mr. grassley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: reserving the right to object, and i'd like to give some remarks, i want to start out with a process question to all 100 senators. obviously this is an important issue with a lot of people. democrats control every committee in this body, and this bill is being offered when it could be brought up in the committee under regular order because they control the agendas of, in this case the judiciary committee. so why hasn't that come up? then i would remind people in 2013 that we actually had a vote on a grassley-cruz amendment that got the most votes so far of any gun issues in, i think, the year 2013. so now let's get to the issue that was brought up today by the senator from connecticut, and let me say that we've got to have real regard for the position he takes because of the tragedy that happened in his state in 2012. nobody's going to justify that. if they did, they would be crazy for trying to say that something bad like that happened, that it's not a crisis for everybody.

mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended.he presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: madam president, it's typical for commentators to talk about how china is no longer really a communist nation. of course only the most ardent china apologists would question that china is still a one-party authoritarian state. it's just that the economic policies pursued since the early 1980's that is hard to square with marxism leninism. i want to say to everybody not so fast. the six plenary session of the central committee of the chinese communist party contained a brand new historical resolution. this is only the third such paper since the founding of the chinese communist party. the first historians will remember was when mousy dunn put out one in 1945, and the second one was dunn ping in 1981. now readvising of -- revising the historical narrative has been used in the past to set a stage for a whole new era in china and a whole new era for the rhetoric of the democrat party -- i mean of the communist party. most china watcher

mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: this week marks the 80th year since f.d.r. delivered his day in infamy speech. that was national joint session of congress. f.d.r. told the nation that the united states of america was under attack. besides that attack, pearl harbor changed the course of history, including the future and fortunes of a young man from russell, kansas. today i come to the floor with a heavy heart. i'm here to pay tribute to my best friend in the united states senate. yesterday senator dole passed away at 98 years of age. for 35 of those years, he served kansas here in the congress. he also was the second-longest serving republican leader. when iowa selected me to serve in the senate, bob dole took me under hits wing. i couldn't have asked for a better mentor. he treated me like a brother. even when we disagreed, he treated me with respect. we shared conservative midwestern values. those values steered us to champion fiscal discipline, american agric

mr. grassley: thank you.inaudible] -- for bringing some common sense to the principle of checks and balances to government. in this particular case, it is not checks and balances between the legislative branch and the executive branch so much as it is injecting another level of checks on abuse of authority within the executive branch. so i strongly support this act and the bipartisan work of you two senators to bring greater accountability to the attorneys at the department of justice. congress created the inspectors general to be independent. they don't just investigate whatever their agency or congress might want them to do. the law says that inspectors general shine a light on waste, fraud, and abuse in federal agencies, sometimes transparency is very uncomfortable, but it's extremely necessary. you're not going to get real accountability if you have an agency's employees policing themselves. right now, the only folks who can investigate the justice department attorneys are other justice department attorne

mr. grassley: the words i just heard from the senator from oregon is very refreshing, and i thank him fore statements. thank you very much. madam president, today i come to the floor to once again talk about the tragic shooting that occurred at marjorie stoneham douglas high school, parkland, florida, not a long time back, february 14, 2018, and the justice department's response to it. part of my oversight work to see that the laws are faithfully executed, but before i get to that, i want to express, as we all have done i'm sure many times, our condolences to those victims and families of the school shooting in michigan last month. the shooting was an act of evil, and we ought to pray for the affected victims. recently the justice department reached a settlement with the families involved in the parkland shooting for a reported $130 million. the school shooting was another evil act. it took the lives of 17 innocent students and teachers. based on reports the justice department settled because the f.b.i. failed to properly investigate tips warning federal law enforcement personnel about th

i yelled. >> thank you, senator grassley. >> mr. chairman? >> i would be happy to defer to you. >> thank you. i care a great deal about this issue. i have visited guantanamo when i was chairman of intelligence. we released a report, which was a study of the detention and interrogation program. this report detailed the enhanced interrogation techniques used against guantanamo detainees at that time. it has changed since, there are still real problems. in 2021, i introduced the bipartisan due process guarantee act, which would clarify that a generalized authorization for use of military force cannot by itself authorize detention without charge of a united states citizen or lawful permanent resident. i believed then and believe now that this bill will help ensure the rule of law by preventing the indefinite military detention of u.s. persons without cause. senators white house, cruz, lee and collins are cosponsors of the bill. i am concerned about having an offshore detention facility, which is subject to a consequential daytrip to get there and

mr. -- senator grassley, and we're all going to come together, and even improving these four bills even more so. but again, i want to thank you, mr. johnson. i want to thank kim schrier. i want to thank our entire committee. this has been a great day. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia yields back the balance of his time. all time has expired. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill, h.r. 5608. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair -- the gentleman from texas is recognized. >> mr. speaker, i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3-s of house resolution 8, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings are postponed . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 1155, the uighur forced labor prevention act. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: -- the speaker pro tempore:

mr. harmon. we have heard a lot of misleading claims on tv. senator grassley and i were accused of trying to get rid of amazon prime. could you talk about what the bill actually does wishes to prohibit lifeforms from abusing their gatekeeper roles. mr. harmon: these are misleading claims. the starting point is what is a plot form and sometimes it's not a platform. if you were a business user of these platforms, you are at the mercy of those platforms to get access to their user and their customers and your customers. you are at their mercy on their terms of service that are subjective to their whim to change. this bill gives you the ability of the business unit to have a fair playing field so you will not be unfairly discriminated against because of your potential threat to their platform dominance. senator klobuchar: would amazon be forced to cancel free shipping because of this bill? mr. harmon: absolutely not. senator klobuchar: it's said that amazon free for knockoffs of third-party products and uses its algorithms to get its own brand and advantage which

mr. beckerman, i just mentioned that this bill, that senator grassley and i introduced, ensuring that dominant digital platforms don't use their power to thwart competition. do you support some of the competition reforms in the bill? have you faced any challenges when it comes to competing with the largest digital platform? that will be my last question? >> senator, we are aware of the bill. as a non dominant platform, we very much appreciate your legislation and the work you are doing in this space. as a smaller platform, it is an incredibly competitive arena for us. we compete every day with companies that collect more information on users and store that information to monetize it. so any efforts that this body and especially the legislation that you have undertaken to create an equal playing field so that it is competitive in the atmosphere for platforms like snapchat, that is welcome. >> okay, thank you. mr. beckerman? >> likewise, we appreciate your efforts and the work being done to promote and spur competition. it's something that i think we all benefit from and the specific challenges

mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. rassley: we're not in a quorum call, right? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. grassley: mr. president, we all know that our country is facing a drug crisis. i think it's pretty well known as c.d.c. has reported that over 100,000 americans died from drug overdose over a recent 12-month period. although fentanyl drugs are heavily responsible for this, we're battling the fight on many fronts. for instance, synthetic drug use is evolving and of course very dangerous. same thing for methamphetamine which is very much on the rise. too many lives are being lost. that's why i've been busy working on legislation to stop this epidemic. bills like this title of a bill, stop the importation and manufacturing of synthetic analogues act of 2021. for too long criminals have been skirting the law. you know how they do it? by changing the chemical makeup of a drug. they keep ahead of regulation writing. they keep ahead of congress making laws. congress is kind of in a situation of play

mr. grassley: thank you, madam president. i come to the floor today to discuss what anybody ought to discuss with a heavy heart, because when it comes to fighting drug abuse the united states seems to be losing. over 100,000 americans have died from drug overdose in the last year alone. these casualties could have been prevented by better drug prevention, treatment, and intervention. but the brunt of this epidemic is due to drug trafficking organizations. cartels fuel the flames of drug abuse. often using violence and causing devastateing loss of life. drug traffickers lays street drugs with fent fenta nil makiny drugs even more lethal. of course, we all know that most or all that fentanyl comes from china. china's winning a war killing americans through drug overuse without even firing a shot. and of course, drug traffickers are not slowing down. in june of this year alone, customs and border patrol agents seized over 1,000 pounds of fentanyl. this could kill two-thirds of the population of the united states. the boots on th