mr. van hollen: madam president? the presiding officer: the junior senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:00 a.m. friday, march 5. following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed. finally, that following morning business, the senate resume consideration of h.r. 1319 and there be three hours of debate remaining, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two managers or their designees and that it be in order for senator sanders to offer the first amendment. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. van hollen: if there is to further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate has adjourned until 9:00 a.m. this morning. mr. schumer: mr. president, as the senate prepares to take up the american rescu

mr. van hollen: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. president. first i want to thank my colleagues who have gathered here on the floor to help pass and urge the passage of this very important piece of legislation, the for the people act. our constitution begins with three words that ring in the minds of each and every american. we, the people. 76 years after those words were written, president lincoln resolved in 1863 that those who had lost their lives on the battlefield at gettysburg shall not have died in vain and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. 102 years after gettysburg, our beloved former colleague, congressman john lewis, then a civil rights activist and leader, together with nonviolent marchers, were beaten bloody by alabama state troopers as they crossed the edmund pettus bridge, demanding voting rights in 1965. later that year in 1965, congress acted and did pass the voting rights act, and it was reauthorized regularly thereafter. most

mr. van hollen: thank you, madam president. rise today in strong support for the confirmation of california's attorney general xavier becerra to be the next secretary of health and human services. i'm absolutely confident that mr. becerra has the knowledge, the experience, and the skills. and just as importantly, the values and principles required of this job, a job that will play a key role in beating the coronavirus and tackling the urgent issues of equity and affordability now facing our health care system. i'm especially confident in my assessment of xavier becerra because i have known him personally for years both as a former colleague and as a friend. i first met then congressman becerra in the house of representatives where he served for over two decades with myself and the presiding officer and others, and where he was a champion for the health care rights of the american people. working overtime to make sure that every american had access to quality affordable health care. we served together in the house democratic lea

mr. van hollen: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. president. i want to thank senator blumenthal, senator murphy, everybody, who has been brought together by this tragedy that we witnessed in our country, first a few days ago in atlanta and then boulder. and the tragedy is these are not isolated events. these are the kind of tragedies that we see all too often and indeed every day in neighborhoods and streets around our country. so it's important that we come together to talk about the horror of the daily toll of gun violence and also highlight the horror of the fact that this body and the federal government have not taken action to stop it -- those daily horrors. mr. president, i want to begin by joining my colleagues and reading outloud the names of 20 of our fellow americans who have perished from gun violence just this year. 15 from across the country and five from my home state of maryland. this is this year and this is just a few of those who have been shut down and shot down through gun violence. caleb

mr. van hollins? >> aye. >> mr. val hollen, aye. mr. warner? >> aye. >> mr. warnock? >> aye. >> miss warren? >> aye. >> mr. white house? mr. whitehouse, aye. mr. wicker? >> no. mr. widen? >> aye. mr. young? >> mr. young, no. >> all right, everyone, we've taken a listen to the ayes and the noes, and it's gone very, very much along party lines, as we bring back in nbc's garrett haake. garrett, i listened john manchin got the aye. when murkowski came along there was a bit of a pause, what is she going to do? she voted no. i know there was a lot of pressure, right, a lot of pressure on her to keep with the coalition -- to keep the coalition together. by the way, did you hear the final tally vote? i think my audio was cut. did you hear it? >> no, i don't think it's been called yet. sometimes they leave these things open. it is possible we have a senator who wasn't in the room as they started so we may still be waiting for a final vote to be gaveled in here. you know, the murkowski vote is a little bit surprising. she towards the end of this vote-a-rama process had a bipartisan amendment she offer

mr. chairman. chair manchin: at this point, i recognize senator van hollen to introduce mr. turk to the committee. senator van hollen: thank you, mr. chair, members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to introduce you to the president's nominee to be deputy secretary of energy, mr. david turk. while mr. turk was born in south america and raised in illinois, i think i speak to -- speak for all my fellow marylanders when i say we are proud to claim him, his wife, and three children as marylanders. as you heard from the chairman's introduction and biography, mr. turk has a wide range of experience directly relevant and important to this position, and i highly recommend him to you as the next deputy secretary. i have also had the privilege of getting to know dave personally. i first met him more than a dozen years ago when he served as staff director of the national security oversight subcommittee in the house of representatives. he worked diligently with both sides of the aisle. i had a chance to travel with him and participate in hearings organized by the subcommitte

mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator. at this point i will recognize senator van hollen to introduce mr. turk to the committee. senator van hollen. >> thank you, chairman. thank you, chairman mansion and ranking member barrasso, members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to introduce to you the president's nominee to be the secretary of energy, mr. david turk. while mr. turk with north and south american and raised in illinois i think i can speak for all my fellow marylanders -- marylanders when we're proud to claim income his wife and three children as marylanders. as you heard from the chairman introduction biography, mr. turk has a wide range of experience directly relevant to this position and and i highly rd him to you as the next deputy secretary. i also had the privilege of getting to know dave personally over the years. i first met dave more than a dozen years ago when he served as a staff director of the national security oversight subcommittee in the house of representatives. he worked diligently with both sides of the aisle. i had a chance to travel with him on official codels and partici

mr. chairman, this is senator van hollen. i don't know if the others are here. >> having not heard from either one of them i'll turn to you, senator van hollen. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i want to thank all three of our witnesses today for their powerful testimony and their courageous actions in support of freedom and democracy. mr. lau, i have a question for you because i joined with senator toomey and last year we passed the hong kong accountability act which provided additional authorities for the president of the united states to sanction officials responsible for the cracktown and taking away freedom and democracy in hong kong. the prior administration, i used that for some targeted measures against individuals. i was pleased to see that the biden administration issued some sanctioned against those in russia who have been very instrumental in the crackdown on navalny, and we're urging the biden administration now to take similar steps with respect to a further crackdown on hong congress. as you said, 47 democracy activi

sanders: senator van hollen should be with us on video. sen. van hollen: thank you mr.irman and all of our witnesses for your testimony. we have seen another explosion in terms of the gap between ceo compensation and the compensation they provide to workers. that is why i joined senator sanders in introducing the bill we did. i would like to start by talking about the danger in using economic average measures to measure how the overall economy is performing for working people. for example, if jeff bezos had moved to baltimore city last year, you would have seen a tripling of the per capita income in baltimore city. the current per capita income in baltimore city is roughly $53,000. if jeff bezos moved there last year, it would have tripled that to roughly 100 $75,000 per person, and of course the situation of any individual in baltimore city would not have changed at all. looking from the outside at those averages, you would say wow, what is going on and baltimore city, huge increase in economic activity. can you talk about why we need to be drilling down on different e

van hollen. >> thank you mr. chairman and ranking member.i was pleased with the mayor's nomination to be the director and i am very pleased with your deputy director, congratulations. i want to pick up a little bit on the process, but especially the process that has been broken over the last four years and as the staff director of the house appropriations committee, you were deeply involved in addressing the illegal withholding of funds by omb during the last administration. the most prominent case involved with holding security assistance for ukraine the nonpartisan gao reviewed that matter and determined whether the withholdings violated the act which as you know is supposed to prevent the executive branch regardless of the party for unilaterally refusing to spend funds that are provided in the law passed by the congress. the gao looked at it and confirmed the trump administration violated that law. as a member of the committee, the budget committee, we were able to put together bipartisan legislation that included provision proposals to s

mr. gensler, i've already appropriated -- thank you, senator hagerty. senator van hollen for maryland. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member and congratulations again to mr. shogren mr. gensler. on your nomination. up on not able to get to the second round, mischa schober, i will submit some questions for the record. mr. gensler, you and i had a chance to speak before this hearing and i raise some concerns and specific legislation i entered is that i consider sort of sec good housekeeping principles. when isabel and reduce with senator fischer around can be five plans. the other one deals with the eight k trading gap. both bills are intended to provide investors and the public with confidence that ceos and other insiders are not taking advantage of insider information. my question for you today is when you commit to working with me and providing technical assistance as as a work to ps these bills? >> senator, and wanted to start by just thank you for the warm introduction about an hour and half ago to the committee as you and i know each other about 20 years and not

mr. chairman, and thank you panelists. i yield back. >> senator from maryland, >> se senatorna van hollen. ha >> thank you, mr.nk y ouchairma ranking member toomey, and let t me thank all thehe panelists an just very quickly on that last point, one of the big issues we're seeing actually is some o these fin tech lenders using the last administration's rent a bank rules to actually evade some of the state caps that areb trying to designed to avoid predatory lending. so if we believe that states should be able to set these usury caps where they want, we should also make sure that we e don't allow work arounds through the national banks. but let me just ask a question of mrs. bruce, and mrs. bruce, i thank you for your leadership as president and ceo of the baltimore community lending kinc cdfi, and i know you've also worked in the commercial banking sector. i believe jpmorgan, bank of america, pnc. earlier mr. griffith indicated that there's only a small percentage of small businesses seeking capital and that loan. essentially the market can effectively decide who deserves a loan.al banki c

i understand senator van hollen is with us virtually. >> yes. thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member for this hearing. and madam ambassador it's great to see you. thank you for your past service to our country and for your willingness to serve again in this capacity, if confirmed. and it is great to see your family. senator murphy and i have proposed a new foreign policy budget to really meet the needs of this century and the year 2021, recognizing that many of the threats that we face are transnational, global, from climate change to pandemics the cybersecurity. and we look forward to working with you to explore that budget. it includes a significant increase in the budget for a.i.d., among other things. and part of the idea is also to combat what senator hagerty was just discussing, which is china's very active and aggressive effort to export its model of authoritarian, authoritarianism to the developing world through a number of instruments including debt trap diplomacy, belt and road initiative. their focus has been on sort of major infrastructure proj

. >> thank you, senator van hollen s.senator markey with us? >> thank you. can you hear me, mr.hairman? >> i can hear you loud and clear. you're recognize the for five minutes. >> beautiful. thank you so much. >> thank you for being here with us today, and i'm interested to hear how you think the united states can better support the burmese people in their push for democracy following the military coup. >> thank you so much, senator markey, and, please, let me take this opportunity to thank you. i understand that you sponsored the purplea political prisoner act as well so this is the moment, know, thank we need that more than ever now because there are growing numbers of political business in the country -- we need the u.s. to forecast continue its sport and make a difference because we need more organizations on the ground to document human rightsing in the country and the other thing is like i said sanctioning military companies and targeted sanctions are very important. we're asking forrus to establish global arms embargo as well, global coalitions to impose embargoes. when y

senator van hollen from maryland. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member.gratulations to your nominations. if i'm not able to get to the second round i'll submit some questions for the record. mr. ginsler you and i had a chance to speak before this hearing and i raised some concerns and some specific legislation i've introduced that i've considered sort of fcc good house keeping. one i introduced with senator fisher, the other deals with the 8k trading gap. both bills are intended to provide investors and the public with confidence that ceos and other insiders are not taking advantage of insider information. and my question for you today is will you commit to working with me in providing technical assistance as we work to pass these bills? >> senator, i wanted to start for just thanking you for that warm introduction about an hour and a half ago to the committee. but, yes, i look forward to working with you and your staff providing technical assistance and having the staff help as well. >> i think we've seen many stories and there may be ongoing investigati

senator van hollen and i have se the identical bill over here in the senate.nt of what's your view of a national climate bank, mr. mayor? >> a strong component of it, as climate nears across the country, sometimes in cities like mine we have a large entity, we have capital to attract, in other places we not don't. we're accelerating in los angeles with this. so i think this would be exactlo what weva need to not only brin resources forward but to have the innovation. stlot of people are scared to take that jump forward. every time we've set the have renewable standard inin our star it's been a lyfight. but every single time we've hit it, we've hit it early. this is something a bank could l help us getike to, in smaller cities and grids as well as large places like los s angeles. >> thank you, mr. garcetti, thank you for your leadership. l.a. is a model for the rest of the world. >> thank you, senator, appreciate it.he ans >> thanks for your questions, senator markey. before we turn to senator lummis i'll ask unanimous consent to submit for the record reports and articles related to the national environment polic

mr. van hollen: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: mr. president, i share my colleague's interest in supporting the men and women at customs and border protection, but this amendment does the opposite. in fact, what it does is strip them of critical emergency support to them and other frontline federal employees who are working to protect our country. in fact, 8,000 of the federal employees at c.b.p. have tested positive for covid-19, 27 have died. your amendment would strip away emergency medical leave for these men and women who are protecting us while keeping the provisions in the bill that provide a 100% tax credit to private employers to provide up to $511 a day in sick leave, a provision i support. so here you are targeting the men and women who are protecting our country at the border and other places by stripping them of their ability to take sick leave and keeping in the provision that allows our private sector neighbors to provide sick leave. so this is, unfortunately, just aimed at undermining the folks who are helping protect