mr. heinrich: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. heinrich: i would ask unanimous consent to evitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. heinrich: i would also ask unanimous consent to is that right the regularly scheduled vote. the presiding officer: without objection. the question is on the nomination. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: vote: vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 50, the nays are 49, and the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the president will be immediately notified of the senates action. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from from louisiana. mr. kennedy: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the following associates who are working with me this summer in my office be granted floor privile

mr. heinrich: i ask the senate resume consideration of the silfen nomination. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, mollie -- molly r. silfen of the district of columbia to be judge of the united states court of federal claims. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: thank you, madam president. according to the united states department of agriculture's economic research service, 46 million americans live in rural areas. this includes 35% of the residents in my home state of nebraska. often in the government we focus on the majority of americans living in urban population hubs. but we have just as much of an obligation to the millions of rural citizens in our country. communications access is foundational to our quality of life, especially in rural areas where the closest neighbor can be many miles away. that's what i want to focus on today. as a member of the senate commerce and agriculture committees, i have the privilege of regularly advancing

here is what the president told jacqui heinrich moments ago. mr.nt -- >> just continuing to deny any involvement, we have the facts here. >> emily: we do and the montage of the amount of times he denied having knowledge of any dealings with hunter biden and the problem with the volume of evidence that comes out of comer's hearing in addition to hunter's laptop, we know that not to be true. when you protest, that is big foundation this evidence pointed to and look forward to accountability for lies or him admitting here is what i know. i know who the big guy is and know he's been direct recipient of what happened under his watch. >> kayleigh: we have what's app messages and picture of hunter biden behind the wheel of coveret and gps puts him near his dad's house. we have the facts. >> sean: if you look at a crack addict, the only reason he is paid, he has access to vice president of the united states and to think the vice president does not know what his son is doing. of course they know and every american who has a fair-hearted mind, yes, the two m

mr. president -- >> sandra: very interesting moment, jacqui heinrich getting that question in, have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings and she got a firm no from the president. which would contradict the text message we have seen by now over whatsapp where hunter biden references his father sitting right next to him during a business dealing. >> i know jonathan turley is your guest, it's interesting to me because in his last op-ed he was saying the bottom line in all of this is that somebody is lying, right. somebody is not telling the truth about the involvement the president had with hunter biden and it's going to be fascinating in the hours and days to come as this trickle of information comes to see what else james comer comes up with and to see about where this investigation might lead. >> sandra: because both cases cannot be true that, is for sure, trace. all right. so, jonathan turley coming up in a short time from now on that, meanwhile, await those two briefings and the atlanta d.a. at odds with the state's attorney general, refusing to prosecute a mob

mr. president, this morning i released a dear colleague alongside heinrich, rounds and young, announcing three senators only briefings on artificial intelligence taking place in the -- starting in the next few weeks. these bipartisan briefings will culminate in the first ever classified all senate briefing on a.i.'s impact on national security. in fact, all three briefings are the first all senators briefing on a.i. the briefings will be led by some of the top minds in a.i. and will help senators on much-needed experience on the technological shift. i urge all of my colleagues to attend these briefings, because it won't be long before we see a.i.'s changes in the workplace, and virtually every corner of our lives. it's already starting to happen. we must be ready. these all senate briefings are important because elected representatives in the 21st century can't ignore a.i. any more than we can ignore national security, job creation or our civil liberties. a.i. will permanently impact all of these things and more. the first briefing in the next few weeks will focus on the state of artific

heinrich. one is on a cybersecurity breach and china. listen. >> mr. you tell us what what you would like to achieve in china? what would you like blinken to achieve in china, sir. >> yes, i've spoken, we'll talk about that later. that's not what this is about. >> on the cyber attack today, sir. can you say anything about the cyber attack for us? >> no. >> sandra: no, and nothing further from that. the u.s. government, and confirmed now, john, hit with the global hacking campaign. exploited a vulnerability in some of the widely used software by the government. it's not supposed to have a negative -- sorry, a significant impact, i should say, but the u.s. cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency has now confirmed that. we don't know a whole lot beyond that just yet. >> john: and president biden not saying a whole lot more about that. that's not what this is about. >> sandra: and now this. >> house bill 15 is now law in the state of texas. [cheering] >> john: texas governor greg abbott signing a bill to mark the passage of a new law aimed at prot

mr. chairman, i'm out of time, thank you, i'll yield. >> thank you, senator. now to senator heinrich. >> thank you, chairman. dr. lott, a recent study commissioned by ercot, electric reliability council of texas i have here, indicates that the generation was reduced in cold years, particularly cold winters like 2024 or -- sorry, like the year we had 2011 and 2021. bye about 20-30% so this is the thermal generation we're all talking about but in particularly cold winters like 2021, they saw 20 to 30% decrease in reliability due to correlated outages that are caused by extreme weather events. in general, are we talking enough about the reliability of conventional o gas and coal overestimated in the windows given the demonstrated risk from correlated outages. >> we're not w spending enough time looking at tradeoffs and risks with the technology and paying together for the area made earlier and the natural gas plant has its own risks is one example and the entire fuel supply chain and pipelines, storage, wealth heads. >> valves that get stuck. >> all of it. >> would it have been helpful

senator martin heinrich from new mexico outlining the positives that we see in this common sense step reflected in the proposed rule. we had 45 representatives and senators sign that letter so, mr. chairman, without objection, i hope we would like to enter that into the record. >> so ordered. >> thank you. >> now, deputy director culver, is it correct that congressional intent for the federal land policy and management act is to include conservation as part of blm's multiple use mandate? >> thank you for the question. absolutely, it is. the definition of multiple use is very clear. it includes, for example, natural scenic scientific and historical values. those are certainly aspects of conservation as are management of habitat. and i think the quote that i read a few times lately comes from former governor of idahoan dress can who was -- andros who was the secretary of interior in 1976, and he talked about the importance of these public lands for all americans and said in response. to the passage conservation is no longer a pious ideal, it is an element of our survival. i take that as something that, you know, maybe we should have gotten around to these regulations earlier, as