in the hands of the people, where it's always been, because justices shouldn't decide this issue, this is a decision we the people should make. justice alito wrote the opinion there that decision, and he said this, roe was egregiously wrong from the start. he said far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, roe and casey have inflamed don't and deepened division. it's time to heed the constitution and return the issue of abortion to the

peements elected representatives. the per missibility are to be resolved like the most important questions in our democracy, by citizens, trying to persuade one another and then voting. it's back to the people. so that's where we are. now one year after the dobbs decision came out on the 24th of june of last year, it's still back to the same conversation. we still haven't agreed as a nation when life begins. maybe we never will. but as a nation now, that conversation's happening all over the country. individuals are having the dialogue, when does life begin? in the past year there's really no way to know how many children are alive today that would not have been alive prior to the dobbs decision. about half the states in america have already passed some sort of law to limit the number of abortions in their state.

while about half of the rest of the country has either left abortion policies in place for their state or even expanded. some of our states have no abortion at all in their states. in some states literally you can have abortion all the way up to the second before delivery, late term, literally the second before delivery and choose to have an elective abortion. that's a pretty wide per spread in our country. that's a pretty wide set of opinions. while we don't know how many children are alive today, we can be certain there are tens of thousands of children alive right now that would not have been alive a year ago, prior to the dobbs decision. that's tens of thousands of children that are alive, that in the next few months will be giggling and laughing. next year they'll be running around singing silly songs. two years after that, they'll be

in kindergarten, learning their colors. they'll be alive today because of that dobbs decision. while i understand some people are disappointed those kids are alive, i am not. i'm convinced our communities and our schools and our workplaces in the future will be glad they're there. in the past year, while a lot of people have been celebrating the value of every one of those children that have been born, there are some that have not been. in fact, in my frustration this biden administration has been on accepted with increasing the number of abortions in america, not decreasing them. today there have been numerous unanimous consent requests on the floor of this senate asking to take out all the laws in the entire country and being able to

move it back to there's abortion on demand at any stage. they all lost on the floor today, but there's a push on the floor of this senate today to be able to expand abortion on demand all the way up until moments before birth. this administration has taken even more aggressive actions than this senate even took today. this administration has shifted a policy long-standing on mail-order abortions. do-it-yourself abortions at home, to be able to take a two-drug cocktail to have an abortion at home, where they stripped out the rules that you have to see a doctor to get this prescription, remembering that this prescription actually takes the life of a child and causes excessive bleeding. you don't have to see a doctor anymore. they shifted that to say you have to see a medical professional of any type. if you take this two-drug cocktail and have an ectopic

pregnancy and the only way you can determine that is thrup a medical examination, it can actually kill the woman while it takes the life of that child as well. if you have the wrong blood type, and the only way to determine that is to see a medical professional, though the biden administration is saying you no longer have to see them, but if you take this particular two-drug cocktail and you have the wrong blood type it will make you infertile the rest of your life, as well as take the life of your child. so if you want to have a baby later, you can't. the only way you would know one way or the other on that is actually having a medical screening and test. but the biden administration is so obsessed with increasing the number of abortions in america, they have said don't worry about going to the doctor, don't worry if you have an ectopic pregnancy or wrong blood type. in fact they have taken it an extra step and have said to emergency rooms, if someone shows up in an emergency room,

has taken this two-drug cocktail and is excessively bleeding, you do not have to report it to the fda unless she dies. every other condition -- excessive bleeding, on the edge of life, emergency room trips, don't report those. those don't get reported anymore at all. literally they're saying we don't need the information about other side effects. only death for this particular drug. that's an enormous shift. that is an administration that is obsessed with saying we need more abortions in america. and if things go bad with this two-drug cocktail, don't tell us. dimension before that there is a very -- did i mention before that there is a very, very old federal law that still stands in federal law that says you can't mail anything that's going to cause an abortion? it's against federal law to put

something in the mail and mail it to someone that causes an abortion. the biden administration literally has put out a public opinion from their office of legal counsel saying that law really doesn't apply anymore. it's old. and is trying to say it means something different than what it actually says. i would encourage anyone to actually read that statute and to come under any other conclusion than other than what it says. the biden administration has made it very clear under the department of justice that we know this is against federal law to be able to mail abortion materials, but we're not going to prosecute this. literally it's against the law, but we don't care. so much so that even if a woman ends up in the hospital, in the emergency room and checked in, don't teenl us unless -- don't even tell us unless she died. last summer there were several of my colleagues that brought a

bill to this floor to give $100,000 fine to any pro-life pregnancy center that didn't perform abortions. now just let that soak in for a minute. it didn't pass, but this body was debating and trying to shut down the voice of people that are in pro-life centers that say i believe in the value of every child. these pro-life centers, if you've never been to one, they're almost always completely run by volunteers. they provide ultrasounds to individuals that are trying to figure out am i really pregnant. they provide free pregnancy tests. and, yes, they talk about that they believe in the value of life. but they also provide formula for babies, clothes for babies, diapers for babies. they provide parental advice and counsel for new parents that are terrified and saying we're going to walk with you.

if you're considering having an abortion because you're afraid you're alone and no one is going to be with you, we're going to to be with you. last summer a bill came to this floor to try to do a $100,000 fine to those folks trying to give away free formula, free diapers and free mentoring to people that would say if you keep your baby, we'll walk with you through these tough times. this administration, the biden administration, has shifted our v.a. hospitals into abortion clinics. it's against federal law, but they've done it anyway. literally there's a federal law that was put in place 30 years ago about v.a. hospitals and abortions, and it doesn't allow that. this administration has told the v.a. hospitals ignore that federal law that was passed 30 years ago because we don't like it. we're not going to enforce it. and is literally taking, because it's not dollars

allocated to this, literally taking dollars away from our veterans and their health care and moving it to do abortions in our v.a. centers instead. as far as we can tell, there are thousands of abortions that have happened in our v.a. centers around the country in the last few months, all of them paid for by federal tax dollars -- which is against the law -- in a facility that was specifically noted could not perform abortions, which is against the law, using federal dollars to pay for it. we should not -- it should not be a surprise to you. president biden's budget, every year that he's been president, he's asked to take away the hyde amendment. people may not know what the hyde amendment is, but the hyde a amendment is what prevents abortion dollars from being used from federal tax dollars. a lot of people across the country, i understand, completely have different opinions about abortion, but almost every person i've talked to would say i have a different opinion about abortion but i don't think american tax dollars

should be used to pay for elective abortions, but every year president biden has asked to remove the hyde amendment so federal dollars can be used to pay for abortions, elective abortions, across the country. this administration is so incredibly extreme about increasing the number of abortions in america it has even expanded to our southern border. the people in this room know i'vedom talk about the southern border a number of time to try to bring solutions, nonpartisan solutions for how to solve the difficult issues of illegal immigration on the southern border. i'm a fan of legal immigration but i think unchecked immigration on our border is a bad idea. but this administration, in the middle of what's going on on our southern border right now has put out what they caul field guidance -- call feemed guidance 21 to say if an

unaccompanied minor comes across our southern border that happens to be pregnant that unaccompanied minor is to be relocated to a state that allows abortion. and the guidance gives information about how to even transport individuals that are pregnant that cross our bored to abortion -- cross our border to abortion clinics and gives special guidance to those in their last weeks of pregnancy and how to be able to take care of those moms as you transport them to get an abortion, late-term abortions. that's in the hhs guidance happening right now on our southern border. this administration created a website to promote abortion with official federal dollars. it's connected to the white house website. in fact, this administration literally put it as a front-page piece on the white house website. here's how to be able to get an abortion in america. they've given $1.5 million grant

to create a national abortion hotline so anyone who wants an abortion, it would be easier to be able to get it. they created a reproductive rights task force to try to evaluate all states and to be able to get information out to how to be able to increase abortions. when covid money was done now a year and a half ago, the previous bipartisan bills on covid all had a restriction on any of that money being used for abortion until the last partisan bill was actually put out, and that specifically allows for abortion with covid relief dollars. the department of justice has not engaged when pro-life centers were being attacked. they have engaged to be able to to go after people that oppose abortion, but in the past couple of years there have been

329 attacks on catholic churches and 87 attacks on pro-life centers just since the dobbs leak came out, prior to the actual release in june. but there's been no prosecutions there to go after those folks. pearnlts f apparently if you attack a catholic church or pro-life center, the department of justice is not interested. there's also conscience protections. again, not all americans agree on the dwriewsh -- issue of abortion but many doctors and nurses go into medical practice because they have a passion about life. we have conscience protections in federal law right now that if you tell your employer in a hospital that you have a conscience issue on performing an abortion and they compel you to do that, the federal government is charged to be able to step in and make that

employer protect your conscience rights. that has happened in the past under past administrations, but under this administration, literally when this administration came in, there was a nurse that had been compelled to perform an abortion against her conscience at the university of vermont medical center. she had told her employer in advance she did not want to participate in abortions, she believed in the value of every child. she came in one day to work. she was called into a surgery area, and the physician looked her in the face and said don't hate me for this, and she said y. then she turned and realized that she had been called in and was being compelled or she would lose her job, to perform an abortion and to be a part of that abortion procedures. typically under previous administrations, that person would be protected. this hhs dropped the case, literally was midway through. the department of justice is no longer prosecuting there. they are saying that's not relevant, literally saying if

you have a conscience issue as a nurse or a doctor performing an abortion, too bad, change your occupation, we're not going to protect you. oh, and did i mention if you're in the united states military now, under the new biden policy, and you went to your commanding officer and said my grandmother passed away, i'd like to get five days off to go travel, to go to my grandmother's funeral, you would be told no. but if you go to your commanding officer and say i'd like to be gone five days to get an abortion, not only would your commanding officer under the biden administration be instruct ed, yes, you can have five days paid leave off, but they would also say to you how far are you going to travel? we're going to pay for your travel to reimburse you while you're gone. so if you need to go to your

aunt's funeral, you don't get days off because that's too distant of a relative. but if you need to get an abortion, not only will this administration give you five days off to go get it, they will literally pay for your travel there and back to be able to go do it. not to mention the change in the mexico city policy that has happened. now we're paying for abortions overseas currently with federal dollars. hhs launched a new web page that actually gave out what they call creative ways for health clinics to advise teenagers on sex, pregnancy testing and abortions. hhs has proposed a new rule they are in the process of finalizing which redefines reproductive health care to include abortion. it prohibits entities from cooperating with law enforcement or a court order if an investigation is related to an abortion. it redefines the word person to a human being that is born alive hhs has also changed the billing

requirements for the aca, for the affordable care act, and has blatantly ignored the law on how abortion funding is done in direct opposition to when this body debated that publicly. if i can just mention one other thing. my state, like every other state, gets grants for what they calm title 10 -- call title 10 grants, federal grants for cancer screening for women, for contraceptives for those that are in poverty. that's normal. we have that all over the country for every state. it's a typical grant to help women in poverty to get cancer screenings. my state was just informed that the biden administration is cutting off our title 10 funds and will not send federal dollars to oklahoma for cancer

screenings or contraceptive for women in poverty in my state. do you want to know j? -- why? the reason is because my state would not include an abortion hotline in all of our medical information going out to the citizens of my state. that's right. if my state would not promote ways to get abortions to women in my state, then the women in my state can't get access to cancer screenings or contraceptives for low-income women. literally what they're saying is, you either promote abortion in your state or women in your state can't get access to screenings. that's this administration's extreme policy on abortion. listen. i understand we have differences of opinion. i happen to believe every child

is valuable. this administration believes some children are disposable and some children are valuable. i just don't find any child disposable in my world. i think they're all valuable. i think they're all important. i think we look in the eyes of those tens of thousands of children that have been born in the past year post roe and we look them in the face and we say, i'm glad you're here. what are you going to be? what are you going to invent? what are you going to do? what's life going to be like for you? and look millions of other americans, they'll have a chance to live out life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because we're right there looking in their ayes -- in their eyes. let's have this conversation. let's keep this dialogue going. we're a nation that should talk about hard things in respectful

ways, but let's talk about it because there's lots of families in the days ahead that are counting on us living out our values and respectfully having dialogue where we disagree because i think kids are worth it so let's have that dialogue. one year after the dobbs decision, we're not resolved but at least we're talking about it again. i yield the floor. mr. murphy: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you very much, mr. president. mr. president, i'm on the floor tonight to talk about a topic that rarely, if ever, gets discussed on the senate floor. i'm here to talk about loneliness. every single one of us over the

course of our life has felt lonely, maybe really intensely lonely. i certainly have. it's an awful feeling, right? it creates this pit in your stomach, it creates a consuming mel on collie for -- melancholy for many, often it makes you agitated and angry, right? why is this happening to me? frankly, there's a lot of reasons to believe that less americans today should feel lonely than ever before. more of us live in densely populated parts of the country than ever before, technology now allows us to connect to friends and family and communities that share interests more easily than ever before, just the press of a button. but evidence from psychology and sociology tells us the opposite is true .in recent decades, we have seen rising levels of both

aloneness, which is defined as having fewer social contacts and high levels of loneliness which is feelings of ice isolation. we have technologies that allow us to connect to people with more ease than ever before, but people are feeling more lonely. as we look out at a country that seems to be kind of coming apart a little bit at the seams, ip mean people are get -- i mean, people are getting shot at for just ringing the wrong door bell or pulling into the wrong driveway, hundreds are dying by taking a drug designed to deaden their emotions and people in violent rebellion in the nation's capitol. we need to be engaged in this search for reasons why people are feeling more pessimistic,

frustrated, and more angry than ever before. eight or nine months ago i started to talk about one of the most important political issues of our time, loneliness. millions of americans are feeling this way. people report feeling more intense loneliness than ever before in our lifetime, and it's irresponsible for policy may to keep ig -- policymakers to keep ignoring it. a few stand out that is it important for my colleagues to consider. it's true that technology does allow us to stay connected to family and friends to find new communities, but on the whole technology has left many americans, especially young people, feeling more alone than ever before. during the height of covid-19 we learned the hard way that digital communication cannot replace the value of in-person experience. for example, studies show that

face-to-face interactions create faster connections to humans and builds stronger, more enduring relationships than anything you can create online. of course, staying in touch electronically is better than losing touch all together, but when facebook likes and instagram comments replace in-person experiences, it can actually drive up feelings of loneliness. staring at your screen for six hours a day no matter how many people you're looking at, it can be a very lonely experience. and it doesn't stop there because there are millions of users with developing minds, children who spent hours staring at their screens, scrolling through pictures and videos that have been created to have an illusion of perfection, leaving those to feel inadequate. it breeds envy and results in

more anxiety than fulfillment. kids are feeling really lousy today, and it's not just because they're spending tons of time on their screens instead of engaging in real in-person experiences, it's because the couldn't tent they are watching is dangerous and he could rosive and making -- corrosive and making them feel more alone in the world because of the feelings of envy. the second factor of contributing to loneliness in america is the erosion of local communities. connection sometimes happen randomly, mostly it is facilitated through churchills -- churches, labor unions, business organizations, we derive meaning as well from the communities we create or join, with we have connection but we also get meeting. those institutions help to

construct an identity, a sense of purpose, connect us to something bigger than ourselves. but in 2023, you'd be hard pressed to find a community with the find of thriving institutions decades ago. global communications have left out people meeting at local businesses and that outsourcing of commerce online has also diminished local cultures that fa facilitate -- that facilitate connection and meaning. growing up, my connection was with the town i lived in. there was no shortage of ways that i could connect with the people i lived with. back then we had thriving local newspapers where i could learn easily about the people in my town which made it easier to create that connection. those local newspapers are drying up by the day.

we all get our news from national sources. it was my local grosser who -- grocer who would slip me a slice of american cheese when i would visit on the weekend with my grandparents that made me feel like i belonged to a community, that i wasn't alone, now they are driven out by grocery stores or delivery drivers. even if you have can, who has time. one job could easily provide a family with a comfortable middle-class life. today they are -- parents are having to work 50, 60, 70 hours a week. there's no time any longer for millions of americans to go to church, to be part of a civic club or just hang out with your friends or neighbors or your family and so what are you

seeing? participation in youth sports is plummeting. that's in part because overextended parents are just too busy these days to shut hl their kids to -- shuttle their kids to games or practices or can't afford it. kids are more engaged with online games, but it has stressed out parents who don't have time to participate with the extra curricular activity but also don't have time to give them the value when 40 hours a week was enough. here is the important question. why should we care? what are the public consequences of loneliness? american suicide rights are rising at an alarming rate, most significantly amongst two key populations, teenagers and rural men who are disproportionately

affected by the changing landscape. researchers at nyu found a correlation of teenaged girls using instagram and the spike of teenaged girls self-harm rate and teenaged rates of sadness are higher than ever. for rural white men, one of my favorites, noble prize winning economist, he argues as the white male dominated the blue collar world, as it vanished with the loss of social and economic status that went with it, those men are struggling and this feeling of isolation specifically moorntion that population -- in that population is rise rise -- is rising with

white men committing acts of self-harm. he connection the wide-spread loneliness, he said it's not just suicide. he released a detailed advisory. it is associated with a 29% risk of heart disease and 32% increase of stroke. chronic loneliness can increase the risk of dementia in older people by 50%. do we think it's a coincidence that life expectancy rates in the country are falling at the same time that loneliness is spiking? the second reason that we should care about this epidemic as policymakers is because this growing isolation of americans is helping to fuel a growing culture of resentment and anger. i mentioned that young woman who was shot because she pulled up

to the wrong driveway, but we see the edginess all over in our culture, people are strung out, violence is more common as a means to settle disputes, fringe groups and con conspirey -- conspiracy theories are part of it. loneliness is accompanied by answer is of anger. why do i feel like this? who's to blame? this anger, coupled with this identity of family, place, or institution, it makes negative identityies all the the more attractive. the lonely become targets for demagogues who offer up escape gets to to blame for sources of meaning and identity. in 2017, america was shocked when a huge white supremacist

rally in charlottesville drew thousands, but this should not be a surprise. loneliness drives people to dark places, and they white men were only the tip of an iceberg of those searching for meaning might lead them to a seething anti-semitic or racist mob. the picture i'm painting, i get it, it's pretty grim, but there are reasons to hope. one of the reasons i believe congress can get something done, building more social connection is because there is a growing consensus across the aisle about this set of problems we're dealing with and the solutions. this problem set may be a little less political than other problems we face in this body. i think congress is coming to acknowledge that the consequences of rapidly

advancing technology are not value neutral. we've seen how social media has deepened polarization and addicted a generation of kids to their screens. in the past few months we've been involved in a new conversation about generative a.i. and machine learning and how it has the potential to displace millions of jobs and a whole bunch of basic human functions. most republicans and democrats agree that we made a big mistake by sitting on the sidelines during the early days of the internet and the development most recently of social media. the good news is that republicans and democrats are working together on this problem. there are a few good pieces of legislation that could start to hold social media companies accountable, who are driving kids into lives of increasing loneliness and isolation.

senators cotton, schatz, britt and i have proposed a bill to set a minimum age of 13 to use social media, to require parental consent. it also prohibits social media companies from using these highly personalized algorithms to drive dangerous isolation-inducing content to kids. on the issue of a.i., senator schumer convened a bipartisan group that is beginning its work as well, and i'm glad to be a part of it. a second starting point that i really think has bipartisan potential would be to advance policies specifically aimed at restoring the health of our local communities and local institutions. in western connecticut, in my old congressional district, we've got the brass city, the silver city, the hardware city, the hat city. for a long time in this country, identity, meaning and connection were created because we really were proud of the things we made, of the jobs that existed.

but the theory of economic neoliberalism sent most of those jobs overseas and assumed that better jobs would replace them. that's not what happened. i really believe industrial poll industry is -- policy is part of the solution. why? so many people get meaning and identity from the things that we make and used to make, from jobs that have meaning and good wages and benefits and pensions attached to them. that's why the chips and science act, paving the way for a new industrial policy, suggests republicans and democrats can come together and work on creating more meaning in work, which i think leads to less isolation and loneliness. but as i said before, that only works if a full-time job provides a living wage and you have enough time, in the

evenings and on the weekends, to be able to engage with your friends, family, and your community. i'm also hopeful we can make progress across the aisle, driving it up the minimum wage and incentivizing jobs to pay real living wages. this week a conservative group called american compass released a report that was underlaid by a really scathing critique of modern capitalism. it was attended -- irtheir conference was attended by a bunch of our republican colleagues here. the report called for policymakers to remake capitalism so our economic system works to build strong families, healthy individuals, and connected communities. instead of just viewing families and individuals as mere pawns of the global market, the grease

that makes the wheels of profit move. this is a really interesting development. right? serious people on the right starting to rethink the nature of capitalism to make sure that our economy works for families and individuals, to make your more connected and less lonely. so, there's real possibility that both parties, the right and the left, can come together to address this crisis of american isolation. america's epidemic of loneliness is far from terminal. our retreat into ourselves is a product of economic, cultural, and political choices we have made, but it is not too late to chart a new path. i get it. this is a congress that has a hard time solving much more straightforward problems. so tackling a metaphysical crisis like loneliness might feel like a herculean task. right now, i argue we need a starting point, an organizing point for some of these

discussions. so, i'm working on legislation that would just start by establishing a national strategy, a national conversation around loneliness and how to promote connectedness. every agency should have a role to play in this crisis. so i argue we just need to start with a dedicated office that's coordinating a government-wide strategy to tackle homeness and strengthen -- loneliness and strengthen communities. we need best practices for public entities to connect people. we have guidelines for nutrition, physical activity, sleep. we should have these guidelines for social connection. finally, we can't really understand this crisis if -- we can't really address this added quately if we don't understand it -- address this adequately if we don't understand it. so i include funding to research widespread loneliness. i look forward to talking to my colleagues about this

legislation. it doesn't solve the problem, but i think it's time we start organizing our work and our thoughts around what is, in many ways, a foundational problem which explains a lot of the things that people are feeling, that drives political instability, bad health outcomes, and just general unhappiness in this country. loneliness is one of the few issues that defies traditional political boundaries, cuts across almost every demographic, from teenage girls living in cities to white men living out in rural areas. blue states to red states, unoy fordable -- unaffordable cities to left behind manufacturing towns. there's room to come together to combat this growing epidemic of loneliness, around i hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are eager to be part of the solution. i yield the floor.

mr. bennet: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, madam president. i'm sorry that i didn't have the chance to say thank you to our colleague from connecticut for his speech tonight about loneliness in the united states. i was grateful that he gave it, grateful that he's in the senate, grateful to know that another parent of young kids has the perspective that he has shared tonight, because i think it's so important. strangely enough, i'm here to talk about something similar tonight. well, first, madam president, i'll put it away, because it's not supposed to be on the floor, but i wanted to come here tonight to talk a little bit about this smartphone and the world of social media, the world

of machine learning, algorithms and generative a.i. that has now been put at our fingertips. the rise of smartphones and social media is one of the most rapid, profound, and i would argue poorly understood transformations in american life in our entire history. if you had asked me when i was the age of the pages here, when i was growing up, you said to me, someday, michael, there's going to be a device -- well, here is the device -- there's going to be a device that looks like this. it adopt even have a wire attached to it. that would have been astonishing to begin with. how could an electronic device not have a wire? but it doesn't have a wire. if you said to me, not only does it not have a wire, you can facetime anybody on planet earth, the way jim kirk and

mr. spock facetimeed each other. the presiding officer knows what i'm talking about. these folks may not know who mr. kirk was, or captain kirk, and mr. spock. but the idea that you could reach somebody and communicate with them on video, on a telephone or device that had no wire, that alone would have been shocking. if you had said, well, let me tell you something else about that device. i said okay, what else? what else can you tell me about it? well, you can buy any book that's ever been written by humans, basically, on that device. if you want it, you can make a choice -- you can have it digitally and it will download immediately on your device, or you can order it and it can be at your house by tonight. if you'd rather have a print version of a book, rather than getting it digitally. if you said to me -- i'll tell

you something else, michael, it will translate any language that you care to hear. i was today with the ceo of google in my office, talking about one of their projects that is now to help recover and sustain lost languages, or languages we're in danger of losing in this country, around the world, which is i think a worthy project. we definitely, in my state, are at risk of losing native american languages that really are at risk. in any case, if you said to me, you can translate any language or you can translate yourself into any language, and somebody said what do you think that device is worth, in 1983 or 1987 when i was graduating from high school or college, i think i

probably would have said -- i can't imagine what it's worth. millions of dollars. millions of dollars. to have every book that's ever been published, that's in every library in the world? millions of dollars. to be able to translate every language that you can translate? millions of dollars. if you told me it only cost a few hundred dollars, which it does, and that everybody on planet earth is going to -- would have one, which is almost, in many ways, the case, i would have asked what you were smoking. but it's true. it's true. that's the world we've inhabited almost 20 years. it's not new. the digital age, the information age, the age of ubiquitous smartphones and social media and the handful of digital platforms that control them.

and for all of the extraordinary convenience and extraordinary productivity, and entertainment that these technologies have allowed as a country, we still haven't come to grips with the profound cost to our economy, to our society, and to our democracy. that's before we even consider a.i., which is what everybody around here is talking about these days, what some have called the most consequential technology for humanity since the invention of fire. unlike fire, this technology can improve itself, and it has the potential to move faster and transform more than any innovation in our history, for better or for worse. even in its early days, generative a.i. already demonstrated the power to write, to code, to animate, and even

compose in ways that would have been absolutely unimaginable 20 years ago. or ten years ago. to say nothing of when we were in school. it's easy to forget how different the world was just 20 years ago. 20 years ago general motors topped the fortune 500 list. apple was 285 and amazon didn't even make the cut. twitter was still an idea somewhere in the recesses of jack dorsey's head. mark zuckerburg was barely old enough to vote, even though he likely already acquired the undeveloped view of the first amendment that he a -- that he seems to hold to this day. no one on this planet had ever heard of gmail or tiktok or chat gpt. that was only 20 years ago, but it might as well have been 200

years ago, madam president. today, americans spend over two hours a day on social media, more time socializing online than in person. the average tiktok user in our country spends 90 minutes a day on the app, more than three weeks a year. facebook now hosts 2.7 billion friends, half a billion more souls than christianity. twitter has more followers -- i'm sorry, twitter has fewer followers, but they include every single politician, probably almost every single person in this chamber, every journalist, every tv producer in america, withering our political debate to 280-character effervescent posts. in two decades a few companies, less than a handful transformed

much of humanities daily life, how we amuse our life, how we shop, learn, how we connect with friends, family and elected representatives, how we pay attention, how we glimpse our shared reality. this transformation is a staggering testament to american innovation, and we can all think of a dozen ways that platforms have improved our lives. i for one have been entirely relieved of the stress of sitting in rush hour traffic wondering if there is a better route. i am now confident that waze is guiding me like my own personal north star, and that has made an enormous difference to my sense of well-being. but this dramatic shift from our analogue to our digital human existence has never been guided and it has never been informed

by the public interest. it has always been dictated by the unforgiving requirements of a few gigantic american corporations and their commercial self-interest. and what are those interests? to make us better informed citizens? to make us more productive employees? to make us happier people? of course not. it's to turn a profit and protect their profit through their own economic dominance. and they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. madam president, that is the market capitalization of some of the largest industries in america. and you can see at the top here this is apple and microsoft and alphabet, amazon and meta combined. they are at $9 trillion in market cap. you have to add -- to get to $9

trillion, you basically have to add up our entire banking sector, our entire oil and gas sector, and our entire pharmaceutical sector just to give you a sense of the size of the market cap, the size of the market cap of these companies alone and the reason why they have become so dominate. and through it all, unlike almost any small business in boulder, colorado, or any town in new hampshire, these digital plasms have remained almost entirely unregulated, moving fast, breaking things as they famously said, and forcing the rest of us to sweep up the wreckage. there's another way these companies are different from the brick and mortar companies in boulder, colorado, or new hampshire.

digital platforms aren't burdened by the fixed cost of the analogue world. beyond the blinking lights of their intensive server farms, their business is on the cloud, a place where no one works and it requires little physical investment. they have no need to use their profits to invest in america by building the kind of infrastructure these other industries do or had. unlike their industrial forebearers, today's platforms have devised a new digital barrier to entry to protect their profit. it's different from the way it was in the past. they figured out how to protect their profits and economic dominance, and we know that that digital barrier has the network effect. the network effect means that platforms become exponentially more valuable as more people join and spend more of their waking moments there. more valuable to users because

their friends and family are on it. more valuable to the platforms themselves who hoover up our identities for their profit and to train their machine learning algorithms. more valuable for advertisers who pay the platforms for our identities to barrage us with ads. and so valuable, so valuable to the markets that the top tech companies now equal roughly a quarter of the entire s&p500. in the name of building this barrier to entry, this network effect, they have stolen our identities and our privacy and they have addicted us to their platforms. the platforms imperative to grow big and stay big posed a very basic question. how do you get people on your

platform and how do you keep them there? for platforms like apple and amazon, it's to sell products people want, to offer subscriptions, and if you're lucky -- if they're lucky, emesh them in your closed ecosystem. for social media platforms with free serviceses like meta and twitter and tiktok, the answer is more sinister, i'm afraid. harvest as much data on your users as you can, feed that data to your algorithm to serve up whatever content it takes to keep people hooked so you can keep selling ads. that is the core business model. that is the model that's led to these market caps. and although this particular business model has bestowed enormous value on a few companies, it has imposed profound costs on everybody else, even in places we don't necessarily expect it.

a senior law enforcement official just told me within the last couple of weeks that social media is, quote, the last mile of every fentanyl and meth transaction in america. the presiding officer knows that being from new hampshire. it took my staff 20 seconds to find illegal drugs for sale on instagram. i would ask the pages, please, to avert your eyes here, but the image on the left appears to be pills of mdma. the image on the right shows you how to contact the dealer through what's app and pay him there another app called wicker. and below that are all of the places you can purchase this stuff, including denver, colorado, where we're having a terrible, terrible problem with fentanyl and with

methamphetamines. and even though the vast majority of americans in which interact with content like this, we all pay a price. millions of americans have surrendered to private companies in endless feed of data on their line all for the convenience of being served up self-gratifying political content on youtube, less traffic or better movie recommendations. and most americans have made that trade without ever really knowing it. the young people that are here today don't know a world where that trade was something that wasn't automatically made. any suggestion that we've made e

but i suppose it would be one thing if the only consequence is the digital platform were to sell better advertising, although even that would be a fairly pathetic concession, i think, of our own economic interest. the precious value of our data and our privacy and our identities. but as every parent knows and as every kid suspects, better advertising is not the only consequence of this model. over the years digit yacht -- digital platforms have imported gaming from brightly colored

displays to likes and they unleash secret algorithms, to seek out pride, approval, conformity and creating an almost irresistible feat of consent. americans spend almost a third of their waking hours on the phone which we check on average 344 times a day. speaking as a parent who has raised three daughters in this era, we certainly have not agreed to run a science experiment on our children with machine-learned a.i. rhythms that the companies themselves barely understand at all. and while we're still coming to understand the specific role social media plays in the

epidemic of teen mental health, the early evidence gives us plenty of reason to worry. here's what we do know, in 2006 facebook became available to the general public. the following year apple released the iphone, by 2012 half of americans had a smartphone, today everyone has one. everybody's got one, i think, except chuck schumer, the majority leader, who is still using a flip phone. a similar story unfolded with teens and with social media. by 2012, about half of teens use social media, today 95% of teens use it. when my parents excoriated me for being glued to the television in the 1970's, the

average teen watched tv for four hours a day, today teens are on their screens twice as long. half are online almost constantly. more than one in five tenth grade girls spend seven or more hours a day on social media. that's 35 hours a week. in france, that's a full-time job. as our children retreat into a digital world of someone else's making, they pay for it. they're paying for it with less sleep and exercise and time with their friends, as my colleague from connecticut was talking about. and all of this has contributed to an epidemic of teen anxiety, to depression, and to loneliness, especially among particular timed girls. -- teenage girls, today girls

who use social media heavily are two times as likely to say they are depressed compared to those who use it often or not at all. since the introduction of smartphones and social media,. and to be fair i'm not saying social media is the only cause of this. but as the father of three daughters who have grown up in its shadow, i know it's played a role. kids are in despair in our country, madam president. today almost half of teens, almost half of teens believe they can't do anything right. almost half of teens say i can't, i don't enjoy life. and my life is not useful.

and all of these numbers began to rise around the time smartphones and social media began to pervade the country and hook a generation to their screens. and over this same period we have tragically seen suicides of young people increase 60% compared to 2007. i see this crisis of teen mental health everywhere i go in colorado, everywhere i go in colorado. parents tell me about how social media has undermined their children's sense of well-being, and especially, especially girls' body image and sense of self. a teenager told me that, quote, the electronic follows me home.

there is no escape, she said, at any hour, at any day. i felt the panic. i felt the panic of a parent who can't fix it and make it better. felt like there is nothing that i could do. it's beyond my control to make it better. it has become common now at the end of my town halls for parents to come up to me. they're usually not people, or they're often not people that have come to the town hall to listen to the town hall. they're people who might be working the slide projector or might have set the chairs out for people to sit in. then they come to me after the talk is over, the conversation is over, and they'll say something like my daughter is 5'10" and she's 105 pounds, and her self-confidence is in tatters because of the way she's interacted with social media and the way that it's shredded her

body image. all of my young staff and my two eldest daughters universally say how lucky they are to have avoided middle school in the age of social media or to have gone to middle school before there was social media. their younger siblings aren't so lucky, and they know that about their younger siblings. you know, maybe the most poignant expression of this concern were the moms i met in the mississippi delta in my wife's hometown of mariana, arkansas, which is the county seat of lee county, arkansas. one after the other of these moms told me that their kids in this rural, poor county in america, that their kids just don't read anymore because no book can compete with their

phone, even as the silicon valley executives who design these phones send their kids to soarnld -- social media detox camps every single summer. that's not something available to these parents in mariana. they work two, three jobs. they can't afford child care and they have to compete for their child's attention against algorithmic poison. they never stood a chance and neither have their kids. and now these parents also have to compete with a.i., virtual reality, the power they bestow to fully immerse yourself in the digital world. my constituents in colorado are most worried about what digital platforms have done to their kids and their families and i'll tell you i don't have a bunch of

data tonight about the casual link between social media and the phones and the mental health epidemic that's going on in america, especially among american youth, but there is no doubt that we're having it -- that epidemic. there's no doubt that it correlates to the advent of the phone and to social media. there's no doubt it's been compounded by covid and the effects of that. this has been a hard time to be a young person in our country, to be a high school student, to be a college student, to have your life interrupted by a once-in-a generation, once in 100 year pandemic, on top of everything else, but i think of all these kids like my daughter ann who spent so much time in her room at home on that phone

and -- and when i was superintendent of the denver public schools 15 years ago, we were working, focused so much on student achievement, it's amazing the way things have changed. when i was asked about this, about education in america long after i had been superintendent, but before covid happen, i had an easy answer, my answer was mental health, mental health, mental health. and that was pre-covid. there isn't anybody in america who thinks that things have gotten better since then. this is a tough time to be a kid in our country. it's a tough time to be a kid because of this dynamic. it's a tough time to be a kid because we haven't, as the senator from new hampshire has told us here over and over and over again, we haven't figured out how to stop this epidemic of

fentanyl in this country so that we're living in that time now unlike when i was superintendent where kids have to lobby their school nurses to be able to put antidotes in the nurse's office so the kids, their friends don't die because they took one pill that was labeled a prescription drug and that killed -- that pill killed them or almost killed them. we didn't do that -- worry about that when i was superintend superintendent 15 -- superintendent 15 years ago. this is off topic tonight, but you add on to that the fact that in america, this is the only country in the world where the leading cause of death for kids is guns. and two-thirds of that are people killing people, other people, assaults or suicides, only 5% are accidents.

this is a tough time to be a kid in america, and i would argue that a lot of what we're dealing with here is manmade, human made. it's not just a natural occurrence out there somewhere in the world and we have to come to grips with it, we have to understand it. among other things, we need these companies, like other companies in the past, to share their data so that independent researchers can help us make the assessment we need in order to make the judgment that we need to make to provide oversight. kind of like the tobacco companies finally had to cough up the data way back when. and as i say, my constituents are most worried about this, these issues, about their kids and about their families, but they also have a -- worry a lot about the effect on our democracy and they have a lot of reason to be concerned about that too. when i first joined the senate,

it was around the time of the so-called twitter revolutions in egypt, in libya, in tunisia that we then heralded as the string. people around the world hailed social need wray as a -- social media as a powerful tool for democracy and it didn't take long for them to turn it against democracy, dictators soon harnessed it for their purposes to track opponents, to dodge critics and flood the zone with propaganda. vladimir putin knew this the most. he saw the power of social media over our democracy and he wield d it as a trojan horse to inflame our division and

undermine trust in our democracy, and the damage afflicts us to this day. ahead of the 2016 elections, putin flooded our social media with disinformation, the mullaher report -- the mueller report showed that there was discord in the political system. they sought to fracture our country along every conceivable line, race, religion, class, sexuality, politics. playing both sides. them didn't care, you could have it pro-immigrant, half is pro-muslim, half is anti-muslim. they wanted to divide this country. to divide this democracy. by the way, it took us more than a year to figure out this was

russian propaganda and not just our own political discourse, which says a lot about our own political discourse, which we might want to reflect on. the russians played both sides with other ten million tweets and nearly 4,000 fake accounts. imagine what putin would have done with jen gerative a.i., which most of us would fail to distinguish from reality. and back in 2016, as i said, we let it all happen because we couldn't tell the difference between this discourse and our discourse. i published a book, madam president, during my not very well-noticed campaign for president about this because i kept running into -- i can remember i ran into a senior out of -- at a nursing home in new

hampshire who is repeating stuff that i knew because it was russian propaganda and he said, what are you going to do about it? i'm not saying you couldn't find something on here that's -- on the internet that's true, you know, obviously there's a lot there, but he was repeating russian propaganda and he didn't have any idea. and when i joined the senate intelligence committee after that, i began to realize that this problem extended far beyond our borders. and that it was serious and that's why three years ago i wrote to mark zuckerberg warning him that facebook had become authoritarian platform of choice to suppress their opposition around the world. and the consequences have been

horrific. the united nations named facebook a significant factor in stoking violence against the rohingya after it ignored calls to remove hate speech and hire more staff who knew the country. around the world, we've seen fake stories on these platforms spark violence in india and kenya. on january 26, 2021, here in the united states of america -- january 6, 2021, here in the united states of america. in the weeks before january 6, president trump, our first president who ran his campaign and administration through twitter insighted a -- incited a mob to invade this capitol. i remember sitting in a windowless room in the capitol on january 6, we watched cnn as

our fellow citizens invaded the u.s. capitol with their racist banners and anti-semitic t t-shirts to save an election they said that had not been stolen. in these moments, we cannot bury our heads in our digital feeds. all of us are called upon to defend this democracy and to burnish our example at home. and we can help, the people in this body can help by reining in the vast power of digital platforms and reasserting the interest of the american people and our public interest. the americans who came before us would never have known about algorithms. they wouldn't have known about network effects, but they would recognize the challenge that we face and their example should

guide our way. the founders themselves designed one of the most elegant forms of checks and balances to guard against tyranny after ghastly conditions were exposed in meatpacking facilities, the food and drug administration -- in 1924, f.d.r. and congress created the federal communications commission, the consume financial protection bureau was created. in each case congress knew that it lacked the expertise to oversee new sectors of the economy so we created independent bodies to empower the american people. today we have no dedicated entity to protect the public

interest and we've been powerless as a result. and that's why, madam president, last year i introduced a bill to create a federal digital platform commission and i reduced it -- reintroduced it earlier this month with my colleague senator welch from vermont. we essentially proposed an fcc for digital platforms, it's not really that complicated that an independent body with five senate confirmed commissioners empowered to protect consumers, to promote competition and to defend the public interest and the public's interest. the commission would hold hearings, conduct research, pursue investigations, establish commonsense ruse for the sector and enforce violations with tough penalties. and most important, the agency would finally put the american people in a negotiation with

digital platforms that have amassed vast power beyond -- vast power beyond our imagination and over the american people's lives and the lives of our children. previous congresses knew they never had the expertise to approve or disapprove new drugs, for example. we don't have a debate on this floor about that, because we knew that expertise better lies with the fda. we don't write the safety guidelines for airlines on this floor, either. we have a commission that will do that. why would we expect congress to be able to regulate technologies that are moving at quantum speed like a.i.? it's not possible. perhaps this is why sam altman, the creator of chat gpt, testified we urgently need a new regulator.

assuming that he wasn't a deep fake. some may say we don't need a new government agency, we already have the federal trade commission and the department of justice. these agencies are staffed by hardworking public servants, but they don't have the expertise or the tools or the time to regulate this brand-new sector, and that was before generative a.i. i want to say on that note, i'm very grateful to chuck schumer, the majority leader, for his remarks earlier today. i completely agree that we need to chart a responsible course between promoting innovation in a.i. and ensuring the safety of our children and our democracy. while i think a dedicated expert agency is the best solution, and i believe others will come to that judgment as well, i welcome the don't that we're going to have on this. i'm the first to admit i don't

have a monopoly on wisdom on anything, but certainly on this. whatever we do, we cannot accept another 20 years of digital platforms transforming american life, with no accountability to the american people. we're still coming to grips -- to terms with the harm from 20 years of unregulated social media. we haven't come to term with that. every parent knows that. i shudder to imagine what our country will look like if we allow the same story to work its way out with a.i. that particular technology may be new, but we face a familiar american juncture. we've been here before, in the late 19th century when gilded age robber barons abused the

coal, oil and railroad industries to stifle competition, exploit workers and undermine democracy. government stepped in to assert the public interest. looking back, it is hard to imagine american life without the victories of that era. from basic antitrust laws and consumer protections to the direct election of it senators and the income tax. i think looking forward we have similar questions to answer. what will our response be to the digital robber bearons of our era, that addict our children, do road our democracy, plunlder other -- plunder our privacy? will we allow them to continue transforming american life according to their self-interests? or will we safeguard the interests, civil liberties and freedoms of the american people? especially for young people that are listening to this, who might

say there's nothing you can do, the cat is out of the bag, you can't hold back the ocean, my answer to that is not very helpful because it's to recall something that the young people here won't remember, but it's in my mind when i'm talking to families and to young people in my state, and listening to them talk about the mental health impacts of what they're facing. it reminds me of when the cuyahoga river caught on fire in cleveland. that moment, for those of us that were around then, was so extraordinary, because that unbelievable image of a river in american wurng, catching on firn fire, flames shooting into the sky, that is what finally forced us to come to grips with the pollution that we were allowing

to flow freely into our watersheds and into our communities, same thing with our air, and we finally did something about it, and the country is better as a result. this is another case, by the way, just like those environmental regulations where i think it's critically important for the united states to lead. i think it's critically important for the tuns, with our set of -- for the united states, with our set of values and commitment to democracy, to help set the international standards here and to not take standards from authoritarian regimes like china, for example. that's a big risk, if we don't act here, but i think we will, and i think we can, and i think that's going to give us not onle american people a chance to negotiate with these companies, but give america the chance to lead on questions that are fundamentally important for humanity. none of this is going to be easy. it never is. but when the stakes are nothing

less than the health of our children and the health of our democracy, we have no choice but to try and we should try. i think we have a unique responsibility to lead here, not just for the reasons that i just said but also because, of a all, it was american companies that blazed the trail to the digital age and invited all of humanity to follow. we now live in the world that they created, for better or for worse, with its wonders and with its conveniences, but also with its risks and dangers and difficult questions. the same platforms that amplify a protestor's cry for freedom in iran also equipped tyrants around the world to suppress democratic movements. the same technologies that

liberated anyone to say anything after unleashing a perpetual -- also unleashed a perpetual cacophony, leaving all of us screaming louder to be heard. the dazzling features that brought the world online have also trapped us there, more connected but more alone, more aware but less informed, enthralled to our screens, growing more anxious, more angry and addicted by the way. were -- by the day. overcoming all this will not be easy, but we can't simply hide under our covers or scroll through tiktok and hope these problems solve themselves. that is our job. the health and future of our children lie in the disichtions that we make or the decisions that we fail to make. our objective, my objective being here tonight is not to hold the world back. in colorado, we have always

welcomed innovation, but we also understand that not all change is progress and that it's our job to harness these changes to a better world. we are the first generations to steer our democracy in the digital age, and it's an open question whether democracy can survive in the world that digital platforms have created. i may be wrong, but the evidence so far does not fill me with confidence. it fills me with urge as ur, urgency to reassert the public interest, to reclaim our public square and exercise in self-government, to level the playing field for american teens, parents, teachers and small businesses who for 20 years have battled alone against some of the most powerful companies in human history. this is a fight worth having.

this is a fight worth winning. and if we succeed we may help save democracy, not just in this country but around the world. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. bennet: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, madam president.

i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following senate resolutions -- s. res. 261, s. res. 262, s. res. 263, s. res. 264. the presiding officer: is there an objection to proceeding en bloc? without objection. mr. bennet: i ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles, where applicable, be agreed to, and that the mentions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: madam president, i have 16 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. bennet: thank you, madam

president. i ask unanimous consent that the president of the senate be authorized to appoint a committee on the part of the senate to join with the like committee on the part of the house of representatives to escort his excellency, modi, prime minister of india, into the house chamber for the joint meeting at 4:00 p.m., 2450u6d, june -- thursday, june 22, 2023. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: i understand there's a bill at the desk due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: h.r. 277, an act to amend chapter 8 of title 5 united states code, and so forth. mr. bennet: in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14, i would on to the -- i would object to further proceeding. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. bennet: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it stand

adjourned until 10:00 a.m., thursday, june 22, that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. following the con cliewngs of morning business, notwithstanding rule 22, the senate proceed to the consideration of clernd number-, h.j. res. 44, and 11:45 a.m., the joint resolution be considered read a third time and the senate vote on passage. further, following disposition of the joint resolution, the senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of treaty document 112-8 postcloture and at 1:45 p.m. amendment number 136 be withdrawn and all time be considered expired. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the

senate stands adjourned until today extend that lawmakers confirmed tosha to u.s. district court judge for eastern new york the vote was 50 -- 49. also during the session lawmakers failed to override president biden's veto legislation repealing a payroll on emission standards for heavy-duty trucks. two thirds majority was needed. the senate also voted to limit debate on a tax treaty with chile and be the bilateral income tax treaty between the two countries. watch live coverage of the senate when lawmakers return here on cspan2. watch a video on demand any time online at c-span.org and try our points of interest featured timely tool that uses markers to quickly guide you to newsworthy and interesting highlights of our key coverage. use points of interest any time

see some.org. former special counsel jon durham testified on his investigation of the fbi probe of links between the 2016 truck presidential campaign and russian operatives. mr. dershowitz released the final report last month his findings. you can watch the house in judiciary hearing tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan2 or freight mobile video app or online on c-span.org. >> sees fit as your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ thank broadband support c-span as a public service along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. next the justice department former special counsel jon durham testifies before the house judiciary committee on his investigation of the fbi probe into alleged connections between the 2016 trump president campaign and russian operatives. mr. durham's testimony follows the release of his final report should categorize the basis for the investigation as quote seriously flawed. [background noises]