quorum call: mr. thune: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. thune: the senate i understand is in a quorum call. the presiding officer: yes, it is. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent it be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, tomorrow the supreme court will hear oral arguments in the dobbs case which deals with the mississippi law that would prohibit most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. this case offers the best opportunity in many years to see roe v. wade overturned or modified. something that is long overdue. roe v. wade was a bad decision that should long ago have been reversed. legal scholars from across the ideological spectrum have criticized the decision, noting in the words of one expert, and i quote, this constitutional -- as constitutional argument, roe is barely coherent. the court pulled its fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether, end quote. or as another legal scholar put it, roe is, and i quote, a very bad decision because it is

mr. thune: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. thune: madam president, i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be suspended and that i be allowed to speak for up to is a minutes and that senator carper -- up to 15 minutes and that senator carper being allowed to speak up to two minutes at the conclusion of my remarks prior to the vote. the presiding officer: time is reserved. mr. thune: madam president, just in the last day or so, the ever-evolving taxing-and-spending spree bill proposed by the democrats, it continues to change because they can't seem to figure out how to put together something that might pass in the house and the senate and are finding it increasingly difficult, i think, to try and contain the cost of all the things they want to do, which is why they continue to build in gimmicks and phony math to try and accommodate all the crazy spending in this bill and then also the massive run-up in taxes. this bill is the largest spending increase

mr. thune: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: no. mr. thune: mr. president, let me begin this morning by saying how sorry we were to hear the news about the loss of former first lady jean rounds the state of south dakota. mike and jean have been friends of ours for many, many years. i was involved in senator rounds' first campaign for office when he ran for state senate back in 1990. i have known jean since i worked in the administration of late-governor george michelson along with her at the department of transportation and just can't tell you what a loss it is for state of south dakota. she was an individual who carried herself with incredible grace, always kind, had a humility about her that i think people just found infectious. she was very down to earth, never lost that as a first lady, conducted herself in a way that represented a great model for the state of south dakota, both in her character, her conduct, the style, the way in which she has served as first lady

mr. thune: thank you, madam president. madam president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: madam president, the biden border crisis continues to rage. last month u.s. customs and border protection encountered 164,303 individuals attempting to illegally cross our southern border. that's more than twice the number of encounters, customs and border protection had the previous october and the highest october number ever recorded by customs and border protection. in all, more than 1.7 million migrants were apprehended attempting to cross our southern border in fiscal year 2021, the highest number ever. we are in the midst of a very serious crisis, madam president, and the response from democrats and the administration were mostly crickets. democrats seem to hope that ignoring the border situation will make it go away, or at least ensure that no one pays attention. i'm pretty sure the president and his administration spent more time earlier this year fightin

thune: - mr. beckerman: sex and drugs are violations of our community guidelines and have no place in tiktok. as it relates to the article, we disagree with that being an authentic experience. sen. thune: your platform is more driven by algorithms than any other social media platform available today, more so even than facebook. unlike facebook, tiktok's algorithm is not constrained by a social network. on july 19, 2020, the former ceo wrote that we believe all companies should disclose their algorithms, moderation policies, and data flows to regulators. tiktok also states on its website it makes tiktok source code available for testing and evaluation to get at its transparency and accountability center. has tiktok disclosed their algorithms, moderation policies, and data pools to federal or state regulators? mr. beckerman: as we pointed out, we have transparency centers and we have done may be over 100 towards with members of senate and staff and others in the government and would be happy to be tr

thune: thank you, mr. chairman. sen. cardin: thank you for your public service and your willingness to take on this extremely challenging position. i have listened to your responses to the questions in regard to border enforcement and i agree that we need to enforce our laws. i have also heard your response in regard to the manner show up -- manner of how we enforce our laws. desperate people show up at the borders. many have legitimate claims in entering the united states. we have families that show up on our borders. we have unaccompanied minors that show up on our borders. i would like to give you a chance to explain how you would balance enforcement of our law with values, which america has been the leader of the world during a time where we have had more displaced people than we have had since world war ii. can you explain to me your personal philosophy on balancing enforcement of laws with enforcement of our values? mr. magnus: senator, thank you very much for that question. even as we spoke about the numbers being

to deal with all aspects of the supply chain thune tuna stabeno u improving processing, shipments through ports. how would you go about carrying that out? >> mr. chairman, thank you for the question. and i could not agree more that preserving and reinforcing america's supply chain is one of our top priorities and must be one of our top priorities. certainly something that i care deeply about. we see as we approach the holidays the impact of a supply chain that is struggling right now. and so although cbp is only one actor at the ports, and certainly not the only entity that has responsibility for the smooth movement of goods through the port, it plays a very important role. i would want to make sure if confirmed that the agency has the appropriate staffing at the ports. that we are working with the presidents guidance around hours and different ways that the ports are operational. i also believe that continuing to develop and modernize the resources that cbp has such as ace i think very important as we move forward. there is definitely work to be done to manlt that, to modernize it.intain that, to modernize it. to get it into the cloud. all o

mr. dickson: thank you, senator. chairwoman baldwin. senator thune: thank you, madam chair and senator dixon, welcome. let's start with an issue from our home state and deals with the air force base which is prepared to host the b-21 bomber which will train in the power river complex and he certainly flies the b-1 bomber and holds exercises in the airspace that require waivers and i appreciate the f.a.a.'s effort to expedite aviation in the space. looking ahead more broadly, we have do ensure our advanced military aircraft have the expanded airspace volumes and the time they need to train. technology will help the system such as new entrants as u.a.s. intend limper act with traffic. the implementation of nexgen will be ruble in the coming years and will help better utilize infrastructure and creating the efficiency. can you speak to nexgen aviation and how the industry plans to make up for pandemic related delays. and secondly, how ised f.a.a. incorporating concepts like adaptive airspace in the initiative to meet the growing demands on the national

mr. klobuchar. >> aye by proxy. >> blumenthal. >> aye. >> schatz. >> marquee. >> ry. >> baldwin. >> duckworth. >> tester. >> sinema, rosen, lieu han, hickenlooper. warnock. wicker, thune. >> no by proxy. >> cruz -- fisher, moran -- >> blackburn. >> -- >> mr. young? >> -- mr. scott. mrs. -- >> ms. cantwell the yeses are 15, the no resume 13. >> the motion is agreed too. i think my colleagues were participating in this morning's markup. i know how busy everybody is and i -- end of the year so everybody is like in demand in many committees so i just want to say thank you so much for everybody participating in this morning's markup. and now we will end our executive session and turn to our normal hearing. i want to thank our colleagues for being here and for their attention. today the commerce committee will consider very important nominees. and i want to thank them for their willingness to serve. the nomination of jessica rosenworcel to be commissioner and chair of the federal communications commission. senator blumenthal will be providing a formal introduction. but i'll say a few words. the pandemic has mag need the deep digital divide in our country and if confirmed ch

mr. beckerman. >> i agree that there needs to be additional transparency and how the algorithms work. >> ms. miller? >> we do provide transparency, senator, in a way around our algorithms working. >> senator thune, it's important that -- very small set of content. when users get to select interest categories, they then determine the kind of content that they are served up. -- unlimited list of user generated content. >> i don't know if you or ms. miller answered the question, and that is, should consumers who use the social media platform to be able to use them without being manipulated by algorithms? >> senator, yes, i agree with you. >> ms. miller? >> yes, senator. >> mr. beckerman, -- the wall street journal article -- served up sex and drug videos to minors. >> senator, thank you for the question. serving up sex and drugs are violations of our guidelines. as for the wall street journal article, we disagree with that being an authentic -- >> your platform is perhaps more driven than any other social media platform available today, more so even then facebook. unlike baseball, tiktok algorithm is not constrained by user social network. on july 19th, 2020, tiktok's former ceo wrote and i quote,

quorum call: mr. thune: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican whip is recognized. thune ub thune is -- mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: we are coming up on a year of democrat governance in washington. what do democrats have to show for it? nothing good. on the international front the president's most significant act was his disastrous withdrawal from afghanistan which continues to jeopardize our security. on the domestic front democrats have ignored a massive crisis along the southern border that continues to rage because they can't take on the open borders left in their own political party. you look at what's happening with the supply chain. there are 90 containers sitting at the port at long beach waiting to get into the country and the president and his team can't really do anything about it because they are unwilling to take on the teamsters. if you look at our cities, mr. president, homicides are up in all

mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we're not. mr. thune: okay. mr. president, the -- in all the time i've been in washington in both the house and senate, we have a lot of -- i've seen republicans in control in the majorities, i've seen democrats in the majority. i've been on both sides of that. i've seen republican presidents and democrat presidents. but the one thing that doesn't change is that when democrats get power in washington, they want to expand government. they would not to grow government. -- they want to grow government. they want to spend money. that's just -- if you just look throughout history, at least in the time i've been here, that's just a fact. and we've already seen this year since the president came to power and the democrats have narrow majorities in the house and the senate, which they've interprets somehow has a mandate, but a dead-even united states senate, them push through on a partisan basis a $1 .9 trillion spending bill, which expa