mr. lankford: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. lankford: are we currently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. lankford: i ask unanimous consent to end the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lankford: mr. president, i bring news back from oklahoma to this body and a request for dialogue. the covid bill that was passed a little over a month ago, that bill provided all kinds of relief. as this body knows we were deeply divided on that bill and some of the issues within it. one of the issues stretched out the debate all the way to the last moment and it was the additional unemployment assistance. the conversation about the unemployment assistance is, the economy is reopening. is this the time to extend additional money above and beyond state unemployment assistance, what we normally do? with unemployment rates going down, should we add more money on top of it? no one knew what would happen when that occurred but we had some suspicions. the two weeks i sphent traveling around the state before eas

mr. lankford: madam president, let me read to you a section of the proposal on infrastructure that's beenut out by the white house. just one section of many sections that's there. this particular section on national critical infrastructure reads this way. funds for schools to reduce or eliminate the use of paper plates and disposable materials. i don't know what your definition of infrastructure is, but i don't meet a lot of oklahomans that when i say infrastructure, they think school lunch trays. we need to work on infrastructure. and i would tell you, i don't meet a republican that's not engaged in this issue of infrastructure. and it's not the first time for any of us to work on infrastructure. we've had multiple bills. i remind people around my state that every time you're driving around in my state and you see an orange construction zone and flashing sign, that was a previous infrastructure bill that was done. every direction that you go in my state, you're going to see infrastructure that's already happening and working. because working on infrastructure is a common part of what we

lankford. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks for all the work and there's a lot going on to say the case and they're being tapped right now to send checks when you're able to receive taxes and process those sufficiently. there's a backlog that you are working through and i understand and can you give us an update on backlog on mail coming in with the status is and we still get a tremendous amount of calls to get through as well. i want to know the status on that. >> we are current on our mail which means we have a more typical backlog which is about 1 million pieces of mail and process in but in terms of return we have 1.7 million returns that came in during 2020 and that was a party for us to get through those returns and in terms of service and the phone calls the volume of inbound was for depending on the time of the day and i think i might've indicated earlier that we have received as many as 15001500 phone calls per second on some of the days and our irs .gov has had over 1 billion hits in calendar year 21 and one of

senator lankford. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. thanks to all the work. there's a lot going on to say the least. i risk is being taxed right now to both send checks when you're designed to be able to receive checks. there's a tremendous backlog you are working through. i understand. can you give us an update on backlog on the balcony what the status is being able to answer mail? people are calling the office can't get to as well so help us understand the status on that. >> we are current on our mail which means we have more typical backlog which is about 1 million pieces of mail being processed. in terms of returns with about 1.7 billion returns that came in during -- million -- that's a party for us to get through those returns. in terms of level of service and the phone calls, the volume of inbounds has gone it probably as much as four times depending upon the time of day. we have received as many as 1500 phone calls per second on some of the days. our irs.gov has had over 1 billion hits in calendar year 21. one of the issues is the level of service and

mr. lankford: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: i've had the privilege to represent the great state of oklahoma and the people of oklahoma, to be able to sit in multiple presidential addresses in the house of representatives chamber. that joint address that happened last night i didn't have the privilege to actually get a chance to sit in on, clearly whatever watched it there were 200 people in the room signed for 1,600. with the spacing, in some ways it seemed normal and some ways ridiculous with 200 vaccinated people spaced out. that's a different point for a different moment. for that peach last night as i listened, i thought about the other speeches that i've listened to as well. many of these speeches are similar. the president comes and casts a vision. these are things they want to be able to do. talk through different programs, talk through different tax issue, talk through where we are as a country. cast a vision. i get all those things. last night and every night when one of those speeches occur, there's usually s