mr. cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, are we currently in a quorum call? i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, our democratic colleagues in the house and, to some extent, here in the senate have talked about how the so-called build back better legislation is popular, but i think the main reason it's popular is because, frankly, many members of congress and certainly the public at large don't know what's in it, and so i'd like to spend just a few minutes talking about that. first of all, there's the size of the bill. originally the budget committee chairman, the senator from vermont, floated a $6 trillion spending bonanza. this of course was on top of about $5 trillion we spent last year in a bipartisan fashion dealing with the covid-19 pandemic. but, of course, this wasn't designed -- the $6 trillion more was designed to be passed with a pure party-line vote through the reconciliation p

mr. cornyn: mr. cornyn: madam president, here we are following the thanksgiving holiday where i hope that people got to get together with friends and family and enjoy a little respite from the hectic schedule here in congress. but here we are now with just a few short days intervening between now and christmas and the end of the year legislative mad dash is officially upon us. this year our democratic colleagues who control the senate agenda have ignored some of the senate's most important and basic responsibilities leaving us with a whole lot to do and not a whole lot of time in which to do it. in september when the senate should have passed a group of bills to fund the government for the next fiscal year, our colleagues instead kicked the can down the road. you would have thought they would have used the past couple of months to pass the annual appropriation bills which is one of the most basic and fundamental responsibilities of congress but no. they chose not to do that. instead our democratic col

mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. cornyn: i'd ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: thank you. mr. president, families back home in texas are planning their thanksgiving menus, but they're also bracing for steep grocery bills. prices are up for just about every part of a typical thanksgiving meal. the cost-of-frozen -- the cost of frozen turkey is the highest in history. things like potato, butter, pumpkin pies, even salt costs more than they did a year ago. it's not just going to cost more to eat. it's going to cost more to cook. appliance prices have skyrocketed over the past year as have electricity bills. and family members will have to pay a lot more just to visit their friends and relatives because gas prices are up 60% from last year. as families are being pummeled by higher prices and inflation, our democratic colleagues are planning to hand major savings to a sel

mr. cornyn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, after months of delay, i'm glad senator schumer has finally indicated he will allow the national defense authorization act to come to the senate floor this week. for each of the last 60 consecutive years, congress has passed an ndaa to ensure that our service members and military leaders have the resources they need to safeguard our democracy and our freedoms. this bill is how we maintain our military bases, modernize our force and invest in the next generation of weapons that we hope we will never need to use but which are necessary for deterrence. it's how we strengthen our relationship with old allies and forge strong partnerships with new ones. it's how we address the global threat landscape and ensure our troops have the training, equipment, and the resources they need to counter adversaries of today and tomorrow. from threats by an incre

mr. cornyn: mr. president, communities across our great nation are dealing with a startling spike in violent crime. last year the murder rate soared by nearly 30%, the largest single-year jump on record. the american people are paying close attention, and they are concerned. a poll this summer found that nearly 60% of americans are worried about crime. the percentage of those who say they are extremely concerned is at the highest point in more than two decades. and folks largely think not enough is being done to address this spike. a separate poll found that 65% of americans are dissatisfied with policies to reduce or control crime. that's up more than 16% from 2020. perhaps this is an off shoot of the defund the police movement that we've seen in radical circles over the last year or so. with a dramatic and shocking jump in homicides and violent crime and the clear belief that more should be done to address it, you would expect that the united states department of justice would be in an all-hands-on

mr. cornyn: thank you. mr. president, i want to start by thanking my colleagues for being willing to stand up and defend innocent human life. i remember recently watching a young woman walk across one of the downtown bridges in austin, texas, carrying a sign that said "abortion. anytime, any reason." that's what she was advocating for. i was shocked when i saw it because i thought even the most ardent advocates of abortion would not take that position, denying the humanity of this unborn child. but apparently that's what has become here 48 years after the supreme court first created a right to abortion out of whole cloth as a constitutional right. you look in vain in constitution of the united states as well as the amendments of the constitution for any reference at all to abortion. what you will find, if you read the declaration of independence, is a familiar statement to all of us. july 4, 1776, 13 states then made up america, said we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that

mr. cornyn: madam president, yesterday the secretary of homeland security, mr. mayorkas, testified before the senate judiciary committee. it's the first time he has been before the judiciary committee for an oversight hearing. of course our minds were all on the crisis that is currently under way and has been since the beginning of this year at the border when our colleague senator lindsey graham, ask him how he would rate his own performance so far, he gave a bizarre answer. he said i'd give myself an a for effort. that's the type of rating you would give yourself if you offered to cook dinner and completely bungled the recipe or if you ordered a really thoughtful christmas gift for your spouse but it didn't arrive on time. give yourself an a for effort. but when you're talking about the person who's responsible for some of our nation's most critical responsibilities for which they are -- which there are life and death consequences, an a for effort is hardly acceptable. and in this case it's an overly generous assessment. over the last year, customs and border

mr. cornyn, you are next. >> thank you, madam chair. [inaudible] lifelong and [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] testimony [inaudible] my [inaudible] [inaudible] somebody there is background oils but [inaudible] >> you are cutting out, sir. >> i am cutting out. >> can you hear me? hello? >> i think i can hear you now. >> good, thank you, thank you. tell me about [inaudible] water waste [inaudible] i am concerned about [inaudible] and surgeon putin's. >> so my research is not specifically on human health, although many of the studies on animals, we find at the effects can translate into human health. my focus -- when i can say is that we are focused on exposed to microplastics on a daily basis, both in the water models bottles, an unreasonable water bottle. and when we breathe in microplastics. they are so pervasive that they are in our shellfish, in our beer, our sea salt, in our water. if our water comes from -- if there's upstream unison palate ease that are releasing treated wastewater into a waterway and then a downstream eunice po

mr. cornyn: thank you, mr. president. later today the senate will vote on the latest power grab by our friends across the aisle, a bill that's called the john lewis voting rights advancement act of 2021. the most important reason to vote against this legislation is it is clearly unconstitutional. i know it's unusual for members of the legislative branch to make statements like that, but we do take an oath to uphold the constitution and laws of the united states, and i think it is part of our responsibility to assess the constitutionality of legislation that's being proposed and to make a judgment on whether it is constitutional or not. one reason why i say that is because the supreme court has made very clear that it is within the authority of the states to conduct elections, and that those elections must be run subject to the voting rights act, but that's section 2 of the voting rights act which applies across the entire country. one of the reasons we find ourselves in this position today is because in 2006, our democrat

mr. magnus: senator, thank you for the question. i think that there are many factors that contribute to this. sen. cornyn: is that one of them? mr. magnus: it is one part of it. yes, sir. sen. cornyn: ok, thank you. you are a border state officer and chief. i know you know a lot about the border, although i will tell you in my experience with senator sinema flying to tucson, it's a much different situation in the rio grande valley, for example, but one of the things we share in common is that the cartels have figured out how to overwhelm our border security, including our border patrol, and as a result of the fact that unaccompanied children, families, and others that require additional processing and care, when the border patrol leaves the front lines in some sectors in texas, for example, as many as 40% of the border patrol have left the front lines of border security and our back -- and are back processing unaccompanied children, it leaves a four lane highway for the drug cartels to smuggle drugs into the united states? mr. magnus: senator, i agree, even with the border not being homogenous, i think there is no question in some

cornyn. >> good morning, mr. attorney general. on september 29, 2021, as you know, the national school board association wrote a letter to the president asking him to address the disruptions, confrontations we have seen at local school boards across the country. parents expressing their concerns about not only the curriculum but also just generally the education of their children in public schools. would you agree that parents have a fundamental right to be involved in their children's education? >> absolutely. that's the job of parents to be involved. this is the role of the first amendment to protect their ability to be involved. that's why my memo begins by saying that we respect the right to spirited debate about curriculum, about school policy, about anything like that. >> it's not just a good idea, it's actually protected by the constitution? >> absolutely. >> on october 4, a few days later, less than a week later after the national school board association wrote this letter, the justice department issued the memo that has b

cornyn. senator klobuchar. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. welcome, secretary. in the nine months since your confirmation as secretary of the department of homeland security, you faced a series of unprecedented challenges from addressing the threat of domestic terrorism and cybercrime to major challenges on our border during a global pandemic to welcoming thousands of afghan refugees and helping them find a home. i don't think anyone here believes that this is an easy portfolio. i remember president obama saying that when he first got into office and was asked about a series of challenges that he confronted. so i want to thank you for your willingness to serve and the men and women of your department for the work that they do. i want to actually start with a positive topic, and that is the work that you and your crew have done in opening the land and air entry across our northern border for vaccinated visitors, an issue i've long been working on as head of the u.s.-canadian interparliamentarian group in the senate. i can tell you there were a lot of people celeb

mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i'm sure i'm not alone in expressing concern for what the next few weeks in the runup to the christmas -- to christmas is going to look like, and certainly the senate and the congress is not -- has not operated as a well-oiled machine to be sure. back in september when the senate should have passed a group of bills to fund the government for next year, we saw the can get kicked down the road. last month when our democratic colleagues, the majority, had ample time and a clear road map to raise the debt ceiling, they punted and really depended on 11 of us on this side of the aisle to avoid a threat to the full, faith, and credit of the united states. and despite a strong push from both the chairman, the distinguished presiding officer, the chairman of the armed services committee and ranking member, the majority leader has so far refused to bring up the national defense authorization act even though it's been ready for months, and i'm hoping that that will change this week. i

mr. cornyn: mr. president, are would in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. rnyn: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, watching from the sidelines and since we're not directly involved, because democrats decided to go it alone, our democratic colleagues appear to be playing a game of whac-a-mole to keep their reckless tax-and-spending spree from falling apart. after months and months of intra-party negotiating -- again, talking among themselves, not to us -- they hit the gas pedal last week when they knew that president biden was going to the u.s. -- was going to the climate -- u.n. climate summit in glasgow, scotland, and they wanted to give them something that he could actually deliver on. so last friday they finally settled on a framework, but the cracks quickly began to show. we don't even have a price tag on this proposal, but some have estimated its cost at $1.75 trillion, an absolutely staggering amount of money. the truth is, no one knows because the bill hasn't even been finalized yet, much less scored by congressional scorekeepers. unsurprisingly