mr. grassley proposes an amendment numbered 3650. mr. grassley: this amendment creates a deficit neutral reserve fund for legislation that would prevent illegal immigrants with criminal records from obtaining lawful permanent residence status in our country. pretty simple. prohibiting illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges from receiving legal status in the united states should be a very easy call. it shouldn't be very controversial. i urge my colleagues to support it. reserve my time. mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the democratic whip. mr. durbin: madam president, the grassley amendment would exclude from a path to citizenship any undocumented immigrant who's been convicted of any crime or who has been merely charged with a crime. this is a broad exclusion. it applies to any criminal conviction no matter how long ago it took place, how minor the crime, and to my criminal charge, even if the individual is ultimately exonerated. this exclusion is also unnecessary because every legaliza

mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: i'm reducing the survivors bill of rights in the states act of 2021, this measure, which senator shaheen has joined me in sponsoring, builds on an initiative in which the two of us worked together in 2016. entitled the survivors bill of rights act that earlier legislation cleared the senate judiciary committee in june of 2016 during my tenure as a chairman. the house of representatives introduced a similar package of rights some months later and that version was enacted in the fall of 2016 with my strong support. the 2016 statute provides very important rights for victims of sexual violence, but that act only accomplishes those cases that are federal. such rights include, for example, the right to know the results of your forensic exam, the right to have evidence preserved for a certain period, and lastly, the right to knots before your forensic -- right to notice before your forensic kit is destroyed. amanda wynn is leading the

mr. grassley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. assley: last week judiciary staff interviewed jeffrey rosen, trump's former acting attorney general, and mr. rosen's deputy at the justice department, rich donahue. these interviews were done as part of the democrats' never-ending series of investigations into former president trump. their obsession with him has been very consistent. i'll give them that. so, too, are the democrats' public comments that grossly mischaracterize -- at least for now -- the state of the evidence. i'll start with a little history. this country has had to deal with democrats' obsession with destroying trump for much too long. in the process, i fear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have done and will do lasting damage to our political system. for example, in may 2017, then-ranking member feinstein and i met with then-director comey about crossfire hurricane. at that classified briefing, comey said trump was not under investigation. but that didn't stop the democrats from publicly saying that trump

mr. grassley. with respect to student loan forgiveness, we've never supported blanket student loan forgiveness. we the believe the government's role is to provide access to opportunity and serve as a backstop for those borrowers who struggle at the back end. we think it would be better use of money then a blanket discharge of loans across the board. for that reason, and for some of the other reasons around moral hazard and the like. sen. grassley: the cost of attending college continues to increase. the cost has doubled in the last 20 years. grown twice as fast as inflation. college continues to grow -- build lavish facilities off the never-ending stream of government money. what do you think could be done to help reduce the cost of colleges and secondly, should schools have some sort of skin in the game to hold them accountable? >> i do think that colleges should have some skin in the game, meaning their financial accountability for when their students struggle financially to repay their debt. wha

mr. levitt, if i could come to you. i note senator grassley talked a little bit about the senate finance report on the insulin. you also had an exchange on that. let's look at the incentives in the pharmaceutical supply chain and let me ask you how you think these incentives are aligned. if they are there to drive costs lower and out-of-pocket costs lower, which that is one of the things i hear from so many individuals. they never see the discount that is there. there is a lack of appropriate alignment in lowering the cost of the out-of-pocket expenses. i know mr. mitchell had referenced this earlier also so if you would come up for the record, talk about that alignment. mr. levitt: in our view, that is a fundamental problem in the entire drug pricing system today. the incentives are misaligned and that savings that may exist upfront in the system between the manufacturers and the pharmacy benefit managers in the form of rebates or discounts, there is no incentive to pass those on to consumers and what we have seen is a growing trend for other

mrs. shaheen: thank you. i had intended to come to the floor earlier today with senator grassley so that we could talk about our legislation that we are introducing this week that would build upon our efforts to protect the survivors of sexual assault in the criminal justice system. unfortunately i got delayed but senator grassley was here on the floor and i just want to recognize all of his efforts to address this critical issue and appreciate, again, his willingness to work with me. the effort to extend rights for sexual assault survivors across the country is critically important and i'm hopeful that when the bill that we've introduced gets to the floor that all of our colleagues will join us in passing this bipartisan legislation. i first became involved in the precursor to this legislation in 2015 when a young woman named amanda nguyen of the rise organization contacted my office. she had been traveling from office to office here in the senate trying to find somebody to listen to her story. amanda is a survivor of sexual assault and she is a fierce advocate for the way that the criminal justice system trea

mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: the senator from oregon should have read the 2017 tax bill, and he wouldn't give a speech like that. the wyden amendment is an example of democrats on the one hand complaining wealthy pay too little tax while supporting massive tax cuts for the rich. nothing in my amendment prevents changes to the tax code that would make it more progressive. who supports the wealthy paying their fair share should have supported my amendment and vote no on the wyden amendment. the presiding officer: the question is on the amendment. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: the yeas are 47, the nays are 51. the amendment is not agreed to. mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent that the following the klobuchar amendment, the following be in order, the amendments be reported in order with no intervening amendments in order. bozeman 3030, bra

mr. grassley: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor today because -- the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. mr. grassley: the lights weren't on that's why i didn't ask for it. the presiding officer: it was right at the cusp. mr. grassley: i ask that it be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: all i can do is go by the lights. i cam -- i come do the floor because i'm greatly concerned as to whether the department of justice is commit to fighting the crime known by the gang as ms-13, they operate on the streets of the united states and throughout mexico and central america. ms-13's informal model is, can you believe this, kill, steal, rape, and control. under the trump administration, the department established a task force to fight the murders and other serious crimes committed by ms-13 gang members, but the department of justice hasn't released any news or updates on this task force called task force vulcan since way back january 14, this year. right before president biden's inaugur

mr. grassley: so now, madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the following amendments be called up to the substitute and reported by number -- grassley 2435 -- that's grassley-leahy, grassley 2500, grassley-klobuchar. so i want to emphasize both of these are bipartisan pieces of legislation. the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from alabama is recognized. mr. shelby: reserving the right to object. i'd ask now that the senator modify his request to include my amendment numbered 2535, and i will speak to that briefly. the underlying bill includes billions of dollars for all manner of infrastructure investments in the u.s. however, it fails to address critical infrastructure needs to support our national defense. this amendment that i am bringing forth would rectify that. i believe that we cannot in america continue to spend hand over fist on domestic priorities. a lot of them are important -- without investing dime one in our national defense infrastructure. this would rectify that, and i would ask that it include my amendment in this. the presiding officer: is ther

grassley 3251, wyden 3569, tuberville 3113, klobuchar 3731. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. scott: i call up my amendment 3073 and ask that it be reported by number. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from south carolina, mr. scott, proposes an amendment numbered 3073. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. scott: thank you, mr. president. in over a year of uncertainty and the pain of living through a pandemic, i have to admit i'm shocked that i have to come down here to talk about the importance of quality in-person education. today we are debating a $4 trillion tax and spending bill, and that's on top of the $2 trillion we spent in march and the $4 trillion we spent last year. how insane is that? with all that spending, there is still no guarantee that our kids will be back in school this fall. the sad reality is more than one million kids did not enroll in their local schools during the pandemic. thanks to labor union bosses and their unneeded and damaging sc