senator lummis? senator lummis: thank you very much, mr. chairman. my daughter is a little obsessive about the containers that she uses in her house for my grandchildren and i thought she was being a little obsessive compulsive and now i know she's not, this is a real thing, a, a real concern. um so, i want to try and bring it down to the water treatment level. um help me understand how we can do a cost benefit analysis that maybe a small water treatment plant in a community in wyoming can get their head around and use to help them address this issue. mr. alspach: you ask a very important question, senator and i firmly believe as i've indicated in my testimony that we just need more research to be able to even answer that question. i don't believe at this point that utility in wyoming could do a meaningful cost benefit analysis without much more information that informs what that analysis would ultimately tell them. sen. lummis: ok. so, are groups like yours thinking about that? getting ready to help maybe a small water treatment plant and analyze th

senator lummis, i think you're win-win-win.a'am. >> thanks, larry. larry: you bet. all right. we'll have some fun right here onset, cassie smedley, vice president of communications at coin -- have i got that right? >> you got it. larry: and crush shah -- independent women's forum. that's heather's group, right? god bless heather higgins. with all that, trump has ended dei, krysia. no government agencies, no money, no nothing. if you're in that business, you're out of a job if you're in the federal government. and if even a lot of corporations are starting to follow suit. what you think about that? >> i think it's great. everyone keeps saying it, dei is doa, of course. it's not only unfair, but it's also wasteful. we saw this in the biden-harris administration where the department of education spent over $1 billion on dei grants. this is just, again, another part of biden-harris that we no longer want to see because trump wants a meritocracy for everyone. he should be competent -- larry: right. >> -- and, ultimately, dei is also

thank you. >> thank you very much, senator lummis. and senator mullen has offered to enter his statement for the record. and is there any objection hearing? none so ordered. we're now going to turn to our experts to actually get some insights here and we're going to start with dr. brander. dr. brander: thank you, chairman merkley and padilla and ranking members, senator lummis and mullen for the opportunity to testify today on the potential for microplastics and drinking and wastewater to have repercussions for environmental and human health. i'm an associate professor at oregon state university and have been conducting research on microplastics and plastic pollution for nearly a decade and on endocrine disrupting chemicals for over a decade. the issue of plastic pollution is a great environmental challenge, as has been mentioned, it is also an expensive problem. estimated at about 13 billion annually. fragmentation of plastic products and waste into microplastics is of substantial concern to the nation's water treatment sector where

joining us, wyoming senator cynthia lummis. senator lummis, thank you for coming on, ma'am.sis, bring down the oil price, damage -- you know, russia, it's a one-crop, one-stop, one-horse economy. so you have knocked down prices, you could end the war. what do you think about that? >> oh, i think he's right, larry. so the definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. so the price of oil's up. if we produced more oil, then we'd have more goods, and the price would go down. if the price goes down, our oil is more atrack thive -- attractive, our natural gas is more attractive. and if we can get it over to europe, we can create more opportunities to compete against rush v.a. -- russia. countries that are buying their oil and gas from russia are then funding the war against ukraine. and so we've got to cut off the money that that's going to russia by selling their dirty oil and gas and thereby starve out the russian economy from funding the war the against ukraine. larry: so if you had, just for arguments sake, brent crude is about $80 a barrel, more or less. i'

lummis. mr. markey. mr. marshall. mr. mcconnell. mr. mccormick. mr. merkley. mrs. moody. mr. moran. mr. moreno. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff. mr. padilla. mr. paul. mr. peters. mr. reed. mr. ricketts. mr. risch. ms. rosen. mr. rounds. mr. sanders. mr. schatz. mr. schiff. mr. schmitt. mr. schumer. mr. scott of florida. mr. scott of south carolina. mrs. shaheen. mr. sheehy. ms. slotkin. ms. smith. mr. sullivan. mr. thune. mr. tillis. mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. warner. mr. warnock. ms. warren. mr. welch. mr. whitehouse. mr. wicker. mr. wyden. mr. young. the clerk: senators voting in the affirmative -- barrasso, budd, cornyn, crapo, daines, graham, hassan, hyde-smith, johnson, kaine, kim, lee, lummis, marshall, mcconnell, mccormick, moody, moreno, paul, rounds, scott of florida, tillis. senators voting in the negative -- alsobrooks, duckworth, gillibrand, klobuchar, lujan, murray, padilla, reed, sanders. mr. schumer, no. mr. hickenlooper, no. the clerk: mr. schmitt, aye. the clerk: ms. rosen, no. ms. ernst, aye. the clerk: mrs. fischer, aye. th

lummis. mr. markey. mr. marshall. mr. mcconnell. mr. mccormick. mr. merkley. mr. moran. mr. moreno. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff. mr. padilla. mr. paul. mr. peters. mr. reed. mr. ricketts. mr. risch. ms. rosen. mr. rounds. mr. rubio. mr. sanders. mr. schatz. mr. schiff. mr. schmitt. mr. schumer. mr. scott of florida. mr. scott of south carolina. mrs. shaheen. mr. sheehy. ms. slotkin. ms. smith. mr. sullivan. mr. thune. mr. tillis. mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. vance. mr. warner. mr. warnock. ms. warren. mr. welch. mr. whitehouse. mr. wicker. mr. wyden. the clerk: mr. young. the vice president: a quorum is present. the vice president: a quorum is present. under the previous order, the leadership is reserved. the senate will be in a period offed morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the majority leader will then begin calling up -- the majority leader. mr. thune: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to consideration of s. res. 1, which was submitted earlier today. the vice pr

lummis: thank you. i want to include a couple other questions i think are of significance with regard to pfas and excuse me if i'm being repetitive because i'm running between two meetings. do you plan to ensure the e.p.a.'s policies are effective while protecting passive receivers from lawsuits and consumers with unreasonably high utility bills? and let me explain here. the biden administration's plan to designate pfab under circla can impose of legislation on these entities called passive receivers that didn't handle chemicals. i know it's true at airports. they have pfas issues as well. so these passive receivers are now vulnerable to lawsuits that literally can bankrupt small local governments across the nation. my concern is that of course we address pfas issues but not in a way that submits small local municipal water systems and airports to litigation. mr. zeldin: thank you for raising this issue. i heard it from your colleagues on this committee on both sides of the aisle during my meetings. it'

lummis. mr. markey. mr. marshall. mr. mcconnell. mr. mccormick. mr. merkley. mrs. moody. mr. moran. mr. moreno. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff. mr. padilla. mr. paul. mr. peters. mr. reed. mr. ricketts. mr. risch. ms. rosen. mr. rounds. mr. sanders. mr. schatz. mr. schiff. mr. schmitt. mr. schumer. mr. scott of florida. mr. scott of south carolina. mrs. shaheen. mr. sheehy. ms. slotkin. ms. smith. mr. sullivan. mr. thune. mr. tillis. mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. warner. mr. warnock. ms. warren. mr. welch. mr. whitehouse. mr. wicker. mr. wyden. mr. young. senators voting in the affirmative -- banks, barasso, blackburn, budd, daines, ernst, fischer, graham, hagerty, hyde-smith, johnson, justice, kennedy, lee, lummis, marshall, mccormick, moreno, mullin, ricketts, rounds, scott of florida, sullivan, thune, tuberville, wicker, and young. ms. hassan, no. mr. blumenthal -- ms. slotkin. senators voting in the negative -- mr. husted, aye. senators voting in the negative -- baldwin, blumenthal, collins, coons, cortez masto, duckworth, durbin, hassan, ka

of course cynthia lummis is an advocate for the strategic reserve of the government acquiring 1 millioncoin over five years according to her own proposal. bitcoin is trading just under 10 5,000 this morning so fast and furious for the crypto industry. they are happy with what they got from the first crypto president this week. david: we know what cryptos doing or at least bitcoin. let's take a look at the other markets if we can. the general markets are trading down. the dow is down about 80 points, s&p just down a fraction, 4.75 and nasdaq almost flatlining there at up 1 point. that is literally flat and now its gone green so things are turning around. kenny polcari always turns things around. he joins me now. kenny we've had a bit of a rally recently. is this a trump bump we're getting now and even if we're a little red on the screen now, the optimism is just undeniable. >> i think it is and i think it is optimism across a range of the issues, right? it's crypto. it's the softening discussion about tariffs across china and across parts of europe. it's the softening discussion about th

you've got names like senator lummis of wyoming, actively advocating for a more aggressive buying plan. 1 million bitcoin over the next five years, meeting with members of the trump transition team, and cabinet appointees reportedly to discuss that plan and making that a reality. at this point, we're still waiting to see if this strategic bitcoin reserve would be part of an executive order if it's brought next week. >> thank you. have fun with the ball. should be interesting. an advisory council made up of industry executives. sounds like a great idea. >> i was just looking, at the end of 2024, the u.s. had $489 billion worth of gold, and $20 billion of bitcoin, did she say. >> 20. >> 20? >> yeah. >> there's a lot of room between here and there. that will be fascinating. if that's the case, i think there's still more up side here. clearly bitcoin is excited about this, and there's something built in here already. if that is the case, i think there's more to go. >> the saying, you can never be long enough, bitcoin, when it's going up. and that's what people are going to chase. they're g

senate banking committee also selecting senator cynthia lummis from wyoming to head the new congressionalch will look into a strategic bitcoin reserve. lvmh is in your. it was. >> i still. >> own it. >> but it was really. >> didn't yeah the yeah the awful and helm. >> it had a very. >> tough year. we saw richemont which had a very big quarter relative. >> to expectations relative. >> to any of the other ones. so there was life there. and i think lvmh. >> just got too cheap. >> yeah. >> all right. career. taking a leg lower after president trump called on saudi arabia and opec to lower prices at the world economic forum earlier today. for more on energy policy and trump 2.0, let's bring in paul sankey of sankey research. paul, great to have you with us. it's interesting to hear president trump and, you know, we had joe lavorgna on before who, you know, would identify with president trump in terms of policies. i believe that lower oil prices are very, very important when under the trump administration, it is almost taken for granted that he will be harder on sanctions when it comes to place

lummis. mr. markey. mr. marshall. mr. mcconnell. mr. mccormick. mr. merkley. mrs. moody. mr. moran.r. moreno. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff. mr. padilla. mr. paul. mr. peters. mr. reed. mr. ricketts. mr. risch. ms. rosen. mr. rounds. mr. sanders. mr. schatz. mr. schiff. mr. schmitt. mr. schumer. mr. scott of florida. mr. scott of south carolina. mrs. shaheen. mr. sheehy. ms. slotkin. ms. smith. mr. sullivan. mr. thune. mr. tillis. mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. warner. mr. warnock. ms. warren. mr. welch. mr. whitehouse. mr. wicker. mr. wyden. mr. young. senators voting in the affirmative -- banks, barasso, blackburn, budd, daines, ernst, fischer, graham, hagerty, hyde-smith, johnson, justice, kennedy, lee, lummis, marshall, mccormick, moreno, mullin, ricketts, rounds, scott of florida, sullivan, thune, tuberville, wicker, and young. ms. hassan, no. mr. blumenthal -- ms. slotkin. senators voting in the negative -- mr. husted, aye. senators voting in the negative -- baldwin, blumenthal, collins, coons, cortez masto, duckworth, durbin, hassan, kain

lummis. mr. markey. mr. marshall. mr. mcconnell. mr. mccormick. mr. merkley. mrs. moody. mr. moran. mr. moreno. mr. mullin. ms. murkowski. mr. murphy. mrs. murray. mr. ossoff. mr. padilla. mr. paul. mr. peters. mr. reed. mr. ricketts. mr. risch. ms. rosen. mr. rounds. mr. sanders. mr. schatz. mr. schiff. mr. schmitt. mr. schumer. mr. scott of florida. mr. scott of south carolina. mrs. shaheen. mr. sheehy. ms. slotkin. ms. smith. mr. sullivan. mr. thune. mr. tillis. mr. tuberville. mr. van hollen. mr. warner. mr. warnock. ms. warren. mr. welch. mr. whitehouse. mr. wicker. mr. wyden. mr. young. the clerk: mr. young. the presiding officer: a quorum is present. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of pete peter hegseth of tennessee to be secretary of defense shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will now call the roll. vote: the clerk: ms. alsobrooks. ms. baldwin. mr. banks. mr. barrasso. mr. bennet. mrs. blackburn. the clerk: mr. blumenthal. the clerk: ms. blunt rochester. mr. booker. the clerk: mr

lummis: also more than a thousand miles from our southern border an illegal criminal in our country brutally attacked and murdered her in broad daylight. for 18 minutes laken riley, that young woman in the prime of her life, with boundless potential, fought for her life against an assailant who never should have been in this country to begin with. the biden administration's open border policies served the criminal's depravity more than laken and her family, in fact. they served the criminal every bit as much as it failed laken and her family. laken's killer easily crossed our southern border with millions of others. and when he committed several crimes and was arrested, a biden administration-led i.c.e. made no effort to deport him. had he been appropriately prosecuted for his previous crimes, the riley family would have celebrated riley's birthday instead of mourning an empty chair. p and on february 22, 2024, would have been an ordinary day for their family instead of the worst day of their lives. no family should face the nightmare laken's family endured, and it is our responsibility as l