#. >> a healthy democracy doesn't just look like this. it looks like this. where americans can see democracy at work, when citizens are truly informed our republic thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word, from the nation's capital to wherever you are because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span powered by cable. >> we take you live now to the u.s. senate where work is expect today start on the house approved short-term spending bill. it would continue federal spending past midnight deadline, two stages. far of the government funding through january 19th, the rest until february 2nd. live coverage on c-span2.

the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry brac, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal lord god, we thank you for this thanksgiving season. we're grateful for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. lord, we cling to your promise in isaiah 54:17 which tells us, "no weapon turned against us will succeed. your promises are great, precious is and true. today, use our lawmakers to protect the oppressed, to preserve freedom, and to speak

the truth with compassion. we pray in your great name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

the president pro tempore: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. and, under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each.umer: madam president. the president pro tempore: the majority leader is recognized. mr. schumer: i will move h.r. 6. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to h.r. 63, 63, an act making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2024 and for other purposes. mr. schumer: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the president pro tempore: the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion:

we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 248, h.r. 6363, an act making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2024 and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. schumer: i ask consent the reading of the names be waived. the president pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. schumer: i note the absence of a quorum. the president pro tempore: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.

mr. schumer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the absence of a quorum be -- the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, today president biden will meet face to face with president xi jinping during the apec summit in san francisco. one month ago, president xi said during our bipartisan codel there -- during our bipartisan codel that there are at least a thousand reasons for china and

the united states to have a good relationship. today president xi has the chance to show he's serious on at least a couple of those reasons. above all, i look forward to president biden following up on our codel's conversation with president xi in order to get serious on combating the spread of fentanyl. fentanyl was one of the biggest issues we raised with president xi during our bipartisan codel, and i related to jake sullivan earlier in week that the president should be strong on this issue during this meeting. one issue we raised was for chinese law enforcement to coordinate with u.s. law enforcement and enforce laws already on the books to stop the sale of precursor chemicals that go into the making of fentanyl. let's be clear -- fentanyl is an american crisis with roots in large part in china. where large chemical companies

openly sell chemicals to buyers in places like mexico where it is manufactured by gangs into meantst fentanyl and then sold -- into fentanyl and then sold in the united states t we were blunt on how dent fentanyl was deaf statisticking our communities and china must recognize its role in combating this crisis. i told president xi that china taking steps to crack down on the sale of precursor chemicals would be a great, great deal for them. the benefit they'd see in a boost in american good will would far more than outweigh the tiny cost on their economy. any good businessman would see this is a great trade. president xi was receptive to our concerns. i think there's a good chance for good news today. i thank president biden for his leadership as he meets with xi for the second time in office. it was our experience that president xi was responsive when we spoke candidly and with

specifics. i know president biden will do the same today. on the c.r., mr. president, last night the house of representatives overwhelmingly passed a temporary extension of government funding into early next year. the vote in the house was 336-95, with 209 democrats and 127 republicans voting in favor. 93 republicans voted against it. shortly after the vote, i moved to place the house-passed bill on the senate's legislative calendar, and i have just filed cloture on the motion to proceed to get this process moving in the senate. today, my democratic colleagues and i will work with republicans, i will work with leader mcconnell, to see if we can come to an agreement to accelerate this bill's passage. if both sides cooperate, there's no reason we can't finish this bill even as soon as today, but we're going to keep working to

see what's possible. now, the house c.r.'s bill -- the house's c.r. is far from perfect, but we're moving forward because we believe it accomplishes two things that i and other democrats have been insistent on for weeks -- it will avoid a government shutdown, and it will do so without any of the cruel cuts or poison pills that the hard right pushed for. i think it was very important that speaker johnson recognized that democratic votes are necessary to pass anything of significance in congress. i reminded him every time i've spoken to him that we have to work in a bipartisan way to get anything done, and if he follows the clarion call of the hard right, whose views are far away from even the mainstream of his conference let alone the american people or the senate, that will lead to disaster, the same problems that we saw under speaker boehner, speaker ryan

and speaker mccarthy. thus far, the speaker has heeded the lesson, as we finished the appropriations process. bipartisanship is the only way forward. as he once noted, when you have a senate that's democratic and a president that is democratic, a republican house, particularly one that just follow what the hard right wants, will not get anything accomplished. of course, the c.r. doesn't do everything that we want. above all, we must finish working on president biden's emergency supplemental request so we can send aid to israel, provide humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in gaza, stand with ukraine, and provide funds for the indo-pacific. we'll continue to work with leader mcconnell on a way forward. we intend to move on the president's supplemental package sometimes in the coming weeks. as everyone knows, the biggest holdup right now is republicans' insistence that they'll only

approve ukraine aid in exchange for immigration items. we're going to work in the coming weeks in good faith to see if there's any possibility for a reasonable, realistic compromise that democrats can support. to come to such a compromise, both sides will are to give. it -- will have to give. it can't be one side all the way, as when our republican colleagues offered h.r. 2, which we reasonable, realistic compromise on border done. but the bottom line is that we need to get israel aid done, we need to get ukraine aid done, we need to get humanitarian aid done, we need to get indo-pacific aid done. and living any of these bipartisan issues to extremist positions, to extremist poison pills, on immigration or any other issue, would be a colossal blunder that history will look very unkindly upon. i hope we can come to a solution in the coming weeks. in the meantime, the most important order of business is to keep the government open.

we'll keep working over the course of the day to fast-track the house's bipartisan c.r. bill. no drama, no delay, no government shutdown. that's our goal, and we hope we have an agreement very soon. to avoid a shutdown, with no cuts in vital programs and no poison pills, is a very good solution for the american people. on the student debt cra today, today, senate republicans continue their cruelty, their lack of connection with what people want and need, as they force a vote on a cruel measure to eliminate president biden's historic loan repayment program. a punch to the gut for millions and millions of borrowers. the overwhelming majority of whom are working class, poor, or middle class. let me be clear -- i strongly, very strongly, oppose this terrible republican measure to deny american

families relief from the crushing burden of student debt. my republican colleagues like to talk a big game about helping working families, but with this student debt congressional review act they're actively trying to increase the pain on so many working americans, working families, who need a hand in paying off their student loans. the hypocrisy is astounding on the other side of the aisle. republicans don't think twice about giving huge tax breaks to ultrawealthy billionaires and large corporations. but when it comes to helping out working families with student debt relief, suddenly it's too much money. , it will raise the deficit, we can't afford it. give me a break. cut taxes on multibillionaires and tell a struggling student who's making $30,000, $40,000 a year they can't get a little help on their student loans? that is so out of whack with

what the american people want and care. let me be clear -- the president's save plan is a major lifeline for student loan borrowers to help get their financial houses in order. over 5.5 million americans are signed up and benefiting from this plan. the worst thing we could do right now is let the republican cra pass and pull the rug out from under these borrowers' feet with no warning. i strongly oppose this republican cra to overturn student debt relief. democrats will keep working to headache sure we -- to make sure relief reaches every borrower in need. on senator tuberville -- mr. president, yesterday, the senate rules committee reported out our resolution to quickly confirm the military nominations being blocked by senator tuberville. i was proud to join the rules committee to vote in favor of this resolution. now that the rules committee has acted, i will bring this resolution to the floor soon so we can swiftly confirm the

hundreds of military nominations being held by senator tuberville. you know, madam president, there's been a lot of negativity and dysfunction in the senate these days, but senator tuberville has single-handedly brought the senate to a new low. he should be ashamed of himself. patience is wearing thinner and thinner with senator tuberville, on both sides of the aisle. what senator tuberville is doing is an anomaly in the history of this chamber. of course every single one of us, not just senator tuberville, has issues we feel passionately about, we're certain we are right, as he is in his anti-abortion stand. every one of us could go and block all of our generals, all of our admirals, harm our military security, because we feel passionately and want to put our views above the views of the rest of the chamber and of the american people in this case. what would happen? we'd have no military, basically, none.

our national security would be at risk, severe risk, and our way of life would change. if every one of us had the temerity and recklessness to do what senator tuberville has done, and thank god no one else has -- of each party -- it would not only bring the work of this chamber to a halt, it would risk our national security and our american way of life eventually. current and former military officials have spoken out, again and again, to talk about the devastating impact these holds have on our readiness and our military families. i wish we had not reached this point, mr. president. i wish my republican colleagues could have importuned senator tuberville to drop his reckless holds, but it has not happened. it has not happened. although, there is still some ray of hope, particularly based on what leader mcconnell said in his statement in the rules

committee, that maybe at the last minute republican colleagues, which is their responsibility, can persuade their colleague to back off, to find an off ramp, to aim, as leader mcconnell said in his speech at the rules committee, to aim his hold at a policy official who has real say on this issue, not at generals, admirals, flag officers who have worked so hard for our military and are now being held back and whose families are in difficulty because of what he has callously done. if so, we still -- so we still hold out some small hope that in the next little, short while our republican colleagues can persuade tuberville to back off, but if it does not happen we intend to move this resolution to the floor of the senate to overcome senator tuberville's military holds.

i thank chair klobuchar, i thank chair reed for their good work on moving this important resolution. resolution.

>> more equipped to lead global when provided with timely relevant data. ai enhances this date about unlocking workforce at most . we are committed to harnessing it i potential and committed to doing it in a manner that is

safe, secure and trustworthy. thank you for retention. i'm eager to address your questions and collaborate on the promising future of responsible ai at the state department. >> thank you again both are you for your testimony. we will go through five-minute rounds. mr. ambassador, you pointed out america is a leader in innovation and technology and we accept that but it don't want to be naïve about it. you talk about how your implementing it in her own use, in our department. but we've seen this before. we have led technology development only to see the autocratic regimes that don't play by the same rules that we do, try to steal our information and although we will proceed with both on cyber and on ai within our values, our adversaries do not share that commitment to our values. so there are lots of tools and a toolkit. executive orders that you've

only mentioned and executive orders and treaties. i'm just interested as to how you see the standards being developed on to talk about voluntary standards by what we do. that works up to a point but we know that the prc is not going to be as nice as we are in the protocols in adhering to standards. so where do we go as far as establishing international guardrails? i was looking at just america leading through example or are we looking at more enforceable ways to establish international guardrails? >> thank you, senator. let me sharemr a an resolution to overturn a harmful biden administration regulation. in its latest iteration, the administration bid for student lone socialism, it's so-called

income-driven repayment scheme, would likely go down in history as the most expensive federal regulation in our history. leading estimates predict this policy would heap a $559 billion bill on to the taxpayers over the next decade. in exchange, a majority of the higher-earning borrowers who chose to take on student debt would avoid ever paying back the principal they borrowed. the administration's plan would actually remove the guardrails that ensure federal loan relief goes to low-income households. apparently loyal blue-state

doctors and lawyers are the most important beneficiaries of student loan socialism. whichever way you slice it, the president's policy is a raw deal for working americans who have made the sacrifices to pay off their student loans or avoid a debt altogether. but with the taxpayers footing the bill, it's also a powerful incentive for schools to raise the price of college even higher a bipartisan majority of our colleagues has already rejected the socialist fever dream, and president biden's first attempt at massive loan cancellation was actually struck down by the supreme court. but today, thanks to the leadership of chairman cassidy and senator thune, the senate

has another chance to kick student loan socialism to the curb. i would urge my colleagues to support the resolution later today. on another matter, it's impossible to ignore the crisis at our southern border that's erupted on washington democrats' watch. back-to-back record-setting years that saw millions upon millions of illegal arrivals at the border and historic quantities of fentanyl and other lethal drugs pouring across to decimate american communities. let's remember where this crisis came from. president biden campaigned on open borders policies. his message was so compelling that crowds literally showed up at the southern border with his campaign logo on their shirts.

as one put it back then, the president had, quote, promised us that everything was going to change. vice president harris hit the campaign trail with a refrain of her own. she said, say it loud, say it clear, everyone is welcome here. and she called the previous administration's commonsense border security measures criminalizing innocent people. well, mr. president, this is the administration that canceled commonsense policies like remain in mexico, shelved dhs resources meant for border wall construction, and abandoned overstretched border enforcement personnel to contend with the tidal wave of mass migration.

today cleaning up this administration's mess at the southern border is a matter of urgent national security, and i'm grateful to a group of senate republicans, including lankford, graham, and cotton, who have been working in good faith on policy reforms to bring this crisis under control. the goal here is simple. slow the flow, stop the catch and release asylum system that's overrunning border communities in blue states, blue cities as like. the crisis isn't crying out for boatloads of new taxpayer dollars, just commonsense policy reform. unfortunately, senate democrats do not appear ready to admit this reality. there is apparently, they're apparently not ready to

seriously address asylum abuse, and that's a stance that's put them out of step with even left-leaning governments across the western world. for example, germany, which is struggling with an asylum caseload costing roughly $53 billion, is exploring trusted third party policies to keep asylum seekers outside the borders while the cases are adjudicated. finland is considering closing some crossing points along its borders as russia weaponizes migrant flows against the west. responsible people everywhere recognize that enforcing sovereign borders isn't some hand-wringing moral outrage. in fact, what's outrageous is

refusing to do so. the american people deserve safe streets, stable prices and secure border. these are the fundamental responsibilities of any government. but on all counts, the biden administration is failing to deliver. now on one final matter, one year ago president biden met for the first time with president xi, the head of the chinese communist party, and he pledged that the united states would compete vigorously with the prc. one year later the president and chairman will meet again today. so let's take stock of whether the biden administration is living up to its pledge of vigorous competition. the stakes of this competition simply cannot be overstated. the chinese l military is

outpacing us and pivotal military capabilities like hypersonics, precise long-range fires, and even naval vessels. beijing has secured a commanding share of the rare minerals necessary to create critical supply. chinese agents are engaged in an aggressive effort to steal sensitive western technologies and government secrets, and the prc consistently signals disdain for national sovereignty, human rights, and the free flow of commerce. in other words, strategic competition with china is going to determine the course of the next century of american history. and yet, the biden administration has too often met this historic moment with weakness and naivete.

time and time again it has sacrificed competition on the altar of green climate policy. in the administration's quest to turn the american automobile industry electric, it is apparently made peace with sending american tax dollars to the chinese industries that dominate battery making input. in pursuit of grand climate diplomacy, the administration's envoys had been literally left out of beijing by a state that keeps on increasing its carbon emissions and has no plan to start cutting them. literally, for years. and meanwhile, the consequences of the biden administration's neglect for hard power are getting more dangerous. the prc acquired new weapons as

much as six times faster than the united states. and for each of the past two years it nounsed a 7 -- it an announced a 7% increase in military spending. but even as the president's national defense strategy identifies china as the pacing threat, his defense budget requests haven't even kept up with inflation. chairman xi has gone out of his way to allow -- align closely with fellow adversaries of the west, stepping up joint military exercises with putin's forces and helping both moscow and tehran endure western sanctions. china made military competition with the west a top priority. we can't afford to ignore this challenge. our allies certainly aren't. japan, south korea, and australia, and other indo- pacific parties are investing heavily, heavily in their own defense.

taiwan is seeking to make itself a harder target for chinese aggression, but america must continue to do its part. we have to keep investing in the sort of defense industrial base that can sustain this arm sp -- arm meant. the senate has multiple opportunities before us in both supplemental measures and full-year defense appropriations to do exactly that. and we can't afford not to seize these opportunities.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

>> embraces human rights, privacy and of the values we hold so dear. what are some of the troubling implications of america and our allies fail to develop a consensus around regulating ai and we allow china to pioneer the rules of ai globally? >> i would make two points in response to question. first, our foreign policy in any area will rarely be any stronger than our domestic policy in that area. american foreign policy, foreign policy any transparent democratic society is a reflection of what we do at home. and so we do need to get our own house in order with respect to the regulation and compass of these emerging technologies so that we are presenting on the world stage a responsible

framework for governance that has legitimacy and moral authority. second, there's no room here for one of the concepts that even our closest european allies advocate, which is digital sovereignty. i would argue we need to think about digital solidarity. we have to think about close collaboration with our closest allies and partners to coordinate r&d investment, to coordinate regulatory interoperability. companies want large harmonizer markets. we need the combined in a good effort of our best universities, of our students and workers. so it points to the importance of our domestic regulatory regime and also points to the importance of our allies and partnerships in order to both shape the international normative environment and also present the strongest unified front against the prc model. >> mr. chairman, if i may i jt go to submit a question for the record since my time has expired but i would like really a

responsive answer to it. this is the tenth anniversary of the plaza factory collapse in bangladesh, took the lights over 1000 workers in this ai industry, workers are being exploited, paid as little as one dollar an hour. going to the repetitive process of trying to determine what's aa smile, what is a frown to inform the algorithms. and i would like to see is a lead in this regard to make sure that we don't have worker exploitation globally in the development of a hat. i'd like to see what the department is doing. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i would be interested in that answer also. as i mentioned we need to lead by our values. senator ricketts. >> thank you, mr. chairman. they could to our witnesses herk about with regard to the eu specifically. odyssey we talked about the different sorts of regimes return regimes that different countries run the world are trying to establish or we talked

about the prc. we talked about what we done with regard to the executive order, the voluntary guidelines you talked about. of course we have the european union where they have been working on their own legislation. they propose and i asked a couple years ago and it involves a risk-based approach. but as you know the european union will often come up with the standards and then companies where will it i doubt those for the world by products to try to standardize their products and make it easy to have access to market in europe and around the world. but if you have, i understand the legislation is coming to its final phases. they haven't figured out the generative ai part of it but assuming that gets passed, companies will be forced to make a decision of either comply with the eu does or creating complete completed different algorithms that donut -- that don't access the eu data than having to do with the difficulties of that as well.

so my question really gets too, if we had these easy regular constraints, you talked about whopper he was our allies but you're moving forward on legislation. you have been critical. what a fact if the eu passes or an act will have on the united states and our other allies and this will potentially put a damper on that innovation? you talked talk about sug u.s. companies. >> thank you, senator. yes, we have been in regular dialogue with our eu counterparts both member states and the european commission on the substance of the ai act. i would make three points on this. the first is speed. as you pointed out the act was first drafted before chatgpt was released a year ago, and so in some sense it's already been overtaken, which points -- a structural challenge with a kind of writing short approach. it also as we drafted would

hinder the cooperation between the united states and eu. things like the use of facial recognition technology at borders or by law enforcement. and third, we hear repeatedly from companies and innovators that only in the united states but also in europe that it is not adequately protective of intellectual property. it would deter entrepreneurs from building ai businesses in europe. and back to the point of digital solidarity, the future of it that i think, we think positions as most strongly for competition with our adversaries is one where we have globe spanning technology businesses being built not only in the united states but also in our closest and rights respecting allies and partners in and in asia. >> for all those recent you talked about how we want to be working with our allies in europe and yet they are pushing forward with this frankly is already obsolete now, right, or

lease its not complete, legislation, what is the state department doing to get them to maybe to slow this down, to be able to work with us more carefully to create that region you are talking about what we can be on the same team with regard to pushing back against the people's republic of china and not creating an obstacle to us working together to oppose them? >> we are pushing in every form on this, multilateral and bilateral. i'll give you two examples. over the last two weeks i met with the german communications minister has oversight of these policies in germany when he was here in washington. most of her eu counterparts with her and last week i was in france with president macron himself at a french digital minister making these cases, that the continental europe in a lot of ways regulated itself out of the cloud services era of technology. it's no accident the five largest mobile cloud service

booths are here and the united states. it would be to our mutual detriment if the eu were to regulate its way out of the ai era of technology and innovation. so we're pushy on this in every form. >> you just said you were -- how are the brits sing this? what is uk policy going to be? are they more lean towards a european model or more towards our model? >> the prime minister and his government are laying very strongly towards our model. i think we and our british allies are very close on this. they intend to set themselves up as an ai superpower, in their words, which we view as very much to our benefit as a. >> thank you very much, ambassador. >> senator shaheen. >> thank you both for being here. ambassador fick, in your opening statement kind imagen an alphabet soup of multilateral organizations that we were looking at. you didn't mention nato. i recognize nato is not

technically part of the state department, or within the purview of the state department. certainly what they do is very important. so was there any reason and what are you looking at with respect to nato? >> senator shaheen i joke with my life sometimes we in brussele i'm in nato so much. especially in the context of the were in ukraine in the past year. our ambassador to nato is a dear friend and we collaborate very close in on these topics. i think nato is a terrific example of what secretary blinken talks about as variable geometry in making sure our most important alliances historically are fit for purpose of the technology age. so i really key element of our diplomacy with nato and in europe has been ensuring that the alliance is equipped with all these technology topics. cybersecurity, at the vilnius summit in july we saw a robust

set of deliverables on the virtual cyber instance core capability of the revitalization of the nato cyber defense pledge. we've been working with allies across the alliance to ensure that their own architecture and infrastructure is secure and trusted so that we can share information and intelligence for across the alliance. that was not tough that was not an air of commission in not mentioning nato in my opening comments. i think in technology the nato alliance is one of our leading partners globally on all these topics. >> good, thank you. as everybody has talked about so far, ai has tremendous potential in so many areas, but it can also perpetuate existing biases and inequities. so how does the department look at how we ensure that those inequities are not part of

whatever is done through ai, particularly with respect to gender, with respect to the whole range of ethnic, racial differences that we want to respect? >> thank you, senator for the question. i will make a few points here. one is it starts with training, leveling up the literacy when it comes to data come when it comes to ai, when it comes to algorithms across the department's so we understand this is a possibility. the second is using good data got good ai rides on good data at the end of the day. and so the focus of hours is too how do we bring this kind of technology into our department, in a secured infrastructure and apply this technology on data that we manage comdata the we can ensure the quality of that's the second point. and the third has to do with our

partnership with industry which is focus on the procurement process, how do we ensure the software procurement includes the right policies and requirements to make sure that our industry partners are providing technologies are free of those types of bisons you mention. >> rate. i want to be a little more parochial now. in my office a number one constituent issue we hear from people about our visas, passports, challenges with our immigration system. yes. and the state department particularly during covid had some real issues in countries around work in terms of processing those kinds of issues. so tell me how ai is going to help us make sure we can process those kinds of constituent concerns faster so that we can provide service to people who need it.

>> passport, there's a passport organization isn't using artificial intelligence at this time, so speed is i know they are in new hampshire. at least one of them is. we are very aware of that. >> we will make that first. more broadly, we see this as a real opportunity to reduce the type of repetitive work that happens across the department both domestically and overseas. we're taking a very pilot centered approach starting small learning a lot scaling where it works and we've seen some real success with that approach. >> and so assuming that you continue to see success what you need in order to wrap that up? do you need resources? do you need more people? do you just need the ip to share those with our embassies around the world? >> i am assistant engineer so you know what goes in can

increase the output. so in my mind it's got resources in terms of infrastructure cut in terms of personnel, right? people without the actual technology, without the data, to be able to employ it are not going to get very far and technology without the skilled workforce that we're currently aggressively trying to bring into the federal employment within the state department, you have to haveun g officer: yes. tune thune i would ask unanimous consent that the majority leader call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: once again inplacing is well above the fed's target rate of 2%. overall, prices have risen by 17.is 6% since president biden took office. 17.6%. price hikes in certain categories are even worries. groceries are up 20.9%.

gasoline 58.4%. electricity is up almost 25%. and rent is up 18%. car repairs and maintenance are up 26.35%. -- 25.5%. the list goes 0 on. the president said the other day that bidenomics is the american dream. turns out that bidenomics is more of a nightmare for the american people. mr. president, president biden likes to talk about giving american families, quote, a little bit of breathing room, end quote. but that is the exact opposite of what his policies have provided. wealthy democrats may not be concerned about a 20% increase in the cost of their groceries or a 54% increase in the price of gasoline. but for a lot of hardworking american families, those kinds of price increases have meant the difference between having that little bit of breathing

room and having absolutely none. the joint economic committee estimates that bidenflation is costing american families $953% month. $953 per month. even at half that inflation would be a massive burden on working familiesment. how many families have put off needed home or car repairs, deferred a kid's braces, or eliminated a family vacation because they're paying hundreds of dollars more aunts' month for their -- more a month for their basic needs. and how many families haven't been able to pay for their basic needs thanks to the inflation crisis that the president helped create? it's no surprise that 65% of voters say that they had cut back on their nonessential spending. or that 52% of voters, more than

half, said that they had cut spending on food or other everyday necessities. or that 55% of voters said their worse off financial lid under president biden. shouldn't come as any big surprise. finally, 66% of americans rate the economy as fairly bad or very bad. the fact of the matter, mr. president, is americans can't catch a break. -- under president biden. first, there was the worst inflation crisis in 40 years. a crisis that has been improved from its worst point but is still very much with us. now there are the heightened interest rates that the federal reserve put in place to help rein in this crisis. you get higher inflation, higher interest rates. now americans are dealing not only with persistently high prices, but also dealing with these sky-high interest rates on

credit cards, mortgages, and car loans, which are being driven in part by the fed's rate hikes, which have been done in response to out-of-control inflation. the monthly mortgage payment on a single-family home increased 19% since last year. a recent nbc news article reported, and i quote, in late 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical newly sold home was around $1100 in principal and interest. it's now about twice that. let me repeat that, mr. president. in late 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical newly sold home was around $1100 in principal and interest, and now it's about twice that. if the american dream is owning your own home, it's a dream that's become out of reach for too many americans in the biden

economy. on the car-buying front, mr. president, americans are facing loan rates last seen, as one article noted, during the great recession, and soaring credit card interest rates are making it difficult for americans to afford their credit card bills, much less make progress at paying them off. it's a situation not helped, of course, by the fact that many americans have had to turn to their credit cards to help them get by under bidenflation. mr. president, it's been a rough three years for the american people, and i wish i could say that americans could expect some relief, but with at least one year more on the president's time in office, i'm afraid that biden omics -- bidenomics will continue to eliminate american families' breathing room for the immediate future. so much for the president's american dream. mr. president, i yield the floor, and i suggest the absence

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

>> that we adopt a similarly legitimate base apex to harmonizing standards. >> i appreciate that. the major ones for the purpose of ai, itu,

there may be others and i think as you know the prc and others have been actively engaged in trying to increase presence and participation. it's been one of america's strength that we've led that effort and i know you both are committed to doing that. i don't know if you have anything to the add to this question. >> within federal government standards who is setting the guardrails around what standards are expected to be followed across the froth. also on the cybersecurity side, cyber infrastructure security agency within dhs, at the state department as i just said ai rides on good standard, we have doing data standard for the-years, it's not the flashy part of the work but it's great that you're talking about that.

i will point out that the international organization affairs bureau, io bureau within the state department has own chief data officer. part of the program that we have been leading to place leaders in each bureau and she's focused on analytics related to election, trying to get americans in the right committees that are setting these kinds of standards and that's really important too that's a great example of how do we apply technology, ai in the department to impact on a global stage diplomatically. >> thank you.

>> we are fortunate to have our own department of defense. so we have our representative with dod from both diplomacy. senator kane. >> what i want to talk the about is at the intersection of the foreign relations committee and the armed services committee relationship. president biden announced the acas relationship with u.s. raleigh, uk a couple of years ago. it has been flushed out. last summer the administration came to us to move the partnership forward. y said, well, good, you're on both, can you help out. the partnership has two pillars, the first pillars is the construction of 25 years of

nuclear subs that would be australian operated and eventually australian built to provide additional stability in the indo pacific and for my colleagues i was at navy funded school in virginia on & that the navy has stood out to build. 60 drinks in 5 different curriculum areas for 8-week program and students -- multiple students in each of the 5 programs were from australia. they were not only from all over the united states but aussies were training to be part of the industrial base and aussie sailors are part of nuclear power school that the navy operates in south carolina even though the first subs are not going to be purchased in 2030 or 2040's, we are integrating. the second piece of acus is pilar. also ai. i

would like to ask your own impressions about what we can do together with australia and uk in the pillar two space to maximize and the synergies of us working together that can help us in the defense of the indo pa. >> the alliances and partnerships and pulling at the right time to accomplish our highest priorities, this is a good example. specifically in innovative technology pilar for acas, i will point out to one thing that we announced during prime minister's visit.

connecting pacific island countries and what's interesting here. i wish senator shahin was still here because one of the leading is manufacture and key strategic geography. and do it in the a way that's part of vertically integrated technology stack. let me explain for a moment what i mean. the cables is the baseline connectivity. those cables are essential for the data backhaul if we were to build centers in australia so across the pacific could migrate government enterprise to the clued, could ensure continuity

of communication and continuity of operations in an event of a contingency scenario and put top-notch cutting edge cybersecurity. again trusted cables, trusted data centers and advance cybersecurity. so that's what we are in the early stages of doing in partnership with australia and others in the region. i think that's really exciting and template that we ought to be able to replicate in other locations. >> different approaches that the eu is taking, for example, compared to the united states and the hope that the uk would be more aligned with the u.s. in terms of ai regulation, less centralized possibly. my hope would be as we are having discussions with the uk, we also keep australia in mind because i think if we are going to the make this pilar 2 part of aca successful, the greatest

alignment between uk and australia, i hope we can convince the eu to come this way but if you have regulation i would love to hear them but i would like tone courage that we include australia with discussions with uk in alignment. >> i agree with you, senator. at the tend of the summit we released the communique, australia is a signatory there so i think we are fully aligned. >> thank you. >> senator young. >> thank you for holding this very important hearing. i thank the witnesses for this hearing. such a very important topic we are all dealing with in various ways. i will dive right in. ambassador, i ask that you keep

responses tight as possible so we can get through them. as you think about harmonizing r&d between partners and allies, can you speak, ambassador of forging digital trade rules that would ensure the regulated flow of data across international boundaries that may enable future ai and machine-learning systems and which have to entail necessary cross-bedder privacy protections. there's a possibility that a failure to reach these sorts of rules and agreement on the rules may jeopardize ai collaboration and cooperation. do you believe it's in america's advantage to prioritize digital trade in multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations? not a trick question.

>> thanks, senator, i was at perdue a few weeks ago, in indiana. >> yeah. >> keith, many ways was my predecessor in the portfolio and put markers down on some essential topics and we tried to carry that work forward. yes, in a word, harmonizing data flows and prioritizing digital trade in our international trade agenda is an important component of american competitiveness in the 21st century. >> how do we get through? >> through series of bilateral multilateral negotiations that result in outcomes like the usc data privacy framework. there's no silver bullet here. i think it's a lot of hard-fought diplomacy bilaterally and multilaterally. >> i agree with you and i know others in the administration agree with that perspective as well because trade is at once a vehicle for upward mobility, for

prosperity but also for forging tighter relationships among countries and regions and i think it's very important that everyone in the administration regard it as such. so we will continue to work on the finance committee and the foreign relations committee on the topic of digital trade. ambassador, can you speak to how your bureau is approaching the use of artificial intelligence in converging technologies like synthetic biology, especially in gene synthesis and gene editing as you promote the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence? >> i think the simplest answer to that question, senator, is that we have seen the prc run what we now call the hauwei playbook in telecom. it has series elements, ip theft,

subsidies, that playbook, that rough template is now being run by the prc across a whole host of other emerging technologies including synthetic biology. >> all right. thank you. there's much congressional discussion, ambassador about the regulation of artificial intelligence. the chairman was kind to acknowledge earlier, i've been pretty involved in many of those conversations and much of what we discussed -- discussed on whether we can use existing statutes and regulations for specific use cases of artificial intelligence. i think this is probably the approach our country will -- will take on a going forward basis but the same sort of debate about how conceptually you approach ai regulation extends to the global

harmonization of policies across countries, across regions. there have been countless forums already and i think that's a good thing to discuss artificial from the g7 to the eu to recent conclave on safety as it pertains to frontier models that was in the uk in making sense of how our country is going to approach harmonization can sometimes be complicated and confusing. so from your vantage point, ambassador, how is the department approaching this question of global harmonization is the intention to pursue action through existing multilateral institutions or instead to convene special multilateral conventions or pursue bilateral agreements and then in any harmonization effort, what role do you envision the u.s. private sector

actors are going to play? >> thanks, senator. just in the last ten days we've seen four strands come together. we have seen the ai code of conduct for developers at the g7, the american executive order, the convening and communique and ai act, the eu ai act in negotiation. we have dynamic policy landscape and overarching next step is to try to drive these to convergence in some sort of a comprehensive policy framework that's going to be the advantage rights respecting allays and partners, the u.s., eu, japanese, south koreans and as inclusive as possible of middle ground states that are willing to subscribe to a rights respecting use of the technologies. >> you haven't -- by way of

follow-up, you haven't settled on a particular format? , you haven't identified who will sit in the individual seats around a table as you try and harmonize different policies, is that accurate? i'm not asking this critically. >> sure. >> but as an important investigative matter by the committee. >> i think there are two basic approaches we could take. one approach would be to form a new group. t12, t15, t18 in alliance of techno democracies, if you will, that's been in the prez, think tank world. the other approach in the world to use alliances and partnerships that we have or to create new ones and make sure they are fit for purpose. senator sheen's question about nato, senator's question about acus. my view and the view of the department, the view of the secretary is

that we should do the latter. that we should be using organizations that exist. we should be using existing organizations, we should be ensuring that they are fit for purpose and we should be making sure that technology issues and ai governance are threaded through all of them. >> okay. i very much hope that you will keep myself and other members of this committee informed of development as it pertains to who you'll be convening, when you'll be convening them. i hope it's not in the distant future. that's the first quarter or two of next year and what you anticipate the agenda looking like. >> senator, if i may, you asked the question about the private sector. engine it's important to the address. >> yes, sir. >> the private sector has been front and center in the discussions from day one

following commitments with the white house. they've been involved in the consultation in the g7, g20. widely consulted on the eu. the bulk of -- >> be rescinded. >> without objection. >> mr. president, this is an update ofn existing rules nd opee judiciary, not only at the supreme court but throughout the judiciary, throughout the country. this document was important because questions have been raised about the practices of the court and about public dis

closures of some of their activities. but the good news is this was adopted by all nine members of the court and codifies ethics rules and principles that guide the justices' conduct. i'm glad that the court took this step to make clear to the american people that they were committed to operating with the highest ethical standards. but i get the impression that some of our colleagues here in the congress think that it's the job of another branch of government to tell an independent branch of government what it ought to do. obviously it's basic government. we have three coequal branches of government -- the legislative branch, the executive branch. those are the so-called political branches. and then there's the independent judiciary, which is, frankly, i believe the crown jewel of our system. and i think there are those that

sometimes feel like they don't like the decisions made by the federal judges and that the best way to control that, or to have an impact on it is to undermine public confidence in the judiciary. as my republican colleagues and i have said for months, any decision about the supreme court's rules, including their recusal rules or formal code of conduct, should not come from the congress. it should come from the court itself, and now it has done so. the senate has limited, albeit important, role when it comes to the supreme court, and that is through the confirmation process that we're all familiar with. as we know, all nine members of the supreme court underwent a rigorous confirmation process. they endured hours and hours of questions from members of the

judiciary committee. they had fbi background checks and other background checks. they met with each senator who was willing to meet with them one on one, and were ultimately confirmed to a seat on the highest court in the land. that is where the senate's role ends. it is not congress' responsibility or authority to force the justices to adopt a specific code of conduct or to dictate how the supreme court conducts its business. as i said, the supreme court is a, and the federal judiciary is a separate, separate and coequal -- those are important words -- separate and coequal branch of government. it falls squarely outside of the legislature's authority to tell the supreme court how to run its

business. there is another constitutional function that's available to us that fortunately we haven't had to use in a long time, which is impeachment. that's the role of the senate and the house. the senate confirms, but the house can vote articles of impeachment, and then there's a trial in the senate in the most egregious set of circumstances, which thankfully we're not presented with. many of our friends across the aisle have been particularly vocal about their desire to see a specific code of ethics for the supreme court. as a matter of fact, our democratic colleagues, the majority, have even cosponsored a bill that would force, force a coequal branch of government, the federal judiciary to adopt a certain specific code of conduct. this was introduced by our colleague from rhode island, senator whitehouse, under the

guise of ethics reform. in addition to the code of conduct, it would impose strict new rules for recusal. that means when judges should withdraw from and not participate in the decision of a case. it would also subject the justices to a never-ending stream of ethics complaints by politically motivated groups. the bill itself would incentivize frivolous ethics complaints against justices to prevent that specific justice from actually sitting on a particular case. "the wall street journal" editorial board called this the supreme court control act, which is certainly an appropriate description. this bill was not designed to promote ethics and good government it was about forcing an independent branch of government to bend to the senate's will.

in july, democrats on the judiciary committee banded together to pass this potentially unconstitutional bill, but the majority leader has yet to bring it to the floor for a vote because i think he understands it would be dead on arrival. now that the supreme court has adopted an official code of conduct, i hope our colleagues across the aisle will finally lay this bad idea to rest. they said they wanted the supreme court to adopt a code of conduct. the justices -- the justices have now done that and now this should be a moot issue. i hope this development will also encourage the chairman of the judiciary committee to abandon his latest partisan attack on the court. in the judiciary committee last thursday, the chairman, chairman durbin and senator whitehouse,

planned to issue subpoenas to private individuals. to be clear, the targets of these subpoenas are not government officials, they're not judges, they're not elected officials, they are private citizens. democrats want to bully, interrogate, potentially embarrass these individuals for committee for what in their eyes amounts to a serious crime which amounts to being a friend with a supreme court justice. senators durbin and whitehouse claim this is about transparency and building trust. but the evidence suggests the opposite. i find it telling that the only subpoena targets are known to donate to republican candidates and conservative causes. democrats seem to have zero interest from hearing from dark money groups who made it their mission to rig the supreme court in democrats' favor. if our colleagues be wanted to

hear from folks who actually jeopardize the legitimacy of the court, my republican colleagues and i plan to provide a range of -- we planned to provide a range of options at last week's meeting, but then abruptly senator durbin gaveled us out without taking these subpoenas. i did file an amendment to subpoena george soros who is a major contributor to the dark money group known as demand justice. this isn't your typical public interest advocacy group. the entire goal of the misnamed demand justice is to pack the court and install a liberal majority. last year one of the cofounders of demand justice tweeted, it's time for democrats to see the court as a political opponent just as much as any

republicans-ee -- republican-elected officials and run against it. demand justice, funded by george soros, was saying we need to target these lifetime tenured nonpolitical officeholders as political opponents and run against them. if bewant to talk about depoliticizing court and rebuilding -- if we want to talk about depoliticizing the court and rebuilding the judiciary, this is where the judiciary should look. the millionaires and billionaires who want to brand the court are far more relevant than long-time personal friends of the justices. i was eager to see if democrats' commitment to transparency held up when wealthy democrats were on the receiving end of a subpoena, but we never found out. as i said, just before the committee was supposed to vote,

the chairman of the judiciary committee abruptly adjourned the meeting. i'd like to think because he finally had second thoughts about how dangerous and inappropriate this entire effort was. after all, the senate judiciary committee has no business issuing subpoenas for private citizens under the guise of transparency. there was no legitimate legislative purpose. maybe they realized that republican amendments were likely to pass too causing their smear campaign to backfire. but the chairman claimed it was a matter of timing and put the subpoena amendments on the docket for the meeting tomorrow morning, thursday, this week. democrats claim that the justices are to blame for distrust and lack of confidence

in the court, but let's take a look at some facts. the justices already file, like we do, annual financial disclosure reports. they recuse themselves, under their rules are from cases when it's inappropriate for them to sit. they go to great lengths to avoid the appearance of inappropriatey. to -- impropriety, to swaij any ethical standards, they have adopted a code for the first time in history. meanwhile, democrats who claim about transparency and public confidence in the courts are on a warpath. the democratic leader stood on the steps of the supreme court just months ago and threatened two sitting justices by name saying they would pay the price and they didn't know what with would hit them if they didn't

reach his preferred decision in an abortion case. unbelievable. a group of five democratic senators made a not so subtle threat to the court claiming it could be restructured if it didn't deliver the preferred outcome in a case involving the second amendment. 15 democratic senators, including several members of the judiciary committee, recommending slashing the supreme court's budget if it failed to meet their demand to implement a new code of conduct -- code of ethics that had the democratic stamp of approval. it now the chairman of the judiciary committee wants to interrogate supreme court justices over personal finances, something that he says is repairing trust in the supreme court. it's pretty clear that the so-called ethics crisis in the supreme court is not about

ethics at all. it's about exerting control and domination over a separate coequal branch of government as the constitution itself provides. so it's time for the judiciary committee to abandon its partisan charade and focus on the actual crises facing our country. while the chairman spends valuable time, limited time, dealing with this madeup controversy, we see nearly two and a half million border crossings in the past year, we're losing americans every year to fentanyl poisoning and the -- they have lost the -- but these aren't problems that have earned the time and attention of the judiciary committee, rather

it's chosen partisan attacks on the independence of the supreme court. i urge my colleagues to abandon their partisan attacks on the supreme court and to get back doing the work of the american people. and a good place to start would be at the southern border. mr. president, i yield the floor, and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.

mrs. fischer: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska.

mrs. fischer: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. mrs. fischer: i would ask that the. quorum call: be vitiated -- that the quorum call be vitiated please. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. fischer: as americans in 2023, there's plenty we disagree on but last week u.s.a. today released a study on something we all can agree to hate. potholes. it ranked states by how many potholes were in their state and how much a pothole after a pothole cost over $400. that's a lot of money for americans to pay unexpectedly after a road incident and unfortunately our pothole problem is about to get much worse. for the past 67 years the hoi

trust -- highway trust fund has funded road maintenance across the nation, the ware and tear on vehicles that travel our highways. that's critical for our roads, for our infrastructure, and for our -- and for our transportation. but the highway trust fund is running on empty. it's promghtd to run out of money in the next few years. the insolvency of the fund would necessitate a total restructuring of our highway repair system, and it would throw our national infrastructure under the bus. so how do we prevent this from happening? the main source of revenue for the fund is the federal gas tax, which is a user fee. the money that drivers pay in taxes when they fill up with gas

automatically goes towards road construction. but as a smaller percentage of vehicles fill up with gas, a smaller amount of money goes into the highway trust fund. the use of electric vehicles, or e.v.'s, that has shot up over the last several years, and, of course, e.v.'s don't use gas. since they don't fill up with gas, they don't pay the gas tax and they don't pay into the highway trust fund. as more e.v.'s have been adopted, the fund has become more unstable. it's not receiving the same revenue as it used to. according to deloitte u.s. adoption of e.v.'s will crises to 30% of -- will increase to 30% of new car sales by 2030, so

that's 30% of new car drivers not paying into the highway trust fund. but if anyone should be paying into federal road repair, it should be e.v. users. e.v.'s can be up to three times heavier than gas-powered cars due to their large batteries. this significant weight puts extra stress on to our roads. it pulverizes the road bed causing more maintenance, more upgrades, and more costs. the highway trust fund exists to fix exactly the type of damage that these heavy e.v.'s can cause so it is only fair that all highway users, both gas powered and electric vehicles

pay into that fund. my recent bill, the stop e.v. freeloading act would fix this discrepancy. this new legislation would require e.v.'s to contribute to the highway trust fund through a two-tier fee structure. now, the first tier corresponds to the federal gas tax. under my bill buyers would pay a one time $1,000 fee on e.v.'s at the point of sale. that money would the highway trust fund. this $1,000 fee equals the average amount consumers currently contribute to the fund from gas taxes over ten years. ten years is the average life span of an e.v. battery. this fee would tax e.v.'s the same amounts once that gas

powered cars pay over the life span of an e.v. battery. now, the second tier corresponds to the heavy vehicle used tax which also contributes to the highway trust fund. under my legislation, manufacturers would pay a one-time fee of $5150 on each e.v. -- $550 on each e.v. battery module with a weight greater than 1,000 pounds. that average e.v. battery weight is a little less than 1,000 pounds. so taxing those heavier than average would ensure that the highway trust fund has enough money to cover any damage that these vehicles inflict on highways. the $550 tax is comparable to the fees imposed on heavy trucks because of the additional stress

that they cause to roads and bridges. the current structure of the highway trust fund, it doesn't account for damage e.v.'s can and do cause to our roads. and it is only fair that e.v.'s and gas-powered vehicles pay those same fees. both types of vehicles should contribute to the fund for the vital repairs and maintenance that we need and ultimately the changes included in the stop e.v. freeloading act would help the fund escape its impending insolvency. right now the highway trust fund is losing to the e.v. industry, and that means that our roads are going to lose to heavy electric vehicles. and when our infrastructure starts deteriorating, the

american people, they are going to pay the price. my bill would stop that from happening. let's put gas-powered vehicles and electric vehicles on a level playing field. and that's the only way that we would all win. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.

>> voting in favor, 93 republicans voted against it. shortly after the vote i moved to place the house passed bill on the senate's legislative

calendar. today my democratic colleagues and i would work with republicans and leader mcconnell to see if we can come to an agreement to accelerate the passage. if both sides cooperate there's no need to finish the bill as soon as today but we will keep working to see what's possible. now the house cr bill -- the house's cr is far from perfect but we are moving forward because we believe that it accomplishes two things that i and other democrats have been insistent on for weeks. it will avoid government shutdown and do so without any cuts or poison pills that the hard right pushed

i reminded him that there's a bipartisan way to get anything done and if he follows the hard right which views are far away from even the mainstream of his conference, let alone the american people or the senate, that will lead to disaster. the same problems that we saw under speaker boehner, speaker ryan and speaker mccarthy. thus far, the speaker has heeded the lesson as we finished the appropriations process. bipartisanship is the only way forward as he once noted when you have a senate that's democratic and a president that's democratic, a republican house particularly one that follows what the hard right wants will not get anything accomplished. of course, the cr doesn't do everything that we want. above all we must finish working on president biden's emergency supplemental request so we can

send aid to israel, provide humanitarian aid to innocent civilians in gaza. staying with ukraine and providing funds for the endo -- indo pacific and continue to work leader mcconnell. as everyone knows, the biggest holdup right now is republicans insistence that they'll only approve the ukraine aid in exchange for immigration items. we are going to work in the coming weeks in good faith to see if there's any possibility for a reasonable realistic compromise that democrats can support. to come to such a compromise, both sides will -- it can't be one side all the way as when a republican colleague offered us hr2 which we totally opposed and have no input into. but so i hope we can get this reasonable realistic compromise

on border done. but the bottom line we get to get israel aid done, ukraine aid done, humanitarian aid done and we need to get indo-pacific aid done and linking any of these bipartisan issues to extremist positions, to extremist poison pills on immigration or any other issue would be -- with this student debt congressional review act they are actively trying to increase the pain on so many working americans, working americans who need a hand in paying off their student loans. the hypocrisy is astounding on the other side of the aisle. republicans don't think twice about giving huge tax breaks to ultra wealthy billionaires and large corporations but when it comes to helping out working families

with student debt relief, suddenly it's too much money. it'll raise the deficit. we can't afford it. give me a break. cut taxes on multibillionaires and tell a struggling student who is making 30, $40,000 a year that they can't get help on student loans, is that is so out of whack with what the american people care about. let me be clear, the president has major lifeline to student borrowers to get financial houses in orderment over 5.5 million americans are signed up and benefiting from this plan so the worst thing we could do right now is let the republicans cra pass and pull the rug out from under these borrowers' feet with no warning. i strongly oppose this republican cra to overturn student debt release. democrats will keep working to make sure relief reaches every borrower in

need. on senator tuberville, resolution to quickly confirm nominations being blocked by senator tuberville. i was proud to join the rules committee to vote in favor of this resolution. now that the rules committee is active i will bring this resolution to the floor soon so we can swiftly confirm the hundreds of military nominations being held by senator tuberville. you know, madame president, there's been a lot of negativity and dysfunction in the senate these days but senator tuberville has single-handily brought the senate to a new low. he should be ashamed of himself. patience is wearing thinner and thinner with senator tuberville on both sides of the aisle. what senator is doing is anomaly in the chamber. of course, every single one of us, not just

senator tuberville has issues that we feel passionate about and certain we are right in his antiabortion stand. every one of us can block all of our generals, admirals, harm our military security because we feel passionately and want to put the views ahead of the rest of the chamber and the american people in this the case and what would happen, we would have no military basically, none. our national security would be at risk, severe risk and way of life would change. if every one of us had recklessness to do what tuberville has done and thank goodness no one has of each party, it would not only bring the work of this chamber to the a halt, it would risk our national security, it would risk our american way of life eventually. current and former military officials have spoken out again and again to talk the about the devastating impact these holds have on our

readiness and military families. .. .. may be the last-minute republican colleagues do the responsibility can persuade their colleague to back off, to find an offramp, to aim as leader mcconnell said in his speech at the rules committee, to aim his cold as a policy official who is real say on this issue, not a generals, admirals, flag officers who worked so hard for our military and are now being held back and whose

families are in trouble, are in difficulty because of what he has callously done. so we still hold out some small hope that in the next little short while our republican colleagues can persuade turberville to back off. but if it does not happen, , we intend to move this resolution to the floor of the senate to overcome senator tuberville military holds. i think chair klobuchar, chairman reed for the good work on moving this important resolution. i yield the floor.

mr. padilla: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mr. padilla: request to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. padilla: mr. president, i rise today to celebrate an historic milestone for this body and for our country. last week, as many people know, we confirmed the 150th federal judge nominated by president biden, and the 100th woman nominated to the federal bench all in just the first three years of the biden presidency. more women have been confirmed to the federal bench under president biden than under any president in the history of our country in their first term. it's a testament to the seriousness with which president biden and senate democrats have taken not only to our role in strengthening the federal

judiciary with highly qualified candidates, but to do so while building the federal bench to better reflect the diverse nation that it serves. today i want to take a moment to recognize three women recently confirmed by the senate who i'm confident will now serve with distinction. first last week the senate confirmed judge kenly kiya kato to serve on the u.s. circuit court for california. she was born and raised in los angeles. she earned her undergraduate degrees from ucla and j.v. from harvard law school. she worked in the public defender's office where she served hundreds of clients helping to realize the constitutional rights to counsel regardless of income.

after nearly two decades of working in california in 2014, she was appointed to be a federal magistrate judge. as the daughter of japanese americans who were interned during world war ii, judge kato understands personally the importance of equal justice under the law. time and again she's demonstrated her commitment to equal justice as a magistrate judge, which she will continue on the u.s. district court for the central district. last week we also confirmed monica ramirez almadani to the u.s. district court. born in los angeles, as the proud daughter of immigrants from mexico. she is a product of the los angeles unified school district. she went on to earn her j.d.

from harvard from stanford law school. from the aclu's immigrants rights projects to the immigrants rights clinic to the california department of judge to the united states doj, throughout her career, she's garnered extensive experience across a wide spectrum of civil and criminal law. and since 2021, she's served as president and ceo of public counsel, the largest provider of pro-bono legal services in the country. no matter her clients, or in her capacity representing the united states government at the department of justice, she has squintly demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the rule of law. and now i'm confident that she will serve the people of the central district on the -- of

the u.s. district court with distinction. be and finally, i celebrate monday's confirmation of judge ana sp de alba to the ninth circuit court of appeals. she grew up in a family of farm workers. a first-generation high school graduate, she went on to earn his bachelor's degree and j.d. from california berkeley. she built a successful career in private sector where she maintained a robust pro upono -- pro bono practice. in 2018, judge de alba served as

a judge in fresno county where she served in 2022. i came to the floor to urge my colleagues to confirm her nomination to the u.s. district court for the eastern district of california, which we did on a bipartisan basis. in the time since then judge de alba has proven herself to be a qualified jurist and she deserves to be the ninth circuit court of appeals. every member of this body accepts a consider responsibility when we enter office to advise and ultimately recommend to the president nominees who will make up our federal judiciary. as a former ranking member of the senate judiciary committee, no one took that responsibility more seriously than our late colleague senator feinstein.

i had the great fortune of working alongside of senator feinstein to recommend to president biden some of the nominees we confirmed this past week. and today these three women, these nominees that round out the 150th confirmation of the biden presidency are just as much her accomplishments as they are ours. thank you, mr. president. with that, i yield the floor. i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.

>> to overturn harmful biden administration regulation. in its latest iteration copy administration bid for student loan socialism, so-called income driven repayment scheme, would likely go down in history as a most expensive federal regulation in our history. leading estimates predict this policy would heap a $559 billion bill on to the taxpayers over the next decade. in exchange, a majority of the higher earning borrowers who chose to take on student debt would avoid ever paying back the principal they borrowed.

the administration's plan would actually remove the guardrails that ensure federal loan relief goes to low income households. apparently, loyal blue state doctors and lawyers are the most important beneficiaries of student loan socialism. anyway you slice working americans who have made the sacrifices to pay off their student loans, or avoided that altogether. but with the taxpayers footing the bill, it's also a powerful incentive for schools to raise the price of college even higher. a bipartisan majority of our colleagues has already rejected the socialists fever dream, and president biden's first attempt at massive loan was actually

struck down by the supreme court. but today thanks to the leadership of chairman cassidy and senator thune and senator cotton, the same as another chance to kick student loan socialism to the curb. i would urge my colleagues to support the resolution later today. on another matter it's impossible to ignore the crisis at our southern border which has erupted on washington democrats watch. back to back record-setting years that saw millions upon millions of illegal arrivals at the border, and distort quantities of fentanyl and other lethal drugs pouring across to decimate american communities. let's remember where this crisis came from. president biden campaigned on open borders policies.

his message was so compelling that crowds literally showed up at the southern border with his campaign logo on their shirts. as one put it back then, the president had, quote, promised us that everything was going to change. vice president harris hit the campaign trail with a refrain of her own. she said, say it loud, st. clair, everyone is welcome here. and she called the previous administrations, and since border security measures criminalizing innocent people. well, mr. president this is the administration that canceled, since policy like remain in mexico, shelled dhs resources,

meant for border wall construction and abandon overstretched border enforcement personnel to contend with the tidal wave of mass migration. today, to clean up this administration's mess at the southern border is a urgent national security and that i'm grateful to group of senate republicans including lankford, graham and cotton who had been working in good faith on policy reforms to bring this crisis under control. the goal here is simple. slow the flow, stop the catch and release asylum system that's overrunning border communities in blue states, blue cities. the crisis is an crying out for boatloads of new taxpayer dollars, just commonsense policy reform.

unfortunately, senate democrats do not appear ready to admit that this reality. there is apparently got up early not ready too seriously address asylum abuse. and that stance put them out of step with even left-leaning governments across the western world. for example, germany which is struggling with an asylum caseload costing roughly $53 billion is exploring trusted third-party policies to keep asylum-seekers outside the borders while the cases are adjudicated. finland is considering closing some crossing points along its borders, as russia weaponized is migrant flows against the west. responsible people everywhere

recognize that enforcing sovereign borders isn't some handwringing moral outrage. in fact, what's outrageous is refusing to do so. the american people deserve safe streets, , stable prices, and a secure border. these are the fundamental responsibilities of any government. but on all accounts the biden administration is failing to deliver. now on one final matter come one year ago president biden met for the first time with president xi, the head of the chinese communist party and he pledged that the united states would compete vigorously with the prc. one year later, the president and the chairman will meet again today. so let's take stock of whether the biden administration is living up to its pledge of

vigorous competition. the stakes of this competition simply cannot be overstated. the chinese military is outpacing us an pivotal military capabilities like hypersonics, precise long-range fires, and even naval vessels. beijing has secured a commanding share of the rare minerals necessary to create critical supply. chinese agents are engaged in an aggressive effort to steal sensitive western technologies and government secrets, and the prc consistently signals its disdain for national sovereignty, human rights, and the free flow of commerce. in other words, strategic competition with china is going to determine the course of the

next century of american history. and yet, the biden administration has too often got this historic moment with weakness and naïveté time and time again and sacrifice competition on the altar of green climate policy. in the administration's quest to turn the american automobile industry electric, it is fairly make peace with sending american tax dollars to the industries that dominate battery making input.er that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kennedy: mr. president, i want to talk a few minutes today about elementary and secondary education. more specifically, about school

choice. school choice is inextricably related, in my opinion, to social justice. put another way, i just don't understand how one can be a fair-minded person and believe in social justice but not support school choice. in congress, of course, we seem to face a new crisis every week, mr. president. and while we need to respond to them, i think it's important that we not lose sight of what i call the foundational issues that ensure that our country is free and democratic and

aspirational and prosperous for our children and our grandchildren. and one of those issues, one of those foundational issues is education. now, right now the american people are focused on the border which is an open, bleeding wound. they're focused on inflation. they're focused on crime. they're focused on turmoil abroad. i don't blame them. we need to be focused on those things, but while we focus on those things, it is a fact that the quality of our students' elementary and secondary education has been steadily slipping. steadily slipping. and it is clarion clear unless you have been living in your parents' basement, it is clarion clear that the status quo of

education in america is -- isn't setting our kids or our country up for success. i take no joy in saying that. but sometimes you can't look reality in the eye and deny it. you have to admit it. here are a few examples of how american and louisianian -- louisiana's pre-k to 12 students are falling behind. the numbers are in the numbers. math and reading scores among american 13-year-olds are at their lowest level in decades. that's not my opinion. that's according to the national assessment of educational progress. as you know, mr. president, that's a study done annually known as the nation's report card. and the nation's report card just 35% of american fourth

graders, 35% are proficient in math. only 32% of american fourth graders are proficient in reading. american students are slipping globally as well. in 2008, the imd world competitiveness center ranked american students first in the world. by 2023 the united states had slipped to tenth overall in science they ranked 11th. in math american students ranked 30th. in louisiana i regret to say, mr. president, that rowfsly half of my students in louisiana in grades k-3 are not reading at the great level. half.

only one-third of my kids in grades 3 through 12 are at great level in the four subjects that the louisiana educational assessment program -- we call it leap -- tests. in fact, we have in louisiana 24 school systems, 24. and fewer than a quarter of our students, fewer than a quarter have proficient exam scores. now, i've said this before on the senate floor. i'm going to say it again. the american people can do extraordinary things. we can unravel the human genome. we can take a diseased human heart and replace it with a new one and make it beat. we can send a person to the moon. but we can't seem to figure out

how to teach our children how to read and how to write and how to do math when we have 18 years to do it. and there's no excuse because all children can learn. now, i know it's complicated, and there are a multitude of reasons why our children may be struggling. for over 15 years i've been a volunteer, substitute teacher in our public schools. i went to a public school. in louisiana we need substitutes so badly that they will even take politicians. i troo to do it three times -- i try to do it three times a year, sometimes more, sometimes less. every time i learn. but i'm always reminded every time i substitute teach of the

fact that it is muscle, much -- it is much, much harder today to be a teacher than when i was in a public school. and it is also much, much harder today to be a kid. so i have some understanding of the challenge. and the evidence is also clear now that closing schools during the pandemic made matters a lot worse. we in america made a mistake. some states did better than others. but most of them got it wrong. but you know we can't keep blaming things on the pandemic. it's been a few years since our schools reopened. and our scores are nowhere near where they need to be. the truth is that pre--k to 12 education in america and

louisiana was well in trouble well before the pandemic and we all know that. yet leaders in many states remain hesitant, to say the least, to change anything, anything about our public school system. now, we've all heard the famous definition of insanity. the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting to get a different result. it's a cliche. cliches become cliches because they're true. we need to follow the law of holes. when you're in one, stop digging digging. whether you're in one, stop digging. we need to stop making excuses about pre-k to 12 education. and we need to stop doing things that don't work and then doing

them again. you can't expect to fix a broken status quo, to magically fix it and magically fix our broken schools and equip struggling students if you keep doing the same thing. and the fact is, the unhappy fact, the miserable fact is that too many of our schools in america and in louisiana are failure factories. they're failure factories, where learning is ra. there are a few states that are bucking the status quo and they're doing it in part by adopting school choice programs. and so far they've seen a lot of success. now, school choice programs,

school choice -- i realize it is a broad term. school choice programs can take many different shapes, but they all boil down to one thing, one foundational principle -- parents should be allowed to take their kids out of failing schools. parents should be allowed to take their children out of failing schools and put them in schools that can help those children thrive and certainly do better. it's not complicated. you know, american parents today, they can go to the grocery store and they can choose from 40 different -- maybe more, but certainly 40 different breakfast cereals to feed their children in the morning. but in many states, those

parents have absolutely no control over what school their child can attend. children are stuck in schools, too many assigned to them by their parents' zip code. and there's little that most parents, too many parents can do to change that, even though it is patently absurd to force children to attend failing schools when parents could enroll those kids and invest the money that pays for their education in better schools. and that's where school choice comes in. now, in practice, schools facilitate -- they implement school choice by tweaking how they fund school systems. for those of you who are unfamiliar with school funding schemes, most public schools have three main sources of

funding -- federal dollars, state dollars, and local dollars. the exact breakdown of that money varies by state and by school system. but in louisiana, for example, the average school district gets about 11% of its money from federal funding, 44% of its money from the state, and another 45% from local government. so 11%, 44%, and 45%. local dollars typically stay with the school system in a particular town or parish. we call our counties parishes. but officials, public officials in louisiana have the right and the ability to ahe locate those state -- to allocate those state and local dollars the way they want to. when schools -- when states

adopt school choice policies, here's how it works. parents typically get to decide which school will receive their child's share of state and federal funding. the local dollars stay local, but parents can redirect the federal and the state money. and there are two ways in which states that implement school choice allocate that money -- that reallocate that money, the federal and the state dollars. the first is education savings accounts and the second -- you've heard of of it -- vouchers. education savings accounts are government-funded savings accounts that take all or a portion of the federal and state dollars allocated to each student and give it to parents to use it for their kids' education. parents can use the money a

multitude of ways. they can use the money to pay for tutors, to purchase textbooks for homeschooling. parents can use the state and federal money to subsidize private school tuition. if a student -- a parent has money left over when the student graduates from high school, that student can even those the funding to help pay for college. it's called an education savings account. other states use a voucher system s under a voucher system, parents typically do not receive money directly. instead, they get to choose -- they tell the school system which school their child is going to go to and tell the school system to send the federal and state money to that school. so the money follows the children.

the parents can take that voucher to a traditional public school. the parents can take that voucher to a private school to pay private school tuition. the parents can take that voucher to enroll their kids in a charter school, if they would like. charter schools, as you know, mr. president, are tuition-free publicly funded schools that operate independently of the state. and rather than taking marching orders from the government, charter schools are able to design their own curriculum and their own standards to help meet the needs of each student. so whether it's through vouchers or education savings accounts, states that have embraced school choice have steadily climbed the ranks as the best states in this country for elementary and secondary education. and that's just a fact a look it it up. in florida -- take florida, for

example, florida has had school choice for a long time, decades. it's not mandatory. but it's an option. and a lot of parents love that option, and they use it. graduation rates in florida have steadily increased year after year after year. florida's fourth grade blah, blah, blah... ranking third in the country -- florida's fourth gradeers ranking fourth. other pro-school choice states including iowa, north dakota, utah -- i mentioned a few -- have all landed in the top 10 states on the nation's report card. school choice works. now, even states that have traditionally struggled with respect to education are seeing improvements. take louisiana's neighbor, mississippi.

mississippi overhauled its pre-k to 12 system in 2013 to help get -- help parents get their kids out of failing schools. the state implemented a voucher program for kids with dyslexia and low-income students to ensure that parents could find a successful school that would meet that's right children's needs. mississippi also implemented a law requiring schools to hold back students who cannot read at grade level in the third grade and give them additional instruction. in other words, if you're in the third grade and after several chances you can't read at grade level, you're not socially promoted to grade four. you're kept in the third grade. -- until you can read. because kids drop out of high school in third and fourth grade if they can't read.

they've got no chance. since mississippi did all this in 2013, mississippi has jumped from 50th in education to 35th. in 2023, student achievement levels reached an all-time high in mississippi. graduation rates climbed from 75% in 2011 to 87% by 2020, well above the national average. and mississippi managed all of this growth, all of this growth, while spending less money per student than all but four states. it's not just money. it's how you spend it. now, this year we're doing better in louisiana. this year louisiana passed a law

called hb-12 to ensure that all third-grade students can read at grade level before they can move on to the fourth grade. and fortunately -- and i thank him for doing it -- governor john bel edwards did not veto the bill p i was afraid he would. he signed it into law. i want to thank him for that. but when it comes to school choice, governor edwards has opposed it at every turn. every turn. he blocked two bills last year that would have established voucher programs for my kids in louisiana. if those two bills had passed, parents of students with special needs or students who could not read at grade level by the third grade could have taken their state money, the state-funded

education dollars -- not the local, the state dollars -- to a different school that could better address those children's needs. but the governor opposed the bills. and they didn't make it t and those bills would have provided a lifeline to parents, a lifeline to parents who were desperate and still are desperate to help their children succeed in school. but governor edwards opposed, he opposed allowing these parents to find better alternatives for their children. now, the good news is louisiana is about to have a new governor, and the good us in is that louisiana is about to have -- and the good news is that louisiana is about to have a brand-new legislature. i think know our legislators. i supported many of them. we made some wholesale changes, and i know -- i hope my friends

in louisiana legislature are anxious and eager and enthusiastic about giving parents, finally you, the powero remove their children from failing schools. parents overwhelmingly support school choice. in louisiana, 75% of parents with school-aged kids support school choice. nationwide, that number has gone from 64% in 23019 to 71% today. so you're asking yourself, who can oppose school choice? many. not all but many teachers unions and many -- not all -- of the administrators in failing

schools. the adults, not the kids. the adults. our schools are supposed to be about our kids, not the adults. many, not all, but many of our teachers unions worry that giving parents the choice to pick a different schedule will result in more students a. tending nonunion -- more students attending nonunion schools such as charter schools. many, not all, many administrators in failing schools hate the idea that they will need to compete with other local schools to attract kids and earn the state and federal dollars that follow those kited kids. it's called competition. and, as i've sure you've noticed, both of these spheres that i've just referenced -- for some, not all -- of our teachers unions and administrators focus

is what's on -- is what's best for them and the school system and the adults, not for what's best -- on what's best for the parents of the kids. competition makes everybody better. competition makes everybody better, and that is true of our schools, too. the united states has a highly competitive higher education system, and in return our universities are the best in the world. they are. i've been to a school in another country. it was a good school, but as a group, american universities are the best in all of human history. now, they have some problems, as we all know about. but they're still the best in the world. and there's a reason that most wealthy and we will-connected people -- and well-connected people around the world want to send their children to an american campus to get their degrees. the excellence of american

universities is driven by the fact that students can choose to go elsewhere if the university stops delivering a quality education. the students and their parents can vote with their feet. it's called choice. it's about as american as you can get. and that same competition, that same choice, will help restore k-12 schools to excellence as well. mr. president, americans don't need to watch the status quo fail their children. they don't. states throughout this country are empowering parents to take control of their kids' education, and the whole country stands to benefit from their leadership. when it comes to education, now, i'm an all-of-the-above guy. i don't care if it's public schools, charter schools, private schools, vouchers,

savings accounts, or pixie dust. if it will help our kids learn better, i'm for it. i don't care who gets mad. and that's why i'm very optimistic about the leadership changes in louisiana and the good news it could mean for our elementary and secondary education and for our parents and our children. i'm not saying the school choice alone is the silver bullet. we have other problems in louisiana. we need to expand access to education programs for at-risk children, from early age to age 4. we need to do a better job. there we've got a shortage of qualified teachers. we need to find out which of our teachers can teach, and pay them like the professionals they are. find out which of our teachers can't teach, and either teach them how or find a new line of

work. we've got too much truancy among our kids. 40% of our k-8 schools grade a or b, but somehow magically 70% of our high schools are graded a or b. we know that's not right. we've watered-down our standards. we have college costs for our kids and parents doubled in the last decades. so we have other problems. but school choice will help. and i believe, as much as i'm standing here, that america's future and louisiana's future can be better than our present and it can be better than our past, but not if we don't improve our schools. and no one is coming to save our schools in louisiana but ourselves. and with new leadership and school choice on the horizon,

the future of elementary and secondary education in louisiana can be and is to me promising. so i end as i began, mr. president. no fair-minded person, in my opinion, can say he or she supports social justice in ify don't support school choice. i neglected to mention, mr. president, with me today are two of my colleagues from my office, ms. maddy dibble and mr. christian almee. i recognize them. i suggest, mr. president -- i thank you for your time and attention, and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. baldwin.

ms. murkowski: mr. president. the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. ms. murkowski: i request -- the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: i request that proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without

objection. ms. murkowski: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, on november 18 of 1923, a young couple living in indianapolis, indiana, george and gert rude stevens welcomed their third child to the world, and they named him theodore fulton stevens. ted, for short. like all new parents, i'm sure george and gert rude were filled with optimism about the things he would do, places he would go and life he would have, but i suspect even they didn't realize what an extraordinary life he would lead, a life of service and accomplishment, during which he earned his place as a giant in the history of this chamber and certainly in my state of alaska. so we're looking forward to the 100th anniversary, the birth of the late senator ted stevens.

this is coming up on saturday. i've come to the floor this afternoon to make sure that all those of us who serve here, all who are listening know why it's important that we continue to remember and celebrate this truly great man. ted's service to our country began during world war ii when he enlisted in the army air corps as a pilot. he supported general shenalt's flying tigers, flying missions over the hump many, many times behind enemy lines. after the war, ted stevens completed law school, he moved north to the future, to alaska, where he served as a u.s. attorney in fairbanks. it was a few years later, during the eisenhower administration, that he joined the department of interior, where he served as

secretary fred seton's right-hand man in the successful fight for alaska statehood. after statehood, ted was elected to the alaska house of representatives. that was 1964. he was then appointed to the u.s. senate in 1968. he would go on to win reelection to the senate seven straight times, receiving almost 80% of the vote back in 2002. in all, he served his state and his country for a total of 40 years and 10 days as a senator. pretty extraordinary. ted was a pretty busy legislator. he chaired four different committees, including appropriations. his colleagues chose him to be their minority whip, the majority whip, and the assistant republican leader. he led the senate's arms control observer group, the u.s.-china interparliamentry group. he also spent several years as

our president pro tem. ted was, by all accounts, a very powerful legislator, but he used his purpose, his power for a single purpose, and that was to help his country and to help his state. for him it was pretty basic. he helped us settle aboriginal land claims and create alaska native corporations. he secured the authorization to build the trans-alaska pipeline system, which remains to this day our state's economic backbone and provides for our energy security. ted was an outdoors guy. he loved fishing. he was able to write the framework that continues today to guide federal fishery's management, the magnuson-stevens act. he was a champion for national defense, as well as international competitiveness.

and he truly helped america become a superpower, and i believe the economic envy of the world. he helped to fund breast cancer research. he promoted women's participation in sports through title 9. incredible what he did for women's athletics and sports. he also, very proudly and unabashedly, sometimes maybe even gleefully, brought home what i imagine to be billions of dollars. we're calling those now congressionally directed spending. used to be earmarks back in the day. but they were specific, targeted to build basic infrastructure and to meet community needs across our still-young and undeveloped state. we have terminology in the senate for those who have been

around for a while, who observe the traditions and the history of the senate, but ted was really an old bull in the senate parlance. he was a statesman. he was a patriot. he was a force to be reckoned with. he was known to have just a little bit of a temper, although i found that oftentimes that temper was just used for effect. he would don an incredible hulk tie, just to show you all that he really meant business. and on those days when you saw him on the floor and he was wearing the tie, you know maybe it was best to stay out of his way that day, or certainly to be with him when he was fighting for alaska's interests. but as much as he was a fighter in that way, he was also one who worked across party lines. he legislated in the good

old-fashioned way. he had a relationship with senator dan inouye from hawaii, often referred to him as his brother, and they led as a model, that duo of alaska and hawaii. they would rotate, literally rotate, on appropriations, being the senior appropriators, one congress, one would be the chairman, the next congress, majorities come and go, and there would be no daylight between the two of them. it was an extraordinary relationship built on respect and understanding that you stand up and you fight for your state's needs. ted was one of those who really tried to let the politics stand down and just focus on what was good. he had a saying, and it's certainly one that has been

emblazoned on many things that i have seen in these past couple decades, but he would say, to hell with politics, just do what's right for alaska. and those are words that many of us still follow, and that i think those in the state -- in the senate here would do well to live by. do what's right for the people that have sent you here. do what's right for your state. i am so immensely fortunate to have worked with ted. i was actually a high school intern for ted stevens when i graduated from high school, and then to have the privilege to serve alongside him, have him as a mentor, a friend, a partner over the course of so many decades. i have said and have been quoted in different articles about the role that ted played in alaska's

history and have said there is nothing that has happened in my lifetime, there is nothing that has happened since statehood that ted stevens did not touch, that he did not build, did not create. he had that much influence. there really was no one like him. he had a vision. he was determined to achieve it no matter who or what stood in the way. he won medals for his distinguished military service. he was chosen as alaskan of the century. the entire 20th century, we designated that honor, that respect for him for his remarkable service at statehood and in the senate. now it is true that a federal investigation, an extreme prosecutorial misconduct tipped an election that prematurely ended ted's time in public office. that type of debasement would

cost many their faith in the institutions that they had served for so long, but not with ted. not with ted. he kept his faith in the institution, not only in the institution of this senate, but the institution of the judiciary. he knew he was innocent and maintained that, and was ultimately cosponsor rated -- ultimately exonerated. he left a reminder with all of us when he gave his departure speech in 2008. he left the senate saying that my fewer is in god's hand. alaska's future is in yours. we actually have had buttons made up with ted's smiling face. i believe it is exactly this picture. and it says alaska's future is in your hands. believe me, i look at that

every single day. i take it very seriously. we tragically lost ted in a plane crash just two years later after he left office. this was august of 2010. it's still really hard for me to believe that he's been gone for 13 years, but in so many ways he's still with us. he's still around. i see it in my office. i have the same office in the hart building that he had, the same totem pole that he had in his office is now in my office. i visit his portrait here in the capitol right outside that door there, visit his grave in arlington national cemetery. at the ted stevens international airport which i'm flying in and out of just about every weeks it seems, there's a statue that sits in kind of a main open area, and it's a life size with

ted sitting there with a briefcase at his feet and just kind of talking extemporaneously. and i walk by and give that hand a little squeeze every time i leave to go somewhere. i certainly continue to pay my respects, but i often think about how ted would face the issues that we confront today. not only the issues, but how we are confronting them as legislators and lawmakers. i mentioned ted's legendary temper, and understand that we all have different ways that we can respond and react. but in fairness, i think so tedd be very discouraged by what he is seeing with the politicization, the disrespect

i think sometimes that we see with whether it's name-calling or just not treating one another with a level of decorum that the office demand. as i say, he was an institutionalist. he believed in this institution, as i do. and i think he recognized that if we don't show respect for others, for one another, how can we expect that that respect will be reciprocated from others who are observing us. ted sometimes referenced the pace of forgetting. it was his recognition that times change, people come and go, how things happened or why they mattered isn't always recorded. only 26 out of the 100 member of the current senate, barely over a quarter of this chamber, ever had the privilege of serving alongside him.

while ted may be gone, he's certainly not forgotten. you don't forget legend like ted stevens, not here in the institution that he loved and certainly not back home in as we remember uncle ted. that's what we still call him. senator ted stevens. we miss him but as we near his 100th birthday, we celebrate him, honor his service and thank him for his life of dedicated work on our behalf. just a couple days from now, on saturday, november 18, i encourage everyone to just stop for just a second, think about the contributions of great leader like ted stevens. certainly i'm going to be standing by to wish this great man a happy 100th birthday and to count the blessings that he left behind. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that a really great editorial from the "anchorage

daily news" that was published on sunday november 12 about senator steven's centennial birthday be printed in the record following my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: with that, mr. president, i ask the senate stand in recess until 2:00 p.m. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate stand in objection, the senate stand in

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