mr. portman: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio is recognized. mr. portman: mr. president, i come to the floor this evening to talk about the partisan reconciliation legislation that is before us tonight. it's named the inflation reduction act, but that's misnamed because, unfortunately, it does not reduce inflation, it actually makes things worse. so, when you're at the gas pump or grocery store or buying something anywhere today, you're feeling the sticker shock, and yet, this legislation is going to make it even worse. it adds $700 billion more in spending and over $300 billion more in new taxes at the worst possible time, increasing costs to consumers and actually making inflation worse. the nonpartisan penn wharton budget model that a lot of us have used over the years predicts it will increase inflation over the next two years. while over time it says it may even out, it won't decrease inflation as the name suggests and the bill sponsors claim. why? well, primarily because when you put $300 billion plus of new taxes on the economy it actually hu

mr. portman whose family owns a restaurant in ohio, he too, too, got one time debt forgiveness through theblicans like green and portman. but don't take my word for it. check out this new white house twitter thread putting at least six republicans on blast for taking your money, not paying it back, but criticizing students for getting a fraction of what they got. fun fact. conservatives love to complain about handouts. but they love receiving them even more. and after the break, you are going to find out who got an even big handout, an enormous sum of money as a reward for rigging the supreme court. and while this time it's not from the government, the government sweet rules for the rich made it 100% tax free. 100e i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget.

mr. portman: madam president prk i yie -- madam president, i yie. i yield back my time. senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. hawley: madam president, i rise today to discuss american national security and the decisions that we must make to keep this nation safe. the senate will vote today on whether to expand nato by admitting sweden and finland. i intend to vote no, and i encourage my colleagues to do the same, and i want to say a word or two as to why. finland and sweden want to expand nato because it is in their national security interests to do so, and fair enough. the question that should properly be before us, however, is is it in the united states' interests to do so? because that's what american foreign policy is supposed to be about, i thought. it's about american security, protecting american workers, defending american jobs, securing american prosperity. and i fear that some in this town have lost sight of that. they think american foreign policy is about creating a liberal world order or nation-building overseas. wit

mr. brown: i thank my friend senator portman. as if in legislative session, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of h.r. 6929 which was received from the house and is at the desk, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? a senator: mr. president. reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from idaho. mr. crapo: reserving the right to object. i appreciate my colleagues' commitment to this issue and to your constituents. as you know, this legislation has been before us for some time now, and there is controversy over it. this bill would retroactively reinstate pension benefits for a small subset of participants whose pensions have already been transferred to the pension benefit guaranty corporation, or pbgc. that would create a precedent other plans would follow. the pbgc exists specifically to cover pension ben

mr. chairman. senator portman. >> in the parliament in the senate you can yield. >> i've got to go to this meeting i'm just going to say i appreciate all the comments about the need to rehabilitate existing housing and single-family homes that are left out of the process right now. it's a piece of the puzzle we need to fix. cleveland has 3,000 of these homes that are vacant and not being used and it would help in this effort if everybody acknowledges today that increasingly the dream is becoming out of reach for so many so i just want to acknowledge the work that you've done and others on the panel b appreciate your help on this and i think my colleague for allowing me to yield. >> let me go to you first. the income tax serves as a surtax on small businesses and under recent proposals would subject active business. i think you would agree that would result in higher housing costs. can you explain how expanding to include active investment income would result in higher rent? >> sure. the consequences are especially

portman: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to the witnesses for their testimony. this is obviously a serious issue, and i agree with ms. vinograd, who said that a lapse in the authorization would be catastrophic. i think it would help these transnational criminal organizations among others. and yet we need better data to be able to put together the right authorization to write sound policy. we know already what happens on the border with these drones. we know they're used for deliveries, not just for drugs but also narcotic, also currency and firearms other contraband. this committee has among its responsibilities, oversight of dhs and these border activities and we have a particular interest. and this issue of the synthetic opioids that are streaming across our border today, the numbers unfortunately are higher than ever. last month, enough fentanyl was seized, which is a synthetic opioid that's killing about two thirds of those who die from overdoses, which is at a record level, we know that there was enough seeds to kill about 200 million americans in one month

portman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman i have got to follow on some of the questions that senator -- raise. according to information obtained by the committee, a seven year. , at least 249 transplant recipients have developed it -- have developed diseases from infected organs and -- have died. one of those cases was in ohio. the recipient came for a routine follow-up and was informed he accidentally received a transplant form -- a transplant from a donor with cancer. tragically it was not on the initial report. that the recipient had a three week. where they didn't even know that the donor had a brain tumor and it was on the pap apology report and was not available for some reason. this recipient has now been told he is likely to die within three years. there are four chairman in the -- and they all do work. we need to make sure the lives are not lost and we don't have tragic situations like this one due to testing failures. can you tell us, mr. shepherd what more we can do to ensure there are these 2800 ohioans t

mr. portman: mr. president, this is an easy one. let's trade bureaucracy and more funding in this bill for the department of homeland security for desperately needed technology along the southern border to stop deadly fentanyl from coming in to our communities. tragically over a hundred thousand americans were killed last year which is a record from drug overdoses. two-thirds of those overdoses were from these synthetic opioids like fentanyl. we know that the vast majority of that fentanyl originates with drug cartels in mexico now, and there's a surge of these deadly drugs coming across our southern border. this amendment increases funding focus toms and border protection by $500 million for badly needed technology to detect fentanyl and other drugs. if you can believe it, right now only 2% of cars, 2% and 14, 15, 16% maybe of commercial vehicles are being screened. both g.a.o. and the department of homeland security i.g. have done reports saying we badly need this technology and it's available. we need the funding. the funding is

mr. portman: i come to the floor this evening to talk about the democratics' latest reconciliation proposal. this is the tax-and-spend legislation you've probably heard about. it's called the inflation reduction act, but don't be fooled by the name. it doesn't actually decrease the inflationary pressure we all feel at the gas pump, at the grocery store, clothes shopping. it actually makes it worse. sad that we've been down this road before. early last year the democrats passed a massive $1.9 trillion package of supposedly focused on covid, but most of it had nothing to do with covid, but provided a lot of stimulus. it was the largest spending package ever in the history of congress, and at the time it passed a lot of us said, wow, the economy coming out of that first stage of covid is already picking up steam. in fact, the nonpartisan congressional budget office was telling us that by mid-year last year we'd be back to where we were pre-pandemic, pretty strong economic growth. yet, the democrat are insisting on another $1.9 trillion, almost $2 trillion of spending. remember, we had just pas