years from now, what does it look like for capacity for you, they will probably shake their head and say, we have a problem coming. we can either deal with that frob two years from -- from now when we're having brownouts and don't have enough electricity or we can deal with it now. i would rather deal with it now so we don't have the challenges ahead. how do you do that? continue to be energy dominant, and actually the energy we're producing here in the united states and to be able to make sure we're producing all of the above energy but actually producing energy at a price americans can afford at the amount americans need. if we're going to be the world leader in a.i., data centers and innovation, you can't be that if you don't have the power behind it. you can't be that if the price continues to go up, up, up, up, up for continued subsidies. under the biden administration,

the price of gasoline went up 30%, 30% in four years. under the biden administration in four years, the price of electricity nationwide went up 28%. every american feels it. when we pay our light bill, when we put gas in our car, we feel it. now the question is, what do we do about it? how do we actually engage to make this better? there's multiple things we can do. we've already started some of those. frankly, president trump in his earliest days in office stepped in and started the process of turning around some of the policies to increase more american energy so we can begin to bring prices down and availability up. because sometimes it's not just about price, it's making sure two years from now we're not running out, and we're not having brownouts all across the entire nation and our electric grid. there are a couple things president trump did right away. he actually changed all the

cancelation of leases in alaska to actually drill in the area, literally set aside decades ago for drilling. that's an area that should be a no-brainer. but the biden administration said no, we're not going to allow anyone to drill in the area set aside for oil exploration in alaska and canceled that. president trump canceled the mandate for electric vehicles. not because he hates electric vehicles. there happens to be a guy that hangs around him a lot that runs a company that sells electric vehicles. the problem is not electric vehicles. the problem is the mandate to try to force americans to shift to that. we don't see that in the grid. the electric grid is not prepared even for americans to be able to do all-electric vehicles, and frankly most americans aren't either. if you talk to oklahomans in rural areas and say are you willing to have an electric vehicle when it is 35 miles to the next town from where you are and to be able to take the risk,

they're not. even for a lot of our farmers and ranchers, they will say there's an electric pickup out there, if you ask how far does that pickup go if you're towing a trailer, the answer you will get from the manufacturers is 80 miles. our farmers and ranchers need to go a little farther than 80 miles with their vehicles. there's a lot of issues out there. to be able to take the mandate away, say let the people choose the vehicle they want, we think it's a better option. with our grid not prepared for the strain on that long term, it's a wiser option for everybody in the process. decisive action is taking place in drilling in federal waters. president biden literally in the final hours of his administration put a ban on actually drilling on 625 million acres offshore. 625 million ericks with oil and gas -- ericks with oil and --

acres with oil and gas. president trump said we're going to allow that. as every other president has on that. these are basic things the president can do, and has done. what do we as congress need to be able to do? we've engaged in several areas. we've chipped away at the methane fee. every homeowner that has a hot water tank that uses natural gas, or their electricity, is produced by natural gas or they cook with natural gas will a new fee added at the end of the biden administration. we have voted to be able to take that away, to say we're not going to raise the prices of everybody because they use natural gas to cook or to heat their homes or their hot water or they get electricity from. we've also now voted on a, quite frankly, regulation done by the biden administration at the very end of their time intentionally designed to raise the price of offshore oil drilling, where

they placed a new fee on any company that is drilling offshore, that could be a million dollars per well. the reason? to try to block more development offshore. what does that do? that doesn't decrease the need in the country. it increases the number of imports coming into our country. we're buying more from saudi arabia, from venezuela, rather than producing from our own jobs and locations. i don't have a problem with all-of-the-above energy. i've had this conversation with multiple people in this body. i'm willing to put the oklahoma portfolio for energy against any state that is here, as far as our use of renewables versus fossil fuels. 45% of the electricity produced in my state today is done with wind. we do wind, solar, we do hide row. we do oil -- hydro, oil, gas, and coal. we're working to make sure we

can produce electricity for manufacturing and our homes. that shouldn't be a difficult issue. that should be what it is actually all about. quite frankly, the frustration is this has been a challenge for energy companies just to produce energy in the last four years. this is something that should be normal. america needs energy. every single american needs energy. every person sitting in this room or watching this right now is using energy. we need access to that. so let's find the best ways to be able to do it. a couple things we're working on right now, one is i have a bill we're talking about with the tax treatments that we're all debating on this floor, called promoting domestic energy production act. that is very straightforward. it treats oil and gas companies the exact same way for taxation as every other manufacturer is

treated. a lot of mrerns may say -- americans say, well, they're not treated the same now? no. when democrats passed the inflation reduction act, which was bizarrely named because actually inflation spiked after that with all they put into it, when the inflation reduction act was passed it created a new tax on oil and gas companies specifically designed to reduce new wells coming into america and increase the price of oil and gas. that was the design. it. because their goal was if they can make it so expensive to get gasoline, then more people would run to an electric vehicle and buy an electric vehicle. guess what's happening -- the more expensive gasoline is definitely happening. more and more people aren't running to an electric vehicle. they want to choose. that's a pretty fair option for them for that. the bill that i have actually moves us back to treating oil and gas companies the exact same way as every other manufacturer

is treated in our tax policy. there's another bill, not just oil and gas bill, the align act. this handles bonus depreciation. when a company buys a big piece of capital equipment, they're going to pay their tax that year on it, but they have to decide for that equipment how many years it take to depreciate the value of that. the align act says in the year you bought it, you can depreciate it, take it off your taxes. this doesn't change the amount of income coming into the federal treasury. you're either going to have it over several years or one year. it doesn't change the amount at all. but it does make a huge difference to that business in the year they do a big capital investment that they also get to write that off on that same year. i think it's good policy to be able to say let's incentivize every manufacturer to be able to do additional manufacturing, our economy needs it right now. because when they do more manufacturing, that's more jobs in the country.

for energy, that means more pipelines, more capabilities to be able to move energy at a cheaper rate. those are commonsense things that don't hurt our deficit as a nation, but actually benefit our economy and benefit jobs. energy policy should be just commonsense conversation. shouldn't be political. it should be what do americans need? we should look beyond just today that the lights are on. we should at least look two years in the future to say what's about to happen in the country with our electric grid, anticipate the problems coming, make changes in policy here to make sure we don't have an emergency there. so let's declare the american energy emergency. let's fix it before we have the challenges that are coming in just a few short months. with that, i yield the floor. mrs. fischer: mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: thank you, mr. president. across america, 1.3 million people live in nursing homes. many of us have parents, grandparents, or other loved ones who rely on these homes for care and community in their golden years. we understand just how vital nursing homes are, whether it's in urban, suburban or rural areas. to help seniors in our country thrive. but unfortunately, a federal rule that is still in place from the biden era is putting many of america's nursing homes in jeopardy, especially those in our rural communities. last year, under president biden, the centers for medicare and medicaid services finalized a rule that placed strict, unrealistic regulations on nursing homes. the rule requires a registered nurse to be present 24/7 in

these homes, and requires three and a half daily hours of dedicated nursing care for each resident. if this rule is not stopped, the regulations will be imposed on every nursing home in america over the next few years. it does sound nice, to be able to have a nurse on hand in nursing homes every moment of the day or night, but that's not the reality. the reality is that these homes are already facingric staffing shortages. across the country, nursing homes lost more than 200,000 workers from february 2020 to december 2022. these shortages have already caused many nursing homes to close down.

since 2015, 44 nursing homes and 35 assisted living facilities have shut their doors in my state, in nebraska, alone. these closures deprive nebraskans of over 3,000 beds. they hurt seniors who wanted to stay in their home community to be close to their family, to be close to their friends. this cms rule will worsen this cr crisis. according to the agency itself, 75% of america's nursing homes will have to increase staffing to comply with this regulation. under the biden administration's rule, nursing homes now have to scramble so they can find staff in the midst of these really overwhelming shortages. if they fail, they have to shut their doors.

they have to deprive seniors of care and housing. that's why today, mr. president, i reintroduce legislation to stop this biden-era rule in its tracks. my protecting rural seniors access to care act will prevent the rule's misguided requirements from going into full effect. it will also establish an advisory panel on the nursing home workforce representing various stakeholders, including members from rural and underserved areas. this will ensure that the government hears voices outside the big cities, those big cities on the coast, when it comes to our nursing homes. nursing homes are few and far between in rural areas of our country. if one facility closes, the next

closest one, it could be many miles, or even many hours away. just one closure could be detrimental to seniors in some of our communities. but if our nursing homes stay open, seniors won't have to face that upheaval of finding a new place to live, of moving, of leaving their home communities, leaving their loved ones, leaving their friends, and having that upheaval in their final years. they won't have to leave their family. they won't have to leave loved ones. they won't have to experience the loneliness, the uncertainty, the depression that can come along with moving to an unfamiliar place. my bill advocates for these seniors, for their care and for their families.

it fights for our rural communities and for our nursing homes in my state of nebraska and across this country. i will keep pushing for this legislation until the president signs it into law so that we can protect our seniors from a rule that would only harm them, harm their families, and harm their caretakers. thank you, mr. president. i -- i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the clerk: ms. alsobrooks.

waiting for a lawmaker to speak they been working on president trump's nomination, earlier today the senate confirmed jamison greer to be the next u.s. trade representative. the chamber also plans to vote on two energy-related resolutions today one aimed and the national energy emergency declared by resident thtrump of the first day of the second term. the other was block the epa from charging a fee on excess

-- objection. mr. justice: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to address the senate while seated when necessary. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. justice: to this great senate body and to all of you, i'll speak from my heart. i won't have hardly any notes, but i'll speak from my heart about something that i think is absolutely the key is emrald city, and that's all about energy. absolutely i'm an energy guy. i'm an energy guy, i'm from an energy staft. in -- state. in my backyard, two-thirds of the entire country is within a rock's throw of west virginia. if we don't watch out, we're

going to awaken to a situation as far as energy in this country that is really, really, really bad. i believe this with all my soul. secretary burgum is a really good man, and i always called him the pick of the litter. i think president trump's nominees are absolutely great, but with all that being said, i think about doug burgum, our secretary of the interior, a guy that is supersmart, really, really experienced, compassionate, and has an unbelievable knowledge. now, with all that being said, if we could all go back to just this. we could think about chris wright. chris wright gets it. he knows what we need to do. and if you just step one step further, i would say just this, president donald trump understands it.

he knows exactly just this and this is all there is to it. energy is everything, mr. president. it is everything right now. it solves the inflation bubble, it insulates us from the standpoint of wars all over the place. why in the world do we in america need to blow our own legs off and turn china loose, india loose, whomever it may be. that's what we're doing. an absolute believer, and you've seen it in west virginia, if you're paying attention, i'm absolute believer in embracing all the energy forms. we did, 100%. but if you believe today we can do without our fossil fuels, our great fossil fuels and absolutely if you think we can do without them today, i say you're living in a cave. you're absolutely living in

fantasy land. absolutely if you don't believe that today, a year and a half from today, that we're going to have a crisis in this country off the chart as far as electricity, you need to wake up because that is what is coming. now, let me go one step further, and let me just say just this -- let's just say we awaken to an opportunity of a.i., data centers, whatever it may be, industry, manufacturing, whatever it may be, do we want to say no, we can't do that? we can't do that? because we're going to be in a situation with our grid and with our energy production in a year and a half from today. i promise you, a year and a half from today, we're going to be in a situation where we're going to have to decide, are we going to

have opportunity and jobs and manufacturing and a.i. and data centers, are we going to have that or are we going to choose with our electricity amounts that we have, we're either going to be able to support industry or we're going to have to support homes? for god's sakes we don't want to have to go cold, and hot in the summer. we don't need a choice between industry and our homes. what we need to be doing is exactly what i'm saying. we've got to realize that energythe key to everything here. that's all -- energy is the key to everything here. that's all there is to can it. it solves all the things i already said, whether it be inflation and the war situation and our national security and on and on and on. but there is something else it just does, and it does just

simply this. we have a $37 trillion -- none of us has a conception of what a trillion dollars is. nobody can possibly imagine what a trillion dollars is. we have a $37 trillion deficit. how are we going to get out of it? please tell me. please tell me how we're going to get out of it. the first thing is we've got to mind the stort. -- the store. mind the store, that's the first thing we have to do. that means cut as much waste as we possibly can, but after we do all of that, i'll bet you this in every way, you see i'm a business guy, i'm not a politician. you can tell by the way i talk, for crying out loud, i'm a business guy. i have never seen a situation to where you can cut your way out

of a problem. we will absolutely have to mind the store. president trump is dead on point, the doge is absolutely real and we can absolutely make a real dent, but it won't be a dent nearly big enough. at the end of the day the only you can truly get your way out of a mess, mind the store and then grow. that's what we've got to do. you've got to grow revenue. say what you want, but at the end of the day you're going to have to grow revenue. how are you going to grow revenue? the last thing anybody would want to do is raise taxes, that would kill us in every way imaginable. we need to to be supportive of president trump's tax cuts. we absolutely need to grow revenue one way. it's the only way to do it in west virginia. you won't hear me all the time

just standing up on a soap box going on and on, but this is a west virginia guy telling america and telling the world just this. we sit on so much energy, it's off the chart? why can't we be saudi arabia? for crying out loud, it is absolutely the answer period. if you want to grow revenue in this country, absolutely it will start with energy and it will end with energy. that's all there is to it. think about this for just one second. every single country in the world, the gigantic countries or the real small countries, every country in the world today, the people will live longer, and people will be healthier if they had more energy. guarantee it. every single country in the world, the more energy they have, the are longer the people live, and the healthier they

are. absolutely go back and think just one more thing. civilization only progressed with abundant, cheap energy, and now it's abundant, cheap, clean energy. america produces the cleanest energy on the planet. our coals are so clean, it's unbelievable compared to china's coals or other countries. absolutely our natural gas is so good, it is off the chart. embrace all the alternatives, all the wind, all the solar, embrace them all, but for gosh sakes of living, you cannot -- you cannot forget the very thing that god above gave us in our fossil fuels. so with all that being said, i didn't and even look at the notes, but i would just say to you just this -- we have a real opportunity in america today, a

real opportunity to move forward in a way that absolutely can solve a lot of the riddle. the riddle's tough. the riddle's tough and absolutely when you think, when you step back from it and you think about, well, what are we going to do? here's a guy who's come to you not as a politician, i came to you notingas a 40 -- as a 40-year-old, aspiring some day to be a chamber of some committee, i came to you as a white hair 73-year-old because of one reason and one reason alone. i meet up with being a patriot. i'm the real deal. i challenge the media all the times, tell me something that knowingly i've told you is not true. they can't do it because i'm going to tell the truth. my parents taught me that. it's not okay to just tell

anything and say, oh, that's just politics in my world. it's not. i am telling you from my heart as a business guy and absolutely as a west virginian, but first and foremost as an american. i love you with everything in me. i love this country with every single thing in me. i want nothing but goodness. i don't want one thing for me, nothing. i don't want the next hot stip, i don't need the next perk, i don't need the next invite. i don't need a thing for me. i'm telling you energy is our ticket. it is everything. it always has been everything. now we have to do something about it. america, you've got to listen to me on this one. we've got to do something about it and we've got to do something about it right now. i mean, there's a bad day kmg and it's -- day coming, and it's

coming at us like a freight train. we've got to do something, america. god bless every single one of you. mr. president, if i follow these guidelines correctly and i'll make sure i do. i yield the floor.

. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. lee: mr. president, i have nine requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. lee: mr. president, the american people are being told once again not to trust their own eyes. democrats are telling them not to worry about their soaring

electricity bills. telling them to ignore rolling backouts. reaction are just fear mopping gearing, they say. but of course the reality is that americans have seen the power shortages. they've paid the higher bills. they've felt the weight of the past four years of the failed policies of the biden administration. and we cannot ignore the resulting crisis anymore. the power grid is buckling. energy demand is exploding. and the very people who created this mess are now telling us quite audaciously that there is no emergency. why? well, they claim that the united states is producing more energy than we have in american history. but what they conveniently omit is that we're conassuming more energy than -- consuming more energy than any time in american history and we're expected for need much, much more, within just the next few years, much

more than we're producing, much more than we ever have produced. so it's not enough to just look at how much we're producing relative to what we have produced in the past when you don't take into account the demand, what we need and what we need is going way, way up. now, according to goldman saks, artificial intelligence alone, just artificial intelligence, nothing else, not population growth, not any other uses, household or industrial of energy, just artificial intelligence alone is likely to drive a 160% increase in data center power and data center power demand by 2030. the largest data centers can consume more power than 700,000 households. that's equivalent to the energy use of a city of 1.8 million people. but there's no emergency, according to them. according to the sponsors of

this resolution, this is just a handout. it's a handout to big oil, as they characterize it. now, good luck with that. try telling that to the american families and businesses that struggled during the january 2025 polar vortex when the u.s. power grid was pushed to its absolute limits. electricity demand hit historic highs forcing grid operators to rely heavily on coal and natural gas,s very sources of power that democrats want to eliminate and have been working aggressively with some effectiveness to do precisely that, to eliminate just to keep the lights on. it's not big oil that will suffer in the winters if we fail to keep the power on. across multiple power market regions, electricity demand during that event set new single-day records as heating demand across sectors spiked.

in response, grid operators had to rely heavily on dispatchable generation, primarily coal and natural gas to ensure system reliability and stabilized supply during the extreme event. now, during that time, coal-fired power plants dramatically increased their electric power output, that s. those coal-fired power plants that have not yet been torn down at the demand of democratic-backed policies. in many regions coal capacity factors soared above 80%, far exceeding typical winter levels. on the other hand, wind and solar were challenged by unfavorable weather conditions. on peak days, wind and solar generated only 3% an 0.2% of the incremental electricity needed to meet demand.

but what exactly are democrats worried about? what's their concern? amidst that very emergency which if that's not an emergency, i don't know what is. so what is it that they're worried about? well, not grid failures. not surging energy costs. not the reliability of our power supply. no, no, they're concerned that president trump is making things worse by canceling the wind and solar projects that failed to generate enough power to meet demand. those peak moments when it was so badly need ed. they're using the same old playbook that they always have. will do anything to prevent president trump from getting a win, regardless of whether his policies might actually bring relief to the american people which of course they would. mr. president, i've spent my career fighting against unchecked executive power. i ought oord the article 1 act to curb the abuse of presidential emergency

declarations requiring congressional approval within 30 days. but let me be clear. this is not an abuse of those powers. not by a mile, not at all, not in any way, shape, or form. it is a real emergency and if president trump's declaration were put to a vote today, this chamber would affirm it. congress has had countless chances to fix this problem and failed every time. republicans have fought for years to reform our outdated permitting laws only to be met with democratic resistance at every turn. nepa, the clean water act, the endangered species act. democrats treat these laws as if they were sacred text, untouchable even when they're clearly broken, a sacred text that can't be not just repealed but even amended meaningfully. to avert the disaster that

they've created, especially created in the hands of the previous administration. now, at this moment we hear that they're ready to play ball. now and only now do they say oh, yeah, we need to deal with this. if that's true, great. but let's see. if democrats are serious about fixing it, now is the time to prove it. until congress acts, how can anyone really blame the president for stepping in to address this emergency which it is, which it has become, which it un-deanably is -- undeniably. in some cases an emergency can be created by the government itself and severely exacerbated and that is the case here. his executive order tells agencies to do exactly what congress has neglected to do for years. exactly what congress has been unable to do in large part because democrats have resisted that. they're not getting back to the

sacred text theory of the same laws that have become part of the problem. however, rather than working with president trump and republicans in a productive way to try to make energy more accessible for americans and more reliable, and of course remain affordable, senate democrats are forcing a vote on a resolution to terminate and erase the policies from the biden administration's green new deal. look, mr. president, at where those policies have left us, where they've put us, where we were and where we're headed. energy prices increased by 30.54%. gasoline prices increased by 30.5%. electricity prices increased by 28.55%. and natural gas prices increased by 33.3%. meanwhile, democrats' message to american families is clear.

pay more, expect less. it's this sort of gospel of scarcity, the idea that we have to live off of scarcity because that's what they demand because government wants it that way for reasons that only they can fully articulate, but that the american people do not find persuasive. this is a problem. the united states is in fact in an energy emergency. not because of a lack of resources but because the biden administration's unrelenting regulatory assault on domestic oil and gas production in blind adherence to the climate cartel has put us in this position. president biden's executive orders including his orders he issued on his very first day as president of the united states back in january of 2021, pausing all new oil and gas leasing on

federal lands where nearly 25% of u.s. oil production occurs, significantly hindered u.s. energy independence. even after courts mandated the resumption of these leasing programs essential to our energy development, secretary holland slow-walked the process offering the fewest acres for lease since world war ii and holding a record low number of offshore lease sales. the chilling effect of the biden administration's antiproduction policies is as undeniable as it is indefensible as a matter of public policy. oil companies are withdrawing from investments in federal lands due to the uncertainty created by erratic leasing decisions and hostile regulatory policies. now, let's remember, of course, mr. president, this was made more severe by virtue of the fact that the united states government is not just the

largest landowner in the united states, but it owns around 28% between one-quarter and one-third of all land in the united states. you compound that by giving enormous discretion to federal land management agencies, to the executive branch, then you put in place an administration that wants to preach and live by the gospel of scarcity and that's a recipe for disaster. biden's epa contributed meaningfully to the problem as well. the biden epa introduced methane fees starting at $900 per metric ton in 2025, increasing to $1,500 over just a fairly short period of time. that imposes significant financial burdens on producers, particularly small operators. now, lest anyone led by the

democratic talking points might be attempted to look at this and say awe, but they're businesses. they can afford it, suck it up, just deal with it, that's not really who pays for this, mr. president. no. these things get passed on. the wealthy folks, at least the wealthy folks who own these businesses, they're not the ones hardest hit by this. those hardest hit are american families, particularly in sort of the low and middle-income brackets, those who like so many americans live paycheck to paycheck. it's those people whose way of life, whose livelihood, whose ability to afford life is so dramatically affected by these regulatory intrusions into the marketplace. those are the people who get hurt. and that really is a problem.

meanwhile, as our domestic production slows, our reliance on foreign oil increases. in 2023 we imported 1.3 million barrels per day from opec. up nearly 50% from 2020 levels. meanwhile, critical mineral dependencies on foreign nations, particularly china, threatened everything from titanium in pacemakers and cobalt and batteries to copper and transmission lines and semiconductors. the absence of just one of these minerals would devastate the sectors they serve. and yet the biden administration with its vast discretion as it invents and -- as it invended and reinvented federal regulations and as it free side -- presides off this -- laws in place by unelected bauer contracts can make those things

much worse and it did make those things much worse and the american people, hardworking americans are paying too high a price. mr. president, the american people are done. they are done with joe biden's failed policies. over 77 million americans voted for president trump, just a few months ago. and a recent poll shows 60% of americans support expanding american oil and gas production. senate republicans will not let democrats delay and obstruct any longer. they've created and exacerbated an emergency president trump is addressing it as the law allows him to do. we will ensure that the president has the tools necessary to deliver the results that the american people justifiably expect, demanded, and truly do deserve because the facts are undeniable.

america is in an energy emergency because of the federal government and specifically because of the previous administration's failed policies. instead of embracing abundant, affordable, and reliable energy, democrats again preaching and living by the gospel of squaresty -- scarcity of which they're so closely wedded are doubling down on a radical agenda that has made everything from gasoline to electricity more expensive for working families. and remember, when the prices of those energy inputs goes up, so, too, does the price of everything else. because it becomes more expensive to make, to process, to buy, to sell, to transport all of those same things. instead of learning from knows failures, senate democrats are trying to block president trump from taking action to fix it the are they

afraid that their own policies will be exposed as the source of a significant amount of the problem? you'll have to ask them about that. but one could certainly make that argument, and it certainly appears to many that this is the case. they're standing in the way of relief for american families, hoping that if they delay long enough, the american people will simply accept high costs as the new normal. only in washington could you light the house on fire and then act shocked when someone else tries to put it out. make no mistake, mr. president, that is exactly what's happening here. we refuse to let that happen. we applaud president trump for taking action to address an emergency created by our own government, presided over, directed, embraced, and now defended by the democratic

party. i urge my colleagues to vote no on this resolution. thank you, mr. president. ms. murkowski: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president, i join my colleague from utah, the chairman of the energy committee, in speaking today in clear opposition to senate joint resolution 10, which would terminate the energy emergency that has been declared by president trump. i think my colleagues here on both sides of the aisle know that i'm not -- i'm not afraid to suggest when i think that the president may be heading in the wrong direction. but, folks, on this one, he is absolutely, positively, clearly hit the mark. and i think the chairman of the energy committee has outlined in pretty good detail how that has

come about. we know that our country is blessed with extraordinary, extraordinary assets. we have the potential to become the world's leading resource superpower. but in order to do that, we have to be able to produce more energy domestically, and that means we have to be able to extract more minerals. we have to be able to build more transmission lines. we need to be able to overhaul what is clearly a broken federal permitting process. and we can do this. we can do this in a way that is cheaper, that is more reliable, more clean really than any other nation in the world. but we've got to kind of dig out now from where we have been over these past four years, where we saw setback after setback for

resource-producing states like mine, the state of alaska. let me give you a little detail in terms of what we're facing in the state of alaska, a state that, again, is known for its resource wealth. but right now in the south central part of the state, we're on the verge of importing lng to meet the needs of some 75% of our population during the colder winter months. i'll just repeat that. alaska, the place where everybody knows we've got extraordinary oil resources, we have extraordinary natural gas potential, not only in the north slope but down in cook inlet. the cook inlet reserves are actually on the decline. and we are actually talking about importing lng from canada. that ought to just be considered

a nonstarter for anyone who knows and understands the extraordinary potential for resource development that we have in our state with the wealth that we have. right now in some of our remote communities across the state, residents are truly in what i would describe as an energy emergency. they might not use that term anymore because they've just gotten so used to the fact that they're paying so much to keep their lights on and to keep warm. we have residents in many communities that are spending up to one half of their incomes on energy, just, again, to keep the lights on and to keep warm. think about what that means when you're spending half of what you -- what you make for just the basic necessities. it means that you have less to feed your family, to educate your kids. we've got communities where power costs ten times the

national average, where gasoline can easily exceed $10 a gallon, and that includes diesel as well. and those costs, of course, impact everything -- everything. because you've got to move your food, your goods, usually by airplane, sometimes over the water, sometimes you're able to drive it. . but when you're paying this much, for gasoline, it impacts everything. so it's not unusual to go into a village store, and if you can kind a gallon of milk, see that it costs $18 a gallon. i do my comparison shopping by checking the prices of a box of tide. people need to be able to wash their clothing, to just -- for sanitary purposes. you can almost -- almost in every village that i'm going to

you're looking at prices over $50 a box. $50 for a box of tide laundry detergent, and it is not because tide is any more expensive than anything else. it is just the reality of what we're paying there. right now in our state we also have an oil pipeline that is just one-quarter filled. we've had this pipeline, been pumping oil safely from the north slope to delivery down in valdez going to other parts of the country for refining. that oil pipeline was completed in 1974 and has been producing for america ever since. but right now it's about one-quarter full. that pipeline starts -- and, again, one of the most geographically perspective regions on the earth. but what's happening is you have federal government controls that

surrounds most of the lands there, and it has led to decreased opportunities to expand production up there and a pipeline that, again, about one-quarter full. i mention the benefits of oil here. i talked about natural gas. but we also have known deposits of about 50 critical minerals, the building blocks of our modern society and our national security. we have just about everything that our nation needs to break its deep dependence on china, to be able to rebuild our supply chains. but if you can't access it, you can't produce it, and we can't benefit from it. when we try to build a road from the dalton highway to the ambler mining district, this is explicitly provided by a 1980 federal law, we did this as part of a grand compromise. the road corridor was in

exchanges of -- in ex-chaplaining of a massive national park. we can get that improved in one administration only to have the next one come in, reopen it, ignore the law and then make a political decision to reject it. and then here in congress we've run in a partisan law with some less interested in the rule of law than the whims of the very same environmental groups that pushed this resolution. and then meanwhile what's happening, when we're not able to produce in our own home states, meanwhile china is cutting us off from our own mineral deposits, including the germanium that we could produce if only the federal government would uphold its promise to allow alaskans to responsibly access it. so, yes, when i look at my own home state, when i look at asian i do see an -- when i look at

alaska, i do see an energy emergency. as the chairman of the energy committee just noted, electricity demand is growing and yet we can't permit new power plants or build new transmission lines. we can't build pipelines in the northeast or almost anything, particularly mines, on federal lands in the west. and, you know, i guess i'm looking can be i'm listening to some -- i'm looking -- i'm listening to some of the arguments. maybe i'd feel differently if my home state was producing more than two million barrels of oil per day, as some are, but we're not. and it's not because we can't. it's because we've been denied the opportunity to do so. and that's why i'm very thankful for president trump and the administration, for the focus that they have given to the

state of alaska with a specific executive order to allow us to unleash alaska's energy and resource potential. i have shared with the secretary of interior as well as the secretary of energy that we need to the stop treating energy like it's some kind of an evil or a bad thing. we need to recognize that it is good. when i was chairman of the nrc committee, we -- of the energy committee, we had a little bumper sticker. i summed up my entire policy with energy is good. i haven't deviated from that policy. energy makes us stronger, makes us less vulnerable, and it is an asset, not a liability, like we have seen it treated as much. we need to be unleashing our resources, including, including all of our renewables, because that's all part of the energy basket as well.

so it's not an either/or in my view. it's all of the above. and that's good for our economy. it's good for our security. it's good for our geopolitical pure. america's resource production is good for the global environment because when we're producing our resources, we stop paying countries that have little to no environmental standards, no interest in reducing their emissions, and who often rely on child or slave labor and who frankly don't even like us. so why -- why not seize the opportunities that we have here, benefit our own people, our own economies, and, again, benefit the global environment as well? so if an energy emergency helps us figure this all out, then i'm good with that. and if a it helps -- if it helps us take the federal sanctions that we have seen placed on ache and return my -- placed on

alaska and return my state to resource production, then that is also good. we will all be better off. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

the other would like epa from charging a fee on excess methane emissions established in the 2022 inflation reduction act. you are watching live senate coverage on c-span2.

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him we announced a plan but secondly how we bring the cost of exam that plan has five parts of bio security what it means we locker poultry burns down heartily into the egg laying chickens are getting this disease it mostly comes from volume and gets into the barnes ust will produce an audit at every single egg farmer in this country and we will help them secure their barnes 150 private projects on the exact project only one got the flu since the usda cave-in and locked that down secondly we will move much more quickly on repopulating

160 million birds that obtain called in the last few months what we need to do get regulation out-of-the-way for the poultry producers to start repopulating much more quickly than we've been doing, deregulation that's ensuring the rules that are with laying on her egg produces over the last four years that we began to pull those back, that will allow cost to come down a little bit more long-term but there are rules in play later costing the eggs to go up without the avian flu related emperor eggs in the short cost piece we are in discussion mrs. shaheen: mr. president, i come to the floor today in support of senate joint resolution 10 which would terminate the misguided national energy emergency that president trump signed on his first day in office. it has been 37 days since president trump declared for the first time in this nation's history a national energy

emergency. this is an attempt to throw red meat to the base of the republican party and to seem like donald trump is the oil and gas president. but there's no evidence to support that. in fact, the evidence we have points in exactly the opposite direction. this emergency was declared despite the fact that the united states is producing more oil than any other country ever in this nation's history. and we've been doing that for the past seven years. the emergency was declared despite the fact that the united states is in the midst of a clean energy boom and a manufacturing renaissance. we generated 17% more electricity in 2023 than the high point of the first trump administration. clean energy jobs are growing at twice the rate of the economy overall. and this emergency was declared

despite the fact that as "the wall street journal" headline noted after the election, quote, trump's oil and gas donors don't really want to drill, baby drill, end quote. they are very happy to lock in demand for the long term but increase supply and potentially undercut profits. not so much. so we find ourselves with an emergency declaration in search of an emergency. but it's not without consequences. president trump has assumed vast power for the executive branch through this emergency designation. he's encouraging the use of eminent domain that could literally allow the government to take your land away. he's waiving away clean protections for clean water and suggesting that a timeline of

just seven days is sufficient for public commitment, for public comment -- excuse me -- on projects that could cause irreparable harm to historic and cultural resources. president trump campaigned on, and i'm quoting here, lowering the cost of everything, and he promised your energy bill within 12 months will be cut in half. now voters responded to those promises, and americans do want to see lower energy costs. i'm all for that. i focused as governor on how we can address the high energy prices in new hampshire. we permitted two gas pipelines through the state, both gas coming from canada. and we negotiated a deal with our largest utility company that lowered rates 16.5%. so i'm all for lowering energy

costs. we absolutely should be talking about that. but let's take a step back here and let's talk about what president trump's energy policies actually are and how they affect the american people. in the first 37 days we've seen the trump administration cut off funding for solar, wind, and clean manufacturing projects that are cheaper and faster to build than fossil fuel infrastructure. we've seen him halt energy efficiency programs, and we know energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest way to deal with our energy needs. he's prepared a 10% energy tax in the form of tariffs on heating oil, propane, gasoline and other energy we import from canada, and that hits new hampshire really hard because of the energy sources we get from canada. i talked about the two gas pipelines that come down from

canada. and because we have so many households that burn number 2 fuel oil to heat our homes, and because it's cold in new hampshire at this time of year. so that hits us really hard. he's fired more than 1,000 workers at the department of energy, including those who are keeping state energy programs and weatherization up and running to respond to emergencies and to help folks like we have in new hampshire stay warm this winter. tomorrow what we expect is that senate republicans will roll back a commonsense fee on venting or flaring of methane rather than capturing it for productive use. and if that passes and the president signs it, it will cost the taxpayers $2.3 billion over the next ten years, effectively the lighting money on fire to

save big oil a few bucks. in new hampshire and other states, president trump's actions have sown chaos and uncertainty. they're raising costs for families, for farmers, for small businesses and for town budgets. for example, the tariffs that are set to go into effect -- and i understand that the president has now decided he's going to wait until april -- but they could mean about $150 to $250 more for the average family in new hampshire who are using heating oil just to keep warm through the winter. president trump's efforts to cancel promised funding for electric charging infrastructure in new hampshire harms our travel and tourism sector, particularly in northern new hampshire where ski areas and other outdoor recreation drive our local economies. a recent study found that the state risks losing an estimated $1.4 billion in overall economic impact if we don't build up our

charging infrastructure. one small business owner in barrington, in the seacoast of new hampshire, told me he has nearly $3 million in projects. those projects are on hold this year, including work for school districts with the state and with other customers to install solar projects that provide long-term taxpayer savings. and they're on hold because of what president trump has ordered. farms and local shops across rural areas of new hampshire are nervous about receiving promised reimbursements for energy-saving work through the rural energy for america program, the reap program. at least one business owner at seacoast power equipment has been covering interest with the bank until his grant, which he has a signed commitment for, is actually paid out. and of course this is affecting his bottom line. then we have super secret ice

cream in behm, new hampshire, the northern part of our state, an award winning small business that provides the best ice cream you've ever the eaten. they were gearing up to install solar panels using $15,000 in federal funds. now that project is on hold. many family-owned businesses like super secret ice cream have very tight margins, and this small investment of $15,000 would help christina and dan grow their business and lower the electric costs that they're paying to store their ice cream. and then we have the town of peterboro in the western part of new hampshire. they plan to use funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law to enhance much-needed workforce development, but of course they have had to wait far too long for federal approvals. and in rural towns like berlin in the northern part of our state, residents eagerly signed up for federal lip funded

projects that will insulate and add solar arrays to their manufactured homes. this is a real solution to their high utility bills, but these projects are now on hold because the contractors are uncertain that they're going to be paid. now, i could go on, as i know my colleagues could, but since we have people waiting, i want to close with a point of agreement. in his executive order, president trump stated, and i quote, we need a reliable source of energy to drive our nation's manufacturing, transportation, agriculture and defense industries and to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness. that makes sense to me. i agree with that. but unfortunately that's about the only thing he said related to energy in the past 37 days that does make sense. lowering energy costs, creating

good jobs, increasing america's competitiveness in the world, those ought to be things that we can all agree on. but if we give up our leadership on clean energy now, the people's republic of china, who president trump claims is our greatest competitor, and i agree with him on that. i just don't understand how the trump administration policies are allowing us to be compe competitive. but china is going to be more than happy to fill the void for its own economic advantage. i think we should also agree that americans deserve clean air, clean water and the chance to have a say in what happens in their communities. i want to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on these goals. and that work starts by ending this disastrous, misguided emergency declaration and by stopping the chaos. so i hope my colleagues will join me in voting to restore

congress' appropriate role in setting energy policies that benefit the american people by supporting this resolution. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i'm here to join my colleagues in objecting to president trump's fake energy emer emergency, which is part of the trump continuing strategy to hurt families and help billionaires. in this case the fossil fuel billionaires who put at least $100 million into getting him elected, probably a good deal more because so much of the money was dark money. we don't know, but there's every reason to believe that it was multiple hundreds of billions of dollars spent to p get him elected and it's payback time for the big donors, and tough bounce to the families whose bills are going to go up as a result. how are families' bills going to

go up? for starters, renewables are less expensive than fossil fuel. when you add them to the mix, the grid runs on a you queue and it takes the cheapest sources and puts them in the line and as you demand more and more electricity, you finally get to the more expensive energy sources. and inexpensive renewables coming in drives out the expensive fossil fuel from the top, and it lowers energy costs overall. when you stop doing that, the most expensive plants have to come back on line, and that will raise utility bills. but, most importantly to trump, profits for fossil fuel billionaires. we make ourselves with this more vulnerable to the opec fossil fuel cartel, the oil and gas cartel. they raise prices by

manipulating international markets. the american oil and gas companies follow up, even if they don't need to make that much money, they will follow the opec prices. as a result, they have declared the biggest profits in the history of humankind, at the expense of american families, both at the fuel pump and home and on their electric bills. doesn't matter to this administration. it's a win for the fossil fuel billionaires who paid good money to get this administration in, and families will be hurt to help the fossil fuel billionaires. another one is lng export. what happens in the leck which fied natural gas -- liquid fied natural gas market, you take our gas, send it somewhere else, it doesn't go into the pipeline in america, it pinches the supply available to americans, which raises prices for americans, unless you want to repeal the economic laws of supply and demand. over and over again these pro-fossil fuel megadonor policies hurt american families,

raise family electric utility bills, and provide huge benefits back to the big donors who spent good money to get him into office. who gets hit the most when you attack solar and wind power? well, here are the top solar states by installed capacity. you start with california, obviously, the fifth biggest economy in the world. but the next four are texas, florida, north carolina, and arizona. there's a lot of red voters in those states who are going to pay the price of this bad policy. you look over to wind, top state, texas. next, iowa. next, oklahoma. next, kansas. again, red states will pay the price for this donor-oriented

policy. the trump administration doesn't even concede that solar and wind power are energy. when they use the word energy, they only mean fossil and nuclear. they've literally defined solar and wind out of the energy mix by process of vocabulary magic. so, we're headed for a bad place, and consumers are going to pay, all to make big fossil fuel barons even richer than they are. the shame here is that there actually is an emergency out there. there actually is an energy emergency out there. and the energy emergency is happening because fossil fuel emissions are changing the weather in the natural systems of the earth so that risk of weather disasters, whether it's wildfire or flooding, is getting so bad that property insurers

can't keep up. so we are having a crisis in property insurance markets as fully developed in florida, california is not far behind. what the chief economist for our mortgage giant freddie mac has warned of is that the property insurance crisis morphed into a mortgage crisis, because if you can't get property insurancen a property, guess -- insurance on a property, guess what else you can't get on that property? a mortgage. the mortgage crisis devolves into a properties value crash, because if you can't find buyers, because nobody can get a mortgage on that property, your property value just collapsed. then that morphs into a nationwide economic crash on the scale of 2008. that's what they said just about coastal property values. now we've got the wildfire risk coming along, side by side, the evil sibling.

is there an emergency? yes. it's coming on, and coming on soon enough that the fed chair in testimony just over a week ago here in the senate said after a decade there will be regions of the united states of america where you can't even get a mortgage any longer. what's that going to do to property values in people's homes? by the way, if that's the case for ten years out, markets are going to start to move sooner. so this is a problem on us now. we have a real emergency coming. it is going to clobber us economically. our friends on the republican side don't want to listen to us because of all the fossil fuel money that goes into their party. the president doesn't want to listen to it because he god -- he got paid so many hundreds of millions of claars in political -- dollars in political funds to get him elected. nature's rules can't be repealed by man. this is coming on. we ought to be prepared for it. with that, i yield. mr. blumenthal: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: mr. president,

i'm pleased to follow my colleague and friend from rhode island and join with the senator from virginia, senator kaine, in supporting senate resolution 10, which is a joint resolution to terminate president trump's illegal executive order declaring an energy emergency. it's not only nature's rule that is being violated as senator whitehouse just said so eloquently, it's also this congress' rule. in effect, the president is flouting and defying this congress, this independent, separate body of the united states government, in the money that has already been appropriated for projects that will help avoid an energy emergency in the future and reduce the prices of energy for

american families. and to the families of america, let's just be very clear. president trump is illegally withholding appropriated funding for projects in your communities and your neighborhoods. not only projects to increase energy efficiency, but also to strengthen the electrical grid that brings electricity into your home, projects to build out america's clean energy infrastructure that will avoid pollution in your neighborhoods. this funding freeze sweeps a range of programs having nothing to do with unleashing american energy, whatever president trump thinks it is. we're talking about funding for clean drinking water projects that will enable better drinking

water for your homes, and brownfields remediation so that businesses can be developed in places that now are polluted, heating assistance for low-income households during the end of this winter, and causing confusion and consternation across the country. but make no mistake, if this funding is withheld the projects and the needs and the challenges don't go away. there will still be a need to clean up those brownfields, to deliver through the electric grid, to make energy efficiency real in communities and neighborhoods, but you will pay. your taxes will be increased at the state level and the local level. and those projects will become more expensive.

so, there's a double and triple whammy here. increase the costs now and in the future for projects that are absolutely essential to the health as well as energy efficiency of our country. republicans say they're for an all-of-the-above approach to energy, but then they turn around and attack renewables. they say that they are for cleaning up brownfields, but then they support this kind of executive order that is illegal and also stymies or stops those brown brownfields' remediation. like all of the actions by executive order, president trump has taken in his first month in office, it isn't actually solving a problem, it is ex passer baiting it. it's lining -- exacerbating it. is lining the pockets of

billionaire buddies, in this case oil and gas executives, at the expense of everyday americans. if there is an energy emergency it will be created by president trump, it won't be solved by him, and congressional republicans will be complicit in it. there's also an effect on jobs. in fact, thousands of jobs are threatened by this executive or order. repealing the inflation reduction act by executive edict threatens 400,000 new jobs that have been announced since august of 2022. connecticut alone has around 50,000 workers in the clean energy sector. all of those jobs are at risk. they are threatened by president trump's attack on the industry. and to my colleagues across the

aisle, make no mistake, it's going to affect your constituents as well. studies have found that a majority of clean energy jobs created during the first full year after the inflation reduction act passed actually were in the south, in republican states. jobs in clean energy are not in one state or just blue states. they are across the country. eight out of ten congressional districts that received the most funding under these laws were represented by republicans. shouldn't be a partisan issue. it is, as we say all the time, an american issue. we stand ready to work with anyone who wants to lower costs for consumers and support domestic energy production by

building on the historic investments made by the infrastructure and jobs act and the inflation reduction act, but president trump's order in no way helps. it simply harms that effort. i urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution, and i yield the floor. mr. hickenlooper: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. hickenlooper: the united states is in an energy boom. our nation has never produced more electricity, oil, and gas than we are producing right now. this all-of-the-above approach to energy, using everything,

including solar, wind, geothermal, is keeping energy prices as low as possible for working families, but at the same time recognizing that climate change is real and moving towards a clean energy future. excluding coal, the u.s. produced more energy than any other country in the history of the world in 2023. it appears that some in this administration are determined to undo that progress, despite american leadership in energy, the president signed an executive order on his first day declaring a national energy emergency. that sounds dramatic, almost theatrical, because it's meant to be. let's call this political theater for what it is, an attempt to accelerate oil and gas projects, while at the same time holding back our refubl energy -- renewable energy. there are things we need to be

doing to keep energy cleaner, prices lower, and to cement american energy independence. for starters, we need to increase energy production, we need to meet our energy future by streamlining permitting of our new energy projects, of all our energy projects, while at the same time being mindful about the environmental impacts and giving impacted communities a public forum. we need to upgrade our grid. we need to increase clean, domestic, critical mineral production. but that's not what this executive order will do. in fact, it won't do a sing of one of -- a single one of these things. they claim we're in an emergency, energy emergency, but they continue to block federal wind and energy permits. they claim we're in an emergency, an energy emergency, but then they ship oil and gas overseas. the claim is we're in an energy

emergency, and yet their actions would cede complete control of what eventually will be an number global market in renewable energy to china. the administration has also fired thousands of government workers who play vital roles in american energy, all in the name of government efficiency and giving tax cuts to the ultra wealthy. listen, i'm all for making government more efficient. i've worked on that most of my public life. if you want to look at how we seriously spend and where we can actually cut fraud, waste, and abuse, i'm game. but almost randomly fire department of energy employees or those who maintain our nuclear security and safety, i don't think that's the way to do it. our office has even heard from a private company who is worried that the federal employee

responsible for managing their personal project may be fired. they help bring energy to our local communities. this will stop them dead in their traction and raise prices for households amount the same time. americans -- america's energy economy is booming in large part because of the bipartisan infrastructure law and the inflation reduction act, bills that make historic investments in american-main energy. these bills have created more than 400,000 good-paying jobs, and yet there's an effort by some in the congress, mostly republicans, i should say all republicans, and the administration, but that effort is to slash and impede the progress that we've made. even though an estimated 70% of the benefits, the jocks, the investments -- the jobs, the investments, the increased

energy are going to red states. cutting funding from these critical pieces of legislation is going to hit our rural communities the hardest where it could provide the greatest benefit. it will shrink county government revenue, it will force layoffs and ultimately it will increase the cost of energy. clean energy isn't just some liberal boogieman, it's not just some notion. in fact, most of the energy that's ready to go as we expand our capacity and ready to go is clean and affordable. solar, wind, storage, they make up 9 5% of the new capacity. wind is 10% of our electricity now and will provide more affordable renewable energy if more permits were made available. if funds, already appropriated by congress through these laws,

if these funds are withheld, energy bills can balloon by up to 12% for american families. that's at least $240 a year for working families that they'll have to come up with one way or another. if you're struggling to afford eggs at the grocery store or balance your checkbook at the end of the month, the last thing you need is a change in your energy bill. some in congress have introduced strict critical services for coloradans while adding $4 trillion to our national debt all primarily so they can give tax breaks, of which more than half go to the ultra wealthy, who, at least many in colorado, don't even want them. i put an amendment on the floor that would strip any provision on their budget that would raraise help every american.

i think they're putting politics over people. we're able to keep energy prices low for working families because we use everything, oil, gas, geothermal, wind, so rather than limiting energy sources, proclaiming a false emergency or firing critical government employees, let's meet the moment and usher in a new energy future that helps everyone. a future marked by a resilient energy grid built by american innovation that delivers low cost reliable energy for every coloradan, for every american. if this administration is looking for a bipartisan road map on this, we have one. we should pass permitting reform that streamline reviews for all energy products, not just oil and gas. we can build a modern electric grid that will reduce energy prices for all. let's continue supporting emerging technologies like

advanced geothermal and nuclear so that we can remain dominant in the markets that are emerging. and let's stop picking winners and losers. the vags majority of -- vast majority of new electric is -- electricity is coming from solar, wind, and energy storage. let's follow the law and let's let the investments in energy from the past couple of years go to the communities that need them. let's cut the nonsense. this isn't an energy emergency, it's an energy opportunity. this administration's actions certainly would cause an emergency for many colorado and american working families. mr. president, i yield back the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. from maryland. excuse me. mr. van hollen: that's okay, mr. president. i want to start by thanking my colleague from across the potomac river, senator kaine,

from virginia and also senator heinrich from new mexico, for bringing this resolution before the united states senate. mr. president, we are now witnessing in real time two of the most corrupt bargains in american history. one of those corrupt bargains is the one that president trump made with elon musk. elon musk spent $280 million to help elect donald trump, the president of the united states. $280 million, and president trump has handed the keys of federal agencies to elon musk. he even appeared at the cabinet meeting today with other members of the cabinet that went through the advice and consent progress of the united states senate, elon musk didn't do that, but he

did spend $280 million to help elect president trump. and now -- now the actions that elon musk is taking are designed to rig government agencies to do the bidding of elon musk and other billionaires. in fact, we've been reading more and more of the billions of dollars of federal are contracts that elon musk has gotten and more to come. just in the last 48 hours, we're talking about an faa contract for starlink. this has nothing to do with government efficiency. if it were, you would not start by firing all the inspectors general across the united states government whose job is to look out for waste, fraud, and abuse. in fact, what you would do when you get rid of the inspectors general is open the door to waste, fraud, and abuse.

so we should be on full alert here in the united states senate as to what's happening. as others have said, we're also watching them claim to make savings, which actually they've had to change their sort of tally board every day because of misrepresentations, but they do want to career the way to provide tax cuts to very, very wealthy people like elon musk at the expense of everybody else in america and of course the house just passed a budget resolution to set up that process last night. so that's one corrupt bargain that's playing out right now and thousands of patriotic federal employees around the country who do the people's work are being fired based on lies. and i say lies because they're claiming they're firing them based on performance only to find out these federal employees

are coming out with glowing reports as far as their recent assessments. that was the lie because that was the standard that had to be met even if they had to make it up. and all these cases are now finding their ways through the courts. we have over 60 court proceedings, many federal judges have issued temporary restraining orders to put a halt to this rampage of illegal activity. the other corrupt bargain is the one that brings us to the senate floor today because it was in may of last year, during the campaign, that candidate trump promised the big oil executives that he would deliver their wish list if they spent a billion dollars to return him to the white house. so much has happened since then, i think some people forget, but

here's "the washington post" headline from may 9, 2024. what trump promised oil ceo's as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign. the story describes how the ceo's there were stunned -- stunned when he went on to say, you are all wealthy enough that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the white house. and he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of president biden rules and policies. and as the article indicates, among the things he promised to scrap were the efforts to develop more clean vehicles, more electric vehicles and to develop more wind energy. so he promised to provide more opportunities for the big oil

companies while harming their competitors in the clean energy industry. now, he promised he would do all of this on day one. he also made another promise as to what he would do on day one. he promise dz the -- he promised the american people that he was going to lower prices on day one. well, mr. president, we all know that is just not happening. prices are going up. grocery prices are going up, rents are going up, home prices are going up, the price of eggs is through the roof. so president trump is not delivering on that day one promise, he is delivering his promise on the big oil executives to issue that order that has made it even easier for them to produce when they're already producing close to maximum currents levels.

-- current levels. in fact, as my colleagues have said, for the past six years in a row the united states has been producing more crude oil than any other nation at any other time ever -- ever. in fact, the last administration actually approved more oil and gas leases during those four years than donald trump did during his first term in the white house. and there's plenty of room to grow. under existing leases, about half of u.s. oil and gas leases are currently not being used. so here he issues an executive order to allow even more to move forward even when a lot of potential is still not being tapped, but doing it in a way that would negatively impact the public health. sacrifice clean irand -- clean air and clean water. mr. president, that's only half

the problem. that's half the problem. because what president trump is doing is not only giving a blank check to the big oil companies, he's also sabotaging clean energy in the united states of america. they, of course, provide competition to the big oil companies. so by throttling and sabotaging efforts when it comes to solar power, wind power or electric vehicles, you're actually producing less overall energy. you're actually gives the big oil companies a competitive advantage. that means prices go up, knots down -- not down. i can tell you that in my state of maryland people are feeling the impacts of higher

electricity prices. we need to generate more electricity. we've got data centers coming on board, a.i. consumes a lot of energy. so why in the world would president trump be trying to cripple the clean energy industry? well, that's what he told the big oil executives he would do. he's going to crack down on wind power. well, i will tell you that solar and wind energy are among the cheapest forms of energy in the country, and at a time when american pocketbooks are tight, renewable energy will help keep energy bills down. in fact, renewable energy is expected to save americans $38 billion on electricity bills by the year 2030 and produce

more than 350,000 jobs in america. so why is president trump trying to sabotage bringing that additional energy on to the grid and to americans? mr. president, in maryland we're planning investments in offshore wind that will create 2,600 local jobs and power over 718,000 homes. that's wind power energy. that's what donald trump is trying to sabotage. so if you so if you really want to create more energy and reduce energy prices, you wouldn't be doing would donald trump is doing when it comes to putting the screws to clean energy production. mr. president, i do want to mention one other way in which this is going to really harm america's interests. and that is it's going to open the door even wider to our

adversaries who are competing in this space, principally china. you know, we spent a lot of time trying to improve our supply chains, develop supply chains for clear minerals that we need to develop electric vehicles, and by sabotaging this sector, we are opening the door to china just to run into this market and leave us behind. that is not america first. that is america in retreat. just as it's america in retreat for us to vote with russia and north korea at the u.n. general assembly the other day against the people of ukraine and freedom-loving people around the world. so, mr. president, i hope that we will support this resolution

the i hope we will ensure we can develop our clean energy source. that will produce more energy for the american people and help lower prices. i know back in may of last year, canada trump told the big ceo's not only was it going to help them develop more, but he was going to help them by hurting their competitors in the renewable energy industry. that is no way to conduct an energy policy for the united states of america. i urge my colleagues to support the resolution. durbin mr. president. the presiding officer: the democratic whip. mr. durbin: mr. president, it's been almost six weeks, maybe a couple of days beyond the six weeks of the new administration of donald trump and his second term. it's a lot different than his first term. i was here for that occasion as

well. and what we found is unique is a blizzard of executive orders issued by president trump from the beginning of his administration. among those executive orders was his declaration of an energy emergency, energy emergency. turns out, mr. president, that the claim is not based on fact. there is no emergency, energy emergency in america. under the biden administration, we saw record deployment of wind, solar, biofuels, batteries, oil, gas, and nuclear. in fact, the united states is producing more power than ever. and last year the united states of america produced more oil than any other nation in the history of the world. and yet president trump continues to insist that america is on the verge of nationwide blackouts and clean energy prices will raise prices --

clean energy will raise prices. simply not true. so what's the reason for the president to try to mislead the american people? the short answer is that he wants to give handouts to his billionaire buddies in the fossil fuel industry. before elon musk showed up with his multibill dollar -- multibillion dollar fortune tshgs was reported that then-candidate president trump invited fossil fuel executives to mar-a-lago to ask for -- hold on to your seats -- a $1 billion campaign contribution, one billion bucks. now that he's in office, he's doing everything he can to keep those billionaires happy. that means tax cuts for the ultrawealthy, which is on its way, i'm afraid, opening up federal lands and waters for drilling and, yes, declaring this phony energy emergency. why is he doing it? declaring an emergency grants

the president additional statutory authority. donald trump is using these authorities to fast-track pipelines and drilling in the gulf of -- may i say it -- mexico. there's nothing in this declaration to support fossil fuels' cleanest competitor, wind and solar. if trump doing the bidding of billionaires wasn't enough, his so-called emergency will also raise the electric bills of thousands of families. wind and solar is the cheapest energy in the world, and those cheap prices get passed on to the families who take advantage of it. i know personally. a few years ago my wife and i made the decision to install solar panels on the roof of our home. our home project gave union workers in my community a good-paying job and it was just one project contributing to hundreds of thousands of jobs created under the biden administration. since democrats' inflation reduction act was enacted two

and a half years ago, more than one and a half million americans have installed solar panels. was it a good idea? well, i compare the electric bills that i've been receiving in my home before and after the solar panels. before the solar panels were installed on my roof, the monthly bill was about $115 for electricity. now it's $15 because of the solar energy. every one of these installations also helped to create good-paying jobs for electricians, carpenters and other workers. and supplying those panels created thousands of new jobs at factories around the country. but president trump is not impressed. he wants to eliminate those jobs. we have an opportunity to undo the harms of one of president trump's many lies today. i want to thank senator kaine of virginia for leading this effort. we need to raise up american workers, lower utility bills, and put america back on track to lead the world in clean energy. i urge my colleagues to support the kaine measure.

mr. president, i'd like to address a separate issue, separate in the congressional record. on january 6, 2021, a salem constitutional proceeding was disrupted when a mob of thugs egged on by president trump attacked and trashed the u.s. capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election. the grim result of that insurrection was the subsequent death of five law enforcement officers and injuries to approximately 140 others. many of whom are still paying the price to this day. it came as a shock when on the first day of donald trump's presidency, he issued a blanket pardon for those who had been convicted for that january 6 attack on the capitol. we you a saw the videos, the graphs. here's an illustration of one of them. listen to what president trump said about 16 pardons at a

recent press conference when he was asked why did you pardon all those people who attacked police officers in the capitol building. he said, quote, i war donned people who were assaulted themselves. they were assaulted by our government. they didn't assault. they were assaulted. what i did was a great thing for humanity. the american people overwhelmingly disagree with the president, and they disagree with his decision, 83% of them oppose the pardons that he gave. that includes 70% who lean republican in their voting. despite this overwhelming opposition, the justice department has now brotened the scope of president trump's pardons for january 6 rioters to include separate charges stemming from searches conducted during those investigations. i'll describe a couple of them to you. federal prosecutors reentszly dropped explosives and firearm crimes being pursued against two january 6 defendants, pardoned by president trump. daniel ball and elias kostianz.

both had been charged in separate proceedings with illegally possessing weapons that law enforcement discovered during the january 6 related search. all had been accused of throwing, quote, an explosive device that detonated upon at least 25 officers during the capitol riot and a forcefully shoving police trying to -- who were trying to protect the capitol. ball was barred from possessing firearms because of his prior criminal record. cln to this. prior criminal record of a man who was pardoned by donald trump. before january 6, he was convicted of domestic violence battery by strangulation, resisting law enforcement with violence, and battery on law enforcement officer. president trump says that poor man was assaulted by the police. does it sound like it? remember, president trump told us ball and his fellow rioters were the actual victims.

no wonder so many of the january 6 perpetrators have shown a stunning lack of remorse. just last friday, just a few days ago, a number of these pardoned individuals decided to hold their own press conference outside the u.s. capitol to announce their intent to sue the justice department for prosecuting them for this. dangerous individuals including former proud boy leader enree kay tario who had been serving a 22-year sentence for conspiracy before the trump pardon. proud boy ethan nordean who had been serving an 18 sentence and another serving a ten-year sentence for stealing a police riot shield and using it to break a window. i'll -- i bet you saw that video. i did. the group paraded through the capitol after the press conference following the same route they took on january 6, 2021. they posed for photos, chanting as they did that day, quote,

whose house some our house. and after the press conference, mr. tario was even arrested again outside the capitol for assaulting a female counterprotester. he also posted video of himself stalking michael phenone and harry dunn, former police officers who defended the capitol on january 6. he was following them through the lobby of a hotel where the officers were attending a conference. while tario followed them, he was calling out at them that they were cowards and telling them to keep walking. does this sound like a man ashamed of his actions on january 6 and full of remorse? does this sound like an innocent victim of assault? no, this sounds like a man who now thinks he is above the law with his trump pardon and expects to be bailed out by president trump for every crime he decides to commit. in another horrifying term, the same hotel i discussed earlier where these rioters were stalking policemen had to be

evacuated after someone claiming to be maga e-mailed a threat about four bombs, two in the hotel and one at the officer's mother's mailbox. after listening to the names of several of the conference attendees and signalling out officer phenone, the e-mail said, quote, they all deserved to die. these are men and women in police forces who risk their lives for members of the senate and the house of representatives on january 6. the perpetrator of this source -- this tweet claimed to be acting, quote, to honor the january 6 hostages recently released by emperor trump, his words. and these are just last week's updates on the january 6 rioters president trump pardoned. the list of crimes committed by these thugs just keeps growing longer and longer. we must be clear that these individuals are a threat and the more power and freedom they're

given, the more danger they pose to our democracy. and the law enforcement officers and families of those officers that they are harassing. just this month dozens of january 6 offenders joined forces on social media to compile and publicize the identities of at least 124 individuals who had been involved in their convictions, including prosecutors, judge, and fbi agents. the post which was received 60,000 views included names, photos, disparaging remarks and demands for accountability. in january, another pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers ryan nicoles senior identified in a twitter post, quote, officers in the d.c. jail who need to be investigated for corruption and abuse, end of quote, adding the names and linked in profiles of two d.c. jail employees. this is stalking and harassment of law enforcement, men and women who were assigned to this

capitol to protect us. the men and women who bravely defended the members of this body deserved better than this and we should honor them for their heroic efforts on that day. government employees should not fear for their safety or that of their families for simply doing their job. i hope that all of us regardless of our political persuasion will finally agree on one thing. violence has no place in a democracy and donald trump's pardon of these 1600 january 6 attackers is not only an insult to the capitol police who risk their lives to stop them but has emboldened these convicts to harass these officers and their families. mr. president, the question for the senate is simple. whose side are you on? the police or the rioters? i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. a senator: mr. president, i'm going to state the obvious. the united states has real

energy needs. mr. kelly: we've got to produce enough reliable energy to make utility bills affordable for families and to bring online the advanced manufacturing and data centers that are powering our economy and will power our economy into the future. we're seeing this in arizona. the demand for energy keeps going up. it's going up rather quickly. now here's the good news. the united states is producing more energy than ever before. we're using everything at our disposal. we're finally bringing the manufacturing of solar panels and batteries and wind turbines back to america. now, that creates great-paying jobs across the country, jobs

that you can actually raise a family on, jobs that are in places like arizona and oklahoma, colorado, and texas. and we're investing to develop new technologies to produce even more energy. now, for years my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have raised very legitimate concerns about the need to reform our permitting processes to cut red tape and unleash american manufacturing. well, mr. president, here's the bad news. president trump is now throwing red tape around our energy production, which will raise utility bills and send american

manufacturing back overseas. one of his first actions as president, one of the first things he did was to block approvals of new wind projects on federal lands and then freeze loans and freeze grants for clean energy projects. he's making permitting harder or impossible. mr. president, that's the opposite of what my republican colleagues, your colleagues, wanted done. now, he also wants to change the definition of energy to only include fossil fuels. mr. president, it's 2025. we all need to live in the real world. more than 90% -- get this, 90%

of new energy production connected to the grid last year was renewable energy. and it takes three or four years just to build a natural gas power plant. there's no good reason to block wind projects, to belong solar -- to block solar projects that, by the way, are already under way to bring more energy to american homes and businesses. president trump, what he is doing is he is trying to just -- he's trying to pick pinners and losers -- winners and losers. when it comes to energy, he wants to decide, and the winners are fossil fuel companies and

china. and the losers, mr. president, the losers, that's everybody else. that's you, that's your family, that's your business. and families especially -- families are going to face higher utility bills. and manufacturers, they're going to lose the support that they were relying on. and workers, workers are going to just see their jobs go back overseas. you think china doesn't want to make more of this stuff and sell it to us? of course they do. they will be happy to do that. and we will pay the price. they would love to see president trump drive clean energy manufacturers that are in america out of business.

china would want us to cancel our manufacturing plants and cancel these energy projects. mr. president, we should not let this happen. we've got an opportunity this week to turn this around. so i'm going to be voting for senator kaine and senator heinrich's effort so that we can focus on our energy future. now, fortunately, there is so much that we agree on -- the need to modernize our power grid, to bring manufacturing back to america, to create jobs and reduce our reliance on imports, and to develop the energy technologies of the future right here in the united states of america, not in another country, not in china. and all of this -- all of this supports american jobs.

and, at the same time, it keeps utility bills low for american families. now, some of it will require us to cut some red tape and make things more predictable and efficient for utilities and for energy producers. many of my colleagues, we have shown that we are willing to work on these reforms on a bipartisan basis. so let's do it. and, mr. president -- not you, but the president of the united states -- let's reverse these short had sighted, targeted attacks on our energy supply. if we do that i know that we can work together and continue to expand the amount of nrc this country has at its disposal and bring down the prices for

american families and american businesses. thank you, and i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: before i speak on the matter in front of us, i wanted to say that on roll call vote 89 i voted aye.

it was my intention to vote no. therefore, i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to change my vote, since it will not affect the outcome. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. and thank you to my colleagues. i want to come down here and talk a little bit about energy with my colleagues in the senate today. and part of the reason why is that, as you know, mr. president, others know, the president of the united states has declared an energy emergency, and he did it on the day he was inaugurated here in the capitol. on a day when he was -- he had lots of comments, the fact that god had saved him so that he would be there to be inaugurated, that this was going to be the greatest moment in american history, and that we had an energy emergency because

there was an insufficient production of oil and fossil fuels. and as anybody who reads the newspaper in america knows -- and there may not be anybody left who has access to a paper, but i'd encourage you to do it. it's a lot better than what you're reading on twitter these days. we -- the united states is actually -- has actually produced more oil than we ever have produced in our history. in fact, mr. president, last year of the biden administration, we produced more oil than any country in the history of humanity. and the same is true for natural gas. the same is true for lng exports. the united states produces more oil than any other country in the world. we produce more natural gas than any other country in the world. we are the leading exporter of

liquefied natural gas, which, by the way, has been incredibly important recently because we have allowed our allies in europe to get off the russian oil that they were on and replace that with liquefied natural gas produced by american citizens, exported by american citizens to break the back of putin's ability to restrain europe's participation in the war because we were able to replace half their energy. i'm so glad that we were able to do that. and we are also the world's leading producer of renewable energy as well. and we have seen a huge amount of growth in solar, a huge amount of growth in wind, and i like to think in colorado -- that colorado is the nation started an awful lot of that.

and we are both a producer of fossil fuels and a producer of renewables. and we know it takes everything to drive this economy, but we want to do all of this in a way that's cognizant of the very real climate issues that our global climate change faces. -- that our globe faces and that our country faces. and the good news for the united states is there is no country in the world that is better positioned to lead the transition of our energy economy in this world than the united states of america. we are the wealthiest country in the world. we have the biggest and most abundant supply of fossil fuels and nonfossil fuels. we are less corrupt than almost any country on the face of the planet, and especially less corrupt than economies that are dominated by petrochemicals and by oil and gas around the world. we are the innovators in the world. we have a commitment to the rule of law. all of that puts us in this

incredible position to lead, and i believe 30 years from now or so, we're going to be in a place where we're able to say, not just to the american people but to the world, that we are net zero from a carbon point of view and that we were able to get there through american technology and through american leadership and american ingenuity and american exports, that we took a strategic approach. that we had a plan that made sense and that we captured along the way every, every molecule that we could find of fugitive methane, from oil and gas and from agriculture and from landfills that we said yes to wind and solar, that we said yes to nuclear, that we said yes

investing in emerging technologies like hydrogen, like carbon capture and like the carbon dioxide removal bill that i have with my friend, lisa murkowski from alaska, which goes to show you you can have a bipartisan approach. that we can move to a position of real leadership that can help us create an economy again that america, when this grows, it grows for everybody, not just the people at the top because we've got good energy jobs that are concerned with the production of oil and gas and the production of all those other forms of energy. and by the way, just on that point, and i'll be brief here, mr. president, because i know my colleague from massachusetts wants to speak, on that subject, this senate is about to get rid of the commonsense methane regulations that were passed in the last administration that are based on the work -- that fee

based on the work that we had done in colorado, working with industry, as the last administration did, to create certainty, to create predictability, to send a message to the world that we want american gas to be the cleanest gas of any gas in the world. and having us cap tour that fugitive -- capture that fugitive methane is an important part of that. we are saying no to that now. we are saying yes to the air pollution that's going to result. we are saying yes to the climate pollution that will result. i say to my colleague from massachusetts, while she's here, i take no pleasure -- and the president knows this -- for the fact that donald trump is our president. i regret that he is our president, but he is our president. and one of the ways he got to be our president is that he was elected twice. and in fact more people voted for him this time than voted for him the last time. i regret that.

i am sorry for that. and i think there are lots of reasons for that. but i think the one of the reasons for that is that there is a mythology out there that the democratic party believes that we're going to turn fossil fuels off yesterday. or that we're going to turn fossil fuels off next week. or that we don't respect the men and women that work in our energy fields or in our energy processing across the country. if there are democrats that feel that way, i disagree with them. because the worst thing we could do at this moment, when we have the energy abundance that we have, when we have the economic freedom we have, when we have the lack of corruption that we have, the worst thing we could do is elect a climate denier to be president whose most creative approach to energy was sarah palin's shopworn, drill, baby,

drill, which is what he announced under the dome of the united states capitol the day he was inaugurated president, and said completely untruthfully that we were in an energy crisis, when what we have is an energy abundance and no excuse, no excuse in not leading the rest of the world in making sure this transition on net zero carbon is accomplished, and that we do it in a way that protects our economy, that we do it in a way that protects our national security, that we do it in a way that recognizes the contribution that people have made for generations in northwest colorado and all over our economy to be able to drive this economy forward. and to the extent that the failure is a failure of the democratic party to make clear our position, i want to own that

failure and that responsibility. it's not donald trump's fault that he was elected. he ran, he won. we own some of the fact that he got elected. and i think on this issue we have not communicated clearly to the american people what we believe. and as a result of that, once again our children and grandchildren have a climate denier in the white house even though a majority of the american people believe that climate change is real and that we should be doing something about it. and those of using advocates on this side have to be very clear, much clearly, he said poorly and unclearly, but let me say again, have to be much clearer about what we stand for, which is for a transition that makes sense and that science commands and for the respect of people that are working in the energy industry, no matter what part of the industry they're working in. and the fact that donald trump,

even when oil is at $73 a barrel, at his inauguration, and we're producing more than we've ever produced in the history of mankind in the united states, thinks we're in an energy emergency, or he claims we are, surprises me not at all. since he said he was going to drive prices down, the price of eggs are so high today as we meet here, you need a mortgage practically to buy a dozen eggs in the united states of america. we can do better than that and we can do better than his drill, baby drill energy policy. with that, i yield the floor. ms. warren: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: thank you, mr. president and i want to thank the senator from colorado for your energetic leadership on this issue and i'm grateful for the work you do for the people of this country and also everybody around the world.

we've got to deal with this problem, so thank you. i rise today in support of senator kaine and senator heinrich's resolution to terminate donald trump's executive order declaring a national energy emergency. i just want to start about being clear about what's going on here. donald trump promised to gut our environmental laws if big oil ceo's gave him a billion dollars for his campaign. he was quite open about this. how could he do that? well, he's figured it out. he declared an emergency that he has focused on, that emergency will give him a chance to pay those oil executive ceo's back. this order is not a serious attempt at lowering anyone's energy costs. you know how i know this? because a true strategy to lower people's costs would include clean energy sources, like wind

and solar, which this order deliberately excludes. so what does this executive order do? it lets big oil and gas companies off the hook on following our environmental laws and regulations. and those are the rules that make sure that you have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. why would donald trump do this? it is simple. he does not care about lowering anyone's costs or helping create good jobs. all he cares about is his rich as hell -- those are his words -- his rich as hell donors and helping them make more money. let's be clear, energy prices are too high. americans are feeling those high prices. energy prices have been on the rise for the past decade. in the last year one-third of americans have had to cut back

on necessary spending in order to pay their energy bills. americans are looking for real solutions, and that is why democrats got to work and passed the biggest climate package in the history of the world to unleash american innovation and to support a clean energy future. now america is producing more energy than ever before, including through offshore wind projects off the coast of massachusetts. and we're creating good jobs while we're doing it. clean energy jobs are now over 40% of all the energy jobs in the united states. they are growing twice as fast as other industries. but donald trump is now trying to unravel all of that progress. why? in order to please his big oil

and gas donors. and this sham will have real consequences for our communities. raising energy costs and cutting american jobs. look no further than somerset, massachusetts, to see what is happening. at briton point in somerset, there is an old coal-fired power plant that closed down years and years ago, but a private company called prisnean decided they want to turn part of this plant into a factory to build under seat cables to support american offshore wind farms. they want to build the cables so we can bring that power in and use it, that clean power in and use it here in the united states. that project would be transformative for somerset. it would create about 250 to 300 good manufacturing jobs and

would deliver more than $10 million in annual tax revenues. that's a big deal for a small town. so for the last few years local officials and our massachusetts federal delegation has been working hard with the federal government to help turn that idea into a reality. last month the company suddenly announced they're ending the project. no more jobs, no more tax revenue. and why? because of donald trump's attacks on clean energy. somerset's experience is just one of the experiences felt by many communities all around this country. yes, somerset will bounce back, but donald trump is cutting jobs and raising energy costs on communities all across this country just to please his oil

and gas donors. and it's communities like somerset that are paying the price for that. make no mistake, we will fight back. that is why democrats are here today. that fight starts with ending this sham of an executive order. i urge my colleagues to vote yes on senator kaine and senator heinrich's resolution. and with that, i yield the floor. mr. merkley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: here's the question, do we pursue the 20ths century energy vision featuring dirty fossil fuels or do we pursue the 21st century energy

vision featuring inexpensive and clean renewable energy? trump's energy emergency declaration is about one thing. he's choosing the strategy of dirty, expensive fossil fuels. he asked the powerful big oil companies to contribute $1 billion to his campaign, and now he's paying them back at the expense of the american people. families lose, billionaires win. the plan. the plan features giving fossil fuel companies the power to seize public lands. it features giving fossil fuel companies the power to skip environmental assessments, environmental assessments that show how their projects will poison the air, pollute the water, kill wildlife, and despoil our ecosystems. it's the plan of giving fossil

fuel companies the power to bypass the public comment period so the public can't weigh in about the terrible ideas the fossil fuel companies are putting forward. the public can't weigh in about the drilling rigs and the leaky pipelines and export terminals polluting their communities. this is not government of, by, and for the people. it's government of, by, and for the oil and gas companies. families lose, billionaires win. this emergency declaration is certainly a sham because renewable energy costs less than fossil fuel energy. the international renewable energy agency found that the cost of new wind or solar is at least 30% cheaper than the cost of running most fossil coal plants. so it's no surprise that in 2024, 94% of the new energy on

the grid came from renewables, from harnessing the power of the sun and the wind. prioritizing expensive fossil fuels over cheap renewables drives up the price of energy that families pay on their bills every month. that's trumpflation. exporting more fossil fuels means families pay more at the pump and they pay more to heat their homes. that's p trumpflation. and burning more fossil fuels intensifies climate chaos, wildfires and hurricanes. it blows the top off the cost of insurance for people's homes, as insurers flee the markets. that's trumpflation. meanwhile, fossil fuel companies make even bigger profits. families lose, billionaires win. you know, this is not a red state or a blue state issue. since august 2022, investments from the inflation reduction act created more than 400,000 clean

energy jobs with more than half of those jobs in red states. in fact, 19 of the 20 congressional districts at the top for clean energy investments are represented by my colleagues on the republican side of the aisle. what are the top three states overall in clean energy job growth? idaho, texas, and new mexico. two out of those three states represented by republicans in this senate. for wind energy, it's texas, iowa, oklahoma, kansas, and illinois. four out of five states represented in this senate by republicans. for solar energy, it's california, texas, florida, north carolina, and arizona. three out of five of those states represented by republicans. so this is not a blue versus red situation. nearly 3.5 million americans now work in the clean energy field. more than a million of those jobs in red states.

and it's estimated that these developments will continue to create hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout the country. prioritizing fossil fuels will kill this job growth for working americans, so this strategy, this energy strategy, this is an energy strategy in which families lose, billionaires win. and there are far fewer good-paying jobs for americans. and, by the way, prioritizing fossil fuels is helpful to china. if we have a national energy emergency, we shouldn't be fueling our competitors by selling our energy to china to make their economy run better. if we have an emergency, we shouldn't cede the future of clean energy and all the jobs it will create, and the less expensive energy it creates, to china. we would want to make these products here and export them to the world, not have to buy them from china, helping china's economy grow at the expense of

our own. this phony national emergency declaration comes down to this, do we want families to win or do we want billionaires to win? let's come together, on red states and blue states together, say we want these jobs, we want this clean energy, we want this less expensive energy for america, because we are fighting for the families, not for the billionaires. thank you, mr. president. mr. welch: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. welch: you know, there's two issues here. one is about the policy, the energy policy that the trump administration is announcing, and we can have a debate with about that. i'm in full support of the comments my colleagues have made. but there's another issue that, in many ways, is more important, and that issue is whether this

united states senate will accede to relinquishing its authority as a separate and independent branch of government to a president who tries to seize that power by claiming a phony emergency. what justifies this action as far as president trump is concerned and legally is the assertion that we have an energy emergency. and by invoking that term, he's saying to congress, get lost. this needs immediate attention that only the executive can give. and getting lost means we don't act as an independent branch of government and fulfill the constitutional responsibility we have to be separate, independent, and a check and balance on executive power. that is a separate question from whether members agree or

disagree with the drill, baby, drill policy, but it's fundamental to the well-being of our democracy. congress in the past has never come close to relinquishing that authority, and whether you're a democrat or republican, if you are a united states senator, you have to defend the institution, not because it's good for me or you or any other member of the senate, but it's good for america. we rely on that system of checks and balances. so, the question is, is it an emergency? as my colleagues have laid out, no. we've never had more production of power in our history. we're exporting power. the power situation is not an emergency. there's power abundance. second thing, as many of my colleagues say, there are real consequences, because essentially what the president is doing is going all in on

fossil fuels and casting aside the opportunities that come, economic opportunities as well as cleaner climate opportunities with clean energy. i'm not going to repeat all of the information provided by starting with senator kaine, but it's true. you know, selling out, as some of my colleagues say, to the fossil fuel industry, the president was reported to have said get me a billion, what i don't understand is why you would kill jobs in the clean energy sector that is producing cheaper power and good jobs. there's no justification for an executive or members of congress doing that. the other final point is that we are having this bizarre debate about whether there's a climate situation caused by carbon emissions. reality is we all know it is

happening. we're all victimized by these wild weather events. there's only two explanations that explain the actions of an administration. one is they just favor fossil fuels, no matter what. a lot of truth to that. the other is there's a lack of confidence on the administration about the capacity of the american people, the american envators, the american entrepreneurs to take full advantage of solving the issue of climate change by building out clean energy by doing efficiency. that really, really works. and you know, a confident person, a confident country doesn't deny problems exist, they acknowledge them, face them squarely, then solve them. in the process of doing that, they all end up better and you have a stronger economy as well. so there is no emergency. we must end first for the separation of powers and the

authority of congress to not allow us to be stripped of that by an executive. second, we have to have a wise policy that creates jobs to be sustainable for our economy and for our future. i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. president. there is an issue that i have spoken about so often on this floor, and it is one that should concern each and every one of us, and that is the issue of human trafficking and sex trafficking that is happening in this country. and what we have learned is that to today, in the united states, a child is either bought or sold for sex every two minutes. now, think about that. and think about the harm that happening to children because of

this amount of human trafficking and sex trafficking. what we also have learned is that globally this has turned into a $150 billion a year business. this is something that we also have learned affects every town, city, community in our nation. it is pervasive. in tennessee, my home state, there were 1,170 reports of human trafficking through november of last year. and that is according to the data we have from the tennessee bureau of investigations. now, that number was actually down from the number in 2023, which had been 1,432 reports. and that was because of the effort that our governor, bill

lee, the tennessee general assembly, and the tennessee bureau of investigation made into fighting this human trafficking and trying to bring an end to what truly is modern-day slavery. but unfortunately, what we saw as we looked at the data was that last year's total of 1,170 was still 62% higher than the number in 2019. so, as we have looked at this in recent years, what you have seen is an explosion of human trafficking and sex trafficking in this country. while we know that human trafficking has been a problem

over a period of time, the concern is this heinous crime and how it has exploded in the recent past. now, there are some reasons and some contributing factors to the escalation rate in these numbers, and one of them is during the biden administration basically they surrendered our southern border to cartels and gangs and criminals and traffickers. many of us have been to the border. we saw what was happening on the border during the biden years, and as a result of the inaction that took place there every town in this country became a border down, and every state became a border state.

and because of the drugs, because of the human trafficking, the sex trafficking, the american people suffered the consequences. just this month, earlier this month, authorities charged eight venezuelan illegal aliens in middle tennessee for trafficking women across our border for the purpose of sexual exploitation. that was eight venezuelan illegal aliens. after entering our country illegally, the criminals conducted their operation out of nashville motels between 2022 and 2024, and like so many criminal illegals in our country, no surprise, they are tied to the violent gang t

tren de agua which plagued cities across this country with organized crime. all too often, these traffickers target not only vulnerable women, they also target children. according to our tbi data, there were 514 reports of children being sex trafficked in tennessee in 2024. that is one year. 514 reports. that was more than twice the number of reports of adult sex trafficking. the report also notes that there has been an increase in the number of unaccompanied minors who were trafficked into our country and exploited. this should come as no surprise. under biden, hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children have reached our southern border, while many more arrived with adults who falsely

claimed to be their relatives. although biden had a responsibility to place these children with vetted sponsors, his administration obviously did not do that. we have learned that they lost track of more than 320,000 migrant children who face the threat of abuse, trafficking and sexual exploitation. thankfully, after four years of failure under the biden administration, president trump is working to secure our border, to protect our communities and to bring human trafficking to an end, and there is so much more that congress can do to support this effort. last week i introduced the bipartisan gracie act, which would require the recording of all child protective services interviews with children and

adults. although 60% of child sex trafficking victims in our country have engaged with the foster care system, too often cps staffers miss the signs of abuse by -- by recording interviews, we increase the likelihood that trafficking victims will be identified and rescued. last month i also reintroduced a package of bills that will do much to combat human trafficking. my save girls act provides states, local governments and nonprofits with the resources they need to end the trafficking of young women and girls. my national human trafficking database act, meanwhile, would establish a national human trafficking database at the department of justice and incentivize state law enforcement agencies to report

their data. to help bring an end to trafficking at the border, i also introduced the child -- the end child trafficking now act which would require a dna test to determine the relationship between illegal aliens at the border and any accompanying child. now, mr. president, it is so important to note, i've introduced this bill before, and i did it because during the trump administration there was dna testing. it was ended during the biden administration. they said it took too much time. i inquired the amount of time it took, it took 45 minutes. what we know from the time we did dna testing, 30% of the children that were dna tested by border agents shared no relation to the illegal aliens who were

falsely, falsely representing themselves as family members. i think 45 minutes is worth it to save the life of a child. and my prince act, which has been reintroduced, gives customs and border protection the authority to fingerprint noncitizens under the age of 14 to combat the horrific practice called child recycling. just this week i sent a letter to fbi director kash patel and pam bondi that they release the unredacted flight logs from jeffrey epstein's private jet, and i requested jalene blackwell's little black book and all footage from ep

itstein's residence. after years of storm walling, we still do not have all the necessary information regarding jeffrey epstein's crime, who his associates were and who was involved in his global human trafficking sex trafficking ring. that is information we're going to need if we are going to bring an end to this practice of human trafficking. and also if we are going to bring justice for the women and children that were abused and trafficked during these human trafficking and sex trafficking rings. it is past time to bring this practice to an end with these efforts. we -- with these efforts we can provide this information with the tools they need in order to bring an end to this practice.

mr. wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: first of all, i want to thank senator kaine for his extraordinary leadership on this. because i think america is at a crucial time on energy policy, and senator kaine cuts right to the heart of the debate. donald trump wants more tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, and he is willing to pay for those tax cuts by raising your energy bill, and here's how the flawed idea goes down. clean energy today is plentiful. clean energy today is cheap. clean energy today is generating thousands of good-paying jobs. i was involved deeply in writing the law, developed the law that created the clean energy tax credit package, and it is making progress in communities across

the country. what donald trump is talking about doing, and senator kaine has spelled this out, is define the reality of the marketplace. for example, we are seeing constantly people in the fossil fuel business saying that this isn't time for drill, baby drill. they've been very blunt about saying that that doesn't make sense from a marketplace standpoint. what we want to do, as it relates to a role for clean energy, is build on the progress we've made, make sure clean energy is part of an all of the above program, technologically neutral, competing in a marketplace of choices. under the kaine legislation, we can have that reality and not the flawed idea that we would somehow benefit from having tax cuts for the ultra wealthy and somehow that will take care of people's energy situation. it won't. if you go with tax breaks for

the ultra wealthy in this program that is based on drill, baby drill, it is going to create rising energy costs for americans across the land. i urge my colleagues to support the kaine proposal. i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: thank you, mr. president. i rise today in support of my friend from north dakota, senator he hoeven's congressional review act proposal to block the biden administration waste information charge, otherwise known as the natural gas tax. since it was finalized in november, i pledged i would work with president trump and my colleagues in the congress to repeal this misguided anti-energy tax. today in the senate that is exactly what we are working to do. we must recognize that we are in a critical moment for american energy.

the north american energy reliability corporation has found that over the next ten years due to a rise in energy consumption and the early retirement of our existing fossil fuel generation, our country could face major electric generation and reliability concerns. we must take action now to ensure that our future demand is met, that the lights remain on, our homes remain warm, and our economy keeps moving for americans all across this country. we can do this by continuing to invest in natural gas. over 60% of american homes every day heat their homes, their water or their food with natural gas. natural gas is responsible for over 40% of the electricity generation and fuels more than half of our industrial sectors process heat. while the natural gas tax fails to recognize that reality, let's

look at what is true. fracking and shale gas have both revolutionized and transformed american energy, leading to lower prices, job growth and increased american energy security. according to the energy information administration, the rapid expansion of natural gas fired power plants in this country has decreased the power section's carbon dioxide emissions by 35% over the last 25 years. natural gas has the potential to reduce further greenhouse gas emissions if we continue to increase production. natural gas is affordable, reliable and clean -- and a clean source of energy vital to our country and our economy. we should not be -- we should be expanding natural gas producings, not -- production, not restricting it. instead the natural gas tax will strain natural gas producings, leading to -- production,

leading to increased energy prices and providing a produce to the production -- boost to the production of natural gas in russia. simply put, this is a win for our economy, a win for our national security and a win for our environment. as part of establishing this tax, the democrats' so-called inflation reduction act ordered the epa to revise its sub part w requirements in order to facilitate the reporting and calculation of the tax. the sub part w provisions blatantly disregard and overstate the ira and to excessively increase the tax burden on american energy under this natural gas tax. the revised make broad assumptions about oil and gas operations and technologies that will lead to inaccurate

reporting for many owners and operators. the rule would not only radically expand the scope of emissions required to be reported by each facility under the greenhouse gas reporting program, but it expands the number of facilities that are covered by sub part w and consequently responsible to pay the natural gas tax. dau to it this un -- due to uninformed and artificial overestimate of u.s. methane emissions, small smaller operators who were once below the waste emission threshold are at risk of seeing this inflated by large sums under the natural gas tax. if not repealed, this rule will arbitrarily increase the cost and reporting under sub part w, motivated by the democrats' interest in growing the revenues generated by their natural gas tax.

this will make it more difficult and expensive to produce, transport and consume american natural gas, and in turn will hurt both american families who rely on the energy and environment -- and the environment on the communities that we live. it's important that we note that our efforts today works in tandem with this chamber's recently passed budget resolution. as chairman of the environmental protection agency -- environment and public works committee, i have long intended to stop the natural gas tax and we will continue to pursue this through the reconciliation process. today's vote on the cra provides all senators the opportunity to put our vote on record after witnessing the biden's epa bait and switch on the implementation on this misguided policy. i encourage my colleagues to support this cra that is essential to our mission of american energy dominance and reject this tax that will bolster our adversaries, increase energy costs on

american families and put our energy future at risk. and i would like to yield back. but before i do that, i would like to thank my colleague from iowa to let me step in front of her to make my speech and i appreciate that and i know she will be supporting us. thank you. ms. ernst: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. ms. ernst: mr. president, thank you so much. for over a decade, i led the charge to expose government abuses, curb reckless regulations and protect hardworking taxpayers from washington's overreach. as my colleagues have so rightly scuffed, the -- discussed, the very actions by the biden administration made it necessary for president trump to declare a national energy emergency on day one. the biden green energy programs artificially insent advised electric vehicles -- incentivized electric vehicles

using taxpayer dollars with only 60 charging stations to show for it. folks, that's just one before the many energy-related billion dollar boondoggles by the former administration. as chair and founder of the senate doge caucus, i'm committed to permitting unchecked bureaucrats from issuing relations that -- regulations that impose significant new costs and stifle groultsdz. every day -- growth. every day doge is uncovering how far the biden administration went to conceal its reckless spending through the federal agencies, especially regarding their climate pet projects. instead of transparency and objective analysis, biden's bureaucrats relied on manipulation, inflated so-called net benefit and completely

disregarded economic reality in their rule making -- rule makings, and they were prolific, churning out nearly 110,000 pages of regulations just last year. that's one year, 110,000 pages. the highest number ever. between november 2023 and january 2025 alone, agencies issued 50 final rules using shady accounting gimmicks, slapping over half a trillion dollars in regulatory burdens on to hardworking americans. this included a relentless push to regulate truckers out of business based on the audacious claim that its extreme emissions

rules would somehow create $99 billion in benefits for society. but here's the reality, folks. these policies make everything more expensive for families. they killed jobs and they hurt our small businesses. and it doesn't stop there. the department of energy cited billions in so-called climate-net benefits and the social cost of greenhouse gases to justify heavy handed mandates ignoring the very real costs passed on to farmers and manufacturers. for too long, unelected bureaucrats have ignored the voices of job creators and working families, pushing costly regulations while hiding the true impact. this is why my red tape act is

critical. my bill ensures agencies can no longer manipulate a cost-benefit analysis to push their own agenda. it requires agencies to prioritize data-driven measurable economic benefits, not vague ideological justifications. while some federal employees complain about the new directives from the trump administration, they should take a moment to understand that hardworking americans who have had to show up to work and take risks to open businesses will no longer tolerate having to foot the bill for regulatory overreach. i am voting no on this effort to end president trump's national energy emergency. i support the president's efforts to make energy more

available and affordable to power economic growth. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. schumer: i want to thank senators kaine and heinrich for introducing this resolution and for taking the floor to highlight donald trump's energy emergency gimmick. we democrats are using every tool available to expose republican hypocrisy, revealing the so-called energy emergency for what it is. it is a shameful power grab by republicans to pay obeisance to big oil, plain and simple. nothing more but nothing less. republicans are raising prices by excluding clean energy from their emergency, meaning families could see electricity bills go up by $500 a year. republicans are killing jobs by gutting domestic energy investments that we made that have created so many new

good-paying jobs. republicans are rewarding china by weakening our economic competitiveness and ceding american leadership to our adversaries. the hypocrisy is simple. on the one hand they say we need more energy for a.i., for everything else. but then on the other hand, they greatly curtail the cheapest form of electricity we could make, which is solar and then wind. because really what they're doing is just being -- hugging big oil because big oil hates clean energy because they know clean energy eventually means the great reduction of polluting oil and gas and what they put into our atmosphere. senators kaine, heinrich, and all democrats will continue to shine a spotlight on republican attacks on domestic energy in the weeks and months ahead, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: i recognize the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: thank you, mr. president. to begin i ask unanimous consent

to grant floor privileges to christopher creech for today, february 26, to 25. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaine: thank you, mr. president. i rise to conclude the debate. i believe the vote will follow these remarks. i want to thank my colleagues, 17 democrats appeared on the floor to speak on behalf of the senate joint resolution 10. i needn't repeat the comments i made at the beginning. i will be very brief. number one, there is no energy emergency. we established the united states is producing more energy, more oil, more gas, more renewable energy than at any time in the history of this country, and that we are now a dramatic net energy surplus nation producing more and more energy than we consume every year. and that surplus is great because we could export to develop both reducing the trade deficit and helping other nations wean themselves off petro dictators.

second, president trump's energy emergency declaration is a sham. he noticing ares the facts of america's energy dominance in order to benefit big oil because he told them he would do that last summer. he said if you support me for president and invest in me, i will give you rollbacks in environmental laws on day one of my administration. and that's precisely what he did. we can tell that that's what he's doing by reading the exact materials of the energy emergency in which he sidelines critical environmental laws so long as you're producing oil and gas but not if you're producing wind and solar. if the president really wanted to accelerate energy, he would not leave out wind and solar. instead he's doing the bidding of big oil by trying to kneecap wind and solar in his energy emergency declaration. but it's more than the words on the page in the declaration. it's also in his actions.

i have many projects in virginia that have announced with great fanfare, including announced by our republican governor, that have relied upon tax credits provided in the inflation reduction act or other incentives in the bipartisan infrastructure law. these are projects all over virginia, rural areas, urban areas creating big jobs to create clean energy that will bring prices down. president trump has undertaken a series of actions to put in jeopardy all these projects in virginia, to jeopardize the jobs, and to jeopardize the energy that would be produced that would lower costs. and he's done the same thing in every state in this country. and so we need to reject this energy emergency so that we can have a true energy innovation economy and bring prices down for everyday consumers. i've listened to the comments of my republican colleagues as they have argued against my senate joint resolution 10 and they

basically made two arguments. the first is the argument that they don't believe renewable energy is reliable. and so for that reason they justify the president leaving out renewable energy sources in his energy emergency order. to the contrary. 94% of the power that's been added to the american electricity grid in 2024 is wind, solar, and battery. colleagues may stand on the floor and mouth the word that renewable energy is not reliable, but let's look at what the market is doing and the market is investing in these energies because they are reliable, they are american, they are are clean -- they are clean and they are cheap. and i would venture to say that those investing in these sources are more experts about what's reliable and what's not than members of this body, with all respect. the second argument that's being made by my colleagues is that they support all of the above -- all-of-the-above energy and they use that to argue against joint

resolution 10. my joint resolution 10 is all about the above energy. it's against the notion of leaving out wind, solar, battery technologies that are driving our green energy economy. the question is, if you're not opposing really because of reliability concerns and you're not really advocating for all of the above, what's the real source of the opposition? the real source of the opposition is this. people do not want to stand up against donald trump. they don't want to stand up against a president who declares a fake emergency. they don't want to stand up against a president who is unplugging jobs in their states. they don't want to stand up against a president whose actions will lead to increased energy costs for consumers. they don't want to stand up for a president that is targeting and reversing investments that they even voted for when they voted for the bipartisan infrastructure law. at some point my question to my colleagues is when will you stand up. how much do prices have to go up on everyday americans before you'll stand up? how many jobs do you have to

lose in your state before you're going to stand up? how many end runs of congressional statutes will you allow a president to take and be voiceless before you stand up? that's what this is about. i urge my colleagues stand up for an american innovation energy economy. don't let president trump use a fake energy emergency to kneecap it. with that, mr. president, i yield to my colleague from massachusetts. mr. markey: i thank my great friend from the state of virginia. i thank him for his leadership on this. i thank him for bringing out this very important subject because, mr. president, the american people are being robbed by the fossil fuel industry in broad daylight. and the trump administration is driving the getaway car. as the senator from virginia just said, in the united states, in 2024, 94% of all new

electrical-generating capacity installed is wind and solar and battery technology. 94%. and what i'm haring on fox news -- hearing on fox news, what i hear if the -- not all of the above but oil above all crowd is oh, my god, it's terrible what's happening in our country. look at the war that's being declared upon oil and gas and coal. saying that wind and solar and batteries are a war against oil and gas and coal is like saying that the cell phone was a war against the black rotary dial phone. it's not a war. it's entrepreneurial innovative spirit in our country, coming up with new technologies, new ways to solve the problem. and just like, by the way, the black rotary dial industry, they didn't like it. they didn't like it at all. they had a monopoly. but there's a way to get around

it. there was a way to have out in the marketplace new ways of generating communications technologies. and now there's new ways of generating electricity, new ways. they hate it. the incumbents hate it. they hate it because they had a bottleneck. they could -- it could only be them. it could only be oil, gas, coal, and all of a sudden a new generation of young people arrive and they say no. climate change is threatening this planet. and this new -- and there's in innovative ways we could move. so what's at the bottom of all this? the oil, gas, and coal industry are scared. they're petrified the same way the black rotary dial phone industry, the same way that horse and buggie manufacturer was scared. there's an automobile. there's an automobile now. oh, no, what am i going to do?

how about getting in the transportation business, not the horse and buggy industry. how about thinking about becoming maybe an auto dealer in ohio. how about moving on rather than being a horse and buggy company? no. we're stopping that. there's not going to be any roads. we're noting about -- not going to build any roads for automobiles. that would be terrible. so that's what we have. we have right now, we have a war against innovation, a war against nonpolluting sources of electricity, a war against a generation of young americans who are saying the planet is dangerously warming. and there are no emergency rooms for planets. $300 billion worth of damage in two storms, hurricane milton, hurricane helene. $250 billion worth of damage, the fires of l.a. that's $550 billion worth of

damage. in just three incidents. that's just the tip of the iceberg of what's coming. so what the young generation is saying is can we please install wind and solar and batteries, all-electric vehicles. can we be smart? can we think ahead? can we have a generational response? and what's happening is the oil and gas and coal industry are just calling in their chips. they're just saying that they want to kill everything, kill innovation. and by the way, i was the chairman of the telecommunications committee in the 1990's when we were still in that old era. believe me, those old companies loved their monopolies. so there's three wires take goes into people's homes, the cable wire, the telephone wire and electricity wire. now we're on the third wire, the electricity wire. are we going to make that competitive too or not?

and they are petrified. and just today -- this is unbelievable -- the trump administration announced that he wants to lay off 65% of the environmental protection agency staff. those are our frontline fighters who ensure our water is safe, our air is clean, our land is not polluted with toxins and chemicals. they want to turn epa into every polluter's ally. that's their goal. that's what they want to have. that's not what the younger generation wants in our country. and the epa administrator, lee zeldin, also told the white house that he wants to get rid of the epa's authority to regulate dangerous greenhouse gases based on the threat they pose to public health or welfare. it's known as the endangerment finding. does greenhouse gas emissions cause warming that endangers the

coastlines, endangers cities like l.a.? leads to $300 billion storms just ravaging through states. you know what the supreme court decided? 5-4, april of 2007, the supreme court said you must determine whether or not there's an endangerment, epa, and epa, if you make that determination that it is an endangerment, you then have to do something about it. that's what's ticking them off. now, i will tell you in a foo footnote, in his dissent, justice scalia said in voting no he said what's next. the regulation of flat lens from cows? where are they going with all this craziness? you know where we're going? you know where we went some we went to 94% of all new electrical capacity in the united states in 2024 is sunday and -- is wind and solar and

battery technology. that's where we went because there was an endangerment, because you knew what was happening. by the way, even the ira that was passed just in 2022, it's already unleashed $400 billion of public and private investment. it's created 400,000 new jobs, 400,000 new jobs in the clean energy sector. oil and gas and coal are pe petr petrified. they're the black rotary dial phone of 2025. they can see what's happening. it's changed. it's a brand new era. it's almost as though somehow rather they found enough allies here to lock us into the past, to lock us into the 19th century, lock us into the 20th century. kids don't want to go backwards. they don't want to look at the world in a rearview mirror. they want to look ahead at a brighter, safer, cleaner future. and that's what's going on.

it's threatening the business model of all of these people. so i directly question lee zeldin on this exact issue in his hearing before the environmental and public works committee. because i knew he wouldn't have the courage or the ability to stand up to the demands of trump's big oil and big gas and big coal donors. because if these donors tell zeldin to wipe any policy meant to protect public health and the planet off the books, it seeps he's ready to take on an eraser and to hop to it, regardless of the science, regardless of the law, regardless of the well-being of the american people in the long run, especially young people. the green new deal generation, they want changes. it would have seemed impossible to a black rotary dial

manufacturer. but it happened because you trusted young people to do the work. what else is trump doing for his fossil fuel friends? he's taking their money while he costs you your money. trump's billionaire oil and gas donors, promised them $1 billion last year in a meeting if trump would take all of the regulations off the books. and they raised the money for him. and he delivered a sham energy emergency executive order that is already forcing working families to pay more in order to line the pockets of those big oil, big gas, big coal donors. this emergency is a lie. the united states is already the world's largest oil and gas producer. it's the largest exporter of lng in the world. it's a lie. it's a lie. it's a lie.

everything donald trump says about an energy emergency is a lie to the american people because he has to lie to cover up the fact that oil and gas production is up, but they are hale so greedy -- but they're so greedy, they want this body and the epa to kill wind and solar, battery-storage technology, all electric vehicles. that's how greedy they are. it's not enough they have the largest energy production capacity in modern history h so they can produce the bittery energy -- they want to go on public land now to drill for oil and gas even though we don't need it. we don't need it. there is a revolution that if we just let it unfold, it will be 94% next year, 94% the next year. what they're afraid of is ten years from now when everyone says, oh, i love this new world we're living in.

the new, nonpolluting, nongas world. the real crisis is the climate crisis itself which continues to turbocharge extreme weather. it's costing lives, billions in damages, sky-high energy bills, insurance rates out of control in all these states that are having these superstorms and fires, and yet trump is dismantling programs that reduce energy prices, lower heating bills, keep our air and water clean, and create jobs while trying to ram through the dirty energy projects that will do just the opposite. and what does he want to do? he wants to take out a chainsaw -- that's what he wants to do. he's taking out his chainsaw, and he's -- he wants to call this waste, fraud, and acorruption, a revolution that creates this incredible revolution and just chop all of those programs down at the knees. so we're going to fight it every single step of the way. i thank senator kaine. i thank senator heinrich for

giving us this time on the floor to be able to explain to the american people what's going on. the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. hoeven: thank you, mr. president. i am a pleased to come to the floor again today to discuss my resolution to block the democrats' natural gas tax. which i'll call up right after we vote to affirm president trump's national energy emergency declaration. the biden administration's tax and regulatory onslaught over the past four years have driven up the cost of energy and led to a national energy emergency for our nation. one of the most egregious examples is a new tax on natural gas, and that's why i'm leading senate joint resolution 12, a congressional review act resolution to block this tax from taking effect. my resolution would rescind --

will rescind the rule amplifying the democrats' natural gas tax that the biden administration finalized last year. democrats and president biden mandated this new tax under the so-called inflation reduction act, which was of course the inflation acceleration arctic taking inflation all the way up to 9%, and the environmental protection agency issued its final implementing rule on november 18 of last year. the epa's natural gas tax rule imposes stringent methane emissions charges on qualified petroleum and natural gas infrastructure starting at $900 a ton for emissions in 2024. it then goes up to $1200 and then ultimately up to $1500 per ton in 2026 and subsequent

years. unless overturned, this would be the first time the federal government has ever imposed a direct tax on emissions. this new charge can equate to an effective tax increase on natural gas, on top of other taxes, of more than 5%. this will have a disproportionate impact of small oil and gas producers in my home state of north dakota hand across the country -- and across the country, many of which operate on thin margins and cannot afford the high cost to comply with this onerous rule. simply put, this is a punitive tax that will be passed along to consumers and will force energy developers to shut in production. that means higher prices to heat your homes. that means higher prices to cook your feed. that means higher cost for natural gas for all consumers. also less supply of domestic energy means higher gas bills for consumers and an increased reliance on energy imports.

instead of new taxes and regulations designed to stifle production, we should be supporting innovation to maximize the use of our abundant and affordable oil and gas reserves. our energy producers utilize the latest and the greatest technology enabling more energy production with the best environmental stewardship. today the u.s. is the world's largest oil and gas producer, and at the same time we've also led the world in emission reductions. since 1990, u.s. natural gas production has doubled -- this is an interesting stat. since 1990, u.s. natural gas production has doubled yet at the same time we've reduced total emissions by 20. double the output, double the output. 2 20% reduction in emissions. we've been able to increase

crude oil production by 60% over the same time period. when i was governor, our state was producing less than 200,000 a day. we took that up to 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. this doesn't just happen overnight. it is because we work to provide the regulatory certainty to empower innovation and entrepreneurial spirit to unlock the potential for energy development in our state and in our country. as north dakota became an energy powerhouse, our state producers have worked hard to meet the challenges of managing growing volumes of natural gas associated with oil production. north dakota producers have endeavored to dramatically increase the targeted gas capture rate from 74% to 95% over the past ten years. again through innovation, through technology, the latest, greatest methods that we've implemented.

producers want to improve on that rate, and we continue to, but the biden administration and its green new deal allies tried to make -- and in fact did make it -- hard to create the very systems &ed to capture that case. they impede our ability to reduce emissions. instead of supporting more lines and interstate production, the biden administration's natural gas tax will hinder domestic production. further, because our nation generates over 40% of our electricity from natural gas, burdensome taxes will result in more expensive and less reliable electricity. more inflation for consumers across the country as a result. also, less production at home makes other nations and our allies abroad more dependent on adversarial nations that have no regard for environmental standards. think russia, think venezuela,

think opec. at the end of the day, energy security directly impacts our economic and national security. this is about taking the handcuffs off and empowering our energy producers to increase supply and bring down prices for american families and businesses. that's why we're working to roll back the biden administration's disastrous policies on energy, like this natural gas tax. i want to thank the cosponsors of my resolution, and i urge all of my colleagues to support this congressional review act resolution. i look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues and the trump administration to repeal this misguided regulation and increasing energy production across the board with good environmental stewardship that will truly make america

energy-dominant once again. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: all time is yielded back. the clerk will read the title for the third time. the clerk: s.j. res. 10, joint resolution terminating the national emergency declared with respect to energy. the presiding officer: the question occurs on passage of the joint resolution. is there a sufficient second? there appears. -- there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: the clerk: ms. alsobrooks. ms. baldwin. mr. banks. mr. barrasso. mr. bennet. mrs. blackburn. mr. blumenthal. ms. blunt rochester. mr. booker. mr. boozman.

mrs. britt. the clerk: mr. budd. the clerk: ms. cantwell. mrs. capito. mr. cassidy. ms. collins.

mr. coons. mr. cornyn. ms. cortez masto. mr. cotton. mr. cramer. this hearing of the committee will come to order. welcome everyone. without objection the chair may declare a recess at any time. i recognized myself for the purpose of making an opening statement. good morning. i want to welcome everyone today to today's doge subcommittee hearing on u.s. foreign aid. this hearing comes at an important time, a time or all of

those are witnessing billions of dollars in taxpayer, fraud and abuse being exposed across every agency of our federal government. it comes at a time for oversight of u.s. foreign aid has uncovered billions of dollars that have been weaponized in furtherance. of globalists far right ideologies. the american peopleri want chan. the american people voted for change. the american people have spoken that they no longer wish to be placed by the bureaucracy's agenda to undermine the u.s. interest abroad. in 2023 alone, americans privately donated over $557 billion of their own money. corporations donated over $37 billion, foundations donated over 103 billion. that is incredible, incredible of the american people. in 2023 nearly 76 million

americans, almost 30% of americans, formerly volunteered through an organization, volunteered. the government did not make them do that. they did this on their own. donating in volunteering time is what supports goals -- schools shelters hospitals and hotlines food banks and more across only our country. not only our country but across the world. ask anyone in western north carolina. whether individual churches or businesses the american people are the most generous people and the entire world and i'm so proud of that. they should be the ones to decide where their money goes. they can choose if they want to donate to a charity, it's cool, a church or nonprofit. they can choose if they want to privately donate to the transgender in mumbai. they can choose if they want to privately donate to the british broadcasting corporation.

they can choose if they want to privately donate to the wuhan institute of virology through the health alliance or electric vehicles in vietnam or to changing the national census in bangladesh to be more gender inclusive. that is something they should be able to choose. that is something they should never be forced to do by our government. the democrat run usaid should not get into our federal government for their u.s. taxpayer dollars is their party bank to push their radical agenda in a country that we have no business giving money to. 96% of all political contributions from usaid employees go to democrats party candidates or pacs. that's 96%. not only is usaid giving $70,000 for an aei musical in ireland or $50,000 for transgender operates

in -- usaid has been transformed into an america last, foreign aid slush fund to prop up extremist groups, implement censorship campaigns and interfere in foreign elections to force regime change around the world. that is the dark truth about usaid. that is the story the american people deserve to know to not only was usaid never designed to be what it has morphed into that these things should never have been funded in the first place. in fiscal year 2023 usaid the firstmr roughly $44 billion in d across 160 countries and regions around the world. during the four years of the biden administration 181 countries received approximately

$240 billion in u.s. development aid and with ukraine being the top recipient. other top recipients include ethiopia jordan israel and somalia. after hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have been distributed throughout the world has the world become safer wexton no. has the world become more stable? no. is the perception that the united states around the globe any better? no. but at some of the most anti-democratic principals like censorship and the canceling of elections been funded through usaid because of opposition to the ruling regime? yes. has money through usaid been funneled to? yes. foreign aid from usaid to the u.n. particularly for u.n. relief and agencies for palestinian refugees in the near

east is directly funding hamas. humanitarian relief intended for the afghan people was diverted to the pallet. money to support democracy is being used as a slush fund for liberal propaganda supporting, gender ideology, diversity equity and inclusion, climate activism, censorship andde regie change. do you think this is what the american people think of when they think of foreign aid? absolutely not. taxpayer funds have literally been used to undermine you a centrist and counter american foreign-policy goals under the guise of foreign aid. this is unacceptable and the american people agree. thankfully president trump has taken action to address these issues. the election of president trump was a clear mandate by the american people that they will no longer tolerate this.

he is putting an end to the foreign aid slush fund, ensuring the hard-working american taxpayer dollars are supporting america first policies and taking care of our own people at home. and we will do the same. with that i now recognize ranking member stansbury for the purpose of making an opening statement. >> well good morning everyone and welcome to the elon musk chainsaw massacre. it's a remake of the classic because it's hurting real people in the lead character character mr. musk hasn't shown up in front of this committee are congress at all. we call this the subcommittee on doge or project 2025 is we will see here during the q&a. so today in this hearing on foreign aid which is the gop called you will hear all kinds of wild conspiracy theories, accusations and unfounded data.

it's designed to confuse and provide cover for donald trump and elon musk and their reckless gutting of our foreign aid and are reordering under the trump administration of international affairs. but before we dive into the details i want to zoom out and provide some critical context here about why this is happening. first of all let's talk about what happened over the last few weeks as they administered should took an abrupt about-face in international relations after 64 years of usaid in supporting our allies in europe, turning us back on long-standing allies in suddenly embracing and enabling u.s. foreign adversaries. let's do a little oversight here. last week the administration shocked the world as the vice president took to the global stage and address european

leaders and informed them that the trump administration believes that the greatest threat to europe is not the autocratic leaders who invaded our western allies years ago and committed war crimes and atrocities against the ukrainian people and threatened western democracy. instead the vp said it was quote the threat from within. they've been snubbed our allies in an unprecedented move endorsed and met with a far right candidate from the parliament who elon musk has months backing. this is a party that is so extreme that even conservative in germany will not form a government with them. then, over the weekend donald trump one on a wild rant on social media repeating russian propaganda trying to rewrite history and falsely claimed ukraine started a war against its own people.

then on monday trump had the united states of america vote against russia, vote with russia north korea and china in four of only eight countries in the world voting in the u.n. against the resolution supporting ukraine and affirming ukraine's sovereignty. when you think about what this means in the context of american history is truly astonishing. that same day only two days ago, the administration announced they would proceed with firing another 2000 usaid workers even as the court ruled that the administration is dismantling of the aid organization is illegal and interestingly one of the main opponents of usaid is donald trump vladimir putin. why? among the programs the uss funding before the funding was frozen with aid to ukraine

including houses on the frontline and free and open crowds to keep people informed about what's happening and not to mention refugee resettlement in the united states. usaid was engaged in democracy building in eastern europe and the balkans in the fall of the ussr. of course mr. putin didn't like that either. and these investments have been totally decimated over the last several weeks. over the last five years usaid has funded international aid to 212 countries around the world to promote international peace and security to help maintain stability and ensure that we are making good on americans promises. these investments are infraction of the cost of weapons and defense in the u.s. in the process is able to help promote national security, stop global

pandemics stop world hunger and make the united states a safer place so when we hear conservative allies and donald trump repeat wild and unfounded claims about international aid and we see accord they did attack by conservative media, like those who were here today members of congress, the administration, we had to ask ourselves what is really going on here? why are they so hell-bent on dismantling an organization that has been so vital to american interests and western democracy for so long? over the last several days they have fired thousands of federal employees. it really does make you wonder doesn't it and by the way while they've been doing that china has essentially moved down already displacing south asia that had their funding cut and is beginning to replace american

diplomacy and eight in those places. so as they listen to this hearing today and we hear from our witnesses which i look forward to, i hope that we can get to the bottom of what is going on here today and with that i look forward to hearing your testimony. >> january 24 secretary of state marco rubio gave an order that came with the waiver form urgency food assistance which was brought and even further in several days later the lifesaving services secretary rubio stated very clearly we have a blanket waiver than anybody who tells you they don't understand it but me repeat it in very simple words. if it saves lives, if its it's emergency lifesaving aid, food, medicine or whatever they have a waiver. i don't know how much more clear we can be and if we aren't applying it then maybe we aren't a very good organization and maybe they shouldn't be getting any money at all. additionally in kind food

assistance purchased from u.s. farmers is continuing. i'm pleased in today's our witnesses today. max is a senior research fellow at the heritage foundation margaret thatcher center for freedom. he has more than 30 years of international work experience including as acting chief operating officer at usaid and has a usaid contractor. from 2018 to 2019 he was at administration envoy to iraq overseeing a 400 million genocide recovery initiative to facilitate return to christians and other persecuted religious minorities. greg roman is the executive director of middle east forum a frequent commentator about middle east affairs on both national and international news channels and studies national security and political communication at american university and interdisciplinary

center. tyler o'neal is senior editor at the daily signal and author of -- the money cabal manipulating the federal government. he is a writer and commentator on federal policy in this appeared on local and national news outlets. finally nolan unger is the director of the sustainable development and resilience initiative at the center for strategic international studies and a senior fellow with the project on prosperity and development. they assert that both usaid and the u.s. department of state. again i want to thank all of you for being here to testify today. pursuant to committee rule nine xi the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the

whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. you may take your seats. we appreciate you being here today and look forward to your testimony. let me remind the witnesses that they will have read your written statement and it will appear in full and the hearing record. please limit your statements to five minutes. as a reminder please press the button on the microphone in front of you so it is on and so the members can hear you. when you begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green. after four minutes the light will turn yellow. when the red light comes on your five minutes have expired and we would ask that you please wrap up. i now recognize max for his opening statement. >> madam chairwoman thank you.

the views i express -- express your dare by him. the past few weeks we have been treated to daily let me of examples of fraud and abuse of taxpayer funded foreign aid. usaid and the state department used foreign aid is a global platform to push radical and even ideas that have shocked and angered the american people. one cannot help but ask was there anyone in the room raising their hand to say this is not a good idea? this might cost us bipartisan support in congress. we might lose the trust of the american people. yes foreign aid should be a tool to advance our national security interest. in the past it did. today it does not. frankly it's been doing harm. while spending more in aid there is more world poverty and hunger today, more political instability and developing countries are more beholden to our adversaries. a usaid i cochaired the

interagency working group and all a project through the counter china lands. that was dismantled. instead the biden administration made billions of dollars on the global green agenda the forest poor countries to rely on china for their energy needs. these countries trade within the best from the united states to bind our countries closer together. instead they got transgender diversity and abortion programs that had alienated billions of people. despite what we hear in the media there is no linkage between how we do aid and our national security. south africa has received billions of american aid dollars yet it's china's main africa partner. south africa is the s and bricks. supports hamas and iran and opposes us at every turn at the united nations.

last summer mozambique and tanzania and large aid recipients conducted two week military exercises for the peoples liberation army expanding communist china's power of protection to our atlantic ocean. 19 of the top 20 usaid recipient or members of china's belton road initiative. while acting chief operating officer at usaid i approve strong vetting policies for our humanitarian assistance in countries swarming with. that too was ignored by the biden administration. that -- that sums it does money have been diverted to fund in gaza syria yemen and afghanistan. ngos had been hit with hefty fines for violating our anti-terrorism financing laws. closer scrutiny is warranted with eight -- last year usaid

launched a 25 billion-dollar global civil society program based on the social theory of an italian marxist would really we have been funding radicals around the world that opposed capitalism, democracy and christianity. none of this is counter china. this is counter america. again a resounding yes the foreign aid can be a powerful tool of diplomacy to promote freedom, prosperity and peace in accordance with their national interests and our values but not as an instrument of progressive imperialism. regardless of which party controls the executive branch aid officials must ensure that every single foreign aid program can pass the middle america test on fraud and abuse. decisions must always secure bipartisan support. there must be full transparency

on who is being funded and what they are doing not only for the members of congress but especially for the american people. the fiduciary failure of our aid officials over the past four years has done tremendous damage to foreign aid's credibility and america's standing in the world. thank you and i look forward to your questions. and i thank you for never a good nice greg roman for his opening statement. >> madam chairman ranking member distinguished members of this committee thank you for the opportunity to speak today. my name is greg roman director of the middle east are not here because there is a fox loose in the henhouse in our party. it is funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to radical linked organizations but we don't fix these now we risk

fueling violence against our allies our troops and potentially ourselves. let me be clear this is a poem that began under the obama demonstration and was exacerbated under the biden administration but the problem that has been brewing across both of these 12 years of governance. a bureaucracy so insulated they can't tell teachers from paris. the result is moral confusion among grant officers won wittingly and in some cases intentionally bankrolled extremist. if the middle east form for the last 12 years we have engaged in oversight and public >> regarding foreign aid specifically those with remaining and we have identified over $122 million which ended up supporting radical organizations are directly bankrolling organizations considered to be by the u.s. government. that's not pocket change that's a jackpot for the wrong crowd. in terms of our specific

bindings, world vision. over the past two decades the major evangelical and yet has received nearly $2 billion from usaid but in 2014 is facilitate a 125,000-dollar grants to the relief agency and linked to al qaeda. after whistleblower raised red flags usaid ran through the funding pressured by world vision sudanese warlords in u.s. officials who copied to the list terror organizations. helping hand relief and development. in 20232 years ago they received a 70,000-dollar grant from usaid despite openly working with the who orchestrated the 2008 mumbai massacre in india. the author and grant came after the usaid inspector general wants an investigation into a prior grant from the same group. the jamal trust bank in lebanon. usaid dollars helped pad the pockets of his financial institution designated by the

u.s. treasury department as a sponsor for sponsoring hezbollah. this is no mere oversight. points are broken system that had cash to the future terror financing industry. behind me you will see unlimited france association to groups in gaza. members the gazan charity cozied up to senior members of hamas politburo like the son of slaughtered hamas leader is male credited as one of the planners are that covers have attacked senator which killed israelis and american citizens. meanwhile usa officials have called for their lands to be cleansed from the so-called quote security of the but to see behind me for images which don't just show members associating with members of hamas but also usaid officials employees of the left ever receiving awards because of their cooperation with these two hamas linked

entities. you even have a facebook post from this years ago which of the usaid office and drizzle them celebrating their relationship with the hamas entity. i can't find anything more and is the ranking member said looking for evidence this is not a conspiracy this is the u.s. government communication. lastly masking the money trail. billions of dollars usada grants are lumped under awardees making it impossible for congress the media or the public to track who's really getting the funds. according to public testimony in another hearing in this congress the portion of this money ended up in the hands of al qaeda affiliates in syria. how does this happen? the oversight conducted by usaid is as weak as a house of cards and windstorm. handing out cash in a alley and hoping he doesn't buy trouble. he relies heavily on self-reported data with no real-time checks. primary grantees are entrusted

to bet their own subcontracts even when those grantees themselves sympathize with radical causes. places like groups let them slip through because the so-called gatekeepers have no incentive or even ideological desire to shut them out. this is in the glitch it's a feature of a broken system. and here's the kicker, it's a problem caused by bureaucrats threatening america home and abroad but it's not just about fraud and abuse, this is a threat to america'smr national security and its criminal this committee should take action to assure the department of justice acts on it and does everything in congress's power to not just investigate. refer criminal actions of the preparatory's. thank you. and thank you mr. roman. i now recognize tyler o'neal for his opening statement. state chairwoman grain members of the subcommittee in the last few weeks revelation after revelation of how our tax dollars have been bent popping

of radical left-wing causes across the world. yet what struck me about the abuse of foreign aid has been the connection with leftist activists here at home. as a senior editor at the daily signal i've researched the left money networks which props up influence campaign to expose in my book. i found it props up ngos that advised the biden administration pushing unpopular policies on the american people through bureaucracy. in my remarks i will present three examples of how the left dark money network intersects with just one agency focused on its foreign aid. the u.s. agency for international development but the views i will express in this testimony are my own. the last dark money resource includes george soros and his

open society the tides foundation and the network of non-profitss. established by arabella. these groups which you can see on this chart funneled cash to dei transgender and divisive issues that the biden administration prior ties over addressing the concrete needs of the american people. the left dark money network has deep ties to usaid which is rightly received renewed scrutiny under doge and after elon musk shined a light on it. while the open society foundation stated does not receive funds from usaid or direct usaid >> the soros nonprofit has a long history with usaid but in 2001 the soros foundations network which became -- listed

usaid among its donor partners. open society and usaid have jointly funded organized crime and corruption reporting projects for the news outlet that attacks conservative's for you guessed it criticizing soros. open society a usaid jointly funds the east-west management institute. among other things the institute launched court changes in albania that resulted in the prosecution of albanian opposition leader, silencing the opponent of the countries socialist prime minister. open society has hired at least five former usaid staff including at least one high-level official who worked with usaid providing services amid political transition in foreign countries. former usaid administrator's met at least twice with open society

leaders. usaid has directly funded a different organization and the dark money network with ties. the agency has awarded more than $27 billion in grants. you'll find the tides foundation right here. the tides center has funded many of the leftist groups of the biden administration and operates in house nonprofit called palestine legal which represents anti-israel rioters in court to give them legal advice. former usaid staff have also gone on to work for al about -- arabella advisers which is a for-profit company. these groups allow donors to support specific projects without being associated with these projects. one of the nonprofit venture fund set up a secret group called governing for impact. even though governing for impact has existed for nearly two years

and did not appear in the google search at the time its leaders met with an advised top staff in the biden administration for the executive level bureaucrats who oversaw the vast federal bureaucracy. leaders of the rockefeller foundation another funder of the last dark money network previously held world that usaid including the former administrator who now serves as the foundation's president. other usaid staff have gone on to work at non-profits that advised the biden administration including the center for american progress, human life campaign and the american civil liberties union. personnel is -- and these connections between the left under the biden administration and usaid reveal how they captured the enterprise of foreign aid. thank you. >> thank you. i now recognize myself for five

minutes for questions. i will inform this committee and the public watching -- oh i'm sorry. i apologize i didn't mean to skip over you. i now recognize mr. unger for five minutes. >> madam chair ranking member stansbury distinguished members subcommittee i'm honored to share with you. my views are my own and not by former employers. i served for the state department and a nongovernmental positions focused on foreign aid reforming global stomach. if he is since world war ii has wanted to shape foreign aid in line with its goals. strangling the system to extinction is akin to unilateral disarming at a time of mounting geopolitical competition for partnership