mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. in the spirit of what goes around comes around, let me just say that the first circuit is a great deal smaller than the ninth circuit. my state, rhode island, is in the first circuit. we didn't have many vacancies during the trump administration on the first circuit. the only one we had was not filled. but i'm not aware of any member on our side being offered to meet with any trump judicial nominee for the circuit court level. and indeed, indeed, those of us who are on the judiciary committee didn't even get our five or seven minutes of time in the hearing with trump circuit court nominees, because the trump administration worked out some kind of a deal that their nominees would be put on the same panel, something that had only been done before with the agreement of both parties. so they would bring in their circuit court nominees, and you still got your five minutes, or your seven minutes, but now there are two or three on the panel. you get like one minute each. so i just have to say

mr. whitehouse: madam president, it's my pleasure, and i appreciate my friend, senator blunt. i'm here today to rise for the tenth time to talk about the right-wing scheme to capture our supreme court. as the presiding officer knows, i've delivered a lot of speeches on the senate floor, and a majority of them, 279 of them to be precise, addressed climate change. my time to wake up speeches, many of which focused on the network of phony front groups and trade associations used by the fossil fuel industry to block in a meaningful -- block any meaningful climate legislation. that vast web of climate denial and climate obstruction is one of the main reasons that we are in the climate crisis we face today. i'm here today to report that there is common technique behind that smelly climate denial operation and the right-wing donor operation to capture the court. they both rely on massive amounts of dark money. they both rely on a small number of ultra wealthy donors who supply that dark money. and they both rely on an armada of front groups and phony corporate entities funded by thos

we'll look forward to getting a read out from the whitehouse. thank you, mr. chairman. >> madame secretary, first of all thank you very much for your service. i appreciated the opportunity in the closed session and let me follow up a little bit of our concerns. first of all i agree completely with the chair in regards to the maximum pressure being exhibited at this stage and that we need to show unity and make it clear that there will be a heavy price to pay if russia indeed does further incursions into ukraine. i want to get to an issue that should concern all of us. crimea was taken over by russia in 2014. we imposed sanctions. europe proposed sanctions. and the status is still with russian occupation of crimea. so, yes. we have to be prepared to take action against russia if they incur further into ukraine but we need to have a strategy that goes beyond just the initial response on our activities, that makes it increasingly more difficult for russia to continue this behavior over -- if it extends for any length of time. the first for you is do we have conve

whitehouse to thought we discussed his response. for upon them so far plus the special, we get a rare glimpse. and if i want to rush with mr. tories prison home and say to some of the countries most dangerous criminals in the wake of the soviet collapse back in the 1990 walking into his cell like this were all these hardened criminals give you. this look, been rejected by fellow prisoners and become, and a pariah with something they feared most the morning will come to us into national world news at 1 am for moscow. with me, kevin. oh, well 1st, then a phone call between russian leader legitimate poaching us. president joe biden is just finished in the last few minutes. barney lasted around an hour initiated by moscow, and was the 2nd conversation between the 2 this month with ukraine and nato expansion key topics. the call was held ahead of geneva, brussels meetings involving us and russian officials. let's go live to correspond leper trunk has got latest on it. morning alia. understand this, the private conversations, not too much. no, 2 reporters at the moment. probably though, of course, as i was saying how much big me

mrs. shaheen: want to thank the chairs of the energy and natural resource committee who played such a pivotal role, senators manchin, murkowski, whitehouse and their staffs. senator portman talked about all the various groups who have been involved in helping to move this legislation. so i won't go back over those. but i will say again, energy efficiency is a win-win-win. it creates jobs, reduces costs to consumers and lowers emissions and as our economy recovers and grows, the investments in energy efficiency from our bipartisan infrastructure package are going to make sure that we use energy smarter. and i'm going to continue to partner with senator portman and others so we can unlock the full potential of energy efficiency for our growing economy. thank you. i yield the floor. mr. inhofe: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for such as i shall consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: thank you very much. i think it was christmas -- i think with christmas right around the corner, i can't think of a mo

mr. johnson. i appreciate that very much and you might separately send me a document as to where we quibble okay? and thank you very much to the chair. >> thank you. senator whitehouse. >> thank you very much chairwoman. ms. elias, i would like to talk about plastic waste recycling and where we are on that. we've put considerable effort into plastic waste recycling. a great many americans have a blue bin that they fill with recyclables to take out there. there's a lot of noise and talk about recycling and the industry likes to talk up recycling to help create the general apprehension or the general appearance that plastic recycled. but the information that i have is that on the input side, when particularly single-use plastics are being manufactured, 98 or 99% of the input is virgin plastic, leaving less than 2%, maybe 1%, one in 100, to be sourced as recycled plastic. i mean that rounds basically to zero. so when the plastics industry is manufacturing plastics products and in this case particularly single-use plastics, the disposable stuff, there's essentially no meaningful recycled contribution. so to me, that's kind of a significant measurement. if you go to the

mr. whitehouse: i want to thank them for the way it resolved itself. for a minute we actually felt like a senate here. thank you. mr. durbin: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the absence of a quorum is questioned. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. we are in a quorum. a senator: i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum. the presiding officer: without objection,so ordered. the senator from minnesota. the question comes on the nomination. ms. smith: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: